Hearthpwn

I am very critical on the Hearthstone R&D team, but I think we have to admit the reason the classic cards are being rotated out of standard (at the very least the neutral ones) is because they were VERY well designed (except perhaps for Sylvanas, which, we must remember, originally costed 5 mana). 

Azure Drake is a design masterpiece: meaty, but doesn't pass the vanilla rule. It replaces itself, thus pre-emptively mitigating removal headed its way, and it boosts your finishers, crowd control and removal.  If anything, it did a bit too many things too well.

Ragnaros puts pressure on control strategies and often finishes the game on the spot or replaces itself taking out another threat before eating a piece of removal -and much of that removal is useless to begin with with ol' Rag.  I especially love how he ignores silencing and attack diminishing strategies.  Ragnaros feels like just the perfect value for your 8 crystals but I never thought he was broken or unfair.   As the developer notes say, the problem is that not many decks want to play cards above 7 crystals and when they did, why would they choose any other card?

"Hall of fame" indeed.

This is a classic case of nitpicking in my part, but we should notice that the small-time buccaneer change in fact buffs Maelstrom Portal which now effectively denies the initial pirate assault with value.

Good changes, overall.

Something that grinds my gears in a different direction is how easy the Blizzard people are leaning in the nerf crouch: too often now OP cards have been released because they know that if everything goes wrong, they can hit the nerf button and come out smelling like roses (unlike a physical game, like MTG, where you actually need bans).  That now means they aren't really acquiring a design maturity because they don't need to, and it shows.   Too often the solution to an underpowered class (as shaman was once) has been to keep pumping undercosted cards until something breaks and the nerf guns are handed out again, and once enough nerfs are put in place we're back where we began, with Shaman being a very poorly designed class.

I don't think they're killing the game -they almost did with Yogg, but that's another story.   But it feels like they're just not willing to pay the technical debt of their own faulty designs.

Losing games that you know are good matchups?

Losing games that are bad matchups but that you were playing perfectly up until that point where the other guy topdecked the nuts (or, let's face it, you wrecked yourself by misclicking that tiny screen)?

Whipping out a fast deck only to be punished by grueling attrition matches, or being yourself the attrition-bringer while your battery dwindles away?

Losing game after game because you got tilted and you're going to make those scrubs pay so help you God?

Gee, why would anyone have anxiety over that?

I don't think the small guy needs much defending, he is obviously a consequence of a long train of thought:

Dev 1 "I mean, control decks are cool, but having every game go to fatigue is sort of lame, isn't it"

Dev 2 "Agreed, let's print a card that will make it such a strategy unwinnable (enter Jade Idol)"

Dev 1 "Awesome, but now control is dead"

Dev 2 "I guess we need to power up aggro to keep the druid in check (enter patches and Buccaneer)"

Dev 1 "....dude, control is STILL dead"

Dev 2 "allright, that renolock thing is fun, let's pump that one (enter Kazakus & Co.)"

And that's how Gadgetzan was created.

You should start an online petition.  They totally work.

David Price, a very well respected Magic: The Gathering player, who many considered laid the bases for aggressive deck theory, once famously said:

“People like control because they think it shows that they're good Magic-players. Active decks, on the other hand, produce threats, and control decks must have the right answer to the right threat. If not, they're in trouble... while there are wrong answers, there are no wrong threats.”

Wow, I seriously thought that by this point of the week everyone would be countering this deck, but I've faced 3 zoos, a renolock, a beast hunter and some random pally.  Every time they seemed to think playing a curve deck on perfect curve was rigging the system, every time they looked in despair at the ancient one, every time they put a taunter, and every time it got dutifully assassinated, sapped or eviscerated.

Except for the hunter, the poor bastard opted for equipping a bow and immolating himself on the 30/30

Congratulations OP, you've crafted an abomination that could almost be considered an Optimotron exploit.  The words "magnificent bastard" are used lightly these days, but you deserve them richly.

Was really enjoying my renounce darkness deck until the murlocs arrived.   Thanks to my crab homie I've finished the 5 tavern brawl quest and can now pretend none of this happened.  Thank you very much!

This is madness....

I left MTG after more than a decade of competition -I even represented my country in Worlds 2010 and have won twice Nationals and once the WMCQ.  I had been thinking about retirement for a good while: Magic is a BRUTAL drain of time and money if you want to be on top of the wave, and since I was married with a full time job and a kid on the way, I decided I had to draw the line.  In many senses, Hearthstone helped me make the final push.

Simply put, going to tournaments and laddering in Hearthstone is nowhere near as demanding as trying to stay competitive in the MTG scene.  The games can be a grind, but you don't have to lug around a physical collection of cards that can be robbed to far away locations (and yes, I did play MTGO, but trying to get a standard-worthy collection of cards, while less expensive than its physical counterpart, is still demanding, and the complex turn structure of Magic gets quite grinding online).

Another aspect that enticed me from Hearthstone was the mobility: once I learned there would be a mobile client, I knew I was in. I've bought a Samsung tablet and I use it to play while I walk in the thread-mill (which is basically impossible in MTGO). 

Even after acquiring all the adventures and expansions in pre-order, hearthstone is practically pocket change compared to MTG. I even opened an European account to play arenas and grow a F2P collection, and I have a couple of competitive ladder decks in there too for the occasional quest. 

So, is HS a better game than magic? Hell no, but instead of abandoning the TCG genre, I can now play a game that will let me work and have a family.  I still haven't had the proper time to make a decent Legend grind (I once finished in level 2) but I think it will happen at some point.  In the meantime, if I hit a losing strike, I am still doing my exercise quota.

I'll be curious...how are you tracking your winrate?  That snapshot of your stats looks so nifty!

I'm on it.  If we're to believe in the Brazilian "Travel Agency" ads, there are signs for an Icecrown Citadel adventure.  Furthermore it seems I have every "mandatory" legendary for standard (good thing I didn't craft compulsively Hallazeal the Ascended, not that it isn't awesome, Shammy apparently is good enough without it).

Just came to say that, at any rate, queueing this puppy against priest is utterly satisfactory (and most people in the queue are priests). The only way they can beat you is if they plop Ysera turn 1 and it gives them an Ysera's awakening, otherwise, they're SOL.

I even made a version in my Euro account without the Calls and the camels.   Still managed to grab that pack at first try.

I might put together the deck and give it a spin on Casual, just because I think that using the C'Thun buff without having him in the deck is the biggest bullshit sandwich I've seen in hearthstone since killing Lord Jaraxxus with Sacrificial Pact

I'm starting to understand that the meta in Hearthstone changes by the hour: I came home tonight to try to leave rank 7 just to see oodles of zoo and assorted flavors of Priest.  So I think this cat is now out of the bag.  Finally fed up of being trapped for two hours I decided to cave in and try myself a Dragon Priest that had owned me completely.  BAM! Straight streak to rank 5.

So, since the OP reddit post the deck exploded, got heavily played, started to get countered, and now there are even counters to the counter! (Otherwise, I have no idea what are those druids doing at tier 6, since I think the only deck they seem to beat often is priest).  I think the OP did a good job, perhaps too good.

It seems that checking reddit often, seen what's trending and adapting accordingly is a better strategy, specially if, like me, there are 6 hours between reading the post and actually getting to play.