Hearthpwn

Just looking at the stats, this card seems extremely strong. More important though, is that the overload on turn 5 isn't that damaging. It might lock out a Sludge Belcher, Azure Drake or Loatheb, but turn 5 has never been that essential for shaman. In fact, with this card to taunt up, it might be worth replacing one sludge belcher with Defender of Argus (which is already done sometimes in shaman). Things would have been very different if this was a minion with better stats at 5 mana with 1 overload - locking out Fire Elemental on turn 6.

One related question I am curious about though: at what point is this card worth silencing? If you don't have a Big Game Hunter it's probably worth it to turn a 7/6 into a 3/6, but what about a 6/6? A 5/6?

The problem for me isn't the strength of this card; it is the kind if play-style it incentivizes. It encourages a strategy where you dump your entire hand as hunter to try to fish for the last few points of damage when your opponent has gotten card advantage. It leads to situations where your only chance as a face hunter is to play this card and hope to draw into more face damage. A good draw like that won't happen all the time, but when it does it will feel random and frustrating for your opponent, and random and non-skill-based for yourself.

Quote from Mister_Smith »

What you've said is totally right the introduction of sticker minions as well as more token generating cards should indeed favor these kind of effects since they usually allow for easier trading.

But at the same time this could be considered the problem of those cards as well, you don't really want your coghammer to boost a silver hand recruit, basically making it a bad annoy o from but you still want to have as many of those little dudes on the field as possible with the new style of pally decks.

And efficient trades basically lost in value as well. Back in the day when Dark Iron Dwarf was popular in zoo you threw your little minions against something with significantly higher value and got a real upgrade. Now half of the midgame minions leave behind some annoying shit or just take multiple attacks to take down or just simply got a tad of extra HP like Spider Tank all of which makes +2 attack for a turn just worse than it used to be

Everything you say makes a lot of sense, but it seems so counter-intuitive. Basically we are saying the stickier minions that Blizzard put in to increase minion trading, fighting for board control and going for value have actually become dominant to the point where minion trading for value is often not a good strategy anymore...

Mister Smith,

You make a good point about the cards requiring board presence, that certainly reduces their value. One of the trends I have seen in a lot of decks though, is a choice of sticky minions. Cards like Piloted Shredder, Haunted Creeper and Harvest Golem are often ignored by opponents, or only their front end is killed, leaving you with plenty of options to buff the remainder. Similarly, the hero power and cards like Muster for Battle guarantee a board presence for paladin unless the opponent has a specific counter handy. The same is often true for shamans with their totems, which is the reason they do often run Flametongue Totem and even Defender of Argus.

I certainly understand why these cards were played so little in the past, but with the advent of deadthrattle and token spamming, I would have expected a resurgence by now.

I would say Naturalize is certainly one. Not because it is that insane, but because it is a lot more decent in many druid decks than people give it credit for, to the point where it is even considered a bad arena pick.

Dark Iron Dwarf is an insane value card, but we haven't seen it since early zoo. It may not beat out Piloted Shredder, but why even token druid used to pick Chillwind Yeti over it is beyond me.

Coghammer is played by some paladins, but nowhere near as much as its value demands in my opinion. I am similarly surprised that we never see Argent Protector.

Hey Lordloss,

You say that card releases are 'the same thing over and over'. However, looking back at Goblins versus Gnomes I was actually surprised to see how many cards are not considered auto-includes, but still see (or saw) a fair amount of play. In particular:

Explosive Sheep is seen in some duplicate and freeze/fatigue mage decks, but certainly not in all of them.

Mechanical Yeti is seen in some mech decks, even though most people would consider Piloted Shredder the stronger choice.

Arcane Nullifier X-21 sees play in mech shaman with Powermace, but is often phased out for a stronger card without taunt.

Jeeves is seen in the occasional paladin and warrior rush deck and has also been seen in some hunter decks. Zoo even experimented with the card as well.

Kezan Mystic is an interesting tech card that has been cropping up sometimes, but has not become a staple in any deck.

Recombobulator was very popular on release, but has since been changed to a 1-off in some decks only.

Hobgoblin led to some fun zoo and goblin-druid decks, without ever becoming mainstream.

Piloted Sky Golem is seen in some decks that need a sticky 6-drop (control paladin comes to mind), but again, is far from an auto-include.

Gazlowe and Toshley were both rarely seen cards, until the second became part of one popular deck.

Troggzor the Earthinator is a card that will likely have a place in a future meta, even though it is rarely seen now.

Foe Reaper 4000 was played in control warrior for a bit and still crops up both there and in control priest occasionally if they want to keep down the BGH targets.

Sneed's Old Shredder is a great card that is not an auto-include in any deck.

All that is not even including class cards like Grove Tender and Tree of Life for mill druid; Unstable Portal, Echo of Medivh, Coghammer and Bolvar Fordragon that all see more or less play depending on your deck choice and the meta; Velen's Chosen, Shrinkmeister and Lightbomb that priests still haven't decided on; Goblin Auto-Barber that has gone from auto-include in weapon rogue to a rarity and Trade Prince Gallywix that control rogues have been trying out; Ancestor's Call for shaman gimmick decks and Neptulon as a choice that just some take. For warlock, mistress of pain, Demonheart, Floating Watcher and Mal'Ganis all saw play in interesting new demon decks to a greater of lesser extend, while warriors are still arguing about cards like Bouncing Blade and Iron Juggernaut.

It is certainly true that there is a large set of cards that don't see any play, but there seems to be far more variety than 'auto-include' or 'trash'. And if you had asked me to predict how many of the cards from the above list would see serious play, I know I wouldn't have been able to make predictions anywhere near where they ended up.

Stubble, you certainly have a valid concern about a meta where every game goes to fatigue or takes over 30 minutes. One of Blizzard's main focuses in designing the game was to keep it fast and varied - in fact, that is one of the main reasons there are no cards that you can play on your opponent's turn. However, I don't think this is a problem in the current meta, nor is it specific to druid, let alone to Tree of Life.

Since the release of hearthstone, aggro and midrange decks have always been popular and effective. Zoo, face hunter, murlocs, midrange hunter, oil rogue, mech mage all have been dominant in the meta for extended periods of time. Although there have been some shifts where for a few weeks the meta was a bit more control heavy, I cannot recall there ever being a time when slow control games where the norm with aggro decks the exception. For that reason, occasionally running into a slower game actually fits perfectly in Blizzard's philosophy of keeping the game varied. In fact, giving the underrepresented mechanic of fatigue some time to shine seems quite fair.

The problem would come if these types of decks became so consistently strong or dominant that they were the only thing you faced. If the average length of a game was 30 minutes, there would be a problem. However, seeing fatigue or slow control decks is still the exception rather than the norm in my experience. Similarly, if there was no way to counter this fatigue strategy, there would be a problem. But in practice I find that as you become more familiar with these kinds of decks and their strategy, you will become more proficient at playing around them. On top of that, if these decks become more dominant, it is always possible to play around this by making your deck more aggressive and switching out draw mechanics for faster low-cost minions.

Finally, as others have mentioned, a class like mage can do very similar things to the fatigue druid, with their arsenal of freezes, Ice Blocks and other delaying tech. The only difference is that they also have the chance to burst you down, rather than requiring you to go to fatigue to succeed. On top of that, mill druid doesn't even always run Tree of Life. Although it is an interesting option, paying 9 mana for a card that heals both you and your opponent doesn't exactly compare favorably to cards like Healing Touch or Antique Healbot that can be a lot more effective in the early game, when most aggressive decks are at their most dangerous. So even if fatigue decks were dominating the meta, and even if druid was the only deck that really worked this way, then removing Tree of Life still wouldn't solve the problem, since it is a whole host of cards combined that makes this deck work, with Tree of Life far from the essential piece.

Quote from Elmyna »

I think Fel Reaver is quite good, I often pick him.You just have to be very aggressive when you play him, and win the game ASAP.

But the deck destruction thing doesn't matter at all as long as the game doesn't get into fatigue.

Hey Elmyna, this is an argument I've seen come up before, and I understand the point: if you never get to the end of the deck then it doesn't matter that there are less cards in it. However, the statement that it doesn't matter at all until fatigue is not quite true for three reasons:

1. The cards that get burned give both you and your opponent information. For example, if three flamestrikes get burned, your opponent is less likely to play around it, since few people draft more than that. Similarly, when you know how many flamestrikes you have left in your deck, this allows you to decide to try to draw into one or not.
2. Even if you aren't quite at fatigue yet, you may be more hesitant to play card-draw cards like acolyte of pain, for fear that it will get you to fatigue too quickly. Similarly, you might be more tempted to play rush cards and go for face to prevent the game going long. So even if Fel Reaver doesn't get you to fatigue, it might make you change your plays to avoid fatigue.
3. Similarly, the fact that you have so few cards in your deck makes your opponent more free to draw as much as they like, because they know that they don't have to worry about an eventual fatigue war. They know they will win if the game goes late, so they can play with that information in mind, going for tempo over value for example, since they know that they just need to out-last you.

So while I agree that the effect of card burning is hugely overstated, since the statement that you 'lose 3 cards' is very misleading, it will already have a lot of subtle effects far before you might get to fatigue.

By far the easiest way to balance these classes in arena is not by adding or changing cards, but simply by changing card rarities. Any card change will also change the constructed meta in complex and possibly adverse ways, but rarity is the one thing that has no impact on constructed (except for some small effect on card collection and crafting from packs).

To give some examples:

• For warrior, make Frothing Berserker, Brawl and Gorehowl more common, while increasing the rarity of weaker or more combo-reliant cards like Inner Rage, Ogre Warmaul and Charge.
• For mage, make Frostbolt, Fireball, Flamestrike or Water Elemental rare, to weaken their drafts.
• For priest, reducing the rarity of cards like Shadow Madness, Auchenai Soulpriest and Cabal Shadow Priest, while getting rid of something like common Inner Fire.

Of course this fix would probably still be too tricky for Blizzard's taste, since it would also change the dust value of existing cards, either making players mad for loosing card value, or requiring them to give full previous disenchant value for those cards, flooding player accounts with dust.

Hey fellow Lion,

There are three things I can suggest to you:

1. Play in some free-to-play tournaments, you see a fair bit more deck diversity per class there. For example, freeze mage is fairly popular in tournament settings right now.
2. Consider practicing a bit more in arena. If you get good enough, you will get close enough to making your gold back that you can play effectively almost for free and enjoy all the variety you crave.
3. As you rank up at the start of the season, keep an eye on the changes in deck diversity as you rank up. In my experience, the amount of diversity and popularity of certain decks is pretty dependent on the rank you are playing at.

ps. Why do you send friend requests to mech mage after a match? If you are so annoyed about seeing them, why would you be interested in friending them?

I won't pre-order because not using real money as a shortcut makes the game experience feel more rewarding and interesting for me. (your milage may vary!)

All four of these are very different decks. The last two: control warrior and ramp druid, are easiest to discuss, simply because they have no hard counters. The idea of these decks is that they have few insanely strong match-ups, and few insanely weak ones. That said, you can tech in cards that are strong against either deck. For example, Acidic Swamp Ooze or Harrison Jones is good against control warrior, as is Big Game Hunter - which is also a good answer to Dr. Boom in druid. Big spot removal or tempo-counters like Sap from rogue, Hex from shaman and Hunter's Mark from hunter are good against both. Depending on the type of druid you run into, The Black Knight can help you. 

In terms of play, some things to remember are:

• Most control warriors play Alexstrasza, so you should always keep in mind what would happen if you were suddenly set to 15HP, and similarly, you should consider carefully how much you can burst them if they have the ability to heal back to 15.
• Almost all control warriors play Grommash Hellscream with an activator. So you need to be ready for a 12HP burst if possible.
• Armor for warriors is not just HP, but also an activator for Shield Slam, so keeping their armor low can neuter them a lot.
• Warriors have a lot of slow and reactive cards, so they rely heavily on card draw to have enough options each turn. One of the best ways to shut down contol warrior is to deny them draws, so don't feel bad about - for example - silencing an Acolyte of Pain to deny them draws.
• Most druids play the combo Force of Nature with Savage Roar, so fight aggressively to stay above 14HP if at all possible and remove even their small minions to prevent their effect from blowing up when they get buffed by Savage Roar
• One of the most powerful things a druid can do is get an early lead with an Innervate play. That is why it can be useful to keep in your starting hand the kind of hard removal (like Hex or Sap) that you usually mulligan away for the late game.
• More than for any other class, when you are playing around the combo against druid, you have to ask yourself: if I play around this, how can I still win from there? There may be a point where you just have to hope/assume they don't have the combo and play around just one piece, so you can pressure enough to possibly get the win. The sooner you realize you have to do this, the smaller the chance that they will draw into the combo before you get there.

When you are talking about Frost mage, I assume you mean the all-out freeze mage with Ice Block, Ice Barrier and Alexstrasza combined with stall and burn spells. The strongest counter against this is anything that can build up armor, specifically warrior and druid. Freeze mage cannot fight for board control, so they usually have no way to get you low enough to not need alexstrasza. If you can build up armor, you stay well above 15 effective health, making it much harder for them to burst you down. Other things to remember are:

• Keep cards for healing until after alexstrasza hits if at all possible, Antique Healbot or Earthen Ring Farseer are obvious examples, but most druid players even suggest using Ancient of Lore for healing rather than card draw in this match-up.
• There are 3 cards you need to have an answer for: Alexstrasza, Archmage Antonidas and Doomsayer. Make sure to save removal to destroy at least these 3 cards, unless you can have enough pressure to go for the kill quickly. If you have a quick one damage, you can save it for Bloodmage Thalnos.
• You can unfreeze your own minion with silence to push through after a Frost Nova, Cone of Cold or Blizzard.
• You may feel that, since your minions keep getting frozen, it doesn't matter how many you play, but that is actually essential. The trick is to put enough pressure to force the mage to use direct damage like Fireball on your minions rather than your hero, without putting so many of them on the board that an area clear or Frost Nova + Doomsayer becomes too strong.
• If you break a freeze mage's ice block on a trun, try to get them as close to 1HP as possible when you do it. If they are at 10HP with an ice block up and you have a 5, a 5 and a 4 attack minion out, attack with the 5 and the 4 to get him to 1HP, then attack with the last 5 to break the block; rather than attack with both 5's and leaving him at 5HP when the block breaks.
• If you really have trouble with this deck, teching in Kezan Mystic will help you crush it, while also helping you in the hunter match-up if they use traps.

Face hunter is a difficult match for many players, but it is also one you can most easily shape your deck against. The best card in game against early aggression is Zombie Chow. Anything that does 1 or 2 damage to minions like Whirlwind, Consecration or Wild Pyromancer combos is effective against them. Some healing, like Antique Healbot or taunt like Sludge Belcher can be effective, but don't over-emphasize this. Ultimately, you need to be fighting for board control through the early game, and only when you have that do you play your heals and taunts to prevent them from bursting through your last points of health. If you overload on taunts and heals, you won't have enough options to fight for the board early on. As against warrior, having an anti-weapon tech like Acidic Swamp Ooze or Harrison Jones can be useful. Finally, it is important to know how to play around hunter clears. The most common ones these days are Explosive Trap and Unleash the Hounds; you can play around these by making sure that you trade so that it leaves you with a few high health minions, rather than a lot at 1 or 2 health. Against explosive trap in particular, you can ask yourself: do I really need to trigger the trap this turn, or can I keep my minions on board to counter the next threat he plays instead?

That's just some quick tips off the top of my head, but if you have more specific questions, I am sure I or other people can help with those as well. In that case though, it may help if you give some info about the type of deck you like to play and about your experience with general concepts that are relevant for all match-ups.

Big legendaries are certainly quite valuable for high-curve tempo decks. Two ways to work around this while still playing a tempo deck are:

1. Have your deck curve out lower. If you have sufficient draw mechanics, you can build a deck that maxes out around 5 or 6 mana and that has enough tempo that it can burst down slower more control-heavy decks before they re-establish board control.
2. Use high value non-legendary cards. They are usually not quite as good, but especially some of the class cards can be quite valuable. Think of cards like Savannah Highmane, Ancient of War, Piloted Sky Golem, Sunwalker, giants, Cabal Shadow Priest and fire elementa.

Of course there is nothing you can do with dust except craft great cards you want, so not using it for timeless legendaries like sylvanas or Dr. Boom seems strange to me.

Hey Pherlock,

I've found that Zombie Chow in particular is a great card against aggro in the slower control decks. In my handlock, switching my second Antique Healbot out for an Earthen Ring Farseer worked out well for me.

I haven't played control warrior all that much, but I have actually found it to be pretty effective against aggro the times I did play it. Shieldmaiden has often been an essential stabilizing card for me in the midgame and of course mulliganning aggressively for Fiery War Axe is still almost always good value.

Good luck on your ladder climbing.

Nozdormu is indeed weak. As far as I can tell though, that's on purpose for one very simple reason: having the Nozdormu effect in play is fun for rare random moments (like when he drops from Sneed's Old Shredder or when you run into a low rank experimental deck), but it would be annoying if you ran into it all the time. If Blizzard actually wanted it to be common for players to have to make faster decision, I would simply suggest a play-mode with a time limit like this, rather than having a card that makes certain decks almost unplayable, simply because of slow card animations.

So yes, Nozdormu sucks, but that's a good thing. I would be fine with him as an 8/8 at 8 mana, because that still wouldn't make him popular, but I certainly don't want him to be competitive with commonly seen top tier legendaries.