PCG: Do you think there are still powerful but undiscovered archetypes out there in the existing cards?
JC: Definitely.
PCG: Are there cards you still want to experiment with from the current sets?
JC: There are some cards that I’ve been trying to make work for a while. Ball of Spiders in particular. I love that card. It’s so awful. It’s arguably the slowest card in the game, but the value you can get out of it! One card puts some stuff on the board and then adds three more minions to you hand. The value is just ridiculous. If the meta ever slows down then cards like Ball Of Spiders could see play.
PCG: I really want that to be a thing.
I love Ball of Spiders. It's so awful. It's arguably the slowest card in the game.
JC: I’ve also been working on a Tempo Mage that’s purely based around secrets.
PCG: I guess as long as you get Mysterious Challenger off Unstable Portal you’re fine.
Egg Druid is arguably the stickiest deck in Hearthstone. The plan is to fill the board with garbage creatures, half of which leave something behind when damaged, and then buff them with spells like Power of the Wild and Savage Roar to do disgusting bursts of damage. The double Jeeves is there to stop you running out steam if the game goes long-ish.
JC: Exactly! I even run Grand Crusader in that deck for the extra potential. [Laughs]
PCG: Are you looking forward to Standard, and which card will you miss the most?
JC: I’m really looking forward to it. The main thing is shaking up the meta. It’s going to blow things up and make Hearthstone exciting again. The cards I’ll miss most are Haunted Creeper and Nerubian Egg. Egg Druid is going to be completely gone because those early sticky minions are leaving [Standard]. Haunted Creeper is such a strong card, but it’s not quite overpowered. There are others, like Unstable Portal. I’m going to really miss that. Even though a lot of people don’t like RNG, it’s definitely one of the most fun cards in the game. Echo of Medivh, as well. It hasn’t seen that much competitive play, but it’s a really well-designed card.
PCG: Which other deckbuilders do you respect the most?
JC: I do like Kolento. Even though he’s more of a control player and I’m more aggressive.
PCG: Do you plan to compete in tournaments?
JC: Yeah. I was in the European Winter Preliminaries. I beat Xixo.
PCG: He wasn’t too happy on Twitter.
PCG: Which other deckbuilders do you respect the most?
JC: I do like Kolento. Even though he’s more of a control player and I’m more aggressive.
PCG: Do you plan to compete in tournaments?
JC: Yeah. I was in the European Winter Preliminaries. I beat Xixo.
PCG: He wasn’t too happy on Twitter.
Reason no pro made it is definitly that other players are better and not that with 100druids a couple of them will brokeback their way xd February 14, 2016
JC: Yeah, I was loving that actually! That was really nice. I beat him and got to the top 32. Basically top 16 would have meant winning two and a half grand, and top eight would have meant going to LA [for the finals]. That’s the first big tournament I’ve been to, so I’m trying to get into more.
PCG: Is it tricky because with tournaments you have to have a Conquest lineup that’s tailored to beat the meta decks? Does that restrict you from using some of your stranger creations?
JC: Slightly. But at the same time, the only reason this Hunter deck has worked is because it’s really good against what people are playing at the moment. In tournaments at the moment I’m expecting almost everyone to bring Midrange Druid. So if I can match Hunter into Druid I’m almost definitely going to win, and it doesn’t do badly against other decks—like Zoo, which is also played a lot at the moment.
I’m always going to be making my own stuff. It’s what I enjoy—trying to be creative, trying to make things work.
PCG: So if you were at BlizzCon tomorrow you’d still bring the camels.
JC: Yeah. I’m playing in an ESL qualifier and I’m bringing Egg Druid and Camel Hunter.
PCG: Do you foresee yourself always trying to popularize signature decks, or could there ever be a time when you tryhard with the existing meta decks?
JC: I’m always going to be making my own stuff. It’s what I enjoy—trying to be creative, trying to make things work. Especially because I’m streaming. What attracts people to my stream is the chance to see interesting decks. And achieving rank #1 Legend with a deck myself made me feel quite proud. But at the same time, in tournaments, I’ll have to reconsider. I’ll still bring my own decks, but my whole lineup can’t be crazy decks I made. For example in the Winter Preliminaries I had Egg Druid, but my other three were standard meta decks.
PCG: And how did the egg one do?
JC: Really well!
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