Hearthpwn

If you want to seriously hit legend you need to play a good deck, ideally a tier 1 deck that suits the way you like to play, and then learn the ins and outs of it and only play that deck. You will not get legend playing a bad deck or a deck you don't like. I like highlander decks. Some people like aggro decks. Some people like priest (special people). play what you like but stick with it.

 I don't understand. This is the DH forum. Aggro DH is favoured vs priest. Aggro DH is favoured vs EVERY class except enrage/egg warrior. It also has an even matchup with face hunter. Other than that it beats everything in the meta including priest.

I don't think there is any truth in these conspiracy theories. I play a lot of meme decks but I also sometimes do the grind into high legend. I play a lot of games and when I am in the dumpster legend ranks playing a good deck as opposed to a meme deck I get insane win rates. I can get 80%+ win rates vs platinum players or low rank diamonds and of course that drops the higher up in the legend ranks you go since you're up against better decks/better players. Blizzard isn't forcing me into 50/50 here. If they were, this wouldn't be possible to achieve these high win rates consistently. I mean some of these guys are showing why they are stuck in D10. I see double execute being run in warrior decks. HL hunters wasting zephyr to achieve very little with it. Enrage warriors doing some combo in the mid game that gets them armour but does not provide them any tempo nor comboing with battlerage for card draw. There is no way for blizzard to enforce 50/50 when the opponents are playing trash decks and playing them badly (Kibbler plays trash decks on purpose for fun but he plays them obscenely well which allows him to stay around 1k - 1.5k legend despite the disadvantage).

Shaman is useless and has absolutely no chance vs aggro DH. If you play against bad players any deck seems really strong. Shaman though loses like 80% of the time vs a good aggro DH running a proper list. Try playing that hot garbage at high legend. You are dead on turn 5. You can get lucky with evolves, specifically getting taunt and lifesteal. The challenge is shaman struggles in the early game and so when it gets to the mid game to start evolving it really needs stuff to happen. You're really screwed when you don't draw your weapon too.

It feels really good when things get going though of course.

Quote from sanchogrande >>

I like Zeph, but there sure is a lot of silence right now. The result is that deathrattles and buffs are pretty hard to use. Libram Pally can buff stuff well, but it just gets silenced. If you play Teron, you better have a way to pop him. 

Mage has two commonly played silences (Polymorph, Reno)

Rogue has two (Sap, Sapper)

DH has one

Shaman has one (Hex)

Priest has one (Plague)

And every class has Zephrys for a silence. 

 I think actually there isn't as much silence as there was previously. It used to be everyone ran ironbeak owl (when it cost 2 mana) or spellbreaker (when it was still allowed). Not many people play shaman anyway. Rogue doesn't usually run sap and stunner but they are temporarily effective vs deathrattles. Mage also doesn't usually run poly, unless they discover it somewhere. Plague and Reno are two big board clears though so you're right that it's been unusual in the past to have board clears which also silence. Twisting nether just destroys.

Yet rogue is not even the best deck in the game. Or the second best. Or third best. Or fourth best. Hell it's not even the fifth best!

How is it balanced that aggro DH's cards are better than every other card that does something similar? People who have pro hsreplay can look it up and see the win rates since the patch and realize DH nerfs did absolutely nothing and it's still just as disgusting. The only reason HL hunter has been doing so well is because people don't realize DH is still as strong as before. Rogue has nothing on these decks. Rogue does some unfair things at times and can high roll but when you're in a meta with enrage warrior, aggro DH and HL hunter, wand is slow. Very slow. It's useless when you're dead on turn 5.

If you think wand is strong seriously go play aggro DH and enjoy cards that are cheaper mana cost and better than every other card. Even starting at battlefiend which costs 1 mana. When mage had something similar they made it 2 mana. Rogue has many counters that are easy to play. DH has just one very hard to play counter otherwise it beats everything.

I think zephyrs is fine because you can in fact play around it. You know pretty fast if the opponent is highlander. Further, if you are a really good player you know at least about what they can do with zephyr at any time in the game. It's restricted to basic and classic cards and usually 8 or less save for pyroblast sometimes being offered (but they won't ever get plague for example). It becomes second nature after a while (if you have played HL decks anyway). For example, you may say "oh well he could have zephyr shadow word ruin or zephyr brawl here". It gets easier if you know they are going into turn 7 and if you have lots of 4 health stuff you are at risk of chaos nova or higher health at risk of brawl (or if you have lots of 2hp stuff of course consecration or holy nova). so you should be aware of board clears. You should also be aware zephyr can heal someone for 8. It can also kill one big target or offer a silence. Further, you should know if your opponent has lots of tokens on the board and it's turn 7 or more the opponent can get bloodlust for 5 and be aware of savage roar which costs 3 which can be used as little as turn 5. You should also be aware of the windfury lethal that only costs 2. Further, you can be aware that they can get a full board clear with twisting at 10.

Because zephyrs is more or less predictable, you can play around it.

Quote from popnutshanty >>

priest is fine, now dh...

 No priest isn't ok because people are forced to play 25 minute games when they signed up to a single hearthstone game. The devs originally sold us on the idea of short games. From a game design perspective priest is horrible.

DH cards are better than other cards but at least the game is over by turn 5.

Quote from Artimex723 >>

Well, it's true that Priest is pretty opressive, but there is a reason why all Priest decks are considered tier 3 or 2 (at best). That is, It's very dependent on draw. Yes, it has a lot of value thanks to invoke and "thief" cards, but random cards usually tend to be mediocre, as most cards in modern Hearthstone are meant to be connected with other cards, if you know what I mean. In vanilla most cards were "good by themselves" but now almost every card is a part of a "combo" or any other "purpose of a deck". While it's true that they can create a few Murozonds and crash you in a very depressing way, but it's pretty rare. In short - auto conceding against Priest is just dumb and if you want to become a good player, don't ever do this.

 auto conceding vs priest makes perfect sense when climbing to legend (and especially at a rank floor). I mean if you are one game away from a rank floor don't do it but if it takes 20 mins for one priest game you can play 4 games in that time. Also, some decks just will not win vs priest under any circumstances and therefore it's a clear waste of time. I am afraid though once quest warlock gets popular this is going to be true of them too. Sadly, quest warlock is the hard counter of a number of decks (not just one like priest hard counters enrage warrior) and the matchup is even worse. Quest warlock has basically a stone lock vs priest and rogue and is unbelievably favoured vs HL hunter. so much so that priest and rogue should probably consider auto conceding the matchup and never play (especially priest as their only chance to win is if both plot twists are at the bottom of the warlocks deck). The quest warlock vs priest matchup is the most lopsided matchup I have ever seen in this game. It is even a worse matchup than playing freeze mage vs control warrior which was about 90/10. Quest warlock is more like 99/1 vs priest. If you include times the quest warlock disconnects or makes a major blunder such as misclicking maybe 95/5.

There is a warrior deck which is actually favored vs priest (which is a miracle because bomb warrior, enrage warrior, egg warrior and control warrior stand little chance). Quest warrior works quite well since you get a constant stream of 4/3 minions and they just run out of answers usually. The one thing with quest warrior, depending of course how you build it, is a lot of the cards arn't very useful when thought stolen. Naturally kargarth is great if they get that and so is evil quartermaster. However, what are they going to do with questing explorer, corsair cache, upgrade, hoard pillagar, sky general kragg, captain greenskin, armored goon etc etc. Just all rubbish cards for priest.they can get things like brawl or bladestorm vs your board though.

I mean if you want to beat priest though play HL hunter, it's the most favoured vs priest! Just though quest warrior is a cool and maybe fun off meta deck that does alright vs priest.

By the way priest is not the true cancer in this game. Wait until more people learn and start playing quest warlock. The deck is practically unbeatable when played optimally and it's pure cancer. Death is guaranteed, there is really no way to win unless you can kill them on turn 5 (and sometimes they have quest done on turn 4 btw!) and each game is very long. It's probably the best deck in the game and it's probably completely busted. The hsreplay stats might show that HL hunter is favoured vs it but at high legend HL hunter loses most games. I think fast44 is 4-8 vs warlock with HL hunter (although at least one of them was zoolock). Unless both plot twists are the last two cards there is actually nothing you can do unless you are a warrior which can armor up huge. It's even favoured vs DH (but at least DH can fight back a bit). It has over 83% win rate vs priest on the stats but people make mistake. It's closer to 100%. The priest can only win if the warlock gets the worst possible draw. It's also near 100% vs other non-quest warlock decks and near 100% vs shaman.

So yea if you want to hard counter priest and you don't like HL hunter, learn quest warlock and literally always win.

Quote from Vex_Is_Here >>

Rogues are too strong at the moment only because of the amount of value they can generate, and how quickly they generate it, when compared to other classes. They also have incredibly strong removal tools, such as Flikk and Blackjack Stunner, and high tempo, must remove cards like Edwin. They are unique in that their sap cards get around both taunt and deathrattle, which allows them lethal in certain circumstances where other classes couldn't find it.

Tl;dr they have insane tempo turns whilst simultaneously hindering your board state, and can bypass a lot of defensive tools that other classes have.

 

 Rogue is frustrating since of infinite value and never running out of gas, but the one thing about rogue is that they get countered by some decks and countered hard (face hunter is the main one that comes to mind, but they also can't deal with any aggro deck which goes wide like murloc paladin or zoolock. Further, a control orientated bomb warrior also does well vs rogue as does most druid decks and most mage decks). Rogue has many many counters which stops it being so dominating in the meta. Compare this to aggro DH where the only counter is enrage warrior. Since that deck or its variants like egg warrior are really hard to play, warrior isn't a dominant force on the ladder allowing aggro DH to enjoy at the worst an even matchup vs facehunter. Rogue's counters such as face hunter also tend to be quite easy to play.

I can see why some people are frustrated by rogue and I get frustrated sometimes too, but there are multiple decks you can play to have a favourable matchup against it.

You can try to play big paladin with duel but it doesn't work well. The reason is that cheating out a turn five tirion or scrapyard colossus SHOULD give you a high chance of winning the game. The reality is that pretty much any top tier deck seems to comfortably able to deal with a turn five 6/6 with divine shield. There is so much power creep and paladin cards are just so bad. I mean avenging wrath is 6 mana to deal just 8 damage to enemies (and not even guaranteed to hit minions). The deck has no draw. Lay on hands is 8 mana to draw three cards whereas skull of guldan is 6 mana to draw three and you get a cost reduction! Guardian of Kings is redundant due to amber watcher. Equality is too expensive and in any event you need two cards on paladin to board clear (but the deck has no draw). Holy wrath is just a meme.

Lol this must be wallet shaman. All those legendaries. I dusted my golden brightwing and golden nithogg since they are bad cards and I wanted other legendaries, otherwise I could have made this for the lolz! The trouble with this deck though, like all shaman decks, is being dead on turn 5 since you have no early game.

How do you find running ancharr though with just two pirates?

Well I tried it and my results were very different. Lucky I didn't really care about losing legend ranks and just trying out decks because this just isn't working for me. I have a positive win rate with kibbler's control shaman deck which has a lot more control tools. This doesn't really work in the games I have tried.

First game - murloc paladin. Lost by turn 5 nothing I can do. Seems unfavoured.

Second game - vs aggro DH barely won.

Third game - vs shaman - lose by turn 6 - evolve shaman just evolves things nothing I can do but unlucky.

Fourth game - spell druid lose since not enough board clears in my hand to deal with his tokens and he won for double savage roar.

Fifth game - vs maly druid i made a big board by turn 5 and he cleared the whole thing using two wraith, bogbeam, swipe, moonfire and crystal power (a lot of cards). However, he used ysera unleashed to create a board full of huge dragons. he was playing the maly version with alexstraza. There was no way to win. Too much draw and too much consistency and unanswerable boards which are too big even for earthquake.

The trouble with this deck is the early game is so weak and to not lose vs very consistent decks you need to draw specific cards at the right time. The deck can't really race. Sorry to say but it feels like a less consistent and strictly worse version of quest warlock (a deck which in my view is probably the best deck in the game when played right).