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This week's brawl is frickin' awesome by the way. Annoy-o-tron vs. Boombot (including custom hero power)

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This week's brawl is frickin' awesome by the way. Annoy-o-tron vs. Boombot (including custom hero power)

 

I had a ton of fun with it last night! Makes me want to try a mech deck once I get enough cards.

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I have been fudging my way up to at least rank 10 since they introduced rank rewards, seems a shame to let those gold cards lie. Midrange hunter is my favourite deck anyway, and it's strong and fast enough to get there easily.

I'm quite happy that face hunter is a deck; you need good aggro to keep the meta honest (and I tend to beat them as midrange). Patron is the thing I'd like to see toned down a little.

It really annoys me (it doesn't actually) when people say they fudged their way to rank 10 or 9 or whatever because I feel like when I really try the highest I can get is rank 10. I always end up there at the end of the season and make a stupid mistake and then go on tilt and throw it all away. Do you netdeck btw? 

 

I don't mind there being a certain type of deck, but when the strategy behind the deck is to hit face every turn it's kind of demoralizing. I know there's alot of RNG in HS, and there seems to be more every expansion/adventure, but I can't stomach losing turn 6 because I drew bad. Atleast if I get to turn 10 and I drew bad all the way it's kind of funny. 

 

In regards to legendaries I've got quite a good collection now and have a pretty good choice of legendaries. I did however get Milhouse the other day (hence the new avatar) and was rather upset about it. I think legendaries are interesting cards, but I remember how saddening it was to see Dr. Boom get played every single match. I don't think you nescessarily need them for every deck but they do help a lot. 

 

Also, what's everyones highest rank?

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I do regret phrasing it that way, looks kind of humble-braggy now that I look back at it. Anyway, with my current decks (midrange hunter, aggro paladin, zoo warlock) and set of skills rank 10 does not take many games; I win like 80% below rank 12 and after that it's still high enough that rank 10 is not a lot of trouble to get to. I play maybe 30 ranked games per month on average I'd say. I played more in the previous month and made it to 8; this season I stalled out at 9, but played a lot less.

 

The reason I feel I could do better without super much effort is that I am still seeing a lot of mistakes in my play once I've made them, and this means I have a lot of obvious ways to improve still. It's kind of a nice feeling, I think, though obviously frustrating to make the mistake in the first place.

 

I played face hunter for a bit as well before switching to midrange, and I have to say that hitting face every time is not a good representation of playing the deck optimally. There are definitely often situations where clearing a minion is the long-term winning play. It's that tension that makes it an interesting deck. I also very much approve of aggro decks being a thing as I said - if top decks do not need to include anti-aggro cards the meta will move to a much less interesting (to me) place. I'm more of a control player at heart, but they tend to be so much more expensive in dust (a problem that was touched on earlier in the thread) that I'm learning to appreciate the 'honesty' of aggro.

 

I did base my decks on internet ones. You only run into netdecks at rank 10 anyway so I didn't see much point in messing around. Maybe if I acquire a card or mechanic that I want to build around. I don't need much more to try mill warrior... :D

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finally started playing arena regularly recently and got my first 12 win out of it! even though the meta is healthier than it's been in a long time i've been laddering less and less because it's so much harder now it seems, what with the new ranked rewards. but my go to decks right now are handlock, midrange paladin and midrange druid. the only competitive deck that i'm missing cards from now is control warrior, which i'm missing 3/4 legendaries from. i prefer control/midrange decks in general because i love just throwing down huge minions that do crazy things and having the game in my control. there's nothing like getting to turn 10+ against an aggro deck with minimal health and coming back to win handily

 

and my highest rank is 5, a couple of seasons ago, which i got to with a pretty standard midrange paladin deck and some druid thrown in. again, if anyone in EU wants to add me (posh#2133) i'd be happy to play, especially with tavern brawls being a thing now. i have about 60 friends that i don't know who just spectate me when they need to for the quest

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It's alright. I see a lot of people saying that on the HS reddit and obviously it doesn't actually bother me, but I am a bit of a try hard when it comes to Hearthstone so rank 10 takes me a lot of effort. I got so close to rank 9 a bunch of times but never quite made it. I've barely played the late of the last season because I had family and friends visiting so I missed out on a lot of gold (nerdiest thing I've said in a long time). I think I might start saving it for the new expansion because I really don't want to spend any more money on HS. I know they're trying to make it more welcoming to new players but Naxx is practically a must have for every deck in the game and there's some absolutely essential GVG cards and I just don't want to funnel more money into that system. I guess I'm still playing the game... so I'm obviously not that upset about it. 

 

Yeah, I guess it's good to have a blend of decks but Facehunters are just something I can't get over. Having a potential of up to like 20 damage in hand with a weapon, kill command, hero power and whatever else on turn 7 is bananas to me. Saying that I played Patron Warrior for a few seasons and got my highest rank with it and their potential OTK damage is bonkers although I'm not good enough to use it to that degree. Saying that I wouldn't mind if Patron was nerfed slightly as in one of the last tournaments basically every player played patron and it's been the top tier deck for a while now. God I'm a hypocrite. Both of these paragraphs are terrible. 

 

I'd love to play Handlock! But I have literally no giants. Which is a little bit essential. I'd like to play something control style, but I don't have the dust for anything warrior based either. I played a dragon priest for a while, but that was when everyone was going secret pala and that just did not work out for me. 

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Highest was rank 12 or so with the old Leeroy Miracle Rogue. Then I played a bunch of mill rogue in the ladder.

 

These days/months I'm mostly playing Oil Rogue until rank 14-15. Then I just play a bunch of mill rogue and go back down the ladder.

 

 

I just love that fish too much.

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My highest rank is like 5 or 6 with a midrange paladin, I usually end around 12 or 10 playing weirder decks, I think completely sticking to one stable list is really key to go up there, I just don't have the patience for it.

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Wow. I'm always impressed by any one who gets higher than 9 because I know how much skill/RNG is involved in making that happen so congrats on rank 5. What kind of decks do you tend to play?

 

On a different note, has everyone heard they're nerfing Grim Patron Warrior by changing Warsong Commander? It now reads "Your charge minions have +1 Attack". 

 

I think it's a pretty good idea as they have stated that that it kind of limited the 3 attack minions they could design/release. I really think it spells the end of Warsong Commander as there's been a few attempts to get "Charge Warriors" on the go, but they never pan out. Maybe we'll see some more aggro warrior decks. God knows we need more aggro decks. 

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I read a post on reddit that I think sums up my feelings on the nerf. Certainly it is in line with the philosophy they described when they nerfed Miracle Rogue, but, what makes this sucks, it that they nerfed one of the warrior's basic cards that is actually good. Warsong is just useless now, it transformed from a top tier card all players get right away to a shitty poo poo garbage card. Certainly doesn't help with the new user onboarding problem.

 

Edit: This is a good video

Edited by Spenny

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I find that video frustrating because while he does a good job explaining why the old version was problematic he doesn't at all address why the new version has to be so useless given that it no longer has the problematic mechanic.

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I would imagine the new card text will get helped out by some cards released in the next expansion, possibly making it useful in a warrior charge deck to come. I think more than anything blizzard wants to keep the meta fluid, and the old text would have basically ensured patron warrior would have been a part of it forever relatively unchanged.

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I don't think they can design any card that would make this version of Warsong Commander good without that card just being broken on its own and even then you wouldn't play Warsong Commander. Or it would have to be something ridiculous that specifically interacts with Warsong Commander like Warsong Shredder, 4 Mana 4/3 with Deathrattle: Summon a Warsong Commander.

 

The new Warsong Commander is like a Dire Wolf Alpha that costs 1 mana more for one health and a buff effect that is only better if you already had three charge minions in play and weren't planning to trade them. It's also like a Raid Leader but with one more health and an effect that is more situational.

 

To think of it another way, 3 mana minions these days are just barely good if they have 3/4 in stats like Spider Tank or Dark Cultist. You're losing 1/2 in stats on Warsong Commander for its effect, which is massive compared to Dire Wolf Alpha losing only 1 stat point for an arguably better effect at a lower mana cost. They needed to either make this Warsong Commander a 3/4 or 2 mana for it not to be ridiculously bad compared to existing cards. Class cards are generally supposed to have a premium value over similar neutral cards, not be worse than them. (Admittedly there are plenty of bad class cards but typically they're reserved for higher rarity and have more interesting effects.)

 

And even worse this really hurts Warriors in arena where they already have a hard time because you need solid quality basic/common class cards to do well in arena and Warrior doesn't really have any besides their weapons. Warsong Commander was never that great but now it's a trash tier arena card. Brode said they'd address this in future expansions but that's hard to do when you already have 4-5 sets of mostly useless Warrior arena cards clogging the card pool.

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I would imagine the new card text will get helped out by some cards released in the next expansion, possibly making it useful in a warrior charge deck to come. I think more than anything blizzard wants to keep the meta fluid, and the old text would have basically ensured patron warrior would have been a part of it forever relatively unchanged.

That seems like it would be the case until you realize there is already a card (raid leader) that, for the same cost as Warsong Commander, gives +1 attack to all your minions, not just the ones with charge, and is neutral instead of warrior only. The only relative downside is that it has 2 health instead of 3, which is negligible. On top of that, Raid Leader is rarely played because it itself is almost always worse than Dire Wolf Alpha.

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I think they're done with things getting +x/+x whenever X creature is played. The 2 or 3 things that get boosted by secrets don't seem to be big deal yet.

 

The change just seems dumb because they for months say that it's fine, people will learn how to counter it then do this nerf. It doesn't SEEM well thought out, they had months to think of things to change. Plus they screwed up arena warrior even more, it could have been a 2 mana 2/3 or a 3 mana 3/4 with the same ability and still no one would run it in constructed. At least you always get 3 classes to pick from, so you don't ever need to pick warrior in arena, that'd be a gigantic misplay/bad draft choice.

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I'll give them props for finding and nuking the problem card, but I agree that making it so shitty is a strange decision.

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I agree the nerf at this point seems too harsh, but you never know what they are planning in the future. They could have an inspire effect that summons WC, deathrattle weapons that summon them, spells, etc. Based on the card text I think their intent is for WC to become a nice to have card, or they are working on a replacement for it that isn't as powerful.

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Kinda crazy that this is probably going to shake up the meta as much as TGT did. I really do wish that did balance changes more often, but Ben talking about people auto conceding when first noticing the undertaker change was really interesting.

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The change just seems dumb because they for months say that it's fine, people will learn how to counter it then do this nerf. It doesn't SEEM well thought out, they had months to think of things to change.

 

Well, I think just because they ended up making the nerf doesn't mean it was a bad idea to wait a few months before doing it. I'm glad that Blizzard is generally conservative on changes to the game, otherwise the meta would be even more in flux and hard to keep track of for casual players. Also it seems fairly clear that the nerf is not because the deck was overpowered and had an extremely high win rate, it did not, but it was just a little too unfun to play against and to lose just because the best thing you could do on your turn was play minions that would activate Patron/Berserker combos.

 

Regarding future plans, I don't think the overnerf justifies it because Warsong Commander is a class basic card. It hurts new players who want to play Warrior because the basic deck will be that much less powerful or draft Warrior in arena where you have a higher probability of seeing class cards. It made sense to add Light of the Naaru to make Lightwarden, which was neutral, a viable minion for Priests. But even if they add something similar for Warrior it's still worse than having a solid basic card.

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The way I play Hearthstone has drastically changed recently. I find myself tending to pick a new archetype each season and just seeing how I can get with it and then logging on every few days to complete my quests. Or even better using the Tavern Brawl to complete all my class quests.

 

I'm not entirely sure why this has happened. I think maybe because I've convinced myself I can't get any higher than rank 10 and the time and dedication I'd need to get any higher just doesn't seem worth it to me. I've managed to save up near 1800 gold and I think I'll just use it on the next whatever comes out. 

 

Do you guys think the meta has changed since they nerfed Warsong? I mean obviously we aren't seeing Patron Warriors, but that seems to be about it. There hasn't been a massive influx of Deck A or B. At least not from what I've noticed, but like I said I've got a little more casual recently. 

 

I personally think they need to take a little bit more of a middle ground approach to nerfing/buffing stuff. I do agree with Jutranjo that saying it will sort itself out and then nerfing something into oblivion seems kind of redundant. If it's proving to be as powerful as Warsong could be/was then a quicker (but more balanced) nerf wouldn't go amiss. 

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I pretty much just came in here to say is there any chance we can change the title of this thread? Or is it possible to completely hide a thread from yourself in view new content forever? Because even though I've seen it hundreds of times, every time my eyes pass over this thread title a small part of my brain gets annoyed and I feel my overall cognitive capacity drained slightly for a while so that my own mind can explain to me that the title doesn't make sense again.

 

I know, brain, shut up.

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The way I play Hearthstone has drastically changed recently. I find myself tending to pick a new archetype each season and just seeing how I can get with it and then logging on every few days to complete my quests. Or even better using the Tavern Brawl to complete all my class quests.

 

I'm not entirely sure why this has happened. I think maybe because I've convinced myself I can't get any higher than rank 10 and the time and dedication I'd need to get any higher just doesn't seem worth it to me. I've managed to save up near 1800 gold and I think I'll just use it on the next whatever comes out. 

 

Do you guys think the meta has changed since they nerfed Warsong? I mean obviously we aren't seeing Patron Warriors, but that seems to be about it. There hasn't been a massive influx of Deck A or B. At least not from what I've noticed, but like I said I've got a little more casual recently. 

 

I personally think they need to take a little bit more of a middle ground approach to nerfing/buffing stuff. I do agree with Jutranjo that saying it will sort itself out and then nerfing something into oblivion seems kind of redundant. If it's proving to be as powerful as Warsong could be/was then a quicker (but more balanced) nerf wouldn't go amiss. 

 

The meta as a whole has shifted to an abundance of mid-range and control decks. When Patron was around, it was either Patron, an aggro deck that tries to kill Patron before Patron can set up, or a small handful of slower decks. Now that Patron is out of the picture, the super-aggressive decks have mostly retreated to the sidelines. The most aggressive deck right now is aggro Druid that uses Fel Reavers, but besides that, the common decks seem to be secret Paladin, midrange druid, control warrior, and dragon priest. Mech mage is still sticking around but not that common these days.

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To me it's more, maybe a lot more, aggressive than it was before, warlock is more often to be a demonzoo than a handlock, aggressive druid with fel reavers has changed how you mulligan for Druid. On the opposite end warriors that can just spiral out of control with their armor.

 

I agree that I'd like to see smaller changes more often, I worry that this hands off approach to keep the mobile crowd happy is going to alienate the returning crowd. Really hope they unveil some cool features at blizzcon, I would really like to see some social features and tools, playing with friends is really awesome in this game and it can help a lot to alleviate what a drag ladder can be.

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