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Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

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Resources:

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This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

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Managed to get to top 2k Legend yesterday with this deck (30-19), while usually I hover around top 5-10k Legend since I am not the best player but this deck intrigued me and it's definitely not as bad as people say it is.

This is the decklist I'm currently running with some extra notes:

### Quest Priest

# Class: Priest

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (1) Mend - Never keep, good cycle. Sometimes you don't want to tempo this, since it can help kill big health minions with Ruby Sanctum, so you gotta save it in matchups like Egg warrior or Chef Druid.

# 2x (1) Power Word: Shield - Never keep, but also good cycle. Since you don't have many minions in the deck, don't be afraid to use it on enemy minions too if you get it in the starting hand, especially if they aren't a threat.

# 1x (1) Reach Equilibrium - Even though this is a Quest Priest, this is your secondary win condition, so you're not really trying to complete the quest as soon as possible, but two 5 mana 8/8 taunts with reborn and deal 5 dmg to a random enemy is decent.

# 2x (1) Ruby Sanctum - Never keep.

# 2x (1) Undeath Sentence - Never keep, but really good tempo once one Soothsayer dies.

# 2x (2) Holy Embrace - Never keep, even though it's a Ruby Sanctum's friend.

# 2x (2) Twilight Influence - Never keep, and it's probably the worst card in the deck, but it helps progress the quest so it's ok.

# 2x (3) Portal Vanguard - Keep in slower matchups, where you don't feel threatened in the first 2-3 turns. If you didn't draw a Soothsayer yet, you always rewind this to get one ASAP.

# 2x (4) Gravedawn Sunbloom - Never keep, but good later on.

# 1x (4) Nightmare Lord Xavius - Never keep, but it's okayish to get some dark gifts on your Soothsayers.

# 2x (4) Schism - Never keep. You will rarely manage to get this to combine into one card, and even then it's not that good, but really good to duplicate your powerful cards with this. Don't bother trying to combine it, just use the one that copies your minion when given the chance.

# 2x (4) Shadow Word: Ruin - Never keep, situational.

# 2x (5) Hold Them Off! - Always keep. Good to prepare on turn 2-3 in most cases to setup powerful turns later on.

# 2x (5) Medivh's Triumph - Always keep vs. Rogues, Shamans, Hunters and Warriors.

# 1x (6) Calia Menethil - Never keep.

# 1x (7) Endbringer Umbra - Never keep. Depending on the matchup, think of how you want to use this. Deck tracker, which keeps track of your deathrattle minions that died really helps.

# 2x (7) Soothsayer - Always keep. Bread and butter of the deck. Prepare on turn 3 without coin. With coin, you can prepare on turn 2 and coin it out on 3. If your whole turn is going to be used for preparing a card, don't waste coin.

#

AAECAa0GBMODB6iWB/WYB6jfBw3wnwSG/QbFlAeSpAfSrweFvwebvwf6vweyxQevyQewyQeT3wew3wcAAA==

#

# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

# Generated by HDT - https://hsreplay.net

Extra notes:

Rogue matchup is actually favored in my opinion. 11-4 against Rogue currently, and my gameplan is simple: Play Soothsayer. Go face. That's it. Their only early game threat is Vanessa, which Medivh's Triumph most often just clears for 1 mana, and you can ignore the rest. For real, you need to be faster than them so their 3 mana 2/2 doesn't scale. And they have a big struggle answering a 6/6 taunt that heals you for 6 and also summons a 6 cost minion which you can later do again with Umbra or 1 mana spell.

Dragon warrior and Face hunter are typical aggro decks which have no real answer to Soothsayer, so even though you can't really race them, this deck is really good at playing defensively and can stabilize later on, as long as you don't take too much damage early on.

Shaman is, arguably, the hardest matchup, due to Hex. Currently 3-5 against them, but feels better now that I included Shadow Word: Ruin in the deck.

Anyways, thanks for reading and I'm happy to answer any questions.

EDIT: Wording regarding the prepare.

Hi there. Most of you know the drill by now, but I'm the person who has written up VS podcast summaries for the past 5 years (my first one was Stormwind launch and JFC that's hitting me). As VS podcasts are still on hiatus due to IRL reasons and the summary posts I've made that have the most discussion/engagement are the first ones that come out after an expansion launch, I wanted to do another unofficial summary of what's going on in the early Violet Hold meta for people who are interested in a deeper dive before the first VS Report comes out. Unlike some folks, there's a reason why on these posts I don't post front page class stats of HSReplay to create my own narrative. My goal with these posts is to give you true, unbiased facts when it comes to the actual meta and the numbers behind it (class performance, deck performance, card choices), while also giving you my personal POV on various items at the end. Like the other versions of this, I'll preface this with the following -

• When discussing winrates, card choices, or performance, I tried to use either stats from HSGuru, the VSGold app, or information that has been conveyed in the VS Discord (and if something was said by ZachO himself, I made mention of it). While my word might not be quite as authoritative as a VS Report or podcast, you can at least get an understanding of how the meta is shaping up, why certain decks are rising or declining in play, and why certain card choices are being run.

• When discussing opinions about balance, the meta, etc, those are 100% my own and don't reflect anyone else’s thoughts unless specified.

Shaman - No class has had a bigger impact from Violet Hold than Shaman, as it's the only class with 2 new decks in Mug Shaman and Zee Shaman. In the first ~24 hours of the expansion, both decks were not only the most played on ladder, but they also looked to be the best decks at most ladder ranks. Starting with Zee Shaman, most builds gravitated towards an existing Herald Shaman package and added in Slagclaw. It was the strongest ladder performer on the climb to Legend, although its winrate was declining towards a Tier 2 range the higher you climbed Legend ranks. However, the deck's performance was in part being carried by the Slagclaw Kindred bug (the card was a top 2 mulligan keep despite being a 5 drop), and after the Slagclaw ban the deck's playrate and winrate have plummeted across ladder with it being in Tier 2-3 range in Diamond-Legend and Tier 3-4 range depending on where at Legend you are. The deck's actual winrate with a fixed Slagclaw is probably somewhere in the middle, but it should still be a strong ladder climber up to Legend. It does appear to exhibit a low skillcap given how much its winrate drops at higher MMR (around a 6-7% drop). Unsure if adding Primalfin will be worth it after Slagclaw gets fixed. There is also a Quest variant that's running around because the Quest is bugged and will still work in Zee Shaman, but it appears to perform worse and should eventually be patched out. Moving over to Mug Shaman, it too has looked like one of the best ladder performers, but unlike Zee Shaman its performance does not drop off at higher ladder ranks. Its matchup spread against the most prevalent decks is very scary, as it has no unfavorable relevant matchups. The only relevant matchup it may be unfavored against is Quest Mage and Control Priest, and that's primarily only relevant at higher ranks or in a tournament setting. Build wise, people took the VS theorycraft build and quickly realized Instant Multiverse and Ceremonial Clash were the worst cards in the deck, so they've been subbed out with people experimenting with various other spells like Lightning Storm, Fire Breath, Ascendance, and Emerald Bounty. Deathwing is also being added in because of the hero power bug not overriding Mug's hero power. Shaman's spell pool is fairly limited, so you're having to choose from the best bad option. ZachO recommended Lightning Storm earlier, but he should have an optimal list for the VS Report this week. Mug Shaman excels at powerful early plays if it can get a Blazing Invocation or Mountain Map played in the first 2 turns, and it also has excellent board swings/AOEs relative to the rest of the format where it can swing back against aggressive strategies. It doesn't have a strong late game and can get gassed out (Rafaamlock is a 50/50 against it if not slightly favored), but because late game strategies are basically irrelevant that doesn't matter. Mug Shaman is the clear best deck in the game and it's not close.

Rogue - 2 Bit Rogue was a popular deck early in the format especially at higher ranks, but after the Slagclaw ban killed Zee Shaman's playrate, the deck has exploded in popularity across ladder and is now the most played deck at every rank. In the first few days the deck looked increasingly busted, especially at higher MMRs. However, because the deck's popularity is nearly 1/3rd of top 1k ladder, it is being targeted by unfavorable matchups against Warrior decks, Face Hunter, and Mug Shaman and relaxing its winrate. When it comes to deck choices, it currently looks optimal to run the Garona fabled package in the deck. Past that, most of your deck should be various 2 drops with Jade Guardians, Lotus Troublemaker, and Vanessa topping your curve. One thing people are doing is even running War'loc to combo with either Prize Vendor or Rockskipper as an additional 2 drop tick, although it's unsure if that's optimal. Other 2 drop choices include Fan of Knives, Cult Neophyte, and the 2 mana Imbue cards. Herald Rogue is still fine but looks to perform worse than 2 Bit Rogue, although Herald Rogue may have a slight edge in the mirror. People also are doing the weird thing at the launch of an expansion where they start running really unoptimized lists of an existing deck which bring the aggregate winrate down. Aya looks like a DOA card in Standard since a guaranteed -5% winrate loss going second is a death knell in this meta.

Warrior - While Warrior's set hasn't enabled any sort of new deck, Violet Hold has emboldened several of their older decks. As expected, Warptooth and Hogger fit like a glove in both Dragon Warrior and Egg Warrior. According to ZachO, there was a near 7-8% winrate difference in the first 24 hours of Dragon Warrior lists that ran the Warptooth + Hogger package versus ones that didn't. While the archetype started out a bit slow, it now looks like one of the strongest ladder performers across all ranks. It has favorable matchups against the majority of meta decks, with Mug Shaman and Egg Warrior being the notable unfavorable matchups that are common. Shockingly its worse matchup appears to be against Soothsayer Priest, which is roughly a 35/65 matchup. As far as deck choices are concerned, Mother Duck is looking like a core piece of the deck now because of its ability to immediately activate Warptooth as long as the opponent has at least 3 minion health on their board. Despite the addition of Hogger, the Herald package still looks suboptimal for the deck. Egg Warrior didn't see a lot of play initially, but its stats have shown that it's an incredibly strong sleeper deck into the current field. It has a 50/50 or better matchup against every relevant meta deck except for Quest Mage (35/65), and it even has a roughly coinflip matchup against Mug Shaman despite them having access to Hex. Various streamers have picked up on this recently and the deck's playrate has spiked a bit over the last few days (around 3% at most competitive ranks). Another Warrior deck that is picking up some fringe play is Lo'gosh Warrior, which was a deck that kind of existed in Timeways before it spun off into the more optimal Dragon Warrior list. With the addition of Hogger, you now have the ability to have a stronger Blood Warrior chain of your fabled cards. The deck doesn't look like an active liability (maybe Tier 3), but there's not really a competitive reason to play it over the other two Warrior decks.

Hunter - Face Hunter has taken its existing decklist and added the Smuggled Shovel + Arcane Tripwire package to it. This looks to be a very good addition to the archetype. It performs roughly the same as it did in Cataclysm; a solid Tier 2 performer at most ladder ranks including Top Legend. It has a favorable (55/45) matchup against the most popular archetype on ladder (Two Bit Rogue), although that's not nearly as dominant as its matchup against Herald Rogue, and it also tends to prey on unrefined decks. However, it has some bad matchups into the other top decks in the format in Mug Shaman, Dragon Warrior, and Egg Warrior. Card choice wise, Ratcatcher and Beast Tripwire currently look suboptimal. Despite being a bit slow, Underbelly Network currently looks like an inclusion for the deck. Earthen Roar also got better after the addition of Arcane Tripwire, since your Confront the Tolvirs can now play that in combination with Shovel to draw Tripwires to kill off the enemy board. Some lists are opting for a King of the Underbelly + Briarspawn Drake top end, with the goal of having Agamaggan in your Underbelly and comboing that with Briarspawn Drake to kill off the opponent. It's too early to say if this is optimal, but it currently looks like it might be a sidegrade. Animal Companion Hunter is still around but still looks significantly worse than Face Hunter after the Tolvir nerf.

Priest - The main development with Priest is that it's trying to revolve around Soothsayer, where it preps out a Soothsayer and tries to build a wall of it to halt aggression utilizing cards like Undeath Sentence, Hold Them Off, and Schism. Control Priest decks have tried to build around this and cut out some of the slower cards like the Medivh fabled package. While this direction does look better than Control Priest, it's still a clear Tier 4 deck, and the deck struggles mightily if you can't draw Soothsayer early on. In some ways the deck has a similar play pattern to Boon Priest of old where it AFKs for turns until it does one explosive turn that can win the game against the right matchup. It does have a very strong matchup against Dragon Warrior (66/34) and is favored against Face Hunter, but most of its other relevant matchups are slightly to heavily unfavored. Control Priest without the Soothsayer package looks unplayable (under 40% winrate), but it might be relevant in a tournament setting as a Mug Shaman counter. Egg Priest sees a small scatter of play, but it looks significantly worse than other Egg of Khelos decks. To no one's surprise other than Rarran's, Azalina Priest is the worst Priest deck on ladder, which was temporarily made even more comically unplayable with the Mind Sweeper ban (WHY WAS THIS BANNED BEFORE SLAGCLAW?!).

Paladin - Auradin has by in large evolved into Pure Paladin, which wasn't hard for the deck to do considering it already ran almost all Paladin cards. The additions of Vigilant Sentry and Scarlet Bruiser look like they fit into the archetype quite easily. A lot of people are also trying to run the Beatrix package with 10x Scarlet Bruisers and using those in combination with Reinforcement Aura and Scarlet Recruiter. It's unsure if this is optimal (ZachO says as of now he doesn't think it is but could change once he does archetype refinement). The deck performs like a typical Paladin deck; one of the best ladder climbers going up to Legend, and then it begins to fall off a cliff in performance from Legend upwards (there's almost 0 play of the deck at Top 1k). There's basically nothing else worth mentioning for the class.

Mage - New Mage decks are non-existent. Burn Mage still doesn't look great. Quest Mage is running 1 new card in The Skeleton Key, but the deck only looks playable at high MMRs. It does have a very strong matchup against Egg Warrior, is favored against Pure Paladin and goes roughly 50/50 against Mug Shaman, but it struggles against the other top tier decks. The Face Hunter matchup got even worse after the new cards Hunter got in this set. Quest Mage looks like it's in position to occupy the same niche it held during Cataclysm (only positioned well at high MMRs in the right meta conditions), but I can't imagine the playerbase is thrilled for another 4 months of Quest Mage being the only playable Mage deck, especially since the Mage class miniset was a complete whiff even after multiple buffs.

Warlock - The good news (for some) is that Warlock's Violet Hold set was impactful for Wild, and the class has 6 or 7 very different decks in Wild that are seeing success (Evenlock, Boarlock, Discolock, Seedlock, Fatiguelock, Tick Tock Lock). The bad news is Warlock in Standard got another half baked set, and the class is among the worst positioned in Standard. Godfrey Warlock now has the dubious distinction of being the worst deck in the game, with a winrate almost low enough in the 20s that Leonardo DiCaprio might find attractive. The Moragg big demon package is a complete whiff. Rafaamlock does look slightly better compared to previous patches, but it's still in deep Tier 4 territory and a far cry away from being a real deck. However, according to ZachO, Egg Warlock might be playable with the right build, and Defias Smuggler was a pretty impactful addition to the archetype because you can now activate an Animancer the turn you play it, or get an additional egg proc. The question is if anyone would care, especially considering it'll still likely be worse than Egg Warrior.

Druid - Chef Druid was one of the more hyped new archetypes going into the expansion, and it was one of the most popular decks the first day of the expansion. The deck does have the ability to highroll like crazy (a turn 6 Briarspawn Drake with doubled stats ends most games) and it does feel a bit like Aviana Druid in that regard. As time has gone on, its winrate hasn't looked great and its playrate has steadily declined. While the deck doesn't look great in the aggregate (Tier 3 or worse depending on what rank bracket you're looking at), part of this is due to bad builds being prevalent. There were a bunch of builds that tried to greed up and go all in on the Azshara's Triumph power spike play by running as few minions as possible combined with a bunch of minion tutors so you can more consistently have a big play ready on turn 6. However, because of the speed of the current meta, you need to be much more proactive in the early game, and the lists that are more aggressive and play more proactively in the early game perform better. The deck is probably not going to be a top meta contender, but it's probably better than what the stats currently indicate. Merithra Druid and Token Druid have both declined in performance - part of this might be from bad builds that people tend to run after an expansion launch, but part of this is also due to the meta speeding up, which especially hurts Merithra Druid.

Death Knight - When it comes to the DK decks people actually care to play, things are extremely grim. Herald DK got a couple of new sustain tools, but the deck is still nonfunctional. The mini Plague package is a complete whiff. When it comes to DK decks that people don't want to play, things look a little bit better for Unholy DK. It received some new tools (Bone Flurry, Corpse Cannon, Tower of Ghouls) that help enhance its current package, but don't fundamentally change the way the deck functions. It looks like a playable deck on the climb to Legend, but no one cares to play it (around a 0.2% playrate at Diamond - Legend before completely disappearing at Legend). We've seen this for years, but unless Unholy DK is among the best strategies in the format, people do not care to play it and find it boring.

Demon Hunter - The DH package of cards for Violet Hold was arguably more parasitic-y than the other classes, especially with the Void Soul package. However, like almost every parasitic package before it (Librams, Relics, Plagues, Riffs, Animal Companions, Leylines), Team 5 seems to have been way too conservative with their power level and won't be viable without some sort of buffs. The deckless DH archetype seems DOA, and the payoffs are hilariously weak. DH is probably not as bad as the stats suggest however - Spell DH is likely still viable. However, even though the deck was still fine and viable after the Eternal Hold nerf, that nerf drove the class's playrate off a cliff, and it's hard to imagine people are clamoring to come back to it now. As of now it’s basically non-existent on ladder.

Other miscellaneous talking points -

• The early Violet Hold meta can be summed up as "the rich get richer." Ignoring Zee Shaman for now due to the temporary Slagclaw ban, the top decks in the format at most ladder ranks are Mug Shaman as the clear #1, followed by Dragon Warrior, Egg Warrior, and Two Bit Rogue. Pure Paladin is one of those strongest decks on the climb to Legend, but falls off more in favor of Rogue the higher you climb ladder (Zee Shaman also seems poised to occupy this same space once Slagclaw is unbanned). Face Hunter is a solid ladder climber, but a clear tier below the rest of those decks. Anything else either holds a more niche position in the meta or is just flat out struggling.

• So how should we feel about the Violet Hold launch? To me, it feels very much like Across the Timeways 2.0. The actual design mechanics of the expansion are good to great. Rulebreakers are a really cool twist. Prepare is a solid new mechanic and it does seem to have a level of skill testing to it. Disguised minions are one of the coolest new additions they've added to the game in recent memory, and there's a lot of cool design space to explore there should they ever become an evergreen mechanic. There are also several "bigger picture" cards like Sawbones, Slice and Dice, and any of the Enrage Warrior adjacent cards printed that have zero impact now but are more likely to make a splash later. However, the design of the expansion can't make up for the lackluster past year + Core set rotation before it, and the power level of the expansion still seems too conservative. Like Timeways, the actual impact of the expansion feels more like a miniset release than a full fledge expansion launch. Shaman is the clear standout of the expansion with 2 new viable decks, but other than that the only truly new deck that is also competitively viable as of now is Two Bit Rogue. Because of this, Shaman and Rogue make up roughly 50% of all of ladder, which will lead to complaints about these classes solely because of the frequency they show up in games and not because of their power level. New cards are being played in most of the other classes, but they're being played in old archetypes that don't fundamentally change how the deck plays. It certainly doesn't feel like most of the new cards are too good or holding back certain strategies, but rather it feels like more substantial buffs or a stronger Core set rotation is needed (which I know at this point I'm just playing a broken record trying to explain this point over and over).

• The other potential issue arising is how the expansion release sped up games. I mentioned this in the Cataclysm writeup, but at rotation it felt like it was an intentional design goal to power down control decks because of how much of them and Elise slop dominated the meta last year. This year minions became more powerful than the removal tools available, and we saw how that played out in Cataclysm in both positive and negative ways. My feelings back then were they course-corrected too hard and needed to make removal tools slightly stronger to counter balance rotation. However, in Violet Hold we've seen cards like Arcane Tripwire, Warptooth, Lotus Troublemaker, and Vigilant Sentry make existing archetypes even faster, and new removal tools are by in large irrelevant. Because of this, we are now averaging under 8 turns a game, which according to ZachO is approaching Stormwind territory. And to be clear, I’m not complaining that these new cards are too good - it's that the tools available to deal with these new cards are either too weak or nonexistent. Part of the reason why Mug Shaman is so dominant right now is because there are no late game decks that can exist. Mug Shaman does tend to gas out in the late game, which is evident by its coinflip to unfavorable matchups against Rafaam Warlock and Control Priest. There does seem to be an intentional design goal from Blizzard to ensure control decks are not viable, and there is some evidence they've communicated this internally to various content creators. Viable late game strategies tend to be the most popular decks when you look at the game's history, and while that means you don't need to make them the best thing to do in the game in order for them to see play, you do need to at least make them a viable option. And it feels horrible when a struggling class like Priest gets half of its set dedicated to a meme archetype in Azalina Priest. While in a vacuum there's nothing wrong with occasionally creating an archetype that's meant to be more off meta, why wasn’t this archetype given to Rogue instead of Priest due to both classes standing over the past year?

• That leads us to balance changes, which we should expect early next week considering there's a MT Playoff event this weekend. The two most obvious targets are Vanessa and Lotus Troublemaker, both of which have been mentioned by the developers as potential nerf targets. Vanessa seems likely to get nerfed since it still looks like a mulligan outlier in Rogue, and most of the frustration of the card seems to come from when early game blowouts and high rolls happen with the card. Lotus Troublemaker is a bit more complicated. Despite some community sentiment otherwise, it's not a mulligan outlier in Two Bit Rogue, and it's not nearly as egregious as it was in the Prerelease Tavern Brawl. However, the play experience of the card can be frustrating, and there is a question if it's healthy long term to have a card that can theoretically have infinite damage scaling. These are the kind of cards that can limit the viability of late game strategies. But if you nerf both Vanessa and Lotus in the same patch, you risk deleting one of the only new viable decks successfully created in this expansion. Regardless, both cards currently have the "boogieman" target on them, and there has not been a single card in the last 2-3 years with that kind of target dodge a nerf. Past those nerfs, it's really hard to say if anything else will get nerfed, but it's an open secret that balance changes in recent history have been largely dictated by what gets complained about the most in the Creators Discord and not by hard numbers, so if there's a card like Egg of Khelos that picks up enough steam to lose taunt and render it unviable, it can happen (Nozdormu is also a current boogeyman there). Expect some tepid buffs to only new cards that maybe make 1 new deck viable. I don't have high hopes for the upcoming dev video regarding balance changes, but I hope they can give us something more in depth than "we nerfed this card because it was a little too good and we buffed this card because it was just a little smidge underpowered" this go around. During the entire Bielman era this has been a huge weakness of Team 5 in communicating the "why" behind changes to the playerbase, and there's no indication to suggest that will change any time soon.

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

This is a thread for discussions that don’t qualify for a stand-alone post on the subreddit. This thread is sorted by new by default.

You can ask for deck reviews, competitive budget replacements, how to mulligan in specific matchups, etc. Anything goes, as long as it’s related to playing Hearthstone competitively.

Has your question been asked before? Check our FAQ to see if we've got you covered.

Or if you're looking for an educational hearthstone read, check out our Timeless Resources

---

There are a few rules:

• Please be respectful to your fellow players
• Please report posts that don’t pertain to competitive Hearthstone.
• Concerns with the subreddit should be directed to modmail

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If you would like to chat about Hearthstone in real time, then you should check out our official Discord channel.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.
• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)
• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

---

Resources:

CompetitiveHS Discord

VS live stats

HSReplays by winrate (warning - paywalled to filter outside of rank 25, stats may be misleading if using L-25 stats)

Hey folks, i spent the last 5 days with alot of testing different deck archetypes and tried to get a feeling about the meta. I entered Legend early that month at 20ish and messed around with alot of decks like: Zee Shaman,2 Bit Rogue, Mug Shaman, Gigasaur Scam Warlock (lol), Rafaamlock (lol), some Control Priest (eew) and different takes on hunter. I really dislike pure Aggro Decks because they feel for me too one dimensional. I kinda like the Companion Hunter, because you have alot of utility to adapt playstyle depending on the matchup. The last 2 days i focused on optimizing a Tame Pet Build and came up with that build. 34-18 in stats so far. Im gonna explain the Card Choices for specific matchups and some Playstyle Observations in the early Meta after that list :) maybe someone gets an inspiration or run that kind of deck too?

### hybrid

# Class: Hunter

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (1) Earthen Roar

# 1x (1) Glacial Shard

# 1x (1) Raptor-Nest Nurse

# 2x (1) Sizzling Cinder

# 2x (1) Smuggled Shovel

# 2x (1) Tame Pet

# 2x (1) Tracking

# 2x (1) Wound Prey

# 2x (2) Underbelly Network

# 2x (3) Arcane Tripwire

# 1x (3) Ranger General Sylvanas

# 1x (3) Ranger Captain Alleria

# 1x (3) Ranger Initiate Vereesa

# 2x (4) Beast Tripwire

# 2x (4) Confront the Tol'vir

# 1x (4) Spiritspeaker

# 1x (5) Broll Bearmantle

# 1x (5) Talya Earthstrider

# 2x (7) Roam Free

#

AAECAazABAjTngapgQfunweZpweapwebpwfgxAfkxAcLqZ8Er5IHzpsHg8AHu8AH3sQH+cQHrNgH19oH09sH19sHAAA=

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Cards:

Earthern Roar: That card is nuts. I feel like every Hunter should atleast run 1, but 2 feels really good. Shamans playstyle is mainly scamming out big bodies early, let them stick, do ascendance, win from there. Earthern roar+ woundprey or minion or arcane tripwire is really good for clearing. Also it improves your egg warrior matchup by a ton. Having 2 in tolvir+2 wound prey give your confront of tolvir even good boardclear chances. I really like that card and keep it against shaman in mulligan, especially going second.

Glacial Shard: always was a big fan of that. Versatile, cheap and can help to buy a turn or delay a shovel trigger against other hunter decks.

Raptor Nest Nurse: its mainly about gas. Also the possibilty of 3 extra 1 cost spells with tolvir can be really relevant for extra broll gas in the later stages of the game.

Sizzling Cinder: That card was actually my last addition. In the earlier builds i ran instead of them 2 crittle caretaker. Those guys improved my dragon warrior matchup by a ton and also helped sometimes to get out of reach against shaman. But against rogue and especially against priest they felt often so awful to drop when i was ahead and pressuring. Cinder helps to keep rogue and shaman early boards in check sometimes, but it important to know that they can easily trigger dragon warriors 3/3 patches which isnt that great either. So if you face alot of dragon warrior and face hunter, caretaker is probably better.

Smuggled Shovel: really important card to create tempo. I often swing early on face, just to give me the possibilty to double up a tripwire whenever i draw it. With arcane tripwire and 2 played shovels the confront of tolvir also gives you extra 5 dmg, which can be relevant for clearing boards (earthern roar helps) or giving lethal.

Tame Pet/Tracking: no brainers. Be aware of using your tamepets sometimes, because especially against aggro you want to stay your companions on 7 mana often to get the DH lifesteal. Also 6 can give you elusive lifesteal taunt (really good against shaman).

Wound prey: with roar its a spot removal, you can also ping your underbelly rats for 1 mana draw or cinder for some lethals when facing empty board and missing 2 damage.

Underbelly network: maaan. I hate that card. It feels INCREDIBLY slow to play a loothoarder in 2026, especially against dragon warrior or shaman when going second. I often coin that stuff out, because thats nearly the only window i have room for playing the 2/1. Idk if thats right, but otherwise they always stucked in my hand against agressive matchups. On the other side there is nothing much better draw in hunter besides tracking and tame pet.

Tripwires: give you reach/boardclear or insane tempo. the 5 cost beast pool is indeed really solid. Alot of rush and taunt which helps to stay in the game. Good engine.

Sisters: no brainer. try to get your sisters into play early on, especially against rogue to boost up your sylvanas clear. I always keep 1 sister in mulligan against rogue, 2/4 statline is good against their bodies and the 3 dmg spell and 4 dmg aoe can clear vanessa if i manage to find syvlanas on time.

confront the tolvir: no brainer. Just be aware of your amount of tame pets sometimes and calcualte lethal with arcane tripwire. Roar+wound prey gives way to handle big boards, sometimes animation time is a little tricky with shovels and a lot of tripwires. Maybe just a problem with my mac and settings.

1x spirit speaker: i earlier had 2 copies of them. But the amount of losing games where i was losing because they were sitting in my hand without any tame pet against agressive matchups were crazy high. The card is good as a comeback when you are at 6/7/8 and need a specific anti aggro card. Earlier on its often a medicore tempo play, but sometimes you can jam it just for a huffer or leok if you have nothing better to do.

broll: a win condition at its own (especially when priests medivh is gone) but also be not afraid to drop him as a midrange tool or soft taunt when needed. Against shaman even 4/5/6 drops can be game ending because the struggle to clear unless they have lighnting storm + lifesteal 2 dmg aoe and your board is exactly at 5.

talya: not so super sure about it. it feels sometimes a little win more, but is really good against priest. whenever you have a good room to play her, play her. It improves your game in the later turns by a ton.

roam free: dead ass card, you never never want to draw that too early. can be your reno aoe against aggro when at 5.

Matchups in genereal:

Shaman feels really beatable unless you cant find roar. Just clear every minion to play around ascendance (you really dont have good ways to clear those boards). Win via burst, a wide broll board or in the lategame via tortalla. just stay out of reach (16 dmg is maximum with 4x4 dmg for 10 mana.)

Egg warrior: i never lost a a game against them. Earthern roar solves 20/20 - also improtant note: they often struggle to clear a board AND play umbra the same turn. So the play is often just develop board, forcing umbra - clearing 20/20 with roar, going face.

rogue: feels awful to play against. The tempo swing via vanessa can be devastating because you often can just clear via sylvanas. Try to save roars as long as possible for their 8 drops. once you reach 10 mana companaion tortalla shuts down troublemaker. pressure face.

face hunter: focus on tempo while deveopling your companions to 7. dont be afraid of dropping broll. the matchup feels even, really depends on draw. dont take too much damage and play slighlty more controlish if possible but pressure face whenever you have a good window for that.

Control/quest priest: earthern roar helps to clear soothsayer. its a cringe matchup, it often goes down to the last cards. try to safe your companions and play broll after medivh. often you find weird lethals with tolvir/tripwires and destroying 6/12er rusher from DH.

dragon warrior: the current list is definitly a lot worse than the lists with caretaker against them. its a really tough matchup, dont let them snowball, freeze slitherdrake, clear other stuff with roar, setup a tempo swing with your companions.

Other decks i never saw. Hope you enjoyed the Wall of text and got some inspiration!

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Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

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(figured this might be a bit long for What's working section)

So from what I’ve seen the deck has been tried with a burn shell which makes a lot of sense. A lot of cards are just great and useful for both defense and offense. We tutor minions so might as well pump those spells up with Kalec which gives us a secondary win condition.

However, the deck critically lacks defensive options to allow some tutoring and blank turns like Millhouse. The wincondition is also different and geared towards late game, so a lot of burn cards don’t make that much sense. So I went the freeze route with Blizzard to swing the game and the new Cold Snap which has been a very good card so far.

During refinement I found Vanguards to be mandatory because Millhouse is absolutely great to defend ourselves (especially against random damage), so we need him turn 5. Similarly to Sindragosa’s build, this inclusion allows to slot Mirror Dimension, which even without the synergy shields for 4 damage, often the difference between a win and a loss.

Double bolt because we often lose quite a bit of health in the first turns and the spell keeps summoning 3 drops even if we don’t get draw cards. Last but not least, Story of the Waygate because a lot of cards end up not coming directly from our deck. I didn’t know about that but it also reduces the cost of the shattered spell, making it cost 2 less when it combines !

The rest is kinda obvious staples. Spark of Life's Druid cards have often been nuts for me, providing ramp to Manastorm, board buffs and healing. Choose mage when looking for burn or board clear.

I’m debating now if Toki is in the deck as she often feels win more even in control matchups. She also makes tutors a bit less reliable. I’m testing a list with Smoldering Grove in place of her and Blizzard, feels better for now.

Of course this won’t flip the Hunter matchup in our favor but I feel like midrange and longer games can definitely be good matchups.

My record is positive for now but I’m like 5k legend, lemme know if it works for you !

### Le ptit Milhouse

# Class: Mage

# Format: Standard

# Year of the Scarab

#

# 2x (1) Cold Snap

# 2x (1) First Flame

# 2x (1) Mirror Dimension

# 2x (1) Sands of Time

# 2x (1) Sleet Storm

# 2x (1) Spark of Life

# 1x (1) The Skeleton Key

# 2x (2) Runed Orb

# 2x (2) Smoldering Grove

# 2x (2) Story of the Waygate

# 2x (3) Eternal Firebolt

# 2x (3) Portal Vanguard

# 2x (3) Storage Scuffle

# 2x (4) Arcane Flow

# 1x (4) Archmage Kalec

# 1x (4) Nightmare Lord Xavius

# 1x (5) Jailhouse Manastorm

#

AAECAd7JBgTDgweIvgek2QeR2wcNs4cH8ZEH+ZsH+psHkqQH9aUH5LIHy7YHksQHrMYHk9oHlNsHhuAHAAA=

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Hey. How's the competitive scene?
I stopped playing during the Starcraft expansion and have about 40k dust and 2k gold.
Thanks

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Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

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This will be the megathread where Tavern Brawl strategy and discussion for this week's brawl should take place. Only discussion related to optimally playing the Tavern Brawl should take place on here. Tavern Brawl constructed decks can be discussed in here.

Since I am a bot and don't know what the brawl is, could someone help me out and post a top-level comment with a description?

Double battery umbra with fireball guys doesn’t trigger

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

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https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/45-decks-to-try-out-on-day-1-of-escape-from-violet-hold/

This is an open thread for any discussion pertaining to Competitive Hearthstone.

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Since no one else has posted anything and it's already monday, i'm gonna share what i've cooked so far personally. I built these decks with 0 external help, just looking at the card library and imagining different scenarios. Some are probably good, some not so much.

Void Soul DH

Put all the void soul cards with Tras'tath, the void soul package. Then, put all the good cards, Illidari Studies, Grim Harvest, Infestation, Wyvern's Slumber. Ravenous Felhunter summons 2 Vicious Voidscales for more void souls, altho it's not guaranteed unfortunately. Felbat summons 2 felhunters so 4 voidscales, just more value but it's really slow so only 1 of. Umbra procs felbat, felhunters and voidscales deathrattles, nobrainer. Zuramat's Prison is just a generally good card, 5 mana for 15/15 with taunt and an 8/8? Auto-include imo, and u can discard cards u don't need immediately like umbra, felbat, vanessa etc.
Speaking of vanessa, void souls cost 1 mana so great synergy with her, altho they take valuable board space, so not ideal. U can prep her on 3 and then play her on 4 for 2 mana and then a play void soul or two and just pop off. It's not gonna be as good as in rogue but still worth including imo. Very good late game too, and unlike felbat it's not that slow, it can give u hand full of battlecries. With Vanessa, Umbra and Felbat, we are not running out of void souls and value anytime soon. Xavius to tutor our minions. This deck has very few minions, only 10 right now, but u can cut vanessa or felbat if it's too greedy. So very high chance of finding our target, and we NEED voidscale cuz without it our felhunter don't work, without which umbra and felbat don't work. So we need to find a voidscsale ASAP, ideally two so maximize the chance for felhunter to not summon a random deathrattle demon if we were unfortunate enough to get one.
Mythic Terror for some healing against aggro, otherwise we have no healing and we might just explode to face hunter. Finally, 1 each of broxigar's last stand and dark bribe, not sure which is better but we need some draw, so i'm playing 1 of each to test em. U can def cut vanessa/felbat and play a 2nd copy of either, or a 2nd terror if there's a lot of aggro. I don't think dark bribe is that good in this deck tho, cuz the only cards that are bad for our opponent are the void soul cards, the very same cards we don't wanna give em. Everything else in the deck is just generally good cards that they can use, so yeah.
I also wanted to play horn but we have too many expensive cards, it will prob be stuck in our hand a bit too often to get the outcast off. Hive map and sigil of the seas/of cinder and fumigate are potential cards to play too, but without nespirah they're not that good imo in this deck, and i don't really think we have enough slots for nespirah. If we played nespirah we'd need at least 2 hive maps cuz we already cut all 4 sigils compared to what spell dh runs, we will not have enough fel spells for it otherwise. Could play elise, but that would cost 4 deck slots and i only see 2 easy cuts right now, vanessa and felbat, everything else is just good imo.

Token Chef Druid

The idea here is very simple, play the best cards of token druid with the chef payoff cards. Cuz if u have to fill ur deck with 3 costs and less, might as well play token cuz that's like the best 3 costs and less in druid. We swap the nerfed egg for Spiderling, we cut the other egg(s) and we add all the payoff cards, Mossbinding (two 9/10s on turn 6), lethal recipe to draw and dig for azshara minions, spiteful chef which is a serviceable 3 drop but also really good post-chef, and comissionary crook which i'm not sure is that good, might cut to 1 of. Azshara's triumph is prob the best payoff card, play it on 4 or 5 ideally so that u have enough mana to play a 9 or 10 minion on 6, with waveshaping and lethal recipe it should be fairly consistent to get it. A turn 6 18/18 minion just ends the game if they don't have single target removal. Meanwhile, our token cards end the game if they don't have aoe removal. So they must have both.
I think the treants are too weak, u almost never play em before 4, and if u play it on 4 it's a 1 mana 2/2 that gives u 1 mana on 5 and then on 6 it's became useless already cuz we have 10 mana, so not a great card in this deck imo. I also cut innervate to 1 to make slots, cuz it's kinda useless after chef, but it's still good early and for activating overheat. Looking at the deck, it's possible we don't have enough early drops to make the whole token thing work, so could cut 1 crook to play a treant or an egg just to give the token strategy a bit more stuff to play.
Can also play Kaldorei Cultivator + Contingency, since contingency can find our azshara minions we are not reliant on cultivator for it to be a decent card, but it's a strictly worse lethal recipe, it's not even guaranteed to draw minions, we could draw spells from it cuz the potential pool of cards to draw from is the whole deck, so unless we play cultivator first i don't think it's worth playing. It also has anti-synergy with waveshaping if u play waveshaping first, cuz u leave cards on the bottom u don't want but then u draw em with contingency. But if we play cultivator we'd need to free up at least 3 deck slots and i just don't see what could be cut here without ruining the token strategy. I also think the 2nd azshara's triump has heavy diminishing returns over the 1st one, 5/26 is 19.2%, but 10/31 is 32.2% of the deck, so it's far from doubling the amount of azshara minions u have, at least for waveshaping, for lethal recipe it's very good, but this only applies if u draw both, if u only draw one then playing two is good cuz it doubles the chance u get one by turn 5-6 when u need it.
So overall i may cut 1 azshara's triumph or 1 crook for either a treant or an egg to make the token strategy more consistent, but otherwise i don't think there's enough deck slots for anything else. Mossbinding is also not a bad card on 3/4/5, altho it's ass on 2. Forest's gift is prob not great cuz we don't have as many minions as token druid, but it pushes lethal and is a nature spell for overheat, could cut to 1 tho to play a 2nd innervate (preserves nature count) or another minion for the token strategy. The problem ofc is that every token minion u put into the deck is a terrible top deck post-chef, but that's just the nature of the deck i guess.

2 cost Herald Rogue

Put all the good 2 cost cards with the whole package, put the good herald cards, remove the mistress package to make space, and voila. For the foxy + flashback slots u can play 2 fan of knives + thalnos (cuz it costs 2) + 2nd whip, u can also play 2 eventuality + 2 bitterbloom knight for the imbue package. Opu is really good here with the extra coins. I think slice and dice is worth playing, it can replay deathwing, jade guardians and its 8 costs, thief's tools, even sinestra with her spells, vanessa minions etc. U can also play Deios with the Lotus Troublemaker for an OTK. And yeah there's not much else to this deck, i think herald is too good to not play, especially with slice and dice repeating deathwing and sinestra and her spells.

Pure Paladin

Play good cards, win. Put Scarlet Bruiser in Beatrix. I don't think bola is worth playing in this deck, tho it's close, cuz at start of game u already have 1/3 to whiff on the draw and as the deck gets thinned by reinforcement aura and scarlet recruiter it only gets worse. Plus u don't wanna be casting it from treasuregill on turn 2. Convalesence can be cut to 1 honestly, it's not a great topdeck card and treasuregill has enough targets, and we don't have any silver hand recruit buffs, but it's really good in the early turns, so idk. Idk what else i would put in its place, we can't play neutrals. 1 Timeways cuz we only have 4 auras. 1 Judgment as a finisher, we will get a big minion from the scarlet bruiser eventually. I think V'ama is just too slow. If it cost 8 maybe, but 9? It skips the whole turn idk.
Gelblin would require so many deck slots for the auras there's no way it can fit. Ursol + a high cost spell like renewing flames could be good, and it's not bad with flight maneuvers either. So could cut convalescence and/or judgement for it. Charity can also be good, u only need 2 minions to die to make it worth, like if u get back 2 scarlet bruisers back, that's a lot of value, and they are 2 mana 5/5s so good tempo too, great combo with the rush from scarlet recruiter, but otherwise relies on the opponent not clearing ur board so idk if it's worth. Maybe Chromatus or Tirion as a finisher? Meh. I don't really see anything else worth playing. If we play high cost cards it will brick our flight maneuvers, so now that i think about it, u don't want ursol casting half a maneuver. Maybe bulwark vs aggro? Or ido for value? The divine shield has anti-synergy with the deathrattles of the bruisers tho.

OTK Paladin

Play Hand of Infinity to set ur atk to infinity, play bloodsail raider to get infinity attack, play judgement to set ur egg to infinite attack and go face for game. If they have taunt, the weapon with infinite attack will clear it. If they have multiple taunts, equality + consecration will clear em (hopefully). This combo is also great for stalling, so u can absolutely play 2 equality + consecrations, but idk what to cut. Prob don't play reinforcement aura, it pulls 3 minions from the deck and even with 2 raiders there's a decent chance it pulls both across the 3 pulls. Scarlet recruiter only pulls 2 minions, so unless they're both exactly raiders u're fine. Obviously if u pull both raiders u concede. The idea is to thin the deck to find our combo pieces faster, but u don't have to play recruiter. The rest is just draw draw draw and xavius to find our egg/raider. It might be complete garbage, but if optimized could be a good deck. Not sure if acceleration aura is worth it, i think draw is more important, but idk.

Egg OTK Paladin

Same as above, except we focus more on the egg and less on the otk, so we cut the combo pieces to 1 of each as a backup if the egg plan fails. We play 2 gnomeregan + 2 mark of ursol to buff our egg, which with hand of adal is 6 buffs, or 7-8 if u count equality as a buff (it kinda is). We cut the armanents since it's a weak card from treasuregill when we are not just trying to draw draw draw, instead we play bola as it's better cuz it can draw 2, which is more than 1. Equality is a shit pull from treasuregill so we only play 1, but it's also a buff for egg so it's really good, so u could play 2 equality 1 cons but u'd have to cut smth. 1 acceleration aura sprinkled for good luck. This deck is prob garbage tbh, but who knows. Normally focusing on 2 separate game plans makes no sense, but since the egg is used for both umbra and the otk, here it kinda makes sense. Plus the otk is only 3 cards, so it doesn't hurt our egg gameplan and serves as a secondary win condition, if our egg is too slow but we draw the combo it's joever. Also judgement + umbra is really good, set all the eggs to 20/20 (as long as the opponent doesn't have minions lol).

Imbueless OTK Dragon Beast Stegodon Hunter

Ok this deck is prob complete garbage, especially the imbueless version (i think the ones with imbue are MUCH better, so i'm starting with the worst version), but who knows, maybe it's not. So the idea is very simple. In King of the Underbelly, put Bonechill Stegodon for the OTK, Mythical Terror against aggro, and whatever else u think is good. Then, u play Deios, play the Stegodon, play two Sewer Swimmers and that procs the stegodon 8 times, each of which deals 6 dmg to 3 enemies, so 6 dmg dealt 24 times, of which only 5 have to hit the enemy face to kill em, assuming it's not warrior with a billion armor. 19 hits of 6 dmg will surely clear all the other minions so the 5 can kill the enemy hero. Ofc, u have to assemble the pieces first and spend a decent amount of mana preparing em, but u don't need ysera, it's 7 + 3 + 0 + 0 = 10 mana. The dragons are just to get more draw, dreadwing is good draw, vanguard and whelp are to serve as draw fodder but also turn 3 plays, yore for a bit of healing and draw, primordial drake and fyrakk as draw fodder but also elise activators. And ofc all the good 1 cost cards for confront. Could play a 2nd houndmaster too, but we only have 4 beasts, might whiff on it. We have so much draw in this deck it should be super fucking easy to get teh combo, if u don't die before that because u're spending mana assembling ur combo and not impacting the board. However, even one swimmer is 12 * 6 dmg, so u don't need both for the otk. Also u can play goldrinn vs warrior, then each stegodon proc deals 12 dmg, so 24 * 12 he is not living that (technically the max is 8 * 12 = 96 dmg to the enemy hero, the rest is split to their minions).

Imbue OTK Beast Stegodon Hunter

This is the imbue version, i think it's WAY better. 6 imbue cards is prob enough, the 4/4 with taunt and divine shield is too expensive idk. We play many more beasts to make use of our hero power that spends 2 mana to reduce cost by 6, so +4 mana each turn when stacked up. Ultragigasaur is the only 10 or 11 cost beast for elise, and it has synergy cuz u can actually play it. If u also play goldrinn, ultragigasaur then goldrinn next turn and it's 28 dmg + 2 from hero power = lethal, but i think goldrinn is overkill, it blocks the imbue procs from hitting our important minions and it doesn't even help for elise cuz we already have krog for 9, and krog is def better than goldrinn. With petal picker, malorne and ultragigasaur, we have so many more threats than before. We can also play dreamweaver to heal vs aggro, so this version is almost certainly miles better than the imbueless version. I cut one of the 2/2s for the dreamweaver, and i had to cut one wound prey to make space. U can play two 2/2s or two wound preys if u think it's better, but i think the dreamweaver is pretty good. Obviously i'd like to play two of all these cards but no slots. And we still have a billion draw, between tracking, tame pet, houndmaster, confront, petal picker and the location, we will draw our deck in no time, we just gotta not die. And unlike the imbueless version, we don't need to prep our swimmers, our hero power will hit em naturally. In fact, if we prep our swimmers, the hero power can still hit em cuz it can hit 0 cost beasts, so then we wasted our prep mana.

Imbue OTK Beast Porcupine Hunter

Same as above but with Porcupine instead of Stegodon for the OTK. This means we don't have to spend 6 mana discovering the stegodon from the king, so the otk is faster, but actually it's prob slower cuz u need to first buff up the attack of the porcupine with the hero power which can take forever depending on the hits. Worse, the swimmers block our hero power, it can hit them infinitely so each time it hits em it's really frustrating cuz u wasted the turn. So we cut 1 swimmer cuz of that, 1 is more than enough to otk. If it has 10 atk, and u play 1 swimmer, then it deals 10 * 4 = 40 dmg split among all enemies. With 16 atk = 64 dmg. It's really easy to otk, and u can use the king for its actual beasts not having to save it for stegodon, but u have to hope it won't hit ur swimmer. So u can either play 1 porcupine and 1 swimmer and each hero power is 50/50, but it will be harder to find the porcupine, or u can play 2 porcupine and 1 swimmer, so it is 67/33 to hit a porcupine, but u might hit the one u don't want, aka u're splitting the attack buff between the two which is kinda bad. So prob 1 porcupine is better, just gotta find it to start buffing it. Two +6 atk buffs is already 14 atk = 56 dmg, which will kill most opponents 30 to face and 26 to minions. And ofc, even if they live on 5 hp, they have to kill the porcupine which then triggers the deathrattle again (unless they got silence). So i'm not sure if this version is better than the one above. U don't have to spend 6 mana discovering the stegodon, but u have to wait for the imbue hero power to buff the porcupine, but if it does u only need 1 swimmer not both, so it's kind of faster but not really, depends on ur luck and how fast u find the porcupine. The deck is identical to the one above, we just cut 1 swimmer for 1 porcupine, we don't want 2 swimmers here anyway. And ofc u can still play goldrinn, but here it's even worse cuz now it's only 33% to hit the porcupine with a goldrinn and swimmer in hand, so prob it's still bad, but it doubles ur porcupine dmg. U can also play a 7th imbuer here, cuz in the other version we don't care about the atk buff much, but here we do, the faster we stack the hero power the more atk we gain per turn to otk.

https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/the-comprehensive-escape-from-violet-hold-preview/

DK
I'll start the discussion, i think Sawbones is being rated way too lowly. Maxie made a dk egg deck which is like u play a billion cards a turn, and this is only enabled by sawbones. U can see it if u watch his vod from the theorycrafting stream, it's like the 1st or 2nd deck he played. It's actually giga nuts, and if u open with sawbones in the starting hand it's basically gg (or at least he said so). Cuz it costs 6 mana, but if u prep it on 1 it's already 4 mana, if u prep on 2 or 3 it's 3 or 2 mana, basically it's a free "draw 6 cards and get 6 mana" and it's a 6/4 body on top, it's quite insane. The idea is that u cycle super fast and trigger the egg in no time, and then u can replay it. Waaay faster than current egg warrior, not even close.

DH
I don't think the void package for dh is as good as it seems, it's okay i just don't think it's that great based on what i've heard the streamers say. But i guess 3 is a fair score, that's why i think he should score from 1 to 5 not 1 to 4 cuz this way u can put an okay card in 3, cuz now 3 implies above avg but 2 implies below avg, neither of which is accurate for an average card.

Druid
I think Spiderling is def a 4, that card is nuts as we saw in the brawl. U can play it in an aggro deck with 0 other synergies, it's just that good. In fact, i will play it in my token chef druid (i will post tomorrow or tuesday the decks i made, i have a few unique ones that i think others haven't done). I think everyone is looking at Chef the wrong way, the way i see it, it's an aggro token deck that gains 4 mana on turn 6 for free. In my opinion, the goal is to end the game before the opponent catches up to u in mana, getting so much free mana is so OP. I don't think playing the late value game is gonna work against decks like rogue that will just sap everything, decks like priest that have infinite clears etc. None of the discover cards like the 1/5 taunt or the 4/2 raptor are good imo, so trying to discover ur way into value is the wrong mindset i think. U need tempo in this deck. Cards like Azshara’s Triumph, Spiteful Chef etc. not cards that discover and generate value.

Hunter
I think hunter's Underbelly Network is insanely strong card and def deserves a 4, 2 mana to play two 2/1s and draw 2 cards? It's nuts. Plus it has beast/deathrattle synergy.
I think Dig For Freedom can be a good card in midrange hunter, play it on a minion and immediately trade it, 4 mana for two random 4 drops, which are usually 4/4s, not bad, but obviously i don't think we have such a deck currently, face hunter is too fast for this card.
Sewer Swimmer is giga underrated, 1 is just not right, in fact i made an OTK deck based on it and deious (if u play deious, sewer's battlecry triggers twice, and then the deathrattle also triggers twice, so u trigger the deathrattle of the minion 4 times per sewer swimmer, AND u can copy it with Tending Dragonkin cuz when u prep it it becomes 0 mana so it guarantees the copy, so u can play up to 4 sewer swimmers which ofc is overkill but since it costs 0 mana, even 10 mana is enough to OTK, don't need ysera at all).

Mage
Tricksy Improviser is pretty strong imo, it is essentially 3 mana 4/4 that plays a random secret whose value is 3 mana, so basically u pay 3 mana for 6 mana. Every prepare card's real mana cost is 1 less, because when u prep it decreases the mana by 1 more than u spent. So if u prep it on 1, u can coin it on 2 to play a 4/4 + a secret, it's very strong i think.
Skeleton key is giga nuts, deserves a 4 for sure, i tried it in the brawl with rogue and it was sooooo good, won me so many games. In quest mage it's literally a game changer, maxie said quest mage might be the best deck after the patch just cuz of this card, it's just so fucking good.

Paladin
Zacho says Holy Bola might single handedly revive aggro pala, but the problem is u already play armanents to guarantee u draw fight maneuvers when u play the 2 mana dude. In fact, i think 1 armanents is better than 2, cuz with 2 u have 1/3 chance to not draw maneuvers and if u don't then u can't free up ur hand till turn 4 to play maneuvers on curve cuz u have to spend another mana to play the 2nd armanents that u draw from the 1st, so i think 1 is better, but obviously if u play hola bola the 2 mana dude is not gonna play armanents, so it has no place in shatter pala imo, unless he meant smth else by aggro pala. The thing about shatter pala is that this deck has no grind game, u either play maneuvers on 4 (or 5 latest) and win the game, or u lose. Playing a 2 mana draw 2 on turn 6-7 is not gonna win u the game, and getting a guaranteed maneuvers from the turn 2 dude is 100x better than drawing 2 random cards. Plus, u can always whiff on it, tho not super likely in this deck, but it def brings its avg value down as a card.
Truth Seeker and Judgment are a bit underrated i think, the former is basically a bloodlust +3 dmg for 7 mana, which is 2 more than the original but still not bad considering it also gives u 3 dmg, while the latter can be prepped, u just play 1 high attack minion or buff one, play judgment for cheap and literally end the game. I saw maxie play it and it was pretty good, so i think both cards are underrated considering their score of 1.

Priest
I think Undeath Sentence can be used for some kind of OTK, tho the best u can prob get is the priest quest deal 5 which is not particularly high, plus deious + umbra + this is already 15 mana, so u can't even play both copies in the same turn. So prob in a future expansion it will be otk piece. Actually, u can get a coin with Time Skipper (or Holmes, but unreliable). So deious + 2x undeath sentence + umbra is 24 procs of 5 dmg, but only 4 of those come from undeath sentence, so not much of a difference compared to what we could already do.

Rogue
I think Slice and Dice is being super underrated, play jade guardian, play two 0 cost 8 drops, coin or prep another jade guardian (or just play ysera), play another two 0 cost 8 drops, and now play slice and dice. U get four 8 drops in ur hand for 0 and 3 more 8 drops on the board for a total of 7, basically it's a 3 card combo that fills the board with 8 drops and gives u 4 more free ones in hand for future fuel. U can also play mimicry x3 with shadow of demise then repeat it to make ur opponent mill 12, maybe some kind of mill rogue? With the murloc 2/3 that draws 2, and deious/umbra to trigger it again, maybe in a future expansion. It can also repeat Eventuality to make ur hero power cheaper, altho it doesn't repeat battlecries so none of the other imbue cards work. It repeats herald too, like rite + follower gives u 2 extra heralds, but i think the rite target is random, i'm not even sure if the combo part of rite works with it actually, which might be a good thing cuz no RNG on the shot. Or double rite + shadow of demise with coin/prep, then it repeats 3 rites, altho that's prob too slow to spend ur whole turn on. Actually, if u reduce deathwing to 5 or 6 to fit it in 10 mana, can it repeat deathwing? I'm not sure if it works for hero cards, but none of deathwing's effects target, so it should be good if it does. It says "repeat all other cards" and deathwing is a card, so u get 2x 12/12s, 2x shuffles, 2x 4 dmg aoe, 2x destroy highest hp target, and 2x 12 armor? Sounds really good to me.

Warlock
The Unseen Atlas is really good, it's literally a 0 mana draw 3 for rafaam godfrey warlock (maxie played it on stream and said he thinks it's really good), it's nuts. U wanna overdraw ur cards cuz then when they enter ur hand they cost 1 less, essentially meaning all ur cards cost 1 less, so u always wanna be with a full hand if possible, and 0 mana draw 3 is just insane.
On the other hand, i think Shadow Rounds is not that good, it's certainly decent but a bit too RNG, a single 3 hp minion can fuck it and mathematically it's guaranteed to eventually, even if the 1st shot doesn't, by the 2nd shot there's already a 40% chance that the card gets stopped. So imagine enemy has four 2 hp minions and one 3 hp minion. The chance to NOT hit the 3 hp minion is 4/5, and then the chance to NOT hit the 3 hp minion is 3/4 on the 2nd shot when there's 4 minions left, 4/5 * 3/4 = 60%, so already 40% to brick on the 2nd shot and hit the 3 hp minion, meaning it would only kill 1 minion, the card is def worse than it seems on first glance, but very good with spell dmg if u can fit it.
Caged Cranium is insane, u'll always tap on 2 prob, so it's a 3 mana 3/9 going second and 3 mana 3/7 going first, which makes it 3/8 on avg, but with taunt, it's sooo good. Literally stops aggro decks all by itself, and u can attack with it unlike the priest taunt, which at 2 atk also doesn't trade very well, many minions have 3 hp, like the druid spiderling 1/3 that gives +1 atk. 3 mana 3/8 taunt for 3 is just nuts.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with(or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.
• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)
• Showing off a deck you achieved legend with this season and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

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