I think Paladin got pretty shafted this set. Buff Paladin is generally garbage to begin with, since it requires getting a board state, and then maintaining said board state long enough to make it matter with some of the worst tools available at maintaining board presence. Hand Buff Paladin at least could safely generate the buffs while they were still in your hand, but it was still a question of juggling board presence and scaling to a mid game tempo swing. Doubling down on the buff path just cemented Paladin to the bottom tier for the foreseeable future imo.

Even Hunter seems more palatable because of massive support for a midrange/control Hunter that still enables a more conventional face Hunter approach should you choose to. Dinomancy might be one of the most, if not the most, interesting card in the entire set solely because of how much potential it opens for a midrange/control Hunter. I'm seriously stoked for Hunter this set solely because of how malleable the options that were added are.


And yes, the Tar line of taunts was a nice design decision. I applaud Blizzard for finally figuring out the second easiest way to make something a decidedly defensive tool after giving it 0 power. I'm only half sarcastic.

Will the Tar Cards be good? I don't think so. I think they'll see play, but as one of the worse cards of the decks they fall in.

I think the card I'm most excited for is the Humongous Razorleaf Card, 3 mana 4/8 can't attack. It has a ton of potential in more than one deck. Feels fair. Aggro decks can't abuse it.

I still have no clue what deck exists that can stand to play a control match up against Jade. I don't think Taunt Warrior has what it takes. Nor do I think deathrattle priest will work.

Tar cards might only exist to stamp out pirate Warrior, but I think only the neutral variant will see much play. The Warlock and Warrior versions take too long to get out to deal with aggro.

Honestly, I think control is dead until Jade cycles out. You can't win against Jade Druid since they can go infinite, and you'll be hard pressed to beat Jade Shaman because they can throw the kitchen sink at you from the start of the game.

Alright, first impressions:

Elemental Shaman is pretty busted. It might take a little to determine optimal curve, but it's pretty much unstoppable if you can start stabilizing at 6 mana. Though Jade Shaman is still strong, so I think you'll see a mix of both of these decks, and some hybrid versions.

Hunter is pretty hilarious now, you can pretty much play however you want and it's k. It's pretty hilarious when you finish the Quest and get the 15 Raptors added, cause then you can play Tundra Rhino and just swarm them with the Raptors, cause 1 for 3/2 with Battlecry: Draw a card is fun. Or you overkill and play Starving Buzzard with it, or Stampede. Either way, mad jokes, and I wouldn't be surprised to see midrange Hunter rise again. There's a lot of nice tools they got from this expansion.

Taunt Warrior isn't bad. I've yet to actually use the Quest reward, because everybody has surrendered when I finished it. The curve isn't that bad, but I could probably optimize what I'm running, since it's basically the recommended deck.

Quest Paladin is better than I expected. Not as good as I hoped, but it's pretty funny to play Galvadon and roid it up with Stealth and Windfury, and then run your roided up Primalfin Champion into something to kill it, thus filling your hand with all those sweet sweet buffs for the reapplication. Primalfin Champion is also what makes the Quest not totally suck and enable an aggressive approach to it. I've had Galvadon in my hand by turn 6 because of that card. Also, Silvermoon Portal can net you the new Mage Legendary, so that was fun.

I'm playing Rogue for the lulz since I got that free Hero portrait, I think most the new cards they got are pretty shite. A lot of support for Burgle style of play right when Burgle rotated out is some sort of sick joke. Regardless, I think there's some potential hiding in Rogue that I can't quite put my finger on. I'm thinking MalyRogue might see a comeback, but I dunno. I just know I dunked a Shaman at turn 10 because Maly > Sinister Strike > Prep > Lava Burst > Prep > Eviscerate.

Discard Warlock looks alright, but it seems volatile. A lot of nice discard effects were rotated out (rip Fist of Jarraxus memes) so a lot of your discards will feel painful since they'll likely hit other discard cards. You'll still need to play the high volume discard cards because the entire deck relies on getting the Quest done and the Portal out as soon as possible. Two 3/2 Imps at the start of your turn every turn for free is a pretty great deal.

I'm not sold on Mage. Tempo Mage is probably the way now. Unfortunately, I think this also means that Quest Mage is probably bad. The Quest is basically a "win more" card, which means it's not likely to be useful. Since it costs 5 mana to play Time Warp, it implies that you're not behind when you play it, because 5 less mana seriously restricts Mage's potential to swing the board state. It's pretty much exclusively Doomsayer, which would only let you reclaim board state for the next turn. Furthermore, it's the Quest that arguably takes the longest to complete with some of the least amount of tools to support it.

I'm not sure on Priest, since I haven't looked hard at it yet, but I feel like it's stuck in limbo right now. It lost a lot of the tools for Dragon Priest, Reno Priest is obviously suffering, and Deathrattle Priest looks alright, but it doesn't seem to have a finisher in a meta where games will almost never end by attrition. Edit: Follow up, I think Elemental Priest has meme potential. Ozruk into Inner Fire is top kek.

Lastly, Druid. I'm not quite sure on it yet as well, but I think Quest Druid could have potential. It remains to be seen though if it makes more sense to play Quest Druid when you can just play Jade Druid. Quest Druid is probably faster, since you're pretty much winning by tempo upon completing the Quest.

Quest rogue is enough said

First impressions:

Buff Paladin is as ass as we thought
Hunters are relevant again (finally)
Handlock might be a thing again because of the Humongous Razorleaf
Elemental Shaman is the deck to beat, it's... so good.

Taunt warrior looks pretty weak.
Quest rogue seems too slow to win the board back

I haven't seen a Druid yet.

Quest rogue is actually pretty good if you pool out the quest by turn 5-6 and if you also use moroes with it.

Quest hunter is just cancer, literly i played only vs this deck and i managed to beat it only 1 time with n'zoth jade rogue. It is really hard to win back the board after he finishes the quest.

I'll also try to see how elemental shaman will work, my first encounter with it was pretty bad for him, managed to comeback with 7 health with n'zoth jade rogue and beat it.

The problem is decks that are pretty good aren't good enough. They used to be. But win conditions are so polarizing in hearthstone that you can't just play good cards with reasonable synergy.

Yesterday I was playing against a pirate warrior who had set my life total to one by the end of his third turn. I was going first. When that type of power can exist, you don't have time to play 1 mana 1/1's, let alone 3 mana 1/1.

Decks swing in power too hard by draw order in hearthstone at the moment.

i agree about ele shaman. really really good curve stone deck. just play elementals on curve and you win lmao.

also otk mage is fun as fuck. it's like a less boring freeze mage

I mean jesus look at this:



Jade Druid, a deck with Taunts... and swipe. Not a combo deck. VS. Face Warrior. The face warrior, is a no-name. The Jade Druid, is Firebat, a player who won the Hearthstone World Championship. Only player in the game to have a card named after him.

Mulligan: Firebat's starting hand is Coin, Jade Idol, Wild Growth, Jade Blossom, Fandral Staghelm, and Nourish. A 0,1,2,3,4,5 mana cards in order. Which have synergy with each other. It's a fucking dream come true.

Turn 1: Warrior plays N'zoth First mate, summoning patches. So he has a 1/1, a 1/1, and a 1/3 mana weapon for 1 mana. Swings face, 2 damage dealt by turn 1

Turn 1b: Firebat coins Wild Growth

Turn 2: Warrior swings with everything and plays fiery war axe. 5 damage dealt by turn 2

Turn 2b: Firebat uses Jade Blossom, summoning a 1/1 that contests the minions on the board, and making him have 5 mana for the next turn. So +2 ramps on this pirate warrior.

Turn 3: Warrior kills 1/1 with weapon, summons a 3/3 captain, and goes face. The player now has dealt NINE damage, has a 3/1 weapon, has two 2/2 minions, and a 3/3 minion on turn 3.

Turn 3b: Firebat summons a 5/4, bare in mind he's summoning the 5/4 on TURN 3. But it gets better, he adapts it, it's a 5/7. A FIVE SEVEN on turn 3.

Turn 4: Warrior uses a 2 mana spell, Heroic strike, killing the 5/7. Plays ANOTHER war axe. Hits face. The warrior now has all those minions on the board, and has dealt 16 damage. Firebat has less than 50% health. It's turn 4, and the Warrior has a board, a weapon, and a ton of health.

Turn 4b: Firebat summons a 6 mana 5/7 taunt minion. Doesn't get much better value on taunts than Dark Arrokoa. He's summoning a 6 mana 5/7 taunt on turn 4, after summoning a 5/7 last turn. Just so we're clear.

Turn 5: Warrior plays Southsea Captain, Southsea Deckhand, and Weapon. Kills the taunt, and goes face. It took 7 extra damage to kill that 5/7 taunt, and it took 7 extra damage to kill the 5/7 prior. Firebat now has 3 health. In total, By turn 5, the Warrior has now dealt 7+7+1+27 damage, for a total of 42 damage. In addition to dealing 42 damage by turn 5, he has a 4/3, a 3/3, 2 4/4 minions, and a 4/2 weapon all in play.

Turn 5b: Firebat concedes, after looking at the Ancient of War he could've played on curve this turn.

So to be clear: Pirate went face. Druid summoned huge taunt minions that cost almost twice as much as the total mana available to the warrior. Without even an execute, the warrior had Lethal, with overkill, and a weapon, and a board, going into turn 6. The warrior wasn't punishing a miracle rogue accruing combo pieces, he ate through 2 humongous taunts and would've had no time at all killing the absolute best 7 mana taunt minion that's existed in the game, a 5/10. That 7 mana minion being played on turn 5b wasn't even close to enough. Even if the warrior drew literally nothing, he could've overkilled the Ancient of War by 1, and and dealt 5 overkill to face. That's even if he didn't summon a single burn spell, or charge. By turn 6, the warrior, had he drawn literally nothing, would've dealt a grand total of 60 damage while still having 2 4/4 minions on the board and a card in hand.



Fast forward:



Trump, professional hearthstone player, vs. No Name Face Warrior. 15:15 into the video. Trump has TWO mistress of mixtures, AoE hellfire, taunts, and Earthen Ring Farseer. He's essentially has the anti aggro dream. How'd he do?

By the end of turn 5, taking into account Trump's Hero Power and Hellfire damage to self, despite running many healing cards, Trump has received 27 damage, has only 2 health left, and face a 7/3 and 4/3 board. Trump clears, puts a 4/8 on the board ready to be double taunted. Sets himself to 6 health.... AND warrior plays 7 damage of charge from hand. 1 damage overkill.

If anyone's curious, he queues into another Face Warrior, only hero powers once, summons taunt minion, and by turn 5, the warrior dealt a total of 46 damage, and of course, hit for lethal. So even if somehow trump summoned all of that stuff with only one of each in his deck, and was lucky enough to have reno, and reno was still in standard, he would've died before even getting to play Reno.

Pirates - fun and interactive. These games were played within the last 24 hours.