Thank you for all the feedback, but I submitted something not-Jaina related so don't worry about it anymore hehe
Feedback for those I haven't already spoken to:
Show Spoiler
BloodMefist - I like Garrosh more: the art is cool, and he goes very well with handbuffing and a general Taunt deck. A resurgence of Fire Plume's Heart, maybe? I don't like Gul'dan but I hate Discolock in general, so I am biased here.
AeroJulwin - I prefer the 4/4/4 version more: copying all the enchantments over and over means only Silence has a change of stopping the snowball from rolling down the hill and crushing your opponent with something gargantuan.
Dolphinslayer - The third version of Jaina is the best, in my opinion. Encourages deck-building toward Elemental Mage - the best Mage - and the payoff is an ice barrage. The 3/6 connection to Water Elementals like what I did doesn't apply here, though, so she could probably have a better Attack value.
Neoguli - Nice usage of Anduin for a dual-class card; that's knowing your Warcraft history haha. I think I like it more than Uther, if only because Uther can get really out of hand with all the SHR stuff that's been printed; Lothraxion the Redeemed comes to mind.
BasilAnguis - That's a cool and powerful card, but I'm actually concerned with the whole "can only have one at a time" nature of the Blessings. Most of the time you only care about one, anyway, but that means the card exists for four separate decks, rather than being a unifying force. For being a Master of the Elements, Thrall puts up a fence around the Shaman's archetypes and says "you're not allowed to play together." Also, if you want something for Al'Akir, I would make him an Enhancement Shaman card, about Windfury and/or hero attacks.
Wailor - A lot of us had the Water Elemental idea, eh? I like Jaina better, even if there are so many different iterations of her that revolve around the same flavor. Rexxar + Animal Companion is also a fairly on-the-nose connection, so when in doubt pick my favorite character and enjoy your high score from me lol
Since a certain someone mentioned that the Highlander condition on my Gul'dan card might be a little too boring, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this alternative version. Will give more feedback about 9 hours from now!
Remember Deathstalker Rexxar, a Hunter Hero? And his hero power "Craft a custom Zombeast", where you discover 2 beasts and combine them into 1 minion?
How about a card (Hero ?) - "Craft a custom Dragon-Murloc" - where you discover a Dragon, then discover a Murloc - and combine their stats and effects into 1 minion? :)
I've been out and about a lot for the part 2 days and it ended up eating into my time I could use to give feedback.
It seems that a lot of people really like Thrall. I'll probably end up going with that one, but I decided to make a Mage version of Icelich Jaina anyway just so see what would happen with you guys. I've got the time to spare.
Here I go with feedback.
Wailor
If you actually posted that Illidan Stormrage as your entry, that would be the funniest troll ever. We'd still disqualify you for doing so, but it'd still be funny. I've give it a laugh.
Rexxar is cool. Hunter can sometimes spell-spam pretty well, but the effect can't do too much since after 3 spells, it stops doing anything, so he doesn't ever go too overboard.
Jaina is quite good thematically, but it does seem too much compared to Deep Freeze. Instead of simply one Freeze, you get a 3/9 that casts Blizzard instead.
Anchorm4n
I agree that Gul'Dan is better than Valeera. Valeera is quite awkward to use given that she's a 6-mana Combo card that requires you to have a sizeable board of certain minions that also happen to be good Shadowstep targets.
Gul'Dan doesn't have that problem. You just plop him and you're good to go.
BasilAnguis
I think this is a cool play into Kalimos and Bru'kan's Elemental powers, but I think in general this is probably too powerful. It's a 5/5 with no condition and all of the effects are incredibly solid. Stonemother's Blessing also happens to have a Common rarity gem, so remember to fix that.
Windlord's Blessing is also significantly weaker than all of the others, so you should try to either buff that one or lower the power level of the others to try to match it better.
Neoguli
I like Uther. He's quite simple, but his effect works pretty well.
Anduin is quite scary. Especially if you copy him somehow since they would both give each other Immune and make it almost impossible to get rid of him.
Linkblade91
Even though I do think the first version is more exciting, I will agree that it's not particularly Mage-y. This third version is quite good. I will echo that maybe it can even be 4 mana. Mage is not really that good at minion spamming, and even Warlock which is good at minion spamming couldn't break Disciplinarian Gandling.
Dolphinslayer
Your first Jaina is… quite a bit! It fully Freezes the enemy board and if they can't do anything about the several Water Elementals you made, you'll Freeze their board again next turn with the Water Elementals. Or just go face. Both outcomes are quite strong.
I don't like your second one as much because it lacks identity. It summons Frost Elementals, wants you to use Arcane spells, and gives itself Spell Damage for each (which it can't use that effectively in most situations since it's a 9 mana minion and it needs to be played for it to get the Spell Damage).
AeroJulwin
I agree entirely with Wailor. Use the second version's effect and the first version's cost and statline and you'll have the best version.
BloodMefist
I like Warlord Garrosh's synergy with handbuffing. Feels like something he himself would probably do, and it makes a lot of sense flavorwise.
Gul'Dan has a great idea, but his effect is quite bad unless Warlock has specifically a Hand of Gul'dan in rotation since the Taunt Demons can be dealt with fairly easily in some situations and if they do, then you've just lost your entire hand. I think it's also a bit weird that his card name is just Gul'Dan. I think you should give him an additional title in there somewhere.
Just like with Knights of the Frozen Throne and explicitly unlike Doom in the Tomb, introducing the Curse of Naxxramas will not likely devastate the meta because of how power-crept the game is compared to the the re-introduced cards. It will likely have a more intriguing affect, for the first few hours, because far more players weren't playing HS when Naxx first came out . . . but then that power disparity will kick that effect in the nads and no one will see those cards because the meta will crush them.
So with the exception of a tiny number of cards, this is an Arena/Duels thing.
There's only one card that people will want to play with though it will be hated by a slightly-smaller group. That one card will be 80% of the effect of reintroducing Naxx. Zombie Chow is the next runner-up in general utility; the problem is that control and slow decks don't need to bother with a speedbump so Chow might not even have a place. Everything else will be either utra specialized or tech --
Sylvanas is Undead (Forsaken) and they're Horde. Dawngrasp is a Blood Elf and they're Horde, too, for reasons stemming from WCIII and WoW, long before the Barrens story in HS. On top of this, everything in WoW is either slightly- or way more stupid compared to WCIII (my bias is evident) so researching WoW is a pain in the butt.
This is time-period-dependant. Slylvanas would have been part of the Lich King's Undead faction before the middle of WCIII's expansion the Frozen Throne (and was an Alliance member before she was Undead). Gul'Dan is a Horde member that betrays the Horde for Real Ultimate Power way back in WCII -- and dies. He's such an important plot-mover that he has models and dialogue and time-travelly dimension-shifty reappearances in WoW and a place in Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm even though he's dead as fuck before WCIII begins and isn't arguably even Horde anymore because, y'know, betrayal. Gul'Dan, no longer a Horde member, is so important that his bleached skull gets more screen time in WCIII than some characters.
But he's Horde in Mercenaries because of course he is. Which is fine, but you have to signpost this stuff.
You can't possibly follow this. None of this is intuitive. This was a problem noted in the lauch teasers. I was asking how you identify factions before the game had released.
After how long it took for this balance patch to arrive, I find the actual changes pretty disappointing. The only serious nerfs are to Poro Cannon, Quietus and... Weight of Judgment, somehow. There's a couple of significant buffs, like those for Kayle and Shyvana, but the rest look mostly pointless; if you take a terrible card and buff it ever-so-slightly, it's still unplayable. If the goal was to shake up the metagame, then this patch is a swing and a miss.
Traditionally Blizzard games stood out in terms of polish, but that was missing from Mercenaries.
Let me put on my tinfoil hat and say that Blizzard was like Japanese industry of the 70's and 80's, taking existing material and improving it -- not creative or imaginative in a broad sense, but giving cliches and tropes that high-sheen polish that outshined the competition . . .
. . . and that changed after the buyout.
Blizzard was some combination of a) the management and b) the employees and both of those groups have changed lineups. It would have been surprising if things hadn't changed, tbh. But the old-school Blizzard that had so much good time management that their high-polished games had the time for the most random-ass easter eggs imaginable is way out of our rearview mirror.
Regarding a lack of enthusiasm from streamers though, the mode just isn't great streaming material, so I think that was always going to happen. You can't really grasp what is going on in PvP unless you know the abilities of every merc by heart; this was a problem even for players and it would be worse for a viewing audience. Streaming PvE would be easier to follow, but not varied enough to keep viewer attention for long.
Emphasis added. This is the ultra-mega version of that lack of polish: feedback.
Just like Hearthstone's "history bar," Mercenaries didn't tell you shit. It explained nothing, forcing you to scurry about online to grasp basic game mechanics, with your only recourse to sometimes be experimentation in a game that already taxed your time to nauseating heights. It was too slow to tolerate and too fast with issues that mattered with no respect for the information the players needed or wanted. Ignoring how many extra steps and issues the interface had in and of itself, the buffs/debuffs output format dragged over from HS was worse than inadequate and even when it "worked," useful information could flow right off the screen.
This wasn't a game that respected the game assets it presented to you, so why should you respect it?
Much like how Hasbro hates the idea of any sort of "community" being a part of its sales of Magic or D&D, video games producers, to a lesser extent hate any dependence on influencers or goodwill to sell their product. This is less fatal for a video game than for physical or social hobby games, but the rub is that Mercenaries was so egregiously bad for players that its awfulness poured over to the streaming experience and actually turned a positive resource into a negative. In fact, streamers that were interested in or liked the mode were more damning of it than those who hated it imo because their enthusiasm to understand it drove home the paucity of the content. Over and over again, people were claiming that they learned Mercenaries from Trump, which is a building-sized red flag for people who don't know anything about Trump.
And the only reason such a colossal fail makes sense was if Mercenaries was meant to be an addictive, abusive, unscrupulous appeal to the most vulnerable players possible such that the money gained from abusing the former would easily make up for the poor buzz of the half-assed "effort."
Mercenaries needed to fail. It could have failed in ways better for HS players, but it did need to fail asap.
Two initial ideas. Garrosh embodies his desire to eliminate all weakness, including that of his own minions,. Gul'dan appropiately synergizes with Hand of Gul'dan and heralds powerful demons based on how much is sacrificed.
I'm not a huge fan of the artwork, as it looks like a WoW screenshot. You can use the same art I used if you want, as I think it's the same outfit. If you decide to do it, PM me so we don't collide.
Regarding your versions, I think your most recent one is the most interesting, but maybe it could cost 4 Mana as well. Dunno, it looks strictly worse than the second one you posted (the one that says "replace").
Demonxz95
Both are solid, but I prefer Thrall. Its callback to the Classic set and its strong lore basis is something that I think works really well for this comp.
anchorm4n
Both are solid cards, although I prefer Gul'dan. I like the art, but I think it's more appropriate for a spell. If you still want to go with it, you should zoom it more as you said. Regarding the effect, it fits Gul'dan a lot (Demons are very classic Warlock stuff and Lifesteal ties to his Death Knight hero from KFT), but I you should drop the Highlander requirement or reduce the Cost, IMO.
Regarding Valeera, her effect is pretty interesting. It has a lot of potential, but it requires a lot of setup and is quite expensive, so I think you did a good job in this regard. What I don't like as much is the lack of connection to Valeera as a character, which I think should be the focus of this comp.
BasilAnguis
Very flavorful card.
I'd probably make a couple changes to the Blessings:
Tidehunter's Blessing should probably give that Deathrattle to all friendly minions and not just Murlocs. It's still a Murloc generator, so I'd still be more useful in dedicated Murloc decks without making it useless in other builds.
Windlord's Blessing should only relate to Nature spells, IMO. My two suggestions are either Discover a Nature spell at the end of your turn or gain permanent Nature Spell Damage +1.
Stonemother's Blessing has a Common gem, while the other tokens don't.
Neoguli
I prefer Uther, but it's a bit strange to have such a character as just a 3 Mana minion. Maybe make it a 5/5/5 and make him summon two Recruits?
Not a fan of Anduin, as Immune is very scary.
Dolphinslayer
The second effect is way too complex, IMO; but I like the first one a lot. It's very similar to my own Jaina, but I like the effect of yours a bit better.
In any case, there are some aesthetic improvements you could apply to both cards:
Make the artwork focus more on Jaina.
Get rid of the Classic watermark.
If you go with the second effect, Arcane shouldn't be bolded.
Aerojulwin
I like the second effect better, but I'd go with the first statline, since the lack of immediate impact + high Cost may make it too hard to use.
That is actually a kinda cool location although I dont really play decks that would benefit from it, or fill it quickly, but much better than some of the later ones introduced for sure.
That helped a little, but it mainly provided the rule of thumb rather than exact details. At least, I don't think tribe entirely determines Horde/Alliance: as far as I know Sylvanas is Horde in WoW lore, while Dawngrasp is Horde according to the Barrens storyline, but others of their tribes are not.
Once again Riot hits it out of the park with its patches proving that they are generally far more exciting then the expansions themselves.
Also no rotation yet thank God, my boy vlad gets to still draw breath.
So big changes Kayle gets to actually be a card.
Whenever a champ goes down 1 mana its a big deal for those who remember Kindred used to be 5 mana and it was awful, then it became 4 mana and has seen meta play.
So Kayle going down from 6 to 5 is huge. Will I player her? Maybe as a Bard finisher because he's underplayed right now.
Katarina nerf. She went from unplayable to meta and now she's just good in the decks that want her. The free flock activator plus free rally combo is still strong.
Quietus nerf: people are overselling this a bit but I will tell you where the big difference is and thats malkai and veigar. When your 4 mana champ dies to a 1 mana spell and your deck revolves around them you insta lost. So big props for darkness being a deck again, generally cooler then like Nora shadow or heimer shadow.
Illois pkg buff: Illoi Jarvan, and Illoi Healing are cool decks that deserve to be playable. Very happy with these buffs l.
Weapon master pkg: Ash freijord midrange was always challenging to run competitively so Orn Jax was meant to be our savor. It kinda was but it needed buffs and it got it. Solid B+ tier deck now I say.
Yi buff: yi is gonna be the new Ionia staple control card no doubt. Very good buff here where he levels in deck, so you can bounce to protect ans retain value.
Lissanda buff: thralls playable again, hot Take I like thralls it's a tribal deck in a game where card piles are often better then archetypes. But the devs have taken strides to reverse this.
Shivana buff: levels in deck so going all in on shadow, demacia dragons might be worth revisiting. Remember that deck?
Lucian 1 mana: I think kenin has showed us that this stat line when properly built can be insane in a combo deck. So you definately want to slow roll him now. Setting up his level up on swing and playing him last. Or you just play him like temo and don't care if he dies.
Shurima control: weight of judgement and castigate, gives the region some flexibility for a slow game plan outside of sundisc. Don't get me wrong I think sundisc is "good" for the game. I just personally find it boring as hell.
So once again great patch Riot we practically got 1 brand new champion, and 1 ruinate and a ton of big balance stuff. Going to be very impactful overall. Archetypes over card piles all day!!!
While I agree with Mercenaries looking flat and barren, I'm not sure the engine is to blame for that. More is possible within the engine: classic Hearthstone boards are more lively than the Mercenaries board and diamond cards show that 3D character art is technically possible.
There were also advantages to putting Mercenaries in the same client, like lowering the barrier for people to try it out. And I think the character cross-promotion with the Barrens expansion was executed well.
It is good that they provide clarity about the future instead of letting it die silently. Also the final update looks pretty nice, so in that regard they're ending it on a high note.
What would Hearthstone 2 even be? If it's a graphical refresh with the same mechanics and cards, I'd welcome it. But if they restart from scratch, whether I'd make the jump would depend on how easy it is to build a new collection: I'm not eager to invest a lot of time and/or money in a new collection when there are so many other good games out there.
I mean, at least they're being honest and axing it (though way too late already IMO) instead of pretending like they're working on improving the mode when it's obvious the mode is dead and was pretty much dead a month after release.
They got no part of it right. The PvE was a tedious, unrewarding, repetitive grind. On Normal it was laughable, you could just queue up the same line-up over and over regardless of the location or boss and just beat up everything, particularly with heal-based comps like Nature or Holy Humans. On Heroic you were force to queue blind into a boss fight the first time cause there was no way to know what you're building against at the end, so it just wasted your time, and the climb up to the boss was, guess what, also wasted time, completely unrewarding. And that's what you had to do to even enter PvP to get your stuff to a competitive level, and you better hope what you thought was competitive is actually competitive and not utter trash (would be real sad if someone worked on levelling their Murloc or Demon lineup, wouldn't it?). There was no universal currency so that if you got stuff for Y you didn't want you could turn it to X you wanted, so that was further wasted time. So all modes wasted your time and effort and prety much none of it was actually any fun. It was more fun to tinker with comps and lineups in your head and in the menu than to play any part of the game.
It was a failure from start to finish, good riddance.
Atleast they quickly (as in 1 month after launch...) made Horde/Alliance keywords. So when you hover over thse treasures you can see which tribes get these bonuses.
As someone who has actually played a lot of Mercenaries and mostly enjoyed it, I have mixed feelings about this. I recently maxed out every single Merc, so with my saved packs and coins, I'm sure to collect and max out the final 6 Mercs. I will be very satisfied to have this collection completed. I am also feeling really glad I never spent any real money on this mode. I imagine a lot of people who bought those pre-order bundles are steamed right now. If the boss rush mode is fun, I'll still play it now and then. I will miss having new bounties to explore.
The first mistake is arguably deciding to build this within hearthstone's limited infrastructure, taking advantage of an already existing playerbase. The result is something that looks too flat, too ugly, and completely lacking in identity and design.
Compare this to arclight rumble. I think arclight is pretty much a response to mercs' failure as a mobile game. Its night and day between the two, even if both have the same monetization model.
Perhaps, even if cruelly, we can conclude that dying now is better than being a hollowed up shell waiting for its next update. If arclight turns out a success, it might even foreshadow hearthstone's own demise, or the inevitable hearthstone 2 within 5 years time.
Hearthstone to Receive a Murloc Dragon Minion in the Upcoming Mini-Set, Return to Naxxramas?
Sort of like Scourge Tamer?
A Hero's Tale - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Thank you for all the feedback, but I submitted something not-Jaina related so don't worry about it anymore hehe
Feedback for those I haven't already spoken to:
BloodMefist - I like Garrosh more: the art is cool, and he goes very well with handbuffing and a general Taunt deck. A resurgence of Fire Plume's Heart, maybe? I don't like Gul'dan but I hate Discolock in general, so I am biased here.
AeroJulwin - I prefer the 4/4/4 version more: copying all the enchantments over and over means only Silence has a change of stopping the snowball from rolling down the hill and crushing your opponent with something gargantuan.
Dolphinslayer - The third version of Jaina is the best, in my opinion. Encourages deck-building toward Elemental Mage - the best Mage - and the payoff is an ice barrage. The 3/6 connection to Water Elementals like what I did doesn't apply here, though, so she could probably have a better Attack value.
Neoguli - Nice usage of Anduin for a dual-class card; that's knowing your Warcraft history haha. I think I like it more than Uther, if only because Uther can get really out of hand with all the SHR stuff that's been printed; Lothraxion the Redeemed comes to mind.
BasilAnguis - That's a cool and powerful card, but I'm actually concerned with the whole "can only have one at a time" nature of the Blessings. Most of the time you only care about one, anyway, but that means the card exists for four separate decks, rather than being a unifying force. For being a Master of the Elements, Thrall puts up a fence around the Shaman's archetypes and says "you're not allowed to play together." Also, if you want something for Al'Akir, I would make him an Enhancement Shaman card, about Windfury and/or hero attacks.
Wailor - A lot of us had the Water Elemental idea, eh? I like Jaina better, even if there are so many different iterations of her that revolve around the same flavor. Rexxar + Animal Companion is also a fairly on-the-nose connection, so when in doubt pick my favorite character and enjoy your high score from me lol
A Hero's Tale - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Since a certain someone mentioned that the Highlander condition on my Gul'dan card might be a little too boring, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this alternative version. Will give more feedback about 9 hours from now!
NAXX OUT? Hearthstone is Getting a Silvermoon City and Naxxramas Crossover Event or Mini-Set
loatheb is still played in wild.
haunted creeper gives 3 corpses for DK (and two of them are undead).
mad scientist will always be good as it draws and plays a card.
nerubian egg might make it? but probably not.
Hearthstone to Receive a Murloc Dragon Minion in the Upcoming Mini-Set, Return to Naxxramas?
Remember Deathstalker Rexxar, a Hunter Hero? And his hero power "Craft a custom Zombeast", where you discover 2 beasts and combine them into 1 minion?
How about a card (Hero ?) - "Craft a custom Dragon-Murloc" - where you discover a Dragon, then discover a Murloc - and combine their stats and effects into 1 minion? :)
Hearthstone to Receive a Murloc Dragon Minion in the Upcoming Mini-Set, Return to Naxxramas?
Won't be the first one:
(had to do a screenshot because for some reason websites including playhearthstone do not reflect the double tribe that was added to this one)
A Hero's Tale - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I've been out and about a lot for the part 2 days and it ended up eating into my time I could use to give feedback.
It seems that a lot of people really like Thrall. I'll probably end up going with that one, but I decided to make a Mage version of Icelich Jaina anyway just so see what would happen with you guys. I've got the time to spare.
Here I go with feedback.
If you actually posted that Illidan Stormrage as your entry, that would be the funniest troll ever. We'd still disqualify you for doing so, but it'd still be funny. I've give it a laugh.
Rexxar is cool. Hunter can sometimes spell-spam pretty well, but the effect can't do too much since after 3 spells, it stops doing anything, so he doesn't ever go too overboard.
Jaina is quite good thematically, but it does seem too much compared to Deep Freeze. Instead of simply one Freeze, you get a 3/9 that casts Blizzard instead.
I agree that Gul'Dan is better than Valeera. Valeera is quite awkward to use given that she's a 6-mana Combo card that requires you to have a sizeable board of certain minions that also happen to be good Shadowstep targets.
Gul'Dan doesn't have that problem. You just plop him and you're good to go.
I think this is a cool play into Kalimos and Bru'kan's Elemental powers, but I think in general this is probably too powerful. It's a 5/5 with no condition and all of the effects are incredibly solid. Stonemother's Blessing also happens to have a Common rarity gem, so remember to fix that.
Windlord's Blessing is also significantly weaker than all of the others, so you should try to either buff that one or lower the power level of the others to try to match it better.
I like Uther. He's quite simple, but his effect works pretty well.
Anduin is quite scary. Especially if you copy him somehow since they would both give each other Immune and make it almost impossible to get rid of him.
Your first Jaina is… quite a bit! It fully Freezes the enemy board and if they can't do anything about the several Water Elementals you made, you'll Freeze their board again next turn with the Water Elementals. Or just go face. Both outcomes are quite strong.
I don't like your second one as much because it lacks identity. It summons Frost Elementals, wants you to use Arcane spells, and gives itself Spell Damage for each (which it can't use that effectively in most situations since it's a 9 mana minion and it needs to be played for it to get the Spell Damage).
I like Warlord Garrosh's synergy with handbuffing. Feels like something he himself would probably do, and it makes a lot of sense flavorwise.
Gul'Dan has a great idea, but his effect is quite bad unless Warlock has specifically a Hand of Gul'dan in rotation since the Taunt Demons can be dealt with fairly easily in some situations and if they do, then you've just lost your entire hand. I think it's also a bit weird that his card name is just Gul'Dan. I think you should give him an additional title in there somewhere.
NAXX OUT? Hearthstone is Getting a Silvermoon City and Naxxramas Crossover Event or Mini-Set
Assuming Naxx is brought back:
Just like with Knights of the Frozen Throne and explicitly unlike Doom in the Tomb, introducing the Curse of Naxxramas will not likely devastate the meta because of how power-crept the game is compared to the the re-introduced cards. It will likely have a more intriguing affect, for the first few hours, because far more players weren't playing HS when Naxx first came out . . . but then that power disparity will kick that effect in the nads and no one will see those cards because the meta will crush them.
So with the exception of a tiny number of cards, this is an Arena/Duels thing.
There's only one card that people will want to play with though it will be hated by a slightly-smaller group. That one card will be 80% of the effect of reintroducing Naxx. Zombie Chow is the next runner-up in general utility; the problem is that control and slow decks don't need to bother with a speedbump so Chow might not even have a place. Everything else will be either utra specialized or tech --
Mad Scientist
Deathlord
-- or possible jank that will be tried and have a slim chance of mattering:
Dancing Swords
Unstable Ghoul -- how come this isn't Undead?
Kel'Thuzad -- ditto.
* The database hasn't been updated; those cards are Undead in the Collection Manager.
A lot of cards in that second category were traditionally good but it's hard to say how they'll fare nowadays. I think Haunted Creeper holds up.
Poison Seeds will see play and it will be awful and terrible and bad. I'm going to try to make Reincarnate work. It won't.
MARVEL SNAP's Featured Location This Week is Sacred Timeline - Stick to the Plan!
I was having some luck with Cerebro decks, as they can fill the spot any make use of the extra cards generally.
Mercenaries Final 25.4 Content Patch Brings Six New Mercs, Dual-Types, Factions, & Mythic Boss Rush
Sylvanas is Undead (Forsaken) and they're Horde. Dawngrasp is a Blood Elf and they're Horde, too, for reasons stemming from WCIII and WoW, long before the Barrens story in HS. On top of this, everything in WoW is either slightly- or way more stupid compared to WCIII (my bias is evident) so researching WoW is a pain in the butt.
This is time-period-dependant. Slylvanas would have been part of the Lich King's Undead faction before the middle of WCIII's expansion the Frozen Throne (and was an Alliance member before she was Undead). Gul'Dan is a Horde member that betrays the Horde for Real Ultimate Power way back in WCII -- and dies. He's such an important plot-mover that he has models and dialogue and time-travelly dimension-shifty reappearances in WoW and a place in Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm even though he's dead as fuck before WCIII begins and isn't arguably even Horde anymore because, y'know, betrayal. Gul'Dan, no longer a Horde member, is so important that his bleached skull gets more screen time in WCIII than some characters.
But he's Horde in Mercenaries because of course he is. Which is fine, but you have to signpost this stuff.
You can't possibly follow this. None of this is intuitive. This was a problem noted in the lauch teasers. I was asking how you identify factions before the game had released.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Support Ending, No More Regular Content Updates After 25.4
Yeah, I'll finally open my pre-order packs up and see if I can get the whole cast.
Legends of Runeterra Adds 2 New Cards, Balance Changes to the New Beta Season
After how long it took for this balance patch to arrive, I find the actual changes pretty disappointing. The only serious nerfs are to Poro Cannon, Quietus and... Weight of Judgment, somehow. There's a couple of significant buffs, like those for Kayle and Shyvana, but the rest look mostly pointless; if you take a terrible card and buff it ever-so-slightly, it's still unplayable. If the goal was to shake up the metagame, then this patch is a swing and a miss.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Support Ending, No More Regular Content Updates After 25.4
Let me put on my tinfoil hat and say that Blizzard was like Japanese industry of the 70's and 80's, taking existing material and improving it -- not creative or imaginative in a broad sense, but giving cliches and tropes that high-sheen polish that outshined the competition . . .
. . . and that changed after the buyout.
Blizzard was some combination of a) the management and b) the employees and both of those groups have changed lineups. It would have been surprising if things hadn't changed, tbh. But the old-school Blizzard that had so much good time management that their high-polished games had the time for the most random-ass easter eggs imaginable is way out of our rearview mirror.
Emphasis added. This is the ultra-mega version of that lack of polish: feedback.
Just like Hearthstone's "history bar," Mercenaries didn't tell you shit. It explained nothing, forcing you to scurry about online to grasp basic game mechanics, with your only recourse to sometimes be experimentation in a game that already taxed your time to nauseating heights. It was too slow to tolerate and too fast with issues that mattered with no respect for the information the players needed or wanted. Ignoring how many extra steps and issues the interface had in and of itself, the buffs/debuffs output format dragged over from HS was worse than inadequate and even when it "worked," useful information could flow right off the screen.
This wasn't a game that respected the game assets it presented to you, so why should you respect it?
Much like how Hasbro hates the idea of any sort of "community" being a part of its sales of Magic or D&D, video games producers, to a lesser extent hate any dependence on influencers or goodwill to sell their product. This is less fatal for a video game than for physical or social hobby games, but the rub is that Mercenaries was so egregiously bad for players that its awfulness poured over to the streaming experience and actually turned a positive resource into a negative. In fact, streamers that were interested in or liked the mode were more damning of it than those who hated it imo because their enthusiasm to understand it drove home the paucity of the content. Over and over again, people were claiming that they learned Mercenaries from Trump, which is a building-sized red flag for people who don't know anything about Trump.
And the only reason such a colossal fail makes sense was if Mercenaries was meant to be an addictive, abusive, unscrupulous appeal to the most vulnerable players possible such that the money gained from abusing the former would easily make up for the poor buzz of the half-assed "effort."
Mercenaries needed to fail. It could have failed in ways better for HS players, but it did need to fail asap.
A Hero's Tale - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Two initial ideas. Garrosh embodies his desire to eliminate all weakness, including that of his own minions,. Gul'dan appropiately synergizes with Hand of Gul'dan and heralds powerful demons based on how much is sacrificed.
A Hero's Tale - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Feedback:
Regarding your versions, I think your most recent one is the most interesting, but maybe it could cost 4 Mana as well. Dunno, it looks strictly worse than the second one you posted (the one that says "replace").
Regarding Valeera, her effect is pretty interesting. It has a lot of potential, but it requires a lot of setup and is quite expensive, so I think you did a good job in this regard. What I don't like as much is the lack of connection to Valeera as a character, which I think should be the focus of this comp.
I'd probably make a couple changes to the Blessings:
Not a fan of Anduin, as Immune is very scary.
In any case, there are some aesthetic improvements you could apply to both cards:
Mercenaries Final 25.4 Content Patch Brings Six New Mercs, Dual-Types, Factions, & Mythic Boss Rush
As of right now it actually does. And yes, this does lead to some canonnically horde characters to get aliance buffs.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Support Ending, No More Regular Content Updates After 25.4
Hey, now I can finally max out my entire collection and never have to come back ever. Neat.
MARVEL SNAP's Featured Location This Week is Sacred Timeline - Stick to the Plan!
That is actually a kinda cool location although I dont really play decks that would benefit from it, or fill it quickly, but much better than some of the later ones introduced for sure.
Mercenaries Final 25.4 Content Patch Brings Six New Mercs, Dual-Types, Factions, & Mythic Boss Rush
That helped a little, but it mainly provided the rule of thumb rather than exact details. At least, I don't think tribe entirely determines Horde/Alliance: as far as I know Sylvanas is Horde in WoW lore, while Dawngrasp is Horde according to the Barrens storyline, but others of their tribes are not.
New Patch Is A Banger
Once again Riot hits it out of the park with its patches proving that they are generally far more exciting then the expansions themselves.
Also no rotation yet thank God, my boy vlad gets to still draw breath.
So big changes Kayle gets to actually be a card.
Whenever a champ goes down 1 mana its a big deal for those who remember Kindred used to be 5 mana and it was awful, then it became 4 mana and has seen meta play.
So Kayle going down from 6 to 5 is huge. Will I player her? Maybe as a Bard finisher because he's underplayed right now.
Katarina nerf. She went from unplayable to meta and now she's just good in the decks that want her. The free flock activator plus free rally combo is still strong.
Quietus nerf: people are overselling this a bit but I will tell you where the big difference is and thats malkai and veigar. When your 4 mana champ dies to a 1 mana spell and your deck revolves around them you insta lost. So big props for darkness being a deck again, generally cooler then like Nora shadow or heimer shadow.
Illois pkg buff: Illoi Jarvan, and Illoi Healing are cool decks that deserve to be playable. Very happy with these buffs l.
Weapon master pkg: Ash freijord midrange was always challenging to run competitively so Orn Jax was meant to be our savor. It kinda was but it needed buffs and it got it. Solid B+ tier deck now I say.
Yi buff: yi is gonna be the new Ionia staple control card no doubt. Very good buff here where he levels in deck, so you can bounce to protect ans retain value.
Lissanda buff: thralls playable again, hot Take I like thralls it's a tribal deck in a game where card piles are often better then archetypes. But the devs have taken strides to reverse this.
Shivana buff: levels in deck so going all in on shadow, demacia dragons might be worth revisiting. Remember that deck?
Lucian 1 mana: I think kenin has showed us that this stat line when properly built can be insane in a combo deck. So you definately want to slow roll him now. Setting up his level up on swing and playing him last. Or you just play him like temo and don't care if he dies.
Shurima control: weight of judgement and castigate, gives the region some flexibility for a slow game plan outside of sundisc. Don't get me wrong I think sundisc is "good" for the game. I just personally find it boring as hell.
So once again great patch Riot we practically got 1 brand new champion, and 1 ruinate and a ton of big balance stuff. Going to be very impactful overall. Archetypes over card piles all day!!!
Hearthstone Mercenaries Support Ending, No More Regular Content Updates After 25.4
While I agree with Mercenaries looking flat and barren, I'm not sure the engine is to blame for that. More is possible within the engine: classic Hearthstone boards are more lively than the Mercenaries board and diamond cards show that 3D character art is technically possible.
There were also advantages to putting Mercenaries in the same client, like lowering the barrier for people to try it out. And I think the character cross-promotion with the Barrens expansion was executed well.
It is good that they provide clarity about the future instead of letting it die silently. Also the final update looks pretty nice, so in that regard they're ending it on a high note.
What would Hearthstone 2 even be? If it's a graphical refresh with the same mechanics and cards, I'd welcome it. But if they restart from scratch, whether I'd make the jump would depend on how easy it is to build a new collection: I'm not eager to invest a lot of time and/or money in a new collection when there are so many other good games out there.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Support Ending, No More Regular Content Updates After 25.4
I mean, at least they're being honest and axing it (though way too late already IMO) instead of pretending like they're working on improving the mode when it's obvious the mode is dead and was pretty much dead a month after release.
They got no part of it right. The PvE was a tedious, unrewarding, repetitive grind. On Normal it was laughable, you could just queue up the same line-up over and over regardless of the location or boss and just beat up everything, particularly with heal-based comps like Nature or Holy Humans. On Heroic you were force to queue blind into a boss fight the first time cause there was no way to know what you're building against at the end, so it just wasted your time, and the climb up to the boss was, guess what, also wasted time, completely unrewarding. And that's what you had to do to even enter PvP to get your stuff to a competitive level, and you better hope what you thought was competitive is actually competitive and not utter trash (would be real sad if someone worked on levelling their Murloc or Demon lineup, wouldn't it?). There was no universal currency so that if you got stuff for Y you didn't want you could turn it to X you wanted, so that was further wasted time. So all modes wasted your time and effort and prety much none of it was actually any fun. It was more fun to tinker with comps and lineups in your head and in the menu than to play any part of the game.
It was a failure from start to finish, good riddance.
Mercenaries Final 25.4 Content Patch Brings Six New Mercs, Dual-Types, Factions, & Mythic Boss Rush
Atleast they quickly (as in 1 month after launch...) made Horde/Alliance keywords. So when you hover over thse treasures you can see which tribes get these bonuses.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Support Ending, No More Regular Content Updates After 25.4
As someone who has actually played a lot of Mercenaries and mostly enjoyed it, I have mixed feelings about this. I recently maxed out every single Merc, so with my saved packs and coins, I'm sure to collect and max out the final 6 Mercs. I will be very satisfied to have this collection completed. I am also feeling really glad I never spent any real money on this mode. I imagine a lot of people who bought those pre-order bundles are steamed right now. If the boss rush mode is fun, I'll still play it now and then. I will miss having new bounties to explore.
Hearthstone Mercenaries Support Ending, No More Regular Content Updates After 25.4
The first mistake is arguably deciding to build this within hearthstone's limited infrastructure, taking advantage of an already existing playerbase. The result is something that looks too flat, too ugly, and completely lacking in identity and design.
Compare this to arclight rumble. I think arclight is pretty much a response to mercs' failure as a mobile game. Its night and day between the two, even if both have the same monetization model.
Perhaps, even if cruelly, we can conclude that dying now is better than being a hollowed up shell waiting for its next update. If arclight turns out a success, it might even foreshadow hearthstone's own demise, or the inevitable hearthstone 2 within 5 years time.