Nerfing Tickatus is a waste of a nerf. The people that continue to complain that it's broken are Redditors who are stuck in Bronze and Silver who oversell their game knowledge by using "advanced terminology" like card advantage or fatigue potential (I'm pretty sure this one is made up). You can't refute that Warlock is trash tier and having 5 of your cards milled is really not that big of a deal most of the time. A 6 mana 8/8 "bring your opponent closer to fatigue" isn't very good when you die in the next two turns. Besides, the class has way better win conditions in the form of Jaraxxus and Neeru (which I genuinely think can be a solid win condition, but the class just can't survive).
I don't want to see Spell Mage "yeeted into oblivion" because I think that even if a deck is very powerful, it's unfair to completely destroy an archetype that people find fun. I think there is a happy balance where the people that enjoy the deck aren't sad that their favourite deck is unplayably bad, and those that don't like playing against the deck are better off knowing it's a much more favourable matchup. Whether or not Blizzard can find that balance, or if it even exists, is a different issue that I am not capable of dealing with.
I remain partial to Paladin since I really love Secret and Aggro Paladin, but I agree that it's definitely way too powerful.
Octo-Bot would be trash as a 1/3. It would die to so many exchanges and spells on turn 2 or 3 without getting the effect off, and it's basically one of the few cards keeping Rogue together right now (the others being Field Contact, Foxy Fraud, Swindle and Secret Passage). It's basically a worse Incanter's Flow, a card which I think should get nerfed.
Nerfing Hand of A'dal or Spring Water has the same issue: they don't take care of the main cause of the problem. Yes, a 0 mana draw 2 is strong, but a 2 mana make your entire deck cheaper by 1 is even stronger and can basically win the game on the spot. Similarly, Hand of A'dal isn't the problem with Paladin. If they don't have A'dal to buff their Crabrider, then they'll use other cards instead.
A card that I could see getting nerfed is Conviction, a double (and sometimes triple) Blessing of Might is really strong and acts basically like a Fireball or even a Bloodlust in most cases.
Well it was a community effort, and for English speakers discord channel trying different things with a shared word document detailing progress/theories etc. I even added to it when we were trying to discover how to even start. Other countries had other collaborative forums.
But it turned out that flavor text of say, Rokara, shows the spells needed. Same for the quotes in Barrens cards added to the other classes we work with here. e.g:
"Tread carefully, but stand tall, and stand together. For strength and honor!" —Rokara
1) Rogue puzzle
I suspect clever algebraic maths or a brute force program was used here. I've mapped the interactions needed (key attack vs box attack and then result on both, for each box attacked it's effect in the other boxes etc) to write a program to iterate through permutations which I might do just for fun even though solution is known.
But probably maths was used as 7 actions = 1.8 billion possible combinations though it's doable.
2) Warrior puzzle
Easy enough to solve yourself
3) Druid puzzle
Pen and paper :) (or multiple bits of paper in my case)
4) Hunter puzzle
I didn't spend time on this because the text was too small and my eyes aren't the best. But someone in the comments seemed to have pretty close by themselves. A logic puzzle after detailing the costs, items + amounts, vendor/seller relationship matrices etc.
if it helps you, you can easily do the Rogue one without any of the epics if you just include Venomous Scorpid, Wandmaker, Steward of Scrolls and a bunch of Shuffle effects (Gang Up and Togwaggle's Scheme).
It might take a few tries, but you'll eventually find a copy of each spell, especially in practice mode against something like Warrior who has no card draw and will likely survive a while.
Nerfing Spring Water without Flow is irrelevant. All you're doing is nerfing the scenario where MAge doesn't have Flow on 2 while in any other case Spring Water will still end up as a 0-mana draw 2.
Meanwhile, if Flow is nerfed to 3-mana or something then the early game slows down considerably so Control decks have time to set up and aggro decks get an easier start.
5 Nerfs? Seems like their really hoping the buffs will make a good impact.
My guesses for neutral nerfs are: Crabrider (Probably almost confirmed nerf, that thing is insane.) and Mankrik. (Kinda sad about that, but Mankrik is just really strong and in almost every deck.)
Other nerfs i think will be: Incanter's Flow and probably Darkglare in order to nerf Darkglare Warlock and APM Mage in Wild. (I think Iksarr did mention that those 2 decks were on their radar for nerfs.) the 3th nerfed card i think will be: First Day of School, because this makes paladin super strong in the early game and it's always annoying to lose to a paladin who got premium 1 drops from First Day of School. I also hate it when my opponent get's Blackjack Stunners 90% of the time from First Day of School... (Also i wouldn't mind seeing a Secret Passage nerf.) :]
For the buffs i think the caravans are possible, but will be hard to balance. (I dont want the paladin caravan to be good lol.) Other buffs could be for Shaman, and i think maybe Mana Tide Totem to 2 mana? Would be very strong (Maybe too strong) but Shaman is bad right now because of their lack of card draw. And buffing Dunk Tank or Tidal Surge to 3 mana would be really cool.
Considering their thinking about buffing underperforming archetypes i would love to see a buff to Hero Power Mage, and i guess maybe self-mill warlock and control warrior could get some buffs?
Buff Idea's for those classes/decks would be: Rancor: either "deal 3 damage" instead of "Deal 2 Damage", or buffed to 3 mana, Shieldmaiden: from 6 to 5 mana, Neeru Fireblade's imps from 3/2 into 3/3s, Coldarra Drake to 5 mana, but it would lose some stats. (Probably -1/-1 or -2/-1) Maybe give Rimetongues 1/1 summons rush? Kolkar Pack Runner has that effect with any spell, so why can't Rimetongue minions have rush? Rimetongue only works with ice spells AND it costs 1 more mana. Sure the tokens freeze stuff, but with a card like Rimetongue that has a very narrow application, it should have at least a decent pay-off i.m.o.
It could also be really cool if they buff Headmaster Kel'Thuzad in some way. (I know this almost certainly won't happen, but I really want to use him without hurting my decks winrate :(
2mana would nto be to strong, can look at caravans how often a 3hp 2drop lives
And drake i dont see it, its only good somewhat in wild even mage and beign 4mana removes that, if anythign it migth get taunt or something so if cant use the effect its more then a boulderfist ogre.
ALso for nerfs SPRING WATER is a bigegr issue then incaters flow
But killing Tickatus doesn't kill the deck, because Tickatus literally only matters in like 3 matchups and even then you can usually win off Jaraxxus anyways.
People just really hate the guy and to be fair, Warlock would be far easier to balance if you take out the Tickatus factor and focus on legitimate win conditions instead.
I faced a lot of Irelia Azirs more than Irelia MFs, and I think Irelia Azir is much better since they have more synergy. I think that MF Irelia and Azir Irelia lose pretty hard to deck with direct damage so it's not really a surprise that Mono Shurima would lose to it. Ezreal Draven is a pretty good counter, I think, if you want to counter that matchup specifically. Nasus Thresh is also a good deck to play into it. With these counters, I think they might land on tier 2/3 in the end.
I've been playing Yasuo Malphite, and with Solari Sunforger in it, and the moment I play it, their attacks become completely useless. On that note, Yasuo Malphite did much better than I expected as well, but I think that's because most of the decks I faced weren't fine-tuned. The deck relies pretty well on good draws as well; oftentimes, not having Yasuo will make it unwinnable, or not being able to level Malphite is pretty hard. It's probably not gonna be better than old Yasuo decks. Malphite might need a buff, but I think it's slightly too early to tell.
Zilean decks feel like it needs a bit more fine-tuning, but I've been running a Zilean Ezreal deck, and I'm kinda surprised by how well I did with it. However, the deck's power feels pretty hard carried by Merciless Hunter and the PnZ package. That said, Zilean never felt bad when I played him. I saw some people running Zilean Nasus, which I thought could replace Thresh. But I didn't really feel the difference outside of Merciless Hunter being just a nuts card in any deck it's being played.
I faced a couple of Taliyahs, and she is still as bad as before. However, she does fit into more decks than before, which is nice.
5 Nerfs? Seems like their really hoping the buffs will make a good impact.
My guesses for neutral nerfs are: Crabrider (Probably almost confirmed nerf, that thing is insane.) and Mankrik. (Kinda sad about that, but Mankrik is just really strong and in almost every deck.)
Other nerfs i think will be: Incanter's Flow and probably Darkglare in order to nerf Darkglare Warlock and APM Mage in Wild. (I think Iksarr did mention that those 2 decks were on their radar for nerfs.) the 3th nerfed card i think will be: First Day of School, because this makes paladin super strong in the early game and it's always annoying to lose to a paladin who got premium 1 drops from First Day of School. I also hate it when my opponent get's Blackjack Stunners 90% of the time from First Day of School... (Also i wouldn't mind seeing a Secret Passage nerf.) :]
For the buffs i think the caravans are possible, but will be hard to balance. (I dont want the paladin caravan to be good lol.) Other buffs could be for Shaman, and i think maybe Mana Tide Totem to 2 mana? Would be very strong (Maybe too strong) but Shaman is bad right now because of their lack of card draw. And buffing Dunk Tank or Tidal Surge to 3 mana would be really cool.
Considering their thinking about buffing underperforming archetypes i would love to see a buff to Hero Power Mage, and i guess maybe self-mill warlock and control warrior could get some buffs?
Buff Idea's for those classes/decks would be: Rancor: either "deal 3 damage" instead of "Deal 2 Damage", or buffed to 3 mana, Shieldmaiden: from 6 to 5 mana, Neeru Fireblade's imps from 3/2 into 3/3s, Coldarra Drake to 5 mana, but it would lose some stats. (Probably -1/-1 or -2/-1) Maybe give Rimetongues 1/1 summons rush? Kolkar Pack Runner has that effect with any spell, so why can't Rimetongue minions have rush? Rimetongue only works with ice spells AND it costs 1 more mana. Sure the tokens freeze stuff, but with a card like Rimetongue that has a very narrow application, it should have at least a decent pay-off i.m.o.
It could also be really cool if they buff Headmaster Kel'Thuzad in some way. (I know this almost certainly won't happen, but I really want to use him without hurting my decks winrate :(
I'll gladly accept that its a shaman card. In mage it simply makes the casino nature of the deck even worse. I swear the win rate of this card should be a lot higher than it ever seems.
I love mage, its my favourite class but that card just tilts me so fucking hard.
I really don't think Spring Water gets hit over Incanter's Flow. You can nerf the Water all you want, if Mage gets Flow on 2 then the game will just be over anyways unless you're playing aggro.
Hand of A'Dal is not worth nerfing if they take care of First Day and Crabrider.
Octo_bot would be useless at 3-health. It's not an op card by any means, it's the only reason why Rogue is even able to play the game at this point.
I'll gladly accept that its a shaman card. In mage it simply makes the casino nature of the deck even worse. I swear the win rate of this card should be a lot higher than it ever seems.
Alright, I'll try one last time. The achievement was added with the big patch this week. You could have noticed it in game and made your inquiries online. Celestalon also started to tweet about this like a week ago with cryptic stuff. When the patch was live, he flat out announced that there was a secret achievement. Last but not least, there was dedicated article on the front site of this. Very. Website. I do think those were enough opportunities to take notice of the thing.
Regarding your first edit: like I have already explained, the hints are in the flavor texts of the 4 mercenaries and they are easier to solve if you look them up in different languages. As far as I know, the Druid one was pretty straight forward in Chinese. And yes, putting the two Eclipse cards into a deck is part of the solution.
No idea what you are talking about concerning the sound. I haven't seen a part of the riddle that involves sound. The flavor texts are quotes, but you look them up on the card pages.
Finally I'd like to stress once more that this was meant as some kind of global sized scavenger's hunt. No single person was meant to solve this on their own. It was about working together. Like once people figured out that the Druid riddle was a maze, it was only a matter of generating the map. Everybody could have contributed to that.
I think what's more demoralizing is killing your opponent's Taelan Fordring and living with the knowledge that it's 100% guaranteed that they can (and will) burst you for 8 at any moment.
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
Nerfing Tickatus is a waste of a nerf. The people that continue to complain that it's broken are Redditors who are stuck in Bronze and Silver who oversell their game knowledge by using "advanced terminology" like card advantage or fatigue potential (I'm pretty sure this one is made up). You can't refute that Warlock is trash tier and having 5 of your cards milled is really not that big of a deal most of the time. A 6 mana 8/8 "bring your opponent closer to fatigue" isn't very good when you die in the next two turns. Besides, the class has way better win conditions in the form of Jaraxxus and Neeru (which I genuinely think can be a solid win condition, but the class just can't survive).
I don't want to see Spell Mage "yeeted into oblivion" because I think that even if a deck is very powerful, it's unfair to completely destroy an archetype that people find fun. I think there is a happy balance where the people that enjoy the deck aren't sad that their favourite deck is unplayably bad, and those that don't like playing against the deck are better off knowing it's a much more favourable matchup. Whether or not Blizzard can find that balance, or if it even exists, is a different issue that I am not capable of dealing with.
I remain partial to Paladin since I really love Secret and Aggro Paladin, but I agree that it's definitely way too powerful.
Solving the "???" Mysteries of the Phoenix Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Barrens Mysteries
I meant how did people know that they needed to play "x class", in "x mode" with "x cards" in "x order".
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
Octo-Bot would be trash as a 1/3. It would die to so many exchanges and spells on turn 2 or 3 without getting the effect off, and it's basically one of the few cards keeping Rogue together right now (the others being Field Contact, Foxy Fraud, Swindle and Secret Passage). It's basically a worse Incanter's Flow, a card which I think should get nerfed.
Nerfing Hand of A'dal or Spring Water has the same issue: they don't take care of the main cause of the problem. Yes, a 0 mana draw 2 is strong, but a 2 mana make your entire deck cheaper by 1 is even stronger and can basically win the game on the spot. Similarly, Hand of A'dal isn't the problem with Paladin. If they don't have A'dal to buff their Crabrider, then they'll use other cards instead.
A card that I could see getting nerfed is Conviction, a double (and sometimes triple) Blessing of Might is really strong and acts basically like a Fireball or even a Bloodlust in most cases.
Overtuned?
It's a good aggro deck nothing more.
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
Should just generate only neutrals, because getting third copy of paladin 1 drops is also annoying
Solving the "???" Mysteries of the Phoenix Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Barrens Mysteries
Well it was a community effort, and for English speakers discord channel trying different things with a shared word document detailing progress/theories etc. I even added to it when we were trying to discover how to even start. Other countries had other collaborative forums.
But it turned out that flavor text of say, Rokara, shows the spells needed. Same for the quotes in Barrens cards added to the other classes we work with here. e.g:
"Tread carefully, but stand tall, and stand together. For strength and honor!" —Rokara
1) Rogue puzzle
I suspect clever algebraic maths or a brute force program was used here. I've mapped the interactions needed (key attack vs box attack and then result on both, for each box attacked it's effect in the other boxes etc) to write a program to iterate through permutations which I might do just for fun even though solution is known.
But probably maths was used as 7 actions = 1.8 billion possible combinations though it's doable.
2) Warrior puzzle
Easy enough to solve yourself
3) Druid puzzle
Pen and paper :) (or multiple bits of paper in my case)
4) Hunter puzzle
I didn't spend time on this because the text was too small and my eyes aren't the best. But someone in the comments seemed to have pretty close by themselves. A logic puzzle after detailing the costs, items + amounts, vendor/seller relationship matrices etc.
Solving the "???" Mysteries of the Phoenix Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Barrens Mysteries
if it helps you, you can easily do the Rogue one without any of the epics if you just include Venomous Scorpid, Wandmaker, Steward of Scrolls and a bunch of Shuffle effects (Gang Up and Togwaggle's Scheme).
It might take a few tries, but you'll eventually find a copy of each spell, especially in practice mode against something like Warrior who has no card draw and will likely survive a while.
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
Nerfing Spring Water without Flow is irrelevant. All you're doing is nerfing the scenario where MAge doesn't have Flow on 2 while in any other case Spring Water will still end up as a 0-mana draw 2.
Meanwhile, if Flow is nerfed to 3-mana or something then the early game slows down considerably so Control decks have time to set up and aggro decks get an easier start.
Water is 0-mana draw 2.
Flow is a literal Dungeon Run treasure
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
2mana would nto be to strong, can look at caravans how often a 3hp 2drop lives
And drake i dont see it, its only good somewhat in wild even mage and beign 4mana removes that, if anythign it migth get taunt or something so if cant use the effect its more then a boulderfist ogre.
ALso for nerfs SPRING WATER is a bigegr issue then incaters flow
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
But killing Tickatus doesn't kill the deck, because Tickatus literally only matters in like 3 matchups and even then you can usually win off Jaraxxus anyways.
People just really hate the guy and to be fair, Warlock would be far easier to balance if you take out the Tickatus factor and focus on legitimate win conditions instead.
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
inb4 Fishy Flyer gets nerfed :^)
Overtuned?
I faced a lot of Irelia Azirs more than Irelia MFs, and I think Irelia Azir is much better since they have more synergy. I think that MF Irelia and Azir Irelia lose pretty hard to deck with direct damage so it's not really a surprise that Mono Shurima would lose to it. Ezreal Draven is a pretty good counter, I think, if you want to counter that matchup specifically. Nasus Thresh is also a good deck to play into it. With these counters, I think they might land on tier 2/3 in the end.
I've been playing Yasuo Malphite, and with Solari Sunforger in it, and the moment I play it, their attacks become completely useless. On that note, Yasuo Malphite did much better than I expected as well, but I think that's because most of the decks I faced weren't fine-tuned. The deck relies pretty well on good draws as well; oftentimes, not having Yasuo will make it unwinnable, or not being able to level Malphite is pretty hard. It's probably not gonna be better than old Yasuo decks. Malphite might need a buff, but I think it's slightly too early to tell.
Zilean decks feel like it needs a bit more fine-tuning, but I've been running a Zilean Ezreal deck, and I'm kinda surprised by how well I did with it. However, the deck's power feels pretty hard carried by Merciless Hunter and the PnZ package. That said, Zilean never felt bad when I played him. I saw some people running Zilean Nasus, which I thought could replace Thresh. But I didn't really feel the difference outside of Merciless Hunter being just a nuts card in any deck it's being played.
I faced a couple of Taliyahs, and she is still as bad as before. However, she does fit into more decks than before, which is nice.
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
5 Nerfs? Seems like their really hoping the buffs will make a good impact.
My guesses for neutral nerfs are: Crabrider (Probably almost confirmed nerf, that thing is insane.) and Mankrik. (Kinda sad about that, but Mankrik is just really strong and in almost every deck.)
Other nerfs i think will be: Incanter's Flow and probably Darkglare in order to nerf Darkglare Warlock and APM Mage in Wild. (I think Iksarr did mention that those 2 decks were on their radar for nerfs.) the 3th nerfed card i think will be: First Day of School, because this makes paladin super strong in the early game and it's always annoying to lose to a paladin who got premium 1 drops from First Day of School. I also hate it when my opponent get's Blackjack Stunners 90% of the time from First Day of School... (Also i wouldn't mind seeing a Secret Passage nerf.) :]
For the buffs i think the caravans are possible, but will be hard to balance. (I dont want the paladin caravan to be good lol.) Other buffs could be for Shaman, and i think maybe Mana Tide Totem to 2 mana? Would be very strong (Maybe too strong) but Shaman is bad right now because of their lack of card draw. And buffing Dunk Tank or Tidal Surge to 3 mana would be really cool.
Considering their thinking about buffing underperforming archetypes i would love to see a buff to Hero Power Mage, and i guess maybe self-mill warlock and control warrior could get some buffs?
Buff Idea's for those classes/decks would be: Rancor: either "deal 3 damage" instead of "Deal 2 Damage", or buffed to 3 mana, Shieldmaiden: from 6 to 5 mana, Neeru Fireblade's imps from 3/2 into 3/3s, Coldarra Drake to 5 mana, but it would lose some stats. (Probably -1/-1 or -2/-1) Maybe give Rimetongues 1/1 summons rush? Kolkar Pack Runner has that effect with any spell, so why can't Rimetongue minions have rush? Rimetongue only works with ice spells AND it costs 1 more mana. Sure the tokens freeze stuff, but with a card like Rimetongue that has a very narrow application, it should have at least a decent pay-off i.m.o.
It could also be really cool if they buff Headmaster Kel'Thuzad in some way. (I know this almost certainly won't happen, but I really want to use him without hurting my decks winrate :(
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
I love mage, its my favourite class but that card just tilts me so fucking hard.
Overtuned?
I experienced so far that Zilean does great work in P&Z and is a worthy chief inspector
Hunter Puzzle
Classic cards have different codes from wild versions.
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
I really don't think Spring Water gets hit over Incanter's Flow. You can nerf the Water all you want, if Mage gets Flow on 2 then the game will just be over anyways unless you're playing aggro.
Hand of A'Dal is not worth nerfing if they take care of First Day and Crabrider.
Octo_bot would be useless at 3-health. It's not an op card by any means, it's the only reason why Rogue is even able to play the game at this point.
Solving the "???" Mysteries of the Phoenix Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Barrens Mysteries
Same here, I nearly lost my cool too, lol 😎
Solving the "???" Mysteries of the Phoenix Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Barrens Mysteries
How did they get to discover all this ? this is more important than throwing just the solution.
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
I know this is never going to get nerfed.
But fuck Devolving Missiles man
I'll gladly accept that its a shaman card. In mage it simply makes the casino nature of the deck even worse. I swear the win rate of this card should be a lot higher than it ever seems.
Progress on the "???" Puzzle found !
Alright, I'll try one last time. The achievement was added with the big patch this week. You could have noticed it in game and made your inquiries online. Celestalon also started to tweet about this like a week ago with cryptic stuff. When the patch was live, he flat out announced that there was a secret achievement. Last but not least, there was dedicated article on the front site of this. Very. Website. I do think those were enough opportunities to take notice of the thing.
Regarding your first edit: like I have already explained, the hints are in the flavor texts of the 4 mercenaries and they are easier to solve if you look them up in different languages. As far as I know, the Druid one was pretty straight forward in Chinese. And yes, putting the two Eclipse cards into a deck is part of the solution.
No idea what you are talking about concerning the sound. I haven't seen a part of the riddle that involves sound. The flavor texts are quotes, but you look them up on the card pages.
Finally I'd like to stress once more that this was meant as some kind of global sized scavenger's hunt. No single person was meant to solve this on their own. It was about working together. Like once people figured out that the Druid riddle was a maze, it was only a matter of generating the map. Everybody could have contributed to that.
Solving the "???" Mysteries of the Phoenix Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Barrens Mysteries
you mean achievement points right?
No cheap xp anywhere here
Hearthstone's Getting a Nerf and Buff Patch Next Week With 15 Card Changes - 10 Buffs!
I think what's more demoralizing is killing your opponent's Taelan Fordring and living with the knowledge that it's 100% guaranteed that they can (and will) burst you for 8 at any moment.
Solving the "???" Mysteries of the Phoenix Card Back Achievement in Hearthstone - Solve the Barrens Mysteries
Lmao, they told us we won't need collection of cards for this yet we need 3 epics. Pass for me
Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 Season 1 Continues With Week 4
As a reminder, here is the schedule of events and rewards (including the new Battlegrounds Brawl announced today):
(Those marked with an * are shared rewards, i.e. you can only get 2 Year of the Phoenix packs at most from all those weeks altogether)