https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-2-10-0-notes/

So we're getting pool party skins instead of balance updates before the next expansion.

Because skins make money I know and Riot is a business and we don't want them shutting down Legends.

But damn having two patches go by accomplishing  absolutely nothing in the competitive scene feels bad man...

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to pick the community's brain on how y'all approach playing against DR DH as a Control or Midrange deck.  I find this match-up awkward to navigate and could use some help.

At first I tried to constantly keep the board clear, but my current strategy has been to ignore their summoning minions like Razorboar and Razorfen Beastmaster while playing my early small minions and going face. At the same time I save my removal for a bigger swing turn later.  My rationale has been:

1. I'd rather they kill off their own minions so that I can deal with the stuff they summon on the following turn instead of allowing them to attack with slightly larger threats
2. They don't usually run much healing so early dmg can help set up lethal later as even when you survive the initial waves of DR minions there's always Illidari Inquisitor lurking to kill you on Turn 8 and again on Turn 9 via N'Zoth

However, this obviously allows them to make favorable trades against my board early and it can be tough to clear everything later if they have taunts up from Renowned Performer/Death's Head Cultist or refill via Death Speaker Blackthorn.

Have you had success with a different strategy?  Or, if you play DR DH, what sorts of control/midrange strategies give you the most trouble?

Thanks!

I put together this deck because I’ve been wanting to play Lissandra Trundle, while avoiding the flack that deck gets. I like it because it excells at mid and long game, and doesn’t require the Watcher to win.

It is pretty weak to Fast decks like Azir/Irellia, but is faster than a lot of control decks. Im curious what ways there may be to improve it.

Blizzard recently made old cardbacks and hero portraits available in the collection for those who missed out.  Does anyone know if these will be permanently available or will they be leaving the collection in the next patch if we do not buy them soon?

Competition Theme: Focused Study

It's time to really narrow your area of expertise this week - make sure you School everyone at it!

• You must create a minion which has an effect when all spells in your deck are the same School
  • We're looking for specific Schools here - "If all spells in your deck are Fire", for example

MathU is back again with another prompt - and this one is asking you to really hit those books!

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, Jun 14 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Jun 19 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jun 19 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Jun 20 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jun 20 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Jun 21 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• 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.

We spend a lot of time talking about the sensational decks in LOR with amazingly fast win conditions or slower insta wins.

But what about the decks that don't do anything amazingly well but just happen to have strong matchup tables against almost everything?

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

Take a look for yourself Ezreal Draven either flat out beat or go 50/50 with every single deck that isn't freijord/shadow where they are grosly disfavored.

Thats actually secretly amazing!!!

What do you guys think?

So its been two days now that I've experienced constant disconnects mid-game, usually around 5-8 minutes in (and almost always when Im in a good position to win). Coincidentally this is all happening a few days after being told that blizzard is moving towards this cross-region bollocks, which I'm fairly sure when implemented will break the game if not the servers.

Have anyone else been experiencing this? Its getting to the point that I might have to start switching to hyper aggro decks just so this bs doesn't keep losing me the game because Im forced to skip a turn from this constant irritation.

And no, I'm nearly 100% certain this has nothing to do with my machine or internet providers, because I'm still able to surf the net while this is happening, and I haven't recently made any new installations or updates that may screw with my system. Whenever I get disconnected, I would flip the battlenet interface on and can see that my account is 'connecting' and all their ads are missing, which is a sign that it might be something to do with their servers.

Honor in Vainglory Custom Set by FenrirWulf

9 Champions, 12 Cards from each region (Without tokens)

Small notice: I realized that the visuals are too big so now the card texts are too blurry. Sorry about that... You can try to open the image on a new tab if you want to inspect it closely.

Piltover & Zaun

 Skye is an elusive Sniper who specializes in dancing around her enemies using her agile mechanized armor and her exceptional piloting skills while shredding them with her advanced weaponry. Enemies marked by her attacks will find themselves at the mercy of her combined maneuverability and destructiveness.

Shurima

Idris is a flexible and adaptive Assassin/Sniper who is able to switch between melee or ranged attack depending on the path he chose. His agility allows him to float at the edge of combat or dive right into the enemy backlines while artfully tearing up his enemies with his spear and chakram. Ever-elusive, he constantly shimmers between incorporeality and physical forms, making him tough to catch.

Ionia

Blackfeather is a brave and bold Duelist able to topple even the greatest foes with his sharpened blade and irresistible charm. His brazen nature is complemented by his thirst for insurmountable duels and skills to back up his confidence. However, his flaunting arrogance tends to lead to unfavorable outcomes.

Demacia

Lance is a headstrong Defender who resolutely shields his allies away from danger. His gilded armor and combat expertise combined allows him to survive combat after combat without batting an eye. Yet he does not lack emphasis on offense, as his trusty lance strikes at the enemy formation.

Noxus

Glaive is a bloodthirsty Brawler who relies heavily on his sense of smell. His rocket-powered glaive makes sure that his enemies don't get out of his sight… uhh smell. Fierce and domineering, he capitalizes on the slightest hint of weakness from his enemies, setting them up for inevitable doom.

Bilgewater

Phinn is both the unstoppable force and the immovable object fitting for his role as a Support. His perseverance and indomitable will makes him a much more annoying foe to fight than most. Harmless he may appear at first glance, but the anchor he carries around can turn the tides of battle as he can literally pull the fight towards him from unsuspecting locations.

Shadow Isles

Churnwalker is the boogeyman of the twisted mists called the Churn. As a Support, he hooks and chains people, sharing their suffering amongst one another and invigorating himself through it. His presence inspires palpable fear, and his incoherent ramblings mark his identity as a madman that is no longer human, but as a creature that should not be trifled with, l’est they plunge headfirst into endless torment.

Targon

Celeste is a Mage who can will the stars to existence or shape them by her design. She commands the flow of the battle by continuously casting her spells, raining stars on foes from a safe distance. To add insult to injury, recasting stars on existing ones causes them to explode, solidifying her limitless potential to control the battlefield, leading her foes towards an inescapable fate.

Freljord

Reim is a defensive Mage/Brawler who manipulates ice to slow down his opponents. It’s hard to surmise him as a frail old man when his overpowering chilling strength is no laughing matter. Just like the everlasting winter, he outlasts them in the cold, as the encroaching frost creeps up onto his enemies, leading them to their slow but sure death.

All the card arts here are from their game itself and their game website except for one which I deliberately had to take from a fanart as there was no other appropriate art for it. (Credits to that specific art here: https://kasiaslupecka.artstation.com/projects/n8Oo9)

In the sidebar (on the right side) of the Hearthstone portal overview the Recent Threads are shown with the amount of time elapsed since the last update. What I do not understand is for instance for New Warlock Minion - Stealer of Souls it says that some update occurred very recently, but when you click on the arrow to navigate to the latest comment it is old and there does not seem to be any new comment added.

Is it another caching issue, perhaps someone fooling around or am I missing something? I am curious about this 🤔

Screenshots from Hearthstone mercenaries marketing survey

https://twitter.com/LeadingmoreH/status/1402757677252493312

It feels like we've been dealing with this turbo meta for over a month.

Its literally just Irelia Azir every match with its 60% winrate that should of been seen a mile away with internal play testing.

Or at the very least addressed with the last patch. I can't describe the number of decks it shuts down.

Want to meme with Heimer nope, Karma nope, Taric nope, Anivia nope, Riven nope, Yassao nope

They must realize people aren't actually "playing" the game right now

They are playing roughly 2% of the game 

I think saying.that people will always play the meta is a derivative excuse, yes people will but how free players are to ladder with alternatives is entirely up to the devs.

Riot seriously fix your game...

Any suggestion how to defeat him? Its three tentacles x turn are too annoying ...

Legends of Runterra has changed from a game about spells, strategic passing, and removal to essentially a tempo struggle.

Every hand you play needs to be about hitting the board as fast and hard as possible with as much tempo as possible regardless of the deck you are playing. 

The one exception being Lissandra who tempos out an otk strategy in later turns

There isn't a single top tier deck that doesn't have an early board flood strategy.

Thresh nasus, will usually hit a full board by turn 3 every single time and so you need to mull for your board flood hand to compensate everytime. 

Then you need a way to end the game quickly whether it be a big overwhelm dude or an atrocity or in the case of Azir multiple attack phases.

It just gets a little tiring seeing every game play out as aggressively as humanly possible and only once you pass that gauntlet can you actually "play the game"

I dont know how you actually fix this, it seems to me that Riot needs to start releasing strong and cheap removal options to compensate.

Let me know what you guys think, or should legends always just be a aggro tempo creature swing fest?

This happens to me way too often for it to be a coincidence: I'm strolling along with a good deck I put together doing well and encountering players that have equal decks to mine.

Then I hit six wins and suddenly boss mode is enabled. My opponents have perfect decks and make perfect plays while the primo cards that helped get me to 6 suddenly fail to show up or curve is bust.

Not in my head. This is crafty business decisions to not want to give away anything for free because otherwise decent players like myself could string winning arena runs more often and not really need to pay cash.

Which is fine... If it was transparent. Instead I get this frustrating experience where I can't enjoy the game on a level playing field. I wouldn't be surprised if they have bots set up for it 

Ok, now it's your turn to reply with the obsequious "this belongs in a salt thread" and "I can't agree with anything upset so I 100% disagree even though i don't know how it really works" comments. Go:

Competition Theme: The Price Of Progress

We saw some Classic Dragons get a new interpretation when the Core Set released - it's time for some other Legendaries to get in on the action. Progress comes at a price, however - or is that a Prince?

• You must create a Legendary minion which is a re-imagining of a Classic Legendary
  • Look to Deathwing vs Deathwing the Destroyer, or Ysera vs Ysera the Dreamer - similar, but different!
• Your Legendary minion must have an effect which is active when you have no cards of the same cost in your deck
  • Prince Keleseth, Prince Taldaram and Prince Valanar were our first introductions to this kind of effect

Arkasaur and MathU both contributed to this week's theme - one for the flavour restriction, and one for the mechanical. 

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, Jun 7 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, Jun 12 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, Jun 12 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, Jun 13 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, Jun 13 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, Jun 14 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• 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.

Ladies, Gentlemen, and those of us who know better...

I welcome you to the Year of the Bear's Core Set!

That's right, I, a complete stranger (unless you're in the r/customhearthstone discord) am taking a crack at an entire custom hearthstone year! And where else to start than with the year's core set?

WELCOME TO THE YEAR OF THE BEAR CORE SET!~ Claps all around, yay is me, I've somehow made it this far through mediocrity. Failing upwards. Why Bear? I like bears. Bears are cool. This core set focuses a lot on shaking things up for classes, perhaps even more so that the Gryphon set, and includes a few overall changes:

• RARITY READJUSTMENT: YotG's set features 9 Commons, 4 Rares, 2 Epics, and 1 Legendary per class as a general rule (with Warrior as an exception). In this set, we've traded in 1 Common for another Epic, as well as...
• SECOND CLASS LEGENDARY: To allow class Legendaries more room to breathe as well as to allow more powerhouses per class. The classic set features 1 Legendary per class due to expansions at the time doing the same; it's about time we caught up again.
• 10 NEUTRAL EPICS: Why the hell are there only five Neutral Epics? Doubling the number gives me more breathing room to make sure I can get more of the techs and staples the rarity allows.
• THE DAWN OF MULTI-TARGETING: That's right, fucker. Yeah, you reading this. I've done it; butchered a sacred cow. Send kind regards and/or death threats to my discord. In all seriousness, Multi-Targeting is a design space I've wanted to explore and employ for a while now, and I'm not one to worry too much on UI and programming. I understand people won't agree, though, but this is a dead sacred cow I'm willing to die on.
• TRADEABLE RETURNS: (As of 7/27/21) I've decided to make Tradeable an evergreen keyword so that I can continue to use it throughout the years here.

Without any more preamble, here's the set, in class order!

DEMON HUNTER

DRUID

HUNTER

MAGE

PALADIN

PRIEST

ROGUE

SHAMAN

WARLOCK

WARRIOR

NEUTRAL

THAT'S ALL, FOLKS

Already working on the expansions and Mini-Sets that'd comprise the year, but for now you'll all just have to wait~

PATCH NOTES:

*7/27/21: Nerfed Faceless Amalgamator, fixed Ner'Zul (was never meant to be a Battlecry), added Tradeable to Mak'Gora

Menagerie builds are a huge reason people love this game. The only thing that bugs is there is literally THREE things you look for in a unit: Divine Shields, Cleaves, and big stats.

All mechs are viable because of module but most of the other tribes have units you just simply do not want (the dragon and elemental that semi-cleave for example). I would really like to see some units that compete with the big 3.

Here's a few ideas

-The 2/3 tier 1 dragon could be made immune to poison to make it not completely useless.

-How about a demon that has Overkill: Silence the unit on your opponents right side (to allow for counterplay)?

-Scavenging hyaena (or the two previously mentioned) could be replaced with a 2/2 semi swiper that dealt 1 damage to adjacent units (anti div shield aid)

-Lastly, a tier 6 murloc -something we haven't seen in a while- who doubles your first battlecry every round?

These are a few ideas shot from the hip that a regular player came up with that'd mix up builds and make the game more fun. No telling how balanced they are but 100% making the game more interesting and fun if added.

What units would you like to see added to the game?

The new event calendar in the client has a fair few cool looking events which I'm surprised to see nobody talking about.

I tried to insert an image using Imgur but it's playing up (probably user error XD) so here's a link to it instead: LoR event calendar

Hey while I wait for the promised changes on reddit to happen, and for ladder to reset so I can climb to diamond again in a fresh meta let's talk about climbing theory.

My theory is pretty simple there are two ways to climb in digital ccgs:

1. Play the best decks better than everyone else whether it's thresh/Nasis or Arelia Azir or dragons or whatever works for you

- how do you play your deck better then everyone else? You dont just play your deck you play the opponents.

- here's an example my rogue overwhelm brew relies on two things high burst dmg, and lots and lots of vulnerable plays

- if you as Azir/Irelia always leave mana open for bounce when I have the attack token you can't loose valuable pieces to vulnerable plays

2. Build a deck that performs well in a certain meta, this sounds obvious but its also built on wrong assumptions.

- Doing well in a meta isn't about countering what is top tier that by definition is impossible

- It's about establishing unpredictable play patterns, and teching in unexpected options

- for example overwhelm decks don't run counters but when one of the best decks revolves around atrocity as a win con it is now one of your best cards because the opponent will assume you don't have it

And thats it really if you want to climb in legends or mtg arena or whatever digital ccg you want, you'll have to get good at one of these two methods. 

If you're creative and easily bored from repetition like me I would choose to master option 2. If you're detailed oriented and highly competitive I would choose option 1.

Let me know which you gravitate towards.

Since I did it for the expansion I feel like I'm obligated to do it for the mini set as well. At least this one won't take long. Also i'm skipping seperating this into class sections because that just seems redundant.

Tormented Hearts: I haven't attempted this one yet but it sounds like a complete pain in the ass. Since Taintheart Tormenter's effect is so powerful that it can completely lock out spell based decks, they will most likely concede the moment he hits the field, whereas non-spell based decks will most likely just remove it through minions. At best you will get one, maybe two, spellcasts out of your opponent which means it'll take quite a lot of games until this completes. Going into Wild at Bronze rank might help because people play like absolute lunatics and might just bend over backwards to spend extra mana to remove the lad.

Puppy Power: While we have plenty of discounting options in Standard I feel like using Emperor Thaurissan and the multitude of smaller Druid Beasts in Wild will speed up the process considerably. If you have Aviana and Kun (or Omu) you can set up your own achievement OTK using bouncers to play expensive beasts multiple times for 1-mana (If you kept Tyrantus for sentimental purposes you might be winning big here). JUst make sure you actually use Druid beasts and not neutrals.

Poison, Poisoff: Just put Venomous Scorpid into all your decks until it's done. Not worth building a deck around.

Don't Move a Muscle!: Alright, this is probably the most frustrating and bizarre experience. I attempted to build a pure Frost deck to guarantee Frostweave Dungeoneer and managed to create a deck that is literally unable to win, regardless of how well it does at any point. Either way, make sure to get as many elementals out as possible and freeze both face and minions as much as you can. Destroying a minion with a frosty elemental also counts, so don't be shy to value trade. Deep Freeze is unsurprisingly good here.

Friends Like Me: Alright, fuck this one entirely. Getting 3 of the same is quite simple (as a matter of fact I got it the first time I played the spell). Getting 4 is nigh impossible. Someone did the maths and apparently it is below 1% (as opposed to around 12% for 3). Either way, if you really want this achievement you play a Paladin deck with decent draw (Wild is best) as well as Mutanus and Venomous Scorpid (and every other card you need for a different achievement) and try to make the most of the time you will spend. For reference, I got 18 ranked wins today in Wild with a Paladin deck that doesn't even run any win condition....I still never hit 4. If you aren't a completionist I implore you to just forget about this one, it's actually worse than both the Oh My Yogg! one and the Horde Operative.

Even Steven: As easy as it gets. Mad Summoner being a bro again. If you discount both Against All Odds and Wave of Apathy (in case they have a board already) with Palm Reading and you can tutor Summoner with Insight. You don't even need any Wild cards (outside of Summoner ofc) because Priest now has decent draw in Standard.

Hiding in Plain Sight: Run cheap minions and Preparation so you can get both of your Shrouds fast and then concede to move onto the next game. Running spell discovery is unnecessary since you should be able to get 4 procs every game which means you'll only need about 7 to complete this. If you want to go hard you can also just run Swindle and Shroud of Concealment as your only spells to streamline the process.

Spit Hot Fire: Shaman has draw now but it wants you to run Nature spells only so into Wild we go (if you still have draw cards there). If you prefer to stay in Standard, Wandmaker is a really strong option because there are only six 1-mana spells in the pool. Running spell damage and chip damage like Pen Flinger is also important to set up the board. Don't be too greedy because Shaman only has shit healing which means you won't survive until the board is full. Alternatively you can also just run Perpetual Flame in a real deck (Spell Damage Burn Shaman being the best idea probably) and just hope to get it done that way.

Ugh, It's MY Life, Mom: Get this one done fast because it might just get nerfed quit soon because of Wild shenanigans and who knows how hard it will be to complete then. Overall it's probably the easiest to just run a control deck with big cards and stuff like Backfire or The Soularium. It turns out that playing the cards while Immune does  actually advance the achievement so by all means, abuse the fuck out of it in Wild.

Kresh Got Back: Now this one might seem easy but there are a lot of complicated nuances. First of all, Kresh, Lord of Turtling is a 6-cost legendary card, which means you need at least 6-mana to play it and you can only run one copy in your deck. Second of all the weapon comes from his Deathrattle which requires your minion to die before it activates. Afterwards you will have to attack with your weapon 5 times, out of which each attack will count towards the achievement. Yes I just wrote this entire shitpost as a way of telling you that there was no point to explaining anything. Fucking sue me.

Hungry Hungry Murlocs: This one is just a bit of a grind. It's a lot harder to actually find a minion above 4/4 to eat. That being said, this is probably the most fun achievement because playing Mutanus is just really hilarious. I recommend just throwing Mutanus into all of your other achievement decks and iit will eventually complete itself. If you want to rush it, go Rogue with Shadowsteps (inefficient) or play it with Baleful Banker and Zola the Gorgon in Wild.

Adventure is Out There: LIterally completes itself while you attempt to get Friends like Me

That's it, that's all I've got. As per usual, if you figure out any exploits that can speed up the process let everyone know.

Yesterday i was testing out my new gonk druid deck, celestial gonklignment when something weird happened. I had anaconda on board and played celestial alignment and all the nature spells in my hand cost one not zero. So I said, okay it works this way I shod have just played her after alignment" but then every nature spell I drew was zero mana just the few I had in my hand when I played alignment weren't. 

Bug or working as intended?

So Azor Irelia is still just as strong and exhausting to play against non stop.

The watcher remains unchanged so if you're running any other control deck with a slow game plan and you que into them you might as well concede.

Cards buffs haven't happened to weaker archetypes to freshen up the game.

There's all this great stuff and amazing potential in Legends that is being held down by a laze Faire card balance approach.

So now after waiting so long for this patch that did nothing we have to wait another month to hopefully see the good stuff.

Is anyone getting a little annoyed at this point?

It's another one of these, you know the drill.

Demon Hunter

Taintheart Tormenter: Yet another brick for a deck completely lacking any sort of mortar. While a permanent asymmetrical Loatheb effect is certainly powerful and can completely shut down a variety of spell-based decks (and also make Spell Mage play without Incanter's Flow), Getting the guy out on the field an keeping him there is quite the challenge. It should be noted that this is the only big Demon whose value isn't being reduced by being pulled from Pit Commander. The Problem is that he truly is the only one, which means if you pull any other big boy you're in a bad spot (not even mentioning that Big Demon Hunter just doesn't have a proper early game build that actually carries it until the lategame). At this point we just need more mana cheating or way better control tools to make any of this work.

Sigil of Summoning: Speaking of Control Support, this ain't it. Not a terrible card by any means, but after experimenting with the previous Sigils in various builds I realized that telegraphing to your opponent how to play around your cards is just not a viable strategy. This one is better due to the fact that it isn't reactive in nature and functions more like a dormant minion. UNfortunately paying 2-mana for a delayed 4/4 split in two just isn't worth it in my opinion. Unless we get some big payoff for playing Sigils (other than completing an achievement) there's just no place for this.

Felrattler: One of the best cards of the mini set (make of that what you will). Efficient Deathrattle support that helps with setting up trade and can be played from hand without feeling like you wasted mana. Also comes back from N'zoth (sometimes). Might almost be too good considering how Deathrattle DH is already rising. At the very least it will add some flavour to the deck given how few actual Demon Hunter deathrattles there are.

Druid

Lady Anacondra: The reason why Druid isn't allowed to have nice things. On the surface this is a borderline useless card because the only "legitimate" payoff thus far is Deviate Dreadfang and everyone knows that you cannot build a Hearthstone deck around lategame threats that need a turn to stick on the board to be useful. However, in their infinite wisdom, they also printed Celestial Alignment which completely breaks Anacondra if you manage to survive playing it. BAsically she allows you to completely skip the slow start of having to re-ramp after playing Alignment to then steamroll your opponent, by reactivating all your Innervates and Lightning Blooms (as well as any leftover ramp). This means you can use Nourish to draw and find your Dreadfangs and whatever else you use to curbstomp your opponent with. If your opponent isn't Warlock or Priest they won't have an answer to whatever bloated abomination you just shat out onto the board and therefore lose. There is no gameplay. This is your life now.

Deviate Dreadfang: Actually an interesting card beyond the aforementioned Anacondra abuse. Living Seed (Rank 1) and the new Fangbound Druid which could allow you to quickly discount the Snake and then pair it as soon as turn 5 with a couple Nature spells to swing the board in your favour. Ironbark is notably a Nature spell that naturally costs 0 once you're at 7-mana. Previously mentioned mana cheats also apply. The biggest downside is the anti-synergy between the Beast discounters and Guardian Animals, which I fear is still going to be the better option when it comes to swing turns. That being said, at least this opens up Beast Druid for the future, if only once the Guardian Animals package has rotated.

Fangbound Druid: Aside from Dreadserpent, I could see this being ran as a proactive early game minion in Clown/Guardian Druid. Usually you don't want to actually have your Beasts in hand, and this could help you make those dead draws a lot less clunky to play. Overall one of the better cards that could fit in a multitude of future decks. Still doesn't make Taunt Druid playable...

Hunter

Venomstrike Bow: Not a bad card, but even for a Midrange Hunter deck it's rather slow. It does add a very decent option for Pack Kodo, turning the weapon slot from a 1/3 chance for Rinling's Rifle into a 2/4 chance for two decent followup pickups instead. Also pretty neat with Ace Hunter Kreen who would be a staple in Hunter if they were allowed to do anything other than going face.

Sin'dorei Scentfinder: But why? Hunter isn't good at activating Frenzy and summoning Rush minions is counter intuitive if your opponents activates it. It doesn't make Scavenging Hyena any less bad. Parade Leader is not a good card in Hunter regardless and Starving Buzzard is unfortunately stuck in Wild. Until Midrange Hunter gets more draw or some legitimate lategame plays this is just pointless and extremely weak.

Serpentbloom: Might just be good enough if Midrange Hunter ever does happen. It's basically 0-mana Asassinate as long as you have a minion on board or a Rush minion in hand. The obvious issue is the fact that Hunter's lack of draw means spending two cards to kill one is never turning out in your favour unless you generate a big swing at the same time. And no, [Hearthstone Card (Augmented Procupine) Not Found] doesn't make this playable as long as we don't have a good Deathrattle activator.

Mage

Shattering Blast: Unplayable waste of a card slot. Freeze Mage won't work and it shouldn't anyways because a deck based around not letting your opponent play the game shouldn't exist in the first place. The only way you will see this is when Spell Mage pulls it out of their ass to wipe your board for the fifth time with stuff that's not even in their deck. NOt to mention that there are only TWO cards in Standard right now that allow you to freeze more than two minions at the same time. And no, fucking Rimetongue isn't going to do the trick.

Frostweave Dungeoneer: Really?

Floecaster: So here they print a legitimately decent Freeze payoff that still doesn't make Freeze Mage a thing (because it's literally the only playable card of the archetype) but insists on giving you brain cancer whenever your opponent randomly gets it alongside Varden Dawngrasp off Font of Power.

We could have gotten Hero Power support but instead...this.

Paladin

Party Up!: What I can only assume was preemptively nerfed because Paladin doesn't need any more good cards. Completely pointless, unpredictable and overcosted. Paladin doesn't care about swarming if it isn't with Silver Hand Recruits. Paladin also doesn't run Spell discovery so there is almost no chance of this showing up randomly either. You'll probably see it in Mage more often than in Paladin.

Seedcloud Buckler: 2/3 weapons are historically terrible unless they have a bonus effect per attack. You pay 3-mana to deal 2-damage (which kills very few things these days) and then have to attack two more times until you get the actual payoff at which point your opponent will do their best to have you get as little value as possible out of it. Most of the high value Paladin minions already have Divine Shield anyways, and if you're really desperate for it, just play Argent Protector. Sick in Arena though.

Judgment of Justice: Quick reminder that Hunter still has to operate on 5 Secrets total. NOw Paladin gets yet another abortion of a secret that makes you waste your turn in order to not get completely fucked over. Now that Hand of A'dal will get nerfed Paladins will probably no longer care about minimizinf the pool of Holy Spells for Knight of Anointment so we go back to just tossing in a bunch of Secrets to punish the other classes for existing. We're not even talking about guessing Secrets anymore. This just negates any trade you want to do against a class that already makes it downright impossible to keep up on the board with. At least Priest doesn't need to care.

Priest

Against All Odds: Instant staple for Control Priest just because of the fact that it represents the only guaranteed boardwipe currently available. Combined with Wave of Apathy it's a 6-mana asymmetrical Twisting Nether and while Priest usually doesn't like having to combo two specific cards for removal, the amount of draw for spells specifically makes this far from unrealistic to have online in time (there are currently 3 different cards that draw spells from your deck, two of which are Discover, meaning you have even better chances of getting the pieces together). Additionally, Cabal Acolyte might make it back into decks on account of running Apathy. We are back to the point where you no longer can build your board in a way where Priest can't clear it. Now they have at least one guaranteed clear and that's usually what kills minion based decks.

Devout Dungeoneer: you can't build your deck to guarantee the discount, but you also don't need to. Priest likes to have card draw and this is just good enough. The secondary effect is just a bonus.

Cleric of An'she: We can now go full Cleric safely. Slow draw , but thanks to Renew this should work as a decent curve filler and emergency spell tutor. Now all we need is a decent win condition to draw into or else winning by fatigue is preferable.

Rogue

Shroud of Concealment: Pointless for now. Rogue has more than enough draw and i can't think of a minion that you really want to stealth for a turn. Maybe useful as a minion tutor in specific decks, but I feel like Swindle does the job better

Savory Deviate Delight: Apparently Wandmaker was just too good in Rogue. Pointless filler, but at least you get a funny reference. No currently viable Rogue deck would ever sacrifice one of their own minions to mildly inconvenience the opponent. Rogue also doesn't lose to Warlock. MAybe we'll need a hardcounter against Anacondra.

Water Moccasin: I mean...it's nice if it works out, but Rogue really doesn't need extremely conditional removal like this. At best it's a 5-health Stealth minion that can stick around for attack buffs, but I don't think Moccasin OTK will be the next big thing. Patient Assassin is a better option than this.

Shaman

Primal Dungeoneer: The best Shaman card in a while (not a high bar, I know). Basically the cornerstone of every deck for the forseeable future...and it might still not be enough. Basically all Shaman decks will have to go full Nature spells (not that difficult) and also run a decent Elemental package (also not difficult) as well as weapons for Cagematch CustodianPe (this might be a bit more limiting). Elemental tempo Shaman should be somewhat of a thing with this, Aggro Shaman could also use it, even if not being able to play Devolving Missiles is a bummer. Control Shaman can possibly run it if they also put Runic Dagger in their deck and limit elementals to Custodian and Al'akir for consistency.

Perpetual Flame: Speaking of Nature spells, this isn't one so you can't run it in your deck. Sucks to be you, but I don't make the rules. It does significantly improve Wandmaker in Control Shaman though.

Wailing Vapor: Another important piece for Tempo Elementals. It's slow as hell, but it makes for an explosive start with Kindling Elementalinto Menacing Nimbus and Arid Stormer

Warlock

Stealer of Souls: If you've held onto Violet Illusionist in Wild you might get some dust refunds. Other than that this is way too inconsistent. It permanently applies a health cost meaning that occasionally it can render some of your cards unplayble. At best you get it out as fast as possible and hope to draw into something ridiculous like Jaraxxus or maybe an early Nether to corrupt your Strongman. The only reason why Warlock is even remotely playable (and I use that term losely) right now is because they're skirting the line of having just enough healing to hero power efficiently. This will usually dumpster your life total to the point where even Priest can sm0rc you to death. Your opponent can literally just decide to not kill it and watch you suicide because you can't get rid of the fucker.

Unstable Shadow Blast: Elegant. Efficient. Redundant. Warlock has enough removal right now and there is no payoff for self-damage outside of Flesh Giant (which isn't needed because Warlock only wins through Tickatus and Jaraxxus and a tempo 8/8 somewhere down the line won't help all your awful matchups)

Final Gasp: Great for Zoo and therefore unplayable as of now. Wait for next expansion.

Warrior

Kresh, Lord of Turtling: Very underwhelming. a 6-mana 3/9 without taunt isn't that great. The frenzy effect and Deathrattle just encourage silence and transform effects, rendering it a waste. At best it's a minor roadblock against Aggro, of which there aren't that many decks anyways. Even worse is the Deathrattle, which gives you a vanilla 2/5 weapon. We've already discussed why 2-attack weapons are terrible on average, but this is especially bad because Control Warrior, the deck this is supposed to go into, run Bulwark of Azzinoth as one of it's most valuable cards, meaning that you cannot play Kresh as long as you have Bulwark up, which can be very awkward. It also means you can't play N'zoth (which presumably you would put in that kind of deck) whille Bulwark is out. Similarly, since the weapon has 5 charges, you're very likely to just replace it with Bulwark or Outrider's Axe at some point, since those weapons actually do something. As it stands, this is a ball of stats that doesn't win you the game or fill any holes in your gameplan.

Whetstone Hatchet: NOt bad, but if you have to compete with Imprisoned Gan'arg, you're most likely going to lose. There's just no need for a slow handbuffing weapon. Ringmaster's Baton already proved that.

Man-at-Arms: Only relevant with the above weapon and as we just established, that one isn't that good, so there's just no point. Could have just put it into Rogue honestly.

Neutral

Mutanus the Devourer: If you unironically want to spend 7-mana to MAYBE chomp your opponent's win condition your deck has major issues. All of the existing combo decks (which are basically just Warlock and OTK DH) run a multitude of minions alongside their singular win condition minion. There's also not a whole lot of big lategame minions in most other decks and even then you usually lose if you play a 7-mana do-nothing while they keep building their board.

Archdruid Naralex: Very slow, but potentially insane for Control classes. I could definitely see Priest running this just for the chance of getting even more ressources to grind out the opponent or just the occasional game winning removal. Warrior might also be able to justify it. While the random nature makes it inconsistent it also means that you'll never be pressured to actually play it on curve and instead can use it as curve filler.

Selfless Sidekick: I've always wanted to pay 7-mana for my Doomhammer, how did you know?

Devouring Ectoplasm: Good for Deathrattle DH and nothing else. Presumably better than Death's Head Cultist

Meeting Stone: But why?

Conclusions

Honestly looks like a rather weak set. Demon Hunter and Priest are winning big with Shaman and Druid potentially spawning some new decks. Everyone else just sort of...exists. Mage, Rogue and Paladin will stay exxactly the same outside of some randomly generated shenanigans. Warrior and Hunter just don't have decks that can run their new cards. Warlock is still shit.

A new Epic Druid Hero, Emerald Malfurion, has been revealed!

Discuss this card below or head on over to the card page to give it a rating!

Learn more about Hero Skins

Head on over to our dedicated guide for Hero Skins!

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.