Card Hearthstone 19: Patches In All The Wrong Places [Archive]

Zevox

2017-02-16, 05:56 PM

Welcome to nineteenth GitP thread for Hearthstone. For anyone who doesn't know, Hearthstone is a video card game from Blizzard, based on the Warcraft series. The game is free to play and available here (http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/), so if you're interested, give it a shot. You've got nothing to lose but your free time. :smallwink:

For new players, something to be aware of is that there are a number of hidden "quests" you can complete which will give you free gold, dust, or even a pack. A complete list can be found here (http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/1088-list-of-quests-and-daily-quests-in-hearthstone). Be aware that not quite all of those are ones you'll be able to complete quickly though.

And here is a list of Playgrounders currently in the game, for both NA and EU servers:

GitP UsernameBattle.net ID (US)
aethernoxethernox#1948
AgentPaperAgentPaper#1193
AmberVaelAmberVael#1225
AnarionAnarion55#1254
AntonokAntonok#1704
AnxeGoCorral#1879
BaelotBaelot#1149
CogwheelOmegaNixon#1123
banthesunbanthesun#1782
Dancing OwlbearOwlbear#1586
Destro YersulDestroYersul#1239
D_LordVolrock#1367
Duck999Duck999#1349
DuosDoctorDapper#1491
Firedaemon33Firedaemon#1486
flat_footedHiigara#1357
Fleeing CowardScorch#1432
GAADGAAD#1126
GaelbertSamHouston#1563
GamerlordGamerlord#1612
GandarielCiabatta#2958
GanorenasGanorenas#1457
GomipileGlodd#1784
Gray MageGrayMage#1723
GrytormGrytorm#1777
HamsteTheorules#1234
Haruspex_PariahHaruspexPari#1254
HatevahHatevah#1405
heronbpvAvan#1991
HircineIllusiveMan#1616
Jaxzan ProditorJaxzan#1878
jindra34JinRia #1770
JohnjimcoJohnJimco#1482
KarohtKaroht#1505
KishGrazzt#1417
KradeKrade#1266
LegoShrimplegoshrimp#1722
Landis963Landis963#1789
Loreweaver15Loreweaver#1199
Lunix VandalLunixVandal#1952
MacGiollaMacGiolla#1982
MathMageMathMage#1797
MCerberusMCerberus#1734
mistformsquirrlmistformsqrl#1430
moosabiMoossabi#1325
Mystic MuseNSFJunkblade#1400
Neon KnightVultureCrook#1434
Neriractorneriractor#1483
NerociteJoeKage#1852
nhbdyNohbdy#1927
OlinserOlinser#1393
OnionbreathGiantSquid#1845
OrcusMcPOrcus#1805
otakuryogaScootaloo#1471
Pokonicpokonic#1166
PsyBombPsyBomb#1878
QwertystopQwertystop#1897
r2d2gor2d2go#1262
RodinRodin#1811
RosstinRosstin#1609
SamBurkeSamBurke#1486
ShishnarfneGruschenka#1375
SholosVeebeebee#1383
Stabbity Rabbit StabityRabit#1362
TechwarriorTechwarri0r#1572
TemoteiTemotei#1507
Tesla_pastateslapasta#1973
Thanatos 51-50Thanatos5150#1407
TheGlyphstoneGlyphstone#1419
The Hellbugthehellbug#1216
The_JackalTheJackal#1499
TogarthAsparag#1680
Trouble BrewingHairyPoppins#1949
UserCloneUserClone #1545
VolatarVolatar#1750
YaelUrashima#1810
YanaRaltis#1807
ZeroNumerousZeroNumerous#1913
ZevoxZevox#1522
ZmekJadeReaver #1783

GitP UsernameBattle.net ID (EU)
AdumbrationAdumbration#2419
Aran ThuleAranThule#2780
AvarisAvaris#2378
Avilan the GreyBeardedgeek#2355
Beelzebub1111SirArthurIV#1244
boomwolfBoomWolf#1169
DadaScrattlebear#2863
D-naras Dinos #2811
Epinephrine_SynSilverSeraph #2931
Fleeing CowardScorch#1432
Frog DragonVasemmasti#2618
FyreByrdFyreByrd#2962
GandarielCiabatta#2958
GolemsVoiceCrazyCat#29897
HewhosaysfishHeWhoSezFish#2503
Hippie_VikingHippieViking#2866
Infernally ClayWinny#1904
JormengandTrianna#2529
LionheartLionheart#2440
Mr.SilverSilverSmiles#2462
MurmaiderMurmaider#2273
PoscaMazura#2636
RaddishRaddish#2730
ScionoftheVoidJayPsi#2775
ShinyRocksMoodyTuskarr#2790
SianSian#2690
SilfirSilfir#2863
SlyGuyMcFlySlGuyMcFly#2562
TokayTokay#2518
TomeTaejix#2836
VolthawkVolthawk#1214
WeimannWeimann#2716
WraithIllusionist#2224
XianderXiander#2814

----------------------------------------------

Big news!!

Year of the Mammoth announcement

(Will post link when I can, but you can find it on blizzard site)

Notable things:
1) Azure drake, Sylvanas, Rag, Power Overwhelming, Conceal and Ice Lance rotate into Wild
(we get a full dust refund AND keep the cards!)

2) 2017 will be only Expansions, no adventures.

3) new rogue hero, Maiev Shadowsong, free for everyone (just play some games)

Thoughts: happy to see rag and sylv go. They'll make space for new cool legendaries
Miracle rogue loses a lot of cards (conceal, drake, pillager)
Don't care about the hero skin, happy cause I'll have a ton of free dust (I never disenchant unless I need stuff, I have a few extras of the cards that are rotating )
Wait, what?! What the hell is with rotating out Classic cards? I thought that the whole point of those was that they would always be there as options for players, so even those who stop playing for a while and come back later have at least some pool of good, usable cards they can always draw from. That was the whole justification for the big nerfs to things like Ancient of Lore, BGH, Molten Giant, or Force of Nature - they were always going to be usable, so they had to be changed so that decks like Midrange Druid and Handlock wouldn't always be around largely the same as they'd been since pre-Naxx, or BGH wouldn't always be a one-of in every non-aggro deck whenever any minion he can hit is halfway common.

This is a big departure from their previous stance, and frankly, I think they had it right the first time. There should be an evergreen pool of cards for players who take breaks, and the classics are the perfect ones for the job - they should absolutely not be making any exceptions to that. If they wanted to do something about those cards being used consistently, they should've made some small nerfs to them. And frankly, the only one I can see particularly good reason to do that with is Azure Drake, which genuinely shows up in a ton of decks a lot of the time, and always has.

No adventures in 2017? Boo, I kind of like adventures. Not exactly upsetting news like the above, but not something I'm a fan of. The hero I'll just wait and see whether I like the look of him or her I suppose. So far I've liked Liadrin and Tyrande, not so much the rest. Well, I guess I might prefer Alleria if I played Hunter, but I don't; and I might use Magni if he didn't cost money, but he does.

Kish

2017-02-16, 06:46 PM

Her. Maiev is a night elf, like Tyrande. For my part I find her completely uninteresting, so of course that's the one they made close to free.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-16, 06:48 PM

I am slightly miffed. I spent good dust to craft Doctor Boom, then Standard was announced. Now they're cycling out the two neutral classic legends (and Azure Drake!) that I invested in specifically because they could fit into multiple types of decks.

If we really are getting dust for the lost cards that's a little better. We'll have to see what the new landscape looks like.

Temotei

2017-02-16, 07:06 PM

Is there anything stopping us from crafting golden copies of those cards and basically getting them for free because of the refund?

moossabi

2017-02-16, 07:10 PM

Is there anything stopping us from crafting golden copies of those cards and basically getting them for free because of the refund?

Nope. This is what I'm planning to do with Ragnaros.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-16, 07:29 PM

Is there anything stopping us from crafting golden copies of those cards and basically getting them for free because of the refund?

All you need is 3200 dust on hand, otherwise that seems legit.

Anarion

2017-02-16, 07:32 PM

Her. Maiev is a night elf, like Tyrande. For my part I find her completely uninteresting, so of course that's the one they made close to free.

Maiev had basically no character of her own. Her whole thing was just hating Illidan, iirc.

Is there anything stopping us from crafting golden copies of those cards and basically getting them for free because of the refund?

I'm not clear from their thing if you get a double refund or not. It says up to the maximum you can have in your deck, and they will refund the gold one, but I don't know if you get a second refund for the regular one.

PsyBomb

2017-02-16, 07:54 PM

Need to see if I can rack up 1600 dust for Sylvanas before Mammoth hits, since it'll be effectively free.

On PO: it also combos hard with things like Shadowflame and Shambler, that don't need the original to survive the turn. If it were just Leeroy, then Cold Blood would have been nuked alongside Conceal.

Nerocite

2017-02-16, 08:17 PM

In the Sylvanas change they talk about new deathrattle build-arounds, which makes me excited for N'Zoth decks.

flat_footed

2017-02-16, 08:20 PM

Is there anything stopping us from crafting golden copies of those cards and basically getting them for free because of the refund?

Man, I am so glad you all said something about this. I've been sitting on a Golden Nat Pagle for a while and a free Sylvanas is a great reason to finally dust him.

Joran

2017-02-16, 08:38 PM

I'm not clear from their thing if you get a double refund or not. It says up to the maximum you can have in your deck, and they will refund the gold one, but I don't know if you get a second refund for the regular one.

No, you don't get a double refund. You get it up to the maximum you can have in your deck.

If you have 2 copies of Ragnaros, you only get the dust for one of them (1600). If you have 2 copies of golden Azure Drake and 2 copies of regular Azure Drake, you only get the dust value of the two golden copies. Likewise, if you have Ragnaros and create a Golden Ragnaros and dust your regular Ragnaros, you get the equivalent of 400 dust rather than the 1600 dust you would have had with just regular Ragnaros.

Edit: Just got the dream in the Tavern Brawl: Pyroblast, Greater Arcane Missiles, Fireball, Firelands Portal. Turn 1, 30 damage to opponent face, 28 to mine.

Epinephrine_Syn

2017-02-17, 01:15 AM

For this brawl, I'm going Hunter. Put in two copies of Tracking, ideally getting a t1 or t2 Call Of The Wild. It basically demands a response-play or it's an IMMEDIATE loss. Flares and Quick Shots for more digging and getting around the mages that are prolific here. Lotsa cheesy stuff, and hunter power is best power if the game somehow drags out to t4+.

PsyBomb

2017-02-17, 01:33 AM

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-17, 02:09 AM

Looking over the "Hall of Fame" list, the only one I'm on the fence about is Ice Lance. I can only guess that they're planning to add new cards which would combo too strongly with it.

Mando Knight

2017-02-17, 02:19 AM

Looking over the "Hall of Fame" list, the only one I'm on the fence about is Ice Lance. I can only guess that they're planning to add new cards which would combo too strongly with it.

The original announcement for the list (http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20475356) explained several types of cards that they had in mind when removing each of the Hall of Fame cards: besides its potential in Freeze Mage or other OTK Mage decks, "Ice Lance also prevented us from making powerful Spell Damage cards and designs that allowed you to duplicate your cards."

Gandariel

2017-02-17, 02:27 AM

So basically the "strat" for the Hall of Fame cards is:

If you have them already, don't do anything.

If you don't, craft them GOLDEN. You get the dust back AND you get the card, so spend as much as you can.

Also, a comment on a post from the last thread:

Mando Knight:
With Sylvanas and Entomb gone, Priest will probably start looking at Mind Control again if Paladin returns in Year of the Mammoth. That's both of the Tirion "hard-counters" gone

Hah. Paladin.
Let me guess, the loss of Entomb also hurts the Hunter matchup because it used to counter Highmane?

But yeah, let's hope Paladin and Hunter get back in the meta.
I actually think Hunter doesn't need anything new.
Everyone else is just gonna lose a lot of good cards with the rotation, and they'll just get back up. Their power plays (Call of the wild, cloaked huntress, Pat Rack, Highmane) are still here.

Paladin just needs a 2-drop, everyone has been saying that for years.
I just realised that Paladin decks crutch extremely hard on Tirion.
I mean think of every successful paladin deck : Midrange (play a normal value game, drop Tirion, gg), Secret (play Challenger to deplete their answers, follow up with the one-two killer punch Boom Tirion). Even Anyfin is super reliant on Tirion, because he's the only STRONG play they have until turn 20 or so.

Maybe they should just nerf him and give Paladin some other cards.

Like, maybe make the sword 5/2? Everyone would still play him, but they'd be free to give paladin more good cards

Epinephrine_Syn

2017-02-17, 02:33 AM

Yeah, this Brawl degenerated fast, and I won't be going back to it this week. Got rocked by a Mage, a Shaman, and a Druid all in a row on turns 1 or 2, just going for a face burn blitz. Glad I got my one win early

To be fair, this brawl actually does have SOME tactics and counter play, despite games literally going 4 turns long maximum 90% of the time.

Specifically, I know I'm running Snipe, because everyone plays mage, and they play Violet Teacher+Armor (reduce damage to you to 1) critter, then cast a buttload of spells. Sniperino cuts that off dead, and playing it exactly the turn they want to means they can't drop a critter before (they'd need to have literally wisp or 0/2 taunt in their deck to eat the snipe).

Also, got a fair couple wins off of somebody burning themselves to 9-12 range, forgetting that I am playing a Hunter.

Temotei

2017-02-17, 03:52 AM

A paladin I faced put himself at 1 health on turn 1. I had Patches in hand.

thirsting

2017-02-17, 04:13 AM

Got my pack with minions only warrior, stuffed with everything that gives free armor (well, had two Ironforge Portals because in effect those cost only one health).

Three expansions is exactly what I wanted. Yuletide all year long!

Gandariel

2017-02-17, 05:18 AM

I just made a random Mage deck, went t1 Babbling book, T2 coin Violet illusionist + Arcane Intellect Pyroblast Firelands portal Cabalist's tome and, well you get the gist.

Didn't manage to win right there, but the opponent just conceded.

PsyBomb

2017-02-17, 07:36 AM

Spore

2017-02-17, 07:46 AM

Is there anything stopping us from crafting golden copies of those cards and basically getting them for free because of the refund?

Nope, only one instance of the card.

Maiev had basically no character of her own. Her whole thing was just hating Illidan, iirc.

I still LOVE her voice actress so I am insanely happy for her to be the new rogue. Actually I feel Valeera to more of a bland stereotype than Maiev. Sure, Valeera has the bigger backstory but she is still a b*tch in a bikini, ready to turn against any and all friends and foes.

I prefer the design of the Wardens but having a glaive - or call ot moon sword - as a weapon with a heavy armor doesn't make much sense. They should have glaives - like the pole weapon - not some oversized bottle openers. I am curious what the Rogue hero power will procure for her.

Gandariel

2017-02-17, 08:17 AM

Just drafted an odd Warlock Arena, about to get started. Ridiculously aggressive 1-2, mediocre 3-4, tons of bombs on 6-7-9, and almost literally nothing outside of those.

Flame Imp x2
Soul Fire

Boneguard Lieutenant
Dark Peddler x2
Friendly Bartender
Haunted Creeper x2
Nerubian Egg
Darkbomb

Dancing Swords
Darkshire Councilman
Hired Gun
Illuminator
Spider Tank

Daring Reporter
Kabal Chemist
Lost Tallstrider
Ogre Magi

Floating Watcher

Boulderfist Ogre
Drakonid Crusher
Kabal Trafficker
Piloted Sky Golem

Abyssal Enforcer x2

North Sea Kraken
Ysera

I'm optimistic about my chances as long as I can keep the opponent on the defensive long enough to get into my 6+ (or, to be honest, possibly rip them to shreds with the early game blitz). Any thoughts before I get started?

Don't Blitz and don't tap.

Your early game is good, but not as good as you'd think.
Don't expect to win off of it, just play defensive and fight for board.

If you go all-in early you are at very high risk: no taunt or heal, no catchup cards (aside from Enforcer).
You have an insane lategame, but they're all slow win conditions.

Your best bet is to only fight for board, preserve your life total, and force your opponent to play the value game (which you'll win, because dayum)

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-17, 08:30 AM

Played Dragon Priest against a Rogue. She played Reno once, which surprised me. Then she shadow stepped him and I sighed; it was going to be one of those games. She played Reno a second time, and Shadowcaster'd it. Then she played the 1/1 Reno for her third full heal. Then she played the 18/26 C'Thun which got so big because her C'Thun assassin fellow ate the Ysera I Discovered from a historian.

Then I Shadow Word:Death her C'Thun and she conceded. Phew.

EDIT: She also used the Gadgetzan ferry to bounce him again, so she actually got to Reno four times.

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-02-17, 08:31 AM

Wait, what?! What the hell is with rotating out Classic cards? I thought that the whole point of those was that they would always be there as options for players, so even those who stop playing for a while and come back later have at least some pool of good, usable cards they can always draw from. That was the whole justification for the big nerfs to things like Ancient of Lore, BGH, Molten Giant, or Force of Nature - they were always going to be usable, so they had to be changed so that decks like Midrange Druid and Handlock wouldn't always be around largely the same as they'd been since pre-Naxx, or BGH wouldn't always be a one-of in every non-aggro deck whenever any minion he can hit is halfway common.

This is a big departure from their previous stance, and frankly, I think they had it right the first time. There should be an evergreen pool of cards for players who take breaks, and the classics are the perfect ones for the job - they should absolutely not be making any exceptions to that. If they wanted to do something about those cards being used consistently, they should've made some small nerfs to them. And frankly, the only one I can see particularly good reason to do that with is Azure Drake, which genuinely shows up in a ton of decks a lot of the time, and always has.

No adventures in 2017? Boo, I kind of like adventures. Not exactly upsetting news like the above, but not something I'm a fan of. The hero I'll just wait and see whether I like the look of him or her I suppose. So far I've liked Liadrin and Tyrande, not so much the rest. Well, I guess I might prefer Alleria if I played Hunter, but I don't; and I might use Magni if he didn't cost money, but he does.
What irks me about these two things (the rotation and the no-adventure policy) is that having a core set of viable cards that would always be in play and having expansions with guaranteed cards and PvE content were two big things that differentiated Hearthstone from Magic's model, in my eyes. Really, Hearthstone is just becoming more and more like a Magic clone with worse card design and more questionable balance. I hardly play it as-is, and this news hardly incentivizes me to.

Still, as long as I get confirmation of how the free dust works, I'll be claiming my free legendary, methinks.

Joran

2017-02-17, 09:16 AM

To be fair, this brawl actually does have SOME tactics and counter play, despite games literally going 4 turns long maximum 90% of the time.

Specifically, I know I'm running Snipe, because everyone plays mage, and they play Violet Teacher+Armor (reduce damage to you to 1) critter, then cast a buttload of spells. Sniperino cuts that off dead, and playing it exactly the turn they want to means they can't drop a critter before (they'd need to have literally wisp or 0/2 taunt in their deck to eat the snipe).

Also, got a fair couple wins off of somebody burning themselves to 9-12 range, forgetting that I am playing a Hunter.

I've also been burned down to a point that I couldn't cast a spell; the spells don't check if you have an ability like Violet Illusionist or Animated Armor to reduce the damage. So I've had Pyroblasts in hand to finish off the opponent but not the 10 health to play it.

It's a silly mode, but I like silly stuff so I've been playing it a fair bit.

Anarion

2017-02-17, 02:44 PM

What irks me about these two things (the rotation and the no-adventure policy) is that having a core set of viable cards that would always be in play and having expansions with guaranteed cards and PvE content were two big things that differentiated Hearthstone from Magic's model, in my eyes. Really, Hearthstone is just becoming more and more like a Magic clone with worse card design and more questionable balance. I hardly play it as-is, and this news hardly incentivizes me to.

Still, as long as I get confirmation of how the free dust works, I'll be claiming my free legendary, methinks.

You'll still be getting single player content though. Possibly more of it, even, since they seemed to suggest that the part of adventures they like is the story showing off the characters and setting, so they might do that for every expansion. Hopefully, they might even make it so the single player stuff offers a few guaranteed iconic cards in the set, though if they're uninventive, they'll probably just do packs instead.

The other thing, though, at least for me as someone who tries to play up to rank 5 each month, is that the meta can get really stale, especially with stuff like the current shaman>all problem that's leading to the nerfs at the end of the month. More big expansions with more cards makes me really happy because it means more experimentation and variety.

Seerow

2017-02-17, 04:37 PM

I hope that the new single player stuff comes with decent rewards. Like I don't mind it so much if every expansion has 130 cards if I can drop 20 bucks and get about half of the iconic legendaries and a handful of epics, I'd be pretty happy. But if it's all pack based and we're only getting like 5 or so bonus packs at the start of the expansion it is basically a money grab, and leaves f2p players further behind than ever.

Spore

2017-02-17, 04:43 PM

Agreed. I liked the adventure designs very much because it somewhat levelled the playing field for everyone. I have invested far too much into Hearthstone and if I need to get 100 packs every 4 months to stay competitive I will probably not continue that hobby.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-02-17, 04:47 PM

I'm glad to see that Blizzard is willing to rotate classic cards out in this fashion. However, I'm a bit sad we don't see them doing similar things to rotate healthy cards that have good long-term gameplay INTO classic.

There are a number of very solid, interesting, and non-meta-defining cards, and I don't see the harm in making some of them into "classic" cards. Especially given how useless some of the basic / classic cards are, which really just makes the number smaller. There are some cards there I've NEVER seen in play.

Zevox

2017-02-17, 06:02 PM

Jaxzan Proditor

2017-02-17, 07:18 PM

Hello, I'd like to be added to the list of HS players here. I'm on the American server and my battle tag is Jaxzan#1878.

New announcement certainly looks interesting, especially with the Hall of Fame. I think it's nice that those cards will still be available for Wild play, but not obvious standard problems anymore. If only I had some of the legendaries so I could grab more dust. :smalltongue:

Also, does anyone know if there will be a price for the single-player content that's coming with the expansions? I'm f2p and trying to decide if I should spend my gold on packs that are rotating out, or saving for Mammoth stuff.

Zevox

2017-02-17, 08:23 PM

Hello, I'd like to be added to the list of HS players here. I'm on the American server and my battle tag is Jaxzan#1878.
Added.

And I don't think anyone has any details on the next expansion's single-player content at this time.

Seerow

2017-02-18, 01:33 PM

Yeah right now it's all speculation, unfortunately.

Right now the impression I've gotten is that the single player content will be free and give the sorts of rewards we've been getting free from the last few expansions (ie a few free packs). Personally I'm hoping for something more involved than that. But what I would like is basically asking them to develop a full adventure and a full card set every 4 months simultaneously, and that is probably a bit much to ask.

Either way we do know for sure the first set this year won't have the single player content, so it's probably a solid 4-5 months before we'll know more about it.

I will say though, whatever reward structure they go with, if I can't reasonably expect to collect all the cards on a reasonable budget before they rotate out, I'll probably be done with the game. It's fun to watch streamers buying hundreds of packs on day one and open them all at once, but that's definitely not a reasonable expectation for most of us.

I mentioned it in the last thread, but my general budget is around 20 bucks a month. I'm willing to splurge an extra 20-30 or so with an expansion release. But on the new release cycle if nothing else changes, that lets me buy roughly 85 packs per expansion, plus what I can earn from daily quests (generally going to be around 1 per 2 days on average, so another 60 packs over 4 months give or take). 145 packs is a fair chunk, but the average amount of packs needed to get everything in an expansion is a bit more than double that, hovering around 300 packs required for all pack based expansions.

Conveniently, when we had an adventure as every other expansion, that gave an extra 4 months to collect cards from that set. In 8 months you can get 290 packs on that budget, which is reasonably close to getting everything you need.

But now with new card packs coming out twice as often, it's literally impossible without buying an extra 160 packs every 4 months. Which means buying 40 more packs per month, or spending basically an extra 50 dollars per month, increasing the necessary budget to get a full set from 20 bucks a month to 70 bucks a month.

It could be the new log-in rewards (they said they'll be temporary, but it may need to stay long term), it could be new single player adventures, it could be new structure decks you can purchase to get a head start. Don't know or particularly care. But they will need to change something, otherwise only whales and people who grind arena nonstop will be able to have a full collection. And that's a very sad state for the game.

Gandariel

2017-02-18, 02:19 PM

Zevox

2017-02-18, 02:24 PM

But they will need to change something, otherwise only whales and people who grind arena nonstop will be able to have a full collection. And that's a very sad state for the game.
Honestly, in my mind that's how things have always been. I've never been anywhere near having a full collection, and feel like I'd either need to play constantly or spend a bunch of money to get there. Fortunately, I'm not interested in getting there - as long as I can amass all of the cards that are good for decks I enjoy from a given set, that's enough for me.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-02-18, 02:40 PM

But they will need to change something, otherwise only whales and people who grind arena nonstop will be able to have a full collection. And that's a very sad state for the game.

I'm wondering if that really IS a sad state. Fewer full collections means a likelihood of fewer power cards in every player's collections, which also means fewer players able to be able to build the meta-deck of the moment. That in turn leads to greater deck diversity outside the top of the ladder. And THAT actually makes it easier for newer players to get into the game, as they'll be up against fewer pro-perfected meta decks and more "I took a pro deck and made the best one I could with the cards I have available" decks.

Kish

2017-02-18, 02:50 PM

...which does actually go with the multiple floors model they're switching to. Someone whose collection is only good enough to get to rank 15 will see all the people who are going to rank 10 or 5 or Legend leave their opponent pool fairly early in the month, and not fall back into it until next month.

I suspect from Blizzard's perspective, what's a sad state is when people have full collections without giving Blizzard $$$. Whether this will ultimately benefit them or hurt them, well, we'll see.

Zevox

2017-02-18, 03:10 PM

I'm wondering if that really IS a sad state. Fewer full collections means a likelihood of fewer power cards in every player's collections, which also means fewer players able to be able to build the meta-deck of the moment. That in turn leads to greater deck diversity outside the top of the ladder. And THAT actually makes it easier for newer players to get into the game, as they'll be up against fewer pro-perfected meta decks and more "I took a pro deck and made the best one I could with the cards I have available" decks.
Nah, that won't happen. Having a large enough collection to be able to field most or all meta decks has never been that hard for longtime players.

Anarion

2017-02-18, 04:02 PM

My 2 cents on the Expansion cost debate.

This expansion I crafted Kazakus, Patches, one Dirty Rat, one Unlicensed Apotechary, two Dragon fire Potions, plus a few rares. 4.8k in epics and legendaries, let's say 5k/5.5k in total.

(Sadly I didn't get any of these cards in packs, that would have saved me some dust.)

this 5k dust expenditure allowed me to play Reno Mage/warlock, dragon Priest, miracle rogue, pirate warrior and shaman, which is most of the meta.
The only notable things I didn't craft were Aya Blackpaw and Raza the Chained. Didn't feel like blowing more dust on them.

Still, my "keep up with the meta" expenditure was 5k dust, and it allowed me to play, I'd say, 3/4ths of the meta, which is more than enough for me.

Don't quote me on this, but I'm given to understand one pack is, on average, 100-110 dust? And that's assuming you never find what you actually want in the pack.

In short, my expenses for this expansion amounted to around 50 packs.

Given the brawl packs, the welcome packs, the gold from quests, Arena rewards and so on my impression is that it's still not that impossible to keep up.

A decent amount of my packs came from Arena, true, but if you're willing to spend money the 50 packs bundle they always offer is already enough to hit the 5k dust I mentioned, and then you get all the free stuff.

I don't have a full collection and I never will, but honestly I don't care. I can keep up with the game without spending money or feel like I'm grinding.
As long as it stays like this, I'm perfectly fine.

Nah, that won't happen. Having a large enough collection to be able to field most or all meta decks has never been that hard for longtime players.

Yeah, Zevox is right on that. Here's mine.

I spent $40 on the expansion, buying the presale bonus packs. I haven't spent any more money since then. I've pulled Knuckles, White Eyes, Kazakus, Finja, and Aya.
I also crafted Solia, Burnbristel, Raza, Hobart, and Patches.

So that's 8k dust value in pulls, and 8k spent on crafting. I've got another 7k dust in the bank ready for the next expansion. I spend 100% of my gold on arena and play it close to eternally (I think I'm a little worse than Gandariel, I tend to not really make or lose gold, I just hold steady enough with arena and quests to never have to pay real money for my arena runs while having a constant flow of packs and random cards).

I think Blizzard's goal is likely that a free only player who's good at the game can play a competitive deck in the meta, including the necessary legendaries, but not every single competitive meta deck. At least, not without an extreme amount of time put into the game. Complete collections are definitely not on their radar though. I think I've spent ~$200 on Hearthstone so far (I bought the preorder for every expansion starting with grand tournament and the adventures with real money and I don't spend during a season). I've been playing since release, and with that investment, I'm nowhere near a complete collection. Not even close.

But, I feel like if everyone had a complete set, that would actually discourage a lot of people from playing. Not everyone is interested in grinding the ranked ladder, and the game is better for people messing around having fun because they want to earn gold and dust and work towards particular cards they think are fun.

Seerow

2017-02-18, 05:08 PM

Zevox

2017-02-18, 05:56 PM

Anarion

2017-02-18, 09:59 PM

I'll reply on more detail tonight when I'm home instead of on a smartphone, but the main problem is if you only have enough resources for a few good cards, you're going to have basically one meta deck you can play and nothing else. This is where things like pirate warrior become overwhelming because they are cheap and good. Individual player card diversity is necessary if you want to see experimentation. If only top ranked players can afford to experiment beyond the top meta decks the meta gets stale that much faster.

I also disagree with the premise that 5k dust will get you every card you really need for the meta, but that is an argument I will save for later.

It gets better over time, actually. Once you've got the cards you want from classic, they stick with you (and note that with the rotation now, they're giving a full dust refund so you can make something to replace your lost Ragnaros et al). I made Bloodmage Thalnos back in GvG and just slot him in every time something comes up where he's relevant for a deck.

If you're completely new now, then yes, you're gonna have a rough time collecting everything, although the standard rotation actually helps that out by making the set of cards you need smaller. And I'd encourage new players to craft their preferred class legendaries and useful dragon legends from classic first because those stick around. But, I think that should be intended. It's not a game where you just automatically get all the cards by signing up, it's a CCG model, the whole point is that you play to get new and better cards over time.

tonberrian

2017-02-19, 01:21 AM

Yeah, I'm starting to feel like switching over to Elder Scrolls Legends was for the best. Questing is much less of a pain, the gold you get from matches is randomized between 15 and like 35 or something, you get a free card with every 3rd win as well, and it's just more tactically interesting.

Seerow

2017-02-19, 01:45 AM

There's a vast difference between having a full collection and having only enough resources for a single deck. I'd be more than happy to wager that most players who spend much time on the game fall squarely between the two, and that this shift to having extra expansions this year won't change that meaningfully.

Yeah, I can understand that.

But the main issue is that people are going to beeline for the cards that are in the "best" meta decks as long as cards are very hard to get. Basically this sort of design leads directly to a lack of deck diversity. Top level players do a bunch of experimentation in the first week or two, they determine what the best decks are, then everyone else goes out and crafts the cards for 1-2 of those decks, and that takes up pretty much all of their resources. If over the next few months they get more resources, they'll go towards getting more of the cards for other meta decks.

I mean just given the 5000 dust example that Gandariel gave, ignoring the fact that it wasn't actually covering all of the cards needed for the decks he specified (just as a quick example, Draconid OP was missing from the list. No dragon priest is running without that), if 5000 dust actually was enough to get you the cards you need for 2-3 meta decks you're expected to buy 50 packs, dust everything in those packs that you will not be using in those decks (rather than hold onto anything you don't have more than 2 of) in order to craft those cards.

As far as I know most players don't play like that, but to get the "50 packs = all you need for your decks" that's what's expected. So either stuff like that becomes the norm, and the average player has much lower potential deck diversity that they are able to play, or players end up missing out on a lot more key cards because they don't have the guaranteed expansion cards to fall back on.

It gets better over time, actually. Once you've got the cards you want from classic, they stick with you (and note that with the rotation now, they're giving a full dust refund so you can make something to replace your lost Ragnaros et al). I made Bloodmage Thalnos back in GvG and just slot him in every time something comes up where he's relevant for a deck.

The full dust refund is nice, but keep in mind their reasoning for moving those cards to Hall of Fame. It's because they fit into so many decks. Say now you can have Sylvanas in 3 completely different decks. When patch rolls around she's gone, you have dust to craft a new legendary, hooray! But now there's 3 new legendaries into those 3 decks for different reasons. Because they don't want one card that gets included everywhere, they want multiple cards that get put in for different reasons. This makes for a more interesting meta because you have more different cards in the game, but it is a net loss to a player who doesn't have the resources to get all 3 of the new cards, since now they can only run one of the decks where they used to have 3.

Now this example is hypothetical, but it is about the design principles behind their change. I don't expect we'll ever see a card as universally useful as Azure Drake again. Whatever you craft with that dust you get back is going to fit into far fewer decks than the Azure Drake you lost. The same goes for most of the other hall of famers. The dust is nice, and I wouldn't expect anything more from that. And the design goal of seeing more different cards in different decks is also good. The problem only comes in when the method of actually gaining cards is restrictive to most players playing the game.

If you're completely new now, then yes, you're gonna have a rough time collecting everything, although the standard rotation actually helps that out by making the set of cards you need smaller. And I'd encourage new players to craft their preferred class legendaries and useful dragon legends from classic first because those stick around. But, I think that should be intended. It's not a game where you just automatically get all the cards by signing up, it's a CCG model, the whole point is that you play to get new and better cards over time.

The rotation helps out new players, yes. But the point is having card pack based expansions twice as frequently means a typical player ends a given expansion with half as many cards to work with.

But, I feel like if everyone had a complete set, that would actually discourage a lot of people from playing. Not everyone is interested in grinding the ranked ladder, and the game is better for people messing around having fun because they want to earn gold and dust and work towards particular cards they think are fun.

I agree that everyone shouldn't have a complete set. Just giving the cards all up front would take away a large part of the fun, and pack opening has its own intrinsic value for entertainment.

The question isn't "Should everybody get a full set of every card in the game". The question is "How much should a player have to invest to get a full set of cards?".

Right now with the current expansion model, investing around $350.00 per year give or take will cover it. Under the new model, it's closer to $1000.00 per year. Do you think that level of monetary investment to maintain a full card collection is acceptable?

Or if you don't like the argument point of "Investment for a full collection", how much of a collection do you think an average player should have? Should your typical player be disenchanting most legendaries and epics they get if they don't fit into the current meta so they can craft cards that better compete?

Zevox

2017-02-19, 02:15 AM

Or if you don't like the argument point of "Investment for a full collection", how much of a collection do you think an average player should have? Should your typical player be disenchanting most legendaries and epics they get if they don't fit into the current meta so they can craft cards that better compete?
That is exactly how it's always worked for me anyway, so sure. Dust the cards that aren't good, keep or craft the ones that are, put together decks that are good - all totally standard-sounding stuff. And I don't anticipate it being that much harder to put together multiple good decks just because we get an expansion where an adventure would have been. Hell, adventures were in a way more expensive than expansions for a free-to-play player: with expansions you can get the cards via gold or dust, whereas with adventures gold is your only option.

Seerow

2017-02-19, 02:18 AM

That is exactly how it's always worked for me anyway, so sure. Dust the cards that aren't good, keep or craft the ones that are, put together decks that are good - all totally standard-sounding stuff. And I don't anticipate it being that much harder to put together multiple good decks just because we get an expansion where an adventure would have been. Hell, adventures were in a way more expensive than expansions for a free-to-play player: with expansions you can get the cards via gold or dust, whereas with adventures gold is your only option.

I believe we had that discussion in the last thread, and determined the only way the adventures aren't cheaper is if you are a f2p player who also is a regular arena player with a huge stockpile of dust that you prefer to spend instead of gold. In every other situation Adventures are hugely more efficient ways to get cards, particularly a relatively high quality of cards.

Gandariel

2017-02-19, 02:58 AM

I mean just given the 5000 dust example that Gandariel gave, ignoring the fact that it wasn't actually covering all of the cards needed for the decks he specified (just as a quick example, Draconid OP was missing from the list. No dragon priest is running without that), if 5000 dust actually was enough to get you the cards you need for 2-3 meta decks you're expected to buy 50 packs, dust everything in those packs that you will not be using in those decks (rather than hold onto anything you don't have more than 2 of) in order to craft those cards.

Clarification: I didn't mention the Rare cards because I was sure I'd forget some, and because I opened a few in packs (small time Buccaneer and counterfeit coin I think)

So, I only counted epic and legendary and added a bit more for the rares.
So, 5-5.5k.

Anyways, i didn't "dust everything and crafted 2-3 meta decks"
As I mentioned, I was able to build 3/4ths of the current meta decks.

Seriously, the only things I couldn't play were jade druid, jade control shaman and Reno priest (which I can still play, slightly suboptimally)

Last thing I wanna mention is, my cost was 5k dust *since I was unlucky and didn't open any useful Epic or Legendary*.
Finding a Legendary instead of crafting it is 1200 dust less, which opens for new fun uses of your dust.

The other point you make in your post is that "if everyone just dusts everything and gets a meta deck there's no fun experimentation".

This is partially true, yes, but that's a matter of player preference.

Noone is rushing you, you don't need to craft all the meta decks immediately.

The point is, this game has various 'experiences' with different price tags.
You, Seerow, are willing to pay for the 50 packs every expansion, plus maybe something extra scattered throughout the year.

That buys you:
- most meta decks on day 1
- experimentation, extra decks, or crafting old stuff with the free packs / other purchases
-overall, maybe half a full collection.

If you want the full collection, Blizzard made it very clear that it costs much more than that.

I personally couldn't care less for a full collection. What do you even do with a windup burgle bot?

"Most meta decks" plus " some extra for experimentation" is pretty much everything I'll ever need.

PsyBomb

2017-02-19, 05:03 AM

I again come from the POV of someone who is effectively F2P (only ever spent $5 on the welcome pack). I always looked forward to adventures, because they guaranteed card quality. 3500g, tops, and I got at least a few solid Epics and legends. 3500g on a new set... well, I dropped 4k on Gadgetzan and then got the 1/3 bonus, and I still had to craft Kaz and Patches to play meta at all, with my only actual legend pulls being Han'Cho and two copies of Kun.

I still can't play half of what I want to with any actual effectiveness, which I think is a problem. I'm average at Arena, not great but good enough to make it a hair more efficient than straight purchases when I have time, and I haven't missed a daily in over a year.

Gandariel

2017-02-19, 06:56 AM

Since everyone's experience is different, how much stuff do you think is "enough" ?

For example, I gave my roundup:
Kazakus, Patches, 2x Dragonfire potion, 1x Dirty Rat, a bunch of Rares (I did also craft Unlicensed Apotechary, but it wasn't necessary and it isn't meta).

This let me play MOST of the current meta, and comes down to around 5k dust, which is in my opinion doable.

How much dust do you guys think is "enough" to play "enough" of the meta decks?

Seerow

2017-02-19, 11:17 AM

The other point you make in your post is that "if everyone just dusts everything and gets a meta deck there's no fun experimentation".

This is partially true, yes, but that's a matter of player preference.

Noone is rushing you, you don't need to craft all the meta decks immediately.

The point is, this game has various 'experiences' with different price tags.
You, Seerow, are willing to pay for the 50 packs every expansion, plus maybe something extra scattered throughout the year.

That buys you:
- most meta decks on day 1
- experimentation, extra decks, or crafting old stuff with the free packs / other purchases
-overall, maybe half a full collection.

If you want the full collection, Blizzard made it very clear that it costs much more than that.

But here's the thing... I did the math. Right now my average cost of playing Hearthstone comes to $350.00 per year. And up until now that was enough to effectively be able to have everything by the time a new set was released. Not on day one, but by the time a new set rolled out I would be done (or within a couple percent) with the previous set.

By doubling the rate of release, I am being asked to effectively triple the amount I pay to keep the same relative level of completion. Because instead of 20 dollars getting me 65 cards including unique epics and legendaries, that same 20 dollars is going to get me another 15 packs, so on average one legendary and a couple epics, or possibly 2000 dust.

You say Blizzard has made it clear that a full collection costs much more. I say the cost for a full collection has held steady from the game's release up until now by them maintaining a regular release cycle. By changing that release cycle, they are upsetting that balance in a way that I suspect the majority of players aren't really considering. It feels disingenuous to say 'well you just have unrealistic expectations' when my expectations are grounded in the math of how things have worked for years, since game release. I don't think it's unreasonable to complain when a change to the release structure comes that dramatically impacts the fundamental math behind that. I also don't think it's unreasonable to expect some sort of extra avenue to earn cards to make up at least some of the difference.

For comparison, besides Hearthstone's $350.00 per year, I spend $205 per year on WoW (including the cost of an expansion every other year). No other game I own or play asks me to play a fraction that much to enjoy all of the content.

edit:

Since everyone's experience is different, how much stuff do you think is "enough" ?

For example, I gave my roundup:
Kazakus, Patches, 2x Dragonfire potion, 1x Dirty Rat, a bunch of Rares (I did also craft Unlicensed Apotechary, but it wasn't necessary and it isn't meta).

This let me play MOST of the current meta, and comes down to around 5k dust, which is in my opinion doable.

How much dust do you guys think is "enough" to play "enough" of the meta decks?

I think "enough" for a f2p player would be having a single deck. For a player investing money on a regular basis "enough" is being able to play all meta decks and having the freedom to cherry pick 'fun' legendaries to experiment with.

One thing to keep in mind though: with the rotation they are expecting us to focus more on using new cards. They are deliberately taking away frequently used core cards with Hall of Fame. Between that and the expected rotation, I would highly expect the meta for the next couple of expansions to rely a lot more on having a lot of cards from the new sets. I honestly don't believe that crafting a Legendary and a couple of epics to slot in to an existing deck will be enough in most cases. Maybe I'm reading too much into the Hall of Fame thing, but it signals to me that they want much more card diversity, and that card diversity to be coming strictly from new cards, which means a much higher rate of investment necessary to play the deck.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-19, 11:30 AM

When I first started, my strategy was pick a class, then grind up the packs/dust to make a deck that gets me a solid win rate. Early on I was quite heartless about dusting Epics, Rares, and Legendaries that didn't seem useful for my needs. But that did allow me to get a pre-WOTOG Shaman deck I was happy to "main". Didn't get past rank 15 with it back then, but I was fine with that. Had I chosen Trogg aggro instead of midrange Totem I might have done better, maybe.

Now I've spent a shameful amount of money on the game so that doesn't apply anymore. I suppose I was lucky to have picked Shaman back when it was a garbage class, so at present I can build pretty much any Shaman meta deck without spending too many resources.

It'll be interesting to see if I can get away without spending too much (or any!) cash this year (gotta spend responsibly, and all). WOTOG and Mean Streets represented a massive spike in my Hearthstone expenditures, but this has allowed me to start banking gold and dust at a steady rate. If the Mammoth year proves too expensive, I may have to revert to my previous one-class strategy.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-02-19, 12:01 PM

Also note that this strategy could also be Blizzard attempting to nerf the gameplay value of money a bit, rather than increase costs.

I'm pretty sure they know that the average player's spending isn't going to increase proportionally. Blizzard already HAS a ton of money, and doesn't need a blatant 100% cash grab. But there may be a perception that Hearthstone is somewhat pay-to-win, especially at the start of an expansion. By dividing your player spending over more content and lessening the percentage of new content that money gets (without, and this is important, making that money buy fewer cards), you effectively keep the +card value of money constant (good for purchasing consumers with large purchasing power) while leveling the playing field for FTP or customers with less discretionary income for Hearthstone.

Which, frankly, seems like a good way to accomplish that goal. Whether or not that IS a goal, of course, is just a guess.

Epinephrine_Syn

2017-02-19, 12:22 PM

I've got some good hopes for N'zoth Jade Rogue. It worked fairly well-ish in this meta, even if not T1. Crucially, it literally only loses Earthen Raptor (I didn't play sylvanas in my version), and takes a nerf to one of the pirate drops. They said there'd be death synergizers and presumably new death rattles, so this deck archetype could wind up being "stronger" in the new meta in an absolute sense as well as a relative sense, because most of the old decks have taken heavy losses (freeze mage lost ice lance, reno is dead, shaman got tickled with a feather, most control decks lost sylvanas, emperor, and ragnaros).

Also, yesterday in the brawl I learned that if you Flare an enemy's Counterspell, you don't draw the card. Which "feels" wrong even if it's mechanically correct.

Kish

2017-02-19, 12:26 PM

It's not you Flaring the enemy's Counterspell. It's the enemy Counterspelling your Flare.

Presumably it wouldn't destroy any non-triggered secrets the enemy might have, either.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-02-19, 12:44 PM

It's not you Flaring the enemy's Counterspell. It's the enemy Counterspelling your Flare.

Yep. You cast Flare. Before it resolves, the game registers that you're casting a spell, so Counterspell triggers, blocking Flare's effect.

One weird instance where Hearthstone obeys stack rules like Magic: The Gathering. It seems odd because we don't see that sort of interaction more often in the game.

Gandariel

2017-02-19, 02:32 PM

snip

Ok, after reading this i do get your point.
Sorry it took me a while, we have very different views of the game.

Your point of view, if I understood correctly, is: "I've been paying X to have (and maintain) a full collection. Now that price has gone up, and this is bad"

My point of view is: "The amount of dust you can get with a bit of spending or some arena skill is enough to keep up with the game, (IE, craft most of the "good stuff", and be able to play a good part of the meta decks) ".

Both points of view are true.

It looks like you enjoyed the "full collection experience", but you're pissed that they've raised the price tag for it, even though the price tag for my "keep up experience" hasn't really changed.

This is why Zevox (to name one) and I aren't particularly moved about the change, but you are.

It looks like your choice now is whether to accept the price hike, or abandon the "full collection" objective and join the "keep up" group.
I mean i guess you can also quit altogether, but it's a fun game :P

Also, about the Hall of fame thing, they're giving us free dust. Whatever new legendary takes the place of Rag and Sylvanas is free.

Anarion

2017-02-19, 02:43 PM

For comparison, besides Hearthstone's $350.00 per year,

I have no way to respond to this that's not some variation of "git gud" so I won't beat around the bush on it. I spend less than half the money you do on Hearthstone, and right now I can go to Tempostorm or Hearthstonetopdecks and copy any meta deck I want. I also have a bunch of dust banked, and I believe I'll break 10k when the Hall of Fame dust comes around (even if I stopped playing completely between now and then). I'm not sure what my average total arena runs per month is, but I want to say 1 per day maybe. I don't actually play once per day, but if I get a good run on a lazy weekend, I can do several in a few hours. Arena dwarfs my monetary investment in terms of packs seen.

I don't have a full collection and wouldn't waste my dust on one because Hearthstone is full of terrible cards. Don Han'Cho is a piece of crap and nobody runs it, and they won't run it unless there's some very specific hand-buffing interaction mechanic in the next set that makes it incredible. Instead, I save my dust and then decide what I want to play when a set comes out and make sure I can play the best version of that.

Further, more expansions coming out doesn't mean that the cards per deck limit is increased. It means more available cards, which means different players get to choose what sort of deck they want to run out of a wider pool of viable options. Blizzard may screw up and power creep the game at various points that necessitate a large crafting spree. But that in turn means that when they dial it back in later sets, there's less investment required and it's possible to save up (example: GvG was bonkers and Grand Tournament was mostly poor and required very little new crafting).

Edit:

Also, about the Hall of fame thing, they're giving us free dust. Whatever new legendary takes the place of Rag and Sylvanas is free.

I think the argument there is that it won't be a new legendary. It will be 3 new legendaries. Because there won't be one card that's as good as Rag in so many situations. Instead, people will use sometimes Alexstrazsa, and sometimes Ysera, and other times Onyxia and so on. Meaning that trying out new decks will be more costly as a result. That's a fair argument, but it's still a question of keeping up. Once you've crafted a few of the good neutral or class legend from classic, you're set again and can start saving for the next expansion.

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-02-19, 09:18 PM

It occurred to me today that with the new rotation announcement, Dragon decks are actually getting even more screwed than before, because they're losing Azure Drake. The one generally-solid Classic Dragon card we could always count on having, gone. That means they'll need even more good, new Dragon cards to make the archetype at all viable again than they already did...

Yeah, I'm thinking Dragon decks are dead for at least the first set of the new rotation, if not the whole year. Which would be very sad, since it means that great cards like Netherspite Historian, Book Wyrm, Drakonid Operative, and Nightbane Templar could spend most of their Standard lifespan as useless due to lack of enough cards to make a Dragon deck...
I'm almost 100% positive that Dragon decks are dead indefinitely. What's likely to happen is that they may pop up as an archetype in the future, but the dev team right now seems to be pushing new archetypes with every expansion. It's the ol' Magic: the Gathering flavor treadmill. Whatever Flavor of the Month is in this year, it'll be out in a year or two and never come back until maybe it gets revived due to popular demand.

Spore

2017-02-19, 09:36 PM

I take great solace in the fact that I can grind up my last 35 druid games with Beast Druid which incidentally counters Shaman and Pirate Warrior somewhat in the fact that it outtempoes them most of the time. As a smart man once said: 60% of the time it works all of the time.

PsyBomb

2017-02-22, 12:32 AM

Livestream QnA just happened, watching the replay now and will edit the summary into this post as I see the points. At work, so it will take a while.

1) solo content will be free, released alongside each expansion, and will give packs rather than single cards. (Quantity was not announced)

2) there are special events planned for the lead-up to Mammoth, including Maiev's release and special Brawls.

3) Changes to Spirit Claws and STB are around the end of this month (so in the next week or so), Hall of Fame comes into effect when the next expansion hits.

4) Hall of Fame cards will not randomly spawn in Classic packs.

5) Will possibly be replacing the removed class cards to keep things even.

6) possibly reintroducing Wild adventures and packs, due to increased support for the format.

7) no intent to use PTRs, possibly if nerfs need testing

8) on buffing, it's not entirely out of the question, but highly unlikely

9) big blog post coming this week about arenas, including upcoming changes.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-22, 12:52 AM

Just saw it myself. A lot of it was more sharing of their thought and decision-making processes which is cool I guess.

Notably it's the second mammoth expansion which will have the free single player content. Maybe the third also, the damn thing was an hour long, but it seems like they'll process feedback from the first try before deciding anything.

They also stated that the SP content was going to be more difficult since the rewards are packs instead of specific cards. Whereas the non-heroic adventure fights could not be too difficult since that would mean weaker players paying gold/money and not getting anything.

Kish

2017-02-22, 09:05 AM

Rodin

2017-02-22, 10:04 AM

"Reintroducing Wild adventures and packs"?

Does that mean "We're releasing Naxxramas again, people who didn't get it before can get it now! If you did get it before, there's no release that gives you anything at all this four months!"

I don't think so, if this is what I think it is (didn't see the whole thing). There was a question about whether Naxx et al would be made available again since Wild Heroic Tavern Brawls will be a thing, and they said they'd be looking into it.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-22, 10:19 AM

"Reintroducing Wild adventures and packs"?

Does that mean "We're releasing Naxxramas again, people who didn't get it before can get it now! If you did get it before, there's no release that gives you anything at all this four months!"

Whoa. I don't think Naxx will take the place of a scheduled expansion release if that's what you're saying here. I interpreted it as a possible limited time sale, in addition to the three expansions per year.

To be honest the whole "never ever can you buy Wild packs and Adventures, ever, muahaha" plan didn't make sense to me. How hard would it be to have a popup saying "this is Wild content, are you sure you want to buy this?" or set it in a separate corner covered with vines so people understand. Sometimes people have cash/gold but no dust, and want Wild cards.

Anarion

2017-02-22, 01:30 PM

On the changes, I think the possibility of replacement classic cards is most interesting. I think they shouldn't, to be honest. It will force people to spend their new dust or buy new classic packs. But maybe it will be okay if it's strictly for class cards. I'm not sure, it has a lot of risks to it.

Unrelated, had a really nice and honestly a bit unexpected 12-win arena today. Deck sharing for those interested. The very specific combination of secrets here was a total all-star. I had opportunities to play them in very specific ways to get people to play right into them.

Mana Wyrm
Mistress of Mixtures
Amani Berserker
Bluegill warrior
Frostbolt
Kobold Geomancer
Medivh's Valet
Arcane intellect
Blackwing Technician
Flamewaker
Mirror Entity
Ogre Brute
Shattered Sun Cleric
Spellbender
Vaporize
Volcanic potion
Ancient Brewmaster
Burly Rockjaw Trogg
Dalaran Aspirant
Fireball
Bomb Squad
Ethereal Conjurer x2
Red Mana Wyrm
Servant of Yogg Saron
Blizzard
Boulderfist Ogre
Kabal Crystal Runner
Nerubian Prophet
Stormwind Champion

moossabi

2017-02-22, 01:46 PM

Arena is moving to standard (https://us.battle.net/forums/en/hearthstone/topic/20753189941#1)

Mando Knight

2017-02-22, 02:11 PM

Seerow

2017-02-22, 02:13 PM

Does that mean "We're releasing Naxxramas again, people who didn't get it before can get it now! If you did get it before, there's no release that gives you anything at all this four months!"

Like someone else said, I don't expect Naxx to take the place of a new release. Then again we all expected Heroic Brawl to be its own thing too so you never know.

Arena is moving to standard (https://us.battle.net/forums/en/hearthstone/topic/20753189941#1)

So that is interesting, though not unexpected (they've been hinting at it for a while now).

I get their reasoning, but just looking at the immediate responses after that post, you can see a lot of players are upset, they liked Arena because of its wildness. On the other hand I agree with the devs that it's kind of sad you can never have real synergy in arena due to the huge (and always growing) card pool. Hopefully they see the demand and add in a wild version of arena like they have for standard, to appease the people who prefer that.

Alternatively I think it would be really neat if they left Arena as Wild, but found some other way to encourage synergies. Like imagine if after you pick your first 5 cards, cards that have synergy with those first 5 are much more likely to show up. So if you grab an early mech you're likely to get mech synergy, or if you grab early jade you're more likely to get jade cards. It lets players target the kinds of decks they want to play, within reason, and still keeps the random factor of arena and letting it stay wild.

As an aside, am I the only one who would really like to see a draft mode more similar to Magic's draft tournaments? So instead of getting a bunch of selections of 3 cards to build a deck, you have something like:
-$20.00 or 3000g Entry fee. Gets you access to Draft Mode for 1 month.
-Get access to all basic cards plus 100 packs (randomly distributed from those currently available in standard. Or possibly specifically chosen by Blizzard each month to highlight specific things. Like with the launch of a new expansion just get 100 packs from the new expansion to play with)
-Has ranking similar to Play Mode. The higher your rank, the better your rewards at the end of the month. Provides same rewards as standard, with the rankings here being overlapping much like Wild vs Standard currently are, only the highest rank provides rewards.
-At the end of the month, pick some number of cards from your Draft collection to keep permanently. I'd put it at around 10-20 cards. (getting to pick 10-20 preferred cards out of 100 packs would be the reason for the high entry fee)

Temotei

2017-02-22, 05:57 PM

As an aside, am I the only one who would really like to see a draft mode more similar to Magic's draft tournaments? So instead of getting a bunch of selections of 3 cards to build a deck, you have something like:
-$20.00 or 3000g Entry fee. Gets you access to Draft Mode for 1 month.
-Get access to all basic cards plus 100 packs (randomly distributed from those currently available in standard. Or possibly specifically chosen by Blizzard each month to highlight specific things. Like with the launch of a new expansion just get 100 packs from the new expansion to play with)
-Has ranking similar to Play Mode. The higher your rank, the better your rewards at the end of the month. Provides same rewards as standard, with the rankings here being overlapping much like Wild vs Standard currently are, only the highest rank provides rewards.
-At the end of the month, pick some number of cards from your Draft collection to keep permanently. I'd put it at around 10-20 cards. (getting to pick 10-20 preferred cards out of 100 packs would be the reason for the high entry fee)

Eternal has a Magic-like draft mode where you pick a card from a pack, then pass it to another player and keep going. You keep all of your cards from it and pick at the end which ones to use in a deck. No time limit on picking--the pack that gets passed to you stays there even if you leave mid-draft.

That would work for me.

Epinephrine_Syn

2017-02-22, 10:21 PM

How hard would it be to have a popup saying "this is Wild content, are you sure you want to buy this?" or set it in a separate corner covered with vines so people understand. Sometimes people have cash/gold but no dust, and want Wild cards.

About as hard as it would be for them to implement a way for people to have more than 9 deck slots in a way that wouldn't confuse players.

I feel like I should have some tongue in cheek ness with that, or some apology, but I don't know really.

Rodin

2017-02-22, 10:37 PM

Opening hand of Nat Pagle, Lorewalker Cho, and Kazakus.

I hate this Brawl so very much.

Mando Knight

2017-02-22, 10:58 PM

Opening hand of Nat Pagle, Lorewalker Cho, and Kazakus.

I hate this Brawl so very much.

I conceded about 4, 5 times in a row before getting a good start... and Pagle/Cho was one of my opening hands, too.

Seerow

2017-02-22, 11:03 PM

I conceded about 4, 5 times in a row before getting a good start... and Pagle/Cho was one of my opening hands, too.

Just saying, the special legendary cost reducing thing is a spell. Cho snagging even one of those from your opponent before he could summon something to kill it more than pays for itself.

Either way, I'm glad I got my win early and easy. I had Patches (turn 1 4 1/1 charging pirates is hard to deal with for most decks), a legendary that deals direct damage, and Mukla. Won on turn 4.

Rodin

2017-02-22, 11:06 PM

I conceded about 4, 5 times in a row before getting a good start... and Pagle/Cho was one of my opening hands, too.

I finally got my pack with double Troggzor in my opening hand. Play nothing until the second Offensive Play (which meant my opponent held onto his, because value), then play both out. Opponent can't play his Offensive Plays without giving me two free Troggs, curbstomping happens.

I'm not proud of it, but at least I got my damn pack and can move on with my life.

Zevox

2017-02-22, 11:22 PM

Opening hand of Nat Pagle, Lorewalker Cho, and Kazakus.

I hate this Brawl so very much.
Eh, if you get a hand like that, you just concede and start again, no time wasted. I'm actually reasonably happy playing this Brawl for my current 5 Brawl Wins quest. More consistent than a lot of the RNG-fests that too many Brawls boil down to.

My best match today: both of us passed the first few turns. Turn 3, I double Offensive Play, coin, Y'shaarj, who proceeds to pull Onyxia out of my deck. My opponent responds with double Offensive Play, Deathwing.

...Dragonlord, that is. I hit for 18 to face, play another Y'shaarj, the two pull a third Y'shaarj and a Shifter Zerus. It now being a board of 3 10/10s, an 8/8, and a 1/1 against his 12/12, my opponent just plays another Deathwing, Dragonlord, hits face, and politely lets me kill him on turn 5.

Mando Knight

2017-02-22, 11:24 PM

Just saying, the special legendary cost reducing thing is a spell. Cho snagging even one of those from your opponent before he could summon something to kill it more than pays for itself.

On the other hand, your opponent will have just as much initiative when it comes to controlling how many copies of Offensive Play are in the game: with 0 Attack, you'll need one of the relatively uncommon means of buffing or removing Cho yourself in order to prevent them from simply clearing him only when it suits them, unless you follow up with a double-OP Troggzor or something.

Epinephrine_Syn

2017-02-23, 01:13 AM

On the other hand, your opponent will have just as much initiative when it comes to controlling how many copies of Offensive Play are in the game: with 0 Attack, you'll need one of the relatively uncommon means of buffing or removing Cho yourself in order to prevent them from simply clearing him only when it suits them, unless you follow up with a double-OP Troggzor or something.

I actually won a game completely because of lore walker cho. Used my Hemet on the hunter's 3 mana 4/2, then played a second cho. I had draw and the bigger cards, and managed to clog up his hand every turn making him burn his draws.

otakuryoga

2017-02-23, 01:22 AM

PsyBomb

2017-02-23, 01:28 AM

I managed to go 5-0 this brawl. Cleared both a Brawl and a Shaman quest

Beardo Triplets on 1
Twin Murk-eyes
Saraad Spell Spam
Wrathion Spam with a KT finisher
Double-Offense into Dragonlord on 4, opponent kills it to find another in hand along with Ysera.

Using the luck thus revealed, I drafted one of the best Hunters I've ever Arena'd and went 8-3 in under two hours.

Thialfi

2017-02-23, 11:51 AM

Thank God I only had to do this brawl once. My opening hand was Millhouse, nexus champ saraad, and gruul. zero cost millhouse without fear of spell reprisal is actually pretty awesome.

Anarion

2017-02-23, 11:54 AM

my best so far this time around in brawl was:
turn 1 drop patches I'm in charrrrge now!
I'm in charrrrge now!
I'm in charrrrge now!
I'm in charrrrge now!
turn 2 I drop the 4/6 charging pirate since his cost of 6 was reduced thanks to the patches brigade to just 2

opponent: "wow" -- concedes

I had a similar one for my pack. Going second, my turn 1 was quadruple patches, offensive play, coin, Gormok the impaler hits face for 4, next turn triple gormok.

Edit: On the expansion stuff. The trouble with Hearhstone using a Magic style draft format is that those sorts of formats require a time commitment. When you draft in magic, you're committing to a group. The gameplay and strategy of it is about thinking carefully about what cards you pass to the people next to you and what they're passing to you, then during gameplay you have a sense of what cards were in the pool and can attempt to discern what's in your opponent's deck. Doing a draft of that sort, where you carefully pass to other people, build up your synergies from that card pool, and tweak your deck based on what you're seeing, loses a ton if all your matchups are just against random people. But requiring time commitment and play only with a small group is against the design philosophy of Hearthstone, which is supposed to be something people can pick up and put down quickly, play on their phones or tablets as well as their computer, and come back to later if needed.

flat_footed

2017-02-23, 11:57 AM

Shifter Zerus is garbage in this, and does not gain the Offensive Play benefit. Even if he shifts to a legendary, the benefit applies to that legendary instead of him.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-02-23, 01:11 PM

So far my favorite opening play has been my (starting second) play of Offensive Play > King Mukla > King Mukla > King Mukla > King Mukla start. From my opponent's perspective I imagine looking down 20 damage from four bodies hitting turn 1 is...pretty terrifying

GolemsVoice

2017-02-23, 01:31 PM

My opponent once managed to play Offensive Play twice, and then play that legendary that summons one minion from your deck, which promptly summoned itself. GG

Gandariel

2017-02-23, 04:24 PM

draft tune commitment.

What if the draft was done, continuously, by everyone?

In other words, you open a pack, pick a card, then throw the remaining 4-card pack into a "bin" of 4-card packs.
Then you are given a random 4-card pack (from which another player, somewhere, has picked the first card) and so on.

Essentially, one huge and continuous mega draft.
(In the Rare case someone needs to pick and there are no available packs they'll just generate a new one and randomly take cards out)

I figure you'd pay some gold, enter and create a deck, and play with it against other players in the same format.
Either arena style, or tournament style, or separated ladder with big prizes.

The disadvantage from Magic drafts is that you can't really "play the meta": drafts usually have few players, so you can tell if, for example, many people are picking a certain color, and use this knowledge to your advantage.

Also, classes are much different from Magic colors: most magic decks use more than one color, while this isn't possible with hearthstone.

Triclass cards are helpful in this regards, but there are so few of them.

Neutrals would get super high priority, it would be theoretically possible for someone to need a stupidly high amount of cards in order to make a legal deck...

I suppose they could make you draft X packs of ONLY class cards, then Y packs of only neutrals.

Anarion

2017-02-23, 05:19 PM

What if the draft was done, continuously, by everyone?

In other words, you open a pack, pick a card, then throw the remaining 4-card pack into a "bin" of 4-card packs.
Then you are given a random 4-card pack (from which another player, somewhere, has picked the first card) and so on.

Essentially, one huge and continuous mega draft.
(In the Rare case someone needs to pick and there are no available packs they'll just generate a new one and randomly take cards out)

I figure you'd pay some gold, enter and create a deck, and play with it against other players in the same format.
Either arena style, or tournament style, or separated ladder with big prizes.

The disadvantage from Magic drafts is that you can't really "play the meta": drafts usually have few players, so you can tell if, for example, many people are picking a certain color, and use this knowledge to your advantage.

Also, classes are much different from Magic colors: most magic decks use more than one color, while this isn't possible with hearthstone.

Triclass cards are helpful in this regards, but there are so few of them.

Neutrals would get super high priority, it would be theoretically possible for someone to need a stupidly high amount of cards in order to make a legal deck...

I suppose they could make you draft X packs of ONLY class cards, then Y packs of only neutrals.

Interesting thought. I don't think I'd want to use one massive pool though. It would be too random whether you'd get relevant class cards (you might get 4 packs as a mage that all have crap warlock cards and poor neutrals while somebody else pulls all fireballs). Hearthstone packs aren't really structured like magic packs with the cards specifically printed with drafts in mind.

If I were setting that up, I'd divide drafts by class instead. So, if I pick mage, I get a set of special mage packs that only have mage cards and neutrals. I'm then drafting with all other mages in existence. This does a few things. First, it means that certain classes that can support different strategies might improve in popularity (e.g., if I can expect to get certain synergy hunter class cards late because they're not all that powerful by themselves, I can try drafting a beast synergy deck that's nearly impossible in the current format, even at the same time as other hunters just pick single power cards). Second, it would likely smooth out overall arena randomness. You'd still be subject to seeing or not seeing certain bombs and top cards in your first few picks, but you'd have fewer decks that had several flamestrikes and firelands portals and many more decks that had 1-2 such cards while having a more standard average power. That's a good thing, imo because evening out the power per pick means that your skill in drafting an effective curve and a deck that works well together matters more than your luck, and your play skill suddenly matters WAY more than it did before.

The Glyphstone

2017-02-23, 05:22 PM

Anarion

2017-02-23, 05:47 PM

Would their coding allow for a 'flex' class card? Like if the virtual pack is flagged with 3 class cards and 2 neutral cards, but the 'class card' slots are variable depending on the pre-chosen class of the drafter?

Doubtful. They'd probably need to write something new to do that, since at the moment a pack's contents only need to be shown one time and there's nothing in place to retain that data anywhere, much less turn it into a variable. It's almost certainly discarded by the software the instant one leaves the pack screen right now.

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-02-23, 05:53 PM

The disadvantage from Magic drafts is that you can't really "play the meta": drafts usually have few players, so you can tell if, for example, many people are picking a certain color, and use this knowledge to your advantage.

I slightly disagree! Ultimately, it would have to work something like a stock market, where the aggregate influence of a lot of agents does create large trends. The only challenge is finding a way to make those trends visible, which Blizzard could totally do: they just add the Innkeeper giving you up-to-date stats on class pick rates or other trends.

Anarion

2017-02-23, 06:02 PM

I slightly disagree! Ultimately, it would have to work something like a stock market, where the aggregate influence of a lot of agents does create large trends. The only challenge is finding a way to make those trends visible, which Blizzard could totally do: they just add the Innkeeper giving you up-to-date stats on class pick rates or other trends.

That...is actually a really good idea! I would totally play that.

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-02-23, 06:03 PM

Hamste

2017-02-23, 09:14 PM

So disguised toast looked at the Patches stats (700000 games rank 10 and above). 46% of the time your opponent will bring out Patches and 71% of games had Patches appear in them.

Gandariel

2017-02-24, 03:57 AM

That said, Gandariel's point RE: colors vs classes is a lot more problematic, because of how class cards are hard-locked in deck construction. Although it'd maybe be fun to have a "Brawl"-style draft where you could include cards from multiple classes in your deck.

I actually like Anarion's proposal.

You pick a class, then draft in a pool with all the other members of your class, and the packs you open only have neutrals and your class's class cards.

This makes the whole process much simpler, although it does remove the fun factor of "choosing your color as you go"

My own proposal, which keeps this aspect, is "open 10 packs of only class cards (all classes), then open 6 packs of only Neutral cards)

You're guaranteed to have a deck at the end, and you keep the fun aspect of choosing your class on the fly.

thirsting

2017-02-24, 05:48 AM

Combo#1:
Blingtron 3000, Captain Greenskin and Harrison Jones.
(Got Gladiator's Longbow from the Blingtron, so was able to buff it with Greenskin and clear several enemy minions without any damage to my own face, and could destroy enemy weapon and draw with H.J..)

Combo#2:
Finja, the Flying Star and Old Murk-Eye.
(Opponent played Loremaster Cho and Nat Pagle AFTER seeing Finja. Hello free charging Murk-eyes getting attack bonuses from each other and Finjas, to the face)

Kish

2017-02-24, 09:12 AM

An unexpectedly good brawl combination was Gelbin Mekkatorque and Mimiron's Head.

Since the bots Mekkatorque summoned (the +1/+1 to one random minion each turn, and the heal a random damaged creature each turn) were as likely to aid my opponent as me, they seemingly didn't see any reason to kill them rather than targeting the Mekkatorques themselves and my face, even after I played Mimiron's Head. I guess they didn't notice the "hey, these are all mechs" thing.

Gandariel

2017-02-25, 01:57 PM

Blah blah it's just rank 10, blah blah just a winning streak, blah blah.

But hey, Hunter is pretty fun!
This is the list i'm using and having pretty good success with:

http://imgur.com/53rPrMY.png

Thoughts:

Dispatch Kodo and Rat Pack are not that OP.

Rat Pack is obviously solid, but the Kodo is really... average.

Running Barnes+Rag because it's basically cheating, and i run a lot of good deathrattles anyways.

No Call of the wild because 1) i think the curve is fine as is, and 2) i disenchanted my 2 copies when it was nerfed and haven't crafted them again.

Tundra Rhino is absolute star, considering getting the second copy in.

Powershot is.. well for some reason i never draw it, the one time i had it it was useful.

Best moment was against a Warlock:
I distinctly recall Day9 once asking for a spell called "Twisting nether Twice" for 9 mana.
http://imgur.com/AakOsLU.png

Sample size is sample size, but i've won most of my aggro games in a very convincing fashion.
Struggled a bit more against Reno decks, where it's always a matter of card draw RNG.

Thialfi

2017-02-27, 02:33 PM

Journey to Un'Goro announced!

http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2274-journey-to-ungoro-is-hearthstones-next-expansion

I wonder if they will reprint an Elise Starseeker for the set since she features so prominently.

That priest legendary spell has the potential to be amazing if they print several more early game deathrattle minions to keep aggro at bay.

I like that the shaman spell is for control shaman only. They don't need any more aggro tools.

The adapt mechanic has a lot of potential. I like it even if the creature they put there is only okay.

Pyros seems to be just okay as legends go. We need some more copy deathrattles shenanigans.

Hamste

2017-02-27, 02:39 PM

Quests are always in your opening hand which is interesting.

thirsting

2017-02-27, 02:43 PM

Ooh, those Quest-Reward cards look interesting. Legendary spells that always appear in your opening hand. I'm assuming/hoping every class gets one..

Kish

2017-02-27, 02:45 PM

Going by the example, they'll push each class toward a particular type of deck (Priest toward a Deathrattle deck, for example).

Also guessing they all cost 1 mana, and the intention is something like "you take your turn 1 to start your class quest."

thirsting

2017-02-27, 02:53 PM

Random quasi-rant: Really happy they call it "Adapt" and not "Evolve" or something... that always bugged me in SC2 (and plenty of other games). It's not evolution if a single creature morphs into something else, dammit! *elderlypersoncaneshake*

Anarion

2017-02-27, 03:08 PM

Interesting, I like the announced cards shown so far, and quests seem pretty cool. I really like that they add a certain amount of consistency to the game to make up for what appears to be even more "pick 3" randomness. On that note, I'm not a big fan of adapt. It's going to be great on offense since many options will be good, and probably terrible on defense where you play it desperately hoping for a taunt and instead die with a big minion on board that has windfury or something silly like that.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-27, 04:05 PM

Looks interesting. Retroactively making Elementals a tribe, quests, Discovering card text.

Dinosaurs are also cool.

Destro_Yersul

2017-02-27, 04:46 PM

Hot damn, that priest quest. Summoning 7 deathrattles isn't that hard, synergises with resurrect stuff, and gives you a 5 mana 8/8 taunt with battlecry: your life total is now 40.

The mage legendary is a cool design, but probably not super good, since it's just a big thing. Adapt also seems neat and powerful.

Anarion

2017-02-27, 05:02 PM

The mage legendary is a cool design, but probably not super good, since it's just a big thing.

I think you're underestimating the value of card advantage on the mage legendary. That one card is 3 cards. A 2/2, a 6/6, and a 10/10. If you play it early, it trades (especially with the help of fireblast), then trades with something bigger in the midgame, and then provides a threat that has to be answered if you're able to stabilize the board. That either opens up space in deck construction for more defensive cards or means that you can stack threats to try and overwhelm their removal.

moossabi

2017-02-27, 05:34 PM

I think you're underestimating the value of card advantage on the mage legendary. That one card is 3 cards. A 2/2, a 6/6, and a 10/10. If you play it early, it trades (especially with the help of fireblast), then trades with something bigger in the midgame, and then provides a threat that has to be answered if you're able to stabilize the board. That either opens up space in deck construction for more defensive cards or means that you can stack threats to try and overwhelm their removal.

It's still terrible since you still have to play each card. The first body gets outclassed by River Crocolisk, the second one gets outclassed by Boulderfist Ogre, and the third is identical to Faceless Behemoth, which is not played anywhere except in a bad arena draft. It has potential if the later two bodies had cost reduction, but as-is I think it'll sit alongside Sargent Sally in terms of playability.

The others look interesting, Adapt seems like a cool idea but the minion they're showing off is rather underwhelming.

Volcano is good because it kills Shaman's board (this is how I grade most cards, 'how much does it murder Shaman?')
(honestly it seems playable but not overly so, it kills your own board as well)

The Priest quest looks like it will be very fun to mess people up with and I look forward to building my wild N'zoth amalgamation to maybe finally break out of double-digit ranks. (EDIT: Also getting 40 health the Ragnaros hero)

PsyBomb

2017-02-27, 06:10 PM

Alright! New cards!

Shaman Rare Spell. 5 mana, Overload 2. Deal 15 (!) damage randomly split among all minions. The first reveal is a blatant message that Shaman needs to cool down on the whole aggro thing. Volcano is a very potent catch-up tool, especially if your own board got wrecked. Better than Felfire Potion against a field of 3 enemies, or if one happens to have 6+ health

Mage Legendary Minion (Elemental). 2/2 for 2, Deathrattle adds a 6/6 for 6 to hand, which itself has Deathrattle to add a 10/10 for 10 to hand. While cool, I'm not a fan, pending Elemental support. None of the incarnations are particularly good, just stuff to do if your turn would float mana otherwise, which means a waste of a card.

Common Druid Minion (Beast). 5/4 for 5, Battlecry:Adapt. Here's an interesting one. The Adapt is stated to be a Discover for one of ten effects. The six revealed are Divine Shield, Taunt, +3 attack, Shroud, WINDFURY, and a Deathrattle to summon two 1/1s. You have right about a 30% chance of hitting what you need if you're looking for one particular thing... but that goes to 53% if two are appropriate, such as just wanting a threat and wanting either attack or windfury. I'm intrigued, and the Beast tag is important here.

1 Mana Legendary Priest Quest. Condition: summon 7 Deathrattle minions. Reward: Amara, Warden of Hope, who is an 8/8 Taunt for 5 that sets your life to 40 (!). Looks like they REALLY wanted Reno Priest to continue being a bing. Quests always start in your hand. The problem is summoning 7 Deathrattle minions quickly, but I suspect strongly that there are enough solid ones to make do. The reward is crazy strong, though unlike Reno it is unlikely in the extreme to be playable on 6.

Anarion

2017-02-27, 06:16 PM

It's still terrible since you still have to play each card. The first body gets outclassed by River Crocolisk, the second one gets outclassed by Boulderfist Ogre, and the third is identical to Faceless Behemoth, which is not played anywhere except in a bad arena draft. It has potential if the later two bodies had cost reduction, but as-is I think it'll sit alongside Sargent Sally in terms of playability.

If crocolisk and ogre are played, then the card won't be that great, it's true. But they're often not. There are a lot of 2 health minions floating around, and if the card does get positive trades, it will be incredibly strong. People play Loot Hoarder all the time, which has worse stats and is draw 1 card. This is 2/2 draw a specific average card, which itself is 6/6 draw a powerful but overly expensive card. I'm not saying the card will be an all star because that sort of slow card advantage being good depends heavily on how fast the rest of the environment is. But if there's a control deck that can effectively play lots of 1 for 1 removal and stall out the game, that mage legend is going to be an all star.

You also shouldn't compare it directly to something like Behemoth. Faceless behemoth is not played because you have to spend a turn drawing faceless behemoth, which is awful. But if there were a faceless behemoth that just sat around in your hand for a moment when you're not under too much pressure, then that would be a great card.

The others look interesting, Adapt seems like a cool idea but the minion they're showing off is rather underwhelming.

I'd guess that the adapt minion shown is excellent. It has efficient stats for 1 mana less than its cost and all the things listed for adapt are worth at least 1 mana. Plus, you get to pick which one is most appropriate so unlike playing a divine shield minion, or a taunt minion, you'll get flexibility to maximize value. The downside is that if you need something very specific, you might not get it. But if your board position is good overall, you'll get a lot of value out of it.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-27, 07:24 PM

PsyBomb

2017-02-27, 07:40 PM

I think Volcano is meant to be played ideally when you have a less valuable board or no minions at all. It actually looks pretty flexible in that regard. If the enemy drops a beefier minion that would barely be scratched by your other board clears, Volcano will do a better job of damaging it. It's not an ideal use of a 5 mana overload (2), but at least the option is there.

I half-agree. The highest default health of any minion in the game is 12, which means this is effectively an Assassinate if they drop a Ysera or Maly without immediately killing you. It's very obviously a come-from-behind card, meant to wipe swarms or a couple of hard targets off the board after suiciding your own dudes. Works on Shroud, as well.

Jaxzan Proditor

2017-02-27, 09:06 PM

I'm pretty excited to see what other quests there are. It strikes me as exactly the kind of card I both want to play against and with and I think it might be my favorite revealed part of this set so far. Other than that adopt looks all right, but not super exciting, and I'm hoping there'll be a good chance for some lovely elemental tribal.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-27, 09:35 PM

The mage legendary looks like it might be aiming for a few things. They might be teasing Deathrattle Mage (N'zoth is still around, hey). It could be a card meant for Kazakus/Solia decks. I just don't think it's quite good enough to be tossed into any random deck. It has immense potential value (hello Polymorph, silence, etc) from a single card, but is questionable in terms of tempo and mana use.

I am excited for Quests. Ever since Malchezaar and Patches I've been looking forward to more cards that bend the usual rules for building decks and drawing cards. The Priest quest has a massive payout, but requires a specific type of deck (minus Sylvanas in Standard), and we're yet to see if the other classes get comparable rewards.

Zevox

2017-02-28, 12:26 AM

Don't have time to talk about everything, but about the Mage legendary: it looks pretty bad to me. Yes, it's theroetically a value card - three minions in one. Two problems: it's extremely slow, to a point that I can't see it working without some Reno-level stalling power, and every part of it is just an understated vanilla minion when it comes down. Each piece of it is a bad card in its own right: a 2/2 for 2, a 6/6 for 6, and a 10/10 for 10. They do nothing when they initially come down, they don't stand up to similarly-priced cards - their only advantage is that they're all created by just one card. But even that advantage takes so long to get used, and can be minimized just by getting taken out in favorable ways by more individually valuable cards of those costs, or disrupted entirely by the likes of hex or silence.

I'd compare it to something like Sneed's Old Shredder: multiple bodies from a single card that look theoretically valuable, but in practice suffered from practical issues that kept it from ever seeing real play. I expect a similar fate for that card.

Joran

2017-02-28, 01:14 AM

I'd compare it to something like Sneed's Old Shredder: multiple bodies from a single card that look theoretically valuable, but in practice suffered from practical issues that kept it from ever seeing real play. I expect a similar fate for that card.

Sneed's at least saw play back when the Legendary pool wasn't as diluted by low legendaries as it is now; the benefit of Sneed's is that you also get the deathrattle effect immediately so the opponent needs to be able to clear both the Sneed's and whatever it summons, while a 6 mana for 6/6 and a 10 mana for 10/10 vanilla are too slow to be any good.

Sneed's and Paletress now have too high a probability of low rolling something like Patches or Shifter Zerus for them to be consistently good.

One of the better highlights with Sneed's in pro play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DuxC3jXAoY (warning loud)

Destro_Yersul

2017-02-28, 01:40 AM

I think you're underestimating the value of card advantage on the mage legendary. That one card is 3 cards. A 2/2, a 6/6, and a 10/10. If you play it early, it trades (especially with the help of fireblast), then trades with something bigger in the midgame, and then provides a threat that has to be answered if you're able to stabilize the board. That either opens up space in deck construction for more defensive cards or means that you can stack threats to try and overwhelm their removal.

I'm not convinced. The card is incredibly poor on tempo, since none of the pieces do anything when they land. It's card advantage sure, but those cards do nothing if you're dead before you can play them. You'd need some pretty heavy stall to make it remotely viable.

People play Loot Hoarder all the time, which has worse stats and is draw 1 card. This is 2/2 draw a specific average card, which itself is 6/6 draw a powerful but overly expensive card.

People generally play loot hoarder to cycle for combo pieces. This can't do that.

Gandariel

2017-02-28, 02:06 AM

I'll echo some of the other posters.

Expansion looks cool, the mage legendary looks weak (I was expecting the final one to have some sort of cool battle cry)

Volcano also looks bad. Shaman already has 3 better aoe spells.

The new Druid card looks... I'll say "average". Not constructed worthy (Druid of the claw already does the same, and already offers the only 2 things you'll really need).

Priest legend is cool, obviously can't say exactly.
Priest decks aren't exactly minion heavy, and unless they print a LOT of new deathrattle priest stuff I don't think I'd ever play 7 deathrattles before turn ...12?

Also, and I'm really not the one to usually point out this kind of details, I'm a bit torn on the theme of the expansion:

Why do the themes "dinosaurs", "wild elemental magic", and "quest" fit together?

otakuryoga

2017-02-28, 02:06 AM

hellooooooooooo N'Zoth Priest!
is nzoth still standard come year of mammoth?
or is priest going wild?

Mando Knight

2017-02-28, 02:09 AM

hellooooooooooo N'Zoth Priest!
is nzoth still standard come year of mammoth?
or is priest going wild?

Whispers of the Old Gods (and therefore N'Zoth) heralded the start of the Year of the Kraken, and thus will still be in Standard for Year of the Mammoth. Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers are all rotating out.

Seerow

2017-02-28, 02:21 AM

Yeah definitely looking forward to N'zoth Priest making a comeback. The Volcano makes me sad that Patron is rotating out. Patron Shaman sounds like it may be fun to toy with in Wild.

PsyBomb

2017-02-28, 03:50 AM

Welp, finally went through and dusted all my excess gold cards (all my golds that I have 2 copies of the base), crafted Sylvanas for the month I'll be able to use her plus the bonus dust on rotation.

Kish

2017-02-28, 06:58 AM

Why do the themes "dinosaurs", "wild elemental magic", and "quest" fit together?
Un'Goro Crater, in World of Warcraft, is a place of primal (elemental) magic, preserved ancient fauna and flora, and Stone Age ruins.

"Quest" doesn't go with it particularly, but goes with any Hearthstone set--with the basic set most of all, but obviously it wasn't in the basic set.

If we never get another goblin-themed expansion it will be too soon.

Rodin

2017-02-28, 08:39 AM

Whispers of the Old Gods (and therefore N'Zoth) heralded the start of the Year of the Kraken, and thus will still be in Standard for Year of the Mammoth. Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers are all rotating out.

It does mean that Museum Curator will be rotating out, sadly. And Sylvanas will be gone too.

Definitely will need a few new Deathrattles to support it.

Also, are the Arena changes coming with the nerfs patch, or are they coming with the expansion?

thirsting

2017-02-28, 01:32 PM

Just got the update. Apparently the only changes for now were the nerfs to Small Time Buccaneer (health dropped to 1) and Spirit Claws (mana cost upped to 2). (<partially wrong)

Sylvanas and Ragnaros still playable in standard.

Started a new arena run right before the update so don't know for sure, but I think it's still the same as before for now. (<wrong!)

Joran

2017-02-28, 01:44 PM

Just got the update. Apparently the only changes for now were the nerfs to Small Time Buccaneer (health dropped to 1) and Spirit Claws (mana cost upped to 2).

Sylvanas and Ragnaros still playable in standard.

Started a new arena run right before the update so don't know for sure, but I think it's still the same as before for now.

Arena updates should have come in the patch.

The rank floors should also have come in the patch.

thirsting

2017-02-28, 01:45 PM

Ahh, yes. Oops. Should have read the patch notes first before posting.

PsyBomb

2017-02-28, 02:01 PM

Bit more Un'Goro information:

The other four Adapt effects were revealed. They are +1/+1, Poison, +3 Health, and Stealth until your next turn.

4 mana 5/4 Rare Neutral Beast. Battlecry: Adapt your Murlocs. Should actual Murloc decks become a thing, this might see play. I personally hope so, Murloc Rush is one of the more entertaining aggro decks.

Also confirmed that there will be two Legendary cards per class (ugh), one minion and one Quest.

Hamste

2017-02-28, 02:32 PM

PsyBomb

2017-02-28, 02:39 PM

Plus 3 health is pretty good. Generally for adapt to be great 3 of the out comes must result in a great out come (that is about 71% great out come, 4 is about 83% great out come).

Long neck possibilities are 8/4 (not that good), 5/4 with divine shield (great), 5/7 (good but probably not good enough), 5/4 death rattle summon two 1/1 (don't think it is good enough), 5/4 with poison (better with high health but pretty good still), 5/4 taunt (terrible unless you die otherwise), 5/4 with windfury (depends heavily on board state but doesn't seem good enough), stealth (meh), 6/5 (bad), 5/4 with shroud (probably bad). Over all, I don't think long neck will be consistently good enough to see play after initial experiments with it.

Many of them are going to depend on board and game state. The Deathrattle is good if you anticipate a board clear, Shroud is good if your opponent has been leaning on targeted removal, etc. I'm more bullish on this one than most, but I do agree that it's going to take experimentation... and also seeing what the other 130 cards are going to look like.

Temotei

2017-02-28, 03:00 PM

I think Longneck will be good, but not a staple except for in a possible Beast Druid if that becomes a thing.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-02-28, 07:00 PM

Also confirmed that there will be two Legendary cards per class (ugh), one minion and one Quest.

Ugh indeed. I suppose I'm lucky that I'll be getting the full (non-gold) dust refund from the Hall of Fame cycle. So I won't need too much additional dust.

PsyBomb

2017-02-28, 09:25 PM

Ugh indeed. I suppose I'm lucky that I'll be getting the full (non-gold) dust refund from the Hall of Fame cycle. So I won't need too much additional dust.

I am as well, plus anticipating about 40 packs and around 1000 banked dust along with it. SHOULD put me on track

Rodin

2017-02-28, 10:04 PM

What worries me about Adapt is that it sounds like the pool is a standard pool. Applying those to a 5 mana 5/4 isn't bad, but the odds of there being some smaller minion that just goes bonkers with it is exceedingly high. Small Time Buc 2: Electric Boogaloo.

New Arena is...interesting. I already ran into Ranked Hunter (coin Quickshot into Quickshot into Animal Companion into Houndmaster), and I suspect such craziness will be more common now with additional spells and a smaller pool.

Destro_Yersul

2017-03-01, 12:19 AM

PsyBomb

2017-03-01, 12:30 AM

I actually noticed the other day that I have two golden Azure Drakes, so I'll be getting a nice big chunk of dust for the turnover.

I'm also still getting offered GVG cards in Arena, so not sure what, if anything, has changed there.

Are you playing on mobile? Mine only JUST updated and my last couple of Arena matches would have been... implausible... under old draft.

Destro_Yersul

2017-03-01, 01:06 AM

No, PC. Figured it out, though. Overwatch was trying to update, so Hearthstone hadn't started its update.

EDIT: Holy crap there's a lot of rares and epics in arena now. Also gold cards for some reason.

Seerow

2017-03-01, 01:19 AM

Are you playing on mobile? Mine only JUST updated and my last couple of Arena matches would have been... implausible... under old draft.

Speaking of, how does it work if you have a client that hasn't updated with regards to card nerfs?

What I mean is I was playing on my phone earlier today and ran into a 2 health buccanneer. I figured this was because my app hadn't downloaded, but how would it work if I was playing against someone who had updated? Do they see 1 health and I see 2? Or does being on an old version of the app put me in a pool with only other players on that same version?

No, PC. Figured it out, though. Overwatch was trying to update, so Hearthstone hadn't started its update.

EDIT: Holy crap there's a lot of rares and epics in arena now. Also gold cards for some reason.

In Arena cards you own in gold are now gold in arena. If you have 1 gold card, the first one you draft is gold. If you have 2 gold cards, every version of that card you draft is gold.

thirsting

2017-03-01, 01:29 AM

Gah. I'd like an option to turn off gold card visuals, as in every card shows as a normal to those who so choose.

Lunix Vandal

2017-03-01, 01:38 AM

Speaking of, how does it work if you have a client that hasn't updated with regards to card nerfs?

What I mean is I was playing on my phone earlier today and ran into a 2 health buccanneer. I figured this was because my app hadn't downloaded, but how would it work if I was playing against someone who had updated? Do they see 1 health and I see 2? Or does being on an old version of the app put me in a pool with only other players on that same version?It's that last one. At some point later this week the Hearthstone servers will stop accepting connections from the 7.0 client, at which point the last few stragglers will be forced to update to 7.1 before they can play again. Until then, 7.0 clients will only be matched against other 7.0 clients.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-01, 02:05 AM

Gah. I'd like an option to turn off gold card visuals, as in every card shows as a normal to those who so choose.

I wouldn't get hopes up. I've come to realize that there's always something in development, and even relatively minor tweaks can take a long time assuming it's even in the pipeline.

Kish

2017-03-01, 07:37 AM

That's real unlikely. It wouldn't benefit Blizzard in any way to change "you should spend more dust on gold cards so you can show off that you have these fancy cards" to "you should spend more dust on gold cards so you can show off that you have these fancy cards to anyone who hasn't opted out of seeing them."

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-03-01, 08:29 AM

What worries me about Adapt is that it sounds like the pool is a standard pool. Applying those to a 5 mana 5/4 isn't bad, but the odds of there being some smaller minion that just goes bonkers with it is exceedingly high. Small Time Buc 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I don't see it getting that bad. For one, most of the effects revealed correspond to a 1-mana card that already exists (Blessing of Might, Living Roots, Stealth until your next turn).

That said, the leaked dino that Adapts murlocs could very well make them go bonkers.

Miller777

2017-03-01, 09:41 AM

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-01, 10:02 AM

The game got really stale and boring to me. There are only a few valid tactics for ranked games. Good thing the arena is as fun as it always was. I wish I could stop playing the game, but the vision of leaving all precious hours and dollars I have invested into it drives me crazy...

It's funny. The devs actually mentioned this in their dev video thing before the Un'Goro announcement. I've heard many people claim the game is stale, and I won't disagree on that, but there's no clear idea of what specifically would solve that issue.

Is it a question of not enough game modes? Too slow release schedule? Expansion sets need to be bigger? Or something less obvious? How many viable decks does the game need to stay fresh for four months? Because eventually, even if there are a dozen viable decks people will naturally gravitate to the one which has a 1.5% higher win rate than the others. The ability for people to share decks online, whether through guide sites or even just high level players streaming their games, contributes to the lack of variety. Why slog through an experimental deck building process when you can just crib Reynad's notes?

I am curious, for those who play other digital CCGs, what the experience is with those. Is there this feeling of the meta establishing itself quickly and then being bored to death waiting for the next release? Or do those games remain fresh throughout?

Also, you can leave anytime and then come back anytime. Unless your goal is to qualify for tournaments or something, there's nothing to lose. A break might actually be good. I know I took one some time before Whispers of the Old Gods.

Joran

2017-03-01, 10:41 AM

Gah. I'd like an option to turn off gold card visuals, as in every card shows as a normal to those who so choose.

The option to de-golden your arena deck after draft will be an option in a future patch:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/5wa2qk/can_i_choose_not_to_pick_golden_cards_in_arena/de8osl0/?context=3

I'm not sure if they'll ever de-golden or do a "no animations" mode for Hearthstone, because one of the main appeals of Hearthstone is the great UI.

Rodin

2017-03-01, 11:28 AM

I think the variance has increased greatly with the ARena patch. I've had a couple drafts that were basically old Arena decks, thanks to the spells being offered being crap.

And then there's my current Priest deck, which managed to get a Dragon sub-theme going and has the following AoE:

1x Excavated Evil
2x Holy Nova
3x Dragonfire Potion
1x Chillmaw

And I also passed up the Murloc that AoEs.

So um...yeah. Blowouts at low wins are going to be much more common now, I think. And high win Arena is going to be insane.

Seerow

2017-03-01, 11:50 AM

I tested an arena draft last night, grabbed Warrior, was offered 0 weapons, and no particularly useful spells (wound up with Mortal Strike and Cleave in the deck). Went 1-3, I was very disappointed.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-03-01, 12:17 PM

It's funny. The devs actually mentioned this in their dev video thing before the Un'Goro announcement. I've heard many people claim the game is stale, and I won't disagree on that, but there's no clear idea of what specifically would solve that issue.

Comparing it to the other CCG I've played extensively (Magic: The Gathering), I feel one of Hearthstone's big issues is the lack of persistent board state. With the exception of Taunt minions, the game basically devolves into maintaining board presence in an environment where most things survive one round at most. There's no ability to save a creature at the expense of your health by simply not blocking, and thus persistent effects you might build a deck around are much less reliable. In M:tG big creatures that don't have immediate effects are still playable, as they're immune to direct creature attacks and if you've had enough threats to consume removal spells in advance they'll stay around for a while.

The end result of that is that it's harder to plan several turns ahead in Hearthstone, making the game largely one of "what's the best way I can preserve my current advantage" with a small side of "what threat is his deck probably running." But, with a few exceptions, getting into a good board position NOW is better, since it forces your opponent to play catch up.

That, combined with the lack of interrupting actions you can control, means the game often feels rather same-y. Plus the fact that EVERY type of deck goes for board control in some manner means that, even if you're playing something weird, it'll come down to having taunt minions and/or board dominance anyway. There aren't enough cards that make you or your opponent make meaningful decisions, and there's not enough interaction between the two of you. Finally, there's not enough interaction in your OWN decks, with only a few combos doing anything fun other than +damage.

Heck, you don't even have the choice between tapping a creature for an effect and using it offensively or defensively.

Frankly, I'm not sure Hearthstone's core design is robust enough to have a meta that doesn't eventually feel stale without adding a bit of complexity somewhere.

Gandariel

2017-03-01, 12:40 PM

@djinn-in-tonic:

I agree with most of what you said:

Hearthstone minions are just too vulnerable and easy to kill:
That's why every minion with an "once per turn" effect is super powerful, to the point that it would win you the game on its own if you let it up for two or three turns.

Sadly, the way minions attack is one of the core parts of the game and can't really be touched.

The only way to fix it would be to do something like **massively** decrease the Attack of every minion: so that two "even" minions take 2-3 turns to even kill each other.

This would make it so that minions are sorta guaranteed to stick around more, and in turn add complexity to the game. (Of course, once-per-turn effect would have to be scaled down, and probably the starting Health of heroes too).

Anyways, this is such a massive change I don't think it could really happen (like, most minions in the game would have 0 or 1 Attack, and 4/12 would be Deathwing level instead of Ysera level)

With regards to tapping, it's just gonna happen eventually. I give it one year before they introduce something like that (either "attack a friendly minion => special effect" or "if this minion didn't attack this turn, ...")

The Glyphstone

2017-03-01, 12:43 PM

Kinda sad that this brawl doesn't progress class-win quests. It even says 'Mage' under Kazakus.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-03-01, 12:45 PM

With regards to tapping, it's just gonna happen eventually. I give it one year before they introduce something like that (either "attack a friendly minion => special effect" or "if this minion didn't attack this turn, ...")

I think it's likely. You could also fix some of the minion-killing issues (and lack of interesting choices other than ATTACK) with something like the following:

If you target your Hero with a minion instead of attacking with it, give it Taunt until the start of your next turn.

Again, something like this would be a HUGE (and possibly unhealthy) shift for the game, but it might lead to more interesting decisions, and provide a way to preserve minions you want to keep around.

Joran

2017-03-01, 03:29 PM

For those who don't frequent Reddit: Ben Brode raps about the Secrets of Un'goro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEmnpRSgqQk

The subreddit asked the Brode to sing a song because the cinematic didn't have a song, breaking the long running tradition.

BTW, it's best at 1.5 times speed.

moossabi

2017-03-01, 06:10 PM

After I finished the update, that popup from battle.net that said "Hearthstone: Now Playable" made me laugh much more than it should have. It's funny because it's true... :smallbiggrin:

Destro_Yersul

2017-03-01, 06:13 PM

Also confirmed that there will be two Legendary cards per class (ugh), one minion and one Quest.

Apparently there's only going to be five neutral legendaries, so it's not actually a higher concentration of them.

Seerow

2017-03-01, 06:16 PM

Apparently there's only going to be five neutral legendaries, so it's not actually a higher concentration of them.

Still means more class specific legendaries, which means more legendaries required to make a number of decks. Less things like Kazakus/Patches that give you 3-4 decks you can play, more things that give you just a single deck you can play.

Basically exactly what I expected after they announced Hall of Fame.

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-03-01, 09:27 PM

How many viable decks does the game need to stay fresh for four months? Because eventually, even if there are a dozen viable decks people will naturally gravitate to the one which has a 1.5% higher win rate than the others. The ability for people to share decks online, whether through guide sites or even just high level players streaming their games, contributes to the lack of variety. Why slog through an experimental deck building process when you can just crib Reynad's notes?
Is that really the case, though? In every asymmetric competitive game I've seen, from fighting games to MOBAs, players don't just blindly pick the highest-winrate options. They tend to pick options with a sufficiently-high winrate, but also factor in other elements, such as preferred playstyle and the parts of the game that they prefer to engage in. Having a 52% winrate vs a 50% winrate is a small-enough difference that personal preferences will override it.

Netdecking also doesn't hurt variety, because it helps to streamline and speed up the prototyping process, which in turn leads to potentially more exploration and innovation.

Deck variety and game freshness is directly tied to the versatility and potency of the tools that a game gives its players. Hearthstone does not give its players versatile tools.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-02, 12:23 AM

Deck variety and game freshness is directly tied to the versatility and potency of the tools that a game gives its players. Hearthstone does not give its players versatile tools.

Hearthstone's streamlined game systems likely do contribute to the lack of variety. But that's always been touted as one of its strengths and a major contributing factor to its popularity. I mean, if "staleness" becomes a recurring issue the devs might be forced to evolve the game into something more complex. And that seems like a really risky move to make. I don't mean tacking on new mechanics like Discover or introducing new Tavern Brawl-style modes. I mean things like allowing players to react on their opponents turn, giving minions activated abilities, redoing the combat rules, etc (stuff that other posters have mentioned lol).

otakuryoga

2017-03-02, 01:09 AM

Kinda sad that this brawl doesn't progress class-win quests. It even says 'Mage' under Kazakus.

because it would not be very fair/nice to have a brawl that only works for 3 of 9 classes
every brawl works for either all 9 classes to get quests done or none(even if some brawls quickly meta up to be "only these 2 or 3 classes can actually win games"{looking at you mr 10 copies of 3 cards brawl from a while back})

Landis963

2017-03-02, 09:01 AM

because it would not be very fair/nice to have a brawl that only works for 3 of 9 classes
every brawl works for either all 9 classes to get quests done or none(even if some brawls quickly meta up to be "only these 2 or 3 classes can actually win games"{looking at you mr 10 copies of 3 cards brawl from a while back})

Alleria vs. Medivh, back around TGT's release, says differently. They can do it, they've just decided not to this time.

The Glyphstone

2017-03-02, 10:19 AM

Yeah. They could have coded, say, Han'cho to give win credits towards all three Goon factions.

Gandariel

2017-03-02, 10:47 AM

Whoa, whoa, WHOA!

The technology isn't there yet!

Rodin

2017-03-02, 12:38 PM

Having played a bit more, I'm not actually sure the new Arena is an improvement. A step sideways, perhaps.

Before, it was all about curve. Get decent minions and play on curve. However, because everyone's decks were clogged by basic common cards the actual power difference between decks wasn't that great. There were exceptions, of course, but in general even if you had a sub-par deck you could make a good shot at a comeback by drawing well.

Now it seems like the power difference between decks is far more pronounced. The Mage player that got offered 2 Firelands Portals, 2 Blizzards, and a Flamestrike is playing against the Paladin that got offered 3 Eye for an Eye and 2 Sacred Trials. Getting a good spell offering is far better than getting a good minion offering, and there are a lot more chances to get good spells now.

So now if you get a good deck, you're getting half your games being blowouts and the other half being really tense matchups. If you don't get a good deck, you might as well Retire at once because you're extremely likely to go 0-3.

Nerocite

2017-03-02, 02:45 PM

PsyBomb

2017-03-02, 03:05 PM

Heroic Brawl (http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20570423/standard-heroic-tavern-brawl-returns-3-2-2017) is back next week, only this time it's dishing out MSOG packs. Looks like they're trying to suck up gold before Un'Goro.

Yep, leaving this one alone just like last time. Reaction is the same as when I just pulled a Legendary and had it turn out to be Nozdormu, when I play primarily from phone. "Meh"

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-02, 06:20 PM

Heroic Brawl (http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20570423/standard-heroic-tavern-brawl-returns-3-2-2017) is back next week, only this time it's dishing out MSOG packs. Looks like they're trying to suck up gold before Un'Goro.

Yeah. Tavern Brawls are one of the places I go to when I want to avoid the ladder and it's meta. Back when I didn't have much of a collection the pre-made Brawls let me fight on an even playing field and otherwise there's some interesting twist to the rules. Betting 1000g and needing, what was it, 6 wins to break even is not my cup of tea.

Kish

2017-03-02, 07:32 PM

I wonder how many people played Heroic Brawl the first time.

Zevox

2017-03-02, 07:50 PM

I wonder how many people played Heroic Brawl the first time.
Enough, apparently.

But yeah, just means next week amounts to having no Brawl for me.

Joran

2017-03-02, 07:59 PM

Heroic Brawl (http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20570423/standard-heroic-tavern-brawl-returns-3-2-2017) is back next week, only this time it's dishing out MSOG packs. Looks like they're trying to suck up gold before Un'Goro.

I'm happy to watch all the streamers try-hard and explain their moves. I enjoyed it last time, even though it was almost all shamans after win 7.

Anarion

2017-03-02, 08:01 PM

I'm happy to watch all the streamers try-hard and explain their moves. I enjoyed it last time, even though it was almost all shamans after win 7.

I'm expecting the decks to be more diverse this time because of the very recent pirate nerfs. Nobody has sorted out between Jade Druid, various Rogues, and the Kazakus decks yet, so this is a good time for them to do a competitive tournament in the client. Even though I don't plan to participate.

Epinephrine_Syn

2017-03-02, 11:59 PM

Yeah. They could have coded, say, Han'cho to give win credits towards all three Goon factions.

I'm actually surprised they didn't, cause IIRC, that's how it was the first time the 'gang bosses fight' brawl showed up.

Anarion

2017-03-03, 01:22 AM

I'm actually surprised they didn't, cause IIRC, that's how it was the first time the 'gang bosses fight' brawl showed up.

You just showed up as a class, with the gang bosses shouting at you in that one, but then you counted as 3 classes. This time, they made you the gang boss, but you don't count as any classes at all. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but I have to guess it's the use of custom heroes and hero powers that messes it up.

Landis963

2017-03-03, 09:10 AM

You just showed up as a class, with the gang bosses shouting at you in that won, but then you counted as 3 classes. This time, they made you the gang boss, but you don't count as any classes at all. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but I have to guess it's the use of custom heroes and hero powers that messes it up.

Given that the tooltip for Han'Cho's hero power buff literally reads "Missing Ability Art," that seems like a very valid conclusion.

EDIT: It still reads like that two days later, so yeah.

thirsting

2017-03-03, 09:58 AM

Hamste

2017-03-03, 10:23 AM

Is arena really that slow right now? That deck has 2 one drops (one of which is northshire), two 2 drop (turn 1 mind vision or potion of madness may help though), 1-4 three drops (if nerubian isn't in hand at turn one it isn't a three drop) and two four drops (possibly more with nerubians) one of which is a 3/3 and the other is good removal. The late game is some of the best I have seen for arena though. Over all seems very slow compared to what arena was like before where they would run you over if you didn't curve perfectly every time.

thirsting

2017-03-03, 10:32 AM

I don't know, but it doesn't feel particularly slower than before. Just got quite lucky with my early game draws quite often.

Anarion

2017-03-03, 02:53 PM

http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums/y382/thirsting/PriestArena03032017_zpscv2l11ll.jpg (http://s1272.photobucket.com/user/thirsting/media/PriestArena03032017_zpscv2l11ll.jpg.html)

Priest, went 7/3.

8 dragons! Synergies are real in new arena. Even got Wrathion to draw more than one card few times.

Is arena really that slow right now? That deck has 2 one drops (one of which is northshire), two 2 drop (turn 1 mind vision or potion of madness may help though), 1-4 three drops (if nerubian isn't in hand at turn one it isn't a three drop) and two four drops (possibly more with nerubians) one of which is a 3/3 and the other is good removal. The late game is some of the best I have seen for arena though. Over all seems very slow compared to what arena was like before where they would run you over if you didn't curve perfectly every time.

No, it's not that slow, I think he lucked out a little bit in going 7-3 without getting overwhelmed. There are more spells generally though, so those multiple drakonid operatives are even more likely than before to grab you something that can bring you back from a losing board state, and priest is one of the best classes for coming back since they can heal themselves if they stabilize. I think the fact that the lategame is so spectacular was enough to succeed a lot.

But if someone else is planning a draft, you still really want to hit your turns 2-4 on curve, it's one of the most consistent ways of winning.

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-03-03, 07:04 PM

Hearthstone's streamlined game systems likely do contribute to the lack of variety. But that's always been touted as one of its strengths and a major contributing factor to its popularity. I mean, if "staleness" becomes a recurring issue the devs might be forced to evolve the game into something more complex. And that seems like a really risky move to make. I don't mean tacking on new mechanics like Discover or introducing new Tavern Brawl-style modes. I mean things like allowing players to react on their opponents turn, giving minions activated abilities, redoing the combat rules, etc (stuff that other posters have mentioned lol).
It's not really the mechanics of Hearthstone that contribute to the "lack of versatility" I was talking about, though. It's the card design. Every card just feels so un-impactful and vanilla when you come back to Hearthstone after seeing other CCG-style games.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2017-03-03, 07:22 PM

It's not really the mechanics of Hearthstone that contribute to the "lack of versatility" I was talking about, though. It's the card design. Every card just feels so un-impactful and vanilla when you come back to Hearthstone after seeing other CCG-style games.

Eh. I feel it's both. 90% of games end up as "how can I optimally clear my opponent's board while retaining presence myself." Giving that power to the attacker rather than letting the defender have the ability to assign damage means that turns are awfully predictable, and often simply solvable with fairly limited variance in acceptable outcomes.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-03, 09:14 PM

It's not really the mechanics of Hearthstone that contribute to the "lack of versatility" I was talking about, though. It's the card design. Every card just feels so un-impactful and vanilla when you come back to Hearthstone after seeing other CCG-style games.

Aren't the two kind of related though? The core mechanics of a game inherently limit card design. Maybe the design philosophies too, but I think the devs have done okay within Hearthstone's limits. Ignoring balance issues.

Just so we're on the same page, can you list some examples of these impactful cards you've seen in other games. Then we have some comparison points.

Anarion

2017-03-03, 10:01 PM

Aren't the two kind of related though? The core mechanics of a game inherently limit card design. Maybe the design philosophies too, but I think the devs have done okay within Hearthstone's limits. Ignoring balance issues.

Just so we're on the same page, can you list some examples of these impactful cards you've seen in other games. Then we have some comparison points.

No, there's a difference. Magic has way more complex cards, but has still had extremely stale metagames at times where players got really bored with it and they lost a lot of money from people not enjoying the game. It often results from degenerate decks or certain extremely oppressive strategies. For example, you could point to the pre-nerf pirate package in Hearthstone as a design problem. It's not a boring card, it has a weapon interaction on STB, the completely new Patches effect of flying out of your deck, and a bunch of interactions with other pirates and other minions like totems. Very interesting design, but that early game setup in combination with other aggro cards was making it so that most other strategies just didn't work.

I actually think that it's neither the design nor the overall mechanics, but specific things that lead to decks with very little thought and decision-making.

thirsting

2017-03-04, 02:25 AM

Some new emotes would be nice.

"Well maged."

"Nice to charge you."

"I'd say sorry, but fear it would sound sarcastic."

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-04, 08:54 AM

Been having a laugh at low ranks with my Warlock C'Thun deck...which also has Yogg-Saron in it. Win rate is as bad as you'd expect, but tossing out Yogg as a last resort sometimes leads to entertaining results.

Fable Wright

2017-03-04, 10:27 AM

Finally got to rank 10 for the first time.

In related news, hello thread, first time poster. I come here because Pirate Warriors is exceedingly frustrating and all I seem to run into around this rank. Any tips for sequencing against them? I just barely got to rank 10 by luck of running into the same (bad, I think?) Pirate Warrior player two games in a row, and he coined out a Fiery War Axe turn one both times letting me stabilize and not get wrecked by an early Small-Time Buccaneer. But when played right (ie, know when to hold onto weapons for massive Bloodsail Coursers and such), the deck seems... really, really stupid. I've started keeping Soulfires against them and Shaman, even without Malchezaar's Imp to pair with it, but otherwise I'm a bit at a loss. Should I slam a turn 1 Voidwalker? Is it a bad idea to do turn 2 Coin->Walker->Demonfire for a 3/5 Taunt, given the risk of Fiery War Axe/Southsea Deckhand just ending that with a turn of effort? Is turn 3 Coin->Walker ->Bloodfury Potion and just pray that the rest of my board can stabilize? If a turn 1 Flame Imp Sticks, is it worth buffing it with Demonfire, or turning that spell to try and kill a Pirate? I had cut out Demonwrath because of how atrocious it was at low rank against most of the field; is it worthwhile to run it to tech against Pirate Warrior?

Any advice any of you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Joran

2017-03-04, 12:12 PM

thirsting

2017-03-04, 12:51 PM

Try Dirty Rat? It's pretty good against pirate warrior, being a big, cheap taunt, sometimes denying some of the weapon buffing battlecries. Ideal if you have something to kill four-health minions with (Frothing Berserker...) in your hand when playing it.

Gandariel

2017-03-04, 01:35 PM

Welcome!

Always good to have more people.
Rank 10 might not seem like a huge achievement, but IIRC only like 10% of the players get that far.

You can add us to your friend list on the first page, and share your battle tag if you want to be added.

Pirate warrior is indeed very powerful. Maybe not as much as Shaman, but still very strong.

I'll echo the request for a decklist before I give any better advice, anyways:

You seem to be running Zoo lock (minion heavy deck with low mana curve, focused on buffing each other).

Do add Acidic Swamp Ooze(s), as well as Defenders of Argus (but you should already have those).

Buff spells in general are not very strong, because of the risk you mentioned: you put two cards worth of stuff into one minion, and if the opponent manages to kill it using just one card you're disadvantaged.

Demofire is probably the best of it kind, since it s flexible. (Well there's the Druid one that also draws you a card, too)

Anyways, it is usually NOT recommended to play a buff on a minion you just played.
You want to play the buff on a minion the can attack this turn, so that you ensure you get at least one attack with the buff.

Also, you probably don't want to play blood fury potion, like ever.

Fable Wright

2017-03-04, 02:50 PM

Rank 10 might not seem like a huge achievement, but IIRC only like 10% of the players get that far.

Rank 10-Legend is top 7.5%, but I'm fairly sure that statistic includes a lot of inactive accounts and people who don't do Standard.

I'll echo the request for a decklist before I give any better advice, anyways:

List is:

Flame Imp x2
Malchezaar's Imp x2
Power Overwhelming x1
Soulfire x2
Voidwalker x2
Acidic Swamp Ooze x1
Dark Peddler x2
Darkshire Librarian x1
Demonfire x2
Tiny Knight of Evil x2 (Flex slot; would become Demonwrath)
Bloodfury Potion x2
Darkshire Councilman x2
Imp Gang Boss x2
Silverware Golem x2
Crystalweaver x2
Defender of Argus x1
Pit Lord x1
Doomguard x2

Buff spells in general are not very strong, because of the risk you mentioned: you put two cards worth of stuff into one minion, and if the opponent manages to kill it using just one card you're disadvantaged.

At lower ranks, I'm finding the buff spells a lot more powerful than the Knife Juggler/Forbidden Ritual build—against everything but Pirate Warrior, if nothing else. They allow me to plow through Dragon Priest's Taunt minions, they greatly improve my burst damage at the end of the game, and they're great when turning Voidwalkers or Defender of Argus'd demons into fatties. It's card disadvantage most of the time, sure... but I'm warlock, and have plenty of times played Doomguard without Malchezaar's Imp on the field. Sometimes the Charge, burst, and survivable body are just worth it, and it's not like Soup Tap makes me lack for card advantage most of the time.

Anyways, it is usually NOT recommended to play a buff on a minion you just played.
You want to play the buff on a minion the can attack this turn, so that you ensure you get at least one attack with the buff.

I am familiar. On the other hand, Voidwalker (and a lot of my deck) dies to one swing of the Fiery War Axe; a Demonfire'd Void Walker takes the hit and trades with 1-2 things and deals more face damage to the weapon-wielder; a Bloodfury Potion'd one takes the War Axe and two minions to go down at least, letting me keep a thing on the board to stabilize.

Joran

2017-03-04, 10:47 PM

List is:

Flame Imp x2
Malchezaar's Imp x2
Power Overwhelming x1
Soulfire x2
Voidwalker x2
Acidic Swamp Ooze x1
Dark Peddler x2
Darkshire Librarian x1
Demonfire x2
Tiny Knight of Evil x2 (Flex slot; would become Demonwrath)
Bloodfury Potion x2
Darkshire Councilman x2
Imp Gang Boss x2
Silverware Golem x2
Crystalweaver x2
Defender of Argus x1
Pit Lord x1
Doomguard x2

To be honest, I never played Discardlock, so I don't have much experience with the deck. Looking at the decklist, Pit Lord is almost assuredly a bad card if you want to improve your aggro matchup, since it's such a dead card.

Generally, against Pirate Warrior, you either want to kill them before you kill you or heal/taunt your way out of range. Adding another Argus would probably help against Pirate Warrior. You don't want heals because it goes against the purpose of your deck. My only other suggestion is maybe adding a Mortal Coil to ping off the 1 mana pirates.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-05, 07:28 AM

Thought: if I start an Arena run but don't finish it until after Journey to Un'goro releases, does that mean my Arena pack will be from that set? The wiki says "the guaranteed card pack given each run will always be from the most recently released expansion set" but I don't know if the determination is made when you begin the run or at the end.

Spore

2017-03-05, 11:02 PM

I love my new Hunter deck - which I totally stole from Kibler's stream. Small beasts, beast buffs and Hyena combo takes advantage of people not able to deal with Hunters anymore.

Fable Wright

2017-03-05, 11:28 PM

I love my new Hunter deck - which I totally stole from Kibler's stream. Small beasts, beast buffs and Hyena combo takes advantage of people not able to deal with Hunters anymore.

Basic glances at Hyena decks seem like something I could actually afford—what does your list look like?

Seerow

2017-03-05, 11:57 PM

I love my new Hunter deck - which I totally stole from Kibler's stream. Small beasts, beast buffs and Hyena combo takes advantage of people not able to deal with Hunters anymore.

It is actually pretty fun, been playing with a beast/hand buff hunter when I get a hunter quest. Doesn't happen all the time, but any time I get a big rat or hounds into Hyena it's glorious.

PsyBomb

2017-03-07, 06:52 AM

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-07, 09:00 AM

I noticed an unintended way the new rank checkpoints make the ladder easier to climb. I was running an incomplete Jade Druid (arcane Giants, no Fandral/Aya/Ancients) for a quest, but hit two experimental enemy decks (a Secret Paladin and an odd Midrange Pirate Rogue) run by R15s who couldn't lose stars. Shredded them cleanly for both the quest and my own R15 despite the incomplete nature of my own.

This was actually something I thought about. That the ranked floors would become poorly guarded gates since all the fun and experimental people would naturally end up there.

Also, Secret Paladin? Are you playing Standard or Wild?

PsyBomb

2017-03-07, 09:13 AM

This was actually something I thought about. That the ranked floors would become poorly guarded gates since all the fun and experimental people would naturally end up there.

Also, Secret Paladin? Are you playing Standard or Wild?

Standard, if you believe it! Killed him on 8 after dealing with a Challenger by baiting Sacrifice with a hero attack, then overrunning him with jade golems

Rodin

2017-03-08, 08:19 AM

New Arena: Where your opponent misses lethal because they forgot to calculate spell damage from Azure Drake into their second Kazakus potion and tries to kill Deathwing, Dragonlord instead. The same Deathwing that got stolen by Mind Control and then stolen back by the same.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-08, 11:13 AM

Just experienced for myself the absurdity of the dragon priest mirror Drakonid Operative circus. Between the two of us we must have played nearly ten copies of that guy. We played to fatigue, and one of my Operatives spied Deathwing in his deck. I just waited for him to drop it then Shadow Word Death for the concede.

Grytorm

2017-03-08, 12:30 PM

Do you know what is nice? Coming back to Hearthstone after a month and finding yourself low enough to win with your bad decks. So far played a little of wild with no card draw N'zoth paladin and the weird Hunter deck with Hon'Cho, Brann, and Dispatch Kodo.

Thomas Cardew

2017-03-08, 10:01 PM

Oh. So it's heroic brawl this week... Guess I won't be playing then; still don't think it's worth it.

PsyBomb

2017-03-08, 10:34 PM

Heroic brawl, but there is an offer on the Blizzard website for a free WotOG pack if you vote for your country's representative to an upcoming tournament.

Spore

2017-03-09, 02:32 AM

Oh. So it's heroic brawl this week... Guess I won't be playing then; still don't think it's worth it.

I wont as well. This is a poor attempt to get rid of gold in the system before an expansion.

Even if I think my Miracle Malygos Rogue is enough of an anti meta deck towork out 6 wins.

Gandariel

2017-03-09, 04:36 AM

- Focuses on winning with a 9 mana card
- calls self anti-meta

Seerow

2017-03-09, 02:41 PM

- Focuses on winning with a 9 mana card
- calls self anti-meta

Well if the definition of anti meta is opposite of the meta it may be true...

GolemsVoice

2017-03-09, 03:47 PM

Voted Ropecoach because he's the only one I even recognize. Go Germany, I guess.

Joran

2017-03-09, 04:29 PM

Voted Ropecoach because he's the only one I even recognize. Go Germany, I guess.

Which is amusing because he's quit Hearthstone and is playing Gwent.

I voted for Dog, because he's hilarious and plays fun decks on stream. I would have voted for Firebat ("I hate pirates, but I like winning"), but I thought Dog needed the vote more.

I also would have voted for Zalae (poor guy just spent an entire month ramming his head against the wall trying to make Legend with only hunter) and Amnesiasc (Hearthstone needs a good villain).

PsyBomb

2017-03-09, 07:01 PM

Which is amusing because he's quit Hearthstone and is playing Gwent.

I voted for Dog, because he's hilarious and plays fun decks on stream. I would have voted for Firebat ("I hate pirates, but I like winning"), but I thought Dog needed the vote more.

I also would have voted for Zalae (poor guy just spent an entire month ramming his head against the wall trying to make Legend with only hunter) and Amnesiasc (Hearthstone needs a good villain).

I voted Amnesiac for much the same reason. I think it's going to be him, Firebat, and Dog for the US.

Destro_Yersul

2017-03-09, 08:33 PM

I picked Hotform for Canada, for no particular reason besides that I recognise the name. My fiance picked Dog for the US because she likes dogs.

Gandariel

2017-03-10, 02:10 AM

For some reason the game think I'm British (which I'm not) and made me vote for a British guy. Didn't know any of them, voted at random.

Still got a pack I guess

Spore

2017-03-10, 02:41 AM

Voted Ropecoach because he's the only one I even recognize. Go Germany, I guess.

I hate his style of roping and I live in Germany. Boo Germany....

Joran

2017-03-10, 01:18 PM

For some reason the game think I'm British (which I'm not) and made me vote for a British guy. Didn't know any of them, voted at random.

Still got a pack I guess

I would have voted for J4CKIECHAN. He posted a rap song to Youtube and is a deck pioneer. His most famous non-standard deck is Egg Druid and I think he also pioneered or at least helped perfect Yogg Druid.

Togath

2017-03-11, 08:36 PM

So with the news that they're doing away with the card-reward-pay-to-play adventures...
I'm in a sort of odd spot.
Like, if they're gonna do some sort of free adventures now... I mean, free is nice, but the adventures have been the only things I've spent any money on in Hearthstone.:smallredface:
I'm just not super interested in paying for extra packs.
I wonder if they'll release more non-card stuff? Like extra portraits, card backs, etc.

Gandariel

2017-03-13, 01:43 PM

Joran

2017-03-13, 02:41 PM

I am very surprised by Hearthstone's pricing scheme and microtransactions.

They give out card backs like candy, when we can only use one at a time, and frankly I haven't changed mine in years.

They sell alternate heroes *suuper* rarely, when a lot of people would be happy to buy them.

But, they announce the 3-expansions year thing.
And, now they raise pack price for all non-dollar currencies?

-----
A way more fair way to do that would have been to raise the prices 1 month after the expansion.
(Also they'd get a sales spike since many people would be still missing ungoro cards)
------

Anyways, if they want to make more money out of this game, just produce more alternate heroes for cash! Give out way less card backs but only for money/preorders etc.!

I also read that many other competitors are rising in popularity (Shadowverse making 100 million dollars in 6 months, to name one).

so just increasing pack prices (and the 3-expansion year thing) without offering anyrhing back (more gold/packs, etc) seems very weird.

I'm no expert and don't want to call their actions stupid, but I really have no explaination.

(Personally, nothing changes with me. I'll still stay f2p, and the "competitor" card games all look like crap in comparison, so I don't plan to go anywhere)

It's supposedly to align the prices more to the dollar prices; EU prices are still cheaper than US prices if you take out VAT. The Euro and the Pound have lost ground against the dollar the last two years, so a price increase was bound to happen since Blizzard's employees are paid in dollars (and their revenue is also measured in dollars).

The price increase might persuade more people to pre-purchase the 50 pack deal, since that isn't going up in price.

I don't think the alternate hero portraits were that big of a hit; a lot of people seemed to think they were overpriced at $10. Instead, Blizzard has started to tailor those more towards promotions (like the WoW one, or the refer a friend).

Divayth Fyr

2017-03-13, 02:52 PM

I don't think the alternate hero portraits were that big of a hit; a lot of people seemed to think they were overpriced at $10. Instead, Blizzard has started to tailor those more towards promotions (like the WoW one, or the refer a friend).
So sell them for 7,5$ or even 5$ - you'll still make a profit, possibly an even bigger one, since more will be inclined to buy them.

Mando Knight

2017-03-13, 03:53 PM

It's supposedly to align the prices more to the dollar prices; EU prices are still cheaper than US prices if you take out VAT. The Euro and the Pound have lost ground against the dollar the last two years, so a price increase was bound to happen since Blizzard's employees are paid in dollars (and their revenue is also measured in dollars).

The odd thing about it is that Hearthstone is the only Blizzard game affected by this.

Togath

2017-03-13, 04:51 PM

Hearthstone is in a weird spot. I mean, I like the game, but the only thing I'd be tempted to spend money on so far is the hunter hero. But I mostly play rogue.

CarpeGuitarrem

2017-03-13, 07:11 PM

I don't think the alternate hero portraits were that big of a hit; a lot of people seemed to think they were overpriced at $10. Instead, Blizzard has started to tailor those more towards promotions (like the WoW one, or the refer a friend).
I'm rather wondering if Maiev et al are intended to pave the way for more paid portraits. The overall logic of the "overpriced" objection has to do with players not feeling like portraits give enough value compared to their price. Maiev, Liadrin, and Morgl show players what having a custom hero portrait is like, making it more obvious what kind of value they'll get out of it. Trying something out is generally more convincing than watching a YouTube clip of it.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a new hero skin a few months after Maiev, possibly with a slight price drop, for just that reason.

Zevox

2017-03-13, 09:55 PM

So sell them for 7,5$ or even 5$ - you'll still make a profit, possibly an even bigger one, since more will be inclined to buy them.
Yeah, I'm surprised they've never done this. Even if the initial three did poorly, you'd think they might guess the price point was a big part of the reason why - $10 for a single cosmetic change to the game definitely seems high. Honestly, I don't think I'd consider buying something like that until it was down under $5, unless it was one I really liked far more than the default, and even then $5 or so would be my max - but I know there's likely a lot of people out there willing to spend more on this type of thing than I am.

Of course, I'm not going to complain about getting them as free promotions, either. I do like having Liadrin and Tyrande, and I likely wouldn't if they'd been released for money instead.

Gandariel

2017-03-14, 02:31 AM

PsyBomb

2017-03-14, 03:23 AM

Had an interesting moment today playing Renolock versus Renomage. Played out Dark Peddler and Kabal Courier earlier, taking picks for the long haul (he went first and played a total of one secret by then), then proceeded to spar for the board for a while. Never found Reno, though I got Brann-Kazakus, staying around 8-9 cards in hand all game. Got him down to 14 around turn 14, when he left a single imp up after killing my Gang Boss. The same secret from turn 3 was still up, certainly an Ice Block. No reno seen.

Cue PO-PO(Peddler)-Hellfire bringing him to 2, and Curse of Rafaam for the kill after picking it up from Courier on turn 3.

Niche cards that are amazing in one (AND PRECICELY ONE) matchup is why I love playing Courier. Still would even if it got changed to be three cards from your class.

Kish

2017-03-14, 05:17 AM

My point is, I'd be happy if they sold 20 hero skins for each class for any amount of money.

I'd be happy if they stopped giving out card backs every month, and instead only gave them for specific stuff like pre-orders.

I wouldn't buy any of them, but I'd be happy that Blizzard is earning money from those that do.

And in general, if Blizzard decides they want to squeeze more money out of this game, I'd be happier if they did so by releasing more cosmetics instead of increasing this be cost to play the game.
I'm not generally a defender of Blizzard's business decisions, but this is amazingly ironic. You just said, in so many words, "I wish they'd concentrate their efforts to get more money in areas where I won't spend any no matter what they do."

They give out card backs for nothing precisely because that's what they're worth to most of their players: nothing.

Spore

2017-03-14, 05:21 AM

I'm no expert and don't want to call their actions stupid, but I really have no explaination.

This feels like something is going on. This feels like a holding pattern (with minimal time investment) - much like World of Warcraft felt to me. Maybe they feel like they don't have to excite people to play anymore? Maybe Activision has told them to focus on other projects? Maybe adventures are too pricey to make for the impact they have on the game?

But it feels like they are running out of ideas to keep the game fresh. Sure, new card mechanics like adapt are good, but every card game does that. They finally made the step towards legendary spells but they are still too afraid to print neutral spells. I would love to see new card types: Similar to artifacts in MTG (cards like Dorothy, aura buff cards that cannot be attacked) or enchantment cards (cards like Blessing of Kings only that you get them back after the minion is destroyed because that is the reason why buffs generally suck).

PsyBomb

2017-03-14, 06:04 AM

Huh, anyone else notice the new keyword? As of 7.1.1, the keyword Poisonous replaced "destroy any Minion damaged by this one"

Kish

2017-03-14, 06:09 AM

It's in the patch notes.

Spore

2017-03-14, 06:12 AM

Huh, anyone else notice the new keyword? As of 7.1.1, the keyword Poisonous replaced "destroy any Minion damaged by this one"

Yes I did as I saw a Emperor Cobra while playing Jeweled Scarab. I hope the keyword will heavily involve Rogues - along with stealth. Things like: "Poisonous, Stealth - if this minion destroys another minion, do something awesome"

Gandariel

2017-03-14, 08:48 AM

I'm not generally a defender of Blizzard's business decisions, but this is amazingly ironic. You just said, in so many words, "I wish they'd concentrate their efforts to get more money in areas where I won't spend any no matter what they do."

They give out card backs for nothing precisely because that's what they're worth to most of their players: nothing.

I may have not spelled my point clearly.

Focusing a bit more on cosmetics would be, IMO, good for everyone: those who enjoy them get new content and feel special, and the game earns more without turning into pay2win, which would alienate non-paying users.

While this is true in general, it is doubly true for Hearthstone since they've put out so few cosmetic stuff, even though it would be fairly easy for them.

Welp, it turns out that I did use too many words last time :P

Mando Knight

2017-03-14, 12:28 PM

Thanks to another live action teaser video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2QXEy4nikI), we now know the names and mana cost of the Paladin quest and its reward: the quest is "The Last Kaleidosaur" and the reward is a 5 mana beast known as Galvadon. Besides that and the artwork, though, the card is blank.

Haruspex_Pariah

2017-03-14, 06:03 PM

That's not a well-received video. I wonder if that's due to the current sentiment in general, or that these live action skits aren't all that good. Or that we didn't even get a full card revealed.

Hamste

2017-03-14, 07:21 PM

That's not a well-received video. I wonder if that's due to the current sentiment in general, or that these live action skits aren't all that good. Or that we didn't even get a full card revealed.

It opens with "Hello Children" and multiple references to youth...it isn't surprising that it isn't well received (Presumably the video is for the kids in Elise's group but it comes off as an insult to the teen player base when you a open a video for them with an introduction to children). The lack of actual card reveal also seems annoying. As for the jokes itself, they seem decent but a few of them just kind of missed their mark. I can see why it was poorly received.

Mando Knight

2017-03-15, 01:19 AM

It opens with "Hello Children" and multiple references to youth...it isn't surprising that it isn't well received (Presumably the video is for the kids in Elise's group but it comes off as an insult to the teen player base when you a open a video for them with an introduction to children). The lack of actual card reveal also seems annoying. As for the jokes itself, they seem decent but a few of them just kind of missed their mark. I can see why it was poorly received.

Personally, I kinda saw it as a tongue-in-cheek reference to children's "wilderness explorer" shows, and that the character's assumption of Un'goro being a light-hearted adventure locale suited for such a video was part of the setup for his comedic failures.

But yes, I'd be more interested in the content of the video if it was more about Galvadon and the rest of Un'goro's Paladin cards and less about the skit used to introduce the setting.

Gandariel

2017-03-15, 02:59 AM

Anarion

2017-03-15, 03:43 AM

So, thought about the Quests.

You always play it on turn one, and it always starts in your hand, so this leaves two/three ways of deck building:
- play a quest deck
- play aggro
- play a "regular deck". This is only if the class quest ends up sucking

Basically, if you're not Aggro you usually have nothing to do with your first turn, which means you might as well put that quest card in your deck and play it.

The only drawback of quests is the deck making restriction.

In short, unless the restriction/condition/effect is *really* bad, there is really no drawback to playing it.

If they do it right, the restrictions will be somewhat harsh. There ought to be a trade off between "I'm going to play the 30 best cards for my class in standard" and "I'm going to play the priest quest." If there isn't and the synergy cards are also just better than everything else, either that class is so terrible as to be unplayable, or we get the rise of aggro shaman all over again. Ideally, the cards support a few different archetypes for at least some classes.

Hamste

2017-03-15, 04:40 AM

Personally, I kinda saw it as a tongue-in-cheek reference to children's "wilderness explorer" shows, and that the character's assumption of Un'goro being a light-hearted adventure locale suited for such a video was part of the setup for his comedic failures.

But yes, I'd be more interested in the content of the video if it was more about Galvadon and the rest of Un'goro's Paladin cards and less about the skit used to introduce the setting.

Is that an actual thing in the US? I have never seen a child's wilderness explorer show in Canada (the closest I can think of on Canadian television is Zoboomafoo).

Weimann

2017-03-15, 06:57 AM

Thought that struck me: you think Lightspawn will get the Elemental tag?

Gandariel

2017-03-15, 07:13 AM

No. They already showed which existing cards will get the tag.

Kish

2017-03-15, 07:18 AM

No. I don't think it's supposed to be an elemental. Last I heard, all elementals are fire (ruled by Ragnaros), water (ruled by Neptulon), air (ruled by Al'Akir), or earth (ruled by Therazane).

Fable Wright

2017-03-15, 11:53 AM

If they do it right, the restrictions will be somewhat harsh.

You do realize that one of the quests is literally 'play 2 Deathrattle creatures, get a better Reno Jackson', right? Having that guaranteed in my opener sounds much better than playing as most other decks in the format.

moossabi

2017-03-15, 12:11 PM

Anarion

2017-03-15, 12:52 PM

You do realize that one of the quests is literally 'play 2 Deathrattle creatures, get a better Reno Jackson', right? Having that guaranteed in my opener sounds much better than playing as most other decks in the format.

I thought that quest required 7. :smallconfused:

It is 7. Even running 7 deathrattle cards may lower the deck's quality: 2x shifting shade is the only standard legal priest deathrattle, so you're looking at running several neutrals, probably Thalnos and Cairn (Sylvanus will be gone), maybe Mistress of Mixtures, Loot Hoarder. You can go full N'zoth setup and run the corrupted healbots, infested Tauren, and Twilight Summoners too if you want, but that definitely would lower deck quality compared to running better neutrals or class cards in those slots. Obviously, we don't know what's in Un'goro, so maybe there will be a plethora of great deathrattles. But even if you run 10+ deathrattles (fully a third of your deck), you can't reasonably expect to play 7+ before turn 10, so you're hoping and praying that the cards will allow you to stall and control them long enough to not die and get your quest done. And even then, you don't win, you get a Reno effect. Reno is great and "better Reno" will be even better, but it won't suddenly undo a losing board position or save you from the bajillion cards that can kill a single minion no matter how big it is.

Rodin

2017-03-15, 01:03 PM

It is 7. Even running 7 deathrattle cards may lower the deck's quality: 2x shifting shade is the only standard legal priest deathrattle, so you're looking at running several neutrals, probably Thalnos and Cairn (Sylvanus will be gone), maybe Mistress of Mixtures, Loot Hoarder. You can go full N'zoth setup and run the corrupted healbots, infested Tauren, and Twilight Summoners too if you want, but that definitely would lower deck quality compared to running better neutrals or class cards in those slots. Obviously, we don't know what's in Un'goro, so maybe there will be a plethora of great deathrattles. But even if you run 10+ deathrattles (fully a third of your deck), you can't reasonably expect to play 7+ before turn 10, so you're hoping and praying that the cards will allow you to stall and control them long enough to not die and get your quest done. And even then, you don't win, you get a Reno effect. Reno is great and "better Reno" will be even better, but it won't suddenly undo a losing board position or save you from the bajillion cards that can kill a single minion no matter how big it is.

The fact that it's difficult to complete the Priest quest before turn 10 is what will either balance it or destroy it. Reno is good mainly because he fulfills two conditions - lategame heal to prevent a Control deck from burning you down through attrition, and mid-game heal to make Aggro decks cry. If "new Reno" can't be played on turn 6 then that pretty much kills the archetype against Aggro.

Nerocite

2017-03-15, 01:05 PM

No. They already showed which existing cards will get the tag.

Are you referring to the announcement video? (https://youtu.be/xAHwjbKQi04?t=4m2s) Because they don't have Water Elemental, Fire Elemental, or Frost Elemental listed.

Fable Wright

2017-03-15, 01:13 PM

I thought that quest required 7. :smallconfused:

...That makes it so much more balanced. Nevermind then, carry on.

Gandariel

2017-03-15, 01:31 PM

Are you referring to the announcement video? (https://youtu.be/xAHwjbKQi04?t=4m2s) Because they don't have Water Elemental, Fire Elemental, or Frost Elemental listed.

Whoops, my bad. But yeah, I don't expect Lightspawn to be an Elemental.

I mean, War Golem isn't a Mech

PsyBomb

2017-03-15, 08:50 PM

Tavern Brawl just handed me an Un'Goro pack. Nice touch

Rodin

2017-03-15, 10:18 PM

Tavern Brawl just handed me an Un'Goro pack. Nice touch

I didn't like the random party crashers though. If they attacked randomly it might have been okay, but they all go face. It makes the Crossroads format snowball even more than it already did and kinda makes it so I don't want to play it. This is despite the various Crossroads Brawls being my favorite type.

Joran

2017-03-15, 10:19 PM

Tavern Brawl just handed me an Un'Goro pack. Nice touch

Except my OCD is kicking in for that 1 counter under my packs...

Anarion

2017-03-15, 10:40 PM

The fact that it's difficult to complete the Priest quest before turn 10 is what will either balance it or destroy it. Reno is good mainly because he fulfills two conditions - lategame heal to prevent a Control deck from burning you down through attrition, and mid-game heal to make Aggro decks cry. If "new Reno" can't be played on turn 6 then that pretty much kills the archetype against Aggro.

It is worth remembering that it's a priest quest, which is a class that might be able to stall aggro other ways. Again, we don't know the Un'goro cards, but let's imagine for a moment. If there's a good aoe removal spell, a couple minions that heal you in addition to being presence on board, and more deathrattle taunts, then the class may be set up to do well running a very defensive, control-oriented setup.

I really, really hope that there's a good finisher though beyond just "play big minions." Maybe you'd run Ysera in the same deck, or run Velen double mindblast as a way to end the game after you've stalled out through your whole deck. Jade druid existing means that until Gadgetzan rotates out, there is no way to have a deck that relies only on control, you have to play something that wins the game for you past taunts and big minions on the other side.

Except my OCD is kicking in for that 1 counter under my packs...

Yeah, that's seriously bugging me too.