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They keep hyping Mercenaries and Battlegrounds as modes that aren't dependent on your collection. That's Arena too! And the game mode is already great! They just need to make it F2P or at least cheaper now that it's no longer 1 of 2 game modes like it was at launch 7 years ago.

Fall definetly means second phase. Darkmoon faire was released in mit november which I would consider winter already. Or atleast the following month, which would be the earliest "Phase 3" non-expansion release I can think of. Oh, and it's definetely a big mode as it has been in the works for well over a year now.

The "Spell locked" one are the diamond cards. Blizzard also stated previously that they see Duels, Arena and Tavern Brawls as secondary gamemodes (as in, you play a around every once in a while), while Mercenaries, Battlegrounds and Duels are primary ones (like main modes).

Oohh, Diamond Cards was the Spell Locked item from Phase 1. Don't get me wrong, I'm always hyped for a new expansion, but I don't expect anything to be discussed beyond that and Battlegrounds. Hope I'm wrong.

The spell locked from phase 1 was Diamond Cards.

Looked back at the Year of the Gryphon road map, and there's nothing exciting to discuss from Phase 2.

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/news/23622607/welcome-to-the-year-of-the-gryphon

Although, there was something "Spell Locked" from Phase 1, and I don't remember if that was ever revealed (it's not Mercenaries).

I find it disappointing that Arena doesn't even warrant a little icon like "Duels Update" or "Tavern Brawls." I would really like to see Tavern Tickets (not to be confused with the Tavern Pass) become a tracked in-game currency, and have them regularly awarded to players (Three wins in Tavern Brawl each week gives you one? Incentivize multiple modes at once?). There needs to be a better incentive to get players into Arena and Heroic Duels. It's either that or make Arena and Duels strictly casual. As it is right now, the player base for all three modes (Arena, Casual Duels, Heroic Duels) feels too small. But they're great game modes! Blizzard just needs to actually direct players' attention to them.

So mercanaries Should have been in Phase 1 according to road map but we are getting it in maybe phase 3? either its a big project or they ran into problem.... or both

The league of explorers card back is missing on this list 

Competition Theme: Wake Me Up Before You Go

What card ideas lay dormant for this week's theme, just waiting to be uncovered?

• You must create a card which uses the Dormant mechanic
  • We've seen a few different iterations of this mechanic now, from The Darkness to Lucentbark to Imprisoned Observer

This week grumpymonk wants to see some Dormant cards... eventually, anyway. Hopefully they wake up soon!

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, Jun 28 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Jul 3 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jul 3 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Jul 4 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jul 4 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Jul 5 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• 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.

Yes, but it’s hard to tell what to make of that. When I hear “Slay the Spire”, my first impression is that you must be adding cards to a deck over multiple battles. That’s the core of the game to me. From what we know about Mercenaries, you level up heroes and then choose combinations of those heroes to use in encounters. That’s very different - maybe this has a similar map that you use to move through encounters, or a battle system where it tells you what your enemy’s next move will be, but if it isn’t a deck-builder it won’t feel like StS.

I’d LOVE a legit Slay the Spire-inspired game in Hearthstone, especially since that team has the designer who created DreamQuest. (i.e., the game that directly inspired StS.) But right now we mostly still have speculation. I feel like they are either dancing around how the game actually plays, or they somehow missed the fact that we don’t know. But whenever I look at the comments here or on Reddit, it’s clear that there is a lot of confusion out there. And if people’s expectations are being set for the wrong genre, then that’s going to be a problem when it launches. 

Zilliax shouldn't be on "honorable mention"  but as main candidate IMO. He was (and still is) the most utility card in the game while being balanced just right (Never found this card oppressive or overpowered, it was just fine). Just to make it clear, I respect your voice (text?) on it, it's just my humble opinion

Shudderwock is my favorite card and even though I have never crafted any golden cards I would get him in diamond

Thank you OP as I wasn't even thinking about the pity timers for these new packs. Opened 3 Standard and got Kiri, Chosen of Elune and then opened one Wild pack and got Anomalus. May not be the greatest legendary cards to pull but for only 400 gold, getting two was a sweet payoff. 

There is also the fire-festival which should start anytime soon.

Pretty sure they've mentioned it's inspired by Slay the Spire a whole bunch of times...

Well, its going to be that time again.

One announcement, followed by 2 weeks of nothing before everything is vomited right out within a week.

My predictions:

* Lady Katrana Prestor (AKA Onyxia's human form for those not into WoW lore) featured prominently since she's been teased at the end of the Xyrella campaign

* Mathias Shaw hero portrait for the bundle

* Gnoll tribe in BGs

Yeah, yeah, yeah. "For the Alliance" and all that. That's great. Now get out of my way. I have a message from Valeera Sanguinar that needs to reach Mathias Shaw urgently. It reads:

Dear Mathias,

I'm afraid my efforts in recruiting more heroes have failed once again. I have not managed to find a single rogue willing to join me since I ventured into Un'Goro crater some 4 years ago (and truth be told, there's only so much one can take of Maiev before wishing for less... abrasive company). I have even gone so far as to dress up as a pirate and a handmaiden to fill in some of the gaps, but I fear I can go no further down that road without losing my sanity.

I know you stepped away from this mission in its earliest stages, but I must ask for your aid. Will you join me? I will be visiting Stormwind again soon. Please be ready with an answer when I arrive.

Yours faithfully,

V

P.S. I recently saw Anduin masquerading as an SI:7 agent. You might want to check the locks on the armoury.

Unlike the other obvious Witchwood options, Tess has the major advantage that nobody really dislikes her. They might dislike uber-value decks, and burgle rogue as part of that, but I don't think I've ever seen people complain about Tess herself. Meanwhile, Genn, Baku and Shudderwock have easily as many enemies as they do fans.

I'm surprised Hagatha the Witch wasn't suggested above though. Like Tess she trod the narrow path of being somewhat relevant without angering players, and she was the face of the expansion which makes her more likely I imagine. Perhaps her lack of relevance in Wild makes her a no-go though. At least the others (including Tess) still have a significant following there.

eh... Maybe something of a theme could happen like it goes to The Stockades?

I understand that Blizzard doesn’t want to tell us a lot about Mercenaries, but they have told us enough by now that they should have mentioned “This mode will be fun because _____” or “People who like ____ will also like this”. The good news is, since they haven’t given me a reason to look forward to it, I don’t have to be disappointed by the delays.

In general, any 6+ mana spell is bad unless it either drastically changes the board state (Harsh Winter, The Ruination, Vengeance, Feel The Rush), creates additional lethal possibilities (Atrocity, Battle Fury), or provides overwhelming value (Warmother's Call, Cosmic Inspiration). I don't think Glorious Evolution will have any of those possibilities -- the closest would be the value proposition, and at 10 mana I think it's just too slow for what it does.

So reveal countdown timers will be coming to the front page again soon!

There's something about them that is super exciting :) :) :)