Patches is still seeing play as a turn 3 combo with Southsea Captain is still pretty strong in Zoo or token decks even without the charge.

Corridor Creeper has significantly dropped off though.

Personally I dusted Patches, Raza and the Corridor Creepers but I’m holding onto the dust for now… I suspect I may recraft both Patches and Raza for Wild; Patches still works with Ship’s Cannon, One-Eyed Cheat and so on and the Raza nerf can be offset somewhat using Thaurissan to discount the spells.

Voidcaller (http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/cards/voidcaller/) can get you a Voidlord on the board on turn 4 in Wild – technically turn 3 with Sacrificial Pact but nobody runs Sacrificial Pact as Dark Pact is generally better; it’s quite possible to have a Voidlord and Mal’ganis on the board by turn 5 or 6.

I’ve been mucking about with an Elemental Shaman recently since Murmuring Elemental has some interesting synergies with all the Battlecries you can pack into the deck (and I was only a few ladder wins off 500 so I figured I may as well)… dropping it with Kalimos to either do 12 damage to your opponent or 6 damage to all their minions is quite nice.

Or if you’ve got a wounded Fire Elemental and Blazecaller on the field after they’ve wrested control of the board, drop a Murmuring Ellie with Thrall, Deathseer to heal/buff up those wounded ellies (and the Murmuring Ellie) by 4 mana each.

Not gonna get anywhere near Legendary with it but it’s fun to try something different.

Voidcaller is good for punishing Secret Mage with Explosive Runes 🙂

Three … thousand … packs …

Three … thousand … packs …

Three … thousand … packs …

*drools*

Amen to that! 😀

Sometimes opening packs is more fun than playing the game…

It’s a “get out of jail free” card … there’s a tonne of card draw in this deck but you can still get stuck waiting for one of the key cards for the OTK – however it’s quite possible that by the time the first (or maybe second) Ice Block is popped you’ll have drawn enough cards so that you’ll have no duplicates left in your deck and you can plop Reno down for a full health refresh.

I assume you mean Voidlord? Voidcaller is something else entirely – and it’s made a big comeback in Wild.

The funny thing about Wild – to borrow a phrase from the Incredibles – “when everyone’s super, no-one will be”; there are so many lulzy bonkers combos in Wild that Patches is rarely little more than annoying noise – and Pirate Warrior is actually not that great, even with Ship’s Cannon.

Patches isn’t bad with One-Eyed Cheat though since Pirate Rogue is actually viable in Wild.

Patches *might* still see play in Wild Pirate decks because he still thins your deck, triggers the Ship’s Cannon, gets +1/+1 from Southsea Captain and activates Bloodsail Cultist.

The Creeper nerf is a little harsh – but it could still be useful in beast Hunter type decks – especially against Priest if you can drop it on turn 4 with a Houndmaster; 4/7 taunt + 4/3 on the board isn’t at all bad and right in Priest’s blind spot.

The Bonemare nerf is definitely needed – it’s a very high value card for the cost. So many minion oriented games I’ve played were basically resolved by who played Bonemare first.

Hopefully we’ll get some decent Shaman cards in the next expansion – the current Control Warlock decks are kinda vulnerable to Hex and Polymorph as they’re so reliant on continually resurrecting Voidlords.

Hex/Poly the Voidlords and you’re laughing – but since Shaman isn’t particularly viable right now…

Cubelock is a different matter as they also have the Doomguard option.

I find this a little too inconsistent on card draw, it’s either too much or not enough and if you’re drawing your win conditions before Power Overwhelming you can have real problems with overloading your hand or being forced to waste your cheap direct damage spells.

I’ve found a little more consistency with:

-2 Branching Paths
-2 Power Overwhelming

+2 Wrath
+2 Azure Drake

Branching Paths is definitely a far stronger card than Wrath – especially as it can add one attack to the Scarabs after Spreading Plague but I’ve found the extra early game removal from Wrath to be more useful.

With the number of direct damage spells in the deck, and a desire to better control the rate of card draw, Azure Drake was a no-brainer.

@WildRage – I did say to a lesser extent.

My argument was that Frost Nova and Blizzard can’t really be singled out as all combo decks use stalling cards – the big difference with Exodia Mage is Ice Block.

“there’s no justification to run Zealot unless there’s already a Thalnos in your deck.”

Zealot buffs Defile twice and synergises better in some Paladin decks because of Divine Shield – but SDI on it’s own is rarely good enough to make a card worth including, that’s what made made Azure Drake and Thalnos about the only SDI cards actually used before Zealot.

And Thalnos is a Legendary who’s ability is currently unique.

Boring is kind of subjective… I find aggro decks really dull, whether I’m playing with them or against them. Non-interactive – possibly – but the same argument can be levelled at Razakus Priest, Mill Rogue, Miracle decks or, to a lesser extent, any Control/Combo deck … the whole point of those decks is to control the board and say alive until your win condition is in place – face is NOT the place.

Whether your minions are frozen, just bumping into a half-dozen 1/5 Taunt creatures, are Vanished back to your hand or Psychic Screamed to your deck… it doesn’t really make much odds, it’s a pretty much guaranteed 1 turn stall by your opponent, to buy them time.

You can’t single out Frost Nova and Blizzard when several other cards serve the same purpose – the only difference with Mage is Ice Block.

Exodia Mage (quest or otherwise) isn’t a problem … it’s a solution 😉 It has good win rates against Spiteful Dragon Priest (no defence against Frost Nova > Doomsayer unless they’re running Book Wyrm or Spellbreaker) and Control/Cube Warlock.

That’s balanced by the fact that Tempo and Aggro decks tend to stomp you into the dirt by turn 5.

So, in summary, remove combo decks from standard?

Why not just play Arena?

I think I started playing right at the end of 2015 – before the Abusive Sergeant and Leper Gnome nerfs but after the Undertaker nerf… I didn’t realise just how ridiculous Undertaker was in practice! 😀

I only managed to get one Brawl in last night but got Firebat’s Zoolock – which was nice as I’ve been mainlining Zoolocks on the ladder recently. Zoolock has really put on weight in the last 3 and a bit years.

To be fair, newer players, who’ve never used them – or researched the brawl on a site like this – really wouldn’t know how those decks worked since the un-nerfed cards change the game quite a bit.

Ouch! That’s a bad trade as Renounce Darkness is memey, situational and will rotate out of Standard in a couple of months 🙁

I’ve crafted Deathstalker Rexxar now to muck about with a secret no-minions Hunter deck (since I packed Rhok’delar I thought I’d give it a go)…

I still don’t think a more Control oriented Hunter is as strong as a more traditional Aggressive one, and you don’t really want to lose the normal hero power if you’re playing aggressively, but it does open up some different ways to play Hunter that aren’t completely terrible – and the Zombeasts can be pretty awesome if you get decent picks 🙂