Hearthstone

[Fluffy]

it was so slow lol.

 

I tried an arena rogue deck with those 3-2 combo: deal 1 damage. It was not a success, too hard to combo at the start. You can combo the IV Agent with the coin, but a 2 mana card you cannot combo with the coin unless the board is empty (so you don't hit anyone). It also doesn't combo with poisonous venom since you can kill small minions with your weapon, so no use of the ability. Only combo that works is stab, but that card didn't show up.

 

Next I did a druid with expensive creatures and justs, it worked better. Sabouteur is great against mage, and the inspire: summon a 1-1 silverhand recruit also had a stelar game.

[Cyberyeti]

I bought a load of TGT packs with gold, 40 packs, 200 cards

 

147 common

43 rare

7 epic

3 legends

 

Not sure how lucky this is, but only one of the legends was really worth having.

[Antrax]

So you're the guy who opened my legendaries. I bought 20 and got 3 epics, two of them Enter the Coliseum :)

 

(You can expect a legendary once every 20 packs, so this is slightly above average. On the other hand, you got an average of 87 dust per pack and you can expect a little over 100)

[Cyberyeti]

So you're the guy who opened my legendaries. I bought 20 and got 3 epics, two of them Enter the Coliseum :)

 

(You can expect a legendary once every 20 packs, so this is slightly above average. On the other hand, you got an average of 87 dust per pack and you can expect a little over 100)

 

I got a couple of gold cards so that upped my dust a bit, I tend to dust gold cards if I have enough non gold versions.

 

Legendaries

 

Varian Wrynn

Eydis Darkbane

Skycap'n Kragg

 

Epics

 

Enter the coliseum

Beneath the grounds

Elemental destruction

Charged hammer

Garrison commander

Master of ceremonies

Frost giant

[Antrax]

Varian is one of the sought-after cards. Congrats!

[Cyberyeti]

Varian is one of the sought-after cards. Congrats!

 

Yeah, but the warrior deck I play, games are all over before he'd get played

[Fluffy]

I had some luck and first 3 runs on arena gave me TGT packs, but only 3 rares and 12 commons :/ (1 golden)

[Antrax]

Did two TGT arena runs, very poor results (in part due to servers crashing mid-game) and got classic 40 dust packs.

In general I don't like TGT's impact on arena. Some inspire cards, if played on an empty board, just win outright. So I lost one game where after my AoE the opponent played the guy that makes 3/5s, and I won a game where I played Mukla's Champion and got a taunt totem, and neither felt very skill intense.

[Fluffy]

The 3-4 murloc caster is insanely OP in arena also. You need to save all the removal for this inspire dudes or you are crushed.

 

I am also wondering what happens with spells now that there are so many neutrals. My 3 mage runs have been flamestrike-less, while I am yet to find a single mage who doesn't clear my board with it

[Antrax]

Fluffy, that's indeed a thing. As more cards are printed, the old ones are "diluted", so something like Fireball is actually worth more now than it used to. ADWCTA, who operates HearthArena, occasionally posts reports based on data-mining thousands of arena runs, and the latest trend is that removal is at a premium, so board presence (and snatching removal where you can) are worth even more now.

Since some inspire cards are a must-kill, I think the overall effect is a sort of dumbing down of arena. That being said, TGT has been out for all of two days. I'll play a bit more over the weekend, then spend some time watching Ratsmah play in the post-TGT era, then we'll see.

[Fluffy]

There was a time were spells were really rare a year ago or so, but they chanced it and class cards have higher chance. Still the more cards the less you will get the good ones.

[Antrax]

Went 12 with a humdrum Paladin draft. I think it's now the best arena class. Used to be once you hit double-digits it was the guy who managed to build face hunter and mages with lots of fireballs and flamestrikes. Now it's Murlock Knight and Mysterious Challenger mirror all day.

[Fluffy]

The crazy thing about challenger is that... is it going to get more and more powerful with each expansion?

[Antrax]

I think so - even if they print worse secrets, nobody forces you to play them in a deck. So, in that sense, the card limits the design space a bit.

However, assuming we lives in a world with 14 secrets, nobody would build a deck that's 28 copies of secrets and 2 challengers, so there's some balancing point, and it might be that point is close to where we are now, where people run 4-5 unique secrets.

 

Also, they can just give more classes access to Flare.

[Fluffy]

I though it was eery secret, not every secret in the deck, now it makes sense.

 

Kezan Mystique is good on the current meta for arena.

 

I am struggling in arena since TGT my winrate is poor, my average has to be between 3 and 4. Playing with high fever has probably been a factor, but I am probably missing something important as well.

[WesleyC]

I'm not a fan of the new arena meta. The addition of inspire is a big buff to all the classes with board influencing hero powers which has made them even stronger than they already were. Warrior, Hunter and to a lesser extent Priest and Shaman are at an even bigger disadvantage now and with Murloc Knight as a common, Pally is just ridiculous.

 

Speaking of Paly, I did have a lot of fun grinding to legend over the past couple days with my version of a Mysterious Challenger Pally Deck:

 

Decklist

 

The main objective when constructing my deck was to ensure a great match-up against other secret based paladin strategies, which make up a huge chunk of the US server meta.

 

The main differences between my list and a typical Secret Paly is no secret-keeper and only 6 secrets. Avenge and Noble Sacrifice are legitimately playable by themselves so including 2 of each is a no-brainer. Competitive Spirit is big if you have a board presence and Redemption is valuable on Minibots/Shredders/Belchers but mixed otherwise. The other secrets are easily played around by any competent opponent.

 

Against other Secret Paly decks, Zombies Chow helps to avoid getting overrun, Aldor counters a challenger, Consecration is a silver bullet and Sludge-Belchers plus a chunkier top end guarantee that you win the long game.

 

Most of my games were on mobile, so I don't have precise stats but from rank 3 to legendary my W/L ratio was about 20:5, only losing 2 games to other paladins (out of about 10).

[Antrax]

I think Rogue also got screwed by the inspire cards. Shaman got even better (it was always a second tier class IMO) since the totems are board presence and Thunder Bluff Valiant is a rare.

 

That Mysterious Challenger deck is like nothing I've ever seen, everybody and his sister ladder to legend with it in a matter of hours the past few days. I'd try it out but it seems a bit bland, and also I only have one challenger after opening 35 TGT packs (and 1 legendary, the bouncing skeleton guy).

I'm probably going to try out the dragon priest for a bit later today.

[Fluffy]

I've got my first legendary, Saarad nexus champion or something like. Don't thikn it has much play in constructed although it is not bad.

[Antrax]

It might still see play in a grinder-style deck. I don't think it's likely since its value is too unpredictable, but who knows.

[Cyberyeti]

I think Rogue also got screwed by the inspire cards. Shaman got even better (it was always a second tier class IMO) since the totems are board presence and Thunder Bluff Valiant is a rare.

 

That Mysterious Challenger deck is like nothing I've ever seen, everybody and his sister ladder to legend with it in a matter of hours the past few days. I'd try it out but it seems a bit bland, and also I only have one challenger after opening 35 TGT packs (and 1 legendary, the bouncing skeleton guy).

I'm probably going to try out the dragon priest for a bit later today.

 

Have flares come back into fashion ?

[ahydra]

If the prevalence of secret paladin is anything to go by (watched a streamer get ~5 of them in a row earlier) then yes hunter with 2x unleash and at least one flare will be very much in fashion. Kezan Mystic just doesn't quite cut it against that many secrets IMHO.

 

The TGT cards are pretty good for the most part, and it's great to see new viable decks - dragon priest, dragon warrior, all sorts of druids from beast to double combo, totem shaman, even slower hunter decks with Lock and Load. But unfortunately as Antrax mentioned, rogue got somewhat screwed over.

 

ahydra

[Antrax]

Have flares come back into fashion ?

Yeah, one of the popular decks now is a midrange hunter with flare. I don't think it's auto-win against the challenger deck (still leaves up a 6/6 and a thinned deck, and some of them run divine favor for extra aggression when running out of steam), but it sure screws Freeze Mage over :)

 

I played some dragon priest / warrior yesterday. Dragon Priest was strong but I was crushed by a shaman who got two Totem Golems from his 3/2 fish dude. Not sure if that's indicative of much, though. Dragon Warrior got run over by aggro but crushed a classic control warrior by fatigue since he just had less threats and less answers in favor of more card draw, which is awful in a warrior mirror. He also played somewhat poorly, playing alex into a board with my Sylvannas to try and rush me down, but in general I think my midgame is much stronger than his, so he has to waste premium removal on mediocre minions.

[Antrax]

I've got my first legendary, Saarad nexus champion or something like. Don't thikn it has much play in constructed although it is not bad.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/318729-top-4-legend-tempo-mage-by-hotform

 

Here's the guide he posted on reddit:

[Antrax]

Yep, Paladin being strongest in arena now confirmed:

Interesting that Mage dropped two ranks though. I haven't done a rogue run yet but as I recall they got mostly chaff.

[Fluffy]

I've got Tyrion more times from the Great Crusade in Arena (Twice) than ever with Paladin Decks (once).

 

But there is never a bad drop from Great Crusade, Truesilver Champion on a druid was hilarious, aldor peacekeeper is incredible, consecration, guardian of kings, I only ever got 2 bad cards and I could even use them.