Mastering Your Opening Hand - Episode 37

Hello!

• Adam is on the show this week
• Topic: Choosing which cards to keep and throw back, based on your opponent
• Reasons to be happy this week
• News: Nerfs to Leeroy Jenkins and Starving Buzzard

Choosing Which Cards To Keep

• Scope of this guide
• How much it can affect your win rate
• Lots of questions from Josh

Playing against Druid

• Popular Druid deck type:Ramp, with late game threats
• What that Druid deck wants to do: Use Innervate to cheat something out early, then use minions and spells to control the board and keep tempo in its favor through mid and late game.
• Types of cards you want to keep:Any large minion that is hard to remove like Sludge Belcher or Cairne Bloodhoof/li>
• Types of cards you want to throw away:Any slow spells like Flamestrike or Holy Fire that take a long time to develop.

Playing against Hunter

• Popular Hunter deck type: Fast early minions that punch to the face
• What that Hunter deck wants to do: Deal as much damage as fast as possible, using charge minions and its hero power
• Types of cards you want to keep: Leper Gnome, Undertaker, any strong 1 or 2 drop
• Types of cards you want to throw away: High casting cost cards and secrets that the hunter can easily flare away

Playing against Mage

• Popular Mage deck type: Late-game control
• What that Mage deck wants to do: Keep the board clear with lots of removal and burn you down with spells and fatties late
• Types of cards you want to keep: Sturdy troops that will survive most removal like Kel’thuzad or Sunwalker, because this game is going to go late whether you want it to or not
• Types of cards you want to throw away: 1-health minions that don’t have an immediate impact on the board. The hero power will kill them easily.

Playing against Paladin

• Popular Paladin deck type: Slow control
• What that Paldin deck wants to do: The Paladin deck wants to get as much card advantage from its big equality combos as possible, while slowly leaning on you gaining small advantages over a long period of time
• Types of cards you want to keep: Card advantage cards like Acolyte of Pain or good mid range sticky minions like Harvest Golem
• Types of cards you want to throw away: Late game cards, you want to draw your big threats later on in the game, not early.

Playing against Priest

• Popular Priest deck type: Control
• What that Priest deck wants to do: Wait for you to make a move so it can counter on their turn with one of their many spells or minions
• Types of cards you want to keep: Any 4 power minions that are hard to remove like Cairne Bloodhoof, Chillwind Yeti, or Spectral Knight
• Types of cards you want to throw away: Big minions that usually get Shadow Word: Death’ed or Mind Controlled

Playing against Rogue

• Popular Rogue deck type: Miracle or Tempo
• What that Rogue deck wants to do: Miracle Rogue wants to draw Gadgetzan Auctioneer and then cast many spells all in one turn. Tempo rogue wants to completely control your board while casting midrange minions
• Types of cards you want to keep: Against Miracle you want a lot of taunt defense, against tempo you want easily casted early minions
• Types of cards you want to throw away: Anything slow or clunky like 5 casting cost minions or above, unless they have taunt

Playing against Shaman

• Most popular Shaman deck type: Mid-game board control
• What that Shaman deck wants to do: Use efficient spells to keep his minions on the board and then empower them all at once for a huge attack
• Types of cards you want to keep: AoE removal and minions that are spell-resistant like Faerie Dragon and Harvest Golem
• Types of cards you want to throw away: Slow, high-cost minions. You need to get board control early.

Playing against Warlock

• Most popular Warlock deck type: Handlock
• What that Warlock deck wants to do: Drop his health low and stack his hand while controlling the board, then unload huge minions
• Types of cards you want to keep: Early aggressive cards and strong removal spells. He will play huge minions eventually.
• Types of cards you want to throw away: Slow minions and low-damage AoE removal

Playing against Warrior

• Most popular Warrior deck type: Control Warrior
• What that Warrior deck wants to do: Lots of AoE removal and enough weapons to arm an entire country.
• Types of cards you want to keep: Weapon destruction like Acidic Swamp Ooze or Harrison Jones, and high-health taunt minions to force the weapon attacks
• Types of cards you want to throw away: Late-game bombs like Ironbark Protector and low-damage aoe spells like Fan of Knives

Community

• Question: Best class card from Naxx set
• iTunes Reviews

Card of the Week

Farewell

• Follow Adam on Twitter and watch him stream
• What you want to see in future episodes
• What hosts you want to visit the show