Book of Mercenaries: Guff Runetotem - Druid
It's a new chapter in the Book of Mercenaries, with Guff Runetotem, the Druid. This next chapter is now LIVE! The reward for completing the chapter is 1 pack containing only Druid cards from Standard.
Quote from BlizzardBook of Mercenaries Guff – Coming June 15
Guff Runetotem has always just wanted to help, but when "helping" means accidentally starting a treant rampage that nearly flattens Thunder Bluff, Guff vows to set things right. His quest for redemption leads him and his companions to the Wailing Caverns. What Guff finds inside will be revealed in Book of Mercenaries Guff, launching June 15th. Defeating all 8 bosses in this linear adventure will reward 1 Druid pack, containing only Druid cards from Standard!
Forged in the Barrens Mini-Set Card List & Expansion Guide
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Sorry but the deck is trash... also the battles are pretty lackluster in terms of surprises... sad.
I struggled a wee bit with a few bosses, but I'm no leet player.
Took my time to read the decks and the boss's hero powers. I only really had issues with Mutanaus.
Horrible run. Your deck has nothing to do with what's being put on the board by the enemy. They swarm the board with rush poison minions while you're twiddling your thumbs ramping up mana.
This really needs an adjustment.
My name is Guff
And I like to Huff
He think he tuff
But he not enuff
Mutanus fight is ruff
Gruff needs a buff
This is probably the most miserable one yet. Blizz essentially gave you ramp, celestial druid, except there's barely any cards to ramp into, no win condition, and half the deck contradicts the other half. You literally spend most matches hoping you don't draw thresher, and let's not forget the new card they gave Gruff that tutors out 2 minions!
I also liked how only 2 of the hero powers were worth using, specifically the frost shard and the 2 damage/spell damage one. Also loved how the deck suddenly got Moonfang added to it once all the opponents started spamming poison.
I also used Tamsin's Hero Power to cheat Celestial Alignment and to beat Mutanus. But that was the only time I found it useful.
Guardian Animals deck with moonfang against a boss that makes all their tokens poisonous? Who the fuck designs these challenges? Does anyone playtest them at all?
This one's awful, it reminds me old adventures where everything was decided by RNG. You are constantly facing hyper aggresive tempo decks, while using yourself super slow, reactive and inconsistent deck, almost always playing from behind. You either draw exactly what you need on time (Ramp cards, Lake Thresher from Guardian Animals, Celestial Alignment), either you die. Very annoying and not fun at all. There's very little strategy or resource management in this, mostly luck.
"There's very little strategy or resource management in this, mostly luck."
That is definitely not true. In most cases (with the exception of the final boss), your choice of companion makes a huge difference. Checking the opponent's hero power before clicking Play can help with that. Also, did you notice that you always get the exact same opening hand every time? That's the opposite of luck. In fact, there is an optimal opening play pattern you are supposed to figure out.
Don't get me wrong -- you CAN get screwed (or rewarded) by weird, random stuff. This is Hearthstone, after all.
However, these are not necessarily supposed to be easy to beat the first time. If you don't win, you can actually think about the AI's cards and hero power to come up with a strategy to beat it. It took me several tries to beat the final boss, but when I did, I knew it was because I had found a good strategy, not just lucky draws.
Or you can just rely on dumb luck and say it's bad design. Up to you, I guess.
Bad design =/= high difficulty level. It's especially apparent in Mutanus matchup, where he can flood the board with tons of stats by the end of turn 2-3 and you don't have any removals to get rid of them. Your only way to win this match, is to cheese ramp cards into Celestial Alignment and then give him a taste of his own medicine (mana / stats cheating) with lucky Guardian Animals to stabilize the board. But guess what, it's random and you just have to start over and over again, until you get it. It's artificial difficulty, not a real challenge.
That's exactly how every Celestial Alignment deck works, including the possibility of getting screwed by bad draws. But this deck does not always have to play like a typical Celestial alignment deck, and knowing when to do so is kind of the point.
So yeah, you've identified a strategy in a game you claimed had no strategy. Just because it's not foolproof doesn't make it bad. Again, you are playing Hearthstone.
Are you serious? "Being lucky with draws" is no strategy...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy
It takes more than being lucky with draws. If you can't see that, then you are no Cardmaster.
It's a recurring theme on this site, actually. You can spot bad players a mile away because they are the ones who complain the loudest about their "bad luck," or worse, how the game must be actively out to get them.
Dude, this is weaker version of standard Celestial Druid (aka the worst meta deck in standard according to VS, even the most optimized version) and you have to use it to beat very tempo oriented bosses with broken cards / effects (maybe you don't realize, but aggro is the worst matchup for this deck). Look on YouTube, even streamers can't defeat all bosses on first attempt and they just try over and over. If you really believe that restarting until you get your cards right is skill based, then you are just ego-boosting yourself and we have nothing more to talk about.
The deck isn't just a Celestial deck. Obviously it's not meant to be an optimized constructed deck. It's intentionally designed so that it can be a lot of different things. Recognizing which path to take is a big part of figuring out this challenge. Another part is knowing how to survive long enough to get there. If you chose Tamsin, I'm not surprised you had to rely on crazy lucky draws.
This chapter was actually fun and challenging, the battle against the adventurers, the Big Murloc and even the last boss was interesting. Plus, storywise, the tale of the mercenaries is amazing and catch your attention with each scene.
This time, Good work Blizzard!
I wish they'd bring back dungeon runs
I enjoy solo content but its a bit too easy when you don't have to restart or even strategize at all imo