The Problem With C'thun

[Damajin]

That's another thing I've noticed. No one seems to either have removal, or save removal once they notice you have a C'thun deck. Like, even running a BGH just in case is still worth it I'd say. (Personally I stuck in a Naturalize into my C'thun druid just in case, but that's not really ideal so far I think)

I actually went the full 2 Polymorph in my Mage deck and if worthwhile targets are in sufficient density I'm willing to try a Poly Boar on top of the 2 regulars. No more reshuffling C'thun or Shadowstepping him, thanks.

[Damajin]

Hmm if he is polymorphed and then killed, you think he cannot be reshuffled? Haven't tried it tbh but I wouldn't be sure. I mean he keeps all his buffs when he dies.

I've poly'd a few C'thun already and they don't get reshuffled when t Doomcaller or whatever it's called is played. It's not C'thun anymore, and if I remember correctly the buff minions don't even trigger the sidescreen animation of him anymore.

[Aeula]

He does seem somewhat OP, someone quit the second I played a C'thun buffer.

But he's still incredibly fun to play. I've been using him on my renounce evil (best card of the expansion for Free to play accounts with bad pack pulls) warlock quite a bit.

[Fenixdown]

This makes me sad Oh well, it's still a 15-20 damage battlecry for 10mana (plus you wasting one polymorph).

I am not saying C'thun is competitive but it is a simple and fun deck for casual players. Hearthstone has plenty of space for that. The fact that they used it as an excuse to design way less cards for the expansion though certainly feels true.

Now THIS I agree with. No Loken, no Thorim, only two SoO bosses (and Xaril was only one ninth of a boss encounter), and only one boss tied to N'Zoth (Cho'gall)...instead we got reverse Rag, reverse Deathwing, reverse Hogger, reverse Nat Pagle...none of which make any single, solitary bit of sense whatsoever.

Another thing that I give massive credit to the designers of Magic as opposed to Hearthstone. Magic's card design is based around the story of that particular block. Invasion block was when I first jumped into playing the game. The entire set told the story of the end of what had been an ongoing storyline for several years. The set after that told the story of the world after the fall of Yoggmoth. The newest blocks do the same. Telling the story of the various Planeswalkers (Jace, Chandra, Nissa, Lilliana, and Gideon), then the story of the Eldrazi invasion and how the Planeswalkers banded together to stop it. And now in Shadows Over Innistrad, we get a new storyline told through the set of the corruption of Avacyn.

And what do we get from Whispers of the Old Gods? No stories. Just "hey let's take some guys and make em good/bad instead and call that a quality expansion set!". Yeah...no.

[mittacc]

I just made 2 copies of my opponent's taunted C'thun with faceless manipulators and he isnta-conceded

[FobManX]

From my experience so far, C'thun decks really aren't that strong. C'thun is often just a win more card. I was playing C'thun Warrior and yeah C'thun won me a few games, but those were games I was way ahead in and would have won anyway. Meanwhile I was playing my N'zoth Deathrattle Rogue and just wrecked C'thun decks. A guy played C'thun against me THREE times(I sapped it twice)and I still demolished him.

The problem with C'thun decks are:

1. The C'thun buff cards are fairly average. They might trade 1v1 at best and they don't necessarily threaten you in terms of damage to your face.

2. C'thun decks are stacked with the C'thun cards, meaning they slack on removal and may lose out on key class cards. That hurts them in certain situations.

3. C'thun decks often lack card draw so you run out of steam pretty fast. Even if you curve out well you often hit a wall around turns 6-7.

4. C'thun is your only win condition. If you don't draw it, you lose. Even if you draw it, if you don't actually get a good clear off with it you lose. If your opponent has a solid board you're often just doing spread damage to a bunch of stuff and then your opponent deals with C'thun and you lose a turn or two later.

[Damajin]

Now THIS I agree with. No Loken, no Thorim, only two SoO bosses (and Xaril was only one ninth of a boss encounter), and only one boss tied to N'Zoth (Cho'gall)...instead we got reverse Rag, reverse Deathwing, reverse Hogger, reverse Nat Pagle...none of which make any single, solitary bit of sense whatsoever.

Another thing that I give massive credit to the designers of Magic as opposed to Hearthstone. Magic's card design is based around the story of that particular block. Invasion block was when I first jumped into playing the game. The entire set told the story of the end of what had been an ongoing storyline for several years. The set after that told the story of the world after the fall of Yoggmoth. The newest blocks do the same. Telling the story of the various Planeswalkers (Jace, Chandra, Nissa, Lilliana, and Gideon), then the story of the Eldrazi invasion and how the Planeswalkers banded together to stop it. And now in Shadows Over Innistrad, we get a new storyline told through the set of the corruption of Avacyn.

And what do we get from Whispers of the Old Gods? No stories. Just "hey let's take some guys and make em good/bad instead and call that a quality expansion set!". Yeah...no.

Hey man, best design money can buy.....inbetween games of beer pong.

I agree, there shouldn't have been any of these corrupted or redeemed cards in the set, they had tons of already established lore figures with Old God backstory to draw from and we get this. Not so impressed by that, even understanding that this game is going for the seriousness of a Kobolds Ate My Baby game (and if you don't know what that game is you should check it out, best drunk tabletop gaming world ever) it still makes me think those guys are spending half their dev time high off their ass just spewing shit out and then making it on the spot.

- - - Updated - - -

From my experience so far, C'thun decks really aren't that strong. C'thun is often just a win more card. I was playing C'thun Warrior and yeah C'thun won me a few games, but those were games I was way ahead in and would have won anyway. Meanwhile I was playing my N'zoth Deathrattle Rogue and just wrecked C'thun decks. A guy played C'thun against me THREE times(I sapped it twice)and I still demolished him.

The problem with C'thun decks are:

1. The C'thun buff cards are fairly average. They might trade 1v1 at best and they don't necessarily threaten you in terms of damage to your face.

2. C'thun decks are stacked with the C'thun cards, meaning they slack on removal and may lose out on key class cards. That hurts them in certain situations.

3. C'thun decks often lack card draw so you run out of steam pretty fast. Even if you curve out well you often hit a wall around turns 6-7.

4. C'thun is your only win condition. If you don't draw it, you lose. Even if you draw it, if you don't actually get a good clear off with it you lose. If your opponent has a solid board you're often just doing spread damage to a bunch of stuff and then your opponent deals with C'thun and you lose a turn or two later.

While all the above is true in a general sense I've already seen adaptions to deal with this, minimizing the number of C'thun buffers and running enough board clears and draw to give you a good shot at doing some serious face damage with C'thun. There'll definitely be those people who just type C'thun into the search bar in their collection and select everything they can play which leaves little room for other good cards but people are already adapting to both C'thun and anti C'thun strats.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

He does seem somewhat OP, someone quit the second I played a C'thun buffer.

But he's still incredibly fun to play. I've been using him on my renounce evil (best card of the expansion for Free to play accounts with bad pack pulls) warlock quite a bit.

I dunno about that.

You have to spend half your budget and two thirds of your plays before 10 mana on making him not a terrible card (played on his own he is a 6/6 for 10 mana). And then you can only play him on that turn.

Anyway, I think it'd be worth keeping a BGH around, just to stop the 16/16 c'thun hitting you in the face the turn after he cleared your board and did some face damage to you as well. Then you have a backup for the opponent's backup win condition (if the nuke doesn't kill you then the fucking huge minion will).

[Faldric]

After playing whole day with and against Cthun decks, I actually do not think he is even the problem in the deck. He is only that big finisher if you are up against an empty board or an aggro board (minions with low health). Otherwise your enemy will survive and you dont really have anything else unless you got doomcaller. I think the bigger problem is that some of the 10+ cards are insanely good and the 10+ is almost never a problem. I can not remember a single situation today where I needed the 10+ effect and couldnt cast it.

[DeadmanWalking]

I can already see a lot of players doing fast hunter decks.

[Deleted]

I hate Disciple of C'thun. That is all.

[Damajin]

I can already see a lot of players doing fast hunter decks.

Have only seen a few hunters so far and they weren't that fast, you have any insight into what kind of face hunter would be fast enough?

[Raugnaut]

I play hunter, play Freezing Trap. They instantly concede when they chuck their C'Thun into my trap. Hah! The new Deathrattle hunter is actually pretty decent.

[Fenixdown]

I can already see a lot of players doing fast hunter decks.

Well, then I appreciate the free wins to them with my C'thun deck...which is....HUNTER!!!!

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/499208-shotgun

Appropriately named. Has several quality control options, both single and multi target. And this is the first time ever I've ever put Tracking in a hunter deck. It is just far too good to pass up in this style of play. Might craft a second Worshipper and drop a Skeram Cultist for slightly lower curve and more protection. Skeram is a great body, though, for it's cost. It trades well with most 7-drops and with minimal assistance even most 8-9 drops.

So far, my only struggle has been against C'druids, since Arrakoa is just obscene and to boot they tend to run their standard overplayed taunts. But I've had very good success against skill shamans, C'priest Suns, face huntards, aggro zoo, Renolocks, control warriors, and tempo mages.

I've been off the last two days from work. I've had a lot of time to play. =)

Edit : And the best part? Look at the "similar decks" list. NOT A SINGLE ONE! Original thought 1 - netdecking 0. =D

[Raiju]

I've only faced 4 cthun hunters tonight, third behind druid/priest

Really tired of 90% of games being cthun though.

Also, renounce is really difficult to win with.

[FobManX]

I can already see a lot of players doing fast hunter decks.

Na, if you're gonna play aggro go Face Shaman. The new cancer of HS.

[Fenixdown]

I've only faced 4 cthun hunters tonight, third behind druid/priest

Really tired of 90% of games being cthun though.

Also, renounce is really difficult to win with.

OMG did one of those hunter matches you had give you warrior cards?

If so, that might have been me. =D

[Raiju]

No, and I'm on EU ladder anyway.

I've been getting mostly rogue. Has actually been useful if not really something I can really justify in the deck. Evolve is justifiable after it screws me the third time in a row, but RD just... isn't.

[Deleted]

My C'thun Warrior deck absolutely wrecks in Standard. Won 16 games in a row with it, went from 20 to 12 in like 2 hours.

He's almost unkillable. I got like 100 HP with double Ancient Shieldbearer + double Shield Block + Justicar Mariel.
For control I have Gorehowl, FWA, Shield Slam, Brawl, Execute, WW
For draw I use Battle rage and Azure Drakes (excellent minion in Standard)
For Cthun buffing I use those neutral 2-drops you get for free, then those 3-mana 3/4's and 4-mana 4/2 divine shields. My C'thun in a long game ends up at 15-18 attack. Not as high as a Druid deck can get (seen Druid Cthun go to 24) but it's enough.

Legendaries, as always in Wallet Warrior:
-Grom
-Ysera
-Mariel
-Sylvie
-Twin Emperors
-Cthun

I also got Rag and Varian but didn't really see space for them.

I only lost one game, to a combo mage that unleashed 2x fb, 2x frb, 2x icicle into my face with bloodmage buffing it (after thausissaning the hand)

Standard is a massive fun to play atm. No secret paladins, no face decks of any kind met, nothing of this cancerous bullshit. I can easily deal with massive C'thun's via Task + Exec or alike. Most games end up in bursting down the enemy from 30 to 0 in 2 turns - first turn with Grom, second turn finish with C'thun.

I'm going to actually play for Legend in May season. I love this expac.

[Rennadrel]

I don't think they are hard decks to counter to be honest. Relying on one card means you need immense card draw to get it, and if he is at the bottom, you have nothing to win otherwise. I modified my flamewalker mage deck and have rolled through C'thun decks without even trying. The problem with C'thun decks is that all his buffing minions have no sticking power.