Innervate I agree with. Counterfeit coin isn’t good because Rogue doesn’t have any other ramping tools. Prep only works for spells. Druid on the other hand has a lot of synergy with mana ramping, and the problem is that innervate in particular is a tempo ramp - you give up a card to have something bigger now, unlike Wild Growth, which you give up a card and your immediate benefit to get your benefit later.
Sure, people didn’t like UI, but if it wasn’t UI it’d be something else. In Classic, innervate Yeti was game winning. Innervate shadow of naxx. It’s been made more obvious with UI, particularly because of the draw, but I don’t actually think UI was the problem.
FWA… I get that it was aimed at pirate warrior, but warrior as a class isn’t in the best spot either. It’s just a fair weapon now, and still has synergy with weapon buff cards. It was always too good, no warrior deck didn’t have 2 FWA.
I actually think spreading plague is very interesting design. It’s an unleash that is defensive in nature, that also punishes the druid for having minions on the board. I would rather it go to 7 to avoid the spreading plague + strongshell combo, but at 10 mana I guess it’s going to be rare.
Yeah… Guys, Ultimate Infestation is absolutely the problem here. The problem with ramp druid is that you spend 3-4 cards ramping, get a huge mana advantage, and then you’re out of cards. You couldn’t afford to Coin Wild Growth -> Jade Blossom -> Nourish for mana before, because that’s four cards that are doing nothing to impact the board or the game state beyond helping you bring out some fat dude later. You usually had to Nourish for cards, at which point you were taking a pretty huge tempo disadvantage.
Now you nourish for mana, and then play Ultimate Infestation, and it solves both of your previous problems. You’re no longer almost out of cards to play with your ten shiny mana crystals, you have a full hand of potentially lethal threats. Were you behind on the board? Kill a dude, get a big dude, and tank up for 5. I don’t think nerfing innervate fixes the Jade Druid problem. I really don’t. You have to nerf Ultimate Infestation. Imagine how stupid Astral Communion would have been with this card.
I disagree that Innervate was not a problem - it has pretty much always been a problem and even if you nerf Spreading Plague and Ultimate Infestation and Jade Idol you’re still left with the utter stupidity that is Innervate -> Vicious Fledgling on turn one (and yes, I think this is better than Innervate Yeti or Innervate Shade ever were - it’s just stupidly powerful).
Counterfeit coin is run in pretty much every decent rogue deck. It’s really good. Not for the same reasons, necessarily, but still, it’s not a bad card.
I disagree. See above - UI fills the role that Nourish used to, but infinitely better, and it lets you also use Nourish for ramp.
No rogue deck didn’t run 2x Prep, Backstab, and Eviscerate. No mage deck didn’t run 2x Frostbolt. No hunter deck didn’t run 2x Animal Companion. How many Paladin decks don’t run 2x Consecrate or 2x Truesilver? Some, but not that many though. That’s sort of the point of core class cards - they get to be “I will include two of this in every single deck” because they help reinforce the core identity of the class. Screw this up, and you end up with classes like Shaman: a class with no clear identity, entirely reliant on shifting expansion class cards, and often completely unplayable. Remember how bad Shaman was before League of Explorers?
Now Fiery War Axe is strictly worse than existing weapons in two out of three of the other weapon classes. And it’s not like it was ever a problem before. It was always great, always a really good card to have, but it’s only a problem because of Pirates. That seems like a bad idea - if Pirates are a problem, nerf the Pirates. Don’t take a hatchet to one of the class’s few truly great core cards.
Not to mention that FWA was pretty much warrior’s main saving grace in arena. Oof.
How to beat the Lich King easily:
There’s a bug with Kel’Thuzad where if the AI can’t get through your taunt minion and kill KT, it won’t even try to attack. And in the Frostmourne phase, The Lich King doesn’t play any cards. This means that if you can kill all but one or two of the spirits, and drop KT+Annoy-o-Tron, you can stall out the game as long as you want. This leads to an obvious win condition with Scaled Nightmare for basically every class - just wait until your Scaled Nightmare can one-shot the Lich King, then kill the last of his dudes and do that. Alternative (and very sexy) option for Paladin: OHKO with the Death Knight.
This works better for some classes than others, obviously.
Alternatively: Murlocs. Lots and lots of Murlocs. He can’t do shit about murlocs, and you can realistically kill him by turn 6 (before he Blizzards) off a good hand. This works great for Rogue as well.
As for how to beat him without the hunter DK:
[spoiler]
Alleycat -> Scavenging Hyena -> Vicious Fledgling -> Crackling Razormaw on the Hyena. The deck runs 10 minions, which hurts, but if you draw well he’ll be dead by turn 5 - getting windfury on a Scavenging Hyena is fucking brutal.
I can agree to disagree with the rest of your post, but I think FWA in particular is worse than any of the above. Quest Rogue didn’t run any of Prep, Backstab or Evis. Jade Rogue doesn’t run Prep or Evis. Backspace Rogue didn’t run Preps (or any aggro Rogue, really, of which there have been plenty). None of Prep, Backstab or Evis is of the same power level as FWA - innately, FWA is 6 damage for 2 mana, and a built in 2 for 1. No other card gets that.
Quest Mage doesn’t run Frostbolt. It is 2 mana 3 damage, and 1 for 1 at best. It is in a very high percentage of Mage decks, I’ll grant you that.
Paladin doesn’t run Consecrate any more. Certainly Murloc Paladin doesn’t. It doesn’t run Truesilver either.
I checked hssreplay and FWA is in 98.1% of Warrior decks. Frostbolt is in 66% of Mage decks. Prep is at 75% and Backstab is at 96% - quite close to FWA. Evis is at 87.2%
FWA has far and away the best win percentage at 57%, Rogue being at 47% and Mage at 50%.
Actually, looking at HSReplay, the only classes that don’t have a card at nearly (+/- 5%) the same level as FWA are Warlock and Shaman.
Druid has Innervate, and who are 0.4% of chucklefucks not running any copies of Innervate? :shock: We can disregard that, I guess, because it’s also getting nerfed, .
Hunter has Kill Command at 94.1% and Animal Companion at 91.2%, as well as Crackling Razormaw which is also above 90%. This speaks more to the linearity of Hunter than anything else, I think.
Mage has Arcane Intellect at 97.1%. The next best is an expansion card.
Paladin… Actually, the most-played Paladin cards are all not classic or base. The first classic or base is Tirion at a little above 80%.
Priest has SWP and SWD both over 95%. This makes sense - these are extremely powerful base set cards meant to help define Priest.
Rogue has Backstab at 96%. Again, extremely powerful base set card, unique ability (it may not be a 2-for-1, but it is one of the nuttiest early-game tempo plays you can make)… Kind of in line with War Axe.
Shaman has Mana Tide and Flametongue both sitting at around 90%
Warlock is just kind of a confusing mess right now. This is a good thing.
And warrior has War Axe at 98.1%. However, I don’t know where you got your win-percentages - FWA has a deck winrate of 53%, and a played winrate of 51% - meaning that in games where it actually saw play, the decks were less successful. I’m honestly not 100% sure how to parse this data. It’s by no means out of line of cards like Backstab, Arcane Intellect, Kill Command, or the Shadow Words.
Even in arena every druid deck has spreading plague. I had a mage run that started 5-0 and I had to face a spreading plague/power of the wild (or whatever the +1/+1 spell is called) in 2 games.
What are the best arena classes now, by the way? Where can you get that informaton?
Compared to the rest of the cards on that list, though, FWA’s power level seems way above those cards. Backstab used to be good when people played 3/2s but nowadays, 2 damage just doesn’t do that much any more… WR of 48% in standard.
I dunno. 2 mana 6 damage seems so way off the curve that I always thought it should have been nerfed. I mean, compare this with Hunter’s kill command - 3 mana 5 damage and that’s hunters best card? 3 mana FWA isn’t even unplayable, Rogue still plays deadly poison even without weapons.
Warrior has upgrade and other weapon synergy that the other classes don’t, though. And yes, in Pirate warrior it is a 2 mana fireball. In control warrior it’s 2 frostbolts for 2 mana. Health basically doesn’t matter for aggro or for control/quest warrior (cf Rogue). Weapon destruction is semi-relevant, but you’ll probably want to save that Ooze for Arcanite Reaper or Gorehowl depending on control or aggro. Not to mention, warriors generally run 4-5 weapons (including upgrades), which one do you want to ooze?
Does that make Eaglehorn bow a 3-mana double-darkbomb or a 3-mana fireball? Does that make Arcanite Reaper a 5-mana pyroblast? The power curve for weapons is different than for damage (fireball) spells, which is different than burn (sinister strike) and removal (tidal surge) spells. If that 2 mana fireball runs up against a 3-mana Wickerflame Burnbristle, it’s now 3 damage over two turns at the cost of an 8-life swing in your opponent’s favor - and you can’t play a different weapon without giving that damage up.
IMO, the screwed up the nerf on Fiery War Axe. It’s debatable that it needed the nerf at all, but a nerf to a 2/2 weapon for 2 mana would have been better. Now, there are a couple weapons that are strictly better than a signature warrior card.
And no, weapons are not directly comparable to spells like Fireball. Mostly because taunt exists. There are other less critical reasons, but that’s the big one.
Some guides say mage has fallen to tier 2 or even 3 in arena in the current game, but I’m still doing best with mage out of every class. Apparently rogue is considered the top class currently, and paladin and druid are both considered better than mage. Do you think that’s accurate?
Also, Bonemare is such an overpowered arena card. It feels rough playing a deck without it.
I got Prince Kelseth as my first card in arena and decided to try to make a deck around it, but then late in the process it gave me a choice of only 2 cost cards. Lame.
Jade Druid is likely to still be far and away the best deck in the meta. The Innervate nerf barely hurt it due to the massive amount of ramp it’s running. Spreading Plague hurts a little more, but not that much. It’s still got its core power - Jades, ramp, and Ultimate Infestation. Meanwhile, Aggro Druid, Murloc Paladin, and Pirate Warrior were among its best counters, and they’re all getting nerfed hard. This probably isn’t going to solve the Jade Druid problem.
Yeah, I doubt it’s a deck that would go far and even though they’re kind of boring I’ve wanted to try an overstatted deck like hand buff paladin. What would be the class to get the best for this sort of thing? Rogue has some tempo tools to not lose the early game while you try to make this pay off (and lot of ways to re-use Kelseth) but then Hunter/Paladin/Warrior have the MSOG handbuff hands.
I’m thinking Paladin with the handbuff cards plus small time recruits (to summon a bunch of overstatted 1 cost minions later) might make a fun deck with Kelseth, but you’d only end up with brewmasters to recall Kelseth. Edit: Actually since the Grimstreet card that gives +1/+1 is 2 mana, defeating Paladin a bit.
Any ideas? What class can best go without 2 cost cards? Is there some sort of Kelseth-zoo deck out there?
I crafted the druid deathknight and the Lich King since he seems like he’d be basically useful in any non-aggro deck.
I’m wondering - the draw afforded by ultimate infestation is so great after you ramp I’m thinking I can get rid of my gadgetzen auctioneers even though they synergize so well with the deck and maybe even the nourishes, although fandral+nourish is pretty ridiculous. Is infestation alone enough card draw to make jade druid optimal?