"There will be 51 Mercenaries at launch". The data-mining found 52 total Mercs, so it appears one has been removed. Internal data shows it could be Valeera, which sucks because her Merc looks amazing :/ Might be because she's the narrator/helper starting out? Or maybe because she's OP lol. Would be weird to be missing one of the main Hearthstone class-representatives, though...
I played with it yesterday and it seemed fine to me. I got it to 130+ stats by the end of the game and i only had a golden Party Elemental for several turns to buff it directly. It might be a bit broken at tier 5.
Irebound Brute - It's just a small touch like the Flesh Giant nerf to slow down the card a little bit without removing its main function as a minion you can cheat out early to beat your opponents with large stats.
Mindrender Illucia - Straight up trash now. She can no longer lock down opponents in Shadow Priest or disrupt key combo pieces from opponents in Control Priest. Copying the opponent's hand could technically help when you are running out of gas but her cost didn't change which makes this extremely inefficient. Now, she is just another extremely niche Thief Priest card that doesn't really fill any important roles in current archetypes. The only thing left is her flavor as a mind reader. Other than that, she just doesn't have a purpose anymore. Free dust, at least.
Perpetual Flame - The increase in cost can affect breakpoints in early turns as you can no longer fit another low cost card as easily in the same turn you play this. It will weaken their survivability and disrupt some of Quest Shaman's most efficient early game routes to quest completion.
Command the Elements - Another hit that slows down quest completion. The archetype should be fine but not as insanely fast anymore. Good.
Runed Mithril Rod - The increase in cost breaks the early game curve of coin into Rod into Backfire which slows down Quest Warlock significantly in certain scenarios.
The Demon Seed - The wild ban was an obvious thing. The format has been saved for now. Hopefully, something like this doesn't happen again in the near future. For Standard, these direct nerfs are quite brutal. The deck doesn't just become slower but also more susceptible to burn and aggression as the Warlock needs to hurt his life total in the early game a lot more. These three extra points of damage can make a huge difference against aggressive decks or decks with a lot of burn (like Quest Hunter).
Now, let's talk about the buffs and some of these have me on fire right now!
Leatherworking Kit - Cheaper but not really faster. The main problem is reliably generating beast tokens to sacrifice for this. Not a pointless buff though. Worth experimenting with.
Selective Breeder - This one baffles me a bit. Two extra health on a value minion. Not even a point of attack to make it trade a little bit better. I don't understand this one. A mana discount would have been a lot more interesting. This having three health doesn't really do much at all. It's not threatening, it doesn't trade well into anything with just one attack and it doesn't make it more efficient as a value generator. This simply doesn't make sense to me.
Wildfire - Hell yeah! This is the one that has me on fire! The one mana discount is huge. Playing it on turn 1 and getting that extra damage on the Hero Power for early game board control is massive. This is what Shadowform should have looked like when it was reintroduced. Getting it online fast is what makes a difference.
Mordresh Fire Eye - Rock & Roll! Yes, another massive game changer here! A two mana discount is so important for this card. Its main limiter has always been how slow it is. Now, it can actually work as a proper win condition/finisher for the HP Mage archetype. Simply amazing!
Stormwind Freebooter, Stonemaul Anchorman and Bloodsail Deckhand - All buffs directed towards Quest Warrior. These minions are a lot stronger now and that should enable Quest Warrior in standard. Problem is: Quest Warrior doesn't need any help in Wild. These buffs could have some repercussions there. Stonemaul Anchorman is the only card that doesn't really benefit Wild Quest Warrior.
Overall, this patch seems pretty good. These changes should shake up the meta quite a bit in both formats. Now, we have to wait for the miniset and pray that it doesn't break everything again.
I dont liek wildfire buff as now doesnt work in even mage anymore and wish they had made it kepe the dmg upgrade even after chaneg hp like start of barrens.
And imo deckhand dit not need the buff like at all.
Board is so empty. I hope they place more things to the board. Like avatars, hero portraits, emotes, or i dont know something. Also I dont like the gameplay too. Give us a 2v2 mode or other different things. They always doing the same things. Like duels is same style with dungeon runs. I dont like that mode too. You already give us dungeon run for a single content. That was nice. But like why do you giving that again with reskin and saying it is a new game mode. It is not new it is just a reskin. Those game modes are good if they are side content.
I have not seen Master of Realities played in last week or so, well any elemental comp for that matter to be honest. Im curious to see if these pretty big nerfs to Beasts will change that.
I am a standard player, but I started playing wild lately. Reached legend in wild playing Quest Warrior exclusively and without star bonus in a few days. Quest warrior is already very strong in wild and I found the 1 mana 2/2 buff change totally unnecessary. Of course these changes aim for standard, ignoring wild once again.
Pretty massive for Odd Mage, since you can level up Jan'ari with just one normal HP and one with Daring Fire-Eater. Even just three uses get there with Wildfire as opposed to four, saving you crucial Mana.
That Bloodsail Deckhand buff feels so weird to me; I figured if warrior was going to get a buff it was going to be a newer card, not one that has existed for a year and a half.
Man, I really regret prematurely dusting all my extra Brutes at the start of the expansion because Quest demon hunter looked like a complete meme. New rule: if a card can cost 0 at any point, it's probably going to get nerfed.
The Illucia rework should have come with an unnerf to her mana cost. If it's just supposed to be a one time "I'll use your ressources instead" then it needs to actually let you play something instead of eating most of your mana. Then again, it's not like this effect will ever see play anyways because we're not exactly in a value meta.
Perpetual Flame change is probably irrelevant outside of some very specific situations where you need the mana efficiency. I doubt it's gonna make Shaman's matchup against board ccentric decks any worse. At least it can't randomly show up form Wandmaker anymore.
The change to the Quest is a much bigger deal in my opinion. i've been playing the deck quite a bit lately and while I consider it to be somewhat overrated there's no doubt that it just wins hard the sooner you jam Bru'kan. It draws like absolute shit though, so just a single card more makes a massive difference. I wouldn't be surprised it it just disappears completely (assuming Warlock still remains playable in some way). I'll take that refund gladly though.
I honestly did not expect Demon Seed to be nerfed at all, but it does make a lot of sense. Having to take 3-more damage probably requires you to run more self-damaging cards. 8 is also the most awkward number to smoothly get to if you have to weave in the many 3-damage spells. Not to mention it slows down Flesh Giants considerably, which is huge.
Hard to evaluate the rod change at this point. The card is still stupidly good, but playing it on curve is so much more awkward now. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just too slow into the tempo matchups to matter. Then again, I performed quite well before adopting Rod, so maybe it won't be missed after all.
The buffs are really interesting and somewhat surprising in a few cases.
Leatherworking kit buff is huge. I've played around with it in a gimmicky midrange list and it performed quite well (even though I only ended up running 1 because I only actually ran 3 different beasts) but the biggest issue was finding to time to actually play it without losing tempo. At 1-mana it's so much more convenient to squeeze in. Not sure if it does anything for Rat Hunter but it sets up Beast Midrange for the future.
Selective Breeder is the most unexpected buff, but it makes sense. As a 1/1 it would have never been playable. Would have preferred a 2/2 personally, but at least it's no longer a liability and actually gives Beast Hunter some proactive early game.
Wildfire change is huge, but it might be too late. Maybe there's some Fire support in the miniset that helps, but right now the only option to play the deck is to go full minions with Spell tutors, but Mage just doesn't have good enough minions. At least it now shows up from Wandmaker and is less awkward to play in the early game to set up for later turns. Would have loved to have this last expansion.
Mordresh change is unacceptable. He was a 10-mana 10/10 dealing 10 damage after pinging 10 times. He was perfect. And you ruined him. Jokes aside, this might be enough to make the Hero Power deck become "playable", but I doubt that a deck without efficient draw that relies on getting a single spell early enough for the rest of its deck to work is ever going to make it. Small upside: Warlock should be slow enough that you can now drop Mordresh on curve to wipe their lategame boards.
The Warrior buffs are nice, but I'm not sure they'll make a difference. The deck's minions were decent already, it just lacks some actual powerplays. It still won't beat Warlock or Shaman.
I am really happy about some of the things coming but sad about others. I really liked playing HgSs decks with friends sometimes, even did it more than once. But hey. I think it is for the better in general.
With Wildfire down to 1 Hero Power Mage can no longer fit in a Genn Greymane deck. That makes me a little sad, but on the other hand, maybe Wildfire is now a nice inclusion in an Odd deck.
I've never actually played the Pokemon TCG at any point in my life despite the fact that my family used to have some of the cards for it, so this may be some incentive to try to get into it (even if I am already juggling Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, and a little bit of MTG Arena).
I agree that the Quest should have stayed, because it gave players something similar to Jade Druid to play with. However, the critical mass of self-damage cards in Wild, on top of Warlock itself being the top dog since Scholomance, AND possibly Rod, made it shatter Wild like no meta did, aside from maybe SN1P-SN4P Warlock.
It would've also been another patience game if they did not ban the Quest in Wild. The patch's nerfs would've already done quite a bit of damage because of slowed progress and less explosive turns. But again, this would've probably kept the community in outrage had the Questline stayed for even one more day.
Blizzard Answers Frequently Asked Mercenaries Questions, Confirms 153 Mercenary Packs Available Through Campfire Tasks at Launch
"There will be 51 Mercenaries at launch". The data-mining found 52 total Mercs, so it appears one has been removed. Internal data shows it could be Valeera, which sucks because her Merc looks amazing :/ Might be because she's the narrator/helper starting out? Or maybe because she's OP lol. Would be weird to be missing one of the main Hearthstone class-representatives, though...
Hearthstone Battlegrounds Gets a Massive Patch Tomorrow - Datamined Leapfrogger Nerfed Confirmed
I played with it yesterday and it seemed fine to me. I got it to 130+ stats by the end of the game and i only had a golden Party Elemental for several turns to buff it directly. It might be a bit broken at tier 5.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
I don't like "I win" cards in the way mindrender Illucia is
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
its good but not nearly as broken as warlock was/is
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Lots of changes to talk about. First, the nerfs.
Irebound Brute - It's just a small touch like the Flesh Giant nerf to slow down the card a little bit without removing its main function as a minion you can cheat out early to beat your opponents with large stats.
Mindrender Illucia - Straight up trash now. She can no longer lock down opponents in Shadow Priest or disrupt key combo pieces from opponents in Control Priest. Copying the opponent's hand could technically help when you are running out of gas but her cost didn't change which makes this extremely inefficient. Now, she is just another extremely niche Thief Priest card that doesn't really fill any important roles in current archetypes. The only thing left is her flavor as a mind reader. Other than that, she just doesn't have a purpose anymore. Free dust, at least.
Perpetual Flame - The increase in cost can affect breakpoints in early turns as you can no longer fit another low cost card as easily in the same turn you play this. It will weaken their survivability and disrupt some of Quest Shaman's most efficient early game routes to quest completion.
Command the Elements - Another hit that slows down quest completion. The archetype should be fine but not as insanely fast anymore. Good.
Runed Mithril Rod - The increase in cost breaks the early game curve of coin into Rod into Backfire which slows down Quest Warlock significantly in certain scenarios.
The Demon Seed - The wild ban was an obvious thing. The format has been saved for now. Hopefully, something like this doesn't happen again in the near future. For Standard, these direct nerfs are quite brutal. The deck doesn't just become slower but also more susceptible to burn and aggression as the Warlock needs to hurt his life total in the early game a lot more. These three extra points of damage can make a huge difference against aggressive decks or decks with a lot of burn (like Quest Hunter).
Now, let's talk about the buffs and some of these have me on fire right now!
Leatherworking Kit - Cheaper but not really faster. The main problem is reliably generating beast tokens to sacrifice for this. Not a pointless buff though. Worth experimenting with.
Selective Breeder - This one baffles me a bit. Two extra health on a value minion. Not even a point of attack to make it trade a little bit better. I don't understand this one. A mana discount would have been a lot more interesting. This having three health doesn't really do much at all. It's not threatening, it doesn't trade well into anything with just one attack and it doesn't make it more efficient as a value generator. This simply doesn't make sense to me.
Wildfire - Hell yeah! This is the one that has me on fire! The one mana discount is huge. Playing it on turn 1 and getting that extra damage on the Hero Power for early game board control is massive. This is what Shadowform should have looked like when it was reintroduced. Getting it online fast is what makes a difference.
Mordresh Fire Eye - Rock & Roll! Yes, another massive game changer here! A two mana discount is so important for this card. Its main limiter has always been how slow it is. Now, it can actually work as a proper win condition/finisher for the HP Mage archetype. Simply amazing!
Stormwind Freebooter, Stonemaul Anchorman and Bloodsail Deckhand - All buffs directed towards Quest Warrior. These minions are a lot stronger now and that should enable Quest Warrior in standard. Problem is: Quest Warrior doesn't need any help in Wild. These buffs could have some repercussions there. Stonemaul Anchorman is the only card that doesn't really benefit Wild Quest Warrior.
Overall, this patch seems pretty good. These changes should shake up the meta quite a bit in both formats. Now, we have to wait for the miniset and pray that it doesn't break everything again.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
You hate Questline Hunter? Play a deck with lot of armor stacking. Enjoy your free wins against Quest Hunter.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Warrior buffs - turn good cards into overpowered cards.
Hunter buffs - turn completely useless garbage into maybe sometimes useful garbage.
Wild pirate warrior will be much stronger. And it was already a very powerful deck.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Wildfire at (1)?!?! Revival of my Odd Mage deck?!?! Not sure if it’s going to be viable or not but maybe!
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
I dont liek wildfire buff as now doesnt work in even mage anymore and wish they had made it kepe the dmg upgrade even after chaneg hp like start of barrens.
And imo deckhand dit not need the buff like at all.
Early Access Look at Hearthstone Mercenaries Gameplay - First 2 Tutorials, Upgraded Account, Party Building, & More From Slysssa
Board is so empty. I hope they place more things to the board. Like avatars, hero portraits, emotes, or i dont know something. Also I dont like the gameplay too. Give us a 2v2 mode or other different things. They always doing the same things. Like duels is same style with dungeon runs. I dont like that mode too. You already give us dungeon run for a single content. That was nice. But like why do you giving that again with reskin and saying it is a new game mode. It is not new it is just a reskin. Those game modes are good if they are side content.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Questline for Warrior in wild is just a "Win more" Pirate Warrior is Stronk in Wild w/o it.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Good... now ban Questline Hunter in Wild, as it is just as broken.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Pirate Warrior is already strong in Wild. These buffs make it even stronger.
2 instead of 1 HP makes a big difference for a one drop.
Stormwind Freebooter looks like a "very good" card for me now. I will put 1 or 2 Stormwind Freebooter into the deck for sure.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds Gets a Massive Patch Tomorrow - Datamined Leapfrogger Nerfed Confirmed
I have not seen Master of Realities played in last week or so, well any elemental comp for that matter to be honest. Im curious to see if these pretty big nerfs to Beasts will change that.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
It was introduced in the core-set, so it's still relatively new.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
I am a standard player, but I started playing wild lately. Reached legend in wild playing Quest Warrior exclusively and without star bonus in a few days. Quest warrior is already very strong in wild and I found the 1 mana 2/2 buff change totally unnecessary. Of course these changes aim for standard, ignoring wild once again.
Pokemon TCG Online is Shutting Down, Relaunching Under New Game - Pokemon TCG Live
NICE!
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Pretty massive for Odd Mage, since you can level up Jan'ari with just one normal HP and one with Daring Fire-Eater. Even just three uses get there with Wildfire as opposed to four, saving you crucial Mana.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
That Bloodsail Deckhand buff feels so weird to me; I figured if warrior was going to get a buff it was going to be a newer card, not one that has existed for a year and a half.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Man, I really regret prematurely dusting all my extra Brutes at the start of the expansion because Quest demon hunter looked like a complete meme. New rule: if a card can cost 0 at any point, it's probably going to get nerfed.
The Illucia rework should have come with an unnerf to her mana cost. If it's just supposed to be a one time "I'll use your ressources instead" then it needs to actually let you play something instead of eating most of your mana. Then again, it's not like this effect will ever see play anyways because we're not exactly in a value meta.
Perpetual Flame change is probably irrelevant outside of some very specific situations where you need the mana efficiency. I doubt it's gonna make Shaman's matchup against board ccentric decks any worse. At least it can't randomly show up form Wandmaker anymore.
The change to the Quest is a much bigger deal in my opinion. i've been playing the deck quite a bit lately and while I consider it to be somewhat overrated there's no doubt that it just wins hard the sooner you jam Bru'kan. It draws like absolute shit though, so just a single card more makes a massive difference. I wouldn't be surprised it it just disappears completely (assuming Warlock still remains playable in some way). I'll take that refund gladly though.
I honestly did not expect Demon Seed to be nerfed at all, but it does make a lot of sense. Having to take 3-more damage probably requires you to run more self-damaging cards. 8 is also the most awkward number to smoothly get to if you have to weave in the many 3-damage spells. Not to mention it slows down Flesh Giants considerably, which is huge.
Hard to evaluate the rod change at this point. The card is still stupidly good, but playing it on curve is so much more awkward now. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just too slow into the tempo matchups to matter. Then again, I performed quite well before adopting Rod, so maybe it won't be missed after all.
The buffs are really interesting and somewhat surprising in a few cases.
Leatherworking kit buff is huge. I've played around with it in a gimmicky midrange list and it performed quite well (even though I only ended up running 1 because I only actually ran 3 different beasts) but the biggest issue was finding to time to actually play it without losing tempo. At 1-mana it's so much more convenient to squeeze in. Not sure if it does anything for Rat Hunter but it sets up Beast Midrange for the future.
Selective Breeder is the most unexpected buff, but it makes sense. As a 1/1 it would have never been playable. Would have preferred a 2/2 personally, but at least it's no longer a liability and actually gives Beast Hunter some proactive early game.
Wildfire change is huge, but it might be too late. Maybe there's some Fire support in the miniset that helps, but right now the only option to play the deck is to go full minions with Spell tutors, but Mage just doesn't have good enough minions. At least it now shows up from Wandmaker and is less awkward to play in the early game to set up for later turns. Would have loved to have this last expansion.
Mordresh change is unacceptable. He was a 10-mana 10/10 dealing 10 damage after pinging 10 times. He was perfect. And you ruined him. Jokes aside, this might be enough to make the Hero Power deck become "playable", but I doubt that a deck without efficient draw that relies on getting a single spell early enough for the rest of its deck to work is ever going to make it. Small upside: Warlock should be slow enough that you can now drop Mordresh on curve to wipe their lategame boards.
The Warrior buffs are nice, but I'm not sure they'll make a difference. The deck's minions were decent already, it just lacks some actual powerplays. It still won't beat Warlock or Shaman.
Pokemon TCG Online is Shutting Down, Relaunching Under New Game - Pokemon TCG Live
I am really happy about some of the things coming but sad about others. I really liked playing HgSs decks with friends sometimes, even did it more than once. But hey. I think it is for the better in general.
I will use this time to get some trading going!
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
With Wildfire down to 1 Hero Power Mage can no longer fit in a Genn Greymane deck. That makes me a little sad, but on the other hand, maybe Wildfire is now a nice inclusion in an Odd deck.
Pokemon TCG Online is Shutting Down, Relaunching Under New Game - Pokemon TCG Live
I've never actually played the Pokemon TCG at any point in my life despite the fact that my family used to have some of the cards for it, so this may be some incentive to try to get into it (even if I am already juggling Hearthstone, Legends of Runeterra, and a little bit of MTG Arena).
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
I agree that the Quest should have stayed, because it gave players something similar to Jade Druid to play with. However, the critical mass of self-damage cards in Wild, on top of Warlock itself being the top dog since Scholomance, AND possibly Rod, made it shatter Wild like no meta did, aside from maybe SN1P-SN4P Warlock.
It would've also been another patience game if they did not ban the Quest in Wild. The patch's nerfs would've already done quite a bit of damage because of slowed progress and less explosive turns. But again, this would've probably kept the community in outrage had the Questline stayed for even one more day.
Standard and Wild Balance Updates Arrive on Tuesday - Mindrender Illucia No Longer Swaps Decks or Cards, The Demon Seed Banned in Wild
Not just an upside, a discount.