We got some pretty big shifts in the S tier again.

Not gonna waste much time.

Pirate aggro is in S tier again, some would argue mostly me that it never left based solely on the numbers it just got outshined by pre nerf Poppy.

Scouts, hey can't complain about this deck being in S tier, it has a clear champ focused wincon and Quin is just kinda cool from a design perspective.

Spiders drops down, to A only because one pure aggro deck gets to be in S tier and pirate aggro has always been more consistent for like the last two years...but it's nice to see the rankings reflect the obvious.

Zed rally drops down too, mainly because Kenin Ahiri can stun Zed all day and rallies become useless.

Honestly minus Kenin it's basically Bilgewater meta, and if you liked that you will be happy, if you hated it well too bad.

We'll talk about something other than meta shifts when there is something else to actually talk about.

this week was patch week if i not mistaken why out of cards didnt post the patch notes? i am  away from runeterra for a while playing other stuff but i was looking foward to a new patch to see some new path of champions stuff. any info will be apreciated, thanks in advance guys!

Hello everyone,

how do I aquire the new "task 7" item? I had Natalie in my team in the Avalanchan heroic bounty (still need Ragnaros and 4 coins are missing). But I didn't get her task 7 item. It doesn't help that the bugged tooltip shows "task 6". *rolleyes*

Or is this not for the old Mercs just for Balinda, Wrathion & co?

Someone on Twitter spotted this -- the collection manager now shows a "Sha Illidan" hero, which apparently you get by buying the "Evil from Pandaria" bundle. Could that be the next expansion?

Now I play this game off and on, mostly just to log in and have some fun with a few fun decks I have and play some mercs but when I heard about the dust refund thing I logged in right away.

When I fired up the menu, I had 2 pop-ups saying I gained 1600 dust. But when actually looked I didn't get anything at all. 

Now since I haven't been following the game somewhat I knew people were upset about the dust refund but i didnt know why. Is this why?

Talking about mobile client here.

Is there any way to see how much progress the Merc has? If you click on the xp bar the Merc gets the XP and the training stops and starts again after a 20 second delay. Is there any possibility to see the progress in advance without stopping? On the other hand: I had the  xp bar im the TG filled by like 10 % before I clicked it. What is the percentage about? Time from max time? 

I tried to switch the trained Merc. Dragging a new one in results in "no free slots" message, but I couldn't dragg the training Merc back either. I had to stop it by clicking thr bar and could remove him during the delay. Is this the only way to do it?

Bug: you can select Mercs you don't own but are able to craft in the TG selection list. Dragging them onto a training slot will result in freezing the game.

I've played literally too many games to count since the patch. I've played all f-ing weekend. It must have been 100 games by now. I'm at the point where I'm just tanking my MMR conceding to try to find the new hero. 

I payed real money for "perks." Why can't I play the new content? This is really frustrating.

This has been driving me nuts, and I'd be willing to wager that there are a ton of other people that feel the same.  I normally love to go in and bust out these achievements for the new expansion as it gets you more XP and higher on the rewards track to earn more gold with each level.  This time around though, does anyone else feel that Blizzard has taken their sweet time in addressing these bugs?

I had posted/reported a number of bugs with these achievements since day one and I am still finding myself at a loss for words.  I've not heard of any announcement of when/if they are planning on addressing these bugs.  I have been checking the forums of several sites and Blizzard numerous times and I haven't seen anything.

I work in software, so I know that this time of year... virtually nothing gets done.  Most people are taking time off for the holidays and such.  So I can anticipate there being a delay.  But even in most software environments it feels that there is some kind of information available.  But for this expansion it sounds like crickets. 

What are everyone else's experiences with this so far?

I am so sick of playing against these T1 decks over and over again...

As we all know, Shaman is not in a strong spot right now. Thrall simply can't keep up with Illidan's early-game tempo, or Valeera's value. However, I feel like Shaman has the tools to fight for a spot in the meta anyway. Besides Totem Shaman and Evolve Shaman, which already have a small (but unimpressive) role in the meta, I feel like there is room for a third Shaman deck, based around two few specific, very powerful cards: Squallhunter and Serpentshrine Portal. These cards give you so much extra burst to finish out games when combined with each other or with cards like Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst, which your opponents won't see coming.

Spearheaded by a friend of mine, he made this spell-damage focused deck:

Spell Damage Shaman

Wild · Unknown Shaman · by Erodos · 6 years ago

• 1 Blazing Battlemage x 1
• 1 Ethereal Augmerchant x 2
• 1 Frost Shock x 1
• 1 Lightning Bolt x 2
• 1 Sludge Slurper x 2
• 1 Surging Tempest x 2
• 2 Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
• 2 Imprisoned Vilefiend x 2
• 2 Rustsworn Initiate x 2
• 3 Arcane Watcher x 2
• 3 Lady Vashj x 1
• 3 Lava Burst x 2
• 3 Marshspawn x 2
• 3 Serpentshrine Portal x 2
• 4 Squallhunter x 2
• 5 Cobalt Spellkin x 2
• 5 Cumulo-Maximus x 2

5,480 Dust 2,545 0 Copy Deck Code

Inspired by that, I took out a lot of the spell damage cards and made it more Dragon focused:

Dragon Tempo Shaman (with Mulligan guide and Budget replacements)

Wild · Midrange Shaman · by Erodos · 6 years ago

• 1 Blazing Battlemage x 2
• 1 Lightning Bolt x 2
• 1 Sludge Slurper x 2
• 1 Surging Tempest x 2
• 2 Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
• 2 EVIL Totem x 2
• 2 Faerie Dragon x 2
• 3 Lava Burst x 2
• 3 Lightning Breath x 2
• 3 Scalerider x 2
• 3 Serpentshrine Portal x 2
• 4 Evasive Feywing x 2
• 4 Squallhunter x 2
• 5 Big Ol' Whelp x 2
• 5 Cobalt Spellkin x 2
• 5 Cumulo-Maximus x 1

3,600 Dust 856 0 Copy Deck Code

So, which of these decks do you like more? Do you have another idea to build a tempo shaman build? Or do you think this idea is doomed from the start?

Competition Theme: Legendary Loot

Man, the loot tables for these encounters are crazy, I can't keep up. Could you guys help me out and show me the Legendary drops?

• You must create a Legendary weapon which doesn't depict a traditional weapon
  • Think Sphere of Sapience or Prismatic Jewel Kit - no swords or spears for this competition!

BasilAnguis has been dungeon crawling this week, and wants us all to see the loot they got. Why don't you share your loot too?

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, Jan 17 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 22 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 22 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 23 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 23 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 24 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.

I made a custom cards hearthstone expansion! its called (Forged by the War) and it has 55+ custom cards in it, and i'm constantly adding more!

Hope you Enjoy :D

Link: http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#7772-Forged-by%20the%20War

What do you think will happen?

what do you thing will happen?

A new Legendary Hunter Minion, Wing Commander Ichman, 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

Head on over to our dedicated guide for Fractured in Alterac Valley!

Get Cheaper Card Packs

This section contains affiliate links.

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.

Is anyone else finding their Filter section becoming stuck on? 

I'm having to save the deck, close it, turn the filter off and then re-open the deck to continue editing it. 

This is something that I wanted to talk about for a while. If you look at some of the recent top tier decks that used Demacia ( Sivir/Akshan, Poppy/Zed, Pantheon) you notice that it is is mostly used as a support region, you basically use Demacia whenever you need the following cards ( Single Combat, Concerted Strike, Golden Aegis, Sharpsight, Brightsteel Protector ).

Barring a few exception Demacia's followers and champions don't seem to make it into competitive decks, the reason for that is, well at least in my opinion, is because Demacia lacks finishers unit's that can ignore chump blocker to deal damage directly to face, most of Demacia champions and followers are good at trading but they struggle with closing the game.

Regions like Shurima, Targon and Ionia tend abuse the above cards because they have access to unit's with overwhelm and elusive. If you opponent use a Cataclysm on Jarvan IV that just mean your going to lose a unit but a Cataclysm on Pantheon usually mean that you will lose the game. 

Taking all of that into account it's no surprise that the Demacian champion who had the most success in the competitive scene is Fiora because she had an alternate win con, that also why Jarvan/Shen could never be as dominant as Fiora/Shen despite sharing 90% of it's card with that deck.

So how do we fix this problem? how do we give Demacia finisher? Well the obvious answer would be just give them unit's with elusive or overwhelm. But that just seem to be a lazy fix to me, plus elusive does not make sense from a lore perceptive ( Demecia is know for it's big mighty army, that is as far from stealthy as it get's ).

The first one is fearsome Cithria the Bold is one the few, good Demacian finisher having seen play in both MF/Quinn and Fiora/Shen and what does she do? she give your board fearsome plus a stat boost, plus it fits from lore perspective big armies are fearsome and let's no forget about the anti-mage secret police that kingdom have.

The other mechanic that comes to mind is the very underused give unit "can't block," Demacia is know for petricite a substance that nullify magic, mageseekers use it to restrain mages preventing them from defending themselves similar to how "can't block " prevent your opponent from using his unit's to defend his nexus.

Anyway this post ended up being longer than expected, so what do you guys think?

Just logged into HS and got a pop-up saying I received 8800 dust. Anyone know why?

Wild Changes

Sorcerer's Apprentice + 2 Mana

Rapid Fire + 1 Mana | +1 damage

Standard Changes

Incanter's Flow + 1 Mana

Cloak of Shadows + 1 Mana

Raid the Docks unknown changes to later parts of the questline

Rokara, the Valorous + 5 Armor

Shadowcrafter Scabbs + 1 Mana

Wildpaw Gnoll now a 6 Mana 3/5

Mercs Content and changes:

Portraits now have their own frame when opening them

Training Grounds:

• passively levels your mercs
• level 1: 1 Mercenary at the same time | 100 gold
• level 2: 2 Mercenaries at the same time | 200 gold

New Mercenaries:

• Sinestra (Dragon) | rare | fighter
• Lokholar (Elemental) | rare | protector
• Wrathion (Human) | epic | fighter
• Galvangar (probably Orc) | epic | unknown
• Belinda (human) | legendary | fighter

New PvE Zone:

• Altarac

Deadmines, the latest miniset will leave the shop on January 24th.

On January 25th we will got a new big patch. 

So, I suppose the new miniset will launch with the big patch on January 25th

Why is no one talking about it? It is only 5 days away. Spoilers, please!

Basically I "only" got 1600 dust from the thingy today and I was wondering who I should make for my freeze sham Bru'kan or Bearon since I can only make one. I figured Bru'kan might be good since he can fit in more decks but I don't really have the best endgame in my freeze deck right now. So what's your guys' takes?

Sorry in advance if this is too silly of a question to ask, kinda new player here, started playing after Arcane though I had tried the game before, mainly a HS player. 

I was playing versus a Shurima deck with my Trundle/Aurelion Sol deck. I didn't want to use my 6 mana daybreak removal (6 damage and silence one) because I knew he can place his Azir in the stasis thingie, Ancient Hourglass I think is the name. So feeling smart I discovered (invoked) the 6 mana obliterate a unit or landmark and expected it to work ... But it didn't. Question is: Why? I know effects work in reverse play order, so Azir should be placed in the stasis first, but being a landmark it should still be destroyed by the spell, no? 

Edit: If this is considered a better fit for General forum and less of a card discussion, please move my thread. Seemed more like a card question to me.

Hey guys!

First of all, I would like to apologize for my grammar. This is my first post and English is not my first language, but well, let's get to the point: The Bard.

I've been working on this class for almost two years since the release of Demon Hunter, and now I want to introduce it to you.
I'd love your honest opinion about the class, but I still don't know how to create a full post on this site, so you can check out the basic ant initiate bard set at this link: http://www.hearthcards.net/setsandclasses/#7819-Bard

Competition Theme: Keep On Ticking

It's time for a different kind of counting this week, but don't worry - your cards will be keeping track for you this time!

• You must create a card which uses a counter similar to those of the Objective spells or the Sigils
  • That's the little marker above your hero that counts down how long an Objective lasts for, or how long until a Sigil activates. So long as your card is counting something, you're good to go!

AeroJulwin is counting on us to do some counting this week - so make sure your cards are keeping track of it!

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, Jan 10 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sat, Jan 15 17:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jan 15 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Sun, Jan 16 16:00 EST (GMT -0500)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jan 16 17:00 EST (GMT -0500). Runs until Mon, Jan 17 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.

https://youtu.be/dweH2TQ-Vdw

All jokes aside there are certain early indicators that perhaps the excitement for the overall direction of the game is starting to decline.

Bruised By God 3 weeks ago went on a meta rant with reddit and largely hasn't been playing much since (largely saying Champs aren't as flexible as they used to be aka are worse)

Mogwai and Swim typically spend more time not covering the game than they do over the past year. Like Swim used to break Runeterra with his decks like it was a fulltime job.

Generally awareness and excitement for the game among casual players and the community at large is fading.

Like at the end of the day of Champs aren't A) flexible B) win cons C) flashy nobody is going.to play this game over Hearthstone which has literally been on the market for like 20 years.

Am I trolling not really, the more time every one spends with their panties in a bunch the faster the game will die with us too afraid to have legitimate discussions about design and balance.

Case study: In MTG when Tefari Time Raveler was released in Dominaria he basically broke the game...and that was okay he had a good run and he got banned when necessary but God what a good card sold well too.

When Ekko released in Legends he was fun but under-powered in-flexible and under-baked. He remains at a negative winrate in the only deck he's playable something like 6-8 month after release. This is bad people...it's bad for hard-core players its bad for monetization at Riot and it's bad for the casual player base too.

Case study 2: Nautelus the coolest Champ Riot has made remains at a negative winrate 2 years after release...yes this is also bad people. Better to let the card be broken like Oko for 3 months than for him to stay like wet fart in the wind. God I feel bad for deep players they literally only get 1 playable deck and it's bad.

Case study 3: Yassao! Literally a ronin samurai with a katana, and practically one of the faces of League of Legends and he's unplayable...Jinx is too. The reality is that 95% of the Champs in this game are bad, and if they arent bad they were nerfed until they were bad.

I dont want to play a card game where the main selling point of its existence as a video game is being massochistically tortured out of its own design philosophy.