Not the best choice in my opinion. Of course you can go low maintenance mode because there won't be any surprises that need the dev's attention with prebult decks, but there are quite a few downsides as well. Some people just like deck building, they're left out. Some people like figuring out the meta bit by bit, trying out different archetypes, responding to trends with tech cards and the like. That will be done in like 2 days max. I have a really hard time to see how they think player engagement will last longer than a week for this one. At some point the viscious circle of less players - longer queue times - less players will get going as well. Weird, weird decision for me, but maybe I'm missing something crucial.
Very excited for the new Switch as I'm looking forward to finally getting a Nintendo system again. I've been itching to replay some good old Ocarina of Time, Portal and other stuff that I don't get on my PS5, but knowing a new system was on the horizon has kept me from getting the current gen so far. Maybe this turns out to be the perfect Christmas gift to myself :D
As much as I like the idea of a meta shake up halfway between expansions, I've come to hate these mini sets. I can't remember the last time one of them didn't contain something absolutely broken that warped the game around it and needed fixing within a short span of time. First and foremost the poster boys come to mind: The Jailer, Thaddius, Yogg, Brann and to a lesser extent Mr. Smite, Kazakusan and Neptulon were clearly problematic cards from the moment they were revealed and Dorian is no different. The rest of the bunch usually contains a power outlier or two as well that more often than not proves to be nerf-worthy: Crabrider, Nitroboost Poison, Stealer of Souls, Grey Sage Parrot, Objection, Construct Quarter, Felscale Evoker. I've just scrolled through them and the percentage of cards that are staples in Wild decks is mindboggling.
tl;dr: the power level of mini sets is way too high and I don't like it.
With Wild legend already in the bag thanks to 11x star bonus, I plan to dial back my Hearthstone time a bit this month. The game has had a negative influence on my mood lately.
Got Jedi: Fallen Order for the PS5 instead but so far it hasn't really clicked with me. Maybe I'm still too much in the button-masher mindset after God of War, but it feels like timing your parries and getting to know the enemies and their movement is very important here. I've tuned the difficulty down for the moment so I don't get too frustrated in the early stages already.
Not the best start of the month gaming-wise... There's always books I guess.
That's because it's a buff for the other highlander cards since they can't get disrupted anymore - as the devs have correctly flagged it in the patch notes. Reno is the only one that you can get a refund for because his Cost was adjusted.
Very happy with the first impressions from around 1.000 on Wild EU. This might be the best patch for Wild ever, surpassing even the last major one that killed Big Priest.
The changes to the Highlander condition are a very cool bonus, would make for an interesting discussion if the old cards like Reno and Zeph should be adjusted as well. Consistency basically demands but I wonder if that wouldn't make them too strong as you can't counter them anymore with cards like Curse of Agony, The Darkness or Plagues.
Best Hearthstone news in ages! I should have been suspicious when I enjoyed the new Standard meta so much that I've played Tempo DH to legend - whenever a Wild main likes the Standard meta, nerfs are almost certain :D
That said, I'll stick to the Wild side of these news.
My biggest hope is that they finally pull the "once per game" plug on Time Warp. Reno Quest Mage has been torturing Wild players for quite some time and with the new 10 Mana spell they got to use their Parrots again. If you can't kill them by turn 7ish, they chain infinite turns and the best you can do is waste their time by not conceding. I've had it happen to me on turn 5. Ice Block, Frost Nova and friends don't help and don't forget they can be rediscovered. Yikes.
Speaking of which, Ice Block is a card people had on their nerf radar for a long time as well. If the Time Warp change is coming as expected, I don't think they'll touch Ice Block as well. I could picture them doing it the other way around though, basically giving Ice Block the "once per game" treatment and challenging players to kill the Mage twice before Time Warp shenanigans unfold. Possible, but unlikely since giving a non-legendary card "once per game" makes no sense whatsoever.
Mine Rogue is another candidate that has been left untouched for far too long imo. It also kills quite consistently around turn 5 and is hard to disrupt. There are a few ideas circling in the community on how to change it, my guess is they'll target Snowfall Graveyard or Necrium Blade.
Fruit Druid has lost some of its popularity these last 2-3 weeks but I'd still expect a nerf to Floop's Gloop. That card just can't stay alive in its current form with the latest rule change to Mana acquisition.
Big "maaaaaaaaybe?" when it comes to Miracle Rogue (no idea where to even start there) and Shudderwock (once per game?).
We already know that Zarimi gets touched so Aggro Shadow Priest will go back to the list from before Whizbang's Workshop. Personally, I had consistency problems with the Draggon version from day 1 and never really switched. I don't expect a nerf to Voidtouched Attendant, but I wouldn't rule it out either.
Reno, Lone Ranger is also a known target that I'm a bit sad about, but it has been crystal clear that this card would catch a bullet sooner or later right since its release. From what I hear from Standard players, a change to the Highlander mechanic would be favored by the community (so the card checks if your starting deck had no duplicates, not your current deck the moment the card is played). That would be cool for Wild where I haven't seen people run duplicates in Highlander decks. Personally I'm not so sure if they'll do that because a) wouldn't that mean they have to do it with all Highlander cards? and b) the other numerous nerfs in Standard might kill the Reno decks with duplicates anyway. My guess is Reno's effect will become symmetrical or get a complete overhaul.
All in all I'm hyped for this and I hope I won't get disappointed again. The reasoning behind the nerfs sounds amazing, lets hope the devs live up to their own standards. Worst that could happen is a bunch of dust lol
linkblade has helped me realize that I've made a pretty selfish argument here. While Blizzard hasn't fucked up hard enough to drive me away from Hearthstone for myself, I need to reconsider if they have fucked up other people's experience enough to make me draw consequences out of sympathy.
I'm sorry that I've irritated you linkblade - that feeling of fondness is mutual <3
It wasn't my intention to overlook Blizzard's bad behaviour at all, I just haven't reached the point that most of you seem to be standing at yet. There's a middle ground between outright boycott and buying every offer in the store, where I'm trying to support my favorite hobby with real money purchases but still gang up with other players and criticize the companies wrongdoings on social media to induce change. That sounds kinda pathetic now that I type it out, but afaik there's little else I can do and it seems to have an impact after all.
This is frustrating. I agree with your criticism and I have empathy with your anger. I still don't want to give up playing and supporting Hearthstone.
Is this really a black and white situation? Has Blizzard fucked up so bad that you can't stay online friends with someone who still buys their Hearthstone products? Maybe I have to take another look at the whole situation again. I'm sorry. :(
Wow, I've had a busy weekend and am late to the party. I feel a little overwhelmed with the general vibes of this article and the comments. After all, I've joined Hearthstation because I'm a Hearthstone player and this community and the site staff is much cooler than every other site I know of. After reading through all of this, I feel like I'm the last person left on this site who still mains Hearthstone and that makes me sad. Please read the following as the point of view of a highly engaged player that has no intentions of quitting any time soon. Not with the hopes of convincing anyone to do the same, but as a different perspective and hopefully a contribution to the discussion. It's not all black and white in my opinion.
First of all, I share your feelings about the recent changes. While the weekly quest situation would have actually benefitted hyper engaged players like me (even in the form they had inititally been released), I immediately joined the protest because Blizzard was clearly hitting casual players very hard and that's potentially life threatening for the game. Same goes for the Corridor Sleeper situation and the ongoing process of monetising cosmetics. So no, I'm not a fan boy defending them no matter what... But.
Hearthstone is still my main hobby. I spend a lot of time with the game and I'm (still) willing to spend money on it. I want to show support for the game and the devs so they keep providing me with an entertaining experience. That feels like a fair deal for me because my time, as valuable as it is for me as a person, holds no merit for Blizzard in the end (as long as there are no ads in the game). So I went dolphin, spending almost exactly 2.000€ over the last six years. And I feel fine about it because I've enjoyed what I got for it. No sunken cost fallacy here. For that kind of money I could have bought a cool mountain bike which might have been a better choice for my health... but it (probably) wouldn't have been as much fun for me, personally. As long as I have fun playing Hearthstone, I'll keep spending money on it because that's my idea of a fair deal. The amount of €€ they get from me largely depends on how much fun I have, so balance might be the most important point for me.
And boy, have we come a long way here. As a Wild main and an aggro enjoyer, I'm used to absurd stuff happening, but I strongly support people argueing that power creep has gone overboard. Unfortunately, I fear there's no real alternative, as time becomes more and more valuable and people's attention span seems to generally decrease. From what I've heard of Marvel Snap, they're targetting exactly that audience and Hearthstone had to show some kind of reaction. We're headed down a dangerous path if that spiral keeps going though. Non-interactive, hyper consistent solitair games are where I'm drawing the line (if we're talking Wild: Mine Rogue, Quest Mage, Fruit Druid, to a lesser extent Bless Priest and Miracle Rogue). If those become not an outlier but the norm, I'll wave Hearthstone goodbye and get that mountain bike.
In the meantime, Whizbang's Workshop has been a pleasent surprise for me. It's so good that I've played my way to Standard legend for only the third time ever. Wild got some very cool stuff like Singalong Buddy who has revived decks like Uther Paladin and Even Druid. I've also started dusting all the cards I don't use. The last eight and a half years have taught me what kind of cards and decks I do and don't enjoy playing. With the dust I got I've been able to craft one fully golden deck each for every class I've hit 1.000 wins with so far. They're mainly focused on flavor but I'm not afraid to queue them up in ranked either. Honestly, that might already be the first step to quitting as well, as I know from Swizard's final months playing Hearthstone. Only time will tell.
While I get your general point I still disagree overall. If everybody went F2P the game would be dead. Hearthstone is my favorite game, I enjoy it a lot and one of the reasons I'm fine with spending some €€ on it is that I think the devs are doing a great job of entertaining me and have earned my support. I'm not naive, I know that Blizzard is a huge company and the usual capitalism stuff happens, but there's got to be some middle ground between F2P and EA FC -like monetisation. My feelings probably just boil down to "I get something out of it, I pay something back" - and as long as there are no ads in the game, my time spent playing it does not do much for the people who provide it for me.
Oh my Yogg, have you seen the changes to the daily and weekly quests? I'm reeeeeally pissed about those. From what I've seen so far all the quests have gotten harder and reward more XP - but of course the changes have not been made proportionally. Like, the "win 5 games in ranked" quest now requires you to win 15 (!) games and grants something like +20% XP. There's also a lovely quest that wants you to play 60 (!!) Minis. Thanks, I hate it! To be fair, I'm a hyper engaged player and might even profit from this bullshit, but the majority of players isn't and that's one horrible change for anyone with a casual approach to the game. What the fuck, Blizzard?
I've had the last week off so time wasn't much of an issue. Adding to that, Whizbang's Workshop has completely surprised me - I haven't had that much fun playing Standard in years, if ever! The result was me reaching legend with Tempo Demon Hunter despite running out of bonus starts on plat 5 (only the third time I ever got there in Standard!). What a great way to make use of my newly acquired 1.000 wins portrait :-)
Other than that meta deck, I've enjoyed a DK list that is almost identical to the one linkblade posted and some Wheel of Death games. Forge of Wills is an absurdly strong card and this deck is one of the biggest surprises for me. Seems like most everybody took the wheel for a meme card but it turned out being the center piece of a tier 2 (?) meta deck!
In Wild I've tried out Draggro Priest. It feels super strong when it gets rolling, but after some testing I've decided the inconsistency isn't worth the potential extra turn. Maybe I'll look into a non-Shadow tempo version next. Then I've toyed around with some of the new cards that could fit in Pirate Rogue, not sure which build is the best yet though. I've only ruled out the new Garotte version so far, which is very popular among the pros (Corb got rank 1 with it today), but feels just as inconsistent as Draggro Priest to me. Maybe it's just a big brain deck? I don't know. The month was finished with some Wheel of Death (turn 3 Coin Bloodbloom Wheel lol) and Reno Hunter shenanigans (all golden since last week!), so I was super surprised once more when I learned that my rank 851 finish was enough to earn that elusive 11x bonus!
Not sure where to go this month yet. I've found a Highlander Rogue that looks fun for Standard on twitter and my first few wins in Wild came in by playing a Crescendo Warlock. Might try to get the latter to legend, it's fun and takes people by surprise. I'd also really like to play linkblade's Hero Power Druid in Standard, but I don't have Fog anymore :/
Had a tough week but the pack opening definitely was a highlight, no small thanks to the give away bundle - thanks again! Here's my haul from 145 packs:
Signature: Raza (first ever from a regular pack), Sonya
Golden: Tarim, Boom, Whizbang
Regular: Ci'Cigi, Owlonius, Hemet, Pipsi, Zarimi, Goldbeard, Shudderblock, Wheel of Death, Zilliax (got upgraded to golden already)
Very happy with those, especially Whizbang, Zilliax and Zarimi.
I totally feel you there. Sometimes the game makes me play it in ways that aren't much fun or healthy anymore and that's not a very good sign I guess. I'm trying to avoid that kind of behaviour and being aware of the issue certainly is a step in the right direction. Lately I've made some decisions in that regard that should help.
Lol that paragraph sounds way more serious than I've meant it to be, but the point is: You're not alone! Try to keep in mind that it's a game after all and it's supposed to be fun!
I'm having trouble with the site search. Today I wanted to post on the "Golden Hero Power, completionist and grind" thread, so I typed in "completionist" and searched for threads. While I found it, the thread shows 0 answers and no starting post. I dug up my last comment to it from my profile site to get to the correct place. Turns out the URL isn't 100% the same but I'm pretty sure the search delivered the correct site, only the display of it seems to be bugged.
Next milestone done and boy what a grind it was considering the current state of DH.
Here's my current overall standing:
What's next? A break from grinding. I have decided I'll only play stuff that's really fun for me in the future and went on a dusting spree, killing everything that won't find a home in a cool deck. With the gains, I've started upgrading my favorite decks to golden. Most of them aren't very competitive but I'm fine with that. I think I'll try to fully upgrade a deck for each class that has reached the 1.000 wins treshold, even if it's going to take some time. Current plans:
Mage - QL Rainbow Mage for the giga flavor - done! Hunter - Reno Hunter with Beasts and Secrets - 27k dust to go. I might switch to a pure Beast deck yet, we'll see. Warlock - Curse Warlock - 28k dust to go. I've crafted Commander Ulthok for this! :D Rogue - Pirate Rogue - done! Priest - Shadow Aggro Priest - almost done, I'm only waiting to see if the new Dragon version ("Draggro Priest") will be better / more fun DH - QL Il'gynoth DH - almost done but can't be finished because there's a bug preventing people from upgrading cards like Mana Burn (DH Initiate?). Reno Big Demon DH is a good alternative.
Not the best choice in my opinion. Of course you can go low maintenance mode because there won't be any surprises that need the dev's attention with prebult decks, but there are quite a few downsides as well. Some people just like deck building, they're left out. Some people like figuring out the meta bit by bit, trying out different archetypes, responding to trends with tech cards and the like. That will be done in like 2 days max. I have a really hard time to see how they think player engagement will last longer than a week for this one. At some point the viscious circle of less players - longer queue times - less players will get going as well. Weird, weird decision for me, but maybe I'm missing something crucial.
Very excited for the new Switch as I'm looking forward to finally getting a Nintendo system again. I've been itching to replay some good old Ocarina of Time, Portal and other stuff that I don't get on my PS5, but knowing a new system was on the horizon has kept me from getting the current gen so far. Maybe this turns out to be the perfect Christmas gift to myself :D
As much as I like the idea of a meta shake up halfway between expansions, I've come to hate these mini sets. I can't remember the last time one of them didn't contain something absolutely broken that warped the game around it and needed fixing within a short span of time. First and foremost the poster boys come to mind: The Jailer, Thaddius, Yogg, Brann and to a lesser extent Mr. Smite, Kazakusan and Neptulon were clearly problematic cards from the moment they were revealed and Dorian is no different. The rest of the bunch usually contains a power outlier or two as well that more often than not proves to be nerf-worthy: Crabrider, Nitroboost Poison, Stealer of Souls, Grey Sage Parrot, Objection, Construct Quarter, Felscale Evoker. I've just scrolled through them and the percentage of cards that are staples in Wild decks is mindboggling.
tl;dr: the power level of mini sets is way too high and I don't like it.
With Wild legend already in the bag thanks to 11x star bonus, I plan to dial back my Hearthstone time a bit this month. The game has had a negative influence on my mood lately.
Got Jedi: Fallen Order for the PS5 instead but so far it hasn't really clicked with me. Maybe I'm still too much in the button-masher mindset after God of War, but it feels like timing your parries and getting to know the enemies and their movement is very important here. I've tuned the difficulty down for the moment so I don't get too frustrated in the early stages already.
Not the best start of the month gaming-wise... There's always books I guess.
That's because it's a buff for the other highlander cards since they can't get disrupted anymore - as the devs have correctly flagged it in the patch notes. Reno is the only one that you can get a refund for because his Cost was adjusted.
Very happy with the first impressions from around 1.000 on Wild EU. This might be the best patch for Wild ever, surpassing even the last major one that killed Big Priest.
The changes to the Highlander condition are a very cool bonus, would make for an interesting discussion if the old cards like Reno and Zeph should be adjusted as well. Consistency basically demands but I wonder if that wouldn't make them too strong as you can't counter them anymore with cards like Curse of Agony, The Darkness or Plagues.
Best Hearthstone news in ages! I should have been suspicious when I enjoyed the new Standard meta so much that I've played Tempo DH to legend - whenever a Wild main likes the Standard meta, nerfs are almost certain :D
That said, I'll stick to the Wild side of these news.
All in all I'm hyped for this and I hope I won't get disappointed again. The reasoning behind the nerfs sounds amazing, lets hope the devs live up to their own standards. Worst that could happen is a bunch of dust lol
linkblade has helped me realize that I've made a pretty selfish argument here. While Blizzard hasn't fucked up hard enough to drive me away from Hearthstone for myself, I need to reconsider if they have fucked up other people's experience enough to make me draw consequences out of sympathy.
I'm sorry that I've irritated you linkblade - that feeling of fondness is mutual <3
It wasn't my intention to overlook Blizzard's bad behaviour at all, I just haven't reached the point that most of you seem to be standing at yet. There's a middle ground between outright boycott and buying every offer in the store, where I'm trying to support my favorite hobby with real money purchases but still gang up with other players and criticize the companies wrongdoings on social media to induce change. That sounds kinda pathetic now that I type it out, but afaik there's little else I can do and it seems to have an impact after all.
This is frustrating. I agree with your criticism and I have empathy with your anger. I still don't want to give up playing and supporting Hearthstone.
Is this really a black and white situation? Has Blizzard fucked up so bad that you can't stay online friends with someone who still buys their Hearthstone products? Maybe I have to take another look at the whole situation again. I'm sorry. :(
Wow, I've had a busy weekend and am late to the party. I feel a little overwhelmed with the general vibes of this article and the comments. After all, I've joined Hearthstation because I'm a Hearthstone player and this community and the site staff is much cooler than every other site I know of. After reading through all of this, I feel like I'm the last person left on this site who still mains Hearthstone and that makes me sad. Please read the following as the point of view of a highly engaged player that has no intentions of quitting any time soon. Not with the hopes of convincing anyone to do the same, but as a different perspective and hopefully a contribution to the discussion. It's not all black and white in my opinion.
First of all, I share your feelings about the recent changes. While the weekly quest situation would have actually benefitted hyper engaged players like me (even in the form they had inititally been released), I immediately joined the protest because Blizzard was clearly hitting casual players very hard and that's potentially life threatening for the game. Same goes for the Corridor Sleeper situation and the ongoing process of monetising cosmetics. So no, I'm not a fan boy defending them no matter what... But.
Hearthstone is still my main hobby. I spend a lot of time with the game and I'm (still) willing to spend money on it. I want to show support for the game and the devs so they keep providing me with an entertaining experience. That feels like a fair deal for me because my time, as valuable as it is for me as a person, holds no merit for Blizzard in the end (as long as there are no ads in the game). So I went dolphin, spending almost exactly 2.000€ over the last six years. And I feel fine about it because I've enjoyed what I got for it. No sunken cost fallacy here. For that kind of money I could have bought a cool mountain bike which might have been a better choice for my health... but it (probably) wouldn't have been as much fun for me, personally. As long as I have fun playing Hearthstone, I'll keep spending money on it because that's my idea of a fair deal. The amount of €€ they get from me largely depends on how much fun I have, so balance might be the most important point for me.
And boy, have we come a long way here. As a Wild main and an aggro enjoyer, I'm used to absurd stuff happening, but I strongly support people argueing that power creep has gone overboard. Unfortunately, I fear there's no real alternative, as time becomes more and more valuable and people's attention span seems to generally decrease. From what I've heard of Marvel Snap, they're targetting exactly that audience and Hearthstone had to show some kind of reaction. We're headed down a dangerous path if that spiral keeps going though. Non-interactive, hyper consistent solitair games are where I'm drawing the line (if we're talking Wild: Mine Rogue, Quest Mage, Fruit Druid, to a lesser extent Bless Priest and Miracle Rogue). If those become not an outlier but the norm, I'll wave Hearthstone goodbye and get that mountain bike.
In the meantime, Whizbang's Workshop has been a pleasent surprise for me. It's so good that I've played my way to Standard legend for only the third time ever. Wild got some very cool stuff like Singalong Buddy who has revived decks like Uther Paladin and Even Druid.
I've also started dusting all the cards I don't use. The last eight and a half years have taught me what kind of cards and decks I do and don't enjoy playing. With the dust I got I've been able to craft one fully golden deck each for every class I've hit 1.000 wins with so far. They're mainly focused on flavor but I'm not afraid to queue them up in ranked either. Honestly, that might already be the first step to quitting as well, as I know from Swizard's final months playing Hearthstone. Only time will tell.
While I get your general point I still disagree overall. If everybody went F2P the game would be dead. Hearthstone is my favorite game, I enjoy it a lot and one of the reasons I'm fine with spending some €€ on it is that I think the devs are doing a great job of entertaining me and have earned my support. I'm not naive, I know that Blizzard is a huge company and the usual capitalism stuff happens, but there's got to be some middle ground between F2P and EA FC -like monetisation. My feelings probably just boil down to "I get something out of it, I pay something back" - and as long as there are no ads in the game, my time spent playing it does not do much for the people who provide it for me.
Community feedback has been heard, they're going to dial some requirements back while keeping the new XP numbers:
https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24087316
Oh my Yogg, have you seen the changes to the daily and weekly quests? I'm reeeeeally pissed about those. From what I've seen so far all the quests have gotten harder and reward more XP - but of course the changes have not been made proportionally. Like, the "win 5 games in ranked" quest now requires you to win 15 (!) games and grants something like +20% XP. There's also a lovely quest that wants you to play 60 (!!) Minis. Thanks, I hate it! To be fair, I'm a hyper engaged player and might even profit from this bullshit, but the majority of players isn't and that's one horrible change for anyone with a casual approach to the game. What the fuck, Blizzard?
Whizbang brought me the craziest pack I've ever opened! I wonder what score this would have made in our on site pack opener :D
I've had the last week off so time wasn't much of an issue. Adding to that, Whizbang's Workshop has completely surprised me - I haven't had that much fun playing Standard in years, if ever! The result was me reaching legend with Tempo Demon Hunter despite running out of bonus starts on plat 5 (only the third time I ever got there in Standard!). What a great way to make use of my newly acquired 1.000 wins portrait :-)
Other than that meta deck, I've enjoyed a DK list that is almost identical to the one linkblade posted and some Wheel of Death games. Forge of Wills is an absurdly strong card and this deck is one of the biggest surprises for me. Seems like most everybody took the wheel for a meme card but it turned out being the center piece of a tier 2 (?) meta deck!
In Wild I've tried out Draggro Priest. It feels super strong when it gets rolling, but after some testing I've decided the inconsistency isn't worth the potential extra turn. Maybe I'll look into a non-Shadow tempo version next. Then I've toyed around with some of the new cards that could fit in Pirate Rogue, not sure which build is the best yet though. I've only ruled out the new Garotte version so far, which is very popular among the pros (Corb got rank 1 with it today), but feels just as inconsistent as Draggro Priest to me. Maybe it's just a big brain deck? I don't know. The month was finished with some Wheel of Death (turn 3 Coin Bloodbloom Wheel lol) and Reno Hunter shenanigans (all golden since last week!), so I was super surprised once more when I learned that my rank 851 finish was enough to earn that elusive 11x bonus!
Not sure where to go this month yet. I've found a Highlander Rogue that looks fun for Standard on twitter and my first few wins in Wild came in by playing a Crescendo Warlock. Might try to get the latter to legend, it's fun and takes people by surprise. I'd also really like to play linkblade's Hero Power Druid in Standard, but I don't have Fog anymore :/
Had a tough week but the pack opening definitely was a highlight, no small thanks to the give away bundle - thanks again! Here's my haul from 145 packs:
Signature: Raza (first ever from a regular pack), Sonya
Golden: Tarim, Boom, Whizbang
Regular: Ci'Cigi, Owlonius, Hemet, Pipsi, Zarimi, Goldbeard, Shudderblock, Wheel of Death, Zilliax (got upgraded to golden already)
Very happy with those, especially Whizbang, Zilliax and Zarimi.
I totally feel you there. Sometimes the game makes me play it in ways that aren't much fun or healthy anymore and that's not a very good sign I guess. I'm trying to avoid that kind of behaviour and being aware of the issue certainly is a step in the right direction. Lately I've made some decisions in that regard that should help.
Lol that paragraph sounds way more serious than I've meant it to be, but the point is: You're not alone! Try to keep in mind that it's a game after all and it's supposed to be fun!
Celestalon has solved this some time ago, I keep his tweet bookmarked for occasions like this:
https://x.com/Celestalon/status/1724150493323375031?s=20
Convenience transcript:
If you want the most total cards (fewest duplicates): Catch Up -> Expansion -> Class -> Standard packs
If you want more latest expansion packs (risk of more duplicates): Catch Up -> Standard -> Class -> Expansion packs
I'm having trouble with the site search. Today I wanted to post on the "Golden Hero Power, completionist and grind" thread, so I typed in "completionist" and searched for threads. While I found it, the thread shows 0 answers and no starting post. I dug up my last comment to it from my profile site to get to the correct place. Turns out the URL isn't 100% the same but I'm pretty sure the search delivered the correct site, only the display of it seems to be bugged.
Next milestone done and boy what a grind it was considering the current state of DH.
Here's my current overall standing:
What's next? A break from grinding. I have decided I'll only play stuff that's really fun for me in the future and went on a dusting spree, killing everything that won't find a home in a cool deck. With the gains, I've started upgrading my favorite decks to golden. Most of them aren't very competitive but I'm fine with that. I think I'll try to fully upgrade a deck for each class that has reached the 1.000 wins treshold, even if it's going to take some time. Current plans:
Mage - QL Rainbow Mage for the giga flavor - done!
Hunter - Reno Hunter with Beasts and Secrets - 27k dust to go. I might switch to a pure Beast deck yet, we'll see.
Warlock - Curse Warlock - 28k dust to go. I've crafted Commander Ulthok for this! :D
Rogue - Pirate Rogue - done!
Priest - Shadow Aggro Priest - almost done, I'm only waiting to see if the new Dragon version ("Draggro Priest") will be better / more fun
DH - QL Il'gynoth DH - almost done but can't be finished because there's a bug preventing people from upgrading cards like Mana Burn (DH Initiate?). Reno Big Demon DH is a good alternative.