Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

[heronbpv]

@Paladin's chances:
Video related:

Spoiler: Libram Pally with Alura

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Now, refine for a better curve. Or be me and imagine a highlander version, minus the lightforged package.

[Resileaf]

Remember how I said I couldn't reach legend rank a few days ago?

I just reached legend today, for the first time since I've started playing Hearthstone. :D

[Zevox]

So, I played some Battlegrounds for a couple of hours tonight, for the first time in months.

Somebody let me know when they nerf or remove Arcane Cannon from the game, because good god, that thing kills that mode's fun. It seems literally everyone picks it when it's offered, and it quickly became obvious why: it's ludicrously overpowered in the early and mid-game periods, turning what would otherwise be losses into wins, and what would be wins into crushing wins that cause a lot more damage. Battles can feel more decided by whether one player's cannon snipes their opponent's than anything else. It feels like the game now revolves around getting that card and having decent to good RNG with it in your matches just to have the chance to play beyond the early rounds, and even if you get there, it feels awful doing that to the poor saps you run over in the meantime. Yeah, it needs to be abandoned in the late-game because it just doesn't do enough at that point, but that is no excuse for it being this dominant before then.

Just, wow. I haven't seen anything that imbalanced in Battlegrounds since they first added King Bagurgle and Murlocs became the be-all, end-all of the mode until they nerfed a few of their other cards to compensate. Which isn't an option in this case since Arcane Cannon is a stand-alone card, not a build enabler - which honestly might make it worse, in some ways, despite Murlocs dominating every period of the game back then where the cannon only dominates the earlier periods now.

[Geno9999]

Remember how I said I couldn't reach legend rank a few days ago?

I just reached legend today, for the first time since I've started playing Hearthstone. :D

Ayy I also got first-time Legend on monday, my rank has been in the low 5000s to high 4000s range.

And I wasn't expecting to get Scholomance Academy packs from the end of month rewards, but hey I ain't complaining.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, the full Scholomance card list is out. I'm very disappointed that they didn't add a new Whizzbang/Zayle, I loved being able to just rando in a functional deck to get my 5 wins/month.

[Joran]

Remember how I said I couldn't reach legend rank a few days ago?

I just reached legend today, for the first time since I've started playing Hearthstone. :D

Congrats!

I didn't even reach Diamond this month and lost enough that my MMR is now the 10 star bonus ;_;

Just, wow. I haven't seen anything that imbalanced in Battlegrounds since they first added King Bagurgle and Murlocs became the be-all, end-all of the mode until they nerfed a few of their other cards to compensate. Which isn't an option in this case since Arcane Cannon is a stand-alone card, not a build enabler - which honestly might make it worse, in some ways, despite Murlocs dominating every period of the game back then where the cannon only dominates the earlier periods now.

Yeah, Cannon is annoying as heck. Battlegrounds meta feels weird in that it feels faster but also Murlocs are dominating the top-end. Good luck winning a lobby if Murlocs are available and you aren't going or transitioning to Murlocs.

[zlefin]

hehe, I love that scholomance animated video with the galakrond and the duel.

[Geno9999]

Mean Streets of Naxxramas 2: It's out too! is live!

Spoiler: Scholomance Fall 2020 is now in session

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Free Legendary: Disciplinarian Gandling

Results of 77 packs:

Legendaries: Infiltrator Lilian, Turalyon the Tenured, Forest Warden Omu, GOLDEN Doctor Krastinov, Keymaster Alabaster, Lord Barov

Epics: Guardian Animals, Krolusk Barkstrippper, Playmaker x2, Combustion, Enchanted Cauldron, Educated Elekk x2, Argent Braggart, Totem Goliath x2, Potion of Illusion, Ceremonial Maul, Cabal Acolyte, Secret Passage, Runic Carvings,

Notable Goldens: Demonic Companions, Troublemaker, Lightning Bloom, Magehunter, Cycle of Hatred, Raise Dead, Vore Snake Bloated Python, Gibberling.

All Rares and Commons acquired!

[Rodin]

This expansion has been bonkers so far.

Aggro Rogue drawing 10 cards for 2 mana, then hitting you in the face with a 10 damage weapon.

Tempo Mage casting a million spells followed by a couple of 15 damage Arcane Missiles.

Druid playing 10 mana worth of minions on turn 1.

Druid flooding their board on turn 1 and then Savage Roaring for lethal on turn 3 or 4.

There's a bunch of different viable decks, and the power level is through the roof. The only classes that feel a bit left out so far are Hunter and (ironically) Demon Hunter. Cycle of Revenge and Glide aren't even making it into most decks from what I've seen so far, and both classes are mostly sticking to refined versions of their old decks with a few new cards thrown in.

I can't help but feel like we're going to get some week 1 or 2 nerfs. Voracious Reader is going to get hit. I'll be surprised if Lightning Bloom doesn't get hit at some point too.

I managed to get my Druid games in early and lock my rank in at Diamond 10. That guarantees my end of season rewards, so I can play around with other decks now that people are adapting to the Druid madness. Yes, I have no shame.

[Geno9999]

Cycle of Revenge and Glide aren't even making it into most decks from what I've seen so far, and both classes are mostly sticking to refined versions of their old decks with a few new cards thrown in.

Not surprised about Cycle, Control and Token Demon Hunters seems like a pipe dream, and with how fast Aggro decks are with Voracious Reader you could very well be dead by turn 7.

Amusingly, I think Glide doesn't see play because there's so many Aggro archetypes enabled through Voracious Reader. To get the most of Voracious Reader, you build your deck with a very low curve (I've even seen lists on HSreplay where the highest cost card is 4 mana!) Because of that, it's extremely bad to play an outcasted Glide against them because you probably just gave them 5 cards of fuel. And if you don't want to outcast it, you need at least two cards (one on the left and one on the right) so it's at least 4 mana; shuffle 2 draw 4. Shuffle anymore and it feels worse than Plot Twist or just a straight draw like Arcane Intellect. And honestly, if you can run Glide, why not run Voracious Reader instead? 1 less draw overall, but it's 2 less mana and it's a body with soft-taunt.

Surprised that the Soul Fragment package for Demon Hunter hasn't had a bigger impact, though Soulshard Lapidary can be weirdly awkward on curve, especially following Marrowslicer. Sure, you got +5 attack on a 4 attack weapon so you really want to go face, but in the meanwhile your opponent probably played some minions. You really don't want to waste the 5 bonus damage overkilling a minion, and now you're wishing you either have a Glaivebound Adept to spread out the damage or that you've spent your last turn developing a board.

[Rodin]

Surprised that the Soul Fragment package for Demon Hunter hasn't had a bigger impact, though Soulshard Lapidary can be weirdly awkward on curve, especially following Marrowslicer. Sure, you got +5 attack on a 4 attack weapon so you really want to go face, but in the meanwhile your opponent probably played some minions. You really don't want to waste the 5 bonus damage overkilling a minion, and now you're wishing you either have a Glaivebound Adept to spread out the damage or that you've spent your last turn developing a board.

To paraphrase Trump, the problem is that the deck is "too fair". The package is decent and it upgrades previous Demon Hunter decks...which then get run over when their Druid opponent plays a 9/14 Kael'thas with Taunt on turn 3 (or "merely" plays two 5/4s with Rush that draw 4 cards). The Soul Fragment package slows down Demon Hunter right as all the other classes are accelerating as quickly as they can to beat Druids down.

[Eurus]

Jeez, was the Battlegrounds "perk package" always this bad? I feel like it used to be cheaper or have some kind of alternate unlock, but I don't quite remember. I'm trying to think if there's any worse way they could have possibly set it up.

It's a pay-to-win and pay-for-fun feature (twice as many heroes is both significantly more likely to get you one that you enjoy, and a pretty massive power boost); it costs a frankly silly amount of money (twenty dollars?!), and an almost as silly amount of gold. And then it gives you pop-ups after games saying "don't forget to buy perks!"

That's just... tacky. Egh.

[Zevox]

Jeez, was the Battlegrounds "perk package" always this bad? I feel like it used to be cheaper or have some kind of alternate unlock, but I don't quite remember. I'm trying to think if there's any worse way they could have possibly set it up.

It's a pay-to-win and pay-for-fun feature (twice as many heroes is both significantly more likely to get you one that you enjoy, and a pretty massive power boost); it costs a frankly silly amount of money (twenty dollars?!), and an almost as silly amount of gold. And then it gives you pop-ups after games saying "don't forget to buy perks!"

That's just... tacky. Egh.

I think it used to give one more Arena Ticket than it does now (pretty sure the first one was 5 tickets, and this one was 4), but otherwise, nope, this is what it's been. Honestly works fine if you're only interested in Battlegrounds, since it's not hard to build the 2500 gold off arena (using those tickets) or Wild games (since you don't need to win games to complete quests anymore), but for anyone trying to play the regular game and Battlegrounds, yeah, it's awful. I'm sure I'd have been complaining about it like crazy if I hadn't quit the standard game just before they implemented it.

[Eurus]

I think it used to give one more Arena Ticket than it does now (pretty sure the first one was 5 tickets, and this one was 4), but otherwise, nope, this is what it's been. Honestly works fine if you're only interested in Battlegrounds, since it's not hard to build the 2500 gold off arena (using those tickets) or Wild games (since you don't need to win games to complete quests anymore), but for anyone trying to play the regular game and Battlegrounds, yeah, it's awful. I'm sure I'd have been complaining about it like crazy if I hadn't quit the standard game just before they implemented it.

Yeah, it doesn't help that I really don't like arena and resent having an entirely different game mode tacked onto the "battlegrounds perks" to increase/justify the price.

[zlefin]

Jeez, was the Battlegrounds "perk package" always this bad? I feel like it used to be cheaper or have some kind of alternate unlock, but I don't quite remember. I'm trying to think if there's any worse way they could have possibly set it up.

It's a pay-to-win and pay-for-fun feature (twice as many heroes is both significantly more likely to get you one that you enjoy, and a pretty massive power boost); it costs a frankly silly amount of money (twenty dollars?!), and an almost as silly amount of gold. And then it gives you pop-ups after games saying "don't forget to buy perks!"

That's just... tacky. Egh.

iirc there was a time where you could unlock it if you got 30+ packs of the most recent set. That worked even if you got them with gold. It was nice; of course it meant alot of people didn't have to pay for anything so it didn't really provide a revenue stream.

[Zevox]

iirc there was a time where you could unlock it if you got 30+ packs of the most recent set. That worked even if you got them with gold. It was nice; of course it meant alot of people didn't have to pay for anything so it didn't really provide a revenue stream.

True, though at the time each of the "perks" was earned after a different amount of packs (stats at 10, something I'm forgettingemotes at 20, and third hero at the start at 30), so they weren't a package per se. And that was just for the first expansion after Battlegrounds launched, so it didn't last long.

Edit: remembered the part I was forgetting. Easy to see how I forgot though, I don't use emotes. Nor do most people, in my experience.

[Rynjin]

Blizzard really needs to rotate Frost Nova and Blizzard; I just got locked out of a game for 23 consecutive turns by a Tortollan Pilgrim Mage variant. That shouldn't happen. Even without that combo, there's a critical mass of freezes right now that makes for entirely non-interactive games. If they're going to keep printing more Freeze cards, they need to get rid of the old ones.

[Zevox]

Blizzard really needs to rotate Frost Nova and Blizzard; I just got locked out of a game for 23 consecutive turns by a Tortollan Pilgrim Mage variant. That shouldn't happen. Even without that combo, there's a critical mass of freezes right now that makes for entirely non-interactive games. If they're going to keep printing more Freeze cards, they need to get rid of the old ones.

Give them time, they seem to be intent on rotating or nerfing everything else worth playing in the Classic set, I'm sure they'll get around to it.

Been playing a lot of Battlegrounds lately, and had some fun runs. Honestly, if they were to do something about Arcane Cannon, this might be the overall best state that the mode has been in since launch. If, because Cannon sucks the fun right out of the mode whenever it pops up, which is definitely too frequently. Hell, in and of itself that makes me always hoping for Pirates to be the banned tribe, since apparently Cannon goes in their bucket despite not having any mechanical connection to them. (Actually, that makes me think a good way to nerf it might be to make it only trigger off attacks from Pirates - then it still gets to be powerful, but only in the right build. Retains its biggest synergy too, that tavern 1 Pirate that spawns a token that immediately attacks.)

A few notable Battlegrounds wins I've had lately that I took screenshots of and wanted to share:

Spoiler: Eudora gets me my best-ever Dragons and Pirates builds.

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I didn't actually play much after Dragons were added, so this is legitimately my first time pulling off a Kalecgos Dragons build. Escalated big time in the final turn too - both of those triples and both Nadinas were acquired then. And one of the Nadinas was from rolling, not one of the triples, which got me something useless.

My experiences trying to pull off Pirates builds has generally not been great. Ocassionally I get something that stomps a couple of players hard for a couple of turns, but then I fall off - I blame never getting more than one Hogger in other runs, mostly. Well, that and Pirates' lack of good buff battlecries and heavy dependence on hitting Ripsnarl Captain and Admiral Eliza to gain stats. But when those things come together, boy, can they destroy people. With this thing I was regularly hitting for 20+ damage, 30+ in some fights, including the final one, where I believe only the first Amalgadon died and I wound up dealing 38 damage.

Spoiler: My most unique build.

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I call it "Amalgadon is good." (You can't tell from the screenshot, but both of those had windfury, too.)

Seriously though, I love that card. Great addition to tier 6 - skill testing (temporarily drop a minion or two from a tribe you're not using to get more adapts), high reward (Divine Shield + Poisonous, now in every build!) but not overwhelming (hard to get huge stats on it, unless you're playing Murlocs and get Brann plus enough Bagurgles/Seers, but even that's unlikely since by the time you're getting 6-drops odds are you're going towards the endgame fast), and helps a build that's been too weak for too long more than others (Menagerie). It's like the opposite of Arcane Cannon, one of my favorite additions to the Battlegrounds ever.

[Rodin]

Blizzard really needs to rotate Frost Nova and Blizzard; I just got locked out of a game for 23 consecutive turns by a Tortollan Pilgrim Mage variant. That shouldn't happen. Even without that combo, there's a critical mass of freezes right now that makes for entirely non-interactive games. If they're going to keep printing more Freeze cards, they need to get rid of the old ones.

I had a less severe version of that happen to me in Arena. 7 turns in a row of him freezing my board, including 4 Blizzards.

Fortunately, my opponent was an idiot and cast Devolving Missiles into his own freeze. I'm still not sure what he expected to happen!

You all know my opinions on the Classic set by now, so just insert those opinions here. I miss the period when Arena excluded Classic. It made for some truly unique games and totally changed the Arena meta. Sadly, they rarely change the Arena rotation these days and we've been stuck in Standard for what feels like forever.

[Divayth Fyr]

Been playing a lot of Battlegrounds lately, and had some fun runs. Honestly, if they were to do something about Arcane Cannon, this might be the overall best state that the mode has been in since launch. If, because Cannon sucks the fun right out of the mode whenever it pops up, which is definitely too frequently.

Good news. Cannon will be axed soon, alongside the Megasaur.

Other Battlegrounds changes include:

• Rabid Saurolisk buffed to a 4/2 (from 3/2)
• Rat Pack moved to tier 3
• Pack Leader moved to tier 2
• Macaw buffed to a 4/3 (from 3/2)
• Primalfin Lookout moved to tier 4, can only discover from current tier or lower
• Nat Pagle changed to: After this attacks and kills a minion, add a random minion to your hand.
• Mama Bear moved to tier 5, changed to a 4/4 that gives +4/+4
• Goldrinn now gives +5/+5
• Eudora needs 5 digs (was 4)
• Reno's power changed to 0 cost
• Lich King's power changed to 0 cost
• Galakrond's power now freezes the minion

[Hamste]

I am a bit sad that they completely removed megasaur. I think poisonous should just not have been an option so you couldn't make a perfect build with it easily.

[Rodin]

Saurolisk change seems inconsequential.

I like swapping Rat Pack and Pack Leader. You often don't want to go for Rat Pack unless you have a Pack Leader ready to go, so this makes it more possible to plan out a build. Beasts have often felt like a build you stumble into rather than one you build from early minions. This should help. Mama Bear moving to 5 is also something that needed to happen. Beasts had no less than FOUR tier 6 units and only one unit on tier 5. Mama moving to 5 will allow them to compete again now that Goldryn is on 6.

Macaw change also seems kinda pointless. I don't know that I've ever cared about the stats on Macaw - it's all about whether it gets to go first or not. The buff would make it survive a cannon shot, but cannon is gone.

Pagle seems kinda worthless now. He gives you a minion in hand, but it's totally random. That's not great for a 5 star champ. Maybe if he gave a random Pirate he'd be good? It also seems unnecessary - Pagle wasn't the strongest Pirate in the world anyway, and the only reason for changing him is to stop hilarious RNG moments like him summoning a Golden Boat.

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Removing Megasaur is huge. The invulnerability of lategame Mulocs entirely hinged on that champ. It wasn't just poison - Murlocs could often outscale the other tribes enough to be competitive on pure stats, and THEN get Divine Shield on top of that. Murlocs remain the only tribe with globally available poison, so you can still do some nasty things.

Moving Primalfin Lookout down a tier is also pretty huge. It gives Murlocs a major boost in the mid-game, as they can still discover Felfins and Seers. Once you tavern up to level 5 it returns to its usual power, which means that there is no lost power for the card either.

I like what they've done here. They've moved Murlocs power to a bit earlier in the game while stripping them of their lategame absurdity. I'm not good enough at BGs to say whether it's good enough (or too much), but I like what I see.

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Eudora getting nerfed was expected and welcomed.

The other heroes I'm a bit surprised about. Lich King and Reno weren't the strongest heroes, but I didn't think they were as weak as the likes of Bartendotron and Akazamzarak.

Vashj getting removed is unsurprising. I played her recently and was shocked by how useless she is. She needs reworking.

I would have liked a more comprehensive tightening of the heroes. There's still a large subset of "best" heroes that everybody picks, and a better set of buffs to the low ranked ones could open up the playing space a bit.

[Stevesciguy]

Blizzard really needs to rotate Frost Nova and Blizzard; I just got locked out of a game for 23 consecutive turns by a Tortollan Pilgrim Mage variant. That shouldn't happen. Even without that combo, there's a critical mass of freezes right now that makes for entirely non-interactive games. If they're going to keep printing more Freeze cards, they need to get rid of the old ones.

Give them time, they seem to be intent on rotating or nerfing everything else worth playing in the Classic set, I'm sure they'll get around to it.

You all know my opinions on the Classic set by now, so just insert those opinions here. I miss the period when Arena excluded Classic. It made for some truly unique games and totally changed the Arena meta. Sadly, they rarely change the Arena rotation these days and we've been stuck in Standard for what feels like forever.

You all might be interested to know then that there's a planned revamp of the entire classic and basic sets:

We're currently looking at the Basic and Classic set in its entirety. Hearthstone has changed a lot in the last six years and we're researching what a more modern take on Basic and Classic looks like.
-Ben

Other snippets from that thread suggest it's planned to come out with the new year(whether that's new calendar year or new hearthstone year I'm unsure)

Source

[Hamste]

I would argue it isn't bad that murlocs can out scale late game. They do have difficulties getting to late game as none of their low tier units are that good. They have tidehunter which is a big pick early, rest of tier 1s are pretty bad when compared to things like hyena, wrath weaver and whelp all which scale better very early on than their unit. Tier two they are outshined by kaboom bot, overseer, Rabid Saurolisk metal tooth leaper and now packleader. Tier three we finally start getting good units for scaling their things, though the units themselves are low stats for their tier and the subpar nature of their earlier murlocs means you are probably still behind. Tier 4 used to be a joke for murlocs (No one ever bought toxfin and there was no other minion) primal fin is now a great thing for tier 4 and tox fin might help. Your minions are still probably behind though you might finally start over coming opponents. Tier 5 is where murlocs finally take off as Brann and the King becomes available. Murlocs as a whole basically are a late game build, you will lose a lot of health using them early game.

It isn't much of a problem if tier six murlocs get divine shields, it is parody with both mechs and dragons. Mechs scale worse but they are a mid game build and dragons can rarely scale better than murlocs and can get multiple divine shield (They also have better earlier units than murlocs). The problem is that murlocs would suddenly just jump in power. Someone could just play one thing the entire game and then quickly transition into murlocs just with a brann, a megasaur and some random murlocs they picked up or you could just lose constantly because your stats were low then get poisonous and divine shield to start winning. If you just removed poisonous from megasaur options then you still get another good scaler for murlocs and they can still parody other late game builds and even later game they can still get poisonous from Toxfin giving them the best latest game.

Removing Megasaur though, removes a lot of utility from late game murlocs. The only thing murlocs did well was late game so there is a good chance we will see murlocs basically die off in the battlegrounds. Maybe a resurgence in dragons as the best late game build?

[Zevox]

You all might be interested to know then that there's a planned revamp of the entire classic and basic sets:

We're currently looking at the Basic and Classic set in its entirety. Hearthstone has changed a lot in the last six years and we're researching what a more modern take on Basic and Classic looks like.
-Ben

Other snippets from that thread suggest it's planned to come out with the new year(whether that's new calendar year or new hearthstone year I'm unsure)

I mean, in a strictly academic sense I guess that's interesting to know, but I doubt it'll ever matter to me. They've already lost me on non-Battlegrounds Hearthstone aside from the minimum I need to play to build gold for the Tavern Pass each expansion, and I doubt they can get me back. I certainly don't trust them to do a good job with anything they do with the Classic set anymore. I honestly made that remark just because I'm still a little bitter about how they've handled it and felt like being snarky.

Good news. Cannon will be axed soon,

Yay!

alongside the Megasaur.

No!

Damn it, I like Murlocs as the high-risk, high-reward build, don't remove that!

Other Battlegrounds changes include:

• Rabid Saurolisk buffed to a 4/2 (from 3/2)
• Rat Pack moved to tier 3
• Pack Leader moved to tier 2
• Macaw buffed to a 4/3 (from 3/2)
• Primalfin Lookout moved to tier 4, can only discover from current tier or lower
• Nat Pagle changed to: After this attacks and kills a minion, add a random minion to your hand.
• Mama Bear moved to tier 5, changed to a 4/4 that gives +4/+4
• Goldrinn now gives +5/+5
• Eudora needs 5 digs (was 4)
• Reno's power changed to 0 cost
• Lich King's power changed to 0 cost
• Galakrond's power now freezes the minion

Well. Okay, thoughts:

- Saurolisk change is entirely pointless. If they want to buff that, they should've buffed its health, not its attack.
- Macaw change is minor at best. It's still playable for the effect, and such a small stat buff won't really change much about how, when, and why you use it.
- The Pack Leader and Rat Pack change is okay, I think. Makes Deathwing sad, but hey, I've never liked him anyway, so whatever.
- Primalfin change is a mixed bag. Reducing its tavern tier indeed might help make Murlocs more consistent by giving something actually good on Tavern 4, plus it means there will be more of them in the pool overall. On the flip side, it means it can no longer discover Amalgadon until you actually go to Tavern 6, which is a definite nerf, and it's notably less good on tavern 4 since you're unlikely to have Brann at that point and he now also can't get Bagurgle if you're still on that tier. We'll have to see how that shakes out.
--I will say that I don't think that removing Megasaur will completely kill Murlocs as a build, partially because of this, but also partially just because they've always had one other big advantage over other tribes: the fact that most of their buffs apply to your whole board, not just one minion. The only other tribe that gets that is Dragons, and only once they find Kalecgos, a tavern 6 minion. (And Demons when you're Jaraxxus, but since he's limited to passing out +1/+1 to everything once per turn, that's a lot less powerful than Murlocs/Kalecgos.) So they can still get huge stats on their whole board faster than anyone else, if things come together, which is not nothing.
- ...really with this Nat Pagle change? I mean, I'm no fan of getting randomly beaten by a high roll random golden either, but come on. If you're going to do this, at least drop his stats a touch and reduce his tavern tier so he's more usable. As-is, I think this basically kills him.
- Mamma Bear & Goldrin: well, beasts did need something ever since the Goldrin nerf, and this is something. I don't think the Goldrin change matters much, but Mamma Bear might. Personally I'd have preferred if they'd just remove Monstrous Macaw and put Goldrin back on tier 5, but sure, let's try this instead for a bit, see how it works.
- Eudora change isn't terribly surprising. Honestly she'll probably still be a fun hero to play even with this, and less likely to suddenly murder everyone after turn 4, since people will be further along when she does power spike now.
- Reno change honestly probably doesn't make that much of a difference I'd wager, since his thing is always just finding something that's actually worth using that hero power on before he dies, but it's welcome I'd say. Seriously doubt it makes him OP now or anything.
- The Lich King change could actually be very big. He's always had a few things he could do that were pretty potent with that hero power, especially since it became targeted, but with it costing 0 so he can now always use it he's suddenly a lot better. He'll be almost unbeatable in the early game, especially if he finds a Spawn of N'zoth, and early game advantages tend to make for strong heroes, since it means you're a lot more likely to survive to the late game.
- Galakrond change may or may not be big. It certainly helps him, since the whole way most people tried to use him was to keep using his power on one minion to get an early tier 5 or 6 anyway, and this makes that a lot more viable because you don't need to freeze the whole board of potentially otherwise bad minions to do it, so you're undermining your early game less... but you're still undermining it, because you're spending 1 gold every turn for 5 or 6 turns to get one hopefully-amazing minion. So yeah, he might still suck, just less so than he currently does.

Oh, and removing Lady Vashj is a good call, she sucked and wasn't even fun to try to play.

[Rodin]

I've decided I love the change to Murlocs. I've just had three runs back to back that wouldn't have happened before the patch.

1) I carried a Mech build all the way to a first place. Previously, 4 players would have gone Murlocs and the surviving one would have crushed me.

2) I used Mr. Bigglesworth and converted a failed Mech build into a Goldgrubber menagerie. My opponent was Murlocs, but without Divine Shield the final rounds were actually fair. He won the first round, then my Goldgrubbers outscaled him and I won the second to win the match.

3) Full Pirates with Patches, with multiple Goldgrubbers again. I was comfortable until I ran into Bran as my final opponent. Ordinarily, Bran + Murlocs allows a trained monkey to win. With the change, he took a different tack: He went full Pogo. It was monstrous Goldgrubbers on one side and monstrous Pogos on the other. We several rounds, and pre-patch somebody would have just quick-changed to Poison + Divine Shield Murlocs and won easily. As it was, he went Divine Shield from Selfless Hero/Annoy-o-Module and and I replaced my weaker Pirates with Poison Beasts. It was back and forth for about 4-5 rounds as we adjusted our comps to try and squeeze out the one additional trade. His Divine Shields won out in the end.

It's so freaking nice having other builds show up again. Maybe the high ranks are more diverse, but the 5-6K ranks were full of Murlocs wherever they appeared, and the winner was invariably whoever managed to stabilize their Murlocs in the mid-game. I'm now seeing full Demon builds, Parrot/Goldryn builds, standard Beast builds...even Pogohoppers. It's been a massive improvement so far. The lack of cannons helps a ton too.

[Zevox]

I've decided I love the change to Murlocs. I've just had three runs back to back that wouldn't have happened before the patch.

1) I carried a Mech build all the way to a first place. Previously, 4 players would have gone Murlocs and the surviving one would have crushed me.

2) I used Mr. Bigglesworth and converted a failed Mech build into a Goldgrubber menagerie. My opponent was Murlocs, but without Divine Shield the final rounds were actually fair. He won the first round, then my Goldgrubbers outscaled him and I won the second to win the match.

3) Full Pirates with Patches, with multiple Goldgrubbers again. I was comfortable until I ran into Bran as my final opponent. Ordinarily, Bran + Murlocs allows a trained monkey to win. With the change, he took a different tack: He went full Pogo. It was monstrous Goldgrubbers on one side and monstrous Pogos on the other. We several rounds, and pre-patch somebody would have just quick-changed to Poison + Divine Shield Murlocs and won easily. As it was, he went Divine Shield from Selfless Hero/Annoy-o-Module and and I replaced my weaker Pirates with Poison Beasts. It was back and forth for about 4-5 rounds as we adjusted our comps to try and squeeze out the one additional trade. His Divine Shields won out in the end.

It's so freaking nice having other builds show up again. Maybe the high ranks are more diverse, but the 5-6K ranks were full of Murlocs wherever they appeared, and the winner was invariably whoever managed to stabilize their Murlocs in the mid-game. I'm now seeing full Demon builds, Parrot/Goldryn builds, standard Beast builds...even Pogohoppers. It's been a massive improvement so far. The lack of cannons helps a ton too.

I'm the opposite - kind of worried about it. I've played two games so far, one of which being one where I went Murlocs with Brann. I came in third, though I don't think Megasaur would've changed that, as it had more to do with other people high-rolling, and I only got a single chance to acquire a tier-6 minion anyway. What worries me about it though is that it really didn't feel like the change to Primalfin was helping that much. Now, granted, I didn't get Primalfin until I was on 5, but I did get more Felfins/Seers on tier 3 and 4 than normal (only partially thanks to Brann's hero power, some was just luck), and those are basically what you want out of Primalfin if you're finding him on 4. Yet I still had that mid-game period where I just got beat on by everyone, until I got to 5 and pulled a Brann and some Bagurgles. So it's feeling like Murlocs' risk hasn't changed much, if at all, but the big reward for going for them is no longer there, which is very concerning. Sure, they can still get big stats, but if they're still usually making it to the late game low on health, all it takes is one bad match for them to fail, and they'll be a lot more prone to that now without Divine Shields as a possibility.

And yeah, sounds like you were just experiencing an oddity of your rank. I'm in the low-mid 8k range, and you just didn't see people going Murlocs too much there, because trying to use them through the mid-game often leads to a low finish, since other builds (especially Mechs, Demons, and slightly later on Pirates but for much more damage) will stomp all over you until you get their late-game power going (also any canon build previously, of course). You were more likely to see someone transition to Murlocs via Brann/Kadgar + tokens into Megasaur off triples, or Brann + Primalfins for a ton of Murlocs in a single turn, and sometimes those just failed because they didn't get Megasaur, didn't get Divine Shield + Poison off Megasaur, or didn't get enough Bagurgles or triples off Primalfins.

Basically, Murlocs were a high-risk, high-reward build. Now, it feels questionable whether the risk has been lowered enough to compensate for the significantly lowered reward. Though hey, that is based off just one game, so maybe I'm worried over nothing.

[Rodin]

I'm the opposite - kind of worried about it. I've played two games so far, one of which being one where I went Murlocs with Brann. I came in third, though I don't think Megasaur would've changed that, as it had more to do with other people high-rolling, and I only got a single chance to acquire a tier-6 minion anyway. What worries me about it though is that it really didn't feel like the change to Primalfin was helping that much. Now, granted, I didn't get Primalfin until I was on 5, but I did get more Felfins/Seers on tier 3 and 4 than normal (only partially thanks to Brann's hero power, some was just luck), and those are basically what you want out of Primalfin if you're finding him on 4. Yet I still had that mid-game period where I just got beat on by everyone, until I got to 5 and pulled a Brann and some Bagurgles. So it's feeling like Murlocs' risk hasn't changed much, if at all, but the big reward for going for them is no longer there, which is very concerning. Sure, they can still get big stats, but if they're still usually making it to the late game low on health, all it takes is one bad match for them to fail, and they'll be a lot more prone to that now without Divine Shields as a possibility.

And yeah, sounds like you were just experiencing an oddity of your rank. I'm in the low-mid 8k range, and you just didn't see people going Murlocs too much there, because trying to use them through the mid-game often leads to a low finish, since other builds (especially Mechs, Demons, and slightly later on Pirates but for much more damage) will stomp all over you until you get their late-game power going (also any canon build previously, of course). You were more likely to see someone transition to Murlocs via Brann/Kadgar + tokens into Megasaur off triples, or Brann + Primalfins for a ton of Murlocs in a single turn, and sometimes those just failed because they didn't get Megasaur, didn't get Divine Shield + Poison off Megasaur, or didn't get enough Bagurgles or triples off Primalfins.

Basically, Murlocs were a high-risk, high-reward build. Now, it feels questionable whether the risk has been lowered enough to compensate for the significantly lowered reward. Though hey, that is based off just one game, so maybe I'm worried over nothing.

It's possible that Blizzard is simply catering to the majority of the population. The most recent breakdown I could find for Battlegrounds was 6 months ago, but that indicated that your rank and above is only 0.1%. My ranking of high 5000s would be in the top 20%.

Even if Murlocs were perfectly balanced it may not have been good for the format as a whole to have such a over the top powerful endgame tribe. It feels bad to get crushed by Murlocs game after game, and fixing that might have been more important than making the perfect "pro experience".

All of this is anecdotal however. Without Blizzard making a statement it's impossible to know what the actual stats were that drove them to make this change.

[Rynjin]

From my (extremely intermittent) play time and watching streamers play a lot of Battlegrounds, I never saw the "high risk" part of Murlocs. It's exceptionally rare to see a top 4 without Murlocs in it, because the comp absolutely steamrolls most other comps. When the winning idea for most streamers I've seen is "level, stabilize in the midgame, and pivot to Murlocs" as the optimal strat EVERY GAME to the point that the people in the Twitch chats complain about how boring Battlegrounds is because nearly every game is the exact same (unless circumstances make the pivot inadvisable, on rare occasions), you know you have a problem.

[Zevox]

It's possible that Blizzard is simply catering to the majority of the population. The most recent breakdown I could find for Battlegrounds was 6 months ago, but that indicated that your rank and above is only 0.1%. My ranking of high 5000s would be in the top 20%.

If that's true, I would have to conclude that most people just don't play Battlegrounds very much, because it's really not hard to get up over 5k rank. Especially since rankings never reset. I mean, I only play intermittently myself - hell, I only recently started playing again after about three months of not playing at all - and still got to this rank. And 5k is only 1k above the starting rank IIRC, and with the amount of rank you can gain from a win and the forgiving nature of the mode awarding you a win of some degree as long as you hit 4th and lesser losses the higher above 8th that you place, you need to lose a lot not to gain points at least slowly.

From my (extremely intermittent) play time and watching streamers play a lot of Battlegrounds, I never saw the "high risk" part of Murlocs. It's exceptionally rare to see a top 4 without Murlocs in it, because the comp absolutely steamrolls most other comps. When the winning idea for most streamers I've seen is "level, stabilize in the midgame, and pivot to Murlocs" as the optimal strat EVERY GAME to the point that the people in the Twitch chats complain about how boring Battlegrounds is because nearly every game is the exact same (unless circumstances make the pivot inadvisable, on rare occasions), you know you have a problem.

That "extremely intermittent" part is likely the issue there, because yes, there's a lot of risk. You get run over in the mid-game unless you're quite lucky, and if you just don't find the right things very quickly after hitting rank 5, you tend to just die and be one of the first players out of the match. And if you're trying to do the transition it takes finding and buying a lot of specific minions, so if it doesn't come together just right, you're dead (though in that case you're more likely to have snuck into top 4 in the meantime, depending on how you handled it, which is why it was how most higher-ranked players did Murlocs).

Also might matter who you're watching and what rank they're at, as well as whether you're watching the actual streams or Youtube videos (where they only seem to bother to upload the wins).