It’s been half a week since the National Service Mirage mode opened. I started out with 11 stars and used Pirate Warfare to reach Diamond, and then Jade Thief helped me climb to second place for a while. After realizing the disadvantage of Jade Thief against Cosmic Shepherd, I switched to Cosmic Shepherd and managed to reach the top of the list with seven consecutive victories (although I woke up and slipped down the rankings, but after a lot of hard work, I’m back to the top of the list).
First, I would like to share two decks that I utilize:
AAEBAaIHBrIC8gWRvAKUvQKXoATaoQYM9gTPvAKgvQL5vQL6vQKmvgKRnwT3nwTuoAS9ngbZoQbZogYACopy the code to jump to details
AAEBAa0GHuUE8gW5BtMK2AryDPoO1hH3E4MUvhaCtQKDuwK1uwK6uwLYuwKwvALqvwKi6AOEnwSFnwTwnwSY1ASa1ASc1ASd1ASGpAXJoQaf9Aag9AYAAA==Copy the code to jump to details
PLEASE NOTE: There is currently a bug in copying the Phantom Change deck code, so the Wild Mode code is provided. Please copy the code into the Wild set first and then manually convert it to the Phantom Change set!!!
Personal feeling, the current environment has basically stabilized. At the forefront of the ladder, the old fast attack (such as the green sea Sa, pirate warfare, the rat master to strengthen the supernatural German) has been difficult to find, replaced by the green jade thief (307 mana system / Cthulhu system / 5 pirate system) based on the mix of knights (Buddha parade / milk rider), priests (cosmic pastor), warlocks (cosmic), the pattern of the one over the three strong.
I found these two articles in the campground community for the time being, so I will not repeat them. (apologies for any omissions).
Let’s start with the Pirate Jade Thief
Variable jamming:
-Magic Breaker, -King of the Beetles, -Second Jade Lotus Clan Spy.
+Blue Hatchling, +Crisis, +Loissebouw.
After the bragging pirate and crappy pirate stature enhancement to 1/2, 5 pirate system in the early attack like a tide; while the green jade is to late to see the strength. Mainstream game strategy is the early pirate scuffing blood, the middle began to raise green jade, late green jade telegraph remove the opponent’s solution to the card, flat push or spine, green jade dart straight injury win.
1.Let’s start with the alternate cards
- Lawbreaker: can be used against Big Fan, Aegis Wanderer, Eyja Black Palm of Civil War / Kesuun Thief’s Kesuun’s Eye / Cosmic deck’s Doomsday Prophet / Over the Wall Chopper, but the disadvantage is that it is stuck in the hand.
- Beetle King: On paper, a 4 cost 33 raid that also lays down a land of 11 is clearly supermodeled in the current environment, but the environment is littered with Knife Fans and AOEs that are not as effective in practice as they could be. As a new card in the Cave of Time, the synthesis cost is as high as 1600 Dust for most Furnace friends.
- Aquamarine Hatchling: an old powerhouse card with a size enhancement to 4/5 and four attack daddies. However, in practice, it seems bloated against Stalker and is not as flexible as Blood Law, so it is discarded. However, with the rise of the high scoring Cosmic Herd (which will be analyzed in detail later), it is entirely possible to reconsider carrying 1-2 cards in an environment where Cosmic Herd is plentiful.
- Crisis in the Air: cosmic card targeting card, priest targeting card. Crisis in the Air seems to fit this version. It doesn’t work well against Thief Civil War, and this build doesn’t have as many counters as Sushin’s OTK version of Jade Thief with the Explosive Fish, so it’s a good idea to discard it.
- Loosebeak: I’ve seen opponents carry it on the ladder, but I personally think that the current Mirage mode is still based on follower interaction, and Loosebeak requires you to have already stood on the field before it can be of more use, so it’s the icing on the cake, so I’m going to pass on it.
2.One more personal note.
1) Facing all professions:
Start with a Sprint.
I’m not sure if this card keeping strategy is entirely correct, so feel free to chime in. After I discarded the Blue Dragon, all the card passing burden fell on the Sprint (Blood Lawn Blade and Fan: ?), and it’s quite comfortable to be able to articulate tempo with a 5-drop or 3-draw 4 in the midgame. It’s pretty comfortable to be able to articulate a tempo in the midrange with a 5-drop or 3-drop draw 4. A Jade Thief that has played Sprint is basically an attacker that puts pressure on the opponent’s turn, and our cheap curve allows us to keep a “card” that may be used in the midgame.
The use of Jade Telegraph requires familiarity with the opponent’s deck, destroying his Reno/Sprint/Isla/various AOE. always count your kills, and try to get yourself an extra chance to draw at a disadvantage, with the randomness of the Boast Pirate and the Jade Lotus Gang of Detectives, and never give up until you get to the end.
2) Facing Warlock:
Beetle King is a very poor card. Because the warlock in the cave of time to supplement the Void Spirit Bandit’s Witch, spreading a small plague will be able to turn off a land of 11 beetles all the way, if there is no blood magic knife fan barely change the blue fat this game is basically to the point. Warlock also has a pagan apothecary can milk quite a lot of blood.
But if the beetle king is still in the early hands, you still need to continue to maintain the rhythm of the attack, you should still choose to play your beetle king but do not attack the 0/1 gong to a field of beetles out. This way you’re defending against the aforementioned 424 Voidlord’s Witch, as well as your opponent’s Hellfire and Demon’s Wrath, so you’ll always have the field to keep the pressure on your opponent.
3) Facing Stalker:
Try to watch the opposite form to decide if you are an attacker or a defender. If your opponent** has a Cthulhu system, the spellbreaker pinches firmly to target his Eye of Cthulhu. Play your Big Van or Beetle King early to open up the gongs, and mid-range Lapis Telegraph to wash out your opponent’s Sprint to stop their sustain. Stalker Civil War is still mostly about tempo. Facing the Kesuen system, you may need to lay out multiple big monsters at the same time (such as leaving a round of green jade wanderer) so that the opposite side of the Kesuen blade can not comfortably break one by one; facing the 307 spells system in the middle of the beginning as far as possible to avoid selling your face, to protect your blood, do not need to skimp too much on your solves, because of his follower quality is generally low; facing the civil war is to fight hu and more than the tempo of the battle, do not be found to be messed up! Mindset, you also have Assassination, Bloodlust and Jungle Guardian inside your Yulian Gang secret agent.
4) Facing Knights:
Guard against your opponent’s Divine Grace spells, and don’t press cost sprint at 5. Play Jade Telegram the turn before your opponent’s Buddha. Need a copy of Androni Guess Mystery need to know the 5 mysteries that Knight will carry and target to prevent them. Facing the report system as much as possible do not leave a report to the opposite side, the spine can be left to the warhorse trainer. Facing Milk Rider can not all in, in order to prevent the opponent’s elite duel / (Inflammatory Warlock) raw flat set, strive to continue to give the pressure.
5) Facing Priests:
Default Cosmic Shepherd is one of the few bad matchups if you use a build that doesn’t carry Little Blue Dragon with Crisis. Play Lapis Telegraph on the 4-cost turn to get rid of your opponent’s Lazer the Chainbinder/Sauruson the Great or Potion of Dragon’s Breath/Holy Light Bomb/Time Bandit Mnuzzledo to plan your future offense (if you see two AOEs, you’ll have to slow play them in batches to put pressure on), and Lapis Telegraph on the 8-cost turn to get rid of your opponent’s Ithra, the Slumberer.
6) Facing other professions:
Against the old fast attack, prioritize untapping. Thief has more Sprint God cards than other fast attackers, and it really belongs to the type of game where you can simply win by untapping and holding on. Not to mention the fact that the tempo nature of the Jade Thief’s field will not be too far behind.
If you’re playing against a druid, all in. if you’re playing against a Kesuen system, you can use the 7-fee Jade Telegraph to wash out his Kesuen, or if you’re playing against an otk system, you can use the 9-fee or the opposite side of the table to remove the combination of dogs and men (Aivina/Forbidden King Kuhn), and then you can pull up all of the rest of the field, and then you’re done.
Against mages, default to Ice. Hold on to your Beetle King, you don’t want a field of 11 beetles to eat an Ice Ring and then go through with a whimper. Don’t even think about playing the Beetle King without breaking the 0/1 gong yourself, the mage himself will also fire rush point + ice ring. Never spread your grid, and always remember that spellbreakers can silence your own frozen followers to allow them to attack. One Blood Icebreaker. Squeeze your Jade Telegram, never play it in the early-mid game, wait until your opponent’s fridge has been handed off/played an Archon before playing your Jade Telegram, and prioritize shuffling your opponent’s 307 juggling brat.
Against the tycoon wars, the game is not played much, the impression is that the waves of laying the field, to prevent the chaos on the line. If you run into a stuck Warrior, make sure to play Jade Telegram on the 9-cost turn to get rid of your opponent’s Tile King/Enzos. I always feel that the defense war is dull.
Let’s talk more briefly about cosmic herding
Cosmonauts were probably the biggest beneficiaries of the old card enhancements/cave of time. Priests gained a dozen “new” cards directly from the bottom of the heap at the time, and with the advantageous matchups against the various Stalkers at the top of the ladder, it also became a great option for scoring (just a bit expensive with all the new cards).
The original deck was built by @Munchkin’s Psionics, who also shared his build at camp.
Variable card positions:
-Alexstasa, Oathbinder of Life (the new Red Dragon, hereafter referred to as Red Dragon; Isla the Sleeper hereafter referred to as Isla)
-Museum Curator.
+Salnos the Blood Mage
+Silver Magus Paltryx (Lin)
These are the differences between my build and his, leaving Mind Spellslinger, Thoughtstealer which I think is also an optional backup, but Burial is an unavailable card (costly to play against Thief, shuffling to pollute the library; universe-destroying to play against Slow).
1.Let’s start with the Pinty’s cards and the new Legendary cards
(Cheat Dust Warning!) Priests have harvested quite a lot of available cards from the Time’s Lair and Nostalgia series, and the two 9-cost Dragons are completely capitalized for Priests to play in the later stages of the game; and a full 4 powerful Cosmic cards are the reason for Priests to embrace the Cosmos.
I didn’t synthesize Silver Magus Paltrys to comment on it, and it’s quite difficult for a Cosmic Priest with an extreme lack of overcards to play a Blood Mage + Sacred Punishment/Sacred Nova combo (so I think Blood Mage is not even as good as Loot Larder in this deck), so I discarded it.
Museum Curator is essentially a relatively high quality discovery, and can also fill in the curve of a Priest on a given turn according to his hand structure (Cosmic Shepherd decks up really easily to go through the turn empty), which is quite useful.
All of the orange cards in the deck are not recommended as flat replacements. I think all of them are quite useful.
2.A little more personal experience
As shown in the opening game screenshot, I have played less than ten games of Cosmic Shepherd, and I have not yet summarized some general tips through enough game samples.
The current environment is too favorable for Cosmic Shepherds with the vast number of Stalkers, the very small number of Crisis/Fairytale, and the near invisibility of Cosmic Spells. Priests have a lot of big solutions in hand, as well as the environment of false cards in general, Isla the Sleeper, the conventional logic of the game is to mix in the early part of the game, the middle of the solution, the late part of the smooth settlement of Isla + dream smothering the opposite side of the big **, and then rely on the Red Dragon / Shadow Heir / Nightmare to win.
Isla the Sleeper gives five dreams, the order must be as shown in the picture of Nightmare – Dream – Sisters of Laughter – Isla** – Emerald Dragon in order to enter the hand, pay attention to if the hand overflow if the dream cards will be squeezed out of which cards.
Keep a low cost in the starting hand, Raz, and in the backhand against Stalker you can decide whether to keep Dragon’s Breath Potion/Time Bandit Mnuzzledo depending on your hand. Priests are weak to passing, so if you play 113 on 1 cost and can milk a bite and draw one on 2, doing so is likely to be better than playing a 2-cost non-doomsday follower. The right opportunity to pass, the reasonable distribution of resources in the hand (especially large AOE), a small frenzy opponent’s blood spells / pain and their own mending off is also the basic skills of the Dirty Shepherd, in essence, or slow decks need to be reasonable access to the card gap, and then play Reno / Isla and other bomb cards from the defense to the attack.
Afterword and private goods
The author has been in the game since the Angolot version, and the current card pool divides right into the Garkissian version, pre-Angolot, allowing me to re-explore the vague Hearthstone timeline that existed before I was in the game. I’ve dabbled in Standard, Wild, Mercenary, Duels, and Arena. The current Wild feels more and more like a rock-paper-scissors model, with decks like Quest Art/Fast Attack Dark Shepherd/Meta Ride/Big Brother Sa/Barfinders turning the Wild more and more into a racetrack. The Mage Silver Bottle/Dk Setter/Shaman Nebula in the Arena is also crushing the weaker professions like a dimensional strike. Hearthstone has reached its tenth birthday, and like Marvel next door for thirty years, we need Hearthstone’s own Standard/Herald/Modern/Payload/Specialized. Mirage Mode, an upgrade to Classic Mode, might just be Blizzard’s new attempt to explore a third type of build mode. This installment of Phantom Change is filled with follower swaps, taking us back to the glory days after Explorers Guild.
I’ve never written a strategy guide before, so I’m going to write the title as an “essay” (please point out if there are any mistakes in the previous article about Wolverine for Fishing Rods), and I’ll end with a line familiar to all veteran players in that game, “Either you’re in or you’re out of Gadgettson”!