Hearthstone 23: The Evil League of EVIL

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Yeah, they've kind of crossed the line with the last couple of "class identity" solidifying rotations.

While it's important for each class to have a core identity (otherwise, why have classes at all?), pigeonholing them SO strictly into a role that you remove the few cards that enable any kind of alternate playstyle and replace them with trash nobody is going to use (Radiance particularly, I could see myself using the Poison guy) is just going to push people away.

I think Blizzard is forgetting that while balance and identity is important, a huge portion of the engagement in a card game comes from deck building, and a large subset of the community exists just to build off the wall, unintuitive decks with the various tools given.

Yeah, this is a really bad approach to "class identity". Back over in fighting games, there's a powerful sense that despite characters being different, each character needs access to a certain set of fundamental tools. Imagine characters not being able to block! This is doubly so in anime fighters like UNIST or Guilty Gear, where there's actually universal defensive mechanics. In general, defensive mechanics are critical to a balanced game, because characters need to be able to have a way to deal with whatever their opponent throws at them, which reduces the risk of hard counters.

Team 5 appears to be embracing a philosophy of giving hard counters to classes, making some matchups decided at deck selection.

[Rynjin]

Which is baffling, as a large complaint in the last meta AND an issue in this one is that is already the case. Warrior eating Tempo Rogue is a given; an 80%+ winrate doesn't lie. The same was true of certain decks pre-rotation...and everybody HATED it.

Exacerbating that problem is a strange step.

[Lord Raziere]

Axing Vanish pretty much killed both my rogue decks. It's saved my bacon quite a bit.

But don't worry, I still have Fan of Knives!!

*cries uncontrollably*

ah yes, Fan of Knives, the card draw spell that occasionally sees use as a way to clear a board of 1/1's.

yeah, I'm not real excited. thats more one straw added to the "reasons for me to stop caring about hearthstone and play Gwent" and I'm not sure when that is going break my back or tip the scales enough, but its coming close at the very least. might go find a "best of yogg-saron" compilation before I go or other crazy combos though. I'm probably heading that direction and not really playing it myself if I can't try for the crazy interactions.

[Zevox]

Blizzard has announced the replacement Classic cards for what got HoF'd, along with a Developer Insight as to what the Team thinks should be each classes' identity and their strengths and weaknesses.

Also they're Hall of Fame-ing Vanish and Mind Blast.

Spoiler: The Replacements

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Plaguebringer 4 Mana 3/3 Basic Rogue Minion: Battlecry: Give a friendly minion Poisonous.: Reminds me of Plague Scientist from KotFT, but was that ever played? Granted, with Rush minions, lots of Tokens/Lackeys being used in the current Rogue decks, this just might see some play. Losing Vanish though is gonna hurt Pogo Rogue, and that deck already has trouble against non-control decks in the first place.

Radiance 1 Mana Basic Priest Spell: Restore 5 Health to your Hero.: If I wanted cheap healing and an easy Pyromancer/Auctioneer activator, I would just have Regenerate in my deck. Oh wait, even then, no one is playing that. 1 star card. Right now, Mind Blast is being used with Vargoth, and I'm getting the feeling that Blizzard collectively went "oh. right. Priest exists." only after Vargoth got released, and this card is their attempt to fix the issue before the next expansion turns OTK Mindblast Priest to Tier 1.

Siegebreaker7 Mana 5/8 Rare Warlock Demon Minion: Taunt. Your other Demons have +1 Attack.: Looks like Blizzard really wants Imp-Lock to work. However, this seems pretty slow for a Token deck to use; the reason why Forest's Aid worked is that it was a (multi-turn) Board fill, not a board buff with a giant minion attached. I think Zoolock decks will stick to their Magic Carpets and Mechs right now.

Gift of the Wild 8 Mana Common Druid Spell: Give your minions +2/+2 and Taunt.: The reason why Forest's Aid worked is that it was a (multi-turn) Board fill, not a late game buff. This is a pretty hefty punish if your opponent leaves your board alone on turn 8, but on the other hand, you could probably also punish with Soul of the Forest and/or have counter lethal with Power of the Wild, Blessing of the Ancients, and Savage Roar. This card really needs a board fill to combo with, but there's nothing at 2 or less Mana that can be combined with this. The cost really hurts this card, but can you really blame Blizzard when Token Druid IS all what Druid is atm?

Righteousness 5 Mana Rare Paladin Spell: Give your minions Divine Shield.: Can I just say, Thank God Baku isn't still around in Standard? I mean, this is hardly as good as Level Up was in its heyday, but this can still make wide Paladin boards harder to deal with outside of Pyromancer or Twisting Nether.

Brightwing 3 Mana 3/2 Neutral Legendary Dragon Minion: Add a random Legendary Minion to your hand.: Eh, fun effect, but not that competitive. Sees play in casual and friendly duels, and occasionally in Spirit of the Shark Rogue.

High Inquisitor Whitemane 7 Mana 6/8 Neutral Legendary Minion: Battlecry: Summon all friendly minions that have died this turn.: Minions, servants, soldiers of the cold dark Scarlet Crusade! Obey the call of Kel'thuzad Inquisitor Whitemane! Joking aside, this is harder to be as annoying to deal with as KT or Catrina Muerte, since Whitemane is limited to just a battlecry and further limited to minions that have died that turn. Still, pretty powerful effect, will see play.

Barrens Stablehand 7 Mana 4/4 Neutral Epic Minion: Battlecry: Summon a random Beast.: "Hey, what if we made Exotic Mountseller, but made their stats worse, only summons one beast, and it could summon a chicken instead?" "Nice, but only if it summons King Krush if it was played by your opponent." "Perfect!!!"

SI:7 Infiltrator 4 Mana 5/4 Neutral Rare Minion: Battlecry: Destroy a random Secret.: Decent tech card, pretty good statline when you're fighting anyone that doesn't have secrets. Will see play, but only as a one-of, maybe more if Secret Hunter becomes a powerhouse again.

Arcane Devourer 8 Mana 5/5 Neutral Rare Elemental Minion: Whenever you cast a spell, gain +2/+2.: Listen, Blizzard, the only growing giant high-cost card that works is the golden god Gruul. And that's because he's Gruul, fuul. This card will not see play.

...okay, I'll give them this much: that is a better set of new "Classic but not actually classic" cards than the last bunch, in that some of them have an actual chance of seeing play (Plaguebringer, Siegebreaker, Whitemane, and SI:7 Infiltrator - maybe Brightwing, though more likely as something you're sometimes happy to discover than a card you put in your deck). A lot of the rest are ridiculously trash (Radiance is strictly-worse Flash Heal, Righteousness is five times the cost of Hand of Protection just to go from affecting one minion to your whole board), but those few aren't, so it's not a total waste putting them in like this.

Beyond that though, good gods, what the hell are they doing? Apparently cards can get Hall of Famed any time now at the drop of a hat, not just when rotation happens? That is terrifying. And why on earth Hall of Fame Vanish? I mean, I at least get where they might be coming from with Mind Blast, not liking the OTK potential it gives, but Vanish? A card that is one of Rogue's only board clear options and is largely worse than most other class' already (it's expensive as heck and they can just re-play them), plus was already hit by the Preparation nerf? There is no good reason for that. No, Rogue being intended to be bad at board wipes isn't a good reason, they're bad at that even with Vanish. They have been ever since Blade Flurry was nerfed into uselesness way back when the game was still young.

I don't know what else to say at this point, honestly. I've said everything I want to a dozen times over now. Screw Blizzard for all their messing with the Classic set, now and in perpetuity.

[Rynjin]

They really should rotate/change the entire Classic set temporarily every Rotation. Shift some cards in, some cards out, and make some Wild cards Classic for a short time, kinda like what they're doing with Arena.

That way you can get rid of "design limiting" cards like Equality for a while...without ****ing over Paladins in perpetuity because they don't have an efficient mid-game board wipe anymore. And occasionally you get to see old favorites in a new meta where maybe they have better luck than previously. I'm still holding out for a meta where The Darkness works.

Also gives an incentive for people like me who DGAF about Wild and just Dust every card that rotates out to keep some old cards I actually like for a rainy day. It emotionally pained me to dust Tarim.

[Anarion]

Before I reply on the current topic, I'd just like to briefly brag that I've at last obtained every single gold hero. 500th win on Warrior today topped it off. That's been an effort, especially as I tend to favor certain classes over others and put some of them off for long while.

They really should rotate/change the entire Classic set temporarily every Rotation. Shift some cards in, some cards out, and make some Wild cards Classic for a short time, kinda like what they're doing with Arena.

That way you can get rid of "design limiting" cards like Equality for a while...without ****ing over Paladins in perpetuity because they don't have an efficient mid-game board wipe anymore. And occasionally you get to see old favorites in a new meta where maybe they have better luck than previously. I'm still holding out for a meta where The Darkness works.

Also gives an incentive for people like me who DGAF about Wild and just Dust every card that rotates out to keep some old cards I actually like for a rainy day. It emotionally pained me to dust Tarim.

A rotating classic set designed to match with the rest of the standard sets every year is probably the right competitive call, but it's a really difficult business decision for a game like hearthstone. Magic manages to sell packs of standard every year, in part because it's fun to draft, in part because they add chase rares even to their base set sometimes. But I'm not sure Hearthstone could handle that without losing a ton of players due to anger. And if they just gave out the entire core set for free every time they rotated it, Blizzard would be dedicating a ton of design time and maybe art and programming resources to something they knew from the start wouldn't bring them in any money. If you were a game director at Blizzard and you wanted to make that kind of resource decision, you'd need to be able to justify how it would retain players long-term and eventually make more money than the costs you're committing to it.

[Zevox]

A rotating classic set designed to match with the rest of the standard sets every year is probably the right competitive call, but it's a really difficult business decision for a game like hearthstone. Magic manages to sell packs of standard every year, in part because it's fun to draft, in part because they add chase rares even to their base set sometimes. But I'm not sure Hearthstone could handle that without losing a ton of players due to anger. And if they just gave out the entire core set for free every time they rotated it, Blizzard would be dedicating a ton of design time and maybe art and programming resources to something they knew from the start wouldn't bring them in any money. If you were a game director at Blizzard and you wanted to make that kind of resource decision, you'd need to be able to justify how it would retain players long-term and eventually make more money than the costs you're committing to it.

I can't say I see how it would be worse for keeping people in the long-term than what they're doing now. As a pretty casual player (I still do not have a single golden hero, despite playing since before they were even in the game), I'd certainly rather have that than have them continuously nerfing and Hall-of-Fame-ing actual classic cards, just to replace them with cards that are mostly junk. A classic set that's not allowed to be useful is no good to anyone, casual or competitive, and that seems to be the direction they've been heading in for years now, and it's accelerated recently.

[Gandariel]

I guess the anti secret guy and Whitemane are OK.

And I agree with everyone's point. "Enforcing class identity" means "don't you DARE try fun and unusual things like control hunter/rogue. It's bad and you're bad for thinking it".

Obviously there's a balance to strike there: too little class identity means all classes, and therefore all decks, are the same.
But dang.

[Seerow]

I guess the anti secret guy and Whitemane are OK.

And I agree with everyone's point. "Enforcing class identity" means "don't you DARE try fun and unusual things like control hunter/rogue. It's bad and you're bad for thinking it".

Obviously there's a balance to strike there: too little class identity means all classes, and therefore all decks, are the same.
But dang.

I mean... they spent several years pushing new cards specifically to push Control Hunter, and never nerfed/removed any of them. I don't think this means they're never going to support those archetypes.

It means they don't want cards to support those archetypes to be in the core sets. So when a new card comes out that does go against the standard class identity and offers an archetype dramatically different from what the class typically is, it feels special and different.


Edit: As another example, look at Shaman. They say its weakness is Card Draw/Generation. Right now in the currently available expansions, they have Card Generation coming out their ears, to the point of regularly running into hand size issues. None of these cards got nerfed or rotated early. Blizzard is content to leave that playstyle in the game for a while, and Shaman will return to its roots/core identity over time naturally with rotations.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I guess the anti secret guy and Whitemane are OK.

And I agree with everyone's point. "Enforcing class identity" means "don't you DARE try fun and unusual things like control hunter/rogue. It's bad and you're bad for thinking it".

Obviously there's a balance to strike there: too little class identity means all classes, and therefore all decks, are the same.
But dang.

A core problem here is that they're trying to create a Magic-style color pie, but they're trying to have no less than 9 "colors", and they're not allowing you to mix colors. So, two big things.

1: the slices of the pie are just coming off as arbitrary, like they drew stuff out of a hat
2: because you can't mix "colors", you're unable to cover the weaknesses of one color by splashing into another, making each color polarized

I'd be happy if every class had a standard core of fundamental universal abilities, each with a twist, like how they've printed different variations on a 2-mana 3 damage spell for various classes. Then you add strengths and weaknesses on top of that, especially in terms of offensive gameplay.

[The Glyphstone]

No one ran Flash of Light, and they make a worse version and expect it to be popular?

[Anarion]

No one ran Flash of Light, and they make a worse version and expect it to be popular?

It will be though. That card getting a lot of flack is because it's not helpful now (although it could actually push up the Miracle Priest win rate a little bit). But the next time they print something like Lyra or even more enablers for Chef Nomi, it will be sitting there helping to cycle and stall no matter what sets are in rotation.

[heronbpv]

Apparently, a teaser for the next expansion is out:

Spoiler

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and it involves the League of Explorers?

Video:

Spoiler

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[Zevox]

Apparently, a teaser for the next expansion is out:

Spoiler

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and it involves the League of Explorers?

Video:

Spoiler

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Makes sense. This year's sets are supposed to have a story that continues between them. So we start with Rise of Shadows, introducing the villains and their schemes - logically, next up we get the introduction of heroes who are to oppose them. With Rafaam being the leader of the villains, it wouldn't be surprising to have someone like Elise or Reno leading the heroes, possibly both of those two involved in the group.

[Spore]

I really hope for some "Indiana Jones spoof" action. Lorewise you have the minions of Commander Schnottz, a goblin "fashionist" from the Cataclysm Uldum questline where you help Reno uncover some Titan artifact.

Though honestly I hope to see some sort of "Azeroth Avengers" as a counter team. I enjoy "mirror groups" ala Linear Guild. Maybe second rate heroes that are not entangled in major questlines. People like Alonsius Faol as priest, Hamuul Runetotem as druid, or Nobundo as shaman.

[Zevox]

I really hope for some "Indiana Jones spoof" action. Lorewise you have the minions of Commander Schnottz, a goblin "fashionist" from the Cataclysm Uldum questline where you help Reno uncover some Titan artifact.

Though honestly I hope to see some sort of "Azeroth Avengers" as a counter team. I enjoy "mirror groups" ala Linear Guild. Maybe second rate heroes that are not entangled in major questlines. People like Alonsius Faol as priest, Hamuul Runetotem as druid, or Nobundo as shaman.

I think it's a safe bet that the classes the heroes will be assigned to will be the ones that the villains of Rise of Shadows weren't assigned to. So Mage, Paladin, Druid, and Hunter. I don't know what they are in WoW, but just from the little we've seen of them in Hearthstone, I could see Elise as the Mage and Reno as the Hunter, potentially.

[Hamste]

I am hoping Karl is somehow ok and makes an appearance in what ever the single player thing is for the next expansion.

[Rynjin]

I am hoping Karl is somehow ok and makes an appearance in what ever the single player thing is for the next expansion.

Agreed. I felt really melancholic playing George, dude's been through some rough ****. A happy ending for the two would be great.

[Zevox]

Hm, thinking about it, is it possible that the entire League of Explorers will be the heroes here? There are four of them, and you could maybe stretch it to fit the four classes. Elise for Mage, Reno for Hunter, Brann for Paladin, and Sir Finley for Druid, perhaps?

I think I'd prefer pulling a variety of heroes that we've seen in Hearthstone before, like they pulled a variety of villains for League of Shadows, but still, seems like it might be a possibility given the teaser.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Nah, Brann is definitely Hunter, that's his thing in WoW. Finley could be Paladin, he's got that aura.

[Zevox]

Nah, Brann is definitely Hunter, that's his thing in WoW. Finley could be Paladin, he's got that aura.

Eh, okay, but that would leave Reno for Druid, which doesn't seem right. I mean, I don't know anything about these characters in WoW, but from seeing them in Hearthstone it feels like Finley's the only one of the four who could fit that, and even he's a stretch, mostly going off his being a Murloc (and thus a fish-person, as opposed to the others all being standard humanoids).

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think I figured out why I pegged him for Paladin: being that he's "Sir Finley", he's an honest-to-goodness knight.

[Spore]

Whose gonna get next expansions DK you think? Thematically Hunter could make sense, balancingwise I hope it is a a Paladin DK.

With the nerf of Equality maybe something like the Titan effect that switches a targets stats to 3/3.

[Zevox]

Whose gonna get next expansions DK you think? Thematically Hunter could make sense, balancingwise I hope it is a a Paladin DK.

With the nerf of Equality maybe something like the Titan effect that switches a targets stats to 3/3.

You mean the Hero card? (Death Knights were the hero cards from Knights of the Frozen Throne specifically, not all hero cards.)

I'd say the only safe bet is that it won't be Warrior, Shaman, or Hunter, since they currently have one. Any of the others are candidates. Personally I hope there's multiple, especially since we got none in Rise of Shadows, which is my biggest disappointment with that set. I'd like to have more classes have those available to them than just the small batch we have from last year now.

[Rodin]

You mean the Hero card? (Death Knights were the hero cards from Knights of the Frozen Throne specifically, not all hero cards.)

I'd say the only safe bet is that it won't be Warrior, Shaman, or Hunter, since they currently have one. Any of the others are candidates. Personally I hope there's multiple, especially since we got none in Rise of Shadows, which is my biggest disappointment with that set. I'd like to have more classes have those available to them than just the small batch we have from last year now.

I'm the opposite, I find Hero cards in general to foster the "draw it and win" playstyle that I loathe. Let Hagatha and Boom rotate out and don't print any more.

I guess it would be okay to print them if they were lower power level, like on the order of the Shaman DK. Something that promotes a different play style without being overwhelmingly powerful like Boom is.

[Zevox]

I'm the opposite, I find Hero cards in general to foster the "draw it and win" playstyle that I loathe. Let Hagatha and Boom rotate out and don't print any more.

I guess it would be okay to print them if they were lower power level, like on the order of the Shaman DK. Something that promotes a different play style without being overwhelmingly powerful like Boom is.

Yeah, I completely disagree. Don't print anything on the level of power of Frost Lich Jaina, Deathstalker Rexxar, or Bloodreaver Gul'dan again, but Hagatha and Boom are perfectly fine. I very much want to see more like them, and have them around consistently. Hero cards are the most fun thing they've added to the game in a long time for me, it would be a damn shame to drop them.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Yeah, I do like what hero cards do, and honestly, there's a lot of parts of Hearthstone that suffer from the unmitigated draw dependence. Most decks have at least one card that you pretty much want/need to draw that's central to your gameplan, and a lot of matchups wind up being determined by which deck draws more of its key cards, or which player is more economical with their resources.

[Gandariel]

Eh, okay, but that would leave Reno for Druid, which doesn't seem right. I mean, I don't know anything about these characters in WoW, but from seeing them in Hearthstone it feels like Finley's the only one of the four who could fit that, and even he's a stretch, mostly going off his being a Murloc (and thus a fish-person, as opposed to the others all being standard humanoids).

Or Reno is neutral, and they add a new character for Druid?

[Zevox]

Or Reno is neutral, and they add a new character for Druid?

Eh, since they assigned a specific class to each of the villains, seems likely that they would for the heroes too. And if it's the full League of Explorers, it would be strange to have just one random extra person along with them.

Maybe it'll just be one or two of the League (Elise and Reno seeming like the big two, at least to my mind) plus some others, I could easily see that, and it would fit with the need for one to be Druid. Unless they don't make the heroes specifically be from the four classes that the villains weren't from, though it seems like the symmetry there is too good to pass up, IMO.

[Grytorm]

I think a weird and unlikely possibility would be adding something similar to the Gangs from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. Having some cards be Heroes or Villains and only available to a set of classes. Couldn't be too many though. Maybe Reno Jackson as a hero with some sort of discover related effect. No armor, battlecry if you have no duplicates return to full health, if not heal for half your missing health. 2 mana, discover a card from the past.

I recognize that that might be kind of broken.