Hearthpwn

Stadia ignores the fact that American internet speeds are laughably slow and our current laws encourage broadband and fiber providers to offer us pathetic speeds at exorbitant prices. Meanwhile, countries like France have enforced laws that stop exactly what Comcast and Verizon and the other providers have set here in the USA. Countries like South Korea have wide and fairly affordable access to 1GB internet speeds, whereas here it's not only a crapshoot but extremely pricey.

stadia is neat but on top of it being against physical ownership, it relies on great service, meaning unless you're able to afford the service  and live in the right area, you're gonna have a bad time

I keep searching for ways to enjoy the game. Much like the meta, I personally find I need to change things up to keep it from getting stale or frustrating. It's kind of part of the game, since it's a competitive game based on refining your deck to address others as efficiently as possible, so cancer decks spread pretty quickly because sometimes the only worse feeling than giving in to netdecking (which isn't a bad thing imo and impossible to avoid given we have the Internet) is losing to a cancer deck.

I'm really enjoying trying other classes outside of hunter (quest has been my main this season, never face hunter... ugh), and when standard gets tilting for me, I hit wild ladder with whatever cards I still have. I'm currently working on a wild highlander dragon paladin with a friend of mine and it's really fun trying to fine tune it on a ladder experience where I don't feel pressured to do well or risk losing rank. If I lose in wild - since it's not my main mode of play - I just lose and don't feel the tilt of a 4th failed attempt to break into the next rank because I matched into a hard opponent or bad mulligan or I just played poorly.

Even if you don't have a lot of wild cards, I can recommend giving it a shot, especially for classes you don't normally run on ladder and would like to scoop a couple extra wins for. Your fellow wild players will thank you for joining the queues, too.

Shaman dominated and created a meta where face hunters thrived. Now that loads of players are running face hunter, Galakrond warrior and quest priest are becoming the most dominant.

im not the biggest fan of this expansion's meta so far, but one thing I do think is great is how it has shifted so quickly already. 

the matchmaking only takes what's available, so blame shaman for remaining dominant enough to encourage face hunter to even show up.

oh and run Galakrond warrior if you can. It brutalizes hunters

I think this is a common problem with most expansions that contain great control tools. If the control that comes out of the expansion isn't extremely good (Uldum control Warrior was exceptional until we realized highlander hunter had the gas to beat it up), it quickly gets run over by the more popular, cheaper, and faster deck builds.

Aggro appeals to players for a number of reasons, so Blizzard isn't going to spend any expansion trying to upend that dynamic.

That being said, I was a bit disappointed that - as an aggro player - control was largely shoved aside before it could present a real challenge. Along with control went dragons, since there aren't many if any fast decks that center around dragon value. I'm not sure they really can, either. At first, I was glad, since aggro also discourages OTK decks (something a number of players thought would come from druid and continue on in paladin, which it has in a small way), but since the aggro was also better than control, the only counter was other aggro.

Shaman is the worst offender, but rogues that pull and play Apothecary by turn 3-5, face hunters, and pirate warriors all contribute to the savage beatdown meta that we're in. Shaman can generate wide boards and outrageous value (that Galakrond is way too powerful with double 8/8's with rush, especially alongside Shudderwock), so they easily set up hyper value that punches your board down and builds toward at least two huge swings that few decks recover from if they aren't poised for lethal already.

I think the set has some incredibly fun and interactive cards that have been ignored out of necessity; how can we enjoy true midrange or control partaking in the meta when shaman, hunter, and rogue are largely determining what matters on ladder? Now we're facing a resurgence in another non-interactive deck: rez priest. Yes, thanks to the face hunter surge, priest now has a home on ladder beating the stuffing out of hunters by simply surviving until turn 5, then their walls go up and they can casually heal. They don't even need to attack anymore outside of covering the board to eliminate necessitated trades.

We'll see what the solo adventure brings to the table, because in spite of how much I'm personally enjoying success with quest hunter, I miss the days of control that could run out of options and aggro that could overplay their hand and run dry if misplayed. Walling up or blowing out double value on my minions aren't my idea of a particularly fun meta, but that's just my opinion.

Quest hunter still has it 

Quest hunter pummeled gallylock plenty of times so far. 

Is your deck unable to contest the early board?

Ok, I want to be wrong about these nerfs affecting almost nothing, I really do. I want to see shaman play numbers go down and their win rates drop to reasonable levels (I don't necessarily want them to tank; variety is part of a good meta).

I don't expect that. At best, this opened up an extra couple turns for face hunter to pummel out non-interactive damage, for rogue to draw their busted Apothecary combo cards, for pirate warrior to run you down.

I still expect shaman to be a major presence in the meta game, as their cards are still outrageously powerful: their Galakrond is completely broken, their quest is a bad design that rewards basic deck building with double value at no sacrifice to the structure of the deck, and Shudderwock is still one of the best backup plans in the game should "constant board flooding and value generation" not cut it before an OTK or aggro beatdown ends them.

I want to be wrong, and I hope I am, but I have no confidence in this nerf shifting the meta much, let alone to a good place.

This is such a disconcerting image. Brings a much darker meaning to the term "n e w   s k i n" since she looks like she'd love to take yours while you scream and scream

Quote from jigubigule >>

dude, can u tell me what do u want? make it useless? wtf u want for shaman to be killed? its balanced enough already, the dragons pack its not as op as u all cry about, whenever i play that card its taken out ez so why the struggle? i bet all kids that comment are playing default decks, OFC IF U PLAY A SHITTY DECK U WILL LOSE AGAINST A PRO MADE ONE

 

 We've solved it, people, close the thread. Our problem was that we're playing default decks.

Not that pros, streamers, and the community all recognized how problematic shaman is (alongside hunter and rogue, but they won't get touched for another month at best, imo). Couldn't be that.

They announced empty number changes. 

This is less than nothing

anything you can wall up with and stay out of burst range. CW is a strong counter if played well. Reno dragon mage is another strong solution if played as control, but susceptible to misplays since quest hunter has a decent number of ways to refill the board.

NEVER go wide unless it includes 1-3 decent taunts. Make them expend their tokens and kill everything all the time. As a hunter main (aside from the last two days; I'm over shamanstone and rogue is the solution for me), I can promise you my favorite matches are the ones in which people misalign their removal priorities and open up burst opportunities.

Face hunter is death by 1,000 cuts. Use 1,000 bandaids and you're in the clear. Try to anticipate the biggest bursts that can happen not just next turn but the one after. Hunters have some great bluffs in cards like Hyena and if they play it well, you'll misuse removal and open up bigger opportunities later on.

Best of luck!

This post gives me life.

After I finally played rogue, I've found a new reason to play standard: concedes from shaman when I drop 30+ burst damage.

If it weren't so toxic, I'd say I'm sad that shaman is getting nerfed, but I'm not. Goodbye, week one cancer.

Hello, pirate warriors and face hunters.

They might hit a couple key cards for pirates, too. We can't know until they say or release the nerf patch 

Quote from OneTrickPony >>

Quote from Danjo >>

Quote from OneTrickPony >>

Quote from Danjo >>

There are around 100 million Hearthstone players.

The Hearthpwn community makes up about .00001% of them.

I'm sorry that some of you feel this expansion "sucks", "is too powerful", etc.  My experience is that I am having a hell of a good time trying Dragonbane hunter, Shu'ma quest hunter, Galkrond shaman, Galakrond rogue, pirate warrior, treeant druid, and a few others.  This meta is just a few days old.  This bitching and moaning about things happens after every expansion comes out.  The early powerhouses will subside as decks are refined.  Keep calm, play on, and most importantly have fun.  It's a game.  If you aren't having fun, take a step back from it.

 You are aware of the nerf announcement, are you? Maybe, just maybe, sometimes the bitching is justified. I rarely bitch (last two times were sn1p sn4p and shudder), but to be honest experimentation was NEVER as little fun as in this expansion. 

I am, and that's fine.  Some tweaks here and there are probably needed.  This doom and gloom shit, however, is tired.  The game is fine.  The developers make mistakes sometimes.  It happens.  It doesn't mean the sky is falling.  Your experience with experimentation being stifled is subjective, just like mine of enjoying things right now is subjective.  My point is that out of 100 million players, the infintesimaly small amount of them represented here is not an accurate representation of the player base, and by and large it seems players are happy.  Check out Reddit and other avenues for HS discussion to see what I mean.  Hearthpwn is a unique community in that, overall, we are fairly whiney.

 I agree with most of your points and they are well expressed. this community is sometimes having a hard time to get the complaints right. If most of the players are happy, that is also fine. Still, I feel lile expressing frustations is good feedback. 

Personally, I had a shitty experience. Build 12 decks and ran into 25 / 30 shamans (7 in a row) and I went back to battlegrounds, because it was just not much fun tbh. Hope I have another shot next week.

 All this^
I'm doing my best to enjoy the ladder matches and sometimes I do (win or lose) but shaman is strangling the joy out of experimentation for me. Even when I caved last night and ran shaman, it was not fun to play. Every other match was a mirror. The nerfs are unquestionably needed, but it's not "SHAMAN IS TIER S" like a lot of people on here are saying. It has counters, it's just that those counters are not what everyone wants to play (control dragon mage and OTK pally are wrecking shaman, btw).

Rough meta game will get better after the patch. Then we can all find another thing to complain about!

Quote from Keerun >>

galakrond rogue with magic carpet wrecks every shaman deck i've faced so far, currently 9-1 at rank 4 :)

 That sounds like a really interesting deck. I struggle to find rogue builds that I enjoy. Could you link/post it here?