#360 - The Angry Chicken: “We Were Not Prepared”

04/08/2020

• Garrett • Jocelyn

Intro:  Welcome to The Angry Chicken!

Top of the Show Topic: Ashes of Outland is Out!

Talking points

• How many packs did you open and how many Legendaries did you get?

• Any Golden Legendaries?
• Garrett: 181 packs | 11 Legendaries not counting my one pre-order Golden
• 145 packs, 7 legendaries, plus 2 from the preorder… On my 146th from the quest yesterday, I got another one

Patreon Thanks

TAC is supported by our epic Patrons. You can become a TAC Patron by going to Patreon.com/tac. Becoming a TAC patron gives you access to the TAC Discord Server,  early sign ups for our tournaments, as well as the Deck Code for next week’s strategy section.

• Swift
• Greg Davis
• Dustin Campbell (became a rather generous Patron yesterday during my launch stream)

News

Demon Hunter-stone

Demon Hunters took over Hearthstone following Ashes of Outlands launch. HSreplay informed us that their metrics showed Demon Hunters representing slightly more than 50% of classes played in ALL of the Leagues from Bronze to Legend.

Demon Hunter also was the only class with a winrate above 50% according to HSreplay.

Yesterday’s 24 hour stats

• No.1 played list on HSreplay is an Aggro Demon Hunter with a 70% WR.
• No.2 played list is Highlander Demon Hunter with a 63% WR.
• No.3 played list is Token Demon Hunter with a 46% WR.
• No.4 played list is Control Demon Hunter with a 61% WR <- this is an OTK deck
• No.5 played list is another Midrange-y DH with a 68% WR.

Overpowered Demon Hunters were all anyone wanted to talk about and the stats back it up. Which lead to the…

MeUndies

Get 15% off your first pair of undies over at MeUndies.com/tac.

Fastest Nerfs Ever

Hearthstone Forums: An Update on Demon Hunter

Right before we were planning to record last night Iksar tweeted that Team 5 was “planning on making some balance changes that should go out today.” Iksar name dropped all of the cards that were nerfed later last evening and said to also expect adjustments to Demon Hunter in Arena.

What is particularly interesting is that Iksar continued saying “The expectation should be that there will be a lot of balance iteration over the next few weeks. We'll be making changes a little more frequently until we feel that DH is in a fun, unique, and balanced state.”

• Skull of Gul’dan – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.

• Of course.

• Imprisoned Antaen – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.

• Without Raging Felscreamer’s 2 Mana Discount you could perfectly line up Antaen awakening on Turn 7, dealing 10 damage and then drop a Priestess of Fury for an additional 6 damage at the end of the turn. This makes that perfect curve no longer possible without Coin or Demon Discounts.

• Eye Beam – Outcast Mana cost increased from 0 to 1.

• This makes surprise lethal off the back of Altruis a little harder to pull off. With Twin Slice this was just one too many Zero Mana cards.

• Aldrachi Warblades – Durability decreased from 3 to 2.

• Necessary.

CM Kerfluffle also explained that the team “wanted to get these changes out the door today, and in doing so you will only see the new stats for these cards—displayed in both red and green—in matches, not in your Collection. The red and green numbers will return to white and the cards will be updated in your Collection with a data-only patch that we’re expecting to deploy before the end of the day tomorrow.”

They also reduced the offering rates of many Demon Hunter cards in Arena. The full list can be found on the official forums.

At the end of Iksar’s original tweet thread announcing the Demon Hunter nerfs he finished with:

“We have another patch planned for late next week that will address any further changes we want to make to Constructed, Battlegrounds, or Arena.”

Post-Nerf Demon Hunter

Via HSreplay as of this morning

• Tempo and Highlander Demon Hunter (the 2 highest WR archetypes before the nerf) have gone from around 70% WR to 60%.

Burrow - burrow.com/tac

Go to Burrow.com/tac to check out some super comfy sofas and get $75 off your purchase and free one-week shipping.

Blizzard Responses

Celestalon

• Putting a call out for specific Zephrys use-case issues.

• Definitely aware of and reading all the reports about Zephrys misbehaving. We're investigating what might have gone wrong with him since 17.0. Will update when I have news! -Tweet
• One major issue we've identified: He'll miss lethal from direct damage spells if you have minions that can attack into a Taunt+Lifesteal. Working on a fix. -Tweet

What is happening with the other classes?

I used HSreplay for my research and am only considering lists with more than 1000 games logged as of this afternoon. I added things I saw on ladder or on streams that look fun.

Druid

• Low game numbers but Big Druid is moving up. It was already over a 50% WR yesterday with a lot more games played. This was before the nerf. Post-nerf they’re beating up on every Demon Hunter except the most-popular Tempo List but at the moment it’s an even matchup.

• Big Druid | Most popular

Hunter

• Dragon Hunter: Pre-patch had one of the highest WR & games played outside of DH. And it was the exact same list that many players were playing before Outland launched. It lost no cards.
• Face Hunter: Wasn’t doing great before the patch. Low games played but looking like it is back on the rise after the DH nerfs.

Mage

• The free to new/returning players Highlander Mage was above a 50% WR before the nerfs and is on the rise after.
• One No Minion Mage list was also above a 50% WR before the nerfs and is also rising now.

• Variants topping out with Reno are doing better than the more Secret-heavy lists.

Paladin

• Libram Paladin was extremely popular but getting completely rolled over by DH’s before the patch. Again, very low number of games played but things are looking up for the Pure Libram list.

Priest

• Quest Resurrect Priest is using new cards from Outland. Reliquary of Souls, Renew, SW: Ruin, Skeletal Dragon, & Soul Mirror all finding their way in. Over 1000 games logged on one particular list since the nerfs and the deck is sitting at a 58% WR.
• Highlander Priest was also finding a little success pre-nerfs but looks to be doing much better after.
• Overall Priest seems to be a solid contender. Up there with Druid and Warlock.

Rogue

• Galakrond Rogue 54% WR | Highlander Galakrond 55% WR
• Secret Rogue with Shadowjeweler Hanar

• AAECAaIHBK+RA6eoA8GuA/vEAw2eAd0Ij5cDkJcDvpgD+5oD/poD9acDqqgDzLkDzrkD0LkDub4DAA==

Shaman

• Basically tied Warrior for winrates post-expansion launch so there’s almost no stats to look at cause very few players are taking the class onto Ladder.
• Meme deck with Fist of Ra-den and one cost spells to summon many Reliquary of Souls

Warlock

• This Galakrond Control Warlock list is seeing Demon Hunter-level winrates. Actually slightly above the most popular DH list at the moment.
• On the edges of stats but Control Warlocks are finding a footing.

Warrior

• Much like Shaman. Their winrates across the board were abysmal and there are no stats to be found post-nerf.
• Highlander Warrior has JUST enough games logged to show stats. It’s doing well, but take the stats with a grain of salt.

BlizzCon is Up in the Air

https://blizzcon.com/en-us/news/23371505

Emails

You can send your emails to TACpodcast@gmail.com

Sean

Hey Joc and Garret!

Do either of you know if the demon hunter class is here to stay, or if it will rotate out when ashes if outlands rotates?

HiddenJester

With the new duplicate protection and the new ladder rewards … has anybody heard whether cards check for duplicates before determining which set they drop in? For example, if I have a "random Rare" in my chest when I open it, will it decide to be "a random rare from the list of rares I don't have 2 of"? Or does it pick a set and then check the duplicates. If the latter logic then it could decide "I'm a Classic card" before it notices that "Oh hey, he already has the full 2 copy sets for Classic Rares, so I'll be a duplicate."

Shorter version: If you have 2 of all rares in a set, does that mean your "random Rares" won't ever be from that set?

Outro

Patreon Thanks

TAC is supported by our epic Patrons. You can become a TAC Patron by going to Patreon.com/tac. Becoming a TAC patron gives you access to the TAC Discord as well as other perks!

If you dig the show drop us a 5 star review on the iTunes. Helps TAC find new listeners!

Thanks to our Patreon producers Declan H and CheezyBob! TAC coffee mugs and glasses are over at etched.amove.tv and our t-shirts are for sale at shirts.amove.tv.

The back catalogue of TAC can be found over on Amove.tv and Youtube.com/Amovetv. Follow the show on Twitter @TACpodcast!

Catch the live show Tuesday nights at 4pm Eastern on Twitch.tv/amovetv. Catch the live show from virtually any device thanks to AlphaGeekMedia.com. And big thanks to briangriffithmusic.com for our music.

Personal Stuff

Joce where can you be found?

Follow Jocelyn @JocePlays

The Gamers’ Inn

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

Amove.tv: Into the Nexus | Let’s Talk About Star Wars | WoW Killer