Summary: Episode 102 of The Happy Hearthstone is brought to you by... Listeners just like you! Become a Patron to support The Happy Hearthstone and receive exclusive perks and rewards. Check it out at http://patreon.com/thehappyhearthstone News Chat Hallow’s End has taken over Hearthstone! (More info here) For the 2 weeks of this event, they’ve made arena very different by offering Dual Classes You’ll first choose a hero portrait, then you’ll choose from 3 hero powers from other classes As you’re drafting your deck, you’ll have neutral options as usual, but class cards will be offered from the classes of your portrait and your hero power! Discussion First week is over, but if you login between Oct 31 and Nov 6, you’ll get a free Arena run AND two free Frozen Throne packs. Blizzcon is THIS WEEK, which means that we’ll very soon know what the last expansion for the year is. The four team names are… Grimestreet Grifters - Mean Streets Jungle Giants - Un’Goro Chillblade Crusaders - Frozen Throne Big-Time Buccaneers - ???? Blizzcon Virtual Ticket we mentioned last time -- They’ve revealed what the Golden Legendary is -- Marion the Fox. And he’s definitely a pirate They also announced a tournament called The Inn-vitational. Very similar to Oktoberbrawl, where they’re bringing together some big Hearthstone personalities for a lighthearted, fun competition. It looks like pirate/Booty Bay/treasure is what’s coming our way Friday 1:45 PST Main Topic Dreamhack Denver Grand Prix Recap: Let’s first talk about the highlights that don’t involve me: MTGKid - 12 years old - NEVER judge your opponent at any point through the match Ike - Never lost a match. It is possible to play flawlessly and be rewarded for it. All the other pros - It’s possible to get shaken, thrown, or choose poorly. I’m so glad I’m not a pro player. As for me…. :D The way the Grand Prix goes is that it’s 9 rounds where each round you’re matched up against someone with the same record as you After those 9 rounds, they take the top 16 players, and put them in a single elimination bracket. I ended up going 6 and 3, putting me 1 win away from making it into the top 16. And I’ll talk about these losses later, but I’m really proud of where I got overall. The matches were played Last Hero Standing format, which is different from the typically Conquest format. In LHS, when you lose with a deck, you cannot use that deck any more in that match. It lends itself to making you want to play decks that really snowball and win a lot of different matchups. You brought 4 decks, and in each matchup, your opponent would choose 1 of your classes to ban, usually not knowing the exact decklists that you brought. So I decided to bring 3 decks that are really good (Tempo Rogue, Razakus Priest, and Jade Druid), and a 4th that I know really well which counters Druid (Murloc Paladin). The strategy was to ban Rogue because that deck has a very high winrate against most decks. My 3 losses were to some names that most of you don’t know (I didn’t know them going into the weekend), but they are quite accomplished. My first two matches were to Squid and ESOGlokta -- both qualified for the summer championship of HCT. Crazy. Nicest thing I heard all weekend was Glokta at the end of our 3-2 match saying, “I was really hoping this match was going to be easier than that.” The third loss was to a guy named Insom who was in the top 4 of Dreamhack Montreal. Yeah. Pretty good. But I was crazy encouraged, because none of these were runover matches. I won a game against Squid then got rolled by his Aggro Druid deck (really smart choice). And the games with Glokta and Insom went all the way down to the 5th game. And I know I made some mistakes in each of those matches, so had I been better prepared, I think I could’ve even done better. Definitely was encouraged to hold my own against each of them, and learned a ton from each match. All 3 guys were really nice and eager to talk through the match and help me think through how I could’ve played better. IN DEPTH LOOK AT LOSSES Squid - HCT Summer Americas Finalist, full time college student (ended DH at 6-3) He brought Druid, Priest, Rogue, and Warlock I banned his Rogue, he banned my Priest First match was his Warlock Zoo vs my Tempo Rogue I was ahead for most of the match. He had to risk playing a Doomguard, and from it, he discarded Bloodreaver Gul’Dan--Writing was kind of on the wall at that point He brought his Aggro Druid after that and swept against my Tempo Rogue, Jade Druid, and Murloc Paladin Big bummer was that in that last matchup, he had Hungry Crab in his opening hand. That game was unfortunately decided early from that draw. I learned from this that Murloc Paladin is a fairly decent matchup against Aggro Druid. I should’ve queued that before my own Druid. His draws were just really good, and I struggled to keep up with him. ESOGlokta - HCT Summer Americas Finalist, F2P player, this was his first Dreamhack, later played JustSaiyan on stream and lost (ended DH at 6-3) He brought Druid, Priest, Shaman, and Rogue I banned his Rogue, he banned my Druid He started with his Jade Druid and crushed my Tempo Rogue and Razakus Priest. He drew all his ramp, and I realized that I wasn’t thinking about how to beat Jade Druid, I was only thinking about what my deck wanted to do. I also wasn’t drawing what I needed for the Priest game. I brought it back with Murloc Paladin beating his Jade Druid and Token Shaman. It all came down to his Razakus Priest against my Murloc Paladin This match came to a really tough decision. I had an Ashbringer in hand, he had Lyra at 3/10. I had him down to 6 health and had 5 minions on board. I thought I could close it out the next turn if I just got aggressive and hoped that he just wouldn’t draw too many cards off Lyra. He ended up getting 20 cards or so off her. I really should’ve stopped that Lyra and then tried to establish myself for the win. Insom - Top 4 at Dreamhack Montreal (ended DH at 6-3) He brought Paladin, Druid, Mage, and Warlock I banned his Warlock, he banned my Rogue His Big Druid beat my Jade Druid right off the top I finally learned to queue Murloc Paladin and beat him quickly :) He came back with a Corpsetaker/Stormwatcher Murloc Paladin that swept my Paladin and Priest. I remember feeling pretty fatigued since this was match 6 of the day and pretty late. I feel like I could’ve played this one better and certainly wasn’t thinking much about this kind of deck being in play at the tournament. Those Corpsetakers are brutal if you don’t have a way to stop them. Along with building an army of Murlocs, it’s definitely a strong deck. Tsukaime’s Tricks and Treats Life is a resource, not every minion has to be removed right away. Take your time to decide what to do, you have 70 seconds per turn for a reason! Always count how much damage you have for each turn, a lot of times you can setup lethal earlier to reduce the chances of a comeback. Card of the Week Spirit Lash Closer You are The Happy Hearthstone This podcast exists for you and is sustained by you! There are SO many great ways to support what we’re doing, and I want to ask you if this is one of your favorites, or you listen every episode to consider how you can support the show. One of the biggest ways right now is to jump on our Patreon! Starting at just $1/month, you can help support the show and allow us to do even more! There are some cool, exclusive rewards too like shoutouts, early access to episodes, Hearthstone coaching sessions, and more! And I’ve added in some goals that as we all chip in will allow the show to grow in ways you guys have been asking about for a LONG time INCLUDING weekly episodes! So please go check it out and consider how you can be a part of what we’re doing. You can also leave a review on iTunes, which helps us a lot when people are looking for a Hearthstone podcast! Only takes a few minutes, and if you need help with it, just let me know. Feedback As always, we’d love to know what you thought of the show and what you’d like to see added to the show for future episodes. Google+ Happy Hearthstone Twitter @andrewisliving, @thehappyhs Email thehappyhearthstone@gmail.com Also, Blizzard just added Groups, and we have a Happy Hearthstone group! Come join, find people to play with, and share decks! https://blizzard.com/invite/ZKej3hOG Guest Plugs Twitter: @Hscoached Question to the audience -> What is your favorite deck of all time? Let us know on twitter!
