Hearthstone #7 - Knights of the Frozen Throne

[Plato]

Having a ton of fun with the game right now. Seeing all sorts of different decks on ladder and have been having a blast with Control-Lock. Rin is surprisingly viable with Medivh and Arcane Tyrant. Also plays well with the DK if you haven't been able to get too many demons on the board.

Togwaggle + Explore Ungoro + Skulking Geist combo warrior deck is also an interesting one to mess around with.

Dungeon Run is probably the best thing they've done with the game in a very long time and I really hope they continue to add to it. Cleared it with all classes. Found Priest and Druid to be the easiest with Hunter and Warrior being the most tricky due to bad synergy with some of the picks made available. Stupid fun.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

My hardest Dungeon Run was Paladin. Kept running into bosses that countered whatever strategy I had set up to that point. Usually Trapped Room or the Hunter that reduces all cards in his hand by 3.

Mage is the easiest, by far. I’ve gone a perfect 16-0 in my 2 runs with Mage. First was Elemental based, the 2nd was spell-based with 2 of those +3 Spell Damage treasures. 8 Damage Volcanic Potion, 12 Damage fireballs, etc.

 

[Wild11MN]

Pretty quiet here. Thoughts on the expansion so far? I've played maybe one game of constructed and only one arena run so far.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

This new Control Warlock is nasty. It's like the Renolock of old. Plenty of healing and stall, and then they burst you down with 4 or 5 Doomguards.

I'm interested in trying a few decks, but didn't open the cards needed to play them. Kingsbane Mill Rogue looks fun, but I don't have the weapon. Big Spell Mage also looks fun, but it needs like 12 epic cards, which are the real costly parts of any expansion.

I'm also interested in trying the new version of Pirate Warrior, which is odd, because I hated the old version. But the inclusion of the Warriors spellstone and the Crawlers gives them a bit of late game that gives the deck a better strategy of "Go face. Win game."

 

[Seb]

The dungeon run alone makes this expansion fun. As far as the decks, can't say much because I have pretty much exclusively played DR since it's release. I've tried a few games of OTK DK Paladin but no cards from the expansion help it much. I've put in a single copy of Call to arms to thin the deck but it hasn't been game breaking.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Call to Arms is probably one of the strongest cards in the set. Obviously, it's bonkers in Aggro paladin, but pulling some combination of Dirty Rats, Armored Beetles, Doomsayers is also a big tempo swing

 

[PK Cronin]

My hardest Dungeon Run was Paladin. Kept running into bosses that countered whatever strategy I had set up to that point. Usually Trapped Room or the Hunter that reduces all cards in his hand by 3.

Mage is the easiest, by far. I’ve gone a perfect 16-0 in my 2 runs with Mage. First was Elemental based, the 2nd was spell-based with 2 of those +3 Spell Damage treasures. 8 Damage Volcanic Potion, 12 Damage fireballs, etc.

I made it to the final boss in my Paladin run the other day...turn 1 they play a 1 cost "summon a random legendary minion" and the one they got was Aviana, so every minion cost 1. They then coined and dropped the Lich King. Couldn't afford anything that would clear them off the board that early so I just got absolutely demolished in 3 or 4 turns. So disappointing since I had such a nice setup with my deck at that point.

 

[Wild11MN]

I made it to the final boss in my Paladin run the other day...turn 1 they play a 1 cost "summon a random legendary minion" and the one they got was Aviana, so every minion cost 1. They then coined and dropped the Lich King. Couldn't afford anything that would clear them off the board that early so I just got absolutely demolished in 3 or 4 turns. So disappointing since I had such a nice setup with my deck at that point.

Yeah there are some pretty cheap ways to lose. I lost to the guy that spawns a minion that is poisonous to heroes. Out of bad luck I hadn't drawn any removal or taunts yet and died in one hit.

I also lost on the final boss on one when I dropped a taunt minion that would have at least temporarily saved me. Then I realized that "permanent stealth" even sticks on taunt minions, so it can actually be bad in many cases.

 

[PK Cronin]

Yeah there are some pretty cheap ways to lose. I lost to the guy that spawns a minion that is poisonous to heroes. Out of bad luck I hadn't drawn any removal or taunts yet and died in one hit.

I also lost on the final boss on one when I dropped a taunt minion that would have at least temporarily saved me. Then I realized that "permanent stealth" even sticks on taunt minions, so it can actually be bad in many cases.

Never experienced the first one, did the same exact thing with the stealth issue. It was great when I was doing an aggro thing...then I needed more durability and got wrecked.

 

[Seb]

My current OTK DK Paladin Deck (wild) :

# Class: Paladin
# Format: Wild
#
# 2x (1) Adaptation
# 2x (2) Doomsayer
# 2x (2) Equality
# 2x (2) Hydrologist
# 2x (2) Loot Hoarder
# 2x (2) Novice Engineer
# 2x (2) Potion of Heroism
# 2x (2) Wild Pyromancer
# 2x (3) Aldor Peacekeeper
# 1x (3) Auctionmaster Beardo
# 2x (4) Consecration
# 1x (4) Hammer of Wrath
# 2x (5) Burgly Bully
# 2x (5) Solemn Vigil
# 1x (6) Emperor Thaurissan
# 1x (6) Hemet, Jungle Hunter
# 1x (8) Ragnaros, Lightlord
# 1x (9) Uther of the Ebon Blade
#
AAEBAYsWBvoB1hHmrgKdvQKdxwKO0wIMigH7AZwC3AP0BfYHjwniEfq/ArPBAtjHAu3SAgA=
#
Lot's of fun

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I take back what I said about To My Side

I unpacked one and the hunter legendary weapon so I gave the deck a shot. It's actually really good and a lot of fun. This is my decklist. I only have one to my side, I still refuse to craft another one. I threw a call of the wild in its place and it does a great job.

### No Minion Hunter
# Class: Hunter
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Mammoth
#
# 2x (1) Hunter's Mark
# 2x (1) On the Hunt
# 2x (1) Tracking
# 2x (2) Cat Trick
# 2x (2) Explosive Trap
# 1x (2) Flare
# 1x (2) Freezing Trap
# 1x (2) Snake Trap
# 1x (2) Wandering Monster
# 2x (3) Animal Companion
# 1x (3) Deadly Shot
# 2x (3) Eaglehorn Bow
# 2x (3) Kill Command
# 2x (3) Unleash the Hounds
# 2x (4) Flanking Strike
# 2x (5) Lesser Emerald Spellstone
# 1x (6) To My Side!
# 1x (7) Rhok'delar
# 1x (9) Call of the Wild
#
AAECAR8IxwOHBIAHxQjHrgLf0gLp0gLq4wILjQGoArUDyQSXCNsJ/gzpqwL4sQLd0gLj0gIA
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

 

[Hammettf2b]

Anyone know of a good single deck that counters Spell Hunter and Cubelock?

 

[syz]

I beat spell Hunter pretty consistently with big spell Mage, but Cubelock not so much.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

The new Secret Mage counters Cubelock pretty hard. Taunts don't mean much if they simply burn you in the face.

Haven't played Spell Hunter in the matchup, but I imagine if you replace Explosive Runes with something that WILL trigger against Spell Hunter (say Spellbender, for example), it's probably favored there as well.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

What's the difference between casual and ranked again? I'm trying to f*** around with a discard warlock deck in casual because I know it'll never do anything in ranked but I'm still going up against nothing but pirate decks or cube lock. Why even bother playing casual when it's literally the same decks as ranked? It's like people don't know how to make fun decks and just go find meta decks and refuse to do anything else no matter what.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Casual is for people who get too nervous to play ranked. The decks are the same, but they can't handle the possible loss of worthless stars

 

[The Noot]

I for one enjoy Dungeon Runs more than I probably should.

 

[PK Cronin]

I don't understand how that happens...

Here I am struggling to win these dumb runs, having only completed 4 so far.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Double deathrattle + Val'anyr.

Basically gives +4/+2 to minions in your hand ad-nauseum because they keep replacing each other.

 

[The Noot]

Double deathrattle + Val'anyr.

Basically gives +4/+2 to minions in your hand ad-nauseum because they keep replacing each other.

Exactly.

I've been sitting through roughly 5 minutes of animations for this Tarim. Definitely worth it, though.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Sooo...I just DLed this game after seeing this damn thread here forever....I love it so far!

Obviously i'm very new...does anyone have any early tips for my decks? Right now i'm just focusing on my Mage deck.

Also, when playing another human, how long do your games usually take?

 

[Frankie Spankie]

My early tip is to not get invested in the game at this point. There was actually a thread on reddit about what's a game you love that you can't recommend and Hearthstone was #1 by a wide margin. In order to get anywhere competitive just starting now, you'd have to spend a few hundred dollars on packs. I know you can get to legend with f2p decks, some streamers do it, but those are pros who already understand everything about the game. Good luck to any new player to get anywhere without years of free packs from quest gold and buying expansion packs here and there.

That being said, it's a pretty fun game with a really bad system that is designed to suck money out of you. You can play it for a while but I wouldn't invest any money into it until you've been playing for a month or two and still think you'll want to play the game for a long time.

And I think the average game is like 7-8 minutes long? There are some games that end up being done in 2-3 minutes and I've personally had games that lasted 20 minutes.

 

[The Noot]

Pretty much what Frankie said.

If you are having fun with it, great! But don't expect to win a lot in pvp unless you get really lucky with your pulls from the freebie packs.

As for deck recommendations:
Finish the first boss in the "Knights of the Frozen Throne" PVE adventure. You don't need a collection for it, as you will be given a deck to use for this mission.

The reward for finishing said mission is a legendary Death Knight card, of which some are really powerful.

If you got one for Gul'dan, Jaina, Rexxar, Malfurion or Thrall, keep them. They all support relatively cheap decks you can build towards. Look them up on sites like "vicious syndicate" or "hearthstone top decks". Just make sure you get one for the current meta (aka "Kobolds and Catacombs", or "KaC").

Anduin's DK is really powerful, but needs a bunch of other legendaries to be REALLY effective. Priest is not that newb friendly at the moment.
Same goes for Garrosh, but his DK is ALSO fairly weak.
Uther and Valeera see no real play and can be disenchanted. Yay, 400 dust.

Also, there is an infamous and fairly cheap tempo deck core running rampant right now. It's main pieces are "Bonemare", "Cobalt Scalebane", and "Corridor Creeper". Corridor Creeper is an epic, though. So just get scalebane and bonemare for now.

Game length entirely depends on the matchup.
Aggro mirrors can be over by turn 4 (aka 2-3 minutes) while some control mirrors cause one or both players to draw their entire decks and STILL not being finished. This has gotten increasingly rare, though, as most control decks run some kind of game ending combo these days.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

Valeera while isn't one of the top DK's, I feel like is still a pretty good DK for combo decks. I have a mill deck in wild I have a lot of fun with that Valeera makes a lot better just because of the duplicate cards but it certainly does require the right deck archetype to use unlike say Malfurion which is good in just about anything other than aggro.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Yeah, I wouldn't disenchant Valeera. It's not used in the current Tempo Rogue, but it's used in just about every other Rogue archetype out there and probably will be for the near future.

Personally, I'm a fan of Kingsbane Rogue (which does use Valeera). Part Mill, part control.