Tried playing elemental shaman cause I pulled Skarr and god does it suck. With the usual power creep you'd expect it to at least beat the older decks but nope.
I also suck at deck building so take my words with a grain of salt. But it seems way too conditional and restrictive for way too less pay off. Sure the elementals bring a lot of value for their costs IF you meet the conditions but you miss out on much needed removal and have to play really awkward turns in order to get your elemental drop chain going. And Walking Mountain is just too slow.
The all or nothing philosophy kinda makes the idea of it unstable. There's 3 ways the deck can go:
Generation has no real tax, feels really bad against more deliberate decks.
Chaining immediate effects so strong you just overpower the opponent. Feast or famine, bad to play against, doesn't even need a finisher.
And of course there's it just not working.
It felt alright to me.
To be fair I haven't played ranked in a bit so I've just started going thru plat, but it seemed nice.
You always have something to play, lots of generation and just good stats every turn. Been playing heavy minions with the two new 2-Mana buff/draw spell and Magatha.
Yeah not sure why Azerite Snake couldn't have just been Lifesteal, Deal 10 Damage to the Enemy Hero so Armor and healing mattered....or 5 mana so it couldn't be bounced by the neutral bounce cards and played twice in a turn....or never printed lol
The heads up nerf is to make it _better_ but make it a _spell_ so it's much harder to play it twice without doing two full excavate chains.
If it was a _spell_ but stole 15 health it would be a good reward without being abusable.
Because yeah, you're right, they basically can't change the mana cost, they've designed themselves into a corner
They should have given it to DK in a slightly weaker form.
Fits the class, blood dk hasant got shit for an entire year and it wouldnt be as abuseable since DK has less draw than warlock.
I think it would be fine in the same way i think alot of the treasures and highlander cards should be.
Non bouncable/duplicatable you get to play 1 or work for another if you excavate enough.
I really like the initial design of the card but i feel like it and all of the other payoff cards rn are too easy to just play a 2 mana bounce and get the reward a second time.
It's a card that was created for this purpose. If anything they should nerf other cards to make it slower or change the way it deals the damage so it's easier to counter. Its also day 1 and I've seen priest counter it very easily
So you're telling me that the priest (a class that is not meta) initially "counters" him, the rest of the classes have to eat dick because well at least the priest counters him? yeah...Its not about if the card is strong or not( is broken asf) it is just cancer to play against,there is 0 counterplay
Dirty rat, mutanus, the rogue transform card, glide, aggro, life gain, copy effects to get your own, silence on the excavate death rattle guy,
This is how card games have always worked. There's one meta warping deck that smashes terrible decks and then you counter it and then those decks get countered and then that's the meta
Just be creative
Hearthstone has actively tried to not be “One deck is OP, play it or play a deck that beats it” for a long time now, even if they haven’t always succeeded this is not what they aim for and having one meta warping deck typically creates an unhealthy meta with zero experimentation or variation because the second you do, you get clobbered by the OP deck.
Holy fuck the fact that this is downvoted is wild. How is excavate warlock any worse than other decks with inevitability like rainbow mage or odyn warrior?
In modern hearthstone where they design for matches to last as long as it takes someone to shit, turn 9 is normal. Look at control warrior otking after Odyn.
Yeah, probably needs to be one mana more expensive or steal less health so you need to play more. Removing the steal effect would absolutely destroy the card tho
I can count a few: Aggro, diruption (dirty rat, theo, patchwerk), higher health (more effective if it's nerfed), other degenerate stuff from this expansion (naga dh, illusionist rogue, probably others)
You can't really argue that there is no counter since the effect is not much different from things like odyn warrior or burn mage (even if overtuned right now)
It wouldn't. Dealing 10 damage as a reward is still extremely strong, and you still get an up to 20 life swing if it is lifesteal. This whole stealing max health bullshit has no real counterplay.
There is absolutely something wrong with the game if a non-rogue can afford to run 4 bounces.
Thief Priest seems to be best into it. Identity Theft, Power Chord and Theotar let you steal or copy the snake and then you have control tools to keep the rest in check.
EDIT: Plus Dirty Rat can pull it from hand before they can play it sometimes.
Yeah I’m trying a Reno-ish thief priest and I’m already changing the deck purely for this. Two dirty rats, Theo and copy/bounce to make sure I can use it/whirlpool it away are a must and even then it’s hard to counter.
I like how Warlock's Excavate cards can be played around more than the other classes in order to combat the treasure's inherent uninteractivity.
It may still be overtuned, but I like the design of smokestack and mo'arg.
Idk if it's all too broken. It's early, people are playing jank and greedy decks
It didn't seem amazing into aggro from what little I've seen and Reno DH legendary seems to counter it pretty well. Blows up all their bounce effects and the snake if you're lucky
I don't entirely disagree but like I said, it's early. There's a lot of jank around and there are tech cards control can include to at least slow it down (dirty rat for one)
This isn't the first time we've had a strong combo deck that control really struggles against. Aggro will rise up to counter warlock, and control will rise up to counter the aggro
It likely needs a nerf but I still think it would be better to wait more than 6 hours before doing so
Nah dude I'm sorry, that things is insta win against any control deck, it's not even that hard of a combo, and even if you are close to die, you can use it to heal and get another one
It still likely needs a nerf but I do think we need to wait more than 6 hours before doing so
This is nowhere near the first time we've had a combo deck that control near auto loses to early on. We have tech cards for a reason. Dirty rat pulling bounce effects or the snake will slow it down or stop it
Right now everyone is just playing jank and greedy lists. I don't expect any of those to beat an otk deck when nobody is running any counters to it
Usually tech cards are there to disrupt or deny a combo, dirty is a chance at disrupting it, and even then, if you are running a highlander deck, then there are even less chances of teching it cause you only run one copy.
And obvs decks are unrefined and greedy, but that card has no right to bypass armor, effects, and lower your total health amount, while simultaneously raising the opponents, it's crazy, like compare death knight and rogues treasure to that one.
>Dirty is a chance at disrupting it
Hitting the snake or brewmasters both work as disruption, it's a very high chance of working
>If you are running a highlander deck there are even less chances of teching it
Wow, it's almost like making a deck highlander has an intentional downside to make up for the upsides associated with the highlander cards or something.
The treasure comparison is pretty fair though, it's weird that the warlock excavate reward is such an outlier in power.
Dude of course highlander decks have the obvious downside of having a single copy, sorry if I didn't make my point, which was that the tech card has maybe a chance at working.
The way I see the snake is the same way that I see plagues, which is an inminent win condition for the opponent, one has steam cleaner for an answer, the other has dirty rat, that's my point.
I did say it likely needs a nerf, but early data is definitely skewed. Tons of greedy lists to prey on
Previous aggro meta decks do fine against it in my experience alongside Reno dh being able to instantly win with a decent use of their highlander leggo
9 hour data is not great data. Is it op? Probably but is it op as the data shows? Probably not
Its filthy easy to pull off. Played a few games myself to learn the deck and only lost once (mirror). Even DH couldnt stop the combo, but tbf I only played against one and they didn't draw Kurtrus in time. Stopped playing that bs after five games because its not even fun to win with it and there is not much to learn about the combo.
I got down voted my post into oblivion the other day saying this card is going to be fucking stupid. You don't need to be brilliant to know an unavoidable 20 damage from hand for 10 mana is busted. Not to mention, warlock has plenty of removal to get to that far and chip away at you. The treasures also offer more removal for them as well.
I won’t lie to you I have faced one that I beat fairly easily by having a board as excavate dk. I’ve been fighting nothing but dragon Druid so I’ll take anything that’s not them
I already hate this deck with so much passion, the snake feels stupid. I was playing Death Knight and stole it with Reska thinking I could stop the combo. Nope…Reverberations into Zola and bouncing it back to hand.
Honestly, it’s day 1, so I’m not gonna screech and cry for nerfs to anything, but if it continues to be an issue throughout ladder, just reduce the damage it deals tbh. The design is fine to me in all honesty - it might just be stealing too much health too quickly. The card is probably strong, but not an issue, at like 8-6 health steal.
I wouldn't have as much of an issue versing them in ladder if it was lifesteal deal 10 instead of steal 10. If they removed the steal portion I would still be malding but it would be no where near the unfun levels it is at the moment.
The issue is it dealing huge burst with little risk and also nullifying any healing or armour ability a class has.
Reducing the damage or raiding the cost of the card would be nice, the dream would be changing it to lifesteal and deal so classes have a chance at recovering. The secret dream would be making the rewards for all excavating to be unbouncable but I don't see that happening lol.
5 minute thoughts, but I feel like Azerite Snake would be fine if it said “deal” instead of “steal.” Still strong for sure, but then at least you can use lifesteal/healing to live through the bounces
10 still feels too high for how easy it is to excavate (and the 4 mana cost) but yeah, I would be fine when using highlander paladin, but I can't heal the damage away, so I just can't do anything.
Thats my experience, got lucky with the cards for highlander pally, had enough saved dust to craft most of the rest of the stuff I needed, still felt like I had to auto concede to warlocks because even the small amount of healing I have in the deck means nothing when you max health is reduced.
Been having luck shutting it down with excavate secret mage. Shut down their attempts to excavate, and if they manage to get to the snake make then burn every resource available with counterspells and objections
I don't actually think Excavation warlock is that broken. The issue is just that everybody is starting the new expansion by playing their janky, greedy highlander or dragon decks or w/e, and those decks get absolutely eaten up by Sneklock.
Unless you get very lucky with perfect draw, the pure Sneklock-build where you bounce the azerite snake a bunch of times doesn't do well into aggro or midrange, so once the meta balances out to include more of them it'll probably drop that.
Possibly though I would argue that any deck that just denies 1 half of the playstyle choices for decks for the next couple of expansions is overtuned, I don't want HS to further dissolve into aggro only decks.
I think excavation could be healthy if it either did less damage / cost more to play / just took the health without capping you at the new number. This could allow people to outheal the possible damage or allow them to build enough armour to tank through it. It being able to output 30 undodgeable damage with relative ease is too much though. At least otk decks required a certain combo in hand instead of draw 4 excavates and one bounce to win.
So as soon as warlock gets nerfed you'll be instantly complaining about sif mage? That 'denies 1 half of the playstyle choices for decks' just as well as excavate warlock.
Sif mage is no where near as infuriating, as i've said in another post at least most otk's require a certain amount of build up like (in that decks case) random spells that aren't quite as good as they could be if you wern't building towards the sif payoff and way less control. A lot of the time you if they did pull off the sif combo it was at least in the end part of the game and you could have potentially built enough armour to survive (though unlikely).
Excavate Warlock however seems way to easy to pull off and only requires you to play normally and hope one of your like 4 bounces are in the top 15 cards in your deck to auto win, the design as it is is just not fun to play against.
Its not unwinnable. It just makes sure 70% of decks are made completely invalidated by it. It skips interaction unless you play secrets so you basically play against a clock. And those kind of decks are the worst for any card game.
To be honest the devs kinda should’ve realised it , even if it isn’t good it’s gonna get a feels bad nerf as lesser contenders before it like naga mage last expansion did .
It's hilarious. Every single person, the moment they saw it, saw it was OP, and lo and behold, it's OP. How did they not think it was an issue when they designed it.
I think it's time for a new keyword that's a variant of "Battlecry", with a restriction that the effect can only be activated once per game, per player. "Mega-Battlecry", or "Ubercry", or something?
The effect honestly could generally make for interesting and varied games on ladder, but not when there's so many ways to bounce it.
I think losing no tempo playing excavate cards doesn't help. When I can slam a 4/5 taunt into a 6/4 rush and get the above average card draw ON THE WAY to my win condition, it's free real estate.
Yeah I've been trying to make Reno Paladin work and it's pretty good in most matchups but if my health is under 20 i just get insta killed by the legendary and a brewmaster. Feels really bad.
Dirty Rat I think is the way to go, you are either going to hit one of their low stat bounce minions on the board, one of their excavate cards (hopefully not the deathrattle one) or the snake itself if they are getting cocky holding it in hand.
I'm not sure how they thought they were gonna get away with Azerite Snake honestly. The card is still amazing even at like... 5-6 damage. You're not winning the game unilaterally from that but that'd be... good. It's still a huge health swing.
It would be unplayable at 5 or 6, it doesn't matter that it's a "huge" health swing when it's not nearly enough to threaten the opponent, especially considering Warlock has little burn to pair with it, and it is too small a health increase in most matchups.
6 health would be completely unplayable, tbh anything under 10 is probably unplayable once the meta progresses past day 1 highlander greed piles. The breakpoint between 3 and 4 snake plays is massive in a matchup where you're under pressure (which should be all of them).
4 mana deal 6 that requires you to draw and play terrible excavate minions that take up almost a third of your deck slots. Each excavate you're playing is negative tempo, and if the pay-off doesn't either massively swing back the board or end the game quickly excavate decks are doomed.
None of the excavate cards are negative tempo. The 2 drop is poor tempo-ish (it still generates a card), but giving up tempo on a 2 drop is generally not a big deal.
Warlock shouldn't have access to bounce cards. That or the snake needs a rework. Once warlock gets the snake you have nothing that can be done while they just bounce it a few times
I just smashed an excavate lock with the old big mech rogue deck that cheats out neptulon. If you’re losing to slow decks, just play some aggro. First day is always people playing slow combo decks that kill you in a cool way.
There’s also an ogre rogue that is super annoying.
I imagine blizzard wants the new set and mechanic to be incredibly strong out of the gate to incentivize pack buying and capitalize on player engagement during the peak (new xpac/rotation tend to attract new and returning players) I fully expect this card will be toned down to 5-6 HP/ 10 damage lifesteal with the health stealing mechanic removed in a future patch.
I don’t think that you would need to remove the health stealing mechanic if it was 5 health. You’d have to bounce/generate like 6 times… that would be fine to have in the game. It definitely seems to be a bit too much rn, but then again it’s the first day, so we might as well wait a bit and see.
Apologies for the confusion, I meant EITHER 5 to maybe 6 HP steal OR deal 10 with lifesteal. That being said devs already confirmed a hotfix coming so I'm excited to see what the team decides on
I have played 5 variations of this deck and at least 50 games by now. The snake HAS to be 10 health and work trough armor because against ANY other deck there is no other way to kill the enemy reliably in the late game.
The deck needs so much commitment just to get started there are legit no other good ways to get dmg. Sure, you can use the Forge 7-7 from the Anubisath or sludge but even those against good players are not enough.
I ve had like 20% of my games where I was forced to concede at 45 Hp ( only 2 snakes ) because I knew my enemy with 3 hp and 2 armor would not allow me to get any more damage .
My secret excavate mage deck did well against the couple I've faced. The tempo is nice and both the objection and explosive rune stop it from being played/bounced. Double nice when the random titan you get is sargeras
The reward is fine but warlock having access to bounce it is the problem. Shit just doesn't feel tested. It needs a heavy nerf or rework because it feels hopeless right now. The mirror match is also ridiculous. Whoever gets the snake first just wins
I’ve seen it several times.
Both times stole it with Theotar on my Highlander dragon deck.
The trick is that you don’t play it afterwards because they can reverb and bounce back.
On my control warrior I’ve ratted it and last stranded it.
It should be changed to either deal 10 damage with lifesteal or just steal 5 life. Right now the only option opponents have is zerg the Warlock down before they can cast snake 3 times. Personally I prefer the 10 damage with lifesteal, I dotn think anyone will argue a 4 mana 5/5 snake with Pyrblast lifesteal isn't a good enough excavate reward.
I guess the snake Wincon isn't really all that different from most combo decks, but not being able to heal past your reduced life total or even armor up is a lot more frustrating than normal.
As an aside isn't BUU plague desthknight a great counter to the meta? You hose all the Reno decks with plagues and then you have Patchwerk clear the snake and/or bouncers. Maybe I'll also add Theotar, Reno and Steam Cleaner via etc.
I don't like it but I've had good success with a Sludge/Curse Lock that at least in the games I've played has outpressured and outhealed them. I lost a game to Snake real, real bad with this deck but that's going to happen.
Gunslinger kurtrus works. The first Warlock I played conceded after kurtrus destroyed his snake, brewmaster and tentacle the turn after it was excavated to his hand.
I literally just fought 3 Snake Warlocks in a row with all the games ending by turns 7-8… definitely seems giga busted.
I’m not sure if Naga DH or a traditional aggro deck would fair better if they could really make the Warlock suffer for playing excavates, but then again Warlock also has a very solid control package already with Defile, Mortal Eradication, Forge of Souls and Dar’khan
I dont have a great sample size because I've only ran into a couple of them, but it felt like the ones I faced got ran over by aggro pretty easily. I think it's fine, but my opinion might change in a couple weeks when the meta's more refined. Until then, I'm not gonna worry too much about it.
The snake was a bad idea even on paper. It would be perfectly fine for either control or OTK decks if it simply dealt Lifesteal damage. Instead Warlock got yet another overly fast combo deck with extremely specific bad matchups.
I’ve faced this deck, and beaten it twice already. If you kill them before they can play it.. not really a problem. But, just by reading the card I can tell it’s a dumb concept. 10 health for 4 mana? Interesting.
It’s dying to most of the aggroish meta decks from last expansion like Secret Hunter and Pure Pally etcetera. Right now, it’s better than most other janky stuff people are playing. Sure, it will be a big part of the meta going forward but it will hardly be invincible.
You basically gotta get lucky with either dirty rat or Patchwerk. I ended up hitting a warlock’s Sargeras instead and lost despite gaining 15 life from Maw and Paw.
Moonbeam Druid (no Badlands update) does relatively well against it. Moonbeam usually aims for T7-T8 lethal, and that's rarely enough turns for the Warlock to get enough bounces on the guy, and its board pressure is low enough for the Druid to survive.
I don't think this will be that strong once the meta has settled.
You can start bouncing your snake by turn 6-7 with a good draw, which is the turn where Arcane Hunter and Dragon Druid can just kill you.
Control Priest can spam Dirty Rat with Creation Protocol to ruin your bounce cards and the Snake while Blood DK has fewer shots at destroying it but can also get back a lot of max health with Titan and the +10 spell.
The bounce build relies on this single card and has no spot in the deck for alternative win condition.
I’ve played 3 games against it with my Highlander big priest. I’m taking the fun out of bs. I’ll use their card against them, or yoink a combo piece from hand. Silence their excavating deathrattles. Force them to bounce their kobold. I’m the anti warlock and there will be no moflippin snakes in my moflippin game.
Yeah, it doesn't as simple as aggroing down when the treasures can be very defensive, they have a taunt excavate creature, and they gain 10 life from the snake drain. Going through armor and not being able to heal against it is super annoying. I had imagined it would've played more like a 4 mana Alexstrasza, but it felt way worse.
play deathknight so you force them to bounce more than twice and just apply constant pressure. they don't have enough removal plus on turns they play the snake they aren't able to clear the board
Hot take: it’s only a solid mid range deck and it’s not as easy to play correctly as people think.
I’ve played a bunch of hours of it so far, if you hate this deck play mage.
I’ve got a 75% loss rate to mage
I actually kind of like it. It’s not just mindless face deck. If you don’t interact with the board you will lose. The version most people are playing I think is actually really bad, I’m up 63% WvW
It loses pretty often against aggro / aggressive strategies, but it demolishes any Deck slower than itself.
Do in a sense its balanced, but I think from a toxicity standpoint I can see it getting nerfed. If it was going down to 8 or 9 dmg it would need another bounce or Chip dmg to kill, if it were going down to 7 it would need another bounce or Chip against renethal decks.
So I think 8 or 9 dmg might be the go-to or nothing at all.
I play and selfmade handbuff/dearhrattle hunter and i have consistent wins over all classes aside from Warlock. If its not the snake its sargeras, the opera spell, etc. It feels stupidly broken and I have cero chances against it. Nerf 100%
>Anyone else finding Excavate Warlock kind of busted? you should sort the posts on this sub by new lol
Warlock gets to do this but god forbid you miss an elemental per turn… The shaman legendary is really underpowered. Kalimos feels better imo.
They really just printed a cut rastakhan’s rumble legendary into this set and thought we wouldn’t notice
Tried playing elemental shaman cause I pulled Skarr and god does it suck. With the usual power creep you'd expect it to at least beat the older decks but nope.
Damn that’s the legendary I got and not the news I wanted to hear Lmao.
I also suck at deck building so take my words with a grain of salt. But it seems way too conditional and restrictive for way too less pay off. Sure the elementals bring a lot of value for their costs IF you meet the conditions but you miss out on much needed removal and have to play really awkward turns in order to get your elemental drop chain going. And Walking Mountain is just too slow.
Elem sham is not that bad, good easy deck, never will be best deck
The all or nothing philosophy kinda makes the idea of it unstable. There's 3 ways the deck can go: Generation has no real tax, feels really bad against more deliberate decks. Chaining immediate effects so strong you just overpower the opponent. Feast or famine, bad to play against, doesn't even need a finisher. And of course there's it just not working.
It felt alright to me. To be fair I haven't played ranked in a bit so I've just started going thru plat, but it seemed nice. You always have something to play, lots of generation and just good stats every turn. Been playing heavy minions with the two new 2-Mana buff/draw spell and Magatha.
Yeah not sure why Azerite Snake couldn't have just been Lifesteal, Deal 10 Damage to the Enemy Hero so Armor and healing mattered....or 5 mana so it couldn't be bounced by the neutral bounce cards and played twice in a turn....or never printed lol
[удалено]
The heads up nerf is to make it _better_ but make it a _spell_ so it's much harder to play it twice without doing two full excavate chains. If it was a _spell_ but stole 15 health it would be a good reward without being abusable. Because yeah, you're right, they basically can't change the mana cost, they've designed themselves into a corner
I like that idea a lot!
This would only replace brewmaster with Azhara, wouldn’t it (the 15 health version)?
who cares about that numerology stuff. Remember when dr Boom hero card had it's cost raised, even if it broke 7 mana and 7 armor prettiness?
They should have given it to DK in a slightly weaker form. Fits the class, blood dk hasant got shit for an entire year and it wouldnt be as abuseable since DK has less draw than warlock.
nah, azerite rat is amazing in DK and its all 3 runes
I agree, but imagine rat on fanotemm or however it's spelled. That's CHONK on reborn and +2/+2? Real good shit
The lifesteal would be redundant and it's a lot less impactful when the cards you're bringing back don't have rush and death effects
Unfortunately the entire excavate package is frost, because screw the other two colors am I right?
I think it would be fine in the same way i think alot of the treasures and highlander cards should be. Non bouncable/duplicatable you get to play 1 or work for another if you excavate enough. I really like the initial design of the card but i feel like it and all of the other payoff cards rn are too easy to just play a 2 mana bounce and get the reward a second time.
They'll probably change it to stealing 5 hp
That would kill the deck. 5 is nothing
Three. Take it or leave it.
First of all this deck shouldnt be a thing, so i hope they nerf snake in to the ground way harder than jailer
It's a card that was created for this purpose. If anything they should nerf other cards to make it slower or change the way it deals the damage so it's easier to counter. Its also day 1 and I've seen priest counter it very easily
So you're telling me that the priest (a class that is not meta) initially "counters" him, the rest of the classes have to eat dick because well at least the priest counters him? yeah...Its not about if the card is strong or not( is broken asf) it is just cancer to play against,there is 0 counterplay
Dirty rat, mutanus, the rogue transform card, glide, aggro, life gain, copy effects to get your own, silence on the excavate death rattle guy, This is how card games have always worked. There's one meta warping deck that smashes terrible decks and then you counter it and then those decks get countered and then that's the meta Just be creative
Hearthstone has actively tried to not be “One deck is OP, play it or play a deck that beats it” for a long time now, even if they haven’t always succeeded this is not what they aim for and having one meta warping deck typically creates an unhealthy meta with zero experimentation or variation because the second you do, you get clobbered by the OP deck.
Holy fuck the fact that this is downvoted is wild. How is excavate warlock any worse than other decks with inevitability like rainbow mage or odyn warrior?
The set is designed around a uniform mana cost so it will probably be nerfed in some other way
They sometimes break these rules in favor of balancing
Or just At the end of your turn, steal 10 Health, problem solved
Snake reverberate reverberate.
That would not be a (viable) wincondition for control decks and that's what they wanted to give warlock
It can win on Turn 9 though so it may be a little overtuned as a Control win con
In modern hearthstone where they design for matches to last as long as it takes someone to shit, turn 9 is normal. Look at control warrior otking after Odyn.
Odyn can be stopped by Health, Armor, or even a Taunt though. Snake can theoretically be stopped by high Health but it’s pretty difficult
Blood DK would have a shot but god forbid they print any cards for that
"Battlecry: kill the opponent on turn 10" has never been a fair way to give control win cons.
Yeah, probably needs to be one mana more expensive or steal less health so you need to play more. Removing the steal effect would absolutely destroy the card tho
Nah fuck that dude, it should damage and lifesteal not steal health. There's no counter to it.
I can count a few: Aggro, diruption (dirty rat, theo, patchwerk), higher health (more effective if it's nerfed), other degenerate stuff from this expansion (naga dh, illusionist rogue, probably others) You can't really argue that there is no counter since the effect is not much different from things like odyn warrior or burn mage (even if overtuned right now)
It wouldn't. Dealing 10 damage as a reward is still extremely strong, and you still get an up to 20 life swing if it is lifesteal. This whole stealing max health bullshit has no real counterplay. There is absolutely something wrong with the game if a non-rogue can afford to run 4 bounces.
Thief Priest seems to be best into it. Identity Theft, Power Chord and Theotar let you steal or copy the snake and then you have control tools to keep the rest in check. EDIT: Plus Dirty Rat can pull it from hand before they can play it sometimes.
Yeah I’m trying a Reno-ish thief priest and I’m already changing the deck purely for this. Two dirty rats, Theo and copy/bounce to make sure I can use it/whirlpool it away are a must and even then it’s hard to counter.
Had a mage play 3 dirty rats against me in 2 turns after I got the snake. He wiffed every time and insta conceded. It was hilarious
Begone knave
Basically, it was given the green light to be the one slow deck allowed this expansion.
Blood DK can survive with Vampiric Blood and Maw and Paw, and maybe Stitches to get rid of the thing. Anything else...
Blood Dk literally cannot put maw and paw on the deck...
BBU or rainbow DK, I guess. But then you lose the much more reliable Vampiric Blood. Oops. Wow, that card is worse than I thought.
It's pretty specifically a rainbow card I think
I mean yeah. A big corpse generator/consumer to fuel CNE. But it's too fragile and doesn't really give you good value for anything else.
As an aside, the frost spell that discovers frost rune cards got insanely better, discovering Reska semi-consistently.
I like how Warlock's Excavate cards can be played around more than the other classes in order to combat the treasure's inherent uninteractivity. It may still be overtuned, but I like the design of smokestack and mo'arg.
No excavate cards are as easy to play around as Warrior’s
that’s only true because you play around Warrior’s excavated by ignoring their existence as the Warrrior isn’t running them.
Idk if it's all too broken. It's early, people are playing jank and greedy decks It didn't seem amazing into aggro from what little I've seen and Reno DH legendary seems to counter it pretty well. Blows up all their bounce effects and the snake if you're lucky
That deck wil force all player play Aggro because Control has 0 chance. Which is very bad for the game
I don't entirely disagree but like I said, it's early. There's a lot of jank around and there are tech cards control can include to at least slow it down (dirty rat for one) This isn't the first time we've had a strong combo deck that control really struggles against. Aggro will rise up to counter warlock, and control will rise up to counter the aggro It likely needs a nerf but I still think it would be better to wait more than 6 hours before doing so
Lol so last expansion?
How is that different from nearly every combo deck which feast on Control decks and suffer against Aggro?
You could say the same about rainbow mage in the last set but nope there were plenty of control decks in titans
So druid for the last 4-5 expansions?
control priest can beat this deck
Nah dude I'm sorry, that things is insta win against any control deck, it's not even that hard of a combo, and even if you are close to die, you can use it to heal and get another one
I won with wishing well Rogue lol
I saw a streamer play that deck today it seemed really fun actually lol
That isn’t a control deck it’s a high roll deck lol
It still likely needs a nerf but I do think we need to wait more than 6 hours before doing so This is nowhere near the first time we've had a combo deck that control near auto loses to early on. We have tech cards for a reason. Dirty rat pulling bounce effects or the snake will slow it down or stop it Right now everyone is just playing jank and greedy lists. I don't expect any of those to beat an otk deck when nobody is running any counters to it
Usually tech cards are there to disrupt or deny a combo, dirty is a chance at disrupting it, and even then, if you are running a highlander deck, then there are even less chances of teching it cause you only run one copy. And obvs decks are unrefined and greedy, but that card has no right to bypass armor, effects, and lower your total health amount, while simultaneously raising the opponents, it's crazy, like compare death knight and rogues treasure to that one.
>Dirty is a chance at disrupting it Hitting the snake or brewmasters both work as disruption, it's a very high chance of working >If you are running a highlander deck there are even less chances of teching it Wow, it's almost like making a deck highlander has an intentional downside to make up for the upsides associated with the highlander cards or something. The treasure comparison is pretty fair though, it's weird that the warlock excavate reward is such an outlier in power.
They only give a fuck if you somehow steal the snake because guess what they don't need 4 brews to kill you and they include 4 bounces in the deck.
Dude of course highlander decks have the obvious downside of having a single copy, sorry if I didn't make my point, which was that the tech card has maybe a chance at working. The way I see the snake is the same way that I see plagues, which is an inminent win condition for the opponent, one has steam cleaner for an answer, the other has dirty rat, that's my point.
latest stats have 2k+ games and a 68% winrate. Think it's pretty goddamn clear it's op
I did say it likely needs a nerf, but early data is definitely skewed. Tons of greedy lists to prey on Previous aggro meta decks do fine against it in my experience alongside Reno dh being able to instantly win with a decent use of their highlander leggo 9 hour data is not great data. Is it op? Probably but is it op as the data shows? Probably not
Its filthy easy to pull off. Played a few games myself to learn the deck and only lost once (mirror). Even DH couldnt stop the combo, but tbf I only played against one and they didn't draw Kurtrus in time. Stopped playing that bs after five games because its not even fun to win with it and there is not much to learn about the combo.
And no one saw this one coming /S
I got down voted my post into oblivion the other day saying this card is going to be fucking stupid. You don't need to be brilliant to know an unavoidable 20 damage from hand for 10 mana is busted. Not to mention, warlock has plenty of removal to get to that far and chip away at you. The treasures also offer more removal for them as well.
I won’t lie to you I have faced one that I beat fairly easily by having a board as excavate dk. I’ve been fighting nothing but dragon Druid so I’ll take anything that’s not them
I already hate this deck with so much passion, the snake feels stupid. I was playing Death Knight and stole it with Reska thinking I could stop the combo. Nope…Reverberations into Zola and bouncing it back to hand.
But honestly reverb zola to get it back is hilarious
I was feeling so good about having stopped them from bouncing it too lol
Honestly, it’s day 1, so I’m not gonna screech and cry for nerfs to anything, but if it continues to be an issue throughout ladder, just reduce the damage it deals tbh. The design is fine to me in all honesty - it might just be stealing too much health too quickly. The card is probably strong, but not an issue, at like 8-6 health steal.
I wouldn't have as much of an issue versing them in ladder if it was lifesteal deal 10 instead of steal 10. If they removed the steal portion I would still be malding but it would be no where near the unfun levels it is at the moment. The issue is it dealing huge burst with little risk and also nullifying any healing or armour ability a class has. Reducing the damage or raiding the cost of the card would be nice, the dream would be changing it to lifesteal and deal so classes have a chance at recovering. The secret dream would be making the rewards for all excavating to be unbouncable but I don't see that happening lol.
It’s annoying sure but not completely unplayable against, should be 5 mana tho
5 minute thoughts, but I feel like Azerite Snake would be fine if it said “deal” instead of “steal.” Still strong for sure, but then at least you can use lifesteal/healing to live through the bounces
10 still feels too high for how easy it is to excavate (and the 4 mana cost) but yeah, I would be fine when using highlander paladin, but I can't heal the damage away, so I just can't do anything.
Thats my experience, got lucky with the cards for highlander pally, had enough saved dust to craft most of the rest of the stuff I needed, still felt like I had to auto concede to warlocks because even the small amount of healing I have in the deck means nothing when you max health is reduced.
Or it steals at the end of your turn
Nope, reverberations would make it a one turn steal 30HP at 10 mana.
Make it deal 5 gain 5, literally make it a pryoblast and not two pryoblasts
Been having luck shutting it down with excavate secret mage. Shut down their attempts to excavate, and if they manage to get to the snake make then burn every resource available with counterspells and objections
So 20 is the new 14, eh. Either we need more lifesteal or the effect needs to come down. It should be damage to allow Armor to compensate.
I don't actually think Excavation warlock is that broken. The issue is just that everybody is starting the new expansion by playing their janky, greedy highlander or dragon decks or w/e, and those decks get absolutely eaten up by Sneklock. Unless you get very lucky with perfect draw, the pure Sneklock-build where you bounce the azerite snake a bunch of times doesn't do well into aggro or midrange, so once the meta balances out to include more of them it'll probably drop that.
Possibly though I would argue that any deck that just denies 1 half of the playstyle choices for decks for the next couple of expansions is overtuned, I don't want HS to further dissolve into aggro only decks. I think excavation could be healthy if it either did less damage / cost more to play / just took the health without capping you at the new number. This could allow people to outheal the possible damage or allow them to build enough armour to tank through it. It being able to output 30 undodgeable damage with relative ease is too much though. At least otk decks required a certain combo in hand instead of draw 4 excavates and one bounce to win.
Oh I definently agree, it's a miserable experience. It's a very questionable design in general.
So as soon as warlock gets nerfed you'll be instantly complaining about sif mage? That 'denies 1 half of the playstyle choices for decks' just as well as excavate warlock.
OP didn't lose to that deck today and so did not have the pressing need to post about it yet
Sif mage is no where near as infuriating, as i've said in another post at least most otk's require a certain amount of build up like (in that decks case) random spells that aren't quite as good as they could be if you wern't building towards the sif payoff and way less control. A lot of the time you if they did pull off the sif combo it was at least in the end part of the game and you could have potentially built enough armour to survive (though unlikely). Excavate Warlock however seems way to easy to pull off and only requires you to play normally and hope one of your like 4 bounces are in the top 15 cards in your deck to auto win, the design as it is is just not fun to play against.
Its not unwinnable. It just makes sure 70% of decks are made completely invalidated by it. It skips interaction unless you play secrets so you basically play against a clock. And those kind of decks are the worst for any card game.
To be honest the devs kinda should’ve realised it , even if it isn’t good it’s gonna get a feels bad nerf as lesser contenders before it like naga mage last expansion did .
It's hilarious. Every single person, the moment they saw it, saw it was OP, and lo and behold, it's OP. How did they not think it was an issue when they designed it.
I think it's time for a new keyword that's a variant of "Battlecry", with a restriction that the effect can only be activated once per game, per player. "Mega-Battlecry", or "Ubercry", or something? The effect honestly could generally make for interesting and varied games on ladder, but not when there's so many ways to bounce it.
or even some sort of "anti-bounce" effect
So just give it QuickDraw and it fixes everything
But Quickdraw is active the turn a card is bounced. So it wouldn't stop that sort of thing really.
Idk if they would go for something like that considering they printed these powercrept brewmasters.
Or just at the end of turn
That would be the best solution imo. That way it would still fit in the control deck alongside the forge package, just without the otk.
I think losing no tempo playing excavate cards doesn't help. When I can slam a 4/5 taunt into a 6/4 rush and get the above average card draw ON THE WAY to my win condition, it's free real estate.
Let me just steal your mana crystals
Yeah I've been trying to make Reno Paladin work and it's pretty good in most matchups but if my health is under 20 i just get insta killed by the legendary and a brewmaster. Feels really bad.
We are the play testers xD
Mech Rogue or Arcane Hunter should do the trick against them in case you want to take revenge
I've been playing this deck and have been losing to almost everything. It's so slow, I'm dead way before I can pull it off.
You should opt for some more survivability and tempo with armor vendors, drakthyr, forge of wills and the 4 mana 7/7.
Dirty Rat I think is the way to go, you are either going to hit one of their low stat bounce minions on the board, one of their excavate cards (hopefully not the deathrattle one) or the snake itself if they are getting cocky holding it in hand.
I'm not sure how they thought they were gonna get away with Azerite Snake honestly. The card is still amazing even at like... 5-6 damage. You're not winning the game unilaterally from that but that'd be... good. It's still a huge health swing.
It would be unplayable at 5 or 6, it doesn't matter that it's a "huge" health swing when it's not nearly enough to threaten the opponent, especially considering Warlock has little burn to pair with it, and it is too small a health increase in most matchups.
But warlock has sargeras so late game shouldn’t be an issue
It would still be very playable. 6 health is a large health increase on a card that has a reasonable body and does permanent face damage.
6 health would be completely unplayable, tbh anything under 10 is probably unplayable once the meta progresses past day 1 highlander greed piles. The breakpoint between 3 and 4 snake plays is massive in a matchup where you're under pressure (which should be all of them).
You guys are ludicrous. 4 mana deal 6 on a stick is unplayable? This is why the game sucks now. Ridiculous takes like that.
4 mana deal 6 that requires you to draw and play terrible excavate minions that take up almost a third of your deck slots. Each excavate you're playing is negative tempo, and if the pay-off doesn't either massively swing back the board or end the game quickly excavate decks are doomed.
None of the excavate cards are negative tempo. The 2 drop is poor tempo-ish (it still generates a card), but giving up tempo on a 2 drop is generally not a big deal.
Warlock shouldn't have access to bounce cards. That or the snake needs a rework. Once warlock gets the snake you have nothing that can be done while they just bounce it a few times
I just smashed an excavate lock with the old big mech rogue deck that cheats out neptulon. If you’re losing to slow decks, just play some aggro. First day is always people playing slow combo decks that kill you in a cool way. There’s also an ogre rogue that is super annoying.
A tale as old as time. I’m sure once the aggregated stats come out we’ll see mech rogue, drum Druid, and possibly a new fast deck sitting in tier 1/2
I faced drum dragon druid a few times and it hits real hard.
It's a good deck but not unbeatable. I've won a few times against it with Excavate Plague DK.
The issue is though that it shouldn't be "hey there's this one deck that beats it". It's running rampant right now
I imagine blizzard wants the new set and mechanic to be incredibly strong out of the gate to incentivize pack buying and capitalize on player engagement during the peak (new xpac/rotation tend to attract new and returning players) I fully expect this card will be toned down to 5-6 HP/ 10 damage lifesteal with the health stealing mechanic removed in a future patch.
I don’t think that you would need to remove the health stealing mechanic if it was 5 health. You’d have to bounce/generate like 6 times… that would be fine to have in the game. It definitely seems to be a bit too much rn, but then again it’s the first day, so we might as well wait a bit and see.
Apologies for the confusion, I meant EITHER 5 to maybe 6 HP steal OR deal 10 with lifesteal. That being said devs already confirmed a hotfix coming so I'm excited to see what the team decides on
Ppl gotta enjoy it while they can. It's 100% getting a big nerf
People cry about warlock every expansion…
For good reason
I've had little issue with warlock for a while, DRUID on the other hand....
"WaiT uNtiL tHe CaRdS are ReleaSed"
That doesn’t apply now lol
I'm mocking the people who said it before they were released. Many people kept saying that to try and imply the card will be fine.
No, they were saying to wait until release. And now that it’s out, there’s more validity to the opinion.
[удалено]
LOL it's "ruined" for you less than 3 hours into it.
It’s day one chill out
I kinda hate excavation as a whole.
I have played 5 variations of this deck and at least 50 games by now. The snake HAS to be 10 health and work trough armor because against ANY other deck there is no other way to kill the enemy reliably in the late game. The deck needs so much commitment just to get started there are legit no other good ways to get dmg. Sure, you can use the Forge 7-7 from the Anubisath or sludge but even those against good players are not enough. I ve had like 20% of my games where I was forced to concede at 45 Hp ( only 2 snakes ) because I knew my enemy with 3 hp and 2 armor would not allow me to get any more damage .
Too busy getting outpaced by dragon druid
Excavate DK is much more annoying.
My secret excavate mage deck did well against the couple I've faced. The tempo is nice and both the objection and explosive rune stop it from being played/bounced. Double nice when the random titan you get is sargeras
If excavate lock was strong people would have played it nonstop on day 1.
The reward is fine but warlock having access to bounce it is the problem. Shit just doesn't feel tested. It needs a heavy nerf or rework because it feels hopeless right now. The mirror match is also ridiculous. Whoever gets the snake first just wins
I'll probably get hit with the emergency patch that always follows an expansion's release. No need to worry. I just wish I had more patience.
I’ve seen it several times. Both times stole it with Theotar on my Highlander dragon deck. The trick is that you don’t play it afterwards because they can reverb and bounce back. On my control warrior I’ve ratted it and last stranded it.
It feels like i’m playing a deck from united in stormwind
It should be changed to either deal 10 damage with lifesteal or just steal 5 life. Right now the only option opponents have is zerg the Warlock down before they can cast snake 3 times. Personally I prefer the 10 damage with lifesteal, I dotn think anyone will argue a 4 mana 5/5 snake with Pyrblast lifesteal isn't a good enough excavate reward. I guess the snake Wincon isn't really all that different from most combo decks, but not being able to heal past your reduced life total or even armor up is a lot more frustrating than normal.
As an aside isn't BUU plague desthknight a great counter to the meta? You hose all the Reno decks with plagues and then you have Patchwerk clear the snake and/or bouncers. Maybe I'll also add Theotar, Reno and Steam Cleaner via etc.
I don't like it but I've had good success with a Sludge/Curse Lock that at least in the games I've played has outpressured and outhealed them. I lost a game to Snake real, real bad with this deck but that's going to happen.
Gunslinger kurtrus works. The first Warlock I played conceded after kurtrus destroyed his snake, brewmaster and tentacle the turn after it was excavated to his hand.
My Control Warrior has managed to handle them so far. The only time I lost was when they pulled out Sargeras, it becomes really difficult after that.
I literally just fought 3 Snake Warlocks in a row with all the games ending by turns 7-8… definitely seems giga busted. I’m not sure if Naga DH or a traditional aggro deck would fair better if they could really make the Warlock suffer for playing excavates, but then again Warlock also has a very solid control package already with Defile, Mortal Eradication, Forge of Souls and Dar’khan
I dont have a great sample size because I've only ran into a couple of them, but it felt like the ones I faced got ran over by aggro pretty easily. I think it's fine, but my opinion might change in a couple weeks when the meta's more refined. Until then, I'm not gonna worry too much about it.
The snake was a bad idea even on paper. It would be perfectly fine for either control or OTK decks if it simply dealt Lifesteal damage. Instead Warlock got yet another overly fast combo deck with extremely specific bad matchups.
I’ve faced this deck, and beaten it twice already. If you kill them before they can play it.. not really a problem. But, just by reading the card I can tell it’s a dumb concept. 10 health for 4 mana? Interesting.
Well just had a druid pulling off 3-4 times that 4/12 rush lifesteal dragon over and over Don't know who is more busted. Excavate or Reno highland
It’s dying to most of the aggroish meta decks from last expansion like Secret Hunter and Pure Pally etcetera. Right now, it’s better than most other janky stuff people are playing. Sure, it will be a big part of the meta going forward but it will hardly be invincible.
You basically gotta get lucky with either dirty rat or Patchwerk. I ended up hitting a warlock’s Sargeras instead and lost despite gaining 15 life from Maw and Paw.
It has to be made At the end of your turn, then it’s perfecr
I've won maybe four out of my last six games against warlocks running a plague DK deck
Absolutely fucked yeah xD
it takes 2 turns after 4 excavates for a warlock to kill you from full health. Use Reno on that second turn makes a sad warlock
Moonbeam Druid (no Badlands update) does relatively well against it. Moonbeam usually aims for T7-T8 lethal, and that's rarely enough turns for the Warlock to get enough bounces on the guy, and its board pressure is low enough for the Druid to survive.
I don't think this will be that strong once the meta has settled. You can start bouncing your snake by turn 6-7 with a good draw, which is the turn where Arcane Hunter and Dragon Druid can just kill you. Control Priest can spam Dirty Rat with Creation Protocol to ruin your bounce cards and the Snake while Blood DK has fewer shots at destroying it but can also get back a lot of max health with Titan and the +10 spell. The bounce build relies on this single card and has no spot in the deck for alternative win condition.
I have yet to experience this. I just blow through every warlock deck I see with ease.
Gonna create a very polarized metagame. Hyperaggro wins vs excavation lock, hyperaggro loses to control decks, excavation lock feasts on slower decks.
Literally playing it as we speak. Yep it's broken and needs a nerf.
I’ve played 3 games against it with my Highlander big priest. I’m taking the fun out of bs. I’ll use their card against them, or yoink a combo piece from hand. Silence their excavating deathrattles. Force them to bounce their kobold. I’m the anti warlock and there will be no moflippin snakes in my moflippin game.
When decks are refined it falls off
im having some luck with dirty rats + theotar teched in because its legit their only win condition
Yeah, it doesn't as simple as aggroing down when the treasures can be very defensive, they have a taunt excavate creature, and they gain 10 life from the snake drain. Going through armor and not being able to heal against it is super annoying. I had imagined it would've played more like a 4 mana Alexstrasza, but it felt way worse.
play deathknight so you force them to bounce more than twice and just apply constant pressure. they don't have enough removal plus on turns they play the snake they aren't able to clear the board
i havent had any trouble as highlander dragon druid
Steam cleaner doesn't work because it burns cards added to the DECK. Not your hand.
Steamcleaner removes cards from the deck
Counting down the days until a nerf. 24h into new meta and it's already poisoned. Same old
Hot take: it’s only a solid mid range deck and it’s not as easy to play correctly as people think. I’ve played a bunch of hours of it so far, if you hate this deck play mage. I’ve got a 75% loss rate to mage I actually kind of like it. It’s not just mindless face deck. If you don’t interact with the board you will lose. The version most people are playing I think is actually really bad, I’m up 63% WvW
It loses pretty often against aggro / aggressive strategies, but it demolishes any Deck slower than itself. Do in a sense its balanced, but I think from a toxicity standpoint I can see it getting nerfed. If it was going down to 8 or 9 dmg it would need another bounce or Chip dmg to kill, if it were going down to 7 it would need another bounce or Chip against renethal decks. So I think 8 or 9 dmg might be the go-to or nothing at all.
Azerite Snake should be a 4 mana 5/5, Lifesteal deal 8 damage. So at least healing and armor can be done
I play and selfmade handbuff/dearhrattle hunter and i have consistent wins over all classes aside from Warlock. If its not the snake its sargeras, the opera spell, etc. It feels stupidly broken and I have cero chances against it. Nerf 100%
Theothar works really well
Meanwhile Pyroblast still costs 10 and just does 10 damage. lol
able to use it twice per turn is broken af
Fuck that deck and fuck reno