I was thinking of doing something along these lines. It seems very much like the sort of deck you get to work once, smile, then kind of hope it it gets locked away somewhere in the pits of hell. Just imagine how much BS this would be if Blizz hadn't wisely stopped giving rogue 0-cost cards after Classic (Counterfeit Coin being the only exception). I guess we can expect that trend to continue for quite some time after this.
Many people expect the 10 mercenary characters will make final appearances as hero cards, which would be the natural final stage of their evolution across the year. I'd doubt Drek'thar and Vanndar get hero cards because of that.
Heck, with Mathias Shaw nowhere to be found in Stormwind, I'm not even confident we can rely on obvious characters appearing in AV. Drek'thar probably will be there, but I wouldn't assume anything until we know for sure he won't be inexplicably replaced by some random HS-original character.
I'm not sure a subjective reason like that is going to convince someone who discounted him subjectively. For me personally, I like Scabbs fine but still discount him for this purpose as he is part of a series of portraits handed out more or less equally to all classes. He therefore did nothing to address the sizable imbalance between the classes.
I must say it was a nice surprise seeing this appear in the achievement log along with new coins for RoS and SoU (I'm not going to spend the dust to get the DoD and AoO ones though). Along with a nice and pretty sultry animation (if that's your kind of thing), it also gives me a nice 1600 dust in the bank if I ever want to dust my golden version.
I'm curious now though. Does diamond Jandice summon a diamond or golden Benedictus? Hmm. That might take a while to test.
I can't speak for og0, but for me it was the Lovecraft-esque Old God names that made it a bit more difficult. Their spellings being intentionally unnatural to English meant my brain didn't subconsciously spot them like it can for more 'natural' words. Like, Yshaarj would normally just be a junk string of letters in these things :P
At 3 portraits per character, Mercs has so much artwork that it would be pretty silly not to use the cool ones in the OG gamemode. It's not like you'd ever see the 2 uses simultaneously anyway.
Regarding sexy demon Valeera, I will neither confirm nor deny that I have quietly wanted exactly that bit of artwork since Jaina and Thrall got their trio of Mercs artwork back in the Darkmoon Tavern Pass. We've had priest get a rogue skin, so maybe it's time rogue got a DH one. (Yeah, I know Kathra'natir-possessed Valeera wasn't technically a DH, but Anduin wasn't technically in the SI:7 either. Besides, it's an emotional elf with a demon inside her and wielding both blades and fel magic; isn't that really all a DH is anyway?)
We also need to remember all the other pirates (around 12) that's being added to the pool, people might not see it but Juggernaut got a bit of nerf with all these new class pirates with mostly crappy stats and battlecries that works best with the class that the pirate belongs too. This expansion will water down the Juggernaut a bit.
I dunno. Ignoring Mr Smite, the average pirate in the Deadmines is more or less on par with the average from elsewhere in Standard. The small ones aren't any smaller than the previous small pirates, and the big ones are pretty typical for 'large' pirates (i.e. mid-sized minions). So I don't think the Juggernaut will be affected all that much on average, but it does add a couple of crazy outcomes with Mr Smite and Defias Cannoneer.
Cookie the Cook seems like the weakest of the bunch, but could be some combo I'm missing.
Nothing jumps out as obvious to me, but the weapon is a decent one to get some use out of, then evolve with Suckerhook. None of that seems very exciting though.
That seems like a very plausible design, but I'm not even sure it would be good enough to bother with since every trade costs 1 mana. So you'll at best get a 4/4 on turn 4, a 6/6 on turn 5 etc. By the time you are appreciably above vanilla stats, it's too late to matter.
The design I've had in mind is rather more defias focused: [insert stats here] with "Combo: add a random defias card to your hand for each card you played this turn." That way he serves as a value bomb in pirate decks, while also being a burgle rogue card due to defias cards being spread across most classes. It's also tells the character's story much better than a tradeable mechanic would.
Meme cards in mini-sets are fine, but they probably ought to get people's creative juices flowing to justify their place. I'm not sure the Maddest Bomber does that. Still, at least it's not as underwhelming as Pompous Thespian was in Karazhan; that really was a waste of precious card space.
We've always had at least 2 of the mini-set legendaries be class cards, so I expect the epic will be neutral. It's a pretty safe bet that rogue will get Edwin as a legendary, and I'm assuming Cookie will slot into shaman, perhaps to try to combine their murloc and weapon/pirate sides into a single deck.
For a set this size the total number of pirates is probably fine. We've seen 10 so far and I expect 3 of the 4 legendaries to be pirates too (Cookie will likely be a murloc instead, and I doubt they're going to start dual-tribes now), and who knows about the epic? 13 out of 35 is sensible on paper. For reference, 12 cards were dragons or dragon-related in Blackrock Mountain.
The absent synergy is just weird though, and the pirates are spread so thinly across the classes that it's difficult to imagine how single legendaries can form the basis of meaningful pirate decks. Perhaps that's a good thing regarding warrior specifically (who really doesn't need any more pirate support), and it is fine for tribes to bleed into unusual classes for set-flavour reasons. But it feels wrong for rogue, who despite warrior's reputation was actually the only class flying the Jolly Roger for most of Hearthstone's history.
I guess we should just wait and see what Edwin brings. He is the big bad after all, and he has some massive boots to fill after his Classic card was among the strongest in the game's history, so he might well be flashy enough to make something happen.
Also i think this is one of, if not the first time we see a normal HS card that ACTUALLY steals a card from your opponents deck. Before it was only a copy, but now actually a card. This kind of effect used to be considered "too mean", so i'm wondering what changed their stance on this kind of effect.
We've had Illucia and the Death Knight card Death Grip in the past, but as far as the opponent cares it is no meaner than just destroying the card a la Gnomeferatu, Tickatus, Altar of Fire and Mutanus, or transforming them like with Demonic Project and Savory Deviate Delight. No one ever really complains about the ones that only hit 1 card, so I'm pretty sure Parrrley won't be pushing any boundaries.
That said, the two-for-one of stealing a card and then messing up their draws a bit is pretty funky. I wish they'd commit a bit more to burgle cards again. Lately we keep getting these isolated cards that are burgle cards in spirit, but with nothing that cares about it left in Standard.
If the trend continues, tomorrow we should get to see the 1 epic card and then on Monday we should get to see all the legendaries. There are no reveals on Sunday.
Man, that epic had better be quite something, and not another Ticking Abomination :P
I'm most surprised that despite the flood of pirates, there isn't any actual pirate synergy yet. I had been half expecting Edwin to be a centrepiece in a pirate rogue, but he'd have to be carrying the deck all by himself since the class only has Swashburglar and Prize Plunderer in Standard. It feels weird to say this when the pirate (mini-)set finally comes 'round, but where are all my pirates Blizz?
I wonder if there was an Arena balancing consideration, since beasts are super common there due to them being a sizable chunk of the decent neutral cards. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they designed the card for the memes more than any actual constructed use, then had to tone it down for Arena.
I dunno. Beasts find their way into the decks of most classes every now and then, even if they don't care about the tribe itself. Meanwhile pirates are really just a rogue and warrior thing (ignoring Patches' influence), and even then they aren't usually so central to those classes as beasts are to hunter and druid. So it makes sense that the anti-beast tech card would have a higher cost than the anti-pirate one.
I was thinking of doing something along these lines. It seems very much like the sort of deck you get to work once, smile, then kind of hope it it gets locked away somewhere in the pits of hell. Just imagine how much BS this would be if Blizz hadn't wisely stopped giving rogue 0-cost cards after Classic (Counterfeit Coin being the only exception). I guess we can expect that trend to continue for quite some time after this.
Many people expect the 10 mercenary characters will make final appearances as hero cards, which would be the natural final stage of their evolution across the year. I'd doubt Drek'thar and Vanndar get hero cards because of that.
Heck, with Mathias Shaw nowhere to be found in Stormwind, I'm not even confident we can rely on obvious characters appearing in AV. Drek'thar probably will be there, but I wouldn't assume anything until we know for sure he won't be inexplicably replaced by some random HS-original character.
I'm not sure a subjective reason like that is going to convince someone who discounted him subjectively. For me personally, I like Scabbs fine but still discount him for this purpose as he is part of a series of portraits handed out more or less equally to all classes. He therefore did nothing to address the sizable imbalance between the classes.
I must say it was a nice surprise seeing this appear in the achievement log along with new coins for RoS and SoU (I'm not going to spend the dust to get the DoD and AoO ones though). Along with a nice and pretty sultry animation (if that's your kind of thing), it also gives me a nice 1600 dust in the bank if I ever want to dust my golden version.
I'm curious now though. Does diamond Jandice summon a diamond or golden Benedictus? Hmm. That might take a while to test.
I can't speak for og0, but for me it was the Lovecraft-esque Old God names that made it a bit more difficult. Their spellings being intentionally unnatural to English meant my brain didn't subconsciously spot them like it can for more 'natural' words. Like, Yshaarj would normally just be a junk string of letters in these things :P
At 3 portraits per character, Mercs has so much artwork that it would be pretty silly not to use the cool ones in the OG gamemode. It's not like you'd ever see the 2 uses simultaneously anyway.
Regarding sexy demon Valeera, I will neither confirm nor deny that I have quietly wanted exactly that bit of artwork since Jaina and Thrall got their trio of Mercs artwork back in the Darkmoon Tavern Pass. We've had priest get a rogue skin, so maybe it's time rogue got a DH one. (Yeah, I know Kathra'natir-possessed Valeera wasn't technically a DH, but Anduin wasn't technically in the SI:7 either. Besides, it's an emotional elf with a demon inside her and wielding both blades and fel magic; isn't that really all a DH is anyway?)
Doesn't Shudderwock normally choose targeted battlecries himself? So I imagine he'll just shoot randomly at enemy minions until they are all dead.
I dunno. Ignoring Mr Smite, the average pirate in the Deadmines is more or less on par with the average from elsewhere in Standard. The small ones aren't any smaller than the previous small pirates, and the big ones are pretty typical for 'large' pirates (i.e. mid-sized minions). So I don't think the Juggernaut will be affected all that much on average, but it does add a couple of crazy outcomes with Mr Smite and Defias Cannoneer.
It's essentially the same as Tundra Rhino, so yeah, he'll have charge.
Nothing jumps out as obvious to me, but the weapon is a decent one to get some use out of, then evolve with Suckerhook. None of that seems very exciting though.
That seems like a very plausible design, but I'm not even sure it would be good enough to bother with since every trade costs 1 mana. So you'll at best get a 4/4 on turn 4, a 6/6 on turn 5 etc. By the time you are appreciably above vanilla stats, it's too late to matter.
The design I've had in mind is rather more defias focused: [insert stats here] with "Combo: add a random defias card to your hand for each card you played this turn." That way he serves as a value bomb in pirate decks, while also being a burgle rogue card due to defias cards being spread across most classes. It's also tells the character's story much better than a tradeable mechanic would.
Meme cards in mini-sets are fine, but they probably ought to get people's creative juices flowing to justify their place. I'm not sure the Maddest Bomber does that. Still, at least it's not as underwhelming as Pompous Thespian was in Karazhan; that really was a waste of precious card space.
What's madder than 'maddest' though? I'm thinking 'transcendent', assuming the only way to get madder is to go beyond the mortal limits of madness.
We've always had at least 2 of the mini-set legendaries be class cards, so I expect the epic will be neutral. It's a pretty safe bet that rogue will get Edwin as a legendary, and I'm assuming Cookie will slot into shaman, perhaps to try to combine their murloc and weapon/pirate sides into a single deck.
For a set this size the total number of pirates is probably fine. We've seen 10 so far and I expect 3 of the 4 legendaries to be pirates too (Cookie will likely be a murloc instead, and I doubt they're going to start dual-tribes now), and who knows about the epic? 13 out of 35 is sensible on paper. For reference, 12 cards were dragons or dragon-related in Blackrock Mountain.
The absent synergy is just weird though, and the pirates are spread so thinly across the classes that it's difficult to imagine how single legendaries can form the basis of meaningful pirate decks. Perhaps that's a good thing regarding warrior specifically (who really doesn't need any more pirate support), and it is fine for tribes to bleed into unusual classes for set-flavour reasons. But it feels wrong for rogue, who despite warrior's reputation was actually the only class flying the Jolly Roger for most of Hearthstone's history.
I guess we should just wait and see what Edwin brings. He is the big bad after all, and he has some massive boots to fill after his Classic card was among the strongest in the game's history, so he might well be flashy enough to make something happen.
We've had Illucia and the Death Knight card Death Grip in the past, but as far as the opponent cares it is no meaner than just destroying the card a la Gnomeferatu, Tickatus, Altar of Fire and Mutanus, or transforming them like with Demonic Project and Savory Deviate Delight. No one ever really complains about the ones that only hit 1 card, so I'm pretty sure Parrrley won't be pushing any boundaries.
That said, the two-for-one of stealing a card and then messing up their draws a bit is pretty funky. I wish they'd commit a bit more to burgle cards again. Lately we keep getting these isolated cards that are burgle cards in spirit, but with nothing that cares about it left in Standard.
Man, that epic had better be quite something, and not another Ticking Abomination :P
I'm most surprised that despite the flood of pirates, there isn't any actual pirate synergy yet. I had been half expecting Edwin to be a centrepiece in a pirate rogue, but he'd have to be carrying the deck all by himself since the class only has Swashburglar and Prize Plunderer in Standard. It feels weird to say this when the pirate (mini-)set finally comes 'round, but where are all my pirates Blizz?
There's only 1 epic, so that seems unlikely (unless we have a very underwhelming Saturday reveal ahead of us...). Good eye though.
I wonder if there was an Arena balancing consideration, since beasts are super common there due to them being a sizable chunk of the decent neutral cards. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they designed the card for the memes more than any actual constructed use, then had to tone it down for Arena.
I dunno. Beasts find their way into the decks of most classes every now and then, even if they don't care about the tribe itself. Meanwhile pirates are really just a rogue and warrior thing (ignoring Patches' influence), and even then they aren't usually so central to those classes as beasts are to hunter and druid. So it makes sense that the anti-beast tech card would have a higher cost than the anti-pirate one.