They don’t even have to be good players; just to play the deck most of the time; it’s the sign you should delete them.
For example: you kill their sludges on the first round they drop them down: it’s still not enough: they still manage to passively get at least 15 to 25 damage out of them so you have to have either an obscure counter specifically for them (e.g. an OP druid with massive armor) or just play …sludge warlock.
The frustration with sludge warlock decks is understandable, considering how they can dominate a game with what appears to be minimal effort. However, to counteract such strategies, players need to adapt and evolve their decks. This might not mean just packing them with obscure counters, but rather focusing on flexibility and control elements that can handle various threats. Effective counterplay often involves a combination of board clears, direct damage, and understanding the pacing of the matchup, rather than a single silver bullet solution.
The top 1,000 players are killed by sludge warlocks, because the Devs in their infinite wisdom, nerfed multiple times decks like paladin or rogue and even obscure decks like an interesting new variant of druid because Vicious Syndicate told them they want to play Sludge Warlock in their last podcast.
While the balance changes may have significantly shifted the meta, especially at the higher ranks, it’s important to focus on your current bracket challenges. Diamond 5 to 1 is notoriously congested as you have recently pointed out with a variety of deck archetypes, and your journey to Legend doesn’t need to be preoccupied with Sludge Warlocks or any other top-tier threats just yet. Instead, concentrate on refining your gameplay, understanding your current matchups, and adapting your strategies to overcome the immediate obstacles. Rank fluctuations in the elite tiers often don’t reflect the diversity and potential for innovation in the ranks below. Keep honing your skills, and who knows, you might just be the one to break the meta when you do hit Legend.
Just revert the changes they made when they buffed Sludge Warlock. It’s not hard. Even if you can mess with their deck by shuffling stuff in, they have so many slime generators that it won’t make much difference once they get going.
Yeah, this. The core gameplay of Sludge Warlock is not offensive. It’s novel and interesting. Certainly leagues better than Abyssal Curses, especially for the opponent.
It’s just overtuned at the moment. Spamming 4-damage blobs for «free» adds up seriously fast.
From the opposing side, having to play something as mind-numbing as Plague DK to disrupt the sludges is also a factor in why Sludgelock should be reverted.
Bingo. Sludges need to be turned into the equivalent of DK plagues - toned down to 2 mana and not punished by Steamcleaner. These devs are a massive joke, as usual.
Sludges aren’t punished by steamcleaner. If your opponent is a sludge warlock with a bunch of them in his deck and you play steamcleaner then you just nuked youyrself in the face for a boatload of damage. Steamcleaner triggers their effects, Every sludge in the deck will go off on you no matter where it is. Playing steamcleaner against a sludge lock is a really good way to get yourself killed.
And sadly, even that “counter” only has like, a 50% win rate against the deck, because plague DK has no answer to basically anything else it does.
… but yay, your 4 mana 7/7 won’t also nuke me for 12 damage on play.
I just auto decline every sludge warlock I go up against. Its not fun and nothing you can do most of the time. I hope they like playing solitaire cause that’s what it feels like.
no really just drop a mantle shaper along with it and instead of taking 16 damage to face you just lose 2 5 mana minions
Sludges aren’t punished by steamcleaner. If your opponent is a sludge warlock with a bunch of them in his deck and you play steamcleaner then you just nuked youyrself in the face for a boatload of damage. Steamcleaner triggers their effects, Every sludge in the deck will go off on you no matter where it is. Playing steamcleaner against a sludge lock is a really good way to get yourself killed.
I meant that playing Steamcleaner should not punish the person for clearing the sludges - it’s terrible design by the devs to not allow the single counter to sludges be playable.
no really just drop a mantle shaper along with it and instead of taking 16 damage to face you just lose 2 5 mana minions
You have to be trolling - your counter is play mage or hunter and hope assemble a 2 card combo to counter sludges. Please stop.
not just mage a paladin with its cheap minions and divine shield can soak a lot of damage
are you sure letting the warlock player choose when to triggers his sludges is a good idea ?
I don’t think plague DK is a counter to sludge lock at all tho. Shuffling their deck is annoying but it achieves nothing. They will delete their deck, plagues included and all your game plan is just trying to delay the inevitable.
Rainbow DK seems to be the most successful counter so far actually, because they can easily flood the board with sticky low health minions that redirect sludges and they can raise big minions early to threaten them too.
Besides that there is no stopping the sludges and it’s a pretty uninteractive deck to face in general. I think Pop’Gar is actually one of the biggest issues. So many games come down to whether they draw it or not.
I don’t think reverting the sludge buff is good because they were terrible before but if I had a say I would say Sludge on Wheels 4 mana or Pop’gar 5 mana or discounts 1. That’d lower the WR substantially.
Not a counter, but like…you can «mitigate» the sludges. That’s what I meant.
Also the sludge deck mirror is one of the worst hearthstone experiences imaginable. It’s literally a coin flipping/ drawing contest. There is no thinking, no decision making, no back and forth. Whoever draws better wins
A meta dominated by sludge warlock is completely unplayable and warrants emergency nerfs imo.
This is also why I was so against the excavate rogue whiners. Be careful what you wish for, because that deck was a fun and forgiving tier 1 deck. This is hell in comparison to that.
They also didn’t have the entire sludge package before the mini set.
Chaos creation and Trogg Gemtosser are both insane cards for that deck.
The lock/druid taunt also is quite strong.
I’d pretty strongly disagree that excavate rogue was fun to play against. It was just as awful. There was no thinking involved with beating it, you just hoped they generated weak cards randomly.
You couldn’t even try to play around things because it was all purely random.
This is true of plague dk, brann warrior, rainbow mage… the list goes on. Mirrors with the current meta decks are almost always unpleasant.
Well, that’s understandable but it never feels good to lose to anything really. And with forgiving I mean that the deck was always quite an even match across the board. The deck was good not because it had a <60% WR but because it had a stable, even WR across the board.
You almost never faced an excavate rogue and went: sigh, guess I’m losing this one again you knew there was an even chance of winning. And I do believe the deck was infinitely better to face than sludge lock.