Hearthpwn

Yes it is and I expect some nerf sooner or later. Not because the deck is too good (it is good but doesn't dominate the meta), but because of the unfun experience it creates the way it OTKs you from 30HP + full board. 

There is also the Anka, Myra's Unstable Element, Mecha'thun, Secret Passage combo...

It depends a bit to the extent of your collection. If you don't even have all the commons from the last year's expansions then 5 packs per expansion will give you quite a few useful cards most of the time. Darkmoon races has quite a few useful commons and rares that see a lot of play (Hysteria, Crabrider, Arbor Up, Illidari Studies to name a few), but the problem is that the legendaries kind of suck. Envoy Rustwix is decent, but not really used anywhere at the moment and the rest are very mediocre. The bundle will give you 2 random Barrens legendaries for free (and on average you should find one more in the 20 packs). Now you might low-roll and get some bad ones. But out of the 23 legendaries (excluding Mankrik and Voljin that we all get for free), 6-7 are what I would call must-haves (Kazakus, Samuro, Tamsin, Xyrella, Rokara, Barak Kodobane) and another 10-11 are at least promising with a lot of future potential

I reach legend in standard and wild every month, but I don't plan to go for the triple legend anytime soon. The problem is not only the grind itself when starting with 2x multiplier, but that classic is too much of the same thing over and over again that it will get way too boring before I get even close to legend

@Malfurius: Reality check: 'free' hsreplay stats from bronze to gold games do not translate to real world stats and power level of decks

@Aegis24: Token Druid vs Warlock is a bit of a tricky matchup the main problem is that you cannot auto-win with an early Gibberling or Glowfly Swarm turn due to School Spirits. So you need to wait till you can buff your board out of reach with something like Power of the Wild or Soul of the Forest, the latter being the best option as it also protects you against Twisting Nether as well. I went 5-3 with Token Druid vs Warlock and it felt that it is a slightly favorable matchup but not as great as other decks are vs Warlock. A big problem is that even if you get them down to 1-2HP, Druid doesn't have a single way to deal damage from hand via spells. So if you don't kill them by turn 8 and they get to clear your board it is game over. On the positive side, one of Warlock's best removal card, Hysteria, is quite innocuous in this matchup

Tickatus Warlock is a bad deck period. It is a poor excuse of a control deck that loses to what control decks are supposed to beat, namely aggro (Hunter destroys them, but Token Druid and Secret Paladin also do very well). It also loses badly to any mid-range tempo deck that has ways of developing a board (stuff like Rush Warrior, Miracle Rogue, Mid-range Demon Hunter). It loses even more easily to combo decks like Il'Gynoth OTK Demon Hunter or Alex/Tenwu combo Rogue as it has no tools to disrupt their game plan for the first 7-8 turns and Tickatus himself comes too late at a moment when most combo decks have already assembled the full combo in hand (or perhaps already killed the Warlock). It only beats Priests right now and scores 50% in the mirrors. These are by the way the only matchups where Tickatus himself is a useful card, in every other instance where he is played (corrupted) versus another deck, it is a win-more move and the game was already decided 99% of the time.

Now the reason Tickatus Warlock is a bad control deck is because it has inadequate healing (a few spells that heal for 3 and whatever soul fragments you draw - while you often have to take damage from your hero power as the deck has effectively no other source of card draw) and all its removal is reactive. You can see how the healing is inadequate in the matchup against Hunter. Warlock keeps trying to remove the minions that hunter drops turn after turn, while the hunter keeps chipping away at the Warlock's health and eventually kills them usually around turn 7 or 8.
In comparison, Priest is a great control class as it has a ton of healing (0-mana heal 5, 1-mana heal 5, 1 mana heal-3 discover a spell, a combo with Samuro and Apotheosis that can often heal for 20+ and a lot more stuff) and it also has some proactive removal tools (the Samuro combo mentioned earlier as well as a cheap heal spell in Xyrella) which remove the enemy board while developing some stats
Warrior is the other class that has the potential to be good in control, but since the last rotation lost a lot of its ability to gain armor (which is effectively healing). But it could take as little as a buff to Rancor (which is currently quite situational for a 4-mana spell) to make Control Warrior viable again. 

TL;DR: Tickatus Warlock sucks, control is not dead, but is currently restricted to priest

Quote from lv426a11 >>

As an aside an completely sort of unrelated to this post, does anyone know why Mindrender Illucia was nerfed?  She's difficult to play, very situational and ( as far as I'm aware) no one was complaining about her when she got nerfed.  The stats to mana ratio are now terrible (as they were before the nerf) and most of the cards you would want to be able to play are often now out of reach given the mana cost.

It seems wierd that TIckatus has survived without intervention and lots of people hate it yet she got nerfed out of the blue when no one expected it (and could be a reasonable counter to Tickatus)

 Illucia was designed as a late-game disruption card, but at 2 mana many players would play it versus aggro on t2, followed by playing the opponent's Coin + some 1-drop. Then the aggro player would effectively be stuck with a useless hand on turn 2 that is probably full of expensive removal spells meaning he had no way to continue developing tempo and come back on t3 to a hand that is already missing some resources. Such a play was often game-ending at t2 and the devs thought that this was not the way Illucia was intended to be used when designed

This has been by far my best month on the wild ladder. I only played 2 decks and reached legend with a total record of 44-15 with only a 10x multiplier. The two decks were:

1. Flamewaker Mage (20-6 win record): http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1386009-flamewaker-mage-77-wr-to-legend
2. Handbuff Paladin (24-9 win record): http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1386015-handbuff-paladin-73-wr-to-legend

I made legend on the 16th of April and my legend rank was 687. I've never been top 1000 before, so pretty happy with it

Unfortunately not. Only in Standard, Wild or Duels

One more thing. For the priest achievement with Serena Bloodfeather, since the card is total garbage and you don't want to play a deck with her I suggest you also do it in Duels. Just put her and Animated Broomstick in your deck and wait till you draw both. Should be fairly easy in the first 1-2 rounds where your deck is quite small, especially with the heal/draw hero power. Repeat 4 more times and achievement done

I kept switching and trying decks post-nerfs and by far my best-performing one is Token Druid. Feels like the deck has no truly bad matchups (unlike pre-rotation where Warriors and Spell Damage mage were both horrible matchups)

Quote from Ravzar >>

Quote from SirJohn13 >>

DoL at 4 mana seems fair. Being played later means that (a) it transforms fewer spells and (b) you have to spend your turn 4 doing nothing. If you guys can't develop enough tempo to beat a deck that passes on t4 then the problem is the deck you are playing and not DoL

 So the problem is with you if you play warlock, priest and warrior?

 No, the problem is if you don't adjust your gameplan with one of these decks. Unless you are confident that your removal tools can handle all the shit that DoL can produce, perhaps it's a better idea to switch plan and try to bring some stats on board and kill them while they spend their turn 4 doing nothing. With Priest: get a Sethekk on board, buff it, get a bunch of random value and start pushing damage. Control Warrior decks have lots of ways to bring stats on board as well as push damage with weapons. Warlock not so much but depends on how the deck is built

I've only seen it randomly summoned (or devolved into), but it feels like that's another card that indirectly benefited from the rotation

It is stupid because it is stupidly unbalanced without banning specific cards. Shaman can try Lightning Bloom, Ancestral Knowledge and Snowfury Giant, Druid can play Embiggen and Patches and whoever goes first wins on t1 unless they get a very unlucky draw. I'm not aware of any other class that can win on turn 1

I still see some No Minion Mage. So far all the opponents I have faced are still running Deck of Lunacy. I lost to one of them due to some extreme high-rolling, but beat the rest and the deck feels really underwhelming if you try to rely on Deck of Lunacy.
I've faced almost no Paladins or Rogues, that's a refreshing change
The most popular deck I face is Hunter by far (both face and the Leoroxx OTK version)
I've faced a few Control Warriors, a few Control & Miracle Priests, a few Druids (Token, Guardian and Celestial) and even a Shaman
Finally I faced quite a few Control Warlocks. I was trying different Demon Hunter builds and Warlock was one of the easiest matchups. They just do nothing and wait for you to kill them (they have a lot of removal, but that doesn't help against weapon/hero attacks or this broken 8/8 that is rush+charge combined). 
I only faced 1 other Demon Hunter (playing deathrattle stuff), but I expect the class to rise in popularity. Il'Gynoth OTK decks are also quite good.

Oh and the watch posts are really underwhelming now as almost every class can clear a 3-health minion on t2.