Classic - Every opponent is a Warlock

That’s hardly a representative feat, and might have been a lucky streak (these happen, as well as unlucky ones). A ‘legend-worthy’ deck, in my opinion, is something you can climb with to Legend every season, more or less, given that Classic is immutable.

Sorry to spoil it for you, but that’s hardly a feat: many things beat control warrior, and it’s hardly a good (tier 1 or 2) deck, too; it’s decent against face hunter, perhaps, very good against freeze mage — which, as said, is a ‘tier 3’ (I don’t get all those ‘tiers’, but if people are comfortable using these terms, so be it) niche deck, but that’s about it, more or less; it’s beaten by druids, has a tough match-up against rogues (which is quite important) and midrange hunters (these are less common at higher ranks, though), strives to equalise against trash (‘zoo’) warlocks and even struggles against such outsiders as slow paladin or even midrange shaman — so it’s hardly as good a deck as many people imagine it to be. It became really big only in Naxx, with all those unstable ghouls, axes (Death’s Bites) and sludge belchers and the aggro meta defined by the Undertaker.

I’m not sure about the exact odds for such an exotic match-up, but that’s hardly impressive, considering that it’s probably the best one against ‘tier 1’ (or 2… depends how you count… once again, I’d take all those ‘tiers’ with a pinch of salt) decks.

I don’t know how you count, but it’s more or less two combos with equality, and that’s about it. Oh, and if you don’t draw the one with pyromancer against aggro (or rather the aggro warlock in particular), you’re probably toast (by turn six plus-minus). :grinning:

Oh, but it is. Slow, clumsy, reactive and very vulnerable to all those burst-damage, high-tempo combos that are prevalent in the Classic meta.

Exactly. Oh, and these are ‘tier 1’ decks, if you will, by the way (of course, I play completely different versions for these classes from what you’ll probably meet with all those netdeckers: I play a ‘Taunt druid’ with a single combo and extra healing, mostly when I face a lot of aggro or something like it, and an aggro rogue — the classic version with Coldlight Oracles — if I meet a lot of clowns with the goblin rogue and such, however, it’s rather bad against zoo; my other go-to deck is a custom hunter; I generally don’t play decks I don’t like and consider trash — not from the ‘tier’ perspective, but subjectively, if you will).

You might have encountered a bot streak, as mentioned earlier — that’s been a thing recently. On the other hand, there are probably better decks for farming botlocks (maybe even freeze mage?), if that’s the current climbing strategy, too.

PS I think you tend to meet some actual players now when you get higher into the Legend rank.

Another virtually nonexistent thing, more or less for the same reasons mentioned above as the slow paladin. :grinning:

If it were Classic arena, then yes, perhaps, but in constructed play you’re unlikely to even get an opportunity to play a 10-mana card, and value doesn’t matter. I’ve written in detail about Ysera, which would be the best legendary in the game, but sadly isn’t, for example, this is even more true for cards like Mind Control. Just forget them. :grinning:

What’s his deck got to do with mine? I think you’re really confusing two things here. :grinning:

I believe I’ve hinted above at what I think about ‘control hunter’, isn’t that obvious enough? :grinning:

PS Mine is more of a ‘hybrid’, by the way, but I’m probably not gonna post the details, because there are few who can actually create something and, on the other hands, many copycats, netdeckers and clowns.

That’s why I report all of them as bots, which they probably are.

Well, with a good defensive deck you can actually prolong that matchup that far, provided that the game goes your way.

No, better to ‘Botstone’ — I’ve already written about the recent influx of bots, have I really got to repeat it again?

Do you mind sharing your decklist? I thought that control Hunter with explosive trap, pyromancer, hunters mark, deadly shot, etc. would have little issue with zoo, especially since they are bot-piloted. Mulligan for removal tools like bow and traps, and swing the board on turn 5 with buzzard, unleash, hunters mark(s). You can keep tracking as well. I would say don’t keep deadly shot or kill command though, those are inefficient against zoo, although deadly shot is great if you can land it on a lone doomguard after you’ve swung the board.

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miracle rogue, control warrior, and combo druid are all certainly stronger

Now I haven’t played classic since it was the whole game in 2014, but Hunter probably isn’t the right class for this as it’s card set and hero power are designed around aggressive gameplay and burning the opponent down quickly. King Krush and that really bad weapon aside, I’m pretty sure Hunter’s class cards topped out at 6 mana in classic with Savannah Highmane.

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Eaglehorn isn’t that great against it, in my opinion, because it isn’t a Fiery War Axe.

Yeah, as said above, the dreaded Pyromancer + UTH combo. :smirk:

Another ‘expert’…

That’s right, and I don’t think you would play King Krush (unless you’re one of those clowns who play face hunter with Ragnaros the Snipelord or the like :rofl:).

Haven’t played classic in over a year, but I believe miracle rogue is tier 0, then there is everything else.

So if you want to play the best deck in that format, I believe it’s miracle rogue.

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it only warlocks UNTIL you swap to a deck to counter it then they al gone ,magically

I really don’t believe that every zoolock is a bot, I’ve seen the bots, they are all warrior and there are obvious tell signs.

Of my last 12 games though I played 3 games of control paladin, 3 games of control warrior, 3 games of control priest, 3 games of control shaman, I only lost 2 games, so I think control is definitely very strong into zoolock and face hunter which has been the bulk of my matchups. I added two of my previous opponents one at rank 1000 legend and the other at rank 3000 legend, they were playing aggro warrior and aggro mage, so I am not really sure if the meta has shifted away from the miracle rogue and druid, but I suspect that they are too slow to fight hyper-aggro.

Now if the meta did have more control players, in which I only ran into one control matchup, then rogue and druid probably have the better spread there. I am not entirely sure though because I am not top 1000 legend or anything and I usually swap to standard/wild or take a break after hitting diamond 3-5. I suspect as time goes on fewer players will own decks like pocket warrior, I saw a streamer blog of a guy playing control warrior to legend with 100% winrate, so I am semi convinced myself that it is possibly the best deck in classic especially given the current spread of decks run out of steam very quickly.

It exists, and it does well against some decks, and badly against others. You can tech it one way or the other, but it’s NOT a tier 1 deck by any means.

OP, share your list. Impossible to say what you’re doing wrong.

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Miracle rogue can be countered by warlocks, hunters, paladins and even warriors. Aggressive druids also do well.

It’s not untouchable, or anywhere near it. It is, however, one of the few archetypes that stand a solid shot in EVERY matchup.

Is this what standard players think the format is? Lol.

The bulk of them highly likely are, in my view — especially those you would encounter (even with basic decks, yes) during the ‘Winter Veil’ event en masse.

You ain’t seen nothing yet. :grinning: Like those infamous shaman bots in the days of yore…

Druid, especially for players with brains instead of Azure Drakes and two combos (a rare occurrence, I must say), is actually excellent (if not the best) against ‘hyper-aggro’ (meaning mostly decks like face hunter and similar — warlock is a bit different in this regard). I also recommend adding a Healing Touch for extra flavour.

Against bots with basic decks, perhaps, which were so abundant at the end of the previous season — otherwise such a thing simply doesn’t exist. Climbing from D5 to legend was actually lighting-fast then. Somewhere after top-300 in legend you would start meeting more actual players.

No, by far not, as said above.

That’s not a very fitting name, in my opinion, ‘greed rogue’ would have been more apropos. It’s all about topdecking lucky 15-15 (plus-minus) Van-Clowns with stealth on turn 3-4 (is this what current Standard is trying to revive, by the way?) or trying to prey on slower control/midrange decks by high-rolling and mindless facerolling (i.e. going ‘to da face’, which is the place), again, if they get lucky.

Yeah, the most definitive way to crush them is to go to the face fast. :grinning: Quite often they would be dead before they have time for any of the aforementioned greed.

If you’re looking for a class with most balanced match-ups, druid is probably the one, I’d say.

Nothing greedy about it, the deck has multiple ways to win. You’re being clueless.

The most definitive way is freeze mage w/ Vaporize. Another good contender is trap hunter. Wrath paladin works, too. And ofc you have to mention double Armorsmith start warrior (combo can win, too).

Druid does worse vs zoo and paladin. It’s played for the warrior farm.

If by strategy u mean, using the aggresive class as a control class in order to create a meme deck vs an actual pretty solid meta deck than sure, u can do it.

Oh, look, another ‘expert’ :smirk: and forum guru… with three posts in a row, by the way. :joy:

Is this supposed to be a compendium of ‘meme’ (what a stupid non-word, by the way) decks? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

In which world does druid badly against paladin in Classic? :face_with_raised_eyebrow: It’s always good against aggro, and slower paladins are very vulnerable to combos.

Yeah, the famous ‘warrior farm’. :smirk:

Go on, you might make my day in the end. :grinning:

The irony is that you could probably ‘tech’ it against this kind of opponent in particular, however, the decklist with which the topic-starter attempted to do this remains to be seen, thus it’s hard to comment it concretely — forum telepaths are probably on holiday.

Warlock being way overplayed during Classic is one reason Warlock is still one of the classes I never play.

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Looks like it’s warrior bots all over the place (EU server) now…

Played 5 games today

Got 2 rogues
1 shaman
2 warlocks
One of them I can confirm was a real person since he emoted back and quit Before i could win.

I thought matches were like 80% bots.
I wonder why I face so many real players that frequently.

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Hi !
I just came back to the game after 6 years, Ive only played classic format… Aggro archtype will be always a nuisance, but thats how the card games work ( I kinda hate playing agaisnt zoolock all time too )
Gonna explain really quickly the matches balance:
Aggro beats Combo > Combo beats Control > Control beats Aggro
Hunter is a good class for agressive strategies ( Midrange in this game is just an aggro but with huge minions ), unfortunetly if u try go for control using hunter (even control having advantage agaisnt aggro) u wont get that far.
The hunter spells can be good for cleaning slow decks boards (Excepte the explosive one) but zoo is about board spam.

Oh, no, not another person presuming to enlighten us all and reveal the meaning of all things. :grinning:

Back to the topic, though. Recently the bunch of those bots switched to warrior decks (mentioned above, actually), which is even more boring and tedious than trashlock — who would have thought that. :grinning: Not only is it bots (EU server, circa top-300 in Legend and upwards) — it’s the kind of bots that are just stalling and stalling. This is one reason why I’ve stopped playing Classic recently — I’m just not having fun at all anymore with it. If it were actual players at least, that’d be another story, but this…