2/5. A spell that costs 5 mana but then refills 3 sounds like it has good synergy with the likes of Lux and Heimerdinger. For the 2 mana you spend for real, you get an effect that is comparable to Sharpsight, and to Ghost. Overall, I think this will suffer from the fact that its effect looks more useful when used reactively (to block Elusives), but you need to have 5 mana open to cast this reactively which is too steep an asking cost.
As a wild player, I honestly don't think there's a reasonable way to balance cards like Darkglare or Flesh Giant without making them straight-up irrelevant. But even then, I think that Questline Warlock will still be a very competitive deck even without those two cards because of Crystallizer, Raise Dead, Unlicensed Apothecary and many others.
I would hope they just outright ban The Demon Seed from wild. I'm really against banning cards because they hinder creative endeavors, but the deck invalidates so many other decks that it's just outright ridiculous.
2/5. While having your hand messed with will always be annoying, I don't see a clear use case for this. Discarding your opponent's cheapest card sounds like something an aggro deck would like to do to get rid of an opponent's early game plays like Eye of the Dragon, except aggro decks don't want to spend a card and 2 mana on a spell that doesn't directly advance their win condition.
It can be good in specific circumstances, like discarding your opponent's last card in hand, but that's something to keep in mind when this card is offered in a Manifest effect, not a reason to put this in your main deck.
- Quest rewards bumped to 6 or 7 mana. Or have their conditions tweaked. The problem we are having right now is really that the quest rewards are game winning and that the quest itself is easily completed. So what we have here are games finishing before or around turn 8. Whether its mage finishing everything by turn 5 (absolutely doable) or warlock completing all three tiers and tamsin played on the same turn 5, the problem remains the same: quest rewards are game winning and finished quickly, and rewards are played comfortably. Making it harder to play, or the conditions more difficult to complete will balance the quests properly and slow the meta down a little. Im not saying we do it for all, but certainly for some cough* cough* mage warlock
- Battleground Battlemaster cost from 5 to 6, stats from 5/5 to 3/3. Its a little ridiculous how easily games are stolen because of this thing. But Im still somewhat convinced that the only reason this card sees play at all is because we're in a meta that doesn't care for early game minions, so most people just play stealth minions or go big to cheat a few wins off warlock and mage. Once warlock and mage are taken care off, there's an argument to be made if 2x bb is still going to be as popular.
- Incanter's Flow to 3 or 4, or just straight up make it reduce cost of cards but no less than 1 mana. I mean this is the 2nd time we're seeing this card raise hell, are we really going to ignore this? Just print some good cards for mage, don't keep supporting this bs. Buff Sanctum Chandler to 4 mana, because I much rather play and play against a mage that doesn't just scam a win because they drew that* card or score rng points.
- Garrote no longer benefits from spell damage. That's really it honestly. Without spell damage the card only deals 8 damage, which will skew it far away from handing anyone a turn 6 death note.
- Stealer of Souls? Not sure. Any nerf will nuke the card. Perhaps lowering its health to 4 or mana cost to 5? Or we just nuke it because how'd this card get past the design stage is beyond me. Absurd amounts of mana cheat, and now the downside is an active upside.
Make a few changes now, have a feel, then we'll come back to the topic again 6 weeks later.
Edit: Maybe nerf Felscream Blast to only targetable on enemies? It might kill the entire deck. But maybe its time to retire old Il'gynoth and bring in the lion frenzy OTK deck.
Lifesteal DH was a dumb and broken thing before this expansion, now they add a questline designed to reduce the cost of your combo cards (I don't see any other viable reasons to play the quest), only to be forced to nerf the combo pieces by increasing their cost so your cost reduction sets them at their pre-nerf cost. This would only limit the use of these cards to a specific deck and make them unplayable outside of combo. What a joke.
Darkglare and Stealer of souls are very problematic and I'm not sure how to handle them without making them irrelevant.
I'm more concerned about the mentioned solitaire style of play where a majority of questline decks just race to complete their conditions without much interactions, not even wanting to play minions so your opponent cannot play spells on them. It gets old very quickly and there is little to none disruption in standard to help you somewhat counter those strategies.
darkglare you can raise the mana (like how was orgianly 3 mana 3/4) stealer of souls is harder but could juust be once a turn effect or like: next card you drasw costs health not mana.
Darkglare can be nerfed that way and still be relevant, stealer with current effect i dont think its posisble to have it relevant and not be broken
My first card with a 5/5 rating for this expansion. It's a 2-mana unit that gives you a card, which makes me think of Fortune Croaker and Avarosan Sentry. The former needs another unit on your board it can damage (and hopefully not kill), while the latter needs to die before he gives you your card; this new guy has no such limitations.
Manifest is an extremely versatile mechanic, so unless you're playing a combo deck, I value this Manifest a little higher than I would value drawing a card from your deck. It gets even better if its Yordle tribal tag is worth something. Expect to see a lot of this guy.
3/5. This unit is versatile in that it can pressure your opponent's Nexus, generate some extra value, and block larger enemy Elusive units. It's not phenomenal at any of those roles, but it looks solid enough.
2/5. This card is reminiscent of Chump Whump, they have the same cost and stat line and both give you two copies of a 1-mana spell. However, where Chump Whump significantly advances your win condition, this guy just messes with your opponent's hand. Maybe this guy sees some play in decks that revolve around spellcasting synergies, but otherwise I expect to see him gathering cobwebs in players' card collections.
That's a very fair point, was definitely more focused on the minion side of things. I do consider the card a little too good at what it does at 0 mana for both Warlock and Priest, so certainly wouldn't mind seeing its mana cost increased.
Blizz: Hey, let's nerf this one card that forces people to trade into every minion on the opponent's side of the board so they never can develop anything.
Also Blizz: Hey, so we just released this NEW card that if you leave any 2 minions up, effectively doubles their damage! Remember how in the previous meta you had to clear all minions? Well get ready to do it for a WHOLE different reason! That counts right? You aren't killing minions to prevent healing, now you're killing minions to prevent your own lethal! WAY more interactive? Right? RIGHT?
I think it seems like a really fun mechanic. But the fact that you commit the mana before your opponent, as opposed to debuffs that target creatures on-board and negate mana the opponent has already spent, will make Prank weaker than it looks at first.
Lifesteal DH was a dumb and broken thing before this expansion, now they add a questline designed to reduce the cost of your combo cards (I don't see any other viable reasons to play the quest), only to be forced to nerf the combo pieces by increasing their cost so your cost reduction sets them at their pre-nerf cost. This would only limit the use of these cards to a specific deck and make them unplayable outside of combo. What a joke.
Darkglare and Stealer of souls are very problematic and I'm not sure how to handle them without making them irrelevant.
I'm more concerned about the mentioned solitaire style of play where a majority of questline decks just race to complete their conditions without much interactions, not even wanting to play minions so your opponent cannot play spells on them. It gets old very quickly and there is little to none disruption in standard to help you somewhat counter those strategies.
im suprised you dint mention raise dead, it does alot work in makign warlock (espcially in wild) as powerfull as it is. and its 0mana draw 2
If it would be nerfed, and alognsqide like darkglare being 3 3/4 again that would slow down the self dmg for demon seed and the flesh giant cost reduction down quite a bit(glare itno raise into 1drops is turn 4 vs turn 2 at earliest).
And being dual class if they want to hit priest somewhat aswell they can with and
Can relate. As an achievement enthusiast I grinded the Warlock Questline one among the first so that if it gets nerfed I can swap it to another legendary I'll need for achievements.
From purely gameplay perspective at least something from Warlock and Battleground Battlemaster should see changes if you ask me. The sole existence of the latter is rather baffling to me, especially since Apotheosis got nerfed because "Currently, it can feel like you must remove every Priest minion because of the threat Apotheosis poses."
I really hope that Mo'arg Artificer doesn't get the hammer because it's actually a versatile card with different applications and it#d be a shame if it got dumpstered just because of the obviously idiotic design of Il'gynoth. Lifesteal DH just shouldn't exist in the first place. It's basically the old Freeze Mage except it doesn't have a realistic damage ceiling.
Your concerns are understandable, I remember the first time Y-Gi-Oh started experimenting with hand disruption in set called Dark Beginning (The name turned out to be very prophetic) All the hand disruption cards end up being oppressive and had to be banned :
I'm curious about whether you found it baffling because of changes like Azeroth becoming the name of the planet (I think the old 'Azeroth' is now Stormwind), or because most of the stories are trying to cover too much ground to really work in 8 fights?
I personally found the smaller scale stories (e.g. Valeera and Gul'dan) to be more effective than the bigger ones that necessarily jump around all over the place. Jaina and Thrall tried to cover events before Warcraft 3 up to the end of Mists of Pandaria (WoW's 4th expac), which you just can't do properly in 8 fights.
Today's standout reveal is Prank. On first impression, it looks very powerful; all decks will care if you mess up their mana curve by increasing the mana cost of a card by 2, for instance. Just showing you a couple of cards in your opponent's hand has value.
On the other hand, maybe your opponent just plays their other cards instead, and the mana you spent on Prank just messes with a card that doesn't get played for a long time anyway. Maybe on turn 1 you get to mess with a key defensive card in Eye of the Dragon, but you get offered a useless prank like -2 attack or -1 attack and can't block. An Avarosan Sentry with -1 Attack and Can't Block sounds pretty useless, but if you're offered -2 attack or -1 attack and vulnerable, it's the Prank that sounds useless. Pranking a spell for +2 mana cost sounds useful but spell mana makes the prank less impactful.
One final, significant example I want to cover is: imagine it's turn 7, your opponent has 2 cards in hand, and you Prank him. You get offered two options: Increase the mana cost of Noxian Fervor by 2, or increase the mana cost of The Leviathan by 2. Smirking, you choose the latter. But it turns out one of your opponent's 2 cards in hand was a champion (immune to Prank), and you just pranked a card in your opponent's deck that he'll never even draw. Or if your opponent has only 1 card in hand and you Prank him, maybe you can't tell which option allows you to mess with his hand, and which one is comparatively useless by messing with his deck.
As a mechanic, Prank seems more suited for control and midrange decks than for aggro. Its utility seems widely applicable, which is key and why I think it's a strong mechanic overall. It's also a good fit to level up Fizz.
I can confirm they are not a challenge with the full Wild card pool, as I recently beat Heroic Kel'Thu-freaking-zad with a permanent stealth meme deck* without any modifications for the fight. I don't think I did it first try, but it was only a few attempts, and playing rogue when your hero is frozen and takes 3 damage on the first 10 turns is really dumb.
That's... one way to screw the reforge mechanic. Other than this niche application I don't really see a point in playing this card because it doesn't grant you enough of an advantage to be good... but that's proably a good thing
I hit level 71 and reached my secondary objective of getting the 20% XP boost. Upcoming minor objectives are to collect the remaining milestone cosmetics: UiS coin + Hero portraits. I collected all cards of the new expansion in the meantime.
My United in Stormwind XP achievements progression is currently at 95%. I only have 2 left to complete, which are:
Spam Caller(0 / 75)
Vengeance Doesn't Come Cheap(85 / 1000)
I am already anxiously waiting for the upcoming nerfs which will hopefully improve and invigorate the meta again.
New Bandle City Spell - Shell Game
2/5. A spell that costs 5 mana but then refills 3 sounds like it has good synergy with the likes of Lux and Heimerdinger. For the 2 mana you spend for real, you get an effect that is comparable to Sharpsight, and to Ghost. Overall, I think this will suffer from the fact that its effect looks more useful when used reactively (to block Elusives), but you need to have 5 mana open to cast this reactively which is too steep an asking cost.
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
As a wild player, I honestly don't think there's a reasonable way to balance cards like Darkglare or Flesh Giant without making them straight-up irrelevant. But even then, I think that Questline Warlock will still be a very competitive deck even without those two cards because of Crystallizer, Raise Dead, Unlicensed Apothecary and many others.
I would hope they just outright ban The Demon Seed from wild. I'm really against banning cards because they hinder creative endeavors, but the deck invalidates so many other decks that it's just outright ridiculous.
New Bandle City Spell - Tricksy Tentacles
2/5. While having your hand messed with will always be annoying, I don't see a clear use case for this. Discarding your opponent's cheapest card sounds like something an aggro deck would like to do to get rid of an opponent's early game plays like Eye of the Dragon, except aggro decks don't want to spend a card and 2 mana on a spell that doesn't directly advance their win condition.
It can be good in specific circumstances, like discarding your opponent's last card in hand, but that's something to keep in mind when this card is offered in a Manifest effect, not a reason to put this in your main deck.
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
One might be even forgiven to believe that Mo'arg Artificer is just a Demon Hunter class card at this point...
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
Here's my take:
- Quest rewards bumped to 6 or 7 mana. Or have their conditions tweaked. The problem we are having right now is really that the quest rewards are game winning and that the quest itself is easily completed. So what we have here are games finishing before or around turn 8. Whether its mage finishing everything by turn 5 (absolutely doable) or warlock completing all three tiers and tamsin played on the same turn 5, the problem remains the same: quest rewards are game winning and finished quickly, and rewards are played comfortably. Making it harder to play, or the conditions more difficult to complete will balance the quests properly and slow the meta down a little. Im not saying we do it for all, but certainly for some cough* cough* mage warlock
- Battleground Battlemaster cost from 5 to 6, stats from 5/5 to 3/3. Its a little ridiculous how easily games are stolen because of this thing. But Im still somewhat convinced that the only reason this card sees play at all is because we're in a meta that doesn't care for early game minions, so most people just play stealth minions or go big to cheat a few wins off warlock and mage. Once warlock and mage are taken care off, there's an argument to be made if 2x bb is still going to be as popular.
- Incanter's Flow to 3 or 4, or just straight up make it reduce cost of cards but no less than 1 mana. I mean this is the 2nd time we're seeing this card raise hell, are we really going to ignore this? Just print some good cards for mage, don't keep supporting this bs. Buff Sanctum Chandler to 4 mana, because I much rather play and play against a mage that doesn't just scam a win because they drew that* card or score rng points.
- Garrote no longer benefits from spell damage. That's really it honestly. Without spell damage the card only deals 8 damage, which will skew it far away from handing anyone a turn 6 death note.
- Stealer of Souls? Not sure. Any nerf will nuke the card. Perhaps lowering its health to 4 or mana cost to 5? Or we just nuke it because how'd this card get past the design stage is beyond me. Absurd amounts of mana cheat, and now the downside is an active upside.
Make a few changes now, have a feel, then we'll come back to the topic again 6 weeks later.
Edit: Maybe nerf Felscream Blast to only targetable on enemies? It might kill the entire deck. But maybe its time to retire old Il'gynoth and bring in the lion frenzy OTK deck.
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
darkglare you can raise the mana (like how was orgianly 3 mana 3/4) stealer of souls is harder but could juust be once a turn effect or like: next card you drasw costs health not mana.
Darkglare can be nerfed that way and still be relevant, stealer with current effect i dont think its posisble to have it relevant and not be broken
New Bandle City Card - Conchologist
My first card with a 5/5 rating for this expansion. It's a 2-mana unit that gives you a card, which makes me think of Fortune Croaker and Avarosan Sentry. The former needs another unit on your board it can damage (and hopefully not kill), while the latter needs to die before he gives you your card; this new guy has no such limitations.
Manifest is an extremely versatile mechanic, so unless you're playing a combo deck, I value this Manifest a little higher than I would value drawing a card from your deck. It gets even better if its Yordle tribal tag is worth something. Expect to see a lot of this guy.
New Bandle City Card - Kelp Maidens
3/5. This unit is versatile in that it can pressure your opponent's Nexus, generate some extra value, and block larger enemy Elusive units. It's not phenomenal at any of those roles, but it looks solid enough.
New Bandle City Card - Benemone
2/5. This card is reminiscent of Chump Whump, they have the same cost and stat line and both give you two copies of a 1-mana spell. However, where Chump Whump significantly advances your win condition, this guy just messes with your opponent's hand. Maybe this guy sees some play in decks that revolve around spellcasting synergies, but otherwise I expect to see him gathering cobwebs in players' card collections.
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
That's a very fair point, was definitely more focused on the minion side of things. I do consider the card a little too good at what it does at 0 mana for both Warlock and Priest, so certainly wouldn't mind seeing its mana cost increased.
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
""and this time, everyone* can play it :) "
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
I never understood this.
Blizz: Hey, let's nerf this one card that forces people to trade into every minion on the opponent's side of the board so they never can develop anything.
Also Blizz: Hey, so we just released this NEW card that if you leave any 2 minions up, effectively doubles their damage! Remember how in the previous meta you had to clear all minions? Well get ready to do it for a WHOLE different reason! That counts right? You aren't killing minions to prevent healing, now you're killing minions to prevent your own lethal! WAY more interactive? Right? RIGHT?
8 New Bandle City Cards Revealed for Runeterra's Beyond the Bandlewood Expansion
I think it seems like a really fun mechanic. But the fact that you commit the mana before your opponent, as opposed to debuffs that target creatures on-board and negate mana the opponent has already spent, will make Prank weaker than it looks at first.
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
Lifesteal DH was a dumb and broken thing before this expansion, now they add a questline designed to reduce the cost of your combo cards (I don't see any other viable reasons to play the quest), only to be forced to nerf the combo pieces by increasing their cost so your cost reduction sets them at their pre-nerf cost. This would only limit the use of these cards to a specific deck and make them unplayable outside of combo. What a joke.
Darkglare and Stealer of souls are very problematic and I'm not sure how to handle them without making them irrelevant.
I'm more concerned about the mentioned solitaire style of play where a majority of questline decks just race to complete their conditions without much interactions, not even wanting to play minions so your opponent cannot play spells on them. It gets old very quickly and there is little to none disruption in standard to help you somewhat counter those strategies.
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
im suprised you dint mention raise dead, it does alot work in makign warlock (espcially in wild) as powerfull as it is. and its 0mana draw 2
If it would be nerfed, and alognsqide like darkglare being 3 3/4 again that would slow down the self dmg for demon seed and the flesh giant cost reduction down quite a bit(glare itno raise into 1drops is turn 4 vs turn 2 at earliest).
And being dual class if they want to hit priest somewhat aswell they can with and
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
Can relate. As an achievement enthusiast I grinded the Warlock Questline one among the first so that if it gets nerfed I can swap it to another legendary I'll need for achievements.
From purely gameplay perspective at least something from Warlock and Battleground Battlemaster should see changes if you ask me. The sole existence of the latter is rather baffling to me, especially since Apotheosis got nerfed because "Currently, it can feel like you must remove every Priest minion because of the threat Apotheosis poses."
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
I really hope that Mo'arg Artificer doesn't get the hammer because it's actually a versatile card with different applications and it#d be a shame if it got dumpstered just because of the obviously idiotic design of Il'gynoth. Lifesteal DH just shouldn't exist in the first place. It's basically the old Freeze Mage except it doesn't have a realistic damage ceiling.
8 New Bandle City Cards Revealed for Runeterra's Beyond the Bandlewood Expansion
Your concerns are understandable, I remember the first time Y-Gi-Oh started experimenting with hand disruption in set called Dark Beginning (The name turned out to be very prophetic) All the hand disruption cards end up being oppressive and had to be banned :
https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Delinquent_Duo
https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/The_Forceful_Sentry
https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Confiscation
https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Trap_Dustshoot
The First Round of Stormwind Balance Changes Is Near - What Could We Expect?
I'll be like everyone who's not currently using one of the quests - hoping they nerf the quest I happened to open so I can disenchant it for dust.
Completing Hearthstone's Books of Heroes Will Reward a Golden Standard Pack Starting This Week - Reward is Retroactive
I'm curious about whether you found it baffling because of changes like Azeroth becoming the name of the planet (I think the old 'Azeroth' is now Stormwind), or because most of the stories are trying to cover too much ground to really work in 8 fights?
I personally found the smaller scale stories (e.g. Valeera and Gul'dan) to be more effective than the bigger ones that necessarily jump around all over the place. Jaina and Thrall tried to cover events before Warcraft 3 up to the end of Mists of Pandaria (WoW's 4th expac), which you just can't do properly in 8 fights.
8 New Bandle City Cards Revealed for Runeterra's Beyond the Bandlewood Expansion
Today's standout reveal is Prank. On first impression, it looks very powerful; all decks will care if you mess up their mana curve by increasing the mana cost of a card by 2, for instance. Just showing you a couple of cards in your opponent's hand has value.
On the other hand, maybe your opponent just plays their other cards instead, and the mana you spent on Prank just messes with a card that doesn't get played for a long time anyway. Maybe on turn 1 you get to mess with a key defensive card in Eye of the Dragon, but you get offered a useless prank like -2 attack or -1 attack and can't block. An Avarosan Sentry with -1 Attack and Can't Block sounds pretty useless, but if you're offered -2 attack or -1 attack and vulnerable, it's the Prank that sounds useless. Pranking a spell for +2 mana cost sounds useful but spell mana makes the prank less impactful.
One final, significant example I want to cover is: imagine it's turn 7, your opponent has 2 cards in hand, and you Prank him. You get offered two options: Increase the mana cost of Noxian Fervor by 2, or increase the mana cost of The Leviathan by 2. Smirking, you choose the latter. But it turns out one of your opponent's 2 cards in hand was a champion (immune to Prank), and you just pranked a card in your opponent's deck that he'll never even draw. Or if your opponent has only 1 card in hand and you Prank him, maybe you can't tell which option allows you to mess with his hand, and which one is comparatively useless by messing with his deck.
As a mechanic, Prank seems more suited for control and midrange decks than for aggro. Its utility seems widely applicable, which is key and why I think it's a strong mechanic overall. It's also a good fit to level up Fizz.
Completing Hearthstone's Books of Heroes Will Reward a Golden Standard Pack Starting This Week - Reward is Retroactive
I can confirm they are not a challenge with the full Wild card pool, as I recently beat Heroic Kel'Thu-freaking-zad with a permanent stealth meme deck* without any modifications for the fight. I don't think I did it first try, but it was only a few attempts, and playing rogue when your hero is frozen and takes 3 damage on the first 10 turns is really dumb.
* Anka, the Buried -> Majordomo Executus -> no longer being rogue -> Tess Greymane endlessly casting Cloak of Shadows, Vanish and a bunch of rogue minions.
New Bandle City Card - Otterpus
4/5. This little guy does a lot for 1 mana: Shows you some of your opponent's cards, messes with his hand, and gives you a chump blocker.
New Bandle City Spell - Tricksy Tentacles
That's... one way to screw the reforge mechanic. Other than this niche application I don't really see a point in playing this card because it doesn't grant you enough of an advantage to be good... but that's proably a good thing
Rewards Track: Current progress 3.0
I hit level 71 and reached my secondary objective of getting the 20% XP boost. Upcoming minor objectives are to collect the remaining milestone cosmetics: UiS coin + Hero portraits. I collected all cards of the new expansion in the meantime.
My United in Stormwind XP achievements progression is currently at 95%. I only have 2 left to complete, which are:
I am already anxiously waiting for the upcoming nerfs which will hopefully improve and invigorate the meta again.