I always enjoyed Odd Mage, continued playing it in Wild after the early Genn/Baku rotation. After Barrens I was playing a “Fire Mage” deck based around HP shenanigans that included Mordresh and Jan’alai. Something about the fantasy of being a mage with a strong hero power was fun to me.
It was never super strong in Wild in either form, but with Wildfire at 1 it intrigues me enough to at least try Odd Mage again. If only Mordresh was changed to 9 mana 9/9, and Reckless Apprentice changed to a 3 mana 3/4…
Could run Frost Lich and just save the Wildfires until after playing her too. That is, if Wild slows down enough for an Odd Elemental Mage to be viable. (Fun Fact: When Barrens released, Wildfire’s effect used to carryover to the DK hp, but at some point they patches it so it wouldn’t.)
For the time being, The Lich King being labeled as Human is a buff: there are no Undead-synergy abilities currently in the game, while Anduin and Varian provide pro-Human builds to work him into.
Vol'jin seems super good for Shadow teams, so I can totally understand nerfing his stats.
Mage buffs are for Hero Power Mage. A more-or-less unplayed archetype. It might just cause Mage players to play a different archetype than the one you don't like.
Im worried that by hitting the other quests, it inadvertently buffed quest mage, which is stil seeing lots of play despite its win rate. Buff up that win rate and we'll be back to week one of stormwind where every 2 of 3 games are against mage and it aint hp mage.
Of course, if quest mage is tier 1 be prepared for what is now termed as 'solitaire' meta once again.
The change to Mindrender Illucia does not appear to include a copy of the opponent's deck as is written in this article. Only their hand.
Mindrender Illucia
Old: Battlecry: Swap hands and decks with your opponent until your next turn. →New: Battlecry: Replace your hand with a copy of your opponent’s until end of turn.
It would really be nice if the world had a few less people who take delight in raining all over other people's parades - I'm not overly familiar with the style of game Mercenaries is going to be, but I'm looking forward to playing it, I can't imagine it will be that difficult to pick up. Like FortyDust, my favorite aspect of these kind of games is the fun of unlocking and collecting things, so I just hope the content is deep enough to keep us engaged for the long haul :)
It hasn't changed my mind 'cause I'm already on board...I just hope the early access videos and new information might win some people over, because I'm frankly tired of the "this looks boring"/"this looks like shit"/"this looks pay2win" people out there trying to ruin it for me and others.
Have to agree that it'll be better to just remove broken treasures rather than just make it harder to get. Because we'd all know without the right treasures/passives you'd just get destroyed in the top tier of duels, and what pushing them to ultra rare pools do is to fill the top end with just that. I'd rather lose clean to someone that played well than someone who lucked out on the passives.
Not sure if pushing back on the midset is a good idea, because that means the midset has an effective 1 month range to do anything useful before it gets completely taken over by the next expansion, unless the idea is to push that back too.
Its obvious what is going on, they want us to try out mercs and not let the mid set steal its thunder. Well, fair play I suppose, but wouldn't it be easier just to release mercs earlier? I mean I assume its playable now, since there's early access videos surfacing in reddit.
I thought about this too until i realized that this essentially removed any drawbacks from playing her. One of key things about this card is that it's difficult to determine the right moment to play her (outside of dumping quest rewards). A badly timed Illucia could backfire really hard. If you missed the mark, you essentially gave your opponent a free turn to destroy your hand which would leave you without precious resources for your next turn. It's the kind of card that only gives you one chance: you either get it correctly and win the game or you miss and lose.
The change to an end of turn effect would allow Priest players to run her without any risks. They would be able to destroy your hand and you would only be able to watch it. Since the hand would swap back at the end of their turn, the most you could do is look at what they have in hand but that really doesn't matter if they are going to return a hand stripped of resources to you. She would remain extremely toxic and complaints would only increase further, i believe. Unfortunately, they had no choice here but they should at least revert the nerf to her mana cost.
I think team5 made the right decision because the Mindrender Illucia design has always been a problem ever since its been printed. Some strats just straight up cant exist because of it, like how it basically solo most rogue decks.
This change retains some of the useful bits of illucia, like getting clears and lethals with good handreading skill. There's no perfect redesign for illucia because the card should never be printed in the first place, but this change I can get behind with, though I prefer it to go back to 2 mana.
Im talking about standard obviously. But what they need is early game tempo against aggro decks. Bloodsail Deckhand is fine as a 2/2 but more is needed, and I'd trade a 2/2 bloodsail on 1 for a 2/3 harbor scamp buff any day.
- Irebound brute needed a nerf, but this one is so small Im not so sure what it hopes to accomplish. I think the idea is that team5 doesn't want turn 4 brute shenanigans, which is completely doable by the way on 7 mana.
- Demon seed nerf is huge but all it will do is to push back on the current fatigue variant of questlock. Handlock would probably need to switch back to Anetherons or drop the quest altogether if the meta is too fast. In other news, rod is dead. As 3 mana its awkward enough, as 4 its straight up dead.
- Mindrender illucia is not dead. What team5 have done is to ensure that shes strictly useful in value decks, and is no longer able to cheese opponents, especially rogue. While I dont think this is the end, we wont be seeing her until the next expansion in my opinion.
- Command the elements will still be played because the real power turn is the first tier quest reward, which means this deck will still beat all aggro and control decks easily. But against other quest decks, its just never going to make it. Mage can easily beat it now, by virtue of its quest being faster, where it wasn't before. Not sure what team5 hopes of accomplishing here.
- Perpetual flame is still broken as a 2 drop because essentially the downside - the overload - isn't really a downside in the right deck. I have hoped team5 would nerf the damage from 3 to 2, and am left scratching my head. I can only trust they have done some testing and didn't want to kill the card so opted for a nerf that essentially only removes it from the wandmaker pool.
Buffs:
- Mordresh Fire Eye at 8 and Wildfire at 1. These are really interesting changes, at least for wildfire because its now significantly easier to play - assuming you can actually draw that thing. Modresh maybe faster now, but will still remain unplayable because most 8 drops are unplayable, and this one only works assuming you are able to draw that wildfire and remain alive by then. Ironically quest mage will destroy this deck, in my opinion, and will remain the cancerous piece of trash that it is because I'd rather Sorcerer's Gambit be nerfed than receive these buffs. But the nerfs may just slow down the meta enough and assuming quest mage don't make a resurgence, there's some bit of hope for hp mage to surface.
- Leatherworking Kit is something only team5 can explain. Im not sure what this buff actually does aside from making it less shitty when played. Hunters dont like losing tempo and even a 1 mana loss that doesn't do anything for a while is not going to win any awards. Selective Breeder, however, I can complete agree with. That 2 extra health may not look important but there's plenty of times you just want to play this on 2 and not lose tempo, and 2 extra health accomplishes that.
- Buffs to pirates. Not a fan. Warrior in standard is unplayable because the other quest decks are faster than its quest and aggro decks just destroy it. The changes to the pirates will help a bit, but I feel like the pirates that needed a buff here is Harbor Scamp and Cargo Guard. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the meta is slow enough for warrior to make a comeback after two months of irrelevance. Still getting quashed by quest mage though.
All in all, I can only hope team5 have made these changes after extensive testing because quest mage isn't nerfed, while the other combo/quest decks are, while the buffs are made to tempo oriented decks. On paper its decent, but assuredly no one wants a quest mage meta. See you guys tomorrow when the changes are out.
Harbor scamp does not need a buff at all, a 2/2 for 2 that tutors is very goo
- Irebound brute needed a nerf, but this one is so small Im not so sure what it hopes to accomplish. I think the idea is that team5 doesn't want turn 4 brute shenanigans, which is completely doable by the way on 7 mana.
- Demon seed nerf is huge but all it will do is to push back on the current fatigue variant of questlock. Handlock would probably need to switch back to Anetherons or drop the quest altogether if the meta is too fast. In other news, rod is dead. As 3 mana its awkward enough, as 4 its straight up dead.
- Mindrender illucia is not dead. What team5 have done is to ensure that shes strictly useful in value decks, and is no longer able to cheese opponents, especially rogue. While I dont think this is the end, we wont be seeing her until the next expansion in my opinion.
- Command the elements will still be played because the real power turn is the first tier quest reward, which means this deck will still beat all aggro and control decks easily. But against other quest decks, its just never going to make it. Mage can easily beat it now, by virtue of its quest being faster, where it wasn't before. Not sure what team5 hopes of accomplishing here.
- Perpetual flame is still broken as a 2 drop because essentially the downside - the overload - isn't really a downside in the right deck. I have hoped team5 would nerf the damage from 3 to 2, and am left scratching my head. I can only trust they have done some testing and didn't want to kill the card so opted for a nerf that essentially only removes it from the wandmaker pool.
Buffs:
- Mordresh Fire Eye at 8 and Wildfire at 1. These are really interesting changes, at least for wildfire because its now significantly easier to play - assuming you can actually draw that thing. Modresh maybe faster now, but will still remain unplayable because most 8 drops are unplayable, and this one only works assuming you are able to draw that wildfire and remain alive by then. Ironically quest mage will destroy this deck, in my opinion, and will remain the cancerous piece of trash that it is because I'd rather Sorcerer's Gambit be nerfed than receive these buffs. But the nerfs may just slow down the meta enough and assuming quest mage don't make a resurgence, there's some bit of hope for hp mage to surface.
- Leatherworking Kit is something only team5 can explain. Im not sure what this buff actually does aside from making it less shitty when played. Hunters dont like losing tempo and even a 1 mana loss that doesn't do anything for a while is not going to win any awards. Selective Breeder, however, I can complete agree with. That 2 extra health may not look important but there's plenty of times you just want to play this on 2 and not lose tempo, and 2 extra health accomplishes that.
- Buffs to pirates. Not a fan. Warrior in standard is unplayable because the other quest decks are faster than its quest and aggro decks just destroy it. The changes to the pirates will help a bit, but I feel like the pirates that needed a buff here is Harbor Scamp and Cargo Guard. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the meta is slow enough for warrior to make a comeback after two months of irrelevance. Still getting quashed by quest mage though.
All in all, I can only hope team5 have made these changes after extensive testing because quest mage isn't nerfed, while the other combo/quest decks are, while the buffs are made to tempo oriented decks. On paper its decent, but assuredly no one wants a quest mage meta. See you guys tomorrow when the changes are out.
that would just make it ridiculous in Control matchups (if those ever happen again). You get to dump their ressources and they can'T do anything about it.
The whole point of the swap originally was so your opponent had some counterplay and could waste some of your ressources.
We got some valuable information today about various aspects of Mercenaries, so I'm wondering what new thoughts are swirling out there.
Stuff that matters to me personally:
153 free packs plus 76,500 additional coins from Campfire quests
Crafting costs for mercs!
100 for rare
300 for epic
500 for legendary
Certain coins drop more frequently from certain Bounties, so you can farm that legendary you're dying to have
Less than 10 hours played time to get your party to level 30
Assumes you stick with the same party roster
Can power-level new Mercs by letting them watch from the bench
50% more Merc XP for Heroic Bounties
Mercenaries updates should be as frequent as Battlegrounds updates
No nerfs for PvE reasons, minimal for PvP unless something totally breaks the game
As someone who enjoys unlocking and collecting things, it seems like the game will be a lot of fun if I never buy a single pack with cash. The packs from quests will be more than enough to collect a ton of Mercs, and every Merc you pull from a pack will unlock more quests. This cycle breaks down once you've got all the rares and epics, so maybe you end up grinding coins for some legendaries at the end, but that doesn't seem so bad to me.
Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Stormwind Nerfs, Buffs, Bans, and Redesign Patch Arriving Tuesday
Random story time:
I always enjoyed Odd Mage, continued playing it in Wild after the early Genn/Baku rotation. After Barrens I was playing a “Fire Mage” deck based around HP shenanigans that included Mordresh and Jan’alai. Something about the fantasy of being a mage with a strong hero power was fun to me.
It was never super strong in Wild in either form, but with Wildfire at 1 it intrigues me enough to at least try Odd Mage again. If only Mordresh was changed to 9 mana 9/9, and Reckless Apprentice changed to a 3 mana 3/4…
Could run Frost Lich and just save the Wildfires until after playing her too. That is, if Wild slows down enough for an Odd Elemental Mage to be viable. (Fun Fact: When Barrens released, Wildfire’s effect used to carryover to the DK hp, but at some point they patches it so it wouldn’t.)
Blizzard Made Some Mercenaries Data Available on the Official Site - How Does it Compare to Datamining?
For the time being, The Lich King being labeled as Human is a buff: there are no Undead-synergy abilities currently in the game, while Anduin and Varian provide pro-Human builds to work him into.
Vol'jin seems super good for Shadow teams, so I can totally understand nerfing his stats.
Early Access Look at Hearthstone Mercenaries Gameplay - First 2 Tutorials, Upgraded Account, Party Building, & More From Slysssa
Yes: they will cost 100 gold, same as traditional Hearthstone packs. In fact, most of the monetization seems to line up with Hearthstone-proper.
Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Stormwind Nerfs, Buffs, Bans, and Redesign Patch Arriving Tuesday
Mage buffs are for Hero Power Mage. A more-or-less unplayed archetype. It might just cause Mage players to play a different archetype than the one you don't like.
Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Stormwind Nerfs, Buffs, Bans, and Redesign Patch Arriving Tuesday
Im worried that by hitting the other quests, it inadvertently buffed quest mage, which is stil seeing lots of play despite its win rate. Buff up that win rate and we'll be back to week one of stormwind where every 2 of 3 games are against mage and it aint hp mage.
Of course, if quest mage is tier 1 be prepared for what is now termed as 'solitaire' meta once again.
Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Stormwind Nerfs, Buffs, Bans, and Redesign Patch Arriving Tuesday
The change to Mindrender Illucia does not appear to include a copy of the opponent's deck as is written in this article. Only their hand.
Mindrender Illucia
Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Stormwind Nerfs, Buffs, Bans, and Redesign Patch Arriving Tuesday
Mage was already OP and now they gave her buffs
Early Access Look at Hearthstone Mercenaries Gameplay - First 2 Tutorials, Upgraded Account, Party Building, & More From Slysssa
Do we know yet if merc packs can be purchased with gold?
Gotta catch 'em all
It would really be nice if the world had a few less people who take delight in raining all over other people's parades - I'm not overly familiar with the style of game Mercenaries is going to be, but I'm looking forward to playing it, I can't imagine it will be that difficult to pick up. Like FortyDust, my favorite aspect of these kind of games is the fun of unlocking and collecting things, so I just hope the content is deep enough to keep us engaged for the long haul :)
Blizzard Answers Frequently Asked Mercenaries Questions, Confirms 153 Mercenary Packs Available Through Campfire Tasks at Launch
It seems official: Valeera is the one that's "missing" https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/mercenaries
This really sucks; she was one of my favorites.
When Does the United in Stormwind Mini-Set "Deadmines" Arrive? Early November 2021 is Most Likely
Yup! Thanks for the correction, I've updated the article.
When Does the United in Stormwind Mini-Set "Deadmines" Arrive? Early November 2021 is Most Likely
Its been datamined as being Deadmines.
Gotta catch 'em all
It hasn't changed my mind 'cause I'm already on board...I just hope the early access videos and new information might win some people over, because I'm frankly tired of the "this looks boring"/"this looks like shit"/"this looks pay2win" people out there trying to ruin it for me and others.
When Does the United in Stormwind Mini-Set "Deadmines" Arrive? Early November 2021 is Most Likely
I think it will be either November 2nd or October 26th. November 9th is just too far
Hearthstone Duels Gets an Update This Week - Oppressive Treasures Being Moved to "Ultra Rare" Pool
Have to agree that it'll be better to just remove broken treasures rather than just make it harder to get. Because we'd all know without the right treasures/passives you'd just get destroyed in the top tier of duels, and what pushing them to ultra rare pools do is to fill the top end with just that. I'd rather lose clean to someone that played well than someone who lucked out on the passives.
When Does the United in Stormwind Mini-Set "Deadmines" Arrive? Early November 2021 is Most Likely
Not sure if pushing back on the midset is a good idea, because that means the midset has an effective 1 month range to do anything useful before it gets completely taken over by the next expansion, unless the idea is to push that back too.
Its obvious what is going on, they want us to try out mercs and not let the mid set steal its thunder. Well, fair play I suppose, but wouldn't it be easier just to release mercs earlier? I mean I assume its playable now, since there's early access videos surfacing in reddit.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
I thought about this too until i realized that this essentially removed any drawbacks from playing her. One of key things about this card is that it's difficult to determine the right moment to play her (outside of dumping quest rewards). A badly timed Illucia could backfire really hard. If you missed the mark, you essentially gave your opponent a free turn to destroy your hand which would leave you without precious resources for your next turn. It's the kind of card that only gives you one chance: you either get it correctly and win the game or you miss and lose.
The change to an end of turn effect would allow Priest players to run her without any risks. They would be able to destroy your hand and you would only be able to watch it. Since the hand would swap back at the end of their turn, the most you could do is look at what they have in hand but that really doesn't matter if they are going to return a hand stripped of resources to you. She would remain extremely toxic and complaints would only increase further, i believe. Unfortunately, they had no choice here but they should at least revert the nerf to her mana cost.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
I think team5 made the right decision because the Mindrender Illucia design has always been a problem ever since its been printed. Some strats just straight up cant exist because of it, like how it basically solo most rogue decks.
This change retains some of the useful bits of illucia, like getting clears and lethals with good handreading skill. There's no perfect redesign for illucia because the card should never be printed in the first place, but this change I can get behind with, though I prefer it to go back to 2 mana.
When Does the United in Stormwind Mini-Set "Deadmines" Arrive? Early November 2021 is Most Likely
Oh I know that it's the most likely, but the article made it sound like we had confirmation but I couldn't find anything about that.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Im talking about standard obviously. But what they need is early game tempo against aggro decks. Bloodsail Deckhand is fine as a 2/2 but more is needed, and I'd trade a 2/2 bloodsail on 1 for a 2/3 harbor scamp buff any day.
Still, we'll see once its out.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Harbor scamp does not need a buff at all, a 2/2 for 2 that tutors is very goo
When Does the United in Stormwind Mini-Set "Deadmines" Arrive? Early November 2021 is Most Likely
Think you meant The Wailing Caverns mini set here instead of UiS
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Here's my take:
Good nerfs for obvious reasons: Irebound Brute, The Demon Seed, Runed Mithril Rod, Mindrender Illucia. More baffling is the shaman nerfs.
- Irebound brute needed a nerf, but this one is so small Im not so sure what it hopes to accomplish. I think the idea is that team5 doesn't want turn 4 brute shenanigans, which is completely doable by the way on 7 mana.
- Demon seed nerf is huge but all it will do is to push back on the current fatigue variant of questlock. Handlock would probably need to switch back to Anetherons or drop the quest altogether if the meta is too fast. In other news, rod is dead. As 3 mana its awkward enough, as 4 its straight up dead.
- Mindrender illucia is not dead. What team5 have done is to ensure that shes strictly useful in value decks, and is no longer able to cheese opponents, especially rogue. While I dont think this is the end, we wont be seeing her until the next expansion in my opinion.
- Command the elements will still be played because the real power turn is the first tier quest reward, which means this deck will still beat all aggro and control decks easily. But against other quest decks, its just never going to make it. Mage can easily beat it now, by virtue of its quest being faster, where it wasn't before. Not sure what team5 hopes of accomplishing here.
- Perpetual flame is still broken as a 2 drop because essentially the downside - the overload - isn't really a downside in the right deck. I have hoped team5 would nerf the damage from 3 to 2, and am left scratching my head. I can only trust they have done some testing and didn't want to kill the card so opted for a nerf that essentially only removes it from the wandmaker pool.
Buffs:
- Mordresh Fire Eye at 8 and Wildfire at 1. These are really interesting changes, at least for wildfire because its now significantly easier to play - assuming you can actually draw that thing. Modresh maybe faster now, but will still remain unplayable because most 8 drops are unplayable, and this one only works assuming you are able to draw that wildfire and remain alive by then. Ironically quest mage will destroy this deck, in my opinion, and will remain the cancerous piece of trash that it is because I'd rather Sorcerer's Gambit be nerfed than receive these buffs. But the nerfs may just slow down the meta enough and assuming quest mage don't make a resurgence, there's some bit of hope for hp mage to surface.
- Leatherworking Kit is something only team5 can explain. Im not sure what this buff actually does aside from making it less shitty when played. Hunters dont like losing tempo and even a 1 mana loss that doesn't do anything for a while is not going to win any awards. Selective Breeder, however, I can complete agree with. That 2 extra health may not look important but there's plenty of times you just want to play this on 2 and not lose tempo, and 2 extra health accomplishes that.
- Buffs to pirates. Not a fan. Warrior in standard is unplayable because the other quest decks are faster than its quest and aggro decks just destroy it. The changes to the pirates will help a bit, but I feel like the pirates that needed a buff here is Harbor Scamp and Cargo Guard. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the meta is slow enough for warrior to make a comeback after two months of irrelevance. Still getting quashed by quest mage though.
All in all, I can only hope team5 have made these changes after extensive testing because quest mage isn't nerfed, while the other combo/quest decks are, while the buffs are made to tempo oriented decks. On paper its decent, but assuredly no one wants a quest mage meta. See you guys tomorrow when the changes are out.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
that would just make it ridiculous in Control matchups (if those ever happen again). You get to dump their ressources and they can'T do anything about it.
The whole point of the swap originally was so your opponent had some counterplay and could waste some of your ressources.
Gotta catch 'em all
We got some valuable information today about various aspects of Mercenaries, so I'm wondering what new thoughts are swirling out there.
Stuff that matters to me personally:
As someone who enjoys unlocking and collecting things, it seems like the game will be a lot of fun if I never buy a single pack with cash. The packs from quests will be more than enough to collect a ton of Mercs, and every Merc you pull from a pack will unlock more quests. This cycle breaks down once you've got all the rares and epics, so maybe you end up grinding coins for some legendaries at the end, but that doesn't seem so bad to me.
EDIT: Corrected price of legendary crafting