Elemental Appreciation Thread

Yeah yeah, first week of the expansion so everybody's gotta be hype, but I'm sorry, I really wanted to post this.

I wanted to appreciate Blizzard's design of elementals, as when they were announced, I, as well as some other people i think, thought that they would continue a boring trend of cards similar to jade golems, with just infinitely stacking creatures that get stronger. I remember that when elementals were announced I was like "..So, they get rewarded for playing them in consecutive turns? So... Curvestone?"

But it turns out, they are MUCH more interesting than that. Igneous Elemental and Fire Fly create really interesting playstyles, where you can play Elemental cards without having to flood your deck with preset elementals, because you get the very cheap activators.

As a tribe, they are also much, MUCH better designed than many of the other tribes they've designed. It's always made me sad when, when developing a tribe or deck archetype, they simply just shove the cards down the player's throat, so that if you want to play say, Beast Druid, you will ALWAYS be playing the same cards with only a few changed. With Elementals, there's so much more deckbuilding possibilities, and if you want to say "lets put some elemental synergy in this deck" you are not forced to literally choose the same exact 20 cards every time. This is aided in the fact that there were already quite a few elementals in the game, before the expansion came out.

True, there are a few elementals you will likely play quite a bit, like Blazecaller, Servant of Kalimos, or Tol'vir Stoneshaper, but there are also quite a lot that you can swap in our out, change depending on what the deck needs, or how much elemental synergy you want in just one deck.

Overall, I'd say they are a much better designed tribe and deck archetype than many other Blizzard have been making. They are a welcome relief from other recent tribals, and I really hope they continue this trend.

In other news, what are some interesting theorycrafting, experimental, or just plain fun decks you guys have been making? So far I have made a pretty typical handlock, but with the twist of using Discard Quest (mulliganed away), and then Deathwing as its only activator. Has worked really well so far, and I'm interested in if it has real potential. I've also been testing with a quest hunter using some elemental synergy, although I'm not sure how far that will really go. What are you guys messing with?