Hearthpwn

Wondrous Wand isn't a balanced card. But there was a reason for its high power. It originally could only be generated randomly by the Chest created by Marin the Fox which is an insanely slow meme card. So the pay off needed to be significant for the card to ever see any play (even as a meme). Then they printed Heistbaron Togwaggle. This card has access to the exactly same treasures, the requirement to activate him is ridiculously easy to achieve and you can choose what you want. The power creep was off the charts. I was baffled when they revealed the card. My immediate thought was: "Wait... isn't this a bit too strong?". And here we are with the 0 cost card clown fiesta powered by Heistbaron and Galakrond. Legendary cards need big pay offs to be relevant but this kind of mana cheat is pretty ridiculous.

You have exactly 13 health and your opponent has 13 damage on the board. Mass Dispel can't save in this situation so Zephrys prioritized the removal of the minions or protection for your face with Argus. It's unlikely that you could escape from this situation but if you played the Expired Merchant then maybe Zephrys could have offered Sap. I don't see any other possibilities here.

Quote from Ravza >>

You can run a different dragon instead of kalecgos though. You can play an azure dragon, that's a pretty decent dragon that can get you another dragon when played (and so you can play it on curve comfortably and can get you kalecgos or another alexstraza). There isn't any replacement for the prime though.

 Running a different dragon isn't the same as running Kalecgos. Azure Explorer isn't guaranteed to discover him and there many dragons that are simply not useful to the deck's game plan. There are no other cards like Solarian, but in my experience he isn't required for the deck to work. You could say the same for Kalecgos but the fact is: he is way more synergistic with the deck and improves it as a whole. On the other hand, Solarian is mostly just an unreliable finisher.

Astromancer Solarian is just another one of the many RNG clown fiesta cards that Mage has. It's played mostly as a finisher but it can either be incredibly effective at that or whiff really hard. Kalecgos is a slow card but this is a Control deck so it's fine. He is very reliable and is a big threat that your opponent needs to answer or they risk losing the game on the spot. He is a dragon as well which is important to activate your Dragoncaster and Malygos, Aspect of Magic. He is way more important to the deck than Solarian. I'm playing the deck around Diamond 4-1 with a 69% wr (34/15) without Solarian.

I haven't seen a new deck in standard in a very long time. I'm starting to build a wild collection (buying old adventures). I hope i can see a more varied environment there but even if that's not the case i can still use the cards to make my own unique decks. Last month i almost made to legend for the first time with an off meta Highlander Quest Hunter that i created but DH ruined the dream. The class has ruined standard for me.

They didn't want to kill the card. Mana cost increase is devastating for combo cards like Mercenary. They chose to weaken her body to make her board presence less relevant. Now she can't survive more than one tick of damage from Risky Skipper and early tempo plays (like Egg on turn 2 followed by Inner Rage and Mercenary on 3) become weaker as well. Early pressure is important for tempo decks and every point of damage counts on some match ups. It may seem like nothing but the reduction in attack makes trading worse and the reduced health means the opponent will take less damage over the course of the game (because she dies very easily). The same applies to the nerf in Scavenger's Ingenuity and partially to Scrap Imp (as this one only got a health buff reduction).

The issue with DH is the insane amount of card draw they have. Usually, control decks will play defensively and remove stuff until the aggro deck runs out of cards in hand (and they most likely concede). But DH doesn't suffer from the same problem. They have card draw for every situation and one of the cards apply a big discount on their already cheap cards. Add to the mix a card that destroys your board and your face at the same time and a card that prevents you from protecting yourself with taunts (and the whole purpose of taunt is to prevent charge) and you have the perfect aggro deck that doesn't care about your control tools because they will always find a way to kill you.

Only Resurrect Priest is annoying. I have no problem dealing with Galakrond or Highlander Priest and playing against them is always an interesting battle of resource management. And i really don't understand people complaining about a CONTROL deck being able to remove everything. It's exactly what it's supposed to do. Control the board, manage resources, generate value and win in the late game through whatever means available (fatigue, combo, big minions and so on). That complaint makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It's like asking for a Control Warrior to not be able to gain any armor or use any board clears. And no, we don't need any more aggro in the game. There's enough of that already.

I'm glad we are finally getting a balance patch but a few of these are a bit confusing. The change to Bloodsworn Mercenary doesn't do much as its value is in the battlecry. Also, Bloodboil Brute wasn't a problematic card and reducing one attack doesn't seem like a big deal. Maybe i'm missing something here.

Blackjack Stunner shouldn't increase the cost of the minion at all but this is better than nothing, i suppose. Shadowjeweler Hanar becoming easier to kill is nice though.

We will finally be able to kill Priestess of Fury reliably. It's about time. Crimson Sigil Runner doing one less damage also helps a lot in the early game.

The change to Imprisoned Scrap Imp isn't great since the core of the buff is the attack value. It makes trading worse but it won't stop the abuse with Charge minions. Scavenger's Ingenuity was a cool card for combos and Rush cards but Stonetusk Boar is still around and causing problems so the card needed to be changed, unfortunately.

The buff to Aldor Attendant is a big deal. A 1 mana 1/3 is pretty good and it curves nicely into Hand of A'dal. This change is going to be more relevant than the previous buff.

The Lurker Below was a good card already and making it a bit more resilient is nice. The change in cost for Torrent is interesting since you are more likely to cast a spell on turn 3 than 4. Shattered Rumbler still suffers from a bad curve but at least you can play it for the stats.

Murozond and Sethekk are really fun cards to play with. After i crafted Murozond, he quickly became one of my favorite cards ever. You can do some really cool stuff with these cards. However, Gala Priest is a tier 3 deck and is highly inconsistent. If you want to be competitive then Dragonbane and Nagrand Slam are great crafts. The cards are pretty boring, but they do what must be done (win games) and Highlander Hunter is one of the best decks atm. Stickyfinger is unnecessary as a tech. Harrison Jones or a simple Ooze are good enough against weapons. Reno is a really good card as well. Highlander Mage isn't as good as Highlander Hunter, but it's doing relatively fine.

TL,DR: Dragon Bane, Nagrand Slam and Reno are good crafts if you want to compete. Murozond and Sethekk are insanely fun. Stickyfinger is totally unnecessary.

A couple of days ago I had the 60g quest 'Play 3 games as Priest/x/x' and as I didn't have any competitive deck for any of the 3 classes I decided to put together a random 'Galakrond Priest' deck with whatever pieces I had available  + some generally useful class cards. I went 2-1 against proper meta decks and I have to say I loved the archetype enough that I seriously consider crafting the cards required to properly play it, and I was surprised that not more people play it. The value generation from the invokes is very high that you don't really miss your lack of card draw that Priests suffer from. Yes there is some RNG involved, but as said above there are very few 'bad' minions you can get. 

And indeed last couple of days while grinding above D5 I noticed that most priest players I faced were playing 'Gala' rather than 'Rez'...

when someone like me who hates demon hunters guts and thinks it's an absolute trash heap that should've never been in the game has a 75% win rate with it while not even trying and just herpdiderping around hitting face all day.... then maaaaaaaaybe the class is broken....... maybe

#justsayin

Revert the nerf on him and make it so that he can't hit face.

I feel your pain guys. Team 5 are incompetent I'm afraid. It's been a shitshow since Brode left. The fact that they continue to ignore the best aspects of Hearthstone in favour of the most frustrating and unfun mechanics and balancing is just tiresome at this point. 

Let me start of by saying I agree with some points, like Altruis. It still feels like one of the most powerful Legendaries the game has ever had, and it’s way too easy to completely abuse the effect. It needed an effect-nerf, not this rather lazy mana/attack-nerf. 

However, I do not agree with the overall sentiment of the post. Rather than saying they screwed up, can we start saying they tried something new and it came out more powerful and meta-warping than they anticipated? I for one, welcome the fact they launched a new class, and Dean has said multiple times, if not in every interview leading up to the launch of AoO, this is their first time doing this and we should show patience. Can we actually start doing that? They have been fast enough with the nerfs, faster than they ever were.

People pretend Demon Hunter is still the same power level it was at launch, and it’s simply not, by a long shot. The nerfs had enough impact to make many more decks at least tier 2 or higher. Long story short: I’d rather have them add more classes in the future and fix their PL in the upcoming month or two, than them being afraid to do that now because of all the downright hatred they got for trying it in the first place.

Legend was never really a test of skill anyway, it's just a grind. And I'm happy that you have to grind less.

You left out one important detail.  Zephrys does NOT know what's in your hand.  So, if you're looking for Zephrys to provide you with a lethal option through burn, you first need to use the burn in your hand to lower your opponent's life total and then Zephrys can do the rest.

I'll give an example.  Let's say you're playing hunter.  Your opponent has 11 health and 4 minions in play (no taunts).  Your board is empty but, you have 10 mana and in your hand you have Unleash the Hounds and Zephrys the Great.

In this scenario.  If you jam Zephrys first, he is likely to give you options that help stabilize the board state since there is no card he can give you that does 11 damage to face.  However, if you unleash and go face for 4, then hero power for 2 more.  Your opponent will have 5 health remaining and you'll have 5 mana remaining.  So, if you play Zephrys with this new board state, he will recognize that Kill Command or Lava Burst is lethal and he'll offer you one or both of them.

It's the same concept as manipulating your mana to affect the choices Zephrys gives you.  From what I can tell, lethal is always his top priority; however, for best results, you must first spot the lethal yourself and then do the majority of the work before playing Zephrys to make his job as easy as possible.

Great guide though.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional player. I am not even an above-average player, and I only made legend for the first time this season.  What I am is someone who loves this game plays it a lot and above all else likes to play control, so I have played Zephrys hundreds if not thousands of times in his lifespan and in that time I have learned to use him and came to some conclusions based on my data.

The Card

 How most people seem to think the card works:

Zephrys will analyse the board state and offer me the perfect card. He takes into account all cards currently on the board, their text, their stats and their minion type. He will provide me with 3 tailor-made solutions based on his assessment of the current situation.  He knows all the cards in hearthstone, knows all keywords and knows how to deal with every single scenario in the perfect manner meaning I do not have to think about playing him, I can just jam him down, and he will give me the victory or at least clear the board.

 How the card works:

Zephrys will analyse the board using a sophisticated algorithm. He only knows the classic set of cards off by heart including keywords and stat lines and when a new expansion is released the only tinkering to his algorithm is the inclusion of a new keyword or game mechanic and what potentially counters it.  Zephrys has an internal value system that prioritises certain things above others when he does his board assessment.

These assumptions have not been confirmed anywhere by developers or any deep dive on his code just through my anecdotal evidence, but it is what I believe to be correct and has served me well when playing this "great" card.

How I think his algorithm works

Zephrys assesses a board by taking each element in a specific order and then running that through an internal value system to assign a threat level to each of the opponent's cards and how detrimental they are to his player's chances of winning the game or surviving the turn.

I also believe that Zephrys knowledge of hearthstone and its cards is limited only to the classic set of cards which he knows every single detail of and keywords from all other expansions which he only knows in general terms.  The reason I believe this is because if Zephrys knew every single card on an individual basis there would be some poor code monkey on team 5 who had only one job and that would be coding Zephrys for 8 hours a day, and he would still be catching up on last years cards right now. So they gave him the classic set as the basis for his card knowledge, and now he uses that knowledge to assign threat levels based on the factors below.

Mana remaining - This is the number one thing Zephrys will assess because he will offer the optimal card in whatever mana bracket you have left.

Player health - He determines if there is a way for him to offer lethal to his player or if there is nothing else on board and his player is low he will provide healing as a priority card.

Stats - He looks at the opponent's board and the stats of each card and decides which card pose the highest threat base on health, damage, and mana cost

Keyword - Contrary to popular belief Zephrys can read he just doesn't bother reading everything unless its a classic card because he can't see that text because in his brain only the classic set and various new keywords exist

Minion Type - Hands up anyone who has killed the Demon hunter Murloc by Zephrys and crabbing it to death? Nuff said he knows minion types and knows how to counter them as long as the said counter is a classic card.

Other Board States - Weapons, frozen cards, etc. he will read the situation and offer a card based on these factors if they pose a more significant threat or stand in the way of lethal.

We know what factors he looks at and if we assume that he only has the classic set for base card knowledge what can we glean from this well the number one complaint about Zephrys is his inability to read card text usually concerning death rattle. Still, when we look at death rattle in the classic set, we can kind of see why Zephrys is prioritising a minion's stats over the death rattle.

Good Deathrattle classic Set

So let's examine these card they all have death rattles, and they are all worth silencing or transforming to remove. Still, none of them would be substantial game-changing gains for your opponent except arguably Tirion, and that's on these cards individually.

 If your opponent has other factors in play Zephrys is going to prioritise removing the main body and not the rattle a lot more because in truth his knowledge of deathrattles is skewed by how weak the best deathrattles in the classic set are in comparison.

Bad Deathrattle classic Set

The Beast is partly responsible for Zephrys not prioritising deathrattles it has great stats for the cost, and the deathrattle is beneficial for you. He will use this criterion when looking at all other deathrattle minions and will assign good stats with a lousy death rattle.

 Now when we take all of his information about deathrattle cards into account, you can probably see why he doesn't see the need to offer hex or a silence most of the time especially on boards that have other factors in play.

How to use Zephrys effectively

There are 3 rules that I use when playing Zephrys, and they have never let me down, nor have they left me disappointed with the options he provided.

Rule 1 - Know what you want before you play him.

Knowing what you want him to offer is crucial because you can then manipulate your mana and board state so that he is much more likely to provide it.  If you wish to generate hex or polymorph to remove that death rattle minion, then remove as many other factors as you can and make sure that when you play Zeprys, you only have 4 mana remaining.

Rule 2 - Manipulate your Mana

Only Play zephrys when you have a specific amount of mana left so that you force him to prioritise cards that mana bracket, a great example of this is against Rez Priest he has played Vargoth on an empty board consider the two scenarios below.

Scenario 1

if you zephrys on 10 mana against Archmage Vargoth Zephrys would likely offer the following 3 options Shadow Word: Pain Natalie Seline and Tirion Fordring. Shadow word pain is the most efficient method of dealing with the opponent's board. It leaves you 6 mana to work with, Seline allows you to destroy the opponent's board and develops a strong one of your own and finally, Tirion is just a tremendous proactive card to play as it is both defensive and offensive at the same time.

Scenario 2

This time you hero power or play a 2 mana card and then you play Zephrys against Archmage Vargoth you guarantee that you get a Cabal Shadow Priest as one of your options because you have forced Zephrys to prioritise a 6 mana option.

Rule 3 - Treat him like a discover card, but you control his card pool

Zephrys is a discover card except you control what card he can discover, so it is your job to make sure you limit his card pool to the optimal solutions.  There is a reason Vulpera Scoundrel is in 1% of wild decks her discovery pool is so large there is no point in playing her but if you could limit her pool to a particular mana cost and knew which set she was limited too you would play her a lot more right? So treat Zephrys the same way, and you will not be disappointed.

Conclusion - aka TLDR

Zephrys is only coded to know the basic and classic set of cards and new keywords, he prioritises an option based on your remaining mana, and he doesn't read text outside of key words, stats and minion types oh and hex puts a taunt in the way so he will not offer hex that often because it denies face damage and we all know he is a big old smorcer at heart

Now stop complaining he didn't offer you the perfect solution and make his job easier by playing him correctly.

Well, Al'ar surely does have his moments...

Hoo boy. I am so tired of mage by this point. I know they're not dominating or anything, but every mage game has become so boring to me. Just the constant, unending barrage of not being able to play the game through seemingly endless freeze is tiring. I have had games where one minion has been frozen for 5 turns. I know they have to expend resources to do it, but it just isn't fun.