It wasn't the standard because you're now required to have a 9 mana setup turn where before you could play Thaurissan alone and be left with 4 mana to do anything with, such as Dark Skies before the Thaurissan for safety. Which is why I said "in some sense the deck got better". It's not strictly better because of the 9 mana setup, but at least it's not a complete, unambiguous downside. The Warlock no longer needs to pay health for the combo, so getting low doesn't prevent you from going off.
With regards to Demon Hunter, I'm very happy with the Battlefiend nerf. I think Altruis the Outcast shouldn't do face damage with its ability, but the mana nerf is appreciated. I think Glaivebound Adept needed a mana nerf more than an attack nerf.
I still think Priestess of Fury needs a health nerf to at least 5. And finally, Twin Slice should be nerfed to 1 mana, while KEEPING Second Slice at 0. It's NOT a twinspell! Triggering both for free is broken, even with the Altruis the Outcast nerf.
Bloodbloom killing Darkest Hour is a beauty to behold and as mentioned by others, Drakkari Enchanter will just take its place in Mechathun to achieve the same effect. Plus, it will no longer cost Warlocks health to pull their combo off, so in some sense, the deck got better because it's less sensitive to pressure than it was before. An excellent nerf on all accounts. It is sad though, that any use Bloodbloom ever saw was specifically in these two combo decks. It was such a neat trick to do on Kazakus potions, Twisting Nethers, Rin rituals, but it never seemed to catch on with anyone but me from what I've seen. We had some good times together Bloodbloom. You'll be missed. Darkest Hour won't though.
If the deck got "better" by now having to use Drakkari Enchanter, then why wasn't that the standard list in the first place? Mecha'Thun is dead, stop believing otherwise. They nerfed a good, balanced and fair deck all because of Darkest Hour. Darkest Hour should have received the nerf, Bloodbloom was never the problem.
Open the Waygate - Are you fucking kidding me? Upping this to 10 spells still wouldn't have been enough. This MIGHT slow down the deck by only 1 turn. This nerf really shows they have no idea about Wild.
Bloodbloom - RIP Mecha'thun Warlock. To anyone saying "Just use Drakkari Enchanter", you don't know what you're talking about. That is not a replacement that will just slip in and not effect the win rate of the deck. Mecha'thunlock has been murdered for the sins of Darkest Hour.
The rest are "fine"
The Libram of Justice buff really just feels like "see, we're still doing buffs" and really is going to do nothing for the state of Paladin.
The 1 mana tap prevents you from running Kobold Librarians, which are 1 mana taps with a body, Mortal Coils, which are 1 mana taps with removal without the face damage, Dark Skies, which double as both AoE and spot removal, Godfrey, which is a cheaper Twisting Nether with a body, then there's Plague of Flames...yes, Drakkari Enchanter will take Bloodbloom's slot in most Mechathun Warlocks because those are way stronger than the Even variant. And given that Mechathun Warlock apparently hangs around at tier 4 according to the latest meta snapshot, that'd mean the Even variant is somewhere in tier 5 at best.
Hi everyone, i'm really a big fan of Yasuo and have been using him for dozens of games, but I found that there is no Yasuo deck is competitive enough to climb. The thing is every deck revolves around Yasuo relies too much on him, which means it'll be fun and safe if you have him on board, but if not, you're gonna be totally destroyed by any other aggro or control deck. And the other champions in Noxus and Ionia doesn't work really well with him, not even Kat in my opinion. This Swain seems very promising to me, as he synergies pretty well with Yasuo, also being based on Stun and non-combat damage. So, should I invest on him? (I dont have lots of shards). And what deck do you think will be good for 2 of them? I'm thinking about a control Yasuo deck, using Blade's Edge, Legion Saboteur and Imperial Demolitionist to deal non-combat damage to trigger the effects.
It's not like you were doing a whole lot with your turn in the old model after spending 6 mana on Thaurissan. Playing a couple Novice Engineers, Loot Hoarders, or tapping after dropping him is more or less like a 9 mana do nothing turn. Whether you were spending 6 mana or 9 mana you could also always drop a Plague of Flames first, dealing with all or some of your threats. I really don't think the mana difference in this scenario is as big of an issue as it's being made to seem.
Also keep in mind Mecha'Thun is most likely winning against control decks and other otk decks, and generally losing to aggro and midrange. Spending 9 mana to drop a high priority target 5/5 and a 1/5 usually isn't that punishing against slow decks. In most slow matches if you lost the game playing 9 mana in a turn for a single setup turn then you usually lost that game in normal scenarios pre-nerf. Having 3 extra mana for one setup turn wasn't that amazing in slow games.
To everyone saying -1 attack for a DH card here, minus one there, isn't enough, bare in mind that multiple nerfs are happening to the class at once, which does add up in reducing both their speed and damage output in standard (DH in wild is just epic lul compared to the defensive tools we have).
So if you look at just one of the nerfs in a vacuum it may not seem like a lot remember that their early game, mid game, and even late game have all been nerfed in one batch.
Drakkari Enchanter will never replace Bloodbloom, because it costs 3. The whole thing about Mecha'thun-lock was playing the even build. I'd rather run 2 Galvanizer than the Enchanter to still keep the deck even cost. That 1-mana tap is too important.
It's actually a bigger inconvenience than you're giving it credit for. Remember, you are doing next to nothing (both tempo-wise and survivability-wise) when you are dinking around generating random spells, the one caveat for this statement being when you discover a discounted spell you can play right away.
This means that aggro and midrange, control to an obvious lesser degree, are able to pressure your face. Spending mana simply to add more mana (cards) to your hand affects the game in no way until you get average or good cards and start spending that mana to deal with the opponent's threats.
A really good example of this is that 5 mana generate 3 spells card (Cabalist's Tome?). Why do you think most non-Quest non-otk mage decks didn't use that? One reason is because you spent so much mana at the end of the day, essentially doing nothing but generating and adding cards to your hand, that you massively fell behind on board and were at that much more risk to dying.
Tl;dr - At the end of the day you spend mana to add more cards that cost mana to your hand, which again you have to spend quickly. Adding 2 additional spells to that actually is a big deal because it slows you down a lot and makes you more at risk for dying if you don't just generate cheap spells 100% of the time.
Then he'd just destroy any control deck, and being in an evergreen set that's not good.
At the moment, his only weakness is that he's a 9 mana equip a 3/8 weapon. Take that away and Lord Jaraxxus will legit be in contention in every warlock deck right now.
So, have anyone figured out a use for this card? I opened her on launch and have no idea if there's any way at all I can play her. That 3 health is an insult for such a cool concept. Compared to Waxadred it's worse in every single way.
I agree--they definitely misfired on this card. Don't feel too sorry for yourself for opening her, though--there are a LOT of bad legendaries in this set. Myself, I've opened Megtherdon, Reliquary of Souls, and Bulwark so far.
yeah I hope so, I had nice versions of quest warlock or big warlock when the extension came out, could be cool if they became viable.
I was talking about Jaraxxus cause apparently it was a reason for the nerf of sac pact : people couldn't play Jaraxxus cause Zephrys would insta kill them....
I have been playing with this in a Deathrattle Priest and it's perfectly fine. The card is really slow and should never be played on curve (unless you are ahead). But combining it with Priest's many copying effects works really well. Grave Rune is really strong on Al'ar. Psyche Split and Shadowy Figure are fine as well. It won some games but even when my opponents managed to completely get rid of it they still had to waste quite a few attacks and spells on it. It's annoying. Just like Priest.
Al'ar is a niche card. It exists for very specific decks and does well in those (but sucks everywhere else). As long as there are synergies available, you can make good use of it. It's fun as well. It's similar to Shu'ma. That card also looked awful but it found a spot in Quest Hunter and proved its viability as a niche card for token decks.
I was just about to add my 2 cents to Open the Waygate's nerf - as increasing the spell count by 2, do very little to actually slow Mage's win condition(s) - then I saw your comment summing it up admirably, so instead of a rant, +1 ^^
Hm. Well...let's take it from the top. The below only applies to Wild.
Kael'thas Sunstrider is pretty much a non-factor already at 6. Few experimental builds use it, there are some nifty shenanigans to be done in Druid but that's about it and even those can generally just switch to a Psychmelon Aviana Kun plan to achieve the same thing faster as is. DH has better decks than the OTK in Wild. The only reason it bore considering was that DH had very little to offer outside of straight aggro, and Inner Demon was the only thing that showed promise. Since the OTK is too slow and unreliable for wild at 6, it's outright useless on 7, when most decks are slinging big meaty taunts or cheating the mana curve to victory by then. So essentially, this does not really impact Wild much.
Bad Luck Albatross now feels right where it should be. Odd decks won't be slamming it down just for the body and tempo with additional screwage on top, now it's a conscious decision to include the card to counter the meta or simply slow opponents down with some dead draw. While it's sad that it might now be too slow for some control Deathrattle builds like Quest Priest, it's better for everyone if this isn't as efficient. I would have preferred a nerf in stats over the nerf in mana though just for Awaken the Makers completion, potential Grave Rune shenanigans for those who like copying the bastard, etc. The important part is that it's getting nerfed at least, though.
Frenzied Felwing isn't really getting hit where it hurts IMO. The problem isn't the difficulty to remove. The problem is the ability to pile this thing up along with other threats early, so that you can't focus on just killing this, you have other problems to deal with alongside it. The proper way to hit it would be through mana, not stats, and least of all health. Nerf its attack, the pressure isn't as high. Nerf its cost, it's harder to pile on the pressure in the first place. Nerf its health and...what? If someone cheated this thing out anyway, it means they had the pressure and the damage output to do so. There are other problems on the board other than what is now a 3/2. And while yes, Consecration and Holy Nova type board clears do kill it now, chances are those weren't good enough to kill the associated problems in the first place so they're about as unattractive of a solution as they were previously. About the only thing the health nerf helps I'd say is Rogue's backstab and unupgraded Druid Spellstone. Not exactly the in-vogue classes at the moment and Felwing isn't the reason.
Altruis the Outcast nerf I'm ok with. If they want to make DH the new Rogue and forget that Rogue was supposed to be one with all the tempo, fine, it's stupid but that's their prerogative. I'd just prefer them not to create a better Odd Rogue. Taking Altruis out of the Odd slot definitely helps in reducing the amount of shit you have to play around against that deck, which is welcome. And while Altruis isn't really as powerful in Odd decks as it is in normal DH decks that can make use of 0 cost cards, the slowdown in speed does make the damage the card can cause just a little bit less threatening, as it makes it harder to play it along with other cards. That might be 1 less damage your board and face have to take and that might be all that's needed to decide the game.
The Battlefiend change is big. Like really big. It's not the fact that it ends up doing 1 less face damage every turn it sticks on the board. It's all about the trades. Previously, a DH going first could drop this down and if you coin a 2/3, they can easily just ignore and go face the turn after because they know you'll do the trade yourself. Now, they have to slam their face and the fiend into the 2/3 just so they aren't forced to hero power your remaining 2/1 the turn after, or worse yet, so you can't heal it if you're priest and seize control of the board for yourself. And if they do just Eye Beam whatever 2/3 you played, well, you've saved yourself some face damage and forced out an outcasted removal for your trouble. Previously, they'd likely save the Eye Beam for something more problematic later, go face and pile the pressure on with another Battlefiend or 1 drop.
Glaivebound Adept....not so much. The cost and the battlecry stayed the same, meaning the reach is there, the tempo is there, the Odd requirement is there and whether it fucks up your face for 6 or 7 the next turn is hardly relevant. If it's minions it's hitting, these die to 6 or 7 damage at that point either way. If it's your face, well, the game is pretty much done regardless because their massive aggressive 5 drop stuck around and got to attack you with impunity. Now if that was a 6 drop, I bet you'd be able to prevent that from occurring. Not as easy to do on 5 mana. The attack here, while painful, isn't as decisive as the timing of the battlecry. A 4 damage battlecry kills most 4 drops or some 5 drops with help from hero power. But a 4 damage battlecry will not nearly as reliably kill 5 or 6 drops. Delaying Glaivebound Adept by a turn would be the decider in whether there's something on the board after the battlecry to kill the Adept before it swings in. And with Adept at 5, there just won't be. So the problem remains and the card will continue to overperform.
Sacrificial Pact is good riddance IMO. There was no reason for that card to hold back Jaraxxus in the first place, but that hasn't been particularly relevant in Wild one way or another. Sitting at a cap of 15 is asking for death since around GvG. But the ability to counter opposing Demons for exactly no mana, get a heal from it to add insult to the injury, on a card that implies a pact with the demon that wasn't even yours...pretty much every part of that card being able to target enemies was a violation. In flavour, in design, in balance. And the fact Zephrys gave access to it to non-Warlock classes just exacerbated the issue. Now the card will be played as intended...in Demon decks, where it will do just fine popping Voidcallers and preventing transformations on Voidlords.
Bloodbloom killing Darkest Hour is a beauty to behold and as mentioned by others, Drakkari Enchanter will just take its place in Mechathun to achieve the same effect. Plus, it will no longer cost Warlocks health to pull their combo off, so in some sense, the deck got better because it's less sensitive to pressure than it was before. An excellent nerf on all accounts. It is sad though, that any use Bloodbloom ever saw was specifically in these two combo decks. It was such a neat trick to do on Kazakus potions, Twisting Nethers, Rin rituals, but it never seemed to catch on with anyone but me from what I've seen. We had some good times together Bloodbloom. You'll be missed. Darkest Hour won't though.
The Libram buff is pretty nice, actually, and makes the card a fairly attractive option for Paladins even without the Libram synergy cards. At this point, you're paying one extra mana over Equality to only kill your opponent's side of the board (which is massive) and you get a 1/4 weapon to help poke down some targets yourself, making it, essentially, a kill spell too if you're really desperate for one. That's a pretty good deal if you ask me.
Now with Open the Waygate, I'd say the nerf is actually a bigger deal than it seems. Judging from the opposing side, it seems like the Mage can do 6, 8, 10 of these spells easily and it doesn't make a difference. But the grass is always greener on the other side. It takes personal experience playing the deck to find out how close the quest completion timings can actually get. I'll admit, the Quest Mage build I run is far from the norm, I don't run Flamewakers, Questing Explorers, Banana Buffoons or Licensed Adventurers, so I don't have data for the more typical examples of Quest Mage. Mine is built more to account for a broader portion of the meta. But from my experience laddering with my version this season, if I win, about 4 times out of 6 I complete the quest just one turn before they're either about to kill me or get out of my damage range. Which means about every 4 wins out of 6 that I got would now be losses instead. And while it often seems that the Mage could easily pound out two more spells with that Apprentice they got on the board, it is quite often that you run out of cheap generated spells right around the time the quest reaches 6. Quite frequently you just crest the magical 6 and the other stuff left in your hand are Flamestrikes and Pyroblasts and Cabalist's Tomes and other shit that's way too expensive to use. So delaying the quest by these two cards can quite drastically impact the winrate of that deck even if it may not look like it. That does not, unfortunately, change the fact that Quest Mage will still bully slow, value-oriented control decks, because those don't apply enough pressure for the 2 extra spells to make a difference. Unless the control deck can just wall up hard against the onslaught of giants, nothing is going to save it from Quest Mage whether it takes them two extra turns or not. The difference is though, that with Quest Mage's matchup against aggro getting worse now, Quest Mage is likely to drop in popularity. Which means those enjoying value games, your DMH Warriors, Deathrattle Rogues, Taunt Druids etc. Those will now have much more space to breathe because the SMOrc players will be making Quest Mage's lives miserable. I guess we'll all, for once, be grateful for the existence of mindless face decks, if I'm right.
Oh, and RIP Millhouse. The main reason he was miserable to play in BGs before the buff was that all of his gold totals were extremely awkward. Tavern-ups cost the wrong amounts at wrong turns, his coins just never lined up right, he was always floating gold left and right and getting his ass kicked in the process because of these inefficiencies. Them giving him the normal amount of gold fixed all that. Everything lined up, he could always buy the right amount of minions to keep up and could tavern at the right times to fill out odd gold amounts (cause rolling and buying costs an even amount of gold, odd gold turns were always inefficient). Now, with all taverns costing one more, he gets to buy in the same way he did until now, which means his early boards can be just as sizeable as they are now but now the tavern-ups don't line up anymore, in fact they line up just as badly as they did when he had less gold than everyone else. Like before, they now interfere with his ability to spend his odd gold amounts, it is once again an issue for him to find a convenient and efficient time to tavern up And unlike his previous shortage of gold, the additional tavern costs continue to be a problem even when he reaches 10 gold. So my guess is he's going right back to being the worst hero in the battlegrounds or at last will rank along heroes like Jaraxxus and Galakrond as one of those you just can't expect to do well with most of the time.
Yeah, her lore is actually kind of interesting with Vi. Hope they develop that more.
I mean last time we heard something new about jinx as far as I know is the heimer/ziggs comic and it didn't help with her back story it was teased since her release Vi is her sister.. and the reason why she is crazy is unknown.. what I know is that the arcane series should put some light into this.
Edit: Jinx is VI's sister confirmed since 2017 it seems.. not a big surprise though.
Lord Jaraxxus needs to become a hero card.. the reduction to 15 hp is the thing holding it back.. yes now it's playable kind of.. still would play galakround 9/10 times instead of jaraxxus
it's the first hero card in the game.. can't they.. change him to be like that? I know it got some interactions from being generated as a demon.. but the card is outdated and it could use some new design.. I mean why a win condition hero card is counterable by cards such as dirty rat?
Also I am disappointed it took them THAT long to finally take out that crippling weakness of lord jaraxxus..
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
It wasn't the standard because you're now required to have a 9 mana setup turn where before you could play Thaurissan alone and be left with 4 mana to do anything with, such as Dark Skies before the Thaurissan for safety. Which is why I said "in some sense the deck got better". It's not strictly better because of the 9 mana setup, but at least it's not a complete, unambiguous downside. The Warlock no longer needs to pay health for the combo, so getting low doesn't prevent you from going off.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
I agree with you so much!
TAUNT, INSECT! - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
If the deck got "better" by now having to use Drakkari Enchanter, then why wasn't that the standard list in the first place? Mecha'Thun is dead, stop believing otherwise. They nerfed a good, balanced and fair deck all because of Darkest Hour. Darkest Hour should have received the nerf, Bloodbloom was never the problem.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
Open the Waygate - Are you fucking kidding me? Upping this to 10 spells still wouldn't have been enough. This MIGHT slow down the deck by only 1 turn. This nerf really shows they have no idea about Wild.
Bloodbloom - RIP Mecha'thun Warlock. To anyone saying "Just use Drakkari Enchanter", you don't know what you're talking about. That is not a replacement that will just slip in and not effect the win rate of the deck. Mecha'thunlock has been murdered for the sins of Darkest Hour.
The rest are "fine"
The Libram of Justice buff really just feels like "see, we're still doing buffs" and really is going to do nothing for the state of Paladin.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
The 1 mana tap prevents you from running Kobold Librarians, which are 1 mana taps with a body, Mortal Coils, which are 1 mana taps with removal without the face damage, Dark Skies, which double as both AoE and spot removal, Godfrey, which is a cheaper Twisting Nether with a body, then there's Plague of Flames...yes, Drakkari Enchanter will take Bloodbloom's slot in most Mechathun Warlocks because those are way stronger than the Even variant. And given that Mechathun Warlock apparently hangs around at tier 4 according to the latest meta snapshot, that'd mean the Even variant is somewhere in tier 5 at best.
Swain Leaked!
Hi everyone, i'm really a big fan of Yasuo and have been using him for dozens of games, but I found that there is no Yasuo deck is competitive enough to climb. The thing is every deck revolves around Yasuo relies too much on him, which means it'll be fun and safe if you have him on board, but if not, you're gonna be totally destroyed by any other aggro or control deck. And the other champions in Noxus and Ionia doesn't work really well with him, not even Kat in my opinion.
This Swain seems very promising to me, as he synergies pretty well with Yasuo, also being based on Stun and non-combat damage. So, should I invest on him? (I dont have lots of shards). And what deck do you think will be good for 2 of them? I'm thinking about a control Yasuo deck, using Blade's Edge, Legion Saboteur and Imperial Demolitionist to deal non-combat damage to trigger the effects.
10 Card Nerfs & Buffs Are Coming to Hearthstone Next Week Including Wild Changes and Demon Hunter Nerfs
It's not like you were doing a whole lot with your turn in the old model after spending 6 mana on Thaurissan. Playing a couple Novice Engineers, Loot Hoarders, or tapping after dropping him is more or less like a 9 mana do nothing turn. Whether you were spending 6 mana or 9 mana you could also always drop a Plague of Flames first, dealing with all or some of your threats. I really don't think the mana difference in this scenario is as big of an issue as it's being made to seem.
Also keep in mind Mecha'Thun is most likely winning against control decks and other otk decks, and generally losing to aggro and midrange. Spending 9 mana to drop a high priority target 5/5 and a 1/5 usually isn't that punishing against slow decks. In most slow matches if you lost the game playing 9 mana in a turn for a single setup turn then you usually lost that game in normal scenarios pre-nerf. Having 3 extra mana for one setup turn wasn't that amazing in slow games.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
To everyone saying -1 attack for a DH card here, minus one there, isn't enough, bare in mind that multiple nerfs are happening to the class at once, which does add up in reducing both their speed and damage output in standard (DH in wild is just epic lul compared to the defensive tools we have).
So if you look at just one of the nerfs in a vacuum it may not seem like a lot remember that their early game, mid game, and even late game have all been nerfed in one batch.
Honest Hearthstone Cards (Game)
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Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
Drakkari Enchanter will never replace Bloodbloom, because it costs 3. The whole thing about Mecha'thun-lock was playing the even build. I'd rather run 2 Galvanizer than the Enchanter to still keep the deck even cost. That 1-mana tap is too important.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
It's actually a bigger inconvenience than you're giving it credit for. Remember, you are doing next to nothing (both tempo-wise and survivability-wise) when you are dinking around generating random spells, the one caveat for this statement being when you discover a discounted spell you can play right away.
This means that aggro and midrange, control to an obvious lesser degree, are able to pressure your face. Spending mana simply to add more mana (cards) to your hand affects the game in no way until you get average or good cards and start spending that mana to deal with the opponent's threats.
A really good example of this is that 5 mana generate 3 spells card (Cabalist's Tome?). Why do you think most non-Quest non-otk mage decks didn't use that? One reason is because you spent so much mana at the end of the day, essentially doing nothing but generating and adding cards to your hand, that you massively fell behind on board and were at that much more risk to dying.
Tl;dr - At the end of the day you spend mana to add more cards that cost mana to your hand, which again you have to spend quickly. Adding 2 additional spells to that actually is a big deal because it slows you down a lot and makes you more at risk for dying if you don't just generate cheap spells 100% of the time.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
Then he'd just destroy any control deck, and being in an evergreen set that's not good.
At the moment, his only weakness is that he's a 9 mana equip a 3/8 weapon. Take that away and Lord Jaraxxus will legit be in contention in every warlock deck right now.
New Neutral Minion - Al'ar
Regis posted a fun looking priest deck ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMBhdcphedg ) and Dekkster did quest Paladin ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4q3X5SecU0 ), but I wouldn't consider either competitive.
I agree--they definitely misfired on this card. Don't feel too sorry for yourself for opening her, though--there are a LOT of bad legendaries in this set. Myself, I've opened Megtherdon, Reliquary of Souls, and Bulwark so far.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
yeah I hope so, I had nice versions of quest warlock or big warlock when the extension came out, could be cool if they became viable.
I was talking about Jaraxxus cause apparently it was a reason for the nerf of sac pact : people couldn't play Jaraxxus cause Zephrys would insta kill them....
New Neutral Minion - Al'ar
I have been playing with this in a Deathrattle Priest and it's perfectly fine. The card is really slow and should never be played on curve (unless you are ahead). But combining it with Priest's many copying effects works really well. Grave Rune is really strong on Al'ar. Psyche Split and Shadowy Figure are fine as well. It won some games but even when my opponents managed to completely get rid of it they still had to waste quite a few attacks and spells on it. It's annoying. Just like Priest.
Al'ar is a niche card. It exists for very specific decks and does well in those (but sucks everywhere else). As long as there are synergies available, you can make good use of it. It's fun as well. It's similar to Shu'ma. That card also looked awful but it found a spot in Quest Hunter and proved its viability as a niche card for token decks.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
I was just about to add my 2 cents to Open the Waygate's nerf - as increasing the spell count by 2, do very little to actually slow Mage's win condition(s) - then I saw your comment summing it up admirably, so instead of a rant, +1 ^^
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
Hm. Well...let's take it from the top. The below only applies to Wild.
Kael'thas Sunstrider is pretty much a non-factor already at 6. Few experimental builds use it, there are some nifty shenanigans to be done in Druid but that's about it and even those can generally just switch to a Psychmelon Aviana Kun plan to achieve the same thing faster as is. DH has better decks than the OTK in Wild. The only reason it bore considering was that DH had very little to offer outside of straight aggro, and Inner Demon was the only thing that showed promise. Since the OTK is too slow and unreliable for wild at 6, it's outright useless on 7, when most decks are slinging big meaty taunts or cheating the mana curve to victory by then. So essentially, this does not really impact Wild much.
Bad Luck Albatross now feels right where it should be. Odd decks won't be slamming it down just for the body and tempo with additional screwage on top, now it's a conscious decision to include the card to counter the meta or simply slow opponents down with some dead draw. While it's sad that it might now be too slow for some control Deathrattle builds like Quest Priest, it's better for everyone if this isn't as efficient. I would have preferred a nerf in stats over the nerf in mana though just for Awaken the Makers completion, potential Grave Rune shenanigans for those who like copying the bastard, etc. The important part is that it's getting nerfed at least, though.
Frenzied Felwing isn't really getting hit where it hurts IMO. The problem isn't the difficulty to remove. The problem is the ability to pile this thing up along with other threats early, so that you can't focus on just killing this, you have other problems to deal with alongside it. The proper way to hit it would be through mana, not stats, and least of all health. Nerf its attack, the pressure isn't as high. Nerf its cost, it's harder to pile on the pressure in the first place. Nerf its health and...what? If someone cheated this thing out anyway, it means they had the pressure and the damage output to do so. There are other problems on the board other than what is now a 3/2. And while yes, Consecration and Holy Nova type board clears do kill it now, chances are those weren't good enough to kill the associated problems in the first place so they're about as unattractive of a solution as they were previously. About the only thing the health nerf helps I'd say is Rogue's backstab and unupgraded Druid Spellstone. Not exactly the in-vogue classes at the moment and Felwing isn't the reason.
Altruis the Outcast nerf I'm ok with. If they want to make DH the new Rogue and forget that Rogue was supposed to be one with all the tempo, fine, it's stupid but that's their prerogative. I'd just prefer them not to create a better Odd Rogue. Taking Altruis out of the Odd slot definitely helps in reducing the amount of shit you have to play around against that deck, which is welcome. And while Altruis isn't really as powerful in Odd decks as it is in normal DH decks that can make use of 0 cost cards, the slowdown in speed does make the damage the card can cause just a little bit less threatening, as it makes it harder to play it along with other cards. That might be 1 less damage your board and face have to take and that might be all that's needed to decide the game.
The Battlefiend change is big. Like really big. It's not the fact that it ends up doing 1 less face damage every turn it sticks on the board. It's all about the trades. Previously, a DH going first could drop this down and if you coin a 2/3, they can easily just ignore and go face the turn after because they know you'll do the trade yourself. Now, they have to slam their face and the fiend into the 2/3 just so they aren't forced to hero power your remaining 2/1 the turn after, or worse yet, so you can't heal it if you're priest and seize control of the board for yourself. And if they do just Eye Beam whatever 2/3 you played, well, you've saved yourself some face damage and forced out an outcasted removal for your trouble. Previously, they'd likely save the Eye Beam for something more problematic later, go face and pile the pressure on with another Battlefiend or 1 drop.
Glaivebound Adept....not so much. The cost and the battlecry stayed the same, meaning the reach is there, the tempo is there, the Odd requirement is there and whether it fucks up your face for 6 or 7 the next turn is hardly relevant. If it's minions it's hitting, these die to 6 or 7 damage at that point either way. If it's your face, well, the game is pretty much done regardless because their massive aggressive 5 drop stuck around and got to attack you with impunity. Now if that was a 6 drop, I bet you'd be able to prevent that from occurring. Not as easy to do on 5 mana. The attack here, while painful, isn't as decisive as the timing of the battlecry. A 4 damage battlecry kills most 4 drops or some 5 drops with help from hero power. But a 4 damage battlecry will not nearly as reliably kill 5 or 6 drops. Delaying Glaivebound Adept by a turn would be the decider in whether there's something on the board after the battlecry to kill the Adept before it swings in. And with Adept at 5, there just won't be. So the problem remains and the card will continue to overperform.
Sacrificial Pact is good riddance IMO. There was no reason for that card to hold back Jaraxxus in the first place, but that hasn't been particularly relevant in Wild one way or another. Sitting at a cap of 15 is asking for death since around GvG. But the ability to counter opposing Demons for exactly no mana, get a heal from it to add insult to the injury, on a card that implies a pact with the demon that wasn't even yours...pretty much every part of that card being able to target enemies was a violation. In flavour, in design, in balance. And the fact Zephrys gave access to it to non-Warlock classes just exacerbated the issue. Now the card will be played as intended...in Demon decks, where it will do just fine popping Voidcallers and preventing transformations on Voidlords.
Bloodbloom killing Darkest Hour is a beauty to behold and as mentioned by others, Drakkari Enchanter will just take its place in Mechathun to achieve the same effect. Plus, it will no longer cost Warlocks health to pull their combo off, so in some sense, the deck got better because it's less sensitive to pressure than it was before. An excellent nerf on all accounts. It is sad though, that any use Bloodbloom ever saw was specifically in these two combo decks. It was such a neat trick to do on Kazakus potions, Twisting Nethers, Rin rituals, but it never seemed to catch on with anyone but me from what I've seen. We had some good times together Bloodbloom. You'll be missed. Darkest Hour won't though.
The Libram buff is pretty nice, actually, and makes the card a fairly attractive option for Paladins even without the Libram synergy cards. At this point, you're paying one extra mana over Equality to only kill your opponent's side of the board (which is massive) and you get a 1/4 weapon to help poke down some targets yourself, making it, essentially, a kill spell too if you're really desperate for one. That's a pretty good deal if you ask me.
Now with Open the Waygate, I'd say the nerf is actually a bigger deal than it seems. Judging from the opposing side, it seems like the Mage can do 6, 8, 10 of these spells easily and it doesn't make a difference. But the grass is always greener on the other side. It takes personal experience playing the deck to find out how close the quest completion timings can actually get. I'll admit, the Quest Mage build I run is far from the norm, I don't run Flamewakers, Questing Explorers, Banana Buffoons or Licensed Adventurers, so I don't have data for the more typical examples of Quest Mage. Mine is built more to account for a broader portion of the meta. But from my experience laddering with my version this season, if I win, about 4 times out of 6 I complete the quest just one turn before they're either about to kill me or get out of my damage range. Which means about every 4 wins out of 6 that I got would now be losses instead. And while it often seems that the Mage could easily pound out two more spells with that Apprentice they got on the board, it is quite often that you run out of cheap generated spells right around the time the quest reaches 6. Quite frequently you just crest the magical 6 and the other stuff left in your hand are Flamestrikes and Pyroblasts and Cabalist's Tomes and other shit that's way too expensive to use. So delaying the quest by these two cards can quite drastically impact the winrate of that deck even if it may not look like it. That does not, unfortunately, change the fact that Quest Mage will still bully slow, value-oriented control decks, because those don't apply enough pressure for the 2 extra spells to make a difference. Unless the control deck can just wall up hard against the onslaught of giants, nothing is going to save it from Quest Mage whether it takes them two extra turns or not. The difference is though, that with Quest Mage's matchup against aggro getting worse now, Quest Mage is likely to drop in popularity. Which means those enjoying value games, your DMH Warriors, Deathrattle Rogues, Taunt Druids etc. Those will now have much more space to breathe because the SMOrc players will be making Quest Mage's lives miserable. I guess we'll all, for once, be grateful for the existence of mindless face decks, if I'm right.
Oh, and RIP Millhouse. The main reason he was miserable to play in BGs before the buff was that all of his gold totals were extremely awkward. Tavern-ups cost the wrong amounts at wrong turns, his coins just never lined up right, he was always floating gold left and right and getting his ass kicked in the process because of these inefficiencies. Them giving him the normal amount of gold fixed all that. Everything lined up, he could always buy the right amount of minions to keep up and could tavern at the right times to fill out odd gold amounts (cause rolling and buying costs an even amount of gold, odd gold turns were always inefficient). Now, with all taverns costing one more, he gets to buy in the same way he did until now, which means his early boards can be just as sizeable as they are now but now the tavern-ups don't line up anymore, in fact they line up just as badly as they did when he had less gold than everyone else. Like before, they now interfere with his ability to spend his odd gold amounts, it is once again an issue for him to find a convenient and efficient time to tavern up And unlike his previous shortage of gold, the additional tavern costs continue to be a problem even when he reaches 10 gold. So my guess is he's going right back to being the worst hero in the battlegrounds or at last will rank along heroes like Jaraxxus and Galakrond as one of those you just can't expect to do well with most of the time.
Val'anyr Bookadin
what about - Blessing of Kings
+ Spiritsinger Umbra
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
Just reduce the cost to 8 mana so you can summon a 6/6 on the same turn you play him.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
If Warlock needs JAraxxus to be viable they're already completely fucked.
You're more likely to need Plot Twist than J-raxx
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
they already stated that they don't think Jaraxxus is weak and just meta-dependent so I doubt they'd ever change him into a legit hero card.
I mean, even if they updated him, he'd still be laughably weak at 9-mana with no immediate impact outside of a garbage weapon.
Legends of Runeterra - New Video for the Piltover & Zaun Champion Showcase Featuring Jinx
I mean last time we heard something new about jinx as far as I know is the heimer/ziggs comic and it didn't help with her back story it was teased since her release Vi is her sister.. and the reason why she is crazy is unknown.. what I know is that the arcane series should put some light into this.
Edit: Jinx is VI's sister confirmed since 2017 it seems.. not a big surprise though.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
Oh, I strongly agree with this statement.
Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!
Lord Jaraxxus needs to become a hero card.. the reduction to 15 hp is the thing holding it back.. yes now it's playable kind of.. still would play galakround 9/10 times instead of jaraxxus
it's the first hero card in the game.. can't they.. change him to be like that? I know it got some interactions from being generated as a demon.. but the card is outdated and it could use some new design.. I mean why a win condition hero card is counterable by cards such as dirty rat?
Also I am disappointed it took them THAT long to finally take out that crippling weakness of lord jaraxxus..