Hearthstone #7 - Knights of the Frozen Throne

[PK Cronin]

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?

I can get two competitive games in during my 30 minute break at work, so ~15 minutes per game at most.

If you don't spend money, like me, there's a cap to how high you can climb the ladders. I just don't have the cards or dust necessary to make the meta decks to climb higher. Think the highest I've ever gotten was rank 12 or something like that, and I've been playing for a year-ish I think.

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

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?

Basic mage is pretty good because flamestrike and fireball are two of the best cards in the entire game. You can build a cheap deck that starts off controlling board with mana wyrms and sorcerer's apprentices, uses secrets and secret synergy to improve by midgame, and aims to get the enemy in a place where you can use your burst and finish them off when they're below half health. As other people have said, you won't make legendary on a basic deck, but I've been playing for almost four years now and haven't hit legendary once because it's just an awful grind (and because I greatly prefer fun decks with bad win rates). You can also find budget decks on sites like Hearthpwn that have no legendaries or epics.

IMO you should save your gold for arena, not packs, because you'll learn the strengths and weaknesses of all the cards, and winning just two games per run means you break even. There are arena calculators and add-ons that help you determine which cards to draft if you feel overwhelmed. As a general rule, if you play arena, don't pick warrior.

 

[Wild11MN]

I've spent $5 total on the starter pack and have played for two years. You can still have plenty of fun, but the start will be a little rough. I mostly play arena, which is not very beginner- friendly at all, so I wouldn't recommend that to start. However, it lets you draft a deck on your own, and it doesn't require you to spend all your money building a single deck. Outside of arena, I have a good amount of fun playing Tavern Brawls in good weeks, and I don't even try to rank up past rank 15 (even though I could, but the grind/repetitiveness isn't worth it to me). My basic cycle (after obtaining a good base of cards) consists of saving up around 3k in coins until a new expansion, spend it all when it releases, then hardly buy any new packs until the next one, playing a lot of arena to get some packs without losing much money.

So it's not impossible to enjoy F2P at this point, but you have to be willing to lose a lot early until you can get a solid base of cards. Classic cards in theory will be around forever, so buying a bunch of those packs in a good idea.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I’d recommend playing the Dungeon runs, if nothing else. That’ll help you play some cards you’d probably have to open hundreds of packs to find, and give you some ideas on what kind of deck you might like to play.

I opened King Togwaggle today. Decided to try Togwaggle Mill, and I’m having a blast. It’s doable in Standard, but so much more fun in Wild. Basic idea is to draw your entire deck ASAP (easily done in Druid), then drop an Emperor when you have Togwaggle, 1 Coldlight and at least 1 Naturalize in hand.

Following turn, drop Togwaggle, suddenly your opponent is in fatigue, and you force them to draw 7 cards. 28 damage out of nowhere, since the deck gives very little clues as to what it actually is.

 

[LightningStrikes]

I love playing Big Spell Mage and Cube Lock recently.

 

[LightningStrikes]

This might be something Blizz should look into:

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I love playing Big Spell Mage and Cube Lock recently.

Big Spell Mage is a lot of fun. It's a bit of a tightrope walk trying to fend off the Aggro Paladin and Prince Rogue, but I've been doing rather well with it.

 

[LightningStrikes]

Big Spell Mage is a lot of fun. It's a bit of a tightrope walk trying to fend off the Aggro Paladin and Prince Rogue, but I've been doing rather well with it.

It's the kind of deck I find myself really liking to play. Barely overcome the early pressure only to run away with it with a big board and tons of armor. Probably why I like Big Priest and early Control Warrior (was my first golden hero).

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

it took nearly four years, but I finally got every golden hero in Hearthstone by hitting 500 wins with priest.

[weep for me]

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Just pulled a Golden Kathrena. I'm so excited to try her out.

 

[LightningStrikes]

it took nearly four years, but I finally got every golden hero in Hearthstone by hitting 500 wins with priest.

[weep for me]

Congrats man! I got 4 so far (Warrior, Warlock, Hunter, Mage) and 3 others at 350-370. Tough grind though.

 

[LightningStrikes]

Just pulled a Golden Kathrena. I'm so excited to try her out.

I've tried Big Hunter (you run spells and weapons, Barnes, Y'shaarj, Kathrena, Highmanes and Krush) and it's (sadly) too slow and lackluster.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I've tried Big Hunter (you run spells and weapons, Barnes, Y'shaarj, Kathrena, Highmanes and Krush) and it's (sadly) too slow and lackluster.

I've actually climbed a bit. Took it from 13 to 9. A combination of staggering your Secrets, Bow, and Tar Creeper often allows me to survive against Aggro decks until I pull off a swing Spellstone turn.

Against slower decks (which are basically Priest and Warlock at the moment), it's all about putting enough pressure early on to force them to always react. Then you Kathrena or Krush them for the win.

And there's something awesome about having a Voidlord bounced by Freezing Trap. Enjoy your 11-cost card. Better hope you draw the Skull before I kill you.

 

[PK Cronin]

I've tried and tried, can't seem to get this mage dungeon run finished. Every time I have a good strategy going I end up running into a boss that directly counters it or has some stupid rng that ends up whiping me. Had one of the final bosses the other day, pulled off a sick move to save myself and boost my health back into the 20's...the very next turn I got wrecked.

I've tried elementals, spells/friends, and the giants mostly. That one guy who summons every time you use a spell is a nightmare for me.

 

[Wild11MN]

I've tried and tried, can't seem to get this mage dungeon run finished. Every time I have a good strategy going I end up running into a boss that directly counters it or has some stupid rng that ends up whiping me. Had one of the final bosses the other day, pulled off a sick move to save myself and boost my health back into the 20's...the very next turn I got wrecked.

I've tried elementals, spells/friends, and the giants mostly. That one guy who summons every time you use a spell is a nightmare for me.

Yeah, I've only got two left - Mage and Warrior. I think Mage has been the most difficult for me because I just never seem to draft an OP deck. I've heard Frost Lich Jaina makes it significantly easier, so I'm trying that the next time I attempt it.

 

[LightningStrikes]

Mage is the only class I got to beat the Dungeon Run so far (didn't try much with other classes though). Was 2nd try I think with Medivh shenanigans.

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

Mage is the only one I've beaten as well. I was so close to dying on the last boss (the demon that burns your deck), I had nothing in my hand/deck except arcane intel and pyroblast. He was at 12 health and had lethal on the board for the next turn, but played flame imp to give me the win

 

[PK Cronin]

I finally just beat it with Mage, right around the 100 boss mark. Went with the hero power suggestion and coupled that with elementals. Used the +1/+1 passive and the double your health passive. Coasted to victory because it was infinitely easier to control the board and the elementals provided lifesteal on top of having double the health. Only three more left to go, working on Warrior now, then the two classes I never play in Warlock and Rogue.

 

[Hammettf2b]

been playing a lot more Wild lately. Never thought I'd say that tbh but its a lot of fun.

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

why do you think you'd never say that? I play nothing but wild and love it because so many of the card combos make for wacky, cool decks

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I also pretty much only play wild nowadays. The meta in standard sucks right now. It's the same couple of decks all day long. There's a lot more variety in wild and you can make some really fun decks in it too.

 

[Wild11MN]

I had 2 quests involving Paladin and the divine shield quest, so I created a deck with 28x Divine Shield minions and 2x whatever the weapon that buffs them is called, and queued into rank 25 Wild. I'm guessing I convinced a couple of newbies that Divine Shield is super OP because I rolled over them.

I haven't even created a deck from this expansion despite getting like 50 or so packs from coins/for free over the past few months. Just can't get into this one or the game too much right now.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I also pretty much only play wild nowadays. The meta in standard sucks right now. It's the same couple of decks all day long. There's a lot more variety in wild and you can make some really fun decks in it too.

While it's true you're facing the same decks over and over in Standard, that doesn't mean you can't play different decks.

I'm rotating between Big Spell Frost Lich Mage, Kathrena Secret Hunter, and Kingsbane Rogue.

None are top-tier decks, but I'm climbing and having fun doing it.

 

[Hammettf2b]

why do you think you'd never say that? I play nothing but wild and love it because so many of the card combos make for wacky, cool decks

I just thought I would always stick to standard. plus I only joined during Old Gods so I don't have a lot of the cards before that

 

[Hammettf2b]

New patch details
Upcoming Balance Changes – Update 10.2

• Bonemare - Now costs 8 mana. (Up from 7)
• Corridor Creeper - Now has 2 Attack. (Down from 5)
• Patches the Pirate - No longer has Charge.
• Raza the Chained - Now reads: Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, your Hero Power costs (1) this game.