Welcome to the Jungle - A Hearthstone Meta Evaluation

[admin]

Spring is here, along with a spring-clean of the Hearthstone scene. Not only have we got a new expansion to play with, Journey to Un'Goro, but it's rotation time.

http://www.pockettactics.com/articles/w ... valuation/

[zot23]

The quests being legendary really is a kick in the balls as they do dominate (as they should) in play. Should have been blue instead of orange. After all, the difficulty shouldn't rest in obtaining them for play, but figuring out a deck that can activate them. I would like to see a breakdown of the # of legendary cards in Un'Goro as opposed to past expansions. Seems like there are quite a few more.

I know I opened 55 packs and had a good 6000 dust stored for the expansion. No quests from the packs and after I bought two quests and filled out decks to play them, I have less than 1800 dust left. Kind of steep considering I still only have access to quests for two classes.

[marcnelsonjr]

Any advice on how to beat Quest Rogue or Quest Warrior?

[Univac]

@Marc- I've been having success with freeze mage. I've also seen a lot of decks starting to put in dirty rat to counter quest rogue by pulling bounce or quest minions. Also aggro decks are good but not very fun to play.

I've been enjoying the meta (except for quest rogue and quest warrior). It hasn't seemed to settle quite as fast as previous expansions, probably due to both the diversity of deck types brought on by the new expansion and also the start of the new mammoth season. However, I also agree that my fun has been dampened by the inability to play a lot of different decks. Never has an expansion had so many viable legendary and epic cards. I opened 120 packs and got Tyrantus, hunter quest, the warlock legendary bug, and the neutral legendary umbra. None of these have seen play in any competitive decks.

I would disagree with author that priest and paladin didn't receive much help. There is a viable aggro and midrange paladin deck and there have been quite a few different combo priests popping up that have had a lot of success. In fact, I think shaman went from first to worst. They got a powerful elemental legendary but the elemental deck itself is very slow. But it's still early.

[zot23]

Since Quest Rogue seems to be my mainstay just now, I can offer a few things you can try. Yes, Dirty Rat can mess you up fairly quickly as it doesn't allow Battlecries to trigger. Remember, for any quest deck the major drawback is you are giving up one card in the beginning to start the quest. So first turn you've only got 3-4 other cards to use and usually only 2 of them have any early game value. If someone plays a dirty rat and pulls a Ferryman or a Brewer I needed to claw back a fourth elemental later on, you just cost me a turn or three to get to my Crystal Core. That is catastrophic to Quest Rogue's tempo.

The other effective tactics I've seen are either to aggro so fast on the face that my 5/5s arrive just as I hit 0 HP, or to have some super effective board clear. The good old fashioned Pally changing all health to 1 and then either consecrating the field or having the spellcaster do it comes to mind.

Also, if they have committed to playing and withdrawing a certain card (like swashbuckler) and leave it on the board between turns, do anything you can to kill it before the next turn. They might get it out 3 times very fast, but if they lose it the 2nd one might be 10 cards away in the deck (or they might have it in hand but what can you do?) And it is hard to start pushing a second card type to four once you've started spending cards pulling something else back.

If a Quest Rogue has their early cards, draws decently, and doesn't have their tempo squashed they are almost unbeatable IMHO. So screw up their rhythm.

[biffpow]

Thanks, @Zot23--that's great advice. Facing so many quest rogue decks at this point has left me soured on the expansions, honestly, so it will be good to try fighting it with those ideas.

[marcnelsonjr]

Thanks for the tips!

[zot23]

I've played Miracle Priest the last few days, that's an excellent alternative as well. It only requires one legendary (not the quest) and even that one is optional. Though when it sticks it's so awesome as to be flat out broken. It's an easy deck to slip in a Dirty Rat too.

[jeffy777]

Zoo and Handlock are both back and doing well? Huh, this is news to me as a legend player. Haven't seen either since people were testing them out immediately after release and failing miserably.

[Johandide]

Thanks for sharing! I hope these tips will improve my skill