Getting 13 packs for free was nice. Not sure if I'm going to stick with it, as clash royale has my mobile gaming attention at the moment.

I opened 47 packs yesterday and I got these legendaries. Not bad after a month of saving dust. The meta has also slowed down quite a bit. I'm so used to the old tempo that the game feels quite slow. I'm guessing this won't last over a month though, but I won't mad if I'm wrong.

• Twin Emperor Vek'tor
• Soggoth the Slitherer
• Hogger Tyrant of Elwynn
• Yksaarji Rage Unbound
• Anomalus

It also seems like C'thun decks are really powerful. People are already complaining about how OP they. That's when you know that a deck is viable.

• C'Thun decks made this game more auto pilot oriented and braindead than ever

• How to counter C'thun?

• C'Thun ruins the fun

Opened 20 packs so far and haven't gotten a single legendary.. Feelsbadman.

Other than that I like it though, the game really needed a shakeup after having the old meta for almost 6 months.

@tanookisuit: I actually put together a face Shaman deck today, and that thing is OH MY GOD GOOD! Flamewreathed has to be the single best (and most ridiculously OP) card to come from this set. Seriously, who on the design team thought a 7/7 for 4 that buffs Trogg for 2 attack was a good idea? I wanna shake their hand for that shit!

@atwa:I know Sottle's been using Deathwing, and so far, it's been perfectly fine for me. It's actually been clutch in a lot of games, especially one where I had Chillmaw (ripped from a Curator), Ysera, and Twilight Guardian in hand and they killed him. Without him, I wouldn't have won the game. There is a bit of downside to him, as it means you need dragons in your hand to make him truly viable. However, it's been consistent. I'm at a 71% win rate with the deck so far, so I'm gonna roll with it until it doesn't seem viable anymore. I also don't have Forbidden Shaping in the deck (but that's because I don't have any), but I want to get it in the deck.

As for the C'Thun, after a few days with it out now, I don't see him being viable beyond Control Warrior C'Thun or Control Priest C'Thun. Those two classes just benefit the most from their C'Thun class cards (the 10 heal and 10 armor respectively), and the other classes' C'Thun cards are a joke IMO. Even then, those decks also have to rely on and hope that C'Thun kills the player on entry, because if not, they just played a 10-drop burn spell that met his grisly fate to a multitude of removal options (Big Game Hunter for neutral, SWD or Entomb for Priests, Equality/Consecrate for Paladin, Hunter's Mark/Shot for Hunter, etc etc). I haven't lost to a C'Thun deck in the last two days playing Face Shaman and Dragon Priest. It's an uphill battle for C'Thun decks against well-balanced tempo decks or rush aggro decks, and a lot of that is really just because...well...the C'Thun disciple cards are mostly shit. Disciple of C'Thun himself is worthwhile for the damage on entry (to the point that I've seen him run in non-C'Thun decks, particularly in Rogue decks with Shadowcaster on board).

Had a warlock quest to complete today so I threw together a mediocre zoo deck. It went 6-0 before I stopped playing and only one game went past turn 6. Seems like it could be a nightmare once someone comes up with a super refined version. Not very fun to play and very not fun to play against. Darkshire Councilman and Forbidden Ritual are crazy good cards.

Way too early to really judge C'thun I feel, I doubt he is too strong though. Since the minions that buff C'thun generally arent that strong, its quite easy to put pressure on the player. I have won most games against C'thun decks as dragon priest, but its always stressful and a race against the clock basically. Aggro decks will probably be very strong against C'thun though.

Honestly feel that N'zoth is more powerful, but just not as many can afford decks with him.

A paladin that plays N'zoth and gets Tirion/Sylvanas/Cairne Bloodhoof is extremely hard to beat. And it doesn't need to weaken itself to play minions that buff the finisher.

Mage seems worse, kind of, but still is really unfun to play against, from so many random effects.

@enemylandlord: I was in the exact same position (Rogue player here) and was crushing people with a Darkshire Councilman/Forbidden Ritual/Dreadsteed/Reliquary Seeker deck! I'm ashamed to admit I found it pretty fun to play!

Don't hate me, hate Blizzard for not giving me any Legendaries.

Is anyone else getting really tired of all the C'Thun cards!? (the ones that buff him)

I think most players misunderstand the C'Thun cards. You don't need all of them. My Paladin-Reno-C'Thun deck is wrecking it and has less than 10 C'Thun cards (If I took Reno out, I'd consolidate that into more of the efficient cards, but keeping one of each is fine. C'Thun can't be your only plan to win, you need it as your secondary win condition. You just need enough of them to make Twin Emporers reasonably likely to duplicate (i.e. 10 atk C'Thun).

Admittedly I'm only rank 14 (haven't played much) so at higher ranks I'm sure it will need some more refinement, but it seems like using the efficient C'Thun cards as basic minions to slot a reasonable curve, followed by many serious threats and basic boardclear (As well as a lot of healing) means I usually win before turn 10 anyway, and then the looming threat of C'Thun is just a way to swing back a win when I'm losing.

Even without a C'Thun class card, I think Paladin is one of the best C'Thun classes (other than Druid, which is the more suitable pure-C'Thun deck) because of good early board-clear, Mysterious Challenger + Secrets to halt them in the middle, and finally the late-game powerhouses like Tyrion and Ragnaros, Lightlord ( the rare times of getting both versions of Ragnaros on the board is so much fun).

The more I've played standard constructed, the more I fear for where that meta is going. It's sorta dawned on me when I realized Blizzard didn't put in a single new direct burn card in this expansion. With that and the nerf to druid combo, combo decks are just dead. You just cannot win games unless you play for the board anymore. Even the biggest C'Thun won't help you if your opponent has a full board. Now while that sounds great it becomes a huge problem when they've also introduced C'Thun and N'Zoth. While most people have focused on C'thun so far, N'Zoth is the card that's gonna plague the meta. N'Zoth plays exactly the same way as C'Thun, except instead of dropping "mediocre to good" minions you're dropping top tier minions all through the game. While C'Thun may finish the game right on the spot it's just impossible to get back from a N'Zoth drop, especially when you've already have had to deal with all these hard to deal with deathrattles once.

So unlike the LoE meta where control matchups were all about efficiency and games going to fatigue, this new meta is gonna be all about racing to draw and play your old god first. Games will literally be decided by the predetermined deck order. While there might be a presence of agro and tempo decks in the meta those decks will just auto-lose a good amount of the time due to the deck order of the opponent. It's become sort of the opposite of the way Firebat described face hunter back in the day. Instead of "If we both draw well I win, and if he draws bad I win" it's "If we both draw well I lose, and if I draw bad I lose". So get ready for a bunch of fun and exciting close games that end abruptly when one of the players draw the one card in the deck that wins them the game. Good thing we got rid of druid combo, eh?

@ares42: For Old God vs Old God deck battles you're right, but I think aggro just crushes both most of the time.

@noelle808: Literally vanilla Zoo works if you want to be even more facerolly.

@fredchuckdave: Agro is having a good time vs all the unrefined slow decks atm, but once they get tuned I think they will struggle. But most importantly, as I said, agro no longer wins if both players draw well. The lack of stickiness and general "muting" of their damage output gives control the additional time it needs to stabilize. Sure, you will win a bunch of games just because the control deck misses on the cards it needs, but if they're able to deny you board it's really hard to get all the damage you need. I guess maybe shaman might be the exception, but even they lost reach and they get punished so badly if they meet hard removal.

I'm glad the wave of C'thun decks that I saw on the first day subsided a bit, I feared I might see the same damn cards no matter what class I'd face. There are some cool decks floating around, deathrattle N'zoth Rogue and Paladin decks, Grim Patron is back and I watched Eloise play a nifty Dragon Priest variant today. That said, I'm currently rocking a Freeze Mage with a whooping 0 Old Gods cards.

Overall, the expansion seems ok, although I'm mostly glad about the introduction of standard because fuck Paladin. One things that feels a bit out of line right now is Shaman. They barely lost anything and now have a 7/7 for 4 and Evolve would be insane if the class wasn't already so fast that you don't need it.

Also, it's funny that Knife Juggler is still so damn strong after the nerf.

@benderunit22: I wish more cards had gotten a light touch like Knife Juggler. If they're going to nerf cards from Classic so badly as to render them pointless, they should instead just go full Warsong Commander and give them a different ability entirely. Knife Juggler losing only one stat point makes it still viable, but Keeper of the Grove with 2 fewer stat points feels like some real garbage now because any 2/3 can just kill it.

Been running an Nzoth Rogue and really enjoying it. I started off as trying to make a Yog Rogue but found that most games I won without playing Yog and when it was in my hand I never wanted to use it because I was ahead or relatively even with the opponent. So I switched Yog to Nzoth and that's been going real well for me.

Dabbled in a bit of Cthun Druid and it felt solid if a bit boring. Still wanting to try Nzoth Pally and am trying to find a Priest deck that feels solid, but so far I've only had much luck with a dragon variant. My experience with priest so far was that lack of card draw and board clear is really hurting. It's hard to get northshire to stick for more than a turn when everyone is running these cthun decks, so that has felt much less reliable.

@mezza: Achenai + Circle of Healing, Holy Nova, Excavated Evil. Priests aren't exactly lacking in board clears. Loss of lightbomb hurts, but not to that great of a degree.

@turambar: I was speaking more in terms of against the bigger minions mid-late game. Priest is fine against floods of low health minions as long as you draw your clears and pyros. It feels much more awkward when you're trying to find ways to clear something like a board of druid cthun minions without dumping your hand for one example. Not saying its impossible, just less favorable than it used to be.

When running against a C'thun druid, the only thing that has presented itself as a big problem has been Twin Emperor. Otherwise, a combination of Pain, Death, and Cabal Shadow Priest and Entomb takes care of threat fairly efficiently. That said, I also run dragon priest, so I can't speak to a pure control priest. I suspect that deck probably miss shrinkmeisters more than any other.

@turambar: Dragon priest is the easiest for sure. You can match your curve fairly well with the druids curve and maintain a threatening board presence to combo with your removals. I've found it to be very hard to keep up with druids ability to play good minions on curve every turn with shadowpriest and a more standard auchenai control priest. There's almost always one or two turns where you have very little on board and have to clear out their 4/10s, druid of the claw, twin emperor, etc.

That being said I think cthun druid is just an unfavorable matchup for priest except for dragon priest. I'm picking probably the most extreme matchup for the class (aside from rogue of course) as an example so its not entirely representative of the average ladder experience. The others aren't quite as bad. On the more positive side priest still feels pretty good against paladin which I've been seeing quite a few of still.

I'm really enjoying this meta. It feels as though Blizzard hit the reset button on the meta and brought it back to pre-Naxx without the miracle rogue problem. I'm finding a few surprises in the meta like playing cards I would have said were terrible but now are pretty good. I never thought I would be using forbidden healing or twilight summoner, but here I am using them in my new favorite deck: Nzoth Paladin.

I got this deck from Amaz. It's pretty good against Control Warrior and Cthun Druids since it can take a hit from Cthun. But it does not do very well against priest and maybe mages who have hard removal. I mostly play my games towards fatigue. And when you drop a Nzoth after your opponent has spent his last board clear/brawl, it feels real good to bring back Sylvanas Windrunner, Cairne Bloodhoof, Tirion Fording, Harvest Golem for one last hooray.

Kind of not enjoying the expansion right now.

I feel that Blizzard doesn't really understand what control is supposed to be, they just want a slower meta but went about it in the wrong way. Aggro is still extremely strong and zoo/face shaman is dominating the ladders. Which is caused largely by a lot of strong control minions like deathlord are gone but haven't had a good replacement. Its extremely easy to just get overrun if you don't draw right.

And control vs control? They changed it so that its just building towards a win condition and most often the player that gets his first, just outright wins. It is so, so hard to come back from one and you need to have drawn into.

I have always loved control, but right now don't like it at all. Its just not fun to play a 10 minute game, to then just lose in one turn without an ability to come back. When your opponent plays N'zoth and fills their board, its almost impossible to come back from that. Even with C'thun, good luck because the Sylvanas he brought back will just steal it.

Blizzard please tell you aren't making Miracle Rogue a thing again. I really hate how my opponent just spent the match ignoring my board before using Emperor Thaurissan. Then he spent the next two turns drawing his entire deck with auctioneer because he drew conceal twice. When you think about it the 1 mana nerf to auctioneer does not matter as much when the emperor takes it down to 5 and makes your cold bloods and 1 mana poison spells to 0.

That said, I am curious as to why Miracle is suddenly coming back, especially when tinker oil and blade flurry are gone. Also, Emperor Thaurissan has been out for a long time and so have spare parts.

@acura_max: The other/one strong Rogue deck (oil) is dead, so I guess this is the next good Rogue one? That or deathrattle Rogue.

Also Patron Priest is still funny. Seems pretty good against brainless zoo too.

@acura_max: Yeah, as @gundogan suggested it's likely that because Oil Rogue no longer works, people have gone back to the Miracle form. I was playing Reno Raptor Rogue before the rotation and I think that might still be viable, but I haven't actually given it a shot yet.

Also worth noting that Miracle Rogue fits ideally with Yogg-Saron, and if you don't want the opportunity to play some Yogg-Saron then I don't know what you're doing.

I'm running an Evo shaman deck and it's fucking badass. Love it :D

Having a decent time with a Midrange Shaman deck, which was my go-to deck in the early TGT times. It's gotten a couple of new nice additions with the latest expansion. Face Shaman is also neat, but I prefer playing the midrange deck more, specifically since I'm opposed to crafting a certain 16(-28) damage weapon for now.

I've also built a few obvious aggro decks (Warlock Zoo, Pirate Warrior, x/1 Divine Paladin and Face Hunter) in addition to the even more obvious auto-play C'Thun decks (Druid and Priest). Rogue still seems to be highly reliant on Preparation, which I haven't opened or crafted in nearly two years, so I'm trying out a mess of a Rogue C'Thun deck as well.

Oh, and playing against a Control Warrior still seems to be a slog unlike any other. War(rior). War(rior) never changes.

@acura_max said:

Blizzard please tell you aren't making Miracle Rogue a thing again. I really hate how my opponent just spent the match ignoring my board before using Emperor Thaurissan. Then he spent the next two turns drawing his entire deck with auctioneer because he drew conceal twice. When you think about it the 1 mana nerf to auctioneer does not matter as much when the emperor takes it down to 5 and makes your cold bloods and 1 mana poison spells to 0.

That said, I am curious as to why Miracle is suddenly coming back, especially when tinker oil and blade flurry are gone. Also, Emperor Thaurissan has been out for a long time and so have spare parts.

Because Miracle Rogue is slow. The meta has slowed down, so it's viable again. Also, you are describing a hyper lucky draw and hand or your opponent. Having Miracle Rogue be viable =/= OP. I haven't lost a Miracle Rogue so far. There are many ways to counter it. You don't want your deck to be too slow.

@acura_max: Miracle Rogue is no longer as competitive as it once was. There are better, more consistent decks out there now, such as Zoo, Tempo Shaman, N'Zoth Pally/Rogue and C'thun based decks. The first 2 will kill a Miracle Rogue before they can get the combo off and the latter 2 has better late game.

Also, your opponent just got really lucky to have 6 pieces by turn 7.

@acura_max: Miracle is back because the meta is slower, Bomb Lobber is rotating out, Rogue has gotten a lot of cheap spells, and Combo is gone. If you're having problems with Miracle just play a deck that kills them before turn seven.

Blizzard are a bunch of dickbags right now, I swear it.

How are they going to:

• Release Old Gods
• Release season 6 of Diablo 3
• Release open beta of Overwatch

...AND EXPECT ME TO SOMEHOW MANAGE MY GAME TIME WELL?!

Like, I wanna play more Hearthstone, but SEASON 6 OF DIABLO 3! I NEED TO BE IN THE TOP 1,000 AT ALL TIMES! ARRRRRGH!