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It wouldn't be the the first time a meta fits your description. I recall times people complained about how polarised everything was, then Blizz pointed to deck diversity and called it a success, demonstrating very different definitions of a 'successful meta' exist.

My own 8 years of experience tells me the least polarised match-ups usually involve a midrange deck (as the Jack-of-all-trades archetype, they have a decent shot at beating everything, but at the cost of it never being a hard counter), while the others tend to have sharper strengths and weaknesses. So maybe its an absence of midrange decks driving the polarised match-ups?

If so, hopefully the set rotation can help push things back to having more of a board focus, and allow midrange to resurface in greater numbers.

Ben Lee joined the Hearthstone Team back in December 2018 after working at CD PROJEKT RED, Funcom and Jagex. Since his time at Blizzard, and being at the helm of the Hearthstone team, we've seen some huge improvements to Hearthstone. One of the most notable improvements Hearthstone saw in his time there was the addition of card pack duplicate protection. That single update to the game made it more accessible to players and it no longer felt awful to open up three of the same Legendary card because… it wasn't possible anymore.

Pedant mode activated: wasn't legendary duplicate protection introduced with the Frozen Throne (2017)? Under the old rules you could still open the same legendary multiple times before owning all of them if you dusted it, but you'd just hold onto them 'til you had finished opening packs for that expansion to avoid that issue.

The extension of the duplicate protection to lower rarities was very welcome though, I can't deny that.

All the best for your new journey and endeavors Ben

PS: I'm pretty certain he's joined the new blizzard IP survive game team: https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23768911/create-a-new-universe-with-us 

Quote From dapperdog

Quote From Daowen

I am strugling with The General in BRM. Watched videos and tried different setups but no luck so far. 
Losing mercs before i am even there as well.
I have the idea i need more maxed out mercenaries for this to get it done.

Am i right in this or what do you suggest to get it done?

Just curious, what team are you running in BRM anyway? The enemies there aren't usually too bad, definitely not as bad as winterspring.

I tried with Xyrella, Malfurion, Brukan, King Mukla, Cairne and Samuro

Then replace Cairne and Samuro for Anduin and Velen.
I can remember I had Gruul in there before, no idea why i took it out....scratches head

Anyway thanks guys/girls for advice, I will keep on trying.

Thanks! Maybe it will be better if the Stormwind Quests ever get nerfed, but for now it’s at least something that’s unique and fun. Your list looks interesting for standard, who knows maybe they put Void Contract into core. 

Mercenaries is meant to be a game where you can keep coming back whenever you want. A focus on single player gameplay played at your own pace.

I think this is the part that many people misunderstood during the announcement stream. It's a pve mode with added pvp, not the other way around and it's completely valid to not play pvp at all if you don't want to.

In fact I'm pretty certain that most merc players ignore pvp, or maybe only try to get the daily 1. win reward (especially the newer ones who joined because they don't find the other modes fun anymore).  That's why I'm also not a fan of people who argue that the mode is "dead" because there are 30 sec pvp que times. Even I who really enjoys pvp still spend most of my time in pve.

May have Windfury all turns?

:-(

I loved Battlegrounds. It is really hard for me to get into these Buddies. I think it was turning all heroes on their head that has made it harder for me to adapt. A lot of what I've spent years learning needed to go out the window. Still winning with similar builds, just getting there in bizarre ways.

I haven't played in a couple weeks. Maybe I'll give it a go with this new patch.

Quote From GoddammitDontShootMe

While a great thing to do when first meeting someone, definitely don’t cast this card when you want to be friends with them.

Show Spoiler

Okay, I give up. I tried to think of things you typically do when meeting someone else, and nothing came up when searching under name or text for those things. I'm not sure of anything that's Winter specific either.

While a great thing to do when first meeting someone, definitely don’t cast this card when you want to be friends with them.

wait, did they release all the book of mercenaries chapters? if not, maybe the reason this mystery is "unachieveable" is because its not out yet? I always thought it was not working due to some bug. maybe this time we gonna need to start the puzzle in the book of merc instead of practice?

Anyone feel like this meta is overdetermined based on deck v deck matchup?

There are a good variety of decks being played, but it does feel like matchup is more determinative than correct plays. It seems like most matchups are like 65-85 to 35-15 rather than the more traditional 55/45 blowout.

I'm not sure why it feels this way, exactly. There have always been aggro, combo, burn, and control decks, but now it definitely seems less necessary to play around/anticipate your opponent's plays, because each of you can discover your outs and only look forward. 

Anyone else agree? Disagree? I think the meta is technically varied in that many classes/decks are played, but each game seems to me like it's on auto-pilot. 

For the record, I started playing in Oct 2014, have hit Legend multiple times (in Standard and Wild, esp. since they made it so easy with the 3-star system).

Will these mercenaries mentioned on this page be added to the game?

Ah, that blocks your own taunt as well? In that case, that likely explains it, since I'm leveling up both of them in the same party.

No, the worst is the Party Up!, because you can not even grind it for sure, the only way to do it is sheer luck.

I"m going to be so glad to see Devolving Missiles go.  I love Shaman, I love Mage, I freaking loathe this card from every way around.  

The Rush keyword has been low-key bad for the game as a whole, as it makes it much harder to stick minions with interesting continuous effects. Good riddance to that one too!

Getting 24 damage on turn 7 doesn't feel like a nerf. 

Quote From Suchti0352

Oh, seems like there is going to be a new maze. Except that this time it also includes enemies, shops and treasure chests and more. Whoever designed and programmed this had way too much spare time.

Agreed.  I also STRONGLY feel like these "mystery" puzzles aren't that much fun.  If they were puzzles in the sense that the average user could figure them out (similar to the puzzle mode we got under single adventures) then sure that would be one thing, but the obscure references to things just does not scratch me in a wrong way.

And I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this opinion, but the whole "let's make something that's crowdsourced" is never a good idea IMO.  Crowdsourcing intelligence is fun *on occasion*, but every expansion getting some puzzle that takes ages...99% of people will just copy the steps from a guide, and isn't *actually* fun to execute just screams like poor game design.  

There are far more interesting and fun easter eggs in the game.  I'd rather them put in easter egg interactions (or more) into the boards, or spend time making new interactions between existing cards that they used to do more often.

Yes, I know it's not required, yes I know that it's just a card back.  It still doesn't seem like a fun activity if the average user isn't going to be able to figure it out on their own.

To put it another way: If this type of obscure and tedious "easter egg" was in any other game, most people would be review bombing the game: but because it's Blizzard/Hearthstone it's given a free pass.

The cards above depicts some sort of old Might & Magic dungeon crawler games, where you can move up down left right and the wall and lava is there to prevent you going further.

Vendor there for buying, Chest for treasures, minions for boss encounters likely.

The one who made this clearly wasn't satisfied with the old mysterious achievements back then when we use portals to go left and right.

That's a valid opinion - I felt similarly about Ashes, and Pit Commander saved me at the last moment

Oh, seems like there is going to be a new maze. Except that this time it also includes enemies, shops and treasure chests and more. Whoever designed and programmed this had way too much spare time.

There is not a single card from this set that I will miss. Good riddance.