Met something really strange today.

Opened up the shop, saw two bundles. One 20 stormwind packs + 2 legendaries and the other the same but for wild packs.

Thought about it for a while. Played some games, then came back and poof, they were gone.

Like is this seriously a bug, or has team5 finally reached its slot limit in the shop, what with multiple offers from 3 different games.

Anyone encountered this? Or has quest mage finally made hearthstone hazardous to my health?

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the submission thread of second episode of Master Duelist!

General Information

This challenge will begin today, September 10th, and will end on September 30th. During this window of time, you'll have to start a Duels run with a starting deck containing at least 1 card from each mana cost, from 0 to 10 mana. Moreover, in order to make things a little easier, Signature Treasures will count as well!

Everyone who'll post proof of a 7+ wins run in this article's comment section will be awarded with a different amount of gold, an in-site currency you'll be able to earn from different activities and that will be used to purchase cosmetics in our in-site shop.

Submission Rules

In order for your run to count towards the challenge, you'll have to provide an appropriate proof of your feat; otherwise, your result won't count. To be precise, you will have to reply to this forum thread including:

• a picture of how your run ended;
• a picture of your starting deck;
• a picture(s) of your final deck.
• any other information you want: even though it's not necessary, it may help other players or generate a discussion!
  • you can submit as many runs as you want: we'll always pick the best one. Don't be afraid to show what you experimented with: let's start a discussion here!

Remember that we have to make sure you actually played following the rules, so please help us in doing so - disqualifying players feels bad, and we'd want to avoid it if possible!

Challenge Rewards

Here's a quick breakdown explaining the rewards you'll receive based on your performances:

The winner will be contacted through Direct Messages, where the next challenge's theme will be discussed. In case no one will be able to hit 12 wins before the deadline, the next challenge's theme will be decided by none less than Avalon himself.

Time Criteria

Those which follow are the time criteria we'll use to determine the winner in case of identical scores:

• An Heroic run will be considered more difficult than a Casual one, therefore Heroic players will have the priority.
  • If you get the best score overall with a 10-wins run in Casual and somebody else gets a 10-wins run in Heroic, the latter will be the winner of the challenge.
• In case of more people getting the same score, the winner will be decided by the submission time.
  • If more players will get to 12 wins, losses will count as well: a 12-0 will be considered better than a 12-2 or a 12-1. 
  • You could get the highest score on the first day as well as on the last day of the challenge, but if someone submits the same score before you do, then they'll be the winner.

Closing Information

If you want to learn more about this challenge, make sure to visit our guide page, where you'll be able to find a couple of starting decks provided by ourselves in order for you to take inspiration for your runs.

Moreover, don't forged to share your own creations with the community by adding them to our deck database via our deckbuilder.

Before I reactivated my premium membership via twitch prime I noticed that my account drop down was partially hidden behind the site navigation banner (HS Collection and Runeterra Collection were blocked by the Shop link).

Once premium was activated again it was no longer an issue.

This was on Google Chrome with a Just Black theme in case that is relevant. 

This is my Arcane theory craft composition adapted from what we have seen of Tars YouTube experience. This is in my opinion the most evident burst Free to play . 

the starters are Millhouse/Tyrande/Cairne 

thé goal is to reduce the cost of Millhouse seconde ability and let it cast twice with Tyrande help. Cairne is here for Cooldown and survival. This will kill protectors and probably casters too

on the bench we have Diablo for apocalypse, Lich king to tank and blink fox for the arcane damage but also CD and ability thieving. 

the combo Tyrande/Millhouse will see a lot of play the first month because they are starting characters and very obvious burst. 

tell me what you think of this line up. If you have better synergies, feel free to share. 

It seems Trump got his hands on an early access account so he could demonstrate the early stages of Mercenaries to the benighted masses eager fans. And OH BOY are the haters getting shut down bit by bit as new information trickles out.

As I predicted, they had to allow new players to build a village without having a huge pile of gold saved up; otherwise, you just wouldn't be able to play. That's exactly how it works -- all the basic buildings are free. That's right -- FREE. No need to tap into your precious gold reserves and cannibalize your Hearthstone card pack fund, you stupid overreacting babies precious darlings.

You get enough coins to upgrade some abilities before you even finish the tutorial. You also get some packs from bonus quests just for doing the first few bounties (which are extremely fast and easy), so all starting players will be well on their way to a nice robust collection.

I'm sure haters are still gonna hate (because reasons), but those reasons just aren't going to hold any water anymore.

So its no secret that Legends of Runterra only received 15,000 views on its worlds tournament on twitch.

By Riot standards this is an exceptionally low viewer count.

And it has a lot to do with the way Legends plays as a spectator game as of right now.

It prioritizes efficiency, go wide strategies, infinite value engines, all of which aren't particularly interesting to watch.

Meanwhile the "cool" cards ie mono shurima, champions with interesting level up mechanics/quests are generally relegated to meme territory.

This is the one area where hearthstone and and magic when at its best is infinitely more interesting to watch.

Whether it be old school quest warrior, or a magic player going off with some insane combo these things were actually viable competitively.

It wasn't just play a thing that tutors for another thing, do it again, play poppy swing. Or play a thing, tutor for darkness do it again, play Senna.

It really is just watching paint dry in most respects.

So the big advice for the devs make the cool stuff playable, and competitive, this will up the presentation value of your tournaments and make them more exciting to watch. 

since last patch (two weeks ago) i dont see any xp going to my reward track after i finish quests i  know it is just visual but anyone know if they plan to fix it soon ?

The miniset releases roughly two months after the main expansion, so in next 2-3 weeks we should see the next miniset.

I really hate this meta, where it is only quests or decks trying to counter quests (yeah, aggro). 

So I was thinking - what could the devs do to change the meta? Create even stronger cards than quests? Will there be mass nerfs?

What do you expect from the miniset?

I just finished watching the Mercenaries stream and I wanted to share my thoughts about it in general and create some discussion.

First off, the mode in itself is Hearthstone's greatest departure from its core experience. So much that at times I thought this could be a completely standalone game, only with a layer of Hearthstone paint. If we didn't have that, not much resemblance would remain of the main game. This is concerning for Blizz, because the mode could alienate the core HS players because it's so weird and different, but fail to attract new, outside audiences because it's part of an established game where they would be far behind long-time players.

What struck me about the art style was that it's... not very pretty. It looks basic, barren at times. The main mode doesn't have amazing spectacles either, but every deck has at least 15 different artworks. The board evolves throughout the game, with minions being summoned and destroyed. However, in Mercenaries, it's just 6 GIFs in a 3x2 table? It's very static. Yes, there are fancy entrance and ability animations but many of those are recycled and there are lots of empty, boring grayish/brownish space on the board.

In terms of gameplay, it doesn't look too bad, there are many factors in play like positioning, speed, schools, the Tank/Melee/Caster R/P/S triangle, etc. You must choose 3 out of 6 mercs at the start of a game, that's 20 combinations if I'm correct, there's room for variance and adaptability. The deckbuilding aspect, however, looks pretty simplistic: "I type Murloc into the searchbar and choose 6 of them". We'll see how tribe/spell school focused the "decks" are going to be, but with ultimately only having to choose 6 mercs + 6 equipment, the experimentation and flex spots of the traditional 30 card deckbuilding are missing. Also, the thing that will ultimately greatly simplify your choices is that there's a big power difference between mercs with different levels, which leads me to the next point, and the elephant in the room:

Monetization. For me, the way progression is handed is a major turnoff. Frankly, it's insulting. Hearthstone is already a very expensive game, in terms of your money and your time, which is your gold (or both). Either you play Standard, where half of your collection is deleted every April, or you play Wild, where there are thousands of collectible cards. Not even €130 worth of preorders give you all cards in an expansion. Battlegrounds is €20 or gold every 4 months for the ability to choose a better hero, and both Arena and Duels require payment to enter. And when they show us 3 PREORDERS, 2x €50 and 1x €30, that was just upsetting. How much are they expecting us to pay? How many whales do they want to milk? It's just all so overblown compared to normal, offline, singleplayer games (that cost 90 at most with DLC for a complete, balanced experience).

It just doesn't feel pleasant that non-whales will have to play those time-consuming, computer-generated and therefore soulless "campaign maps" to just have one roll at the slot machine. Oops, didn't get the mercenary that's in the meta? Well, play more and more for more rolls until you become so disillusioned with the grinding that you buy our packs. Any semblance of a decent progression is shattered when a whale can just buy packs until they have all mercs at max level. They said they wanted "asymmetrical PvP matches", but we all know what that means: buy packs until your numbers are higher so "the balance" tips in your favor.

Overall, I am disappointed. I don't want to completely disregard the mode, but this is not what I expected. This was never Slay the Spire, this is only a numbers game. Buy packs to win.

What are your thoughts? 

So I recently found this card again, and have been trying to make a deck maximizing on his strength. 

Atakhan, Bringer of DoomBADCARDNAME

So far I have experimented with pure Noxus, and blends with both Freljord and Targon. 

I’m curious what are some other deck ideas I can use him in, and what are ones you’ve used for fun?

Hey, guys

Any recommendations which deck is good against warlock?  Trying to get Dimond 5, had a few attempts with Libram pal and Warrior - no luck so far. Last 2-3 stars are occupied by warlocks who draw and heal :( 

Thanks! 

…………. Go on.

Now that people have stopped deck building and having fun, the stats are locked in for most popular decks to encounter when playing ladder. Which I'll go over here.

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/regions

Zoe Nami and Draven War are 20% of the meta.

You can expect to run into one of these decks one out of 5 games.

Darkness control and Temo traps are about 15% of the meta. You can expect to run into one of these decks on average 6.5 games.

Shurima landmarks, and TF Gangplank burn are 10% of the meta. You'll find then one out of 10 games.

Everything else we see a pretty big drop of in play rate of 4% or less.

So what do we think, how are we enjoying the meta now that you can realistically know what decks you'll run into 50% of the time?

how do you get the 11 star modifier? For the first time in my life I am around Legend 1000. Slightly below or above. Should I finish the month below 1000 or if the level is reached once it's enough ? tks

I know Mercenaries is still a few weeks away, but there are already a couple of threads in General.

When does it get its own section in Game Modes?

The big problem with having mobalytics curated by essentially 2 people is that you can run into issues where personal bias plays a big role into how tier lists are designed.

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/meta-tier-list

I'm speaking specifically of thr Poppy Swarm style decks currently listed on the tier list.

They aren't registering on stats meaning they either loose so often you can't find the stats or nobody is playing then for much the same reasons.

The reality is there are much strong Poppy Swarm style decks as soon as you realize you can cut bandlewood.

You can run Poppy in scouts with 1 cost synergy and its actually very scary when there isn't a lot of wither whail or avalanches

You can run her in demacia so you can take advantage of elite synergy

Like dont get me wrong lulu into fleet feather tracker is strong but thats a one trick ponny and it basically stopped working after a week.

Experiment, evolve try new brews!

Any hint how to defeat Bolvar?

There are very few situations where regions feel powerful on release.

Shurima used to be an aggro focused mess that was designed to be high synergy but wasn't. Only being addressed recently.

Targon on release was underpowered in the beginning, overpowered with Aphelios, and now is kind of being carried by Zoe which is a little sad.

But man bandlewood is just coming out of the gate swinging. The number of playables vs non playable isn't something we've seen since vanilla, or the release of bilgewater.

Pranks are viable, shromes are viable, landmarks are viable, darkness is viable, and when you start to get creative you realize there are very few limitations.

Bandlewood Yassao sure why not you can hexplosove minefield into safety inspector.

Bandlewood Ezreal oh you bet all those free poison darts hyper level him.

I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get a poppy elite list rolling, which I haven't seen tried yet.

Veigar without shadow, that's easy he levels himself if you can keep him alive, you can try targon or freijord.

This is a great time for deck builders and a really bad time for meta slaves.

Aka why I always win the temo mirror match.

I've said this before and people disagree with me but temo is a burn card. 

You control out the opponent either in a midrange shell, or a stall shell and then you play catorina and the nexus goes pop. If it doesn't go pop, mystics and get excited will do the rest 

Catlyn is a control card and as such playing her along side temo does very little. You'll say oh you can hyper level her thats so good, but like if you have a deck full of 30 shromes and an opponent with a bunch of burn a leveled champ will do nothing for you.

You can say the same thing about facing an opponent with an overwhelm 10/10 on turn 7.

So what does catalyn do well? The obvious answer is control the board, she's like if Zillian and Darius had a baby. If Zillian is seeing a resurgence in play due to the increased value of free pings catlyn is good too.

Once I free to play my way to having enough of her expect a competitive version that makes sense for her.

I'm an Arena and Battlegrounds fan so maybe I'm a little biased, but I really don't enjoy seeing:

Hearthstone

Battlegrounds 

Mercenaries

Modes

You open up modes to find Arena, Solos, Duels and Tavern Brawls. Would it have been so much to ask to split the 4 main bars into 1/8's and also add in practice mode to make up the 8th? 

It just seems clumsy and rushed to me. I feel it's tacky and out of place. They should know better and I hope they change it soon!

So two big things happened that killed decks that went all in on uninteractive sticks backed up by burst spells.

One we got a lot of value followers and spells from bandlewood, but more importantly they nerfed the largest offenders in a hotfix you can't even find notes for.

Shaped stone now only give 2/1 which puts it more on par with elixir of iron/wrath.

Merciless hunter is a 4/2 putting it more on par with the likes of sand spinner.

Most importantly ruin runner only has 3 health meaning your 5 drop will now trade with even an inkeeper.

All good stuff, and Ionia even gets to keep twin disciplines for those who like burst decks, and Sivir is still playable in high synergy lists.

So what are the "decks to beat" now...the answer is that there isn't any and that's amazing.

Poppy for example can absolutely run you over with her bannerman style value, but she was also released in a set with a million free pings.

Sion can be a turn 7 auto win, but freezes exist, hush exists, polymorph now exists, or you can just pop him when they don't have the attack token, sure eating 8-10 dmg is scary but they are no longer an effective aggro deck, so you should have lots of life.

Pirate aggro is still strong, but people seem to have forgotten it exists and that's just fine with me, and it probably has bad matchups.

Lots of elusive stuff running around...but again free pings, free mystic shots, more healing, new pressure tools and wincons.

Darkness has started to drop a little from 55% - 53% which isn't surprising you just remove veigar and senna and now their deck doesn't do anything. Or alternatively you have so many infinite value tools it doesn't matter or Sion or shrooms.

As such for the first time you can grab a tier 3 deck and be pretty happy with that, or be like me and only run your own lists. If I were to say what I thought worked and what I thought didn't for deck builders?

The biggest thing to keep in mind right now is that most decks have very scary 1, 2, 3 curve or 2, 3, 4,. You basically need answers for these things if you like controlling game flow like me.

For example Sion will play, urchin, into surgeon dude, into Draven. If you don't answer these plays with your own you will effectively loose when Sion lands if you arent teching in counters to him. 

So let's say I'm playing ezreal Temo, I could play my stinky 1 drop trade into thr two drop ping the urchin with pokey stick, and thermo the Draven. Now we have a winnable game, but if I pass pass ezreal I've already lost, it's true I won't loose till turn 7 but thats a forgone conclusion.

So yeah as a deck builder have answers for midrange curves or play a deck that's just as threatening or you'll have a bad time.

https://twitter.com/GW_Alec/status/1430579587172294657?s=20

8/31: 2 Warlock changes (upping mana, feels focused)

The best surprise of the badlewood expansion has been its ability to give existing Champs a new lease on life as long as they are "cute" enough.

Massively opening up deck building possibilities.

I hope to see this trend continue with part two and three of the expansion and I'll name some Champs I think should feel free to go multi-region, but limited to bandle city.

Elise: once upon a time Elise was a terror an aggro staple, now she's just kind of okay. Opening her up to new decks would make sense and spiders crawl in a forest.

Braum: The thing about braum is that he's actually a good card, but he's stuck in freijord and if you're running a midrange deck you would want Ash 100% But now let's say you can run bandlecity demacia with braum that would be interesting.

Taric: another case of a potentially good card being limited in a region that doesn't really want him. The good buffs/tricks aren't in Targon but if I could use shaped stone on Taric that's cheap and powerful.

Katarina: I love Katarina unfortunately she doesn't love us back. We've long since past the days where battering ran was good enough to get her going, so let's open her up see if we can break her.

Tf: every region has draw the only prerequisite for playing this card, so there's nothing locking him to bilgewater, certainly not his power level.

Asol: That's right he's 10 mana and nigh unplayable at the moment but if you open him up he might find the stall tools necessary to get there.

Karma and Lux: I'll lump them together as expensive spell engines that have long since been outpaced.  Again nothing in terms of deck building is forcing them into their respective regions.

Vlad and Garin: once again these cards are bad, and don't have specific region deck building g costs just open them up.

What do you guys think? Maybe taking bad Champs and making them multiregion is all they need to be competitive?

"Anyone who purchases (or has purchased since Thursday, July 1,2021) a 6-month subscription before October 19, 2021 or have a 6-month subscription with a future renewal date of Monday, August 31, 2021 is eligible for the 6-Month Subscription rewards."

...

"Your Mercenaries packs will not be visible until the Mercenaries game mode goes live on October 12, 2021."

...

"In addition, if you still have game time on December 1, 2021, you will also get an additional:

• 15 New Expansion Packs
• 15 Mercenaries Packs
• Next Expansion Tavern and Battleground Perks"

Stole the description from Wowhead. This has to be the reason.