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  1. - Top - End - #1171
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    I had a bit of success with Shaman, but it's definitely not balanced. Poor druid has 2 gurubashi chickens for some reason.
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  2. - Top - End - #1172
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    This is the brawl I never knew I wanted. All the fun of Rumble's OP shrines, without the RNG grab-bag decks, and against an actual opponent instead of exploitable AI.


    EDIT: Except when only 3/9 classes are viable. If you're not Paladin, Priest, or Mage you got screwed this week.
    It's certainly a lot better than Rumble Run itself was. I haven't played a lot, but I did play more than I strictly needed to to get my packs, which already puts it head and shoulders over many Brawls with me.

    I definitely had the impression that Paladin was top dog of this batch from what I saw though. Not sure which shrines the Druid, Rogue, or Hunter had, I neither played nor played against those, but of the rest Paladin seemed clearly strongest, with Warrior as by far the weakest. Mage, Priest, and Shaman all seemed to have potential at least though.
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    "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis

  3. - Top - End - #1173
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    This is the brawl I never knew I wanted. All the fun of Rumble's OP shrines, without the RNG grab-bag decks, and against an actual opponent instead of exploitable AI.


    EDIT: Except when only 3/9 classes are viable. If you're not Paladin, Priest, or Mage you got screwed this week.
    Weird I've heard rogue is really good, and my first win came with warrior.

    FYI don't let warrior keep linebreaker up for a round, ever.

    Edit: my first two matches were rogue vs warlock with lock winning by lucky clears early clears. Game 2 was paladin vs warrior, the warrior stomped me with rush minions. If paladin can't get a minion to stick by turn 2 for snowballing it fails.
    Last edited by Seerow; 2019-02-14 at 11:41 PM.

  4. - Top - End - #1174
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Wow, I leave the game for 2 months and I come back to this carnage. There were like at least 50 people in the active players when I was here last.
    Quote Originally Posted by Requilac View Post
    Wow, i can’t believe it, WotC actually made the rules compatible for a situation in which an ape demon is leaping into the air to knock a vampire out of a Poylmorphed T-rex’s jaws who is flying 120 feet above the ground.
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  5. - Top - End - #1175
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Gluteus_Maximus View Post
    Wow, I leave the game for 2 months and I come back to this carnage. There were like at least 50 people in the active players when I was here last.
    Blizzard as a whole is making, lets be charitable and say "questionable" moves lately, including laying off 800 people after a year of record profits.

    EDIT: ACTIVISION-Blizzard, excuse me.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2019-02-18 at 04:06 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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  6. - Top - End - #1176
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    It doesn't help that MtG Arena has been as successful as it has been either, as far as poaching playerbase.
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  7. - Top - End - #1177
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Gluteus_Maximus View Post
    Wow, I leave the game for 2 months and I come back to this carnage. There were like at least 50 people in the active players when I was here last.
    Nah, it's just that all I was doing before was adding names to same list that had been there since the game launched. I only recently decided to sort of archive that old list and just carry over names of players who I knew were still actively playing - or at least still actively posting here - so that anybody looking to use the list to add people was actually getting people who were active.
    Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!

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  8. - Top - End - #1178
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Tavern Brawl is back for Round 2, which also means that the everyone is using a different shrine from last time:

    Druid: Gonk's Mark (After you summon a Minion, give it +1/+1)
    Hunter: Halazzi's Hunt (your minions have Overkill: Cards in your hand cost (1) less)
    Mage: Jan'alai's Progeny (after you freeze a character, put a Frostfire (0 Mana Spell, Deal 1 damage) into your hand.)
    Paladin: Shirvallah's Vengeance (after your hero takes damage, deal 5 damage to the enemy hero.)
    Priest: Bwonsamdi's Convenant (Healing enemies damages them instead.)
    Rogue: Pirate's Mark (After you cast a spell, cast it again on that target.)
    Shaman: Krag'wa's Lure (After you Overload, give your minions that much attack.)
    Warlock: Dark Reliquary (Whenever you discard, summon a random Demon.)
    Warrior: Akali's War Drum (After you summon a Dragon, reduce the costs of Dragons in your hand by (1))

    Had play 30 Hunter cards as well as the play tavern brawl 3 times quest and Hunter's deck is super slow and snowbally. By the time I could get a good cost reduction cycle going, my opponent already had the board established to finish me off despite the discounted beasts.
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  9. - Top - End - #1179
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Better overall shrine balance this time, I think.

    Though this means we can predict next week's lineup.

    Druid: Mana Refresh
    Rogue: Steal Cards
    Mage: +Spell Damage
    Hunter: Secret Spam
    Paladin: Divine Shields
    Priest: Extra Deathrattles
    Shaman: Extra Battlecries
    Warlock: Redirect self-damage
    Warrior: Armor attack

  10. - Top - End - #1180
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    The mage one was fun. I was unsure at first of how to handle it, but it turns out that it's pretty easy to just wait for the enemy to fill his board, then blizzard it, and Malygos a one-turn kill combo.

  11. - Top - End - #1181
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    I've played against the paladin one, which just stomped me by having the weapon on turn 1 for 15 damage before I could do anything.
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  12. - Top - End - #1182
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Gandariel View Post
    I've played against the paladin one, which just stomped me by having the weapon on turn 1 for 15 damage before I could do anything.
    Yeah, Paladin one is a kill joy. My only solace with them is knowing that in a mirror match they inevitably get a tie as soon as someone takes a point of damage.



    I played 3 games with Shaman last night on brawl to clear some quests. The shaman totem is actually pretty fun, though I wish there were a few more early game drops that did not overload. The deck has a fantastic mid-late game especially since most of the big drops are effectively permanent bloodlust on top of their normal effect. Getting to drop 2 snowfury giants into an Earth Elemental is just a really sick board swing, doubly so if you had any sort of a board already up before that.
    If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?


  13. - Top - End - #1183
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    In other news, with the tweet from Iskar recently, I've been thinking a lot about what I would like out of the game. In case anybody missed it, Iskar made a tweet a few days ago basically asking, if Hearthstone is no longer your main game, what would bring you back?

    In broad strokes I've been thinking a lot of the things others have been saying would be really nice (More achievements and cosmetics, better rewards, an updated dust economy, other game modes), but I want to drill down into a few specifics for two points specifically.

    First, tournament mode. This is the thing I see repeated ad nauseum, but nobody actually gets into specifics of what a tournament mode would be. Obviously Blizzard had a clear idea for one, but it was much less ambitious than what most players seemed to want. And honestly, I am not certain any tournament mode could ever live up to this idealized dream a lot of players have concocted in their heads for it. Instead of a single monolithic "Tournament Mode" I am going to suggest a number of smaller things that could end up filling the same overall niche.

    1) I want to see an option for a Best of Three on ladder. I believe MTG does this where regular Bo1 and Bo3 share the same ladder, so it doesn't have to be a totally different game mode. This could either be with the same deck with side boards (like the new tournament format just announced today), or with 4 different decks (like Conquest), I am fine with either or both as options, but I think it is something you could integrate into the ladder, possibly even as you start a game with a Bo1 and during the game you can choose to opt into a Bo3, if both players opt in by end of game, you move forward. This lets players get an experience on ladder more similar to what they see in tournament play, without needing to introduce a totally new game mode.

    2) To make tournament organizing easier, add the option to challenge and spectate a player not on your friends' list. I only recently was made aware of how much of a pain this is for tournament participants and organizers, but between the 200 player cap on friends and the requirement to friend anyone spectating you or challenging you, apparently the tournament scene spends probably half its time just organizing friend requests being sent around to get everyone to be able to play together. Just think, remove this hurdle and it makes it that much easier for players to host their own tournaments, which is one of the big things people wanted out of tournament mode.

    3) Spectator mode needs to be updated. Updating it to allow for viewing modifying decks (constructed) or drafting decks (arena). Also give the option if spectating a friendly match to also send an invite to spectate the other player, as long as both players have accepted the spectate request, the spectator can view both players' hands. This is another one of those "Make it easier to organize your own tournament" changes, because needing to have two separate accounts spectating the two players and merging the feeds together to get both players hands up on stream for viewing is a pretty big hassle, and it is honestly stupid we still have that kind of deficiency in the client so many years after launch.

    4) Give an extra set of 9 deck slots for "Friendly Match" decks. These decks can be either ones you save from play modes that include cards normally not available or the player doesn't personally own (think save your favorite Rumble Run or Dungeon Run deck, or an awesome arena draft you had), or can be built from scratch from your collection ignoring deck restrictions (so you can make up to 60 cards in the deck, use as many copies of the card as you own, etc). These decks may be used exclusively in friendly matches, so may not be used on ladder or in other game modes. But this opens up the option for hosting arena tournaments (Go do a draft then save the draft deck and play in the tournament with that deck), or even Dungeon Run tournaments (complete the dungeon run, then take your winning deck head to head with other players who made it to the end), or just let players have goofy fun with random decks.

    Basically, first change makes it so any player can choose to enjoy a tournament style series of games in-client. The second two changes make it easier to host 'real' tournaments, third change opens wide open the doors of what kinds of tournaments you can host. Between the four, I feel like it would cover most of the things players are looking for in a dedicated tournament mode, but be a lot more flexible and true to the core of what Hearthstone currently is.



    Now, if we are going to talk about new formats, I am actually going to toss out a suggestion for what I think would be a worthwhile new mode to the game. This one is definitely a moonshot, but it's an idea I want to get out into the world if for no other reason than to get it out of my head.

    So recently, I have been playing a lot of Diablo III. And I was thinking about it, and trying to figure out, what is it about this basically dead game that has me coming back to it years later, even after I've beaten it multiple times over with every class and have done literally everything I really care to in the game? The answer? Seasons.

    For those not familiar, Seasons in Diablo basically provide a soft reset. A new season starts, everyone creates new seasonal characters that start off at level 1 with no gear, and you proceed from there. On day one everyone is on an equal playing field, and the joy comes from progressing you way through the game. Because that is where Diablo is at its best, the grind at the end game eventually loses its luster when you need 5-10 hours of grinding to get a real upgrade, but at the start when every rift you run has a new reward for you that makes you stronger, it is much more exciting. This gets augmented by your "Season Journey" which acts as a combination of tutorial (the Journey pushes you towards doing a lot of things that are absolutely necessary in endgame but newer players may not be familiar with or even know exist), build jump starter (the early tutorial chapters of the Journey provide you with a powerful endgame set of gear as reward, ensuring all players will have at least one viable set of gear despite RNG), and eventually achievement system (the later stages of the Journey require completing difficult tasks, and award unique cosmetics and quality of life benefits such as extra stash space).

    You can probably already see where I'm going with this. Basically I want to see a season equivalent in Hearthstone. Do 3 seasons a year, each one starting a month after a new set launches, and ending with the next set launching. So the season lasts for 3 months. At start of season you get a brand new account with nothing but basic cards, tutorial is complete, but you still need to grind out the rest of the basic set from leveling your heroes, and have nothing else. During the season you have a Journey equivalent that gives you a set of goals to meet. Completing these goals rewards you with bonus cards (either set cards a la old adventures or packs, or possibly a combination). Later goals may include things like reach legend rank during the season, or win 30 games with each class at rank 5 or higher, or possibly more stringent requirements, but provide cosmetic rewards that are unique to each season.

    To make each season a bit more different I'd also make the season not strictly standard or strictly wild, but have some combination of classic plus 4 or 5 sets from all time that get put together in unique combinations just for the Season. This way the season has its own unique meta, which will develop on its own over the course of the season (both as the specific combination of sets is figured out and as players develop better collections).

    Additionally, to keep that feeling of a level playing field, and progression, I would limit the amount of money a player can spend to get ahead in a Season. I feel like something like each month you have a bundle that can be purchased for the season, that gives you good value per pack. Something like 10 bucks, get 5-10 packs for each set included in the season. So players are encouraged to buy the bundle to get ahead, but ideally players who are getting the season journey rewards and playing normally aren't terribly behind, especially if they join at the start of the season.

    I am torn on Arena, I feel like having an Arena meta with the weird set combinations could be fun, but also worry that it just becomes the go-to way to build up a collection, and kills the game mode. Possibly make Seasons the place where you can draft an arena deck and play arena style gameplay without paying gold to enter, but get regular rewards (10g per 3 wins up to 100g). Gives new players a place where they can dip toes into the water of the arena style gameplay without risking anything to, so an extra added benefit. You may need to disable deck retiring to stop people from rerolling until they have ridiculously op arena decks, but then given what happened in twitch rivals I'm not sure that would even be all that problematic.

    At the end of the season, any gold earned on your seasonal account (even if it were spent on packs in the season), as well as 100 gold for every dollar spent on the season bundles is added to the main account. Additionally any cosmetics earned during the season become available in the main account, and then your main account gets some rewards similar to end of month ladder rewards or end of arena run rewards, based on performance in the season (so based on highest ladder rank earned during season get a chunk of gold/dust/golden cards to use).



    The way I see it this has the benefit of providing a new way to play the game, it gives new players a place to enter the game without being quite so overwhelmed, and something to do while they build up their standard collection. You also now have a new meta for players to work through after the new expansion meta settles a month into release. It also gives us the option to bring back old sets temporarily without reintroducing them to standard permanently, and gives Blizzard a new recurring revenue stream, as hardcore players who want to participate in the season will put out 10 bucks a month each month it is available, giving blizzard that extra money between expansion cycles.

    Anyway sorry that went a bit long! This has been stewing in my head for several days and just wanted to put it out there somewhere. Anyone who read the whole thing and got this far, I appreciate you!
    If my text is blue, I'm being sarcastic.But you already knew that, right?


  14. - Top - End - #1184
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Seerow View Post
    In other news, with the tweet from Iskar recently, I've been thinking a lot about what I would like out of the game. In case anybody missed it, Iskar made a tweet a few days ago basically asking, if Hearthstone is no longer your main game, what would bring you back?
    I'm perhaps not the audience for that question, since the notion of a "main game" is kind of foreign to me. Presuming that it implies playing the game daily for hours at a time or the like, well, I can do that sometimes with games that have particularly captured my attention at that moment - I've been doing so with Smash Ultimate since it came out, for instance - but it's always temporary. I haven't been like that with Hearthstone since probably sometime during its first year, and I don't think I'm ever likely to want to play Hearthstone that much again no matter what they do, nor is it what I want out of the game at this point.

    What I want out of Hearthstone at this point is to be able to play it off and on to get my card game fix, basically. Pop in two or three times a week to keep up on my quests, play a few matches with whatever decks I like most at that point in time (probably whatever the most meta-viable Control decks of the moment are, or occasionally a midrange deck), buy packs with my gold, then hop out and move on to other things. My problem is that, in the short term, the meta we've had for a while now has been oppressive to the types of decks I most like and dominated by types of decks I hate, which makes me want to play less. And in the long term their treatment of the classic set is undermining my confidence that in the future I'll be able to build the decks I want to play without either playing more or spending more to collect more of the expansions, so it feels like the game is getting steadily less friendly to that kind of more casual play.

    And while the short-term meta issue will hopefully work itself out with the rotation (good gods but it had better....), there's not much they can do about the other problem other than just changing course entirely on how they're handling the classic set. Whether it's by reversing course and treating as they originally said they would when rotation was implemented, or by making a rotating "core" set the way some have suggested as an alternative. All these other things mentioned in your post honestly interest me not at all. I've always viewed achievements as pointless, cosmetics are kind of nice at best (I do like having Liadrin as my Paladin) but won't make me want to play more, better rewards would be nice but I guarantee they'd never implement enough to counterbalance the classic set getting continuously less usable, and new modes and the like are just as likely to go completely unused by me (especially a tournament mode).

    Honestly, my first reaction to your "seasons" proposal was "that would definitely make me quit the game completely." Once it became clear that your main account doesn't get reset when these seasons restart and it's just some sort of sub-mode where you're more limited, that reaction went away, but I still doubt I'd use it. I don't want to build up from nothing again - that's the main reason I haven't dropped Hearthstone for Shadowverse or another card game yet, it's the one game where I have a big collection of cards to use, since I've been playing since the beta. Building up a new collection from nothing to me would just be tedious work to get to the point I want to be at, it's not something I want to do at all, much less on a regular basis, even playing field with other players or not.
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  15. - Top - End - #1185
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    yeah, I'm pretty casual to, the most I want to do is finally get a Mecha'thun win off both I lose or the opponent concedes at this point. I do not want to reset every season or anything serious like that, I just want to have fun.
    I'm also on discord as "raziere".


  16. - Top - End - #1186
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Blizzard just dropped news for the next year (but not the new expansion)

    https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/bl...00000005232379

    Hall of Fame

    Naturalize, Doomguard, Divine Favor
    Genn, Baku and the 4 odd/even cards (e.g. Black Cat, Glittermoth)

    I guess the devs just gave up on trying to figure out a nerf for them and just Hall of Famed them. Have fun wild players!

    Just as a reminder, you get dust for the first two copies you own of that card, golden has priority. So if you have 2 Golden Divine Favors and 2 Regular Divine Favors, you only get the dust for the two Golden ones. However, you get to keep the copies and can choose to dust or keep them after the Hall of Fame rotation.

    This means you should craft all of these cards (golden preferably) if you don't own them and have the extra dust laying around and you get to play with them before the rotation.

    Single Player

    So, seems like they like Dungeon Runs but are including a kind of Adventure pricing. There's 5 chapters, first one's free, next ones are 700 gold each. They reward card packs, but not enough to make up for the gold.

    The heroes unlocked in each chapter (new hero powers and starting decks) will be used in "multiple game modes". They list "Anomaly Mode", "Heroic Mode" and "Tavern Encounters"

    Arena

    Arena will have a rotating card pool with each expansion, no longer mirrors Standard. The first one will be Basic, Classic, Naxx, Gadgetzan, Old Gods, Witchwood, and new expansion.

    A couple other changes like arena wins counting towards the Golden Hero portrait and RANDOM CARDBACKS!!!

    P.S. Well, looks like Mecha'thun Druid won't be a thing... Good thing I crafted Mecha'thun last week ;)
    Last edited by Joran; 2019-02-28 at 09:49 AM.

  17. - Top - End - #1187
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Okay, when I first watched Regis Killbin suggest Baku & Genn for the Hall of Fame, I didn't think Blizzard would actually do that to expansion cards. Odd Rogue was the first meta deck I was able to craft and play with... but at the same time, Baku & Genn shouldn't have been so meta-defining for the entire year, especially with their decks just barely changing with each expansion.
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  18. - Top - End - #1188
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Today I won against a taunt druid as warlock because they didn't destroy one of my minions, which allowed me to play the blood troll that deals two damage at face for every of my minions that dies, suiciding five minions and then playing soulfire for exact lethal.

    Feels good.

  19. - Top - End - #1189
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    ...Naturalize?

    ...Apparently they decided that druids having any hard removal at all is unacceptable, no matter the downside.

    Blizzard, never change.

    No, wait. Do!

  20. - Top - End - #1190
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    I really like the proposed rotations for year of the dragon. Knocking out the even/odd decks is going to open up a lot of room for experimentation. Doomguard, Naturalize, and Divine favor are three of the first places would go to as well, so seeing those out is likely to lead to more experimentation with new cards or different deck types. Maybe we'll get to see some slower decks come back or new ones materialize. I'm excited because it feels so wide open now.
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    Anarion's right on the money here.
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  21. - Top - End - #1191
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    ouch. Doomguard and naturalize pretty much kills a lot of warlock and druid stuff. good thing I managed to get a mecha'thun win at least once.

    also there goes my Odd Jan'alai deck. its been winning me a lot, sigh.

    on the other hand, my strategy of buying impractical but fun cards seems to be paying off. lets see if I can find a way to win with Hakkar!
    I'm also on discord as "raziere".


  22. - Top - End - #1192
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    ...Naturalize?

    ...Apparently they decided that druids having any hard removal at all is unacceptable, no matter the downside.

    Blizzard, never change.

    No, wait. Do!
    1 Mana kill anything is an auto-include in any Druid deck, and would be the same in any other class. "Your opponent draws 2" is barely even a downside, and is sometimes an upside.

  23. - Top - End - #1193
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    1 Mana kill anything is an auto-include in any Druid deck, and would be the same in any other class. "Your opponent draws 2" is barely even a downside, and is sometimes an upside.
    Used to be a downside in the past, when the game was young and free, and card draw was so much more important and rare.
    These days it can almost be a detriment to draw cards if you're not careful about how you do it.

  24. - Top - End - #1194
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    1 Mana kill anything is an auto-include in any Druid deck, and would be the same in any other class. "Your opponent draws 2" is barely even a downside, and is sometimes an upside.
    Especially when Druid's only viable decks are some form of Control or Combo. Doubly so any that uses Togwaggle, Hakkar, or even just making opposing Control players say "My hand is too full!" as +2 cards get burnt. Really the only decks where Naturalize HAS a downsides is Aggro, but Naturalizing a Frostwolf Warlord, Vicious Fledgling, Hench-clan Thug, etc. more than makes up for the potential tempo of giving the aggro deck extra cards.
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Joran View Post
    Blizzard just dropped news for the next year (but not the new expansion)

    https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/bl...00000005232379
    Ugh. Not exactly starting things off strong there.

    I'll save ya'll the talk about the Classics getting Hall of Famed, since I'm sure everyone's well aware of what I think there, but I'm not a fan of Gen and Baku going either. I mean, I won't pretend there aren't decks that they enabled that I'm not going to miss (Odd Rogue, Odd Paladin), but I actually quite liked several of their decks. Hell, two of the only three decks that I've liked playing at all for the past couple of months use them - Odd Warrior and Evenlock. Evenlock likely wasn't going to survive rotation anyway with the loss of the Control Warlock package from Kobolds and Catacombs, but it sucks to lose Odd Warrior, which is by far my favorite current deck and could likely have survived the few losses it would've taken. I mean, it's better than nerfing them into unplayability I guess, since you can go use them in Wild, but still sucks. Also, now Odd Mage with Jan'ali will never get any further off the ground than it already has, which is a damn shame, since I was hoping that would be a good deck in the future. Jan'ali in general is likely to become just too hard to activate without Baku unless they add more good cards that make it easier to get that hero power damage faster.

    And I guess I'm done with their single-player stuff as of this expansion. My opinion of the Dungeon Run style single-player modes has dropped with each iteration - I liked Dungeon Run itself at first, but sort of lost interest in it after a couple of weeks. Then I disliked Monster Hunt and still haven't completed that. Then we got Rumble Run, and I basically hated that one and stopped even trying after my first day or two with it, having never gotten a successful run. So there's no way in hell that I'm paying them real or in-game currency for more of that.

    And I don't care what they're doing with arena.

    Worst of all perhaps though, this strikes me as ominous:
    Quote Originally Posted by The article
    As we move from the Year of the Raven to the Year of the Dragon, overall we want to be more flexible when it comes to making changes to the game that we think will lead to a better experience. After Rastakhan’s Rumble debuted, we released balance updates twice in two months, hopefully making for better and more interesting games for all of you. We want to keep doing this as and when needed. We will also do our best to communicate with you ahead of our upcoming changes and give you a heads up that they’re coming whenever possible.
    So, they're happy with the results of doing so many balance changes so quickly, mostly to classic cards. Not a good sign for me in any way.

    I really need to look more for an alternative game. Already dipped my toes back in Shadowverse a bit, but I'm starting to think it won't be an improvement for various reasons (such as how much worse collecting legendary cards would be compared to Hearthstone). Magic's out, I'm not touching that mana system with a ten foot pole. I'm not super thrilled about the idea of that Elder Scrolls card game just due to not being a Bethesda fan. That Runescape game is apparently dead, and Scrolls is long gone (and probably wouldn't be worth trying to get back into anyway unless they'd substantially altered the in-game economy). ...damn, what else even is there?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kish View Post
    ...Naturalize?

    ...Apparently they decided that druids having any hard removal at all is unacceptable, no matter the downside.

    Blizzard, never change.

    No, wait. Do!
    My thoughts exactly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    1 Mana kill anything is an auto-include in any Druid deck, and would be the same in any other class. "Your opponent draws 2" is barely even a downside, and is sometimes an upside.
    Right, which is why it was a staple of all Druid decks ever since the game's beta.

    Oh wait, no, it was considered a terrible card for most of the game's lifespan, and has only seen use outside of mill decks that were never all that good recently, after the Year of the Mammoth's expansions gave Druid a significant enough power boost that the drawback no longer looked so bad compared to its role in shoring up one of the few weaknesses the class had left.

    Much like Nourish, this is a total overreaction on their part to a card that has historically been fine - even weak - that has just gotten better recently thanks to powerful cards from expansions. Well, either that or just an excuse to get rid of yet another classic card at a time when some will think that it's justified.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2019-02-28 at 06:24 PM.
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  26. - Top - End - #1196
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Right, which is why it was a staple of all Druid decks ever since the game's beta.

    Oh wait, no, it was considered a terrible card for most of the game's lifespan, and has only seen use outside of mill decks that were never all that good recently, after the Year of the Mammoth's expansions gave Druid a significant enough power boost that the drawback no longer looked so bad compared to its role in shoring up one of the few weaknesses the class had left.

    Much like Nourish, this is a total overreaction on their part to a card that has historically been fine - even weak - that has just gotten better recently thanks to powerful cards from expansions. Well, either that or just an excuse to get rid of yet another classic card at a time when some will think that it's justified.
    "Historically" has no value when the meta of Hearthstone shifts so drastically with each set of expansions.

    HoFing Classic cards is a good think to do after all this time, since they really were limiting design space in bad ways. Nerfing them so they won't fit into specific decks (like the Mana Wyrm and Flametongue nerfs)? Sure, it sucks. But Hall of Faming them, especially with inklings we might be getting cyclic returns of rotated cards (which the new Arena is clearly a testbed for) is a good idea.

    Naturalize, Divine Favor, and Doomguard are all great cards to get rid of if you want to include more tools for Druid removal, Aggro Paladin, and Zoolock/Agrrolock in the future. Doomguard especially is likely on the outs since Blizzard seems to think the Charge tag was largely a mistake (I wouldn't be surprised if Rocketeer and Leeroy get HoF'd at some point too), and they likely want Rush to be the new Charge and perhaps cut down on "Surprise! 20 damage from hand!" game ends.

    Divine Favor has been an odd duck for a while where in certain Paladin decks and in certain metas it's either too good or completely useless (dead card in an aggro meta, stupidly strong in a control meta) and other Paladin-specific card draw options have been lackluster as a result of hedging for the latter case.

    Naturalize is likewise. If 'historically" it was useless, and is only now very good...why keep it around? If a card swings between worthless and overpowered it's got an inherent design flaw, and pulling it so viable replacement attempts can be made is a good call.

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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Also, now Odd Mage with Jan'ali will never get any further off the ground than it already has, which is a damn shame, since I was hoping that would be a good deck in the future. Jan'ali in general is likely to become just too hard to activate without Baku unless they add more good cards that make it easier to get that hero power damage faster.
    It's already great, I hit 350 legend this month playing it exclusively. If anything, it's overpowered and probably good that it's one of the decks going away because it's difficult to try new stuff with odd mage killing you so consistently.
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    Anarion's right on the money here.
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    "Historically" has no value when the meta of Hearthstone shifts so drastically with each set of expansions.

    HoFing Classic cards is a good think to do after all this time, since they really were limiting design space in bad ways. Nerfing them so they won't fit into specific decks (like the Mana Wyrm and Flametongue nerfs)? Sure, it sucks. But Hall of Faming them, especially with inklings we might be getting cyclic returns of rotated cards (which the new Arena is clearly a testbed for) is a good idea.

    Naturalize, Divine Favor, and Doomguard are all great cards to get rid of if you want to include more tools for Druid removal, Aggro Paladin, and Zoolock/Agrrolock in the future.
    Here's the thing: I fundamentally disagree that the Hall of Fame is a good idea, at all. I fundamentally disagree with how they've treated the Classic set in the past few years in general. To the extent that the Classic set "limits design space," I feel those are limitations that should be there in order for the Classic set to fulfill its role, providing a baseline set of cards that players always have access to in all formats, which should include cards that are actually good and usable, and thereby also set the baseline power level of the game. This gives the more casual elements of the audience a certain amount of stability, so that they don't need to constantly keep up with collecting most or all of the cards of each set in order to feel like they can actually play the game at a reasonable level.

    I do not want them to include more tools that are redundant with Classic cards in the future, I want them to make cards that are new and interesting, or at least just solid enough in their own right to compete with what that baseline the Classic set provides. Cards like the various Dragon packages that we've had over the years or the Jade package I like and would love to see more of. Cards like Shrink Ray by contrast I would rather they didn't print at all due to them having no point when it's just a worse version of something the Classic set already provides, and I definitely don't want them to nerf or Hall of Fame the Classic card that it competes with in order to give it a reason to exist. I hate that approach to things. That, more than anything, is what has been souring me on the game and has caused my confidence that it will get better to evaporate lately.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    Naturalize is likewise. If 'historically" it was useless, and is only now very good...why keep it around? If a card swings between worthless and overpowered it's got an inherent design flaw, and pulling it so viable replacement attempts can be made is a good call.
    It's not very good now, it's just that Druid has filled in all their other weaknesses to the point where it's become viable at filling one of the only ones they otherwise have left. It would return to being useless after the rotation robbed them of most of the cards that were enabling that. I do not feel anything should be done to a card just because the addition of other cards have changed it from bad to usable - that's why you don't see me complaining about Scavenging Hyena despite my not liking the new Beast Hunter deck that has made it so much better thanks to the new 1-drops with rush. The problem isn't Naturalize or Hyena, it's the expansion cards, and those will go away in time. That's supposed to be the whole point of the rotation system, last I checked.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2019-02-28 at 07:29 PM.
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  29. - Top - End - #1199
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    My biggest surprise here is that Malygos, Alexstraza, and Prep missed the HoF. Especially Malygos I feel like has been constantly creeping up and just seems to really limit spell design space, but prep also seems to force Rogue into a position where any spell they have is balanced as though it costs 3 less.

    On even/odd decks going out, good riddance. I had held some hope for a more elegant nerf to them, since they mentioned they were considering options... but nerfing them without destroying the core conceit of the card makes for a very difficult design task. And all this year I kept thinking back to the pre-witchwood interview where they said Baku/Gen were not intended to be a major focus of the set, just an interesting option to experiment with... it seems like they dramatically underestimated the value of Even/Odd decks, and them continuing to be so prevalent for another year was going to lead to that ongoing sense of staleness we've been feeling.

    Yes it kind of sucks to lose out on Odd Warrior, Odd Mage, Even Warlock, Even Paladin, etc... but on the other hand do we really want a repeat of the Witchwood launch, where the rotation happens and literally nothing changes because a half dozen of the best decks in the game are still perfectly playable with a couple minor tech choices? Because I remember going into Witchwood being super excited, then being let down after a few days, and the game really didn't feel fresh until the first round of nerfs 2 months later. I'd much rather them take care of the glaring problem now, if in a somewhat inelegant way, than have another 2-3 months of the same set of decks before getting anything new. And hey, this way you get to get a bunch of dust, and if you do still really want to play those decks, you can go into Wild.
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  30. - Top - End - #1200
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

    Quote Originally Posted by Anarion View Post
    It's already great, I hit 350 legend this month playing it exclusively. If anything, it's overpowered and probably good that it's one of the decks going away because it's difficult to try new stuff with odd mage killing you so consistently.
    Wait, what? I thought Odd Mage had turned out to be one of those decks that just becomes some "meh, it's okay at best" tier 3-4 thing after the first couple of weeks of experimentation?
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