All Comments

8 for an 8/8 that deals 10 damage right out the gate... pretty solid.

8 for an 8/8 that deals 10 damage right out the gate... pretty solid.

Updated from the old one, but with the way that the meta has been going... it is going to be able to get REALLY big really quick

Updated from the old one, but with the way that the meta has been going... it is going to be able to get REALLY big really quick

IF you get this through The Juggernaut, GG

This is just cool.  It is only going to stay on the board for A turn, but that one turn could come from The Juggernaut and that could mean you drop anything you've drawn and just go to town. 

This is what is wrong with HS.

They are pushing an archetype that has already been proven to work instead of giving something outlandish like this to the T3 decks that need anything.

It's very strong and a game ender.

Surprised to say that I like this card. Granted it's slow af but it really does pay dividends played on curve. It's an awful top deck so that may be the downfall but I think if you can manage to play it on curve it's actually strong. Probably bad, but lovingly bad.

Competition Theme: Evergreener Pastures

It's time to look at the most basic elements we've got and see what we can do to spice them up!

• You must create a card which synergises with a basic Evergreen Keyword
  • Ooh, capital letters! The explicit list of basic Evergreen Keywords (for this competition) is:
    • Show Spoiler

      Taunt, Rush, Charge, Divine Shield, Stealth, Lifesteal, Poisonous, Windfury and Spell Damage
  • We've deliberately not included Battlecry, Deathrattle, Freeze and Discover because they all require more words to work; while Evergreen, they aren't basic

Wailor wants us to bolster those ever-present keywords, so start crafting up ways to make the most out of them!

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Nov 1 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Nov 6 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Nov 6 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Nov 7 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Nov 7 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Nov 8 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

Quote From Caro

I'm just missing the 2 runeterra ones now. Thanks for the HS hints! I give candy as payment 😁🍬🍬🍬

Show Spoiler

Alright so these are really easy.

The cavalry one is pretty obvious, just check the spooky region until you find something that looks close enough to…well…cavalry.

The other one is a bit trickier if you aren't familiar with the character. Essentially you're looking for an explosive card. Also, "twice" is a big hint here. Look in one of the more goofy regions, not the serious ones.

 

Yeah it's thought to be a Hearthstone player right now. I keep track with the competitive scene and saw does incanter flow decks ( the one with deck of lunacy and quest Mage ) that stuff was crazy and let's not even get to quest Warlock.

Must...Not...Click...On...Spoiler...  Nah I can't resist, let's check that out.

Im just curious. What exactly is that 'vision' that Ben B actually brought to the table? Or is this an argument entirely about 'charge' as a keyword?

As Dean has said before, he'd rather create powerful cards with an eye to nerf them later if they get too good rather than vice versa. The fact that team5 is more willing to repeatedly nerf allows them to experiment, rather than stick with the same porridge each expansion.

I dont think the current team5 is more wishy-washy when it comes to principals, because from the bits and piece of Dean's Q&A I think its safe to say that he'd rather design frustrate than stagnate, and from what we've seen (tempo dhunter, Galakrond shaman, and now this) I think that's consistent with their strategy.

"(targets chosen randomly")

At 3 portraits per character, Mercs has so much artwork that it would be pretty silly not to use the cool ones in the OG gamemode. It's not like you'd ever see the 2 uses simultaneously anyway.

Regarding sexy demon Valeera, I will neither confirm nor deny that I have quietly wanted exactly that bit of artwork since Jaina and Thrall got their trio of Mercs artwork back in the Darkmoon Tavern Pass. We've had priest get a rogue skin, so maybe it's time rogue got a DH one. (Yeah, I know Kathra'natir-possessed Valeera wasn't technically a DH, but Anduin wasn't technically in the SI:7 either. Besides, it's an emotional elf with a demon inside her and wielding both blades and fel magic; isn't that really all a DH is anyway?)

They go hand in hand, yet they are distinctly different aspects of game creation.  If it helps, think of them as a Venn Diagram with overlapping responsibilities, but still separate areas as well.

I never said you were wrong with Ben Brode's team at the time having a decidely lack of intervetion when it came to problematic metas.  But at the same time they had 2 things:

1) A strong cemented vision of the game

2) An unfounded faith that players would figure out meta problems on their own. (which as we've seen has backfired)

Worse metas than this one?  No.  We had many metas which had some oppressive decks, but I can't really recall too many as bad as this one.  I've been playing the game since the beta.  It's had it's ups and downs.  But the last couple of expansions have been the most uninspired, unbalanced, dogpiles I've seen.  If I had to put a finger on when things started to go downhill and just got worse from there, it would have to be with the release of Demon Hunter as a class...or did you forget about the oppressive Demon Hunter meta and the MULTIPLE....MULTIPLE....MULTIPLE nerfs it went through to become somewhat of a balanced class?

Sorry, we are gonna have to agree to disagree here I suspect.

I'm convinced they omitted the Pirate tag to keep Juggernaut summons weak

I will not buy the complete mini set. The only legy I am interested in is Mr. Smite.

For the commons and rare cards I kept a handfull of packs.

As some other users allready said: Mr. Smite could be a nerf target. He is so good I even consider to test him in 1-2 Wild decks.

design and balance go hand in hand. Do I need to remind you that some of the worst metas (far worse than this one) happened under Brode, and weren't dealt with until months into the expansion cycle.

People keep talking about powercreep, but Gadgetzan Pirate Warrior would still reliably shit over most of the current meta without issue.

Just remember cards like Duskfallen Aviana and Harbinger Celestia. Actual filler cards with no purpose. At least nowadays meme legendaries have a useable gimmick, even if it sucks.

Its honestly better than it looks. You get a decent murloc with lifesteal, and if it dies it gives you a very good weapon comparable to a tiny Grave Vengeance.

Good stats, being a murloc, lifesteal, gives a weapon with lifesteal. That's an S tier murloc anyday. Too bad its restricted to shaman, or otherwise you'd see this card more often than you think.

Will we see this in standard? Its actually good enough to be included into any deck, but its probably sitting on the sidelines waiting for a better meta. Its one of those cards thats just versatile and can only get better with each expansion introduced.

Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

Quote From Sykomyke

Blizzard is starting to annoy me to be honest.

Blizzard: "Let's get rid of charge and replace it with rush.  Charge is such a hard mechanic to balance and creates uninteractive mechanics"

Also Blizzard: "jUsT kIdDinG!  wE bRoUgHt BaCk ChArGe!"

I actually disagree. At some point in the past they made a lot of very questionable decisions of "this is not happening" which have lead to...confusing balancing choices.

Remember when they said Shadow Priest wouldn't be a thing because they couldn't figure out how to make damage in Priest work without enabling OTKs? Well, if they hadn't gone back on that we wouldn't have Shadow Priest now, which is arguably  the most interesting direction the class has gone in. The game evolves and stuff that was busted 2 years ago might barely be relevant nowadays. I see no problem in occasionally testing the waters and just throwing out crazy shit like this. Sure, it might backfire and be horribly overpowered, but at this point they nerf stuff within a week so I don't see the issue. 

Going back and finding a way to make an archetype that has never really existed before "viable" is completely different than renouncing a specific mechanic, only to bring it back... Shadow Priest was essentially only a meme until this year.  Pirate decks have never been a meme and have always had a strong presence since Patches was released.

And then on top of bringing it back, enabling it in such a way that it makes an already strong archetype even stronger.  Oh, and as others have stated:  Powercreeping it's predecessor.

There's a difference between making the game interesting and making it frustrating.  

As much as powercreep is frustrating to experience, I'd still prefer it over total stagnation or a constant stream of unplayably weak gimmick archetypes.

I'd much rather stagnation, then frustration.  One can be circumvented by experimentation/playing other modes.  The latter forces people out of the game and ostracizes people.  Gimmick archtypes are only gimmicks if they never get supported.  The only notable situation where I can think blizzard forced an archetype without adequate support was "frost shaman" with Moorabi.  Beyond that, they seem to be trying to print supporting cards for archetypes as they go along so what is a "gimmick today, dream tomorrow" so to speak.

Also, I'd much rather balance, interactive board play, and fair mechanics over "POWER LEVEL OVER 9000!!!!!" mechanics.  Questlines were a mistake, and it took them way too long to realize that (and nerf them).  Maybe HS is gravitating away from my interest, but just saying: there are certain immutable ways to design and balance a game, the last few expansions haven't really been all that stellar in my opinion.

I hope they don't completely give up on competitive proffesional play like MTG did.