I won’t call it a mistake, but my personal opinion is that Sir Finley, King Phaoris, and Making Mummies are pretty niche cards that need a very specific deck to work which might or might not be viable in future months, meaning they aren’t really worth crafting unless you want to play those respective decks right now. Conversely, Vessina and Dark Pharaoh Tekahn aren’t necessarily top tier right now, but they are powerful and generic enough to package into any aggro deck and should be viable for as long as they stay in standard.

Previous reporting was that it “will follow a similar formula to The Dalaran Heist (although with some twists)”. My gut tells me that it will follow the same wing/pay structure as Dalaran and gift a new legendary comparable to Zayle but with Druid, Hunter, Mage, and Paladin decks–however that’s strictly speculation.

I think this vs token druid and zoo lock you accept its unfavorable matchup and try to race them. Sure, it feels great to play a fan against a board full of wisps or scarabs/lackeys, but keep in mind that that’s really just effectively stalling the game out one more turn. At 3 mana, you won’t have much mana left for developing your side of the board. Meanwhile, both those other decks just have so much more mid-game value: your doomed to lose board eventually. Conversely, if you instead land a solid Hench Clan / Miscreant / Edwin early, maybe you can either slow them down enough or push enough extra face damage that you can find a lethal before they hit their stride.

I would say Nomi is a fine sidegrade for this deck if you already have it, but most of the time I’ve watched streamers pilot this deck they are looking for lethal ideally on the same turn they play Myra: Sap, Eviscerate, Deadly Poison, Scimitar, Southsea, Backstab if there’s a taunt, etc. Remember that you’re talking about waiting 3 turns for lethal: 1 to play Myras, 1 to summon, and finally 1 to hit in. As Bencoleman19 points out above, sometimes that’s enough, but this deck really wants to go faster.

The one-of ooze seems really odd to me. Have weapons become more popular post-nerf, or is that just special tech to try to contain aggro until the quest completes? And if the latter: which classes are those?

Only if you want to try them out for the next week, then dust them for full refund before the offer expires. You won’t net any dust gain, but maybe you wanted to see what all this Pocket Galaxy hype was about?

But do you think this deck is still going to be viable next week after the Arms nerf? A major part of this deck’s success was that it could make its turn 1/2 minions stick without giving up tempo; that will be a lot trickier now.

I’m pretty disappointed in all these nerfs. In short: none of them are strong enough to counter the “try-hard” strategies, but they are significant to hurt fun spinoff strategies. Like for example Conjurer’s Calling: going to 4 mana isn’t going to stop that oppressive Giant on T4 -> bump + Conj on T5 play, but it will stop tempo plays like Keysmith T4 -> Conj + Khadgar/HP/2 drop. So the meta will still run CC, its just players will use it exclusively on high-cost minions now. Similarly, Boom and Pocket Galaxy really only change for if you managed to play on curve–both are long-game strategies that can usually delay a couple of turns and still win. And Arms just sounds unplayable now–all the aggro players that were running Light Warden decks are just going to switch to another class’s aggro deck, and meanwhile priest overall loses one of its MVP value tools in a meta where its struggling to find a role.

Just when I craft a Pocket Galaxy–I just assumed it would get somehow nerfed, but I had so many other cards for that archetype already and figured it would take them 6 weeks from launch to cobble together a patch which would give me at least another 4 weeks…
Oh well. Thanks for the heads up!

Sad but true. Ideally people would just see that as part of the natural Paper -> Rock -> Scissors dichotomy (e.g., Murloc Paladin beats Quest Paladin beats Secret/Mech Paladin beats Murloc Paladin), but in practice I suspect CW is so popular right now that most players will just consider this strictly inferior.

How does everyone feel about Elise the Enlightened in this deck? I just opened her last night, and this archetype seems like the closest fit I have right now–I’ve seen people include her in non-highlander quest decks either for a burst of late game value (e.g., double Zephyrs/Floop/Nomi/Cenarius) or to setup a big Malygos/Moonfire turn, however both approaches seem wonky and nonviable. Plus of the latter, I only currently own Cenarius and I don’t really want to spend dust on “just a meme”.

Is there any where to watch highlights and summaries from Grandmasters a la ESPN SportsCenter? I watched a few YouTube clips that streamers posted of their own games from Season 1 and found it enjoyable enough, but I can’t really see myself committing to watching the live streams for all the different games and tracking why which wins are important, etc.

I wish Hecklebot was more viable with this deck. I understand why its not; I just love the idea of comboing Hecklebot to pull high-value cards out of your opponent’s deck and the MC Tech to steal them.

Mark of the Loa can be tricky–if you’ve completed the quest and don’t have any minions on board, the game won’t let you play it for the 2 raptors without also buffing one of your opponent’s minions.

I imagine it will be just like it is now: viable but weak. You’re essentially handicapping yourself to standard cards while your opponent has the entire collection. If you’re clever and/or lucky you should be able to swing some games, but overall your decks will just be a lower power level.

The real question, though, should be: what are your alternatives? If you’re either a budget player without a lot of cards or habitually dusting when cards rotate out of standard, then a random standard deck might still be better than whatever wild cards you can put together from your collection.

Most of these SoU decks are pretty fun. I’m really glad they included so many quest decks–they really are unique, interesting archetypes that are fun to at least try out if not viable to craft/ladder (looking at you, Unseal the Vaults!). I just wish they hadn’t left the “Archmages of Dalaran” (Frog/Cyclone Mage) and Impfestation (Jumbo Imp Warlock) decks from RoS… Neither of these decks were good then, and they’ve just gotten worse since. Or perhaps more appropriately: there are clearly superior versions of both Cyclone Mage and Zoo Lock out there, and so its frustating to play these–especially when so many players are experimenting with quest and highlander decks which just straight out-gas them. Still: over all, this set of decks is pretty fun, and fantastic if you’re like me and still hesitant to commit any dust so new in the expansion but still want to play around.

I would say its more like he doesn’t understand that your opponent is running this weapon because of how it indirectly synergies with his deck rather than its direct effect on the board.

You can think of Zephrys kinda like the world’s greatest Arena player who’s also never played a game of Standard/Constructed in his life.

I could see it if this deck played Octosari–especially if it hits Octosari on Joybuzz. Of course, then you need to worry about milling…

The devs have said in general that Zephrys doesn’t “know” anything beyond the cards on-board. For instance, he won’t know that against Rez/Big Priest you really don’t want to kill some threats to deny their rez pool, or why you might want to silence a seemingly harmless 2/2 Possessed Lackey, or how against burn decks you should assume they’re holding Kill Command/Leeroy/etc in-hand.

This deck seemed nuts in his YouTube video! My only complaint: the 2 whelps seemed like overkill–by the time your quest is complete, you usually have an egg and that’s just a better target. I can justify 1 just in case you haven’t drawn your eggs yet or they get cleared/transformed, but I see the 2nd slot going to either a tech slot or Tirion.

I guess I’m also not crazy about the Khartut Defender because it dilutes your Undatakah value, but I suppose worst case if you know its going to be a value game, you could just hold it until afterwards. I can see the value if you’re up against aggro or if you just want a solid body to play on curve while progressing your quest.