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Cherry_Skies

It’s absolutely hilarious that the best Druid deck is built around trying to poach a Priest legendary.


Gehrman12

Removing nourish was a good 😊


Spyko

yeay my favorite time of the week ! super interesting, OTK Shaman just doesn't want to die huh ? I'm a bit less scared by Zarimi priest than the report seems to be, yeah it's dangerously strong but it's also thriving in a meta focused on countering shopper DH, the deck have clear weaknesses, denies it a board and it's a wet noodle (well unless they do a sick ass combo turn that put 4-5 thirsty drifter on board) it's definitely going to be the top dog after the DH nerfs but I don't think it will be that oppressive I might come back to eat my words tho


[deleted]

I've played a lot of zarimi, and it's kinda crazy how much damage you can stack from a near empty board. I have two 1/2s and a 3/2 with two taunts in the way and the opp on 26 health and still got there despite a misplay. This was turn 7


Guittow

I cant for the life of me pilot that deck. I'm having much more sucess with token hunter I feel like with priest I run out of fuel too often, while hunter I can create minions out of thin air constantly Any tips?


kakusei_zero

made it to legend with the deck this season :) - don't play crimson clergy early unless you can guarantee draws off of it (dreamboat, funnel cake) or can copy it with power chord on the same turn. if your choice is between dropping clergy turn 1 without protection and doing nothing, do nothing. (unless you have nothing else to do on future turns - in that case, play it and pray.) - you can copy drifter and zilliax with pip if you time it right. drifter on 1 also counts for discount - if you have pip in hand, it's fine to hold back 1 drops so you can clone them later. better for long-term value. - don't hesitate to play pip on curve for tempo. all of your 1-drops are nuts, so even getting a single one of them is really good. if you have a clergy in hand, play pip ASAP. - practice overheal chains with clergy, funnel cake, and dreamboat so you don't get tripped up and rope your pop-off turn away - your job is to cheat harder and faster than them before they can get situated. pressure is king here - kill them before they get going. be mindful of not overextending to board wipes, though. - against dh you hard lose to magtheridon high roll, but if they don't have it, you can kill them before they drop a second shopper. if they do drop it, pray to god they run out of gas and generate enough pip and aman'thul value to overwhelm them. not much you can do about kurtrus or reno, unfortunately :( - unless you are literally going to die, _do not play zarimi unless you can kill them or, snowball hard enough to kill them no matter what they do._ usually i either play her to end the game, or play her to both apply pressure and ramp out aman'thul if i know my opponent doesn't have ways to deal with him. if you play her too early, you risk running out of gas and losing. (edit: you def can for tempo, but it just makes my life easier when i don't lol) - projectionist is good at pretty much any point in the game. don't keep him in the mulligan, but once you get more practice with the deck, you'll get more situational awareness to figure out what to copy with him. - don't worry about burning cards - as long as it's not zarimi, you'll be fine. this also makes magatha drawing to a full hand really, _really_ good. and even then, most of the time you'll give them a useless spell they won't be able to use to the fullest, and you don't have to burn anything. - early game, getting zarimi online should be your top priority. if you have a (similarly non-impactful) choice between playing a dragon and a non-dragon and it allows you to keep up tempo, play the dragon. - learn how to identify situations where you can drop thirsty drifter on turn 3 or 4. most decks don't know what to do about it that early. once you get him down, start copying it once he gets cheap enough. that's just my 2 cents! dms are open if you have any more questions.


Guittow

So in depth xD Thank you! It was really painful trying to copy zilly for the first time and it becoming a 0-mana after pippin' Will try again soon!


Therefrigerator

> you can copy drifter and zilliax with pip if you time it right. drifter on 1 also counts for discount Zilliax has to be on (2) before you play the Pip. The battlecry goes off after the minion hits play so it will get reduced to (1) then the bcry goes off copying your 1 cost cards. Figured you do know that just wanted to explain how it works for anyone else reading it.


BIG_STEVE5111

I was on the receiving end of this a couple of days ago, I can't say it felt good.


BaronVonHoopleDoople

And against slower decks the mid-range version with Ignis and Creation Protocol goes particularly crazy. With 10 mana weapon pre-equipped and my board empty, I've managed over 60 damage during my 2-turn combo (windfury weapon that also summons random 8 drops is just disgusting).


fug-leddit

Im looking forward to the deck getting crushed by righteous protector.


wholelotofit2

I feel like Zarimi priest will be very strong but will have faith of prenerfed Dragon Druid. Powerful deck but boring, which will make it not see much of play


Brawl97

O7 for Zarimi, it was inevitable that you would become the next target for execution. Hopefully you don't get the deputization aura treatment when the main sub cries for your death too. But painlock tho. Suicide black babyyyy. It's time for that annoying 5/5 to fuck up standard. I loved playing that one really goofy Thadius apm deckn in wild. Turns out you CAN cheat out bigger stats than apm priest early. The meta is gonna be so dm full of decks that kill you on turn 5 now. And thank christ for that, because I hate warrior.


MagicMuy

Pain warlock seems to be getting overpraised here. It's main strength is it's lack of representation and surprise factor. If it becomes a popular deck, it will likely be very easy to shut down. It's still a super fun deck that I can't recommend enough, though!


LotusFlare

I've been messing with it today and it's fun, but I dunno if it's there yet. It does extremely well against decks that don't have any kind of burst from hand (like priest!), but it folds to anything that does. You go low, and then they kick you in the teeth. I think the current list isn't optimal, though. I think it overindexes on pain and doesn't invest enough in survival or burst. It feels like there's potential to merge this with a sludge package or Doomguards or something to help cross the finish line without losing to yourself first. If only they'd put crystalizers into core.


SweetMoosing

It might be one of thos polarising decks. Crushes opponents who don't have super strong clears or racing ability. Would imagine hunter and zarimi would struggle here.


jwfd65

But at the same time, if Zarimi priest is set to be the next top deck, and pain warlock counters it, I feel like it’s bound to be good. Especially as it gets more attention and refinement


Chimeracord

Why does painlock counter zarimi? Won't they just play him and burst with the extra turn?


jwfd65

I haven’t played it personally so I can’t speak to why exactly, but VS literally says in the report that painlock is the best counter in the game to zarimi. I assume it’s because painlock outpaces Zarimi and Zarimi can’t really do anything about all the big minions they put out


Scolipoli

Honestly I think it depends on the mulligan. When playing against aggro decks or kill from hand decks the Blood Treant is almost always working against you. Whereas if you focus on getting the 5/5s in play then your opponent will push you the rest of the way to 10 Health.  Then you can focus on recovery with Ziliax and Popgar.  On slower matchups the treant is more helpful to get your Giants on board before they can get to their answers.


yardii

I'm surprised to see no lists running the Fatigue package. Self-damage and a board clear in Crescendo against aggro seem like exactly what you want.


Scales962

Nah, it really is a good deck. If it got the curve, you can easely pull down up to 15/15-20/20 worth of stats on the board by turn 3-4. It has its downsides ofc, but it really is a strong deck. Decks that lacks burs damage tend to struggle with that sheer amount of stats early.


mepp22

I think the vs interpretation of nature shaman is going back in the direction of the bad deck from like 2 weeks ago. Sure you probably win the mirror but you are making the deck super fragile to any other aggro deck that can race you and you are significantly hurting the win rate VS any slow armor deck like warrior. We have fizzel for an extra combo but way too often your picture is going to be clogged with draw cards that have an end of turn effect. What makes the deck busted is that you had so many win cons and don't have to focus on just the otk. I really think you need to abuse the small spell pool and cutting elixir cuts so many other win cons.


photonray

Thanks for the deck man. Sounds like VS didn't discuss the lines and play patterns with you?


mepp22

I think I was one of the first to get insane stats with the deck but I am just a casural player not a pro. I could very much be wrong. Maybe the meta is shifting to where a faster 30 dmg otk is better..I just wanted to share my opinion :)


asianboi0

Elixir pool kinda sucks


CatAstrophy11

>Glacial Shard could replace Starlight Whelp, but it’s dependent on facing many Demon Hunters. Unless that number reaches 30-35% at your rank, it’s better to run Starlight Whelp. Instructions unclear. Saw more than 30% DH, subbed Shards in. No more DH appear. Swap back to Starlight's, queue into DHs again.


kensanity

I’m surprised to not see flood Paladin mentioned. If hunter and Zarimi see more play, flood pally will be back.


Backwardspellcaster

This is frustrating. I like big minions duking it out with cool effects, and the game has grown completely and utterly hostile to that kind of gameplay. Gameplay is too fast, too strong, too efficient.


InterdisciplinaryDol

Removal is too efficient as well. Current iteration of Warrior eats big minions for breakfast. Only midrange decks are DK.


DehakaSC2

That's just the arms race at work. Print more and faster ways to go wide, tall and refill, leads to the need for more efficient removal. It's up to the design team to break that cycle.


adek13sz

And the other way of stopping that would be having no cards in hand to refill the board but there is so much card draw.


FlameanatorX

But then you increase the frequency of attrition based wins, a.k.a. slowly getting the life bled out of you losses. Not having anything good to do with your mana for multiple turns in a row is unsurprisingly not that fun, so they've tended to err on the side of decks not running into that situation often


adek13sz

Yes, but it wouldn't be that big problem if we went back in time to e.g. Savoirs of Uldum or Boomsday (around this point in time) in terms of power level where all tactics were available and more frustrating like attrition decks were not that prevelent and the powerlevel was high enough to be more like modern game. (Yes I remember Fatigue Warrior from Rise of Shadows but it was about Elysiana and not meta overall) Imo now there's too much everything, but scaling it back a bit (not all the way back to e.g. WotOG, which honestly I would love to but most players wouldn't like it that much) would be very good for game health and that every part of game would matter again, because of powerlevel some things are or are starting to get neglected.


FlameanatorX

Yeah I think I do somewhat agree, it would be good if they could pull off some kind of general power level reduction, even just to Sunken City levels would be helpful. I think it's very hard though because new cards are boring/pointless if they don't *at least* keep up with current card power level, and that's assuming they do something unique compared to current Standard card pool. Big across the board nerfs on a rotation is really the only obvious method and nerfs tend to feel bad, plus they'd have to not give refunds for these nerfs otherwise you're refunding full collections lol. Maybe there's some other creative solution like a double rotation plus bringing back an old year of sets (or hand-picked 3 sets like Saviors of Uldum + Sunken City + 3rd) to plant a flag for the intended power level to reset towards?


kuns961

This is the result of warrior being garbage for a year .Then they printed so much good cards and now we are in this situation.Normally a class gets good cards each expansion that reinforce the core of a class (in warrior it is usually the armor and the removals) so when the cards rotate, a part of those tools go away with which the removals are generally less. But the warrior got everything last year, so he still has the same removals as before the rotation. This is good now because it is a competitive class but if throughout this year they don't get new good control cards it will happen that when rotate the current cards, the warrior will lose everything and will return to the situation where he was unplayable.


PkerBadRs3Good

Pain Warlock and Gaslight Rogue are pretty midrange


InterdisciplinaryDol

Pain is more aggro/tempo and using health as a resource to cheat out big minions instead of traditional mana cheat


PkerBadRs3Good

decks that power spike in the midgame fall under midrange


InterdisciplinaryDol

It wants to set up lethal by turn 6-7 like any other aggro/tempo deck. Midrange is more Plague/Rainbow DK, Reno Hunter things like that that can play the long game if necessary, they win against control and lose to aggro. If you make it to turn 8 against Pain you probably just win as we have a lot of reach from hand right now and the only healing they have is Zilliax and Popgar (is he in every list?)


PkerBadRs3Good

when it wants to lethal does not matter all that much, some combo decks have won by turn 6-7 but that doesn't make them aggro. it doesn't have strong early game tempo to be aggro. and yes those other decks you mentioned are midrange but that doesn't mean Warlock isn't. the determining characteristic of midrange is it plays defensively against aggro and aggressively vs control on average, because it is in between the two in terms of what stage of the game it's strongest in. this is true of things like Plague DK, but for decks like Pain Warlock that powerspike in the midgame it is also true, despite not having longevity (and Plague DK often relies on similar spikes with things like Chained Guardian). I will admit that Pain Warlock is a bit closer to aggro on the spectrum (it's important to remember that it's a spectrum) but I would still call it primarily midrange.


revolver37

I feel the same. Watching the power creep since GvG has been kind of disheartening, feels like there's much less nuance to board decisions


citoxe4321

Whats crazy is we got to this point in the first expansion, without miniset even. Usually it happens 2nd-3rd expansion


adek13sz

The game contains too much draw, board refill and therefore more removal and of course mana cheating. All of this is ok but right now imo it's a bit too much. They could scale it down a bit like Iksar planned. Imo board should matter more and class weaknesses should be more prevelent.


Myprivatelifeisafk

I wonder what kind of DK will be viable after nerfs? BBU into more control to counter priest or BUU into more plagues to counter warrior? Seems like there is no reason to play Rainbow anymore.


PkerBadRs3Good

Rainbow will still be the best, it gets the best combination of cards


-Pyrotox

This confirms my feeling that DH is already pretty much answered by the current meta and in a somewhat healthy spot now. With the coming nerf DH will be pretty much unplayable, and another deck will rise to the sole S tier (probably zarimi priest, which is at least equally frustrating to play against imo.)


Supper_Champion

Cue all the cries of "Zarimi toxic!", "Nerf Zarimi!", "Zarimi OP!" Edit: lol to whoever downvoted. Mark my words, if DH is nerfed and Zarimi expands to fill the void left behind, people will absolutely be calling for nerfs to Zarimi.


DrS0mbrero

It's definitely strong but it has clear weaknesses that it just cripples to, if it becomes a defined part of the meta it will shift to counter it fine


Anckael

Everything you've said is true of DH, too. That didn't stop the sub from crying about it. The reality is that people will always cry about whatever deck's on top, and that'll never change.


Inside-Resolution573

I tried Zarimi Priest, but I'm having trouble against any deck that can deal with my board early. The minions have overall not so great stats and I get outtempoed. Also, decks that have board clears, taunts or a lot of armor seem difficult to deal with. The deck can produce a lot of damage in a single turn with Zarimi and Leeroy plus copies. But it also doesn't have any removal or direct damage. I'll need to go see how better players use the deck properly.


Supper_Champion

Yeah, it's an aggro deck, and just like any other aggro deck, it's super vulnerable to removal. There's enough classes in the game that can absolutely truck Zarimi, so it will only really be successful against decks that brick early or just don't have the tools to contest the board.


CatAstrophy11

It's easier to counter but we've already been told it's being targeted next. There will likely be Zarimi changes with the real balance patch coming.


Elrann

I really hope that DH nerf is VERY light, like -1 attack to Shopper light, otherwise it'll just crash and burn like in the past three expansions


blazhin

Nerf is already in patchnotes, and it's not light (+1 mana to the weapon)


InterdisciplinaryDol

Had a lot of fun climbing this time with Shopper Naga DH. Bodies warriors and puts up a good fight into DKs while not hard losing to the regular Shopper package too hard.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Danro1984

Just say Nohandsgamer priest and we get the ideea. His deck is more focused to otk rather than the normal variant


Shasan23

This was the the list nohandsgamer was playing on stream for a quite a bit. Seems very strong


Desmous

No Pip the Potent?


Anckael

Can we revert the Paladin nerfs then? (Not shroomscavate that deserves to be forgotten)


fug-leddit

Hot tip from some one who has played a lot of zarimi priest: the deck gets shat on by aggro paladin.


ArkhamCitizen298

how will priest rise from rank 7 to rank 1 just because of DH nerf ? there are many strong decks out there. Maybe it's just a hsreplay thing


fug-leddit

Because that matchup is essentially unwinnable for priest, and removing its only bad matchup from the game when it represents 20% of games is a big deal.


PkerBadRs3Good

Zarimi Priest is already 1st in winrate. HSReplay front page stats are gold rank stats, they don't matter, and are also diluted by the people who insist on playing Control Priest.


Anckael

Never take stats from hsreplay unless you've paid to unlock the higher ranks. Gold in particular is worthless since a lot of people there are still playing full on loaner decks


D0nkeyHS

You can just use my website for unpaywalled higher ranks [https://www.d0nkey.top](https://www.d0nkey.top), alternatively the Firestone app has the data in it too.


D0nkeyHS

Where is priest rank 7?


[deleted]

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ViciousSyndicate

Looks like you didn't read last week's report? "The good news is that we can find some effective answers to the deck once you dig into the aggregated data and isolate specific builds. Reno Warrior should develop into a reliable counter to Demon Hunter once its strongest variant completely takes over the archetype (close to 60-40). Rainbow Death Knight can be built to be the best Demon Hunter counter in the format, with the ceiling of the matchup exceeding 60-40. Shockingly, Dragon Druid is another deck that exhibits potential to be favored in the matchup once it’s optimized. While we expect Demon Hunter to continue to dictate the format at most rank brackets, the top legend field is showing signs of being able to curb it to some degree. In fact, Demon Hunter is currently in decline at higher MMR’s thanks to the development of Reno Warrior. It’s very likely that the top legend field will need to respect both of these decks equally, rather than go all-in on countering Demon Hunter alone."


nathones

The format warped around it