If it had those cost and stats and Spell Damage +3, it would be OP as fuck. Since it's limited to only affecting a subset of spells, maybe it will just be good. Right now the only Nature spell we know is Chain Lightning (Rank 1), so we'll need to see more to say how good this is.
Seems like an aggro card. Could be good in decks that cycle through the deck quickly, otherwise the game might be over before you even find Mankrik's Wife.
This is a good nerf. I played Ramp Paladin all the way up to Legend this month, and I won a ton of games simply by having Alura on turn 4 or 5 with either the coin or something off Wandmaker. Having my murloc board dealt with was EXTREMELY rare that early in the game. Alura will still be fun and playable, but this will cut down on some of the nonsense I and many others were getting away with.
I don't think so as they would need to animated each one (for clarification: only new heroes get new animations, skins of existing ones won't), the pack is probably just the reward for completing her story.
Speculation is always fun, so I couldn't resist doing a bit of sleuthing when I heard about the new 'mercenary' characters we'll be seeing. This thread is primarily about the characters that will appear as Legendary minions in constructed, but will involve a discussion about the characters appearing in the Mercenaries game mode to set out all the evidence.
By the sounds of each each class will have a mercenary character, with us currently knowing about the troll shaman Bru'kan. We don't yet know the other 9, but we do see that Bru'kan appears on Chain Lightning (Rank 1) (as well as the Rank 2 and 3 versions), which seems to be a quick and simple way to show the growth of the character from a low level scrub to a high level powerhouse worthy of a legendary card.
So these Rank cards likely give us clues about the other mercenaries. Currently the only other Rank card we know is Imp Swarm (Rank 1), which shows a female forsaken warlock. 2 down. 8 to go.
OK, so it's optimistic to say anything about all 10 at this point, but we actually know a surprising amount already: In the Barrens cinematic and the key art we see 5 prominent characters, two of which are Bru'kan and the forsaken warlock. It stands to reason then that the other 3 are also mercenaries, giving us a tauren druid, blood elf mage and orc warrior (presumably the Rokara mentioned in the Deep Dive).
That leaves 5 classes vacant, who I first assumed would also be seen in the Barrens expansion, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Here's where the Mercenaries game mode key art comes in. In it we see 3 categories of characters:
Basic heroes: Valeera, Rexxar and Illidan (I assume all 10 will be present in the game mode).
Other characters we are are already familiar with in HS: Rag, Eudora, and a baby King Krush in the top corner (at least I assume it is Krush based on the artwork titled King Krush 1 in the press kit https://blizzard.gamespress.com/Hearthstone-BlizzConline-Press-Kit).
Previously unknown characters, notably including Rokara and the tauren druid from the Barrens cinematic.
One of the 3 complete unknowns is a monkey (maybe a baby King Mukla?), who we can safely assume is NOT one of the class mercenaries. That leaves a human female with a hammer and a gnome with a fine set of facial hair, who I assume to be the paladin and rogue mercenaries respectively.
It doesn't look like we have any direct info on the hunter, priest or DH mercenaries yet, but we do still have 1 clue: so far the horde and alliance races have been represented exactly once (except goblins, sorry guys). I doubt we'll see a pandaren, so that gives us night elves, dwarves, draenei and worgen as options. Honestly, since the whole theme is very WoW Classic centric, I don't expect to see a worgen who, like goblins, joined in during Cataclysm. Yes, blood elves and draenei joined in after Classic too, but only a little bit, and they have to make up the numbers somehow.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and also assume they want the race-class combinations to mirror those seen in the WoW Classic cinematic, not least because they directly reference it in the Barrens cinematic with the tauren scattering dust(?) over a cliff overlooking a river, and with the forsaken consuming the life of surrounding grass to summon a demon. So that gives us a dwarf hunter.
Obviously they cannot do night elf druid as per the WoW cinematic, but that's convenient because DHs can only be elves, so the night elf needs to be the DH anyway. Finally that leaves a draenei priest, which is about as fitting as you could ask for.
So, all in all, I predict we will have the mercenary race - class combinations of:
Horde
Alliance
Orc warrior
Human paladin
Troll shaman (Not technically a prediction, I know. Shush.)
Dwarf hunter
Forsaken warlock
Gnome rogue
Tauren druid
Night elf DH
Blood elf mage
Draenei priest
Along with this, I don't expect the 5 alliance classes to get a Rank spell this expansion.
This all falls flat on its face if the 2nd expansion isn't alliance focused, but everything points towards it (even the Year name) so I'm not too worried.
------------------------------
Edit: from the Q&A it looks like the alliance mercenaries will be in the Barrens expansion, but otherwise the speculation remains intact.
Nice! Sylvanas was one of two heros I was really hoping for to return. I'd like her for my Deathrattle decks. Same goes for Lazul and the Scrying decks. Fingers crossed we'll be able to pay with gold!
I´d definitely get her if she was aviable with gold, but I´m affraid many ppl who bought her with money would be upset, so I don´t see Blizz doing it by now. But who knows.
My sense is that Classic packs will only contain cards that are playable in the upcoming Classic mode. Cards that replaced the HoF’ed cards, like Natalie Seline, will not appear in Classic packs after rotation, which is why a dev suggested opening Classic packs now if you’re missing some of those newer cards.
It's okay if they believe replacing the Spell Damage Totem will be better for the future. But they could have buffed or reworked Searing Totem into something less awful. Paying two mana for a 1/1 that does nothing is terrible. It works for Paladin because they are inherently a buff based class and they summon 1/1s consistently. Shaman gets a 1/1 only 25% of the time, the class isn't good at buffing minions and most of the time you need something else. The only time the 1/1 isn't a total liability is when the board is completely empty. In every other scenario it is simply a waste of two mana. This won't alleviate the consistency issues of the Shaman Hero Power. If every totem could do something different but all were useful in some way then it would be up to the player to discover the best way to utilize RNG to their favor. But the 1/1 will keep getting in the way of that. The Shaman Hero Power will remain inconsistent. They really missed the opportunity to actually make the class better imo.
Also dont forget, the shaman Hero power will still be useless ocne have all 4 basic totems on board(why cant even let it summon a basic 0/2totem with no effect is beyond me)
Not sure what I think of this. I could agree that Gauntlets need some refinement, but this doesn’t seem better. Singleton is the weaker ruleset, but having two is still better than having one. I’d suggest coming up with a couple more Gauntlet formats, and THEN turning Singleton into a once-every-few-months thing.
The Gauntlets ARE long, yes. But 7 victories aren’t that hard. I’m an ok player (Gold league, could probably grind to Plat if I didn’t have kids), but I get at least 4 victories consistently. Sometimes I achieve 7. I guess I’ll now be earning Prime Glories almost every week. They won’t feel like they mean much. They certainly won’t feel appropriate for something that can get you into a global tournament.
looking forward to adding Sylvanas to my collection, and I hope her card back comes with her, part of the fun of getting these new heroes is getting their specific card backs to add flavor to your decks
It's okay if they believe replacing the Spell Damage Totem will be better for the future. But they could have buffed or reworked Searing Totem into something less awful. Paying two mana for a 1/1 that does nothing is terrible. It works for Paladin because they are inherently a buff based class and they summon 1/1s consistently. Shaman gets a 1/1 only 25% of the time, the class isn't good at buffing minions and most of the time you need something else. The only time the 1/1 isn't a total liability is when the board is completely empty. In every other scenario it is simply a waste of two mana. This won't alleviate the consistency issues of the Shaman Hero Power. If every totem could do something different but all were useful in some way then it would be up to the player to discover the best way to utilize RNG to their favor. But the 1/1 will keep getting in the way of that. The Shaman Hero Power will remain inconsistent. They really missed the opportunity to actually make the class better imo.
I never said Rogue can't function without Edwin. I just think this new card doesn't look interesting or exciting to play with. It doesn't look very fun or rewarding. If you like the whole burgle thing then it's fine. But i'm not really into it. Making a big play with Edwin always felt good even if he got removed afterward. This new card is just a body that gives you one card. It simply looks boring to me. But Natalie Seline is way worse. She is boring, slow, weak, inefficient (due to high cost) and has no purpose for existing other than Zephrys. I hope she gets axed and another legendary takes her place in the core set. She is just not playable.
Wild player here, FWIW this discussion has highlighted a deck that I wasn’t even aware of. I was 100% pleased that Air Totem was getting removed because the Shaman decks that I play don’t focus on burn and I couldn’t see how a regular burn deck would care to have only 25% chance of getting the desired totem. Now my sentiment is changed somewhat - Odd Shaman looks like an interesting deck which won’t work without the Air Totem and that’s a pity. It makes me want to try before it goes away.
I think that the community here has become a little trigger-happy with the downvote button. There is little room for nuance - if you are only 95% aligned in opinion, you get downvoted. It wasn’t always like that but I guess it is to be expected as OoC becomes more popular.
New Shaman Minion - Bru'kan
If it had those cost and stats and Spell Damage +3, it would be OP as fuck. Since it's limited to only affecting a subset of spells, maybe it will just be good. Right now the only Nature spell we know is Chain Lightning (Rank 1), so we'll need to see more to say how good this is.
New Neutral Minion - Mankrik
Seems like an aggro card. Could be good in decks that cycle through the deck quickly, otherwise the game might be over before you even find Mankrik's Wife.
High Abbess Alura Is Being Nerfed - Here Are Our Thoughts on The Change to Our Priest and Paladin Friend
This is a good nerf. I played Ramp Paladin all the way up to Legend this month, and I won a ton of games simply by having Alura on turn 4 or 5 with either the coin or something off Wandmaker. Having my murloc board dealt with was EXTREMELY rare that early in the game. Alura will still be fun and playable, but this will cut down on some of the nonsense I and many others were getting away with.
New Neutral Minion - Mankrik
1 Star card because that awfull art.
Forged in the Barrens
Yeah, brings back memories. The Mankrik flavor text makes me feel so sorry for him for all of the Horde toons I made over the years.
Everything You Need to Know About Hearthstone's Mercenaries Game Mode
I don't think so as they would need to animated each one (for clarification: only new heroes get new animations, skins of existing ones won't), the pack is probably just the reward for completing her story.
Mercenary character speculation
Speculation is always fun, so I couldn't resist doing a bit of sleuthing when I heard about the new 'mercenary' characters we'll be seeing. This thread is primarily about the characters that will appear as Legendary minions in constructed, but will involve a discussion about the characters appearing in the Mercenaries game mode to set out all the evidence.
By the sounds of each each class will have a mercenary character, with us currently knowing about the troll shaman Bru'kan. We don't yet know the other 9, but we do see that Bru'kan appears on Chain Lightning (Rank 1) (as well as the Rank 2 and 3 versions), which seems to be a quick and simple way to show the growth of the character from a low level scrub to a high level powerhouse worthy of a legendary card.
So these Rank cards likely give us clues about the other mercenaries. Currently the only other Rank card we know is Imp Swarm (Rank 1), which shows a female forsaken warlock. 2 down. 8 to go.
OK, so it's optimistic to say anything about all 10 at this point, but we actually know a surprising amount already: In the Barrens cinematic and the key art we see 5 prominent characters, two of which are Bru'kan and the forsaken warlock. It stands to reason then that the other 3 are also mercenaries, giving us a tauren druid, blood elf mage and orc warrior (presumably the Rokara mentioned in the Deep Dive).
That leaves 5 classes vacant, who I first assumed would also be seen in the Barrens expansion, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Here's where the Mercenaries game mode key art comes in. In it we see 3 categories of characters:
One of the 3 complete unknowns is a monkey (maybe a baby King Mukla?), who we can safely assume is NOT one of the class mercenaries. That leaves a human female with a hammer and a gnome with a fine set of facial hair, who I assume to be the paladin and rogue mercenaries respectively.
It doesn't look like we have any direct info on the hunter, priest or DH mercenaries yet, but we do still have 1 clue: so far the horde and alliance races have been represented exactly once (except goblins, sorry guys). I doubt we'll see a pandaren, so that gives us night elves, dwarves, draenei and worgen as options. Honestly, since the whole theme is very WoW Classic centric, I don't expect to see a worgen who, like goblins, joined in during Cataclysm. Yes, blood elves and draenei joined in after Classic too, but only a little bit, and they have to make up the numbers somehow.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and also assume they want the race-class combinations to mirror those seen in the WoW Classic cinematic, not least because they directly reference it in the Barrens cinematic with the tauren scattering dust(?) over a cliff overlooking a river, and with the forsaken consuming the life of surrounding grass to summon a demon. So that gives us a dwarf hunter.
Obviously they cannot do night elf druid as per the WoW cinematic, but that's convenient because DHs can only be elves, so the night elf needs to be the DH anyway. Finally that leaves a draenei priest, which is about as fitting as you could ask for.
So, all in all, I predict we will have the mercenary race - class combinations of:
Along with this, I don't expect the 5 alliance classes to get a Rank spell this expansion.
This all falls flat on its face if the 2nd expansion isn't alliance focused, but everything points towards it (even the Year name) so I'm not too worried.
------------------------------
Edit: from the Q&A it looks like the alliance mercenaries will be in the Barrens expansion, but otherwise the speculation remains intact.
Hearthstone's Sylvanas and Thunder King Heroes Are Returning to the Shop
I´d definitely get her if she was aviable with gold, but I´m affraid many ppl who bought her with money would be upset, so I don´t see Blizz doing it by now. But who knows.
BlizzConline's Hearthstone Year of the Gryphon Deep Dive Panel Live Recap - More New Cards
My sense is that Classic packs will only contain cards that are playable in the upcoming Classic mode. Cards that replaced the HoF’ed cards, like Natalie Seline, will not appear in Classic packs after rotation, which is why a dev suggested opening Classic packs now if you’re missing some of those newer cards.
New Neutral Minion - Razormane Raider
Looks like a good arena card, mages can ping It for an inmediate attack.
Shaman's Hero Power Gets a New Totem - Here's Everything Shamanistic You Need to Know So Far
Also dont forget, the shaman Hero power will still be useless ocne have all 4 basic totems on board(why cant even let it summon a basic 0/2totem with no effect is beyond me)
Riot Announces Changes to Runeterra's Tournaments and Gauntlets
Not sure what I think of this. I could agree that Gauntlets need some refinement, but this doesn’t seem better. Singleton is the weaker ruleset, but having two is still better than having one. I’d suggest coming up with a couple more Gauntlet formats, and THEN turning Singleton into a once-every-few-months thing.
The Gauntlets ARE long, yes. But 7 victories aren’t that hard. I’m an ok player (Gold league, could probably grind to Plat if I didn’t have kids), but I get at least 4 victories consistently. Sometimes I achieve 7. I guess I’ll now be earning Prime Glories almost every week. They won’t feel like they mean much. They certainly won’t feel appropriate for something that can get you into a global tournament.
New Druid Minion - Druid of the Plains
Beast druid looks good with that card.
Minion removal+good body with taunt for 7 mana is strong in a class with lack of removals.
Everything You Need to Know About Hearthstone's Mercenaries Game Mode
Was Duels not the new game mode for this year?
Hearthstone's Sylvanas and Thunder King Heroes Are Returning to the Shop
looking forward to adding Sylvanas to my collection, and I hope her card back comes with her, part of the fun of getting these new heroes is getting their specific card backs to add flavor to your decks
New Druid Minion - Druid of the Plains
This will be nerfed to 8 mana. Mark my words.
New Neutral Minion - Shadow Hunter Vol'jin
If the enemy doesn't have minions on hand that card would work as Sap? Or doesn't do anything because there is no Minion to swap?
Shaman's Hero Power Gets a New Totem - Here's Everything Shamanistic You Need to Know So Far
Agree, even letting it being 1/2 (to be 2 health as all other totems) would be good change
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
So Cosmic Anomaly is right, but others are not? These cards were not elementals, but do they related to spell damage or not?
Shaman's Hero Power Gets a New Totem - Here's Everything Shamanistic You Need to Know So Far
It's okay if they believe replacing the Spell Damage Totem will be better for the future. But they could have buffed or reworked Searing Totem into something less awful. Paying two mana for a 1/1 that does nothing is terrible. It works for Paladin because they are inherently a buff based class and they summon 1/1s consistently. Shaman gets a 1/1 only 25% of the time, the class isn't good at buffing minions and most of the time you need something else. The only time the 1/1 isn't a total liability is when the board is completely empty. In every other scenario it is simply a waste of two mana. This won't alleviate the consistency issues of the Shaman Hero Power. If every totem could do something different but all were useful in some way then it would be up to the player to discover the best way to utilize RNG to their favor. But the 1/1 will keep getting in the way of that. The Shaman Hero Power will remain inconsistent. They really missed the opportunity to actually make the class better imo.
New Neutral Minion - Razormane Raider
Are we sure frenzy procs only once? If it doesn't this card + inner rage + bladestorm on an empty board = profit
New Neutral Minion - Shadow Hunter Vol'jin
This is a great discount for otk mage(Antonidas), tried it in wild but i'm betting it could work in standard too.
BlizzConline's Hearthstone Year of the Gryphon Deep Dive Panel Live Recap - More New Cards
I never said Rogue can't function without Edwin. I just think this new card doesn't look interesting or exciting to play with. It doesn't look very fun or rewarding. If you like the whole burgle thing then it's fine. But i'm not really into it. Making a big play with Edwin always felt good even if he got removed afterward. This new card is just a body that gives you one card. It simply looks boring to me. But Natalie Seline is way worse. She is boring, slow, weak, inefficient (due to high cost) and has no purpose for existing other than Zephrys. I hope she gets axed and another legendary takes her place in the core set. She is just not playable.
New Shaman Spell - Chain Lightning (Rank 1)
Solid card, we need to see more nature synergies for shaman.
BlizzConline's Hearthstone Year of the Gryphon Deep Dive Panel Live Recap - More New Cards
Wild player here, FWIW this discussion has highlighted a deck that I wasn’t even aware of. I was 100% pleased that Air Totem was getting removed because the Shaman decks that I play don’t focus on burn and I couldn’t see how a regular burn deck would care to have only 25% chance of getting the desired totem. Now my sentiment is changed somewhat - Odd Shaman looks like an interesting deck which won’t work without the Air Totem and that’s a pity. It makes me want to try before it goes away.
I think that the community here has become a little trigger-happy with the downvote button. There is little room for nuance - if you are only 95% aligned in opinion, you get downvoted. It wasn’t always like that but I guess it is to be expected as OoC becomes more popular.