Keep in mind that Blizzard will want to maximize profits, regardless of what they do (even if that results in a price cut, the cut will be because the revenue will increase as more people will buy). If you keep that perspective at the front of your argument, we know certain things are unlikely to happen:
1.) Making the Classic/Basic cards viable (through reworks or buffs) regardless of the expansion would hurt sales of the expansion packs (who would need to buy them to compete?). To use the Priest example (i.e. every expansion has a broken Priest deck because the Classic set is awful), if they fixed the Classic set so it alone was strong, who would buy the cards needed for the new meta deck that has been blowing up the ladder?
2.) Giving out the entire Classic set (or a rotational set) for free/at a drastically reduced price will remove the revenue from Classic packs entirely, so unless this results in more expansion packs selling, it would be unlikely (maybe the survey results suggest people would spend the money they saved from the Classic price reduction on other packs, but I doubt it). Classic packs also provide a steady revenue that doesn't change through rotations (btw, I am ALL in favor of discounting packs after rotation... I can't imagine why this hasn't been done, aside from potentially reducing dust cost).
3.) No matter what, the best deck meta MUST necessitate the new expansion cards, or as a business you have failed. You could argue a delay in response time to broken meta cards is intentional to force people to buy packs/craft the broken card, then nerf it to result in different expansion cards being needed. I know you typically receive the full dust from creating these cards upon nerf, but that doesn't result in a 100% return on investment (maybe in very rare scenarios, but not usually... see "Gift Card Theory" in Marketing for more info on that). I'm not saying this is true, just playing devil's advocate...
I don't think this is all doom and gloom; a company asking these survey questions is a great step in the right direction and can result in wonderful initiatives that benefit players (reduced pack cost, new bundles across different price points, new ideas and fixes for points of contention, etc...). I'm just suggesting to temper your expectations and remember the bottom line is always the bottom line. :)
Your first two sentences are 1) spot-on and 2) very likely the cost:benefit analysis Blizzard is doing - i.e. to what level do we need to reduce pricing OR offer more content to increase buy-in and grow overall revenue.
My guesses on a macro level would be:
1. I expect the main ex-pac bundles will either 1) increase in goods rather than decrease in price - perhaps next time the $50 bundle will have the card back and cosmetic hero and the $80 bundle will have everything the $50 does plus an additional golden legendary or two. Alternatively, now that they've gone back to the paid single-player adventures/bundles, they may slightly reduce the bundle costs to try and get as many people to "double-dip" as possible - say $40 & $75. Because hey you saved call it $10, that $20 PvE bundle is REALLY only $10 more than you would have "normally" spent, right?
2. As to reducing the cost of rotated x-packs, I think the only way they will actually pursue that is if they're planning on trying to make Wild more popular to get people to buy in - again, less money per pack but more packs sold = more $$$. They've definitely hinted at the being on the table with the big Wild bundle earlier this year, and now this "bringing the 'much loved' wild cards back into Standard" might be an attempt to gauge how much buy-in your average player wants this/tries out Wild after getting a taste.
I guess my big question is: Figuring out the "why" will almost always tell you the "what/how." Sure there's more competition in the TCG space now than there was 5 years ago, but not so much I can buy it being the driver behind these moves? Is it purely because it's an established (Do yOu GuyS eVEn haVe PHoneS?!) mobile-friendly property and they're clearly chasing that player-base? Not really sure about that either.
really it's the combination of all those things (I won't count Sea Giant becausse at 10 mana he comes out much later and is easier to deal with)
You basically have a 3-4 mana 8-drop that also deals 3 damage and usually takes out something on the enemy side. So eeven if you would have been able to kill an 8-drop on turn 3-5, after they value trade you certainly won't be able to (unless you have specific removal available)
i recently went from rank 15 to 7 in wild using mech pala and mech hunter. I had 80% winrate. Now that i'm to rank 7, i lose every game. So, now i'm at rank 9. It's frustrating knowing that this game is so rigged it has to "change" the cards you draw, well my entire hunter deck is made of cost 1/2 but as always i draw, first turn, only the 5/5 and the cost 4. And it happens just now that i'm there, otherwise i didn't have 80% :)
Cool game.
Anyway, at rank 7/8/9 to 5, what decks you feel to use? I encounter manly even shaman, or control shaman, or aggro totem shaman :) 9 times in a row shaman :)
In wild you can use whatever you like, but your meta matters a lot. And you can't really expect to find a "standard" meta, exept when some decks are really dominant (pirate warrior, big priest). Maybe you just find some negative match-up. It happens. Or maybe is you that has become tilted and don't play well as you are able to. It happens a lot too.
I suggest to you to take a break whenever a win streak ends, and to play a (fast) deck that you like instead of looking for better recipes.
Long answer: the guide is the main reason we should read lists. Without the guide we are mindless netdecking bot. With the guide we are intelligent people looking for ideas. And with the guide we are more able to modify the list as we can and as we wish.
Last but not least, I usually write long guides for my lists; I don't know if people enjoy them (almost every deck I have ever written about are without comments), but I did enjoy writing them.
Oh, and remember to add in the end a section for teches and swaps. Expecially budget swaps.
Can I warn anyone using the 80g Quest Trading thread not to trade with Vegetaz (Battletag: HaVoC#2426), as I strongly suspect she/he's using the thread to farm community members for their 80 gold quests when she/he doesn't have one to trade with. Reasons I suspect this are as follows:
I currently have the 80g quest and viewed the 80g Quest thread at around 7am GMT today to find the latest EU member who had posted, so I could do a quick trade. Vegetaz/HaVoC had posted, offering the trade, on the condition that whoever responded goes first, so I requested him/her in the game. She/he accepted me. So far, so good. I then asked to see Vegetaz/HaVoC's quest before I initiated a game (and my 80g quest) with him/her.
At this point, Vegetaz/HaVoC posted back with words to the effect of "What, don't you trust me? Just play your quest or I'll find someone else.". I replied saying, basically, "Well, why would I trust you? I've only just met you?" At that point Vegetaz/HaVoC defriended me, with no further reply. I reported the post with the information I've given here. I also had another look at Vegetaz/HaVoC's post on the 80g thread and noticed it had been downvoted. I added my own downvote for good measure.
I checked the site when I got home from work about half an hour ago, and Vegetaz's post has been removed, presumably as a result of me reporting it. However, I had a look back over the last few pages of the thread. On page 22, Vegetaz has posted five separate offers of the 80g quest over the course of the last week, and each post has been downvoted, suggesting another member has been fleeced by him / her, or smelt a rat, as I did.
I hope none of the mods mind me flagging this up in a separate thread, but it seems like this user is a serial scammer. I see that there isn't currently a blacklist at the start of the 80g thread (as was the case on the old site) and I'm not sure if the thread is regularly monitored by any mods, so there's possibly a vulnerability that's being exploited here. I think the community on this site is awesome - a lot more respectful of each other than the old site - and I just wanna do my bit to keep it that way.
Anyway, that's it. Bottom line is, don't trade with Vegetaz (Battletag: HaVoC#2426)
They do sort of prorate packs through occasional sales or bundles. For rotating sets specifically, they had the “Mammoth Bundle” as year of the Mammoth was near the end, and I believe they had a similar “Raven bundle” earlier this year. Both were at discounted rates and included packs of the oldest 5 sets in standard (I think). To make this more of an actual prorated price they could allow you to customize the bundle and pick how many packs you want from each available set in the bundle, or maybe remove or increase the 1 bundle limit. That way if you want to buy a lot of older packs at discount you could do that, instead of just 10 to 5 or so per expansion included in the bundle.
I'm contemplating writing an in-depth guide for the deck I've been picking up Legend with in Wild for the past few seasons (Mecha'thun Warlock). The decklist wouldn't be anything particularly new - the point would just be to give a full explanation of the mechanics involved and the strategies required of the main matchups in the Wild metagame. It would, however, be extensive - meaning I don't really want to bother if nobody will read or care!
So - would anyone be interested in seeing a full deck guide of this nature?
While there are OTHER competitive decks than Combo Priest, suggesting that Aggro Warrior is *better* than Combo Priest is, in my opinion, entirely incorrect.
If you win it's skill, if you loose than the game must be rigged. Seems a bit flawed to me. HS has a very heavy RNG factor and draw/matchup are just a portion of it. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not but that's is a totally different matter than making claim about the whole game being scripted to stop someone from winning.
Around rank 7 on Wild you can reach 5 with amost everything decent (at last Tier 1 or 2), so go for what you feel more comfortable with. Maybe Secret Mage as an extra edge at this time, so you may wanna try it out.
Literally any deck works at rank 7-9. Especially in wild.
Mech paladin can easily cruise you to legend. This game isn't rigged. You're either unlucky or bad. Perhaps a combination of both.
With that said, secret mage is favored against shamans and ridiculously strong against the rest of the playing field as well. So just play that, I guess.
Keep in mind that Blizzard will want to maximize profits, regardless of what they do (even if that results in a price cut, the cut will be because the revenue will increase as more people will buy). If you keep that perspective at the front of your argument, we know certain things are unlikely to happen:
1.) Making the Classic/Basic cards viable (through reworks or buffs) regardless of the expansion would hurt sales of the expansion packs (who would need to buy them to compete?). To use the Priest example (i.e. every expansion has a broken Priest deck because the Classic set is awful), if they fixed the Classic set so it alone was strong, who would buy the cards needed for the new meta deck that has been blowing up the ladder?
2.) Giving out the entire Classic set (or a rotational set) for free/at a drastically reduced price will remove the revenue from Classic packs entirely, so unless this results in more expansion packs selling, it would be unlikely (maybe the survey results suggest people would spend the money they saved from the Classic price reduction on other packs, but I doubt it). Classic packs also provide a steady revenue that doesn't change through rotations (btw, I am ALL in favor of discounting packs after rotation... I can't imagine why this hasn't been done, aside from potentially reducing dust cost).
3.) No matter what, the best deck meta MUST necessitate the new expansion cards, or as a business you have failed. You could argue a delay in response time to broken meta cards is intentional to force people to buy packs/craft the broken card, then nerf it to result in different expansion cards being needed. I know you typically receive the full dust from creating these cards upon nerf, but that doesn't result in a 100% return on investment (maybe in very rare scenarios, but not usually... see "Gift Card Theory" in Marketing for more info on that). I'm not saying this is true, just playing devil's advocate...
I don't think this is all doom and gloom; a company asking these survey questions is a great step in the right direction and can result in wonderful initiatives that benefit players (reduced pack cost, new bundles across different price points, new ideas and fixes for points of contention, etc...). I'm just suggesting to temper your expectations and remember the bottom line is always the bottom line. :)
It would be nice if they prorated cards down after each expansion kind of like cars lose their value over time. Who wants to buy a pack at full cost when it's about to rotate? Same with legendaries newer legendaries should cost more than ones about to rotate out .
It is ridiculously powerful against aggro boards, but I guess the same could be said for Sea Giant & Mountain Giant (I know these cards don't have rush, and maybe that's the issue here... wouldn't help the Mutate issue though)
But just so I make sure I understand, does the combo require killing off an Oblivitron (so you can trigger it via Nine Lives) and then playing it again so you can activate it with Play Dead? But then it looks like a TTK as you need Oblivitron to stick for a turn so you can drop Necromechanic (4) + Nine Lives (3) + Play Dead (1) + Hero Power the next turn. Am I reading things correctly?
If you can drop the Galvanizers on your Mechwarpers and at least 1 Clockwork Automaton, the warpers would be 0-cost and you could get the Automaton down to 1-cost (or zero if you get another Galvanizer/Warper via Stitched Tracker or Zola). Then if you're able to Jepetto the Faceless Manipulators or the remaining Automaton you could play the remaining one of those three at its normal cost and still have enough mana left over to hero power. Though in retrospect this may be more difficult than the Oblivitron strategy ;D
Sounds doable! That's a deck idea to experiment with.. Careful with mechwarpers though- board space could be an issue.
The current one was inspired by a friend opening Oblivitron and saying it's useless though so that's where I'm heading rn..
Good find on galvanizers- they'd make things way easier.
Stitched Strackers are good way to get more automatons.. unreliable but good for curve..
Jepetto hitting the Oblivitron would be the dream but we need an alternative path.
This has been my favorite dungeon so far... I love the progression system (the treasures/hero powers bring an RPG element to the game as well as allowing you to try some silly/ridiculously overpowered combinations). I also like I can resume a very long battle at any time and, if I get screwed by RNG (as I did last night... never trust Yogg-Saron), I also know the next time I step to the Plague Lord it will be an easy win.
BTW, Jythiros of Questions is my favorite enemy ever... what a fun mechanic!
Keep in mind that if you died to the final boss when it had 1 health remaining in the previous dungeons, you would still have to redo everything, except you would have no progress against the final boss when you reached them again. While I haven't played every chapter yet, I really like the Plague Lord mechanic; I also think it (along with all of the treasures) encourages replay, which is what you want as a developer.
Could Hearthstone be Looking to Reduce the Cost of the Classic Set?
Your first two sentences are 1) spot-on and 2) very likely the cost:benefit analysis Blizzard is doing - i.e. to what level do we need to reduce pricing OR offer more content to increase buy-in and grow overall revenue.
My guesses on a macro level would be:
1. I expect the main ex-pac bundles will either 1) increase in goods rather than decrease in price - perhaps next time the $50 bundle will have the card back and cosmetic hero and the $80 bundle will have everything the $50 does plus an additional golden legendary or two. Alternatively, now that they've gone back to the paid single-player adventures/bundles, they may slightly reduce the bundle costs to try and get as many people to "double-dip" as possible - say $40 & $75. Because hey you saved call it $10, that $20 PvE bundle is REALLY only $10 more than you would have "normally" spent, right?
2. As to reducing the cost of rotated x-packs, I think the only way they will actually pursue that is if they're planning on trying to make Wild more popular to get people to buy in - again, less money per pack but more packs sold = more $$$. They've definitely hinted at the being on the table with the big Wild bundle earlier this year, and now this "bringing the 'much loved' wild cards back into Standard" might be an attempt to gauge how much buy-in your average player wants this/tries out Wild after getting a taste.
I guess my big question is: Figuring out the "why" will almost always tell you the "what/how." Sure there's more competition in the TCG space now than there was 5 years ago, but not so much I can buy it being the driver behind these moves? Is it purely because it's an established (Do yOu GuyS eVEn haVe PHoneS?!) mobile-friendly property and they're clearly chasing that player-base? Not really sure about that either.
Standard Meta Report #7 - September 23, 2019 - September 29, 2019
really it's the combination of all those things (I won't count Sea Giant becausse at 10 mana he comes out much later and is easier to deal with)
You basically have a 3-4 mana 8-drop that also deals 3 damage and usually takes out something on the enemy side. So eeven if you would have been able to kill an 8-drop on turn 3-5, after they value trade you certainly won't be able to (unless you have specific removal available)
Deck lists according to rank
In wild you can use whatever you like, but your meta matters a lot. And you can't really expect to find a "standard" meta, exept when some decks are really dominant (pirate warrior, big priest). Maybe you just find some negative match-up. It happens. Or maybe is you that has become tilted and don't play well as you are able to. It happens a lot too.
I suggest to you to take a break whenever a win streak ends, and to play a (fast) deck that you like instead of looking for better recipes.
Would this be of interest?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: the guide is the main reason we should read lists. Without the guide we are mindless netdecking bot. With the guide we are intelligent people looking for ideas. And with the guide we are more able to modify the list as we can and as we wish.
Last but not least, I usually write long guides for my lists; I don't know if people enjoy them (almost every deck I have ever written about are without comments), but I did enjoy writing them.
Oh, and remember to add in the end a section for teches and swaps. Expecially budget swaps.
80g Quest Trading Fraudster: Vegetaz (HaVoC#2426)
Hi all,
Can I warn anyone using the 80g Quest Trading thread not to trade with Vegetaz (Battletag: HaVoC#2426), as I strongly suspect she/he's using the thread to farm community members for their 80 gold quests when she/he doesn't have one to trade with. Reasons I suspect this are as follows:
I currently have the 80g quest and viewed the 80g Quest thread at around 7am GMT today to find the latest EU member who had posted, so I could do a quick trade. Vegetaz/HaVoC had posted, offering the trade, on the condition that whoever responded goes first, so I requested him/her in the game. She/he accepted me. So far, so good. I then asked to see Vegetaz/HaVoC's quest before I initiated a game (and my 80g quest) with him/her.
At this point, Vegetaz/HaVoC posted back with words to the effect of "What, don't you trust me? Just play your quest or I'll find someone else.". I replied saying, basically, "Well, why would I trust you? I've only just met you?" At that point Vegetaz/HaVoC defriended me, with no further reply. I reported the post with the information I've given here. I also had another look at Vegetaz/HaVoC's post on the 80g thread and noticed it had been downvoted. I added my own downvote for good measure.
I checked the site when I got home from work about half an hour ago, and Vegetaz's post has been removed, presumably as a result of me reporting it. However, I had a look back over the last few pages of the thread. On page 22, Vegetaz has posted five separate offers of the 80g quest over the course of the last week, and each post has been downvoted, suggesting another member has been fleeced by him / her, or smelt a rat, as I did.
I hope none of the mods mind me flagging this up in a separate thread, but it seems like this user is a serial scammer. I see that there isn't currently a blacklist at the start of the 80g thread (as was the case on the old site) and I'm not sure if the thread is regularly monitored by any mods, so there's possibly a vulnerability that's being exploited here. I think the community on this site is awesome - a lot more respectful of each other than the old site - and I just wanna do my bit to keep it that way.
Anyway, that's it. Bottom line is, don't trade with Vegetaz (Battletag: HaVoC#2426)
Peace out,
Majere
Could Hearthstone be Looking to Reduce the Cost of the Classic Set?
They do sort of prorate packs through occasional sales or bundles. For rotating sets specifically, they had the “Mammoth Bundle” as year of the Mammoth was near the end, and I believe they had a similar “Raven bundle” earlier this year. Both were at discounted rates and included packs of the oldest 5 sets in standard (I think). To make this more of an actual prorated price they could allow you to customize the bundle and pick how many packs you want from each available set in the bundle, or maybe remove or increase the 1 bundle limit. That way if you want to buy a lot of older packs at discount you could do that, instead of just 10 to 5 or so per expansion included in the bundle.
Would this be of interest?
I'm contemplating writing an in-depth guide for the deck I've been picking up Legend with in Wild for the past few seasons (Mecha'thun Warlock). The decklist wouldn't be anything particularly new - the point would just be to give a full explanation of the mechanics involved and the strategies required of the main matchups in the Wild metagame. It would, however, be extensive - meaning I don't really want to bother if nobody will read or care!
So - would anyone be interested in seeing a full deck guide of this nature?
There are better decks than Combo Priest ...
While there are OTHER competitive decks than Combo Priest, suggesting that Aggro Warrior is *better* than Combo Priest is, in my opinion, entirely incorrect.
[Game] Name another card that has the same...
Jungle Panther
3 mana minion
[Game] Name another card that has the same...
How in the blazes is one of the best and most common standard legendaries bad/unplayable?
Anyway, Harbinger Celestia
Neutral stealth minion
Deck lists according to rank
If you win it's skill, if you loose than the game must be rigged. Seems a bit flawed to me. HS has a very heavy RNG factor and draw/matchup are just a portion of it. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes you're not but that's is a totally different matter than making claim about the whole game being scripted to stop someone from winning.
Around rank 7 on Wild you can reach 5 with amost everything decent (at last Tier 1 or 2), so go for what you feel more comfortable with. Maybe Secret Mage as an extra edge at this time, so you may wanna try it out.
Deck lists according to rank
Literally any deck works at rank 7-9. Especially in wild.
Mech paladin can easily cruise you to legend. This game isn't rigged. You're either unlucky or bad. Perhaps a combination of both.
With that said, secret mage is favored against shamans and ridiculously strong against the rest of the playing field as well. So just play that, I guess.
Could Hearthstone be Looking to Reduce the Cost of the Classic Set?
Keep in mind that Blizzard will want to maximize profits, regardless of what they do (even if that results in a price cut, the cut will be because the revenue will increase as more people will buy). If you keep that perspective at the front of your argument, we know certain things are unlikely to happen:
1.) Making the Classic/Basic cards viable (through reworks or buffs) regardless of the expansion would hurt sales of the expansion packs (who would need to buy them to compete?). To use the Priest example (i.e. every expansion has a broken Priest deck because the Classic set is awful), if they fixed the Classic set so it alone was strong, who would buy the cards needed for the new meta deck that has been blowing up the ladder?
2.) Giving out the entire Classic set (or a rotational set) for free/at a drastically reduced price will remove the revenue from Classic packs entirely, so unless this results in more expansion packs selling, it would be unlikely (maybe the survey results suggest people would spend the money they saved from the Classic price reduction on other packs, but I doubt it). Classic packs also provide a steady revenue that doesn't change through rotations (btw, I am ALL in favor of discounting packs after rotation... I can't imagine why this hasn't been done, aside from potentially reducing dust cost).
3.) No matter what, the best deck meta MUST necessitate the new expansion cards, or as a business you have failed. You could argue a delay in response time to broken meta cards is intentional to force people to buy packs/craft the broken card, then nerf it to result in different expansion cards being needed. I know you typically receive the full dust from creating these cards upon nerf, but that doesn't result in a 100% return on investment (maybe in very rare scenarios, but not usually... see "Gift Card Theory" in Marketing for more info on that). I'm not saying this is true, just playing devil's advocate...
I don't think this is all doom and gloom; a company asking these survey questions is a great step in the right direction and can result in wonderful initiatives that benefit players (reduced pack cost, new bundles across different price points, new ideas and fixes for points of contention, etc...). I'm just suggesting to temper your expectations and remember the bottom line is always the bottom line. :)
Could Hearthstone be Looking to Reduce the Cost of the Classic Set?
It would be nice if they prorated cards down after each expansion kind of like cars lose their value over time. Who wants to buy a pack at full cost when it's about to rotate? Same with legendaries newer legendaries should cost more than ones about to rotate out .
Quest Trading - Play A Friend!
Battleta; Snorri#21107
Region: EU
Trade only? : yes, you go first
Six-Shooter
I find it funny that The Darkness was too OP to be legal
Could Hearthstone be Looking to Reduce the Cost of the Classic Set?
Not something you can do. These are personalized survey links and not sent out to everyone.
Dave Kosak on Tombs of Terror Randomness, Bartender Bob, Zephrys’s Lamp Easter Egg
I would have liked an option to reset progress. Other than that, it is good as is.
if you were to add devolve I would replace the portal because it is the only one that isn't a battlecry.
Standard Meta Report #7 - September 23, 2019 - September 29, 2019
It is ridiculously powerful against aggro boards, but I guess the same could be said for Sea Giant & Mountain Giant (I know these cards don't have rush, and maybe that's the issue here... wouldn't help the Mutate issue though)
Meme OTK idea needs suggestions
Sounds doable! That's a deck idea to experiment with.. Careful with mechwarpers though- board space could be an issue.
The current one was inspired by a friend opening Oblivitron and saying it's useless though so that's where I'm heading rn..
Good find on galvanizers- they'd make things way easier.
Stitched Strackers are good way to get more automatons.. unreliable but good for curve..
Jepetto hitting the Oblivitron would be the dream but we need an alternative path.
I like it a lot. I wonder if Devolve doesn't merit some consideration over either Portal or Dududu
Dave Kosak on Tombs of Terror Randomness, Bartender Bob, Zephrys’s Lamp Easter Egg
This has been my favorite dungeon so far... I love the progression system (the treasures/hero powers bring an RPG element to the game as well as allowing you to try some silly/ridiculously overpowered combinations). I also like I can resume a very long battle at any time and, if I get screwed by RNG (as I did last night... never trust Yogg-Saron), I also know the next time I step to the Plague Lord it will be an easy win.
BTW, Jythiros of Questions is my favorite enemy ever... what a fun mechanic!
Dave Kosak on Tombs of Terror Randomness, Bartender Bob, Zephrys’s Lamp Easter Egg
Keep in mind that if you died to the final boss when it had 1 health remaining in the previous dungeons, you would still have to redo everything, except you would have no progress against the final boss when you reached them again. While I haven't played every chapter yet, I really like the Plague Lord mechanic; I also think it (along with all of the treasures) encourages replay, which is what you want as a developer.
Could Hearthstone be Looking to Reduce the Cost of the Classic Set?
Can anyone provide the original link from blizzard please!