This brawl could have been more fun, but it quickly turned into facing the same 2 or 3 combos played over and over. I’m unsure if that’s actually a good metaphor for the game as a whole too.
I managed to get my pack with the new Priest card that is spend all your mana to summon a random minion, plus Mind Blast. Helped that I was going against a hunter playing Eaglehorn and the Exploding trap, and that I summoned Annoy-o-Tron on the second turn.
I doubt that my combo is all that great, actually.
We have a repeat of the cooperative tavern brawl, which is fun, but it always astounds me how bad people are at it. The paladin players generate a silver hand recruit every turn, and then, with an otherwise empty board, invariably ram them into the boss to take them from 93 to 92 hp, and the next “attack 3 random targets” hits the enemy hero 3 times for 18 damage.
If the bad players really get you down, wait until the weekend to play it; then you only have people who are playing it for fun and understand how it works and not people who are just in it for the one pack.
Well, I’ve done 10 arenas since I changed up my strategy and my average wins for those 10 runs is 5.2, so I think I’m doing something right.
It’s a small sample size but my variance is still huge compared to previously. Of those 10 runs I had 1 1-win, 2 2-2win, and 4-8win runs (and 1 each of 4,5, and 6 wins). I’m going to have to go back over all those runs to see if I can find out if there’s something consistently different about my low win runs.
I’ve been running Malyrogue. So far only casual, because I dunno, but this deck seems to be working quite well. The interesting thing is just how greedy my list is, and how many wins I get explicitly because of that. I’m running very few minions and relatively little card draw. Sure, I have the Gadgetzans, Drakes, SI:7s, Tomb Pillagers… But counting up all my minions, I’m running like… 11 or 12 total? Of which only three cost less than 4 mana, and three aren’t meant to be used as “minions” per se. You know what’s filling up my deck? Burn. Most Malyrogue decks I see run one Sinister Strike, and maybe one Shiv in addition to the typical Eviscerates. I run two of each, for a total of six burn spells to throw at their face when Malygos drops.
This is stupidly greedy, but you’d be surprised how often I manage to get in a little early damage with Tomb Pillager, Xaril, Edwin, and SI:7, then just burn them down on turn 7 or 8 with the help of an Azure Drake or something. It’s kinda creepy how well this works; I always feel like I got away with something when I drop 16 damage from my hand without Malygos on hand. 
I can even contest most Shaman builds if they don’t get a really great opening draw or pull a Flamewreathed I can’t answer. I’m really enjoying this deck. When I get home I’ll post my build. I think my next significant craft might just have to be Bloodmage Thalnos.
(Also: way easier to pilot than Miracle Rogue.)
What are your thoughts on the Cabalist’s tome card?
It’s good. Mage spells are mostly burn, removal or draw, and any of those are good when you’re near the end of the game and in a top deck situation, without going further into fatigue.
That 3rd Fireball is just ruinous.
Maybe it’s just the tempo based minion decks that I play, but every time that card is played against me I groan.
Incredible. One of the best mage cards in the set, works in all but the fastest mage archetypes, and even there I’d consider running it for some lategame push. You’re essentially trading the 6/3 body on Ethereal Conjurer (which often isn’t worth very much, as it dies to Quick Shot, Excavate Evil, Wrath, Frostbolt, Backstab+Azure Drake, etc.) for the other two spells you wouldn’t have picked on the discover. That’s awesome.
Those were my impressions too. I haven’t played a mage deck yet that hasn’t had that card, and compared to other discover cards, it’s just sick.
So today’s duel is the first one I can remember where Dust Devil is actually a good (at least okay) card.
I use Malyrogue as well. I don’t ever spend my time on casual though. I got a Yogg-Saron in the Malyrogue deck since I am a fan of chaos.
If I had him, I’d run him. Seriously, as long as you aren’t slavishly devoted to playing him over actually winning, he gives you an out where virtually no other card in the game does - a way to instantly turn around literally any game state and win in situations that seemed utterly unwinnable. It’s not likely, but it beats dying. It’s just nice insurance to have.
Also, anyone interested in my list:
Talk me into or out of crafting Yogg Saron for tempo mage and maybe some sort of control priest.
I mostly play goofy decks now rather than seriously try to climb the ladder so it seems like it could make some fun novelty decks.
I just came here to post how much fun I am having with “Yogg n Load” Hunter right now. I got a Call of the Wild in a pack opening recently (I only have 1 and the deck calls for 2, so I put in a Ball of Spiders for the second one…it isn’t a great substitution, but it helps) and it is incredibly fun. Oftentimes I don’t really even need to drop Yogg, but when I do, he wins the game for me more often than he kills me outright.
Deck list looks like this:
2 each of:
Hunter’s Mark
On the Hunt
Tracking
Bear Trap
Explosive Trap
Quick Shot
Eaglehorn Bow
Animal Companion
Deadly Shot
Powershot
Unleash the Hounds
1 each of:
Lock and Load (use 2 if you have them, I only have 1)
King’s Elekk
Infest
Summoning Stone
Emperor Thaurissan
Call of the Wild
Yogg
The idea is to keep the board relatively clear while you use up spells and weapons, using hero power and minions to slowly whittle him down. Refill your hand using Lock n’ Load(I find this works best if you can get a bunch of spells in hand and then ET them) Ball of Spiders, UTH/Infest and continue to apply as much pressure as possible until you either win the game or need Yogg to help you win the game.
I am sort of meh on summoning stone in this deck, but I don’t have a good sub for it, either. Most of the time it dies the turn after I play it, so I have only gotten 1 or 2 small minions out of it. The dream is to play it and then COTW on the next turn, resulting in a huge swing…I’ve never achieved that dream.
Yeah, Summoning Stone was my one :dubious: when looking at your list. It’s hard to get a massive payoff from it so all it’s really doing is soaking damage/removal and dropping the probability of Elekking Yogg into your hand from ~0.5 to ~0.3.
I didn’t really see a good spell substitute (other than a 2nd Call of the Wild, should you get one) so sticking to cheap minions of the same mana cost I’d think of things like Cult Apothecary (healing is almost as good as soaking 5 damage and leaves an okay minion behind), Psych-o-tron (to force two hits or hard removal), Savannah Highmain (do I need to give a reason 
), or Venture Co Mercenary (big scary minion with little downside for you).
It looks like a fun deck, and I didn’t see anyone playing it on ladder during my (shockingly quick) run from 19 -> 5 this week. Playing in the teen ranks with an almost-optimized zoo deck is pretty much cheating this late in the month. I lost 1 game until I hit rank 11.
Yeah, the summoning stone has only proven useful a few times. Tonight I had it down and dropped ball of spiders with it…it summoned a void crusher which instantly destroyed itself as usual. Honestly I think the rhino might be a better choice in this meta…dropping rhino then call of the wild the following turn is just sick…
I had swapped it out for cult master to get more draw, but it wasn’t reliable enough…I am really considering that rhino at this point, but I have had some impressive runs with a combo of ET followed by summoning stone, several 1 mana spells and then invest…those are the turns that really save the game for you.
If your ideal plan for using the Summoning Stone is to produce a bunch of ‘tokens’ that you can Infest to fill your hand back up with beasts, wouldn’t Violet Teacher be better? The 1/1 tokens aren’t as good as random 1-drops but the VT body is much better than the SS. And it’s one mana cheaper to boot.
I have seen a few other hunters running a Rino though, so your idea for swapping in that might work. I’ve also seen the odd Stampeding Kodo used (as anti-Doomsayer and anti-Flametongue Totem tech I’m assuming. I’ve even seen a Crazed Alchemist!)
I don’t have to craft Yogg, since I managed to pull one. I’m very, very tempted to craft two Renounce Darkness, add my Yogg and have the most RNG deck ever. Since I’ve already hit Rank 5 for the chest (and have zero plans on going for legend this month) maybe, just maybe I’ll try it.
Call of the Wild just downright pisses me off. Animal Companion is already pretty great at 3 mana, and getting all 3 companions for 8 is crazy value. It’s really hard to answer that. And if they play it twice in a row? (which I’ve had happen multiple times on turns 8 and 9) Forget about it.