Hearthpwn

back before undertaker was nerfed and deathrattle hunter was big, i was playing a lot of control warrior, and that was a pretty decent matchup for me.  so, one time i got matched up against a person playing hunter.  hunter's turn 1: undertaker.  my turn 1: coin, axe, kill undertaker.  hunter concedes.  next game i was matched up against the exact same player.  hunter's turn 1: undertaker.  my turn 1: coin, axe, kill undertaker.  hunter concedes.  needless to say i was pretty amused.

from 53 packs:

2 legendary (gazlowe, vol'jin)
9 epic
1 golden rare
5 golden common

730 dust (including 9 duplicate rares).   i almost got at least 2 of every common, missing only 1 lost tallstrider and 2 darkbomb (and i got 11 explosive sheep!).  one pack had 3 annoy-o-tron, so it was aptly named.  now to decide what to do with my 4200 dust ...

Quote from Djnardu »

Number one thing I would love is a "you are squelched" notice.

 

srsly.  i squelch everybody, with the occasional exception of people that send a greeting on the first turn (and will squelch them as well if they send more emotes).  i've only ever accepted one post-match friend request, and the dude started flaming about how i was such a noob (after he lost horribly to me) so i don't accept those anymore either.  i doubt most of the people perpetrating these behaviors are participating in forums here though, with the possible exception of decklists (i would guess they're the ones talking about how much a deck sucks after using it for 3 games without winning).

i like that it suggests that the meta is diversifying, since the total cut of the top 5 drops from 75->67->61%.  that's a good thing (if it's representative).

what's the sample size on the seasons, and the overall class breakdown?

i *started* a second account to do f2p on the day naxx was released and don't anticipate having any trouble unlocking all the wings.  possibly not on the day of release for every one, but just from dailies they will all be unlocked within a couple weeks of the last one hitting.

what they said.  flamestrike is the single best card in arena.  the only time i might pick fireball over flamestrike is if i already have, say, 4 of them.

props to anybody that does it without alex.

you're not guaranteed anything with a recursive strategy, as you have to be able to win before your hand fills up (at which point the bounced minions will simply disappear).

Quote from modded »

What change are you mentioning? I made no changes to specifically counter Freeze Mage, and Ragnaros the Firelord - whilst great against Freeze Mage - is not there solely to counter it. It's won me plenty of games. It's less situational than Alexstrasza, more mana efficient, and by itself a win condition. Also can kill a late stealthed auctioneer.

i was intending to reply to comment #1, but i seem to have hit the wrong button.  i (in theory) like this variation of handlock ... it's at least gotten me interested enough to want to play around with it again.

i doubt it, since regardless of how good your deck is it takes both a good amount of luck and an almost total lack of mistakes to get to 12.  you have a decent amount of removal, but only the two taunts (timely snake totems could help you out here), no bolt/strike, and only the one conditional draw card.  a bad draw could give you serious problems stopping an aggressive start.  if you've gotten to 11 then you'll get to 12 eventually (i've only done 12 twice, and 11 only once).  good luck!

using the freeze mage matchup to motivate any changes is a bad idea, as that one is terrible, unlike any other bad matchup, and not all that common.  you basically want to use effectiveness against aggro to motivate changes if you're still in the portion of the ladder where aggro is common (up to rank 5ish).

Last night I was playing handlock against a shaman.  He got me to 4 with a Defender of Argus and Doomhammer.  On my turn I had only a Molten Giant in hand, so I die unless I Lifetap into a Sunfury Protector (only Taunt-enabler left).  I proceed to do exactly that.  He's now at 7 and dead on my next turn.  He then proceeds to draw what I imagine were the only 2 Taunt minions in his deck in a row (Tazdingos) to stay alive, having used both Feral Spirits already, followed by his last Earth Shock for the win.  The RNG giveth, and the RNG taketh away.

Auctioneer could be changed to "draw a card the first time you play a spell in a turn", perhaps changing the cost to 4.  I'm not really concerned with combos that take 3+ cards to pull off in general; sometimes I'm just going to lose because that's how card games work.  The only reason it's sort of an issue with miracle Rogues is that they can frequently draw so much of their deck that getting all the pieces isn't hard, and the massive card draw from Auctioneer drives this (and Rogues in particular can keep him from being killed).  The only effective counter is to kill the Rogue quickly, but aggro is boring.

here are my two 12-win decks (both 12-2), from maybe 50ish total runs thus far.

losses were both to shamans in games 6 and 13.  nothing super-flashy, just lots of solid tempo cards.  and

this deck was simply ridiculous, and i was actually sort of surprised that i didn't go 12-0.  i made it to 9-0 before the first loss (farthest i've made it undefeated), but i don't remember much about the losses unfortunately.  the only really memorable game was when i beat a druid that played ironbark protectors on 3 consecutive turns, which i killed with 3 flamestrike+trade.  i think i did take one hit from the third.  rewards were 255g, gold blood imp, and 2 packs for the mage and 325g, gold argent protector, and 1 pack for rogue.

i still think the best reward i've received was for an 8-win run, when i got a legendary card prize (even if it was al'akir).