We've got four new cards revealed today which means the Deadmines Mini-Set that drops tomorrow has been fully revealed!
Hearthstone
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Robert "Fluxflashor" Veitch is the founder of Out of Games. With over a decade of experience in gaming content, and being done with the exhaustion of corporate nonsense, he wanted to do something different with a focus on the community in this online world that tries so hard to just make everyone just another number. Robert is currently playing Path of Exile and World of Warcraft. He can be contacted via direct messages or on Twitter.
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I can't be the only one whose mildly disappointed that they're just reusing card art for Mercenaries at this point (although I wonder which came first, the card or the merc?).
Oh well, if that'S the case then I hope they'll at least have the decency to take all the merc portraits for the classic heroes and add them to future battle passes or something. Gimme sexy demon Valeera. Me want.
At 3 portraits per character, Mercs has so much artwork that it would be pretty silly not to use the cool ones in the OG gamemode. It's not like you'd ever see the 2 uses simultaneously anyway.
Regarding sexy demon Valeera, I will neither confirm nor deny that I have quietly wanted exactly that bit of artwork since Jaina and Thrall got their trio of Mercs artwork back in the Darkmoon Tavern Pass. We've had priest get a rogue skin, so maybe it's time rogue got a DH one. (Yeah, I know Kathra'natir-possessed Valeera wasn't technically a DH, but Anduin wasn't technically in the SI:7 either. Besides, it's an emotional elf with a demon inside her and wielding both blades and fel magic; isn't that really all a DH is anyway?)
So I may be stating the obvious but...does the Pirate quest becomes instacraft now if one doesn't have it yet?
I mean it was already good, no reason not to.
I forgot aggro needed more support
I feel like Team 5 with so many people leaving blizzard no longer has the same vision as it once did. Ben Brode et al, at least had a vision for the game. It feels like the "new" team 5 is just content with hopping around making overly cutesy intro videos, and acting like a bipolar eplitic when it comes to making balance decisions. "We don't like charge anymore" "We do like charge again". "we hate control decks, time to nerf priest" "we love control decks, just kidding here's rez priest support again!"
It just feels very wishy washy as far as design vision goes.
Ben Brode's vision was "lol, nerfs are dumb, let the players deal with it".
As much as the new devs get flak for their questionable decisions, at least they're actively trying to innovate and aren't afraid to make mistakes along the way.
I was referring more to the design side of things and less on the balance side of things...
design and balance go hand in hand. Do I need to remind you that some of the worst metas (far worse than this one) happened under Brode, and weren't dealt with until months into the expansion cycle.
People keep talking about powercreep, but Gadgetzan Pirate Warrior would still reliably shit over most of the current meta without issue.
Just remember cards like Duskfallen Aviana and Harbinger Celestia. Actual filler cards with no purpose. At least nowadays meme legendaries have a useable gimmick, even if it sucks.
They go hand in hand, yet they are distinctly different aspects of game creation. If it helps, think of them as a Venn Diagram with overlapping responsibilities, but still separate areas as well.
I never said you were wrong with Ben Brode's team at the time having a decidely lack of intervetion when it came to problematic metas. But at the same time they had 2 things:
1) A strong cemented vision of the game
2) An unfounded faith that players would figure out meta problems on their own. (which as we've seen has backfired)
Worse metas than this one? No. We had many metas which had some oppressive decks, but I can't really recall too many as bad as this one. I've been playing the game since the beta. It's had it's ups and downs. But the last couple of expansions have been the most uninspired, unbalanced, dogpiles I've seen. If I had to put a finger on when things started to go downhill and just got worse from there, it would have to be with the release of Demon Hunter as a class...or did you forget about the oppressive Demon Hunter meta and the MULTIPLE....MULTIPLE....MULTIPLE nerfs it went through to become somewhat of a balanced class?
Sorry, we are gonna have to agree to disagree here I suspect.
your recency bias is showing. Back in gadgetzan there were basically 3 archetypes to pick from: Pirate aggro, Reno Control, and Jade Druid. They beat up on each other in rock-paper-scissors fashion and there was no innovation whatsoever. This was the first time I quit Hearthstone and I would have probably stayed away if Un'goro didn't bait me with dinosaurs. Two entire classes were literally completely unplayable during the entire expansion. Do I also need to mention Undertaker? Quest Rogue? Genn & Baku?
The only problem with the current meta is the fact that it is extremely combo oriented and said combos come online really fast. Thsi isn't a problem with the quests because as of now, only 3-4 of those see any actual play. Warlock and Shaman got nerfed into irrelevance, Hunter and Pirate are balanced in Standard and MAge is extremely overplayed. Outside of that there's only DH which can be described as "overtuned" and that's purely because of the dogshit design of Il'gynoth and Mo'arg, which have been around for more than a year at this point. Garrote Rogue is the only other problem left and that deck is just garbage design in general and the Garrote spell damage interaction shouuld have been nuked instantly.
If you actually look at the rest of the field it's extremely diverse for just about every class that isn't Priest (who already got their time in the limelight) The reason why people hate the current meta so much is because too many decks don't meaningfully interact with each other, but rather just race their own gameplan. This is an issue, but not a permanent one. Most of those decks (outside of Garrote Rogue) are enabled by cards from last year which will leave Standard next year, so at worst there's one more expansion of this stuff (which might not even be the case at all because any new set can completely change what is and isn't viable.
You're also bringing up DH as if it's some sort of a gotcha, when the class, despite being incredibly overpowered on release, eventually got nerfed to an acceptable state and is now in a decent state (outside of degenerate OTKs which really just comes down to Il'gynoth and not the class itself). I hate to be that guy, but under Ben Brode DH would have either never been released at all or not nerfed until two months into the expansion cycle. Ben Brode's vision for the game was shit. It's the whole reason why we were stuck with a garbage Classic set for way longer than needed. It'S the reason why buffs never happened. No hate towards Ben Brode, but if he stayed around and kept enforcing his vision we'd have the same kind of unbalanced mess, except it would take months before any changes happen.
Im just curious. What exactly is that 'vision' that Ben B actually brought to the table? Or is this an argument entirely about 'charge' as a keyword?
As Dean has said before, he'd rather create powerful cards with an eye to nerf them later if they get too good rather than vice versa. The fact that team5 is more willing to repeatedly nerf allows them to experiment, rather than stick with the same porridge each expansion.
I dont think the current team5 is more wishy-washy when it comes to principals, because from the bits and piece of Dean's Q&A I think its safe to say that he'd rather design frustrate than stagnate, and from what we've seen (tempo dhunter, Galakrond shaman, and now this) I think that's consistent with their strategy.
How will Goliath work with infinite Shudderwock? Normally?
"(targets chosen randomly")
Doesn't Shudderwock normally choose targeted battlecries himself? So I imagine he'll just shoot randomly at enemy minions until they are all dead.
Mr. Smite gives Charge to himself too. If it read "your other Pirates", then ok, maybe ... but like this? Just ROFL.
Leeeeeeeeeroooooy Jenkins!!!
JUST WHY BLIZZARD? Mr. Smite top 1 aggro card, OP as hell.
maybe the now pirate push a more agro/midrange style of game. It hast potential t push combo out and bring control into the meta
Patches can be "in charge" again :D
Now seriouly...why?! D: