Hearthpwn

Heroic Brawl feels really silly right now.  The meta is really well established and everybody knows that midrange shaman is the best.  Personally, I get bored queueing into shaman over and over on ladder.  This is the same thing except the stakes are much higher and the rewards aren't pack that people really want.  Would have made much more sense if you at least got MSG packs.  Not enthused at all for heroic brawl as a result.

It seems to me that having this paywalled top tier deck is still inferior to having a variety of good decks whatever their cost.  Personally, I think formats are the best way to have diversity.  A bit offtopic, but I would love a dust limited format personally (a format where your deck could only cost x dust or less).  Blizzard could change the limit each season and new decks and metas would arise from the changes.

Paywalls are discouraging and lead to people abandoning the game because the feel like they can't keep up.  Even if the paywall is only really relevant to a few decks it's still a barrier to keeping people invested in the game.  So personally, I think minimal paywalls are vital to the health of the game.  As much as really good decks cost a lot of dust to create, Blizzard is pretty good at having a few cheaper decks that are viable, which is essential to keep people queuing and people queuing means opponents for the people who've spent hundreds or thousands of dollars and that means that the money keeps coming in.

Quote from iandakar >>

1. As others have said, C'thun is supposed to be rather dull and easy to use because it's a new player's deck.  Now they have something other than face decks to get started on.  For folks like us who already have strong collections and a lot of game-time on our belts, C'thun isn't realyl that much for us.  We have 3 other Gods to play with, and other decks outside of them.  

Also Warrior has a pretty big gap in their armoring thanks to armorsmith going away. I'm suspecting they will adopt C'thun, using the God himself like they used Grom, as just an interesting big boy+removal tool, and mostly just taking in the powerful 7 mana taunt, +20 armor, and 3 mana 2-damage removal tool.

2. I actually think if they hit anything it'll be the 7/7.  However, it IS rather early, and it's FAR from the last time we've dealt with a Shaman deck with a MASSIVE big boy sent off early.  We can handle the 7/7 for 4 like we handled the 8/8 for 5, and it wasn't alwasy with BGH.  We just have to start actually using removal tools, which are still very much lacking in a lot of decks right now.

3. I don't think reviving BGH is the key to 'restoring the balance'.  Then we'd be back to having every 7 attack creature be a Dr. Boom to ever have a chance in the world.  Old Gods exists as it is BECAUSE BGH isn't an autoinclude.  

Also most classes have a way of dealing with a Big Boy.  Warriors have execute, priests with Death, Hunters have Mark, Shaman's Hex, Mages have Polymorph, Rogues have Sap, Druid's have Mulch, Paladins Peacekeeper/Uldi.  Only warlocks have nothing immediate and they can either drop their own, cheaper giant or PO+a few minions to overwhelm it anyway.  

Many of those tools haven't seen play because we've been too busy pushing for tempo and relied on BGH instead.  Time to get back to that.

• Hunter's Mark and Execute requires an activator which can be tough against shaman which has a good curve and usually is ahead turns 1-3 and using two cards to kill the 7/7 doesn't feel good either.  You can gain tempo with these cards if you have the right combo pieces in hand though. 
• Death and Mulch are okay, they are the most reliable options in the current meta, but if your opponent was ahead they're still ahead.  
• Hex is reasonable, but they still have a minion that can be Flametongued so the opponent doesn't lose as much as you would like for your best removal option.  
• Polymorph is worse than Hex cause the token can fight without the flametongue
• Peacekeeper is good as long as they don't follow up with earthshock.  This is probably my favorite option, because the 3/3 body of the aldor is good against the other shaman minions, but the earthshock can be back breaking.
• Keeper is basically neutral, but if you're opponent was ahead they're still ahead and they usually can get in a least 3 damage with reduced stats.
• Sap is a great answer on curve, but weak turns 6 - 10 where they can replay the minion and still make other plays.  

I agree with your likes: Control pally is really good and there's of new stuff to explore and old cards to try again with the new meta.  That's most fun part I think.

As far as your dislikes:

1. I agree that C'thun decks are pretty meh overall.  Personally I think it's because you have to play a bunch of vanilla minions and a lot of neutrals in the decks.  You end up where the class almost doesn't matter.  Yeah, druid has taunts and warrior has armor, but they have that anyway.  The games quickly devolve into who can draw C'Thun and win.  All card games have rng, but when you literally both have a "you win" card in your deck, it's not very interesting.

2. Shaman is definately powerful.  The BGH nerf makes flamewreathed faceless alot more frustrating.  You can't answer an on curve 7/7 unless you still have coin going second.  I don't think blizzard is going to do anything about shaman power level though.  So I would get used to several months of losing to doomhammer + rockbiter.  The new zoo is nearly as powerful though, if any card would get nerfed I actually think it would sea giant not the 7/7.

3.  I think the BGH nerf is big part of this.  It's hard to run BGH now, because it's a big tempo loss if you don't have a target, but then when you matchup with shaman and zoo, it's hard to have answers to the turn 4 or turn 5 7/7's and 8/8's. Basically if GvG had a 5 mana BGH everyone would be hating on all of the Fel Reaver decks and how OP they were.  It's BGH that kept that in check.  I think a 4 mana BGH is better for hearthstone, personally.  It means you lose less tempo and you can respond on curve to giants or the flamewreathed or even fel reaver if you're playing wild.

My first legend of OG was Cho'Gall, but the next legend was golden Yogg-Saron!  I'm hyped! Happy opening everyone!

Quote from futhead_Ace100ace200 >>

Quote from chaksander >>

A guy just played arcane golem against me and then stared at the fact that it couldn't charge.  It was hilarious.

Are you sure? Mine has charge right now. ^^ The nerfs hit us only in a few days.

 

I have to say: I'm playing on the EU server. Don't saw any nerfs so far.

A guy just played arcane golem against me and then stared at the fact that it couldn't charge.  It was hilarious.

You could run Leper Gnome, probably instead of Lance Carrier.  I really like Buccaneer in this deck, because it shuts down Knife Juggler on turn two and you get the same damage since your dagger has +1 on both charges. Obviously if they kill the buccaneer on their turn 1, then you lose the damage buff, but they also lose tempo.  Feel free to try it out.

Prep doesn't really do anything in this deck.  Your spells are cheap so prep would just clog your hand with cards that aren't damage or card draw.

1. N'Zoth's First Mate: I don't know this will be good, but I will definitely be making a tempo warrior with this guy.

2. Xaril, Poisoned Mind: A playable rogue legendary is awesome.  Edwin is good, but too slow for the meta, Gallywix gives your opponent coins that they kill you with and Anub is too slow for any meta, sadly.

3- Master of Evolution: Same as OP basically.

What about a sap?

Forbidden Sap: Spend all of your mana. Return an enemy minion to owner's hand.  It's casting cost is equal to the amount of mana spent. 

Quote from Everelfish >>

Quote from moloch519 >>

Quote from FunKaliTy >>

Those seem quite broken, but maybe soemthing like:

0 mana
Spend all your mana.
Give your weapon +1 attack for each mana spent.

We are losing Oil from standard after all.

 Yeah but that seems incrdible powerfull as well (especially when they dont Change Blade Flurry

 It's worth noting that you wouldn't be able to flurry on the same turn. That being said being able to do a 10 damage flurry next turn sounds a bit too insane.

With how much blizzard seems to hate rogue, I'm guessing the card with be:

Forbidden Booty: Spend all of your mana.  Give a Pirate +1/+0 for each mana spent.

Although this would still be okay with Southsea deckhand.

Personally, I don't mind if BGH is changed, but I hope they take a hard look at innervate and the giants too, since BGH is the only tool that most decks have to deal with handlock and druids innervate often puts you in a situation where it's bgh or bust.  I mean just recently I had a druid opponent play Dr. Boom and Loatheb on turn 8, because of double innervate.  Those kinds of play are not common, but they are degenerate. The threat of BGH is one of the things that keeps druids from dropping a turn 2/3 Dr. Boom.  Ultimately if the hearthstone devs want people to be able to "cheat" out huge cards on turn 3-5, then you need BGH.  Nobody wants to play a game where your opponent's opening hand guarantees their victory.

Reason why the TBK doesn't see play and BGH does:

Stats

TBK stats are too bad when compared to his cost for him to ever be played for tempo. You are giving away 2 mana for free.  BGH you lose like .5 mana.  You're nearly always better off playing a 4 drop and hero powering instead of playing the black knight.  Playing BGH onto an empty board can be a stronger play than playing a 2 (or 1) drop and hero powering, since BGH can trade up into 4 and 5 cost minions.

Other cards do what TBK does for less mana.

Most class have 2 or 3 mana cards that are far less situational and "solve" the problem of the taunt minions. Some examples are Execute, Shadow Word: Death, Sap, or simply Iron Beak Owl.  The result is that in order to get more value from TBK than traditional removal you have generally have to kill something huge like Ancient of War or Sunwalker. Killing a Senjin  Shieldmasta only nets you a 2 mana tempo swing.  That's not nearly enough for how situational TBK is.  BGH is more situational, but when it hit's it's often a 6 or more mana swing in tempo.

Cost

Very few removal cards that cost more than 5 mana are played in hearthstone.  The reason is that in the midgame you need to both react to your opponents play and then respond with a play of your own.  At 6 mana TBK gives you very little mana to actually make a play. Yes it gives you a vanilla 4/5, but unless that minion threatens lethal, your opponent is not that afraid of it.   They can often ignore the black knight and play another threatening minion one that usually kills the black knight for free.  BGH gives up to 7 mana to make your play.  If you can BGH your opponents threat and respond with your own 7 drop, you can leap miles ahead of them.