Rokara better have something to do with Unstoppable force for the flavour.

I have to say I really like the mode. At first, it might appear a bit overwhelming, but is in reality quite easy to learn all the basics and dig into the fun and more complex stuff that mode has to offer.
In addition, it seems quite F2P friendly with the exception of gold that is required for upgrading the buildings. But lets be honest, those few hundred gold are not that hard to accumulate.

I played some Anacondra Druid as well this past week and have 72% winrate.
It is weaker against aggro, but is quite a good counter to all the questline decks, especially mage and D6 warlock.
Mind you, I have been playing with my own version without C’Thun and Auctioneer package but with Glowly flies, Arbor up and Goldshire gnolls. The later ones especially felt strong against more board centric decks. They cost 0 post alignment, but can be played much sooner than Owl if needed.

Exactly that. When evaluating decks, winrate is far from being only important data and can be misleading. Kibler had a recent video on that particular topic and I completely agree with him. The problem is how prevalent quest decks are, which in turn pushes any slower midrange and control decks out of the meta. This results in faster, aggresive decks having high winrate because they prey on combo (quest) decks and have basically no direct counters left in the meta. Just look at the paladins matchup spread.

“Why play a multiplayer game if your opponent’s actions do not matter? Did you beat your opponent or just win a card draw contest?”
That right there is what is becoming in increasing issue with hearthstone in last few expansions.
Very well written article.

I completely agree with you. Midrange dragon priest was one of the most fun I had playing hearthstone.
Love those kind of interactive decks where resource management and play skill actually matter.
As for control, the old school control is fine, or even current control with quest line could be fine (or any finisher in general). Problem were random generations when the opponents randomly had answer for any situation.
They are obviously pushing priest in more tempo, midrange directions, but in order to do so, cards they get have to be comparable in power level to other classes.

To be honest, both are uninterective, solitaire decks, which is why I hate both.

I honestly hope to see the meta evolve or even some adjustments from the devs soon.
Allmost all decks are very un fun to play against due to solitaire nature of majority of the decks. When playing card games, I want my decisions to matter.

True, but you can’t unlock them before expansion release. Hence you can still open them in prerelease event. To compensate for this, in Forged in the Barrens expension the opened ones could be disenchanted for full dust, just like nerfed cards.

Completely agree 🙂
Can’t wait to see the rest of the cards and eventually play with them next week.

I mean, Park Panther + hero power already finish the first part. Park Panther is not a bad card by itself. I can easily see it being played alongside the sidequest as an antiaggro tool.
Generally speaking, if you build your deck around the questline, then I agree that investment can be too much to justify only partial reward. However if you look at it (and use it) as a nice addition to your general gameplan, that investment can be relatively low.

What I am observing with all these questline cards is that community is rating them purely based on final reward. To me, their main advantage is in the several decent minor payoffs on the way to full completeness. For instance, druid’s questline is 1 mana gain 10 armor and draw a card. Definitely worthwhile against any faster deck. Warlock’s is 1 mana, deal 6 and heal 6, again very useful.
This particular one results in reduce the cost of 9 drawn cards by 1. As dbm14 already said, OTK demon hunter could definitely put those discounts to good use.
Will all decks want to run those questlines? Of course not, but for quite a few, they will be nice addition to the gameplay those decks are already pursuing.

I completely understand the delay. In fact, given the current situation it is probably the most responsible solution. What bothers me is lack of communication yet again. It is a pity since they seemed to drastically improve on this aspect in last few expansions.

I am missing 3 more types of deck that were quite relevant for priest. Although first 2 could be considered sub archetypes for res and control, the 3rd one was different, board centric and wasn’t that bad to play against. It was one of the most loved priest decks for many.
1. Velen-Malygos-Mind blast combo priest: played a lot like other res priest archetypes but instead of trying to win through big minions tried to kill the opponent asap.
2. Mind blast control priest: Control the board with spells and dragons (Duskbreaker, Drakonid operative) and finish the opponent with burst. I remember 19 being the main breakpoint (2 mind blasts + 2 pings from Shadowreaper Anduin).
3. Spiteful priest: board centric, minion heavy midrange deck that used dragons (especially Duskbreaker) to fight early boards and put pressure on opponents with Spiteful summoner swing turns.

I agree. Nerfs served their purposes which unfortunately can’t be said for the buffs. They feel lackluster to say the least. Struggling classes and archetypes are still struggling. Deathrattle demon hunter will probably still drop in winrate once post patch meta returns to paladin mode. And buff to N’Zoth, as mentioned in the article, didn’t really do anything except promote experimentation. But the deck was already great before first nerf patch, slightly weaker afterwards due to faster meta and is amazing again due to meta slowing down.
I hope mini set will bring some fresh air to the game.

Thx 🙂
I like it a lot and it’s working well which is a bonus.

Expected nerfs.
Watch posts will feel fair, but still playable. Spell mage didn’t feel that bad to play against if they didn’t have DoL, so delaying RNG is huge.
Pen flinger: who is the loser know.
Paladin however is barely touched and still problematic. By the time 3rd secret is pulled, the sword has already done a lot of damage and paladin has usually won the board. Nerf to pen flinger might just push it towards faster secret builds.

Tested it and it works as it should. Based on my experience playing Celestial Alignment, Clockwork Giant is still too clunky. The opponent will often just ignore them and go face. The deck doesn’t need stats. However, Umbral Owl has been working like a charm for me. Rush helps a lot.
Also, Guardian Animals package is basically a must for this type of archetype. After some experimentation I came to my current version of the deck which is working quite well. I am at 5/1 with it. Low sample size, but has potential.

The problem is, 4 cards seem like a lot in an already packed deck since you need all the ramp and probably Malygos as well since it works so well with Nourish post CA. What remains should be some win condition package: N’Zoth, Guardian Animals, something else?

I haven’t seen anyone actually test it. If I remember correctly, Dog had 1 giant in the deck at the start but never drew it before he switched it out for Malygos. Nature Studies does however reduce the cost of your 1 cost spells, and since cost reduction is specific card’s effect, it should work on both the Giant and Owl. Of course in Hearthstone, logical is not always how it works in regards to interactions. It needs to be tested to be 100% sure.

I believe there will only be 2 cards in standard you can play on the same turn:
1. Clockwork Giant, if your opponent holds a card
2. Umbral Owl, always active since Alignment is itself that one spell needed for discount.