Do you? :)

Ok I am not a good player per se. I play meme decks for achievements. But I can't win a single game at Bronce 8 and 3 stars! This is not normal. 

Edit: no problems in Wild though. I get to at least platin whitout efford. Which is suffixient for me.

One of the best aspects of Hearthstone is that the game is easy to learn, it's nested in a firm set of rules. Over time, Blizzard has slowly but steadily eroded some of those though:

- Ice Block negates lethal

- Amara, Warden of Hope raises your life total beyond 30

- Valdris Felgorge allows you to hold more than 10 cards

- Tickatus and Gnomeferatu destroy cards, Rin, the First Disciple even your opponent's whole deck

- Wildheart Guff allows you to gain more than 10 Mana Crystals

- Blastcrystal Potion destroys Mana Crystals

- Genn & Baku and the Highlander cards completely altered our perception of deckbuilding

- Dual class cards mingled stuff that was strictly seperated

- Silas Darkmoon allows you to influence the board state

- Quest(line)s always start in your hand

- Sigils and the Alterac cards with an ongoing effect trigger on future turns

- there are several tech cards that negate or hinder key effects of your opponent's cards (like Counterspell and Loatheb, Nerub'ar Weblord and Boompistol Bully, various forms of Silence and so on and so forth)

I guess designs like those are necessary to keep the game fresh and exciting, but the range of possibilities is finite and it makes me wonder what comes up next. Decks with 40 cards? A new card type? The long discussed graveyard? 15 Mana cards for Druid?

Whatever it may be, it feels like the devs have raised their speed when it comes to introducing new stuff that breaks the formerly known rules. Wildheart Guff, Curse of Agony and the ongoing effect cards were all new stuff introduced in the last expansion. While I'm all in for exciting cards and interesting design, they long term alter the game as we know it and sometimes limit design space in a significant way.

Personally, I'd like to see more cards that reward catering to deckbuilding restrictions like Genn & Baku, the Highlander cards and Darkbishop Benedictus. They are challenging but also very rewarding and we haven't fully explored much of the possibilities yet. On the other hand, I'm skeptical about increasing ressources like Mana Crystals, hand space and life total because it speeds up the power creep significantly. Maybe I'm just nostalgic but I like that I more or less know what to expect from a game of Hearthstone.

All that said, I'm curious to hear your thoughts about the slow but steady eroding of the red lines in HS. Which rule do you want to see broken next? What new design makes you feel concerned?

There will be any meta evolution after the miniset launch? I don't see major changes coming ...

Some dragons experiments ... but I cannot imagine major evolution ... Any feeling?

Hirumredx, AKA The Duel Logs, started a Hearthstone channel a couple weeks ago. For anyone who doesn't know, he's a super-prolific World of Warcraft and YuGiOh content creator, mostly in the form of Top Tens.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChesPu9qcY7spOA0ApTWcew/featured

It's basically junk food content, but it's good. I thought the channel deserved a little spotlight since he doesn't seem to be advertising it anywhere.

So the new expansion has dropped and what we are seeing from Galio and Gnar is good.

They are beaters and they beat things.

They have lists the can perform in the A and S tier.

Or you can just pilot Elise to a 60% winrate.

Like this is the thing, aggro, aggro-midrange these archetypes are kinda done.

Like you can release a million Champs that fit in as competitive beaters but statistically it is just more of the same.

Like gnars best deck is Zigs aggro, a deck that literally has existed for ages and has long since been competitive. Like it makes sense he burns and he's a big threat that cycles itself of course thats good.

But its also just a better version of things that we've already seen in a deck that has already existed.

Please Riot release control Champs, release alt wincons, give us more TF style cards, just anything other than hey here's a highly competitive card that goes face.

How do these cards work in a game with no Pot of Greed? Do they work with the other pot cards? I cannot seem to find an answer anywhere else.

Hello everyone. Inspired by one of my favorite storyline and encounter of the Book of Hero, I have made a new Duel hero, Twisted Cornelius, a Paladin / Warlock dual class hero!

Hero Power:

• Legion Recruit: A great Hero Power that benefit an aggressive playstyle. The Demon created by the Hero Power also benefit from Silver Hand Recruit synergy.
• Twisted Arts: A flexible Hero Power that goes great with any deck, from control / combo deck to trade off their combo pieces / removal / board clear for more situationally suitable cards to aggressive deck to smooth out their curve. If the spell doesn't have a school, the Hero Power will draw a random spell with no school. The dual class nature of the Cornelius means that you will get access to Holy, Shadow and Fel spells
• Twisted Memory: A Hero Power for the more control / combo / midrange oriented decks that allow you to tutor out your midrange threat or combo pieces while also contest the board with a 2/1 Rush minion.

Treasures:

• Unholy Wrath: A Treasure that allow for great removal / burst and recovery for Aggressive deck using Silver Hand Recruit / Demon synergy. The name and effect is based on the Paladin card Holy Wrath
• Blessing of Father: A Treasure that allow for great buff from the 2nd Hero Power while searchable by the 3rd Hero Power. Note that if it is discarded you do not have control over which friendly minion that will be buffed. The name and effect is based on the Paladin spell Blessing of Kings
• Tamsin's Perfume: A great Treasure that allow for early / mid game tempo that will get better with more cards you collect during run. This card can be searched with the second and third Hero Power.
• Zealous Inquisitor: A great tempo card that will swing the board in your favor and offer great Health recovery. The name, stats and effect is a combination of Lightforged Zealot and Felsoul Inquisitor.
• Corrupted Ashbringer: A card that allow you to swing your tempo as well as discount the spells you hold in your hand that you drew due to your 2nd Hero Power.
• Sister Rivalry: A spell that reward aggressive board flood playstyle using Silver Hand Recruit and Demons. The Disguised will get buffed twice, meaning that each of them will have +3/+2.

How the two classes synergize with each other:

• Paladin has a difficult time with board clear and board swarming. Warlock card pool would substantially help with that
• Warlock has a hard time with health recovery, something Paladin excel at. They also has a hard time buffing up their minions out of removal and board clear range, something Paladin will help them with.

Competition Theme: The Perfect Match

Some Hearthstone cards really only start to shine when they receive a little help - so let's start pairing them up!

• You must create a card which has a strong synergy with an existing, unplayed Standard card
  • "Unplayed" is a bit vague, but use your best judgement about what cards are seeing play at the moment
• You must include the existing card in your submission
  • We need to know who we're matching up! Just submit it as you would a second custom card.

Kommutator has asked us to lift up some underused cards this week, so find them their perfect partner!

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Feb 14 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Feb 19 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Feb 19 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Feb 20 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Feb 20 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Feb 21 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

Alright, another miniset, another batch of achievements, and they keep getting worse for some reason. I've done all but one at this point and I've already theorycrafted all the stuff necessary for the two missing ones that'll be added later on. It wasn't fun and at this point I'M questioning whether they should just remove the experience reward altogether because at this point these things are making me depressed.

Right Side, Many Cards!

Probably an easy one if you have the DH Quest. If not, it's probably still not too difficult, Just put as many 0-cost cards into your deck as possible as well as anything else that can reduce cost. 100 cards at least isn't an insane amount so you can probably knock it out in 10-15 games, even if it's not gonna be with a functioning deck.

Here Comes The Boomkin

This one sounded completely unreasonable until I realized that it doesn't specify that the damage has to be dealt through Boomkins effect. In fact Boomkin attacking counts too. Therefore we take our Kodo Mount and whatever attack buffs we can fight and use those to ram the fella into any minion available. It'll take a while but at least it's not inhumane (that's further down).

Gotta Catch 'Em All

Now I appreciate the reference, but having to pull this off 151 times with a card that can basically not be replicated by any reasonable means outside the usual Brewmaster and Brann Bronzebeard shenanigans (and perhaps Devouring Swarm if it lines up) makes me reconsider my stance on the death penalty. Either way, this is one I would almost recommend ignoring if you don't have or enjoy playing Big Beast Hunter because there's pretty much no other working deck that would run this at the moment.

Thsnk You For Your Matronage (yes there's actually a typo in this one, make of that what you will)

Similar to the Boomkin one you can also do this with damage done from the minion itself, but here it'S not necessary. Just play Mozaki Mage except worse. In Wild you can use Ice Block to make sure you get there in time. I also recommend making ample use of freezing effects to actually keep a sizeable board on your opponent's side because sometimes they run out of health before you run out of spells to cast. Generally speaking everything that cheats mana is wanted in this deck. I didn't use Incanter's Flow because I didn't feel like re-crafting and I still did it well enough. Siphon Mana is a decent enough replacement.

The One Ring

Mad Summoner, best boy

Future So Bright, Gotta Wear Shades

Fuck this one and whoever came up with it. No, the description is not a mistake and no, there's no exploit. It actually expects you to get Mi'da out there, have it die and then resurrect the same Mi'da 6 additional times. How they expect you to do this without either dying or your opponent just straight up conceding I don't know. Oh and for added fun, if it gets silenced your chain is broken and you can start again. This is ludicrous. I got the first step completed by sheer luck because I ran into some gimpy Mage in Silver Wild who just kinda played with an autofilled deck and it took me to an empty deck with a board full of Mi'da's where I couldn't even remember which of them was the oldest...and I couldn't finish the rest because the Mage just simply didn't have the ressources to kill a 4/6 with Divine Shield 3 more times. One of us was going to die before that.

Maybe there's some secret synergy that I am missing but as far as I'm concerned this one is about as completeable as the Party Up! one from Wailing Caverns, just have to pray I guess. The most idiotic part is that you can't even really kill your own Mi'da to accelerate the process because aside from having Divine Shield it's also a fuckin 4-ATTACK minion, just to spit into your eye one more time.

!

Should be easy, Just stack all the SI:7 cards, card draw and bounces and eventually you're gonna get a 10-drop legendary. Probably easier in Wild considering there's only like 3(?) 10-drop legendaries in Standard.

Run Away, Little Girl

And at the top of the shit sandwich, this fucking abomination. The idea that you can rely on your opponent to play a singular 10/10 minion with no other minions of theirs is ludicrous. So we have to force it. And force it you can, but it is painful. First we need Silas Darkmoon and a Giant of your choice. It doesn't matter which one, Mountain, Clockwork, Arcane, Frost. Anything that can be reduced down to 3-mana is needed. We use Auctionhouse Gavel to reduce Silas specifically and then maybe even the new Bracing Cold to get the spell down. Lightning Bloom is also helpful. Finally we buff the Giant with Totemic Reflection (or preemptively in hand with Legionnaire) and igve it to the opponent to then blast it. This only works if their board contains one or less minions (because you can steal the one with Silas). Thankfully the Freeze engine gives Shaman a way to cycle through the deck, but clearing the board is a massive hassle. Your best option would be to use Snowfall Guardian + Doomsayer in order to roleplay as Freeze Mage.

Wanna know how I did it? I went to the bottom of Wild and conceded as much as I could to dump my MMR until I inevitably matched up into one of the AFK bots that only hero power. Apparently they're now programmed to no longer rope every time because I guess there are ocuntermeasuers now. Either way, it took a while, but I got a proper set-up eventually. If you also plan on doing this, I recommend staying low on minions and running a bunch of targetted damage spells so you have something to dump from hand on your totems so you don't just clog.

More Dots!

Also a frustrating one, but for different reasons. Basically, you really REALLY want Tamsin Roame for this or else you're going to take a while. Additionally you also want Tamsin's Phylactery because you can combo it with Dancing Swords to set up a big combo. Problem is that you can't reduce your hand because the Curses need to stay at 1-mana to proc Tamsin. This means you can't actually do the full combo in one turn and will have to sacrifice the double Phylactery most of the time. This isn't a problem though because of the teeny tiny interaction of being unfortunate enough to burn most of your shuffled curses by overdrawing your opponent. There's no way around this, you just have to pray the Curses are mostly on top.

Alternatively you can also use Coldlight Oracle to force draw but it's not nearly as convenient. You can also try and use Curse of Agony the way it's intended, an inevitable win condition that you can't actually accelerate by yourself, so instead you just play full Control + the 3-card Tamsin combo and just try to stay alive long enough for the Curses to do their work. This however means that you cannot get excess damage like you can with the Phylactery combo. Either way, this one's boring and long, no matter how you do it.

Hit It Like You Mean It

I actually re-crafted Fool's Bane for this. Never expected that card to ever be useful but here we are. 40 dust aren't worth 20 games worth of inane boredom (unless you have a Warrior deck of your choice that you'd like to run the card in)

Job Whelp Done

Pretty basic. Play Druid. Play the Whelp Spell. Play Onyxia. Eventually you're done. Also Kazakusan Ramp Druid is kinda broken right now and that deck runs Scale of Onyxia so if you actually want to ladder while grinding, that's your deck.

Legacy of the Kabal

Pretty much completes itself as long as you play one of the Kazakusan decks. Worth noting the Quel'delar and it's components count seperately.

That's it, that's all I got. I'd tell you to have fun, but you probably won't. Can we get less grind and more "what kind of bizarre combo can I throw together to complete this in one go?"? No? Alright then....

I don't know how many of you play LoR competitively, but I just today found a post on the LoRCompetitive subreddit that has an article explaining all of the best resources available for a competitive player. 

Here's the link. Absolute gold mine of info for anyone trying to climb the ladder. 

https://masteringruneterra.com/lor-data-sites-part1/

Coming across a lot of this deck in wild ranked right now, and it seems a little too strong.

The problem card is Deathspeaker, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of nerf soon.

I think that Deathspeaker is not a fixable card if they want the other cards to still exist.

So good news some of the least well designed cards such as Ahiri, and whiteflame are being nerfed in the future each losing a point of life each. Better late than never, however I have to say my excitement for the new cards is at an all time low.

Beaters, beaters everywhere, they go face, they don't synergies, or have alternate wincons, or burn, or use landmarks or anything. Like we get it Riot the best cards are the ones you can just play and are just good on board and do their thing, so when they die you replay them.

But like geeze common at least give me a reason to want to pair certain cards together and not just turn the game blatantly into value piles like they have been for the last 8 months.

So in summary lame expansion, but good balance patch.

-case study-

For consistency sake I consider any card that creates archetypes and decks to be well designed, and cards that are obviously just good in a vacuum to be bad.

Icevail archer enables Ash and stalls for control decks, what a good card.

White flame is literally a superior laurent protégé that requires less board interaction ans reactive play, what a bad card.

So when the devs doubling down on the let's just release obviously good brain dead cards it makes me miss the high synergy build around champ focused meta decks we had before.

I am looking for a serious Swain/Shaman build and I wanted to get some thoughts and ideas on this to make it viable.
So far this is my list: https://outof.cards/legends-of-runeterra/decks/15837-shaman-king-swain

A new Epic Demacia Unit, Petricite Stag, has been revealed!

Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating!

Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

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A new Rare Neutral Minion, Gear Grubber, has been revealed!

Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating!

Learn more about Fractured in Alterac Valley

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A new Legendary Neutral Minion, Raid Boss Onyxia, has been revealed!

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A new Legendary Mage Minion, Haleh, Matron Protectorate, has been revealed!

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A new Common Rogue Spell, Tooth of Nefarian, has been revealed!

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A new Common Priest Spell, Horn of Wrathion, has been revealed!

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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.

A new Common Paladin Spell, Ring of Courage, has been revealed!

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A new Common Mage Spell, Drakefire Amulet, has been revealed!

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A new Common Druid Spell, Scale of Onyxia, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Fractured in Alterac Valley

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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.

A new Legendary Neutral Minion, Mi'da, Pure Light, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Warrior Spell, Shoulder Check, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Fractured in Alterac Valley

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