Brakara
3043
A nice thing for newer players about aggro decks being so good, is that they’re all very cheap to build.
Why is it conventional wisdom that priests beat aggro hunters? My dragon priest gets absolutely crunched by them. Doesn’t matter whether or not I get my taunts out in time. There’s just too fucking much damage too fucking fast. The secrets + eaglehorn combo is ruinous (except when I try to play a face hunter, of course). Teching in Kezan Mystic is depressing, because I only draw her when I’m playing non-secret-playing classes.
Actually I don’t find Hunters that much of a problem, but I do play fairly aggressive decks myself, Zoolock, Tempo Mage, Token Druid and Midrange Paladin, if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em. Face Hinters are all or nothing decks, if you can stop the early aggression, they fizzle and die. Midrange Hunters are more of a problem particularly in the hands of a player who knows when to exchange and when to go face, but they are slower.With secrets it’s best to test for them and spring them when they can do the least damage, Face Hunters mostly use fire trap and midrange mostly use freezing trap and bear trap or snake trap. With fire trap cards like like Voidwalker, Firewaker or mana wyrm will survive and cards like Nerubian Egg or Northshire Cleric will actually benefit. Freezing Tap can be used to return a low cost damaged card to your hand and the best way to trigger Bear or Snake traps is to spring them when you can deal with the bears or snakes on the same turn.
Of course , it’s Hearthstone, so you’re always in the hands of the RNG gods, a bad draw and mulligan can ruin your chances against any aggro deck that has a reasonable draw/mulligan.
What I don’t understand is why priests are supposed to be a good matchup against face hunter. If they are, I must be playing them terribly, because my win rate is probably about 30%, if that.
I get it; the hero powers cancel out. But you can’t afford to heal yourself every turn until late game (even then, you’re potentially sacrificing key plays like Ysera). By the first few turns he’s probably gotten you down to something like 16 life. And in his grab bag are 2x quick shot, 2x eaglehorn (which will be given extra charges unless you tech in Kezan mystic and draw it at exactly the right time, or just sit around forever and never attack him, which doesn’t end well), 2x kill command, 2x UTH, 2x glaivezooka, and 1 or 2 each of Arcane Golem and wolf rider. In other words, lots of burst.
If I curve out perfectly (wyrmrest agent into twilight guardian with velen’s or PW: shield to buff health) I can sometimes ride it out, but a lot of the time he just owls it and keeps plowing on.
When I play as face hunter, it’s not that easy (though I sometimes get good streaks). I just really don’t understand why this particular matchup is meant to favor the priest.
prolix
3047
I play a lot of dragon priest and I probably go 50/50 against face hunter. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but it is all about (1) getting those taunts down, and (2) holy nova. Twilight Guardian is the MVP. Chillmaw has also saved my bacon more than once, but typically by turn seven you already know how the game is going to go. Owl is your nemesis, for sure.
Maybe consider adding shadow madness? Against hunter you should almost always be able to take out two minions with it.
Midrange hunter is a better matchup because longer games will always benefit priest.
prolix
3048
Also, thought I’d add that since you have the dragons, you might have better luck with mage. I have been running this deck lately:
Frostbolt x2
Duplicate x2
Effigy x2
Fireball
Polymorph
Flamestrike x2
Explosive Sheep x2
Mad Scientist x2
Big Game Hunter
Blackwing Technician x2
Twilight Drake x2
Twilight Guardian x2
Antique Healbot x2
Azure Drake x2
Blackwing Corruptor x2
Emperor Thaurissan
Chillmaw
Ysera
It is usually solid against early aggro with the hero power, explosive sheep and frostbolts. You can catch up later on health with two healbots. Once you start duplicating/effigying your 4- and 5-drops, things really get rolling. I have seen some variants of this deck with sludge belchers as well, if you really want to turtle up, but I haven’t felt the need to go that far yet.
Thanks. I don’t have Chillmaw yet… how important is he to the deck?
Meanwhile, interesting new Tavern Brawl! It’s co-op. I enjoyed it.
prolix
3050
Haven’t tried the new Tavern Brawl but that sounds cool!
Chillmaw isn’t necessary. I’d just substitute another big dragon, likely Chromaggus, since he fits on curve in between Emperor and Ysera and is BGH-proof.
I love the concept, but man, it’s hard. Tried a couple of runs and we got smoked both times. It’s cool to see all those help-your-opponent cards put to good use. I think they could have made him 75 health instead of 95, though.
unic
3052
I’m 2 wins out of 5 attempts so far, not counting one where my “co-op” partner was griefing - healing the enemy, etc., and also not the one where the partner resigned on the second turn.
Priest can do really well against agro, but you have to build specifically for it, and it tends to make you bad against pretty much everything else.
I got so sick of going up against nothing but agro decks, I made a pally based on doing nothing but trolling agro decks. Tons of low level minions, tons of healing, tons of weapons, and then a few big end game cards + your hero power. Healing yourself for 30+ over the course of things tends to put a damper on rush decks. Most agro decks, face hunter etc, have really weak post level 7 or so games, if you can keep yourself alive till then and not completely lose board control, it’s almost a sure victory. Face hunter will be card starved by turn 6 usually.
Hard/cheap removal, lots of healing, big end game = troll face decks. And…it’s really fun.
unic
3054
I get tempted to troll aggro decks as well. So many of them on ladder :( Yesterday, I had two warlock zoos, followed by two face hunters.
(To be fair, coming from background in other ccgs, I view some of what others claim as midrange as just slightly slower aggro. Hearthstone does seem to be a very aggro-oriented game :( )
Also, Grand Tournament was very disappointing… I’m not really using many of them cards, and none of the ones I’ve got so far have really invited me to build a deck around them or their theme. Add to that the banning of Patron (one of the most interesting decks to play against, as I know his plan, and have plenty of time to try to throw a wrench or two in his cogworks, as they needed that many turns of set up), which seems to have just brought back an insane amount of boring aggro instead.
I wish they would do something about face-hunter, mech-mage, mech-whatever else, warlock-zoo, anything-murlocs, instead of removing the decks that give interesting, exhilarating games with plenty of things to think about. Also, please cut down on cards with random effects!
Love this coop Brawl. I genuinely enjoyed playing with my partners. Very fun finally to beat it as well.
Clanan
3056
Where are you all finding these aggro opponents? I teched my control warrior and dragon warrior decks to handle aggro, and in the last 9 games I’ve faced 4 fatigue warriors, 1 handlock, 1 dragon mage, 2 control priests, and ONE face hunter. Damn RNG.
One of several reasons that ranked play mode is my least favorite way to play Hearthstone. The game is built such that you can’t build a deck to handle lots of different archetypes, and that’s a good thing in general. That variety also makes it extremely annoying when you’re constantly matched up against your weaknesses, though. It’s slightly less annoying when you’re doing something other than simply trying to win…working on a “destroy X minions” quest, for example. This sort of problem is one reason why there are 3-game-matches and sideboarding in some other TCGs, but that goes against the Hearthstone quick-and-easy concept.
Big ol’ patch today with the League of Explorers in it. Patch notes says that it unlocks on the 12th or 13th, depending on your region.
Supposedly the expansion is out, at least in the US region, but the purchase option (using gold) didn’t work for me. No love even after a restart. Probably server overload.
I played this week’s Brawl for the pack instead. It’s the old dragon-vs-dragon brawl, but there’s a lot of cards I don’t remember from the first time around. Played twice, both Ragnaros, and went 1-1. The loss was a complete spanking, not even close. The win was a squeaker. Fun for a couple of games just to see all the big stuff flying around, but now that I have my pack, I’m not really tempted to play it any more just for fun.
This HS Adventure is the best one released to date! You’ll experience things you haven’t experienced, yet, and the banter is excellent! Oh, and make sure you’ve enabled the music, because it’s perfectly suited and very well done.
The first boss was kind of whatever to me, but the last two are both up there with the best. The voice acting particularly for Reno Jackson is also great. And the cards… well, I guess have to wait and see about them. Solid release, and I hope some of the cards manage to see some play on Ranked. The Discovery mechanic is really fun, but I’m still not sure if it is good enough to compete with older cards that straight up give you card draw.
