Hearthpwn

Why do you need legendaries to win? sorry to answer with a question but it is very possible to make to legend rank without a single legendary and without spending time in arena or paying money (proved by trump go look him up on you tube)

The bottom line is most legendaries are nice to have not necessary! If you want legendaries play naxx (pls oh pls do not say that naxx is too expense to buy wings coz then you got issues just save up you lunch money for 2 weeks) goodness coz you clearly dont wana grind and boom there are your legendaries that will give you a nice head start

Also I need to make special mention of the fact that the neutrals and rares are mostly far better than epics and legendaries (look at the ZOO deck no epics no legends (im not talking these varient decks)) what about mid hunter? same thing rares and neutrals mage and shaman have some of the best neutrals and rares in the game do your self a favour and look at the card ignoring the rarity because rarity dont = win 

We have a free game on our hands here no release money, you are given cards that allow you to be competitive with ppl that have spent thousands on the game and you say this is pay to win? 

I spent a month playing 1 arena a day for that month I completed all my quests and I could get 48packs at the end , the way I did it i was winning arena between 7-10 with 5 12's in the month and would only open packs at the end when i accumulated them all, i did this experiment with a friend who was just completing dailies and he only got 16 packs at the end of the month, i am not that good at all some arenas i had were 4 wins (maybe about 3) from those packs I got 5 legendaries and a lot of dust (enough to make 1 more with the dust i had) 

so yea pay to win - no play to win - yes.

If you have to craft a legend and playing pally get tirion, but then you will need bait so you can drop him save (assuming you playing big control deck) a Tauntadin also dont have much legendaries besides him 

Quote from unrealdustin »

Quote from YaYERZ »

cough. maybe

Instead of making a thread on a forum you could be a proactive player and reconstruct your deck to have a more positive outcome against priest decks, or whatever currently counters you.

Tailor your deck son, I find midranged high tempo decks do well against priest because they are good at single target neutralising, but when you drop dancing swords/blade master into yeti into spec knight into argent com they struggle, also if you dont like 4atk minions play smarter, you can often bait out their removal, or play big control deck with lots of late game , doesnt matter how much they heal they can deal with big threats forever they only have 2 deaths, and notice they cant deal with deathrattles effectively (no one will play silence waste of a card) 

But hey man this is all just advise , do what ever the ..... you wana do 

I personally believe that game knowledge and concentration is most important, watch trump he breaks down the drafting phase, has his own tier list (at least for the old cards) and goes consistently above 7 wins with every draft! I can say that this helped my game and this is how to go infinite in arena. 

Looks good , what matches are you struggling with? maybe take out silence for a SW:P, wild pyro for the chow, 1 circle of healing for the SW:P blade masters for the cultists and senjin for argus, try get another mind blast in there, maybe take out 1 smite, mind control as mentioned above may help you since velen will prob die the turn he is played so having a back up plan is essential, if you change this to a more late game orientated priest you can secure the velen finish by having your opponent waste his removal on your other cards. Just my advise

When you speak about value what do you mean? Dust equivalent? Card trading value? Deck slot value? 

For dust value you can look at Rarity this is the only time rarity has influence on card "value" as higher rarities provide you with more dust. 

With regards to trading value Senjin is not really balanced he is more to the strong side, he can trade with 2 3/2's and prevent dmg to your face a little stronger than balanced, BBBG is slightly weak , he blocks dmg to your face but trades 5 mana for 3 mana 4/3 

Of course you can compare to biggest minion in game death wing, it take 4 senjin into 1 deathwing and 3 yeti into 1 deathwing then yeti is better than senjin, with that logic so is injured blade master, because you are just looking at atk. The simple stats test developed by the arena community is a good indicator of value (this is know as the vinila test and does not look at effects - mainly because in arena synergy is lower than in constructed therefore synergy benefits based on effect are not factored into value, but they can be looked at as adding value!) 

a good example is in arena you choose between ooze and bloodfen raptor, vanilla test says they are even but ooze is versatile in 4/9 matches making it a better choice. 

If we apply same logic to constructed we would probably need to look at vanilla test value + synergy benefit + best in slot essentially all the generally things you consider when deck building.

Synergy benefit includes benefit due to class spells , theme and hero power as well as card groupings (the easiest example is murlock - works well in any deck because of self synergy but stands out in warlock because the rush is complemented by hero power and other burst cards)

in constructed vinilla value is not as useful as this is often trumped by synergy, however there are often times when vanilla test is better than synergy e.g shaman windspeaker for 4 mana you get 3/3 and you can pump a fire elemental + rockbiter to do 18 dmg that turn, this is iffy nice synergy but iffy, and in shaman we dont like iffy rather go with more consistent plays thus yeti is better choice 4 mana stabilises mid game and has good trading value.

finally we have best in slot, this, to me anyway, is when you look at your deck and say my theme is getting them dead does the river crocolisk 2 drop do that better than the bloodfen raptor? (I am a hunter) if I run ysera do i get to kill my opponent by turn 8? Here you can see that ysera which is argubly the best value card in the game is worth next to nothing because it will always be a dead card in your deck, another example is I am playing rogue, tempo time and I need this to end quick, I need to play cards that are high dmg for mana cost even if they have negative side effects, do I choose harvest golem or steel swords? golemn is really good in tempo rogue as a coin on turn 2 but a 4/4 on turn 2 is slightly better and is harder for your opponent to deal with at 3 mana + does more dmg. 

And lastly on best in slot is the value of tech cards, easiest example is spell breaker and iron beak owl in shaman, this shaman deck is aggressive in nature, it needs minions on the board it relies on blood lust , SWC and frostwolf warlord to win, Taunts hinder it but now if we adjust the deck for silence the recent taunt flood wont hurt as much, this deck does not play earthshock currently as it was too slow needed more aggression and face dmg. its easy to say lets go spell breaker! this guy is lots of atk = face dmg and we can drop him wen its time to go! you seem to be using him exclusively for his silence in this context ryt? dealing with a taunt and then bloodlust what turn do you want to play this t9? what if you had game at T7 or T8? lots can change one turn later. so we only using him for silence to remove taunt and win! lets look at other options iron beak owl perfect! i can now blood lust on turn 7 or 8 and silence that sludge belcher to ensure game! wait I am 4 dmg short and cant use the iron beak owl to atk that turn :( dam. So basically the lesson is with tech what is the point of the tech in context with the deck? Earth shock provides us with a compliement to our finisher for minimum cost and that is how tech should be valued , can I get the utility out of the card for the least cost so not to hamper my deck and to provide the most synergy with my deck. OTK combos will like low cost tech, aggro decks may value the spell breaker as it adds pressure in the form of a 4/3 body your opponent needs to deal with next turn (aggro mage for example likes this ) 

I feel popularity deserves a mention here only because blizzard made it an issue, Blizzard said they dont like seeing the same card in every deck so it will get nerfed if this happens, same if a class card makes a deck played mor than others it will be nerfed as seen in the latests "Card adj" Leeroy? OP because of synergy with rush + aggro + otk decks and gave you that reach in control decks he was becoming a staple. funny thing is all these combo's existed back in season 2 however leeroy only nerfed now when he is declared OP now. so thats why I dont think popularity should have influence on the value or balance of a card because the meta or player base will always be searching for the next easy win deck :) 

Sorry for the flame there friend but you really got a little bit to theoretical and for got to link your numbers back to practical.

Thank you :) I must still update it a little for the naxx cards (I havnt had a test run in new meta with it as I am quite busy with work and honors) I played a  handlock once and BGH managed to put 2 giants and an alexstrassa in his trophy room :D (needless to say I won that match) have fun with it I know I did , when I played in season 2 I managed to get to rank 6 with it (back when Novice engineer was OP) 

I have so many projects in my decks at the moment just wish I was vampire so no need to sleep and can do more stuff :P

You are a new player, that is clear, how ever letting everybody tell you what changes to make isnt going to improve your game, taking a deck and copy paste then playing may give you a deck that is good , but still wont make you a better player. for example some1 said tauren warrior is bad card, you didnt stop and ask why you just removed, surely you felt it was a good card when you were putting the deck together, thus must have a reason for inclusion and thus a reason to remove or upgrade for that slot.

When building a deck you should consolidate as was mentioned above focus on a central strategy or card type and build around that, deck test and evaluate the cards that are core strat and those that are tech.

A lot of players posting here are probably good players already who understand the game mechanics and if they net deck they will be able to own with any deck they pick up because they understand the card choices. Do yourself a big favour, if someone suggests a deck find a youtube commentary or play through or guide that explains the card choices and theme to the deck.

If you net deck deck construction is pretty much skipped and you move to deck testing and tweaking where you get a feel for the deck and know when and where it is strong / weak and what to tweak for certain match ups to move up ladder (assuming this is your intention.

Deck construction is difficult for new player because A you probably dont know all the cards, and B you are building a deck against an opponent you have never faced. 

Arena is a great way to get to know all the cards, see interesting and new synergies and farm up some cards at the same time, trump is probably the best to watch you can find his you tube vids showing how he goes infinite in arena with almost every draft.

Normal deck construction boils down to: When should I own, What shall I own with, Who will I own against

When shall I own is determining the pace of the deck, and this is play style do I like fast paced face mash aggro , do I like value aggro based on incremental advantage, do I like turtle and then just dropping problems my opponent cant deal with , am I a control freak , etc.

What shall I own with is the method of getting there, e.g I want aggro game thus I should play cheap cards allowing me to set up early advantage consistently, then something to finish with like fireball or bloodlust or leeroy or just continued zerg like zoo.

Who will I own against is also important, this is sometimes only identified after a couple of games thus you will then see what is pulling you down in your unfavoured match ups look and see if i replace the card x with card y I will be able to deal with Druid easier and it wont hurt my normal winning against hunter.

WHEN, WHAT and WHO shall I own can be picked in any order, sometimes you want to design a deck that beats a certain deck (who) sometimes you see Illidan and you say I wana make this work (what) and my example starting with When.

So looking at your deck lets have a look.

You have onyxia , this may be your ownly legendary so you decided to give it a go in a deck (what shall I own with). I can see where you were going here, onyxia synergy with Frostwolf warlord + blood lust + flame tongue and raid leader + dire wolf alpha. other than that you have a secondary strat being a zoo type deck

So onyxia deck one problem is  that that combo comes very late and you have lots of cards that will clogg your hand waiting for onyxia to be played. my question to you is does Onyxia help you win? if she was not in your deck would you lose more or lose less? Onyxia does not have enough impact in a deck that is early rush orientated, lets look at perfect case scenario, you have Onyxia in your opening hand did you kept it because it is the core of your deck and you are scared if you mulligan you will never see it again, trun 9 comes and this is your chance you have been trading equally with the mage and he has no card you have the blood lust giving you game on turn 10 you drop the Onyxia and mage says polymorph arcane explosion she trades 2 for 1 but spends 6 mana and kills your 9mana and drops harvest golemn or yeti depending if its here t9 or t10.  Granted onyxia is the element of suprise no one will expect it so maybe mage used the poly morph or pally wiped field twice with equality + constipation. My point is for 9 mana is there not a better decision that can be made on that turn, Onyxia represents one of them all in cards, does nothing if you are behind and very little if you are a head. 

Zoo type style in the early game, allowing you to start influencing plays early on. why is zoo played in lock and not shaman because of card draw, the minute you start playing 3 cards a turn that hand becomes very small, i dont see any draw cards in your deck to support this aggro strategy. also some of the cards in the deck are not good drops on curve, (this means that on 3 mana the tauren warrior dies to bloodfen raptor that was played on turn 2) this causes bad trades, or incremental gains for your opponent which add up to card advantage beyond control. So lesson here is if you wish to play high -tempo, low trade deck you will need some card draw. If you play zoo in lock you are playing high tempo sticky cards (cards that need a lot of thinking to remove effeciently) and then you can replenish your hand by hero power, this is safe because your opponent is spending resources dealing with your constant zerg.

You picked shaman is this your favourite class? - thats good because shaman has a nice mix of versatility cards (most of which are free). 

So lets look at this, with shaman a nice easy strat is to control the early game and then build advantage abusing the Overload mechanic then playing midrange power houses like frostwolf warlorad (your hero power complements him, fire elemental and blood lust (if you like otks) 

The best way to do this is to make staying ahead of your deck a nightmare, this is easy since you can summon a 2health minion 4 2 mana then buff with flametogue or abusive serg to trade tokens for cards,

Lighting bolt costing 1 mana deals 3 dmg allowing you to play another card the same turn, rockbitter is the same maximise on this by playing 2 as this gives you noce early game control, you can remove a bluegill warrior for a lightining bolt 1 mana cheaper and does 1 more dmg, and leper out for rock biter, leper is pinged to easy and doesnt give enough bang in a midrange type deck.

Bloodfen raptor ? going for 3/2 go Ooze instead same stats with added versatility against warrior/paladin and hunter- put 2 in and take out the tide hunter (tide hunter is good but 3/2 is more valuable) think 3/2 + flame tongue = dead yeti - , dire wolf alpha is ok but we have flame tongues, lets go with something harder harvest golemn! now that guy sticks to the field! out wolfs in Golemns only 40 dust each to craft.

Tauren chieftan is a 3 drop with taunt ( is it possible to craft a 100 dust feral spirit for this slot ? think you get 2 taurens on that turn for the same cost ! that means they now have to play 2 oozes to kill the 3 mana you played. Bad at 3 drop because he dies against 2 mana cards very easy and you do not have synergy to enrage him either, Senjin shieldmasta is another great alternative , he is hard to kill and is free

Iron beak owl Silence is nice but for 2 mana and dying as he hits the field? lets see how about earth shock! add a little spell power totem and we killing 3/2's we be killing 10/11 undertakers, we killing loot hoarders and keeping the loot!  if you want to squeeze a second one in for tech u can remove the abusive serg, I really like this card in shaman because for 1 mana he allows a totem to trade up. (i will leave this one up to you and deck testing)

scarlet crusader could be your second Feral spirit or you could play senjin here and get more value out the card, Scarlet crusader isnt bad, but earthshock does kill her where other cards would survive, this is preference, crusader is aggro senjin is def, def = getting you to the mid game where you strong easier, senjin also lives a little longer to provide food for Frostwolf general.

Dark iron dward is a pumped up abusive serg nice synergy with shaman keep him in , yeti is arguably the best 4 drop, fine choice let's kick that spell breaker and add another yeti to this deck, spell breaker isnt necessary due to us running the more versatile earth shock, yeti is a strong card that drains opponent resources,

Windspeaker doesn't do enough, windfury is better half the price for the same thing , assuming you using him for his effect , if you going to otk why do you need a 3/3 body for next turn? overwise put in another defender or argus here, turning yeti's into 5/6 golem into 3/4 ooze into 4/3 fire e into 7/6 you get the idea, he is another really good 4 drop. 

Let's keep frostwolf warlord and bloodlust as the finishers here windfury is nice to play with the warlord if he survives, again silver hand knight is a bit late to the party here, mayb a azure drake? gives you some nice card draw, cant afford that Gnomish inventor is a suitable replacement try squeeze 2 in maybe silver hand and windspeaker out for 2 gnomish inventors! 

Stormwind champ is another way to win, 7 mana is a bit expensis and for our midrange strategy our curve should end around 6 so he will need to be replaced with something better, Onyxia is not going to is not going to fit here either, these 2 slots can be used as tech slots allowing you to experiment with way of making your deck play more smoothly and more favourably. If you disenchant your Onyxia you could get a sea giant in her place, a bit expensive would be 2 of these but a great upgrade to the deck, Other options is 2 argent commander allowing you a little more versatility and value (he generally trades 2-1 maybe a Kodo as tech? or 2 strangelthorn tigers (croaching tiger hidden bloodlust OTK)

I am assuming you do not have any naxx cards, If you did you could very easily incl the following:

Nerubian egg, haunted creeper, shade of naxx, loatheb, sludge belcher, spectral knight and stallag + feugen.

Hope this helps and good luck with your HS journey :)

Glad to hear, I also have Illidan, was experimenting with a Druid token style Illidan with Giants, I must say its quite effective you drop him on curve Innervate and power of the wild now you have Illidan buffed and 2 3/2's to go with him. then you drop sea giant next turn :) 

I find He dies the minute he comes out, so better get 2 tokens out of him. I want to try him in a paladin next or shaman as the spells and minions are cheap and you can get some worth out the guy.

Really glad you gave pagle the chance.

Its pretty good against ppl with high latency as well :) 15 secs- Lag only gives you like 12 or 10 secs to play your turn, imagine those boys playing on the tablets on a shitty conection at MacDonalds or something, they must cry when they see this card.

 Token druid is pretty hard to play in 15 sec as well as miracle, the treants spawn + savage roar + atk with each one myt take 2 long :D.

Blizzard Nerfs cards to make balance changes, yes some were buffed as well, this one may be a representation of things to come. What I mean if blizzard thought this card was complete junk they would upgrade it a tad, but maybe Blizz is thinking this guy is fine as is because when we release these cards it may become tech against a new deck type.

A nice buff to this card though would be your opponent has 10 sec to play his turn, you have 20 secs to play yours and he is a 6 mana 4/8. (Making priests hate this guy :)

Granted, zoo does demolish this card, however this allows you to place him in your deck giving it a little "flexability" you run into 2 many zoo today, out with the pagle in with counter zoo, then its priest war and mage day back in with pagle.

@RJCarrot, nice questions, I would give the card a chance at least, although some cards are not great in theory, in practice they work and vice versa. Giving the card a chance also allows you to get a feel to if you like the card and it suits your play style, e.g if you are a slow controlled player who likes trading out for value experiment with this guy he may suprise you, if you are a zerg player he prob wont fit and when you play him you feel like you need a little something that does more bang for 2 mana, if you are a net decker well you should prob DE him to go towards what evers top ryt now, hell  the author may be one of them players who through in their lot with miracle rogue and only got the leeroy refund, now you dust broke (after convincing themself that the 1 mana nerf broke miracle) and need to build freeze mage, hand lock or attempting control warrior.

The choice is your ultimately, but at least try him he still DE's for the same dust fresh out the pack or after 100 uses. 

On the other side Nat is better than mana tide in the sense you can coin him on turn one and he has one more health making him immune to frost bolt and axe, unreliable yes, viable totally! especially in the slower meta we are going into. Nat can waste an opponents turn dealing with him as well e.g against mage/druid will need to spend turn 4 or coin turn 3 + frost bolt/wrath to  deal with pagle you played on turn 2. if this is the case he has done his job.

I notice as well that this is a budget deck which is really cool, please inform us on how it goes in higher ranks as you start making tweaks to deal with certain matches.

How does your deck go against handlock and druid ramp? 

I must admit I also overlooked the secret keeper and see now that it is a strong anti meta card (especialy with the prevalence of hunters)

Also its hard to see what this decks core is, is it late game/control focused or early game focused or midrange 

perhaps thats where it shines as it can change slightly to adapt , but cant really go too late. 

It seems you use the secret keepers to propel you into the mid game where you start dropping sea giants, and ooze for maximising the buffs perhaps another BOK to increase the consistency of your mid game.

If you really have to find a replacement for Face Man you can use Venture co merc. BGH is more of a tech card since he helps in mirror match and against Handlock. The Face man should be top priority , he makes up for no legendaries in this deck. Good Luck sorry that this post came so late

Keep a watch for the Naxx version of this deck :)

What you say is true Banur about the sample size, however I give this guy props, well done for the idea on this deck originality is 10/10. I think keep the mad scientists in and maybe play with this idea :

- 2 secret keeper

- 2 Acolite of pain

+ 2 loot hoarder

+ 2 Harvest golem

this will give the deck a little more stability in the early game (loot hoarder/ Harvest + redemtion is nice) 

Also the harvest golemn help stick to the field which feeds the sea giant

maybe you can play around with scarlet crusader as well as she recycles the divine shield with redemtion, sticks around for sea giant and is a nice beat stick (especially against hunters) 

The avenge I would mayb decrease to 1 it is good however 2 may clog up your hand , mad scientist will more than likely grab the trap you want (which is great advantage) Mad Sceintist + SOJ kills 2/3 and lives or kills 4/4 with SOJ ping and gets a trap out

The Kel thuzad is a great card , its nice in this deck, do you feel it slows you down a bit? maybe experiment with THadius minions they give nice tempo and a bonus if they die (since only being 5mana) and in some rare circumstances with the help of redemtion you could end up with 2 thadius on the field (just a dream)

Great deck have a good one :)