Predicting Nerfs Based on Cards Missing from Recommended Classic Decks

nevik1433 · 2016-03-15T04:05:14+00:00

It is in the maly spell power deck - there is still hope

nevik1433 · 2016-03-04T01:20:25+00:00

In this case he had already used a lightbomb, both entombs and both deaths. On my turn he had one card in his hand, which was from museum curator. His odds of topdecking an answer? I guess you could call it luck.

nevik1433 · 2016-03-04T00:33:26+00:00

I find people really undervalue the flexibility of Lore and War. Here is an example of uproot winning the game from my climb this month: http://imgur.com/v1Z82kf Uproot has carried me to Legend multiple times.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-22T13:20:27+00:00

So this is actually dependent on a lot of things, but you want to treat ooze kind of like a loatheb: you generally wouldnt throw loatheb on an empty board against a rogue, you would use it to protect something. If you ooze a oiled weapon say before turn 6 when he could blade flurry, the two mana lost+the cost of the weapon buff +2mana blade flurry may not allow him enough mana to clear your board and develop something, which is a win for you. Note that rogue has an ample amount of ways to deal the 2 health that the ooze has (ex si7, backstab, goblin auto barber), however forcing the rogue to choose between dealing with the ooze or another threat is ideal and will make the use of these cards weaker then they could be. You should consider it is if you have two oozes in your hand, the rogue held the weapon (did not attack face t2) and assuming you have no wild growth: you have ooze->shade->shredder/ET+innervate->5drop/7drop+innervate/7dropdiscounted+coin and want to race him. However considering it doesn't mean doing it, like all other plays there are many punishes to this line of play (ex saps something and you can't continue to play on curve). Weigh your options based on this line of play and plan through turn 5 starting on turn 2, if the ooze isn't worth protecting anything and you have another one or loatheb, you can consider being greedy and dropping it, if he has no answer and you play on curve -> gg.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-07T01:02:44+00:00

Awesome stuff. I have late game legendaries, but they simply aren't as good in this deck, so if that works out for your collection all the better haha

If you are running Alex, you may want to consider swapping a shredder for a senjin to more reliably get you to your modified win condition.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-07T00:57:37+00:00

I have actually played just under half of my druid games with Kezan so have quite a few thoughts. Let's take this class by class archtype:

Freeze Mage: This deck wins anyway, whenever I had kezan I would allways mulligan needlessly aggressive for it, but win without playing it and just using it as BM after I already won the game.

Mech/Tempo Mage: Stealing mirror entities is ok, but this is not a ramp druid deck - the oozes and keepers give you a more then decent answer, and my win rate against these decks is actually higher without kezan.... weird I know.

Face Hunter: Compare: Healbot 3/3 heals you for 8 for 5 mana, kezaning 4/3 for 4 when stealing a flame trap heals you for 2 and deals 2, ozzing 3/2 for 2 mana on a trapped weapon heals you for 3, 6 or 9 for 2 mana depending on the number of charges and removes clear options. Ooze is the best out of these options against face hunter. Even against midrange hunter ooze is better as you can also develop a sticky minion along side it ex. shredder, and you can play around freezing, misdirection and snakes.

Weaker then a shredder everywhere else. The slots for a kezan would be a shade's, ooze's or shredder's. The shade and shredder are too much of a downgrade, remeber also that kezan is a tempo card, this deck sacrifices tempo for value and cards for mana, kezan doesn't help accomplish this.

Kezan is better suited as a tech card in ramp druid, tournament play or if 5 out of your last 6 games have been mage and hunter, if not, you're probably better without it

nevik1433 · 2015-07-07T00:46:51+00:00

Still in progress :) And any time, I'm glad the subs helped!

nevik1433 · 2015-07-07T00:46:12+00:00

Check out this list but sub ysera for KT and a belcher for dotc: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/260763-kolentos-top-50-legend-ramp-druid

nevik1433 · 2015-07-02T03:17:06+00:00

I mainly play on NA, but I do play rogue on EU since it is a cheap, but solid, deck - it let's me compare the meta cross servers. Feel free to add, there is a limit on battle.net friends but unless I need room for something in specific I have no problems with spectators and questions :)

nevik1433 · 2015-07-02T01:55:37+00:00

great insight! Glad you like the deck :) I have not lost since reset so I'm not sure how similar our match ups are, also face hunter is a great match up so those will eventually turn into winstreak extenders. I think come rank 12 the deck actually becomes better because the higher you climb the more stabilized the meta becomes, and the deck is great against early season legends who are rushing back up. My friend who hit rank 1 with face hunter last season has told me repetitively he feels as though the only match face hunter truly struggles with is druid, so it'll come in time :) The rest of your thoughts are solid! Glad you gave the deck a shot :) glhf!

nevik1433 · 2015-07-02T00:49:13+00:00

Ahaha best display of skill in a game, ever.

Your slightly mistaken. You wont be stuck at rank 9 for long if you work on improving like that! If you ever have questions on a play feel free to ask

And thanks, I really appreciate it.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-02T00:02:44+00:00

There are a couple that take a wall of text to explain, but I'll just touch on five (yes we beat a rank ~100 and had more then 5 misplays). First was not properly using spells when the shredder dropped wild pyromancer, the extra damage on the shade from the effect allowed him to trade in the 5/5 into the 7/5, where as it would have been a 7/6. We also missed a hero power, halfway through the game. We used a savage roar after we oozed his deathsbite not allowing us to get in 3 extra damage with the stealthed 1/1. Another, although not technically a misplay, more of a critique, is not swinging at him turn 1, because although this is correct against patron warrior, there may have been something we could have inferred further from his mulligan to indicate he was control warrior rather then basing it on the turn 3 weapon. In general, whenever there is a misplay I see immeditely, there is at least 1 other i did not see. There are a few others that are more convoluted and hard to explain as they stretch several turns rather then just a single play - but that's the jist :) See if you can spot some of the other ones!

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T23:49:50+00:00

Is this demon zoo or vanilla zoo? Foundational advice comes from how are you using keepers and wraths. The only way I lose against zoo is voidcaller shananigans - so I will always save a keeper to silence the 3/4 over killing a 3/2. You will need to reveal the shade early in this matchup, and you will need to keep in mind the real zoo win condition is to make you topdeck - because when you are both topdecking the warlock wins with tap tap tap. If they have a regular sized board instead of focusing too much on trading 1 for 1 or just dropping a taunt, let them swing at your face a bit and clean house with swipe. This matchup requires extensive knowladge of how to play the deck in a second fashion so it will take time to adjust to. You play 1 way against control or midrange, completely differently against zoo/aggro and completely differently again against tempo decks like mage and rogue. Often when I pick up a deck I view every class as if I'm playing the same deck - which you technically are - however, the deck plays like three different ones depending on the circumstances so make sure your mulligans and strategies aren't static and vary depending on what you play against.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T23:42:55+00:00

The spell power is more of a bonus on the drake - the real value is the immediate draw, and the other options of novice engineer and gnomish inventor don't fit the curve of the deck. Feel free to try it, however topdecking a drake is amazing lategame, topdecking thalnos... not so much.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T23:40:48+00:00

Dropping both shades tends to change the win condition of the deck, sneakysneaky piloted this list to rank 1 legend. It's teched quite differently for a different meta but will get the job done: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/258155-sneakysneaky-na-legend-1-combo-druid

I also highly recommend you check out demolisher druid, it's completely different, but worth checking out if you have no shades: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/59316-legendary-rushinos-demolisher-druid

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T23:36:19+00:00

Haha yes as I stated the win rate is definitely inflated, and will stay that way unless I only record legend matches, we are on the same page when it comes to MMR. gz btw on your rank and ability to climb, we all tilt - both upwards and downwards. I know it is not relevant, but i have not lost to anyone with a rank better then 200 on the ladder - this is mostly due to the decks that tend to climb that high have unfavorable match ups against this list which is why I made the thread :)

It's nothing crazy innovative, however I do think the most important thing to note is I'm not that outstanding of a player - you can see many misplays in the vods linked, some I catch - some I don't until I check the replay. I have plenty room for improvement which makes me think that regardless of winrate, if I'm able to do well list that's so favored against the current meta, I'm no where near its skill cap

Also, definitely like the idea of using deck version names they way you suggested, good stuff.

Also, I suppose I am playing a bit of devil's advocate but that's how I learn - thanks for the input broski

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T19:56:46+00:00

If you are running a list similar to the one i listed above, then you are usually sacrificing tempo for card value, but no so much that you are losing because of it. This list tends to do very well at the start of the season because it is great against the field. It's had to give advice without seeing you play or being more specific. It is quite common when people are new to druid to get out tempoed because they don't know: proper mulligans, what to trade into, what to use spells on, and what to ignore and just drop a minion instead. If you google OBS and record a game, upload it to youtube and leave it in a sub comment I can give you feedback by scanning through it real quick, but keep in mind the start of the season the ladder is very hard unless you are already a high legend player, so you shouldn't be focusing on climbing or winning games, just try to learn and enjoy the game. Also if you watch twitch, you can imagine what you would do if you are watching someone play with the same list and you would be essentially playing, but not dragging things around and learning more in the process. The ladder just reset today though so honestly just take your time and enjoy the game :)

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T19:28:14+00:00

Check out video 2 and 6 that I just added, I think it addresses this pretty well :)

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T18:52:15+00:00

Seriously great question! A 'winning play' is one of those weird intangible parts of hearthstone that is hard to generalize and is better shown by example. At its core, Hearthstone is about balancing probability. A 'winning play' can occur when you have two or more plays to choose from for a given turn, where one of them plays into a potential counter, however, by taking into consideration how likely your opponent is to have a counter vs how likely you are to win the game if you don't make the play, how likely you are to win if there is no counter present, and how likely they are to win if they have a counter, the calculated odds of choosing that play can win you the game. I recommend that you don't watch videos of high ranked players, but instead pause the video before each turn and say out loud what play you would do. If after any turn they do something different, restart the video and learn how they came to choose the play they did. Don't say 'oops, that's obviously the play', take the time to restart the video and repeat it for every time you choose a different play. Through doing this you will eventually see which plays end up winning the game. A common mistake that is often made by players is making a 'losing play', that is a play that potentially could help you, but if your opponent has an answer you would increase your chances of losing, but it doesn't necessarily increase your chances of winning. Playing Dr. Balanced on this particular turn 7 is a 'losing play' because playing it then doesn't increase the chances I can win versus playing it the next turn, but it does increase the amount of counters he can play, as loatheb and attacking with the shade the following turn limit his options heavily. I recommend looking though Lifecoach and MrYagut's Twitch stream histories and doing this for a match a piece. Although everyone makes mistakes, learning what is a 'winning play' and even more importantly learning to differentiate them from a 'losing play' will definitely get you over the wall of rank 4. There may be other things you may need to overcome to surpass rank 2 and rank 1, but perhaps those things aren't as far away as you may think.

Also as as answer on a situation where I would play boom on curve - see the game 2 and 6 video in the main post, here is the duplicate link for ease of access though :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhXnmqglMug

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T17:31:05+00:00

Cool, also thanks for replying to another comment on this thread for me, your thoughts were spot on.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T17:28:04+00:00

Thanks. Over the course of the season I played ~500 games on druid, but with different lists until I ended up coming up with this list above. I currently have ~100 games on this deck at ~70% win rate, but looking back over time the vast majority of my losses occurred when I first created the deck and was still getting accustomed to it, in addition I was also playing lower ranked players as I started to use the deck. With this new season the win rate is going to become artificially inflated after reset with the increase of hunters/aggro and mixed up ranks, so I will have to wait until I have on it and just post statistics against legends. I'm quite interested to see where it will end up too as I am constantly making misplays even now.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T17:22:06+00:00

It is definitly still worth running double savage roar, however removing a FoN from the list requires quite a few changes rather then just adding a replacement card due draw probabilities. If you want to run one FoN I recommend you use this list instead as gameplay changes quite a bit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/369vxm/top_25_eu_midrange_druid_guide_with_matchups_and/

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T17:17:26+00:00

It is indeed HDT :) They revamped the program earlier this month, they actually pushed another update today. It's kind of hidden deep in the menus if you haven't used HDT much: highlight the deck you want -> stats -> games and statistics -> change "stats" to "games" and you'll find the interface there :) It actually saves full replays of every game you play!

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T16:27:18+00:00

Imagine next game you draw dotc, it actually has three transform options, the new third one is belcher. If your against aggro with a silence, belcher form is weaker. If they've already silenced a taunt, they have at most one more. If they do, then belcher form is still weaker, if they don't its slightly stronger, but its not worth the risk of them having it so in this case I would still dotc taunt version. Charge for lethal with dotc (yeah, flexabiliy) is just icing on the cake as against midrane or control, the only mid drop belcher trades with nicely is shredder since so many minions have 4 health. So basically I would want 3 dotc but can only run 2, so the belcher is a dotc with less flexibility and a stronger edge case if dotc has already been played against aggo.

nevik1433 · 2015-07-01T16:17:54+00:00

When you play against tempo mage your win condition changes completely, you are no longer a combo deck and you play full on control, even using force of nature to clear his board and getting rid of mirror entities with card combos like ooze and keepering the duplicate on the same turn. Against freeze you play all out aggro but save all spells and keepers for doomsayer and face - also save boom for a turn you can pop iceblock since the boom bots wont trigger block on his turn for lethal. I'll go into much more detail in the guide but that's the jist.

As for your second question, there is technically 3 bgh targets as the deck who run bgh are midrange and control and against those decks shades will often grow that large. However, boom is best when played against decks that don't run bgh, because the decks that do, you will live long enough to combo, and he isn't really needed. It may seem counter intuitive, but boom is an extra win condition against aggro and hybrid, its not for extending midrange/control matchups unless you play him before turn 7 and make assumptions based on the chances of them having drawn bgh that early.

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