- TbFF has, in my opinion, poor characters, poor development and is tainted by an incredibly shitty ending. Rikkar, from rumble run, is a blank character of unknown origin (the very definition of a nobody) but it works because the story is about him rising to the top. Arrana on the other hand is the sister of a known character, with a defined character and arc (Far as I know, she starts wanting to escape from her sister's shadow) but by the end we're left scratching out heads as to what has actually been accomplished here. It doesn't help that the story keeps piling on the bs that she becomes completely unrelatable. She's basically Rey from starwars; a character which experiences hardship only in theory but not in action. Its like a 10 yr old's self-insert fanfiction ideal which is sympathetic to its creator but not to anyone else.
Oh and the shitty ending? Illidan being beaten both in power and angst. By someone who literally became a demon hunter yesterday.
Wasn't her story primarily about finding solid friends in her own way and as far away from her sister's influence as possible, and hence finding herself in the process? Beating Illidan through the power of friendship (yuck :P) obviously shouldn't happen, but as much as I hate the trope, at least it was different from the usual DH story (i.e. every DH except Aranna) of "the Legion did me wrong and I have the emotional range of an angry potato so I guess I'll join Illidan". Man I wish DH had an once of diversity; it's frustratingly narrow in every respect.
--------------------------
Otherwise, I broadly agree with the order OP used, though I would include most of the Dungeon Run-esque modes, even if you're only going to state there's not much story there for some of them. I would also personally promote Blackrock a bit though since I very much enjoyed the process of Nefarian and his dragon homies beginning to realise we weren't just there for Ragnaros.
That reminds me, what on earth happened in the Mercenaries (game mode) story? In particular, why did Lady Prestor hire us to take out her brother? I understand why Valeera would want him removed, but Onyxia? Hmm. Maybe it was all just an alternative perspective on the exact same events as the Blackrock adventure? It would certainly explain why Nefarian was surprised when we started taking out dragons...
And if we undershoot, well at least it's better than before. If we overshoot, that deck just stops seeing play entirely.
No, no, no.
If you nerf something and you overshoot, the deck stops seeing "play" because people want "#90% winrate deck PogChamp Kappa TwitchEmoteVomit"
People seem to think that if a deck is somewhere between 49-51% winrate it's "bad". It has to be some egregious winrate for people to want to play it in the first place. And this line of thinking is further exacerbated by a majority of streamers who make clickbait videos/streams.
1) Those streamers can pilot decks at a way higher efficacy level than the average gamer. So when those streamers get 60+ winrates, it's because they understand niche decisions that can snowball the deck to higher winrates
2) The streamers over-inflate how good or bad a deck is because being realistic doesn't get views. Bloviating and making hyperbolic and extravagant comments gets them more viewers.
Lastly, no-one cares when a tempo midrange decks gets a small nerf. Because the tempo mid-range can either continue on, or it swaps out the nerfed card for maybe something better. The only decks that "die out" due to overnerfing are OTK decks. (See Ilgynoth prevalance prior to his buff/nerf, see the vast majority of Demon Hunter decks during entire last year of hearthstone)
I'm sorry, but Team5 is acting dumb. They print all these mana cheating wombo combo cards. Then for some inexplicable reason they get surprised when the community finds stupid OTK/non-interactive decks.
Edit: Sorry if this comes off as ranty or crass. I think this meta is "ok" but barely tolerable than stormwind. We just swapped out one evil for another. It's just very monotonous.
From the perspective of Wild, I'd say things that need to get hit:
- either Celestial Alignment or Anakondra (so that she can't reduce below 1)
- Hunter quest (1-2 more spells to complete)
- Warrior quest (you just can't let a hyper-aggressive deck have inevitability; nerf how long it takes to get to the reward or nerf the reward severely)
- Snowfall guardian (just another variety of solitaire for anyone trying to run a board-based deck)
- don't think this will happen right now but maybe with the new Core Set: FINALLY nerf Sorcerer's Apprentice to not discount below 1 mana so that Mages don't get to play like 5 varieties of solitaire anymore around that damn card. Considering the hit that Aviana Kun took because of how many stupid combos they enabled, I'm surprised Sorcerer's Apprentice has not been touched since release.
Granted, even if all this would happen we would go back to another variety of solitaire (Raza Priests), but at least that's solitaire with a longer-term gameplan and some room for disruption.
I excluded Monster Hunter, Rastakhan and Dalaran Heist because I didn't remember them having a lot of story, which is mostly what I'm evaluating here.
Besides that, I agree with you in most of what you said about TbFF and DoD. In fact, I put them at the bottom of the non-WoW raid Adventures (which I think are less interesting by the mere nature of them)
Thank you Tetsuo for creating the latest iteration of this beloved RT Progress thread.
I am currently at level 64. As always, I bought the Tavern Pass, both pre-order bundles and spent 5000 gold for 50 packs. Amazingly, I only miss 1 single legendary now which took me at least 60 more packs to reach for the last expansion. Next time, I will skip the purchase of the smaller pre-order and save some money in the process. As for XP achievements progress, I am at 71% now and still have 15 of them left to complete. Team5 still needs to patch some of these before I can complete them all though. The current meta is much healthier than the previous one I must say.
The funniest game I had this week was with Rogue playing against a Freeze Shaman. During the match I got a Brilliant Macaw off of a Parrrley. This Shaman card combined with the new Shadowcrafter Scabbs hero card battlecry was really brilliant. I could basically replay the hero card ability onwards every turn with upsides only for me and not for my opponent, such great fun was had.
Winter Veil is coming to Hearthstone, starting December 21st – it includes:
Free Snowman Thrall Hero Skin
Winter Veil Chill
Winter Veil Cheer
Greatfather Winter Magni
Winter Veil Battlegrounds Bundle
Associate Writer for Blizzard Entertainment Nicholas “DeckTech” Weiss also shared with us that there will be an update about the Horde vs. Alliance Battle for Alterac Valley next week, who do you think is in the Lead?
You might as well buy the pass now if you intend to do so anyway. The extra xp is not retroactive if Im not mistaken, which means you dont get that increase from all the games played before you bought the pass.
Yeah I know, I just don't have money to spare for it right now, what with Christmas season and all. Stupid gifts :)) Besides, I'm buying the pass for the portraits, not the XP boost, but I hear you.
Amen on Quest Mages, I'm glad they're dead. The new Mozaki Mage has taken its place though, yet another OTK deck that's not really powerful but just incredibly tilting to lose to, especially since I'm playing slower decks that can't pressure it much.
No quest mages so far, a massive plus, because if I ever see another one of that shit again, I might need to down an entire bottle of aspirin to avoid a stroke.
I've faced a few quest mages but they all got rekt and I was playing various decks like Guff CA druid and MarkMckz's Owl Xyrella Priest. Quest mage isn't performing well anymore but maybe I've just been lucky.
Finished all my weekly and daily quests and currently level 47 thanks to achievement hunting. So looking forward to that dragon mage portrait. Only downside is queuing up as mage leads to a loss as seen in HS Replay stats and I will never play as Quest Mage (coz I don't own the quest).
Do hope Blizzard buffs some big mage spells coz that archetype is really struggling.
I feel like a big thing WoW originally had going for it at the start was how the internet was still a bit of a novelty but now there's so much competition and it's oversaturated and it doesn't feel as magical. Therefore, it is more interesting for me to just go and make a prediction at https://oddsdigger.com/ca/boxing.
You might as well buy the pass now if you intend to do so anyway. The extra xp is not retroactive if Im not mistaken, which means you dont get that increase from all the games played before you bought the pass.
Planning to reach 50 this week to see if the free legendary is any good, and to get that splendid (dragon) portrait for mage. Dawngrasp isn't really all that great for me to be honest.
So far the games been fun for me too. Played all sorts of decks to some success, in comparison with stormwind where matchups determine whether you'll get destroyed within seconds. Almost make me feel that Irondeep Trogg was purposefully added to this expansion just to make sure quest decks can't possibly survive. No quest mages so far, a massive plus, because if I ever see another one of that shit again, I might need to down an entire bottle of aspirin to avoid a stroke.
Hey everyone! We're a week into the FiAV expansion and no one has made a thread for the new rewards track yet, so I figured I'd take the reins from Alleria and make one. It's always fun to see other people's progress since it motivates me to keep leveling up as well, so share away!
Here's my progress:
I'm currently at Level 37, I've played for about four days since the expansion launch. I stupidly forgot to hoard the daily and weekly quests before the launch so I could zoom through the rewards track, thinking they'd be replenished by the next day -_- Anyway, my goal this expansion is to breach the Level 200 barrier that has so far eluded me in all the rewards tracks.
From the looks of this meta, I'll probably reach that goal because I'm having fun! I've been playing a lot of Shaman (grinding towards that golden portrait, just 80 more wins to go), mostly the Freeze Control archetype, and some Freeze Elemental decks. I've also toyed with a Big Priest since I unpacked Xyrella, the Devout, and it's pretty competitive. I even had some success with a Clown Druid with Wildheart Guff, it beats a lot of Fatigue Warlocks so long as you can ramp quickly and slam down some big boys early. Speaking of which, I'm not facing a lot of quest decks, apart from Warlocks and Warriors, which I think is good.
I haven't bought the pass yet, but I will by next week. This meta has been fun for me so far. How's everyone's finding it? Good luck on the climb!
I haven't heard any community backlash to the nerfs yet, so that might be reason enough to be happy Ezreal Kenin is dead.
Or at the very least needs to be hard rebuilt into something else entirely.
But on the other hand auto queuing into gangplank senuani again like Bilegewater was just released after all this time does put a bad taste in my mouth.
Not every deck needs to be auto play board presence value soup, and I'll probably pour one off for our lost soldier little Kenny boy
Nice flavor all around and a super cool usage of the pizza art. I'd say the Rare version only increasing the Cost of one card is the way to go. I actually also like Basil's suggestion of making it affect your next card as opposed to just one card at random or all of them.
BloodMefist
Super flavorful, but I feel a bit of a design disconnect in the sense that you can play it and then toss out all your Shadow spells and then the penalty to Holy spells doesn't really matter since you've already gotten so much value out the card. And then the penalty to Shadow spells next turn doesn't matter since you've presumably already played all of them on the previous turn anyway. Minions also don't tend to survive long enough for effects like this to function the way they're intended.
DestroyerR
Really cool artwork, but I don't see the use for the card. It also doesn't really feel like a Mage card either.
Doingtheobvious
I understand your reasoning for not making it a Fire spell, but it has artwork that sorta needs it to use the Fire spell tag. Not including will likely cost you some points since the art just specifically screams "Fire spell".
Your second version needs capitalized "Cost" and also "Fire" should not be bolded. Beyond that, I am worried by how quickly and easily this can ramp up. Just casting a single Fire spell already makes it a 1-mana Consecration.
Neoguli
I will agree with everyone else and say that you shouldn't use "Roame" in the name. I'm gonna say that balance is probably fine since Discovering a spell by itself with no additional upside is not worth 1 mana and adding a 1 mana tax to that won't break anything. If anything, it actually makes the cards slightly worse on average as far as mana efficiency goes.
BasilAnguis
I am fully aware that the intent is that it gets harder to play by playing more cards, but it still features a dynamic that works against itself by increasing its Cost as you're spending more mana which is just doubly making it harder to use as opposed to just wanting you to play more cards.
Annoyed With Noninteractive Decks? Hearthstone Will See Card Buffs and More Balance Changes in a Future Update
"and the relatively new Humongous Owl Warlock appearing in almost every line up"
almost every = 3 out of 8
you tube drop tomorrow?
Yes, but only on Youtube (no Twitch this time) afaik? I believe Flux has promised us a guide soon.
Shop offer gone?
Thank you. It was back today. Looked for the one with two AV Legendaries.
Hearthstone Story Modes Tier List
Wasn't her story primarily about finding solid friends in her own way and as far away from her sister's influence as possible, and hence finding herself in the process? Beating Illidan through the power of friendship (yuck :P) obviously shouldn't happen, but as much as I hate the trope, at least it was different from the usual DH story (i.e. every DH except Aranna) of "the Legion did me wrong and I have the emotional range of an angry potato so I guess I'll join Illidan". Man I wish DH had an once of diversity; it's frustratingly narrow in every respect.
--------------------------
Otherwise, I broadly agree with the order OP used, though I would include most of the Dungeon Run-esque modes, even if you're only going to state there's not much story there for some of them. I would also personally promote Blackrock a bit though since I very much enjoyed the process of Nefarian and his dragon homies beginning to realise we weren't just there for Ragnaros.
That reminds me, what on earth happened in the Mercenaries (game mode) story? In particular, why did Lady Prestor hire us to take out her brother? I understand why Valeera would want him removed, but Onyxia? Hmm. Maybe it was all just an alternative perspective on the exact same events as the Blackrock adventure? It would certainly explain why Nefarian was surprised when we started taking out dragons...
Quitting HS
I will miss your awesome deck lists and well-written guides! Good luck!
Annoyed With Noninteractive Decks? Hearthstone Will See Card Buffs and More Balance Changes in a Future Update
Ugh.
No, no, no.
If you nerf something and you overshoot, the deck stops seeing "play" because people want "#90% winrate deck PogChamp Kappa TwitchEmoteVomit"
People seem to think that if a deck is somewhere between 49-51% winrate it's "bad". It has to be some egregious winrate for people to want to play it in the first place. And this line of thinking is further exacerbated by a majority of streamers who make clickbait videos/streams.
1) Those streamers can pilot decks at a way higher efficacy level than the average gamer. So when those streamers get 60+ winrates, it's because they understand niche decisions that can snowball the deck to higher winrates
2) The streamers over-inflate how good or bad a deck is because being realistic doesn't get views. Bloviating and making hyperbolic and extravagant comments gets them more viewers.
Lastly, no-one cares when a tempo midrange decks gets a small nerf. Because the tempo mid-range can either continue on, or it swaps out the nerfed card for maybe something better. The only decks that "die out" due to overnerfing are OTK decks. (See Ilgynoth prevalance prior to his buff/nerf, see the vast majority of Demon Hunter decks during entire last year of hearthstone)
I'm sorry, but Team5 is acting dumb. They print all these mana cheating wombo combo cards. Then for some inexplicable reason they get surprised when the community finds stupid OTK/non-interactive decks.
Edit: Sorry if this comes off as ranty or crass. I think this meta is "ok" but barely tolerable than stormwind. We just swapped out one evil for another. It's just very monotonous.
Annoyed With Noninteractive Decks? Hearthstone Will See Card Buffs and More Balance Changes in a Future Update
From the perspective of Wild, I'd say things that need to get hit:
- either Celestial Alignment or Anakondra (so that she can't reduce below 1)
- Hunter quest (1-2 more spells to complete)
- Warrior quest (you just can't let a hyper-aggressive deck have inevitability; nerf how long it takes to get to the reward or nerf the reward severely)
- Snowfall guardian (just another variety of solitaire for anyone trying to run a board-based deck)
- don't think this will happen right now but maybe with the new Core Set: FINALLY nerf Sorcerer's Apprentice to not discount below 1 mana so that Mages don't get to play like 5 varieties of solitaire anymore around that damn card. Considering the hit that Aviana Kun took because of how many stupid combos they enabled, I'm surprised Sorcerer's Apprentice has not been touched since release.
Granted, even if all this would happen we would go back to another variety of solitaire (Raza Priests), but at least that's solitaire with a longer-term gameplan and some room for disruption.
Annoyed With Noninteractive Decks? Hearthstone Will See Card Buffs and More Balance Changes in a Future Update
It seems Freeze Shaman is getting a free pass. Wild says thank you
Annoyed With Noninteractive Decks? Hearthstone Will See Card Buffs and More Balance Changes in a Future Update
Vol'jin buff.
Hearthstone Story Modes Tier List
I excluded Monster Hunter, Rastakhan and Dalaran Heist because I didn't remember them having a lot of story, which is mostly what I'm evaluating here.
Besides that, I agree with you in most of what you said about TbFF and DoD. In fact, I put them at the bottom of the non-WoW raid Adventures (which I think are less interesting by the mere nature of them)
Quitting HS
From whom should I netdeck my wild decks now?
Rewards Track Progress: 4.0
Thank you Tetsuo for creating the latest iteration of this beloved RT Progress thread.
I am currently at level 64. As always, I bought the Tavern Pass, both pre-order bundles and spent 5000 gold for 50 packs. Amazingly, I only miss 1 single legendary now which took me at least 60 more packs to reach for the last expansion. Next time, I will skip the purchase of the smaller pre-order and save some money in the process. As for XP achievements progress, I am at 71% now and still have 15 of them left to complete. Team5 still needs to patch some of these before I can complete them all though. The current meta is much healthier than the previous one I must say.
The funniest game I had this week was with Rogue playing against a Freeze Shaman. During the match I got a Brilliant Macaw off of a Parrrley. This Shaman card combined with the new Shadowcrafter Scabbs hero card battlecry was really brilliant. I could basically replay the hero card ability onwards every turn with upsides only for me and not for my opponent, such great fun was had.
you tube drop tomorrow?
Yes, drop are enabled.
Quitting HS
this is not a airport so no need to inform you leave
Free shaman skin on Dec 21st
Source: https://hearthstone-decks.net/hearthstone-winter-veil-starts-on-december-21st-bundles-free-skin/
Winter Veil is coming to Hearthstone, starting December 21st – it includes:
Associate Writer for Blizzard Entertainment Nicholas “DeckTech” Weiss also shared with us that there will be an update about the Horde vs. Alliance Battle for Alterac Valley next week, who do you think is in the Lead?
Rewards Track Progress: 4.0
Yeah I know, I just don't have money to spare for it right now, what with Christmas season and all. Stupid gifts :)) Besides, I'm buying the pass for the portraits, not the XP boost, but I hear you.
Amen on Quest Mages, I'm glad they're dead. The new Mozaki Mage has taken its place though, yet another OTK deck that's not really powerful but just incredibly tilting to lose to, especially since I'm playing slower decks that can't pressure it much.
Rewards Track Progress: 4.0
I've faced a few quest mages but they all got rekt and I was playing various decks like Guff CA druid and MarkMckz's Owl Xyrella Priest. Quest mage isn't performing well anymore but maybe I've just been lucky.
Finished all my weekly and daily quests and currently level 47 thanks to achievement hunting. So looking forward to that dragon mage portrait. Only downside is queuing up as mage leads to a loss as seen in HS Replay stats and I will never play as Quest Mage (coz I don't own the quest).
Do hope Blizzard buffs some big mage spells coz that archetype is really struggling.
you tube drop tomorrow?
i think so ...
Carbot and World of Warcraft latest video.
I feel like a big thing WoW originally had going for it at the start was how the internet was still a bit of a novelty but now there's so much competition and it's oversaturated and it doesn't feel as magical. Therefore, it is more interesting for me to just go and make a prediction at https://oddsdigger.com/ca/boxing.
Cyber Zone - Custom CCG Concept
Really cool idea for cards for games. Recently present a similar gift set to my friend and he was delighted.
Rewards Track Progress: 4.0
You might as well buy the pass now if you intend to do so anyway. The extra xp is not retroactive if Im not mistaken, which means you dont get that increase from all the games played before you bought the pass.
Planning to reach 50 this week to see if the free legendary is any good, and to get that splendid (dragon) portrait for mage. Dawngrasp isn't really all that great for me to be honest.
So far the games been fun for me too. Played all sorts of decks to some success, in comparison with stormwind where matchups determine whether you'll get destroyed within seconds. Almost make me feel that Irondeep Trogg was purposefully added to this expansion just to make sure quest decks can't possibly survive. No quest mages so far, a massive plus, because if I ever see another one of that shit again, I might need to down an entire bottle of aspirin to avoid a stroke.
Rewards Track Progress: 4.0
Hey everyone! We're a week into the FiAV expansion and no one has made a thread for the new rewards track yet, so I figured I'd take the reins from Alleria and make one. It's always fun to see other people's progress since it motivates me to keep leveling up as well, so share away!
Here's my progress:
I'm currently at Level 37, I've played for about four days since the expansion launch. I stupidly forgot to hoard the daily and weekly quests before the launch so I could zoom through the rewards track, thinking they'd be replenished by the next day -_- Anyway, my goal this expansion is to breach the Level 200 barrier that has so far eluded me in all the rewards tracks.
From the looks of this meta, I'll probably reach that goal because I'm having fun! I've been playing a lot of Shaman (grinding towards that golden portrait, just 80 more wins to go), mostly the Freeze Control archetype, and some Freeze Elemental decks. I've also toyed with a Big Priest since I unpacked Xyrella, the Devout, and it's pretty competitive. I even had some success with a Clown Druid with Wildheart Guff, it beats a lot of Fatigue Warlocks so long as you can ramp quickly and slam down some big boys early. Speaking of which, I'm not facing a lot of quest decks, apart from Warlocks and Warriors, which I think is good.
I haven't bought the pass yet, but I will by next week. This meta has been fun for me so far. How's everyone's finding it? Good luck on the climb!
[Duels] AgentCroque`s 12 Win Spiked Arms Pirate Warrior
thank you very much fort this starting deck and the guide, I love playing it! Did 8 wins on the last run =)
Hot Take Was Kenin Ezreal Over Nerfed?
Yep, that's a well rounded perspective general.
I haven't heard any community backlash to the nerfs yet, so that might be reason enough to be happy Ezreal Kenin is dead.
Or at the very least needs to be hard rebuilt into something else entirely.
But on the other hand auto queuing into gangplank senuani again like Bilegewater was just released after all this time does put a bad taste in my mouth.
Not every deck needs to be auto play board presence value soup, and I'll probably pour one off for our lost soldier little Kenny boy
Worth Every Penny - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Round 2 here we go.
I understand your reasoning for not making it a Fire spell, but it has artwork that sorta needs it to use the Fire spell tag. Not including will likely cost you some points since the art just specifically screams "Fire spell".
Your second version needs capitalized "Cost" and also "Fire" should not be bolded. Beyond that, I am worried by how quickly and easily this can ramp up. Just casting a single Fire spell already makes it a 1-mana Consecration.