Hearthpwn

Win-rate ranking of Deadmines mini-set week 1 in ranked standard (top 1% MMR)

FTA % = First turn advantage. Considering there are only 2 decks that have a higher winrate when going 2nd id say the coin is perfectly fine. Source: Tian Dings Twitter.

Most horrible tasks i did so far or i am still on (f cookie)

Sylvanas: kill 30 enemies using For the Queen
Gruul: kill 40? dragons using his 2nd skill
Kurtrus: kill 75 enemies using Eye Beam
Cookie: kill 180 beasts

Expecially the last task, whoever came up with that number... yeah, fuck that guy.

If you draw a soul fragment with hullbreaker you take 0 damage, restore 2 health and draw another card. Thats it.

If it works like normal card packs they should be able to contain the new mercs. Standard packs start containing miniset cards once the set is released no matter when the pack was actually acquired.

Quote from Rencol >>

For banehollow farm bring pure caster holy team, best is anduin, valen, uther. Take holy damage rewards along the way, when boss fight starts use first abilities on body guards or even evenly 1/1/1. Dont target boss directly as he is the one giving holy weakness. 2nd round cast in this order: anduin holy nova, valen's blessing and them uther's avenging wrath - it will get extra holy damage and gets casted twice. If you heroes are at least bit leveled or you got eneugh holy rewards on the way, the boss is dead on round two, even on heroic.

 

Rest of team doesnt matter, something strong to help you get through trash

Fire comp (Anton/Geddon/Rag) clears every trash fight turn one, you can also oneshot the boss if you picked up a total of 5+ fire damage (either 2x +3 or the elite +5). For speed farming strangers i recommend fire over holy comp.

I dont care what solution exactly they come up with, but they better hurry because without exaggerating the issue i feel like the current system ahs to be almost illegal in some countrys, correct me if i am wrong though.

Due to air elemental grind i have maxed out every single rare merc within the game, when i open packs i regularly got nothing but coins for said rare mercs or to word it differently, i bag of hot air and nothingness.

And thats precisely the point that im quite suprised about, allowing folks to spend 3 dollars on a very realistic chance to get nothing in exchange jsut does not seem alright to me.

Got to admire how quick Blizzard is to push fixes for issues that actively lose them money, while client crashes that have been around for months now simple dont get any attention, at least it appears that way.

While it was rather obvious that wintrading thing would get fixed, i am absolutely amazed how they managed to find the probably least elegant solution to the problem.

Looking at the change in a vacuum it was the right move to nerf stranger appearance on low level bountys, however you cant do that. Im perfectly fine with the change if they implement something to compensate, like way higher rewards for completing tougher bounties, 1st time rewards for clearing heroic bounties and the opportunity to do something with unusable coins on maxed out mercs like trade them at a 5:1 rate for coins of higher rarity.

Today i opened a pack and got 250 rare coins for mercs i have allready maxed out, kinda ridiculous thinking about how some people spend money on that and basically trade 3€ vs a hot load of nothing.

I like how you complain about warlock but conveniently left out the part were Stealer of Souls got increased by 2 Mana.

Meta is polarized, we allready know, D6 Warlock might now just be slow enough to almost always get stomped by aggro, which might lead to a significant decrease in its popularity which in return might lead to control finally being viable again (as there will only be a single 100% unwinable matchup left.

Quote from FortyDust>>

Quote from Shango>>

Quest decks are by definition combo decks, once you get your reward done, the game is either over the moment you play your reward or 2-3 turns later in most cases. This gets even more obvious if you ever played against someone that mileld their quest reward by accident, no win possible after that happens except very fringe caes (opponent also mills his reward e.g.)

 Quest decks are not part of any definition. You just made that up and tried to pass it off as a fact. The Rogue and Druid Questlines in particular do not necessarily end the game. They merely provide powerful tools. Depending on what the opponent is doing, nearly any game with a Questline game can continue for many turns past the completion of the quest, and it's not always a fringe thing.

Quote from Shango>>

Also control decks have nothing to do with being inevitable, control decks win with card quality, they run you out of ressources until their average card quality trumps yours, rattlegore is not inevitable, there is counterplay to it, same for N'Zoth, Ysera or any other card run as top end in standard control decks, cards that are inevitable however are warlock quest reward and ignite, even if you were to paly a card that granted you 1000 armor every single turn, you would still lose, and there is absolutely nothing you can do against it (except killing your opponent before he does)

 I guess we learned our words from different teachers. This article from the MtG website is on my side, though, so maybe you should read it, especially the large section titled "Inevitablility." 

Yes that is why i said in an earlier post "almost all quest decks are combo decks" excluding precisely rogue and druid. And even though questines are not part of a definition the perfectly fit the definition for combo decks i linked earlier.

I was not aware the term "inevitable" is established in magic, i read the article and its basically just a fancy term for late game power.
I made the mistake of taking it more literally as in "something that can not be stopped/will always happen".

But here comes the problem, while a control deck is built around the premise of being unstopable in the late game, current combo decks are built around the premise of being inevitable way earlier, which means inevitability is not an indicator for a deck belonging to the control archetype.

The definition i gave for combo decks does apply to (most) quest decks, no matter how you try to spin it, simple because they dont exist within MTG does not mean we cant use common sense to aplly existing definitions to new concepts.

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from Shango >>

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from Mini1994 >>

The amount of viable decks is the single dumbest argument and metric that exists for evaluating the health of a meta and OCG/TCG as a whole, and should be entirely disregarded. It is absolute nonsense. In fact, in trying to use it as your metric, you have instead just made an attempt to counter an ACTUAL argument and metric for the health of the game: How much variability is there.

Right now, the game has only 2 different decks. I give 0 shits about whether or not the deck is a priest, a hunter, a paladin, mage, warlock or whatever. That's arbitrary, and it doesn't matter at all. In standard right now, there are 2 decks: Extreme aggro, or OTK combo.

 First, let's remember what OTK means: One-Turn Kill. That means the deck has to be capable of dealing at least 30 damage in a single turn. Anything less than that, and it's just a combo burst, which is not nearly as unhealthy. In many cases, it may just be a control deck with an actual win condition.

Here are some Tier 1 and 2 decks that are not aggro or OTK:

• Secret Paladin, the top deck at the moment, is not aggro. It is midrange.
• Deathrattle Demon Hunter is the most midrange deck you'll ever see.
• Handbuff Paladin plays like midrange. (Battlemaster certainly makes it capable of OTK damage, but it can win without that.)
• Quest Shaman is a control deck. It may get bursty at the end, but it does not usually take you from 30 to 0 in a single turn.
• Rush Warrior is midrange.
• Quest Warrior is midrange.
• Quest Mage, which isn't even a top deck but is one everyone likes to complain about, is arguably a control deck. It is designed to keep the board clear and deals a big burst at the end, but not usually 30 in a single turn unless you let the game go on forever. That's not so different from the way control has always played -- inevitability is a hallmark of control archetypes.
• Some Warlock decks, with their massive healing and heavy removal, are control. The ones people hate most are combo, for sure, but there are viable Warlock decks that do not use combos or OTK.

I think a big part of the problem is one of terminology. People don't really understand the difference between OTK combo and the inevitability of control.

Control now has real win conditions, and it reaches them faster. That can feel like an OTK, but it's usually not even technically a combo. And hey, guess what -- in control vs. control, the winner is the one that reaches its win condition first. That's why really slow control decks are having trouble these days. They still lose to real combo decks, and now they also lose to faster control decks.

 You are simple wrong here, yes an ideal combo aims to kill your opponent in one turn, however any deck that is not capable of doing so is not automaticly not a combo deck. The "combo deck" term has been established long before hearthstone has even been a thing (and combo doesn ot mean anything different in hearthstone)

Combo deck is a term for a deck of (usually sixty) Magic: The Gathering cards that aims to win the game using a relatively small number of cards that instantly or very quickly win the game when combined (hence the name "combo").^[1] Because of this win strategy, a common motif among combo decks is an emphasis put on the ability to find specific cards quickly and win as fast as possible.

Almost all current quest decks are by definition combo decks, it only happens so that you start with one piece of the combo in your starting hand. The difference between a control and a combo deck usually comes in the form of value, a typical control deck aims to play the "null game". Answer everything your opponent does until you reach a point in the game where you can start dropping your own threats, which in contrast to combo decks dont just end the game the moment the card is played or even the turn after, Rattlegore is a perfect example of this.

 I was very careful to define OTK, not "combo." So thanks, you've just proved how pervasive the terminology problem is.

Many of the hated decks are indeed both control and combo (because the two are not mutually exclusive), but they are not "OTK" as so many people call them.

And, of course, my main point went unnoticed because people think they can "win" a thread by nitpicking ... But I'll re-state it in case you missed it: There are plenty of decks out there that are not Aggro or OTK -- in fact, the front-runners in this meta are neither of those.

 Combo and Control are mutually exklsuive, i dont know how many times this cnversation ahs been had in the past but jsut because a face hunter plays for board against shadow priest does not mean he is playing a control deck, he plays his aggro deck in a control style manner.

Quest decks are by definition combo decks, once you get your reward done, the game is either over the moment you play your reward or 2-3 turns later in most cases. This gets even more obvious if you ever played against someone that mileld their quest reward by accident, no win possible after that happens except very fringe caes (opponent also mills his reward e.g.)

Also control decks have nothing to do with being inevitable, control decks win with card quality, they run you out of ressources until their average card quality trumps yours, rattlegore is not inevitable, there is counterplay to it, same for N'Zoth, Ysera or any other card run as top end in standard control decks, cards that are inevitable however are warlock quest reward and ignite, even if you were to paly a card that granted you 1000 armor every single turn, you would still lose, and there is absolutely nothing you can do against it (except killing your opponent before he does)

You are right by saying there are many non OTK decks out there, agree on that, but almost every single deck that is played right is either combo or aggro, you also might look up the definition of midrange while you are at it, only deck that currently fits that description is secret paladin.

 Your Open the Waygate change is without exaggerating the worst hearthstone related idea i have ever seen, you do realize you can very easily capture your opoonent in an endless time loop that only ends if one of you two concedes or you hit the 45/90 turn limit? Like, finish your quest, ingore board state and just go face, if they decide to kill your just turn back time 1-3 turns and repeat, until they eventually concede out of bordedom.

The only kind of deck that could reasonably get out of this is a control deck that can withstand 3 turns of pure "ignore verything, go face mode" and kill you on turn 4 after your quest is completed.

Sorry but no, id rather keep playing against old Time Warp.

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from Mini1994 >>

The amount of viable decks is the single dumbest argument and metric that exists for evaluating the health of a meta and OCG/TCG as a whole, and should be entirely disregarded. It is absolute nonsense. In fact, in trying to use it as your metric, you have instead just made an attempt to counter an ACTUAL argument and metric for the health of the game: How much variability is there.

Right now, the game has only 2 different decks. I give 0 shits about whether or not the deck is a priest, a hunter, a paladin, mage, warlock or whatever. That's arbitrary, and it doesn't matter at all. In standard right now, there are 2 decks: Extreme aggro, or OTK combo.

 First, let's remember what OTK means: One-Turn Kill. That means the deck has to be capable of dealing at least 30 damage in a single turn. Anything less than that, and it's just a combo burst, which is not nearly as unhealthy. In many cases, it may just be a control deck with an actual win condition.

Here are some Tier 1 and 2 decks that are not aggro or OTK:

• Secret Paladin, the top deck at the moment, is not aggro. It is midrange.
• Deathrattle Demon Hunter is the most midrange deck you'll ever see.
• Handbuff Paladin plays like midrange. (Battlemaster certainly makes it capable of OTK damage, but it can win without that.)
• Quest Shaman is a control deck. It may get bursty at the end, but it does not usually take you from 30 to 0 in a single turn.
• Rush Warrior is midrange.
• Quest Warrior is midrange.
• Quest Mage, which isn't even a top deck but is one everyone likes to complain about, is arguably a control deck. It is designed to keep the board clear and deals a big burst at the end, but not usually 30 in a single turn unless you let the game go on forever. That's not so different from the way control has always played -- inevitability is a hallmark of control archetypes.
• Some Warlock decks, with their massive healing and heavy removal, are control. The ones people hate most are combo, for sure, but there are viable Warlock decks that do not use combos or OTK.

I think a big part of the problem is one of terminology. People don't really understand the difference between OTK combo and the inevitability of control.

Control now has real win conditions, and it reaches them faster. That can feel like an OTK, but it's usually not even technically a combo. And hey, guess what -- in control vs. control, the winner is the one that reaches its win condition first. That's why really slow control decks are having trouble these days. They still lose to real combo decks, and now they also lose to faster control decks.

 You are simple wrong here, yes an ideal combo aims to kill your opponent in one turn, however any deck that is not capable of doing so is not automaticly not a combo deck. The "combo deck" term has been established long before hearthstone has even been a thing (and combo doesn ot mean anything different in hearthstone)

Combo deck is a term for a deck of (usually sixty) Magic: The Gathering cards that aims to win the game using a relatively small number of cards that instantly or very quickly win the game when combined (hence the name "combo").^[1] Because of this win strategy, a common motif among combo decks is an emphasis put on the ability to find specific cards quickly and win as fast as possible.

Almost all current quest decks are by definition combo decks, it only happens so that you start with one piece of the combo in your starting hand. The difference between a control and a combo deck usually comes in the form of value, a typical control deck aims to play the "null game". Answer everything your opponent does until you reach a point in the game where you can start dropping your own threats, which in contrast to combo decks dont just end the game the moment the card is played or even the turn after, Rattlegore is a perfect example of this.

It is the worst it has ever been for people that enjoy playing control decks or slower midrange decks or people that like value cards, it is a fantastic meta for people that enjoy combo decks or aggro players that dont mind playing against combo decks.

Last time i recall the meta being ths bad for control palyers was during Ungoro, before quest rogue got nerfed, but that was just one deck and it was pretty unpopular. Now depending on how you count 25% of the ladder is entirely unebatable for control players, excluding fringe cases were your opponent mills their own quest reward or keeps it in hand for you to snipe with mutanus.

Even though i do enjoy playing the occasional aggro deck i think its a horrible design decision to exclude an entire part of your palyerbase from enjoying the game you made, you can also observe this with many streamers like kibler, zetalot or theo, which either regularly end their streams early or are just vocal about how the are not enjoying the game right now.

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from Shango >>

 You are right but its still fair game to point out to the op the he apparently doesn ot get the bigger picture.

 No, it's weirdly pedantic to point that out. Flesh Giant was just nerfed, and they are talking about how little impact that nerf is having. It's a recent development in the Hearthstone world, so of course it's reasonable to want to discuss it.

If you want to talk about Stealer, go make your own thread.

 The OP himself said if you talk about one card you allready talk about the deck as a whole, so how is it now fitting if include Stealer of Souls in the discussion? What i want to know as when you people will be happy? When the card is on the verge of being playable? Or just when it is so bad it is no longer worth including?

You also fail to ackknowledge that the nerf did have an impact, it again Flesh Giant is not the issue here, imagine barrens priest going up against this deck, shadow word horror (discovered), hysteria, soul mirror, what are thy going to do? Same for control warrior, brawl, blade storm, barov, shield slam deals with those giants quite nicely and would jsut run the deck out of ressources eventually.

Now comes the problem though, the real problem, because while giant still is strong, they are just going to kill you with quest once you dealt with their threats and there is 0 counterplay to that. So instead of making Giants unplayable start talking about the real issue.