Corrupt Elementalist is having its mana cost increased to 6, from 5, in the December 19 Patch.

How do you feel about this change?

Once these changes are live, players will be able to disenchant the adjusted cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.

...

And the last of the bunch

In the office that evening

Queued some Hearthstone at lunch

With the nerfs that had changed

The way standard was styled

He decided to change up

And queued up in Wild

At once he was queued

His Odd Rogue opposed

By a Thrall Even Shaman

Most deadly of foes

Once the mulligan was done

He soon found that he lacked

A one-drop on one

So the odds quickly stacked

The pressure soon mounted

The game had to be saved

So he slammed down a Swashburglar

And ripped Healing Wave

He pointed at face, crossed his fingers and toes

And the minions were seen

His Owl beat Thrall’s Golem

And he healed for fourteen

Despite this respite

Pressure mounted anew

And as both hands ran dry

He knew what he must do

His health was still low

And few minions on the table

But with no other options

He played Myra’s Unstable

He must heal and swing board

He accepted these facts

So he played out a Vilespine

But not before Zilliax

He now had the board

But his health was at six

And with fatigue now at two

Thrall had plenty of tricks

He topdecked for lethal

Found a crackle with glee

Pointed it at face

But he lowrolled a three

So our hero odd rogue

Knew that Thrall did not win it

With one health remaining

Valeera was still in it

He played out some minions

Cleared board best as he could

And then boosted the Zilliax

With a combo’d Cold Blood

His foe could not answer

With much power at all

So our hero now knew

He could defeat Thrall

So he searched for the lethal

To pick up the win

And the game closed with a cry

LEEEEROOOOOOY JENKINS!

---

Context - I wrote this last Christmas as a joke for a friend at work. Everything in the story is true - including dropping to 1 health from a lowrolled Crackle and finding lethal with Leeroy - which is why I was hyped enough to write something this cheesy.

Let this be a lesson to all - no matter how acerbic and waspish someone can act, they're still quite capable of doing something incredibly cringey and making themselves look like a pillock on the internet if it might make someone smile.

So has anyone else seen the graphics glitch where keywords on cards will look like they've been roughly crossed out with pink marker? And is there any way to fix it? PC issue btw.

MANA COMPENDIVM

Hello dudes,
I would like to start this thread with the purpose of finding a scientific explanation on how cards "Balance" is done in Hearthstone.

I will start with some example of inexplicable cards, I'll take in consideration their cost and stats to compare each others.

1° Example

Cost: 4
Stats: 4/6 (10) = +1 EV - Taunt

Cost: 5
Stats: 10/12 (22) = +6 EV - Taunt

In this case, Dragon's Pack starts from a +5 EV from the average +1 EV of Saronite Chain Gang, but requires a condition to be played with buff as a double 5/6.

The question is: is it worth of a (5*) mana discount ?
The answer is: "I don't think so".

We can compare it to Scion of Ruin
Cost: 3
Stats: 9/6 (15) = +4,5 EV - Rush.

Seems fair enough?, but it's not. Because Scion of Ruin has minus 1,5 EV compared to Dragon's Pack. Which means that Dragon's Pack should get at least his cost increased by (1*) mana, or the buff decreased from +3/+3 to +2/+2

Anyway, the major problem is that only few classes can afford such big tempo plays. And as it seems, the real problem with either these two cards is the General Balance of the game.

More examples to come... Do you have some good one to explain? :)

The new Eternal expansion, Promises by Firelight, is now live. See the patch notes below.

New Features: 

• The new Promises by Firelight campaign is live! Journey into the past and play through the stories of the Xultan Champions to collect 21 new and exclusive, Expedition-legal cards!
• Premium versions of alternate art cards will now be craftable if a player owns four copies of the non-premium alternate art.

Bug Fixes:

• Invulnerable VFX should now properly disappear at the end of a turn in some cases.
• Promo cards in the Expedition Archive should no longer display the promo rarity when viewed in Collection.
• Updated the Overwhelm hanger to include language about defending Sites.
• Fixed an issue where echoed cards would incorrectly present face-down and remain on the screen if the hand maximum was surpassed
• Users on Switch should now be able to properly submit feedback when using a controller.
• Fixed issues with targeting opponent avatars on mobile.
• Units that are invulnerable to damage should now properly be affected by the Dinomancy Enthusiast boss power.

Card Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where playing Lay Siege in response to an Edict of Linrei could cause game instability.
• Soulflame Rider’s cost reduction should now no longer be capped at 3 reductions due to Decimating.
• Fixed an issue where Mistrust did not display proper Justice VFX.
• Kemmo’s Blueprints cast with Onslaught should now grant the drawn weapon +1/+1 before Echo creates a copy.
• Fixed an issue where Borderlands Lookout’s stats did not immediately update when some powers were played.
• Vara’s Sanctum’s wording has been updated: “While you have exactly one unit, it has +3 strength, Deadly, and Lifesteal.” Its functionality is unchanged.
• Fixed an issue where Karvet, Solar Dragon’s voice lines were cut off by the summon cultists.
• Burr-Spore Fern’s text should now be consistent in all languages.
• Improved the VFX for Eilyn, the Rising Storm summon effect.

Right now the pity timer for Hearthstone packs is 40, which means that players have the ability to hypothetically get only 3 legendaries from their first 90 Packs. This doesn't affect me much (since I only open around 40 packs per expansion) but I imagine that it causes some players a lot of frustration and could cost Blizzard money because of angry players who were screwed over by pack RNG. A solution to fix this would be to reduce the pity timer to only every 30 or even 20 packs. Because there is usually only an average of 1 legendary per 20 packs, a change of the pity timer to 30 packs would not affect the vast majority of Hearthstone players, only the ones who got especially unlucky that expansion. I think this could actually make Blizzard more money by helping make the player experience better and by retaining players who are angered by RNG. so what do y'all think? Would this change make you happy? Do you think it'd cost Blizzard too much money? Do you think it's likely?

Didn't see it posted yet, so I thought I'd mention it here.  

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/16-0-5-balance-update-december-19/20934

Sludge Slurper is having its attack decreased to 1, from 2, in the December 19 Patch.

How do you feel about this change?

Once these changes are live, players will be able to disenchant the adjusted cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.

Hello everyone,

as you might have heard, Mogu Fleshshaper will be changed soon (in less than 24 hours to be precise), moving its cost from 7 up to 9.
To be honest I was ok with this balance change, but I've read more than one person saying that this should be a buff instead of a nerf. It is true?

Let's look at it closely.

I'll now list every single 8 and 10 drops currently available in Standard, dividing them in 3 categories: potentially game ending (you definitely highballed), good (nice upgrade) and bad (worse or not much better). In order to give this rates I'll take in consideration a scenario in which the game isn't already decided. Consider also that some minions are in the middle ground between two tiers, so you may not agree about some decisions, but you should be able to see the logic behind all.
Let's start with the 8 drops:
POTENTIALLY GAME ENDING (8): Al'Akir the Windlord, Deathwing, Mad Aspect, Mosh'Ogg Enforcer, Tirion Fordring, Walking Fountain, Zzeraku the Warped, Grommash Hellscream, Batterhead.

GOOD (20): Akali, the Rhino (it would be in a lower tier if not for the effect), Catrina Muerte, Deranged Doctor, Fel Lord Betrug, Gruul, Da Undatakah, Gilnean Royal Guard, Ironbark Protector (maybe higher), Jepetto Joybuzz, Lucentbark, Mana Giant, Murozond the Infinite, Octosari (double edged blade but still an 8/8), Princess Talanji, Splintergraft, Tess Greymane (on the edge of being lower), Tomb Warden (not lower just for the taunt), Twin Tyrant, Whirlwind Tempest (see Tess), Cauldron Elemental.

BAD (8): Arcane Devourer, Captain Hooktusk, Heroic Innkeeper, Hex Lord Malacrass, Hir'eek, the Bat, Pit Crocolisk, Splitting Festeroot (maybe higher), Tortollan Pilgrim.

In the end we have 8 really good outcomes, 20 decent ones and 8 bad ones, with the average result being a 5,5/7, with an 11% chance to have Rush (4/36), a 6% chance to have Charge or Windfury (2/36 in both cases), a 19,4% chance to have Taunt (7/36), an 11% chance to have a somewhat useful deathrattle (again 4/36) and finally a 61% chance to get more than a simple vanilla minion (22/36).

Let's do the same thing for the 10 drops too

POTENTIALLY GAME ENDING (4): Colossus of the Moon, Big Bad Archmage, Kalecgos, Deathwing.

GOOD (8): Emeriss, Jumbo Imp, Hakkar, the Soulflayer, Sea Giant, Nozari, The Boom Reaver, Living Monument, Mecha'thun.

BAD (1): King Phaoris.

This time we have 4 really good outcomes, 8 good ones and just a bad one, with a 1/12 chance to get taunt and roughly a 50% chance (5/12) to get something more than a vanilla minion, with an average result of a 7,8/8,9.

Now, from what gathered here we can draw these conclusions:

• none of the two pools is bad (no shit Sherlock).
• while the 10 drops pool has a higher chance to get a really good minion, the 8 drops pool will get you something that will immediately affect the board with a much higher frequency.
• the average minion you'll get from the 10 drops pool has +2/+2 compared to the one you'd get from the 8 drops pool, which is fair if you consider the vanilla test.

That being said, why and when do you play Mogu Fleshshaper (followed by and evolve card, of course)? The answer is simple: the faster the better. You want to get the most possible out of you mana cheating effect. That's why even Murloc builds used to run him since they didn't want to play for value/control.

Imagine this average scenario: 1 drop + totem + enemy minion + other minion (second totem, second enemy minion, lackey, Faceless Lackey shenanigans,...) will discount Mogu for 4 and thus you'll be able to play it on turn 3, with (like I said before) 28 in 36 chances to get a well statted 8 drop that your opponent will have to answer in one or two turns.

What about 9 mana Mogu? In these case, you'll have to wait at least two more turns, in order to

1. play more minions in order to get more discount
2. keep the board spread out against your opponent's trades
3. get more mana in order to be able to actually play the card

Given these premises, the surprise/game breaking effect of Mogu would be less impacting on the board, to the point where a +2/+2 couldn't be enough to compensate the turns spent in order to set up an appropriate table.
I'll say it again: the Mogu Fleshshaper + Mutate combo's main goal is not to put as much stats as possible on the board, but do it the fastest you can, in order to have more chances for your big drop to stick.
Therefore, I can affirm that Mogu Fleshshaper's balance change is meant to be a nerf and not a buff.

TLDR: answering an 8 drop on turn 4 is much more difficult than dealing with a 10 drop on turn 6/7 - it's a nerf, not a buff.

Thanks for reading, I hope you've found this post interesting and insightful.
I'm really looking forward to read your own opinions!

Faceless Corruptor is having its attack decreased to 4, from 5, in the December 19 Patch.

How do you feel about this change?

Once these changes are live, players will be able to disenchant the adjusted cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.

Prayers have been answered!!!

Was just playing the brawl and used Witchy Lackey on a Lord Godfrey that was played at 2 mana since it came out of the holiday chest. The Evolve mechanic turned it into a Dragonslayer - 1 mana more than the PLAYED COST, not the real cost.

Has anyone else experienced this?!

Mogu Fleshshaper is having its mana cost increased to 9, from 7, in the December 19 Patch.

How do you feel about this change?

Once these changes are live, players will be able to disenchant the adjusted cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.

From what I've heard we should be seeing this expansion drop this week (I believe tomorrow, actually), but we've still got a couple of new spoilers.

Revealed by Scarlatch on Discord. This one is a token and created by something else.

Revealed by Scarlatch on Discord.

There will some downtime with a patch hitting tomorrow. Keep an eye out for patch notes to follow after it concludes.

Mythgard will be down for a patch update tomorrow, 12/18, from 9am to 1pm PST (5pm-9pm UTC). Patch Notes will be posted when server downtime starts at 9am PST.

Added patch notes.

Patch Notes v0.17.3 - Holiday Edition

12/18/2019 5:31:40 PM

Mythgard Patch 0.17.3 - Holiday Edition

Tis the season of Axolotls! One ranked season is ending and another is about to begin. Between them, we’re running a special 2v2 Holiday’s event. Play with crazy Highlander decks and earn a Christmas card back, courtesy of the King of Axolotls himself, foxfire_kadrpg. There are also new elite missions that each award an animated axolotl emote (you know who to thank for that one too). Collect all 23! Speaking of emotes, you can now choose a custom set of emotes in the player profile.

Ranked Beta Season I ends Dec 21st,  2019 and Beta Season II starts Jan 3rd, 2020. Players will start the new season at the bottom of the next lower tier. For example, if you finished Beta I at G04, you’ll enter Beta II at S01. Don’t forget to pick up your Beta I rewards in the ranked panel, which include card packs and a fancy portrait trim.

Have fun, and have a wonderful, joyous, holidays everyone!

Features & Bug Fixes

• There is a new 8-turn tutorial mission for those who opt out of the story on their first login
• This mission explains the basic rules but gives far fewer rewards than the story
• Those who wish can play through this tutorial for 100 xp and 400 coin. We’re not saying it’s worth it if you already know how to play, but you have the option!
• Winter Holiday’s 2v2 event
• Random 75 card, 3 color, highlander decks (you still need to queue with a legal deck)
• Random power, no path
• 6 card starting hand
• Draw 2 cards per turn
• This event runs until January 8th
• Event mission
• Draw 250 cards in the 2v2 event to get a special Christmas Axolotl card trim, courtesy of foxfire_kadrpg

• Festive Winter holiday game boards
• And Santa hats or other holidays accoutrement if you equip any of the winter card backs or trims!
• Animated emotes
• If you’re on our Discord, you know them well. Thanks foxfire - you are the best!
• Everyone starts out with “blush”. We’ll be giving out a code for “flex” via our mailing list and the rest you can win via a new set of elite missions
• Emote customization
• Players can now select their emotes via a panel in the player profile
• End of Beta Season I
• Season rewards: 1/3/5/7/10 packs and a special portrait flair depending on rank tier
• The ranked panel now shows your past season record in the medals panel
• Added 3 new puzzles (see Known Issues)
• Fixed missing “Next Pack” button in the pack opening screen
• We will be experimenting with a different matchmaking algorithm that will be more friendly to players at the very high and low ends of the spectrum. Let us know if you notice better or worse results. We can flip back to the old algorithm if the new one has problems
• You can now burn cards by dragging them straight down, even if they are at the sides of the hand
• Fixed another bug that caused zoomed cards to get stuck in some rare cases (there will be more, please report them as you find them!)
• Improved scaling of some parts of the UI for phones (there’s still a lot of work to do here, but this should help make some of the buttons a bit more pressable to start)
• Entry VO for the following cards removed: Dashing Ringmaster, Howling Abyssal, Panic Raider, Strigoi Familiar
• Ranked points for Champion level players is awarded in the same way as Mythril players as a temporary band-aid for not having gotten something better in place in time for next season
• Various other bug fixes

Known Issues

• Guilds are NYI
• Tournaments are NYI
• The puzzle Minmaxer’s Coup is broken on iOS. We also had to change the puzzle slightly at the last minute due to fixing an issue with one of the cards. Since none of us were able to solve the puzzle anyway, we can’t guarantee that it’s solvable period. Have fun!

Cards/Tuning

Minor balance changes. Full refunds available on Master of Shadows, Scourge of Serpents, Shadhavar Beast, and Volition™ if made or unmade in the past 3 weeks.

Halcyon Decree

• Enemy minions in three adjacent lanes get -2/-0 → permanently and are [Suppressed] until your next turn

This strength debuff has always needed to be immune its own dang suppression to function; making it permanent is a small buff, but also feels closer to a good reason this doesn’t thwart itself.

Master of Shadows

• 4[P]P → 5[P]P

 

• Stealth → Removed

 

Bringing the Master out into the light of day here; needing a slightly higher cost is a bit of a giveaway, but it’s always been possible to figure out when he was around based on his effect on other incoming minions anyway.

[ed. - if you’ve been to our Discord recently you know that Purple has a less than stellar win rate. We’ll look to buff other cards in the faction sometime soon]

Scourge of Serpents

• 4[Y]Y → 5[Y]Y

Shadhavar Beast

• 3/3 → 2/3

Storied Martyr

• 1/1 → 2/2
• Demise: Give all your other minions +1/+1 and Overrun until the end of the next turn → Give all your other Rebel minions +1/+1

Volition™

• 3[Y] → 2[Y]
• Give a friendly minion a standard action → and 'is Stunned until end of turn after attacking' until end of turn

Art

• Card art updated for Salt the Fields, Scourge of Serpents, Fossegrim, and Muttonmorphosis.

We've got a couple of new reveals for today. The first comes from Scarlatch on Discord.

Next we've got one from Telemokos on Twitch.

Seems like the nerfs may be delayed, according to this source

https://twitter.com/neon31hs/status/1207366763924664320

:(

The new event starts this Friday in TESL. Here are the details.

Take a chance this weekend with the newest event in The Elder Scrolls: Legends: the Lucky Gauntlet!

Lucky Gauntlet: December 20 - 23

In the Lucky Gauntlet, the usual Field and Shadow Lanes are swapped out for a larger, five-creature Field Lane and a special three-creature Lucky Lane. Creatures summoned into the Lucky Lane gain a random keyword, which could lead to all kinds of serendipitous plays!

Will that last-minute Guard or Charge creature come to save the day? Only one way to find out! Entry in the Lucky Gauntlet costs three (3) Event Tickets or 500 Gold, with up to three runs allowed.

The Lucky Gauntlet begins Friday, December 20 at 12pm ET and closes at 12pm ET on Monday, December 23. Events in The Elder Scrolls: Legends change regularly, so check in often to see what new challenges await!

If you're a competitive player, or if you just want to see what the pros are using, be sure and take a look at the Top 16 Decks for the recent Promises by Firelight Qualifier.

You can also catch the full replay below!

EDIT: Restarting fixed the problem

---------------------------------------------------

Hey, just checking if anyone else encountered this bug: I'm currently missing all basic cards except for Mark of the Wild. This results in me not being able to play any of my decks in standard... (It shows them missing and gives replacement options, I can't find them with the collection manager search or by reducing the set to basic cards)

Pretty sure this bug was introduced with the latest patch?

Hey everyone, just want to share my favorite deck of the new expansion so far. Give it a spin! Let me know if you have ideas for improvement.

https://outof.cards/hearthstone/decks/10789-mc-kronx-feat-big-g

I'm not gonna lie I've been very annoyed this expansion which is unusual for me and have actually thought about quitting for good. This is not one of "those" threads but I do feel that the tempo of this game is causing problems and whatever nerfs are made will just push something with better tempo to the top. 

Now tempo is a key part of this game, I remember 1 mana Mana Wyrm and I'm not trying to push out aggro at all but I mean even some control  and midrange have a strong aggro presence these days. The only thing I think that would slow down general tempo is to increase the deck size.  Then maybe we might see some more interesting decks, Aggro may have to include more draw to keep their tempo but I really feel something has to be addressed. What are your thoughts? 

Is the new performance update out already? What are the changes?

ALL THINGS HOLY!

I'm a F2P and have been mostly playing Arena. Got a golden Legendary and thought I would have a see what I could swap it for, if there were any decks I could build. Turns out I have just enough dust to build Galakrond Shaman. I'm probably not playing it very well, but even so, it smashes all over other decks.

I can see why the more regular/invested players are calling this out. It'll be a couple of days of fun for me, but no doubt a real PITA for most people.

Wowzah. Glad that there is a balance patch coming.

Wouldn't it be better, to show just threads in the latest deck discussions and not single posts?

As it is now, every new post is displayed, which leads to the section being full with posts for one deck. 

I think, that it would be better and more diverse, if more decks could be shown there.

So just the threads/deck discussions with the latest posts, not the latest posts itself. 

BR, kramerofboandls 

We had a few spoilers today, all revealed on the ECQ stream earlier.