Hearthstone [IRC Channel #Skillstone]

Honestly the reason why Purify is 2 mana is that they didn't want to print the effect at 1 mana, just because Gadgetzan Auctioneer exists. I love Gadgetzan Auctioneer in Miracle Rogue, but it really should just be a Rogue card, so the other classes can be allowed to have some good spells. Having a low-cost spell in your deck should be at some cost to you in the form of consistency and card advantage, and these low-cost spells are designed around this (1 mana deal 2 damage is reasonable, but 5 mana deal 10 damage would be oppressive). But when a card like Gadgetzan exists, suddenly all of the low mana-cost spells which seem so balanced on their own lose 100% of their downside and just become super overpowered.

That being said, it's not the weak cards that define a set, it's the strong ones. Purify doesn't make Priest worse, except in arena.
 
couple hours later and I was back to five stars rank 6 again (until getting cockblocked by horse shit as per usual) so yeah of course skill is some sort of nebulous factor. Real talk though, I'm going to start fucking tracking enemy Druid stats.

Edit: First game against a Druid after posting this: T2 Growth, T3 Teacher, T4 Nourish Innervate PotW, T5 Swipe Wrath my Nova Doomsayer. Literally a skill-based game here. Oh, Game 2 they didn't technically have T2 Growth, just the Druid mirror and he has T2 Dark Arakkoa instead and I had no play until T4 when I basically already lost.

RE: Priest. In case anyone missed this gem:

"We also do a lot of balance for emotion... Mind Control is one of those cards that we changed... the emotional response to that is very strongly negative. We heard all these people complaining everywhere... and we looked at the numbers and it was just fine. The card was not an overpowered card. The problem with the card is that it felt super bad to have it played against you, so we actually increased the cost of the card significantly so that it would be seen less in the game as a whole... even though from a pure balance point of view we didn't have to make any changes to it."

That's why Priest is bad, but it still doesn't explain why Rogue is getting the same gimmick now (granted steal-enemy-cards seems more like a Rogue than a Priest thing to begin with) or what the fuck is with Purify. Let's take a moment to remember that Power Word: Shield is a card that exists... Honestly, that's all I really need to say. PWS exists. It's a card. Purify costs two mana to silence your own minion. PWS costs one mana to provide a permanent +2 HP. Hell, you can even at least cycle PWS on an enemy minion if you want. How the fuck? What the fuck were they smoking? Who the fuck gets paid probably a six-figure salary to literally design that?

I'm more interested in seeing what kind of shit we get for the actual Adventure boss fights anyway tbh

don't mind me just mulling into onyxia again and drawing turn 2 ragnaros, turn 3 cenarius with no ramp

You know this game is incredibly skill-based when I can so seamlessly moves between Ranks 5-9 in the same metagame playing the same decks at the same skill level multiple times per day.
 
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So good I can't not shitpost it:

Get out of game as Zoo, see user Poppy (daffodildo) logged in and playing now. I beat a Hunter despite a terrible follow-up to T4 UTH almost clearing my board.
Say to him, "How good is Turn 5 Tap pass as Zoo because double Sea Giant useless PO hand? turns out it's still good enough to win, HEH"
Spectate him.

He's playing Zoo, it's Turn 5 and his hand is double Sea Giant + PO.




https://media.giphy.com/media/5aLrlDiJPMPFS/giphy.gif
 
Nobody has posted in too long so allow me to triple post ERMAHGERDKARAZHAN

Topped out at Rank 49 Legend earlier today. The Opera's Heroics are literally the easiest shit ever it's kinda sad and boring. :(
 
agree about opera heroic, beat 1st and 3rd ones with constructed decks and the 2nd one first try with a deck built for it

dicking around with a resurrect priest right now, seems surprisingly ok
 
started playing a month ago (as everyone in #skillstone is aware). definitely loving the game so far. as a pokemon player my entire life, i think i have more of a tolerance for the bullshit luck elements. barnes pulling a cairne feels nowhere near as shitty as some of the nonsense that can happen in mons.

i just hit rank 5, which i'm super excited about. the metagame right now is really good for token druid, especially with people trying unrefined decks. i also like the deck because it seems to have a higher skill cap and a lot of room for variation in the deck.
 
Token Druid is fucking awesome atm. I went from rank 5 0 stars to Legend yesterday after cutting a Mire Keeper and Cenarius for Arcane Giants and I had some sort of astronomical winrate even though I didn't track it. The deck has an incredibly high power ceiling if you can draw Innervate Nourish or Wild Growth Mire Keeper or something like that and on the whole it's very consistent too because if you don't draw ramp you normally draw early-game removal. It's also definitely a higher skill cap deck than the other top decks.
 
arcane giant is a great snag for yogg/token/miracle decks, probably my favorite card of the expansion so far.

tested barnes out in quite a few decks, but the only deck that i felt it consistently make an impact was in midrange hunter. generates tons of value if it draws highmane, cloaked huntress, sylvanis or kindly grandmother. outside of kodo theres basically no entirely dead draw in the deck.
 
Barnes is, at worst, a 4 mana 4/5 spread over two bodies. He's an incredibly powerful card if you get a favorable card, otherwise he's vanilla. Barnes is fucking great and I'm upset that I didn't look at him this way when was first introduced.
 
when is blizzard going to stop printing free 8/8s ;_;

arcane giant is gonna get a lot less fun pretty soon imo. even if you don't dump it by turn 4 like you did mountain giants in handlock, the huge swing turns it provides are dumb. i played a few games with arcane giants in druid yesterday and some of the wins i pulled out on the back of arcane giant were dumb. arcane giant alone let me simultaneously make defensive and aggressive plays in one turn, solidifying the win in shaky situations. never mind clearing with yogg and then dropping an arcane giant behind it. haven't played any other decks with it but considering that yogg already enabled super spell-heavy decks, i'd be surprised if it didn't remain a staple in the coming months.
 
On the bright side, current iterations of Arcane Giant Warrior are just worse versions of Worgen OTK. I'm more concerned about Miracle Rogue, because Arcane Giant adds a totally new dimension to the deck. Traditionally Rogue has no especially large minions to handle, except the occasional Cleef all-in, plus it makes the Auctioneer swing turn completely nuts. No longer is it about finding a way to kill a stealthed Auctioneer, scrambling to heal/taunt up enough to survive Rogue's limited total damage potential, or killing the Rogue first. DON'T MIND ME JUST PUTTING DOWN THESE FREE GIANTS that will kill you in two turns tops, Warriors with 50+ HP included, possibly even on the same turn the Auctioneer drops.
 
midrange secret hunter is completely bonkers lol

the potential to blow out an aggro/tempo deck with turn 3 cloaked huntress + 2-4 secrets (which isn't really that unlikely) makes it a lot better than the previous standard (wotog) iteration of the deck because you kind of just lost to any aggro deck unless you managed to stall until turn 8, which was pretty hard bc of your few comeback mechanisms. even without a crazy huntress turn, secrets help you stall the game until call, and considering the deck already had a stellar matchup vs control, i'd say this is absolutely a tier 1 deck. barnes + kindly grandmother didn't hurt either!

i'd encourage people to try out double secret keeper and double fiery bat in their list because securing the early game is definitely the most important part of this deck, even if you can run out of gas a little later by running this many 1 drops. i've been seeing lists with only 1x fiery bat or 1x abusive sergeant and i think you lose so much power by skipping out on the proactive 1 drops, even if it makes barnes a bit worse.

having fun with the expansion so far, barnes hasn't been annoying me as much as i expected it to!
 
i said id make it and i maked it

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CONTROL DRUID, currently sitting at a cool 8-0 100% WR
 
Mfw I see that NRG signed a player and think that it could be someone like SuperJJ(complexity is great and all but NRG is definitely a better organization than complexity in regards to the amount of money they have at their disposal and stuff), but it's actually fucking amaz WHY??????????????? LIKE I AM SO CONFUSED WHAT DOES AMAZ POSSIBLY OFFER LIKE YEAH HE HAS A BIG STREAM BUT IT ISNT EVEN A QUALITY STREAM LIKE THEY DONT OFFER INSIGHT OR ANYTHING WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHY DOES HE DESERVE THIS OVER SO MANY PEOPLE
 
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Like pretty much the only benefit to this is that there will be another atlc, which would be awesome, but imo isn't awesome enough to justify this.
 
well thats being done pretty well with yogg and barnes
what other cards would you recommend? knife juggler? flamewaker? (serious question, I do want to know what powerful rng elements you are talking about)
 
I miss old zoo. I really do. It was a low floor high ceiling deck that rewarded good play and you could always tap for an answer. I hate the decks now. I hate yogg, I hate mid-range shaman (my favorite deck) I hate freeze. I hate everything. There is no more minion trading unless you're behind, there is fucking nothing other than face. I always bring up Patron but that is a deck I can stand by and say, "yeah he, or I, played really well" not with this clown fiesta meta
 
damn i really like this meta. current iterations of aggro shaman are much more midrange than they used to be, and even though their core set of cards are busted, at least you have more time to respond to them now.

yogg swinging games is dumb, but most of the time it's like a pretty good board clear that might give you a secret or two. not justifying it cuz it is dumb and it shouldn't have been printed, but at least in practice it's usually ok.

i don't mind losing to a worse player when they aren't playing outright terribly. hearthstone is a card game, and there is inherent rng in every card game (draw order at least) and matchup in most of them. i mind feeling like i never had a chance, like when a discardlock high rolls or a tempo mage nutdraws.
 
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