RE: Does it take a genius to make a netdeck?

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Answer is: no. It just takes some luck!

Or persistence.

I didn’t really like the meta since the rotation, so I experimented for a month now, trying to hit a new sludgelock or something that comes close to it. And I finally made it. Don’t know if it’ll make it to a netdeck status. A part of me hopes it doesn’t. Anyway, I don’t feel like anyone can possibly claim rights to this deck as its building is pretty basic - simply filter for Draenei, put every single one in the deck and then fill the rest with big spells, and if not enough big spells exist, add some draws/tutors. Anyone could have made this, but they didn’t.

So basically what happened is that it dawned on me how Draenei got a nice amount of support, especially for a Mage, although the VIP here is “Lunar Trailblazer”, a 5-cost neutral Draenei that makes one of your spells in hand cost as much as the minion costs.

Needless to say, the card screamed “Big Spell synergy! Big Spell Synergy!” so the deck basically built itself in a matter of 12 seconds and I haven’t touched it, not even once, to optimize it.

It is broken beyond anything I’ve ever seen or played in this game since 2014. Everything I say cannot come near to how broken this deck is. It has got numerous win cons, depending on your draws:

a) if you get blessed by a lucky mulligan, you just run any deck down in 4 turns with insane synergy between your draenei buffing earch other;
b) if you don’t, well, doesn’t matter, play a control game and focus on setting up one of the main two lethal conditions:

b1) Exaar Haatharu - preceded by the other 5-drop draenei which makes you regain back the mana after playing Haatharu - this is the “fun” win con which will make you come back to this deck even when it gets nerfed, or
b2) Supernova lethal - preceded by emptying your hand and potentially even discounting your Nova to cost 5.

c) sometimes you just straight up win the fatique game because Velen goes infinite from time to time (or more precisely, when you want it to go infinite). This win con will be favorite to people who enjoy playing Big stats, because Draenei buffs can stack…pretty damn fast xDDD (because of the unbalanced 3 mana 4/3 with battlecry + deathrattle which buffs and can get copied infinite times)

The only weakness I found is lack of removals and draws, but it doesn’t seem like something that can be capitalized on. It’s just annoying to keep waiting for a win-con draw, but you’ll get there eventually.

The deck:

Summary

Draenei

Class: Mage

Format: Standard

Year of the Raptor

2x (1) Astral Vigilant

2x (1) Starlight Wanderer

2x (2) Hologram Operator

2x (2) Stranded Spaceman

2x (2) Troubled Mechanic

2x (3) Crimson Commander

1x (3) Q’onzu

2x (3) Watercolor Artist

2x (4) Ace Wayfinder

1x (5) Exarch Hataaru

2x (5) Ingenious Artificer

2x (5) Lunar Trailblazer

2x (5) Surfalopod

1x (7) Velen, Leader of the Exiled

2x (8) Supernova

2x (8) Tsunami

1x (10) The Galactic Projection Orb

AAECAYHPBgS6pwbK5QaV6gbv/AYNtqcGxboGvM4G398G5N8G5t8G4+IGzeQGz+QGyeUG0eUG8uUGmOoGAAA=

To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Mulligan guide:

Summary

There is no mulligan guide for this deck. You don’t have to play mulligan - any 3 cards will win.

Proof:

a) game against Imbue druid, another deck in need of balancing, toughest matchup I’ve played thus far - we started with 3x 5-mana cost cards and had nothing to play for 4 turns, still won (careful, it’s a 19-min game, which proves it can go infinite and outscale something inherently broken as Imbue druid scale): https://replays.firestoneapp.com/?reviewId=084e2eea-0d55-47d2-9090-145c04679066&turn=0&action=0

b) game against DK, literally forgot to do mulligan and got 3 random cards, still won (not even close, although, to be fair, if we wanted to get a better starting hand, we probably couldn’t): https://replays.firestoneapp.com/?reviewId=7a15d8f6-17d6-4f46-a5d8-bbb0c5201b68&turn=0&action=0

P.S. I mean, technically there are some tips for mulligan I can share, but if you need me to spell it, it’s best you just ignore this topic and move on, so you don’t drop the deck aggregate winrate from 100% to 95% xDDDD

Basically, you just wanna dump all the spells from your mulligan and hope to hit the 3-mana elemental which draws Tsunami, or at least some kind of a curve, any curve will do, 1-2-3 equally good as 3-4-5, but that’s not a requirement for a good game at all. This deck is just way too strong in overall. You also wanna keep the Artificer (the 5-mana guy setting up broken Haataru turn) every time. It’s just an auto-win card when played on 5.

List of nerfs required to balance this deck:

Summary

a) The 1-mana minion which copies Draenei should also be a Draenei, because it not being a Draenei enables some of the most disgusting combos I’ve ever witnessed in this game.

b) The 3 mana 4/3 minion which buffs all Draenei in hand should NOT have both a battlecry and a deathrattle, or should cost not 3, not 4, but 5 mana. Especially when it gets played multiple times and/or repeated by Velen, your peacefull, crappy little Draenei suddenly have double digit stats for 1-2 mana.

c) Velen should NOT have a taunt. Stop removing agency in this game. People want more of it, not less, and that means we do not get forced to attack someone’s win-con. It’s a no-no and should be self-explainable. Just make us actually have to put in some work to make people kill our Velen, because otherwise it’s just boring.

There’s many things wrong with this deck, which is why it’s so broken that even I could build it. With that in mind, have fun and see you all in top 100.

EDIT: True reason why this deck is so broken is that it cancels out your cards’ weaknesses due to insane amount of synergy between them. So even though every individual Draenei is underwhelming and understatted, when they buff each other or otherwise synergize, the result is…disgusting. You would expect some kind of a tempo loss when you invest in your future turns, but no, this deck REWARDS you for doing that, in a way that even Protoss Mage would admire. It’s hard to lose tempo when a minion which is supposed to discount your big spell by 3 mana gets buffed from 6-4 to 10/8 and requires immediate attention or it enables you to play 50-60 mana in one turn (if you haven’t figured out how that’s possible, play the deck for some rewarding surprises - it would take me 3 days straight to just name all the combos I’ve found which are disgusting, let alone to explain them, anyway).

6 Likes
2

Reminds me quite some time ago where I read you really liking Supernova before. I remember them days… I like that your list does seem super unique, and your perfect for a question I’ve been wanting to figure out lol.

I don’t own Velen, but I’ve heard of him going infinite in Wild by stuff like Chain Gang. Could you do me a favor an try your Velen with Demon Hunter 3 mana trigger a Deathrattle you’ve played with things like Ferocious Bat if you have it?

I don’t own Velen, and my dust is okay but before I commit the dust I’d like to know if this would be possible for standard. You can see all over people asking for more DH nerfs >.< from the guy who bothered to craft DH cards before this became meta, if this combo works it might give the class something else to strive for since people are going to ruin Cliff Dive for cards like Omen that I use… :confused:.

3

This thing looks both wonderful and horrible at the same time, lol.

Like when you draw orb as your first spell after surfalopod.

My tip:
Swap Q’onzu with a void ray. It adds photon cannon and shield battery to Hataaru, and Q’onzu isn’t super impactful, nor does it really capture any synergy with the other stuff. But I just like going all in on Hataaru.

2 Likes
4

That’s exactly how a broken deck should look like, lol xD

Hasn’t happened yet, been anticipating it, even if that thing happens, it happens so rarely and it’s not immediately gamebreaking. It’s like throwing 2 mana down the drain 1% of the time in a meta where it’s perfectly normal to play 60 in one turn.

But I mean, I’d probably be better of swapping it for the broken 7-mana neutral spell instead, and I’m seriously considering that. Question here is, does playing a discounted 8-mana spell for 5 mana Corrupt it or not?

I disagree, and I’ve noticed you don’t understand this card before, so I think you should try this list before changing anything instead.

The card is broken. No cards with discover should have vanila stats, and a vanilla 3-drop in this meta can make or break a game as it trades into at least 2 minions, sometimes 3. Not to mention the hyper-discover which is much more valuable than normal discover, because if you’re not REALLY satisifed with what you discover, you can just use it to disrupt your opponent, which is insane. If drawn in time to be played on turn 2 or 3, it simply destroys your opponent’s early game. Worst case scenario is you use it to discover a low-cost removal, which deletes the only weakness of the deck (lack of low-cost removal spells).

Also it’s just one card. I’m not swapping a legendary out to put the worst common mage minion ever made, which either you run 2 copies of, or none at all. It’s not happening.

I’m afraid I don’t understand what is required of me to test. Velen triggers only Draenei’s battlecries and deathrattles and none of the minions involved in your combo is a Draenei. They’re all Demons or Quillboars.

5

No, it has to cost more on play, so you need to play them at full cost, or discount tree to 5 then play something that costs 6+

You’d be surprised. Void ray really isn’t THAT bad. It could technically be any protoss card, like Artanis, but I’ve found void ray to be the least disruptive, and it passively improves Hataaru by just existing.

1 Like
6

Nope. Can’t see how adding those two spells to the pool can help me. If anything, it’s detrimental to my deck, as none of those spells can hit face xD

I certainly don’t need a deal 3 dmg to a minion in my discover pool. I’m not using Haataru to find 3 dmg for a minion. I don’t need 6 armor, neither, and both spells are made worse than they should be because they ramp up Colossus or other Protoss minions, of which we have none in the deck, so we’re overpaying for every of the above effects.

It’s really weird that I even have to explain this to you. I listened to you when you told me about Haataru, as you can see, but your opinion about the 3-drop legendary unfortunately disqualifies you from giving me tips on this deck as it shows you didn’t fully grasp its mechanics (and how could you, it’s full of crappy, unknown cards which noone ever plays with unlimited synergy between them - it’ll take me hundreds of games to grasp it fully, and you played 0).

EDIT: So far, I only like the idea of replacing the Orb with the Tree, and that’s it. Surfalopod feel awkward to drop every time, but if the spell gets drawn soon, it’s mega broken, so it’s best to use in tandem with Watercolor Artist if possible. I would like to make this more consistent, but I do not know how.

7

Photon cannon does go face. If you find shield battery in the chain it’ll only cost 1 and make a future photon cannon free or Chrono boost cost 2 (which can also go face), and it can be good to reroll the other options if they are poor.

1 Like
8

Alright, I’ll give it a try when I start losing.

But then you owe me not one, but two things to try when I recommend them. If I listen to you when you’re right, that means I make good decisions. You never listen to me, hence, you make worse ones on average, which significantly lowers the probability that listening to you is a good decision in the future.

And assuming that none of us is ALWAYS right, this follows as a neccessary and the only viable conclusion.

9

So, what I am asking is when Velen dies, does it re-summon him from another copy of Velen dying. So, you drop a Velen, or Velen dies from Cliff Dive for example.

Later if you proc a Fel Bat DR or that 3 mana spell select Bat and it summons 2 Velens, when they die will it bring more back in a never-ending wall of 7/7 taunts in standard?

1 Like
10

Haha, no, and I wouldn’t assume that would happen xD If it ever did, was probably a bug

No reason for that interaction to happen because it clearly says it will repeat all battlecries and deathrattles from OTHER Draenei (meaning, other than Velen, meaning, no Velen infinite, at least not like this).

I exaggarated whenever I mentioned “infinite” in this thread. It’s practically infinite because if you managed to pull such a combo, you’ve probably already won and the rest of the game is a formality.

You can play Velen more than enough times than you’ll ever get to play it, and this is coming from a guy who’s already won multiple 18+ minute games on the deck.

11

Could you pleeeaaassseeee check for me? Here’s what my gut is saying to me… When the card says “other” it means he can’t trigger off himself I.E. his own copy, HOWEVER if another copy of Velen triggers, he is allowed to pull the first Velen because he isn’t triggering himself, it’s another version of Velen.

Please give it a shot for me lol. I don’t want to spend 1,600 dust on a card that the only class I’d use him is DH.

12

Velen only copies Draenei effects that are not Velen. He does not summon himself without saronite chain gang. Otherwise priest would get infinite Velen if playing him after Askara, and they do not.

3 Likes
13

…and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter the slightest.

Why?

a) it’s a meme combo that you can only pull for the lulz in casual, practically impossible to set up consistently
b) it wouldn’t just flood the board with 7/7 with taunt at first. It would start by summoning 1 velen, because only one Velen other than the one that’s getting procced has died before. Next Velen to die (which is already a 3rd one) would spawn 2…so you’d need to iterate this 4 times in order to get a full board of Velens. Even if one of the creative geniuses on this forum could pull this off in theory, in practice it’s not happening, ever.
c) if it worked, it would be a bug, and you’d just be abusing a bug until it’s fixed.

I’m sorry, but futile attempts like this aren’t my definition of fun, and lately I’ve had too little time to play the game, so I’d rather be playing the game xD

14

Well okay, sorry I wasted your time. You won’t see me bother in the future.

15

Well, I’m sorry to say your emotional manipulation tactics won’t work on me xD I was raised by a grandma who could write a book about those

Yes, well, sorry to disappoint you, but I was forced to value my time more than before + there’s a 99,99% chance the undertaking you imagine won’t work and even if it works…what’s the point?

It’s just not boding very well in my hyperefficient mind. I wouldn’t do it for a best friend if he begged me to with everything else being equal in this situation.

So I guess see ya around and talk to ya later when you forget you’re brooding xD

16

You know i’m a big fan but tonight i am occupied but im sneaking in looks at my new iphone 15 pro max in order to read some of this so i have to read it tomorrow and ill share thoughts but im very excited when i see a big post like this, cant wait to read it when im not 5 clamato’s deep i need a clear mind for this one.

I wanna ask if its possible in those true old tcg like yugioh or magic, if u know if people to this day still innovate new decks is that possible?

1 Like
17

sigh

Fine. I’ve learned it long time ago, before half of you were even born, that my threads seldom get any traction.

I am sorry you guys don’t share my enthusiasm for free wins while having fun, but this a thread about a Draenei Mage, and from now on I will only address posts talking about a Draenei Mage.

18

I tried it, and sadly had none of your success… 1-5 with it.

Every game, even the one I won was just praying to draw well, and not.

Yay my crap luck. Actually lost a game because during the Hataaru turn my opponent’s greenwing out both portals on top of their deck, so when the draw 2 dragons DR was triggered from random damage, 3 cast while drawn triggers burned my turn while the priest had 5 hp left.

(Oh, and in all 6 games I drew both tsunamis by turn 5 with no watercolor artists… And this is why I’ve fallen to 5k legend in the last few days)

1 Like
19

Lol, damn, yes, I haven’t had that happen to me in a while xD I guess I’m highrolling and you’re lowrolling

We’ll see what happens when I begin to lowroll, currently 13 - 3 across the 2 versions of the deck (with and without the tree spell), which is completely inaccurate and misleading as I haven’t lost a single game (got interrupted on work once, crashed once and forgot I was in a game once) and have won much more than that (tracker bugged out and didn’t track)

Haha, I did warn about this:

but it still always ends up as a win so far for me, as you can usually pull up some sort of a scam on-demand whenever you need it

EDIT: Dropped a first game, against Pally, got my behind handed to me in 4 turns. It was Aggro Pally, too, not the Drunk one. He started with 2x Slitherspears and snowballed from there. So yes, it’s possible to punish this deck’s weakness, but you’re likely gonna wish you didn’t when you get matched against a normal netdeck.

20

Majorly low-rolling. I’m now at 5 Zarimi priests in a row with a greenwing that shuffled on top of the deck at least 1 of the dragons.

1 Like