Hearthstone

[El Guapo]

Had an amusing (for me) tavern brawl just now. The current set up is that each deck is all raven idols. On the first turn (as a mage) I 'discovered' a Cult Sorceror (+1 spell damage, every time you cast a spell C'Thun gets +1/+1). So next turn I cast another Raven Idol, and discover...C'thun. So then I spent the whole game discovering mostly spells (via raven idols) and picking damage spells, casting them to destroy the minions he was summoning. Then eventually dropped a 22/22 C'Thun at the end.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Do I have a different Tavern Brawl than you? In the one I played today, you create a deck and then decide if you want your deathrattle or battlecry minions to be +1/+1, or to gain 3 armor every time you cast a spell (there's one other option, I think, but I can't remember it). I won pretty handily as a battlecry heavy Warlock.

On another note, I'm getting pretty tired of winning Old Gods decks from the Arena. Every card from the last five or six decks I've won have ended up being scrapped for dust. I would much rather win standard packs, where I am missing some pretty important rare cards.

[El Guapo]

Do I have a different Tavern Brawl than you? In the one I played today, you create a deck and then decide if you want your deathrattle or battlecry minions to be +1/+1, or to gain 3 armor every time you cast a spell (there's one other option, I think, but I can't remember it). I won pretty handily as a battlecry heavy Warlock.

On another note, I'm getting pretty tired of winning Old Gods decks from the Arena. Every card from the last five or six decks I've won have ended up being scrapped for dust. I would much rather win standard packs, where I am missing some pretty important rare cards.

That's what it was when I logged in during the early afternoon, but when I logged in later it had changed to the raven idol one. I'm guessing they put the first one up by mistake.

[Lorini]

The first one was broken. Something about one of the choices was literally unbeatable.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Ah. I'm glad I apparently made the right choice!

On another note, I really hate the hunter's Call of the Wild. It is almost impossible to beat if it gets played on back to back turns.

[Sudy]

Wow. My first pack with more than one legendary. I didn't have Nozdormu, either.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I got my first legendary from a pack in a long time yesterday. Too bad it turned out to be one of the worst cards in the game: Nat, the Darkfisher.

[Friki]

My gpu broke a few days ago, so i can't play many games:/ Thankfully i have my tablet and i play Hearthstone from it
Amazing game. Anybody interested to add to to his/hers friends list?
Ill kick your @s%

[Sudy]

This week's Tavern Brawl should please those of you who liked "pick two cards". This time, it's three.

I promptly ran into a Druid running Naturalize, Coldlight Oracle, and Innervate. That was about the least fun I've ever had.

The first deck I thought of was Northshire Cleric, Divine Spirit, and Inner Fire. Got the win on my second game. And I'm done with TB for this week....

[El Guapo]

This week's Tavern Brawl should please those of you who liked "pick two cards". This time, it's three.

I promptly ran into a Druid running Naturalize, Coldlight Oracle, and Innervate. That was about the least fun I've ever had.

The first deck I thought of was Northshire Cleric, Divine Spirit, and Inner Fire. Got the win on my second game. And I'm done with TB for this week....

Yeah, I did too, and promptly forfeited. Who regards that as a good use of their time?

[El Guapo]

That said, I did just stumble on a counter to that deck. Holy Smite + Shadow Word: Pain + Prince Malachezar (the new dude who puts 5 legendary creatures in your deck at game start).

Each Prince Malachezar goes off at game start, so you have like a 60+ card deck.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I won both games I tried with the card that the reduces the costs of mechs by one mana, the mech that gains 1 attack every turn, and the mech that allows you to discover another mech (sorry - I'm bad at card names). If you get the right starting cards, you can have a full board of mechs within 3 turns.

[El Guapo]

I will say I am heartily enjoying playing with Prince Malachezar and playing the plentiful Innervate + Coldlight Oracle + Naturalize decks. Since my deck winds up being twice as big as theirs, and they have no other way to kill me, I literally do not need to do anything to win.

Well, I guess I do holy smite and/or Shadow Word any surviving Oracles, but that's pretty much it.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Prince Malachezar in general has been pretty fun. The randomness of the legendaries that are added to the deck plus getting to try out cards I normally don't see has been refreshing. It also makes me feel that I have a chance no matter what decks I'm going against.

[Lorini]

Uh Ralph, why can't friends watch your games? Makes you less useful as a battlenet friend, just sayin' .

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I didn't know that they couldn't! Maybe some setting got switched unknowingly. I'll check it out.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I have the option checked for friends to be able to spectate my matches. Not sure why it apparently wasn't working?

[Lorini]

I have the option checked for friends to be able to spectate my matches. Not sure why it apparently wasn't working?

I tried every time I saw you yesterday and it didn't work. Finally had to spectate Sandy

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Weird. Did it give you any message about why you couldn't spectate me? Maybe the person I was playing had that option unchecked?

[Lorini]

Weird. Did it give you any message about why you couldn't spectate me? Maybe the person I was playing had that option unchecked?

Nope, I tried three different times too. It kept saying I couldn't challenge you at that time which was a duh .

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Strange; not sure what's going on. Hopefully this last patch fixed whatever it was.

[Sudy]

Grats on the Ragnaros.

[El Guapo]

I made a Yogg-Saron style spell deck (in standard), and it's working pretty well so far. I'm currently up to (down to?) level 10 in ranked, which is by far the farthest I've ever gotten in ranked.

[Lorini]

Yogg (and Call of the Wild) are on the nerf block so go as far as you can while you can

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/09/26/ ... earthstone

There's a really good shaman deck buried in that article as well.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Glad to see Call of the Wild is getting nerfed. It's almost impossible to win if that card is played back to back against you.

I've recently started playing with a Shaman deck and it can be really powerful if the cards come together right.

[El Guapo]

Yogg (and Call of the Wild) are on the nerf block so go as far as you can while you can

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/09/26/ ... earthstone

There's a really good shaman deck buried in that article as well.

It's interesting, because I don't find Yogg-Saron himself to be all that good, at least not reliably - it tends to be a little more of a hail mary to me. I find the best use of him is when my opponent has a few minions out and I have one or none, because then the damages spells that target minions are much more likely to hit his minions and not mine. But even then, it's pretty common to waste most of the Yogg spells and/or wind up buffing his minions, and if Yogg doesn't wipe out his minions then I'm tapped out and probably dead. Like I usually don't bother casting Yogg at all even if I draw him, unless I'm getting semi-desperate.

Also Yogg kills himself like 75% of the time in my experience.

Medivh and Arcane Giant from the recent expansions are tremendous in that deck, though.

[El Guapo]

Yogg (and Call of the Wild) are on the nerf block so go as far as you can while you can

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/09/26/ ... earthstone

There's a really good shaman deck buried in that article as well.

Yeah I've had a fair amount of trouble with spirit claws - that card's pretty useful.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

As you say, Yogg is a hail mary card. You probably don't want to use him when you're winning, but if you're losing you can throw him out there and there's about a 50% (higher?) that he'll take control of the game for you. I've played numerous games that I was comfortably ahead healthwise with multiple minions on the board only to have my opponent play Yogg and win the game in the next few turns. Pretty frustrating.

[El Guapo]

As you say, Yogg is a hail mary card. You probably don't want to use him when you're winning, but if you're losing you can throw him out there and there's about a 50% (higher?) that he'll take control of the game for you. I've played numerous games that I was comfortably ahead healthwise with multiple minions on the board only to have my opponent play Yogg and win the game in the next few turns. Pretty frustrating.

50% is too high in my experience. Most of the time I have Yogg played against me it doesn't really change the trajectory of the game - if you're playing him in the typical situation where the opponent has several minions out to your zero or one minion, then if Yogg is just neutral or mostly neutral then you probably still lose.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

You're right - it's probably somewhat high (selective memory and all that). But it's still pretty annoying that one RNG card can make such a huge swing.

[El Guapo]

You're right - it's probably somewhat high (selective memory and all that). But it's still pretty annoying that one RNG card can make such a huge swing.

Yeah, but it's a 10 crystal card - it should be capable of changing the game.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

True, but with most 10 cost cards you can plan for them. For instance, if an opponent is playing a Cthun deck, I'll make sure to keep a Polymorph or Naturalize card in my hand. But the RNG nature of Yogg means there really isn't any way to prepare for him.

[El Guapo]

Yeah, although that cuts both ways - the person playing Yogg can't really plan around him either (beyond holding him as a "break in case of emergency" card), and because he takes up all your crystals for the turn there can be no plan B if he doesn't do what you're hoping for.

Also, to some degree you can plan for Yogg like you do with any other (potentially) board wiping card - you mix in some deathrattle creatures and/or you hold back a creature or two in your hand. Unlike C'Thun, Yogg is only 7/5, so it's not really hard to deal with beyond the random spells.

[Lorini]

I think the problem with Yogg is that there are too many cards that do damage to enemies as stated on the card. If the word 'enemy' could be taken away from the spells that Yogg uses, then I think he'd be fine, but really I suspect you're more at a 70% chance of coming out ahead when playing him because of those enemy targeted spells.

[El Guapo]

I think the problem with Yogg is that there are too many cards that do damage to enemies as stated on the card. If the word 'enemy' could be taken away from the spells that Yogg uses, then I think he'd be fine, but really I suspect you're more at a 70% chance of coming out ahead when playing him because of those enemy targeted spells.

I think doing that would make Yogg pretty useless though. The person casting them is committing 10 crystals (and essentially a full turn), and since Yogg is only 7/5 with no taunt you're likely to get wiped out if Yogg doesn't help. If it were 50/50 in terms of actually being helpful then I think I would take him out of the Yogg deck entirely, because as I say it's only worth the risk even now where you are otherwise badly outnumbered.

And it's not a 70% chance because there aren't that many spells limited to enemy minions, when mixed in with a lot of spells that are useless in that context. And usually it's not enough to come out ahead - you usually need a board wipe (or something close to it).

[El Guapo]

It's mainly surprising because in this run with the Yogg deck I've been noting how rarely useful Yogg is, and how I usually don't even cast him even if I draw him. I've been finding Medivh to be MUCH more useful.

[Lorini]

That shaman deck is the bomb, a friend is up to 6th with it.

[Lorini]

As I was saying....

tl:dr version

Rockbiter cost upped to 2
Tuskarr Totemic can only summon basic totems
Call of the Wild costs 9 and makes it equivalent to three Summon Animal Companions in cost, plus stops the CotW+Hero Power combo
Execute now costs 2 (still too low in my opinion)
Charge won't let the minion attack heros on the turn it is cast
Abusive Sargent down to 1 attack instead of 2
Yogg now stops if it stops itself through spells it casts. So for example if you cast Yogg and the first spell it casts is Destroy All Minions, it's done

Changes go through before Last Call which I saw as next Friday but someone said was Monday.

So the question becomes, do you dust Yogg? You'll get full dust for it for awhile once the changes go through. This change murders mage, back to Freeze mage to have any shot at fulfilling Mage quests on Ladder. The problem for Blizzard is that Yogg was seeing play in tournaments which it was never supposed to have happen. I can see their concern over that, would be super frustrating as a tourney player.

I wanted to see a nerf to Justicar but as she's moving out of Standard soon I guess they felt it wasn't enough to bother with.

[El Guapo]

What's the difference between "full dust" and, uh, not full dust?

It's still confusing to me that it needed a nerf, given that (for example) I've seen it played I think four times (by me or my opponent) in the past week, and in each case the caster lost. Seems like ~ 30% of the time Yogg winds up killing itself. The last time I cast Yogg, it was a novelty in that Yogg just killed me directly, by casting two damage spells at me.

But the nerf seems fine. If Yogg destroys all minions that's probably fine - that's what you're hoping for like 80% of the time anyway. Of course, every now and again it's going to like naturalize itself on the first spell, and then you're extra hosed. Oh well.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Most of these changes make sense. Glad to see they've moved CotW to 9 mana. And since Yogg seemingly gets destroyed 50% of the time it is used, that looks like a serious nerf.