no ****, a ton of cards decide games when they're drawn. raza is basically a win condition, you draw him super late you're entire plan sucks-same with anduin.

keleseth is only good if you draw him super early else he's **** which you don't want to play on tempo.

https://hsreplay.net/articles/31/the-keleseth-effect

The entire meta is HIGH roll rock paper scissors. A few decks destroy other decks but suck against others. While the average win rate is 50% for most top tier decks, the gap between the good matchups and bad is huge in this meta, more so than any.

I hate playing against the two most popular decks, Raza Priest and Control-Lock so I don't play much right now but both those decks have big time problems with a few decks (mill rogue) but mill rogue gets owned by all the aggro decks. Then you have pally, tempo rogue which don't really beat anything that high of a rate right now. Then you have Quest Mage and a revitalized Quest Rogue which own Raza/Control lock but again suck against the aggro decks. I don't remember a meta like this one and I really don't like it that much.

am i the only one who can't stand aggro? Feels like the most solitaire decks out there are aggro (and raza), while cubelock is (meme) a thinking-man's deck

cubelock especially the one with faceless are super complex and have a lot of levels especially when you can steal and do weird things with your opponents minions. defile almost makes the deck have a lot of layers. just like keleseth, if you draw a combo early you're going to beat most aggro decks 80-90% of the time. dark pact + possessed into a 50/50 void lord. i know spell breaker is teched into most decks but even that isn't enough with the cube plays.

the only aggro i play is Tempo Rogue and it's not pure aggro. I'm not a fan of hunter, zoo, aggro druid, tempo mage or pirate warrior. Although I do like Pally.

I have all the cards for all the top 15 decks but I don't dabble much past Tempo Rogue, Pally and Cubelock and some dragon Priests.

The new mage decks are kind if annoying as well but definitely more thinking but kind of high rolling with the dragon fury.

It doesn't - if you watched HCT, many times people got off double keleseth vs 0 keleseth in the mirror and lost. In fact, I'm not completely sure of this, but it seemed like keleseth had almost no impact in those games.

i think this meta is quite complex. when raza priests start to infest ladder, the jade druids come out. This causes a slow tilt towards aggro decks, and then the cube locks come to feast on the lack of priests. Then a slow tilt back towards raza priest.

I think it's less rock paper scissors and more a tug of war between 2 very powerful decks - raza priest and cubelock. Raza has no hard counters, cube lock is just strong vs everything except priest.

it's not gonna matter in 3 months anyway. Cubelock is positioned to become the new meta tyrant I think if the rotation does not bring about archetypes that counter it. Losing mistress of mixtures will hurt the deck but not really because there are so many sources of healing right now. The deck's power level is just absurd. i run the version with n'zoth and it's like having an extra "i win" card on 10.

cube lock is definitely one of those decks whose winrate on ladder does not reflect at all how powerful it is.

cubelock is the new Patron Warrior. so many conditions to win and do things. the problem like patron, it's difficult to run and you have to mulligan really hard based on matchups.

hard counter to raza is mill rogue. jade druids should be a hard counter to raza but they got psychic scream. i've watched jade druids have 70-80 life and still lose to raza which is just insane to me but that's what happens with raza techs in lyra and run good with the spell draws.

yea, i was explaining to a viewer the other day that what makes cubelock difficult to play is that your win conditions can vary wildly based on matchup and hand texture. if you cant identify these, you'll lose a lot

I've found a huge edge in the mirror, being that it seems to almost always go to fatigue. so it's kind of like the old control warrior mirror, whoever draws more is gonna lose.

https://hsreplay.net/cards/45340/pri...ommended-decks

Keleseth does have an impact. The decks are above 50% winrates.

The card is busted right now. Maybe not nearly as busted when patches rotates. But it's a poorly designed card.

it's definitely a broken card but after zoo/tempo rogue most of the other decks are quite rare in the list you sent. i honestly don't think it's that oppressive though with the glut of Raza/Cubelock that literally own it at high %s even if you get keleseth off. Raza is clearly the deck that controls the meta with Cube coming in a close second. as players get better, i.e. legend, the rates of tempo rogue even out and the skill, control decks sky rocket.

haven't played in forever but checked out the championships and it seemed like a good variety of decks with a lot of room for decision making

http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/h...times-results/

only decks i was really confused by were the plethora of aggro druid. i guess it was almost solely to kill tempo rogue.

here are the stats:

http://www.hearthhead.com/news/2017-...led-statistics

Class Representation (Brought By) Win Rate
Priest 16 out of 16 players (100%) 31-26 (54.4%)
Druid 15 out of 16 players (93.8%) 37-42 (46.8%)
Warlock 15 out of 16 players (93.8%) 10-9 (52.6%)
Rogue 12 out of 16 players (75%) 25-29 (46.3%)
Paladin 3 out of 16 players (18.8%) 3-4 (42.9%)
Mage 2 out of 16 players (12.5%) 6-3 (66.7%)
Hunter 1 out of 16 players (6.3%) 2-1 (66.7%)

Bans By Class:

#1 – Warlock – 40 bans (74.1%)
#2 – Priest – 9 bans (16.7%)
#3 – Mage – 3 bans (5.6%)
#4 – Druid – 2 bans (3.7%)

Bans By Deck:

#1 – Control Warlock – 20 bans (37%)
#2 – Cube Warlock – 18 bans (33.3%)
#3 – Highlander Priest – 7 bans (13%)
#4 – Control Mage – 3 bans (5.6%)
#5 – Jade Druid – 2 bans (3.7%)
#5 – Spiteful Dragon Priest – 2 bans (3.7%)
#5 – Zoo Warlock – 2 bans (3.7%)

Deck Representation Win Rate
Highlander Priest* 14 out of 64 decks (21.9%) 29-23 (55.8%)
Tempo Rogue 12 out of 64 decks (18.8%) 25-29 (46.3%)
Aggro Druid 9 out of 64 decks (14.1%) 20-22 (47.6%)
Control Warlock 8 out of 64 decks (12.5%) 2-1 (66.7%)
Jade Druid 6 out of 64 decks (9.4%) 17-20 (45.9%)
Cube Warlock 6 ouf of 64 decks (9.4%) 7-6 (53.8%)
Murloc Paladin 3 out of 64 decks (4.7%) 3-4 (42.9%)
Control Mage** 2 out of 64 decks (3.1%) 6-3 (66.7%)
Face Hunter 1 out of 64 decks (1.6%) 2-1 (66.7%)
Combo Dragon Priest 1 out of 64 decks (1.6%) 2-3 (40%)
Spiteful Dragon Priest 1 out of 64 decks (1.6%) n/a***
Zoo Warlock 1 out of 64 decks (1.6%)

HSReplay is a good resource to check out card's performances.

I don't think rationalizing cards based on decks is a very good approach when it comes to HS. I haven't played much of this expansion, but played enough of the previous to know that getting Keleseth played on 2 and shadowstepped is probably one of the most obnoxious early game wombo combos to have ever existed in this game. It has no counter play. It doesn't require any skill to pull off. Whatever tempo you lose from doing that you more than make up for with the bloated stats later.

Really the game has felt like it has boiled down to who can nutdraw who first in the past few expansions with Keleseth decks being the worst offender.

do most of the combos and decks take that much skill to pull off?

most of the top decks aren't that skillful. again, i mentioned that this game is basically high roll city. if you keep cards like raza your WR goes through the roof there too. there are a number of cards that have huge win % changes.

https://hsreplay.net/cards/#sortBy=playedWinrate

corridor creeper, bonemare and patches seem to be really oppressive in this meta moreso than a highroll card.

Bonemare is far and above the most oppressive card they ever printed

Scalebane is about the lower end of broken. Keleseth is barely a blip on my radar

Creeper and bonemare might be oppressive, but Keleseth is definitely worse. It's a turn two card that is often followed up by the Cap and Patches. Getting bombarded by stats early game is much harder to deal with than midgame.


https://hsreplay.net/cards/#sortBy=includedWinrate

Keleseth has a better deck and played winrate than creeper, scalebane, and bone mare. The only reason I can think of that anyone would feel those three are worse is because you face them more often than Keleseth decks. Which isn't a good case for them being worse as much as they're easier to fit into decks.

Lol. Dude. You’re just wrong.

It’s a 2 mana card that forces you to play no other two mana cards.

The strength of the 2 (not dominant at all) decks that use it lie in the huge ******ed strength of their neutral minions (bonemare, scalebanes, and creepers, pirate package) combined with the slight edge keleseth brings.

You take away those broken cards and keleseth is an average two mana card. You take away keleseth and they’re still winning decks.

Case in point: there’s a keleseth/pirate package in every class now. They all consist of some combo of patches, pirates, scalebanes, creepers and bonemares plus whatever broken class cards.

Priest is running pirate package now. It isn’t because of keleseth, it’s because the neutral minions are so strong now that it’s literally the case you can play any class interchangeably with the same 6 cards.

Keleseth isnt a problem he’s a symptom, and when patches rotates out he’s almost **** tier.

You're arguing with statistics that says you're wrong, jmakin. Not me.

And, no currrs that you cannot play 2 mana cards when you can turn your remainder of your deck to +1/1 or better.


https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-...per-report-78/ <---based on win rates and not #feelings.

Two of the T1 decks are Keleseth decks.
The pally decks contain no cards discussed.
The priest deck has scale bane, bonemare, and creepers.

4 of those decks are winning because of early game not powerful mid and late game cards.

great news about the ladder, looks like I might finally hit legend, Ive been close many times but always lacked the time for that final push in ranks 1-3, I once got to rank 1 and the season ended

Kaleseth is fine btw, sure, getting it on 2 increases your chances of winning the game, but same can be said about many other cards. Then again, I dont play any tempo decks in the current meta, and it is the strongest in tempo vs tempo mu.

ok, Im bored, so Im gonna do a quick write up on my currently favourite deck, the big warrior. I played it a ton, reached rank 6 or 7 iirc last season switching between this and mill druid without really playing much. It has some decent to great matchups across the board, its biggest weakness is tempo rouge, but as long as there arent too many of those on ladder it does great.

First, here is the deck:

click

now, few remarks about some deck choices:

- Rotface is clearly the worst card in the deck, I just play it because it is a fun card, Yip is much better, but I dont have that cards

- No DK? Honestly, I really hate the warrior DK and I dont understand why people insist in playing it in control warrior decks, sure the weapon is great, but you actually get worse hero power imo

- Bring it on was a filler at first, but it turned out to be a very solid one of and has many great uses, just dont play it on 2 vs aggro/tempo

- reckless fury is kinda weak and I am considering cutting it, but it can be useful at low armor count as additional removal, or combo with bring it on for 5 mana wipe everything. The problem is, in many matchups you will be building massive armor counts that you dont want to lose. If you do want DK, you can cut fury for it.

- forge of souls is good as 1 of, esp since you dont have much card draw

- I added dead mans hand to the deck later and its great, not only does it help massively in control matchups (esp vs warlock), but is also useful when you draw y'shaarj and sleepy dragons early vs aggro and you can add the back into the deck

- grom isnt in every list, but it should be, as you play the deck you will see that in many matchups you need the burst damage, with all the ysera and lich king cards you can often deal up to 20 dmg from hand

the rest seems pretty standard, you can manipulate which cards are 1x and 2x, but the general idea is that you want a ****ton of removal

mulligan

mulliganing is hard with this deck and is very different across matchups, I played the deck a ton and Im sure Im still making many mistakes here. In general, you always keep recruit (no exceptions) and mulligan pretty hard for it, in faster matchups you also keep razor or forge, vs pally you keep whirwind, vs rouge you keep fishes etc... There is a lot of that stuff and Im sure I havent figured it all out yet.

popular matchups

- tempo rouge - like I said, this is our worst matchup, in order to win we need some nutted removal early AND recruit on 6. It is not unwinable, but Id say like 30-70, mb 35-65. In general, midrange decks are our worst enemy

- satellite priest - same as above, this is 2nd midrange deck in the meta and is also bad for us, at least it is a bit slower and lacks vilespine, giving us some chance with good recruits

- razakus - VERY good matchup for us, usually we can just kill them quickly since they cant remove our big stuff, if we happen to overextend into anduin we still win the long game thanks to toooons of armor (safe from velen combo) and dead mans hand. The only way we lose is they have perfect curve of minions that we fail to remove and the are able to finish us with quick raza/anduin

- jade druid - another great matchup, jade druid lacks removal for big stuff, so just spam your board and kill them fast, before their jades get big. Im pretty sure I didnt lose a single game vs jade druid, granted, I felt that I was also running pretty well

- aggro pally - also great matchup, razor simply destroys pally and thats it. Of course, as always vs aggro we can still lose if they curve out perfectly, but we are still heavily favoured

- murloc pally - now this is worse, due to murlocs being more midrangy and harder to remove. Gotta hope for good removal draw, might be wise to keep fishes in this matchup too. Still, Id say its around 50/50.

- hunter - uh, there isnt many hunters atm, but they arent that great, esp midrange version, spell hunter is actually super good for us

- warlock - the matchup depends on the version, cubelock can be pretty bad, since he can kill us before we develop big board, more controly versions are better, esp since dead mans hand beats Rin. Just remember to keep a piece of removal for Guldan. Giant version is also pretty good since we have great single target removal. Overall, we are slightly favoured vs warlock, but if there are too many pure cubelocks this might become a problem

ok, this got pretty long anyway, feel free to try this deck out, it is a lot of fun and overall one of my favourite decks in hearthstone history, and I play since early beta

You cannot play a minion board centric deck with 0 two drops and no extremely powerful minions in the rest of the deck. Its winrate is high because of the strong neutrals it surrounds itself with, and that is 100% reflected in the statistics.

So glad they finally stopped making legend players reset to rank 16 every month. Climbing ranks will actually feel like an achievement now, instead of a grind that you have to do every month to get back to your true rank.

thank you, good post, would upvote if this was reddit

just gonna +1 because this is exactly why i dont like the game anymore.

Determining the strength of a card by looking at its individual statistics and ignoring everything else is a really bad way to view statistics in general.

It's not broken, the rest of the cards are. Look at mistcaller - Arguably a much stronger card in a broken (at the time) class - saw 0 play. The effect isn't broken, the downside it requires you to have is huge, but the strength of the rest of the minions offsets this.

How else should it work? OF COURSE a card that has a huge downside like no 2 mana cards should increase your deck's winrate by ~5% if it gets played. The problem is not that this happens, it's that it takes a ~50% deck and turns it into a 55% deck, when it really should be taking a 45% deck and turning it into a 50-51% deck.

this is really really obvious to me from both a balance and card design perspective.

I like keleseth because it makes zoo style decks viable again. Hell, I don't even play zoo. I just think it's a good deck for the game to have. I don't think he'll be strong when patches rotates out, because the keleseth into southsea captain curve is by and large why it's ridiculous right now.

Corridor creeper exacerbates the problem. You used to beat rogue by just clearing its board once and killing its tempo. Now it has card draw (elven minstrel) and board reload (corridor creeper). It's obscene. It would be a strong deck without keleseth.

Nerfs boys; big ones.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/4349-p...our-card-nerfs

Patches--NO CHARGE
Bonemare--8 Mana from 7
Corridor Creeper--2 attack LOL--dead
RAZA-turns your hero power to 1 mana

Huge change. LOL at taking so long with Patches.

Raza is ****ing huge.

Control Warlock is about to be super ****ing busted.

Bonemare will still be played. Raza too but Raza Priest is about to be a TON weaker. **** that stupid deck.