Hearthstone

[Grinolf]

What's the consensus on Reincarnate? I'd love to make a deck revolving around it.

I'm thinking Eggs, Harvest Golems, Ancestral Spirit (maybe on Earth Ele???), Sylvanas and Cairne.

You can't get away from the Shaman staples though.

Feral Spirit, Hex, Fire Elemental and the good old Thalnos + Lightning Storm combo will probably still have to be included. I think it will be tough to get rid of Rockbiter as well, but you might be able to cut a earth shock or a lightning bolt.

Al'Akir actually works nicely with Reincarnate as well.

I have neither Cairne nor Sylvanas so I can't really make an optimal deck, but I'd love to hear you guys' opinion on a deck like this. (it might suck with all the mid range hunter atm though).

Having Earth Elementals, Fire Elementals, Cairne and Sylvanas in the same deck is way too much. So you should choose between Earth and Fire elementals. Fire one a much better stand alone card, but with AS and Rebith Earth ones actually look preferable.
Also if you going to abuse reincarnate, then you should abuse it fully, so Baron also should be there.
Not sure about eggs, they aren't that big target for reincarnation and you probably would have place both for them and flametongue, so they wouldn't be that good

 

[Metro]

 

[Revenant]

Lol, this shit is hilarious. To be frank, I was expecting the new Naxxramas cards to unbalance the shit out of the game, and that's exactly what happened. Glad I quit this abomination of a game for good.

 

[Brother None]

I wouldn't call a OTK combo that requires the board-presence of two creatures as well as three specific spells, many of which are bad cards by themselves, a particularly unbalanced combo. Especially since Shaman doesn't really have the card-cycle to get all of them reliably...time for Miracle Shaman perhaps?

 

[Jozoz]

Far Sight + Gadgetzan Auctioneer

Miracle Shaman incoming.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Shaman is currently unplayable in constructed due to all the Hunters, so it's a moot point anyway.

 

[Zeriel]

An OTK deck should be able to do its combo with nothing on the board the turn you OTK. Having to have stuff on the board is bad, especially stuff on the board that is super obvious you plan to do something with it.

Best you could do with shaman is have rivendare out and then use leeroy and all the spells in one turn, but that's not really OTK.

Starcraft 2 was obviously planned as an e-sport and highly competitive game from the beginning. They just failed at designing it to be fun to watch or play, failed at making the new BNet a good platform for multiplayer gaming, and finally, failed at supporting their tournament organizers, instead fleecing them for a cut of their paltry ad revenue.

Hearthstone, on the other hand, has a "competitive" scene just because it's popular, kind of similar to Call of Duty in that respect. I might actually be hurting CoD with this comparison though, as that game actually has tournaments with qualification based on merit, while in HS they just have the most popular streamers invited.

The big, Blizzard-sponsored tournaments for this year are based on top 16 seeding from the ladder for the entire year, so that doesn't really hold true now. Blizzard clearly had no idea Hearthstone was gonna be anything but a moneygrubbing thing, so they are scrambling to make it legit now I suppose.

As far as SC2 goes, that's a highly subjective statement. I don't play the game at all, but find it highly entertaining to watch. It's the only "esport" I feel this way about. Totally agree that it is hamstrung by Blizzard's lack of support, though. They're way too slow to add new things to the game, which as much as pros can complain about balance is something that keeps casuals interested in watching. They also do their best to drive partners away from actually doing tournaments, so gotta love that. Pretty hilarious that all "offline" tournaments actually have to be played on Battle.net, including Blizzcon itself. Gotta stop dat piracy at any cost, even if you alienate your own customers.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

The big, Blizzard-sponsored tournaments for this year are based on top 16 seeding from the ladder for the entire year, so that doesn't really hold true now. Blizzard clearly had no idea Hearthstone was gonna be anything but a moneygrubbing thing, so they are scrambling to make it legit now I suppose.

The ladder is awful though. It uses a format transplanted straight from purely deterministic games with high skillcaps, like SC2, and it doesn't work at all for a high variance card game. Specific placement in the Top 100 comes down too much to getting matched against your good matchup and having good draws and opening hands.

Realistically, if they don't want to do sideboards on ladder, they should take the Top 100 and run a Swiss-style qualifier. There's a reason every MtG tournament uses Swiss, it's very good at reducing variance.

As far as SC2 goes, that's a highly subjective statement. I don't play the game at all, but find it highly entertaining to watch. It's the only "esport" I feel this way about. Totally agree that it is hamstrung by Blizzard's lack of support, though. They're way too slow to add new things to the game, which as much as pros can complain about balance is something that keeps casuals interested in watching. They also do their best to drive partners away from actually doing tournaments, so gotta love that. Pretty hilarious that all "offline" tournaments actually have to be played on Battle.net, including Blizzcon itself. Gotta stop dat piracy at any cost, even if you alienate your own customers.

Eh, I don't want to derail this thread with my complaints about SC2. I'm pretty sure I've written several long posts about it on the Codex in the Strategy section, so you can search for those if you're supremely interested. Suffice to say, I don't think the game lives up to its predecessor, and I feel like I'm vindicated by its waning popularity. The first few years, it ran on the promises of being much better in the future, but that ended up never materializing.

 

[Zeriel]

 

[Jozoz]

I just had an arena game where he played Illidan followed by Ysera (which I got a copy off with Mirror Entity). Later that game I used Onyxia.

It was hilarious. He even had 3 Savannah Highmanes plus the Buzzard Unleash combo. It must have sucked to lose with his deck especially to a filthy Mage (hah)!!!

 

[Zeriel]

Mages are the best class in arena, so yeah. No one should feel bad for losing to them.

 

[Aldebaran]

Fuck the Paladin hero challenge.

It feels like a deck slapped together by some retard. Wait a minute, it is a deck slapped together by some retard. I swear this deck has twelve oozes and two creatures to buff them.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and how could I forget. A secret clearly meant to buff your ooze, which due to game mechanics is impossible to use on your ooze.

 

[J1M]

Fuck the Paladin hero challenge.

It feels like a deck slapped together by some retard. Wait a minute, it is a deck slapped together by some retard. I swear this deck has twelve oozes and two creatures to buff them.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and how could I forget. A secret clearly meant to buff your ooze, which due to game mechanics is impossible to use on your ooze.

As you said, there are plenty of oozes in the deck. Mulligan for buff cards like blessing of kings.

 

[Zeriel]

That deck is EZ. If you could run it on the ladder, I would.

 

[Metro]

I haven't bought the last Naxx wing because I don't see myself using any of the cards in the constructed decks I play. Just been getting packs (with disappointing results); although, now it seems like the quest reset is bugged and when I go to roll for a different one it doesn't work. Might be the thing that leads me to uninstalling.

 

[Jozoz]

The new Mad Scientist Secret Hunter is a ridiculous deck. I won around 10 games in a row with it.

 

[Zeriel]

The new Mad Scientist Secret Hunter is a ridiculous deck. I won around 10 games in a row with it.

I think you mean to say that you increased your skill level through hard work and dedication.

 

[Aldebaran]

Fuck the Paladin hero challenge.

It feels like a deck slapped together by some retard. Wait a minute, it is a deck slapped together by some retard. I swear this deck has twelve oozes and two creatures to buff them.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and how could I forget. A secret clearly meant to buff your ooze, which due to game mechanics is impossible to use on your ooze.

As you said, there are plenty of oozes in the deck. Mulligan for buff cards like blessing of kings.

I actually finished this challenge five minutes after the post, and I stand by it. The deck is unfun garbage. You can't rely on BoK alone, as Kel'thuzad has no problem chain freezing one of your slimes while killing the other. You can't race him due to his health and damage advantage. You can't maintain board advantage, because he has AoEs designed to wipe your entire board and minions which massively outclass yours. I saw Blessings of Kings once in my twelve attempts.

I'm not even sure that avenge is the most poorly thought out aspect of this deck. It appears to have a single blood knight, which you are expected to combo off your single argent protector. A one of, three card combo which is going to be frozen to death.

EDIT: It looks like argent squire is also in the deck. Even so, Blood Knight was always a 3/3 for me. Giving him the second largest health total in the deck.

 

[Jozoz]

The new Mad Scientist Secret Hunter is a ridiculous deck. I won around 10 games in a row with it.

I think you mean to say that you increased your skill level through hard work and dedication.

Yes, I like that much better.

Also I agree with you guys that the Paladin class challenge was awful.

I don't know what they were thinking. It took me around 7 tries and it seemed just to revolve around getting the right draws and him no having his fucking Twisted Nether at turn 8.

Supposedly the Sapphiron Heroic challenge is even more frustrating, though I haven't explored the Heroic challenges yet.

 

[Aldebaran]

Heroic Sapphiron is merely annoying. All you need to do is play hunter. Not even a particularly gimmicky hunter deck either. At least, no more gimmicky than usual.

You will probably beat it on the first try with your mad scientist deck. I made at least two mistakes in that fight through misuse of traps and still came out on top. I would just replace things like Savannah highmane with Nerubian Egg if I had to do it again.

 

[Zeriel]

Anyone who wants to dick around with random decks can add me at Zeriel#1544.

Provided anyone is still playing dis gaem.

 

[Dr Tomo]

Edit* Curious to know if the game is worth any actual $ investment for card packs? Playingin ranked and getting bent over by warlock or hunter rush down decks. It seems like it is almost impossible to actually get past rank 19 without any serious investment.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Dr Tomo, it's like most F2P games, you can invest either money or time. Buying packs is actually a very poor investment, it's much better to play Arena. And if you do want to spend money to have a viable deck for Constructed, it's better to buy Naxxramas - it's possible to build some very cheap and powerful decks with cards you get from there - Hunter and Warlock are the cheapest, which is why you see so many (although the best Hunter variants aren't really rush decks in any sense of the word).

As for whether Constructed is worth it, eh, the game itself isn't bad, but the competitive ladder is pretty awful. Have you played any other card games in the past? Hearthstone is pretty nice to play casually, as it's very streamlined and designed for a digital game client from the ground up, but it currently lacks the mechanical depth of mature CCGs like MtG. It's fine if you just fire it up occasionally for a few games, but trying to be "competitive" (and reach Legend, or Top100 or Top16) is rather frustrating and a huge grind.

 

[Dr Tomo]

Dr Tomo, it's like most F2P games, you can invest either money or time. Buying packs is actually a very poor investment, it's much better to play Arena. And if you do want to spend money to have a viable deck for Constructed, it's better to buy Naxxramas - it's possible to build some very cheap and powerful decks with cards you get from there - Hunter and Warlock are the cheapest, which is why you see so many (although the best Hunter variants aren't really rush decks in any sense of the word).

As for whether Constructed is worth it, eh, the game itself isn't bad, but the competitive ladder itself is pretty awful. Have you played any other card games in the past? Hearthstone is pretty nice to play casually, as it's very streamlined and designed for a digital game client from the ground up, but it currently lacks the mechanical depth of mature CCGs like MtG. It's fine if you just fire it up occasionally for a few games, but trying to be "competitive" (and reach Legend, or Top100 or Top16) is rather frustrating and a huge grind.

I have played tcg's in the past (mtg in particular), it is just for a f2p game it is a major grind in comparison to IFW and almost comparable to Chinese f2p. I never thought of Hearthstone as being remotely sophisticated as it lacks a lot of the qualities that I enjoyed in mtg and the game is very forgiving with play/deck construction mistakes. Currently only picking up this title until IFW allows some type of mechanic that allows the liquidation of soul bound cards. I also assume that most of the players in this thread has moved on because of the simplistic game play. Anyhoo, I was merely curious to know if the game is worth any monetary investment over other online tcg's out there like Hex or IFW as I haven't reached a point to see the higher meta.

As for the hunter/warlock decks, I was under the impression that it was rush down since majority of the players I played against just spam creatures unless I was a mage. Playing ranked mostly as I have a small chance of winning because I can dictate the speed of the game depending on the deck I am against. Can you explain Naxxramas? Also, why is lets say a $50 < then just using that to go into arena? Keep in mind that I never played a "online" tcg and usually just drop the $ to make a competitive deck based off the current meta regardless of price (think I spent in one year playing mtg over $1k).

 

[J1M]

Dr Tomo, it's like most F2P games, you can invest either money or time. Buying packs is actually a very poor investment, it's much better to play Arena. And if you do want to spend money to have a viable deck for Constructed, it's better to buy Naxxramas - it's possible to build some very cheap and powerful decks with cards you get from there - Hunter and Warlock are the cheapest, which is why you see so many (although the best Hunter variants aren't really rush decks in any sense of the word).

As for whether Constructed is worth it, eh, the game itself isn't bad, but the competitive ladder itself is pretty awful. Have you played any other card games in the past? Hearthstone is pretty nice to play casually, as it's very streamlined and designed for a digital game client from the ground up, but it currently lacks the mechanical depth of mature CCGs like MtG. It's fine if you just fire it up occasionally for a few games, but trying to be "competitive" (and reach Legend, or Top100 or Top16) is rather frustrating and a huge grind.

I have played tcg's in the past (mtg in particular), it is just for a f2p game it is a major grind in comparison to IFW and almost comparable to Chinese f2p. I never thought of Hearthstone as being remotely sophisticated as it lacks a lot of the qualities that I enjoyed in mtg and the game is very forgiving with play/deck construction mistakes. Currently only picking up this title until IFW allows some type of mechanic that allows the liquidation of soul bound cards. I also assume that most of the players in this thread has moved on because of the simplistic game play. Anyhoo, I was merely curious to know if the game is worth any monetary investment over other online tcg's out there like Hex or IFW as I haven't reached a point to see the higher meta.

As for the hunter/warlock decks, I was under the impression that it was rush down since majority of the players I played against just spam creatures unless I was a mage. Playing ranked mostly as I have a small chance of winning because I can dictate the speed of the game depending on the deck I am against. Can you explain Naxxramas? Also, why is lets say a $50 < then just using that to go into arena? Keep in mind that I never played a "online" tcg and usually just drop the $ to make a competitive deck based off the current meta regardless of price (think I spent in one year playing mtg over $1k).

Naxx is a set of expansion cards. You will need it if you want to be competitive. It also has some single player content. You can save up gold and use that to purchase it instead of spending money. The first wing is free, so it should be pretty clear what it is... the rest is the same with different card unlocks.

Unless you happen to be quite good at arena, I'd say your gold is best invested in Naxx. You are guaranteed to get a wide selection of cards that are useful. Buying packs or playing arena puts you at the mercy of randomness.