Strong doesn't equal broken. You have to have tier 1 decks. If it wasn't Odd Pally it would need to be something else. Tier 0 is what is concerning. Odd Pally, Even Shaman, Odd Rogue still are not warping the entire meta like Giant Lock, Giant Hunter, & SA Druid did, there are obvious counters. The point is that not everyone plays those counters, or the counters are countered by a different deck in the meta so again players don't use them.
For example, I get my first legend (really first time past rank 5 even) with Reno Dragon Priest the season just before the Even Shaman nerf. On the meta snapshot Reno Priest was marked as one of the tier 1 decks (although now it is nowhere to be seen on any tier for some odd reason). I was able to very quickly take myself from being stuck at rank 3 clear up to legend. Want to know my easiest match-up during the grind? Even Shaman (pre nerf). Having a bunch of midrange & late game board clears, along with midrange minions and late game burn easily carried me against one of the "strongest decks in the game". I will admit Odd Pally was still strong due to their persistent staying power and Odd Rogue was 50/50, but I'm bringing this up because there are counters for the decks. Don't allow a tier list to tell you what can or can't beat the meta.
One-dimensionality shouldn't play a role in balance design in most cases. I for one find decks like Reno Lock or Reno Mage just as one dimensional as decks like Even Shaman or Odd Rogue. The more you play a deck the more auto-pilot it becomes due to the skill and familiarity you get with said deck(s).
You seem to be under the impression that a deck needs to be tier 0 with no hard counters before it becomes a nerf candidate. Sure, this might be the cause of Blizzard since that is their mentality towards wild (and even then they take ages to actually do something) but it doesn't necessarily need to be. Just look at rogue in standard. Was it broken before the nerfs to EVIL Miscreant, Raiding Party and Preparation? No, it even had a hard counter which was immensely popular in the form of warrior. Hell, I believe it dropped to tier 2 on vS' meta report right before the nerfs. But it still got nerfed nonetheless.
Odd paladin, even shaman and odd rogue have been the top decks in the wild meta pretty much since Genn and Baku were released. This has not changed and most likely won't ever change unless Blizzard intervene. You ask why reno priest doesn't see play? Because it cannot beat the consistency that Baku provides for odd rogue and odd paladin. Cherry picking a niche deck's winrate against one of the three decks doesn't change that. Hell, odd warrior hard counters all three of those decks. But what's that in its name? Oh wait, it's "odd". Surprise.
One dimensionality shouldn't usually be a factor taken into account when balancing. But when every wild player can pretty much dream the matchup against odd and even decks, because they've been around forever, it becomes extremely stale.
Why do you think Blizzard removed Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater from standard and threw them in Hearthstone's dumpster, aka wild, in the first place? Because they're problem cards and Blizzard have no idea what to do with them.
I feel like too much of a standard format philosophy is being used at the basis for your argument. Staleness should NEVER be used as an argument to nerf something in wild (unless again it is due to a massive game warping Tier 0 level of 'staleness'. Eternal formats were never created with the intent to change the deck pool every few months or even every year. That is what CCGs banned list format has been for (Standard in HS' case). You may reference stale match-ups, stale cards, or stale strategies as a reason to change Genn or Baku, but I could just as easily counter argue that plenty of wild-only cards technically make wild classes stale (and always will). Do you honestly think any form of control or combo-oriented warlock deck would ever not use Bloodreaver Gul'Dan, for a perfect example? Many DKs technically would make many classes stale in wild because they are so powerful they are auto-includes for almost any playstyle used by that deck (and they don't even suffer from any glaring weakness like the original 'DK' did in the form of Jarraxus, such as tempo loss by playing a 9 mana card, a cap at low life total, etc).
I don't think you have very high confidence in the wild card pool, or ingenuity of better wild players. Genn & Baku weren't thrown into wild (they technically were already part of wild as soon as they were released) because T5 didn't know what to do with them, it was more because the entire standard format is inherently flawed by rotating out old effective answers and then releasing new cards that technically could be used to answer new problematic decks. In other words, Genn & Baku were HoFed because standard rotated out a bunch of old cards in the past that wild players could use at any time to answer the early/midrange aggressive of odd/even decks. Standard warlocks were utterly screwed against Odd Pally once the format naturally rotated out the ultimate token bane, Defile, but in wild we never lost that option.
I still stand by the stance that odd/even decks are not as terrible of an epidemic as some players want you to think. Even before Even Shaman was nerfed the only odd/even decks I faced were Even Shaman, Odd Rogue, some Odd Pallies, and a rare few Even Warlocks. Even with my "niche deck" I massively sped up my 3-legend wild grind against decks that people bemoaned were 'impossible' to beat during that meta. Odd/even decks have hardly changed since the nerfs, which means they are just as beatable with a variety of wild decks. The key is actually breaking away from 'Be all, end all' meta reports and mindless 'pro player' approved netdecks and dip into older archtypes sometimes or even older tech, instead of taking a standard net deck and plugging in a few wild cards and wondering why Genn/Baku seem to be allegedly invincible.
Another important thing to point out before I end this post is that wild metas have always changed more slowly than standard metas, and this is intended. Please reflect on this for a moment. Metas do change, but if you place the requirement that they change as quickly, or close to as quickly, as standard metas then you already are skewing the basis for your argument for why Genn/Baku 'should' be nerfed. Do you see Christmas Tree Pally around in wild anymore, despite never having received many direct nerfs? Nope, stronger cards replaced it. Do you see as many Even Locks, Murloc Shamans, Tempo Rogues (non-Kingsbane), Miracle Rogues (having never received many direct nerfs), Traditional Freeze Mage (non-quest), legit Spell Hunters, and many more? Nope, most of those have dipped in frequency when compared to when they first became popular due to better cards/decks coming out. Some of those decks have almost 100% dropped out of competitive ladder play altogether (having only received HoF changes as opposed to nerfs). Let's not be so hasty to doubt the powercreep of both control and aggro decks to say that odd/even will never dip in popularity shall we.
Discovering it via Myra Rotspring is the first and only thing I can think of. Anka, the Buried is an idea but...why? They're not on the same page in terms of objectives.
To be fair, North Sea Kraken and Burly Shovelfist might not be in the next Arena rotation. Do we know what sets it's going to be yet? This could still be a powerhouse there.
Pretty bad counter-synergy in the fact that you want hand buffs early so they hit a full hand of minions, but this big bad boy comes down waaaaay late. It's also not really the kind of high-impact deathrattle you want to exploit and manually trigger because it doesn't directly affect the board.
On the one hand, I think I've bought at least one of the pre-orders for every expansion, so I think I would end up doing it no matter what.
On the other hand, I don't generally pre-order until a few days before you can't anymore, so feasibly there must be something they could do that would make me not want to buy one.
The class skins really sucker me in, honestly. I have liked every one of them, and since the bundle is easily worth the price even without it I don't feel cheated or anything for buying the bundle to get the skin (though I could see how others would). I've never actually bought a skin on its own, only if it came with packs.
Y'all talking about combos with Charge minions and I'm just over here thinking with a Thaurrisan Reduction and Inner Rage you can summon The Ancient One
If you want to save money when buying Hearthstone packs, you should check out Amazon Coins! It's an easy way to save up to 25% off Hearthstone packs so you can get into the new expansion without worrying about your wallet too much. We've got a detailed guide on how to Get Started with Amazon Coins, but if you've already dealt with them in the past, you can buy some more by clicking right here.
Whether or not I have the money is the biggest factor lol. I like to buy the expansions, but lately I've been really broke. The decision has been made for me.
Beyond that, the expansion has to sell me as a whole in regards to flavor and mechanics. I love Mechs, and Magnetic seemed really cool, so Boomsday was an obvious grab. A Dragon expansion would be another one. I don't care about the meta, so it's a simpler question of whether or not an expansion tickles my fancy.
Random targets limits its usefulness. Still, as long as you build your deck right this has a lot of potential. Although, if you draw this too late in the game it's next to useless, which is unfortunate.
Every time midrange/totem shaman was successful in the past their midrange/totem cards were nerfed into high mana cost oblivion. This is just to address the elephant in the room before you even invite it over for dinner.
Just what wild secret mage needed, more burst. It wasn't enough having over 30 damage in spells, not counting any minion attacks, hero power pings, or either Explosive Runes splash damage.
Instant 'Dane Rogue' Youtube highlight video with Shadowcaster.
My question is how long til rogue gets all of its new cards nerfed all over again because let's face it rogues aren't allowed to have a non-nerfed deck in any playstyle.
Dormant cards are weird. I've played a game where Mecha'thun still triggered even with a dormant Lucentbark on board. That would mean that Lucentbark does not count as an entity on the board. It might just be some un-updated coding though, since other dormant cards seem to count towards a full board, as others have said.
Wild is getting a lot of new tools this expansion. Which is great since RoS barely did anything to the Wild meta.
Eh. In wild I don't really see many Anyfin Palain players using this since the deck can already directly tutor their combo pieces from the deck for cheaper than 8 mana (with a minion to boot), plus if you draw poorly this potentially becomes an 8 mana summon 0-2 murlocs from your deck.
Regular Murloc Paladin could be okayish using 1 copy of this spell, but until you get to the late game (which may suggest the paladin player has lost that late in the game anyway) it clogs up the payoff for Divine Favor and curving out your minions before turn 8.
I'm sure it will get some play, but I don't expect it to be came breaking by any means.
What triggers for you the decision to buy an expansion?
FOMO.
I played WoW for over 10 years and hated missing out of cool mounts, titles, gear, achs, etc if I didn't pump the content hard.
You never know which old heroes will or will not actually be brought back on the BMAH, er on the Blizzard store.
Mogu Cultist OTK Decks
I already made 8 meme decks for this card, will try to make it for all the classes. Memes are memes though.
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Idea for Genn and Baku Nerfs
I feel like too much of a standard format philosophy is being used at the basis for your argument. Staleness should NEVER be used as an argument to nerf something in wild (unless again it is due to a massive game warping Tier 0 level of 'staleness'. Eternal formats were never created with the intent to change the deck pool every few months or even every year. That is what CCGs banned list format has been for (Standard in HS' case). You may reference stale match-ups, stale cards, or stale strategies as a reason to change Genn or Baku, but I could just as easily counter argue that plenty of wild-only cards technically make wild classes stale (and always will). Do you honestly think any form of control or combo-oriented warlock deck would ever not use Bloodreaver Gul'Dan, for a perfect example? Many DKs technically would make many classes stale in wild because they are so powerful they are auto-includes for almost any playstyle used by that deck (and they don't even suffer from any glaring weakness like the original 'DK' did in the form of Jarraxus, such as tempo loss by playing a 9 mana card, a cap at low life total, etc).
I don't think you have very high confidence in the wild card pool, or ingenuity of better wild players. Genn & Baku weren't thrown into wild (they technically were already part of wild as soon as they were released) because T5 didn't know what to do with them, it was more because the entire standard format is inherently flawed by rotating out old effective answers and then releasing new cards that technically could be used to answer new problematic decks. In other words, Genn & Baku were HoFed because standard rotated out a bunch of old cards in the past that wild players could use at any time to answer the early/midrange aggressive of odd/even decks. Standard warlocks were utterly screwed against Odd Pally once the format naturally rotated out the ultimate token bane, Defile, but in wild we never lost that option.
I still stand by the stance that odd/even decks are not as terrible of an epidemic as some players want you to think. Even before Even Shaman was nerfed the only odd/even decks I faced were Even Shaman, Odd Rogue, some Odd Pallies, and a rare few Even Warlocks. Even with my "niche deck" I massively sped up my 3-legend wild grind against decks that people bemoaned were 'impossible' to beat during that meta. Odd/even decks have hardly changed since the nerfs, which means they are just as beatable with a variety of wild decks. The key is actually breaking away from 'Be all, end all' meta reports and mindless 'pro player' approved netdecks and dip into older archtypes sometimes or even older tech, instead of taking a standard net deck and plugging in a few wild cards and wondering why Genn/Baku seem to be allegedly invincible.
Another important thing to point out before I end this post is that wild metas have always changed more slowly than standard metas, and this is intended. Please reflect on this for a moment. Metas do change, but if you place the requirement that they change as quickly, or close to as quickly, as standard metas then you already are skewing the basis for your argument for why Genn/Baku 'should' be nerfed. Do you see Christmas Tree Pally around in wild anymore, despite never having received many direct nerfs? Nope, stronger cards replaced it. Do you see as many Even Locks, Murloc Shamans, Tempo Rogues (non-Kingsbane), Miracle Rogues (having never received many direct nerfs), Traditional Freeze Mage (non-quest), legit Spell Hunters, and many more? Nope, most of those have dipped in frequency when compared to when they first became popular due to better cards/decks coming out. Some of those decks have almost 100% dropped out of competitive ladder play altogether (having only received HoF changes as opposed to nerfs). Let's not be so hasty to doubt the powercreep of both control and aggro decks to say that odd/even will never dip in popularity shall we.
New Neutral Minion - Anubisath Warbringer
Discovering it via Myra Rotspring is the first and only thing I can think of. Anka, the Buried is an idea but...why? They're not on the same page in terms of objectives.
Uldum Card Reveal - Anubisath Warbringer
Getting the effect out early via Myra Rotspring seems like the best-case scenario to me. I wouldn't play him for the full cost if I could help it.
Uldum Card Reveal - Anubisath Warbringer
To be fair, North Sea Kraken and Burly Shovelfist might not be in the next Arena rotation. Do we know what sets it's going to be yet? This could still be a powerhouse there.
New Neutral Minion - Anubisath Warbringer
Pretty bad counter-synergy in the fact that you want hand buffs early so they hit a full hand of minions, but this big bad boy comes down waaaaay late. It's also not really the kind of high-impact deathrattle you want to exploit and manually trigger because it doesn't directly affect the board.
Cool Timmy card, way too slow.
New Neutral Minion - Anubisath Warbringer
The deathrattle seems powerful, but i can't think of a use for it off the bat. I am not sure rogues would want to play this, would they?
Uldum Card Reveal - Anubisath Warbringer
Nice target for Anka, the Buried
What triggers for you the decision to buy an expansion?
On the one hand, I think I've bought at least one of the pre-orders for every expansion, so I think I would end up doing it no matter what.
On the other hand, I don't generally pre-order until a few days before you can't anymore, so feasibly there must be something they could do that would make me not want to buy one.
The class skins really sucker me in, honestly. I have liked every one of them, and since the bundle is easily worth the price even without it I don't feel cheated or anything for buying the bundle to get the skin (though I could see how others would). I've never actually bought a skin on its own, only if it came with packs.
As it is, they've given me Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron and Tortollan Pilgrim, so I'm set.
Out of Cards Changelog - 2019-07-22
You could spell Goddamn as Godamn. I think we’ll still get the point.
Uldum Card Reveal - Anubisath Warbringer
i was gonna say arena but nine mana? dig day and kraken is where its at
Uldum Warrior Card Reveal - Bloodsworn Mercenary
Y'all talking about combos with Charge minions and I'm just over here thinking with a Thaurrisan Reduction and Inner Rage you can summon The Ancient One
Anubisath Warbringer
They are really pushing hand buff... but for 9 mana and Deathrattle... only if you discount to 1 mana then maybe...
New Neutral Minion - Anubisath Warbringer
A new Common Neutral Minion, Anubisath Warbringer, has been revealed!
Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating!
Learn more about Saviors of Uldum
Head on over to our dedicated guide for Saviors of Uldum!
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What triggers for you the decision to buy an expansion?
Whether or not I have the money is the biggest factor lol. I like to buy the expansions, but lately I've been really broke. The decision has been made for me.
Beyond that, the expansion has to sell me as a whole in regards to flavor and mechanics. I love Mechs, and Magnetic seemed really cool, so Boomsday was an obvious grab. A Dragon expansion would be another one. I don't care about the meta, so it's a simpler question of whether or not an expansion tickles my fancy.
What triggers for you the decision to buy an expansion?
I am not talking about the hardcore HS fanboys...these ones probably buy the 2 bundles for every expansion.
I am talking about those who taking into account certains elements. So what is it?:
- The theme and mechanics of the expansion?
- New cards of your favourite class?
- The archetypes that could be Tier 1?
- The legendaries?
I base my decision to buy on the cards of my favourite classes (Mage, Hunter, Druid) compared to the cards the others classes are getting.
In the new expansion, apart from the relatively bad legendary, Mage is getting good cards that will hopefully bring Secret Mage back. Hunter and Druid
are, so far, getting some love too. That's good enough for me but, just to be on the safe side, I will purchase once I see all the cards.
Uldum Mage Card Reveal - Tortollan Pilgrim
Random targets limits its usefulness. Still, as long as you build your deck right this has a lot of potential. Although, if you draw this too late in the game it's next to useless, which is unfortunate.
Uldum Mage Card Reveal - Tortollan Pilgrim
"Discover a copy of a random Arcane Missiles type effect and cast it on a random enemy opponent's face."
Seems legit.
Uldum Mage Card Reveals - Cloud Prince & Arcane Flakmage
Lot's of support for Secret Mage. I like the archetype when I play it, but not playing against it. Go figure...
Uldum Shaman Card Reveal - Splitting Axe
Premptive nerfing :P
Every time midrange/totem shaman was successful in the past their midrange/totem cards were nerfed into high mana cost oblivion. This is just to address the elephant in the room before you even invite it over for dinner.
Uldum Mage Card Reveals - Cloud Prince & Arcane Flakmage
Just what wild secret mage needed, more burst. It wasn't enough having over 30 damage in spells, not counting any minion attacks, hero power pings, or either Explosive Runes splash damage.
Uldum Rogue Legendary Minion Reveal - Anka, the Buried
Instant 'Dane Rogue' Youtube highlight video with Shadowcaster.
My question is how long til rogue gets all of its new cards nerfed all over again because let's face it rogues aren't allowed to have a non-nerfed deck in any playstyle.
New Neutral Minion - Mogu Cultist
Dormant cards are weird. I've played a game where Mecha'thun still triggered even with a dormant Lucentbark on board. That would mean that Lucentbark does not count as an entity on the board. It might just be some un-updated coding though, since other dormant cards seem to count towards a full board, as others have said.
Two Uldum Cards Revealed - Fishflinger & Tip the Scales
Eh. In wild I don't really see many Anyfin Palain players using this since the deck can already directly tutor their combo pieces from the deck for cheaper than 8 mana (with a minion to boot), plus if you draw poorly this potentially becomes an 8 mana summon 0-2 murlocs from your deck.
Regular Murloc Paladin could be okayish using 1 copy of this spell, but until you get to the late game (which may suggest the paladin player has lost that late in the game anyway) it clogs up the payoff for Divine Favor and curving out your minions before turn 8.
I'm sure it will get some play, but I don't expect it to be came breaking by any means.