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    Hearthstone Newbie Tuesdays Weekly Discussion

    May 19, 2020

    Hearthstone Newbie Tuesdays Weekly Discussion

    Newbie Tuesdays Weekly Discussion

    Posted: 18 May 2020 05:08 PM PDT

    Hello members of the /r/hearthstone community,

    This is part of a series of weekly threads aimed at both new and old players from the community. It is designed so that everybody may ask any and all questions regarding the game's mechanics, decks, strategies and more.

    Please keep it clean and try to add more than just a one or two word response. As the goal of this post is to increase the community's knowledge, the thought process matters as much as the answer! There is also a Theorycrafting Thursday weekly post, for those who wish to discuss some of the more intricate aspects of the game.

    Sticky Threads and Guides - Great resources for new players!

    Note: I am a bot. Questions or feedback regarding this thread? Message the moderators.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    Hitting that Uno reverse

    Posted: 19 May 2020 02:38 AM PDT

    i knew it

    Posted: 19 May 2020 06:50 AM PDT

    "Anything you can do, I can do better." — Holomancer OTK

    Posted: 18 May 2020 10:42 PM PDT

    Was in a game when the patch hit and DC'd, but was able to reconnect. Sigil Runner kept it's old stats but showed as buffed in hand.

    Posted: 19 May 2020 08:53 AM PDT

    Inspired by Luke and Hadidjah's card back stream, I tried to make one. I'm waiting for the 2nd part.

    Posted: 19 May 2020 10:59 AM PDT

    I'm glad for the recent changes and also happy that Blizzard modify/nerf some of their cards with this frequency, but could they add a new search term, so it's easier to find all the changed cards with one search, so it's easier to disenchant? Maybe "Modified" or "Nerfed"?

    Posted: 19 May 2020 02:28 AM PDT

    They really want to make Libram Paladin a good deck in this meta.

    Posted: 19 May 2020 02:24 PM PDT

    Share your favorite Hearthstone card back and I will draw it :)

    Posted: 19 May 2020 06:16 AM PDT

    An amazing guide for this sub. By Darrock Brown.

    Posted: 19 May 2020 07:03 AM PDT

    How it felt when I first hit legend.

    Posted: 19 May 2020 03:12 AM PDT

    New Players: There are 5 free adventures that you can unlock at the Battle.net shop!

    Posted: 19 May 2020 02:23 PM PDT

     

    The free Ashes of Outland adventure will be coming out in about 4 weeks. If you are a new player, you may have missed out on some free adventures from past expansions. Use the links below to unlock them from the web store:

     

    Knights of the Frozen Throne Adventure

    https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-knights-of-the-frozen-throne-adventure

     

    Kobolds and Catacombs Adventure

    https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-kobolds-and-catacombs-adventure

     

    The Witchwood Monster Hunt

    https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-adventure-monster-hunt

     

    Rastakhan's Rumble Run

    https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-adventure-rumble-run

     

    The Boomsday Project Puzzle Labs

    https://us.shop.battle.net/en-us/product/hearthstone-adventure-puzzle-lab

     

    submitted by /u/PterionFracture
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    Just opened the highest value pack I've ever opened! Woohoo!

    Posted: 19 May 2020 12:51 PM PDT

    Reno at it’s finest

    Posted: 19 May 2020 08:33 AM PDT

    Golden Classic Bundle for $14.99 is announced

    Posted: 19 May 2020 10:03 AM PDT

    just play around it

    Posted: 18 May 2020 09:04 PM PDT

    Easy to replicate evolve shaman otk

    Posted: 19 May 2020 05:13 AM PDT

    Why Shaman is in trouble and how to fix it [x-post from r/competitiveHS]

    Posted: 19 May 2020 07:03 AM PDT

    Hello redditors, welcome in this discussion about Shaman state in the game. Shaman has always been a particular class for me. It was with Thrall that I went for my first Legend climb during Whispers of the old Gods. When I began to play Hearthstone, I was impressed with his strange gameplay, quite slow but with heavy minions. I remember clearly one of my first game against Shaman where my opponent played Ancestal Spirit on his Sludge Belcher, before copying it with Faceless Manipulator the next turn. It was amazing and I am still intrigued by this class tricks. In french, we would say that Shaman has a "madeleine de Proust" effect on me. Even if the class is bad, I love to play its obscure cards.

    When Ashes of Outland released, I was quite excited with Shaman's new cards. It has some totem synergy, quite strong battlecry minions and some randomness in the form of the evolution mechanic.

    But let's face it. This new set - and probably this recent patch - won't give Shaman a foot in this meta.

    Why ? Because Shaman has a basic/class set that is outdated nowadays.

    Here are Shaman's core cards :

    • Basic

    Ancestral Healing*, Totemic Might, Frost Shock, Rockbiter Weapon*, Windfury, Flametongue Totem, Hex, Windspeaker, Bloodlust, Fire Elemental

    • Classic

    Dust Devil, Earth Shock*, Forked Lightning, Lightning Blot, Stormforged Axe, Unbound Elemental, Ancestral Spirit, Feral Spirit*, Lava Burst, Lighting Storm, Mana Tide Totem, Far Sight, Doomhammer, Earth Elemental, Al'Akir the Windlord

    In italic are cards that didn't, or almost never, see play in a competitive deck from the Year of the dragon to the Phenix' one.

    With an asterisk are cards that were played mostly alongside Spirit of the Frog and didn't see play without it.

    As we can see, there are not a lot of cards that were played because of their inherent effect. In the remaining cards, some are very niche, such as Totemic Might or Ancestral Spirit. That is totally ok, this kind of cards leads the class to different archetypes.

    Before going any further, let's determine what is Shaman's identity, based on the core sets. I believe that his Hero Power is a major hint.

    First, it is built around random. There isn't much basic/classic cards that involve RNG, but there is Lightning Storm, Forked Lightning and, to a lesser extent, Far Sight.

    Then, each turn, Shaman has acces to one specific totem in a pool of four.

    • Searing Totem

    The vanilla one. A basic 1/1. It could just be that but I guess that it says that Shaman can go token. Bloolust, Rockbiter Weapon, Totemic Might, Flametongue Totem, Feral Spirit go in this direction.

    • Stoneclaw Totem

    0/2 Taunt. This indicates that Shaman can play defensivly and stall a bit. Earth Elemental, Al'Akir, Feral Spirit serve this intention.

    • Wrath of Air Totem

    Spell Damage. This one is cristal clear : Shaman has spells to threaten the opponent. Lightning Bolt, Lava Burst, Lightning Storm, Earth Shock, Forked Lightning and Frost Shock go in this category.

    • Healing Totem

    Strangely enough, Shaman doesn't have acces to any basic/classic healing cards. Ancestral Healing is the closest to the effect. From here, we can imagine that the intention of this totem is to show that Shaman can develop board presence and heal it at a low cost.

    Outside of Totemic Call, Shaman has a unique keyword : Overload. Overload cards are meant to be powerful minions and spells (stat lines + effects that are cheaper to what they should be) with the drawback of a next turn with less mana.

    Shaman is also a an attacking hero, with Stormforged Axe and Doomhammer as weapons and Rockbiter as a spell.

    To the fringe, Shaman is also a home for the Windfury keyword with Dust Devil, Doomhammer, Windfury, Windspeaker and Al'Akir.

    It is worth mentionning that Elemental is a tribe that is deeply assosiated with Shaman

    Basic/classic set indicates that Shaman is quite slow when it comes to take the board. But he can attack enemy minions with weapons and has some powerfull spells to clean or deal damages.

    Now, from a higher perspective, Shaman has never been a competitive deck in Hearthstone history without being seriously dangerous for the health of the game. The reign of Midrange Shaman in Karazhan, pre-nerf Shudderwock Shaman, Evolve Shaman, pre-nerf Galakrond Shaman. Sure, there are some exceptions with Ungoro Token Shaman, Shaman during Rise of Shadows or even the very niche SirVILGAUDAS' Madam Goya Shaman during Gadgetzan that were competitive and not oppresive. The reason behind this phenomenon is the level power of Shaman's expansion cards to counterbalance his weak basic/classic set.

    I think wiRer sumed up the situation very clearly in a recent Twitter thread. Sets after sets, Shaman had tools to access a lot of different archetypes (even a Freeze one). He also received so much Evolution support for years that it feels that it his now a part of his identity. But there is no such synergy in basic/classic. Furthermore, Shaman has a unique class tag in the form of Totem. Outside of the more-situational-you-die Totemic Might, it doesn't have any hero power nor Totem synergy. Shaman had a plethora of very interesting tools but they are disseminate in various sets and for years, Shaman players couldn't build efficiently synergetic decks with.

    How can Shaman be fixed ?

    In his thread, wiRer suggests a lot of changes. Notably about Overload. They weren't a lot of cards that turned Overload into a positive effect. There used to be the famous Tunnel Trogg, replaced today by Surging Tempest, Thunderhead, Snowfury Giant, Sapphire Spellstone and Eternal Sentinel. Needless to say that in more than 6 years the game exists, that is not a lot. Because this rare synergetic Overload card are always from expansions, this leads to the major problem of the mechanic. Overload costs too much. Current Overload cost could be ok if there was a basic/classic card that cooled it down a bit. But this is not the case. Reducing Overload cost would allow Overload minions/spells to be more playable and Unbound Elemental to see some plays along them.

    • Dust Devil shouldn't block a whole turn when played on curve. The risk/reward isn't worth it. Make it cost 2, 3/2 Windfury, Overload 1 is a sweet wiRer's idea, allowing Shaman to play a decent early-game minion.
    • Is a 7/8 Taunt such a threat in the current state of the game ? Probably not as it wasn't one by the past. Earth Elemental should have an Overload 2. Or the same Overload 3 but costs 4 Mana. Shaman likes big minions but almost never plays them. Let's change that.
    • Feral Spirit is bad. It was played alongside Trogg because the wolves protected him. But Shaman has rarely a 1 or 2-cost minion that he wants to protect to keep the board. As a defensive card, Feral Spirit obstructs more the Shaman player than his opponent because on curve his next turn his miserable. Later in the game, Feral Spirit is weaker. Making the Overload costs only 1 would allow the card to be more important during early aggression while being a bit better later in the game.
    • Shaman has, for the most part, board-control oriented tools in his basic/classic set. How comes Forked Lightning having an Overload 2 while it could be an effective anti-aggro tool with an Overload 1 ? Again, Forked Lightning is getting useless in late stages of a game. Reducing its Overload cost could make it playable during early ones. And even if the spell is really strong early, its effect is getting mixed as we go mid-game, where the opponent can play multiple minions or minions with higher health.
    • Lava Burst can be seen as an earlier smaller Fireball but with a drawback in a spell oriented class. It doesn't feel right. I guess that Overload 2 is here to dissuade player to be too aggressive during multiple turns. But with Leeroy in Hall of Fame and a lot of other classes that can heal quite a lot during a game (or even one turn), is Overload 2 still justified ? Making it Overload 1 would still allow Shaman to go for burst but he could also be more tempted to use it on ennemy minions.
    • Lightning Storm shouldn't have an uncertain effect. I wonder if this randomness is still justified when the class has now an established RNG effect in the form of Evolution. The Overload should still be 2 but at the cost of dealing 3 damages across ennemy minions.

    Randomness is another issue. wiRer suggested the Hero Power to be like Dr. Boom : it lets you know what will be the next totem roll. In an era where a new class has a 1-mana Hero Power, it seems less incongruous to have another basic Hero Power that differs from the other. By showing the next totem available, it would allow some flexibility for Shaman and for his opponent. It probably would make games during a bit longer against aggro. For example, the opponent would have to think twice before going all-in on board when he knows that the next totem roll is Wraith of Air. This change could make games less linear and more interesting for both players. Like wiRer, I believe that Healing Totem should heal face again as it serves the defensive purpose of the class identity. I do think that this Hero Power change should be symetrical as the opponent can see what will be the next Totem roll. If not, it could be just super frustrating to lose against something you can't predict. Especially Wrath of Air being summoned successive times for board clears.

    If randomness is put aside from the Hero Power, it would be faire to erase random in Lightning Storm, as mentionned earlier. Evolution being omnipresent sets after sets, it should be the only "unpredictible" randomness the class has, and must be core to it. To this end, an Evolution card should be present in basic/classic set. We can also notice that this kind of randomness involved by Lightning Storm has progressivly disappeared for strong but costly AOE (Hagatha's Scheme, Earthquake).

    Card draw has been recently pointed has a flaw of Shaman. I do not believe that basic/classic set is a problem here. Shaman has two cards that draw and also enables a Control gameplay, with Far Sight, and a more minion-based gameplay, with Mana Tide Totem, not mentionning a potential Totem Synergy with it. wiRer suggested to drop some of Shaman's themes and reinforce the others with classic support. I tend to agree on the idea, but not on the form. Revitalize Shaman's basic/classic set has to allow the class to play spells and minions more freely without looking too much at the drawback. Those cards don't have to be crazy strong but to allow possibilities. Stronger cards come from rotating sets, not basic/classic. In this way, better draw options should come from new expansions/adventures and, as suggested by wiRer, work in synergy with existing tools. Such as Overloard or Totems.

    Talking about synergies, I suspect that a couple cards are currently missing in basic/classic set.

    Totem synergy is missing. Totemic Might is surely not enough and we can ask ourself if it is a necessity to keep this card in the game. Expansions after expansions, some Totem mechanics were printed, but 3 cards come to my mind that can ensure a central part of Shaman's core sets.

    • Draenei Totemcarver : this card sees some play in Wild in Even Shaman, but wasn't really played in Standard. Its effect is pretty simple and straightforward. You get a reward for having Totems on board in the form of a stats buff. This card seems really fair enough to be included in basic/classic.
    • Thunder Bluff Vailant : I personnaly missed this one a lot. It is slow and not well stated, but it suggests to play a slow, kind of grindy deck. The real benefit is to turn inert Totems into small threats. Whereas Draenei Totemcraver is very simple, I tend to think that Thunder Bluff Vailant might a bit too much in core Shaman set because of its ability to do a bit more with Totems. This effect might not be strong in Standard, but I wonder if this power level shouldn't be reserved for rotating sets.
    • Thing from Below : a very good reward for having play Hero Power multiple turns. Or played Totems from hand. It is probably too strong to be in core set.

    Of course, I highly doubt that we would see any of those minions back in Standard, but I wish that a minion with a close Totem synergy would be in basic/standard.

    In definitve, I would like 2 cards to come in basic/classic : an Evolution one and a Totemic one. What should be cut in those sets to include those 2 ? Among basic set, I see 2 cards that can be easily erased : Totemic Might and Windfury. Why those ?

    Totemic Might is a very, very weak card. Its only synergy isn't really worth an inclusion in a deck. Yes, it is played in the current Totem Shaman, but it is a poor topdeck, a poor card kept in hand and the card itself seems like a bad joke. Instead, I would include 1of the 3 cynergetic Totem card mentionned earlier, or a card that comes close to it.

    Windfury is part of Shaman identity. The keyword is, the card with the same name not. With a weapon and 2 minions with the keyword (Dust Devil, Al'Akir) and another one that gives the effect (Windspeaker), I think that every player knows that attacking twice is part of Shaman's identity. Instead, I would rather include an Evolve card in order to fix randomness in another and more popular way than the old effects (such as Lightning Storm, but also Crackle, Elemental Destruction or Fireguard Destroyer).

    Here is my take on how to fix Shaman, if I had the power to do so. Sure, some cards would probably be still unplayed such as Windspeaker or Flametongue Totem. Basic/classic set serves a role of foundation for future possibilities and some cards are meant to be niche. However, revitalizing the class identity by reducing the Overload cost, Hero Power and adding Totem synergy in its evergreen set is a necessity. We can't accept to face another oppresive Shaman era, only due to overpowered and unbalanced card expansions. Thrall deserves better, and so his core sets.

    Feel free to react and add your thoughts to this ! I am pretty sure that Shaman identity can be clearer and a bit stronger by changing not too much of its core sets.

    submitted by /u/HibouEspiegle
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    Paladin Is Back In Meta!!

    Posted: 19 May 2020 09:08 AM PDT

    I saw someone else had also done a pally rework, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring. HoFs are Blessed Champion and Hand of Protection

    Posted: 19 May 2020 08:36 AM PDT

    Finally finished this rather difficult puzzle! ��

    Posted: 19 May 2020 12:02 PM PDT

    Best Golden Card

    Posted: 19 May 2020 08:40 AM PDT

    My otk combo warrior. Or not.

    Posted: 19 May 2020 11:19 AM PDT

    As someone who got the freaking bare minimum Ammount of rares and commons from the Golden Packs... this pack was not worth it at all...

    Posted: 19 May 2020 03:50 PM PDT

    Literally 1800 dust for 15 bucks, that is statistically the worst luck I could have ever got, yet, it's not that far fetched.

    But I learnt my lesson, don't pay when there is no guarantee you will get even medium luck.

    /End Rant

    submitted by /u/Artorias_Soul
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