Isn't the problem with stealth here that stealth rogue already exists, and therefore wouldn't really count as a 'new deck'? Sure it's not the go-to archetype right now but rogue has been very stealth-heavy over the year (which is about time honestly. The fact it took 6 years for the class to seriously care about stealth is strange.)
As for deathrattle, I almost hope DH is just taking over from rogue there. I liked 'rattle rogue in the past, but deathrattles don't really play well with the other tools rogue has: deathrattles are slow; you want them to die (so they care less about stealth); and they don't want to be bounced. So maybe it's best it was dropped from the class, at least as a recurring core mechanic.
I don't think rogue has been built as a spell-based class in a long time, and I don't see the appeal of spell-only decks. If you're going to generate minions, how is it really any different from a normal deck? In the end a minion is essentially just a spell with a body attached, and a spell that summons minions is no different from a minion under almost every circumstance. In the more extreme case where a spell deck can't even generate minions, isn't that just really boring? Evidently I'm not rooting for rogue to go down the spell road...
So I'm hoping they utilise something else, e.g. shuffling things into decks. Bomb warrior and soul fragment DH/warlock definitely counted as 'new decks', and rogue has precedent for doing something rather more elaborate with the mechanic.
While I'm not as optimistic as I may have sounded previously, I doubt it would be too close to miracle rogue given that was central to rogue's Barrens stuff. That said, a hypothetical coin deck would be asking to revive the more traditional spell-based miracle deck using Gadgetzan Auctioneer (who's still around) albeit with extra synergies sprinkled in.
A tribal theme would be very odd when SI:7 doesn't have a tribe to offer. For the sake of entertaining the idea though, Scabbs is a gnome and is seen on a mechanostrider in the UiS cinematic, which might mean a mech mount card, which in turn leaves the door open for mech rogue. Add in the fact mechs are in a weird spot where their only real tribal identity (magnetic) was also a set mechanic - meaning they would be looking for something new to do - and maybe there's some way to satisfy both "new decks we haven't seen" and "just Miracle Rogue again but with a random tribal theme instead".
All unlikely I'm sure, but I'm keen for anything to help me enjoy Standard again.
Rogue's got some new decks that we haven't seen so I'd look out for those too.
Its always interesting to hear of a truly new deck, and doubly so when it's pluralised to imply multiple new decks. I'm looking forward to a lot of janky stuff in rogue then, which is good because rogue feels a bit too 'Classic' to me in Standard. We have the card Shenanigans, but the last year or so has been disappointingly light on actual shenanigans for the class.
As for speculation, I wonder if there will be a coin-based deck to tie in with the tradeable/market theme and make use of Tomb Pillager since he was added to the Core set. Presumably SI:7 drives a spy-based mechanic too. Perhaps some cards will be able to see the opponent's hand while others will make use of that somehow?
I've not seen any clarification, no, but I am assuming tradeable cards get shuffled in to a random position. Otherwise they are straight 1 mana draw 1 (with useful 'secondary' uses) for combo decks, which is dangerous to make lots of. If they go somewhere random, then sooner or later you'll draw them again at which point they haven't really sped up how quickly you've gone through the deck. That description was a bit simplistic since they do speed up finding other cards, but not as quickly as normal card draw.
Honestly, I think Standard has too much card draw already so I'm not overjoyed to see a set mechanic that is pseudo-card draw. It feels like the arrival of DH heralded an age where every class gets cheap, efficient card draw, because otherwise they just fall behind like shaman did until the last mini-set. That's done a lot towards giving aggro far more fuel than I think it should have (I miss being able to run them out of resources...). Hopefully the tradeable cards are mostly tech options that don't really benefit aggro.
But for me personally Scabbs doesn't solve the underlying issue. On his own, he is just another instance of when rogue gets a skin because it's part of a series that covers every class, and doesn't offer any evidence that the devs want to address the imbalance across the classes.
I would even love to have an Anub'arak skin for rogue, even it isn't really a rogue. Something different than valeera please ! Ok, reward track skins of Valeera is lovely but i don't mind some change after those years. Maiev was released on Year of the Mammoth and it passed Mammoth, Raven and Dragon and now we are middle of Phoenix and she was a warden, lol.
3,5 years without an alternate character for rogue. I will call this, weird. nothing more, nothing less.
Maybe some Ethereal hero or a Kobold maybe? Even Wrathion might fit to the role but an undead would be great but best fit would be Trade Prince Gallywix for sure.
And after those years, Where is Garona Portait Blizzard ?
Why do Blizzard forget about rogue mains i really can't get it.
Phoenix was last year. We're now in the Year of the Gryphon, so it's even worse!
Looking back at past rogue legendaries reveals just how easy it would be for them to quickly catch rogue up in a satisfying way. Gallywix, Lilian, Togwaggle and Hooktusk all seem like a waste not to have made into hero portraits (Hooktusk largely because we already know how brilliant her emotes were in Rumble Run).
As you said, Anub'arak is a solid oddball choice and wouldn't be the first skin that is quite distant from the class they're in. Meanwhile Myra would be a welcome addition as a master of poisons, and arguments can easily be made in favour of Aya, Akama, Edwin, Shaku and Wrathion too.
Add in major rogues from Warcraft lore yet to make it into HS, such as Garona and Shaw, and it really is baffling that they can't find a time to add them when there is no issue adding the likes of Horseman Uther, Firefang Rexxar and Annhylde. (I have nothing against Annhylde. She's just a good example of where these portraits can appear without needing any link to expansions. I guess her link was Shadowlands in WoW, but that's tenuous since she doesn't actually appear there as far as I know.)
I think its because team5 wanted Prestor to be the preorder skin (because she's Onyxia so its more marketable, probably) and really the only class Prestor can be is either mage or warlock, and since Nzoth got warlock last time I guess for this reason we get another (shitty looking) mage skin?
There's always the chance we see rogue skins later down the line as I dont think they'll pass the chance of making up something with Mathias Shaw, or anything else related to the SI7 in an Alliance theme expansion.
I'm still holding out hope Shaw will be on the Rewards Track, but I'm not optimistic. I suspect they'll put Scabbs in it and pretend he counts.
As for Onyxia being more marketable, that's up for debate. She's more recognisable to players with limited knowledge of the Warcraft universe perhaps, but those players would have recognised Kazakus a thousand times better than Hamuul Runetotem, yet they pandered to the players who know the lore better there despite Hamuul having basically nothing to do with the Barrens expansion. Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if ANY rogue hero was more interesting to most players than another mage hero at the moment, especially when that mage is in human female form.
More of a hot take: would Prestor really be that ill-fitting as a rogue? Her whole thing is that she infiltrated Stormwind's elite, and any magic she used in the process was subtle mind manipulation (which would fall under priest more than mage or warlock). For the most part she got to that position through non-magical means, and played the role of both an assassin (on Varian) and a crime lord (commanding black dragons in the city guards, indirectly setting up the Defias brotherhood, and hiring multiple assassins to kill Lo'gosh (aka strong-willed Varian)).
The reason the rogue fantasy is so broad is that it is built on approaches to solving problems (i.e. use of stealth, agility, charm and trickery, along with a willingness to make morally questionable choices), rather than the tools used to do that. I know WoW has a fairly limited view of a rogue, but plenty of hero portraits have ignored that in other classes, so I don't really care if a rogue is using daggers, glaives, swords, bows, fists or magic so long as their role is very rogue-ish, and Prestor's role most certainly is.
Finding out the next pre-order hero skin will be Lady Katrana Prestor (aka Onyxia) for mage ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back, making me write a pretty salty comment about being annoyed it wasn't a rogue hero. Now, I'm the first to admit it is barely even a first world problem that the jpeg Blizz puts in a bundle isn't the one I wanted, and I wouldn't normally publicise my saltiness, so why did I care enough to do so this time?
There are a whole bunch of contributing factors that on their own wouldn't even be worth mentioning, but they nevertheless summed to one salty rogue main, so let's set them all out to see what really happened here.
* Note when I use the word 'devs' I don't mean the whole HS team, but only whoever has influence on the cosmetics.
An inexplicable imbalance
Show Spoiler
Let's start quantitative, since that's always the easiest to argue. As it stands, the number of unique characters each class has representing them as hero portraits is:
Demon Hunter: 3
Druid: 5
Hunter: 3
Mage: 5 (including Lady Prestor)
Paladin: 4
Priest: 4
Rogue: 2
Shaman: 6 (including Ragnaros)
Warlock: 4
Warrior: 5
In a game where all classes play an equal role, generally get an equal number of cards, and over time get a more or less equal amount of time in the spotlight, having that much variation between classes in anything is pretty weird. We can dismiss DH's low count by it only having been here for a year, but hunter and rogue having so few compared to several classes is tough to explain.
Certainly it's not a problem with limited class fantasy. For rogue especially, you've got rogues filling the role of thugs, thieves, crime lords, spies, assassins, ninjas, pirates and more. Certainly there's scope for overlap in that, but there's also a lot more variation in themes and flavour than, say, a mage who chooses to use a different spell school, or a paladin who… let's face it, there's not much variation within paladin since it's a niche combination of priest and warrior to begin with.
It is somewhat amusing then, that rogues are represented by Valeera (a female elf who's a lawful good spy, ex-gladiator and messenger between the Horde and Alliance) and Maiev (a female elf and lawful good warden/jailer (yep, she's technically not even a rogue)). Not exactly ticking many of the rogue profession boxes there. Love it or loathe it, the Cap'n Valeera skin is all we really have to start representing the less lawful side of the class whose name actively specifies they are outside of the law.
To be honest, getting Mathias Shaw wouldn't help tick many boxes either. We'd get a lawful good male human spy, so that's a hooray for gender and race diversity but doesn't add much new elsewhere. Someone like Gallywix or Lilian Voss would be better, but the ship already seems to have sailed for them.
All this makes it especially frustrating the rogue only has 2 heroes. Where possible I like to set my hero and card back to fit the themes of a deck, but the range of options in rogue is sorely lacking for that.
Anticipation for nothing
Show Spoiler
A more emotional aspect is simply that we are expecting a rogue hero, so when something else arrives instead it is disappointing. Partly we expect a rogue hero just out of the foolish belief that the numbers above can't go too uneven, surely?
The main reason to expect it, however, is that about a year ago the devs said they had the next rogue hero lined up and that it would be "legendary". So they actually told us one was coming! Granted, they said it probably wouldn't arrive as soon as we wanted it - which certainly wasn't a lie - but it being more than a whole year later is well beyond what anyone read into it. I first just assumed it wouldn't be in Scholomance.
The whole anticipation thing was amplified by there being so many good opportunities for rogue heroes lately:
Ashes of Outland could have had Akama
Scholomance Academy could have had Lilian Voss
OK, I fully accept Kel'Thuzad was great here, but still a bit of a slap in the face when he wasn't actually in the Scholo. dungeon/raid in WoW.
We got a half-baked Horseman Uther for Hallows End, which could easily have been our favourite zombie rogue Lilian
Or at least do it properly and give us the actual Headless Horseman not some Uther rip-off
Darkmoon Faire could have had Silas Darkmoon
Similar to K'T, N'Zoth is great but also getting in the way of the actual Darkmoon Faire character
Barrens… OK people had been asking for Hamuul Runetotem for ages, so that's fine
We could have got Gallywix on the Barrens Rewards Track in place of Firefang Rexxar, especially as there will be another fiery Rexxar next week!
Finally Lady Prestor sits in place of Mathias Shaw who everyone seemed pretty certain would finally arrive
How could you not expect one when there's always a good option? Any one of these not being the rogue alternative is fine. But all of them being something else at a time when the devs are well aware rogue has fallen behind is a bit of a joke and starts to look intentional.
Wrapping up
So yes, it is the most minor thing that has no real impact when I'm actually playing the game. But I think my very last sentence contains the real heart of the problem: even if it is very unlikely Blizzard actually planned to screw rogue over with this, the fact it is beginning to look intentional is a real problem for players who have been waiting for a non-Valeera rogue hero for 4 years. It's eroding trust in the devs in a way that is just so silly and avoidable. And despite what it first looks like, it's not the frustrated rogue players who are being silly here because they actually have got the short end of the stick. No, it's the devs who could have simply commissioned a different bit of art at any time in those 4 years. No one would have been the slightest bit upset if Lady Prestor was Mathias Shaw instead, or if we never got Horseman Uther or Firefang Rexxar, so why keep avoiding rogue heroes?
The extension to this is that if we get a trio of Scabbs portraits in the Rewards Track, it won't really remedy the problem because it will look a lot like every class was going to get a trio of mercenary portraits this year anyway. You don't placate someone who's annoyed they have less than everyone else by giving everyone a treat.
So yeah, it is all a super minor psychological issue, but also so easily avoided that I'm still wagging a grumpy finger at Blizz and blaming them for needlessly creating it in the first place.
I'm not sure Onyxia will play that large a role. Hamuul ended up nothing more than a quest giver (deter-er?) after all. Most likely her role is akin to Kazakus', so being consistent we could still have seen Mathias Shaw here.
Lady Prestor as the pre-purchase hero is an absolute joke. Not because she makes no sense, but because yet again rogue mains have to watch another class get yet another hero skin when there was a perfectly good rogue character who could have been there.
The sad thing is they're probably going to include Scabbs portraits on the rewards track and say "look, we give rogue hero skins too". At which point I'll call bullsh*t because in all likelihood every mercenary character will get a trio of portraits so it doesn't really count in the same way.
And what are the odds Alterac Valley will have a rogue associated with it? Practically zero. Shaman will get Drek'thar as their thousandth hero, which they really need now they're getting Ragnaros next week too...
*Sigh* I know it's just pixels, but I can't believe whoever's in charge of the cosmetics is so oblivious to the inequality here.
It has scope for a lot more variety than most build-your-own-deck brawls. From what I saw in 15+ games, all of combo, value, and big-minion decks can work. So unless you only like aggro, there's probably something you enjoy that will work fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. "For the Alliance" and all that. That's great. Now get out of my way. I have a message from Valeera Sanguinar that needs to reach Mathias Shaw urgently. It reads:
Dear Mathias,
I'm afraid my efforts in recruiting more heroes have failed once again. I have not managed to find a single rogue willing to join me since I ventured into Un'Goro crater some 4 years ago (and truth be told, there's only so much one can take of Maiev before wishing for less... abrasive company). I have even gone so far as to dress up as a pirate and a handmaiden to fill in some of the gaps, but I fear I can go no further down that road without losing my sanity.
I know you stepped away from this mission in its earliest stages, but I must ask for your aid. Will you join me? I will be visiting Stormwind again soon. Please be ready with an answer when I arrive.
Yours faithfully,
V
P.S. I recently saw Anduin masquerading as an SI:7 agent. You might want to check the locks on the armoury.
Unlike the other obvious Witchwood options, Tess has the major advantage that nobody really dislikes her. They might dislike uber-value decks, and burgle rogue as part of that, but I don't think I've ever seen people complain about Tess herself. Meanwhile, Genn, Baku and Shudderwock have easily as many enemies as they do fans.
I'm surprised Hagatha the Witch wasn't suggested above though. Like Tess she trod the narrow path of being somewhat relevant without angering players, and she was the face of the expansion which makes her more likely I imagine. Perhaps her lack of relevance in Wild makes her a no-go though. At least the others (including Tess) still have a significant following there.
If decks become hated when people get bored of dealing with the same thing repeatedly, then I guess it makes sense we'd hate priest when it has refined the process so we deal with the same thing repeatedly without even needing to play multiple games. It's like Big Priest, but without the kindness of having a way to end the game (and our torment) quickly.
The art is great, but it is a shame all the Malfurion portraits end up looking kinda samey by the time they are cropped for gameplay. Cropping out the Nightmare here really wasted the opportunity to buck that trend.
Also, this is completely separate to the artwork itself, but does anyone else find Malfurion's character really bland? He's involved in lots of interesting events, but he so consistently plays the 'lawful good' role that I struggle to find him interesting.
I think a quest to play 3 games with him in your deck is the most likely. I expect it would disappear on the 16th, so they probably wouldn't want to do anything that requires much effort. So something that can be done trivially alongside a daily quest makes a lot of sense. I guess they could have an XP modifier span the whole day for players with Noz in their decks, though that's likely to mean more effort for the devs and would incentivise playing lots, so I doubt it.
Whatever they do, you can be sure there will be people who don't see it as a complete freebie that no-one is forced into and will complain about it :P
I didn't have any trouble over the weekend. Admittedly I was barely on yesterday so I wouldn't count that as evidence, but I did spend quite a while finishing up achievements on Saturday, which included a bunch of long games (no small thanks to Kresh, Lord of Turtling being in the bottom 10 cards every game...).
If anyone got any tips to complete Friends Like Me achievement aside from ridiculous hope from RNG, I'm up for it. I've played like 50-60 Party Up! and never got 4 of them. I think I gave up already. (Even playing 200 sigils seems easy enough)
There's not a whole lot you can do except play Party Up! until you get there. It has about 0.85% chance of happening each time, so people will have to play it 117 times on average. Statistics can be cruel though, and even playing it 117 times still only gives you 1-(116/117)^117 = 63.4% chance of it having happened, so you might not want to bother (especially as your 50-60 plays so far wouldn't contribute...).
I only did it myself because I got lucky and it happened on about the 10th try. Otherwise I would have respected my time enough to give up.
I mean, for me, Hearthstone is exclusively a collectible card game: all these new game modes not related with playing cards have no sense for me...
These new modes should be independent games, alien to Hearthstone completely, because you know: who grabs too much loses all. Blizzard should not bite off more than they can chew.
As long as the other game modes aren't taking designers away from the main/OG game mode, then the 'he who grabs too much loses all' adage doesn't apply. Given how much the HS team has grown in the last few years, I doubt we should be worrying too much there.
As for whether they should be entirely independent, I think that comes down to how you and the developers view HS. Is it 1 game with a few different sets of rules (i.e. constructed + Arena + Tavern Brawl + most solo stuff + Duels), or is it a hub for games connected by their themes, characters and game engine (all the previous variants + Battlegrounds + Mercenaries + any future modes)?
I don't personally see why it is harmful to take the latter approach, especially when the different modes are close enough to each other that they'd have a shared audience.
The board does look very empty, probably because it is lacking the heroes and clickable corner things we are used to. I notice those corners are present in the background of the image of Gromm, Xyrella and Cariel, so I expect the empty look is just because it was an incomplete build. Certainly if there is anything we can trust the HS devs to do well, it is to make the game look good.
As for the 'glorified puzzle mode' thought, I would ask where you draw the line? The AI/opposing players will surely respond to what has happened before and/or the current state of the game. You could definitely still call that a puzzle as you are working out a route to victory, but in that sense almost every game that has ever existed is a puzzle. (For the record, being considered a puzzle is not a bad thing, and would certainly appeal to a lot of players.)
Isn't the problem with stealth here that stealth rogue already exists, and therefore wouldn't really count as a 'new deck'? Sure it's not the go-to archetype right now but rogue has been very stealth-heavy over the year (which is about time honestly. The fact it took 6 years for the class to seriously care about stealth is strange.)
As for deathrattle, I almost hope DH is just taking over from rogue there. I liked 'rattle rogue in the past, but deathrattles don't really play well with the other tools rogue has: deathrattles are slow; you want them to die (so they care less about stealth); and they don't want to be bounced. So maybe it's best it was dropped from the class, at least as a recurring core mechanic.
I don't think rogue has been built as a spell-based class in a long time, and I don't see the appeal of spell-only decks. If you're going to generate minions, how is it really any different from a normal deck? In the end a minion is essentially just a spell with a body attached, and a spell that summons minions is no different from a minion under almost every circumstance. In the more extreme case where a spell deck can't even generate minions, isn't that just really boring? Evidently I'm not rooting for rogue to go down the spell road...
So I'm hoping they utilise something else, e.g. shuffling things into decks. Bomb warrior and soul fragment DH/warlock definitely counted as 'new decks', and rogue has precedent for doing something rather more elaborate with the mechanic.
While I'm not as optimistic as I may have sounded previously, I doubt it would be too close to miracle rogue given that was central to rogue's Barrens stuff. That said, a hypothetical coin deck would be asking to revive the more traditional spell-based miracle deck using Gadgetzan Auctioneer (who's still around) albeit with extra synergies sprinkled in.
A tribal theme would be very odd when SI:7 doesn't have a tribe to offer. For the sake of entertaining the idea though, Scabbs is a gnome and is seen on a mechanostrider in the UiS cinematic, which might mean a mech mount card, which in turn leaves the door open for mech rogue. Add in the fact mechs are in a weird spot where their only real tribal identity (magnetic) was also a set mechanic - meaning they would be looking for something new to do - and maybe there's some way to satisfy both "new decks we haven't seen" and "just Miracle Rogue again but with a random tribal theme instead".
All unlikely I'm sure, but I'm keen for anything to help me enjoy Standard again.
Its always interesting to hear of a truly new deck, and doubly so when it's pluralised to imply multiple new decks. I'm looking forward to a lot of janky stuff in rogue then, which is good because rogue feels a bit too 'Classic' to me in Standard. We have the card Shenanigans, but the last year or so has been disappointingly light on actual shenanigans for the class.
As for speculation, I wonder if there will be a coin-based deck to tie in with the tradeable/market theme and make use of Tomb Pillager since he was added to the Core set. Presumably SI:7 drives a spy-based mechanic too. Perhaps some cards will be able to see the opponent's hand while others will make use of that somehow?
I've not seen any clarification, no, but I am assuming tradeable cards get shuffled in to a random position. Otherwise they are straight 1 mana draw 1 (with useful 'secondary' uses) for combo decks, which is dangerous to make lots of. If they go somewhere random, then sooner or later you'll draw them again at which point they haven't really sped up how quickly you've gone through the deck. That description was a bit simplistic since they do speed up finding other cards, but not as quickly as normal card draw.
Honestly, I think Standard has too much card draw already so I'm not overjoyed to see a set mechanic that is pseudo-card draw. It feels like the arrival of DH heralded an age where every class gets cheap, efficient card draw, because otherwise they just fall behind like shaman did until the last mini-set. That's done a lot towards giving aggro far more fuel than I think it should have (I miss being able to run them out of resources...). Hopefully the tradeable cards are mostly tech options that don't really benefit aggro.
Very possibly, and if we get the chef art in the 'meet the mercenaries' post (https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/news/23658052) then that's a double thumbs up.
But for me personally Scabbs doesn't solve the underlying issue. On his own, he is just another instance of when rogue gets a skin because it's part of a series that covers every class, and doesn't offer any evidence that the devs want to address the imbalance across the classes.
Phoenix was last year. We're now in the Year of the Gryphon, so it's even worse!
Looking back at past rogue legendaries reveals just how easy it would be for them to quickly catch rogue up in a satisfying way. Gallywix, Lilian, Togwaggle and Hooktusk all seem like a waste not to have made into hero portraits (Hooktusk largely because we already know how brilliant her emotes were in Rumble Run).
As you said, Anub'arak is a solid oddball choice and wouldn't be the first skin that is quite distant from the class they're in. Meanwhile Myra would be a welcome addition as a master of poisons, and arguments can easily be made in favour of Aya, Akama, Edwin, Shaku and Wrathion too.
Add in major rogues from Warcraft lore yet to make it into HS, such as Garona and Shaw, and it really is baffling that they can't find a time to add them when there is no issue adding the likes of Horseman Uther, Firefang Rexxar and Annhylde. (I have nothing against Annhylde. She's just a good example of where these portraits can appear without needing any link to expansions. I guess her link was Shadowlands in WoW, but that's tenuous since she doesn't actually appear there as far as I know.)
I'm still holding out hope Shaw will be on the Rewards Track, but I'm not optimistic. I suspect they'll put Scabbs in it and pretend he counts.
As for Onyxia being more marketable, that's up for debate. She's more recognisable to players with limited knowledge of the Warcraft universe perhaps, but those players would have recognised Kazakus a thousand times better than Hamuul Runetotem, yet they pandered to the players who know the lore better there despite Hamuul having basically nothing to do with the Barrens expansion. Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if ANY rogue hero was more interesting to most players than another mage hero at the moment, especially when that mage is in human female form.
More of a hot take: would Prestor really be that ill-fitting as a rogue? Her whole thing is that she infiltrated Stormwind's elite, and any magic she used in the process was subtle mind manipulation (which would fall under priest more than mage or warlock). For the most part she got to that position through non-magical means, and played the role of both an assassin (on Varian) and a crime lord (commanding black dragons in the city guards, indirectly setting up the Defias brotherhood, and hiring multiple assassins to kill Lo'gosh (aka strong-willed Varian)).
The reason the rogue fantasy is so broad is that it is built on approaches to solving problems (i.e. use of stealth, agility, charm and trickery, along with a willingness to make morally questionable choices), rather than the tools used to do that. I know WoW has a fairly limited view of a rogue, but plenty of hero portraits have ignored that in other classes, so I don't really care if a rogue is using daggers, glaives, swords, bows, fists or magic so long as their role is very rogue-ish, and Prestor's role most certainly is.
Finding out the next pre-order hero skin will be Lady Katrana Prestor (aka Onyxia) for mage ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back, making me write a pretty salty comment about being annoyed it wasn't a rogue hero. Now, I'm the first to admit it is barely even a first world problem that the jpeg Blizz puts in a bundle isn't the one I wanted, and I wouldn't normally publicise my saltiness, so why did I care enough to do so this time?
There are a whole bunch of contributing factors that on their own wouldn't even be worth mentioning, but they nevertheless summed to one salty rogue main, so let's set them all out to see what really happened here.
* Note when I use the word 'devs' I don't mean the whole HS team, but only whoever has influence on the cosmetics.
An inexplicable imbalance
Let's start quantitative, since that's always the easiest to argue. As it stands, the number of unique characters each class has representing them as hero portraits is:
In a game where all classes play an equal role, generally get an equal number of cards, and over time get a more or less equal amount of time in the spotlight, having that much variation between classes in anything is pretty weird. We can dismiss DH's low count by it only having been here for a year, but hunter and rogue having so few compared to several classes is tough to explain.
Certainly it's not a problem with limited class fantasy. For rogue especially, you've got rogues filling the role of thugs, thieves, crime lords, spies, assassins, ninjas, pirates and more. Certainly there's scope for overlap in that, but there's also a lot more variation in themes and flavour than, say, a mage who chooses to use a different spell school, or a paladin who… let's face it, there's not much variation within paladin since it's a niche combination of priest and warrior to begin with.
It is somewhat amusing then, that rogues are represented by Valeera (a female elf who's a lawful good spy, ex-gladiator and messenger between the Horde and Alliance) and Maiev (a female elf and lawful good warden/jailer (yep, she's technically not even a rogue)). Not exactly ticking many of the rogue profession boxes there. Love it or loathe it, the Cap'n Valeera skin is all we really have to start representing the less lawful side of the class whose name actively specifies they are outside of the law.
To be honest, getting Mathias Shaw wouldn't help tick many boxes either. We'd get a lawful good male human spy, so that's a hooray for gender and race diversity but doesn't add much new elsewhere. Someone like Gallywix or Lilian Voss would be better, but the ship already seems to have sailed for them.
All this makes it especially frustrating the rogue only has 2 heroes. Where possible I like to set my hero and card back to fit the themes of a deck, but the range of options in rogue is sorely lacking for that.
Anticipation for nothing
A more emotional aspect is simply that we are expecting a rogue hero, so when something else arrives instead it is disappointing. Partly we expect a rogue hero just out of the foolish belief that the numbers above can't go too uneven, surely?
The main reason to expect it, however, is that about a year ago the devs said they had the next rogue hero lined up and that it would be "legendary". So they actually told us one was coming! Granted, they said it probably wouldn't arrive as soon as we wanted it - which certainly wasn't a lie - but it being more than a whole year later is well beyond what anyone read into it. I first just assumed it wouldn't be in Scholomance.
The whole anticipation thing was amplified by there being so many good opportunities for rogue heroes lately:
How could you not expect one when there's always a good option? Any one of these not being the rogue alternative is fine. But all of them being something else at a time when the devs are well aware rogue has fallen behind is a bit of a joke and starts to look intentional.
Wrapping up
So yes, it is the most minor thing that has no real impact when I'm actually playing the game. But I think my very last sentence contains the real heart of the problem: even if it is very unlikely Blizzard actually planned to screw rogue over with this, the fact it is beginning to look intentional is a real problem for players who have been waiting for a non-Valeera rogue hero for 4 years. It's eroding trust in the devs in a way that is just so silly and avoidable. And despite what it first looks like, it's not the frustrated rogue players who are being silly here because they actually have got the short end of the stick. No, it's the devs who could have simply commissioned a different bit of art at any time in those 4 years. No one would have been the slightest bit upset if Lady Prestor was Mathias Shaw instead, or if we never got Horseman Uther or Firefang Rexxar, so why keep avoiding rogue heroes?
The extension to this is that if we get a trio of Scabbs portraits in the Rewards Track, it won't really remedy the problem because it will look a lot like every class was going to get a trio of mercenary portraits this year anyway. You don't placate someone who's annoyed they have less than everyone else by giving everyone a treat.
So yeah, it is all a super minor psychological issue, but also so easily avoided that I'm still wagging a grumpy finger at Blizz and blaming them for needlessly creating it in the first place.
And I was salty :P
I'm not sure Onyxia will play that large a role. Hamuul ended up nothing more than a quest giver (deter-er?) after all. Most likely her role is akin to Kazakus', so being consistent we could still have seen Mathias Shaw here.
Lady Prestor as the pre-purchase hero is an absolute joke. Not because she makes no sense, but because yet again rogue mains have to watch another class get yet another hero skin when there was a perfectly good rogue character who could have been there.
The sad thing is they're probably going to include Scabbs portraits on the rewards track and say "look, we give rogue hero skins too". At which point I'll call bullsh*t because in all likelihood every mercenary character will get a trio of portraits so it doesn't really count in the same way.
And what are the odds Alterac Valley will have a rogue associated with it? Practically zero. Shaman will get Drek'thar as their thousandth hero, which they really need now they're getting Ragnaros next week too...
*Sigh* I know it's just pixels, but I can't believe whoever's in charge of the cosmetics is so oblivious to the inequality here.
It has scope for a lot more variety than most build-your-own-deck brawls. From what I saw in 15+ games, all of combo, value, and big-minion decks can work. So unless you only like aggro, there's probably something you enjoy that will work fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. "For the Alliance" and all that. That's great. Now get out of my way. I have a message from Valeera Sanguinar that needs to reach Mathias Shaw urgently. It reads:
Dear Mathias,
I'm afraid my efforts in recruiting more heroes have failed once again. I have not managed to find a single rogue willing to join me since I ventured into Un'Goro crater some 4 years ago (and truth be told, there's only so much one can take of Maiev before wishing for less... abrasive company). I have even gone so far as to dress up as a pirate and a handmaiden to fill in some of the gaps, but I fear I can go no further down that road without losing my sanity.
I know you stepped away from this mission in its earliest stages, but I must ask for your aid. Will you join me? I will be visiting Stormwind again soon. Please be ready with an answer when I arrive.
Yours faithfully,
V
P.S. I recently saw Anduin masquerading as an SI:7 agent. You might want to check the locks on the armoury.
Unlike the other obvious Witchwood options, Tess has the major advantage that nobody really dislikes her. They might dislike uber-value decks, and burgle rogue as part of that, but I don't think I've ever seen people complain about Tess herself. Meanwhile, Genn, Baku and Shudderwock have easily as many enemies as they do fans.
I'm surprised Hagatha the Witch wasn't suggested above though. Like Tess she trod the narrow path of being somewhat relevant without angering players, and she was the face of the expansion which makes her more likely I imagine. Perhaps her lack of relevance in Wild makes her a no-go though. At least the others (including Tess) still have a significant following there.
If decks become hated when people get bored of dealing with the same thing repeatedly, then I guess it makes sense we'd hate priest when it has refined the process so we deal with the same thing repeatedly without even needing to play multiple games. It's like Big Priest, but without the kindness of having a way to end the game (and our torment) quickly.
The art is great, but it is a shame all the Malfurion portraits end up looking kinda samey by the time they are cropped for gameplay. Cropping out the Nightmare here really wasted the opportunity to buck that trend.
Also, this is completely separate to the artwork itself, but does anyone else find Malfurion's character really bland? He's involved in lots of interesting events, but he so consistently plays the 'lawful good' role that I struggle to find him interesting.
Hooray!
I think a quest to play 3 games with him in your deck is the most likely. I expect it would disappear on the 16th, so they probably wouldn't want to do anything that requires much effort. So something that can be done trivially alongside a daily quest makes a lot of sense. I guess they could have an XP modifier span the whole day for players with Noz in their decks, though that's likely to mean more effort for the devs and would incentivise playing lots, so I doubt it.
Whatever they do, you can be sure there will be people who don't see it as a complete freebie that no-one is forced into and will complain about it :P
I didn't have any trouble over the weekend. Admittedly I was barely on yesterday so I wouldn't count that as evidence, but I did spend quite a while finishing up achievements on Saturday, which included a bunch of long games (no small thanks to Kresh, Lord of Turtling being in the bottom 10 cards every game...).
EU server btw.
There's not a whole lot you can do except play Party Up! until you get there. It has about 0.85% chance of happening each time, so people will have to play it 117 times on average. Statistics can be cruel though, and even playing it 117 times still only gives you 1-(116/117)^117 = 63.4% chance of it having happened, so you might not want to bother (especially as your 50-60 plays so far wouldn't contribute...).
I only did it myself because I got lucky and it happened on about the 10th try. Otherwise I would have respected my time enough to give up.
As long as the other game modes aren't taking designers away from the main/OG game mode, then the 'he who grabs too much loses all' adage doesn't apply. Given how much the HS team has grown in the last few years, I doubt we should be worrying too much there.
As for whether they should be entirely independent, I think that comes down to how you and the developers view HS. Is it 1 game with a few different sets of rules (i.e. constructed + Arena + Tavern Brawl + most solo stuff + Duels), or is it a hub for games connected by their themes, characters and game engine (all the previous variants + Battlegrounds + Mercenaries + any future modes)?
I don't personally see why it is harmful to take the latter approach, especially when the different modes are close enough to each other that they'd have a shared audience.
The board does look very empty, probably because it is lacking the heroes and clickable corner things we are used to. I notice those corners are present in the background of the image of Gromm, Xyrella and Cariel, so I expect the empty look is just because it was an incomplete build. Certainly if there is anything we can trust the HS devs to do well, it is to make the game look good.
As for the 'glorified puzzle mode' thought, I would ask where you draw the line? The AI/opposing players will surely respond to what has happened before and/or the current state of the game. You could definitely still call that a puzzle as you are working out a route to victory, but in that sense almost every game that has ever existed is a puzzle. (For the record, being considered a puzzle is not a bad thing, and would certainly appeal to a lot of players.)