Update: I've done some testing with Ring Matron since I had gotten it out of booster packs, it actually works surprisingly well so far instead of Abyssal Summoner. The testing hasn't been super extensive yet, but it's nice how ring matron's effects don't dwindle as your hand size drops. The two imps also work as O.K. targets for Sunfury Protector too.
Two weeks in and I reached level 35 today. According to my XP calculations, it means I'm about 46% on track to reach level 50. I almost reached the halfway point, yay!
Strangely enough, my progress to level 100 is now 21% and to level 150 is 14%. This is because of the steep XP curve towards level 50 and afterwards it drops and rises up much flatter onwards.
Perhaps blizzard focus too much on stats for individual cards rather than the overall experience for ladder, because I feel like if Blizzard cared about their own themes for each expansion, they'd be a little quicker to nerf a lot of the broken aggro nonsense that's permeating ladder at the moment, and preventing players trying out the more fun, slow decks.
Well first off you do have to wonder if they're trying to make the game faster in general to accommodate the mobile crowd. I really hope not. Also, hard as it is to comprehend, control players seem to be in the minority and many more players seem to prefer aggro. Now let's not be too harsh. Aggro does require some decision making and sometimes even more when it comes to predicting what the opponent is likely to do next. Control players don't have to do that so much since our decks are more reactive, whereas aggro is proactive. Our decision making is more about resource management.
They're two very different playstyles. Aggro can be fun actually. I'm just out of the habit with it. I, like most control players probably, only tend to play it when I've had my fill of control. I haven't felt satisfied in a while though. I've kinda been starved for options with control since Dr. Boom rotated so really just been searching. I'm starting to feel just a little better though since I've been playing Control Warrior and Big Priest the last couple days. Control Warrior seems legit good and runs 2 Old Gods. Big Priest feels like lower Tier 2 and it's fun (probably actually Tier 3 through). The two decks are very different from each other and they win enough so right now I'm getting my fix. Maybe Druid has something to offer? Not sure yet. And you can gear Pure Paladin more towards value so maybe there's some fun to be had there. If Warlock can just find a good control deck then I guess for now we count our blessings.
I'd like the pendulum to swing back towards a slower, more controlling game in general. We've had quite a few aggressive metas. It's a good time to shift into something different.
BTW who else (potential problems aside) would love for them to add the Monk class from WoW and for it be very controlling? I'm imagining powerful attack buffs that only can target minions (self defense), healing, animal companions or some kind of nature theme, defense and control tools (but board clears etc. feel un-Monkish), and of course the classic monk thing of going into different stances or something which would maybe change the hero power. You could play a card which changes your hero power and then play cards that synergize with that and then come out of that stance. Kind of like the monk style guy in Slay the Spire.
Actually got round to thinking about this a little further; I think the real question is whether it is now time for BG and duels to exist on their own server, their own client, and therefore also their own progressions and rewards. Even arena seems a bit out of place compared to standard ranked play. This will resolve the quests issues entirely, as well as give non-ranked players quests that actually matter to them.
Maybe its going a bit too far to suggest partitioning now, but I do certainly think that those that prefer rank shouldn't be given quests that don't matter to them, and vice versa to those that prefer non-rank modes.
I wouldn't hold my breath on this - there's really zero incentive to split the games (probably ever).
Hearthstone is F2P, so Blizzard wants to drive high player engagement (obviously - in every F2P game, the more engagement you get out of any given player, the more likely that player is to feel invested enough to pay for something in game). These quests work as nudges from a behavioral economics standpoint. You can opt out of them by re-rolling if you really don't like them, but they might nudge players toward trying out formats that they wouldn't otherwise consider. That can be mutually beneficial; for players who find a format they like as much or more than ladder, they have more fun, and for Blizzard they get higher engagement from the player in question.
Quick side note, I believe this engagement issue is why Hearthstone has invested so much in new game modes and why there's yet another new game mode coming soon. The Arena "draft mode" for Hearthstone has always been terrible compared to other CCGs, and the various Auto-Chess games out there were stealing away players from the traditional "competitive, turn-based strategy game" market that CCGs exist in. Duels basically solves the "draft mode" problem (leaving Arena limping along), so it should be interesting to see what the next new format is.
I'm a bit surprised that, over the course of an entire week, you weren't able to roll into two weekly quests you could complete. Because that's all you'd need to complete to avoid losing out on a quest - you can store up to four quests of each type at once, and you gain three weekly quests at the start of the week, so you can roll over one without losing anything. This is specifically designed to help players who used to lose out on quests because of infrequent logins or slow completion times.
I know the "Win 7 Ranked Games" quest can be pretty tedious if you don't have a strong meta deck, but one win a day is not that bad, and a lot of the other ones are pretty straightforward, and only look grindy if your frame of reference is doing a whole quest in a day:
Deal 200 damage to enemy heroes. In context, this is less than the total HP of 7 enemy heroes, so if you complete your ranked games Quest, you've probably completed this by default
Deal 2000 damage to enemy minions in Battlegrounds. Since this is damage to enemy minions, it's very easy to achieve. By the late game in BG, your minions tend to have very high stats (20/20s or 30/30s, maybe higher), so this can usually be done in 4 or 5 BGs over the course of a week
Play 50 Battlecry cards. This is only about 7 battlecries a day, which seems pretty achievable if you play two or three games
Play 50 Corrupt cards. This is only about 7 corrupt cards a day. Harder than Battlecries, since there are fewer cards to satisfy this condition, but still pretty easy over the course of a week
Spend 500 mana. Contextualizing this a bit, if you play on curve, by turn 8 you'll have spent 36 mana. Two games like that a day and you'll have done this quest.
Use your Hero Power 50 times. As trivial as the Battlecry one, maybe even easier if you're doing this in Duels where many hero powers are less than two mana and much stronger than standard hero powers.
Win 5 games of Tavern Brawl, Battlegrounds, or Duels. A little more annoying, but winning a BG is just getting top 4, and playing Duels exclusively for easy early wins is not that hard. If your deck gets bad after a couple . This also plays nicely with the various Daily "Play Class A, B, or C" quests.
Win a game with 4 different classes. Basically the same as the 5-win quest above, assuming you're playing some casual Duels this should be a quick one
A number of the other ones are arbitrarily harder (e.g. can't play an Old God from DMF if you don't have one), but you can reroll those away. There's probably some room for improving those, but the reroll is not a terrible stop-gap for that.
Actually got round to thinking about this a little further; I think the real question is whether it is now time for BG and duels to exist on their own server, their own client, and therefore also their own progressions and rewards. Even arena seems a bit out of place compared to standard ranked play. This will resolve the quests issues entirely, as well as give non-ranked players quests that actually matter to them.
Maybe its going a bit too far to suggest partitioning now, but I do certainly think that those that prefer rank shouldn't be given quests that don't matter to them, and vice versa to those that prefer non-rank modes.
I don't think there's anything wrong with making quests that try to drive players to different formats, particularly since you can reroll quests, but the Arena one is pretty messed up because Arena is never free. They should really create a Casual/Heroic split for Arena like they have for Duels so you can at least play the format without paying. I have to assume that Arena is so unpopular that they've decided not to invest at all in it, but at that point they probably shouldn't be trying to drive traffic toward that format.
To answer to OP, I don't think so, but it happened to me that I rerolled from 'finish top 2 in bg' to 'deal 2000 damage in bg', which is lame. Maybe they can optimize rerolls to not reroll into the same mode. Or better, when you reroll a bg quest (example), next bg one can't be rolled into for 3 days, so I can get what I want fast enough to start completing it.
Second point, I think that Arena quest is ok to exist. I play it often, and sometimes have an ongoing run when I get the quest, so it autocompletes when I finish (my tip is: if it's 4+, try to leave it active until new weekly spawn). And I even like to start a new run under "pressure" to finish the weekly, it makes me more concentrated and I enjoy giving my best, especially in Arena. It would be unfair for Arena players to entirely remove it, since there are quests for each other mode.
But considering it needs to be paid for and the rng nature of it, maybe the requirement should go down, probably to 3 wins, maybe even 2. Or go with the easier route, like 'deal X damage to heroes'.
Definetly the most op deck in this brawl (of course if you not face mirror). My opponent spent like 5 "Give your totems +2 health" from his hand before conceding.
Originally it´s targeted for Warlocks Deck of Chaos, but Jeppeto could be a good replacement. I was "lucky" to get the prior as my free legendary, but I´m sure Jepetto would work just as good. Have no idea about other way to get it done tho.
OH YES. I knew I was missing something. Thanks! I have Jepetto, but not the Deck, so I'll give that a try
If there's anyone out there who doesn't have either Legendary, you can also complete this with a fairly dopey combo in Hunter: 2x Scarlet Webweaver to reduce the cost to (0), then Mana Wraith to bring the cost of Darkmoon Rabbit back up to (1). I managed to get this to work in two tries on the Wild Ladder (picked Wild because I figured I was more likely to queue into a control opponent) - only ran 2x Scarlet Webweaver and 1x Darkmoon Rabbit to reduce the risk of bad discounts, and included a bunch of card draw including Scavenger's Ingenuity to tutor the combo.
You could reduce the cost of the deck even further with 1x Scarlet Webweaver and some neutral bounce effects like Youthful Brewmaster. That would also remove the risk of ever having one Webweaver reduce the cost of the other, and make the tutoring even better, but it might also make the combo slower in a class not known for its long game.
I never did get round to that feedback. Neoguli, I see you've already submitted. If you want feedback anyway, let me know.
Chicky Chick
Show Spoiler
Firstly, I wouldn't worry about giving bad feedback. It's always appreciated, and the more people who give it, the more of a general idea someone can get as to the general feeling on their card. If someone makes changes based on your feedback alone, that's on them, not you. Even something as simple as "I like this because x" is useful.
As for your cards, I prefer Rallying Imp out of the 3. Getting a free draw in a Zoo Build is always good, and the weak stats can be countered, either by reducing the cost or buffing the minion. I like this idea of getting an extra draw, and I think the Imp does it better than the Beast Caller. Pond Caller Mrrgluh feels too close to Ringmaster Whatley to stand out.
Anchorm4n
Show Spoiler
Really nice way of tutoring an Old God, it doesn't feel clunky, and the Choose One and Corrupt effects give it a ton more utility. I would consider dropping the cost to 2 however.
DestroyerR
Show Spoiler
The wording here is really complicated. I don't really have any suggestions to fix it, but would point out that pulling Pyroblast and Puzzlebox with this would be a 20 damage nuke, which isn't something I'd like to see in HS personally.
FungusABao
Show Spoiler
I feel targeting needs to be clarified. Personally, I think this would be better as a Battlecry Tutor + a one time double battlecry effect (e.g. Draw a Battlecry minion. The next Battlecry you play triggers twice.
LinkBlade91
Show Spoiler
Nice idea! I prefer Strength Competition, just because Hunter seems more fitting for the one upsmanship than Paladin.
AngryBadger
Show Spoiler
Simple, effective, if a little weak. Generally splitting the stats over 2 bodies merits a little more than vanilla, and potentially delaying those stats hitting the board merits it again. This could be +1/+4 and Taunt and I wouldn't consider it broken.
I’m glad that this post has a much calmer and more positive tone to it, but we have to accept the reality that Blizzard has messed up. The new rewards track, while a step in the right direction, is a complete disaster. It is an unrewarding, slow and grindy mess. My biggest problem is Blizzard’s complete and utter lack of communication about the issue, I have no idea what their plan is or if they even intend to address the player outrage. I mean, just look at Naga Sea Witch for a good example of Blizzard’s modus operandi when it comes to things we don’t like. I am just so fed up and completely disappointed in this system, and their lack of transparency and even outright lying to our faces just adds fuel to this
They did respond though? Didn't you see this?
They even planned a Q&A session.
And then they realized Battlepass is what they need to talk about and they silently cancelled (?) the Q&A session.
That's from the Blizzard ANZ account, not the main Blizzard corporate account. So, yeah, it's possible that they cancelled it when they realized they'd mostly have angry players asking questions they - the ANZ branch - couldn't answer. I'm not sure that reflects unwillingness for Blizzard to communicate so much as it understandably reflects a desire to have the message come from someone higher up. Those people would certainly not have been available, as today is the US national holiday of Thanksgiving.
C'Thanks but N'Thanks. I have already invested in the Tavern Pass this expansion, and there aren't enough interesting legendaries in DF for me to want to try my luck.
The problem with weekly quest is that they aren't on top of previous reward system, they became part of new one, which means we need to do weekly+daily quest to stay with aproximetly same gold gain as before (not just daily).
EDIT: Also apologies for not really giving feedback. I feel like my advice would sound mundane and flat for the most part.
I have the same feeling, but I feel like I'm forced to do so if I want feedback myself, I dont know how others think about this. At least I can hope that I helped at least one person. The worst part is that I'm worried that I could give bad advice, and somebody might lose because of me.
I was playing no minion mage this week with Deck of Lunacy thinking that it is a meme card. Guys, it is not, not entirely at least. I'd say Deck of Lunacy is a competitive meme card and you don't even have to fill your deck with cheap spells.
Maybe Quest Warlock works too? you can go to fatigue, play the last piece, draw with the hero power and next turn twisting nether + c'thun or brann too if you play wild.
Scholomance EVEN Warlock
Update: I've done some testing with Ring Matron since I had gotten it out of booster packs, it actually works surprisingly well so far instead of Abyssal Summoner. The testing hasn't been super extensive yet, but it's nice how ring matron's effects don't dwindle as your hand size drops. The two imps also work as O.K. targets for Sunfury Protector too.
Rewards Track: Current progress
Two weeks in and I reached level 35 today. According to my XP calculations, it means I'm about 46% on track to reach level 50. I almost reached the halfway point, yay!
Strangely enough, my progress to level 100 is now 21% and to level 150 is 14%. This is because of the steep XP curve towards level 50 and afterwards it drops and rises up much flatter onwards.
How are you progressing? 😅
Is control dying? Serious question...
Well first off you do have to wonder if they're trying to make the game faster in general to accommodate the mobile crowd. I really hope not. Also, hard as it is to comprehend, control players seem to be in the minority and many more players seem to prefer aggro. Now let's not be too harsh. Aggro does require some decision making and sometimes even more when it comes to predicting what the opponent is likely to do next. Control players don't have to do that so much since our decks are more reactive, whereas aggro is proactive. Our decision making is more about resource management.
They're two very different playstyles. Aggro can be fun actually. I'm just out of the habit with it. I, like most control players probably, only tend to play it when I've had my fill of control. I haven't felt satisfied in a while though. I've kinda been starved for options with control since Dr. Boom rotated so really just been searching. I'm starting to feel just a little better though since I've been playing Control Warrior and Big Priest the last couple days. Control Warrior seems legit good and runs 2 Old Gods. Big Priest feels like lower Tier 2 and it's fun (probably actually Tier 3 through). The two decks are very different from each other and they win enough so right now I'm getting my fix. Maybe Druid has something to offer? Not sure yet. And you can gear Pure Paladin more towards value so maybe there's some fun to be had there. If Warlock can just find a good control deck then I guess for now we count our blessings.
I'd like the pendulum to swing back towards a slower, more controlling game in general. We've had quite a few aggressive metas. It's a good time to shift into something different.
BTW who else (potential problems aside) would love for them to add the Monk class from WoW and for it be very controlling? I'm imagining powerful attack buffs that only can target minions (self defense), healing, animal companions or some kind of nature theme, defense and control tools (but board clears etc. feel un-Monkish), and of course the classic monk thing of going into different stances or something which would maybe change the hero power. You could play a card which changes your hero power and then play cards that synergize with that and then come out of that stance. Kind of like the monk style guy in Slay the Spire.
Sandbag quests.
I wouldn't hold my breath on this - there's really zero incentive to split the games (probably ever).
Hearthstone is F2P, so Blizzard wants to drive high player engagement (obviously - in every F2P game, the more engagement you get out of any given player, the more likely that player is to feel invested enough to pay for something in game). These quests work as nudges from a behavioral economics standpoint. You can opt out of them by re-rolling if you really don't like them, but they might nudge players toward trying out formats that they wouldn't otherwise consider. That can be mutually beneficial; for players who find a format they like as much or more than ladder, they have more fun, and for Blizzard they get higher engagement from the player in question.
Quick side note, I believe this engagement issue is why Hearthstone has invested so much in new game modes and why there's yet another new game mode coming soon. The Arena "draft mode" for Hearthstone has always been terrible compared to other CCGs, and the various Auto-Chess games out there were stealing away players from the traditional "competitive, turn-based strategy game" market that CCGs exist in. Duels basically solves the "draft mode" problem (leaving Arena limping along), so it should be interesting to see what the next new format is.
Compensation Coming For Continued Issues With Hearthstone's New Weekly and Daily Quests
Yeah that is really stupid and I don't think it is intended. But as we know Team5 they won't fix it before the next expansion
Weekly Quests = More Time Spent to Get the Same Rewards
I'm a bit surprised that, over the course of an entire week, you weren't able to roll into two weekly quests you could complete. Because that's all you'd need to complete to avoid losing out on a quest - you can store up to four quests of each type at once, and you gain three weekly quests at the start of the week, so you can roll over one without losing anything. This is specifically designed to help players who used to lose out on quests because of infrequent logins or slow completion times.
I know the "Win 7 Ranked Games" quest can be pretty tedious if you don't have a strong meta deck, but one win a day is not that bad, and a lot of the other ones are pretty straightforward, and only look grindy if your frame of reference is doing a whole quest in a day:
A number of the other ones are arbitrarily harder (e.g. can't play an Old God from DMF if you don't have one), but you can reroll those away. There's probably some room for improving those, but the reroll is not a terrible stop-gap for that.
Half and Half
This is so devious. Giving garbage to non dhunters while maintaining perfect advantage. I like it.
I played a different version of yours. 6 manafeeder panthara, 4 satyr overseers. My opponent conceded turn 2 :)
Sandbag quests.
Actually got round to thinking about this a little further; I think the real question is whether it is now time for BG and duels to exist on their own server, their own client, and therefore also their own progressions and rewards. Even arena seems a bit out of place compared to standard ranked play. This will resolve the quests issues entirely, as well as give non-ranked players quests that actually matter to them.
Maybe its going a bit too far to suggest partitioning now, but I do certainly think that those that prefer rank shouldn't be given quests that don't matter to them, and vice versa to those that prefer non-rank modes.
Sandbag quests.
I don't think there's anything wrong with making quests that try to drive players to different formats, particularly since you can reroll quests, but the Arena one is pretty messed up because Arena is never free. They should really create a Casual/Heroic split for Arena like they have for Duels so you can at least play the format without paying. I have to assume that Arena is so unpopular that they've decided not to invest at all in it, but at that point they probably shouldn't be trying to drive traffic toward that format.
Sandbag quests.
To answer to OP, I don't think so, but it happened to me that I rerolled from 'finish top 2 in bg' to 'deal 2000 damage in bg', which is lame. Maybe they can optimize rerolls to not reroll into the same mode. Or better, when you reroll a bg quest (example), next bg one can't be rolled into for 3 days, so I can get what I want fast enough to start completing it.
Second point, I think that Arena quest is ok to exist. I play it often, and sometimes have an ongoing run when I get the quest, so it autocompletes when I finish (my tip is: if it's 4+, try to leave it active until new weekly spawn). And I even like to start a new run under "pressure" to finish the weekly, it makes me more concentrated and I enjoy giving my best, especially in Arena. It would be unfair for Arena players to entirely remove it, since there are quests for each other mode.
But considering it needs to be paid for and the rng nature of it, maybe the requirement should go down, probably to 3 wins, maybe even 2. Or go with the easier route, like 'deal X damage to heroes'.
Half and Half
Definetly the most op deck in this brawl (of course if you not face mirror). My opponent spent like 5 "Give your totems +2 health" from his hand before conceding.
Achievement Tips/Strategies Sharing
If there's anyone out there who doesn't have either Legendary, you can also complete this with a fairly dopey combo in Hunter: 2x Scarlet Webweaver to reduce the cost to (0), then Mana Wraith to bring the cost of Darkmoon Rabbit back up to (1). I managed to get this to work in two tries on the Wild Ladder (picked Wild because I figured I was more likely to queue into a control opponent) - only ran 2x Scarlet Webweaver and 1x Darkmoon Rabbit to reduce the risk of bad discounts, and included a bunch of card draw including Scavenger's Ingenuity to tutor the combo.
You could reduce the cost of the deck even further with 1x Scarlet Webweaver and some neutral bounce effects like Youthful Brewmaster. That would also remove the risk of ever having one Webweaver reduce the cost of the other, and make the tutoring even better, but it might also make the combo slower in a class not known for its long game.
Grim Tutor - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I'd say Beast Caller or Pond Kepper Mrrgluh are your safest bets, because I identify Rallying Imp as a way to speedrun these Mecha'thun Warlocks.
Grim Tutor - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I never did get round to that feedback. Neoguli, I see you've already submitted. If you want feedback anyway, let me know.
Chicky Chick
As for your cards, I prefer Rallying Imp out of the 3. Getting a free draw in a Zoo Build is always good, and the weak stats can be countered, either by reducing the cost or buffing the minion. I like this idea of getting an extra draw, and I think the Imp does it better than the Beast Caller. Pond Caller Mrrgluh feels too close to Ringmaster Whatley to stand out.
Anchorm4n
DestroyerR
FungusABao
LinkBlade91
AngryBadger
Duels Druid
let's give a try, thank you for the guide
Hot take - Blizzard is actually not that bad
That's from the Blizzard ANZ account, not the main Blizzard corporate account. So, yeah, it's possible that they cancelled it when they realized they'd mostly have angry players asking questions they - the ANZ branch - couldn't answer. I'm not sure that reflects unwillingness for Blizzard to communicate so much as it understandably reflects a desire to have the message come from someone higher up. Those people would certainly not have been available, as today is the US national holiday of Thanksgiving.
Auto-Armaments
Oh look, a luggage with tiny legs!
Here's some art, make a card! [Legacy Game]
Make it a card for duels mode
Give C'Thanks Bundle Now Live in the Hearthstone Shop - 2 Random Darkmoon Faire Legendaries + 20 Scholomance Packs
C'Thanks but N'Thanks. I have already invested in the Tavern Pass this expansion, and there aren't enough interesting legendaries in DF for me to want to try my luck.
[Theorycraft] Control Taunt Warrior feat. Armagedillo
Looking forward to update.
Compensation Has Gone Out For Hearthstone Players With Bugged Weekly Quests
The problem with weekly quest is that they aren't on top of previous reward system, they became part of new one, which means we need to do weekly+daily quest to stay with aproximetly same gold gain as before (not just daily).
Half and Half
And here I thought I was pretty clever trying to exploit Mage hero power synergies
Grim Tutor - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I have the same feeling, but I feel like I'm forced to do so if I want feedback myself, I dont know how others think about this. At least I can hope that I helped at least one person. The worst part is that I'm worried that I could give bad advice, and somebody might lose because of me.
Going Against Hearthstone's Meta - Off-Meta Standard Decks for Fun and Glory
I was playing no minion mage this week with Deck of Lunacy thinking that it is a meme card. Guys, it is not, not entirely at least. I'd say Deck of Lunacy is a competitive meme card and you don't even have to fill your deck with cheap spells.
Any tips to fulfill the C`Thun achievement?
Maybe Quest Warlock works too? you can go to fatigue, play the last piece, draw with the hero power and next turn twisting nether + c'thun or brann too if you play wild.