I'm going to be unpopular here; while I do think that mage is stronger then hunter, I don't feel it is as unbalanced as Rag vs Nefarian was. Yes the hunter deck has it's issues for sure, but I don't think it is as one-sided as everyone on r/hearthstone seem to think.

Acidmaw + Unleash the Hounds is a really deadly combo though

Pwere

Canada1557 Posts

August 19 2015 19:24 GMT

#223

Acidmaw and Cobrashot are so bad in this brawl. If these were Dreadscale + P-P-Powershot, Hunter might actually be the favorite

On another note, I have yet to see Rhonin and the Skeleton King be any useful. Quick mention to the poor hunter who played Skeleton King + Feign Death and won the joust. The honorable insta-concede after that was warranted.

DiceToss

Croatia62 Posts

August 19 2015 19:35 GMT

#224

Played 2 games as both hunter and mage, won all 4. I think the key for hunter is to keep the board clear, and then refill with lock and load combo. As such, joust for armored warhorse wins or loses you the game: Losing it means mage gets to clear it with a combination of low drops and improved and cheaper pings, thus snowballing the advantage. Winning gives you trading initiative, enabling you to actually use your removal.

Nothingtosay

United States875 Posts

August 19 2015 21:48 GMT

#225

The hunter deck is awful compared to mage.

IcemanAsi

Israel681 Posts

August 19 2015 21:54 GMT

#226

I don't know if it's just that I'm way too tired but I'm getting wrecked with both.
Mage is completely draw dependent and hunter bets all on jousts.
And I'm getting wrecked both ways 1-6

IcemanAsi

Israel681 Posts

August 19 2015 21:56 GMT

#227

So far thou, Fallen hero and polymorph:Huffer - Absolutly lovely

IcemanAsi

Israel681 Posts

August 19 2015 22:26 GMT

#228

Holy shit, Inspire is way more impressive then I thought it would be, you give it any kind of board presence and it WILL wreck you!

Origence

Spain0 Posts

August 19 2015 22:35 GMT

#229

On August 20 2015 07:26 IcemanAsi wrote:
Holy shit, Inspire is way more impressive then I thought it would be, you give it any kind of board presence and it WILL wreck you!

Only if you have an awful deck like the hunter's deck

Dromar

United States2145 Posts

August 19 2015 22:37 GMT

#230

On August 20 2015 07:26 IcemanAsi wrote:
Holy shit, Inspire is way more impressive then I thought it would be, you give it any kind of board presence and it WILL wreck you!

Yeah my impressions from this brawl are that:

Inspire minions need to be dealt with as quickly as possible (already suspected this though),

Lowly Squire and Boneguard Lieutenant actually not too shabby - Lowly Squire on turn 1 means you can deal 3 damage to their coined 2 drop, and the first Boneguard I played ended up having 9 hp or something crazy like that. Every time you buff him it's like he gets 1 mana better.

Rhonin solid as I expected, like a more balanced Dr. Boom.

If your mulligan goes bad and you have the top end of your deck and you're playing against joust, you can probably just concede.

Overall the Hunter really needs to win jousts to have a chance at this brawl. I went something like 7-2 with Mage and 1-1 with Hunter. The card quality in the Mage deck is just significantly higher overall.

edit:

Also really liked how the Evil Heckler had multiple comes-into-play sounds. Really like the sounds and everything in general.

Karis Vas Ryaar

United States4396 Posts

August 19 2015 23:28 GMT

#231

fun but mage is a bit too powerful. half the time i misplay and still win. also i got 2 straight starfires from that one card

fun turn although i ended up not playing it right (forgot bear trap was a thing. but 8 damage in ping fun).

NewSunshine

United States5938 Posts

August 20 2015 01:06 GMT

#232

Initial impression, the Inspire cards feel straight up good. The way they promise to change the game gives me hope, it feels like a more complicated, board-focused game. I hope very much it does just that. You can say the Hunter deck sucks, even though I have an even win rate with both so far, but the brawl is very good for demonstrating how bad it is to let Inspire minions get out of hand. Coming into your turn with Coldarra Drake and Maiden of the Lake, and dropping a Kodorider is dirty, but even the early boards can demand answers, having Garrison Commander stick around never feels good to me as the opponent, and having boneguards and lowly squires next to it when they do their thing is really threatening. If I were a face Hunter instead of a Joust Hunter, attacking face would still feel like a horrible move.

Acritter

Syria7637 Posts

August 20 2015 02:26 GMT

#233

I hope Inspire lives up to playing against the terror that is Patron Warrior. I'm not totally confident at present, but it does seem possible that it can do something.

Tal

United Kingdom1017 Posts

August 20 2015 02:58 GMT

#234

Inspire is better than it first appears during theorycrafting, because you also get the hero power effect. It's natural to just think of it as just pay 2 and get the inspire ability, but adding your power on top can often be really valuable.

Came Norrection

Canada168 Posts

August 20 2015 03:36 GMT

#235

The hunter deck is terrible. Mage deck is bad too but it has a lower curve that is snowbally. So mage is hugely favored to win the tempo game and just wreck for inspire. If mage deck had to face something fast, it would get destroyed. One time I just drew a face hunter like hand and just completely destroyed the mage because it can't deal with stuff.

Overall I played like 10 brawls this week and won like 5. I got hunter like 7/10 times and was almost wanting to auto concede if I didn't have removal.

Zontan

United States0 Posts

August 20 2015 04:34 GMT

#236

So basically the bottom line is that both of these decks are awful. Hunter probably slightly more awful but it doesn't really matter, they'd both get wrecked by anything competitive on ladder. It makes me kind of torn on the expansion - on the one hand, playing two terrible decks does not make me excited at all, but on the other hand these decks are using terrible cards and their archetypes might be viable if you actually used good cards from other sets.

But both of them feel awful to play - if you lose it really feels like there was nothing you could do about it because your deck doesn't have the answers, and if you win it doesn't really feel like it was your fault either, just your deck sucking less. Not a brawl I will be playing more.

IcemanAsi

Israel681 Posts

August 20 2015 05:49 GMT

#237

Current thoughts:

Inspire is impressing overall, the neutral - common inspire minions are generally good. Garrison commander being obviously the best of the bunch.

Kodorider is too slow.

Spellslinger obviously has no room in this deck because there a zero synergies with it so it just sucks. I doubt it will even work with the synergies, you would never run it over the new 3 mana legendary sisters.
*just got Savage roar as hunter with two UTH in hand, that was fun :D

Armoured Warhorse sucks, no other way to put it, it's an unreliable finisher or an overpriced removal and 4 mana 5/3 is trash.

Master Jouster is good, could see play in control decks, but at six mana it's competing against some very heavy hitters.

Ram Wrangler is broken, five mana roll 12% to win the game, ridiculously bad design. Variance will make it balanced overall but you might as well be playing Roulette.
*FFS, already got Malrone, King Crush.

Frost giants are solid, might even creep into non inspire mage decks like the echo giants mage.

Rhonin is better then i expected, but still feels a bit overpriced at 8, with spell synergies it might make it.

Polymorph: Huffer is out-fucking-standing.

Lock and load, jesus, I'm gonna grow to hate that crosshairs graphic, so strong.

North sea Kraken & Captured Jormungar are a good boost to budget decks.

Refreshment Vendor is cute but the loss in value compared to other drops seems to be stronger then the 4 life heal.

The Skeleton Knight - Nope.

Flame lance - LOL, Nope.

Caldara drake - strong when you get it to work with synergies but feels a bit slow as enabling what is at best a 10 mana 5 damage effect, only works in combo oriented inspire decks, god at top deck wars but how often is that a thing?

Fallen hero is outstanding, getting two out is almost game ending right there, and coin fallen hero will be one of the most rage quit things in arena ever.

Bear trap is cute, but feels just under the line for being good enough for a slot.

Dragonhawk rider?! What? why is this a card? it won't even be good enough if the windfury was permanent, who approved this?

WindWolf

Sweden11767 Posts

August 20 2015 06:00 GMT

#238

My thoughts right now:

I like the new Month Python references!

The Inspire mechanic in general is better than most people thought of initially. Still a slow mechanic for sure, but I think we can actually see some inspire-based decks see play. Especially with inspire-buffing minions (IDK what else to call them) like Garrison Commander and Maiden of the Lake.

I have ended up using Polymorph: Huffer on my opponents minions more then anything in order to downsize them.

I want Nexus-Champion Saraad to see more play. He's slow, but I like him.

As I thought initially, North sea Kraken might see some play in budget decks.

Lock and load is a good card, to bad that the current deck is not a good lock and load deck

IcemanAsi

Israel681 Posts

August 20 2015 06:12 GMT

#239

Seriously thou, who the hell designed this hunter deck and thought "Cobra Shot, Yeah!"?!

Enjun

0 Posts

August 20 2015 09:24 GMT

#240

Strange I had a lot of difficulty winning with Mage and a lot less of it with the Hunter. Granted there where maybe more won Jousts than there should have been and the Spellslinger's seemed to more often than not give better cards to the Hunter. So maybe it was just a bit of Variance in a small sample size, but my impression, was that the supposed aggrodeck with inspire did so much worse, that the also terrible Controlhunter could keep up more often than not.