A new Common Ionia Unit, Coastal Defender, has been revealed!

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A new Common Ionia Unit, Blossoming Blade, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Ionia Unit, Ribbon Dancer, has been revealed!

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Akama - and more to the point Akama Prime (AP) - is a card that I have wanted to find interesting for the last year, but it has always been underwhelming. I'm hoping that by writing all my thoughts down I can begin to understand why, and then better understand card design too.

As a 3 mana 3/4 stealth, the first body is a solid card by all accounts, and certainly in the same league as the first bodies of the other prime cards. If anything it is better than most of the primes' first bodies because stealth denies the opponent the ability to remove the minion before it accomplishes something, and isn't situational like rush or spell damage.

The problem arises with the prime version of Akama. All the prime cards were designed to be bonkers strong, and something you couldn't print as a normal minion. Where the other prime cards achieve this with a hefty block of text detailing a fancy effect, Akama takes a more succinct and elegant approach by simply switching out 'stealth' for 'permanently stealthed', which we know from adventures can be very powerful. I have no doubt that if AP was a collectible card, it would indeed be bonkers strong.

So where's the problem? I think it is that the odds of drawing Akama twice by turn 6 are tiny, even in rogue. Statistics tell us you need to be ~75% of the way through your deck on average to draw AP, by which point you're probably long past turn 6. If you're against aggro or playing aggro yourself, the game is probably over before you see AP, so it is only worth evaluating against slow decks, and therein lies the issue: most slow decks have a way to deal with a 5 health stealthed minion.

Even when they cannot remove it immediately, AP still takes a whole turn before it can attack and show off the permanence of its stealth, and it probably has to attack at least twice before people it becomes interesting, making AP really, really slow. Compare that to the other primes, all of whom have much faster effects except Reliquary Prime, but at least that has a set of stats and abilities that make it more likely to achieve something significant right away.

The end result is that AP is in practice only marginally better than a 6 mana 6/5 stealth, a stat-line that can conveniently be compared to two cards that have been around in the Classic set since 2014: Stranglethorn Tiger and Ravenholdt Assassin. I think the tiger did see a tiny bit of play in druid at one point, but that's about all these two ever did in constructed. So AP sitting between them makes it seem like AP is actually just a bad card on its own. I'd say he's weaker than MSoG's attempt at this sort of effect (Lotus Assassin), and you can run 2 of those without any worries about shuffling them first.

Am I contradicting myself? First I say I think AP is a bonkers card, then a bad one? Again, timing is everything. If you could play AP on turn 6 and have him be part of a wider plan to pressure the opponent, then he's great. But if you have him on turn 14, when your opponent has stabilised or you are playing a deck that doesn't put on much pressure, then he doesn't do very much.

The (flawed) logic behind the design

It's quite easy to see how AP was made the way he was. Not only does it look cool and powerful at first glance (the community rated Akama quite highly), but we've seen first hand how powerful permanent stealth can be in adventures.

It's also notable that the prime mechanics (deathrattle and shuffle) are both things rogue had synergies for, and it stands to reason that rogue would have an easier time abusing primes than other classes. Stowaway in particular seems to alleviate the slow draw of AP. The trouble with the Stowaway solution is that you still need to have drawn both Akama and a Stowaway, and you have to be playing a fairly slow deck to justify him when you don't see Akama.

The fix

Fixing AP is simple: give him more health. I'd lean towards 7 to put him just out of range of modern Flamestrike +1 spell damage (which is so common and cheap in mage today that it's pretty much always going to be there). That way it makes 1 more class have to work to remove him, but makes almost no difference to classes that couldn't kill him to begin with, or who have un-targeted hard removal. It also gives him the opportunity to trade into a taunt minion without being reduced to piddly health that can be removed by small AoE.

The design lessons

We already know a card's power depends strongly on when it is drawn and played. This is doubly true for uncollectible cards that are shuffled into your deck. So the lesson is to ensure such a card is a good late game card at bare minimum. It doesn't matter how good it is as an early-to-mid game card if it's almost never going to be drawn then.

Hello,

hope you are keeping well and safe!

(apologies in advance posting here, but clearly Custom section and no thread available for Custom - Other. thank you for your understanding!)

I would like to recommend a new card game that plays very much like a RPG, and thus a good adaptation for Board Games.

Imagine all those RPG that you love; the excitement with real-time combat, and the strategic reward in making the right choice at the right time!

Of having the different classes and capitalising on their strengths in battle?

The anticipation of all happening simultaneously while you have nanoseconds to decide and make the next move…

But what if you had a card game that could emulate this unique experience?

“LoF: Card Tales” aims to do just that.

I am currently working on the game with very limited available publicly, but ready to demo the game if anyone would like to try. Please note I'm not looking to monetise this, just trying to bring a new Game to the fore!

Reach out on the threadOr message me directly with your interest and we can setup a Demo.

Here's how I genuinely see the game; happy to take critics once you try it out!

Card Structure link

Some of the issues addressed, making ‘LoF: Card Tales’ a unique TCG, are:

- No mana screw / mana flood

- Truly countless strategies, with no genuine power creep, as each Hero (3 per game) have their inherent strengths and weaknesses – irrespective of what cards you play

- Realistic opportunity to play all cards of your deck (all you assembled to use), minimising chance of not ever getting to see the best cards

- Game turns happen simultaneously, without the drawback of cards not impacting gameplay. Also, a game cannot drag endlessly as there are limited turns to test your wits.

- Rather than Card Quantity, there is a focus on Card Quality so that all players can be on par at a start of a Game and enjoy putting their Heroes to the test

See you on the battlefield!

I'm McF4rtson from Hearthpwn. Just dropping by to share class borders I've gathered over the years. I slowly, but steadily, maintain a repository of public use class borders over there as well.

Ninja	Warden	Riftblade (experimental)	Motherboard (experimental)	Improved Sea Witch
{{CCLASS=ninja5958}}	{{CCLASS=warden1846}}	{{CCLASS=riftblade5344}}	{{CCLASS=beepboop5916}}	{{CCLASS=seawitch22739}}

A new Common Targon Unit, Solari Sunhawk, has been revealed!

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A new Common Shurima Unit, Merciless Hunter, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Targon Landmark, Eye of the Ra-Horak, has been revealed!

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A new Common Ionia Unit, Dancing Droplet, has been revealed!

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A new Common Shurima Unit, Profiteer, has been revealed!

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Did anyone notice that the ranked ladder seasonal reward epic card (of April) was a duplicate? I am missing quite a few Wild epics still, but did not receive any of them. Perhaps only Standard cards are offered as ranked ladder seasonal rewards?

Although somewhat understandable, it is not mentioned specifically anywhere in-game, I think 🤔

This is not really meant as a complaint, but it does feel bad that the Wild cardpool is not included (at least so it seems). Especially since you can reach Diamond 5 also in both Wild and Classic modes nowadays.

Well, it's not exactly a hidden issue that Taliyah is the worst champion in the game by far. I held some hope and expectations that the new Landmark synergies such as Zilean or Malphite would be enough, but I often wouldn't include her in the deck in the end. Regardless if Landmark decks are good, not a lot of the new cards synergize well with her, in my opinion, so she would probably still be unplayable.

Now I'm not going to suggest what kind of buff she needs because she has a lot of issues that any buff suggestion would become reasonable. The question now is, will she get buffed? Will Riot think ahead and buff Taliyah alongside the release of the new expansion so that people will actually play Taliyah?

If they are going to do it, I don't actually think that we should wait for 2-4 weeks after the release because I don't want to play the new decks with Taliyah in them and get absolutely stomped. I'm actually betting that they are going to buff Taliyah, and I'm also going to bet that the buff will not be enough to make her playable as a competitive deck but rather a meme deck. I did hear through some rumors that Shurima's landmark support won't end here but would also continue towards the next expansion, but I really don't want to wait for 2 more months for Taliyah to be sorta ok. So hopefully, by the end of this, I was either wrong and Taliyah is actually good, or I shouldn't have doubted Riot in the first place and they actually had buffed Taliyah. I'm not even a Taliyah simp or a Taliyah main in League. I just don't to see a Champion with a depressing 30% WR.

A new Rare Ionia Spell, Shadows of the Past, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Targon Spell, Ground Slam, has been revealed!

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A new Epic Targon Unit, Stonebreaker, has been revealed!

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A new Champion Targon Unit, Malphite, has been revealed!

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I was playing paladin with Reckoning in play. My opponent plays Tundra Rhino and gives it Immune with Bestial Wrath. He attacks with it and it dies from Reckoning even though it had Immune.

Normally, things with immune can't be targeted, and if you play an AoE they just ignore the damage. But I guess since Reckoning hits a single target, but you aren't the one picking the target, it works differently.

Also, could you destroy an Immune minion with a random effect like Deadly Shot? Or would that work differently?

I want to start by saying I don't mind Demon Hunter at the moment. Its power is fine now that Twin Slice and Blade Dance are gone, so I don't harbour any of the hate I had for the class that I did throughout the Year of the Phoenix.

Nevertheless, I still keep wondering why the class needs to exist, especially from an archetype/mechanics viewpoint. I had hoped that within a year it would be given something that makes it feel truly distinct, but as it stands everything it does is just a slight twist on what other classes could do if they were given the tools, if they don't already do basically the same thing. Let's break down DH's archetypes and mechanics to see what I mean:

Hero attacks

Even at the time DH appeared, multiple classes had direct synergy for the hero attacking: warrior had Hack the System, Armored Goon and Galakrond, while druid had Secure the Deck and Gonk, the Raptor had only just rotated out.

It wasn't long before rogue and warrior were given a hefty weapon package in Scholomance, and in DMF shaman joined in with their Enhancement cards. Come Barrens, and rogue has massive weapons that look and feel a lot like DH's attack buffs.

Even without all the fancy stuff, rogue's hero power has been silently begging for cards that synergise with your hero attacking since 2014. Blizzard just never made the cards. It's not a class identity thing either, because most of DH's weapon attack synergy cards would look perfectly sensible in rogue.

Big demons

Warlock...

OK, so you could argue that warlock's class identity prohibits it from getting the burst damage that many of DH's big demons do. Fine, but they don't really need to be demons. You could make exactly the same cards with the beast tribe instead and hand them to hunter. Or maybe make them mechs, or elementals, or dragons etc. Its not difficult to find another appropriate class for the effect if you just switch out the tribe.

Token decks

Surprisingly not druid, because druid's token decks always use mass board buffs and minions buffs are one of the few things DH can't do.

However, what other class has token decks but (almost) no board buffs? Hunter! We can ignore the fact Unseal the Vault buffs the whole board because you usually only press that button once so it's really just 1 big bit of burst damage. What we can't ignore is that Swarm of Locusts is literally just a slightly bigger Command the Illidari, or that they shared token synergy cards in Scholomance.

Tempo deathrattles

The Barrens deathrattle cards could easily have been given to rogue or hunter, and no one would have been shocked. We would all have just gone "Ooh, deathrattle rogue/hunter has a new look."

Lifesteal burst/OTK

OK, so here I admit the other classes with lots of lifesteal would be very weird with Il'gynoth, since all of paladin, priest and warlock are awful at burst damage (at least in Standard). That said, Il'gynoth really just makes an OTK deck, and to be honest it doesn't matter much that the lifesteal keyword is involved. It still follows the process of: stay alive; draw the deck; play ~5 cards and win.

Basically what I'm saying here is that we didn't need DH for another OTK archetype to exist. It could have just been re-branded to fit the theme of another class and the world would turn much the same.

Soul fragments

Warlock... (I don't even need to add anything this time.)

Outcast

Finally, something truly unique to DH! It has one teeny tiny problem though, and is the main reason big demon DH never took off and bonkers cards like Coilfang Warlord are never played: outcast strongly disincentivises playing anything expensive. The end result that outcast isn't a DH mechanic so much as it is an aggro DH mechanic. The trouble is, when the strongest staple cards have outcast (as they would be because the very point of outcast cards is that they are powerful when the condition is met), all DH decks are going to want to use them, rendering entire supported archetypes worthless.

Outcast would be so much better as a mechanic used infrequently to support aggro decks without being central to the class. At that point it could easily be slipped into one of the other classes as their flavour for a year or so. So rather ironically, I think the one thing that truly does set DH apart would be better off as something that didn't.

Concluding remarks

Sadly, the most I can say to justify DH's existence at this point is that at least it meant the other classes could be pushed in other directions. They often went in roughly the same direction anyway, but I suppose that's not DH's fault.

I'm not optimistic about the class' ability to diversify this year while it is still dominated by the staples and design choices from the Year of the Phoenix, but maybe next year the rotation will herald a new era in which HS has 10 meaningfully different classes. 

So Rush Warrior has been doing very well, you can just pull the best list off of HSreplay.

There's also apparently this new Tempo Mage deck making the rounds that's sort of a minion-based Spell Damage deck, but on HSreplay it still shows up under the regular Spell Damage MAge which has abysmal winartes because the most popular build is garbage while the new one actually has a positive WR.

Clown Druid is still around and is basically unchanged.

If you want statistically powerful decks you're gonna have to wait until Thursday for the VS Data Reaper report.

A new Common Targon Unit, Blue Sentinel, has been revealed!

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A new Common Targon Unit, Earth Elemental, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Targon Landmark, Spiral Stairs, has been revealed!

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A new Common Targon Landmark, Rockfall Path, has been revealed!

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So, this is absolutely nothing, but I just hit legend for the first time (playing about 7 years, never particularly seriously until the last few months) and have been almost entirely F2P the entire time (I bought the most recent tavern pass and Kharazan back in the day.)

So, I ground my way from D5 to L16480 using a slightly aggro secret Paladin. I feel kinda scummy about it, but Paladin and Mage are my mains, and this seemed like the right meta to make the push.

Anyhow, that's all. I'm just happy for the win (and slightly buzzed on a couple of celebratory IPAs)