Hearthpwn

Quote from thebitterfig >>

One thing strikes me: I don't think Shaman would need a tonne more draw to become noticeably stronger.  Paladin might be awash with draw--three different two-of cards which replace themselves, plus the weapon to pull out secrets.  But that's not necessarily typical.  Some solid decks like Rush Warrior and Face Hunter can run as little as 3-5 total draw cards.

Cagematch Custodian is a nice little card, and if Shaman got the equivalent of the old Mage card Bonfire Elemental, plus something kinda like Ringmaster Whatley or Barak Kodobane for a solid midgame reload (even if it requires specific deckbuilding), that might be enough to make a pretty reasonable Shaman deck.  Just getting a little bit more probably makes a big difference, even if Shaman draw never rivals Rogue draw.

I agree, at least with Elemental. Late game reload would be nice, but I don't find myself short resources while moving through the curve. Issues are much more with the lack of mana cheat, ability to create a resilient/sticky board, and ability to leverage your board with buffs. Having more good minions in my hand doesn't really solve any of that. Just need a way to discount the ones I already have or make them harder to remove.

Quote from FortyDust >>

I can't believe you people are acting like Tinyfin's Caravan doesn't count as card draw!

Seriously, though, I suspect (though I have no source to back the theory up) that Team 5 sees Shaman as the "random" class, and they therefore prefer to give it more random resource generation than actual card draw. And to be fair, Shaman does have a LOT of random value generation. Maybe they think it would be too much value if you could draw cards in addition to all that?

I'm not saying it's a correct way of thinking, just that it's the argument they might make.

 They certainly have a lot of random card generation. Though I wouldn't call it value generation given that 90% of it is just removal that ends up clogging up your hand in control matchups.

Contrast that with a class like Priest that churns out 9+ cost dragons, extra minions via Raise Dead, and actually has a few proactive spells (Idol of Y'Shaarj, Auspicious Spirits, spells that copy & buff minions other than totems).

Shaman would be a much more interesting class if they could generate things that allow them to pressure rather than pretty much entirely reactive spells. That's how control Shaman felt to me in previous xpacs. Not that it was ever a strong deck, but it could at least put out consistent pressure in control matchups.

#BringBackThunderhead

(And Earthen Might)

I was gonna rage on the Hysteria nerf, but then I saw the Crabrider nerf so I don't care any more. I can no longer lose to a single 2-cost minion and that's all I ever wanted. Waiting one more turn to play my absurd semi-hard removal is just fine.

First Day of School nerf is beautiful as well. No more perfectly consistent early game and smoothed out curve for Paladin. They'll have to run more crappy 1-cost minions to compensate (and I don't have to worry about losing to a randomly generated Blackjack Stunner any more).

Shaman buffs are majorly underwhelming. Elementals still aren't sticky enough to get in minion damage against anybody with removal and they have no practical way to leverage their minions on board with buffs. The only things that bordered on viable prior to the patch were doomhammer/spell damage related and those decks got nothing. Lilypad Lurker was a great card before the buff and even better now, but only in a vacuum. It still doesn't fit into a working archetype.

Have you tried quillboars, but slightly bigger?

As of the last week, surprisingly yes. I just made the mistake of trying to make Shaman work for the first month and it was miserable.

Really enjoying my mill lock now, though. There are a few bad matchups, but there's not really anything that I just hate playing against at the moment. Nearly every matchup feels like it falls within the 40-60% range. It's really just the high rolls that are tilting (and most are crab rider related).

Quote from emkarab >>

Quote from OverholtNA >>

Altar of Fire

 AKA bye bye Jaraxus

 Don't need it to beat mage. You just run 'em out of resources and let fatigue do its thing.

Quote from emkarab >>

You can do nothing. Mage is too popular and will always burn you out (if they know how to play, obviously). Until Mage is nerfed, Warlock is a very poor choice.

 Mill lock can actually hold up against it unless they get insane discover options. Including armor vendors, you're at about 40 healing in the deck not including Tamsin Roame generated cards or Hysteria into your Bristlebacks). I guess 45 with the Jaraxxus armor gain. Just gotta be sure you don't burn your Blood Shard Bristlebacks (and ideally save them for your own Death's Head Cultists to avoid devolving). I think the extra 8 from Armor Vendors kinda puts you over the top.

But I dunno; if you're playing standard control and waiting around for shards to heal it probably doesn't get you past the break point of their burn. Still seems useful against Pally, though.

Vol'jin looks insane. Ability to take an easy scaling minion and swap it with a cleave or DS?

Raise Dead

Because Venomous Scorpid isn't irritating enough; now I have to remove 14 of them. It makes me want to run 2 copies of Devolving Missiles in every deck so I can fill the pool with Murloc Tinyfins.

It might just be that your skill level is around 6000, and if you don't consistently place in the upper half you will never climb. But there's nothing wrong with that, every player has a different potential.

I'm just wondering whether the correct tactic isnt getting 2 triples from tidehunter and get 2 5 drops. Kinda like some other heroes do. And then if you hit brann go for murlocs. Otherwise just pick whatever other 5 drop is offered and build your board from there. Just not trying to force murlocs aka get every murloc possible.

Iksar thinks its more fun, when you opponet draws 11 cards, plays 9 cards and deal 23 damage in a single turn to your face while you sitting there, bored to death, waiting for your turn.

Hi guys.

I was just messing around with my collection looking some cards and I noticed something. I'll put some images, it's better than a thousand words.

It seems amalgam is showing tribes that are currently unavailable but somehow mapped by it. You can test it with the following searchs:

• Orc
• Undead
• Troll
• Elf
• Goblin
• Egg (!!!!)
• Human

We can try different words for testing if this is more of a random issue or it's consistent. For example, treant doesn't triggers Circus Amalgam.

Kinda funny, I guess they have all of these hidden tribes waiting for the moment of being released.

Damn that combo sure is WILD

What is this? A reveal for ants?

My Rogue opponent was very kind to discover a Flik Skyshiv and play it on one of the pirates, sped up the game a lot;)

I love how everyone's acting like you can't have Kazakus and Hysteria in the same deck anymore. With the sheer amount of spell-generation in Priest, there are plenty of bites at the Hysteria-apple even if you don't run it in your decklist (to satisfy Kazakus's deck-building condition).

You've got Renew, you have Palm Reading, there's Venomous Scorpid (who can also take out a minion or two on the way), not to mention Sethekk Veilweaver.

Sure, it won't be as reliable, but it's not "goodbye forever," it's "see you around."

The change to Lilypad Lurker is a very nice buff...

... for Jandice Barov and Apexis Blast.

It's good that you understand this, I hope you enjoy the sub-genre you like. Hearthstone is an attacker's choice game, and I hope it always will be, that's why I like it and probably why it has achieved the most success among casual players who want to have fun rather than imagine the possibilities and calculate a million options.