Notably not worth it if you're just running big things, because the discount is negated by the cards own mana cost. That means this is looking for a home in more aggressive decks that can still keep their hands full enough to make full use of it, something that seems not totally unviable for Warrior.
I've gone back and forth on how much I like this card so many times - it really is just one that needs to be played with before you can prooperly evaluate it, especially since most of its usefulness is very meta dependent.
I like more cards that reward Warlocks for drawing through their decks, especially ones that actively help stabilise you on the board. At just 2 mana I think this seems pretty nice.
I feel like it's unwise to dismiss a Deal 3 Battlecry off the cuff. Needing the Honorable Kill to get decent stats is a blow, of course, but that's still a pretty good effect for a Neutral card to have.
Fun to play around with for Fire Plume's Heart. Not sure how much use it has in Standard, but there are a few neat combos available with the other new cards.
Neat effect. Might make it into aggro lists who'd appreciate making their boards more resilient sometimes, and like that it eats a removal spell others.
Strange to see Freeze outside of the normal classes, but it really works for what Warrior wants to be doing. I think it's a meta call whether you prefer this or Execute - I don't think you run both.
The cosmetic thing can work, its just that its very expensive so many just dont buy them because they'd rather spend it on packs than anything else, hearthstone being such an expensive game to have fun in to begin with.
Only recently we've seen them selling those skins separately, so you're not saddled with skins you dont want just to buy those you do want. Would love to see the impact of this decision, because Im fairly sure it'll show a bigger sell value than bundled skins.
Just sell skins at a affordable price - for other countries. Im sure in USA the cost of skins isn't all that big, but you can literally buy steaks from 5 star hotels with that value from where I live. Steam sells games at different prices in different countries, whereas blizz sets them up at only select countries. You'd think with how big WoW was 10-15 years ago they'd already have this feature across the globe by now.
Snipe but the opponent knows about it? Far better than something like Harbinger Celestia, I suppose, but I'm not a fan of letting your opponent pick how the interaction goes down. Maybe worth it just for the Stealth?
I don't think there's ever a world where you can use this as a tech card, because there's just no way to know you're hitting the right pieces, but I'd love to screw someone over with it just once.
God, I hope a reaction based card never becomes a thing. I would hate to lose a game because I tabbed out during my opponents turn. I misread what Dean said. It actually seems like a cool idea.
Also, if I had to choose a Muppet to become a hero I think I would choose Beaker to become a mage and Animal to be a warrior.
- Rotating wild/set - Have been asking for this since even before duels was a thing.
- Sandbox - If it lets us test all the cards in hearthstone this is just an instant pick for me. There's plenty of times we'd want to test interactions, or just plain want to test certain decks without having to spend all our dust into a few cards.
- Alt card art - Cosmetics can get some additional income, or just straight up as a reward for achievements, or somewhere to spend all those achievement points in. Fact is, this is a greater reward, I'd argue, over the un-dustable golden cards we keep getting from the rewards track, or indeed the honor track.
Doubtful stuff
- Guilds - Hearthstone is a largely single player game. What will guilds really accomplish here anyway?
- Card market - Would probably never work as we think it would. Better chances it would turn hearthstone into a virtual casino for some. I mean we've seen something like this happening in games like csgo, or just about most sport video games. I'd rather not tune into reddit to hear how some family gets ruined because their children decided to go ham on mom's credit cards.
- AI on ladder - I would be more optimistic had it not been for that new tavern brawl that utterly showed us how backwards the AI in hearthstone is. Just play ranked at the wee hours in the morning and get easy wins because the AI sucks. Or we'd start accusing the AI of cheating, because how'd anyone know if the AI can actually read your cards in hand, or the exact secret you've played.
- Reporting features - Just more work for little gain. We dont know if 99% of the games we're facing aren't just cheating scrubs. But we do know 99% of the time this button would be pressed if the opponent emotes once too many times.
- Class Ban - If there's one OP class in the game, it'll face its counters 90% of the time. And then another OP class would emerge where the first stood for everyone else.
I think I want alt art, super legend carback, player profiles, and anything that would add a new meta outside of standard and wild. I feel like tournament mode is too broad of a feature. If it is anything like the tournament mode in PTCGO, I do not want it.
But how about adding an autosquelch button for people who cannot control their emotions? How about giving a 30 minute cooldown before your opponent sees the friend request after a last opponent add? How about punishing players by removing their ability to add last opponents instead of banning them? There are many things they could fix before starting going after players.
Hearthstone needs a rotating set format so bad. I would love to see a format where the sets rotated every month and you could buy into it. Maybe you spend $5 or $10, with gold also being an option (or no buy-in if you own the cards/are happy with the cards you do own from the current sets). It would give you access to all the cards that were present in that mode at the time and your pass for it would last the month, with a price reduction halfway through the month. Bans would likely be needed in such a format as well, just to get rid of a couple of those really crazy cards.
It would be such a great sell and let people experiences these older cards without a huge investment.
We'd likely not see access to the most current expansion within that pool, but that's okay.
The scraps cost (1), which makes sense but also leaves this feeling a little weak to me. I guess you could combine it with all those cards that generate Coins and Bananas to try and trigger spell synergies, incidentally protecting your minions a bit as you do?
Top end of your aggro really wants to either be buffing minions that can attack, or attacking itself with Charge (or a damaging Battlecry, I guess). Just a 6/6 isn't all that impressive, even on turn 4.
Triggering after the spell is cast means it's quite vulnerable to most removal spells, so you really want to buff it up a little the turn you play it (thankfully buffs will carry over to the copies). There are some decks like Libram Paladin that might find this a little tricky to play around, but I'm not sure what deck would want to play this specifically to counter something like that.
We haven't seen many specific spell school synergy cards take off that weren't just about drawing cards of specific schools - or the Mage Quest, which was really about playing a lot of spells that happened to be of three different schools.
This card has promise though, as Frost Shaman feels like it'll be more minion based than some other spell school decks might be and this is a strong buff to get for following your gameplan.
Stats are great for a card that draws. OK in a deck with a decent number of Frost spells, but I can't think of any situation where you want to be drawing a really specific Frost spell that would make this truly shine.
I only really like this on 5 mana or (preferably) higher - rolling an Argent Squire for (2) mana or a Righteous Protector for (3) sounds miserable, so you really want to be getting to the point that you're guaranteeing at least one +2/+2 buff.
Obviously intended for the Shield Shatter combo, but the earlier comparisons to Heavy Plate aren't particularly wrong either. I think the fact that you can get it down to nothing with just one card is really good, but it'll depend on if you really need to be able to do that whether or not it gets in over Plate.
It's very easy to build your deck in such a way that this costs (0) or close to it whenever you look to play it. I think that Frozen Buckler was a little on the nose, even, but I guess they're trying to push for more Control to pivot from Pirates.
Good luck to the other finalists. Apologies for no-feedback this time around: ended up not doing much beyond my initial post, and didn't even update my Secret. Work has been crazy-busy lately, and I spend most of my off-time sleeping lol :/
New Warrior Spell - To the Front!
Notably not worth it if you're just running big things, because the discount is negated by the cards own mana cost. That means this is looking for a home in more aggressive decks that can still keep their hands full enough to make full use of it, something that seems not totally unviable for Warrior.
New Warrior Spell - Iceblood Garrison
I've gone back and forth on how much I like this card so many times - it really is just one that needs to be played with before you can prooperly evaluate it, especially since most of its usefulness is very meta dependent.
New Warlock Spell - Seeds of Destruction
I like more cards that reward Warlocks for drawing through their decks, especially ones that actively help stabilise you on the board. At just 2 mana I think this seems pretty nice.
New Neutral Minion - Knight-Captain
I feel like it's unwise to dismiss a Deal 3 Battlecry off the cuff. Needing the Honorable Kill to get decent stats is a blow, of course, but that's still a pretty good effect for a Neutral card to have.
New Warrior Minion - Scrapsmith
Fun to play around with for Fire Plume's Heart. Not sure how much use it has in Standard, but there are a few neat combos available with the other new cards.
New Neutral Minion - Corporal
Neat effect. Might make it into aggro lists who'd appreciate making their boards more resilient sometimes, and like that it eats a removal spell others.
New Warrior Spell - Snowed In
Strange to see Freeze outside of the normal classes, but it really works for what Warrior wants to be doing. I think it's a meta call whether you prefer this or Execute - I don't think you run both.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Q&A #35 - New Card Type, Cosmetics Monetization, Future of Hearthstone, Internal Team Reorganization
The cosmetic thing can work, its just that its very expensive so many just dont buy them because they'd rather spend it on packs than anything else, hearthstone being such an expensive game to have fun in to begin with.
Only recently we've seen them selling those skins separately, so you're not saddled with skins you dont want just to buy those you do want. Would love to see the impact of this decision, because Im fairly sure it'll show a bigger sell value than bundled skins.
Just sell skins at a affordable price - for other countries. Im sure in USA the cost of skins isn't all that big, but you can literally buy steaks from 5 star hotels with that value from where I live. Steam sells games at different prices in different countries, whereas blizz sets them up at only select countries. You'd think with how big WoW was 10-15 years ago they'd already have this feature across the globe by now.
New Neutral Minion - Gankster
Snipe but the opponent knows about it? Far better than something like Harbinger Celestia, I suppose, but I'm not a fan of letting your opponent pick how the interaction goes down. Maybe worth it just for the Stealth?
New Neutral Minion - Reflecto Engineer
I don't think there's ever a world where you can use this as a tech card, because there's just no way to know you're hitting the right pieces, but I'd love to screw someone over with it just once.
Dean's Features Pitch to the Hearthstone Team - Selling Cards, Tournaments, Deck Tracker, Naxxramas, & More
It is crazy to me that Dean still wants class bans despite everything that has been said about them. Maybe he just has not seen what others have said?
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Q&A #35 - New Card Type, Cosmetics Monetization, Future of Hearthstone, Internal Team Reorganization
God, I hope a reaction based card never becomes a thing. I would hate to lose a game because I tabbed out during my opponents turn. I misread what Dean said. It actually seems like a cool idea.
Also, if I had to choose a Muppet to become a hero I think I would choose Beaker to become a mage and Animal to be a warrior.
Dean's Features Pitch to the Hearthstone Team - Selling Cards, Tournaments, Deck Tracker, Naxxramas, & More
Important things here to me:
- Rotating wild/set - Have been asking for this since even before duels was a thing.
- Sandbox - If it lets us test all the cards in hearthstone this is just an instant pick for me. There's plenty of times we'd want to test interactions, or just plain want to test certain decks without having to spend all our dust into a few cards.
- Alt card art - Cosmetics can get some additional income, or just straight up as a reward for achievements, or somewhere to spend all those achievement points in. Fact is, this is a greater reward, I'd argue, over the un-dustable golden cards we keep getting from the rewards track, or indeed the honor track.
Doubtful stuff
- Guilds - Hearthstone is a largely single player game. What will guilds really accomplish here anyway?
- Card market - Would probably never work as we think it would. Better chances it would turn hearthstone into a virtual casino for some. I mean we've seen something like this happening in games like csgo, or just about most sport video games. I'd rather not tune into reddit to hear how some family gets ruined because their children decided to go ham on mom's credit cards.
- AI on ladder - I would be more optimistic had it not been for that new tavern brawl that utterly showed us how backwards the AI in hearthstone is. Just play ranked at the wee hours in the morning and get easy wins because the AI sucks. Or we'd start accusing the AI of cheating, because how'd anyone know if the AI can actually read your cards in hand, or the exact secret you've played.
- Reporting features - Just more work for little gain. We dont know if 99% of the games we're facing aren't just cheating scrubs. But we do know 99% of the time this button would be pressed if the opponent emotes once too many times.
- Class Ban - If there's one OP class in the game, it'll face its counters 90% of the time. And then another OP class would emerge where the first stood for everyone else.
Dean's Features Pitch to the Hearthstone Team - Selling Cards, Tournaments, Deck Tracker, Naxxramas, & More
I think I want alt art, super legend carback, player profiles, and anything that would add a new meta outside of standard and wild. I feel like tournament mode is too broad of a feature. If it is anything like the tournament mode in PTCGO, I do not want it.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Q&A #35 - New Card Type, Cosmetics Monetization, Future of Hearthstone, Internal Team Reorganization
But how about adding an autosquelch button for people who cannot control their emotions? How about giving a 30 minute cooldown before your opponent sees the friend request after a last opponent add? How about punishing players by removing their ability to add last opponents instead of banning them? There are many things they could fix before starting going after players.
Dean's Features Pitch to the Hearthstone Team - Selling Cards, Tournaments, Deck Tracker, Naxxramas, & More
Hearthstone needs a rotating set format so bad. I would love to see a format where the sets rotated every month and you could buy into it. Maybe you spend $5 or $10, with gold also being an option (or no buy-in if you own the cards/are happy with the cards you do own from the current sets). It would give you access to all the cards that were present in that mode at the time and your pass for it would last the month, with a price reduction halfway through the month. Bans would likely be needed in such a format as well, just to get rid of a couple of those really crazy cards.
It would be such a great sell and let people experiences these older cards without a huge investment.
We'd likely not see access to the most current expansion within that pool, but that's okay.
#FluxDreamLand
Edit: Updated for clarity.
New Neutral Minion - Kobold Taskmaster
The scraps cost (1), which makes sense but also leaves this feeling a little weak to me. I guess you could combine it with all those cards that generate Coins and Bananas to try and trigger spell synergies, incidentally protecting your minions a bit as you do?
New Neutral Minion - Tower Sergeant
Top end of your aggro really wants to either be buffing minions that can attack, or attacking itself with Charge (or a damaging Battlecry, I guess). Just a 6/6 isn't all that impressive, even on turn 4.
New Neutral Minion - Irondeep Trogg
Triggering after the spell is cast means it's quite vulnerable to most removal spells, so you really want to buff it up a little the turn you play it (thankfully buffs will carry over to the copies). There are some decks like Libram Paladin that might find this a little tricky to play around, but I'm not sure what deck would want to play this specifically to counter something like that.
New Neutral Minion - Ice Revenant
We haven't seen many specific spell school synergy cards take off that weren't just about drawing cards of specific schools - or the Mage Quest, which was really about playing a lot of spells that happened to be of three different schools.
This card has promise though, as Frost Shaman feels like it'll be more minion based than some other spell school decks might be and this is a strong buff to get for following your gameplan.
New Neutral Minion - Herald of Lokholar
Stats are great for a card that draws. OK in a deck with a decent number of Frost spells, but I can't think of any situation where you want to be drawing a really specific Frost spell that would make this truly shine.
New Neutral Minion - Ivus, the Forest Lord
I only really like this on 5 mana or (preferably) higher - rolling an Argent Squire for (2) mana or a Righteous Protector for (3) sounds miserable, so you really want to be getting to the point that you're guaranteeing at least one +2/+2 buff.
New Warrior Spell - Frozen Buckler
Obviously intended for the Shield Shatter combo, but the earlier comparisons to Heavy Plate aren't particularly wrong either. I think the fact that you can get it down to nothing with just one card is really good, but it'll depend on if you really need to be able to do that whether or not it gets in over Plate.
New Warrior Spell - Shield Shatter
It's very easy to build your deck in such a way that this costs (0) or close to it whenever you look to play it. I think that Frozen Buckler was a little on the nose, even, but I guess they're trying to push for more Control to pivot from Pirates.
Fight The Power - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Good luck to the other finalists. Apologies for no-feedback this time around: ended up not doing much beyond my initial post, and didn't even update my Secret. Work has been crazy-busy lately, and I spend most of my off-time sleeping lol :/