Hearthstone

Chris

Potato del Grande
18,397
-232
Which class does the best aggro decks?

Massed haste or divine shield creatures sound good?
 

Mures

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,014
511
Play cheese hunter deck with secret keepers and flares to counter other hunters and win or lose the rest of your games by the 8th turn, profit.
 

Mures

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,014
511
Which class does the best aggro decks?

Massed haste or divine shield creatures sound good?
There is a cheap popular hunter rush deck making the rounds on ladder right now, murloc rush is the next best rush deck, but much more expensive. The hunter deck has a bunch of charge minions in it. Divine shield is pretty good, argent protectors for pallys are the best because the divine shield comes out of nowhere and can essentially give their minion a second life.
 
282
0
The new hunter rush shit is so boring, I beat them almost every time with my druid deck thou so not really a big deal, but the matches are always the same. I just play some taunts and win.
 

Elerion

N00b
735
46
There's not really a maintained centralized list, the metagame moves too fast. Whenever something gets known (generally through streams), it gets posted one of these places (and probably others):
Hearthstone Players - Latest Decks, Net Decks, Decklists, Wiki, Game, Beta, WoW, Download, Release Date, Updates, Strategies, Fansite, Tournament, Cards from Blizzards Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.
Hearthstone
IHEARTHU.com - Hearthstone News, Articles, Guides Community
Liquid Hearth - Hearthstone Community and News

The instant something is posted on these sites, it starts ballooning in popularity on the ladder. As a result, top players make small changes to their decks to handle it. The latest "big thing" to hit the meta is the hunter deck with charge dudes, secrets, buzzard/hyena and UTH. As a result, people are now playing more taunts, hunters are including Flare to handle the mirror, etc. A deck doesn't necessarily have to be super strong to prompt a meta shift, it just has to be strong against what is currently being played a lot, or capitalize on people's low awareness of the deck.
 

Angelwatch

Trakanon Raider
3,053
133
Which class does the best aggro decks?

Massed haste or divine shield creatures sound good?
Right now Hunter is the best aggro class in the game.

The core relies on the following:
2x Tracking
2x Explosive Trap
2x Misdirection
2x Eaglehorn Bow
2x Unleash The Hounds
2x Timber Wolves
2x Leper Gnomes
2x Ironbeak Owls
2x Bluegill Warrior
2x Wolfrider

The rest can be played around a bit. Leeroy Jenkins the only Legendary that is, typically, used in the deck for his synergy with Unleash The Hounds and his charge ability.

The deck is simply retarded but it wins games. Here's the strategy:

Step 1: Go for the face
Step 2: See Step 1

That's it. You ignore everything and simply go for the face. Enemy plays a minion? Ignore it and go for the face. Enemy plays a taunter? Silence and go for the face. Enemy plays a minion with 30 attack and 1 health? Ignore it and go for the face. Yes, it really is that retarded. But, as I said, it wins games.
 

Sinzar

Trakanon Raider
3,149
269
I kind of wish they would let us choose one or two classes to blacklist for casual mode. Ranked of course shouldn't allow that, but when I just want to play casual mode for fun, I don't want to play mirror matches, or classes where the chance of winning is slim to none. For example, if I'm on a slow warlock in casual, I just concede if matched against a hunter.
 

Chris

Potato del Grande
18,397
-232
With guarenteed "land drops" I'm going to guess that the best decks will eventually be midrange types?
 

Elerion

N00b
735
46
I made a lot of assumptions like that going into Hearthstone. What I didn't see initially was how much the game changes when the attacker gets to choose which targets to attack, instead of the other way around. It favors tempo quite a bit, and means that greedier decks aren't necessarily best just because of guaranteed land drops.

Whether by design or dumb luck, all sorts of curves and tempo styles are viable in the game (depending on the current meta).
 

Angelwatch

Trakanon Raider
3,053
133
With guarenteed "land drops" I'm going to guess that the best decks will eventually be midrange types?
Actually not.

All 3 stages can have viable decks built around them. And while you can tinker a bit, it tends to be that early game decks are aggro rush and late game are control oriented but there have been some very successful mix ups. For example, prior to the last set of nerfs, one of the most dominating decks was an early game control deck (Warlock Board Control). It was actually pretty aggressive.
 

Gilgamel

A Man Chooses....
2,869
52
Because attacking is entirely one-sided and there is no capability for the defender to react tempo is literally the only thing that matters in this game. Control decks are just too susceptible to getting slightly behind and never being able to catch up, and since the entire game is predicated on trading your creatures for their creatures efficiently the attacker has a massive fucking advantage. The number of low casting cost cards that can allow you to catch up once you lose board control is negligible. Wrath of God? 8 mana in this game. The only way to efficiently deal with your opponent's creatures is with your own creatures, and once you get behind the person dictating combat has to really fuck up to lose.

The warlock deck which is nothing but tiny shit and removal fueled by the class ability renders the vast majority of decks irrelevant. You can't fix it either because silence nullifies all the creatures that could ostensibly give board control immediately and there are no non-creature mechanics that are fast enough to overcome aggressive decks. The whole game just comes down to getting an attack advantage and pressing it with your class ability.

I've tried to make slow control decks work but there is so little margin for error that a slightly below average draw can often lead to death, or if the other guy draws his "good" hand you just roll over and die. That hunter deck with it's stupid fucking class mechanic is the prime example of that principle.

The only way to fix the game I can think of without adding more card types would be to give every creature in the game an ability to taunt for a flat mana cost each turn. And it would have to be something negligible too, or maybe cost 1 life or something. That or make mass removal much more efficient than it currently is.
 

Elerion

N00b
735
46
Because attacking is entirely one-sided and there is no capability for the defender to react tempo is literally the only thing that matters in this game. Control decks are just too susceptible to getting slightly behind and never being able to catch up, and since the entire game is predicated on trading your creatures for their creatures efficiently the attacker has a massive fucking advantage. The number of low casting cost cards that can allow you to catch up once you lose board control is negligible. Wrath of God? 8 mana in this game. The only way to efficiently deal with your opponent's creatures is with your own creatures, and once you get behind the person dictating combat has to really fuck up to lose.

The warlock deck which is nothing but tiny shit and removal fueled by the class ability renders the vast majority of decks irrelevant. You can't fix it either because silence nullifies all the creatures that could ostensibly give board control immediately and there are no non-creature mechanics that are fast enough to overcome aggressive decks. The whole game just comes down to getting an attack advantage and pressing it with your class ability.

I've tried to make slow control decks work but there is so little margin for error that a slightly below average draw can often lead to death, or if the other guy draws his "good" hand you just roll over and die. That hunter deck with it's stupid fucking class mechanic is the prime example of that principle.

The only way to fix the game I can think of without adding more card types would be to give every creature in the game an ability to taunt for a flat mana cost each turn. And it would have to be something negligible too, or maybe cost 1 life or something. That or make mass removal much more efficient than it currently is.
You're wrong, as should be evident to anyone that has played or watched any high level Hearthstone.
 

axeman_sl

shitlord
592
0
Tempo isn't "the only thing that matters," but it definitely is overwhelmingly prominent to the point where it dominates and decides easily 75% of all games. Tempo and aggressive board control are largely RNG things because it's all about the draw and very little decisionmaking.
 

Elerion

N00b
735
46
I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have any handy "75%" statistics to throw out, but let's look at the format defining decks of December/January:
- Murlocs (Aggro)
- January's Hunter UTH (Aggro)
- Mage aggro (Aggro / Tempo)
- Board Control Warlock (Tempo)
- Board Control Rogue (Tempo)
- Strifecro/Savjz druid (Mid-range / Control)
- Paladin stuff (Mid-range / Control)
- Handlock (Control)
- Frozen Giants (Control)
- Mirey Control Warrior / Giants OTK (Control)

The 3 last decks are, along with board control warlock, arguably the three strongest decks we've seen lately. The aggro decks have been popular for grinding ranks to Legend with quick games, but most of the #1 Legends have been using the latter decks to get to the very top. All three of those decks completely forego tempo, instead using card draw, efficient removal and stall tactics to eventually take the game through card quality.

Tempo is certainly viable, but so is traditional control routes.