I guess you draw the second card instead if you choose to put the top card on the bottom? The wording of the card doesn't seem to say so but I can't imagine why you would want to bury the top card if there's no draw, unless it's some bomb counter thing.
Seems like not a bad way to "thin out" a deck later on - if you pull a 1-drop you don't really need right then you can just skip it and stick it at the bottom.
I don't think they're intentionally releasing broken cards.
I think they're just idiots.
Just wait out the first weeks after you're done testing half-baked theorcrafts. DH will get yet another nerf probably almost instantly. They have nothing to gain from making a single class the absolute best, even if they attract new players with it. At best those players will stay for 2 more expansions until they get frustrated.
Good point. But with Blingtron, you had to spend a total of 9 mana to get 10 mana. Now you have to spend a total of 5 mana to get 10 mana. And with the sphere you can set it up to have 19 mana in a single turn, but with blingtron you could get at most 15.
Shiny new busted cards to make new players want to play hearthstone, while at the same time making long time players hate playing hearthstone. IDK maybe they think the people coming in will be more than the people leaving, but negativity bias exists for a reason. People remember when they get shit on over and over by DH more than they'll remember winning against them. I will not play this game when the expansion drops. I'm not paying activision for this shit. And i'm not going to play until this class gets fixed. And hopefully others are just like me to make activision finally stop releasing busted cards that are intended to be busted and not fun to play against.
They are completely different pets. You do not need to own the normal Silverwing to use the Sharpsteel Silverwing after unlocking it with the pass.
This. Everything that you see in the event rewards tab will be given to you without any other requirements than buying the pass itself and reaching the correct amount of...petals, is that what they were called?
Yes, they are called petals. And there are some rewards on the event path that you get even regardless of whether or not you bought the pass including a few emotes but none of those freebees are pets.
Fun card for combo decks, you can now guarantee that your win condition is the last card in your deck :^)
I don'T really see any practical use for this, but there might be some decks that really don't want to draw a specific card until they meet some sort of condition, so this might be good for those (like Rogues trying to draw Malygos through Galakrond or something similar).
Enables a guaranteed OTK for Quest Warlock if you put Malygos at the bottom and then hero power into it.
That's pretty cool. This card is certainly pretty hard to utilize properly since you will need deep knowledge of the role of each card in your deck and about your opponent as well. The skill cap on this one is pretty high but it will deeply reward those who take their time to think and are always aware of meta trends.
I have voted on all of these cards, but half of them look like I haven't. When I go to that card's page I can see my vote, but not while I am on this page.
That's probably by far the most interesting Card of the Set!
Not only does it improve your Topdecks greatly, it also, essentually, gets rid of Cards that you don't want in a specific Match Up (Imagine playing as Priest against Aggro, and your t2 Draw is Plague of Death).
Also, ... A Cheap neutral Weapon means that every Class can now play with Pirates.
Since the release of the latest patch, Amalgadon has been my absolute favorite card. I think it’s one of the most well-balanced cards that has been added to Battlegrounds as it can be viable in any board composition but it doesn’t feel oppressive or unfair to play against like Holy Mackerel used to be. Unless you’re playing a Menagerie board, the more “ahead” you are in developing an end-game board (i.e. full board of Murlocs or full board of Dragons), the weaker the card becomes and the more behind you are in building a synergistic board, the stronger the card becomes in hopes of helping you catch up. Looking at HS Replay statistics, Amalgadon is one of the top 3 most impactful minions for every single board composition which makes a lot of sense because it works well with almost every board:
Menagerie: huge buff to Menagerie boards, although still not great by any means they’re much more competitively viable than they were previously. Amalgadon does best when both Murlocs and Mechs are both in play since you can manually add poison or a divine shield if you miss with the adaptations.
Dragons: I think Amalgadon is actually the biggest buff to dragons since it can be a poisonous divine shield minion that gets further buffed by Kalecgos, regain divine shield from Nadina and also help buff your Waxrider by killing enemy minions.
Murlocs: huge buff to murlocs because it can be discovered by Primalfin Lookout at Tier 5 and it can also be buffed and adapted. Also synergizes well with the fact that you often have a Brann on board as well.
Beasts: can be buffed by Goldrinn, Mama Bear and Pack Leader. Downside is that it can interfere with your Monstrous Macaw since it can gain a deathrattle.
Mechs: it doesn’t add much synergy unfortunately and could actually hurt your board by spawning non-mech tokens with the deathrattle and taking up board space. The only upside is that it’ll get buffed by cards like Metaltooth Leaper in case it doesn’t already have poison. It’s a very slight buff to Sneed’s Old Shredder as a 6/6 minion coming out isn’t bad and as a mech minion it’ll also reset your divine shields on Deflect-o-Bot.
Pirates: pretty decent buff to Pirates since it can be used defensively as a big taunt minion (which pirates generally don’t have) or aggressively as an attacker to activate buffs from Ripsnarl Captain and Dread Admiral Eliza. It’s also a buff to Tide Razor since it’s a 6* minion with 6/6 in stats which is an above-average pirate to come out of the boat and deals an extra 6 hero damage if it stays alive.
Demons: slight synergy with demons because it can activate Soul Juggler however the downside is the 1/1 deathrattle spawns could take up board space that would otherwise be filled with voidwalkers from a voidlord. Slight buff to Imp Mama as well since a 6/6 minion is above average.
Some lower tiered heroes that have benefited from Amalgadon:
Alexstrasza – I think this is a slight buff to Alex as discovering this card with the hero power is actually quite impactful since you’re generally rushing to Tier 5 and you may have a bit of a menagerie board at this point anyways if you weren’t able to find strong dragons along the way. Additionally, if you do decide to go dragons
Infinite Toki – huge buff to Toki because it’s a great minion for her to discover with her hero power on turn 5. It’s not like finding a Nadina when you have no dragons or finding a Megasaur with no murlocs, if you find an Amalgadon it’ll generally strengthen your existing board.
Shudderwock – amazing synergy with hero power, enough said.
The following chart was pulled from Twitter and I don’t have the original source of who did the calculations, but here’s the probability of hitting the jackpot with Amalgadon which is getting both poison and divine shield:
Number of adapts = Probability of divine shield and poison
1 = 0.00%
2 = 3.13%
3 = 8.20%
4 = 14.40%
5 = 21.15%
6 = 28.04%
7 = 34.81%
8 = 41.29%
9 = 47.38%
10 = 53.02%
11 = 58.19%
12 = 62.88%
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Here’s one of my favorite games I’ve had with Amalgadon:
First Transfer Student, then Lorekeeper, and now a Neutral Legendary weapon, this expansion is breaking all the molds. Idk how to properly judge this, but I don't think it will see play. There are better ways to cycle through your deck or even tutor what you're looking for where this might be run, but I'm open to this seeing play. We've never seen a Neutral scry-esque effect, so who knows what could come out of it.
I loved Cobalt Spellkin when it was released and I try to find room for that minion in any deck that I want to play cheap spells in.
Being able to generate a 1 mana spell for 2 mana isn't terrible, in fact depending on the class it's really good -
Paladins have their secrets, Mages have the side quests and cheap removal, Rogues have various tools that generate cards, Demon Hunters have Twin Slice and Mana Burn, etc.
But when placing this minion in your deck you'll also need to look at the library of 1 mana spells available to your class and see if there's anything you'd have to be given - like a sidequest that doesn't have synergy with your deck, or a spell that removes all minions from your side of the board.
In a lot of cases it will probably be better to just slot in those 1 drop spells instead of this guy, but if you're looking for spell generation and RNG then he'll be a shoe in for sure
I think this along with Cobalt Spellkin will make it into a Mozaki combo deck where you generate a ton of 1-cost spells and then pop off with Mozaki to kill the opponent. Otherwise, a pretty neat card that also might support some battlecry + spell Shaman deck.
This has good applications against any deck. Against Control you can temporarily get rid of their board clears, win conditions or value cards. Against Combo you can remove one of their defensive cards or one of their key combo pieces after they have used most of their early draw and that is a big setback for them. And against Tempo/Aggro you can remove their finisher cards to buy yourself some extra time or get rid of a card that would fit nicely for their next mana curve which could make their next turn pretty awkward. This card is very versatile and i think that's enough to justify its inclusion in most DH decks.
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
I guess you draw the second card instead if you choose to put the top card on the bottom? The wording of the card doesn't seem to say so but I can't imagine why you would want to bury the top card if there's no draw, unless it's some bomb counter thing.
Seems like not a bad way to "thin out" a deck later on - if you pull a 1-drop you don't really need right then you can just skip it and stick it at the bottom.
Demon hunter class identity.
I don't think they're intentionally releasing broken cards.
I think they're just idiots.
Just wait out the first weeks after you're done testing half-baked theorcrafts. DH will get yet another nerf probably almost instantly. They have nothing to gain from making a single class the absolute best, even if they attract new players with it. At best those players will stay for 2 more expansions until they get frustrated.
New Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience
Good point. But with Blingtron, you had to spend a total of 9 mana to get 10 mana. Now you have to spend a total of 5 mana to get 10 mana. And with the sphere you can set it up to have 19 mana in a single turn, but with blingtron you could get at most 15.
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
A neutral weapon was (kinda) already a thing with Medivh, the Guardian.
New Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience
Blingtron 3000
Demon hunter class identity.
Shiny new busted cards to make new players want to play hearthstone, while at the same time making long time players hate playing hearthstone. IDK maybe they think the people coming in will be more than the people leaving, but negativity bias exists for a reason. People remember when they get shit on over and over by DH more than they'll remember winning against them. I will not play this game when the expansion drops. I'm not paying activision for this shit. And i'm not going to play until this class gets fixed. And hopefully others are just like me to make activision finally stop releasing busted cards that are intended to be busted and not fun to play against.
Question about premium pass rewards
Yes, they are called petals. And there are some rewards on the event path that you get even regardless of whether or not you bought the pass including a few emotes but none of those freebees are pets.
New Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience
Fun card for combo decks, you can now guarantee that your win condition is the last card in your deck :^)
I don'T really see any practical use for this, but there might be some decks that really don't want to draw a specific card until they meet some sort of condition, so this might be good for those (like Rogues trying to draw Malygos through Galakrond or something similar).
Enables a guaranteed OTK for Quest Warlock if you put Malygos at the bottom and then hero power into it.
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
That's pretty cool. This card is certainly pretty hard to utilize properly since you will need deep knowledge of the role of each card in your deck and about your opponent as well. The skill cap on this one is pretty high but it will deeply reward those who take their time to think and are always aware of meta trends.
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
Play Twig, then sphere, then Ultimate INfestation and pick all the best cards. GG ez legend
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
Anyone else find it funny that the expansion to break every design rule under the sun... is the school one?
Then again, this place is run by Kel'Thuzad.
Two New Scholomance Cards Revealed - Secret Passage (Rogue) & Wandmaker
It's waaaaaay better than evocation, it's like a stronger [Hearthstone Card (Soularium) Not Found]
Two New Scholomance Cards Revealed - Secret Passage (Rogue) & Wandmaker
Wow a good card for a class other than demon hunter. I'm actually surprised.
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
All’s I gots to say is:
Scholomance Academy
It looks like this
I have voted on all of these cards, but half of them look like I haven't. When I go to that card's page I can see my vote, but not while I am on this page.
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
That's probably by far the most interesting Card of the Set!
Not only does it improve your Topdecks greatly, it also, essentually, gets rid of Cards that you don't want in a specific Match Up (Imagine playing as Priest against Aggro, and your t2 Draw is Plague of Death).
Also, ... A Cheap neutral Weapon means that every Class can now play with Pirates.
Amalgadon is Best Boy! An Analysis and some thoughts!
Since the release of the latest patch, Amalgadon has been my absolute favorite card. I think it’s one of the most well-balanced cards that has been added to Battlegrounds as it can be viable in any board composition but it doesn’t feel oppressive or unfair to play against like Holy Mackerel used to be. Unless you’re playing a Menagerie board, the more “ahead” you are in developing an end-game board (i.e. full board of Murlocs or full board of Dragons), the weaker the card becomes and the more behind you are in building a synergistic board, the stronger the card becomes in hopes of helping you catch up. Looking at HS Replay statistics, Amalgadon is one of the top 3 most impactful minions for every single board composition which makes a lot of sense because it works well with almost every board:
Menagerie: huge buff to Menagerie boards, although still not great by any means they’re much more competitively viable than they were previously. Amalgadon does best when both Murlocs and Mechs are both in play since you can manually add poison or a divine shield if you miss with the adaptations.
Dragons: I think Amalgadon is actually the biggest buff to dragons since it can be a poisonous divine shield minion that gets further buffed by Kalecgos, regain divine shield from Nadina and also help buff your Waxrider by killing enemy minions.
Murlocs: huge buff to murlocs because it can be discovered by Primalfin Lookout at Tier 5 and it can also be buffed and adapted. Also synergizes well with the fact that you often have a Brann on board as well.
Beasts: can be buffed by Goldrinn, Mama Bear and Pack Leader. Downside is that it can interfere with your Monstrous Macaw since it can gain a deathrattle.
Mechs: it doesn’t add much synergy unfortunately and could actually hurt your board by spawning non-mech tokens with the deathrattle and taking up board space. The only upside is that it’ll get buffed by cards like Metaltooth Leaper in case it doesn’t already have poison. It’s a very slight buff to Sneed’s Old Shredder as a 6/6 minion coming out isn’t bad and as a mech minion it’ll also reset your divine shields on Deflect-o-Bot.
Pirates: pretty decent buff to Pirates since it can be used defensively as a big taunt minion (which pirates generally don’t have) or aggressively as an attacker to activate buffs from Ripsnarl Captain and Dread Admiral Eliza. It’s also a buff to Tide Razor since it’s a 6* minion with 6/6 in stats which is an above-average pirate to come out of the boat and deals an extra 6 hero damage if it stays alive.
Demons: slight synergy with demons because it can activate Soul Juggler however the downside is the 1/1 deathrattle spawns could take up board space that would otherwise be filled with voidwalkers from a voidlord. Slight buff to Imp Mama as well since a 6/6 minion is above average.
Some lower tiered heroes that have benefited from Amalgadon:
Alexstrasza – I think this is a slight buff to Alex as discovering this card with the hero power is actually quite impactful since you’re generally rushing to Tier 5 and you may have a bit of a menagerie board at this point anyways if you weren’t able to find strong dragons along the way. Additionally, if you do decide to go dragons
Infinite Toki – huge buff to Toki because it’s a great minion for her to discover with her hero power on turn 5. It’s not like finding a Nadina when you have no dragons or finding a Megasaur with no murlocs, if you find an Amalgadon it’ll generally strengthen your existing board.
Shudderwock – amazing synergy with hero power, enough said.
The following chart was pulled from Twitter and I don’t have the original source of who did the calculations, but here’s the probability of hitting the jackpot with Amalgadon which is getting both poison and divine shield:
Number of adapts = Probability of divine shield and poison
1 = 0.00%
2 = 3.13%
3 = 8.20%
4 = 14.40%
5 = 21.15%
6 = 28.04%
7 = 34.81%
8 = 41.29%
9 = 47.38%
10 = 53.02%
11 = 58.19%
12 = 62.88%
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Here’s one of my favorite games I’ve had with Amalgadon:
https://youtu.be/ElbdeuZfI98
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
Anything slower than Midrange will arguably include this card in their decks.
This is also a very skilled card, since you have to evaluate VERY carefully, as the replaced card is not just reshuffled, but goes directly to bottom.
New Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience
First Transfer Student, then Lorekeeper, and now a Neutral Legendary weapon, this expansion is breaking all the molds. Idk how to properly judge this, but I don't think it will see play. There are better ways to cycle through your deck or even tutor what you're looking for where this might be run, but I'm open to this seeing play. We've never seen a Neutral scry-esque effect, so who knows what could come out of it.
New Neutral Minion - Wandmaker
I loved Cobalt Spellkin when it was released and I try to find room for that minion in any deck that I want to play cheap spells in.
Being able to generate a 1 mana spell for 2 mana isn't terrible, in fact depending on the class it's really good -
Paladins have their secrets, Mages have the side quests and cheap removal, Rogues have various tools that generate cards, Demon Hunters have Twin Slice and Mana Burn, etc.
But when placing this minion in your deck you'll also need to look at the library of 1 mana spells available to your class and see if there's anything you'd have to be given - like a sidequest that doesn't have synergy with your deck, or a spell that removes all minions from your side of the board.
In a lot of cases it will probably be better to just slot in those 1 drop spells instead of this guy, but if you're looking for spell generation and RNG then he'll be a shoe in for sure
Custom Class - Time Traveler (Updated February 17th - Return to Naxxramas added!)
Scry! It's in the game!
We're Getting a Collectible Neutral Weapon - Sphere of Sapience! Scholomance Academy is Crazy
MRGL MRGL MRGL MRGL
(Neutral Weapons Poggers!)
New Rogue Spell - Secret Passage
Pretty cool pseudo-refill that also synerigizes with Rogue's ability to shuffle cards into their deck, I like!
New Neutral Minion - Wandmaker
I think this along with Cobalt Spellkin will make it into a Mozaki combo deck where you generate a ton of 1-cost spells and then pop off with Mozaki to kill the opponent. Otherwise, a pretty neat card that also might support some battlecry + spell Shaman deck.
Star Student Stelina is a New Demon Hunter Legendary Revealed for Hearthstone's Scholomance Academy Expansion
This has good applications against any deck. Against Control you can temporarily get rid of their board clears, win conditions or value cards. Against Combo you can remove one of their defensive cards or one of their key combo pieces after they have used most of their early draw and that is a big setback for them. And against Tempo/Aggro you can remove their finisher cards to buy yourself some extra time or get rid of a card that would fit nicely for their next mana curve which could make their next turn pretty awkward. This card is very versatile and i think that's enough to justify its inclusion in most DH decks.