An rather new HS dev twittered that they just had an internal Mercenaries presentation and that it's "even cooler and bigger than it was last time I told you guys it was cool and big"

He later also added that there is still some time before they share it externally.

I think it's reasonable to expect an official trailer sometime between the fire-festival and the next expansion's pre-purchase.

So I watched Zack Snyder's zombie movie "Army of the Dead" on Netflix this weekend. It's...fine. Using the significantly low bar of "we already have Netflix so it's free", I don't feel like I wasted my 2 hours 28 minutes watching this movie. And there was some cool world building and assorted nice touches like the tiger and the "time loop" theory. That said, there were A LOT of things that just really bothered me about the movie because they needlessly weaken the overall experience, and I just need to get them off my chest.

This is definitely a rant post, so if that's not your thing, please back out now and have a nice day. :-) Also: "spoilers", I guess? But realistically everything in this movie is super-predictable, so I don't really consider anything spoiled.

If Tanaka owns the casino, why didn't he just give them the code to the safe along with an exact description of the countermeasures and instructions how to disable them? I know thematically this is to heighten the suspense, but then you just rewrite him as a mob boss without direct knowledge instead of the owner!

Why is there the shady double-cross from Martin? If Tanaka and Martin really are strictly-business, then they would appreciate that it was already a high-risk operation and they should be direct with their subordinates to minimize the chances of things going south. 

Building on that: if Martin doesn't even know about zombie alphas before Coyote tells him, how does he know that's what he's there for? Maybe Tanaka granted him autonomy during the mission, but that just implies they should have approached the group with an offer of ~$10M to investigate and capture the zombies rather than hope Martin can figure something out once he's inside. The whole casino heist was just a needless distraction.

And why does Martin turn so homicidal? Coyote is the only person that knows he's trying to smuggle the zombie head out of the city, besides which the cast generally seems very unconcerned about the threat of the zombie infection spreading out beyond the walls. He seems so committed to betraying and killing off the team despite it lowering his personal odds of survival, and no reason is ever given.

When Chambers is dying, why is her final act to tell Guzman "go"? She's a zombie killing bad ass who just saw the man she doesn't trust (Martin) block off her escape route; why isn't she warning the group about him? Or trying to shoot him? If you're worried about "spoiling" Martin's upcoming double-crosses (which again make no sense; see above), you could have it come out garbled because she's fighting off a pack of zombies. Instead, she comes off as a weak-kneed lovestruck little girl in her final scene, which was totally out of character.

Speaking of spreading the infection: why do we not get any shot of them closing the secret passage into the city?! I presume someone shut the door off-screen, but seriously -- if the entire premise is that Las Vegas has been completely walled-in to prevent zombies from getting out, you'd think we'd get at least a 1 second shot of someone closing the breach that would ruin everything.

Why does the dialogue make such tight timelines in-universe time for the bombing if they are going to be so much longer in actual runtime? There is no reason to tell the audience "we've only got 10 minutes!" and 20 minutes later the nuke still hasn't arrived. You could make the argument that scenes happen in parallel so things actually happen quicker in-universe, but that just feels like lazy writing. It would be trivial to instead have in-universe be slower than real-time; you could say 30 minutes and still have the same intensity without sacrificing credibility. Plus: it's a nuke! Even if it's a "light tactical nuke", that doesn't mean you can start your escape at T -1 minute and hope to survive.

Speaking of surviving: so this nuke is so "light" that Vanderohe can survive by just being inside an underground vault? If so: why is there no military effort to sift through the rubble and ensure that no zombies survived? They clearly established that these zombies can survive anything other than destroying their brains, so it seems like a pretty big liability to just assume every single zombie in the city had their head vaporized.

If Coyote knows the alphas will retaliate for beheading the queen, why do they leave her body in the middle of the street? Why not at least drag it inside a car or into one of the buildings so as to stall the upcoming horde?

Speaking of Coyote's poor decisions: she suspects Martin's betrayal and her priority is keeping the team alive, so she A.) does the one thing she knows will definitely put the entire team in jeopardy, and B.) does it for no other assurances than said untrustworthy man's word. Why not just tell the team she thinks Martin is going to betray them? Why not just leave him for the zombies -- we've already established she's cold-blooded enough to do what she thinks needs to be done. And if you are so sure that this person is just waiting lying until he can kill everyone off, why do you believe he can ever be trusted?

If Kate is only concerned with getting Geeta back (conveniently the only 1 of the 3 captured women not die inside the Olympus, BTW), why don't we get any closure on what happens to her? She probably dies in the helicopter crash, but it's just super weird that the last ~45 minutes of the movie are "Operation Save Geeta" and then we don't even get a confirmed death. And it's like Kate goes from valuing Geeta's life more than her own to entirely forgetting about her as soon as her shoes hit the copter.

And finally -- like the ending, this last one is a bunch of inter-related things jumbled together -- how can Kate be so stupid as to try to infiltrate the zombie base on her own and why is she actually successful? I suppose the official answer is because zombie Zeus marshalled literally every competent zombie besides zombie Cummings and they all rushed passed in such a hurry they didn't notice her hiding in a car, but that is wa-a-a-ay too cute for my taste. She just happened to be hiding at the perfect time? And the captured women didn't notice they were being unguarded and try to leave on their own? And Kate finds them in a casino with dozens of stories and thousands of rooms in less than 10 minutes because again, the dialogue is needlessly tight on time? This is where the film blows any conceivable suspicion of belief: Kate should have been picked off within 120 seconds of leaving the casino, Ward should have been frantically still looking for not-there Kate when the nuke exploded, and Peters should have long ago left with the helicopter and never returned, realizing these idiots were going to get her killed.

This isn't part of the movie/plot per say, but also: why is this movie so long??? At 148 minutes, it's almost 2.5 hours for an absurdist escapism movie. For reference: Shaun of the Dead is 99 minutes. Train to Busan is 118 minutes. Zombieland is 88 minutes. I Am Legend is 101 minutes. World War Z is 116 minutes. Every Resident Evil movie is between 93 and 106 minutes. It's like Zack Snyder is determined to knock your socks off with a meal so he decides to prepare a 5-course meal, but each course is only so-so with too big a serving so you just leave feeling bloated, wishing he'd focused on making one plate unforgettable instead. For instance: you could cut Martin out entirely -- no betrayals, Chambers get separated due to someone accidentally kicking the glowstick, Queen dies as a result of a bad encounter with the entire team -- and the movie is actually better. Or cut out Geeta & Kate, who frankly felt like they were in an entirely different movie which just overlapped with the heist movie. 

Like I said: it's not really a bad movie, it just has so many glaring plot holes that detract from the viewing experience so much and I don't know why.

Competition Theme: Two The Point

I'll keep things brief - so should you!

• You must create a card with two or less lines of card text
  • Short and simple is the name of the game this week - but make sure we still understand what your card does!

JFK is asking us to bring our simplest cards to the table this week - but simple doesn't have to mean boring!

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, May 24 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, May 29 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, May 29 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, May 30 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, May 30 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, May 31 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.

I consider myself to be a pretty casual ccg player usually hovering around diamond or platinum in a variety of ccgs depending on how much headway I can make with off meta brews and my general comfort or skill with the game.

That being said, I've gotten pretty good at spotting when metas have reached a standstill of "not fun" however you would wish to define that personally.

I'll give an example from MTG so it doesn't sound like I'm ragging on legends.

When throne of eldraine released you would have two decks cat oven an aggressive list that drained you from 20 -> 0 using a cheap artifact and fires of invention a list that controlled you out and bursted you down at the end.

Sounds a little like Irelia Azir and Ezreal Draven or Thresh Nasus they both function the same.

These polarized matchups create a dice roll system where you can be favored going onto one and not the other, and then you switch decks to try and compensate and only tank your winrate as a result.

This is meta lock frustration defined as clearly as possible without hyperbole. 😤

Now this is where as a digital game Riot should be able to compensate quickly to these shifting balance issues, but they for some reason choose not to.

Take one look at Mogwai's or Swims most recent videos to see they are talking about the game as opposed to playing it.

They are frustrated too so Riot should get off the couch and hot fix the game already.

Thats my rant over, let me know if any of you are facing similar issues with the game atm.

Hi, I made it to level 100 yesterday and am having trouble picking a hero. The fact is I already have Valeera the only one I think looks really good and rest are kinda meh to me. I want to make my choice knowing what each one has in emotes... Oddly on YouTube I can't find anything. Does anyone know where?

Exactly like what the title says. It's been a long time since I've flexed my writing muscles, and I'm looking to get back into the game; here's my proposition: throw out ideas for champions, and I'll flesh out their design. The more coherent and sensible the better, although it could be as simple as "make Link from The Legend of Zelda!" or whatever. I'll write about their gameplay in League of Legends, their appearance, a blurb of lore, and even try to make a Runeterra card for them! I do all the work; all you have to do is start the process :D

Oh and please give me time to work on it: I have a full-time job and a couple games I try to stay "current" with in terms of daily quests and stuff in my downtime. I want to make a quality product for you, so I can't really pump these out quickly.

To get us started, I'll show you an example of what I'm looking to do, a champion concept I came up with about five years ago:

Qorval, the Cosmic Emissary

Overview
Qorval is an AP Mage, generally played in the Middle lane. Demonstrating mastery of the entities and forces of the cosmos, the dark wizard seeks to overwhelm his opponents with large swaths of Area of Effect (AoE) damage, with an emphasis on multi-hit abilities. Qorval doesn't win with a surgical strike for singular, massive damage (like a Ziggs' ultimate), but rather a constant oppressive drain against the health of his enemies (a la Vel'koz's ultimate).

Attack Power - Low
Ability Power - High
Defense - Medium
Difficulty - Low

Appearance
As an armored battlemage, Qorval's appearance shares similarities with characters such as Golbez from Final Fantasy IV, and the Magic Emperor Ghaleon from Lunar: Silver Star Story. A mysterious entity with a deep voice, hidden behind dark armor with a horned helm, pauldrons, and a cape. Covered head-to-toe, Qorval's true appearance is unknown, and whether he is actually human or not is subject to debate.

Debut Skin - "Comet Catastrophe Qorval" His armor would have more gray and blue in it, and his abilities are given an icy, cold theme: "frozen" meteors (like a hailstorm), comets instead of asteroids, and his Supernova is blue (which would mean it's actually hotter, according to science, but it's more for aesthetic reasons :P).

Abilities
Passive - Cosmic Alignment
When an enemy champion is struck by more than one of Qorval's abilities simultaneously, both abilities have their cooldowns reduced by (1, 1.25, 1.5) seconds.

This is cumulative for each enemy struck during a combo: if Qorval were to hit three champions with his Meteor Shower and Black Hole together, both abilities would lose 3-4.5 seconds from their cooldowns. If Black Hole were to end, but these same enemies were then hit with a combination of the remaining Meteor Shower and Asteroid Belt, MS would reduce by another 3-4.5 seconds, and so would Asteroid Belt.

Q. Meteor Shower
After a brief moment, meteoroids rain from the sky, bombarding the selected area. Each meteoroid inflicts its damage individually (like the Gangplank ultimate of old), accumulating damage over time as an enemy is struck by multiple shots.

W. Asteroid Belt
Qorval surrounds himself with a ring of boulders, pummeling enemies who remain within the area of effect. The summoned belt moves with Qorval, continuing to damage those who stay too close (very similar to Aurelion Sol's comets, but more of them).

E. Black Hole
A singularity is created at a targeted location, pulling in foes who stray too near. Similar in function to Orianna's ultimate but not instant, Black Hole inflicts no damage, but contributes towards a combo in regards to Qorval's passive. The pulling effect is stronger on those closer to the singularity's middle.

For clarity, let me mention that the strength of BH's pull would be relative to the enemy's position. If you're outside the range but walk near it, it would start to pull you in: if you're paying attention and move away accordingly within time you should be fine (unless you're knocked into it). If you're within the Black Hole, but not at its center, you better have some kind of movement ability like Ghost, Flash, or Master Yi's ultimate, or you're going in. If you are at the center, it's essentially the equivalent of a root, although something like Flash would still be an acceptable means of escape. While technically inferior to an actual root/snare, this is intended as compensation for the strength of Qorval's damaging abilities.

R. Supernova
Qorval erupts in a point-blank AoE pyroball, that engulfs the area around him as it expands in size. Qorval cannot move during this ability, nor cast other abilities, but all enemies who remain inside the area are subject to incredible damage over time. Note that the Supernova cannot be stopped: if Qorval is silenced, knocked up/away, or killed, the spell continues uninhibited from its original location, regardless of what happens to Qorval. His "channeling" of the ability is to compensate for the (frankly) massive damage it would provide.

Strategy
Qorval is a master of sustained damage; given ample opportunity, the dark wizard will utilize his large area of influence to pummel the enemy team into submission. Combining his abilities together, the damage over time drains the enemy's health while simultaneously refreshing his cooldowns so he can continue the assault. However, with minimal crowd control potential of his own, Qorval must rely on allies to hold enemies in place to maximize his damage output, and to maintain his survival by keeping them at bay.

Outside of Meteor Shower, Qorval's spells are generally medium-to-close range, meaning that he must build at least somewhat toward durability to trade his damage effectively. And yet, if he can survive long enough, his passive will allow him to continuously rain damage on his opponents, overwhelming them if they cannot escape from Qorval's effective range. Pulling enemies together with Black Hole, Qorval can apply Meteor Shower upon them before moving closer for Asteroid Belt. This triple-combo can refresh a significant amount of his cooldowns, and even more-so if given the opportunity to blast them all with Supernova as well. With sufficient mana reserves, Qorval can recover his spells off cooldown and be ready for the next fight...assuming any enemies still live.

Lore Entry
"Planets are...fragile.

Life and death, disaster and triumph; countless stories play out on a rock no greater than a marble compared to the vast expanse of the outer void. A beacon of spirit alone in the night, a grain of sand hidden in the darkness. And yet for all their spectacle, these small blips hold no control over their actions, exert no will over their domain. So full of life, and yet so lifeless themselves.

Pitiful.

A meteor slams into a planet's surface: devastation spans an area immeasurable. The structures are shattered, the people but ashes on the wind. Civilization has fallen. But the skies maintain their garrison of such force to a degree without count; the loss of one of their numbers is meaningless when viewed relative to the celestial horde. What is a man's achievements against that level of awe-inspiring strength?

Insignificant.

I have witnessed entire worlds on fire. Planets broken in half. Stars blinking out of existence, their great brilliance consumed by another greater still. I have looked into an abyss, that which contained within such power that nothing has ever held hope in escaping from it.

My journey has spanned the stars, and it has brought me here. To this...fragile planet. You squabble to remain in control of your lives, but it means nothing to me; all of your "might" means nothing to me. In comparison to the cosmos - the unyielding darkness, the innumerable asteroids and planets, the magnificence of the stars themselves - you are but insects, eclipsed both in magnitude and authority. How would you fare against such power?

How would you fare against one who wielded such power for themselves?

...You will know soon."

Friends/Allies: None
Rivals/Enemies: Azir, Bard, Lissandra

Unknown to the civilizations of Runeterra, Qorval has threatened the planet before, but all knowledge of his existence has fallen out of written record. Lissandra and Azir may yet be aware of Qorval's power, having come from an age long since past. As a guardian spirit that has existed through the centuries, Bard would similarly be in opposition to Qorval, in protection of the planet and its people.

And that's the gist. I have other champion concepts I can post, as well, which I might do if I don't get any takers right away. Thanks for giving this all a read, and double-thanks if you do wish to participate in this project/activity with me :)

So if anybody follows the discussion around Irelia Azir on redit you'll know that Riot basically said its totally fine and there are no plans to nerf it because it's fun easy to play and brings in new players.

They also states that internally they believe it has a 52% winrate not sure where they got these numbers from because on mobalitics it's actually showing record high winrates the likes we've never seen before in this game.

I'm talking multiple variants with a 59 bordering on 60% win rate which has never happened before .

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

Riot how is this okay?

One casual spin of ladder will have you facing this deck over and over and over again and sure you might be able to counter them perfectly one game, but they will roll you the next or the one after that till the matchup grinds you down and sucks the fun out of the game.

I'm not the only one who feels this way Swim and Mogwai have spoken out on how short sighted this decision was.

Riot nerf this deck seriously, it's token generation is simple too high

Its a really delicate balance figuring out how to counter swarming aggro decks that seem to be everywhere right now.

Some people claim braum does well but this doesn't work because you go around him.

Some people say you can out heal them with targon this doesn't work either because you can't out heal their tempo.

Some people say there is no counter and that felt wrong to me.

Finally I figured out a list that will beat every aggro deck thrown at it 9/10 games guaranteed.

Its only weak to big overwhelm dudes and even then there are lines of play to mitigate this.

I bring you Zillian Go Hard - with Elise of course as is standard.

It just turns out that time bombs are faster then red cards these days, especially if you pair it with all the draw in shadow isles  and healing.

We also have acess to deck buffing, and draw fixing which work great with pack your bags

Now out of all these cards you're probably looking at brood awakening and scratching your head, but it was a popular aggro  counter back when burn aggro was everywhere and you'd pair it with lux.  It turns out it works great during this aggro meta too, and gives sac fodder.

When browsing cards in the Hearthstone card gallery, if you are on a page with one class icon clicked (so you are only seeing cards from one class), and you perform another search where you deselect the class icon, your new search will still only show you cards from the previous class you selected. Interestingly this only happens when using the Hearthstone card gallery, selecting the equivalent icons for the other card game galleries works normally. Thank you for looking into this!

As an ongoing tradition (since I did a similar threads for the Spirit Blossom, K/DA, and Shurima events), here are the quests in the special questlines for the new Dark Horizon event. Hopefully someone will find this useful.

List of regular Runeterra daily quests can be found here.

Repeatable Quest (3 Star Fragments)

• Everlasting Influence
  
  • Win a matchmade or AI game (matchmade counts double) (0/6)

Event Questline (3 or 4 Star Fragments)

1. Stars Align
   
   • Marvel at the heavens by playing celestial cards (0/10)  OR
   • Play cards (0/55)
2. Eternal Doom
   
   • Seal your enemy's fate by attacking with 4 or more units at once (0/10)  OR
   • Strike with 2 or more units in a round (0/25)
3. Existence Is Fleeting
   
   • Attune to the ethereal universe by playing fleeting cards (0/10)  OR
   • Play 3 or more cards in a round (0/15)
4. Galaxy Guardian
   
   • Defend the universe from malevolent forces by targeting enemies (0/15)  OR
   • Cast spells (0/25)
5. Supernatural
   
   • Enhance a unit with 5 different buffs in matchmade games (0/1)  OR
   • Attack or block with units that have 5 or more power (0/25)
6. Everlasting Glow
   
   • Bask in starlight by targeting allies (0/20)  OR
   • Play rounds (0/60)
7. Darkness Descends
   
   • Cast the stars in shadow by activating Nightfall (0/20)  OR
   • Deal damage (0/330)
8. Universal Frequency
   
   • Resonate with the cosmos by playing the same card 2+ times in a match (0/20)
9. Rending Destruction
   
   • Unravel the fabric of the universe by obliterating units or cards (0/25)  OR
   • Slay units (0/90)
10. Divine Light - 4 Star Fragments
    
    • Level up champions 4 times in a single matchmade game (0/2)  OR
    • Summon Champions (0/20)

Reaching 120 Star Fragments will unlock another set of 10 quests:

Second Questline (3 or 4 Star Fragments)

1. Celestial Attunement
   
   • Harness celestial forces by activating Invoke (0/20)  OR
   • Spend mana (0/200)
2. Invigorate
   
   • Start an attack more than once in a round (0/6)  OR
   • Start an attack (0/30)
3. Unleash the Heavens
   
   • Channel heavenly forces and deal 25 or more damage in a round (0/5)  OR
   • Deal damage to units (0/120)
4. Planar Assault
   
   • Master time and space by counting down landmarks (0/50)  OR
   • Summon units or landmarks (0/85)
5. Harmonic Convergence
   
   • Have units in play from 4 regions in a matchmade game (0/1)  OR
   • End rounds with more units than your opponent (0/30)
6. Divine Inspiration
   
   • Receive divine inspiration and draw more than 1 card in a round (0/18)  OR
   • Draw cards (0/100)
7. Unbound Constitution
   
   • Raise the power or health of allies in play (0/35)  OR
   • Spend mana on spells (0/160)
8. Darkness Descends
   
   • Kill or obliterate 3 or more enemy units in a round (0/15)  OR
   • See more than 3 units die in a round (0/35)
9. Ethereal Projections - 4 Star Fragments
   
   • Play cards or summon units that weren't in your starting deck (0/35)  OR
   • Summon more than 1 unit in a round (0/40)
10. Heavenly Protection - 4 Star Fragments
    
    • Win a matchmade game of 5+ rounds without summoning more than 3 units (0/1)  OR
    • Win games with extra nexus health to spare (0/165)

Special Quests (4-10 Star Fragments)

If these work like in previous events, there will be one special questline every week.

• Riven's Resolve (1 of 2) - 4 Star Fragments
  
  • Raise the power of allies in play, hand, or deck (0/25)  OR
  • Spend spell mana (0/65)
• Riven's Righteousness (2 of 2) - 6 Star Fragments and Cosmic Riven icon
  
  • Dissuade impending threats by leveling up Riven (0/5)  OR
  • Level up champions (0/25)
• Yasuo's Divine Right (1 of 3) - 4 Star Fragments
  
  • Control dark forces and stun multiple units in a round (0/10)  OR
  • Target units (0/90)
• Yasuo's Fiery Path (2 of 3) - 6 Star Fragments
  
  • Streak like a comet and deal damage with Quick Attack units (0/70)  OR
  • Slay units (0/200)
• Yasuo's Fate (3 of 3) - 10 Star Fragments and Cosmic Yasuo icon
  
  • Carve your own fate by leveling up Yasuo (0/5)  OR
  • Deal damage with champions (0/40)
• Shyvana's Fury (1 of 3) - 4 Star Fragments
  
  • Tear the fabric of reality by dealing damage with dragons (0/150)  OR
  • Summon units (0/120)
• Shyvana's Cosmic Forces (2 of 3) - 6 Star Fragments
  
  • Instill fear and strike with units with 7+ power and health (0/40)  OR
  • Strike units without your unit dying (0/120)
• Shyvana's Empyreal Calling (3 of 3) - 10 Star Fragments and Dark Star Shyvana icon
  
  • Stoke the star-fire of the empyrean by leveling up Shyvana (0/5)  OR
  • Summon champions (0/45)
• Zed's Specters (1 of 3) - 4 Star Fragments
  
  • Unleash dark forces by dealing nexus damage with ephemeral units (0/80)  OR
  • Deal damage to the opponent's nexus (0/200)
• Zed's Shadow Maneuvers (2 of 3) - 6 Star Fragments
  
  • Summon units by using spells and activated effects (0/50)  OR
  • Attack with units (0/220)
• Zed's Eternal Shadow (3 of 3) - 10 Star Fragments and Dark Star Zed icon
  
  • Smother the light by leveling up Zed (0/8)  OR
  • Play 2 or more champions in a game (0/20)

Would adore it if one day they released 10 new champions into the game, one for every class in the game. These new additions would all have the same hero power: "After you raise your tavern tier discover a [Mage, Warrior, etc] spell."

Which means you only get five a game. Also you can cast one per turn. Spells range from lightweight secrets to effects like a Flamestrike being cast before combat. It would be optimal if the pool for each discovery was 5 or 6 to keep it fresh.

It's pretty hopeful since it would be a balancing nightmare but if launched successfully would be amazing fun trying to use the 5 spells you get efficiently. Ideas?

Hi, this might seem like a weird question but honestly what do you do on this great HS community site? I see like 886 pages of members (roughly 22K users) and on the first few pages it seems like there is a lot of activity going on, but it does not seem to translate directly to a lot of new posts being created when I look at the recent forum threads, articles or deck comments.

I will start off with myself, I visit OoC daily multiple times:

• to check on new announcements about HS obviously and participate in the discussion
• to post in a few dedicated forum threads (reward track progress and such)
• when I hit legend in a season to post my deck and if anyone is interested discuss about it
• sometimes I also participate in the fan creation competitions

What about you? 😅

So as stated previously Irelia and Azir are only (overpowered) in the deck where they are both present.

Or more specifically when daggers spawn sandman effectively forming an extra full board attack with free resources.

Easiest fix - an attack consisting of summoned units can no longer trigger the spawning of summoned units. 

So daggers still work fine on their own, and sandman will work with scouts but Irelia Azir will no longer be quite as synergistic.

Not sure of this viable from a coding perspective but it would potentially fix everything without "nerfing" anything

Competition Theme: Alternate Spelling

We're looking for the latest thing in spellcasting this week - don't stick to the old school!

• You must create a spell of a Spell School not normally associated with that class
  • Obviously, your spell can't be neutral either - no sneaking around the restrictions!
• The Spell Schools not allowed for each class are listed in the spoiler below
  • Show Spoiler

    Demon Hunter: Fel, Shadow
    Druid: Arcane, Nature
    Hunter: Fire, Nature
    Mage: Arcane, Fire, Frost
    Paladin: Holy
    Priest: Holy, Shadow
    Rogue: Nature, Shadow
    Shaman: Fire, Frost, Nature
    Warlock: Fel, Fire, Shadow
    Warrior: Fire, Nature

MathU wants us to expand our knowledge base for this competition. Maybe you'll come up with the next big archetype?

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, May 17 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, May 22 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, May 22 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, May 23 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, May 23 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, May 24 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.

Currently, I am playing Reno Priest. Every time I queue into a Handbuff Paladin I either win through my opponent being unable to draw both of their convictions or losing to three buffed-up charge minions and double conviction. Does anyone have any tips? I cannot run Skulking Geist as I am using the Loremaster Polkelt/Tealen Fordring combo. 

Invalid Deck ID

This post is mostly directed to Nifty but i think it could enlight other people as well and spark some interesting discussion along the way

How tier works: 

Every deck starts equal at 0% winrate. The decks then face each other and the ones who perform best get to be placed at higher ranks, while the worst ones go to the botton. 
So the botton of the chain food will be filled with the most unique but terrible ideas: excess of extremely greedy cards, wacky wacky combos, not optimized aggro, Yasuo decks, etc  
Those "slow" and/or unrefined decks are terrible against any optimized aggressive startegy, even the worst ones; but given enough time they may win sometimes against control decks, even the best ones. 

So here comes the first big distinction between aggro and control:
Aggressive strategies will ALWAYS perform better then control against the botton spectrum of the range.
As long recreational players exist, any current meta isn't relevant at all.

Why the 50% winrate equals balance is a fallacy: 

In a theorical ideal perfect balanced game, every card should have a winrate close to 50%. In the real world that will never happen, even if the game is balanced for several reasons:
1- Skill gap between players -> The best players know the best time to play each card to increse its effectiveness
2- Skill gap between cards -> Some cards like Legion Rearguard are easier to play then others The Ruination
3- Metagame -> Some champions/deck/cards have better mechanics while facing other specific ones, which directly changes the winrate
4- Synergy -> Some cards perform much better alongside other cards, so those would never see play without their respective synergy
5- Its boring -> Perfect balance means no further optimiztion for decks. So any change translates into negative winrate.


Metrics and Winrate by tiers: 

We already conclude that even bad aggro strategies perform better at low ranks and they should get less and less effective in the face of more optimized decks along the way.
For instance, an extremely fast Darius deck will be very good choice to climb lower elos in ladder and it gets more even as it goes up.

So lets say Darius is balanced sitting at 50% winrate and assume those numbers just an example:
Platinum + -> 1000 games -> 47% winrate
Silver/Gold -> 1000 games -> 50% winrate
Iron/Bronze -> 1000 games -> 53% winrate
Average winrate / game = 50%

Now, imagine some time passed, the game gets older and players got smarter enough to understand when to properly play Darius. 
The metrics now would be something like this:
Platinum + -> 10 games -> 47% winrate
Silver/Gold -> 100 games -> 50% winrate
Iron/Bronze -> 1000 games -> 53% winrate
Average winrate / game = 52,68%

Notice that Darius had its winrate increased WITHOUT A SINGLE CHANGE in the game 

Overall Winrate is a useless stat: 

Here is where the overall winrate metric over all tiers together falls appart.

There are many more players bellow gold then anywhere else, so in short, any agressive card should have a winrate over 50%, and every skill intensive card should have a winrate under 50%. 
Every single agressive champion like Darius should show an overall winrate over 50% winrate. If an aggressive champiom sits at 50% winrate over all tiers he is not balanced; he is thrash tier. 

I strongly believe trying to measure cards/decks winrates without taking the tier in which they are played into consideration is extremely stupid and not helpfull to anything outside spoting very obvious imbalances that are either broken or unplayable.

Hi everyone, 

Over the last few months I've been working on some Battlegrounds tribes and a Custom Core Set, all of which were extremely fun projects to make. Alongside these, I have been making a custom expansion which includes 135 cards and the possibility of a mini-set further down the line. The expansion is a little while off being ready (1-2 months as I have work commitments) but the cards are coming along nicely. 

Now, I have a proposal for the community on here. Would you be interested in doing a small-scale card reveal season on the actual expansion thread when it's ready to go? I'd initially reveal the expansion with about 10-15 cards on the thread. If anyone is interested then I'd message them a card from the expansion and you can then post it on the thread when you're ready. You can just post the card or if you really want to, do a big reveal I don't mind! After everyone's cards have been revealed, I'll do a final card dump. 

I thought this might be a fun experiment to try out and if there's enough interest then we can go ahead with it. Hope you like this idea.

Someone explain to me why Scrying Sands bypass spellshield while Quicksand does not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkhbqXtNfSc&t=497s

So recently Swim has been delving into the newly released champion stats and talking about how low performing a lot of the new additions have been within this expansion...but is this really the case...I wanted to go in and talk about confirmation bias and how numbers mislead.

So who is the best champ with the highest winrate...Irelia or Azir right

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/cards?rarity=CHAMPION&sortBy=WIN_RATE&sortOrder=DESC

That would be wrong its actually Darius of all things with his tiny 13 percent inclusion rate

Great game solved lets all go home, all jokes aside it just shows us that aggressive champs perform very well right now even the bad ones

Alternatively slow champs are doing poorly TF and Aphelios once top tier are absolutely awful if you only look at their winrate

So what we are really seeing is less an objective way of rating the power level of cards, and more a measure of the meta

Fast is good, slow is bad...great and before fast was bad and slow was good...and around we go

I believe that changing the pace of play through balance and expansions is great for the health of Legends

Pretty soon nerfs will land and control will do far better and all of a sudden we'll see a huge influx of winrates as is always the case.

So don't judge champs on winrates alone its really not informative in the slightest

there will be a miniset for this expansion? when is it expected? thanks

Great subreddit meme post. 

"Neo Learns the Truth about Hearthstone"

Not mine, but deserves an upvote and to be shared. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/nc394g/neo_learns_the_truth_about_hearthstone/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

So... what happened? I haven’t actually gotten around to playing Hearthstone after the nerfs but from what I can tell it seems pretty bad? Like Paladin has actually become even stronger? (Well, at least judging from HS replay statistics).

I mean, I hope this is only a short-term problem that comes from a recent meta fluctuation with people changing around their decks and what-not. But I’m also surprised to see that Hunter winrates have ballooned as well. I don’t remember Hunter having a particulary good matchup against Paladins either.

So my hypothesis right now is that: Yes, Paladin is still a very strong class but will have a tiny bit weaker early game considering the First Day of School and Crabrider nerfs... however, it clearly did not address enough of its power cards like Blessing of Authority or Hand of A’dal. Anyway, I would like to think that the current fluctuations in winrate (for Paladin and Hunter) are only because people are trying out their janky new N’zoth decks and Deathrattle Demom Hunters with the new buffs. Also, the Hysteria nerf cannot be downplayed as Warlock and Priest, Paladin’s major counters, were probably temporarily shelved away in light of the nerfs.I mean Priest in particular has really good matchups against anything that’s not Warlock, so I am honestly quite shocked at the massive fluctuation in winrates.

So to summarize, Paladin and Hunter are just beating up all the new homebrew decks, artificially boosting their winrates (combined with their main counters Priest and Warlock probably dipping in playrate a bit as well). So what do you all think? Just the usual doom and gloom from the community or a sign that the worse is yet to come?

Hey there card game fans, I've been playing the expansion for a little while now and have finally caught up on Champs which means it's time for another off meta deck list roundup.

1. The landmark deck - very flexible with its option selection right now but primarily comes in 3 forms Malphite Thaliyah, Malphite Yassao, Thaliyah Lisandra. The goal is to A reduce countdowns in lissandeas case, two control things out with Yassao stuns, three turbo level landmark Champs.

2. The anti Irelia tech, there are some very strong deck options out there for beating Irelia Azir but the strongest by far I found to be shadow Irelia. 

3. Time bomb fun - the strongest version I found to be ezreal duplicate shuffling more bombs in and predicting that Tefari want to be. Although Swain time bomb works okay as a win con too, where you have access to flock

4. Finally new takes on old classics like lee sin and  plunder using the expansion options

Let me know what lists you guys are playing

I hit 350 last expansion and am currently working toward 135 in barrens progression. That would be my tavern regular should be 350+134= 484? Instead it says 482. I know that's minor at the cheaper high levels but would gate me at the even caps at some point.

Since I am waiting for Mercenaries to be released, I thought it would be fun to guess what roles the mercs will play in the new mode. 

The "roles" I am talking about are the main 3 for dungeon and raid running in WoW: healers, to keep their allies alive, tanks that act as targets and can soak damage, and DPS, or damage dealers.

So now that this is out of the way, I am now going to guess, using Wow class knowledge, what role the Forged in the Barrens mercs might play.

Kurtrus:  One word tips me off about Kurtrus; VENGEANCE! In Wow, V DHs are tanks with high mobility and are able to deal heavy AoE damage to enemies. In Hearthstone, he swiftly attacks minions, so that checks out. Maybe  fast slashes might bolster Kurtrus' allies

Guff: My best guess for Guff is Restoration Druid, a type of healer. They heal allies equal to their spell power. In BoM, he really isn't the fighting type, instead buffing friendly minions. But don't worry, he can still defend himself with shapeshifting. 

Tavish: With all of the animals following him, he is obviously a form of DPS for Hunter called Beast Mastery. They can pair up with a ferocious friend and deal damage. Hunters themselves can shoot with guns and bows, so we can expect some sharpshooting from Ol' Tavish.

Varden: Frost Mages can literally freeze enemies in their tracks and have great AoE with crowd control. Perhaps they can stop the bosses, making them skip their turn. If so, I would sign them up to be on my team in a heartbeat!

Cariel:  Due the ridiculous size of that hammer, I am making an educated guess that she is a Ret Pally, a melee DPS. They can heal also a tiny bit. Also, they can cast Avenging Wrath. to buff themselves for damage. 

Xyrella: For Xyrella, I am thinking Discipline Priest, a protective healer. They can shield their allies from harm, then unleash the Holy Light on their enemies. They can also heal, making them a jack for all trades.

Scabbs: With steel-tipped shivs and a small stature, this gnome has me confused. I am torn between Assassination and Subtlety. While they are both melee DPS, they are both starkly different. Assassination Rogues use poisons to deal damage between strikes. Subtlety, on the other hand,  are quick and stab quickly. I am leaning towards Subtlety, since he works for SI:7 and they are as stealthy as they get.

Bru'kan: His strong connection to Nature makes him a strong contender for a powerful caster DPS spec called Elemental Shaman. They can scorch and shock enemies with strong elemental magic. A valuable asset for a team.

Tamsin: Tamsin belongs to a shadow-magic using DPS spec called Affliction Warlock. They revel in damaging enemies over time, siphoning their life out bit by bit.  Pain is in your future if you are fighting one of these. They also summon imps to help you fight.

Rokara: Berserker rage lays in her soul, because she's a Fury Warrior, feared melee DPS. They go into a frenzy, swinging their two weapons to cut their enemies to ribbons. Expect heavy damage.

ALL DONE! I really had fun looking all of this up. Do you agree with my selections for these ten mercs? Any guess what roles the other mercs will play, like the regular Hearthstone heroes?