Hearthpwn

I do not have the dust to craft either the murloc legendaries or Patches :(

Originally I had an interest in playing control shaman, but they tend to be quite expensive and although I possess a few of the legendaries that could find use in a control deck (Thalnos, Brann, Ysera, Sylv, Rag) I'm missing some key cards that could really empower the deck to be at an effective and enjoyable level (White Eyes, N'Zoth, Hallazeal, and Aya for Jade variants).  I'm sitting at roughly 500 dust so crafting anything like these is not possible at this point, and I've pretty much exhausted all the dusting I care to do with the card pool I have.

So, being that shaman is still my favorite hero, I'm trying to figure out the most effective deck I can build with the cards I have.  I was thinking some sort of aggro or midrange deck.  For the former, I don't have any Doomhammers though obviously I have enough to craft 1 of them.  I possess most of all the other shaman cards that are worthwhile, barring the class legendaries and a couple MSG things...I do have a Leeroy though if that helps :P

Any suggestions for decklists I might want to take a look at?  I'm leaning towards aggro since I already have a midrange D-Priest deck.

For the life of me I cannot beat these stupid decks; they just keep nuking my minions, filling their hand with tons of spells to nuke even more, and eventually I run out of cards, and any damage I've done is undone by Reno, and I don't have the momentum to deal 30 more hero damage when they're continuing to nuke my minions.

What'm I supposed to do against these decks?

Quote from doyouevensalt >>

I still have better winrates against mid shaman than against face hunter and face(tempo?) mage. Mage can just ignore the board and drop spells on your face and get away with it. The amount of games I lost vs mage where I had boardcontrol nearly the game is too damn high.

Thanks for all the replies!  I've added a couple of you as friends (the NA players, sorry I don't play EU ><).  Also thanks for the tips on which content producers to watch, I'll check out this "Trump" and such :P

oh and to the guy who said Arena is hard, get used to it.......that's kinda why I made this topic brah 8)

About 80% of the time my arena record is 1-3 or 2-3.  Very, very rarely do I get to 3 wins, and the number of times I've gone beyond 3 wins I can count on one hand (I've played maybe 75-100ish Arenas at this point since I started playing around the time Naxx was released).

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, to be frank....:

- I've watched streamers play the game (Arena/Ranked/etc) and I'm pretty sure I have a solid understanding of game strategy (I also played MTG for about a decade before I even touched Hearthstone so I had a good background of card battle games like this right from the get-go).  I play plenty in ranked/unranked modes so it's not like I'm out of practice.

- I consult the tier list many times, though by now I have the rankings of most worthwhile non-class cards memorized.  I don't use the tier list as a Bible per se, I know the importance of having a good mana curve and sometimes picking certain cards if you manage to get lucky enough to be able to pick a bunch of cards that cater to a specific strategy (Murlocs/Demons/Totems/etc.)  I usually only use the tier list as a reference for certain rare+ cards, class cards if I'm not entirely familiar with the class, or I get an array of cards that all seem very close in value.

- One frustrating thing is that many of my arena games either seem super one-sided, or my opponent suspiciously always has the proper answers to every play I try to make.  Like, many times it's weird to me how effectively they shut me down at almost every turn, and I often feel like I'm struggling to stay in the game the whole time when it comes to things like maintaining good tempo and scraping up enough removal/control to shut down what they have.  Too many times I have to expend too many resources to take care of their big threats, especially if the random draft doesn't give me good endgame creatures or class-specific removal (Hex/Poly/etc).

The only real thing I myself can for-sure conclude and point to as an area I need to improve the most, is drafting better.  I perform just fine in all the other game modes I play, though admittedly I usually stick to Shaman/Priest/Warlock decks mostly.  I might not have enough experience playing other classes, which can be a problem if none of those 3 are available to me to pick at the start of draft.  I probably need to familiarize myself with the key cards other classes have access to, and be prepared to see them in Arena, especially concerning my opponent's possibilities.  The only time I've watched a Hearthstone stream for a specific purpose is to improve my drafting game in Arena...are there any streamers/video uploaders who produce content specifically aimed at this part of the game?  Like they explain each of the 30 picks they make in draft.  I often pause these videos when each 3-card array pops up and figure out what *I* would pick and compare it to their choice....to my chagrin, my picks often agree with the streamers', I almost wish they didn't because then it would more clearly point to drafting as an area I need to improve instead of making me second-guess the notion ><

Also, I'm never one to complain about my opponent being offered better picks than me, but how much does sheer luck factor into Arena success?  I know "they had legendaries and i didn't!" is a common complaint, and I know in specific circumstances the sheer power of certain legends really can decide a game (especially if I wasn't offered Hex/Poly/etc. or Silence cards during draft) , but honestly I've never had consistent problems with this sort of thing and it's clear to me there are other things under my control that I need to improve on before worrying about the chance factor.

Here's the deck.  Currently I'm having trouble getting past rank 14, I keep getting knocked back down around that point.  Any suggestions for improvement?  Thanks in advance.

Yeah if you use too many demons it's easy to let your hand fill up with bad Voidcaller targets.  Playing the cheaper demons early/when you get them is preferred, though obviously the drawbacks can be annoying.

The comments on that deck don't seem too optimistic....though I can see the creator's logic when he's explaining his card choices.  I'd like to get a decklist going before I start crafting cards, I don't have any of the new legends yet.

GvG introduced a bunch of spiffy new cards that work with demons, and I'm just wondering if it's worth it to build a demon deck.  It's actually something I've wanted to do for awhile, I found handlock boring and wanted to stick to the "demon" theme.  These new cards made me hopeful it's possible to make a demon deck that's at least somewhat competitive.  Some decklists I've found that purportedly stick to the demon theme don't seem to run many demons (only 4-6?) and seem to just be small variants on standard zoo stuff.  Any ideas?

So I've been wanting to build a mage deck based around empowering your various spells with +spell damage minions, though I'm not quite sure exactly how I want to do it.  Here's a decklist I've made so far:

Mage Cards:

1. Arcane Missiles x2
2. Mana Wyrm x2
3. Arcane Explosion x1
4. Frostbolt x2
5. Sorcerer's Apprentice x2
6. Arcane Intellect x1
7. Fireball x2
8. Polymorph x2
9. Water Elemental x2
10. Blizzard x1
11. Flamestrike x2
12. Pyroblast x1

Neutral Cards

1. Kobold Geomancer x2
2. Dalaran Mage x2 (mostly due to an otherwise lack of 3-drops)
3. Azure Drake x2
4. Ancient Mage x2 (Works well with non-spell damage mage minions)
5. Archmage x2

Mana Curve:

1. -cost = 4
2. -cost = 7
3. -cost = 3
4. -cost = 6
5. -cost = 2
6. -cost = 3
7. + = 3

The general idea is to have at least +2-3 spell damage in play at most points in the game, control the board with your spells, and attack face to put them in range of an empowered Pyroblast/Fireball or something like that.  Generally you wouldn't trade your spell power minions with enemy minions if you can help it, and instead use them to attack face to prep for the final blow, though there are some non-spellpower minions that synergize well with the deck (Mana Wyrm, Sorcerer's Apprentice) that are okay to kill enemy minions with.  I've been playing the deck on Casual with varying degrees of success, though I'm still losing often enough that I'm not quite comfortable with it yet.

Part of the issue is that there are some cards like Bloodmage Thalanos, Malygos, and such that might make the deck better, but I don't have any.  Can't do much about that, though.  Maybe I'll cannabalize my boring handlock deck to get a bunch of dust...

Anyway, if anyone can offer some helpful suggestions for possible improvement, that would be cool.  I've been wanting to toy with the +spell damage concept for awhile and I'd like to do it the best I can :D

Yeah, I wasn't getting much out of Forked Lightning most of the time.  I made the following changes:

-2 Forked Lightning

-1 Demolisher

-1 Bloodlust

+2 Harvest Golem

+2 Defender of Argus

What do you think of my mana curve?  Right now it looks like:

1 cost:  6

2 cost: 2

3 cost: 12

4 cost: 2

5 cost: 4

6 cost: 3

7 cost: 1

I have lots of problems against faster decks, it seems.  22 of my 30 cards cost 3 or more mana, in a deck that has mechanics like Overload...could this be causing some issues?

Link to decklist:  http://i.imgur.com/kauhomT.png

I have a sort of mish-mash of various cards I've added as I acquired new ones and never really given a hard look at the decklist and what I can do to improve it.  I know things like the Demolisher can probably get cut, but other decisions are tougher to make so I'm looking for feedback.  I only have 235 dust but a decent collection, though Al'Akir, Deathwing, and Kel'Thuzad are my only legendaries.  If you suggest any legendaries/epics, please also offer alternative suggestions in case I don't have them.

I'm only at rank 21, though I tend to win most games and I haven't played ranked as much since the last reset so I dunno how far this deck could take me.