It is confirmed that they removed Mind Shatter...it was not necessary to bring Shadowform from HoF if they were going to eliminate the most cool part of it. It just does not make sense to reduce its cost but eliminate the Mind Shatter part. I was so excited about Shadowform returning but this felt so bad.
I was thinking about a deck like this as well, and at first looking at your list i wasn't so sure about the stoneweaving, till I considered that at low mana there are very few landmarks so if you cast this on turn 2, it guarantees (atleast for now untill they add more landmarks) you a frozen thrall which is great for consistency.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about ancient preparations yet because I don't exactly know how good predict is. It might well be nuts especially for a deck like this if you can consistently get your thralls or taliyah combos on turn 6 or 7.
I think Lissandra will be able to level up alright in this deck, with taliyah and ancient hourglass cheating out extra summons of her thralls, but I think the Watcher will probably take too long to be a factor most of the time with this list.
It'll be kinda neat how in their levelled forms, Taliyah will be the offense and lissandra the defense, anyways can't wait for the 3rd to see if this archtype turns out to be decent. Lissandra seems to pair so perfectly with trundle that it's nice to see and think about how she might pair with other champs.
In a world where they've dramatically scaled back on value generation, it's possible for it to see some amount of competitive play. But I kind of doubt it.
Thinning your deck by discarding the cards is only beneficial if you're running something that requires you to go to fatigue. I'm not sure when that's helpful in Hunter. Usually, Tracking was simply deemed acceptable because you're NOT planning on going to fatigue as Hunter, and thus don't care about the lost cards.
Most of the time, you only want to thin your deck in an OTK situation. And for a combo deck, you definitely don't want your thinning mechanism to discard anything. The possibility of being offered two combo pieces and losing one of them is not in any way worth it.
No way on the spell type question - that's far too complicated for them to implement it without any card text explanation. Things that are affected by spell type will always spell it out explicitly in the card text.
"The connectivity" has never been a concern - the problem with 2v2 has always been about the interface. Hand-waving it away doesn't make it less of a problem. They have a huge team that has worked on the issue, and they haven't come up with something they like. And that's why you'll never see it as a Brawl until they build the interface for an entire mode to utilize it. The Brawl team doesn't have the resources to do anything remotely close to that.
I love the change to Tracking. Yeah, the thinning of the deck could sometimes be good, but more often than not it just felt bad to discard two cards that you could have really done with later in the game. Making it Discover makes it generally feel better to play, and elevates it to the modern standard instead of being this weird relic and progenitor of Discover, whilst never quite being it.
Looking over the new core set, there's far less value than we normally have, and there are basically no infinite value generators, which makes this potentially the strongest control card in the meta. For 9 mana, you're getting a 6-mana-value weapon, 1 mana worth of armor, and 4 surplus mana of value per turn (2 mana for a 5 mana body and 1 mana pseudo-card-draw whenever you press the button). Seems really dang good.
There are some good stuff being done here, but I can't help feeling like a few classes are being screwed here. Some of the best utility cards are being taken away presumably to encourage use of expansion cards, to encourage a tempo-oriented game, and a marked reduction of face hitting cards. Here's my impression;
- I like rogue, and very happy to see shadowstep not taken away, but I think rogue's tempo game just got neutered. Taking away both Eviscerate and Sap means that there is literally only backstab and weapons to keep up tempo. Even perdition's blades gone. Really strange they didn't unnerf Cold Blood. I mean, its not like its possible to ever assemble a killer combo turn since charge are all taken away
- Priest got a huge buff in Shadowform. But loses Shadow Word: Pain. Can't understand why this was done since its brother Shadow Word: Death is still here, except that all the new cards pushes for another form of tempo or silence priest. And there's no more Thoughtsteal, the one priest card for reload. I'd expect Barrens to add a few more generation card for priest, but getting rid of Thoughtsteal might not be the best choice.
- Mage got screwed hard here. No more apprentice, no more Frostbolt, no more Pyroblast, no more Arcane Missiles, no more arcane explosion. And then in comes Aegwynn, who's power would have best benefit those cards removed. Combo mage has been dealt a severe blow by basically removing two of the best freezing spells, and the removal of doomsayer. Even Mozaki mage needs a something to back it up since arcane missiles is gone. Makes me nervous where team5 intends to go with mage for the next year.
- Paladin looks scary. At least they cant draw for shit. No further comment.
- Shield Slam in. Shield Block out. Like really? And a major nipple cripple has been delivered by removing its sole draw engine, Battle Rage. Well, I guess its back to Slam then.
- Warlock is fine. Not losing Twisting Nether is key here. But losing voidwalker. Guess team5 really hates pain warlock in standard
- Druid is fine as well. Because I'm absolutely positively fine with druid losing Savage Roar. There's still Arbor Up, but at least theres no more turn 5 solar eclipse finishers.
Reducing your deck size by 2 is great in theory when you're building it, but removing two random cards from your deck in the middle of a match is a downside. You're equally likely to discard something you want rather than something you don't want.
NO
Statistcly its AN UPSIDE. NOT DOWNSIDE
unless go to fatigue it does NOT MATTER AT ALL if discard them; pretened theyre on bottom of the deck instead. But the 2less cards gave you better chance to draw anything else in your deck so upside always has been.
Tracking got nerfed ,and thats the end of it.
It doesn't give you a better chance to draw into good cards. Say you have 10 cards left and 5 of them are good. If you play tracking, you have a chance of drawing one good card, discarding two bad ones, and then having 4/7 of your remaining cards be good. In this instance, you've strengthened your deck at the cost of hitting fatigue sooner. However, you also have a chance of being offered 3 of your 5 good cards, meaning you get to keep one and then 2/7 of the rest of your deck is good, meaning you've weakened your deck AND will hit fatigue sooner. These odds cancel out. On average, the deck is no stronger or weaker than it was before, but you WILL hit fatigue sooner.
TL;DR the three cards you're offered are an entirely random sample of the cards in your deck, meaning their removal will not, on average, make your deck any better or worse.
A stronger but slower version of Shu'ma. Board control in a single card.
As AngryShuckie, the whelps have no summoning sickness, so they can hit face on your turn. The 8/8 body itself is a soft taunt and it's pointless to clear the whelps as they generate every turn. If you cant clear her, on an empty board, this is 14 damage every turn (8 from Onyxia + 6 whelps).
Downsides I see:
Very slow. Will be run only in control decks or top heavy mid range.
If your opponent has no board, this card will board lock you every turn.
There are way too many bad Warrior cards for this to create. Some aren't even strictly bad, but since Warrior has several different archetypes, you're going to get stuff that just doesn't fit your game plan.
Anyone else think they should make Gorehowl and Doomhammer legendary? They're giving this full set to all players, so it doesn't make them harder to get. They're unique weapons and should only exist once per deck.
New Priest Spell - Shadowform
It is confirmed that they removed Mind Shatter...it was not necessary to bring Shadowform from HoF if they were going to eliminate the most cool part of it. It just does not make sense to reduce its cost but eliminate the Mind Shatter part. I was so excited about Shadowform returning but this felt so bad.
Midrange Taliyah/Liss
I was thinking about a deck like this as well, and at first looking at your list i wasn't so sure about the stoneweaving, till I considered that at low mana there are very few landmarks so if you cast this on turn 2, it guarantees (atleast for now untill they add more landmarks) you a frozen thrall which is great for consistency.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about ancient preparations yet because I don't exactly know how good predict is. It might well be nuts especially for a deck like this if you can consistently get your thralls or taliyah combos on turn 6 or 7.
I think Lissandra will be able to level up alright in this deck, with taliyah and ancient hourglass cheating out extra summons of her thralls, but I think the Watcher will probably take too long to be a factor most of the time with this list.
It'll be kinda neat how in their levelled forms, Taliyah will be the offense and lissandra the defense, anyways can't wait for the 3rd to see if this archtype turns out to be decent. Lissandra seems to pair so perfectly with trundle that it's nice to see and think about how she might pair with other champs.
All 51 Returning Cards That Received Buffs and Changes in Hearthstone's New Core Set
In a world where they've dramatically scaled back on value generation, it's possible for it to see some amount of competitive play. But I kind of doubt it.
All 51 Returning Cards That Received Buffs and Changes in Hearthstone's New Core Set
Thinning your deck by discarding the cards is only beneficial if you're running something that requires you to go to fatigue. I'm not sure when that's helpful in Hunter. Usually, Tracking was simply deemed acceptable because you're NOT planning on going to fatigue as Hunter, and thus don't care about the lost cards.
Most of the time, you only want to thin your deck in an OTK situation. And for a combo deck, you definitely don't want your thinning mechanism to discard anything. The possibility of being offered two combo pieces and losing one of them is not in any way worth it.
Hearthstone's New Core Set is Getting Fully Revealed Later Today - Here's What We Know So Far
Wrong.
All 51 Returning Cards That Received Buffs and Changes in Hearthstone's New Core Set
What's the downside to the Tracking buff? Genuinely asking, as I can't think of one.
All 51 Returning Cards That Received Buffs and Changes in Hearthstone's New Core Set
No way on the spell type question - that's far too complicated for them to implement it without any card text explanation. Things that are affected by spell type will always spell it out explicitly in the card text.
Kindred Champion Reveal and New Shadow Isles Cards for Runeterra's Empires of the Ascended Expansion
So...with Kindred on the board, every slaying is a 2-for-1? Jeez...
Cart Crash at the Crossroads
"The connectivity" has never been a concern - the problem with 2v2 has always been about the interface. Hand-waving it away doesn't make it less of a problem. They have a huge team that has worked on the issue, and they haven't come up with something they like. And that's why you'll never see it as a Brawl until they build the interface for an entire mode to utilize it. The Brawl team doesn't have the resources to do anything remotely close to that.
New Paladin Spell - Equality
might slap these into odd paladin in wild?
New Warlock Hero - Lord Jaraxxus
It still may be a smidgen too slow at 9 mana, but the health change is big enough that it may see play.
New Warrior Minion - Warsong Outrider
Not bad. Not great, but I am sure it will see a fair amount of play.
All 51 Returning Cards That Received Buffs and Changes in Hearthstone's New Core Set
I love the change to Tracking. Yeah, the thinning of the deck could sometimes be good, but more often than not it just felt bad to discard two cards that you could have really done with later in the game. Making it Discover makes it generally feel better to play, and elevates it to the modern standard instead of being this weird relic and progenitor of Discover, whilst never quite being it.
New Warlock Hero - Lord Jaraxxus
Looking over the new core set, there's far less value than we normally have, and there are basically no infinite value generators, which makes this potentially the strongest control card in the meta. For 9 mana, you're getting a 6-mana-value weapon, 1 mana worth of armor, and 4 surplus mana of value per turn (2 mana for a 5 mana body and 1 mana pseudo-card-draw whenever you press the button). Seems really dang good.
New Warlock Hero - Lord Jaraxxus
I think this will see play if Hero Power is unchanged.
6/6 for 2 mana is very strong.
All the New Core Set Cards Coming to Hearthstone in Year of the Gryphon + Full 235 Cards Reveal
I'd like to see a Nozdormu tournament.
Core Set Reactions
There are some good stuff being done here, but I can't help feeling like a few classes are being screwed here. Some of the best utility cards are being taken away presumably to encourage use of expansion cards, to encourage a tempo-oriented game, and a marked reduction of face hitting cards. Here's my impression;
- I like rogue, and very happy to see shadowstep not taken away, but I think rogue's tempo game just got neutered. Taking away both Eviscerate and Sap means that there is literally only backstab and weapons to keep up tempo. Even perdition's blades gone. Really strange they didn't unnerf Cold Blood. I mean, its not like its possible to ever assemble a killer combo turn since charge are all taken away
- No more Tundra Rhino, no more Unleash the Hounds. No more Animal Companion. So hunter's game plan is now entirely tempo, or bizarrely, spell cycling.
- Priest got a huge buff in Shadowform. But loses Shadow Word: Pain. Can't understand why this was done since its brother Shadow Word: Death is still here, except that all the new cards pushes for another form of tempo or silence priest. And there's no more Thoughtsteal, the one priest card for reload. I'd expect Barrens to add a few more generation card for priest, but getting rid of Thoughtsteal might not be the best choice.
- Mage got screwed hard here. No more apprentice, no more Frostbolt, no more Pyroblast, no more Arcane Missiles, no more arcane explosion. And then in comes Aegwynn, who's power would have best benefit those cards removed. Combo mage has been dealt a severe blow by basically removing two of the best freezing spells, and the removal of doomsayer. Even Mozaki mage needs a something to back it up since arcane missiles is gone. Makes me nervous where team5 intends to go with mage for the next year.
- The only class that seems to get aggressive cards are dhunters. Nearly all their cards are either drawing you cards or hitting your opponent's face. I guess the removal of Satyr Overseer and Glaivebound Adept makes some dent but easily replaced by Felfire Deadeye and Felsaber, not to mention other cards like Felsteel Executioner and the new Illidari Inquisitor
- Paladin looks scary. At least they cant draw for shit. No further comment.
- Shield Slam in. Shield Block out. Like really? And a major nipple cripple has been delivered by removing its sole draw engine, Battle Rage. Well, I guess its back to Slam then.
- Warlock is fine. Not losing Twisting Nether is key here. But losing voidwalker. Guess team5 really hates pain warlock in standard
- Druid is fine as well. Because I'm absolutely positively fine with druid losing Savage Roar. There's still Arbor Up, but at least theres no more turn 5 solar eclipse finishers.
Other notables;
- No more Murloc Warleader, no more charge minions in neutral, no more Leper Gnome, no more Faerie Dragon, no more Cult Master, no more Knife Juggler, no more Questing Adventurer. Its like team5 gathered up all the cards that are still good enough today, or do face damage, and tossing them all away
- No lorewalker cho. Im sad. Maybe I missed it out. Someone please tell me im wrong.
- And no more Wild Pyromancer. Well, that's it.
All 51 Returning Cards That Received Buffs and Changes in Hearthstone's New Core Set
It doesn't give you a better chance to draw into good cards. Say you have 10 cards left and 5 of them are good. If you play tracking, you have a chance of drawing one good card, discarding two bad ones, and then having 4/7 of your remaining cards be good. In this instance, you've strengthened your deck at the cost of hitting fatigue sooner. However, you also have a chance of being offered 3 of your 5 good cards, meaning you get to keep one and then 2/7 of the rest of your deck is good, meaning you've weakened your deck AND will hit fatigue sooner. These odds cancel out. On average, the deck is no stronger or weaker than it was before, but you WILL hit fatigue sooner.
TL;DR the three cards you're offered are an entirely random sample of the cards in your deck, meaning their removal will not, on average, make your deck any better or worse.
Core 2021
Hello! Hello! Hello! Thrilled about seeing the Annoy-o-Tron!
New Neutral Minion - Onyxia the Broodmother
A stronger but slower version of Shu'ma. Board control in a single card.
As AngryShuckie, the whelps have no summoning sickness, so they can hit face on your turn. The 8/8 body itself is a soft taunt and it's pointless to clear the whelps as they generate every turn. If you cant clear her, on an empty board, this is 14 damage every turn (8 from Onyxia + 6 whelps).
Downsides I see:
New Neutral Minion - Taelan Fordring
OK, I'm starting to feel like they are overdoing it on tutor effects.
New Warrior Minion - Warsong Outrider
5 Attack seems to be the sweet spot for Rush, so sure.
New Warrior Spell - War Cache
There are way too many bad Warrior cards for this to create. Some aren't even strictly bad, but since Warrior has several different archetypes, you're going to get stuff that just doesn't fit your game plan.
New Warlock Minion - Enslaved Fel Lord
Wow, so hard to kill. Seven mana does not seem like enough.
Core 2021
Anyone else think they should make Gorehowl and Doomhammer legendary? They're giving this full set to all players, so it doesn't make them harder to get. They're unique weapons and should only exist once per deck.