Priests have made me stop playing arena as well, and I've been an infinite arena player for 1-2? years.

It'll probably get better as offering rates go down, but priest spells right now answer every single thing between potion of madness early game, dragonfire mid game, and shadow word death + free from amber + hero power for late game and all priests at high wins seem to have multiple copies of all those cards. It's probably just me being bored of Hearthstone by now as well.

I got a new job just after I preordered Kobolds, and am now in a spot where I definitely do not have as much time to commit to play & enjoy HS. I'll likely not preorder or spend any more money but continue to do dailies and spend it on packs.

I've been playing some aggro hunter and it's pretty solid to climb with. 2x Spellbreaker and just a lot of face. I'm surprised how useful Candleshot is. But I also dislike this trend of Patches+Deckhand+Southsea Captain in most decks. It is usually super awkward over my sample so far.

I started thinking Patches was a problem when I saw Priests playing him just for the Southsea Capatain interaction.

Not only that but it thins your deck by a card letting you draw your removal more

More than half of my games are vs priest

And around half of them use patches

****ing hate what hearthstone has turned into

priest used to be good guys, now they are the filth

I've seen mostly Priest with big spells. I played 4 games today so it's a small sample size but 3 of the 4 were big spell priest. 2 had the dragon package.

I was trying to complete a couple of Warlock quests and it does very well vs. Voidlords with double Mind Control. I was playing an older-style control variant without the possessed lackeys and I don't have skull - so I know it's my fault for actually paying 9 mana for a Voidlord.

I went 1-2 vs. the Priests. The fourth game was against a Warlock that did use Skull. I basically went all face hoping to burn him down. Fortunately he never played lackey and never drew a Voidlord for his skull. He was able to swing with a cube, prince, and 4 Doomguards on turn 9 - which is ridiculous but since we're talking about what a weird state Hearthstone has come to... I was elated to topdeck Hellfire and kill him on turn 10.

Reynad is 100% right, patches is the problem card, if it was gone you wouldn’t have every class running the same tempo package with creepers/drake/southsea.

I think the game is actually in a good place outside of patches.

Yea HS should be in a great spot when the next expansion drops and the rotation happens - no more Patches, no more jades, no more Raza.

I imagine Team 5 meetings where they talk about the weird stuff that's going to happen once they come to the point where Standard includes the largest amount of cards. There's talk about synergies that will have a huge impact on the meta, and hope that they can get the community to make it through to rotation.

my prediction for the next xpac -

a priest minion that costs 2 mana with the text "your hero power costs one less mana"

How important is Living Mana to aggro Druid? Are there reasonable replacements or does the deck really suffer without it?

### Big Dragon Priest
# Class: Priest
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Mammoth
#
# 2x (0) Circle of Healing
# 1x (0) Silence
# 2x (1) Pint-Size Potion
# 2x (2) Embrace the Shadow
# 2x (2) Shadow Visions
# 2x (3) Shadow Word: Death
# 1x (4) Barnes
# 2x (4) Eternal Servitude
# 2x (4) Shadow Word: Horror
# 2x (6) Dragonfire Potion
# 2x (6) Shadow Essence
# 1x (7) Lesser Diamond Spellstone
# 1x (8) Shadowreaper Anduin
# 2x (9) Dragonhatcher
# 2x (9) Sleepy Dragon
# 1x (9) Ysera
# 1x (10) Deathwing
# 1x (10) Deathwing, Dragonlord
# 1x (10) Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound
#
AAECAa0GCMIGogmlCairAp+wAoW4ApDTAuPpAgvSCtMKoawCp6 wC6L8C6r8C0cEC5cwCtM4C5tMC3esCAA==
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
# Generated by HDT - https://hsdecktracker.net

8-1 with this deck so far, turns out sleepy dragon is really, really good against aggro turn 4 and resurrected multiple times

it's good but could probably do without it

Just kidding, this is the most fun

### Spiteful Princes
# Class: Warlock
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Mammoth
#
# 2x (1) Bloodsail Corsair
# 2x (1) Flame Imp
# 2x (1) Kobold Librarian
# 2x (1) Mistress of Mixtures
# 1x (1) Patches the Pirate
# 1x (2) Prince Keleseth
# 1x (3) Prince Taldaram
# 1x (4) Prince Valanar
# 1x (5) Carnivorous Cube
# 2x (5) Cobalt Scalebane
# 2x (5) Doomguard
# 2x (5) Possessed Lackey
# 1x (6) Illidan Stormrage
# 2x (6) Spiteful Summoner
# 1x (7) Corridor Creeper
# 2x (8) Twisting Nether
# 1x (9) Lord Jaraxxus
# 1x (10) Bloodreaver Gul'dan
# 1x (10) DOOM!
# 2x (12) Mountain Giant
#
AAECAf0GCqwEiQbyrgKRvAKX0wL70wKL4QKc4gKd4gKe4gIK9w TbBuEH5QfCCN7EAsrLAvLQAvzlAtfrAgA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Its crucial. Any control deck (priest/warlock/mage) slaughters you without it.

There are three aggro decks that I was looking at, and I needed to craft epics for each of them.

Aggro Paladin (Call to Arms) - I crafted Call to Arms and I'm pretty happy with that choice. Seems like a very very strong card. I can imagine this being used in some other Paladin deck that isn't super aggro just in order to thin the deck.

Aggro Druid (Living Mana) - These are the only epics I would have to craft to make this deck work. I don't see these ever being used outside of specifically aggro druid, and there are other variants of Druid that I find more fun so for now I am passing on crafting them.

Murloc Paladin (Gentle Megasaur) - I have everything I need to make a Murloc Paladin except for two of these, and they seem pretty essential to the deck. Between Living mana and Gentle Megasaur, I would probably craft the Megasaur first since there's the possibility of using it in other Murloc decks. Shaman and potentially Warlock could use these sometime in the future.

My personal preference is murloc paladin because I think it has a greater chance against razapriest than aggro pally. Both decks are very good right now.

I've never been a fan of aggro druid, although it is strong in certain metas. It's too much of an "all in" strategy for my taste, with the only comeback mechanism being living mana. Pally has divine favor and call to arms which are much stronger imo. And taurim is absolutely nuts as well.

So who are the favorites for the HCT World Championship?

Purple maybe?

**** purple, hes a raging dbag

so what? I'm picking him cause he might win the thing and gain me packs, not because I want to be his bestie.

I was just stating a fact, it’s not a reflection on you

Whats wrong with purple? I dont know anything about the guy

Watch his stream, he’s just a dickbag

Rude to his viewers, talks **** about his opponents, but in a slightly less charming way than reynad

Rogue kills me so much. Can never do anything with that class and so often get crushed by it.

Dog said on stream that he believes tempo rogue is the strongest right now (which is what I've thought for quite a few seasons). Very refreshing after hearing the monotone of "Raza is best" from every streamer. I could never figure out why the pro opinion strays so far from the stats. Sure, people suck and its a hard deck to pilot, but the disparity in results is too great to be explained simply by that. Razas winrate doesn't rise at legend, which should be telling. Even though the average legend player isn't that great, they should be able to extract more value from it than rank 25-5, right?

I really think that the streamers are overvaluing Raza because its a "thinking man's deck", and it happens to crush most of the other "thinking man decks". Yes, it is super strong, but its inherently less consistent than rougue because of the singleton nature of it, and it has plenty of losses where either combo card is in the bottom 5-10. It has its omegalul draw of raza on 5, anduin on 8, but rogue has keleseth on 2 and that is much more likely to happen.