Inspire cards are bad and having to do 2 mana hero powers to enable them are awful. Overkill is also a waste, but I think there’s a few honorable kill examples that redeem efficient play. Rewind is sloppy design, but I think they just wanted to see if the old Toki power from solo adventures could make it into the game somehow.
Actually, I’m not sold on shatter yet. Mage seems bad - Druid was at least busted in arena and was weird as the only 3 cost. It seems really poorly supported in the set but maybe could work with some better spells… maybe
There's a few keywords I would put on here well before Quickdraw and Rewind. I think those are too strong in Standard to call part of the five worst.
Frenzy: Basically takes every issue with Inspire and Overkill and fuses them together. Unless the minion has Rush, it's overly-reliant on surviving a full turn without getting hard removed. That's also problematic for Arena the same way Inspire is. To top it, there aren't even any cool Frenzy cards (at least Inspire has Saraad and Paletress).
Overheal: The most blatant design mistake in years. What if Inspire, but super parasitic and you can trigger it an unlimited number of times? The cards run the gamut from literally useless to game-breaking. It's telling that they quietly stopped printing this keyword, even though it was introduced as evergreen.
Kindred: An under-supported sad nothingburger of a keyword. Tribal support is very tricky to design for since it's inherently parasitic, but this isn't even good tribal support. Putting this on so many disparate types is a random shotgun of payoff cards without any coherence.
Oh god, Peak. That game is my arch-nemesis, I have yet to succeed and here you are, Demon, doing so solo.
I'm honestly not sure what my game plans are for this month. So far I haven't played anything and last month I had plans but it's just been work, work, and more work. I can't really complain about working on stuff though, it's good to make progress on everything and it feels good to do so. I'd probably play more but I lost my bff gaming partner though for the most part so I suppose I'm not really surprised by a lack of gaming lol.
I have had PokeClicker going in a browser tab for a while and it gets my attention for a few minutes every day, but that isn't the same as diving deep into Tarkov, WoW, or settling on on a really sick Factorio session.
Pretty random set of developer insights for a Friday afternoon release. Very cool to see though that they are open to actually talking about 2026 and what we can expect.
The biggest takeaway though is new cards in every patch, or at least almost every patch. Getting the class sets in the .4 patches is already huge but sprinkling other cards in .2 and .6? Well, well, well, good job Hearthstone team. I've been saying for years they could drop a handful of new cards a few times an expansion and it could shakeup the meta and we're finally going to see if this is actually the case.
I'm quite curious if they are developing these cards as a part of the sets themselves and just holding them back or if they have lots of design ideas sitting around and based on how a meta evolves they can choose to toss in whatever cards make the most sense to shake things up. If Priest ain't panning out as they hoped, here have a new spell that everyone will hate to play against.
Oh yes, I couldn't agree more, watching RTS is so great. I miss the big Starcraft 2 days with just insane tournaments almost every weekend. I kinda hated it when Korea took over the entire scene because everything just got so much more painful to watch. The skill was way better, but damn was that a great way to have a bad sleeping schedule (I prefer watching live stuff live, always).
I do wonder if we'll see RTS grow at some point again. It would have to have a really killer single-player campaign just to get the player numbers up, and then you need to have fun multiplayer stuff outside of the main game.
I'm not familiar enough with Stormgate to know if they did this, but they really should have contracted people from the custom maps community in Starcraft to come build amazing experiences. I know their custom map builder wasn't even a year old yet, but anything strong that coulda been made or ported over could have been a reason for people to come try it out. Really leaning into a platform aspect could have been strong; Some of the best live games turn themselves into platforms.
See Fortnite's custom content maker, even though the game itself is strong, people love custom experiences. Roblox is huge because its just a custom experience engine. RTS needs to dive into it first and foremost as a custom content engine.
Yeah, I used to love RTS - Starcraft, Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, but those days are long gone.
I do like watching e-sports of those games, but not playing them myself :)
But it is true that to break into this genre you need something more special. Starcraft has a world-wide community and Korea basically has it as a "national sport" so even in its current state it still has some traction.
Difficult to achieve with any new RTS. Imho it would have to be a "flavor tie-in" first and foremost, backed by good gameplay, for any RTS to make it big nowadays.
Yes, I will add Valeria and Ronne details when I find the time to sort through all my screenshots and notes. I would like to do it sooner rather than later, but I cant promise a timeline right now :/
Yeah it had a load of ex-Blizzard folks from the Starcraft team on it. It never really attracted an audience though (clearly haha). From everyone I talked to who tried it, they weren't very fond of it, found it clunky. I never had a big interest in the game myself because... RTS. I'd play a Starcraft 3 because of nostalgia, but damn do I hate RTS and how mechanically skilled you have to be to win. And if you don't have a massive playbase, it won't be possible for the noobs to get a 50/50 winrate so skill-based matchmaking ain't gonna be happening very well.
It's just a genre that requires a titan behind it to funnel the players into it.
Hello. Thank you for this amazing guide. It helped me a lot to map out my expert progress. Can you please add Valeria and Ronne updates too? Thank you again!
I am really happy with how the article turned out!
One Note tho for those reading: The Flurry wording used here is incorrect, it only triggers for minions. Crenshaw does NOT destroy your hero. It would be very dumb if he did. This probably happened due to how I described the keyword in the Interview and is absolutely not Demons fault. No shade to him. His community spotlights do a great service to the custom-hearthstone scene!
If you want to check out my set, here is the link:
We all knew this had to eventually be a thing. Digital has effectively zero costs so it’s more profitable for companies to only do digital. As someone who likes physical games I don’t mind the price increase but it makes me wonder if this is the end oh physical games. Seeing a price difference more people may opt for that digital version now which if retail sales slide less companies will take the risk in mass distribution of a game.
We’ve had companies that do smaller runs of physical games for games that were otherwise digital so maybe not all hope is lost, but if Pokopia is anything to go by, we might be losing the ability to have games on cards anyway going with just a key on them instead to cut costs.
Might just be time to 3d print my games collection and stick some stickers on them so I have a nice shelf and embrace the move to digital. I don’t need to loan games out to people it’s a rare occurrence but it is fun when it happens.
This is going to be a very interesting game. It will be the first time you can have players of all sorts of different Pokemon games move their Pokemon to Pokemon Bank and then battle in one single title that everyone can just access for free (free to start they are calling it, like most Nintendo games that work on mobile, just for the record).
As an example, GO Players that don't play the titles on Switch will now be able to battle someone who played Sword & Shield. Very cool!
It's a sad day for folks losing their jobs at Epic. The games industry is not having a great start to 2026, though really, who is? To be blunt, the world feels so fucked right now and I can't even comprehend how or when we get out of this mess.
Top 5 Worst Keywords in Hearthstone
Inspire cards are bad and having to do 2 mana hero powers to enable them are awful. Overkill is also a waste, but I think there’s a few honorable kill examples that redeem efficient play. Rewind is sloppy design, but I think they just wanted to see if the old Toki power from solo adventures could make it into the game somehow.
Actually, I’m not sold on shatter yet. Mage seems bad - Druid was at least busted in arena and was weird as the only 3 cost. It seems really poorly supported in the set but maybe could work with some better spells… maybe
Top 5 Worst Keywords in Hearthstone
I actually laughed so hard at the Samsung comment. Bravo! This site needs to give admins triple likes.
Top 5 Worst Keywords in Hearthstone
There's a few keywords I would put on here well before Quickdraw and Rewind. I think those are too strong in Standard to call part of the five worst.
Frenzy: Basically takes every issue with Inspire and Overkill and fuses them together. Unless the minion has Rush, it's overly-reliant on surviving a full turn without getting hard removed. That's also problematic for Arena the same way Inspire is. To top it, there aren't even any cool Frenzy cards (at least Inspire has Saraad and Paletress).
Overheal: The most blatant design mistake in years. What if Inspire, but super parasitic and you can trigger it an unlimited number of times? The cards run the gamut from literally useless to game-breaking. It's telling that they quietly stopped printing this keyword, even though it was introduced as evergreen.
Kindred: An under-supported sad nothingburger of a keyword. Tribal support is very tricky to design for since it's inherently parasitic, but this isn't even good tribal support. Putting this on so many disparate types is a random shotgun of payoff cards without any coherence.
Top 5 Worst Keywords in Hearthstone
Agree on rewind being the worst. It's basically a choose 1 but with a long graphic. Samsung alrdy runs the game like hot garbage so this didn't help
What Are Experts in Whiteout Survival?
Okay :'')
What Are You Playing? - Aspiring April 2026
Oh god, Peak. That game is my arch-nemesis, I have yet to succeed and here you are, Demon, doing so solo.
I'm honestly not sure what my game plans are for this month. So far I haven't played anything and last month I had plans but it's just been work, work, and more work. I can't really complain about working on stuff though, it's good to make progress on everything and it feels good to do so. I'd probably play more but I lost my bff gaming partner though for the most part so I suppose I'm not really surprised by a lack of gaming lol.
I have had PokeClicker going in a browser tab for a while and it gets my attention for a few minutes every day, but that isn't the same as diving deep into Tarkov, WoW, or settling on on a really sick Factorio session.
Hearthstone Devs Talk 2026: More New Cards, Stronger Launch Sets, and Dual-Class Arena
Pretty random set of developer insights for a Friday afternoon release. Very cool to see though that they are open to actually talking about 2026 and what we can expect.
The biggest takeaway though is new cards in every patch, or at least almost every patch. Getting the class sets in the .4 patches is already huge but sprinkling other cards in .2 and .6? Well, well, well, good job Hearthstone team. I've been saying for years they could drop a handful of new cards a few times an expansion and it could shakeup the meta and we're finally going to see if this is actually the case.
I'm quite curious if they are developing these cards as a part of the sets themselves and just holding them back or if they have lots of design ideas sitting around and based on how a meta evolves they can choose to toss in whatever cards make the most sense to shake things up. If Priest ain't panning out as they hoped, here have a new spell that everyone will hate to play against.
Stormgate's Online Features Killed by AI Company; Going Offline Soon, For Now
Oh yes, I couldn't agree more, watching RTS is so great. I miss the big Starcraft 2 days with just insane tournaments almost every weekend. I kinda hated it when Korea took over the entire scene because everything just got so much more painful to watch. The skill was way better, but damn was that a great way to have a bad sleeping schedule (I prefer watching live stuff live, always).
I do wonder if we'll see RTS grow at some point again. It would have to have a really killer single-player campaign just to get the player numbers up, and then you need to have fun multiplayer stuff outside of the main game.
I'm not familiar enough with Stormgate to know if they did this, but they really should have contracted people from the custom maps community in Starcraft to come build amazing experiences. I know their custom map builder wasn't even a year old yet, but anything strong that coulda been made or ported over could have been a reason for people to come try it out. Really leaning into a platform aspect could have been strong; Some of the best live games turn themselves into platforms.
See Fortnite's custom content maker, even though the game itself is strong, people love custom experiences. Roblox is huge because its just a custom experience engine. RTS needs to dive into it first and foremost as a custom content engine.
Stormgate's Online Features Killed by AI Company; Going Offline Soon, For Now
Yeah, I used to love RTS - Starcraft, Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, but those days are long gone.
I do like watching e-sports of those games, but not playing them myself :)
But it is true that to break into this genre you need something more special. Starcraft has a world-wide community and Korea basically has it as a "national sport" so even in its current state it still has some traction.
Difficult to achieve with any new RTS. Imho it would have to be a "flavor tie-in" first and foremost, backed by good gameplay, for any RTS to make it big nowadays.
What Are Experts in Whiteout Survival?
Hi, I am glad it was of use to you.
Yes, I will add Valeria and Ronne details when I find the time to sort through all my screenshots and notes. I would like to do it sooner rather than later, but I cant promise a timeline right now :/
Hearthstone Patch 35.0.3 Notes - Standard and Battlegrounds Changes, Wild Nerfs
Feelsgood
Stormgate's Online Features Killed by AI Company; Going Offline Soon, For Now
Yeah it had a load of ex-Blizzard folks from the Starcraft team on it. It never really attracted an audience though (clearly haha). From everyone I talked to who tried it, they weren't very fond of it, found it clunky. I never had a big interest in the game myself because... RTS. I'd play a Starcraft 3 because of nostalgia, but damn do I hate RTS and how mechanically skilled you have to be to win. And if you don't have a massive playbase, it won't be possible for the noobs to get a 50/50 winrate so skill-based matchmaking ain't gonna be happening very well.
It's just a genre that requires a titan behind it to funnel the players into it.
Patch Notes For Hearthstone Patch 35.0.3 Teased - Patch Occurs April 2
Sweet, meta needs a little shakeup.
What Are You Playing? - Aspiring April 2026
Started playing Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland, which came out yesterday. I supported it on Kickstarter forever ago, and it's finally out on Steam.
Stormgate's Online Features Killed by AI Company; Going Offline Soon, For Now
Wasnt Stormgate the RTS that a lot of SC2 pros jumped ship to? Or was that something else? Surprised it met such fate.
What Are Experts in Whiteout Survival?
Hello. Thank you for this amazing guide. It helped me a lot to map out my expert progress. Can you please add Valeria and Ronne updates too? Thank you again!
What Are You Playing? - Majestic March 2026
Need to ask that one guy who had a fixation on his car's tailpipe lmao
What Are You Playing? - Majestic March 2026
Palestar's "Courts of Gilneas" Custom Set - Hearthstone Fan Community Spotlight
Oh shoot, thank you for spotting my mistake.
Should be fixed now. :)
Thank you very much for the kind words and for being part of my interview.
Palestar's "Courts of Gilneas" Custom Set - Hearthstone Fan Community Spotlight
Creator of the set here!
Thank you Demon for covering my set!
I am really happy with how the article turned out!
One Note tho for those reading: The Flurry wording used here is incorrect, it only triggers for minions. Crenshaw does NOT destroy your hero. It would be very dumb if he did. This probably happened due to how I described the keyword in the Interview and is absolutely not Demons fault. No shade to him. His community spotlights do a great service to the custom-hearthstone scene!
If you want to check out my set, here is the link:
https://www.hearthcards.net/sets/set.html?setid=866
Sony to Increase the Price of All Playstation Consoles Starting April 2nd
You just know that they couldn't do it one day before.
Nintendo to Change Digital Pricing in May 2026
It’s about time… sort of.
We all knew this had to eventually be a thing. Digital has effectively zero costs so it’s more profitable for companies to only do digital. As someone who likes physical games I don’t mind the price increase but it makes me wonder if this is the end oh physical games. Seeing a price difference more people may opt for that digital version now which if retail sales slide less companies will take the risk in mass distribution of a game.
We’ve had companies that do smaller runs of physical games for games that were otherwise digital so maybe not all hope is lost, but if Pokopia is anything to go by, we might be losing the ability to have games on cards anyway going with just a key on them instead to cut costs.
Might just be time to 3d print my games collection and stick some stickers on them so I have a nice shelf and embrace the move to digital. I don’t need to loan games out to people it’s a rare occurrence but it is fun when it happens.
Pokémon Champions Releases April 8th - Everything We Know So Far
This is going to be a very interesting game. It will be the first time you can have players of all sorts of different Pokemon games move their Pokemon to Pokemon Bank and then battle in one single title that everyone can just access for free (free to start they are calling it, like most Nintendo games that work on mobile, just for the record).
As an example, GO Players that don't play the titles on Switch will now be able to battle someone who played Sword & Shield. Very cool!
Epic to Layoff Over 1000 Employees
It's a sad day for folks losing their jobs at Epic. The games industry is not having a great start to 2026, though really, who is? To be blunt, the world feels so fucked right now and I can't even comprehend how or when we get out of this mess.
Mojang and Merlin Entertainment to Launch Minecraft World Theme Park in Chessington, UK in 2027
Im surprised this didnt happen sooner :) Might be the new Disneyland :)