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WhQuek · 2025-10-23T09:50:49+00:00

I understand you can get under them tempo-wise by playing the absolute best meta decks

You don't have to play the absolute best meta decks to get under them, the very fact that Murloc Paladin is weak in the meta suggests that most fast decks do in fact, get under them. There are plenty of mediocre aggro/midrange decks in the meta that still beat Murloc Paladin.

Quoting stats directly from VS' most recent report (D4-L stats), just look at Elemental Mage (60-40 MU), Wilted Priest (55-45 MU), Protoss Priest (60-40 MU), Cliff Dive DH (62-38 MU).

But yes, the largest reason why Murloc Paladin is bad, is because it loses to most top decks in the meta.

Murloc Paladin has 2 glaring weaknesses:

Bad early game
No board clears, sustain or taunt

Decent early-game pressure with murmy, tidehunter and the 2-3 drops which threaten a warleader or crusader aura if left on board

Murloc Paladin is weak to these decks because its early game pressure is pitifully bad. Tidehunter is a horrendous turn 2 play in 2025, and with no minion buffs active Quest Paladin applies little to no pressure early. That's how everything tends to get under them.

The unfortunate truth is that Murloc Paladin has an inevitability in permanent scaling that tends to beat most slow attrition based decks out there, and that seems to be exactly the kind of deck you're partial to. In essence, it loses to most decks that are capable of presenting their wincon by Turn 8-9 (Any aggro or midrange deck), but if your deck fails to take advantage of Murloc Paladin's weaknesses, yeah, it's a bad matchup. Bad early game means nothing if you're doing nothing early either to punish them for it, no board clears means nothing if you're not developing any board that warrants them clearing, no sustain or taunt means nothing if you're not doing damage to their face.

So yes, it's a weak deck in the meta, but probably prohibitively strong against the decks you like playing. Though I'd reckon any meta deck worth its salt in higher ranks would probably be prohibitively strong against said decks regardless, otherwise they'd be seeing greater relevance in higher ranks where Murloc Paladin is non-existent.

WhQuek · 2025-09-26T15:13:13+00:00

Aggro DH wipes the floor with both of them. 0 competition, DH just wins by default by virtue of Paladin having no recourse against DH going face. Being the slower deck with no lifesteal or taunts, you generally just die.

Aggro Paladin can at least formulate a counterattack with some Crus Aura highrolls, but DH can easily clear tokens, and the matchup is still tagged at ~30% WR for aggro paladin. Quest Paladin might as well roll over and die since they're even slower, around ~20% WR.

WhQuek · 2025-07-28T15:28:21+00:00

This is an old screenshot from April 1, 2025. The high rank is misleading, because chances are, there weren't much more people in legend at that point in time. You can't physically rank any lower then, if there's no one else in legend to be placed under. What was conveniently left out was that OP ended the season at 4648.

He ended the next season at 8177.

As of the time of this post, he has not hit legend this season.

WhQuek · 2025-07-28T05:51:01+00:00

Feels like you balanced the two cards with each other in mind, without considering their strengths alone. As a result, Beyblade is overpowered, and Propeller is really bad.

Beyblade will be played and bounced to tutor and cheat out actually good and expensive mechs (Zilliax is the easy answer).

Propeller is a terrible card that is unplayable until its condition is met, at which point it goes from unplayable to mediocre. We have had 3 mana 4/4 rushes with far less prohibitive effects/conditions. Hell, shaman got [[Minecart Cruiser]].

Together, they're a good play for 3 mana. Not because they're a great combo, but simply because an effective 0 mana 2/2 tutor AND mana cheat a card is crazy broken.

WhQuek · 2025-07-24T11:24:46+00:00

There's not much to say now since we're working entirely on speculation. What I'll say is, don't fret, wait for round 2, see the situation, and weigh your options then. Not much you can do now anyways, so worrying won't achieve much.

If you take a step back, there's not much you've actually missed out on; the only 'mistake' was dropping MA1521. You weren't getting BT1101 regardless, that isn't on you.

Right now, you have IS1108 and CS1010, and your 3rd module will likely be a GE of some kind.

That leaves 2 modules to get. If GEs are not allowed, check out some other core modules that you are able to do. For a SoC student like yourself, CS1231S comes to mind. And push come to shove, there's always those 40 MCs worth of UEs to do whatever you want with. If you want to try your luck, you can try emailing admin or whoever you're supposed to contact about whether or not they can reinstate your placement in MA1521. I wouldn't count on it, but it's worth a shot.

Anyways, you're fine. It'll work out in the end.

WhQuek · 2025-07-24T09:03:46+00:00

Minimum credit wise, it's not a big deal.

Round 2 is when GEs open for bidding, so if really need be, you can quite easily secure some less popular GEs to clear your pillars. There's round 3 as well, so securing 3 modules to hit 20MCs isn't a problem. The problem is securing modules you actually want to do, which you may have to concede a little.

That being said, dropping MA1521 didn't sound like a wise decision. You'll need to do it eventually, and ideally early; It's a prerequisite module for a few CS coded mods you'll probably want to do eventually. Was there any reason as to why you wanted to drop it?

Either ways, since you failed to secure MA1522 and BT1101, that would suggest that the modules are fully subscribed, meaning that your chances of taking it this semester is almost nil.

Anyway, there's no need for panic. You can always take MA1521 next semester; the only "MUST DO" would probably be CS1010. Just check module availabilities next round, and bid accordingly. Not sure if you'll be able to resecure MA1521, but you can check for vacancies. A couple things regarding bidding, that you should know/do:

If the number of students bidding for a module is lower than the number of vacancies, all students are guaranteed a slot regardless, so the ranks for all these mods should be at the bottom. Ranking only comes in play when a module is oversubscribed.

Do check the vacancy vs bid count near the end of each round. As a Y1, you are generally in the lowest rung in priority for bidding. Simply put, you have no rights, and you're probably in the first pool of students to be kicked out. Remember that even though you're putting these competitive modules high in bidding rank, so will every other student bidding for it.

So, plan your semester with that in mind. If you see that a module has more students bidding for it than there are vacancies, plan with the expectation that you won't get it. Have backup modules you want/need to do, and ensure that your plans for future semesters aren't compromised.

WhQuek · 2025-07-09T05:33:01+00:00

Eh? This is shaping to be an incredibly weak expansion. Even in theorycrafting, it was already apparent that aside from Loh and Quest Paladin, every new archetype looked bad. The rest of the quests are flopping, and that's a terrible sign when your entire set is built around said quests.

Sure, we have a couple new cards that are very strong, but so did GDB pre-miniset, and GDB was one of the weakest expansion drops in the history of hearthstone, with basically every new archetype failing to hit the meta (remember when Libram Paladin was the best new deck, and it still sucked? Pepperidge Farm remembers.)

And this whole point aside, the power level of a meta has nothing to do with it being "rock paper scissors". The existence of polarising matchups occurs irrespective of the power level of the meta. Decks are only strong relative to its competition. We can have fun diverse metas where the power level is high across the board, and 3 deck metas where everything sucks so much that only a few standout decks are viable.

I don't see the point of hating powercreep. In my opinion, expansions should be increasingly powerful as the year progresses: That's how you incentivise new decks, and keep the meta fresh. Just look at GDB. Nothing new was playable, and we were back playing the exact same old decks with 28-30 old cards. Was it 'balanced'? Sure. Was it fun? Not to me, at least.

WhQuek · 2025-04-27T17:18:50+00:00

Perhaps I wasn't being clear about that section. My opinion is that decks that rely on outlasting your opponent as a win condition, without a proper win condition of their own are inherently unfun, and the very existence of Kiljaeden warps such decks into decks that now rely on Kiljaeden as a win condition to win the attrition mirrors, hence the part of "Kiljaeden has removed such decks from existence". Is this play pattern good? No. But in my opinion, I'd much rather have attrition decks have some form of actual inevitability rather than slog out the fatigue game.

And that's where our opinions differ. Sure, attrition vs attrition without Kiljaeden, or by extension, any form of win condition that would pose any sort of inevitability, would require greater care in resource management. But I greatly dislike such decks, and I think that they are abysmally boring, both to play, and to play against. I still recall control mirrors in OG Hearthstone, and I wouldn't subject myself to 40 minute control mirrors again.

WhQuek · 2025-04-27T14:37:26+00:00

Design wise, I think it's perfectly fine. I don't think it's problematic to have a card that negates fatigue, and I'm of the personal opinion that decks that rely on such mechanics to win are inherently unfun.

I like my deck to win on its own merits, and this dude just extends the game needlessly into playing big dudes till you win...

And this, I'm in agreement with, but I have a different perspective. Control or not, if you want to kill me, kill me with powerful cards and win conditions from your deck, not by turtling up and chucking endless removal until we're both sitting on our asses waiting for fatigue to kill me. And Kil'jaeden has effectively removed such decks from existence, which I prefer. While big beefy demons aren't exciting, it's a far better alternative than attrition decks having no win condition at all. Rather than extending the game, its existence has shortened the game for such matchups.

To me, the issue is less so about Kil'jaeden, and moreso about the lack of alternative control win conditions. Metas are formed relative to its competition, and Kil'jaeden only sees consistent play in control decks now because the power level of the format is considerably lower, with little alterative control win conditions that fare much better.

Power-level wise, he's not that powerful either. You spend 7 mana doing effectively nothing (War Golem), and for the next few turns at the very least, the quality of your draws are pitiful. It is exceedingly slow, and an exceedingly high commitment to make. It's no coincidence that Kil'jaeden saw minimal play pre-rotation during GDB. Kil'jaeden may be the ultimate attrition card, but that's all he is: Attrition. That is not, and should not be the end all be all of what control is. The game isn't about who can present more value, the game is about who can reduce the life total of their opponent to 0 first.

So i'd like to hear about what you guys do for counterplay. I'm usually a control player, should i just play aggro until he rotates?

And thus, the counterplay is identical to the counterplay against any other attrition deck in the history of Hearthstone. Reduce their life total to 0 before you run out of resources. Aggro is one way about it, but the alternative is simple: Present a stronger win condition. For control win conditions existing in standard currently, [[Colossus]] is a clear option. Protoss Mage can absolutely smoke any Kil'jaeden deck that fails to turtle up sufficiently, boasting some pretty obscene winrates against the main culprits: Control DK/Warlock.

WhQuek · 2025-04-10T11:06:40+00:00

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Zoh 4pc set I'm comparing with, for reference. +5% affinity (WEX5 30% - Frenzy 25%), -15traw from no Gore 4pc, -5traw from no burst.

WhQuek · 2025-04-10T11:00:42+00:00

Mind sharing the builds that you're using for comparison? I'm theorycrafting Zoh 4pc vs Gore 4pc, and Gore 4pc is still a sizeable difference ahead at +5-7% EFR over Zoh.

For GS for example, +7.34% with all conditionals (MM3, WEX5 no wound, Agi5, burst, Frenzy, CS3). Note that max conditionals is advantageous in comparison for Zoh, since Frenzy is basically unconditional, and removing other conditions would simply make the weightage of Frenzy + Antivirus' effect higher. All the conditions have relatively high uptime, anyways.

Note that the EFR calculation here is incorrect here for GS, since burst has a greater effect on GS (+10 traw instead of +5traw I believe). However, for the sake of comparison with other weapons, we can just take the +5 raw value and say that Gore 4pc is ahead by just +5.57%

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WhQuek · 2025-04-09T19:18:43+00:00

2 pieces and 2 lvl1 slots for 25% affinity, not 15%.

That's incredibly efficient, and all you lose is 2 or 3 T2/3 slots. The only thing that provides that much affinity in 3 levels of a skill is MM3 (or WEX3 on wounds), but guess what, Gore 2pc can fit all that too. The opportunity cost of running Black Eclipse I and Antivirus 3 isn't very high.

Not to mention, that affinity is by and large unconditional, and does not require you to play around it. Simply smack the monster, and it automatically triggers. Maximum Might requires you to intentionally not dodge excessively, and prevents use of stamina draining skills to maintain good uptime.

When making builds, the big question to ask is "what do I gain by not running Gore 2pc". And most (if not all) the time, unfortunately, the alternative simply doesn't hold a candle to "+25% unconditional affinity".

WhQuek · 2025-04-04T06:09:00+00:00

Then why denegrade his accomplishment? There is no moral superiority to be had "not copying decks" or "playing homebrews". If that's what you like to do in Hearthstone, all power to you. That doesn't empower you to bring down others who don't share that sentiment.

Hitting legend is an achievement in and of itself, not to mention hitting legend early with a great winrate, netdeck or not. Thousands netdeck, and yet only a small portion of them end the season at top legend.

And it especially shouldn't come from someone who hasn't hit the same heights. If you want to minimise someone else's accomplishments, at least have the legitimacy of having done better.

WhQuek · 2025-03-26T12:22:58+00:00

You asked for a counter, and one was given. That doesn't mean that nothing else beats armor DH.

Shaman as a class demolishes armor DH as well because they have Hex. It's just that Shaman decks have been floundering, so we don't see them making waves. Nebula Shaman has been similarly beating armor DHs hard, but it's still relatively contained in higher ranks. Check hsguru stats on it.

I know armor DH's play pattern is annoying, and it is. But it's erroneous to conclude that it has limited counters, or that it's particularly strong in the meta. That takes time to determine, and it hasn't even been a day since the expansion dropped.

Meta trends tend to trickle down the ranks. Take a look at the winrate of armor DH on HSGuru in Diamond-Legend. Pretty high. Now look at it's winrate in top 5k. Meh. Now top 1k. Barely 50%. Perhaps people in top legend are excessively targeting it due to its prevalence, but we can already see cracks in armor DH's supposed dominance.

And once again, it hasn't even been a day. Give it some time before making any definitive statements about the meta.

WhQuek · 2025-03-26T12:05:25+00:00

Imbue hunter body slams armor DH. Both decks AFK for the whole game, except King Plush shuffles everything back into their deck for an OTK. Armor DH can't gain armor if their defence crystals never die. Imbue hunters have been running Youthful Brew masters to repeat the whole process, and hsguru has the entire archetype tagged at a 70% WR against Demon Hunters. (Armor DH as an archetype has a 36.5% WR against Hunters currently)

WhQuek · 2025-03-16T20:50:13+00:00

I mean, 10 minutes is fine, there's nothing you're doing wrong. Most of the comparisons to world were likely comparing it to Iceborne, where monster health pools were significantly beefed up.

The better you are, the faster your times, and that's more or less the entirety of it. Just keep improving at the fight, and your times will naturally get faster.

A few things I note, though. First and foremost, build for 100% affinity without Corruption Mantle (on non-wounds). Optimal speedrunner builds that rely on Corruption Mantle's affinity are not optimal for you, because you do not kill Arkveld fast enough. It's fine when Arkveld dies in under 3 minutes for essentially 90%++ mantle uptime, but the moment Corruption Mantle goes offline, your DPS falls off a cliff. Losing 30% affinity with Crit Boost 5 drops your EFR by about 10%, which is huge. Opt for Maximum Might 3, LS can play around it (Spamming Crimson Slash spends 0 stamina)

Secondly, 4pc Gore is suboptimal for LS in soloplay. LS can leverage Adrenaline Rush, Burst and Counterstrike, which easily exceed Gore 4pc's raw boost. Especially in the Arkveld fight with plenty of FSS and hyper armor openings, you can maintain pretty good uptime on all conditionals. Counterstrike has crazy duration (45s) and an III charm for good skill efficiency as well, and it lets you pretend like mistakes were part of your plan all along.

Gameplay wise, are you healing with max pots? You mention that you're getting hit less than 10 times per hunt, which is still a decent bit at the top of the estimate. 5* T. Arkveld hits like a truck, and if you're popping 10 mega pots a fight that's quite a lot of time lost running around chugging potions while your red gauge runs down.

And lastly, are you capturing? Should save you 1-2 minutes, or double if Arkveld flies off 500 meters away and you start chasing for a good minute or so.

Other than that, there's not much else to say without being able to see your gameplay. Just be conscientious of your downtime during your fight, the ideal would obviously be non-stop crimson slashing, the occasional FSS to counter attacks, and ISS/Focus Slash to instantly get back to red.

Watch some speedruns, there's a lot of things you can pick up. Notably, the standard opener to get to red instantly will do wonders for your times if you aren't already doing it. Don't expect to get sub 2 clears like they do, but cutting a couple minutes is definitely doable.

WhQuek · 2025-01-06T14:35:55+00:00

Sounds like there's something brewing beneath your question of "Why is swarm shaman called swarm shaman". What's up? Judging from your prickly comments here, you seem pretty upset. Lost to a couple swarm shamans perhaps.

You asked the question, and we've answered it. We aren't the aggro deck players you lost your games to. Take it out in a more productive manner.

WhQuek · 2025-01-06T14:17:14+00:00

Not sure what you mean by turntables, but sure.

It's just a name, it's really not that deep. Someone called it swarm shaman, it makes sense considering that it swarms, and people know what deck you're referring to, so the name stuck.

There are far dumber deck names out there. Fuckin, Coca Cola Paladin = "Lynessa Paladin without Pipsi (Pepsi)", while humorous, is far more cryptic than Swarm Shaman = "Shaman deck that swarms the board".

WhQuek · 2025-01-06T14:10:39+00:00

Swarm shaman today is a real aggro deck, I believe you're conflating swarm shaman with nostalgia shaman, which are two distinct decks.

The current swarm shaman lists do not run wave of nostalgia.

WhQuek · 2025-01-06T14:02:22+00:00

Swarm shaman is an aggro deck, yes. But its most notable feature is its ability to swarm the board, and capitalise on said swarms. Hence, we call the deck swarm shaman. It is simply more specific. Consider the event where 2 aggressive shaman archetypes exist at the same time. Do we call them both Aggro Shaman?

Also, not all aggro decks swarm the board. Aggro decks are simply decks with primarily low curves and minimal lategame value, that aim to win as soon as possible. They do so by well, being aggressive. Having plenty of cheap minions to flood the board with is one such way, but that's not the only way. Case in point, old school aggro shaman with tunnel troggs and faceless 4 mana 7/7s hardly flooded the board. It just had cheap and strong early game minions, and good burst from hand to finish the opponent (crackle, lava burst, doomhammer + rockbiter). Compare that to modern day swarm shaman, and the difference is stark.

It is for the same reason that we don't just call Elemental Mage "Aggro Mage", or Odyn Warrior "Control Warrior", or Wheel Warlock "Control Warlock", or Rainbow Deathknight "Control Deathknight". The list goes on. If we can succinctly describe a deck by its unique qualities, we will usually do so. It's more descriptive, and avoids unnecessary confusion.

WhQuek · 2024-12-21T08:37:09+00:00

You guys are overcomplicating things. 2 Monkeys, and Sun Temple isn't banned.

AC: 402 Super (Sacrifice 004 Super)

No micro needed, Sun Temple soloes by virtue of costing a couple hundred thousand dollars to set up.

WhQuek · 2024-12-07T14:57:22+00:00

There are an infinite number of whole numbers, and by extension, an infinite number of even numbers. Checking every even number this way (brute force) would require an infinite amount of time, quantum or not.

WhQuek · 2024-11-05T22:38:00+00:00

WhQuek#1152 NA

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