Hearthstone

[Bacchus]

Haven't played with it yet, about to get going.

I'm on the fence about cult master, it is more or less guaranteed to get a card, ok, but then it will most likely trade with something irrlevant.

Infiltrator is fine, the pick was him, Frostwolf Grunt and again something similarly poor. Here it's added value for Rockbiter and Bloodlust.

[Bacchus]

First game, opening hand: Lava Burst, Fire Elemental, Fen Creeper, Hex, Earth Elemental. Opponent: Coin, Knife Juggler; followed next turn by Sorcerer's Apprentice. Fortunately I drew into the axe and forked lightining. He ended up playing three apprentices over the course of the game and bringing me to dangerously low health. Had he had a Pyroblast in hand, he would have won. I even had to Hex a Scarlet Crusader for the fear of premature death, but second Hex went to a much more appropriate Sunwalker.

[antisocialmunky]

Apparently this is possible (not me)



I don't like cult master very much but I don't play rush decks. How I play him is this: You set up a lot of minions, put him down and trade all your minions. He's a lot like an expensive starving buzzard if you combo with UTH.

[Bacchus]

So here is the case of Cult Master working really, really well:




In fairness, this opponent cast 3 (!) Blessings of Might, so part of this disadvantage is his own doing.

[WilliamLP]

Apparently this is possible (not me)

Lol! I see that deck getting maybe 2-3 wins, in the noob rounds before you hit the strong tempo decks with hard removal.

I think Cult Master has to be best in a Shaman deck - hide it behind a taunt totem and the worst case is they need to burn removal on it. Or maybe a Paladin too where you're likely to have 1/1s out. But then paladins who can keep anything on the board for more than a turn can probably win anyway.

[Gaspar]

Yeah, I've had great success with Cult Master. Against weaker players, you can keep it out for ages, drawing 5-6 cards with it. Against better players, it tends to essentially have a hidden taunt to it, so its a good way to bait removal before playing stronger minions.

[Bacchus]

That Shaman deck went an unimpressive 5-3, just too weak on the early game. In fairness, some of the matchups were pretty rough, including a Warrior with Ysera (hexed), Arcanite followed by Gorehowl (ow), and a bunch of cleaves/slams/dark iron dwarfs (saw two of each) to give really good board control. He beat me down with mid-range minions, a Kor'kron and something else. The other two losses were to a Rogue, which dropped an early Venture Co and kept my side of the board clear with lots of removal (Poison, Eviscerate, Assasinate, Backstab were all played); and to a Mage in a match which I could have played better.

[Bacchus]

Decided to report on my next draft to get some feedback and find out what I'm doing wrong, please rip away:

Hunter/Shaman/Warrior — got a quest for hunter, and I like him anyway.

Southsea Captain/Doomsayer/Mountain Giant — Jeezus, epic, but what epics.

Hunter's Mark/Cult Master/Timber Wolf — pretty indifferent here, later in the game I might have picked Cult Master, but as it stands I just don't know how minion-heavy the deck will be. Mountain Giant suggests not very, so there's that too. Timber Wolf will be offered again and more than once, surely.

Freezing Trap/Tundra Rhino/Flesheating Ghoul — basically, here is the choice between more combo-driven Hunter or a straight-up aggro one. As you can see I went for combo, hoping for a cheeky Charge Hyena. Freezing Trap is awful.

Mad Bomber/Snipe/Harvest Golem — difficult choice, all good stuff, but the Golem is a winner for stalling

Raging Worgen/Ironforge Rifleman/Grimscale Oracle — no-brainer

Murloc Tidehunter/Raid Leader/Thrallmar Farseer — yuck. Tidehunter has better synergy with Hunter's Mark and
prospectively with things like Knife Juggler. It's still awful.

Tracking/Unleash the Hounds/Magma Rager — yep.

Dalaran Mage/Murloc Tidehunter/Frostwolf Warlord — totally anti-synergistic, but what else?

Stonetusk Boar/Scavenging Hyena/Starving Buzzard — this is just mockery. In a vacuum, the carrion bird is better.

Argent Commander/Mana Wraith/Sunwalker — this might actually be a rare case, where Sunwalker is better, but still.

Silver Hand Knight/Tracking/Oasis Snapjaw — only because there are still no 4-drops in the deck, whilst the top of the curve is quite filled out. And because it's a Beast, of course.

Young Dragonhawk/Explosive Trap/Houndmaster — he's just great and we just picked a super target for him. Tundra rhino is another one, of course. By now we are pretty much fully out of synergy with the Mountain Giant, though. Such is life.

Houndmaster/Timber Wolf/Lord of the Arena — definitely out of synergy.

Hunter's Mark/Animal Companion/Unleash the Hounds — difficult one, but with two Houndmasters I'd quite like a solid beast that stick around. Also, everyone of them is easily worth more than three mana.

Tauren Warrior/Snipe/Explosive Trap — people play plenty of 2 health minions in the arena.

Stormwind Knight/Dragonling Mechanic/Wisp — charge is great, with Hunter's Mark just excellent.

Ogre Magi/Ironfur Grizzly/Core Hound — Can't count on Tundra Rhino to be around when the Core Hound comes out, and without charge it's just a waste of mana.

Wolfrider/River Crocolisk/Elven Archer — for synergy

Oasis Snapjaw/Bloodsail Raider/Animal Companion — I'd run four in the deck if four were offered. Maybe even five.

Mana Addict/Knife Juggler/Questing Adventurer — yep, we are well and truly an Aggro deck now. Poor Mountain Giant.

Fen Creeper/Cobold Geomancer/Acidic Swamp Ooze — we are still a bit low on the later game, and the creeper is good for saving us that turn for a final use of the hero power.

Chillwind Yeti/Dread Corsair/Fairie Dragon — perfect card for our curve.

Boulderfist Ogre/Starving Buzzard/Core Hound — only our second six-drop. not a confident pick, though, I do like the buzzard.

Boulderfist Ogre/Flesheating Ghoul/Gnomish Inventor — argh, the mockery!

Kill Command/Timber Wolf/Earthen Ring Farseer — as a finisher or something to kill tazdingo's with. A wolf will hardly ever add as much as five damage to UtH anyway.

Fen Creeper/Worgen Infiltrator/Elven Archer — I might be wrong, but I think we are ok on the late game.

Boulderfist Ogre/Mogushan Warden/Mad Bomber — in the same logic

Priestess of Elune/Razorfen Hunter/Frostwolf Warlord — this is a bit too tempting for combo-potential, though.

Gurunbashi Berserker/Scarlet Crusader/Lord of the Arena — more aggro, more board control, but couldn't it be a Beast? Talking of which, Beasts just don't get Divine Shield, clearly the gods hate them.

Questing Adventurer/Explosive Shot/Savannah Nightmane — with Knife Juggler, Tundra Rhino as well as the obligatory Buzzard in the deck, Scar provides just too much synergy too pass up. The late-game is definitely filled out know.


Well, starting with Mountain Giant, it turned out to be a mid-range Hunter beatdown. Can't say I'm dissappointed with the results, this should get 3/4 victories under its belt at least, but it sure is annoying to have the potentially best card as your actually worst card.

[Sir Bruce]

A few decisions I would have made differently:

Hunter's Mark/Cult Master/Timber Wolf

Hunter's Mark is terrible in Arena imo. It almost always goes 2-for-1 against you. Timber Wolf is even worse. Cult Master will replace itself the majority of the time and is far-and-away the best choice here.

Silver Hand Knight/Tracking/Oasis Snapjaw

Silver Hand Knight is a top tier Arena card and Tracking is a top tier card across the board. Your curve is not worth this sacrifice imo. Especially at pick 10. (Also note that a marginal pick of the Rhino earlier led you to think you had a lot of late game and skip Silver Hand but then LATER you worry about not having enough late game so you pick Fen Creeper over Ooze. Fretting about the curve early is generally wrong.)

Tauren Warrior/Snipe/Explosive Trap

Explosive is way overrated in Arena. Snipe is clearly better as it's just as likely to 1-for-1 but steals more tempo.

Boulderfist Ogre/Flesheating Ghoul/Gnomish Inventor

You don't have much card draw (one buzzard), have 5 3-drops already , and in a vacuum Ghoul is worse than both the Boulderfist and Inventor.

You did end up with a pretty nice looking deck with decent beast synergy. One UTH combo but more importantly enough beasts to get midgame value out of your Houndmaster and then strong late game with Highmane and an Ogre.

[Bacchus]

Thanks for the pointers, I think all valid. The only thing I'm not sure about is tracking, but I think mostly for being scarred by Priest constructed play, where any card that reduces your deck size is just a nightmare.

The hunter deck went 4-3, very close to a 5-3 as the druid topdecked the Ironbark Protector, which gave him enough space to survive with 2 hit points as he beat me down.

In other news, made it back up to rank 8 after crafting an actual win condition for the Priest deck, Rag, and will leave it at that for this season.

Decklist is:

2 x Circle Of Healing
1 x Holy Smite
2 x Power Word: Shield
2 x Northshire Cleric
1 x Shadow Word: Pain
2 x Wild Pyromancer
1 x Shadow Word: Death
1 x Thoughtsteal
2 x Earthen Ring Farseer
2 x Injured Blademaster
2 x Auchenai Soulpriest
2 x Senjin Shieldmasta
2 x Holy Nova
2 x Azure Drake
1 x Faceless Manipulator
2 x Holy Fire
1 x Cairne Bloodhoof
1 x Ragnaros the Firelord
1 x Mind Control

Sideboard: Holy Smite, Shadow Word: Pain, Shadow Word: Death, Cabal Shadow Priest, Thoughtsteal
Unowned: Ysera, Sylvanas

The stuff in italics is up for sideboarding depending on the meta. Prospectively, I want to replace Mind Control with Ysera or Sylvanas in the main set-up and run MC only if coming up against a lot of late-game decks. In any configuration, this gets owned by properly played Rogue of pretty much any variety, barring the rare situations where you can drop a body every turn for several turns AND then Circle of Healing his concealed Auctioneer. Funnily enough, the last game won to get back to 8 was against a Rogue, it was a sorry sight.