Hearthstone

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Getting better at arena (on average), but I keep hitting an 8-win wall. Last many runs: 8, 8, 7, 7, 8, 5, 3, 2, 8, 8

I feel like whether I draw a two-mana 2/3 or not determines half of my games.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
For the new season I spent my dust making a Renomage deck. Crafted Kazakus and Bloodmage Thalnos, and I'm using Lifecoach's Medivh tech since I have that card. I'm not sure how good it is, but it obviously gives insane value off of 10-mana Kazakus potions.

Who knows what the deck will look like post-rotation. The loss of Reno and Brann will be pretty devastating for Kazakus, and I think in the abstract singleton decks will weaker in a 4-set standard versus a 6-set standard.

Also opened a pack yesterday with Jaraxxus and Harrison Jones, and my arena efforts finally netted another legendary: Auctionmaster Beardo. Perhaps a friend of Raza somehow?
 
I crafted Jaraxxus a few weeks ago just to play RenoLock. That deck is fucking awesome, as is every RenoKazakus.dec
Opened Beardo myself but never tried the Inspire or Combo RenoPriest as I liked DragonRenoPriest and RenoLock a lot better for the past few weeks.
Also, I don't have the TGT priest legendary (don't remind the English name right now) which is a must-have to play the best possible list imho.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Speaking of...

Today in Arena I was 6-2, playing Rogue against Warlock.
Swashburglar -> Kabal Trafficker -> Jaraxxus

g.g.
 
I've been playing in a small Wild tournament recently and I've made it to the semifinals / top 4, which will take place this Saturday (streamed live with commentary! I'm on top of the world, ma). When I visited Chris T's playgroup over the Christmas break, I mentioned that I'm a primarily wild player and caught some light chirping for it. I think Wild has a very interesting and diverse meta, and the higher power level means more oblique strategies are viable, if not necessarily tier one. In conversation over Discord, Jason mentioned that "Wild is pretty interesting", so I thought I'd share the streams of my T16 and T8 rounds.

T16 stream, tournament begins at 11 minutes
T8 stream, tournament begins at 6 minutes

No spoilers, but I win. The tournament format was odd; players brought six decks from six classes, banned one class per opponent, and then competed for the first to win with 3 different decks. I'm quite new to competitive HS (it's my first tournament!) and I've really enjoyed trying to metagame the format. Ranging my opponents has always been one of my strongest skills in Magic, and lately the Hearthstone ladder, but it's so much more exhilarating when every single game is crucial. If more Hearthstone tournaments were in the Wild format, I could see myself doing this a lot. My goal for this tournament was always just to stream my games and try to hit top 8 (pool of ~50 players) but now that I've hit the semis I'm genuinely out for blood (and/or a $20 Steam gift card).
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Admittedly my chirping was mostly because of the format's obscurity, rather than a comment that it was actually worse.

So much so that the site I used to copy decklists because I'm boring (tempostorm.com) has a meta snapshot, a given week to week of which decks are performing well in standard. They long had a link to a wild meta snapshot, but once there it just said "the interest in this format is too low for us to bother", and now I'm currently trying to see if this changed and clicking on the wild snapshot seems to have broken the entire site for me :p
 
Admittedly my chirping was mostly because of the format's obscurity, rather than a comment that it was actually worse.

So much so that the site I used to copy decklists because I'm boring (tempostorm.com) has a meta snapshot, a given week to week of which decks are performing well in standard. They long had a link to a wild meta snapshot, but once there it just said "the interest in this format is too low for us to bother", and now I'm currently trying to see if this changed and clicking on the wild snapshot seems to have broken the entire site for me :p

TempoStorm's wild snapshot is actually not very good imo, I take significant issue with they way they've built a few of their decks. r/wildhearthstone is becoming one of the better sources for info on the format, and they just released a meta tier list that's based on decks' ability to reach high Legend rank. There's a bunch of lists linked in the post, and more in regular discussion on the subreddit. If you're looking for a source for Wild decklists, Icy Veins is the only legit (i.e. written by pros) site with good and consistently updated Wild decklists. I've thrown around the idea of putting together a Wild-exclusive website that would run articles and deck techs but never really gotten anywhere with it.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
TempoStorm's wild snapshot is actually not very good imo, I take significant issue with they way they've built a few of their decks. r/wildhearthstone is becoming one of the better sources for info on the format, and they just released a meta tier list that's based on decks' ability to reach high Legend rank. There's a bunch of lists linked in the post, and more in regular discussion on the subreddit. If you're looking for a source for Wild decklists, Icy Veins is the only legit (i.e. written by pros) site with good and consistently updated Wild decklists. I've thrown around the idea of putting together a Wild-exclusive website that would run articles and deck techs but never really gotten anywhere with it.

I suspect interest in Wild will go up once people have half of their standard collection rotate out. Renos gotta Reno.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
So, after going 12-2 in my second run, I've been on a dry-spell as far as 12-winners go. I think it's a combination of a couple factors. Firstly, as Onderzeeboot pointed out, new players get slightly easier matchmaking in Arena. Secondly, I played right when MSoG was released. According to Kripparrian, lots of noobs play arena when a new set is released, so it's especially easier.

I have, however, been upping my game. Last 5 runs were 6, 7, 9, 10 and 3 wins. Then this today:
spRtRy5.jpg
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
No, the voice over kept calling Safra a "he", which is probably a safe bet percentage wise but wrong nonetheless.

Anyway, congrats Safra! Job well done :)

Edit: That last match! Not a chance :cool:
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Congrats Saf!

Can I ask about a line Saf? In Game 2 you didn't play the Ancestral Knowledge you drew off of Far Sight immediately. Do you think that was correct? To me it seemed like you got choked on mana because of that, and it made future turns a little awkward.
 
Congrats Saf!

Can I ask about a line Saf? In Game 2 you didn't play the Ancestral Knowledge you drew off of Far Sight immediately. Do you think that was correct? To me it seemed like you got choked on mana because of that, and it made future turns a little awkward.

I reviewed the game and yeah, incorrect play. Still learning my way around managing Overload. The other dumb thing I do is the next turn I Crackle his Trogg, but if I'd split the 4 overload I had over 2 turns I could've gone totem maelstrom portal instead.

My initial thought was that I wanted to be able to throw Ancestral Knowledge in with a Lava Shock turn for totally free card draw, but I had too much pressure on to wait for that.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
What's the goal of Far Sight in that deck? Setting up big turns? Just curious, as the card is in Standard and I haven't really seen it in any list. I have copies of it and Finders Keepers, but not sure if they're worth keeping.
 
Far Sight was a card back when Malygos Shaman was a deck, you used it to reduce the cost of cards you wanted to play in a combo that kills the opponent in one turn.
Now you have better cards, it's the most aggressive class right now with a plethora of strong choices, Far Sight could never make the cut in Standard right now.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I have 2k dust burning a hole in my pocket, and my ranked rewards earned me a golden Twilight Guardian. But my last pack netted me a Krul. So, Reno Priest or Reno Demonlock? For Priest I'd probably craft Ysera, and for Reno I guess Ragnaros? Ragnaros doesn't really excite me, but, me. A Reno Priest list I saw used Justicar Trueheart, but I don't really feel like crafting TGT cards right before rotation.

My current constructed-relevant legendaries:
(everything from Karazhan and LOE, first two wings of BRM)
Kazakus
Raza
Aya
Patches
Krul
Jaraxxus
Al Akir, the Windlord
Van Cleef
Bloodmage Thalnos

Less relevant:
Harrison Jones
Genzo the Shark
Auctionmaster Beardo
C'Thun
Tyrion Fordring
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
You could look at Icy Veins' top deck lists and see what legendary to craft. If you have either Kun or Aviana, you could also go for the other so you can build combo druid maybe? If you like Paladin, Tirion Fordring is pretty absurd. Sylvanas Windrunner is always a fun legendary, and it's from the base set, so she'll stay relevant.
 

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I've basically got no Druid cards even worth mentioning. The only paladin build I've seen is that Anyfin / Tyrion build, but it doesn't really appeal to me.

My biggest problem right now is that I have enough cards to play specific decks with (Shaman, Renomage), but don't really feel like I have the collection to "brew". I like watching streamers try to make odd cards work, but somehow in Hearthstone only the staples feel worth the dust. I guess because, if your experiment fails, you can't just trade the cards to someone else for near equal value like in Magic.
 
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