Run Hunter 
FLARREEEEEE
Whatās āhunterā?
My friend got a strange message after a casual match. It said:
"opponent was too low ranked for you to earn gold "
I wonder if that is a change coming down the line to prevent people from taking their MMR? Or is this already a feature that I just havenāt run into yet?
Also, Iām just about at 1600 dust, so once the leeroy change happens Iāll be looking at making 2 legendarys. Iād love to make a hand lock or control warrior but both will still be way out of my price range. Any suggestions?
Meta change in 2 days or so. Prepare for the handlocks \o/
Shamans.
Shamans everywhere. I like that!
People will like shamans (or insert class thatāll kick ass this meta) for about a weekā¦then itāll all be āBLIZZ! BLIZZ! BLIZZ!..HEY BLIZZ! Reincarnate is too OP! Shamtard is teh w0rst most OP class evarrrrrrr! No skill! NERF!ā
Nah Shamans are too rng dependent to ever be the best, totem (Healing, Taunt, SP) and lightning storm rolls go both ways.
Still think secret mage will be the thing, Handlocks are at least beatabletechable.
Doesnāt need to be the best, but at least being viable helps a lot.
Naxx in general, Hunters & Harrison frenzyā¦ by far the least played class I faced.
I always liked the class but it was pretty much unplayable.
<3 midrange
Wowā¦so Starving buzzard is jumping from 2 to 5 cost? Talk about a drastic change, making a card virtually useless doesnāt seem like smart balancing. I mean it is going to get removed if you put it out raw. You want to do Hounds with itā¦youāll need 8 mana, never mind what other cards you want to combo it with.
hahahaha, Iāve been playing nothing but secret mage for the last week. Deck is super fun, and I actually really like playing against hunters. Few things in this game are as satisfying as watching a flare get wrecked by counterspell. More on that later
So, hi, guys. I havenāt been here in around a month. Due to Blizzard screwing up when they released Naxx and me not being able to access it for over a week, I got tired of playing for a while since I was behind on gold and didnāt know how to play with/against all the new cards. Last week i finally finished Naxx and started working on understanding the new stuff.
Since I havenāt played arena since Naxx dropped, Iāve been doing pretty sketchily over the last week or so. My arena runs went 4-3, 4-3, 3-3, and 1-3. Today I started a run and decided to play priest. I almost never played Priest in arena pre-Naxx, so I wanted to give it a shot.
Hereās the result
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByAJFDlIcAAheHi.png:large
After 9 months of playing, my first 12 win run.
The MVPs of this run were Shadow Madness and the undead brothers, Zombie Chow and Flesheating Ghoul. I had one of each, and they played huge roles in every win. Major assists go to Temple Enforcer, and Dark Cultist. I had two of each. At one point the combination had made a 12/9 ghoul very late in the game. The last game, my opponent conceded with 13 health after I used two of his own water elementals, shadow madness, and my own dark cultist to make a 7/6 flesheating ghoul on turn 6. It was pretty ridiculous. Zombie chow just came out on turn one and consistently kept my opponent from getting anything started until turn 3 or 4. Also got to combo it with one of my two soulpriests a couple of times.
Back to constructed: before secret mage, and playing around with deathrattle priest, I was mostly playing miralock. Miralock is basically a miracle rogue-esque warlock deck that tries to hit you with a 20+ damage combo by turn 10. Every other card in the deck is designed to either keep you alive or draw you more cards so you can get the combo. Before naxx it was using shieldmastas and leeroy. After the nerf was announced, I switched things up. Itās now running belchers and six charge minions (2 bluegills, 2 wolfriders, 2 arcane golems). Leeroy was usually not even the best combo option. you could get 20 damage with leeroy + PO + faceless, but arcane + PO + PO + faceless is 24 damage. Wolfrider + PO + PO + faceless is 22 damage. Bluegill + PO + PO is 20 damage, same as with leeroy, but at only 9 mana. Having all those chargers basically gives me the freedom to use them as removal or early game pressure to get them close as possible. I can see miracle rogue going a similar route with the Leeroy nerf. One thing Iāve seen mentioned is using southsea deckhand + cold blood as a finisher for cheap. Itās an interesting deck, pretty fun, and cheap to build.
Iāve run into mill druid on ladder a few times. Always takes me by surprise. Dancing swords, coldlights, naturalize, brewmasters, and they donāt come out until late game, when I least expect it and have the fewest answers.
When I put cho in my rogue discard deck, the main thing I always tried to do was to find a reason ā any reason ā to play blade flurry. because a mage with blade flurry is just hilarious to me.
See my statement above. My deck runs 7 secrets. you only get two flares. I actually look forward to playing hunters since I usually win as long as their board doesnāt get too big to flamestrike. Mirror entity isnāt that great against hunter since they usually donāt run big stuff youād especially want to copy, so between two of those and up to two counterspells, plus loatheb, well, you can throw away your flares if you want to.
So yeah, secret mage is pretty damn good. the secret mage decks Iāve mostly seen are modified freeze mages, like this giant mage deck:
Note the cone of cold, water elementals frost novas, and 2x doomsayers for board clear.
Itās basically just a deck full of legendaries and two duplicates, because who wouldnāt want to duplicate legendaries?
I donāt have all those legendaries, but I still wanted to play a similar deck. I looked at a lot of existing decks, made a lot of changes and ended up with this:
2x Frostbolt
2x Loot Hoarder
2x Mad Scientist
2x Arcane Intellect
Counterspell
2x Duplicate
Ice Barrier
Ice Block
2x Mirror Entity
2x Kirin Tor Mage
2x Fireball
2x Polymorph
2x Ethereal Arcanist
Loatheb
2x Sludge Belcher
2x Flamestrike
2x Molten Giant
Itās kind of tricky to play because you have to sit on options and not play them until the right time, but itās pretty crazy when you play it right. Mirror Entity and Duplicate work so well together. The deck only has 13 minions, but in actuality I have 19 minions to play with. Itās just a matter of figuring out how to maximize the value of what you get. It makes it hard for me to lose against Druid. Keep them from building up a big board until turn 5-7, and thereās almost a guarantee a big taunt is coming down. Mirror Entity copies it, then I get two of them for my hand with duplicate when they kill it. In my matches against Druids, Iāve played six sludge belchers in five turns. Iāve played Cenarius on back to back turns. Iāve played four straight ancients of war. Blindknagg would hate playing against this.
Hereās a recent shot:
http://i.imgur.com/nlyDfNU.jpg
Turn 8, opponent throws down Sylvanas against my mirror entity, giving me a Sylvanas. I hit the face and fireball my own sylvanas, giving me his sylvanas, then throw on another mirror entity. Turn 9, he throws down Ragnarosā¦giving me a Ragnaros. I took this screenshot before the Ragnaros hit Sylvanas, stealing himself and forcing the opponent to concede. :lol:
This isnāt a final deck list, but Iām going to play it for a long time to get a better feel for what is doing the least work. Before I crafted the moltens and put them in, I was trying it with Stalagg and Feugen. It didnāt work as well as I had hoped it would. I got Thaddius a few times, but mostly they got transformed/silenced and didnāt have that much impact. Moltens canāt be silenced and can be played for free or extremely cheaply late game, giving them tons of extra value, especially if you can get a duplicate behind them. Not many boards can handle three or four giants at once.
Possible changes include adding Azure Drakes or Earthen Ring Farseers. Maybe Iād add sunfury or defender so my moltens get extra value by being taunted. If I ever get Alexstrasza, sheās going in immediately. Sheād be a perfect fit for this deck. Iāve gone back and forth over whether to go with two barriers, two blocks, two of each, or one of each like I have now. I donāt think Iād ever take one out; that one extra turn has saved me a lot. Plus, an early ice block gives Ethereal Arcanists lots of value since they can grow all game long. Some people would suggest I should take them out of the deck, but theyāve consistently gotten me value. Either they draw silence or removal, or they just keep growing and wrecking things. Love trading with them, too, because even if you take them down to 1 health, theyāll be back to 3 by the end of the turn. Great duplicate targets, too.
So far my matchup experience with this deck is: druids and control warriors are pretty easy; hunter is even to slightly in my favor; zoo is tough but winnable; only played handlock once, pretty sure my mulligan killed any chance I had; priest is about 50/50, possibly priest advantage; very little rogue experience; paladin has been mostly in my favor but I canāt really call it. I just got on ladder yesterday, so Iām still figuring stuff out. Iām only at rank 9, so matches are getting tougher. Weāll see.
My iteration of a secrets mage deck is this
Spoiler
I sorta made it somewhat inspired by Control paladin with some tweaking here and there after experimenting with the deck, this was the final result not sure if i posted this this iteration yet so yeah
Of course current hunter would give this deck a lot of trouble and put me into kill command range really fast on top of flares, but once theyāre gone, itāll be interesting.
So the idea of this deck is that I make plays based on whatever secrets mad scientists puts into play. Counter spell to disrupt removals and give me tempo advantage or duplicate one of many great cards in my deck and have an army of sludge belchers/sunwalkers/cairnes/sylvanas/loathebs/thalnos/ etcā¦ whatever i want. Insane card advantage. 1x kirin tor is there for counter spell plays and setups if possible for the following turn.
Deck notes
Spoiler
ā¢it fucks over control decks preeetttyyyy hard from my experience unless they manage to hex/poly a target and give me 2 sheeps. I have a shit load of duplicate targets and easy ways to transition from a mad scientist deathrattle to whatever play i want.
The only situational Duplicate targets
Kirin tor - only if i have a shit load of secrets in hand, preferably 2x counter spells. 1x Kirn tor is generally for tempo plays on turn 3 + counter spell to transition into turn 4 Ethereals or coined turn 5 plays.
Mad scientist - if im forced to play mad scientist and not use removals at the turn and duplicate is in play and preferably no secrets used or in hand. Can be very disruptive for the opponent and sets up for mid game plays.
Ethereal - The most situational and probably the only target where i probably donāt want to duplicate. I only got 4 secrets and i go through them fast. I much rather duplicate pretty much any other card.
The rest being amazingly consistent duplicate options depending on the matchup. I gain insane card advantage and a shit load of removal targets. Eventually my opponent will run out of removals if the game runs long enough and Kel thuzad will seal the game.
Notes
ā¢Counter Spell - used to seize tempo and initiative for following play and covers my turn 4-6 minions. A secret in play with something like a sludge belcher or sunwalker would certainly make it very tempting for a shaman or mage/shaman to poly/hex it in hopes of fucking up a duplicate. So here comes counter spell to ruin his day and waste their mana. In general i want to just disrupt my opponents turn much like loatheb and get rid of a removal option and force minion trades. Counter spell + ethereal is absolutely great. Also great for covering Kelthuzad.
ā¢Mage Secrets in general - Secret plays seriously shakes up some opponents pretty badly. Making them make unoptimal plays just to guess at which secret i have, throwing down lesser minions that isnāt optimal to check for mirror entities and such. This moment of weakness often allows me to seize board control immediately.
ā¢Ethereal arcanist - Often demands a immediate removal which is great for the deck, because itāll walk them right into a counter spell, wasted mana and a 5/5 on my board on turn 4. Kinda similar to a Frothing Berserker but much more dangerous.
Weaknesses some interesting
ā¢My hand size - after duplicate, it gets pretty fucking huge. Like hovering consistently over 8-9 cards with a bunch of 5-6 mana cards so it makes it kinda difficult to blow my hand, even worse if i duplicate a azure drake/thalnos. Milling would be VERY effective against this deck.
ā¢Lacking early game - My early game consists of frost bolts, mad scientist, 1x kirin tor, and 4x secrets that set up for later plays. If i face a really aggressive deck with spells that can burn my face, iād probably fall over before i can take advantage of my enormous card advantage and a billion sludge belchers and sunwalkers. The slower zoos arenāt a bad matchup though from my experience.
ā¢No heals/ice block. Iām vulnerable to burst damage/finishers if given the opportunity.
ā¢Poly/hex vs duplicate. Partially a reason why I have counter spells. I donāt want no god damn animals in my hand.
Cards I might swap in and out
Counter spells/Spell benders - The spells i want to disrupt are often targeted spells. Iāll experiment it a bit more with it.
Azure drakes for more threatening duplicate targets - Often i donāt need the card draw from drakes and duplicating them may seem great but my hand size often ends up too large and i dont have enough cheap cards to clear my hand and take advantage of the extra drakes. If you look at the card advantage gained aside, theyāre not too threatening. Maybe iāll cut 1 or both iāll see.
Swapping in Earthern far seers. Itāll definitely help my early game, give me more survivability, smooth out my curve, a decent target to duplicate as well if the matchup demands it and easy to dump from my hand if duplicated. 6x Far seers for 18 health healed? Damn.
All and all, a fun deck to play and very frustrating deck to play against. the whole idea at first was to make a secrets deck to piss off my oppponents the most
Iāll try ladder with the deck and see what bad matchups/good matchups ill get in the upcoming meta. Ideally iād want to play this in a really heavy control meta I wouldnāt give a fuck about black knight if i have an army of taunts
I forgot that I had tried Kelāthuzad in this deck, too, and I just never could build a big enough board for him to matter.
And yeah, thatās definitely one of the benefits of counterspell. Aside from blowing up opponentās plays, when they know you have a deep stash of secrets, they can do
Last night after I posted this, I experienced one of the most impressive secret tests Iāve ever played against. Playing against a paladin, similar sized boards. My opponent attempted to Holy Light a full health Loatheb, popped my counterspell, then hit me with the pyro-equality combo afterward. All i could do was nod approvingly. It was a great play, but itās also a great example of how opponents have to make sub-optimal plays to figure out your secrets. They had to play three cards to do a board clear and didnāt have enough mana to even start a new board for themself.
I gave some thought to spellbenders, but I couldnāt justify running those and counterspell, and there are just too many non-targeted spells I want to stop to pick spellbenders over counterspell. Especially against hunters.
The threat of getting your big targets hexed or polyād is part of why I love the arcanists in this deck so much. They come down for only 4 mana, and their threat is so big that they often get used for that purpose, which opens up opportunities for your other cards.
Replaced my Arcane Intellects with Azure Drakes, seeing how it works. I originally went with AI because they were cheap and it would help me get to my answers quicker, but it wasnāt doing anything for my board presence. If itās early and Iām behind on the board, then AI isnāt very helpful. Drake may not get me two random cards from my deck, but itās like getting one card and playing an Ogre Magi straight onto the board, which affects the board at the time more. Plus I wonāt feel so bad when it gets pulled from the bottom of my deck, heh.
Interestingly i lost to a mage in arena when he had a mad scientist that pulled a spell bender. I was paladin and tried to trigger it the best i can, like holy light on my self after making some minion plays that werenāt too much of a hassle twilight drake triggering mirror entity would give them a 4/1 and interestingly
Holy light on self didnāt trigger spell bender. I forgot that it only activate on minion targets so i walked myself into a blessing of kings on a spell bender. Though it allowed me to use Mind control tech since he JUST reached 4 minions from that trigger and i got the 5/7 spell bender, but then the following turn he mind control teched and got it back.
but yeah i finished the retarded paladin arena run yesterday. 7 wins. Lost to some mages that blew up my face with 3x+ fireballs early on.
**as for my secrets mage deck. Tinkering with 1x counter spell, 1x spell bender. -1 azure drake and water elemental for 2x far seers. *
**update * 1x counter spell 1x spell bender is SOOOOO good for the flow of the deck. Allows mad scientist to pull a spell bender or a counter spell when either of the two are already in play. Mad scientist pulling a duplicate and duplicating another mad scientist in early game and then the other 2 grabbing counter spell/spell bender and then playing a ethereal arcanist with board control is the most hilarious shit iāve seen ingame.
**OK NVM DUPLICATE + SPELLBENDER IS A HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE IDEA. **
what, you donāt like buffing your deck with extra 1/3s?
[quote=āWarpticon, post:2651, topic:165387ā]
Thats interesting because I usually look forward to facing Mages when I play hunter. The tempo disruption when using flares destroys Mage (from my personal experience). Early game secrets are usually IceBarrier, Mirror Entity, or Vaporize. And the disruption is usually enough for me to snowball to victory before a boardwipe. Playing a flare on a counterspell is a win win --spend one mana to clear counterspell from the board to make room for an Unleash the Hounds or Animal Companion or Bite.
And like you said, low cost minions do very well against duplicateāand if you are casting a large creature youāre usually ahead on board.
Not saying that Mage wonāt ever beat hunter, but Iāve had a lot of success against secret mage playing hunter. Again, this is from my personal experienceāIām not saying that youāre wrong, stupid, etc. Just my experience. Secret Mage makes you WORK though.
If Secrets Mage blows up again, then Zoo will come back to crush it.
ITāS THE CIRRRRRRCLEEEEEEEEEEE
THE CIRCLE OF METAAAAAAAAAAA
Iām just here.
Playing control paladin as always.
Paladin is weird, always been solid and never really that bad or good and the inconsistency problem they had got patched pretty well by Naxx.