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  • The Cupcake Card Back (April 2015 Ranked Reward) Appears to be Returning to the Hearthstone Shop

    Did they alredy put it for sale? i was playing since scholomance launch and it never showed up in my shop, did they actually don't relauched it or my game trolled me and i losed it?

  • Earn 2 Free Scholomance Academy Packs Through Twitch Drops Next Week During the Hearthstone Inn-vitational

    If you're interested

    Yes, yes I am.

    Packs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Does Riot really have a plan for this game?

    Quote From Nifty129

    I'm probably going to be in the minority here but I feel like a lot of the cards being introduced seem a little under the power level required to be playable. 

    I usually don't do those kind of posts anymore as i quickly realized from past experiences that players don't like negativism/realism related to new cards/content. So those posts, even when accurate, will often be downvoted to oblivium. And God help you when you get one wrong... your sentence is being flamed to death!

    That being said, the new cards might work but i also share the thought most of them are not powerfull enough to see competitive play.
    So i'll stick alongside with you on this one Nifty. Take my upvote at the very least ;)

     

  • Does Riot really have a plan for this game?

    Yeah, I do think that LoR does have a problem with introducing lots of mechanics, and I think it comes out of them trying to faithfully translate the LoL champions into LoR. For example, the Spellshield keyword seems to exist mainly because several champions in LoL have Spellshield abilities, rather than because the developers thought it would be a good keyword. I think that Spellshield is an okay keyword, but given than it's basically just a worse barrier in 90% of cases, I think the decision to include it was based in large part to it being necessary to translate LoL mechanics into LoR. Champions also disrupt region identity because in cases like Vladimir, they break region identity in favor of fulfilling the theme of the champion (Vladimir has Drain, while no other Noxus cards have Drain and Healing is meant to be a weakness of Noxus). For the most part this hasn't become a huge problem yet, but as they add champions whose themes contrast with the identity of their region they'll have to make sacrifices in either the theme of the champions or the identity of the region. 

  • Hearthstone Patch 18.0.2 is Now Live! Kael'thas & Illucia Nerfs, Battlegrounds Updates, and Bugfixes

    I have a question about Galakrond's Hero Power: If I refresh the board when only one minion is frozen, will the frozen minion stay? I am pretty sure it won't, but I just want to be sure.

  • MTG Arena Deal Alert - Get 500 Extra Gold for "Free" Today in MTG Arena (Requires 50 Gold)

    Grabbed Ayara too!  Good card that I think will shine after rotation and it's too pretty to pass up.

  • Brawl Haul - Evolving our Creatures with Prime Speaker Vannifar

    Spent some gold today on 3 packs, pulled this lovely elfy ooze from it!  Glad you had this guide up because I'm going to see what I can build around her as well and you bet I'm going to cherry pick your ideas.

  • Hearthstone Patch 18.0.2 is Now Live! Kael'thas & Illucia Nerfs, Battlegrounds Updates, and Bugfixes

    Sadly, Reno Jackson's Hero power worked the same way as before for me. 

  • Does Riot really have a plan for this game?

    I'm probably going to be in the minority here but I feel like a lot of the cards being introduced seem a little under the power level required to be playable. I think troll dude is probably bad because ramp is unplayable right now, support synergy is interesting but again no good support cards other then chef, and nightfall is really going to need bilgewater for warning shot which is a little disappointing. 

  • Does Riot really have a plan for this game?

    Welcome back! 
    Your post is pretty much Spot On Meisterz.

    Just 2 points i want to discuss:

    Quote From meisterz39
    • A much more significant emphasis put on the Support mechanic (which I always felt was one of the more interesting - yet least utilized - mechanics in the game)

    Personally, i am a bit worried the new Support cards might be a bit too hard to balance.
    If the support units have too little stats, they will be too undewhelming and see no play; but if they have a bit too much, might become a tempo problem that needs answers as soon as they hit the field or will snowball out of control. 
    With the lack of cheap removals and only a few regions having acess to decent board clear spells, Snowball cards are way more dangerous in LOR then any other CCG.


    Quote From meisterz39

    Ultimately, I fear this reflects a continued reality with Riot's dev process, where they feel like they can constantly dump a lot of new content because they're constantly rebalancing the game. It's a philosophy that seems to emphasize "exciting new content" over "fun, balanced gameplay." In that way, it feels like there's a certainly lack of ownership in the quality of the initial work, and that bothers me.

    I agree dumping too much new content at once is bad. But given what we see on patch notes, i don't think they are getting out of their philosophy.
    I believe they must be satisfied about the balance subject right now, so most of their work can be focused on other priorities like developing new content to attract players, don't you think?

    I also believe one of Riot's goals is to make sure every Champion has at least 1 playable deck to call it home.
    And IMHO, they did a spectacular job on that regard! (Vladimir aside).

  • Does Riot really have a plan for this game?

    So, I definitely meant the title question rhetorically. They clearly have a lot of plans for the game, but it feels to me like the lack discipline in their approach to game development and balance.

    I don't mean to suggest that either MTG or Hearthstone do a perfect job at balance, but there are a couple of things which I think they do consistently (even if they make mistakes from time to time with individual cards) that help to ensure some balance at the start of a metagame:

    • They focus on a small set of new mechanics
    • With the exception of adding Demon Hunter, they work within their existing colors/classes to find an expression of those new mechanics in each

    The former is important because when you add too much new stuff, you're left reinventing the wheel every time you try to balance the game. The latter is important because it helps iron out the identity of each color/class in the game.

    Regarding your specific examples, while I don't think the Ashes of Outland example is fair, I think Galakrond (and even Death Knights before it) is a prime example of the sorts of bad behaviors I'm talking about.

    So first, with Ashes of Outland, Blizzard needed Demon Hunter to be super powerful to make it attractive to players and bring people back into the game. Oddly enough, due to the seismic nature of adding a new class after years of having only nine classes, this is one of few times where I think an emphasis on fun, exciting new content over balance makes sense. That LoR wants the same kind of thing (i.e. adding new regions) to be commonplace with updates only further demonstrates what I mean - they're constantly designing in a way that will create chaotic balance. There was a lot of fear that Demon Hunter wouldn't have enough of a unique class identity. Riot risks that all the time.

    For Galakrond, and Death Knights before it, I think Blizzard presented it as a single mechanic (A new "Death Knight" mechanic, the "Galakrond package" for E.V.I.L classes). By imagining that it was some single mechanic, they fooled themselves into thinking they were in that typical expansion world where they were adding one or two shared mechanics across classes. But because each of those heroes were so different in practice (with Galakrond Shaman being particularly unfair from a tempo perspective), the balance was way off. That's what Highlander Shadowreaper Priest was such a butcher for so long. Again, this is something Riot seems to do by design - giving different regions wildly different mechanics and hoping it will shape up into a balanced metagame. The thinking seems to be: Pick a Champion -> Pick mechanics that support the "fantasy" of that Champion -> Add those to the identity of the Champion's region even if it doesn't really fit pre-existing identities. This pattern will always emphasize adding tons of new stuff that may or may not fit well into the game as it is.

    In a perfect CCG, the metagame wouldn't be determined by a buff/nerf cycle, but rather by creative deck-building to answer the top tier decks. That doesn't happen perfectly anywhere, but I do believe Riot's nerf/buff cycles weaken deck-building for all but the most dedicated players. Their goal is to ensure every region gets to shine at the top of the tier list for a while, and that every champion is eventually in a good deck, but they do that by frequently tweaking the meta themselves. Sometimes this is done in small ways, but other times (like the major Epic overhaul) it's a big change to how cards work. I can already see that coming for "Behold" - the number of 8+ drops you'd need to run to consistently land your "Behold" synergies on curve is too high to make a viable deck.

    The game is always going to need to add new mechanics, and that was especially true with Bilgewater since the game was so new. But at this point, Riot has already added a lot of mechanics to the game that they can play around with and explore - things like Challenger, Freeze, Barrier, Vulnerable, Quick Attack, and Regeneration. But because they spend so much time and effort exploring new mechanics instead of playing around with the design space available with these older mechanics, it's entirely unclear that they've mastered balancing them to a level where they'd be able effectively balance a new card like Uzgar the Ancient (which features two of those core mechanics). There are lots of interesting ways to play around with these ([Hearthstone Card (Caught in the Cold) Not Found] is a decent example), but that's not where they seem to want to spend their time, so the game is caught on a sort of balance roller coaster.

  • The Felosophy Bundle - Get 2 Scholomance Legendaries, 10 Year of the Dragon Packs, and 10 Ashes of Outland Packs for $20

    Shut up and take my money. 

  • Hearthstone Patch 18.0.2 is Now Live! Kael'thas & Illucia Nerfs, Battlegrounds Updates, and Bugfixes

    That Megasaur removal is huge!

  • The Felosophy Bundle - Get 2 Scholomance Legendaries, 10 Year of the Dragon Packs, and 10 Ashes of Outland Packs for $20

    Archwitch Willow & Star Student Stelina as the free legendaries. Not the legendaries i was hoping for, but I also got  Lucentbark, Shu'ma, Lady Vashj and Lady Liadrin from the packs. I'm very happy.

  • Brawl Haul - Evolving our Creatures with Prime Speaker Vannifar

    Absolutely! I'm going to see if there's any Commanders that are rotating out soon and cover them first, but if there's none that interesting, I'll make sure to cover Thassa before the new expansion drops.

  • Nocturne is the Newest Legends of Runeterra Shadow Isles Champion Coming in Call of the Mountain (5 New Cards Revealed!)

    You meant fearsome

  • The Felosophy Bundle - Get 2 Scholomance Legendaries, 10 Year of the Dragon Packs, and 10 Ashes of Outland Packs for $20

    they don't of course, they are separate thing

    but

    from my past observations they do follow the no duplicate rule, so the 2 legendaries you will get from the bundle will be the ones you have not yet opened from packs

  • The Felosophy Bundle - Get 2 Scholomance Legendaries, 10 Year of the Dragon Packs, and 10 Ashes of Outland Packs for $20

    Naah, I'll pass.

  • The Felosophy Bundle - Get 2 Scholomance Legendaries, 10 Year of the Dragon Packs, and 10 Ashes of Outland Packs for $20

    Staff Pro

    Super awesome to hear!

  • The Felosophy Bundle - Get 2 Scholomance Legendaries, 10 Year of the Dragon Packs, and 10 Ashes of Outland Packs for $20

    Staff Pro

    That. Is. AWESOME! Congrats on the sweet loot

  • Tell me about the current state of Hearthstone - Good time to return?

    Quote From kaladin

     

    My issues with LoR are many. 

    • Lack of card variety means many cards are simply unplayable and decks feel all the same.
    • Heavy reliance on Champions as win conditions means a lack of variety in deck archetypes. 
    • Low health + no overheal + large deck size = aggro is king and control is mostly non existent or heavily reliant on good RNG card draw.  I realize this is likely by design, as it is in most card games (because if control is consistently good, everyone will play control), but it's just far too prevalent in LoR.
    • Following up on the last point, there isn't really any good AOE or removal for early game. 
    • No summoning sickness means if you fall behind in tempo, you're behind pretty much the entire game. 
    • Straight up broken cards (don't remember the name, but the one that gives "cannot take damage or die")
    • Event rewards are both very difficult to acquire and not even worth the effort. 
    • Cannot buy cool cosmetics except through real money (what am I supposed to do with 45k shards and 35 Expedition tokens??)

    What are the BGs perks that you have to pay for?  I thought it was a free mode.

    The BGs perks are:

    - You can choose between 4 heroes instead of 2 at the start

    - You can use emotes

    - You can see your statistics

    - I believe you also get 4 arena tickets

     

    I have to admit, most of the issues you're having with LoR are not ones I'm experiencing (or at least not a lot), and I also think some are just present because the game is still pretty new. Though it is important to note that I mainly play casual play and labs because I don't care about ranking up.

     

  • New Shadow Isles Spell - Unspeakable Horror

    Quote From FortyDust

    Often better than Vile Feast unless you care about spiders. Nightfall units aren't great, but a card's a card. (And if you have the mana to play the unit immediately, you've already got the trigger.)

    Then again, you have to plan more carefully to be sure you get the Nightfall value, so bad players may struggle to use it well.

    Here I was thinking Vile Feast was better ~80% of the time, as you're guaranteed a free 1/1 which often makes a good chump blocker.  For Unspeakable Horror: sometimes yes you'll get a consequential unit which you'll value more than a spiderling, but other times you'll get a something that you just plan to chump block with anyways, except now you have to spend non-spell mana and your action to summon it.

    The one big "upside" I see is that there aren't many nightfall units announced yet--so far, just Stygian Onlooker, Doombeast, Duskrider, and Nocturne--so if that's it for the Aug 26 release, any Nocturne decks practically need to run this card just to get more units to level him.

  • Hearthstone Patch 18.0.2 is Now Live! Kael'thas & Illucia Nerfs, Battlegrounds Updates, and Bugfixes

    finally, I'm free from the arcane cannon! 

  • New Shadow Isles Spell - Risen Mists

    Quote From FortyDust

    "Mistwraiths are great! Fearsome isn't that OP."

    A FEW WEEKS LATER: "Uh, guys, I think we have to nerf Mistwraiths."

    A FEW MONTHS LATER: "Mistwraiths are great! Fearsome isn't that OP. Let's give the players Mistwraiths at Burst speed!"

    To be fair, the nerf was to Wraithcaller, because 6+ damage with fearsome on turn 4 is usually very punishing.  Mistwraith hasn't seen much play since that change, implying the value of that incarnation was relying heavily on that Round 4 power swing.

    4 mana for a 2/2 is pretty bad by itself, so obviously you're banking heavily on the Mistwraith boon.  I guess the question becomes: are you an aggressive deck that's trying to chip in a lot of early damage via fearsome attackers, or are you a value deck that's trying to juice the biggest attack bonus you can?

  • The Felosophy Bundle - Get 2 Scholomance Legendaries, 10 Year of the Dragon Packs, and 10 Ashes of Outland Packs for $20

    Shadowjeweler Hanar, Fel Lord Betrug, Hack the System from packs, Forest Warden Omu and Headmaster Kel'Thuzad free legendaries, 6 epics including one golden. Good value.