Hearthstone 17: Disco isn't Dead!

[Zevox]

Welcome to seventeenth 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, so if you're interested, give it a shot. You've got nothing to lose but your free time.

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. 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:

Spoiler

Show

GitP Username	Battle.net ID (US)
aethernox	ethernox#1948
AgentPaper	AgentPaper#1193
AmberVael	AmberVael#1225
Anarion	Anarion55#1254
Antonok	Antonok#1704
Anxe	GoCorral#1879
Baelot	Baelot#1149
Cogwheel	OmegaNixon#1123
banthesun	banthesun#1782
Dancing Owlbear	Owlbear#1586
Destro Yersul	DestroYersul#1239
D_Lord	Volrock#1367
Duck999	Duck999#1349
Duos	DoctorDapper#1491
Firedaemon33	Firedaemon#1486
flat_footed	Hiigara#1357
Fleeing Coward	Scorch#1432
GAAD	GAAD#1126
Gaelbert	SamHouston#1563
Gamerlord	Gamerlord#1612
Gandariel	Ciabatta#2958
Ganorenas	Ganorenas#1457
Gomipile	Glodd#1784
Gray Mage	GrayMage#1723
Grytorm	Grytorm#1777
Hamste	Theorules#1234
Haruspex_Pariah	HaruspexPari#1254
Hatevah	Hatevah#1405
heronbpv	Avan#1991
Hircine	IllusiveMan#1616
jindra34	JinRia #1770
Johnjimco	JohnJimco#1482
Karoht	Karoht#1505
Kish	Grazzt#1417
Krade	Krade#1266
LegoShrimp	legoshrimp#1722
Landis963	Landis963#1789
Loreweaver15	Loreweaver#1199
Lunix Vandal	LunixVandal#1952
MacGiolla	MacGiolla#1982
MathMage	MathMage#1797
MCerberus	MCerberus#1734
mistformsquirrl	mistformsqrl#1430
moosabi	Moossabi#1325
Mystic Muse	NSFJunkblade#1400
Neon Knight	VultureCrook#1434
Neriractor	neriractor#1483
Nerocite	JoeKage#1852
nhbdy	Nohbdy#1927
Olinser	Olinser#1393
Onionbreath	GiantSquid#1845
OrcusMcP	Orcus#1805
otakuryoga	Scootaloo#1471
Pokonic	pokonic#1166
PsyBomb	PsyBomb#1878
Qwertystop	Qwertystop#1897
r2d2go	r2d2go#1262
Rodin	Rodin#1811
Rosstin	Rosstin#1609
SamBurke	SamBurke#1486
Shishnarfne	Gruschenka#1375
Sholos	Veebeebee#1383
Stabbity Rabbit	StabityRabit#1362
Temotei	Temotei#1507
Tesla_pasta	teslapasta#1973
Thanatos 51-50	Thanatos5150#1407
TheGlyphstone	Glyphstone#1419
The Hellbug	thehellbug#1216
The_Jackal	TheJackal#1499
Togarth	Asparag#1680
Trouble Brewing	HairyPoppins#1949
UserClone	UserClone #1545
Volatar	Volatar#1750
Yael	Urashima#1810
Yana	Raltis#1807
ZeroNumerous	ZeroNumerous#1913
Zevox	Zevox#1522
Zmek	JadeReaver #1783

GitP Username	Battle.net ID (EU)
Adumbration	Adumbration#2419
Aran Thule	AranThule#2780
Avaris	Avaris#2378
Avilan the Grey	Beardedgeek#2355
Beelzebub1111	SirArthurIV#1244
boomwolf	BoomWolf#1169
Dada	Scrattlebear#2863
D-naras	Dinos #2811
Epinephrine_Syn	SilverSeraph #2931
Fleeing Coward	Scorch#1432
Frog Dragon	Vasemmasti#2618
FyreByrd	FyreByrd#2962
Gandariel	Ciabatta#2958
GolemsVoice	CrazyCat#29897
Hewhosaysfish	HeWhoSezFish#2503
Hippie_Viking	HippieViking#2866
Infernally Clay	Winny#1904
Jormengand	Trianna#2529
Lionheart	Lionheart#2440
Mr.Silver	SilverSmiles#2462
Murmaider	Murmaider#2273
Posca	Mazura#2636
Raddish	Raddish#2730
ScionoftheVoid	JayPsi#2775
ShinyRocks	MoodyTuskarr#2790
Sian	Sian#2690
Silfir	Silfir#2863
SlyGuyMcFly	SlGuyMcFly#2562
Tokay	Tokay#2518
Tome	Taejix#2836
Volthawk	Volthawk#1214
Weimann	Weimann#2716
Wraith	Illusionist#2224
Xiander	Xiander#2814

[flat_footed]

My number was never updated, it's 1357.

[Yael]

I hadn't noticed that I weren't in the list

Urashima#1810 in the US Server

I accept adds~

[Zevox]

My number was never updated, it's 1357.

Actually, it looks like what went wrong with yours was just a broken tag - sorry. It's fixed now.

[flat_footed]

Actually, it looks like what went wrong with yours was just a broken tag - sorry. It's fixed now.

Ahh, ok. Thanks!

[Destro_Yersul]

You run into the craziest stuff down at the lower ranks. I just came across an old-school face hunter. I thought Reno had killed all of those!

[turbo164]

Woo I named a thread!

Also, Wronchi continues to entertain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gulNsbnLeak

[Nerocite]

Ben Brode talks about Purify. Good news is that it will not show up in arena, and they may change card frequency in arena independent of rarity in the future.

[Rodin]

Ben Brode talks about Purify. Good news is that it will not show up in arena, and they may change card frequency in arena independent of rarity in the future.

I do respect that he came out and addressed the community about it. I think the main criticism still stands (and is one that he admits to in the video) - that if Purify had come out in a full expansion with a lot of cards pushing the power of Priest, nobody would have cared. It's a bad card, and bad cards happen. The issue is it being one of only 3 cards that Priest gets this adventure, and that really heightens the criticism. I do disagree with one thing he said though - he mentioned Majordomo Executus as a comparison "fun" card that isn't good but provides lots of chances for fun times.

The big difference with Majordomo is that he is NEUTRAL. No one class gets screwed over by his release, and as an Adventure card his existence doesn't even make people who get him randomly as a Legendary in a pack sad. There are Legendaries like that in this release too - Prince Malchezar and Moroes have both been brought up as cards that aren't good enough to see play, but nobody is upset about that because they are neutral minions. Anyone can build a deck around them and they don't affect the class power dynamics.

If Blizzard wants to push decktypes, that's fine, but they should either do so for classes that are already in a good spot, or do so in a full expansion where you can push for the decktype with one hand and balance with the other. Or just do so with Neutral minions, like all the Menagerie stuff that's hitting with this expansion (or as an even better example, Reno Jackson).

[Kish]

It won't show up in arena? Huh. Never heard that about a card before.

[Seerow]

Honestly, the biggest issue with Purify is that it's a spell. Brode makes a fair point about a 1 mana card cycle with any effect will get run just for the free card draw. So the question is "Why are we putting this effect on a card with draw?".


Seriously imagine if instead of Purify we had something like "Purifying Acolyte" 2 mana 2/3 that silences a friendly minion. Gives you a choice to play it as a semi-decent early game drop in a pinch, or use it as a combo card later in the game with minions with bad effects. (bonus points if they also add in a powerful 1 drop for priest with a mitigating effect to potentially combo with it.)

As an aside I think it would be interesting if Silence persisted even after death, so you could have things like Resurrect combo with this deck type; where you summon a monster with a bad drawback, silence it, then when it dies you resurrect it already silenced. (As an aside if the new resurrect minion is in fact random, I feel like making Resurrect a discover effect where you can pick 1 of 3 random dead minions it would be pretty helpful).

Still wouldn't do anything to solve the core priest issues (to my understanding they're far too combo driven and reactionary as it is), but could be an interesting addition rather than a waste of space.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

It won't show up in arena? Huh. Never heard that about a card before.

The C'thun cards are also blocked from Arena because they didn't want to confuse players.

Basically, in this case, they're rushing out a patch on the big gaping wound that is Priest in Arena.

[boomwolf]

Still not enough.
It's a digital format, if you admit a card us utter trash before it's even released, fix the damn thing.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Still not enough.
It's a digital format, if you admit a card us utter trash before it's even released, fix the damn thing.

On the one hand, I can understand if they don't feel they're able to test the card enough to release a fixed version. But on the other hand, they no doubt have a number of weeks before the Priest wing releases.

Of course, this is probably a consequence of their no-patch philosophy. If they get the balance wrong ahead-of-time and release it in a too-powerful state, they won't patch the card with a slight nerf because they've refused to do that.

Also, what was wrong with Priest having access to a 1-mana cantrip with a possibly-beneficial effect? Cycling is a neat effect to give a class.

[Rodin]

Still not enough.
It's a digital format, if you admit a card us utter trash before it's even released, fix the damn thing.

They revealed it too late for that. The card would have to

A) Put it back into Design to re-form it into a decent card.

B) Run it through playtesting to make sure the new card isn't utterly broken (or even more worthless than Purify)

C) Run it through QA testing to make sure that no new bugs were introduced with the new card.

This would take several weeks at a minimum, more probably a couple months. Essentially, they would need to not release the card, and they can't even replace it with anything because even cards in development won't have gone through step C.

So as bad as it is, releasing it and admitting its garbage is still marginally less bad than yanking it and leaving Priest with only two cards.

Basically, Blizzard screwed up big-time. They misread the mood of the community, and have to suffer the hit. Hopefully it'll be a learning experience for them.

[Sian]

If there were more cards with either a bad deathrattle (Zombie Chow and Corrupted Healbot is the only one that springs to mind ... Dancing Swords would as well, if Mill decks weren't a thing) or a bad native magical effect (are there any of those?), it wouldn't be that bad ... only useful in niche decks sure, but not nearly as bad as it looks to be.

The easy cop-out, which would remove the 'Friendly' target, would make to to close to Silence IMO

[boomwolf]

They revealed it too late for that. The card would have to

A) Put it back into Design to re-form it into a decent card.

B) Run it through playtesting to make sure the new card isn't utterly broken (or even more worthless than Purify)

C) Run it through QA testing to make sure that no new bugs were introduced with the new card.

This would take several weeks at a minimum, more probably a couple months. Essentially, they would need to not release the card, and they can't even replace it with anything because even cards in development won't have gone through step C.

So as bad as it is, releasing it and admitting its garbage is still marginally less bad than yanking it and leaving Priest with only two cards.

Basically, Blizzard screwed up big-time. They misread the mood of the community, and have to suffer the hit. Hopefully it'll be a learning experience for them.

It takes zero testing to ensure there are no bugs in a simple fix like mana cost or changing the silence to any minion.

And I don't believe any playtesting was made to begin with if this card made it to the final version,especially when the vastly superior 'silence' already exists, and is utterly unplayed. The fact every half-decent heathstone player, from rank 15 dudes to tournament champions could conclude in under 10 second that the card is not even worth considering in any deck means it is THAT bad, that it could not have possibly been tested.

Its one of the rare cases a card could be very well technically unplayable (you got no minions on board), and yet it's still bad when the conditions are met as the effect isn't one worth having.

Sure, at zero mana it might spin out of control, but at either one mana, or two but silence everything-there is no way it would be overpowered.in fact it would most likely still be unplayable.


This card is the latest and biggest addition to the list of reasons I believe Ben brode has no business making a digital CCG. As he seems to be unable to grasp the base concepts of the digital format, and the CCG format.

[Gandariel]

Interesting video.

Frankly i am 100% sure that they have a bunch of already playtested and designed cards, ready for the next expansion. But that aside.

Bad for Priest now? He agrees.
Ban in Arena? He'll try removing it.

Sounds almost fair.

Anyways, a new meme was spawned, and probably the best video on youtube

[turbo164]

On the one hand, I can understand if they don't feel they're able to test the card enough to release a fixed version. But on the other hand, they no doubt have a number of weeks before the Priest wing releases.

Of course, this is probably a consequence of their no-patch philosophy. If they get the balance wrong ahead-of-time and release it in a too-powerful state, they won't patch the card with a slight nerf because they've refused to do that.

Also, what was wrong with Priest having access to a 1-mana cantrip with a possibly-beneficial effect? Cycling is a neat effect to give a class.

Power Word Shield already exists :/

[PsyBomb]

At one, I can possibly see Purify leading to shenanigans, but I don't think it would happen (something like a Miracle Priest into Velen Combo).

...thinking about it, might try it out anyway, next to that low-win-rate Silence Priest.

[Gandariel]

At one, I can possibly see Purify leading to shenanigans, but I don't think it would happen (something like a Miracle Priest into Velen Combo).

The point is that unless you *reliably* have something on the board AND silencing it provides an actual, significant advantage, Purify is just worse than Novice Engineer.


I've PW:S'd enemy minions in more than one occasion, Purify has a very high chance of being straight up useless.

[TechnoWarforged]

Honestly I think the problem isn't Purity being a bad card, but rather the Other two cards for priest isn't really at par with all the other cards that's coming out for other classes.

In this expansion we have Rogue who possibly can get a new archetype by stealing cards from other classes.
Hunters reinforce their archtype with more zoo beast that sticks to the board
Paladin got a card that help fix dragon paladin by giving an early dragon synergy card, and their chess piece is at least interesting
Shaman got some synergy going with totems again.
Warlock got some more cards that's discard base and some singing cutlery and teapots.
Warriors got another weapon that's interesting and potential combo with protect the king.
Some classes gets portal theme as fillers (not sure what Karazhan has to do with portals, except Medievh opening up one for the Orc invasion)

Priest has Onxy bishop which really doesn't do anything. The baseline for a 5 cost minion is 10 stats and here you have a 3/4 that'll definitely be killed by anything that's on the board at Turn 4. To justify that stat line you have to have a really powerful effect for this card. so basically it's a 3/4 body and a resurrect effect for 5 mana which looks fair on paper, except resurrect really isn't that reliable, and to make resurrect reliable you literally have to play strong minions in the early game which priest notoriously lacks. You could maybe say have soul priest & circle on T4, and then bring it back on T5 via Onxy bishop but to reliably do that you have to summon nothing else. Or you could summon Doomsayer in T2, Soulpriest in T4, Onxy bishop T5 and pray you survive the early game.

We could have the same argument for any other T1 to T4 drops for priest, the problem is the more early minions you summon early game; the less reliable Onxy bishop is going to resurrect that minion you need. It is fine except 1) Priest's early game minion don't synergize (as in they don't do the same thing), 2a) they don't do enough to gain board control, 2b) some require some sorta setup via lightspawn with hearthbuffs/Holy Champion with healing/Northshire Cleric with infinite draw so just bringing them back on their own won't do anything, and 3) have to trigger battlecry to be effective via Museum Curator/Wyrmest Agent/Twilight Whelp.

Priest of the Feast is another card that would have fooled us a two expansions ago due to how we over-rated spells in Hearthstone. If we can't make holy champion sticks, how are we going to get healing out of it enough to justify putting this card in your deck. 3/6 body for 4 will make it stick around for a turn but you need to babysit via healing to make it stay alive AND use spells in some way to make use of it's trigger. The best I can come up with is holy nova. Holy Fire would work too but holy fire on it's own is a pretty good card, so you'll have 8 points of healing total and 8 damage (5 from holy fire and 3 from attacking with the priest of the feast on T5). Not bad, except priest is kinda flooded with 4 drops between soulpriest, shifting shade, holy champion, and hooded acolyte for c'thun priest.

All this outrage for Purity is just the symptom for the problem with priest's class design. Blizzard probably went to the design team and set these restrictions 1) Silence isn't fun so you can't make a card that silent opponent's minions, 2) Make a card that let priest minion comes back, 3) make priest stay alive via some combo. So the team comes up with these three cards. I highly suspect that Purity will be useful in some events and it's pushing for some silent archetype with silent priest. (Ancient Watcher/Eerie Statue/Fel Reaver/Rag)

Honestly I'm still a strong believer that blizzard should go back to it's roots and make priest combo again, and to do that they need some mechanic that'll let them do what Scry does in MTG. Basically Tracking for Hunters to give them a way to reliably pull their combos.

[Gandariel]

Whoa whoa whoa, Priest of the Feast is a pretty decent card!

It's honestly good and nobody had anthing to complain about it. Well, I mean aside from the fact that it's another 4-drop and we need 2s and 3s.

The existence of many cheap spells (Coin, Flash Heal, PWS, Circle) means that A) you can burst heal with this (turn 4 Priest Coin Flash heal is 11 health and a 3/6 on board)
And B) if your opponent is Aggro he is forced to deal with it or he'll eventually run out of steam and lose.


As for Onyx Bishop, I'm actually happy about it.

It's certainly not OP, but it's a very interesting card.

Resurrect is in theory a very strong card, but decks based around it wouldn't really work because well, you only had two copies of it in your deck and there's a decent chance that you'd just not draw any and be really sad.

Now you can have 4, which makes the archetype more consistent.

I don't know if the resurrect deck is good, but thanks to Onyx Bishop we can finally try it and see if it works.

Overall Onyx Bishop is a build-around-me card and it doesn't look *extremely* promising, but it is definitely interesting and I'm happy they printed it.


For example, if they print a 2 mana 4/5 with Battlecry: Gain -2/-2, it will work very well with both Onyx Bishop AND Purify.

[The Glyphstone]

Interesting video.

Frankly i am 100% sure that they have a bunch of already playtested and designed cards, ready for the next expansion. But that aside.

Bad for Priest now? He agrees.
Ban in Arena? He'll try removing it.

Sounds almost fair.

Anyways, a new meme was spawned, and probably the best video on youtube

The hell did I just watch.

[TechnoWarforged]

For example, if they print a 2 mana 4/5 with Battlecry: Gain -2/-2, it will work very well with both Onyx Bishop AND Purify.

So basically Injured Blademaster.

Edit: Also I think blizzard took the right step to adjust arena. It leaves them more room to balance cards if they can change the frequency of the card showing up. For once you won't go into arena facing mages with 4 flamestrike!

[Seerow]

So basically Injured Blademaster.

Basically, but it gets combod with silence instead of healing.



As an aside, if they did go that route, I vote the new card be named "Unicorn".

[boomwolf]

And injured blsdemaster junior is also decent enough to serve as a 1 drop, and not utterly suck to rez.
Just need a few more cards for early, finish the top as a nzoth deck, and you got yourself a possible priest deck.

[BRC]

I'm actually with Ben Brode on this one, especially the part where he says he's wrong.

They were never going to make Priest a viable arena class with 3 cards. That wasn't happening, if the point of Purify is to enable hypothetical funcombos with Barnes (Barnesing out a Deathwing, then Purifying it into a 12/12), then that works.

The issue is that right now the Hearthstone community is full of people complaining how weak Priest is, and is looking for a sign that the dev team knows and acknowledges that.

And Purify is just such an aggressively bad card (yes, it has high POTENTIAL, but tons of cards in Hearthstone have amazing Potential while remaining terrible cards), especially since Priest of the Feast and Onyx Bishop are Okay at best. Putting it out right now seems like a slap in the face.

Removing it from Arena is a good first step, mostly because of the other big complaint: That Blizzard (by making Firelands Portal common) does not care about Arena balance.

It's not a solution, but they are admitting there is a problem.

[Kish]

(Barnesing out a Deathwing, then Purifying it into a 12/12)

Hold on, would that actually work? Is the 1/1 copy an exact copy with a "set stats to 1/1" debuff applied?

[heretic]

Hold on, would that actually work? Is the 1/1 copy an exact copy with a "set stats to 1/1" debuff applied?

Brode did give this an example of how a silence priest deck might find success.