Advice on a New Deck

[Niteshadow 20]

Hi guys!

New to the Hearthstone forums here, mostly been on the HotS forums on this site. I've started to actually play Hearthstone a lot more recently, and have reached a point where I potentially have enough dust to make one legendary. I'm completely free to play, and looking for something that would be useful in standard ranked. I'd like to make a death knight deck (or a deck revolving around one legendary) without any other legendaries (Unless Illidan Stormrage or Deathwing, Dragonlord are included) that's either midrange or control. As of right now, I'm thinking about Handlock with Gul'dan, Elemental Mage with Jaina, or Midrange Hunter with Rexxar, although I'm open to any suggestions you may have about another deck which uses a different death knight as well. I already have Anduin and Uther, but don't think Highlander Priest will work too well until I can get both Raza and Kazakus. I have about 800 dust right now, and can make 1600 dust available if needed for a new deck. Any suggestions are appreciated, and thanks in advance! P.S. - if anyone knows a good way to increase competency in arena drafting/playing, that'd be great - I''ve already read the guides here on Icy Veins and use Heartharena to help draft, but seem to be stuck on 3-2 wins a run. Thanks!

[positiv2 953]

Usually it's better to craft a few epics, rares, and commons than to craft one legendary because you improve a larger portion of the deck. If you want to craft a legendary anyway, I'd recommend saving dust for Highlander Priest unless you can reach rank 5 (so that you get golden epic each month) with the decks you have already. If you can reach rank 5 with the decks you have, you should decide what to craft based on personal preference. What decks do you like playing the most?

As for the arena, it requires practice. However, with recent changes to arena rewards, it is way less profitable. I recommend playing ranked instead.

[Niteshadow 20]

Thanks for the quick response! I'm currently running midrange hunter and a strange form of control paladin with Uther. Any suggestions as to what to craft? I can use any type of deck moderately well, and don't care what class I play. As for arena, that sucks that you just have to be good for it to be worth it :( (P.S. - I'm at rank 18, so I won't be getting many golden epics soon). Still have a lot of improvement to make in my play though, and a deck tracker would probably really help. Thanks in advance!

[positiv2 953]

The issue with hearthstone lately is that there are no solid cheap decks. Pre-LoE, legendary cards used to be big and expensive (mana-wise). As a result, control decks were expensive while aggro decks were cheap. Since then, Blizzard has started printing legendary cards for aggro decks, making aggro decks just as expensive. So, you will need to save dust if you want a strong deck. Because HS has a dynamic meta, buying a deck one-card-at-a-time is ill-advised. 

Right now you can go with midrange hunter (though an update to the deck is coming soon) and keep saving dust for highlander priest, tempo/aggro rogue or jade druid, as these decks are arguably the strongest ones in current meta. You can also try wild decks, such as aggro shaman or egg druid, though the amount of decks that are used successfully in wild is much bigger than in standard, which presents you with better/more options when it comes to grinding rank 5.

Sadly, before the changes to arena rewards, getting 4 wins meant that you got more than you would get by buying packs, but after the changes, you need to get 5 or 6 wins to break even, which is too many for a lot of players, myself included (having a 6.2 average run since then).

[Niteshadow 20]

That midrange hunter is currently the deck I'm running in Ranked. I also thought jade druid got hit hard with skulking geist, but maybe not? Like I said, I am hovering at rank 18 so anything is possible...

[Mursilis 34]

31 minutes ago, Niteshadow said:

That midrange hunter is currently the deck I'm running in Ranked. I also thought jade druid got hit hard with skulking geist, but maybe not? Like I said, I am hovering at rank 18 so anything is possible...

Honestly I don't think a lot of people run Skulking Geist in their decks.  I see it every once and a while, but not much.  I don't even run it in the decks I use as I just don't see Jade Druid all that often.  It's 70% fully decked out Highland Priest and a sprinkling of everything else in my level range (which is actually also your level range atm).

I run the same midrange Hunter deck (with a few card changes) on occasion and it's gotten me up to rank 10 without much difficulty.  You don't actually need 6-8 legendary cards per deck to do well, as long as you manage your expectations.

Edited October 16, 2017 by Mursilis

[Niteshadow 20]

Alright, thanks for the replies!

[Niteshadow 20]

• 2x Humility
• 1x Righteous Protector
• 1x Bilefin Tidehunter
• 2x Dark Conviction
• 1x Equality
• 1x Sunfury Protector
• 2x Acolyte of Pain
• 2x Coldlight Oracle
• 1x Earthen Ring Farseer
• 1x Stonehill Defender
• 2x Consecration
• 2x Hammer of Wrath
• 1x Twilight Drake
• 2x Cobalt Scalebane
• 2x Psych-o-Tron
• 1x Avenging Wrath
• 1x Sunwalker
• 2x Bonemare
• 2x Guardian of Kings
• 1x Uther of the Ebon Blade

My weird control paladin, as a side note. If something seems out of place, it's probably because I'm missing multiple/the better version of the card.

[Niteshadow 20]

Well, just dusted everything I'll never use and all my gold cards and have 3,400 dust. What do you recommend?

[Keizoku 185]

3 hours ago, Niteshadow said:

Well, just dusted everything I'll never use and all my gold cards and have 3,400 dust. What do you recommend?

I recommend you craft everything you need for Midrange Hunter as it is the cheapest deck with decent results those days. APXvoid's Secret Mage is also a cheap-ish and efficient deck, however it heavily relies on Archmage Antonidas to win.

[positiv2 953]

16 hours ago, Niteshadow said:

That midrange hunter is currently the deck I'm running in Ranked. I also thought jade druid got hit hard with skulking geist, but maybe not? Like I said, I am hovering at rank 18 so anything is possible...

If you manage to play even only one Jade Idol, the deck will have a strong mid-game, and that is usually enough to win, even without infinite jade golems. 

15 hours ago, Niteshadow said:

My weird control paladin, as a side note. If something seems out of place, it's probably because I'm missing multiple/the better version of the card.

Yeah, there are many improvements that can be made, such as Humility -> Aldor Peacekeeper, Bilefin Tidehunter + Sunfury Protector -> Wild Pyromancer or Psych-o-Tron -> Humility, but upgrading control paladin at this moment is not a great investment imo. 

12 hours ago, Niteshadow said:

Well, just dusted everything I'll never use and all my gold cards and have 3,400 dust. What do you recommend?

I'd suggest saving the dust until you can craft a complete deck. As I said previously, buying deck one card at a time is risky, especially if you are not planning on playing wild. If you don't feel like waiting and you want to spend the dust soon, you can wait for changes to our midrange hunter decks, which should come later today. 

[Niteshadow 20]

I could, in theory, make a cross between budget jade druid and ultimate jade druid, with only Aya. Also have enough for raza and some epics for highlander, but not sure if that's worth it, because as you said, not making a full deck is a mistake. As for the midrange hunter, the one I'm running now seems adequate enough until I can make a large improvement. Thanks for the help!

Edited October 16, 2017 by Niteshadow
Added ending

[Mursilis 34]

2 hours ago, Niteshadow said:

I could, in theory, make a cross between budget jade druid and ultimate jade druid, with only Aya. Also have enough for raza and some epics for highlander, but not sure if that's worth it, because as you said, not making a full deck is a mistake. As for the midrange hunter, the one I'm running now seems adequate enough until I can make a large improvement. Thanks for the help!

I had to look up the difference between the two.  Seems I'm running ultimate without Fandral Staghelm and one or two other card changes.  Works fine, as Fandral is really more icing on the cake than an required  part.  As for Aya, she's good for multiple decks and not just Jade Druid.  Jade Shaman is still a thing and I'm determined to try and keep Jade Rogue viable.  So crafting her would give you 3 decks to play with. 

I'm just not sure when she (Aya) rotates out of standard, so you might want to check on that before considering crafting her.  If she's disappearing in the next couple of months, then probably not worth it.

[Niteshadow 20]

I believe she goes in about 6 months, as with all jade cards. That's part of why I'm still considering deathknight Gul'dan, as the majority of that deck is classic/new, giving it a 2 year life span.

[Guest]

Personally I like Jade-decks a lot (I don't like aggro-decks that much) and played a Jade-Shaman for a long time.

At the moment I play Jade-Druid.

But the whole Jade-Theme moves into wild next year IIRC. That's why crafting cards for it may be a little too late.

On the other hand: Jade-Shaman was good in wildmode a year before. I stopped playing wild around that date, but my guess would be that Jade-Druid will be a good deck in wild too.

I can't say if is Tier 1 or not.

[Mursilis 34]

11 hours ago, Niteshadow said:

I believe she goes in about 6 months, as with all jade cards. That's part of why I'm still considering deathknight Gul'dan, as the majority of that deck is classic/new, giving it a 2 year life span.

If that's the case, then I definitely advise against crafting Aya.  It takes  while to get the dust, you want to get full use out of it so in this instance Deathknight cards are a better route.

[positiv2 953]

I don't see why having a wild-only card is such as bad thing. If you play wild, it doesn't really matter. If you want that card, craft it. You can still play it in wild later once it rotates.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, positiv2 said:

I don't see why having a wild-only card is such as bad thing. If you play wild, it doesn't really matter. If you want that card, craft it. You can still play it in wild later once it rotates.

I agree, it just depends if he wants to play wild or not.

For a new player it can be very tempting to ignore wild, because this way there are way less cards he has to know and take into account while playing.

[Niteshadow 20]

4 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

I agree, it just depends if he wants to play wild or not.

For a new player it can be very tempting to ignore wild, because this way there are way less cards he has to know and take into account while playing.

Still feeling this a little bit. Started when WotOG came out, but wasn't anywhere near serious about actually playing the game then. Actually started to play midway into Un'Goro, and have been semi serious ever since. Don't know anything about the other expansions, and what sorts of scary decks can be found in wild.

[Niteshadow 20]

14 hours ago, Mursilis said:

If that's the case, then I definitely advise against crafting Aya.  It takes  while to get the dust, you want to get full use out of it so in this instance Deathknight cards are a better route.

Just realized this applies to highlander as well, as Kazakus, Raza, and more are going away with all jade stuff, making it not entirely worth it for standard.

[Niteshadow 20]

I believe I'm going to make a death knight warlock deck, as it will stay in standard for long enough to be worth the dust and I can make it all at once. Thanks for all the replies, everyone!

[Valks 2,375]

On 10/18/2017 at 4:50 AM, Niteshadow said:

I believe I'm going to make a death knight warlock deck, as it will stay in standard for long enough to be worth the dust and I can make it all at once. Thanks for all the replies, everyone!

Are you going the Asmodai route? Or making your own? If it's your own and it works, feel free to share! I pulled DK Gul'dan and am trying all the new decks I can with it.

[Niteshadow 20]

No, I'm running J4ckiechan's. His is only 4.4K dust, and I didn't include the lich king so I was able to make everything else. It works decently, but you have to get lucky to beat highlander most of the time.