Andrew “Kitkatz” Deschanel, warrior of hearts and kitten of love is my guest for todays interview. Well known for his knowledge and deckbuilding skills with the Warrior class he was one of the pioneers who brought the Warrior control archetype into the spotlight.
It’s been really quiet around you for a while, we rarely see you in any tournaments or streaming for that matter, can you tell us about your absence?
I stepped away from the tournament scene and streaming to work on my deck building and learn from some of the other streamers. I had been traveling to a different country every month for events, and the lack of mechanical ladder practice weakened my decisiveness in games. I have now regained my place at the top of the ladder and have gotten my confidence back.
Nice to hear!
You recently joined Tempo Storm, one of the Hearthstone powerhouses at the moment. Even though we are still waiting for your introduction video to the team, can you give us a heads up how you ended up joining?
I met Reynad, Tides, and Gaara in person for the first time at Dreamhack Summer. They asked me if I wanted to join them for lunch (CUTE RIGHT?) and I really got to learn and understand what made Tempo Storm the most successful team in Hearthstone.
Tempo Storm practices together for every event, running best of 5 simulations and constantly innovate new and creative decks. I felt this cohesiveness was what we were missing on Team Curse. During that lunch, Reynad told me that I was one of the first players he wanted on his team originally, but I was already taken at the time.
About a week after I left Curse to find a team that could help me prepare for events, Reynad contacted me and asked if I would be interested in becoming the final member of Tempo Storm, which I gladly accepted!
I heard you were extensively tested by team captain Reynad before you joined, can you guide us through the process of it? How does one get approved for team Tempo Storm?
He started by watching my tournament VODs, and discussing the matches with me after. I would talk about the mistakes I thought I made, and they aligned well with what Reynad thought was the ideal play in the situations.
For example, there was a game where I played Miracle vs Zoo where the ideal play was to run Leeroy into a Doomguard and hero power it on turn 6-7 instead of concealing an Auctioneer and preparing for the next turn. The play carried a heavy risk that I might just never be able to kill the Zoo player if he drew Defender of Argus and taunted the whelps, but it put me in the best position to win outside of that scenario.
Reynad has an incredible theoretical understanding of the game and could see how the rest of the match would have played out, and explained how there are situations like that where you just have to play to win, instead of playing not to lose.
"I have now regained my place at the top of the ladder and have gotten my confidence back."
Were there any test games in addition, or did you just go through VODs?
I don't really know if there were test games or not, I just remember playing matches with Reynad, Tides, and Hyped. Maybe they were test matches and they didn't tell me, haha.
How does it feel to be on the same team as your self-proclaimed arch-nemesis TidesofTime?
Tides and I go way back! I tried to get him to join the first team I was on (Clarity Gaming) and bring him to ESGN Fight Night. Before anyone really knew about him, I was already convinced that he was the best player in North America. He and I build very similar decks, and have always worked together to solve some of the more problematic metagames, such as Leeroy Jenkins Warrior to combat the dominance of Miracle Rogue.
In your own words, could you tell us a bit more about your team mates one by one? Really curious what you think of each of them.
The teammate I am closest to is Hyp3d. We share our screens over google hang out and just talk about ladder games and plays after the matches, specifically the turning points in matches that lead to our eventual loss or win. I consider Hyp3d to be the best player in the world at the moment, and cannot thank him enough for all the practice and advice he has been giving me.
What about the rest of the bunch?
Reynad is the most creative and prolific deck builder on our team. 2-3 times a week he will just paste three new decks into team chat that I have never seen or even imagined before. Twitch chat often jokes about how Reynad created every deck, but now I know that there is a lot of truth to that statement.
Gaara is super nice and always willing to test with anyone. He is on EU time though, so I don't get to see him much. His decks are generally very different from the rest of the team, but his results speak for their brilliance.
And Reckful? Did you have anything to do with him yet?
Reckful is the most famous member of our team, but he is also the most chill, down to earth kind of guy you can imagine. He is so nice and genuine, despite all of his fame and success. He isn't just a mascot though, he is constantly helping us play test all the new decks and even innovating his own sea giant shaman deck that has been stomping all over the ladder recently.
I was seriously suprised Tempo Storm added you to the team, because I remember Reynad saying he wants to add more EU player, so he can send more people to EU offline events. Any plans to add an EU player?
Not that I am aware of. Although I am not a resident of the EU, I am constantly playing on the EU servers and travelling to compete at all the major European events. Unfortunately, there has been a recent lull in the LAN tournament scene these past two months, so there hasn't been a prize pool sufficient enough to justify the travel from the US.
What about streaming, will you finally set up a regular stream schedule?
I actually started streaming every day about two weeks ago, unfortunately my monitor broke and I had already planned a trip to Canada for two weeks, which also prevented me from streaming lately. I will resume the every day stream when I return from my trip on the 20th, until I travel to China at the end of the month [for WCA].
Gaara is extremely active for the Tempo Storm site, adding a lot of guides and videos, can we expect you to do the same?
Hyped and I have been working on matchup videos, so expect to see about 2-3 of those in the following week.
Now that we had time to explore Naxxramas after the full release, what are your thoughts on the set? Looking at the whole set, what cards are your favorites and why? What classes did profit the most from it?
[card]Sludge Belcher[/card] and [card]Undertaker[/card].
Sludge Belcher is just so incredibly sticky. I didn't have a great initial impression of the card, but it has really surprised me.
Undertaker is incredibly strong and snowball-y. It allows so many classes to have aggressive starts that spiral out of control.
The classes that benefitted the most are probably Priest and Hunter. Priest had a complete lack of early game before Naxx, but with the addition of Zombie Chow, Dark Cultist, and Undertaker, they are a powerhouse now!
Hunter gained the early drops that it was missing as well, Undertaker, Webspinner and Haunted Creeper established Hunter as the strongest deck in the format until recently that is :)
"The classes that benefitted the most from Naxx are probably Priest and Hunter. Priest had a complete lack of early game but with [card]Zombie Chow[/card], [card]Dark Cultist[/card] and [card]Undertaker[/card], they are a powerhouse now!"
You are well known as a control player, especially with Warrior, can you elaborate how you ended up with the class? Does Warrior control have advantages over other classes? If yes, which?
Well, Warrior doesn't really have any advantages over the other classes. Every tool that Warrior has is fairly balanced, compared to the power of [card]Starving Buzzard[/card] + [card]Unleash the Hounds[/card], [card]Gadgetzan Auctioneer[/card] + zero mana Rogue spells, [card]Hex[/card], and [card]Equality[/card].
I just fell in love with the way Warriors utilize their life total and weapons to gain card advantage. There is just something satisfying about trying to find the balance of controlling the board with your health total and not just dying from your own weapons.
Looking at your Warrior list, could you explain your choices a bit? I’m especially curious about that lone [card]Zombie Chow[/card], isn’t playing just one way too unreliable?
The most difficult decks to design in Hearthstone are control decks. Every single card has to be significant and lend to your overall strategy, while at the same time you must balance the amount of cards that are critical in certain matchups but are dead draws in others. The singleton [card]Zombie Chow[/card] is a perfect example of this philosophy, where it is such a powerful board control card vs Hunter, Zoo, and Shaman, but useless in the control matchups. You would play two if you knew you would only face Zoo or Hunter, but you cannot afford to take up two deck slots with the control decks still prevelent in the meta. The single Zombie Chow greatly improves those matchups, which then allows you to play more end game vs control.
I saw Sjow play 2 Chows and [card]Alexstrasza[/card] to negate the 10 lifegain from the Chows, which made sense.
The life gain isn't the issue, so much as drawing one means you have one less useful card in your hand and deck which is important in the matchup vs Priest and in the Warrior mirror, which so often comes down to fatigue.
Let’s continue with the other Singletons: [card]Cleave[/card], [card]Sen'jin Shieldmasta[/card] and [card]Brawl[/card]. Can you guide us through your thought process on these three?
Also, does Warrior control really need [card]Brawl[/card] at the moment? There were times not too long ago where we haven’t seen the card for a while, but now it’s back in every deck it seems.
[card]Brawl[/card] has always been too strong of a card to cut on ladder. In tournaments, you can manage to cut it if you are designing your warrior deck for a certain matchup. The Sen'jin fills the 4 slot out for warrior that is almost empty, with death's bite being the only other 4. I also wanted to put in a card that slowed down the aggression from Hunters and Zoo decks.
The [card]Cleave[/card] was my first answer to [card]Savannah Highmane[/card], that could also be used in the other common matchups I was facing, Zoo and Undertaker Priest.
So basically two 4 drops are not enough to smooth out the curve and you decided for the more defensive drop?
Yeah.
I see you are missing [card]Cairne Bloodhoof[/card], but are playing [card]Baron Geddon[/card] and [card]Ysera[/card] instead, can you tell us about these choices?
Cairne is a good card, but I don't like playing it with so many Hunters around. If you ever play Cairne and your opponent plays a secret, you just can't attack with it at all, making the card useless. Baron, Ysera, and Sylvanas all have an impact, even when facing down a freezing trap.
Do you feel like two [card]Death's Bite[/card] are a necessity at the moment? Will we see five weapon builds after the nerfs?
Five weapons seems like a bit too many. Two Death's Bite are 100% necessary at the moment. The card is too powerful to only run 1. Warrior builds can run so few card draw spells because of the efficiency of the weapons.
So if five are too many, which weapon should we cut?
If people move away from Undertaker decks towards heavy control, you can remove a Waraxe and substitute a Gorehowl. I think Warrior will always have two Death's Bite though :)
"The most difficult decks to design in Hearthstone are control decks. Every single card has to be significant and lend to your overall strategy, while at the same time you must balance the amount of cards that are critical in certain matchups but are dead draws in others."
Savjz wrote in his recent guide for the aggressive Druid deck that he thinks [card]Loatheb[/card] is broken. I personally think its fine; it punishes spell heavy decks in an effective way for one turn, but still requires planning ahead and having good timing to be really effective, what are your thoughts on the card?
I don't feel that the card is broken. There was a distinct lack of 5 drops after blizzard nerfed Sylvanas' mana cost, and [card]Loatheb[/card] fits the slot perfectly. It also happens to be effective in combating powerful decks that abuse spells, while also being sticky vs most other decks, as it prevents the use of spells for the following turn. I like that the card is both a solid curve filler, while also being versatile enough to want to hold in specific matchups and scenarios.
Just last week Blizzard announced changes to [card]Leeroy Jenkins[/card] and [card]Starving Buzzard[/card]. A lot of people immediately responded to the changes of Starving Buzzard as “too much” and over the top, like ThatsAdmirable and Lothar for example. What do you think about these changes personally?
The Leeroy changes should have been made a long time ago. Blizzard had already nerfed all of the Warrior OTK interactions with pre-nerfed [card]Warsong Commander[/card] and [card]Charge[/card], while stating that it was unfun to be killed from 30-0 with no board interaction.
The Leeroy change prevents warlock abuse with the Leeroy + [card]Power Overwhelming[/card] + [card]Faceless Manipulator[/card] combo and the triple Leeroy from miracle rogue.
I think there was always an inherent problem with Auctioneer and Buzzard, which gave certains classes the ability to abuse them and draw an absurd amount of cards. I'm not sure if the mana cost nerf was the correct way to address the issue, but it will solve that problem.
Let's play game designer here. You are in charge of balancing hunter, how would you've done it?
I would have reworded the Buzzard + Unleash interaction to make it so you only draw off of beasts you play from your hand.
To be honest though, I don't think that hunter is the best deck right now, but it does push enough decks out of the format that perhaps it was worth nerfing.
"The Leeroy changes should have been made a long time ago. Blizzard had already nerfed all of the Warrior OTK interactions with pre-nerfed Warsong Commander and Charge, while stating that it was unfun to be killed from 30-0 with no board interaction."
Then what do you think is the best deck right now?
In the current metagame, I feel that Priest and Warrior both stand at the top. Before the EU Blizzcon regionals, my warrior deck was holding #3 legend quite easily, and there are a lot of top 16 priests at the moment as well. These two classes feast on Hunters, while at the same time holding their own in every other matchup.
How do you think the changes will influence the metagame? What decks will be the Tier 1 decks after the patch is live? Still Priest and Warrior?
I think the new metagame will be dominated by control decks, with Priest and Warrior maintaining their throne, alongside a resurgence of Handlock/Demonlocks. Freeze/Giants Mage will also attempt a comeback with the Hunter nerf, although I don't anticipate much success from that deck.
Will Warrior still need [card]Unstable Ghoul[/card]s in their decks if the meta is predicted to become even heavier control?
Unstable Ghoul will fall out of favor in Warrior if the meta does swap to heavy control. Against control decks, the card is basically only cycling itself when you have an [card]Acolyte of Pain[/card] in play. Heavy control environments are more about card quality, so Cairne and Manipulator increase in value.
What about [card]Sludge Belcher[/card]? Does Warrior need the taunt after Hunter and Leeroy burst is nerfed? Will we maybe see Spectral Knights instead?
[card]Sludge Belcher[/card] is too good of a card to lose, even in control matchups. It has so much value with its deathrattle, and protects your other minions well. [card]Spectral Knight[/card] is also pretty terrible in an environment where Paladins are expected to be strong.
From your prediction, are you already preparing adjustments to your earlier stated list? With the high probability of handlock coming back to take a part of the cake, maybe adding BGH again? Or are you just waiting how it actually plays out?
I am definitely planning on adding a BGH to my Warrior list next week. There will be so many Giants and Legendaries in the new format! I am extremely excited to see all of the new innovations that come out as the result of this change.
Do you think [card]Gorehowl[/card] will see a comeback too?
It is very likely that Gorehowl will return as well. The card can single handedly win the matchup vs Priest, Shaman, and the Warrior mirror match. It is also much more likely to stick in play now that there are so many more targets for the enemy [card]Harrison Jones[/card], as well as the surprise element of having one in your deck despite most people foregoing Gorehowl.
With Gaara (left) and Reynad (right). Photo: Twitter
If you had to estimate your win percentages against the most relevant decks on ladder, how would your most recent warrior list fare? Especially for the Warrior vs Priest matchup, as you said that they reign on top right now.
Warrior vs Hunter is around 65-70% in the warrior's favor.
Warrior vs Priest is much more difficult to say. Undertaker Priest is such a new deck, that the people playing it on ladder are not very experienced in the matchup vs Warrior (since I am one of the only Warrior players on ladder right now). I win an overwhelming amount of the time, around 80%, but I am also a Priest player so I understand the matchup and can see it from both sides easily. I think the matchup is most likely closer to 50%, but with the nerf to Hunters, Warriors can stop playing so many bad cards in the matchup and flip the matchup back into its favor.
That’s good news for all the Warrior players out there!
Does it bother you that people in the community mostly associate you with Warrior control, rather than as an overall pro player?
Not at all. I think there are a lot of pros that are associated with specific classes since we created the decks (e.g. Amaz with Priest, Kolento with Miracle, Reynad with Zoo, Koyuki with Paladin). My main goal in this game is to be competitive with Warrior, a class that always gets cast aside as mediocre or weak. I have been able to make Warrior a strong contender in every metagame through innovation and dedication, and I will be happy if people will always remember me as the creator of Warrior control.
Even though the Hearthstone scene has quite a lot of professional teams, the focus lies mostly on the individual player, rather than the team in its entirety. I myself played Wacraft 3 for many years and 2vs2 matches were a huge part of competitions and added a bit of variety to an otherwise highly individual game itself.
Coming from Magic the Gathering you are probably familiar with 2vs2 gameplay as well, do you think it would be a good addition to the game?
Also. do you think 2vs2 could maybe be the feature Hearthstone needs to make team competition more relevant? Right now there are almost no team events at all, gentleman cup is the only thing that comes to mind actually.
I think 2 vs 2 or free for all would be awesome formats to implement into the game. However, i don't think they will be introduced into the competitive aspect of the game. They will just be used to have fun with friends.
If you could add one feature to the game other than observer mode, what would it be?
I would love to see a queue for tournaments, like the ones in Magic online, where you can just join and it will start automatically when you reach X number of players. It would also be cool if there were daily or weekly swiss tournaments built into the client as well.
Yeah, those ingame tournaments were really nice in Warcraft 3, i bet they will come to Hearthstone too. Soontm
I hope so.
Besides being a professional Hearthstone player you are a Behavioral Neuroscience student right now, does that positively effect yourself as a player? Maybe even give you an edge?
It has helped to prevent myself from tilting when I encounter loss streaks or criticism from some of the more negative members of our community. It has also helped me in forging friendships with the other pro players and streamers, as I am always around to talk about and help address the real life problems all of us pro players face outside the game.
As a hearthstone player you already travelled around quite a bit for tournaments, can you share a few of the funniest moments from your travels with us?
My favorite experience so far happened after Dreamhack Summer at the Twitcht.tv afterparty. All of the hearthstone pros were up on the second floor of this barn-like building, with quite a few drinks in us, dancing up a storm. I started recording some of the moves for posterity, but then Frodan and Artosis yanked me on to the dance floor and tried to embarass me by freak dancing with me so that I would put my camera away. *laughs* Lesson learned!
After the party, we all hopped into cabs together to get back to our hotel. Unfortunately one of the cab drivers pulled a fast one on some of us, with the assistance of Forsen. Forsen was too drunk to understand what was going on, but told everyone that it was normal to pay 20 Euro a person for the ride. We all laughed about it the next day, but that Swede is a smooth talker, even while drunk.
