The idea of discovering it's because I don't like the fact that almost everything is RNG, and having at least a little bit of control in the creation can avoid a lot of headaches.
I was thinking of the cost, and I feel that 6 is still a bit OP, but maybe adding the line "with half the stats" would balance it? Not really sure though.
I think there's a real problem here with respect to the Overwhelm keyword. It's clearly intended to match the Trample keyword in MTG,
That's actually a pretty big assumption, considering how many other aspects of the game fail to map exactly to their Magic or Hearthstone counterparts. Maybe it's better to just let Runeterra be Runeterra and discard expectations that are based on other games.
In the end, once you know how Final Spark works, you're not likely to forget it, so maybe this isn't a great hill to die on? I don't think we're likely to see a lot of Overwhelm spells in the future, so it's probably a moot point.
Haha, Final Spark is certainly not a hill worth dying on, but I think it highlights a misuse of a keyword, and Riot ought not to do that. CCGs are full of keywords designed to make games comprehensible while still ensuring economy of text. Keywords should describe rules which are entirely consistent in their application - if they're not, then ultimately the keyword makes things less clear, not more clear. Final Spark is perhaps the only example of this today in LoR, but it's still a very clear case of using a keyword to mean something that only kind of fits it.
To your second point, don't think it's really possible to just let Runeterra be Runeterra. It exists in a highly saturated CCG marketplace, with lots of people coming to it after years of playing games like Hearthstone and MTG. These kinds of preconceived understandings and comparisons exist for a reason, and I think Riot knows they're operating within them. In fact, I think they said they were highly inspired by those games, and so these comparisons are in many ways built in.
When I say Overwhelm is the problem because it doesn't work like Trample, I don't mean that it has to be like Trample. I just mean that everything (with one very odd exception) in the game points to it being exactly like Trample. The help text reads "Excess damage I deal to my blocker is dealt to the enemy Nexus," and when its attached to a unit it triggers exclusively on attacks (i.e. not from "unit fights another unit" type spells, and not from blocking). It's fine if they want to change it to mean something broader than Trample, but they should only use it when it actually applies.
EDIT: Just one follow-up here - LoR is a game that has been under wraps and in development for years. While it's certainly nitpicky to complain about mildly counter-intuitive wording on one card or another, particularly since it's the kind of thing you learn once and remember, I don't think it's fair to give Riot a pass on bad templating after so much time to get it right. This is a huge part of card games, and Hearthstone got caught up with a lot of problems around their "whenever" vs "after" trigger orders a while back, and then had to issue some bug fixes with mixed results to improve consistency. It's better now, but it was pretty messy at the time.
I agree that overall the EVIL classes got more of the 'headlines' in the Year of the Dragon, and it perhaps wasn't helped that Zephrys (and later Alex) were enough for EVIL classes to steal a bit of the Explorer's singleton limelight.
But I think you are overstating the imbalance a bit. Here are my thoughts.
Regarding class mechanics and flavour
While hunter, druid and paladin flavour was a bit lacking in RoS (mage had Dalaran's mages to fall back on), the same could be said of the EVIL classes in SoU who were really doing their own separate things aside from the odd lackey card. The plagues are connected only in name and it's not really a mechanic, as is best evidenced by Plague of Madness which didn't even affect the whole board because unlike the other EVIL classes rogue doesn't do AoEs.
That just leaves DoD, where Galakrond is a true imbalance, but not quite as much as it first seems. Excluding Galakrond himself because he was an extra card, the EVIL classes had to use up 3 of their 10 cards towards Galakrond. In their place the Explorer classes got both their explorer dragon and sidequests. That might not compensate totally (especially on power, see below), but they are more flexible so if you don't want to play a Galakrond deck that is 3 less options than the good classes got.
As far as flavour goes, Galakrond was more interesting than getting one of the main dragon aspects (sorry hunter). On the bright side, at least The Amazing Reno nudged that back a little bit so mage didn't feel left out. So the losers here were hunter, druid and pally I guess, just as they were in RoS.
Regarding power
First let's get Galakrond out of the way: the shaman, warrior, warlock and probably rogue Galakrond packages were over-tuned compared to everything else. Nerfs have helped bring them back in line, but I am never going to defend Blizz for the state of Galakrond shaman on release. I am also happy to complain about how the Doom in the Tomb event brought shaman-stone upon us, which only compounded the annoyance of the smooth transition to Galakrond shaman when DoD arrived.
As for everything else, I don't remember it being too biased towards EVIL. Pally has been a bit narrow, focusing so much on mech decks, but druid, hunter and mage have all been significant and varied presences in the meta across the year.
Edit: pally also had that dumb high-roll murloc deck. So even pally has had it's place in the meta.
Regarding fun to play
Now this truly is subjective, and I am certainly biased towards rogue, but not because the Year of the Dragon cards were more interesting; I just enjoy the rogue class the most generally. Rogue aside, I have found the EVIL classes less enjoyable than the good ones this year. Probably not enough to make a huge point about it, but certainly enough to disagree with you.
I'm sure everyone disagrees with everyone on the fine details here so I'll leave it at that.
Looking forwards
I would be surprised if there was a plan to leave the "EVIL classes in the dust", especially as the EVIL vs Explorers story has now ended and I doubt they would group classes in exactly that way again for a long time.
What we might see is the usual cycle of class power landing in favour of one of the good classes (I'd suspect paladin, which is very believable if the guesses for a blood elf expansion are correct), though that would likely be disconnected from the good/EVIL bias.
the worst part about it is that if there is a mix of Standard and Wild expansions, even cards that were previously useless and are far too weak for Wild (and were therefore safe to disenchant by any metric) might be needed..
So basically they'D be going back on their word and that will be the point I'll just drop the game alltogether, even if I have more than enough dust to still play it.
I just had another idea of a direction I could take the deathrattle on it:
Show Spoiler
The deathrattle options I am debating:
Add a copy of it to your hand that costs (1). - too overpowered
Add a 1/1 copy of it to your hand that costs (1). - more balanced, but I feel 1/1 copy ruins a lot of potential in the card. For example, if you use this card to kill a Taunt minion, all you get in return is a 1/1 Taunt. It's effect is only powerful on Battlecry and Deathrattle minions.
Add a copy of it to your hand that costs (2) less. - I'm thinking this might be a good middle ground between the 2. Not overly powerful (1) cost minions, but still a reduced cost minion that won't leave you with a potentially useless 1/1 token.
Any thoughts/opinions on these 3 deathrattle options?
I like the option you have currently - the 1/1 thing I think would end up useless. How much do you see people play Jepetto Joybuzz or Anka, the Buried? And on the rare occasions someone does play it, its in some Combo deck they designed to work around those cards - you'd not have that control over your opponent's deck.
That was my thoughts exactly. Plus the 1/1 that costs 1 isn't a very unique copy effect.
With this effect, Stealth starts to concern me. I like Stealth for the flavor, and to help protect the card for a turn for combo potential. But with Preparation, combos could be played the turn this is played already. Stealth could just create a case where Rogues are able to over-abuse 2-turns of deathrattle effects. I'm thinking of possibly a bump to 7-mana to keep the Stealth effect and to make doing combos on the turn it is played more difficult.
On a side note: I'm learning the joys of balancing a card with multiple effects. It's really interesting to think about how each effect can balance/counter balance another, and trying to find that sweet spot where a card is powerful, but not broken.
Ballance hasen‘t gotten the attention ist deserves. Noone is complaining!
You can play basicly any class you want competitivly except shaman but i guess most people are fine with that for the time being, considering the last year.
And even then, there are some viable T2 shaman decks out there
Thoughts? The idea is kind of a tweak of Dirty Rat that has more utility than DR since you can hold the copy until the best time to play - either to disrupt a combo, or for your own card advantage if it isn't a combo minion.
I like this a lot. Innovative, but easy to grasp. And great flavor, too (even if it's not typical HS style)!
I hate that you put this bad juju out into the universe, and I hate even more that it makes sense.
I play Wild as much or more than Standard, and good lord do the two not need to mix. The Doom in the Tomb meta in October was terrible - I was (and am) still a believer in the conspiracy that they designed that meta to be so oppressively stale because they wanted to drive people into trying Batlegrounds..
But yeah between the obvious connotations of "Phoenix = Rebirth/Return" and them giving the "old + new" a try with Doom in the Tomb, I can see this happening and I will be sad if it does.
Its a good deal, for the number of packs on offer. But unfortunately, its 3 packs per expansion, and if you're wanting to have a go with wild, 3 packs is hardly a good starting point to start from. They should have just let you choose the packs you want instead, really.
For a while now I've been thinking of making a video expressing certain concerns I had with the way the Year of the Dragon has been handled by Blizzard. Unfortunately, I have no audience to start with, nor do I have the equipment (and frankly, knowledge) to make a video I'd be truly proud of. I've been commenting on this forum a bit lately and decided... Maybe this could be the place to start. It's important to note as I put in the title--this is an opinion piece. I am not speaking objectively. This is strictly subjective.
I can't say I have terribly many qualifications, since I'm not exactly a Hearthstone personality, or a "pro player." However, I have some I can list that I hope will set my apart and show my opinion comes from the view of an above average Hearthstone player.
I am a 5x legend player--Two of those during the Year of the Raven, and the remaining 3 occurring in November, December, and January. I play for my University's TESPA team, where we were finished 3rd in the East and then went 2-2 in the playoff rounds. I have placed 1st in three local tournaments. Safe to say, I played a lot this year--it's why I feel I have a strong argument for my problems with this year.
With that intro out of the way, I'd like to express my concern with the Year of the Dragon, going expansion by expansion. I'd then like to express my concern for what this means for the upcoming year rumored to be titled Year of the Phoenix.
Let's get started then.
Rise of Shadows
I think it's safe to say we were all excited for Year of the Dragon. Year of the Raven soured many people with the frustrating experience that came along with Genn and Baku's even and odd decks. Blizzard started off with a bold move: Moving all of the Even and Odd cards to the Hall of Fame, preventing them from controlling the meta for another year. This year promised us something we'd never seen before--a year long narrative. We were excited to see the return of Villains from Hearthstone history. Rafaam, Dr. Boom, Hagatha, Lazul, and Togwaggle all came back in an exciting way. But as their legendaries were revealed, the first two small problem started. First, Dr. Boom and Hagatha were and still are both represented in Standard already with their hero cards. Why were they getting legendaries again? This ended up not mattering much to people--a problem swiftly avoided as people realized: This doesn't matter, actually. I agree. But the next problem stuck the whole year: They were class legendaries. This struck fear in some people; I admit to being concerned as well. The 5 classes were branded the League of Evil, and were given the Scheme mechanic that saw little success outside of Hagatha's scheme. But the promise of the year long mechanic in the Lackey mechanic brought many people over to the evil classes.
In response, the "good" classes, who saw so little representation in the first expansion they didn't even get a team name, got... Twinspell. And Twinspell is a really good mechanic! For at least some point in the year, every Twinspell card saw play. It was a success! But the success of the mechanic stands much too short against the excitement brought by the Evil classes. We saw far more attempts by people to make Evil decks work, as Bomb Warrior and Tempo Rogue became the dominant decks of the meta, edging out Conjurer Mage. The "good" classes were flat out not as exciting as the Evil classes, and it showed. Blizzard attempted to balance this out in the next expansion, but made what I feel was a crucial error...
Saviors of Uldum
The good classes finally had their heroes. The League of Explorers returned, as Reno, Finley, Elise, and Brann brought with them the much loved Singleton mechanic. Concerns for Bomb Warrior ruining this mechanic were swept away quickly at launch, as Bomb Warrior was simply incapable of keeping up, especially after the August 26th patch nerfing the Dr. Boom hero card to 9 mana. Along with them, they brought an extremely powerful friend, the hardest to program card in Hearthstone's history: Zephrys the Great. A neutral legendary. Yes: a NEUTRAL legendary.
Again, the Evil classes ended up being much more exciting. Four mechanics were re/introduced this set: Quests, which were for everyone, Reborn, which was for everyone, Plagues, which were for Evil only, and Singleton, which, thanks to Zephrys, was for everyone. Not to mention, the new Titanic Lackey really only saw play in the Evil classes that could properly support Lackeys. Hell, during this time, the best Quest was far and away the Shaman quest. This meant that again, the Evil classes were the favorite, more exciting classes. Thankfully the best Highlander decks during the Saviors of Uldum meta, and even during the Doom in the Tomb event, were the Good-Now-Explorer classes. This did not last.
Descent of Dragons & Galakrond's Awakening
The promised Dragons heavy expansion has finally arrived! This was the most excited I'd been for a Hearthstone expansion I'd been to date. I clearly had fun playing it; I've made legend twice during the event. But I won't lie to you all: the first time making legend was an absolute joke. The laughably overpowered Galakrond Shaman carried me to an 80% win rate as I reached legend on only the second day of the expansion. However, before I get in my own way, allow me to rewind a bit.
Descent of Dragons brought us two new mechanics: Invoke, one of the strongest mechanics to ever become part of the game, and Sidequests, a mechanic that like Twinspell has been really strong, but just doesn't bring the excitement of the Evil classes. We of course can't forget new Lackey synergy cards and the new Draconic lackey, or most importantly: Galakrond. Five brand new hero cards that were only for the Evil classes, again showing these 5 favor over the Explorer classes. Invoke and Galakrond was such a powerful mechanic, that the Shaman version of it was nerfed a mere two weeks in, and some cards with the mechanic got nerfed AGAIN a few weeks later. It was the most botched expansion launch in a while; not since The Witchwood has a new expansion come in and been nerfed so quickly. It left a terrible tastes in our mouths; how did Blizzard not see how freakishly overpowered this set was?
I did not forget about Zephrys. What should have been the most exciting card for the explorers robbed them of what made them most unique: The Singleton mechanic. Since Descent of Dragons, we've seen Highlander Rogue, Warrior, and Shaman all arrive in some form. Highlander Hunter remains the strongest, to be sure; but it's not what I've been hammering on this whole post. It is not exciting. Mage, Hunter, Druid, and Paladin were all powerful at some point during this year--but none of them have the excitement the EVIL classes brought. Their identities were pushed aside for Blizzard to focus on only five of it's nine classes.
Looking Forward
I hope people noticed something as they read this. I did talk about balance, sure, but that wasn't the main point I was talking about. It feels like Blizzard gave up on 4 of the 9 classes, and it showed throughout the year. When only five (or four, sorry Priest) classes are fun, the Meta isn't fun. The most fun I've had this year has been playing Battlegrounds--a game mode that provides us with no helpful rewards to help our collections, save for the occasional "play Battlegrounds" quests. This makes me concerned for the rumored Year of the Phoenix. What will Blizzard do?
Are we going to have a Witchwood situation? Is Descent of Dragons and Galakrond's awakening going to be so god damn powerful and fun that the first expansion of 2020 will be pushed to the wayside?
Is Blizzard going to try to balance itself out, and then leave the 5 Evil classes in the dust by over focusing on the Explorer classes?
Blizzard has already announced they will not be continuing the year long story. Why? The story and connected mechanics have at least been well received, if not without their problems.
As we face Hearthstone 2020, what does the future hold in store?
I don't think there's any simple solutions, especially in the case that my opinions here don't reflect strongly on others opinions. I just hope that 2020 brings cool, fun stuff for all the classes, not just half of them.
I appreciate you taking the time to read all of my thoughts. I love Hearthstone. I love playing Hearthstone. I just played so much of it this year, I couldn't ignore these problems, and I wanted to share my thoughts somewhere. Thank you. <3
Am i allowed to give my card ANY watermark (even ones that don‘t exist in HS) there are on hearthcards?
Any watermark is fine.
For the sake of realism, I would suggest trying to follow "continuity" in terms of non-launch keywords (for example, no using Discover on cards before LoE), although this isn't necessarily a rule. Any custom watermarks are also allowed at any time.
Do You Copy? - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Ok, it's taking form.
The idea of discovering it's because I don't like the fact that almost everything is RNG, and having at least a little bit of control in the creation can avoid a lot of headaches.
I was thinking of the cost, and I feel that 6 is still a bit OP, but maybe adding the line "with half the stats" would balance it? Not really sure though.
Is Final Spark / Karma interactions intended?
Haha, Final Spark is certainly not a hill worth dying on, but I think it highlights a misuse of a keyword, and Riot ought not to do that. CCGs are full of keywords designed to make games comprehensible while still ensuring economy of text. Keywords should describe rules which are entirely consistent in their application - if they're not, then ultimately the keyword makes things less clear, not more clear. Final Spark is perhaps the only example of this today in LoR, but it's still a very clear case of using a keyword to mean something that only kind of fits it.
To your second point, don't think it's really possible to just let Runeterra be Runeterra. It exists in a highly saturated CCG marketplace, with lots of people coming to it after years of playing games like Hearthstone and MTG. These kinds of preconceived understandings and comparisons exist for a reason, and I think Riot knows they're operating within them. In fact, I think they said they were highly inspired by those games, and so these comparisons are in many ways built in.
When I say Overwhelm is the problem because it doesn't work like Trample, I don't mean that it has to be like Trample. I just mean that everything (with one very odd exception) in the game points to it being exactly like Trample. The help text reads "Excess damage I deal to my blocker is dealt to the enemy Nexus," and when its attached to a unit it triggers exclusively on attacks (i.e. not from "unit fights another unit" type spells, and not from blocking). It's fine if they want to change it to mean something broader than Trample, but they should only use it when it actually applies.
EDIT: Just one follow-up here - LoR is a game that has been under wraps and in development for years. While it's certainly nitpicky to complain about mildly counter-intuitive wording on one card or another, particularly since it's the kind of thing you learn once and remember, I don't think it's fair to give Riot a pass on bad templating after so much time to get it right. This is a huge part of card games, and Hearthstone got caught up with a lot of problems around their "whenever" vs "after" trigger orders a while back, and then had to issue some bug fixes with mixed results to improve consistency. It's better now, but it was pretty messy at the time.
Good deck for low level climbing?
so....mindless aggro or nothing? Kinda seems like I either need to play mindless aggro or......uninstall the game.
The Year of the Dragon Problem - An Opinion Piece
I agree that overall the EVIL classes got more of the 'headlines' in the Year of the Dragon, and it perhaps wasn't helped that Zephrys (and later Alex) were enough for EVIL classes to steal a bit of the Explorer's singleton limelight.
But I think you are overstating the imbalance a bit. Here are my thoughts.
Regarding class mechanics and flavour
While hunter, druid and paladin flavour was a bit lacking in RoS (mage had Dalaran's mages to fall back on), the same could be said of the EVIL classes in SoU who were really doing their own separate things aside from the odd lackey card. The plagues are connected only in name and it's not really a mechanic, as is best evidenced by Plague of Madness which didn't even affect the whole board because unlike the other EVIL classes rogue doesn't do AoEs.
That just leaves DoD, where Galakrond is a true imbalance, but not quite as much as it first seems. Excluding Galakrond himself because he was an extra card, the EVIL classes had to use up 3 of their 10 cards towards Galakrond. In their place the Explorer classes got both their explorer dragon and sidequests. That might not compensate totally (especially on power, see below), but they are more flexible so if you don't want to play a Galakrond deck that is 3 less options than the good classes got.
As far as flavour goes, Galakrond was more interesting than getting one of the main dragon aspects (sorry hunter). On the bright side, at least The Amazing Reno nudged that back a little bit so mage didn't feel left out. So the losers here were hunter, druid and pally I guess, just as they were in RoS.
Regarding power
First let's get Galakrond out of the way: the shaman, warrior, warlock and probably rogue Galakrond packages were over-tuned compared to everything else. Nerfs have helped bring them back in line, but I am never going to defend Blizz for the state of Galakrond shaman on release. I am also happy to complain about how the Doom in the Tomb event brought shaman-stone upon us, which only compounded the annoyance of the smooth transition to Galakrond shaman when DoD arrived.
As for everything else, I don't remember it being too biased towards EVIL. Pally has been a bit narrow, focusing so much on mech decks, but druid, hunter and mage have all been significant and varied presences in the meta across the year.
Edit: pally also had that dumb high-roll murloc deck. So even pally has had it's place in the meta.
Regarding fun to play
Now this truly is subjective, and I am certainly biased towards rogue, but not because the Year of the Dragon cards were more interesting; I just enjoy the rogue class the most generally. Rogue aside, I have found the EVIL classes less enjoyable than the good ones this year. Probably not enough to make a huge point about it, but certainly enough to disagree with you.
I'm sure everyone disagrees with everyone on the fine details here so I'll leave it at that.
Looking forwards
I would be surprised if there was a plan to leave the "EVIL classes in the dust", especially as the EVIL vs Explorers story has now ended and I doubt they would group classes in exactly that way again for a long time.
What we might see is the usual cycle of class power landing in favour of one of the good classes (I'd suspect paladin, which is very believable if the guesses for a blood elf expansion are correct), though that would likely be disconnected from the good/EVIL bias.
Tirion is Being Rotated from Hearthstone's Battlegrounds Early this Month
are you trolling he is just a month in it my friend
Legend of Runeterra's 0.9.1 Patch is Now Live! New Boards, New Guardian, and Animation Speed Increases
I love the improved animation time, feels so much better to play with.
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
the worst part about it is that if there is a mix of Standard and Wild expansions, even cards that were previously useless and are far too weak for Wild (and were therefore safe to disenchant by any metric) might be needed..
So basically they'D be going back on their word and that will be the point I'll just drop the game alltogether, even if I have more than enough dust to still play it.
Do You Copy? - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
That was my thoughts exactly. Plus the 1/1 that costs 1 isn't a very unique copy effect.
With this effect, Stealth starts to concern me. I like Stealth for the flavor, and to help protect the card for a turn for combo potential. But with Preparation, combos could be played the turn this is played already. Stealth could just create a case where Rogues are able to over-abuse 2-turns of deathrattle effects. I'm thinking of possibly a bump to 7-mana to keep the Stealth effect and to make doing combos on the turn it is played more difficult.
On a side note: I'm learning the joys of balancing a card with multiple effects. It's really interesting to think about how each effect can balance/counter balance another, and trying to find that sweet spot where a card is powerful, but not broken.
Blizzard Confirms no Standard or Wild Hearthstone Balance Changes Before the Next Expansion - "Meta Looks and Feels Fun"
Ballance hasen‘t gotten the attention ist deserves. Noone is complaining!
You can play basicly any class you want competitivly except shaman but i guess most people are fine with that for the time being, considering the last year.
And even then, there are some viable T2 shaman decks out there
Do You Copy? - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I like this a lot. Innovative, but easy to grasp. And great flavor, too (even if it's not typical HS style)!
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
Is it available only if you have reached rank 24 in Wild or Standard counts as well?
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
Year of the dragon packs and year of the raven packs are also part of wild, why are they not in this bundle? Your argument makes no sense.
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
I hate that you put this bad juju out into the universe, and I hate even more that it makes sense.
I play Wild as much or more than Standard, and good lord do the two not need to mix. The Doom in the Tomb meta in October was terrible - I was (and am) still a believer in the conspiracy that they designed that meta to be so oppressively stale because they wanted to drive people into trying Batlegrounds..
But yeah between the obvious connotations of "Phoenix = Rebirth/Return" and them giving the "old + new" a try with Doom in the Tomb, I can see this happening and I will be sad if it does.
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
Nop, Classic it's part of the stantar and the wild, that's why
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
You can't pass 24 packs for just 15 euro. It's a great VfM, in terms of missing wild cards and for some extra dust
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
Its a good deal, for the number of packs on offer. But unfortunately, its 3 packs per expansion, and if you're wanting to have a go with wild, 3 packs is hardly a good starting point to start from. They should have just let you choose the packs you want instead, really.
So, have to be a skip for me I'm afraid.
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
You don't remember it because it was a stealth change made together with the patch that allowed Wild packs to be purchasable with Gold.
The Year of the Dragon Problem - An Opinion Piece
Hello everyone. I'm Raktoner.
For a while now I've been thinking of making a video expressing certain concerns I had with the way the Year of the Dragon has been handled by Blizzard. Unfortunately, I have no audience to start with, nor do I have the equipment (and frankly, knowledge) to make a video I'd be truly proud of. I've been commenting on this forum a bit lately and decided... Maybe this could be the place to start. It's important to note as I put in the title--this is an opinion piece. I am not speaking objectively. This is strictly subjective.
I can't say I have terribly many qualifications, since I'm not exactly a Hearthstone personality, or a "pro player." However, I have some I can list that I hope will set my apart and show my opinion comes from the view of an above average Hearthstone player.
I am a 5x legend player--Two of those during the Year of the Raven, and the remaining 3 occurring in November, December, and January. I play for my University's TESPA team, where we were finished 3rd in the East and then went 2-2 in the playoff rounds. I have placed 1st in three local tournaments. Safe to say, I played a lot this year--it's why I feel I have a strong argument for my problems with this year.
With that intro out of the way, I'd like to express my concern with the Year of the Dragon, going expansion by expansion. I'd then like to express my concern for what this means for the upcoming year rumored to be titled Year of the Phoenix.
Let's get started then.
Rise of Shadows
I think it's safe to say we were all excited for Year of the Dragon. Year of the Raven soured many people with the frustrating experience that came along with Genn and Baku's even and odd decks. Blizzard started off with a bold move: Moving all of the Even and Odd cards to the Hall of Fame, preventing them from controlling the meta for another year. This year promised us something we'd never seen before--a year long narrative. We were excited to see the return of Villains from Hearthstone history. Rafaam, Dr. Boom, Hagatha, Lazul, and Togwaggle all came back in an exciting way. But as their legendaries were revealed, the first two small problem started. First, Dr. Boom and Hagatha were and still are both represented in Standard already with their hero cards. Why were they getting legendaries again? This ended up not mattering much to people--a problem swiftly avoided as people realized: This doesn't matter, actually. I agree. But the next problem stuck the whole year: They were class legendaries. This struck fear in some people; I admit to being concerned as well. The 5 classes were branded the League of Evil, and were given the Scheme mechanic that saw little success outside of Hagatha's scheme. But the promise of the year long mechanic in the Lackey mechanic brought many people over to the evil classes.
In response, the "good" classes, who saw so little representation in the first expansion they didn't even get a team name, got... Twinspell. And Twinspell is a really good mechanic! For at least some point in the year, every Twinspell card saw play. It was a success! But the success of the mechanic stands much too short against the excitement brought by the Evil classes. We saw far more attempts by people to make Evil decks work, as Bomb Warrior and Tempo Rogue became the dominant decks of the meta, edging out Conjurer Mage. The "good" classes were flat out not as exciting as the Evil classes, and it showed. Blizzard attempted to balance this out in the next expansion, but made what I feel was a crucial error...
Saviors of Uldum
The good classes finally had their heroes. The League of Explorers returned, as Reno, Finley, Elise, and Brann brought with them the much loved Singleton mechanic. Concerns for Bomb Warrior ruining this mechanic were swept away quickly at launch, as Bomb Warrior was simply incapable of keeping up, especially after the August 26th patch nerfing the Dr. Boom hero card to 9 mana. Along with them, they brought an extremely powerful friend, the hardest to program card in Hearthstone's history: Zephrys the Great. A neutral legendary. Yes: a NEUTRAL legendary.
Again, the Evil classes ended up being much more exciting. Four mechanics were re/introduced this set: Quests, which were for everyone, Reborn, which was for everyone, Plagues, which were for Evil only, and Singleton, which, thanks to Zephrys, was for everyone. Not to mention, the new Titanic Lackey really only saw play in the Evil classes that could properly support Lackeys. Hell, during this time, the best Quest was far and away the Shaman quest. This meant that again, the Evil classes were the favorite, more exciting classes. Thankfully the best Highlander decks during the Saviors of Uldum meta, and even during the Doom in the Tomb event, were the Good-Now-Explorer classes. This did not last.
Descent of Dragons & Galakrond's Awakening
The promised Dragons heavy expansion has finally arrived! This was the most excited I'd been for a Hearthstone expansion I'd been to date. I clearly had fun playing it; I've made legend twice during the event. But I won't lie to you all: the first time making legend was an absolute joke. The laughably overpowered Galakrond Shaman carried me to an 80% win rate as I reached legend on only the second day of the expansion. However, before I get in my own way, allow me to rewind a bit.
Descent of Dragons brought us two new mechanics: Invoke, one of the strongest mechanics to ever become part of the game, and Sidequests, a mechanic that like Twinspell has been really strong, but just doesn't bring the excitement of the Evil classes. We of course can't forget new Lackey synergy cards and the new Draconic lackey, or most importantly: Galakrond. Five brand new hero cards that were only for the Evil classes, again showing these 5 favor over the Explorer classes. Invoke and Galakrond was such a powerful mechanic, that the Shaman version of it was nerfed a mere two weeks in, and some cards with the mechanic got nerfed AGAIN a few weeks later. It was the most botched expansion launch in a while; not since The Witchwood has a new expansion come in and been nerfed so quickly. It left a terrible tastes in our mouths; how did Blizzard not see how freakishly overpowered this set was?
I did not forget about Zephrys. What should have been the most exciting card for the explorers robbed them of what made them most unique: The Singleton mechanic. Since Descent of Dragons, we've seen Highlander Rogue, Warrior, and Shaman all arrive in some form. Highlander Hunter remains the strongest, to be sure; but it's not what I've been hammering on this whole post. It is not exciting. Mage, Hunter, Druid, and Paladin were all powerful at some point during this year--but none of them have the excitement the EVIL classes brought. Their identities were pushed aside for Blizzard to focus on only five of it's nine classes.
Looking Forward
I hope people noticed something as they read this. I did talk about balance, sure, but that wasn't the main point I was talking about. It feels like Blizzard gave up on 4 of the 9 classes, and it showed throughout the year. When only five (or four, sorry Priest) classes are fun, the Meta isn't fun. The most fun I've had this year has been playing Battlegrounds--a game mode that provides us with no helpful rewards to help our collections, save for the occasional "play Battlegrounds" quests. This makes me concerned for the rumored Year of the Phoenix. What will Blizzard do?
Are we going to have a Witchwood situation? Is Descent of Dragons and Galakrond's awakening going to be so god damn powerful and fun that the first expansion of 2020 will be pushed to the wayside?
Is Blizzard going to try to balance itself out, and then leave the 5 Evil classes in the dust by over focusing on the Explorer classes?
Blizzard has already announced they will not be continuing the year long story. Why? The story and connected mechanics have at least been well received, if not without their problems.
As we face Hearthstone 2020, what does the future hold in store?
I don't think there's any simple solutions, especially in the case that my opinions here don't reflect strongly on others opinions. I just hope that 2020 brings cool, fun stuff for all the classes, not just half of them.
I appreciate you taking the time to read all of my thoughts. I love Hearthstone. I love playing Hearthstone. I just played so much of it this year, I couldn't ignore these problems, and I wanted to share my thoughts somewhere. Thank you. <3
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
oooh that's not a bad idea
but damnit that means some of us will have to actually get the wild sets to have a complete and viable collection!
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
OH I HOPE SO
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
The store says "Wild only", so this sounds like it. Very interesting!
Do You Copy? - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Any watermark is fine.
For the sake of realism, I would suggest trying to follow "continuity" in terms of non-launch keywords (for example, no using Discover on cards before LoE), although this isn't necessarily a rule. Any custom watermarks are also allowed at any time.
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
Come join us!
and taste the bittersweet flavor of flawed synergies!
A New Bundle is Available in the Hearthstone Shop - The Wild Bundle Contains 24 Card Packs for $15
Hahaha this might be a major spot-on!
Do You Copy? - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I have a question about watermarking your card.
Am i allowed to give my card ANY watermark (even ones that don‘t exist in HS) there are on hearthcards?