Starcraft Mini-set. Initial Thoughts

Multiplayer Discussion
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Now that I have had the full mini set for a few days I wanted to give my thought on the set itself and the meta so far.

First and foremost, the set is fun. I mentioned in my Legend post that this month I had barely played Hearthstone. That has completely changed since the mini set dropped. I have had more fun playing the game, and played the game more, than in the past few months.

The biggest driver of my enjoyment has been how board based the matches have become. There have been countless games where there was no clear winner and it was a constant fight back and forth. There have been a few blowouts of course, but far less of them. I have played against people who seem like they are just now learning how to properly make trades and keep board control. I hope this type of gameplay continues.

Balance. I know some people are already calling for nerfs, especially for Zerg Death Knight. From the pretty hefty amount of games I have played VS Death Knight, no nerfs are needed. It is a VERY feast or famine deck. If they do not get an early Infestor or they are not able to copy the deathrattle, the deck falls apart. It just does not do much without the buffs. I have played a hefty amount of games with it as well. It is fun, but you feel every game you do not see Infestor.

For me, Terran Starship Shaman is one of the best decks int he game. It has solid early game and can generate near infinite value in the late game. It can still get run over by extreme agro and lose the long game to something like multiple Boomboss. The deck is crazy fun to play and has limitless lines of play to consider. It is by far and away my favorite deck. Also, I haaaaaate Medivac!

Protoss is my least favorite of the factions. That does not mean I think it is weak. From my experience Protoss Priest is very strong. It is just way more susceptible to Mindcontrol effects. I played against it with a Zerg DK variant running Bob and Griftah. I think I stole and killed a Priest with its own Mothership almost 15 times. It was brutal every time. Protoss Mage seems very strong, but it just gets folded by well timed Vipers. I double Viperā€™d a poor mage getting both of their Colossus. This was an instant concede. I feel like it also just loses to Terran Control Warrior.

All in all, I love this set. I have built and tested about 12 different decks. I think they did a good job with the themes and making the cards strong enough to compete with current cards while not making them break the game. People were even calling the Warlock Zerg cards useless, only for it to be one of the strongest decks in the meta. I love to see that.

I have been VERY critical of the dev team at times since returning. I hope this is a sign for how things will be in the future. More board based games and minion trading.

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Now that I played this deck for awhile I completely understand why.

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I agree, to nerf zerg the ideal would be to just add more zergs in future expansions to dilute the pool and the infestor and viper not be so recurrent of the queen larvae, the ravagers are still missing or the broodlordsā€¦

I had very low hope with this set be playable in wild but just by playing starcraft decks i climb like 1500 ranks in legend, something that i had not achieved even with my best decks, and curiously the most effective/killer deck that i used was priest mothership so that subverted my expectationsā€¦

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They just need to rework Infestor to ā€œGive your Zerg minions in hand, deck and battlefield +1/+1ā€ and it should become balanced. I also think Medivac should be reworked or removed.

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My initial thougt among other things were:

Why the heck doesnt firebat have rush and deal excess damage to adjacent minions? I mean, its the frontline dude torching zerglings with a big flamethrower. Flavor fail.

And where are the protoss minions? I mean the ones that dont cost 500 mana. And are actually playable. Protoss is nothing but spells and huge minions. The ones you play between turn 1 and infinity.

How the heck did zerg pass Q&A overlooking 2 year old synergies?

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Some say that zerg should not be tanksā€¦ when I see a 12/12 zerling seems normal to me knowing its lethality, and i dont imagine just a very big one but an infinite army of themā€¦

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Considering that Norwis agrees, it might very well be true

Time to hop on that one, I suppose

Thanks for the reviews!

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Agree. The deck is very 50/50.

Mage Protoss is where the nerf is needed. Iā€™m seriously about to the point where I auto concede when get matched against that.

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Itā€™s even more malignant if the Priests find Colossus in the Mothership. They can even duplicate it. They donā€™t know what to abuse you with first: multiple Amanā€™thuls or multiple Colossuses.

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I think the starcraft decks are pretty average compared to the power level of other decks weā€™ve seen over the past rotation cycle. Thats not to say the starcraft decks arent fun, they have breathed new life into a game that had become pretty stale but everyone calling for nerfs is pretty disappointing. Most of them are pretty high rolly. Zerg dk requires having infestors early to scale or its a bad aggro deck, terran starship is pretty RNG dependent on getting decent starship tokensā€¦ Protoss is less RNG/highroll than the others buts its painfully slow.

I just really dislike how theres really only 1 deck for the starcraft cards and thats a faction deck. Iā€™ve said it in other threads but I wish they would have expanded the cards to be usable in other decks. Usually in a miniset you can slot the miniset cards into a bunch of different decksā€¦ but this set was designed to be rather self contained. There are some cards that could see play any any deck (missle pod for one/photon cannon makes for a decent standalone burn card) but most of the cards become ineffective without the other faciton cardsā€¦ protoss especially.

I wish they would have had it so something like warpgate would have been ā€˜Your next card costs (1) less, it costs (3) less if its a protoss cardā€™. It wouldnt be a great card but at least you could slot in in a non protoss deck.

Unfortunately with the playerbase having their pitchforks out and demanding nerfs I fear these starcraft decks are just going to fade into obscurity just as quickly as they came into hearthstone.

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Overall, Iā€™m having fun in Standard for the first time in a hot second. Iā€™ve noticed most of my opponents are playing decks largely based around the miniset. This seemingly algorithm-driven gentlemenā€™s agreement to play new things is probably why Iā€™ve been having fun. Iā€™ve run into a few ā€œoldā€ standard decks that were a wakeup call to how mid a lot of the Starcraft stuff is. I did high roll with a Terran Shaman to beat Handbuff Pally, which brought me great joy. Not so lucky against Dungar Druids/Unkilliax Warriors. But like I said, Iā€™ve been using newer cards against newer cards and have been enjoying it. Even those pesky Zerg DKs, which I do agree is a very feast or famine deck. I honestly donā€™t think it needs a nerf. Just wait for the Starcraft event to end and you see all the old stuff pop back up. Zerg DK will lose a lot of relevance.

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The more i see Zerg played the more i am coming to like it existing. Itā€™s a deck that is basically forcing players to move away from established Hearthstone. You need to play for the board with minions trading and playing selective removals. Sweepers are just not going to get it done because you are hurting yourself more than the zerg player.

I still think the ability of it to negate reborn needs fixed and making the buff only attack is a solid fix.

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Can anyone explain why OP and some hate Medivac? Medivac, as a spaceship part, summons two 2/2 taunt when launched.
Whatā€™s the hate for?/

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might be weapon rogues

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or maybe that it takes up a lot of board space so when you launch multiple starships with raynor some of the ships canā€™t launch or something iā€™m not sure someone said that earlier i think

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They take up room and prevent multiple ships from launching with Raynor.

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dont forget the ones priest get are usually massivly discounted as well i had a game where i had 3 of them in my hand 15x2 for 3 mana ea

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priest can get more motherships from motherships right? thatā€™s kinda sick
anyway i lost a bunch of games to protoss priest and am slightly sad lol

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yea they also get the templars for archons they get the annoying druid minion that costs 12 they also get mages colluses i mean imo priest has the best set up protoss because by turn 7-8 u could have almost enough discount for a free mothership