Hearthpwn

"I think I'm favorite because World Champions always have a Rogue deck" -Tom

And he got it right ! Rogues can pull off RNG based debilitating free wins and completely stress out the opponent in the next games ;-)

Although I clearly was all-in on supporting Fr0zen because of his more innovative lineup and better charisma as a person (imo), Tom clearly deserved his victory; he kept his blood cold even at 0-2 and made a very interesting stragical choice by choosing to starts the 3rd game with his weakest deck against Jade; as long as he didn't loose that Highlander VS Jade match, he was able to put himself in a psychologically threatening position even with Fr0zen being on the match point all along. His self control did the rest :)

Blizzard way to tell "u guys are pesting about Priests and Paladins ? Well here are 12 unnerfed decks from when those two classes were trash Tier. Enjoy !"

Pretty cool way to introduce this weekend's Championship and also probably the future announcement of the nerfs/HoF, since every single deck in this Tavern Brawl features at least one card that got nerfed or Hall of Fame'd ;-)

I think it's a misunderstanding to think Bonemare and Cobalt Scalebane are a problem. Those are two top curve win-more cards that reward proactive players for sticking and dominating the board, punish midrange decks that don't focus on controlling the board enough, and get countered by heavy control decks that have enough removals and clears.

Of course there's a problem with proactive decks being too present, but it's not because of those two cards :

• Heavy Control decks (Warriors, Mages, Priests -yeah Control Priest ! Don't even remember what it was supposed to look like right ?-) are basically absent because Combo-Control win strategies are too powerful (I mean, seriously ?Mindbreaker ? You can't possibly hope to do something with that if you aren't putting a ton of pressure in order to make the Shadow Word: Pain / Silence immediate answer actually cost a little bit of something to the Priest player. And Skulking Geist (Jades) / Spellbreaker (Cube) / Polymorph (Cube) are much more costly for control decks when aggro/slightly midrangy proactive decks are as strong as they are now), meaning aggro and the least value-oriented tempo/midrange decks have zero reasons to worry about being hard countered.
• The best proactive decks have too strong board presence tools (in the form of Patches the Pirate + Corridor Creeper + Prince Keleseth or Call to Arms) in the early->mid game, which makes Bonemare and Cobalt Scalebane extremely easy to play, for the decks that even have the space/need to play them. That problem is even more obvious when you compare the Tier 1/ very top of Tier 2 proactive decks (Aggro/Murloc Paladins; Tempo Rogue; Zoo Warlock) to the Tier 2 / Tier 3 proactive decks (Aggro Druid, Aggro Hunter, Secret Mage, Token Shaman) : the best have access to all "3" board presence broken tools (Prince Keleseth making up for somewhat of a  tool comparable to Call to Arms in term of power, even though you have fewer chances to get Keleseth regularly, making Paladins better proactive decks in general), while the weakest only have access to Patches the Pirate and Corridor Creeper, and thus fall behind.

So even though getting finished off by Bonemare and Cobalt Scalebane leaves a bitter taste, the real problem actually comes from the too strong board presence tools that make those two top curve easily playable in the first place, combined with the extreme predation of Combo-Control decks over Heavy Control decks.

Hey man ! gg for hitting Legend, hope your climb to the top gets as well as possible !

Since you've been tinkering on a lot of different lists and have come up with this double Shiv variant, I'd like to know your opinion on Shiv compared to other draw engines like Azure Drake and Gadgetzan Auctioneer (Auctioneer would probably be more of a 1-of, why not alongside a Shiv then, to have access to 3 big draw-engines).

The card regularly felt too weak to me, particularly since the deck plays reactively because of the lack of minions.

• Against proactive decks, can you really rely on it for damage flexibility against aggro while it's most likely dependent on other cards like Backstab to have something to finish off, except your board control toolbox is limited because you need space for Cavern Shinyfinder and Leeching Poison ?
• If not, then how is Shiv better than Azure Drake or Gadgetzan Auctioneer againt reactive/late-game-combo decks ? Don't you feel like it makes you too dependant on drawing Sprint, Kingsbane pieces and Leyline Spider ? (or in other terms : is building up a win plan based at 80% on few independant cards to win against defensive decks that precisely punish too passive decks by being able to OTK you or generate a lot of late-game pressure efficient enough ?)
• Also don't you think the low impact of Shiv makes the best tempo cards like Sap and Eviscerate weaker, since less board potential not only means you'll less regularly have windows of opportunity to use them agressively, but also means you'll have to use them defensively and sub-optimally more often ?

I mean, maybe in the end I'm just not good enough at playing Rogue passively with enough hindisight to spend my ressources perfectly against a given archetype :-p

Thanks in advance :)

Quote from Lyra_Silvertongue >>

I'm almost seriously beginning to believe that people shouldn't be able to post that a card should be nerfed unless they can create strong logical arguments for why the nerf should happen.

For now Reynad's take on nerfing Patches the Pirate was the most convincing for me : he proposed to give him a "Die at the end of turn." line.

Forces the player to use it for trade and rely less on 1 mana pirates only as far as one-drop goes (I mean it'll still work with 1 mana pirates but it should then be avoided as a 1 drop when you're playing first), and significantly reduces the buff effects abuse you can make off of him, mainly in Tempo Rogue using Prince Keleseth and pitching out a 3/3 or 4/4 Patches + a pirate, which completely rapes the early game's numbers and logic.

I would disagree with saying that Patches is too too broken or should be nerfed just because it's extremely popular; I just think the card is problematic for the game if it contribues a heck of a lot to making early game pressure potential extremely high (which he does with buffs), or if it creates some form of power creep kind of effect on the game where playing at least two 1-mana Pirates and Patches in a deck is strictly better in any aggro deck than playing a given good and playable 1-drop (which Patches does again as no 1-drop can beat a 3/2 or a 2/3 for 1 in term of value for aggro decks).

She's basically too slow against aggro, and if you want to increase your match-ups against defensive decks, adding a Leeroy Jenkins and/or cheaper value tools would most likely be better. She's played in Kingsbane Mill decks because those decks have a big range of different effects that they need extra copies of.

Tar Creeper vs SI:7 Agent : you'll obiously end up playing a much more passive game with Tar Creeper and rely solely on Kingsbane and Fal'dorei Strider to win against defensive decks.

Maybe it's a good call; I haven't practiced enough the Miracle variant recently to tell if it's enough. I would'nt recommend it for the Tempo variant though as you want to play more offensively :)

Quote from Menax >>

Maybe that came to mymind because i am matched against priest 9/10 lately and this deck has 0 minions that could be removed by SW: Death besides him, i'll keep him for now (i'm only 16 atm, so that might change if i rank up)

Play the Tempo variant if you want to outpace Big Priest or Cube Lock.

You can punish a Big Priest with the two Saps in Miracle but you'll need to be lucky enough to draw your Leyline Spiders and pressure them while the Obsidian Statue is in their hand. The Tempo variant provides enough pressure to not let them have the time to build their revive strategy easily.

If you face a Cube Lock and he plays correctly with his Skull of the Man'ari, he'll know he can't hope to use his Possessed Lackey to set-up his Carnivorous Cube and plan on doing everything during his turn not to get punished by Sap. Once again, having a good opening with Tempo Kingsbane doesn't give him much freedom and you can burst him down after he's build his wall with Eviscerate or simply easily win if his plan fizzles and you have the opportunity to play around their clears.

That said let's clear out that we're talking about two highroll decks that will generally win their game when they have a good RNG. The most "reliable" way (that I can think of) to win against those decks even when their plan gets to work would be playing a Malygos Rogue or Mill Rogue. Playing a "more powerful" Aggro Paladin or Tempo Rogue won't change much against two Voidlord or multiple Obsidian Statue in a row.

Which variant are you playing : Miracle or Tempo ? What are the problems you generally encounter ?

That's far too long to wait. We have already been living with these terrible mistakes for five months now, some of them even longer.

I can't even express how disrespected I feel as a player.

Well at least the game might be watchable after the summer HTC.  Right now though it's essentially the same class lineups from 85% of the field while 15% try to be cute and lose badly in the end to the 800 lb gorilla sitting in the corner.

can't wait to see the changes time to open some knc packs

Quote from Trimutius >>

They owe you nothing. You owe them nothing too, if you don’t like how they do thing just stop using their game. You can’t get money back though, because you clicked “I accept” under statement that said that they don’t owe you anything and all sales are final.

Quote from RandyB123 >>

Decks are already submitted for HCT, they can't make balance changes now. It makes perfect sense.

They need both the large casual audience as well as the professional scene to be successful so your argument doesn't hold water.

Why do millions of people have to suffer for a small minority in competitive hearthstone... This does not make since and I figured this would be the case. I can now confirm that Hearthstone is now a game catered around the HCT before it is a card game for millions. I am now officially moving on...it should not take a month to balance the game when other companies do it within two weeks. All for the sake of maybe a hundred people which are clearly more important then the rest of us.... so we can expect this in the future, thank god I am done spending money on this game and any future expansion. Hey Blizzard - Team 5 JUST TO LET YOU KNOW THAT WE THE MILLIONS ARE THE REASON YOU ARE SUCCESFUL NOT THE COMMERCIALLY VIABLE SPOKEPERSONS ON TWITCH AND HCT THAT SELL YOUR GAMES!

Wow such constructive comment

Maybe because Tempo Rogue is an actual tempo deck that follows a tempo playstyle, which some players enjoy, unlike "Tempo Mage", which unlike the older version is not a tempo playstyle (it is a burn playstyle).

Is tempo kingsbane still viable in standard?

Wow, Purify is mentioned as a card rotating