Hearthpwn

Warlock is so dead that they decided not to buff him at all :D.

Quote from Bengalaas >>

you can forego the hand disruption to beat aggro

Honestly, I don't think Warlock has enough tools to consistently beat aggro these days, even if you tried to design your deck with this single purpose in mind. With School Spirits gone, he lacks proper AoE removal before 6 mana, as well as hard removal to deal with big minions or divine shields (Siphon Soul and Twisting Nether are way too slow).

Abyssal Warlock is pretty much dead deck with very little competitive viability above bronze-gold ranks. This is mainly because it's very slow and has no tools to hold on long enough to kill the opponent with curses (it takes too much time). Pretty much every deck needs offensive and defensive to survive, and the rule of thumb is that the more you have one, the less you need the other. In other words, the more pressure you put on your opponent, the less time they have to counterattack and the less you have to defend yourself, which is why some decks can perform quite well without any defense at all, such as Face Hunter or Aggro Demon Hunter. But to rely only on defense, you need to reach Control Warrior level of removal and amor stacking, which is impossible for Warlock. That's why I believe he simply needs more pressure.

Right now, his curve usually looks something like this:

• Turn 1: Mistress of Mixtures or nothing.
• Turn 2: Life Tap or Drain Soul.
• Turn 3: Sira'kess Cultist which is basically Spider Tank, since 1 + 1 damage is laughable.
• Turn 4: Dragged Below if you are lucky enough.
• and so on.

My point is, curses don't do enough until level 3-4 and opponent can just ignore them, pushing for tempo and face damage until it's too late for Warlock to come back. The solution? This:

It's from fire school so can't be copied by Tamsin Roame, but still works with Multicaster and can be discovered by School Teacher.

Now, imagine the dream curve with this card:

• Turn 1: Cursed Flame. Opponent doesn't even have mana to play it away, so he has to take full damage (1 + 1). He may drop a minion to develop the board or skip.
• Turn 2: Cursed Flame again. This time opponent has mana to remove the curse, but that would skip his entire turn 2. Most likely, he would rather take full damage (2 + 2) and play some minion or spell.
• Turn 3: Sira'kess Cultist. This time it's 3/4 with battlecry: deal 3 + 3 damage to your opponent! He's already taken 9 damage from you, so he can't just ignore that curse anymore. But then he has only 1 mana left to deal with your 3/4, not to mention pushing any tempo or damage.

Obviously, at this point, Warlock's pressure would stop / slow down for a few turns, but it would be already closer to turn 6 where he has his best control tools such as Entitled Customer, Dreadlich Tamsin or Abyssal Wave.

What do you think?

Don't forget about Warlock, the lord of bad legendaries... If you look back at the previous expansions, you'll notice that Warlock holds probably the most "worst class legendary of the set" titles.

I assume they were referring to the Ancient Krakenbane and I agree because it does seem like a strong support for Queest Hunter. It doesn't progress the quest by itself, but that's an additional 10 damage for just playing spells, which you would do anyway.

Screw this brawl...

I don't think it's just a matter of internal testing. You don't really need to be a top legend player or pro streamer to notice that Priest and Warlock are super bad and can't compete with other classes in any reasonable way, or to find out that already strong decks (Ramp Druid and Quest Warrior) got even stronger due to new supporting cards, that other old decks didn't get. It seems like they just don't care.

Quote from TMRobinson >>

I respect the effort that this small team puts into the game

 Yeah... no, just look at Priest and Warlock in standard.

According to the highly probable Vicious Syndicate hypothesis, Curse Warlock is garbage now, because he was preemptively nerfed during the development process, in the very last moment before the expansion release. And that's because they figured out that playing against this deck is not fun, so they decided to kill it before it becomes a problem. That sounds very reasonable, but Team 5 itself claims to design cards months ahead, so how could they fail to see that earlier having so much time? It's only damn 5 cards! On top of that, why do they keep giving Warlock such cards (designed around disruption, fatigue and so on) when they know exactly that nobody likes it and each time class eventually gets nerfed and becomes unplayable trash?

Is it just incompetence or an intentional, cynical calculation?

I think it's because Team 5 sucks at their job, simple as that. A few years ago they decided that each class must have some kind of "gimmick", unique thing that distincts it from the others. The thing is though, that not every gimmick is actually beneficial to the class. Rogue, Paladin, Druid and Hunter have the good stuff most of the time, mana cheating, burst damage, card draw, buffs, shenanigans and so on. Warlock, Priest and Shaman quite the opposite, bad stats, high mana costs, no win conditions and no tools to compete with the other decks.

Do you remember this stupid "no card draw for Shaman" identity thing? It backfired pretty hard and kept the class in a dumpster for over a year! Team 5 eventually learned the lesson that no card draw means no play these days and gave him enough to make him the best class in the game for a few months. In case of Warlock and Priest, they have yet to learn from their mistakes, because instead of good cards, they keep giving them "special tools"...

How do you win a match in Hearthstone these days? Probably the best way is to use pressure, tempo and inevitability (especially unblockable direct damage), things that Priest and Warlock usually don't have. They lack weapons, strong, well-priced minions and burst spells / battlecries, relying mostly on their stupid "gimmicks" like curses, quests, hero cards and so on. This sounds cool in theory, but in practice it just doesn't work. And that's because Team 5 can't handle anything that isn't a straightforward "hit or burn the face" or "play mana-cheated stuff that the other player cannot even rect to, because cards worth 40 mana on turn 5 is a bit much". Anything more sophisticated is too much for them and their design for Priest and Warlock fails almost every time.

If it becomes oppresive, they can nerf it. For now they just should at least try to make it playable.

Quite the opposite. The best deck against Curselock is not aggro, it's OTK.

Quote from Skyi101 >>

 This is patron warrior all over again. Hated deck but really low win rate because the skill ceiling is so high. 

I'm pretty sure this supports my OP.

It's a good deck. Just agro hand dumping players have no clue how to play it well.

 

 I'm sorry to burst your bubble but it is in no way comparable to PW.

VS has stats by rank, you can check top legend and you'll find out that even in the most capable hands the deck is just weak (and nowhere close to the complexity of PW)

Exactly what would Commander Ulthok do that another card wouldn’t be better for? You aren’t going to play this early or risk having your opponent cheat out a whole hand. If you are playing it for extra damage late game, how is it better than Brann, Zola/sirakess or tamsin/dragged below? I just don’t see how giving your opponent the ability to play cards for health works in YOUR favor. Being 5 mana, you can’t play tamsin or brann combo the same turn, so you are giving them at most two curses if you have brann and a nagaling that knows dragged below or just dragged below and a nagaling. Two curses is an extra 4 damage if they play it and then a body for 5 mana, wouldn’t Mr. Smite be the better card for the deck in this hypothetical? I just don’t see how this isn’t going to be a disaster when it’s played. Commander Ulthok reminds me of temporus, it’s pure trash.

people don't find it fun when they play against that style of deck.

Do you know what I don't find fun?  Losing to the same net deck over and over.  The games need a refresh and this card will curb some of the control decks out there, mainly warrior and rogue.

Warlock is so bad in charge meta dominating in standard and will get nothing from the mini set.

Immolate is terrible. Paying 4 mana to do nothing on board and incentivize one’s opponent to play cards is unplayable in all but the most extreme matchups. Modern Hearthstone sees decks constantly drawing and generating extra cards anyways. That or you are dead by turn 6. Playing this is basically hitting the concede button.

Plus one more thing that both Priest and Warlock have in common, once in a blue moon, they release highly controversial card(s) (looking at you, Switcheroo and The Demon Seed..) that are OP messing up the meta in a short period of time, and make almost everyone hate these 2 classes so they can rightfully give nerfs afterwards and let the classes die in the dumpster..

garbage

this card MAD garbage