How's everyone's Voyage going?

Sucks honestly, 4 Legendaries in 100 packs. plenty epic tho, and got both free epic School teacher.

Ambassador Faelin and Tess Greymane have been fun with all the dredge. Got a 30 attack Glugg the Gulper from that. Hedra the Heretic is also super fun. The boards you can generate are interesting. Be careful with those zero cost spells! So...many...Murloc Tinyfin!

Did a Faelin warrior too that was fun. That's it so far. Got a few more packs off reward track to open, maybe something else will inspire me!

Got a good haul from opening about 50ish packs from gold. I got about 4 out of it. Plus the rewards track and freebies bring me to 8 total. Still haven't crafted any or touched wild.

I decided not to pre-order this time around, since I have a lot of cards I am fine dusting and do not plan on playing. I instead got one of the bundles that Blizz has been releasing after an expac launch, and I could immediately see a difference between this release and the last. I have no clue how new players would keep up.

Darkness Switcheroo makes me not want to play wild. Although, I have a good feeling the deck will get hit pretty quickly.

Got 6 legendaries out of 100 packs, about average I guess. Not my worst opening ever, but nowhere near my best as well.

...But I did practically missed out on cards I want: The Leviathan, Hydralodon, Queen Azshara. Instead I got Blackwater Behemoth. Thanks rng gods.

Awesome pull. Za'Qul is one of those ones I really want to craft since I didn't get it. Trying to be patient though.

I got queen Azhara and uh legendary I dusted because I hated them and now im palying Murlock because I love murlocs with gigafin and Azhara is there for some reason.

Update: the legendaries I dusted were xhilag (the DH colasal) and the 0 man priest one. Also forgot to include I played some faelin warrior before swapping to murlock

Been playing Reno Questline Priest, and I'm having an actual blast after quitting for a couple months. I missed games where you interact with the board instead of taking 30 from hand (which still happened a couple times but for the most part it's been awesome.)

Quote From Vision136

Been playing Reno Questline Priest, and I'm having an actual blast after quitting for a couple months. I missed games where you interact with the board instead of taking 30 from hand (which still happened a couple times but for the most part it's been awesome.)

Sounds cool - maybe i will try a Reno Priest too!

I opened plenty of packs since I was lucky enough to win a standard bundle giveaway and had a lot of gold saved, all in all 150-ish so far. And with a full questlog I got to level 26 on the same day. 28 epics, legendary haul below.

Freebies from bundle, Prime gaming and rewards track: The Leviathan, Kotori Lightblade, Ini Stormcoil and Raj Naz'jan.

From packs: Lady S'theno, Hydralodon, Priestess Valishj, Blackwater Behemoth, Crabatoa (golden!), Pirate Admiral Hooktusk and Lady Ashvane.

I'm happy with the haul, I got several of the legendaries I wanted to try out and I'm having a blast with Pirate Rogue. Queen Azshara and Radiance of Azshara is on my shortlist for crafting but I might wait a week or two with that.

Well, I have not played a lot yet, but I can't complain at all: I got 3 legendaries from 17 packs and my Fel Demon Hunter won 7 games out of 8 (Gold rank). I guess Blizzard noticed I had abandoned Hearthstone and now they want to make me happy to keep playing xD

I have been having a blast so far. Had a busy day at work and then a busy evening at home so didn't get to start opening packs until 9pm last night. I opened 246 and got 13 legendaries, so just barely above average (+7 from pre-orders, freebies/tavern pass). I got all the epics really quickly, so that felt good.

I have begun my obligatory XP accomplishments grind, and am really enjoying a Fel DH from this site (Deaddraw's list) which is helping me with 3-4 of them. Not sure how I am going to get 8 attacks with Lady S'theno! Congrats on the double legendary pack, Linkblade91!

I had one of the most epic games in years yesterday. It was me, Reno Paladin, vs. a Mech Paladin. We traded threat for board clear over and over. I Reno'd from one health and Zola'd him. Thanks to Lightforged Cariel and an Alliance Bannerman, the second Reno was a 21/23 that healed me up from 5. It gave me those old Hearthstone giddy vibes, where my only win condition was running the opponent out of resources.

I'm sure that will fade away as people switch back to Combo and scumbag Quest decks, but so far I'm really enjoying myself.

Enjoyed theorycrafting yesterday and see a lot of meme potential between the new expansion and core set. 

• First builds were Deathrattle Hunter, Naga Spell Hunter, and Reno Hunter.
• Unsurprisingly, faced much more aggro on the ladder than in Casual.

Brann Bronzebeard has been an engine of fun with Monstrous Parrot / Selective Breeder, Queen Azshara, Ambassador Faelin (+ Harpoon Gun), and School Teacher (or rather the token weaved in with one of the above combos).

Also just feels great to have back some old favorites like Doomsayer, Tar Creeper, Zola the Gorgon, Houndmaster Shaw, and Reno Jackson.  Though I do miss dear old Yogg :(

At the start of the new expansion I got like 10 Legendaries total:

3 free ones: Blademaster Okani, Ambassador Faelin and Crabatoa as my lvl 20 reward

diamond Sir Finley, Sea Guide from paid TP

And 6 Legendaries from 120 packs (7 free + 113 with gold)

Za'qul

Pirate Admiral Hooktusk

Priestess Valishj

Hedra the Heretic

Colaque

Lady Ashvane

Not really sure what deck I want to play or if I have the right cards. All my decks are wild or invalid. Whataya all playin´ these days?

I haven't played a single game yet, but I did open 85 packs (bought with in-game gold). I got the following:

Raj Naz'jan

Colaque

Ini Stormcoil

Gaia, the Techtonic

Xhilag of the Abyss

Hedra the Heretic

None of these legendaries excite me, so I haven't built any decks for now. I really feel like my days of playing Hearthstone are coming to an end, but we'll see...I'm still interested in playing Reno decks, I think that's what I'll focus on for this expansion.

Well , i bought the Pre-Bundle (Big one) and bought like 100 packs with gold. The few cards i was missing i crafted to complete the Voyage collection. So i personaly can't complain because i drew a lot of legendarys out of my packs. 

So far im realy enjoying the Voyage and meet lots of different decks. But i guess this is true for most day 1/2 experiences with new expansions. Sureley i see more mech mage than other stuff but still managed to find lots of different decks so far. 

Also love that Reno is back, been messing around with reno decks and they sureley are fun and also not that bad to play on ladder. 

I opened 222 packs in total of the latest expansion (mega bundle + packs bought with gold + free packs) and I only miss 1 single legendary which I will receive automatically at level 50 of the rewards track.

Currently, trying to complete the new XP achievements which seem less RNG related overall.

By the way, did anyone else notice that farming Mercenaries for XP has been stealth fixed?

This is the least fun I’ve ever had in Hearthstone, and I’ve been playing since TGT. I actually really like the flavor of this new set, except 9/10 of my matches are against Pirate Warrior, and win or lose it is boring as hell.

Quote From KnivesOut

This is the least fun I’ve ever had in Hearthstone, and I’ve been playing since TGT. I actually really like the flavor of this new set, except 9/10 of my matches are against Pirate Warrior, and win or lose it is boring as hell.

worst than AV

Quote From NebuchadnezzarHS

By the way, did anyone else notice that farming Mercenaries for XP has been stealth fixed?

Can you explain how it works now versus before? I haven't noticed much of a change in Mercs XP granted. Not that I was abusing it much.

I definitely concur - XP achievements seem far less dependent on wild RNG/luck this expansion, and even the grindy ones have been sort of fun so far.

Sure Riffraff, the biggest change they made is quite impactful and affects the passive XP farmer in Mercenaries. Nowadays, leaving a game unfinished will no longer result in an autoloss after 30 minutes and award 120 XP + the paid rewards track % bonus. Instead, the game will be resumed and completing it afterwards does not award any XP whatsoever.

This behavior was obviously changed to counteract passive XP farming in Mercenaries. I just hope they will not implement even more countermeasures.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. Yeah, I definitely wasn't doing that. Sometimes I leave a mercs bounty up in the background when I am distracted or WFH, but never long enough to disconnect or leave. It usually yields decent XP that way, and obviously it's the only game mode you can ignore for too long!

Really dislike this new meta. Pirate decks are dominating and feel awful to play against. I've had moderate success with token DH and naga questline hunter but nothing really excites me. I've had some fun trying to build a combo-based S'theno token DH but it's inconsistent and probably worse than a simple token list. Mech decks are super boring. I'm very disappointed in miracle priest's consistency and win conditions. Colossal minions are mostly irrelevant. Dredge is a fun mechanic but most classes can afford to run only 2 dredge cards so it isn't very impactful. Wild is cheesy combo decks where the game is over by turn 3 to 5.

Pirate warrior doesn't even have a positive winrate at higher levels, and pirate rogue has mostly been irrelevant (talking about standard here).

In wild pirate warrior didn't gain much and rogue is looking competitive, but is mostly overshadowed by all the turn 3/4 otks that go on there.

Which pirate decks are dominating, exactly?

Quote From NebuchadnezzarHS

Sure Riffraff, the biggest change they made is quite impactful and affects the passive XP farmer in Mercenaries. Nowadays, leaving a game unfinished will no longer result in an autoloss after 30 minutes and award 120 XP + the paid rewards track % bonus. Instead, the game will be resumed and completing it afterwards does not award any XP whatsoever.

This behavior was obviously changed to counteract passive XP farming in Mercenaries. I just hope they will not implement even more countermeasures.

I knew this was a thing but never engaged with it or knew the numbers. Tbh, 120 XP is pretty poor for 30 mins and I wonder if it even compares well with the cost of electricity to have it running for that time. I.e., are you actually better off just spending money on the game directly rather than handing more money to electricity companies?

Assuming we're working with late levels where 1500 XP = 50g, we could do the calculation based on our electricity rates. The hardest part is estimating the power consumption of passive Mercs, which might be possible with the help of a Smart Meter (for people who have one). It's still tricky though, and won't tell you the electricity cost at the server's end. In any case, with the world needing to go more green and use less power, I'd have to make the claim that the moral choice is always going to be to give the money to Blizzard (I know... it feels weird to say), or just live without the XP farmed this way.

Hi AngryShuckie, I wondered the same thing and asked a similar question a few months ago in the Rewards Track 4.0 thread. A helpful community member DragonDraena responded with the information that the addition to the electricity bill should be about $2 per year. Since I mostly play HS on my mobile device anyways, chasing XP this way I consider to be okay. From a more philosophical or puristic view, I can imagine that this way of XP farming can be considered the contrary though.

As for the XP calculation, I too consider (in my case) 144 XP to be not a lot. However, performing this about eleven times a day would result in a level increase (or 50 gold) by doing almost nothing. Since they removed this strategy, it is no longer possible and I can only fallback on active XP farming which would net me a maximum of 202 XP each game (or 30 minutes).

Honestly, it feels kind of weird that XP is tied to time spent in any mode in HS (especially time spent in PvE modes), but since this is what Team 5 implemented, I just use it to my advantage as efficient as I see possibly fit to my needs.

Quote From NebuchadnezzarHS

Hi AngryShuckie, I wondered the same thing and asked a similar question a few months ago in the Rewards Track 4.0 thread. A helpful community member DragonDraena responded with the information that the addition to the electricity bill should be about $2 per year. Since I mostly play HS on my mobile device anyways, chasing XP this way I consider to be okay. From a more philosophical or puristic view, I can imagine that this way of XP farming can be considered the contrary though.

As for the XP calculation, I too consider (in my case) 144 XP to be not a lot. However, performing this about eleven times a day would result in a level increase (or 50 gold) by doing almost nothing. Since they removed this strategy, it is no longer possible and I can only fallback on active XP farming which would net me a maximum of 202 XP each game (or 30 minutes).

Honestly, it feels kind of weird that XP is tied to time spent in any mode in HS (especially time spent in PvE modes), but since this is what Team 5 implemented, I just use it to my advantage as efficient as I see possibly fit to my needs.

Fair enough, it sounds a sensible approach monetarily. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have a massive surplus of gold and/or dust that you don't know what to do with? If so, I wonder whether the extra gold it gets you is actually worth anything, and that it might be beneficial all around to cut out that grind? (If not, then obviously ignore me.)

I remember Iksar said he wondered if it was a mistake tying XP to time, but it makes great sense in PvP: it feels much nicer knowing you've at least gained something from a loss than the old system. When only the winner gained gold, it disincentivised trying janky things just for fun. In PvE, win rates must be much higher, so I guess you could attach it to wins directly without drastic changes, but it is simplest to be consistent across game modes.

Quote From AngryShuckie

Quote From NebuchadnezzarHS

Hi AngryShuckie, I wondered the same thing and asked a similar question a few months ago in the Rewards Track 4.0 thread. A helpful community member DragonDraena responded with the information that the addition to the electricity bill should be about $2 per year. Since I mostly play HS on my mobile device anyways, chasing XP this way I consider to be okay. From a more philosophical or puristic view, I can imagine that this way of XP farming can be considered the contrary though.

As for the XP calculation, I too consider (in my case) 144 XP to be not a lot. However, performing this about eleven times a day would result in a level increase (or 50 gold) by doing almost nothing. Since they removed this strategy, it is no longer possible and I can only fallback on active XP farming which would net me a maximum of 202 XP each game (or 30 minutes).

Honestly, it feels kind of weird that XP is tied to time spent in any mode in HS (especially time spent in PvE modes), but since this is what Team 5 implemented, I just use it to my advantage as efficient as I see possibly fit to my needs.

Fair enough, it sounds a sensible approach monetarily. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have a massive surplus of gold and/or dust that you don't know what to do with? If so, I wonder whether the extra gold it gets you is actually worth anything, and that it might be beneficial all around to cut out that grind? (If not, then obviously ignore me.)

I remember Iksar said he wondered if it was a mistake tying XP to time, but it makes great sense in PvP: it feels much nicer knowing you've at least gained something from a loss than the old system. When only the winner gained gold, it disincentivised trying janky things just for fun. In PvE, win rates must be much higher, so I guess you could attach it to wins directly without drastic changes, but it is simplest to be consistent across game modes.

Lowkey flex aside, I do indeed currently have massive surplus amounts of convertible arcane dust (445K) and gold (23K) lying around. That is also the main reason why I stopped buying both expansion prerelease bundles and only purchase the mega bundle for Voyage to the Sunken City. I usually craft one or two legendaries at most per expansion cycle, but the latest two times I was lucky to have an above average pack opening rate and thus my arcane dust level only increased further. The XP grind is most likely not necessary, but you never know what else that extra gold might be good for in the future. I have already decided against spending it on useless diamond cards like Drek'Thar, but I would still spend it on the missing cardbacks (I think). Another reason for the grind is my (general) collector's drift/addiction to Hearthstone (which actually even goes beyond this game).

Quote From iWatchUSleep

Pirate warrior doesn't even have a positive winrate at higher levels, and pirate rogue has mostly been irrelevant (talking about standard here).

In wild pirate warrior didn't gain much and rogue is looking competitive, but is mostly overshadowed by all the turn 3/4 otks that go on there.

Which pirate decks are dominating, exactly?

Idc about the winrates if most of what I'm facing is pirate decks, that's enough for me to say that they're dominating the standard meta. I can't even be bothered to climb to "higher levels" (assuming you mean around legend) so the winrate over there is irrelevant to my experience. Also, I highly doubt that the winrate is less than 50% there, unless it is played at a much lower rate than in lower ranks since higher-ranked players seem to avoid aggro decks. Pirate warrior is a fairly consistent and refined deck so it is to be expected that it performs better than unrefined decks I'm trying to have fun with. You can't just talk about winrates when it comes to the laddering experience, the personal experiences can greatly vary and don't try to undermine that with statistics.

Quote From frosthearth

 

Idc about the winrates if most of what I'm facing is pirate decks, that's enough for me to say that they're dominating the standard meta. I can't even be bothered to climb to "higher levels" (assuming you mean around legend) so the winrate over there is irrelevant to my experience. Also, I highly doubt that the winrate is less than 50% there, unless it is played at a much lower rate than in lower ranks since higher-ranked players seem to avoid aggro decks. Pirate warrior is a fairly consistent and refined deck so it is to be expected that it performs better than unrefined decks I'm trying to have fun with. You can't just talk about winrates when it comes to the laddering experience, the personal experiences can greatly vary and don't try to undermine that with statistics.

I'm undermining your claim that pirate warrior is dominating ladder. I wish it was, because then climbing the ladder would be an absolute breeze.

Pwar's winrate at high legend a few days ago down below. I wouldn't be surprised if it dropped even further since then. You playing decks that lose to optimized decks isn't the game or the meta's fault. Pirate warrior isn't an issue in this meta. Other decks are, unfortunately.