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At various times in this game's lifespan I've been sick to death of playing against: Zoo, Miracle Rogue, Face Hunter, Mech Mage, Midrange Hunter, Handlock, Face Hunter (again), Oil Rogue, Zoo (also again)...And now its Secret Paladin, yup.
But there's always gonna be *some* dumb deck that seems to be the Next Big Thing™ everybody wants to play on ladder. Just gotta learn to deal with it.
What, not Freeze Mage? N00b :P
I've always hated Freeze Mage (and still do) just because its so mind numbingly boring to fight and uninteractive. But its never been popular enough that I've had to deal with it every other match (and often several times in a row) the way the ones I listed have been.
IIRC it used to be super popular back in beta, I bet that is what he's hinting at
Ah yeah, that's a good point. Thankfully I missed that since I started playing in open beta rather than the closed before it got nerfed some.
Hell, if it gets to the point in the future that Freeze Mage is 35-50% or more of the ladder I just won't be playing constructed anymore...
Why not just play Warrior to a free legend instead?
Because if Freeze Mage is that rampant that means it's found a way to remove its one major weakness. A deck isn't going to be 35-50% of ladder when it has a literally 10% matchup against another deck that is always at least floating around the fringes of the meta.
At various times in this game's lifespan I've been sick to death of playing against: Zoo, Miracle Rogue, Face Hunter, Mech Mage, Midrange Hunter, Handlock, Face Hunter (again), Oil Rogue, Zoo (also again)...And now its Secret Paladin, yup.
But there's always gonna be *some* dumb deck that seems to be the Next Big Thing™ everybody wants to play on ladder. Just gotta learn to deal with it.
What, not Freeze Mage? N00b :P
I've always hated Freeze Mage (and still do) just because its so mind numbingly boring to fight and uninteractive. But its never been popular enough that I've had to deal with it every other match (and often several times in a row) the way the ones I listed have been.
IIRC it used to be super popular back in beta, I bet that is what he's hinting at
Ah yeah, that's a good point. Thankfully I missed that since I started playing in open beta rather than the closed before it got nerfed some.
Hell, if it gets to the point in the future that Freeze Mage is 35-50% or more of the ladder I just won't be playing constructed anymore...
Other than Mad Scientist and Spare Part, I think all of the key Freeze Mage cards existed at release too. Luckily, it was a rather expensive deck to put together and it took a while before people figured out the tech.
At various times in this game's lifespan I've been sick to death of playing against: Zoo, Miracle Rogue, Face Hunter, Mech Mage, Midrange Hunter, Handlock, Face Hunter (again), Oil Rogue, Zoo (also again)...And now its Secret Paladin, yup.
But there's always gonna be *some* dumb deck that seems to be the Next Big Thing™ everybody wants to play on ladder. Just gotta learn to deal with it.
What, not Freeze Mage? N00b :P
I've always hated Freeze Mage (and still do) just because its so mind numbingly boring to fight and uninteractive. But its never been popular enough that I've had to deal with it every other match (and often several times in a row) the way the ones I listed have been.
IIRC it used to be super popular back in beta, I bet that is what he's hinting at
Ah yeah, that's a good point. Thankfully I missed that since I started playing in open beta rather than the closed before it got nerfed some.
Hell, if it gets to the point in the future that Freeze Mage is 35-50% or more of the ladder I just won't be playing constructed anymore...
Why not just play Warrior to a free legend instead?
Because, like The Escape Goat has already said, its probably found a way to win that matchup in that circumstance. But even if it hadn't, playing lots of Armor Up battles is incredibly dull too. For what its worth, I've already hit legend before anyway.
I just had 3 Gorehowl charges eaten by Annoytron that was Dreamed twice, I mean I know I couldn't win when I couldn't kill Ysera, but who plays Annoytron and Ysera in Druid...
Coinage on
Happiness is within reach!
+1
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
As the twilight of the Brawl comes, I am getting wrecked by sick shadowfiend combos. Draw and draw and draw and draw and draw. I have two of those fuckers, I wish I had thought of that.
So, streaked from rank 14 from 8 this season in three days. Apparently the secret is to wait until the last minute to ladder? Anyway, I used this mid-rangey paladin murloc deck:
1x Old Murk-eye
1x Murloc Knight
2x Consecrate
1x Blessing of Kings
1x Solemn Vigil
1x Anyfin Can Happen
I found it's strong against all forms of control and combo, weak to aggro, mixed against midrange. Major weakness is Secret Paladin. So maybe that's why it does well at the end of the season - all the guys willing and able to play Secret Pally are at rank 5 and up already. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to play. The mix of divine-shield survivability and multiplying murloc stats gives you a lot of interesting board options.
Curving out perfectly and getting a Tirion out of a Deathlord
#JustPaladinThings
I hate myself for playing this deck, but it's raining stars currently 7-1 record this month with it against mostly gold portrait opposition. 2 Priests, 2 Paladins, 2 Warlocks and 2 Rogues. The only match I lost was the Secret Paladin mirror match where I just got absolutely fucked by the cards (no two drops, three drops or four drops).
PSN: Holy-Promethium
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
And now you all see why the deck is so popular on ladder.
It's easy to play well and very strong. That combo will always lead to a deck being super popular.
I know they've nerfed things left and right... but have there been any buffs?
I don't mean fixes like to bane of doom getting legendaries out, or "buffs" to bane by releasing stronger deamons.
I mean flat-out stat buffs to pre-existing cards.
I know they've nerfed things left and right... but have there been any buffs?
I don't mean fixes like to bane of doom getting legendaries out, or "buffs" to bane by releasing stronger deamons.
I mean flat-out stat buffs to pre-existing cards.
Not since the beta ended, no.
Unless you count Starving Buzzard becoming a 3/2, but I have a feeling you don't.
PSN: Holy-Promethium
0
GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
edited February 2016
Unleash the hounds went from 4 mana to 2 mana to 3 mana after it was changed to its current effect.
Also I guess shadow of nothing was changed to not die at end of turn which is a buff to mind games?
Changing Bane of Doom to summon any demon instead of being a very limited subset of the original demons was a pretty significant buff. I think that was the only significant buff to happen after the official release.
yeah I hate secrets pally but it is, afaik, exactly how this game ought to work. patron had like 3 different flavors of bullshit.
patron had a key card basically deleted from the game and it's still a good deck. imo very good, and I really like playing it as it is now.
Yep, Secrets Paladin is strong but it is fair. It just tries to play the best on curve stuff every turn. It doesn't punish you for playing minions, or kill you with an OTK combo from 30 health +20 armor. It doesn't cycle through the deck at crazy speed either.
It does exactly what the devs want the game to be - a game about fighting over the board and mounting incremental advantages.
Now it's possible it may be a tad bit on the dominant side, but it's actually really easy to print cards to help deal with it, without having to nerf or alter the deck in any way. Contrast that with patron, where it was consistently killing opponents in a single turn through resistance.
My rank chest goldens were Velen's Chosen & Doomguard, both of which I only had a single copy of. Was kinda hoping I'd already had doubles of them because that'd make the decision to dust them a lot easier. If I dust both of them and the other two goldens that I only have a single non-golden copy of (Cabal Shadow Priest & Mortal Strike), I have just enough for another Legendary. Losing the Cabal is gonna hurt (especially since I'd love to play Control Priest some day if I ever get Lightbombs, Soulpriests, & Justicar), and not having a strong opinion on which Legendary I want to craft makes it hurt even more. I need so many that I'm getting crippled by choice abundance. Antonidas, Grom, & Tirion all seem basically required for their respective classes. But crafting class Legendaries feels like a mistake when I still need Saarad, Justicar, Sylvanas, & Ysra (I guess throw in Rag & Maly to the end of that list too) even through none of them feel as necessary to make a class work like the other 3 do.
I think I'd probably narrow it down to either Antonidas or Grom since I'm the closest to putting together complete decks featuring both of them (Tempo and Patron). I'm closest to having everything for Patron (just missing a Berserker and an Alcolyte), but I think I could play Tempo Mage better (I'm still 1500ish gold away from Flamewakers and don't have any Mirror Entity, though).
FAKE EDIT: After writing all this out, I think I've convinced myself to go with Grom. Thanks for giving me a place to ramble about my nonsense. Carry on!
At various times in this game's lifespan I've been sick to death of playing against: Zoo, Miracle Rogue, Face Hunter, Mech Mage, Midrange Hunter, Handlock, Face Hunter (again), Oil Rogue, Zoo (also again)...And now its Secret Paladin, yup.
But there's always gonna be *some* dumb deck that seems to be the Next Big Thing™ everybody wants to play on ladder. Just gotta learn to deal with it.
What, not Freeze Mage? N00b :P
I've always hated Freeze Mage (and still do) just because its so mind numbingly boring to fight and uninteractive. But its never been popular enough that I've had to deal with it every other match (and often several times in a row) the way the ones I listed have been.
IIRC it used to be super popular back in beta, I bet that is what he's hinting at
Ah yeah, that's a good point. Thankfully I missed that since I started playing in open beta rather than the closed before it got nerfed some.
Hell, if it gets to the point in the future that Freeze Mage is 35-50% or more of the ladder I just won't be playing constructed anymore...
Other than Mad Scientist and Spare Part, I think all of the key Freeze Mage cards existed at release too. Luckily, it was a rather expensive deck to put together and it took a while before people figured out the tech.
The deck was (in part) initially developed to fight the Zoo menace that was everywhere on the ladder. It was like 90-10 in the freeze mage favor. But then people realized how strong it was against aggressive and mid-range strategies in general and spread like wildfire. Blizz panicked and nerfed the freeze spells and pyroblast. (Pyroblast was done for Arena, a format they used to care about).
At first I thought Blizzard didn't want freeze mage to be in the format, but I've actually been pleasantly surprised that they've allowed it to exist as a non-traditional control deck.
yeah I hate secrets pally but it is, afaik, exactly how this game ought to work. patron had like 3 different flavors of bullshit.
patron had a key card basically deleted from the game and it's still a good deck. imo very good, and I really like playing it as it is now.
Yep, Secrets Paladin is strong but it is fair. It just tries to play the best on curve stuff every turn. It doesn't punish you for playing minions, or kill you with an OTK combo from 30 health +20 armor. It doesn't cycle through the deck at crazy speed either.
It does exactly what the devs want the game to be - a game about fighting over the board and mounting incremental advantages.
Now it's possible it may be a tad bit on the dominant side, but it's actually really easy to print cards to help deal with it, without having to nerf or alter the deck in any way. Contrast that with patron, where it was consistently killing opponents in a single turn through resistance.
They tried that with Undertaker though and it didn't really work. I think the easiest way is to just nerf Mysterious Challenger. It gives the deck so much consistency in that you know what secrets it's going to play and it improves your top-decking on subsequent turns.
I could see maybe changing it to be like Varian Wrynn. 'Draw X cards. Put any secrets you drew into the battlefield.'
Doesn't necessarily make it unplayable, just makes it way less consistent.
so what y'all are saying is we need to print better aggro cards to fight patron, yes, yesss....
With the printing of Reno, I think Blizzard is putting the breaks on Aggro. Aggro was so dominant on ladder for so long, I think they want to let different strategies have a chance to shine. I expect more powerful control cards with some anti-paladin tech in the next expansion.
yeah I hate secrets pally but it is, afaik, exactly how this game ought to work. patron had like 3 different flavors of bullshit.
patron had a key card basically deleted from the game and it's still a good deck. imo very good, and I really like playing it as it is now.
Yep, Secrets Paladin is strong but it is fair. It just tries to play the best on curve stuff every turn. It doesn't punish you for playing minions, or kill you with an OTK combo from 30 health +20 armor. It doesn't cycle through the deck at crazy speed either.
It does exactly what the devs want the game to be - a game about fighting over the board and mounting incremental advantages.
Now it's possible it may be a tad bit on the dominant side, but it's actually really easy to print cards to help deal with it, without having to nerf or alter the deck in any way. Contrast that with patron, where it was consistently killing opponents in a single turn through resistance.
They tried that with Undertaker though and it didn't really work. I think the easiest way is to just nerf Mysterious Challenger. It gives the deck so much consistency in that you know what secrets it's going to play and it improves your top-decking on subsequent turns.
I could see maybe changing it to be like Varian Wrynn. 'Draw X cards. Put any secrets you drew into the battlefield.'
Doesn't necessarily make it unplayable, just makes it way less consistent.
I'm not sure what you mean? What did they try with Undertaker - to print more answers?
The two cards aren't really comparable. Undertaker put tremendous pressure on the format to have turn one answers, or you just outright lost. It was an unfair card because it could decide the game on turn one, and turned the "real" game into mulligan aggressively for answers or die. With Challenger, you have 5 turns to prepare and play around the secrets once they happen. Undertaker hunter and Secrets paladin don't operate on the same axis in terms of how they effect the game.
Just as an example, Blizzard could easily print a 3/3 for 3 with battlecry - this does 1 damage to all other minions when it comes into play. That card is a nightmare for secrets paladin.
yeah I hate secrets pally but it is, afaik, exactly how this game ought to work. patron had like 3 different flavors of bullshit.
patron had a key card basically deleted from the game and it's still a good deck. imo very good, and I really like playing it as it is now.
Yep, Secrets Paladin is strong but it is fair. It just tries to play the best on curve stuff every turn. It doesn't punish you for playing minions, or kill you with an OTK combo from 30 health +20 armor. It doesn't cycle through the deck at crazy speed either.
It does exactly what the devs want the game to be - a game about fighting over the board and mounting incremental advantages.
Now it's possible it may be a tad bit on the dominant side, but it's actually really easy to print cards to help deal with it, without having to nerf or alter the deck in any way. Contrast that with patron, where it was consistently killing opponents in a single turn through resistance.
They tried that with Undertaker though and it didn't really work. I think the easiest way is to just nerf Mysterious Challenger. It gives the deck so much consistency in that you know what secrets it's going to play and it improves your top-decking on subsequent turns.
I could see maybe changing it to be like Varian Wrynn. 'Draw X cards. Put any secrets you drew into the battlefield.'
Doesn't necessarily make it unplayable, just makes it way less consistent.
I'm not sure what you mean? What did they try with Undertaker - to print more answers?
The two cards aren't really comparable. Undertaker put tremendous pressure on the format to have turn one answers, or you just outright lost. It was an unfair card because it could decide the game on turn one, and turned the "real" game into mulligan aggressively for answers or die. With Challenger, you have 5 turns to prepare and play around the secrets once they happen. Undertaker hunter and Secrets paladin don't operate on the same axis in terms of how they effect the game.
Just as an example, Blizzard could easily print a 3/3 for 3 with battlecry - this does 1 damage to all other minions when it comes into play. That card is a nightmare for secrets paladin.
It was during my year away from hearthstone that undertaker really took off so I may be wrong but wasn't Lil' Exorcist seen as an attempt at printing a card to help counter?
I dunno. My personal feeling is when you print cards you potentially fuck up other areas of the meta. Like the card you suggest could potentially have an impact in patron warrior, I can't really think of specifics. Much better in my opinion to (try) just make one small as possible (I admit Blizzard have not proved particularly good at this in the past) nerf to the problematic card and call it a day.
It seems strange to me that Blizzard have a digital card game that comes with the blessing of being able to make changes to cards as much as they want after release, yet are incredibly reluctant to do so. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to Blizzard looking at potential buffs and nerfs which they roll out in a patch at the end of each season as necessary.
so what y'all are saying is we need to print better aggro cards to fight patron, yes, yesss....
With the printing of Reno, I think Blizzard is putting the breaks on Aggro. Aggro was so dominant on ladder for so long, I think they want to let different strategies have a chance to shine. I expect more powerful control cards with some anti-paladin tech in the next expansion.
and yet they printed tunnel trogg and dark peddler at the same time
You know what, that Secret Pally can go get double fucked in the face. I'm playing my Klepto/Combo Priest, I've already handled MC with SW:P on his Minibot to trigger the secrets and then got lucky when the Avenge landed on MC whom I hit with SW:D. I've got a Mind Control waiting for Tirion, so I've got that covered too. Then the turn before he drops Tirion he runs his Shredder into something and fucking Cho pops out. Fucker.
I'm on the fence. Either I use all my dust to create a secrets paladin deck (if you can't beat em, join em - but it would be expensive: don't have a single MC or Tirion), or I continue to persist with mid-range druid and zoolock. I'm stubborn enough to go for the latter, but mighty tempted to just give up and join the dark side.
I've found that renolock beats secret pally pretty handily. There are just so many removal options for renolock to dismantle secret pally's threats. Hellfire/Demonwrath for early game, Owl/BGH/Siphon Soul/Sylvannas/Shadowflame for MC and not to mention healing from reno/heal bot
Aggro Shaman is a really hard deck to play. I tried Reynad's deck and I lost a lot of games with it. I was consistently unable to make the right choices between face and board.
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Aggro Shaman is a really hard deck to play. I tried Reynad's deck and I lost a lot of games with it. I was consistently unable to make the right choices between face and board.
Was it the really weird one with Malygos? Reynad tends to play strange decks. Try this one:
It's not always completely straightforward and there is a lot of decision making about when to trade vs. when to face, but it's not on the level of the really hard control decks like priest or freeze mage and you can figure it out just by playing it for awhile.
I could have sworn I had a Twisting Nether, but apparently not.
Probably going to end up crafting it so I can play some Reno Combolock tomorrow, though knowing RNG I'll get one in my classic pack from Tavern Brawl this week.
yeah I hate secrets pally but it is, afaik, exactly how this game ought to work. patron had like 3 different flavors of bullshit.
patron had a key card basically deleted from the game and it's still a good deck. imo very good, and I really like playing it as it is now.
Yep, Secrets Paladin is strong but it is fair. It just tries to play the best on curve stuff every turn. It doesn't punish you for playing minions, or kill you with an OTK combo from 30 health +20 armor. It doesn't cycle through the deck at crazy speed either.
It does exactly what the devs want the game to be - a game about fighting over the board and mounting incremental advantages.
Now it's possible it may be a tad bit on the dominant side, but it's actually really easy to print cards to help deal with it, without having to nerf or alter the deck in any way. Contrast that with patron, where it was consistently killing opponents in a single turn through resistance.
They tried that with Undertaker though and it didn't really work. I think the easiest way is to just nerf Mysterious Challenger. It gives the deck so much consistency in that you know what secrets it's going to play and it improves your top-decking on subsequent turns.
I could see maybe changing it to be like Varian Wrynn. 'Draw X cards. Put any secrets you drew into the battlefield.'
Doesn't necessarily make it unplayable, just makes it way less consistent.
I'm not sure what you mean? What did they try with Undertaker - to print more answers?
The two cards aren't really comparable. Undertaker put tremendous pressure on the format to have turn one answers, or you just outright lost. It was an unfair card because it could decide the game on turn one, and turned the "real" game into mulligan aggressively for answers or die. With Challenger, you have 5 turns to prepare and play around the secrets once they happen. Undertaker hunter and Secrets paladin don't operate on the same axis in terms of how they effect the game.
Just as an example, Blizzard could easily print a 3/3 for 3 with battlecry - this does 1 damage to all other minions when it comes into play. That card is a nightmare for secrets paladin.
It was during my year away from hearthstone that undertaker really took off so I may be wrong but wasn't Lil' Exorcist seen as an attempt at printing a card to help counter?
I dunno. My personal feeling is when you print cards you potentially fuck up other areas of the meta. Like the card you suggest could potentially have an impact in patron warrior, I can't really think of specifics. Much better in my opinion to (try) just make one small as possible (I admit Blizzard have not proved particularly good at this in the past) nerf to the problematic card and call it a day.
It seems strange to me that Blizzard have a digital card game that comes with the blessing of being able to make changes to cards as much as they want after release, yet are incredibly reluctant to do so. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to Blizzard looking at potential buffs and nerfs which they roll out in a patch at the end of each season as necessary.
I agree with you - I wish they'd be more bullish on cards they already printed and buff some things, but that's not the direction they've chosen to go. There are good arguments for leaving cards as they are, though I don't necessarily agree with all of them. I think tweaks could be made here or there to introduce borderline playable cards to the format.
The reality is that Blizzard has chosen new printings to be the primary engines of change in the metagame. So that's where they'll look to in order to help shape the metagame differently. Reno Jackson, for example, is an absolutely brutal card, but likely had to be done considering how their previous attempts to reign in aggro failed.
When they nerf cards, it seems to be only after they've made an attempt to print answers. Then if those fail, they look at changing cards. The problem with Patron, as the latest example, is that no answer could have been feasibly printed, that wouldn't have also been disastrous for the game. I don't think we're quite there in this cycle just yet with Mysterious Challenger. There are cards that can be printed that hamper Secrets Pally, but would not have deleterious effects elsewhere.
Posts
Because if Freeze Mage is that rampant that means it's found a way to remove its one major weakness. A deck isn't going to be 35-50% of ladder when it has a literally 10% matchup against another deck that is always at least floating around the fringes of the meta.
Five-mana Blizzard!
Two-mana Frost Nova!
Three-mana Cone of Cold!
Eight-mana Pyroblast!
Other than Mad Scientist and Spare Part, I think all of the key Freeze Mage cards existed at release too. Luckily, it was a rather expensive deck to put together and it took a while before people figured out the tech.
Because, like The Escape Goat has already said, its probably found a way to win that matchup in that circumstance. But even if it hadn't, playing lots of Armor Up battles is incredibly dull too. For what its worth, I've already hit legend before anyway.
really nice looking gold card, wow
i know i'm not saying anything new here but guys i cannot believe i start from rank 19 after lazily only getting to rank 10 this last month
"this puts you in the top 9% of players!
now play 6 ranks above the newer players!"
Man, I'm getting really lucky with packs lately.
B.net: Squatfurd#1814
had to go to a friend's house and play vidja games... with people
ugh...
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
2x Murloc Tidecaller
2x Bluegill Warrior
2x Murloc Tidehunter
2x Puddlestomper
1x Argent Protector
1x Annoy-o-tron
2x Shielded Minibot
1x Equality
2x Murloc Warleader
2x Coldlight Seer
1x Coldlight Oracle
2x Coghammer
2x Divine Favor
1x Old Murk-eye
1x Murloc Knight
2x Consecrate
1x Blessing of Kings
1x Solemn Vigil
1x Anyfin Can Happen
Either I have no early game, or I have loads of early game and then never draw into late game, stall out and lose.
Edit: Switch to Secrets Paladin.. perfect draw. Even their Deathlord pulled out my Ragnaros... there is no karma in RNG clearly.
#JustPaladinThings
I hate myself for playing this deck, but it's raining stars currently 7-1 record this month with it against mostly gold portrait opposition. 2 Priests, 2 Paladins, 2 Warlocks and 2 Rogues. The only match I lost was the Secret Paladin mirror match where I just got absolutely fucked by the cards (no two drops, three drops or four drops).
It's easy to play well and very strong. That combo will always lead to a deck being super popular.
Have they ever buffed a card?
I know they've nerfed things left and right... but have there been any buffs?
I don't mean fixes like to bane of doom getting legendaries out, or "buffs" to bane by releasing stronger deamons.
I mean flat-out stat buffs to pre-existing cards.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Not since the beta ended, no.
Unless you count Starving Buzzard becoming a 3/2, but I have a feeling you don't.
Also I guess shadow of nothing was changed to not die at end of turn which is a buff to mind games?
i would not expect more without an open "we are completely changing how we balance the game" post
Yep, Secrets Paladin is strong but it is fair. It just tries to play the best on curve stuff every turn. It doesn't punish you for playing minions, or kill you with an OTK combo from 30 health +20 armor. It doesn't cycle through the deck at crazy speed either.
It does exactly what the devs want the game to be - a game about fighting over the board and mounting incremental advantages.
Now it's possible it may be a tad bit on the dominant side, but it's actually really easy to print cards to help deal with it, without having to nerf or alter the deck in any way. Contrast that with patron, where it was consistently killing opponents in a single turn through resistance.
I think I'd probably narrow it down to either Antonidas or Grom since I'm the closest to putting together complete decks featuring both of them (Tempo and Patron). I'm closest to having everything for Patron (just missing a Berserker and an Alcolyte), but I think I could play Tempo Mage better (I'm still 1500ish gold away from Flamewakers and don't have any Mirror Entity, though).
FAKE EDIT: After writing all this out, I think I've convinced myself to go with Grom. Thanks for giving me a place to ramble about my nonsense. Carry on!
The deck was (in part) initially developed to fight the Zoo menace that was everywhere on the ladder. It was like 90-10 in the freeze mage favor. But then people realized how strong it was against aggressive and mid-range strategies in general and spread like wildfire. Blizz panicked and nerfed the freeze spells and pyroblast. (Pyroblast was done for Arena, a format they used to care about).
At first I thought Blizzard didn't want freeze mage to be in the format, but I've actually been pleasantly surprised that they've allowed it to exist as a non-traditional control deck.
No, I think the answer everyone wants is to buff Control Priest. :winky:
They tried that with Undertaker though and it didn't really work. I think the easiest way is to just nerf Mysterious Challenger. It gives the deck so much consistency in that you know what secrets it's going to play and it improves your top-decking on subsequent turns.
I could see maybe changing it to be like Varian Wrynn. 'Draw X cards. Put any secrets you drew into the battlefield.'
Doesn't necessarily make it unplayable, just makes it way less consistent.
With the printing of Reno, I think Blizzard is putting the breaks on Aggro. Aggro was so dominant on ladder for so long, I think they want to let different strategies have a chance to shine. I expect more powerful control cards with some anti-paladin tech in the next expansion.
I'm not sure what you mean? What did they try with Undertaker - to print more answers?
The two cards aren't really comparable. Undertaker put tremendous pressure on the format to have turn one answers, or you just outright lost. It was an unfair card because it could decide the game on turn one, and turned the "real" game into mulligan aggressively for answers or die. With Challenger, you have 5 turns to prepare and play around the secrets once they happen. Undertaker hunter and Secrets paladin don't operate on the same axis in terms of how they effect the game.
Just as an example, Blizzard could easily print a 3/3 for 3 with battlecry - this does 1 damage to all other minions when it comes into play. That card is a nightmare for secrets paladin.
It was during my year away from hearthstone that undertaker really took off so I may be wrong but wasn't Lil' Exorcist seen as an attempt at printing a card to help counter?
I dunno. My personal feeling is when you print cards you potentially fuck up other areas of the meta. Like the card you suggest could potentially have an impact in patron warrior, I can't really think of specifics. Much better in my opinion to (try) just make one small as possible (I admit Blizzard have not proved particularly good at this in the past) nerf to the problematic card and call it a day.
It seems strange to me that Blizzard have a digital card game that comes with the blessing of being able to make changes to cards as much as they want after release, yet are incredibly reluctant to do so. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to Blizzard looking at potential buffs and nerfs which they roll out in a patch at the end of each season as necessary.
and yet they printed tunnel trogg and dark peddler at the same time
Streaming 8PST on weeknights
FACE IS THE PLACE
Was it the really weird one with Malygos? Reynad tends to play strange decks. Try this one:
It's not always completely straightforward and there is a lot of decision making about when to trade vs. when to face, but it's not on the level of the really hard control decks like priest or freeze mage and you can figure it out just by playing it for awhile.
Probably going to end up crafting it so I can play some Reno Combolock tomorrow, though knowing RNG I'll get one in my classic pack from Tavern Brawl this week.
I agree with you - I wish they'd be more bullish on cards they already printed and buff some things, but that's not the direction they've chosen to go. There are good arguments for leaving cards as they are, though I don't necessarily agree with all of them. I think tweaks could be made here or there to introduce borderline playable cards to the format.
The reality is that Blizzard has chosen new printings to be the primary engines of change in the metagame. So that's where they'll look to in order to help shape the metagame differently. Reno Jackson, for example, is an absolutely brutal card, but likely had to be done considering how their previous attempts to reign in aggro failed.
When they nerf cards, it seems to be only after they've made an attempt to print answers. Then if those fail, they look at changing cards. The problem with Patron, as the latest example, is that no answer could have been feasibly printed, that wouldn't have also been disastrous for the game. I don't think we're quite there in this cycle just yet with Mysterious Challenger. There are cards that can be printed that hamper Secrets Pally, but would not have deleterious effects elsewhere.