I really thought it was zombie cornelius looking at the reveal pic. Turns out its just a somewhat broken 8 drop abomination.
Basically if you're playing against a midrange deck and this card eats up one of the big minions on 8, that's basically game over. Unfortunately fortunately, this card has no rush or taunt so its still just a middling 8 drop praying that the opponent cant just do irreparable damage to your face the following turn.
Not expecting this to see play in standard or wild, but expect plenty of discover effects that'll just drop his dead arse onto the board out of nowhere. And of course, this thing is just broken in arena. Make or break the game infact, according to rng of who this thing actually eats at the end of the turn.
If you want to save money when buying Hearthstone packs, you should check out Amazon Coins! It's an easy way to save up to 25% off Hearthstone packs so you can get into the new expansion without worrying about your wallet too much. We've got a detailed guide on how to Get Started with Amazon Coins, but if you've already dealt with them in the past, you can buy some more by clicking right here.
When I saw the article yesterday about Bobby K, it surprises me not one bit. Because even if he went on to tell everyone that he knew nothing of all the sexual misconducts, we'd not only not believe him, we'd just tell him that it doesn't matter because it happened under his watch and he should take responsibility regardless.
Yes, its incredible that he's still in the seat when any decent person would have just resigned or use the 'leave to do better stuff' excuse. I mean, its not like he needs the job or the money anyway, his one bonus payment can basically retire an entire neighborhood. If activision-blizz knows whats right, they'd can his arse and get someone that is actually passionate about games for once.
Its amazing actually. All that is required is for activision-blizz to conduct a transparent assessment of sexual misconduct throughout the company and just cut off those that are found to have violated the rights of others. At this point you'd think the entire management team is up on their arse in this and if such a thing were conducted we'd lose 80% of the entire board right away. And I would call it a 100% positive result.
Back to hearthstone. I think the marketing department got wind that something was going to go wrong and therefore took the safe approach, which is to not announce who will be revealing their card so they can pretend that the community isn't dropping reveals like the last time. Scummy, but that's one approach I guess.
At this point they might as well do a card dump and cut the embarrassment altogether.
Arena: Outside of the most aggressive (Demon) Hunters out there, this is just a 4/4. Far from the worst possible pick, but even further from the best.
Constructed: Aggro board-based/ Zoo decks seem to make the most sense, but in Wild, I've also seen a guy play Drek'Thar in Flamewaker Mage. A deck that's more specific in which minions it wants to pull. Very clever I must say. Time will tell what type of deck will make the most use of this, but I have no doubt it will see plenty of play.
It sucks for everyone, not just the people running community sites.
This is a complete departure from the norm for reveals with no communication about what is going on - though the bad communication part isn't exactly new for the Hearthstone team.
Card reveal season exists for one sole reason: it sells the game. No one is going to buy Hearthstone packs if they have no idea what is going to be inside of them. One can count that as publicity or good will for sure, but there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn't make it known where these reveals are going to take place.
As of right now, we know where the next two reveals are coming from - Lt. Eddy and PCGamer. Maybe we'll get lucky and a couple of more will be added afterward, but if my suspicions are correct, we'll go into the night without knowing where anything is coming from.
All they need to do is fill out the URLs of where we can find reveals and there would be zero problems. If they don't want to tell us, then drop the countdowns since they are absolutely pointless. Last night when we had the Chinese reveal at 3 AM, it wasn't like the countdown meant the card magically appeared in the gallery afterward - that was many hours later. It's sad.
Damn, the way cards aren't revealed on schedule is bad. I don't know what the HS officials did, but I'd like to have a card reveal time. I'm about to shoot the messanger if my card reveal experience is broken
The effect is extremely weak because it relies on too many conditions that can easily go wrong. What if your opponent has no minions? What if his minions are too big to kill? What if you have already drawn your big beasts? What if you're already dead by turn 9?
It is an insultingly bad effect for a 9 mana card that requires a build-around deck.
Arena: Not unplayable, but pretty bad as this is not a 3-drop and is only useful if you have drafted a 5+ cost mana beast. A redeeming aspect of Revive Pet is the discover aspect so it's still likely that you resurrect the beast you want without restricting yourself too much in the draft.
Im pretty certain that you cant build this around small minions even if they do have poisonous, simply because its a 9 mana card and the last thing you need is a small fry out on 9 in case your opponent has no minions.
To me, this, along with the new card Revive Pet, is a clear indication that team5 are pushing hunter towards bigger beasts. That's not to say it can't work as you say. The dream would be to full clear and thin down your deck from all the small minions that aren't good cards in the late game, followed by a finish with king krush. But I think its more realistic to expect this to draw something like Imported Tarantula, clear board and summon Teacher's Pet on 9.
They don't have to be big beasts. They just have to be capable of killing. Pack your deck with Poisonous beasts, and this is a board clear even if you don't manage to pull Krush with it. It's Basilisk's time to shine!
It remains to be seen. Pirate Warrior I'm not really worried about (they start popping off around turn 5, which we will as well) but Taunt druid might be a problem. I was debating about putting in some weapons to help our early game, but they clash a lot with Lightforged Cariel. Any suggestions?
I'm just not sure Paladin is well suited to sit back and wait for turn 6-7. City Tax and Consecration are your only forms of removal before turn 5 where maybe you could get lucky and combo Equality with City Tax. I think Pirate Warrior is definitely scary before Turn 5, especially if you sat there with 8 drops in your hand and just passed turn.
I think Vanndar Stormpike works much better in classes like Priest or Warrior, maybe even DH? That way you can dedicate a big chunk of your deck to removal on turns 1-4 then turn the corner hard on turns 5-6. Those 3 classes give you heal/armor with the removal too which helps you survive.
I get that it sucks for people who run fansites, but let's not forget that we are not owed card reveals. They do it primarily to generate publicity, and secondarily to generate good will with influencers. Right now they are probably trying to avoid publicity, so that overrides the secondary concern.
The Blizzard publicity machine has dropped every single ball it's been handed for the past 12 months, so I would not be too surprised to learn that everyone who used to handle this stuff is no longer handling this stuff. Where I work, if a publicity campaign went anything like the Mercs launch, heads would be rolling left and right. You may find the situation "unacceptable," but I suspect there may be some very practical and logistical reasons for the radio silence.
Ram Tamer is a bit weak for standard nowadays. If you triggered it, the buff makes it a 5/4 on 3, but since it neither snowballs and Imprisoned Felmaw comes with the exact same stats while being able to attack immediately after it awakens, is there any reason to play this at all? But it does support a secret built, so I guess it'll find a place one way or another, but you'd think team5 would've designed this card as basically a bigger Secretkeeper instead of just a mere +1+1 on 3.
Revive Pet aims towards a big hunter. But its likely that there's some good beasts around turn 5 which will make good use of this card.
Flag Runner is just meh. Token dhunter hasn't been the same since nearly all its good cards has been taken away from it in the last core rotation. Maybe this is where team5 is designing them towards this expansion. The card itself has no rush or taunt, and requires things to die before it gets good. So its just a somewhat a weaker Darkshire Councilman. Might be good, assuming there's support that curves out into this one.
Talking about the important stuff, I wasn't shocked that kotick new. This is just everyone knowing how big pieces of shit they truly are. I feel really sorry for the teams that actually care about working without being a shit.
Probably not good, mostly because of its cost. 9 mana is basically the same level as Nzoth, and Nzoth this aint. Fact is you'd have to survive all the way to turn 9, not draw your big beasts until turn 9, and then your pay off is basically the same level as a slightly better Guardian Animals. Unless there's like big beasts about, and I mean really big - somewhere around the lines of Charged Devilsaur - this card will only ever be in the sidelines dreaming of what it could have been.
King Krush would be nice with this out, but its similarly costed and that's only one card. You need many more before we start seeing a semblance of the old big beasts deathrattle hunter.
Well on the one hand, if this ever hits the field against aggro, it's ggs for them since this just pumps out big ol taunts in the way every time it trades.
On the other hand, getting to 8 mana is a big ask, so really limited to slower decks like Librams.
I'm just going to capitalize the missing T's and call it a day.
While everybody thinks about Grand Totem Eys'or and Totem Goliath, I'm more worried about when you get a full board of Mana Tide Totems and burn half your deck in a single turn lol. That's exactly intended so I'm going with that design.
Also, I feel like a lot of people think exclusively with a Standard Mode head, and as a Wild player, this card would see the exact same amount of play that Serpent Ward or Vitality Totem see, which is great, because it's a really powerful meme card that's either a highroll or a lolroll.
It's no Phase Stalker, which is unfortunately what it needs to be in order for it (and by extension secrets) to be playable. The upside is that just by playing one copy of this, you're drawing most of the secrets Hunters usually are willing to put into their decks.
Arena: Draftable, but is going to be mediocre at best if you miss out on secrets.
Wild: Surely there is more to come, but Ram Tamer alone is enough to make sure people will experiment with Secret Hunter again and I can see it being a meta contender.
Standard: We will have to wait and see what else is going to be revealed, but this is no doubt a great step in the right direction to make Secret Hunter viable. Dun Baldar Bunker is suddenly looking a whole lot better.
Abominable Lieutenant is a New Card Revealed by Lt. Eddy for Fractured in Alterac Valley
I really thought it was zombie cornelius looking at the reveal pic. Turns out its just a somewhat broken 8 drop abomination.
Basically if you're playing against a midrange deck and this card eats up one of the big minions on 8, that's basically game over. Unfortunately fortunately, this card has no rush or taunt so its still just a middling 8 drop praying that the opponent cant just do irreparable damage to your face the following turn.
Not expecting this to see play in standard or wild, but expect plenty of discover effects that'll just drop his dead arse onto the board out of nowhere. And of course, this thing is just broken in arena. Make or break the game infact, according to rng of who this thing actually eats at the end of the turn.
New Neutral Minion - Abominable Lieutenant
Obviously this is way too slow and inconsistent for Standard but it'S a very creative new type of removal.
Abominable Lieutenant is a New Card Revealed by Lt. Eddy for Fractured in Alterac Valley
They're really out to break Arena, aren'T they?
How long until the inevitable ban?
New Neutral Minion - Abominable Lieutenant
A new Epic Neutral Minion, Abominable Lieutenant, has been revealed!
Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating!
Learn more about Fractured in Alterac Valley
Head on over to our dedicated guide for Fractured in Alterac Valley!
Get Cheaper Card Packs
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If you want to save money when buying Hearthstone packs, you should check out Amazon Coins! It's an easy way to save up to 25% off Hearthstone packs so you can get into the new expansion without worrying about your wallet too much. We've got a detailed guide on how to Get Started with Amazon Coins, but if you've already dealt with them in the past, you can buy some more by clicking right here.
Here We Go Again - The Alterac Valley Reveal Season Gets a Rocky Start With Little Communication From the Hearthstone Team
When I saw the article yesterday about Bobby K, it surprises me not one bit. Because even if he went on to tell everyone that he knew nothing of all the sexual misconducts, we'd not only not believe him, we'd just tell him that it doesn't matter because it happened under his watch and he should take responsibility regardless.
Yes, its incredible that he's still in the seat when any decent person would have just resigned or use the 'leave to do better stuff' excuse. I mean, its not like he needs the job or the money anyway, his one bonus payment can basically retire an entire neighborhood. If activision-blizz knows whats right, they'd can his arse and get someone that is actually passionate about games for once.
Its amazing actually. All that is required is for activision-blizz to conduct a transparent assessment of sexual misconduct throughout the company and just cut off those that are found to have violated the rights of others. At this point you'd think the entire management team is up on their arse in this and if such a thing were conducted we'd lose 80% of the entire board right away. And I would call it a 100% positive result.
Back to hearthstone. I think the marketing department got wind that something was going to go wrong and therefore took the safe approach, which is to not announce who will be revealing their card so they can pretend that the community isn't dropping reveals like the last time. Scummy, but that's one approach I guess.
At this point they might as well do a card dump and cut the embarrassment altogether.
New Neutral Minion - Drek'Thar
Arena: Outside of the most aggressive (Demon) Hunters out there, this is just a 4/4. Far from the worst possible pick, but even further from the best.
Constructed: Aggro board-based/ Zoo decks seem to make the most sense, but in Wild, I've also seen a guy play Drek'Thar in Flamewaker Mage. A deck that's more specific in which minions it wants to pull. Very clever I must say. Time will tell what type of deck will make the most use of this, but I have no doubt it will see plenty of play.
Here We Go Again - The Alterac Valley Reveal Season Gets a Rocky Start With Little Communication From the Hearthstone Team
It sucks for everyone, not just the people running community sites.
This is a complete departure from the norm for reveals with no communication about what is going on - though the bad communication part isn't exactly new for the Hearthstone team.
Card reveal season exists for one sole reason: it sells the game. No one is going to buy Hearthstone packs if they have no idea what is going to be inside of them. One can count that as publicity or good will for sure, but there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn't make it known where these reveals are going to take place.
As of right now, we know where the next two reveals are coming from - Lt. Eddy and PCGamer. Maybe we'll get lucky and a couple of more will be added afterward, but if my suspicions are correct, we'll go into the night without knowing where anything is coming from.
All they need to do is fill out the URLs of where we can find reveals and there would be zero problems. If they don't want to tell us, then drop the countdowns since they are absolutely pointless. Last night when we had the Chinese reveal at 3 AM, it wasn't like the countdown meant the card magically appeared in the gallery afterward - that was many hours later. It's sad.
Here We Go Again - The Alterac Valley Reveal Season Gets a Rocky Start With Little Communication From the Hearthstone Team
Damn, the way cards aren't revealed on schedule is bad. I don't know what the HS officials did, but I'd like to have a card reveal time. I'm about to shoot the messanger if my card reveal experience is broken
New Hunter Minion - Wing Commander Ichman
The effect is extremely weak because it relies on too many conditions that can easily go wrong. What if your opponent has no minions? What if his minions are too big to kill? What if you have already drawn your big beasts? What if you're already dead by turn 9?
It is an insultingly bad effect for a 9 mana card that requires a build-around deck.
New Hunter Spell - Revive Pet
Arena: Not unplayable, but pretty bad as this is not a 3-drop and is only useful if you have drafted a 5+ cost mana beast. A redeeming aspect of Revive Pet is the discover aspect so it's still likely that you resurrect the beast you want without restricting yourself too much in the draft.
Constructed: Big Beast support. Goes into the same deck as Wing Commander Ichman, Beastmaster Leoroxx and Kathrena Winterwisp in Wild. I give it a small chance of success in Standard. In Wild, the deck is still doomed.
Wing Commander Ichman is a New Hunter Legendary Card Revealed for Fractured in Alterac Valley
Im pretty certain that you cant build this around small minions even if they do have poisonous, simply because its a 9 mana card and the last thing you need is a small fry out on 9 in case your opponent has no minions.
To me, this, along with the new card Revive Pet, is a clear indication that team5 are pushing hunter towards bigger beasts. That's not to say it can't work as you say. The dream would be to full clear and thin down your deck from all the small minions that aren't good cards in the late game, followed by a finish with king krush. But I think its more realistic to expect this to draw something like Imported Tarantula, clear board and summon Teacher's Pet on 9.
Here We Go Again - The Alterac Valley Reveal Season Gets a Rocky Start With Little Communication From the Hearthstone Team
No chance of getting a mini army of folks to cover this bit? A couple of hours 3 times a year for a badge on the site?
Here We Go Again - The Alterac Valley Reveal Season Gets a Rocky Start With Little Communication From the Hearthstone Team
Yeah this complaining about a "lack of communication" is silly. Most of the devs are stuck right in the middle of the whole debacle.
New Demon Hunter Minion - Flag Runner
I think there may be too many conditions to be met. It probably won't be the worst card, but I expect most other 3-drops will be more attractive.
Wing Commander Ichman is a New Hunter Legendary Card Revealed for Fractured in Alterac Valley
They don't have to be big beasts. They just have to be capable of killing. Pack your deck with Poisonous beasts, and this is a board clear even if you don't manage to pull Krush with it. It's Basilisk's time to shine!
Vanndar Big Control Paladin
I'm just not sure Paladin is well suited to sit back and wait for turn 6-7. City Tax and Consecration are your only forms of removal before turn 5 where maybe you could get lucky and combo Equality with City Tax. I think Pirate Warrior is definitely scary before Turn 5, especially if you sat there with 8 drops in your hand and just passed turn.
I think Vanndar Stormpike works much better in classes like Priest or Warrior, maybe even DH? That way you can dedicate a big chunk of your deck to removal on turns 1-4 then turn the corner hard on turns 5-6. Those 3 classes give you heal/armor with the removal too which helps you survive.
Here We Go Again - The Alterac Valley Reveal Season Gets a Rocky Start With Little Communication From the Hearthstone Team
I get that it sucks for people who run fansites, but let's not forget that we are not owed card reveals. They do it primarily to generate publicity, and secondarily to generate good will with influencers. Right now they are probably trying to avoid publicity, so that overrides the secondary concern.
The Blizzard publicity machine has dropped every single ball it's been handed for the past 12 months, so I would not be too surprised to learn that everyone who used to handle this stuff is no longer handling this stuff. Where I work, if a publicity campaign went anything like the Mercs launch, heads would be rolling left and right. You may find the situation "unacceptable," but I suspect there may be some very practical and logistical reasons for the radio silence.
Blizzard Reveals 3 New Cards for Fractured in Alterac Valley for Hunters and Demon Hunters
Ram Tamer is a bit weak for standard nowadays. If you triggered it, the buff makes it a 5/4 on 3, but since it neither snowballs and Imprisoned Felmaw comes with the exact same stats while being able to attack immediately after it awakens, is there any reason to play this at all? But it does support a secret built, so I guess it'll find a place one way or another, but you'd think team5 would've designed this card as basically a bigger Secretkeeper instead of just a mere +1+1 on 3.
Revive Pet aims towards a big hunter. But its likely that there's some good beasts around turn 5 which will make good use of this card.
Flag Runner is just meh. Token dhunter hasn't been the same since nearly all its good cards has been taken away from it in the last core rotation. Maybe this is where team5 is designing them towards this expansion. The card itself has no rush or taunt, and requires things to die before it gets good. So its just a somewhat a weaker Darkshire Councilman. Might be good, assuming there's support that curves out into this one.
Here We Go Again - The Alterac Valley Reveal Season Gets a Rocky Start With Little Communication From the Hearthstone Team
Loved the F1 meme! Two of my fav topics together.
Talking about the important stuff, I wasn't shocked that kotick new. This is just everyone knowing how big pieces of shit they truly are. I feel really sorry for the teams that actually care about working without being a shit.
Battle of Tol Barad
The Big Ramp Dragon Druid listed under the "hot decks' worked for me. My opponent decided to cast the Surrender to Madness... didn't go well for him.
Wing Commander Ichman is a New Hunter Legendary Card Revealed for Fractured in Alterac Valley
Probably not good, mostly because of its cost. 9 mana is basically the same level as Nzoth, and Nzoth this aint. Fact is you'd have to survive all the way to turn 9, not draw your big beasts until turn 9, and then your pay off is basically the same level as a slightly better Guardian Animals. Unless there's like big beasts about, and I mean really big - somewhere around the lines of Charged Devilsaur - this card will only ever be in the sidelines dreaming of what it could have been.
King Krush would be nice with this out, but its similarly costed and that's only one card. You need many more before we start seeing a semblance of the old big beasts deathrattle hunter.
New Paladin Minion - Templar Captain
Well on the one hand, if this ever hits the field against aggro, it's ggs for them since this just pumps out big ol taunts in the way every time it trades.
On the other hand, getting to 8 mana is a big ask, so really limited to slower decks like Librams.
Expensive Tastes - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Thanks all for the feedback.
I'm just going to capitalize the missing T's and call it a day.
While everybody thinks about Grand Totem Eys'or and Totem Goliath, I'm more worried about when you get a full board of Mana Tide Totems and burn half your deck in a single turn lol. That's exactly intended so I'm going with that design.
Also, I feel like a lot of people think exclusively with a Standard Mode head, and as a Wild player, this card would see the exact same amount of play that Serpent Ward or Vitality Totem see, which is great, because it's a really powerful meme card that's either a highroll or a lolroll.
New Hunter Minion - Dun Baldar Bunker
It's no Phase Stalker, which is unfortunately what it needs to be in order for it (and by extension secrets) to be playable. The upside is that just by playing one copy of this, you're drawing most of the secrets Hunters usually are willing to put into their decks.
New Hunter Minion - Ram Tamer
Arena: Draftable, but is going to be mediocre at best if you miss out on secrets.
Wild: Surely there is more to come, but Ram Tamer alone is enough to make sure people will experiment with Secret Hunter again and I can see it being a meta contender.
Standard: We will have to wait and see what else is going to be revealed, but this is no doubt a great step in the right direction to make Secret Hunter viable. Dun Baldar Bunker is suddenly looking a whole lot better.