The onslaught of Murloc Paladins and Loh-cky Druids lead me to play Menagerie DK. While, yes, that works, I don’t really like doing it. I would like to play new cards and Menagerie DK doesn’t include any. Is there any new deck, that counters the most popular decks? I experimented with Elemental Shaman, but the deck seems mediocre at best. Or does anyone of you have a good Shaman list? Is it worth crafting Salma Searstone? Or do you have any other counter with new cards?
Have you tried Baldurs Gate 3?
That slams the door closed on Paladins and Druids.
Gotta warn you though, you might have fun. Careful.
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I added Dread Raptor to my Menagerie DK, so I play at least one new card.
Does anyone have experience with Salma Searstone, or Elemental Shaman in general?
You should be playing these cards in your DK and it should be FFU. Wave of Tar is an absolute gut punch card on 4 or 5.
I don’t have Pterrordax or Wave of Tar yet. Also, I don’t really want to craft them, as I would rather play new archetypes.
I experimented with Quest Hunter, because I drew a Signature Food Chain. The deck doesn’t perform well — possibly even worse than Elemental Shaman. I also tried Quest Warrior. It was the least bad of the bunch so far. However, the current meta seems stacked against it.
Seems like I have to wait until the next balance patch for the new cards to become viable.
I played Elemental Shaman on day 1 and it’s been doing well. 5-1 against Murloc Paladin but I haven’t faced Loh Druids yet.
It’s probably not refined yet but this is how the current version looks like:
Elemental Tempo
Class: Shaman
Format: Standard
Year of the Pegasus
2x (1) Fire Fly
2x (1) Sizzling Cinder
2x (1) Wailing Vapor
2x (2) Birdwatching
2x (2) Cinderfin
2x (2) Flametongue Totem
2x (2) Menacing Nimbus
1x (3) Bralma Searstone
1x (3) Dreamplanner Zephrys
2x (3) Lava Flow
1x (3) Turbulus
2x (3) Volcanic Thrasher
2x (4) Blob of Tar
1x (4) Nightmare Lord Xavius
1x (4) Torga
2x (5) Slagclaw
1x (5) The Curator
2x (6) Sizzling Swarm
AAECAaoIBq3hBszhBsODB/GWB9iYB/SqBwzjoASG1ATOwAbt5gaclgedlgeglgfslgfOmweHnAeYrAexsAcAAA==
Bralma has been ok. Since her effect also works on minions, she helps both pushing more damage and making some better trades.
A note on Slagclaw, in case some people don’t know it yet: the Kindred effect also triggers the deathrattle of Cinders that are already on the board, not just the ones that he summons. This means that, for example, if you have a Cinderfin on board and want to play Slagclaw, you can trade the Cinderfin to summon the Cinder and then drop Slagclaw for extra pings.
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While Quest Murloc and Loh-ky Druid are overtuned, they ARE new archetypes enabled by new cards (ignoring the fact that Murloc Pally and Ramp Druid have existed in other expansions in the past). Menagerie DK, while an old archetype, also runs between 6 to 8 new cards. That’s not an insignificant number. Menagerie Priest also runs about 5 cards from this expansion. There’s a big difference between there being no new archetypes and cards that are viable, and no new archetypes and cards you have available. Blizzard can fix one but not the other.
The second problem with expecting a balance patch to make the new cards viable is that they need to massively nerf OLD cards. Menagerie decks, Starship decks, DH Pain decks. Which means Spell Damage Druid, Cycle Rogue, Drunk Paladin, etc. which were still playable at the end of the last expansion would just become overtuned again.
So if they buff only new cards they risk creating something even more polarizing than the current new decks of Murloc Quest and Loh-ky Druid. If they nerf cards they have to nerf three rungs down.
Both can make things better or make things worse. But one thing won’t likely change: Food Chain is still going to be terrible.
Shure, but they can fix this:
https_://www.hsguru.com/meta?format=2&rank=all
(Delete “_” after https)
Out of the new Quest decks, 7 have a winrate below 35%. If half of them failed, fine. If they struggle around 50%, fine. But more than half being utter trash is inacceptable.
Yup. The powerlevel is too high and has been for a long time. They have to nerf three rungs down.
True. 
If you’re talking about Quest decks specifically then that’s even more unlikely to happen. There’s no in-between for Quests in Standard: they are either viable because they’re overpowered or they’re trash. And if they are overtuned they get nerfed into trash.
There’s has only been about three quest/questline cards that have been played in meta decks but didn’t get nerfed. Druid and Rogue’s questlines. And maybe Warrior’s Taunt quest. It’s too far back for me to remember. That’s not a good track record of Blizzard getting it just right.
I can already see the Murloc Quest going the way of the Pirate Quest. It’s T1 at low ranks but T3 or T4 at high ranks. They’ll adjust it to require one more summon to finish the quest, it will make the deck even slower against other aggro decks (which it is already vulnerable to as you mention with Menagerie DK) and slow enough against control decks for control decks turn the corner. It will be a repeat of Pirate Quest, which went from Play 2x3 to Play 3x3 and the deck disappeared forever. 
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I found spell only quest mage actually does pretty well into Murloc Pally and Druid.
Got tempted with the new expac, reinstalled last weekend, got to Diamond 5. Today ran into into nothing but murloc paladin, with one quest mage tossed in for good measure. Thank you, Blizz, for another s*** sandwich of an expansion, you saved me hours of wasting time. Uninstalled. Why play a game that literally makes me upset and angry for hours afterwards?
Honestly, it finally gave me motivation to play a different game that I’ve been meaning to for weeks.
I’ve also heard various things about MTG arena maybe check it out. Maybe I should too.
That game is a worse sideshow than hearthstone could ever hope to be. Games last all of 3 turns making it legitimately an opening hand simulator.
Either that or a 50 minute game of people doing nothing but playing removal and counterspells on the hopes they can stick an effect land and deal 2 damage over another 10 turns.
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Wilted Priest did it for me. Super strong and underestimated deck. Has a more than 50% winrate against murloc pally and is relatively cheap to craft.