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- Spawn_of_RNGesus
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https://www.twitch.tv/stryder_hs
Hearthstone Background
As far as my ladder experience goes, I've been playing since Naxx was released. I've hit Legend in both Standard and Wild but nowadays I mostly dabble in Wild playing ridiculous decks like Rez Priest, Armor Druid and OTK decks. I spend the majority of my time playing Hearthstone Battlegrounds nowadays. I'm usually in the Top 200 of the North American Leaderboards but at my peak I hit #9 on the leaderboards.
About Me
I'm 28 years old and I live in Canada. I love snowboarding and playing badminton and I'm a huge geek for Marvel and DC shows and movies!
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Hey everyone! I'm Stryder and I was a Top 200 Battlegrounds player on the NA server prior to the MMR reset. With Patch 19.2 there's been a ton of things to learn about new minions, new heroes and new spells. One of these new heroes is Y'Shaarj the defiler with a hero power that costs 2 gold and adds a random minion at the beginning of combat from your current tavern tier onto your board which you get to keep.
Based on a couple games played with this hero, he definitely feels like a combination of Yogg and Elise, but he's different in his own way as well. In the early game, he's worse than both Yogg and Elise because you don't get the stat bonus you get from Yogg and you don't get the consistency you get from Elise, plus if you hit a battlecry with your hero power you don't actually get to play the battlecry.
In the mid-game, he plays very similar to Yogg and Elise where the optimal strategy if your board allows for it is to go from Tier 2 to Tier 5 very quickly by tiering each turn, selling a minion and using your hero power. Compared to Elise, Y'Shaarj is definitely weaker because you miss out on the discovers and the battlecries, but compared to Yogg I think Y'Shaarj might actually be better because you're guaranteed a minion from your tavern tier whereas if you're unlucky with Yogg you could still be hitting Tier 1 minions with your hero power.
In the late game, I think this is where Y'Shaarj really shines because as Yogg, you don't really use your hero power in the late game because oftentimes you end up getting a minion you don't want and wasting gold. As Elise, your hero power doesn't do anything except give you a single Tier 6 minion when you get there. With Y'Sharrj, it's quite common where you end up in a situation where you have one "flex" spot on your board to cycle buff minions or minions you plan to sell next turn. In these cases, often a random minion from Tier 5 or Tier 6 will be dramatically better than the random minion you're keeping just to have 7 minions.
As an example, if you're playing a dragon board and you have Kalecgos and you're playing battlecry minions each turn, you often have 1 spot on your board that you're just leaving empty and playing weak battlecry minions. If you're playing as Y'Shaarj, often it's worthwhile selling your battlecry minion, leaving a spot empty and just playing your hero power as almost any random Tier 5 or Tier 6 minion will be better than your battlecry minion.
At the moment, Y'Shaarj is ranked pretty low according to HS Replay, but I predict once players learn how to play him and get familiar with his curve, he'll settle in the low Tier 2 bracket close to how Yogg ranks, if not slightly better. If you want to see a video of this hero in action, check out my gameplay video here:
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https://youtu.be/m-9sLbgmFj8
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Despite being nerfed by Blizzard a couple months back, Millhouse Manastorm remains one of my favorite heroes to play and here are some tips, guides and tricks on how I play Millhouse at 11k+ MMR.
Picking Millhouse
I like picking Millhouse over most Tier 3 and 4 heroes and even some Tier 2 heroes, but the times I look forward to picking Millhouse the most is when Dragons, Beast and Pirates are all in the game.
Dragons – finding an early game Kalecgos is extremely strong with Millhouse because no one else can cycle battlecries as efficiently as Millhouse since buying and selling battlecry minions only costs 1 gold overall. Additionally, if you find Steward of Times (3/4 Dragons – sell to give Tavern minions +1/+1), it only costs 1 gold to give the shop a +1/+1 buff by buying the dragon and immediately selling it.
Beasts – similar to cycling dragons above. If beasts are in the game and you can find some early game Rabid Saurolisks, it’s really easy to cycle deathrattle minions throughout the game to continue buffing your Saurolisks. Even if you find a Saurolisk in the mid-game, sometimes it’s still worth it to pick it up since you can scale it very quickly.
Pirates – pirates are a huge buff to Millhouse because of a couple cards. Deck Swabbies reduce the cost of tiering up and by buying a Deck Swabbie and selling it on the same turn, you’re essentially “banking” 1 gold for the future since you spend 1 gold that turn but the cost to tier up is reduced by 1. Another great card is the 3/3 Freedealing Gambler that sells for 3 gold. Buying this and selling it on the same turn with Millhouse is an immediate profit of 1 gold or it can be saved for future turns to significantly reduce the cost of tiering up or allowing you to quickly replace it with stronger minions in the shop. Salty Looter, Cap’n Hoggarr and Southsea Strongarm all benefit from Millhouse’s hero power as well since it becomes very cheap to cycle many pirates in a single turn. Having a Cap’n Hoggar on the board greatly reduces the “penalty” of costing 2 gold to refresh the tavern if you can find some pirates.
Playing Millhouse
Turn 1 – 3 gold – 6 to tier – look for a token generator such as a 2/1 Murloc or a 1/1 Alleycat. Sell the token and buy another minion. Alternatively, you can also buy a Deck Swabbie, play it and then sell it and buy another minion.
Turn 2 – 4 gold – 5 to tier – this turn is more flexible and depends on your start and what is being offered on your board. You have the option to buy two minions on this turn or sell a minion and tier up to 4. If you played a deck swabbie on the first turn, you can also just tier up without selling anything. If you have the option to tier up on this turn and still maintain a minion on board to win or tie the next fight, generally I would advise it’s a good idea to do so cause then you spend turns 3 and 4 buying tier 2 minions to fill your board.
Turn 3 – 5 gold – if you’re still on Tier 1, I generally tier up, sell a minion and buy a better minion to replace it if possible. If you’re on Tier 2, generally sell your minion and buy 3 of the best minions offered.
Turn 4 – 6 gold – buy 3 of the best minions available to you. Even if it’s terrible, I generally wouldn’t advise refreshing the tavern.
Turn 5 – 7 gold – depending on what turn you tiered up to 2, this will either be sell a minion and tier up to tier 3 or tier up and buy one minion.
Turn 6 – 8 gold – this turn is fairly discretionary. At this point, it will depend on your health and board state as well as what is being offered in the shop during this turn. If you’re relatively ahead and comfortable with your board state, this would be a good opportunity to tier up to Tier 4 on this turn. If you’re feeling less confident in your board or your HP is starting to dip, you can spend this turn reinforcing your board with (hopefully) tier 3 minions and maybe even rerolling the shop once and wait until the next turn to tier up. Getting to Tier 4 as early as possible is extremely important because you gain access to one additional minion in the shop and thus reduces the risk that you will need to reroll to find anything good. From this point onwards, I’ll generally spend anywhere from 1-3 turns staying on Tier 4 before tiering up to Tier 5.
Other thoughts and tips
Picking up a Zerus is much more of a low-risk high-reward choice as Millhouse since it’s less punishing at 2 gold than by buying it as any other hero for 3 gold.
Crowd Favorite is another amazing Millhouse card because you can cycle battlecry minions early on in order to scale up these minions. You can also take some Crowd Favorites that have been buffed and transition them to a Kalecgos Dragon build where they can continue to be buffed in the late game as well by battlecry minions
It’s significantly more gold-efficient in the mid and late game to buy minions instead of spending 2 gold to refresh the tavern. You can use this to your advantage by picking up tech cards that may be useful to have on-hand that you don’t necessarily need right away (such as Khadgar and Brann for a future murloc transition or a 1/3 Unstable Ghoul to fight mech boards). You can also pick up pairs of minions that you find in hopes of getting triples and oftentimes in the mid-game I’ll find myself with 5+ cards in my hand as Millhouse.
Try to be as flexible with your board as possible and don’t try to force a specific tribe too early in the game (especially Murlocs) since it’s extremely punishing to have to re-roll the shop for 2 gold trying to find specific minions. Be very open minded with your board and in the early and mid-game just aim to build the strongest board you can each turn without worrying about board synergy too much.
I hope the above helps you with your Millhouse Manastorm games! I played a perfect zero-loss 40 health game of Millhouse at 11.8K MMR and if you want to check it out as well as see the my tips in action, check out the following video:
https://youtu.be/NrbRhrtquKw
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Despite being nerfed by Blizzard a couple months back, Millhouse Manastorm remains one of my favorite heroes to play and here are some tips, guides and tricks on how I play Millhouse at 11k+ MMR.
Picking Millhouse
I like picking Millhouse over most Tier 3 and 4 heroes and even some Tier 2 heroes, but the times I look forward to picking Millhouse the most is when Dragons, Beast and Pirates are all in the game.
Dragons – finding an early game Kalecgos is extremely strong with Millhouse because no one else can cycle battlecries as efficiently as Millhouse since buying and selling battlecry minions only costs 1 gold overall. Additionally, if you find Steward of Times (3/4 Dragons – sell to give Tavern minions +1/+1), it only costs 1 gold to give the shop a +1/+1 buff by buying the dragon and immediately selling it.
Beasts – similar to cycling dragons above. If beasts are in the game and you can find some early game Rabid Saurolisks, it’s really easy to cycle deathrattle minions throughout the game to continue buffing your Saurolisks. Even if you find a Saurolisk in the mid-game, sometimes it’s still worth it to pick it up since you can scale it very quickly.
Pirates – pirates are a huge buff to Millhouse because of a couple cards. Deck Swabbies reduce the cost of tiering up and by buying a Deck Swabbie and selling it on the same turn, you’re essentially “banking” 1 gold for the future since you spend 1 gold that turn but the cost to tier up is reduced by 1. Another great card is the 3/3 Freedealing Gambler that sells for 3 gold. Buying this and selling it on the same turn with Millhouse is an immediate profit of 1 gold or it can be saved for future turns to significantly reduce the cost of tiering up or allowing you to quickly replace it with stronger minions in the shop. Salty Looter, Cap’n Hoggarr and Southsea Strongarm all benefit from Millhouse’s hero power as well since it becomes very cheap to cycle many pirates in a single turn. Having a Cap’n Hoggar on the board greatly reduces the “penalty” of costing 2 gold to refresh the tavern if you can find some pirates.
Playing Millhouse
Turn 1 – 3 gold – 6 to tier – look for a token generator such as a 2/1 Murloc or a 1/1 Alleycat. Sell the token and buy another minion. Alternatively, you can also buy a Deck Swabbie, play it and then sell it and buy another minion.
Turn 2 – 4 gold – 5 to tier – this turn is more flexible and depends on your start and what is being offered on your board. You have the option to buy two minions on this turn or sell a minion and tier up to 4. If you played a deck swabbie on the first turn, you can also just tier up without selling anything. If you have the option to tier up on this turn and still maintain a minion on board to win or tie the next fight, generally I would advise it’s a good idea to do so cause then you spend turns 3 and 4 buying tier 2 minions to fill your board.
Turn 3 – 5 gold – if you’re still on Tier 1, I generally tier up, sell a minion and buy a better minion to replace it if possible. If you’re on Tier 2, generally sell your minion and buy 3 of the best minions offered.
Turn 4 – 6 gold – buy 3 of the best minions available to you. Even if it’s terrible, I generally wouldn’t advise refreshing the tavern.
Turn 5 – 7 gold – depending on what turn you tiered up to 2, this will either be sell a minion and tier up to tier 3 or tier up and buy one minion.
Turn 6 – 8 gold – this turn is fairly discretionary. At this point, it will depend on your health and board state as well as what is being offered in the shop during this turn. If you’re relatively ahead and comfortable with your board state, this would be a good opportunity to tier up to Tier 4 on this turn. If you’re feeling less confident in your board or your HP is starting to dip, you can spend this turn reinforcing your board with (hopefully) tier 3 minions and maybe even rerolling the shop once and wait until the next turn to tier up. Getting to Tier 4 as early as possible is extremely important because you gain access to one additional minion in the shop and thus reduces the risk that you will need to reroll to find anything good. From this point onwards, I’ll generally spend anywhere from 1-3 turns staying on Tier 4 before tiering up to Tier 5.
Other thoughts and tips
Picking up a Zerus is much more of a low-risk high-reward choice as Millhouse since it’s less punishing at 2 gold than by buying it as any other hero for 3 gold.
Crowd Favorite is another amazing Millhouse card because you can cycle battlecry minions early on in order to scale up these minions. You can also take some Crowd Favorites that have been buffed and transition them to a Kalecgos Dragon build where they can continue to be buffed in the late game as well by battlecry minions
It’s significantly more gold-efficient in the mid and late game to buy minions instead of spending 2 gold to refresh the tavern. You can use this to your advantage by picking up tech cards that may be useful to have on-hand that you don’t necessarily need right away (such as Khadgar and Brann for a future murloc transition or a 1/3 Unstable Ghoul to fight mech boards). You can also pick up pairs of minions that you find in hopes of getting triples and oftentimes in the mid-game I’ll find myself with 5+ cards in my hand as Millhouse.
Try to be as flexible with your board as possible and don’t try to force a specific tribe too early in the game (especially Murlocs) since it’s extremely punishing to have to re-roll the shop for 2 gold trying to find specific minions. Be very open minded with your board and in the early and mid-game just aim to build the strongest board you can each turn without worrying about board synergy too much.
I hope the above helps you with your Millhouse Manastorm games! I played a perfect zero-loss 40 health game of Millhouse at 11.8K MMR and if you want to check it out as well as see the my tips in action, check out the following video:
https://youtu.be/NrbRhrtquKw
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Since the release of the latest patch, Amalgadon has been my absolute favorite card. I think it’s one of the most well-balanced cards that has been added to Battlegrounds as it can be viable in any board composition but it doesn’t feel oppressive or unfair to play against like Holy Mackerel used to be. Unless you’re playing a Menagerie board, the more “ahead” you are in developing an end-game board (i.e. full board of Murlocs or full board of Dragons), the weaker the card becomes and the more behind you are in building a synergistic board, the stronger the card becomes in hopes of helping you catch up. Looking at HS Replay statistics, Amalgadon is one of the top 3 most impactful minions for every single board composition which makes a lot of sense because it works well with almost every board:
Menagerie: huge buff to Menagerie boards, although still not great by any means they’re much more competitively viable than they were previously. Amalgadon does best when both Murlocs and Mechs are both in play since you can manually add poison or a divine shield if you miss with the adaptations.
Dragons: I think Amalgadon is actually the biggest buff to dragons since it can be a poisonous divine shield minion that gets further buffed by Kalecgos, regain divine shield from Nadina and also help buff your Waxrider by killing enemy minions.
Murlocs: huge buff to murlocs because it can be discovered by Primalfin Lookout at Tier 5 and it can also be buffed and adapted. Also synergizes well with the fact that you often have a Brann on board as well.
Beasts: can be buffed by Goldrinn, Mama Bear and Pack Leader. Downside is that it can interfere with your Monstrous Macaw since it can gain a deathrattle.
Mechs: it doesn’t add much synergy unfortunately and could actually hurt your board by spawning non-mech tokens with the deathrattle and taking up board space. The only upside is that it’ll get buffed by cards like Metaltooth Leaper in case it doesn’t already have poison. It’s a very slight buff to Sneed’s Old Shredder as a 6/6 minion coming out isn’t bad and as a mech minion it’ll also reset your divine shields on Deflect-o-Bot.
Pirates: pretty decent buff to Pirates since it can be used defensively as a big taunt minion (which pirates generally don’t have) or aggressively as an attacker to activate buffs from Ripsnarl Captain and Dread Admiral Eliza. It’s also a buff to Tide Razor since it’s a 6* minion with 6/6 in stats which is an above-average pirate to come out of the boat and deals an extra 6 hero damage if it stays alive.
Demons: slight synergy with demons because it can activate Soul Juggler however the downside is the 1/1 deathrattle spawns could take up board space that would otherwise be filled with voidwalkers from a voidlord. Slight buff to Imp Mama as well since a 6/6 minion is above average.
Some lower tiered heroes that have benefited from Amalgadon:
Alexstrasza – I think this is a slight buff to Alex as discovering this card with the hero power is actually quite impactful since you’re generally rushing to Tier 5 and you may have a bit of a menagerie board at this point anyways if you weren’t able to find strong dragons along the way. Additionally, if you do decide to go dragons
Infinite Toki – huge buff to Toki because it’s a great minion for her to discover with her hero power on turn 5. It’s not like finding a Nadina when you have no dragons or finding a Megasaur with no murlocs, if you find an Amalgadon it’ll generally strengthen your existing board.
Shudderwock – amazing synergy with hero power, enough said.
The following chart was pulled from Twitter and I don’t have the original source of who did the calculations, but here’s the probability of hitting the jackpot with Amalgadon which is getting both poison and divine shield:
Number of adapts = Probability of divine shield and poison
1 = 0.00%
2 = 3.13%
3 = 8.20%
4 = 14.40%
5 = 21.15%
6 = 28.04%
7 = 34.81%
8 = 41.29%
9 = 47.38%
10 = 53.02%
11 = 58.19%
12 = 62.88%
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Here’s one of my favorite games I’ve had with Amalgadon:
https://youtu.be/ElbdeuZfI98
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Hey all, I'm Stryder and I'm a 12k MMR player in North America. According to HS Replay, despite having a pretty solid win rate (average placement of 4.19), Big Demons are one of the most unpopular deck types sitting at a popularity of 5.3% compared to Murlocs at 21.4%, Dragons at 14.6% and Mechs at 11.4%. I’ve found that big demons are one of my most consistent boards to consistently place top 4 and consistently place top 2 in non-murloc lobbies.
Here’s some thoughts and tips on going big demons, excluding anything about Jaraxxus because I think he’s fairly self-explanatory. Heroes that I typically play with Big Demons:
Pyramad – I find his hero power works really well in the early game while your Weaver is still growing. If you have a weaver on turn 1 and find two demons, you could potentially have a 5/13 minion by turn 3.
Maiev – I find that she does extremely well with Demons because you inherently end up staying on Tier 1 for a couple extra turns anyways, so you have a chance to look for Wrath Weavers and demons early on.
Hooktusk – she is absolutely awful post-nerf and you shouldn’t play her if you can avoid it, but her hero power does let you have additional chances at finding Tier 1 demons and Wrath Weavers
Rafaam – works well for the same logic as Maiev, you stay on tier 1 for a couple extra turns anyways so if Weavers show up in the shop you can grab them. People also love giving you 2/4 Vulgar demons when you’re Raf so you can likely get an early triple of these
George – again, not a great hero and you should probably avoid picking him, but unlike a lot of other compositions, a lot of your eventual end-game minions are bought pretty early so you can use your hero power on minions like Wrath Weavers and Soul Jugglers and these minions will be with you for most of the game. Playing demons and staying on Tier 1 a couple extra turns as George as opposed to tiering on turn 2 also reduces the chance you lose your first 4-5 fights fighting other heroes that have much more impactful early-game hero powers.
Reno Jackson – I won’t always use my hero power on the Wrath Weaver because once you do you’re forcing demons 100%, however if there is an early Wrath Weaver on board and one other demon, having a golden 6/6 by turn 3 that gains +4/+4 every single turn can usually guarantee you a spot in the top 4.
Other minions that really work well with big demons:
Goldgrubber – big demons often end up running a lot of golden cards on their board, between Wrath Weavers, Floating Watchers and Soul Jugglers being the most common, Goldgrubber works really well alongside these golden minions
Brann – I personally like picking up Brann when I play big demons, not only is it a good card to have on hand in case you want to transition to Murlocs but in the late game you can taunt most of your board and pick up some Strongshell Scavengers (give your taunt minions +2/+2) and beef up your stats quite quickly. Plus, with the introduction of Amalgadon having the Brann on hand gives it a couple extra adaptations and Amalgadon is always a welcome addition
Selfless hero – a bit of an underrated card in my opinion but having a golden selfless hero is amazing for a big demon board, especially when you’re not running jugglers and demon tokens.
Other thoughts and tips:
Finding a golden Wrath Weaver is one of the most important aspects of the composition. Having a golden Wrath Weaver and 10 gold means it’s 5 health for a 20/20 buff on your minion in the early game. Often, I’ll find myself staying on a lower tier for an extra turn or two just rolling to make sure I get a golden Weaver.
Considering how fast the meta is right now, building a composition where essentially you cap out at tier 5 with Malganis and Voidlords is really nice because you don’t need to search for 6* minions to make your board work (such as Beasts with mama bear, Murlocs with megasaur and Pirates with Dread Admiral). Imp Mama is a nice addition if you’re playing jugglers but you absolutely don’t require one to make your board work. As a result, even if you don’t necessarily win 1st place in every lobby, I find you consistently do well with big demons because it’s less of a all-or-nothing approach going for those highroll discovers
1/3 Unstable Ghoul combined with an imp mama on board is an effective way of fighting against mech boards and murlocs that may have divine shield, just be careful of cleaves because your imp mama will spawn a taunt demon to the right of herself
Sometimes when I murloc transition, I’ll save the Wrath Weaver and not sell it that turn, just as a bit of an insurance policy in-case I low-roll with my transition, having a taunted 50/50 Wrath Weaver is sometimes enough to kill a couple big minions and either win the fight or keep you alive. I also find when I do this I don’t necessarily always need to hit the nuts and get divine/poison murlocs, having a big Wrath Weaver on board and a couple of bran-bagurgled murlocs is sometimes enough and you can transition over the course of 2-3 turns rather than a single turn.
Here's a game of me playing Big Demons with Pyramad in which I tried to outline my thoughts throughout the video:
https://youtu.be/tsHcD8y0Nik
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