It’s definitely not too much, because Mike Donais has already confirmed a while back that Dragons will come to Battlegrounds 🙂 But he didn’t give a specific date yet. I think that they need to adjust some cards first or create the new ones, because “Holding a Dragon” mechanic doesn’t translate into Battlegrounds too well, as well as most of the Dragon synergies.

You CAN remove Hemet and just add more draw or another removal instead, but the deck will be slightly worse. Since you want to get to the bottom as quickly as you can, removing 5, 10, or even more cards from your deck is very useful.

Of course, you’re right, patches that hit a certain deck have usually a big “psychological” impact too – players don’t really like to play things that just got nerfed even if they’re still strong. There’s a solid chance that someone optimizes Galakrond Shaman build to the point of it being overpowered again. But all of the nerfs really did hurt the deck and I don’t think that it would dominate the meta the way it did early. It has Tier 1 potential, but most likely won’t be Tier 0 / Tier S (or however you call the absolute best decks).

Then, there’s a question of timing – if that will happen just before Adventure release, I don’t think that they will necessarily want to release a patch, but rather wait and see the impact of new cards on the meta first and maybe THEN patch it up.

So we would probably need to see some broken deck by the end of this week in order to warrant another balance update before solo adventure.

“The final battle in the Year of the Dragon’s solo adventure story is Galakrond’s Awakening, coming this January! We won’t spoil too much, but we hope you’re ready to battle E.V.I.L. (or good) and collect 35 new cards! More details on Galakrond’s Awakening will be coming soon.”

Source: https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/23239986/hearthstone-update-december-5-descent-of-dragons

I also remember dev confirming that the gameplay will be similar to old adventure content and won’t follow the Dungeon Run formula, but I can’t find the source right now. Either way, it should most likely be announced soon-ish – my guess would be within 2 weeks 🙂

Yeah, it would be great, but the problem is that Zephrys’ thinking isn’t that complex. He won’t offer you cards to mess up with your opponent’s strategy (at least not on purpose) simply because he has no clue what that strategy is.

Maybe in future we’ll get a card built on machine learning that will get smarter with data, but we aren’t there yet 🙂

They never said that there will 100% be a patch on January 5th (it’s Sunday anyway). They just said that IF it will be necessary, they might do another patch after January 5th. So the question is – do we need another patch now?

I honestly don’t think so. It’s not the healthiest meta ever, but it’s relatively balanced, and the strongest decks have their own counters. I don’t think that we really need another patch. We’re probably going to learn more after New Year, but I would be very surprised if we got one. The only chance IMO is some kind of quick, emergency patch if some overpowered deck gets discovered over the next few days etc.

Of course, if Deathrattle Rogue becomes more popular, everyone would run those. But the point of Zephrys is that he can substitute most of the other tech cards and be useful no matter what situation you’re in. Which normally makes him great in a very diverse meta, but it just doesn’t work the way most players expect it to work against Apothecary. I honestly think that Zephrys is good enough anyway, but I wouldn’t mind them hard-coding it to always offer Silence vs Apothecary (at least if you get down to 0 mana first).

Click on the name of a given deck to get redirected to a full guide with mulligan, strategy etc.

In the Rogue & Shaman guides, I’ve added those alternative builds at the bottom 🙂

Budget decks were just updated for Descent of Dragons meta! While some of the decks didn’t change that much, I offer two alternative builds that would need some Epics to work better – Deathrattle Rogue & Aggro Overload Shaman.

Let me know what you think!

Comments below this one might be outdated.

We’ll have an early Wild impressions that showcases how DoD has affected the meta released quite soon (next week). Full tier list update will follow, but I’m not exactly sure when yet!

Because the card is insane, you hard mulligan for it and get one copy of it before you play your Highlander cards 90% of time?

I mean, Quest Druid which runs tons of duplicates plays Elise & Zephrys… so I don’t see how a single duplicate would be such big of a deal.

I wouldn’t call it a buff. It will be comparable with Sea Giant now IMO. Guaranteed 8/8, 1 card instead of 2, only 1 mana more. Mogu still bette because 1 mana cheaper and has a chance to high roll, but it’s class card and not Neutral + requires 2 cards and not 1. Might be slightly stronger, but not by a lot.

The biggest strength of Mogu was it coming down so early, sometimes as soon as Turn 4 (even 3 when Evolve Shaman played Desert Hare, lol). Delaying it by a turn or two will hurt. It’s generally harder to deal with an 8-drop on T4 than with a 10-drop on T6.

1 + Overload (1) is generally better than 2, but yeah, it’s a weird card to nerf… It was strong, but not problematic in any way.

Yeah, regular Commons don’t give you that much Dust anyway. But I was lucky enough to have a golden version – 400 for a single golden Common!

Update: It’s the fourth time we see this Brawl. Comments below this one are old, but can often still be relevant!

You can share your decks in the comments and we’ll feature them in this post! 🙂

Anyone who started playing after Rise of the Mech event or took a break at that time. He was given out for free only between June 3 and July 1, so ~half year ago. So people who didn’t get it for free could open it in Boomsday packs or craft it later.

Why?

No BG changes were announced, we had Primalfin Lookout nerf in a recent hotfix, and I don’t suspect seeing more BG changes until after Christmas. But they might always surprise us and take this opportunity to slip in some nerfs/buffs.

You’re right, I forgot about it – the changes were announced like less than 10 hours before the patch has dropped if I remember correctly.

Yeah, I also think that’s the case. The truth is that this patch comes too early. Nerfing something before the meta has settles is not the best idea, because that thing might not be AS overpowered as it immediately seemed, and other too powerful decks might be discovered that might also warrant a nerf.

But they didn’t want everyone to quit over Shaman so they had to take drastic measures. I hope that if something won’t work out and one OP deck will be replaced by another OP deck, they won’t be scared to act again after 2-3 weeks.