Easy solution: let people choose the card pool of potential rewards when running arena. So they can pick Expert, Gnomes & Goblins, <Future XPac> or a mixture of all those. Hell, make the option cost 100 gold to change their preferred pool.
It could be worse. Duel of Champions is a better game than Hearthstone in a lot of ways, but one area where it is definitely worse is for enabling one particular deck archetype where “your opponent quits in disgust” is a win condition.
I accept that as a condition if it’s funny. There’s apparently some banned card in MtG whose effect is something along the lines of “write down the current game state, reshuffle all decks and play a subgame – whoever wins that subgame gets <x>”. The deck strategy was based on infinite recursive subgames.
That’s a pretty funny “quit in disgust” win deck.
That would be an easy solution, but it’s apparently not happening. I couldn’t find the link, but it was an official post on the hearthstone forums that said there’d be no option to choose which decks you got from arena because the most important design goal of the game is streamlining the interface and people would be confused by the choice of multiple decks.
That is the card Shahrazad. The archetype I’m talking about is nowhere near as interesting, it just abuses spells and abilities that permanently reduce the attack power of a creature to slowly disable each enemy creature, then sit around being useless until either somebody breaks the stalemate or their opponent gets so pissed off at you for wasting half an hour of their time that they quit to find a new opponent who isn’t such a shitheel.
Is the new expansion going to have a new solo adventure?
Nothing I’ve heard seems to suggest that, it appears to be just a big whack of new cards.
I’d like to get some opinions on this deck
Priest
2x Circle of Healing (+4 hp all minions)
2x Inner Fire
2x Power Word Shield
2x Northshire Cleric
2x Divine Spirit
2x Shadow Word Pain
2x Echoing Ooze
1x Ironbeak Owl
2x Knife Juggler
2x Shadow Word Death
1x Dark Cultist
2x Deathlord
2x Lightspawn
2x Holy Nova
2x Sludge Belcher
1x Temple Enforcer
1x Mind Control
The basic idea around this deck is to get some high health minions, lots of healing, and then some big hits with the right timing of inner fire.
I find the shadow words tend to be worth their while it pretty much all decks. Northshire cleric is the best 1-cost unit in the game IMO. If you get a lucky draw, you can get two of them out early and then start healing them for a whole lot of cards.
The power word shield/inner fire/divine spirit cards don’t cost a lot of points, so with a good draw I’ve actually turned the clerics into powerhouses. You get one out there first turn, give them a power word shield on turn 2, and on turn 3 you can divine spirit and inner fire - now you’ve got a 10/10 unit who draws a card when healed. I’ve actually managed to pull this off 3 times in like 10 games with the deck.
Echoing ooze synergizes well with the priest buffs, since all the effects are doubled. I frequently get two 4-4 units (power word shield + inner fire), but I’m wondering if that’s a waste of the potential of those buffs and I’d be better off with something else.
Deathlords are a risky card, and I only use them so far with priests. Both because they can heal them, and potentially having a 2/8 unit early on can be a huge opportunity with those buffs. You can potentially summon a death lord on turn 3, and then PW:S, DS, and IF him one turn 4, giving you a 20/20 unit. Even without that combination of buffs, you can easily have a 2/16 with taunt with DS alone, or 8/8 with taunt with IF alone, on turn 3 (coin + IF) or 4.
Circle of healing because I expect to have more high health minions worth healing than the enemy, and it synergizes well with the northshire clerics.
Knife Juggler just seems like a really useful 2 star card. It can synergize decently with the fact that I have a lot of 3-4 mana minions, and I would imagine echoing ooze would trigger two attacks.
The owl is just because silence comes in useful a lot, it’s good to have at least one silence in your deck and I don’t have the priest silence card.
Lightspawns synergize well with PW/S, DS, and healing.
Holy Nova seems like one of the best overall cards in the game to me, even without spellpower boosts. It damages all enemies, and heals all friendlies. There are a whole lot of times when it comes in handy.
Sludge Belcher has become my favorite taunt unit. Summoning a little sludge with taunt really helps you to control the middle rounds of the battle.
Temple enforcer just seems like good value at 6/6 + 3 health to another minion. I’d use two of them, but I don’t have two of those cards. I may craft one.
Mind control can be a game changer if the game runs long, so I figured I’d have at least one in the deck.
So far I’ve only moved from level 20 to 17 with it, but I’ve won something like 8/10. I find it to be fun.
What do you guys think? What would you change?
Ah yes, the good old innerfire/divine spirit. We all go through this phase. 
It works, but it’s not reliable or consistent. The main problem with these sorts of decks is that against good decks, you can’t keep anything on the board.
Most decks these days tend to either be able to put good minions on the board from turn 1 (a popular start is Undertaker + coin + Zombie Chow, turn 2 loot hoarder/Haunted creeper, turn 3 Dark Cultist for massive stats). Alternatively, they don’t play the board in the beginning, but have ways to catch up from behind (control warrior shield slam/execute/fiery war axe/death’s bite).
This causes problems for decks that can’t put out quality minions from the start and snowball from there, or that can’t come back from behind. For example, if you start with cleric on T1, T2 the warrior plays fiery war axe and takes out your cleric for free, and he still has one axe swing left to take out the Knife juggler that you’re playing next. Bad. If you’re matched up against Zoo, same thing against a T1 Flame imp (3/2). Even in your best case scenario, and your opponent was only able to drop a leper gnome on T1, and you take it out with your cleric and heal for a card for your T2, your opponent can now drop a 2 cost minion for his T2, and you’re going into T3 with just a cleric against your opponent’s 3/2 or worse.
The other thing about cleric based decks is the lack of card draw. Yes, you could have a board full of stuff and drop a circle of healing and draw a whole bunch of cards, but this is unlikely. You’d have to have a significant number of minions on the board to begin with, and in that case, you’re already winning. As you go up in rank, you’ll find that getting your minions to stick becomes harder and harder, and the less card draw you have, the longer you’ll take to get your combo of divine spirit/inner fire to go off. I’d be surprised if you could get it off by turn 8 consistently with your current deck, I’ve made my own divine spirit/inner fire deck, it’s full of card draw, and it still isn’t as consistent as I would like.
The cards themselves are generally rather good, so I think you’ll be fine for a while. The only suspect card I see is the echoing ooze - you don’t have any good buffs for it, so I don’t see why you’re running it at all, much better to run 2 dark cultist, or yeti, or something to help you stay in the game while building your combo pieces.
If it’s working for you now, that’s great, but when it stops working, look at your play carefully and think about the 2 main points above. I’d also really recommend building a zoo deck, just to understand how that deck archetype is so consistent at getting and keeping the board, and if you can, a budget control paladin deck, to see how some decks can come back from behind and control the board.
never go full Northshire Cleric. though if you haven’t been bitten before, it would be fun to witness.
Yep I got them both out once and began regretting it almost immediately. And to make it worse my opponent was also a priest. He actually buffed one of them to make sure I couldn’t kill it off. And he made sure to heal things every turn, Eben if it was me or one of my minions. Cards all gone real fast.
Has anyone used this site to build arena decks? Is the advice good?
Tabby, what would you add to my deck for card draw? Thoughtsteal?
I’m probably going to switch out echoing ooze for something. I’m thinking about lightwardens, to increase the chance I have useful 1 mana cards at the beginning, and also because if I end up getting a few clerics and lightwardens on the board at the same time, one little heal can buff the shit out of my early game. Also planning to swap out the ironbeak owl for the priest silence when I get that card.
Arena value is very good. I also got a LOT of value out of watching Trump’s VODs, if you want to learn how to draft and play arena.
Seriously, the resources this guy puts out is phenomenal. For arena, you’ll want to look at the videos titled “Trump Cards”, where he walks through the drafting and playing of an arena deck. There are also “interactive drafts”, where he takes the time to value each of the cards and explain his picks. He explains a lot in general, which is very helpful.
You’re just in time to catch his latest set of videos aimed towards new players, too. Hearthstone: Trump Basic Teachings - 00 - Introduction - YouTube It’s pretty good, and teaches the basics of Hearthstone.
Lightwardens are kinda iffy due to 2 health, they’re kinda easy to clear. If you’re not an aggro deck (meaning you want to control the board and trade, and not just outrace your opponent) Zombie Chow is the best 1 drop available at the moment.
Quick question: How many of the really good players use aggro decks? I find that the wins or losses against those kinds of decks are simply a matter of luck (if I happen to draw a multiple damage card like Consecration or Swipe), and was wondering if I was missing a major point of skill involved in winning with them.
Tons of good players use aggro decks since they’re fast to play, so you can rank up quickly. Playing an aggro deck against a non-aggro deck is pretty straightforward since your goal and your opponent goals are clear. You do need some experience and sense to place your units properly to cascade buffs, trade effectively to avoid AoE spells, set yourself up so that you can remove taunts without too much overkill, and do things in the proper order so no damage is wasted as so on. here is a reason why one player playing an aggressive hunter deck is at rank 10 and another is legendary rank 10. For example, I lost my first tournament game because on turn 4 I used Kill Command instead of Kill Command and Flare. I ended up using the Flare on an odd mana turn and didn’t Steady Shot my opponent. I was 2 damage short of lethal on my final turn. I’m bad.
An aggro deck vs another aggro deck is pretty wacky since you need to do the same things and figure out if you’re going to race your opponent or not.
I just beat a guy on my mana 5 turn with my priest character.
Turn 1. Mind vision. Copied coin.
Turn 2 - Use coin to summon deathlord
Turn 3 - he also summons a deathlord. I use shadow word pain to kill it. I receive a sludge belcher on the board. I have 1 leftover mana, which I use on inner fire, so so I now have an 8/8 Deathlord and 3/5 sludge. I attack with the both, he’s at 19 hp.
Turn 4 - he summons another deathlord. I use my 8/8 deathlord to kill his 2/8 deathlord and gain a northshire cleric. I spend my mana on a lightspawn. I attack with the 8/6 deathlord and the 3/5 sludge. He has 8 hp.
Turn 5. Forget what he spawned - doesn’t matter, didn’t have taunt. Use divine spirit on lightspawn. Attack with 8/6 deathlord, 3/5 sludge, 10/10 lightspawn, leaving him at a hypothetical -13 hp on turn 5.
I didn’t even use my full mana on turn 5 (didn’t have to use any at all, since I didn’t even need the lightspawn to kill him), and getting a northshire cleric out of his second deathlord was the worst possible result. Yet still crushed him in 5 turns. Anyone got that beat?
Truly, RNGesus smiles upon you. That must have been awesome!
I’m finding the deck I spelled out to be really fun so far. I know it’s not going to take me too far, but with the right early cards I get some ridiculous domination. I only wish his second deathlord had given me a high value minion like temple enforcer or something so I could’ve left him at -25.
By the way, if anyone wants to fool around and play against each other, add me at SenorBeef#1394.
Yeah, games like that made me try to innovate my combo priest deck to make it more consistent, but… it just doesn’t happen often enough to compete at even rank 10.
Hell, here’s my wombo combo Priest deck.
2x Circle of Healing
2 Silence
2 Holy Smite
2 Inner Fire
2 PW:S
2 Northshire Cleric
2 Divine Spirit
1 SW: P
2 Wild Pyromancer
1 SW: D
2 Dark Cultist
2 Injured Blademaster
2 Shade of Naxxramus
2 Gnomish Inventor
1 Shadow Madness
1 Holy Nova
2 Sludge Belcher
Basically, cycle like the dickens, pop PW:S on the stealthed Shades when you can, silence the taunts, keep removing their board, coin + Injured blademaster, injured blademaster + circle is GOLD. Even better if you have an unanswered cleric on T1.
DS/DS/IF/ BAM
When it goes off, it is spectacular.
I’m going to give that a go. I took the second circle of healing for my deck, crafted a lightwarden, and added an injured blademaster. Gave up the two echoing oozes and mind vision.
What do you guys think of the deathlord? It’s a very high risk card. When they kill it they could get Ragnaros, or they could get a novice engineer. I only use it with my priest, since with the healing and all my heal/hp buffs, I have a decent chance of keeping it alive. An instant death card like shadow word pain or execute still ends up screwing me. But having 2/8 with a taunt on turn 3 is so powerful. It keeps my clerics protected, and when I heal the deathlord every turn, the cards keep coming in.