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Legends of Runeterra • Posted by Arthas • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Card Reveal

New Bandle City Card - Aloof Travelers

A new Common Bandle City Unit, Aloof Travelers, has been revealed! [runecardimg rating]1233[/runecardimg] Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating! Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood Head on over …

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Legends of Runeterra • Posted by Arthas • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Card Reveal

New Bandle City Spell - Poison Dart

A new Common Bandle City Spell, Poison Dart, has been revealed! [runecardimg rating]1242[/runecardimg] Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating! Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood Head on over to …

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Legends of Runeterra • Posted by Arthas • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Card Reveal

New Bandle City Landmark - The Bandle Tree

A new Epic Bandle City Landmark, The Bandle Tree, has been revealed! [runecardimg rating]1232[/runecardimg] Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating! Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood Head on ove…

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Hearthstone • Posted by Hydrafrog • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Discussion

Hunter and Warrior Quests are Total Nerf Targets

So I cracked all my new United in Stormwind packs that I was able to amass from the gold I've been saving over the past month and crafted a few of the decks for the quests and I gotta say this... Hunter and Warrior are not only ridiculousl…

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Hearthstone • Posted by anchorm4n • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Fan Creations

WCDC Season 4 Suggestions

We're in the middle of the last Weekly Card Design Competition of Season 3 and I'd like to discuss how all you awesome people feel about these competitions in general as well as your suggestions for changes. Since everybody and their mothe…

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We're in the middle of the last Weekly Card Design Competition of Season 3 and I'd like to discuss how all you awesome people feel about these competitions in general as well as your suggestions for changes. Since everybody and their mother will try out the shiny new Stormwind cards next week, I think waiting for Season 3 to end before giving Shadows & friends something to ponder wouldn't work very well.

So here are my two cents:

The WCDC has become a constant part of my weekly schedule, I think I haven't missed one of them since we got started on OOC. I'm super grateful for Shadows and all other members of the staff for creating this space on the site that encourages creativity, engagement with likeminded people and an opportunity to earn internet fame points. You are awesome!

The little grain of salt I've tasted this season came with the finalists votings. Participation goes down in that second voting phase and I really don't agree with people dishing out 1 star votes for perfectly cool cards just to push their favorite contestant. I admit both of these issues are very hard to overcome, but I have a few ideas I'd like to discuss with everybody who cares to do so:

1) Expand the rating system

I think it was DestroyerR who first used a fixed system of categories for their feedback posts in the discussion threads and maybe that's a good idea to help people rate cards a bit more objectively. I'd suggest a 5 star rating in three categories for every submitted card: Flavor, Balance and Execution (= no spelling mistakes, no watermark issues, ...). The average of these ratings would result in the voting person's overall rating for that card (there are arguments for and against showing that overall rating to the voter, but I don't want to go too far down this road without knowing if it's technically possible and what y'all think about the general idea). This idea should also reduce the number of ties since the final rating of a card would be the average of an average.

2) Cut the Finalists Voting

I get that the Finalists Voting adds some flavor and excitement to the competition, it's a little nod of appreciation to people who got close to winning. The decrease in participation in these votes compared to the first voting stage just isn't worth it though imho. The more people are voting, the more valid is the result of the vote.

3) Rewards & Leaderboards

While I'm very proud to wear my avatar border, it would be cool to dish out more rewards for doing well in the competitions. I'm thinking of site currency, forum titels, stuff like that - most importantly, these shouldn't be given to the winners exclusively, but to a to be determined number of runners up as well. Last but not least, why not add seasonal and eternal Leaderboards to the site, based on a system that rewards points for wins and runner up placements (win = 10 points, second place = 5 points, third = 4, ... whatever).

Well, those are my ideas, now I'd be curious what you think about them and I'd be happy to see some suggestions of your own :-)

Discussion

Hearthstone • Posted by AngryShuckie • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Discussion

Card draw power creep is a major issue

I've been going back and forth on writing this thread for a couple of months because I couldn't find a way to frame it that I was happy with, and if I couldn't convince myself I'd never convince anyone else. But the early Stormwind meta ha…

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I've been going back and forth on writing this thread for a couple of months because I couldn't find a way to frame it that I was happy with, and if I couldn't convince myself I'd never convince anyone else. But the early Stormwind meta has added some clarity to the picture, so here goes...

I'm pretty sure the state of card draw is one of, if not the biggest problem in Hearthstone right now. Put simply, its more efficient than is good for the game. There's too much of it, it's too cheap, and it too often tutors key cards. It's not just the classes that are supposed to be great at drawing cards, its everyone. To varying degrees sure - rogue is still better at it than most - but not to much significance. Even the classes that are supposedly bad at it have card draw that would have been powerful enough to be confined to classes like rogue a couple of years ago. Not to mention super powerful neutral options that guarantee any class has draws for days.

Take Elven Minstrel for example. It was a good card in a very strong expansion in a class that has always had good card draw. Compare it to the likes of Refreshing Spring Water and Primal Dungeoneer, both of which are in classes that were traditionally so-so at drawing cards, and the Minstrel is laughably weak.

Why it's an issue

Show Spoiler

OK, so there's a lot more card draw, why is that a problem? At it's heart, the problem is that card draw benefits different archetypes to wildly different extents. In particular, aggro can avoid running out of steam (as demonstrated in the Barrens meta, and quite a lot of last year too) and combo can find everything really quickly (as demonstrated in Stormwind). Normally that wouldn't be too much of a problem because card draw is slow so aggro can't afford to use it and combo has to be careful not to fall too far behind when using it, but it's all so cheap these days that it's not a problem for either archetype.

Meanwhile, control and value benefit relatively little. Both try to get as much as possible out of each card in the deck and clog up their hands if they draw too much. Plus, their win conditions barely exist when they cannot exhaust aggro's resources and they die too quickly to put any pressure on combo.

Control can at least try to respond to heavy card draw in aggro by running more removal and making use of their own card draw as best they can. That didn't work super well in the Barrens, though priest at least managed it. (It was a horrible deck to play against, but that's besides the point.) I was actually hopeful the defensive tools in Stormwind would make up the difference though. Perhaps they did? We can't say because Stormwind made a bunch of powerful combo decks that, thanks to the copious efficient card draw, can completely mess with the natural order of things and win as fast as aggro does.

In an ideal world we have the cycle: aggro > combo > control > aggro. In Standard things are set up so aggro = combo >> control <? aggro. Wild has been like that for a long time, and it's an inevitable result of lots of great cards existing, but Standard should be small enough to let control function.

Show Spoiler

A more subtle issue is that it frankly makes the game less interesting. Decks always find the right cards, reducing variety of gameplay. There's no hope of the opponent not finding their key cards, so your decks have to be able to handle a high-roll every game. That's utterly crippling for meme decks.

Plus, from a design standpoint, classes like rogue now often receive card draw as their main payoff for synergy because that's how they establish themselves as the classes that are great at drawing in a world where everyone is. Fine, but I want to see fireworks and interesting effects, not the hundredth bloody way to draw more cards when I already have 5 times more of that than I know what to do with.

How did we get here

It's difficult to say for sure since I'm not part of the development team, but I can identify a few possible causes, all of which occurred at a similar time.

Show Spoiler

First, we had an overload of card generation in the Year of the Dragon. By the time the devs decided they had taken it too far, they had already dug the hole: how do you introduce decks that can compete with that level of resource generation without doing the same thing? Well, give them lots of card draw instead. Unless the game goes to fatigue, it will serve the same purpose.

That's all fine and dandy during the Year of the Phoenix when excessive card draw and generation existed side by side, but once the Year of the Gryphon rolled around we had some classes that weren't given the strong card draw during Phoenix and no longer had the value generation to compete with. This is where the problem really became apparent to me: shaman needed more card draw to compete with everyone else, but the problem wasn't really that shaman had too little, rather that other classes had too much. But by this point it was too late. It would take sweeping nerfs to Phoenix's draw to resolve the issue properly, verses adding 1 super strong bit of card draw to shaman. The latter route is the easy quick fix, but committing to it fundamentally changes the balance of archetypes.

Show Spoiler

There was a related issue that is specific to aggro: demon hunter was introduced as a figurehead for the change in philosophy from value to draw. It immediately set a high bar for how much card draw a class that's good at drawing has, and continued adding to it as more expansions came out. Other classes with great draw followed suit, with rogue quickly finding itself with great card draw for every conceivable occasion.

So what, 2 classes that are meant to be good at card draw have good card draw, surely that's sensible? Well, yes, except that those 2 classes are also high tempo, aggressive classes with hero powers that help win the board. So other aggro decks struggled because they would lose on both tempo and resources. They can only really catch up if their own draw is improved substantially. That was achieved via both neutral and class cards. In any case, the end result is that all aggro decks now need to have good draw because otherwise rogue and DH will stomp on them.

Show Spoiler

There was another factor at the control end too, especially with priest whose card draw was gutted in its Classic set rework. In line with its class identity of being poor at card draw, it was stripped of its primary sources: Northshire Cleric and Power Word: Shield. This didn't work out too well for the class, which performed fine overall but only through obscene value generation that the community complained about (it is no coincidence priest had the last surviving bulls*** value deck).

The reaction from the devs seems to have been that perhaps no class should be bad at card draw after all, which freed them up to print good card draw everywhere. I think the mistake here was not class identity, but how they handled priest's Classic rework. Classic always had cards outside of class identity to ensure every class had at least some options to work with. You might be able to strip away some things for the sake of class identity (e.g. they could take away rogue's AoE, as indeed they did in the Core set), but card draw is too fundamental a mechanic to take away. Leaving priest with only neutral options that don't compliment the class was bound to hit it harder than intended.

(For the record, I think priest's card draw is actually in the most sensible spot of all classes right now, so they've been doing something right.)

What's the fix

If I'm optimistic, a few nerfs to the classes quickly completing game-winning questlines will open up enough space that control can at least test how effective the defensive tools in Stormwind are against aggro. That might be able to reset the archetype match-ups.

Failing that, the best solution probably requires a lot of patience and a change in philosophy from the developers. I say change, but it's really just taking a few steps back. Just as they decided they went too far with the amount of value generation, they would need to believe they have gone too far with card draw too. Tone down card draw in the best classes (DH, rogue and warlock), and let other classes be kinda bad at it again. I appreciate that is quite difficult when DH has a questline that requires crazy card draw, but still.

They cannot realistically nerf their way out of this problem since it affects way too many cards, so we'd probably need to wait for things to rotate.

What I fear is that they 'solve' it through more power creep, by giving control completely broken tools to combat the situation. That would be the point where I might finally consider leaving since so much of my enjoyment in the game is derived from making fun but weak cards work, which is already tough enough as it is.

Discussion

Hearthstone • Posted by Perry1776 • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Media

10 subscriber thank you video

  Thank you                       

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Hearthstone • Posted by YourPrivateNightmare • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Discussion

Scalding Hot Take: The Demon Seed is not the problem

Alright, did I get your attention? Now let me explain this. Since I've opened [card]The Demon Seed[/card] I've been working hard to farm the achievement, because initially I thought it would get nerfed hard and therefore it would be better…

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Alright, did I get your attention? Now let me explain this. Since I've opened The Demon Seed I've been working hard to farm the achievement, because initially I thought it would get nerfed hard and therefore it would be better to start grinding now.

However, after playing with all 3 different builds (the Control deck burn one, the Zoo one, and the combo one) I came to realize that all these decks suffer from the exact problem most people cited for why the Quest would fail. You die very fast and getting downn the Quest reward is much harder than it might look like...and yet, people get run over by the deck, growing increasingly frustrated.

So how does that work?

Flesh Giant

Flesh Giant is how that works.

This one card is the ONLY reason why Warlock is even playable at this stage. The Quest is not as fast as it seems. Sure, sometimes you draw the absolute nuts and get Tamsin by turn 5, but that's only possible in the Zoo variant and doesn't happen often. It absolutely cannot race Mage or any aggro deck in any capacity. Most board centric decks can run you down before you even get to complete your quests, and not even an abundance of healing will save you. However, the Quest, and most importantly it's mid-rewards, allow you to turbo out Flesh Giants that then proceed to run over your opponent (try running [Hearthstone Card (Battlegrounds Battlemaster) Not Found] and see how many more games you win just by way of Giant beatdown).

I'm serious by the way, I've been playing the deck basically non-stop to complete the quest and 90% of the time I either win or lose before completing it. It's actually kind of funny how the deck whose main gameplan should be winning through fatigue redirection and lategame burst, but instead the Quest functions more as a 1-mana deal 6/heal 6/discount Giants by 2.

Mark my words, if Warlock gets ANY nerfs at all it will be Flesh Giant up to 10 or higher and the whole deck just falls on its face and dies to aggro to the point where not even hard control will keep them alive long enough to finish it (or will have to run so many survival tools that you won't complete the quest fast enough for it to be a threat).

Oh yeah, and nerf [Hearthstone Card (Battlegrounds Battlemaster) Not Found] into the fucking ground, that card is a retarded abomination and whoever thought it was acceptable to print should be forced to find client bugs for the rest of his career, holy fucking shit.

Discussion

Hearthstone • Posted by Almaniarra • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Card Reveal

Maestra of the Masquerade levels other classes up

Pretty much the title. When you end the game as another class while playing rogue as [card]Maestra of the Masquerade[/card], you gain experience for the changed class, not for Rogue. It felt funny so i wanted to open a thread about it. A…

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Hearthstone • Posted by Esparanta • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Discussion

How to buy the pre-order (or anything) cheaper within Blizzard Shop without any problems/illegal actions?

Although I'm not going to pre-order new expansion because both options are too expensive for me, I would like show you how to buy Uldum pre-order cheaper with currency trick. It's widely known that Blizzard Shop is far more expensive than …

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Although I'm not going to pre-order new expansion because both options are too expensive for me, I would like show you how to buy Uldum pre-order cheaper with currency trick. It's widely known that Blizzard Shop is far more expensive than Google Store or Amazon Store because these stores have discount. If you don't want to bother with emulators for Amazon or Google, you can use internet country domains list as your advantage which I found by accident.

As an example, I reside in EU. Before this trick, if I had to buy something special/exclusive on Blizzard Shop:

I would need to buy at https://eu.shop.battle.net/en-gb/family/hearthstone where the currency is EUR and it was the most expensive option for me.
Then, I entered at https://us.shop.battle.net/en-gb/family/hearthstone to buy Master's Bundle a month ago, where the currency was USD. Thus, I bought the bundle with a fair discount thanks to currency change and I could be able to redirect my purchase to EU region. Since there was no currency conversion problem within my bank, there were no issues regarding the transaction.

With these in mind, what I really found by accident is: https://kr.shop.battle.net/en-gb/family/hearthstone (enter via VPN if needed. Opera would be a good browser to access with). It's South Korean link of Blizzard Shop, where the currency is KRW. When I take a look at Uldum-Mega Bundle, which was originally 80 USD/EUR, it was 80000 KRW (equivalent of 60 EUR or 68.42 USD). If you buy this bundle with this link -assuming there is no problem from your bank regarding currency conversion and/or region selection from Blizzard Shop while purchasing for your account-, you will get a fair discount.

In short, have a look at internet country domain lists and currencies Blizzard Shop is supporting. Then, if your bank can convert currencies without any hassle and no problem from region selection, change "eu" to "kr" or any country Blizzard Shop supports its currency. Keep in mind that all links of Blizzard Shop can't be entered via this trick (Example: https://shop.battlenet.com.cn/zh-cn). You need to try with trial-by-error: Either enter TLD at the start of the link or at the end of the link, with country codes in mind.

If I recall, Argentina/Brazil/Mexico links of Blizzard Shop have good discounts thanks to their currencies/policies or whatever. If anyone can share here, I think everyone can purchase bundles far more cheaper than South Korean link of Blizzard shop. I'm sorry that my English isn't that good but I think I did my best for a good tutorial.

Discussion

Hearthstone • Posted by Live4vrRdieTryn • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Discussion

Open Letter to the Ppl who Made and Play QL Mage and Warlock

To their developers: Wow, do you even bother to test what you release? We have here two insanely easy to complete quests that result in non interactive damage to the face. How....is....that.....fun? Draw, mana cheat and generation are all …

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Hearthstone • Posted by Arthas • Updated 4 years, 6 months ago •

Card Reveal

New Neutral Minion - Lady Prestor

A new Legendary Neutral Minion, Lady Prestor, has been revealed! [cardimg rating]13692[/cardimg] Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating! Learn more about United in Stormwind Head on over to our dedi…

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Hearthstone • Posted by Sykomyke • Updated 4 years, 7 months ago •

Discussion

So this just happened...Quest Pally vs Quest Mage. Turn 1 Win

https://hsreplay.net/replay/gWoU9NZZEV3h4Fn4DNa6i8   The replay is worth a few laughs. :) Sorry the screenshot isn't better,  tried to snap it before he conceded...but still got the history bar on the left.

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Hearthstone • Posted by Arthas • Updated 4 years, 7 months ago •

Card Reveal

New Warlock Spell - The Demon Seed

A new Legendary Warlock Spell, The Demon Seed, has been revealed! [cardimg rating]13196[/cardimg] Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating! Learn more about United in Stormwind Head on over to our ded…

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Hearthstone • Posted by meisterz39 • Updated 4 years, 7 months ago •

Discussion

Potential bug with trading

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