Hearthpwn

I would wait a couple weeks see how the meta shakes out (if you want to be competitive), and then assess your collection and what you need to play the deck you want.  Missing a bunch  of cards from x set, spend your gold on that set and dust the crud you won't use.  

Otherwise if your good at arena (5-6 wins consistently) do that.

My two cents, ymmv, and all that noise.

When is Varian Good?

Not good vs. Aggressive and most Mid Range decks as they will either win the game before turn 10 or put you in a position where you can't play him or have to yolo play him.  Not to mention opportunity cost of missing 2 armor.

So obviously best vs. Control decks.  So lets look at that matchup.  Most control decks run some kind of heavy board clear.  Brawl, Shadowflame plus Molten Giant, Lightbomb, Equality plus Consecration etc.  Up until Varian is played these cards have weakish targets as board state just won't be there to justify use.  So by the time you play Varian Wrynn your opponent has seen typically half his deck the odds of him having his heavy clear are quite high.  IMO Varian is not a good card for CW.  Yes he can win games, but I think he will cost you more than he wins.

My two cents.  I wouldn't craft anything right now.  Meta is highly unsettled, give it a few weeks and it will get to a point where a clearer picture is gained.

As to Fel Reaver he is great in a meta that lacks neutralizing effects like freeze (no mages), humility effects, and Sludge Belcher  Also hating on this card misses its point.  You've crafted a deck that isn't going to win beyond turn 9 anyways.  The "lost" cards just view as they were on bottom of deck.

use abusive to buff the thaurrisan.  if you have no other way to remove thaurissan it comes in handy.  works on loatheb too.

I don't think he fits in the deck as the other on curve options fit what the deck is doing better.

I have zero issues with patron warrior as a deck archetype.  Its no better or worse than combo druid.  Sure Grim Patron is annoying and Warsong Commander plus Frothing Berserker can result in some epic charging deaths.  But the deck is very reliant on draw and is soft early game.  It has a big soft spot between turns 4 and 6 where you can really apply pressure and lock them out of the combo plays they want to make.

As for the comparison to old Miracle Rogue decks I feel that is unwarranted that deck was completely non-interactive with opponent and came down to "did they draw auctioneer in top 15 cards" always.  This deck while the combo's are more numerable the draw engine isn't there and because of that is less reliable.

Hey Steef, what's you opinion of Bloodmage Thalnos in this deck?  I would think with 5 damaging spells he should make an appearance at expense of either Big Game Hunter or Mana Tide Totem.  I choose those two as I view them as the weaker links, you already have Hex, is BGH really necessary?  Mana Tide Totem is just slow and does nothing outside of look pretty and draw you a card and then if it lives long enough to draw more than one card, well I think you were winning that match-up anyways as it should be a priority target, if they can't deal three damage, they probably couldn't win anyways.

There are no combo's in the deck, no card relies an another individual card to be good, all cards stand on own.  Of course the mech synergy required for Cogmaster, Mechwarper, and Powermace is heavily present throughout the deck with a total of 12 mechs within the deck.  The only combo that exists that I see is Doomhammer and Rockbiter Weapon however both cards work wonders on own.

Fel Reaver played on curve forces opponent to answer and if they get greedy with a mill attempt well, they will be punished.  The bigger worry with Fel Reaver is neutralizing effects like freeze and Aldor Peacekeeper and Humility but that is only two classes to worry about and given the deck creators stats it appears that freeze is the bigger concern.

Don't view the discarded cards as "lost" view them as they were on the bottom of the deck, this deck doesn't last much beyond turn 8 anyways and the likelyhood of being milled to death is highly unlikely.

I don´t think you get what i was saying. There is a big difference between flame imps fiery war axe and Innervate.A Flame imp for example sucks against facehunter, a fiery war axe doesn´t help much, if your enemy doesn´t toss out many minions, or if you can´t target them(shade). But being able to play a card earlier than you normaly could, is usefull in every given scenario.This is proof of the druids biggest strength, it´s flexability , as by innervating his allready included cards, he can counter certain decks without putting extra tech cards in.

And Innervate sucks as a topdeck and is negative card advantage these can happen in every match not just certain matchups, please see its weaknesses.

You seem kinda agressiv, you know that?

Re-reading my post I can see how it was taken that way and for that I apologize.  

Yes druid is flexible and I completely agree with you on that, but Warlocks ability to not have to tech in card draw at all, thats not unfair?  Warrior more or less getting a 3/30 charge minion that dies after 2 attacks for 2 mana, that's not unfair?  Do these have counters yes, absolutely, but so does Innervate depending on how it's used there is a counter, its not set in stone and I can't give you hard examples outside of getting an early BGH or TBK target, classes with cheap removal (Hex, Sap, Freezing Trap, Execute) counter Innervate minion plays nicely.  As to spells its the same for everybody right Loatheb or bust.

Quote from Alsvent »

Quote from NuklearMayhem »

  Druid has fallen out of the meta before and didn't see extensive play for long stretches, I would argue that the two most recent sets have added little to the class.

Druid may never have been the class with the most players, but they did NEVEr fall out of the meta. The Combo druid deck has been around since beta , and has always seen a steady amount of play. That is because it was, and will probably always be viable.

In generell the reason why druid has always been around is because there is nothing a good Innervate couldn´t fix.

Play against Aggro hunter? Innervate out a keeper in turn 2 to kill the juggler, claim board presence and have a good guy to trade into those chargers.

Play gainst Control? Innervate shade of naxxramas turn one, then kill them in turn 9 with it.

And so on.

Does that make druid overpowered? No.

Does that make druid feel unfair, because that single card always increases your winrate if you have it early(not to mention that the mulligan also always revolves around it, regardless of any class and deck)?

Yes

I can says the same thing about specific class cards for almost any class, Demonzoo hitting early Flame Imp tempo, Warrior drawing Fiery War Axe in opening hand, I can go on but you should see my point.  Every card that is designed to be played early and you draw it early...well you're increasing you're odds of winning.

Perhaps yours and my definition of falling out of meta are two separate things, right before GvG to early post GvG druid largely fell out in my estimation, I had my lowest numbers of games against them and the only times I saw them post was that silly Mill attempt and an occasional ramp.  Both were like spotting unicorns for me.

It doesn't seem  you really want to have a discussion about this, you just want to keep saying its druid, its druid, its druid.  That's fine but don't title the thread as though you want to have a discussion.

Unfair class?  Every class has something "unfair" about it.

Druid - Most flexible cards and only way to Ramp mana pool.

Mage - Best AoE and Spells.

Warlock - Can build a 30 card deck without worrying about draw.

Shaman - Most mana efficient removal.  

Warrior - Best set of weapons.

Hunter - Automatically puts opponent on clock, and quite dangerous when opponent reaches sub 10 health, even taunts won't save therm.

Rogue - Cheapest set of spells, best weapon buffs.

Paladin - Best minion buffs and hero ability that can in a vacuum can keep building on the board.

Priest - Best way to turn opponent deck against them, best at maintaining own board.

Really the closest to this argument for being "unfair" is Warlock.  Can build an entire 30 card deck without worrying about inefficient draw cards but they have unarguably the crappiest set of class cards, what is Darkbomb outside of a crummy version of Frostbolt?  To make my case for this for, how long has 2+ warlock deck lists existed on ladder and you had to account for them?  You can't make that case for any other class over the same time period.

Hunter maybe makes an argument has a great set of removal cards in Hunter's Mark and Kill Command some really good weapons Eaglehorn Bow and Glaivezooka but it hurts for card draw.  Hunter makes a case in that even after devastating nerfs to class cards (seriously how many times has Unleash the Hounds been nerfed) they just come back with a new effective list.

Warrior isn't talked about much but there's a reason Fiery War Axe is called Fiery Win Axe.  Warrior has always had a viable deck in the meta, early OTK combo's with pre-nerf Warsong Commander, to Control Warrior in all it's iterations, Math Warrior, and now the Patron Warrior deck.  I would argue that warrior has fallen out of the meta a few times but seems to always find a way back.

As to Druid no, their cards are flexible and combo is a real threat, but Druid lacks any decent removal and really AoE for that matter, and has to rely on neutral set removal like Big Game Hunter and The Black Knight.  Can they be frustrating sure, but there trading all that ramp for card advantage.  There relying on making it to 9 mana crystals for combo to work.  I don't see any of there class cards as broken/unfair.  Keeper of the Grove applies close to nill pressure on opponent and is a super expensive silence.  Sure Ancient of Lore can draw a lot of cards, but 7 mana for a 5/5 body is a definite downfall and vs. an aggressive deck, is most likely a dead card.  Druid has fallen out of the meta before and didn't see extensive play for long stretches, I would argue that the two most recent sets have added little to the class.

The moment the meta slows to "wait I don't just go face?" people gripe about value minions.  Yes Hungry Dragon certainly has best stats at 4 mana, but that drawback is real.  It only, IMO, fits in a deck that attempts to gain board early and maintain it through turn 5 or runs weapons.  Piloted Shredder is still the best 4 drop hands down.  Sure the RNG on the drop is frustrating but the key is you get something making the board AoE proof.  As to Blackwing Technician it would only be ran in a dragon themed deck and will that even be a thing?

I don't see any auto includes in this set.  The closest is Emperor Thaurissan and even then with the caveat of do you plan on having 3 or more cards in your hand on turn 6?  Most aggressive and some midrange decks (ones that rely on low number high amount of cards for draw, think Sprint or Ancient of Lore) this may be a concern if choosing him.

Sticky minions like haunted creeper.  With a meta shift likely post BRM I'm not willing to give hard advice since I don't know what value tempo vs. speed vs. control.  I will say that I expect it to slow down giving higher cost minions some room to be played along with bursty combo. 

I would either go full much synergy or lose it all.  The problem with zapomatic is that it is high value but low health.  Many 1 drops kill it and you have tailored portions of your deck around it.  If you lose the zapomatic without getting anything out of it you are behind.

Definitely  a fun deck.  Tried unchanged on ladder, only bad loss was to a mech mage who had a god start, don't think any deck could've stabilized from cogmaster, mechwarper and clockwork gnome, to spider tank and annoyotron....after that the game is a blur.  Really had no chance.  Close losses were to a zoo deck that drew both defender of argus and activated all of his nerubian eggs and a druid deck, no idea what it was...maybe ramp that missed ramp spell draws...that drew all of his early game then from turn 7  on just kept dropping legendary after legendary.