The Final Frontier: Seems really hard to achieve without Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King. Ysiel Windsinger might also do the trick with enough set up (and preferably in Wild because Ultimate Infestation). Completing this the intended way through Celestial Alignment sounds like a bad joke. Getting Alignment off and ramping back to 5-mana with five 8+mana cards is a pipe dream. If you didn't get run down by that point your opponent will usually concede anyways.
I'm pretty sure I got this first try via Celestial Alignment, so it's really not too difficult. Like with many things in druid: if it looks like a pipe dream, it's probably going to work :P
And yet Reckless Apprentice consistently hits all the targets. That's quite impressive, especially when you're not targetting.
Focusing purely on flavour, hitting everything with an AoE is not impressive, because what's really happening is an area is hit and characters just happen to be in that area. In this guy's case, he shoots in every direction so of course he'll hit everything without needing to target it.
Based on how it didn't know I ever had Barnes when the achievements arrived, I'm pretty sure it wasn't tracked until AoO. (I would have dusted Barnes when he was nerfed in August 2019, conveniently not long before AoO.) Similarly, it has always correctly recognised that I am missing 2 legendaries in DoD, one of which is Dragonqueen Alexstrasza who I dusted upon her second nerf shortly before AoO.
In fact looking at my 10/15 completion of DH in AoO (4 of the missing 5 were dusted in the past), the achievement is only counting from when the achievements were introduced just before DMF.
Of course that doesn't rule out bugs or weird/different behaviour for the streamer you saw. All I can do is report how it has worked for me.
That depends on your long-term plans. If you only want to play in Standard and not Wild or Classic, then sure, it's free dust. However, you won't keep Core set cards if/when they leave the Core set in future rotations, so you'll need your own copies (e.g. from the Classic set) if you want to continue using them in Wild and Classic.
So from what I've seen, most people who play Wild and Classic are keeping their copies so they don't lose the cards later down the line.
Obviously Battlegrounds is completely unaffected, and Duels wouldn't lose very much.
I think the key point of the question is "to get achievement points". If you owned some card and disenchanted it, it still counts towards set completion achivement. So there's no easy way to find out what you miss and need to craft, especially for old sets.
The game only started tracking which cards you had previously owned in Ashes of Outland, when duplicate protection was extended to all rarities (and the way it worked changed slightly, even for legendaries). So unless cards were dusted from pre-AoO sets in the last year, searching "missing" is as reliable for old sets as it is for new ones.
I'm not so convinced about a Lordaeron connection as some people are. I get the link between petals and Arthas' return there, but as @Synnr7 points out, it is Horde territory in (Classic) WoW and I highly doubt the Alliance themed expansion would put so strong a focus on the Horde and undead. Plus I don't think Lordaeron can claim exclusive rights to petals...
Time travel to force Lordaeron into place just seems so unnecessary when we've never been to Stormwind either. Similarly, the fact the Alliance began in Lordaeron doesn't trump the fact the Alliance has been led by Stormwind's king for the entirety of WoW.
In the end though, the Barrens isn't Orgrimmar, and I don't expect the next expansion to be set in Stormwind itself either. It is more likely centred in Alliance land (primarily in the southern part of the Eastern Kingdoms), with some cards almost certainly referencing Stormwind and perhaps Lordaeron too.
I usually like the idea of hero power mages, but the shift towards AoE in its payoff cards loses my interest a bit. There's a bit of a fantasy mismatch with the usual precision of mage's ping. The random targets of the Rag that Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk gave you was already a step away, and this is several steps further.
Not that it doesn't make sense when viewing the class as a whole, of course. It's clear I belong in rogue if big explosions and AoE's don't spark any interest in me...
Well, there's Frosty's rogue rant (unless they have something in store for Galakrond or Necrium Apothecary too). I've got to be honest, I have a soft spot for Whirlkick Master. That's probably because I had multiple discussions arguing it would be good when Scholomance added two 1-cost combo cards, and then again when DMF added a third. So its eventual success is kind of a vindication for me. Plus it helped me get to Legend for the first time early in DMF, before everyone else joined the Whirlkick party. I've barely touched the card since; I'm hipster like that :P
I completely agree on everything else on the list though.
Colour-blindness definitely accounts for some of them (Rain of Fire and Dark Skies are a sickly fel green, and I suspect the orange of Rafaam's Scheme is what motivated it's fire tag. Though I agree with you that the latter is wrong).
I'm pretty sure the colour of the magic accounts for a few other odd ones too, such as Webweave's purple.
I'm going to have to argue against you on Shadow Council though. You're dangerously close to being inconsistent yourself: does the card name/art matter more than the reality of what the spell is doing/representing? Anyway, I'm not really sure it should have a school at all since the shadow council was a physical group of orcs and ogres, and was not magically conjured.
All in all I agree there's a bit of tidying up to do. I suppose that's not surprising when a lot of spells were never designed with spell schools in mind so past artistic liberties can now cause problems.
It's a bit indirect, but I would actually count Yoink! among the weapon synergy cards. Big, high-durability rogue weapons always carry the cost of leaving you effectively without a hero power, so you're never going to be unhappy to get a new one if you are holding a weapon. I'm sure that's not enough for Yoink! to see much play, but it does explain why it appeared in this expansion.
I know it is what got me into HS at the start, but looking at it through the lens of the last 7 years of expansions I have to agree it feels a bit limited. It's probably because the same handful of neutrals are used all over the place, especially as card draw and finishers. Diversity wasn't helped by everyone gravitating to combo decks on day 1 either.
I'm really just hoping it will get a following of meme players like other modes do, so I won't have to face off against the same meta decks all the time. I'm not optimistic though, since the meme potential of Standard and Wild will always be much greater.
Sylvanas has some pretty animations, and good emotes so i.m.o. she is the best hunter skin. (Or actually the only hunter skin you would ever need, like seriously.)
"Greetings. I trust you will not waste my time." Such a perfect emote when against someone who ropes on turn 1.
I actually was able to play Control WArrior for the first time.
Previously that deck had always been so expensive and I was lagging behind on the legendaries, so I never bothered. BUt thanks to the fact that my classic collection is almost complete (all the relevant cards at least) I can play ye olde Wallet Warrior with no problem
Same. In fact I half expect it to become my favourite Classic deck, if for no reason other than how it pretty much auto-wins against freeze mage. I haven't yet got around to making a rogue deck though, so we'll see how long warrior lasts in that position.
I've also been messing around with Alarm-o-Bot druid. It has hardly been stellar, but the fact it has worked at all is a success in my books.
The big difference between bombs and the albatross is that bombs punish you for drawing cards while the albatross incentivises it. With bombs, it's very often the case you cannot win just because the bombs will kill you before you draw enough cards to win with yourself, so it's just demoralising if you are playing a class that cannot heal much.
I'm not completely against the bomb archetype, as I enjoyed playing a janky version back in Boomsday when there wasn't actually any synergy for it, but Wrenchcalibur meant it crossed the threshold from silly to frustrating.
I appreciate the need to vent when you perceive an injustice, but I think this particular rant is built on a very shaky foundation. You are making comparisons across classes and not even using similar cards as examples.
Where you point out Rancor is no more effective at clearing boards than Consecration, I could respond by pointing out rogue hasn't seen a single bit of AoE since Blackrock Mountain and has been stripped of all that it used to have. That argument has its own flaws, of course, but it highlights the importance of recognising class identity, even when ranting.
In this case, because there are 10 different class identities to keep track of, and each of those is complex, you really have to be precise. For instance, warrior has always been just OK at AoEs (never one of the top classes, but better than some), but that hasn't stopped warrior from being a successful class. Likewise, rogue has always been good at drawing cards and doing lots of things in 1 turn, but it hasn't always been the top class because of it (although I willingly admit it has been consistently good).
If you are going to use those aspects of the classes as the basis of your argument, you must first work out how to compare them in a fair way. It might be possible, but as it stands you're comparing apples and oranges and complaining that an apple isn't a citrus fruit. Perhaps in the morning you'll find a good way to put it all together :)
--------------------
Btw, I'm not sure there is any hypocrisy with the new poisons and the Leeching Poison (LP) nerf. LP was nerfed because it became impossible to finish off the opponent without an OTK because they would heal up any damage you dealt to them. Sure Paralytic Poison helps with survivability, but it doesn't undo any damage dealt by the opponent.
:O But rogue has never done anything bad for the game. Never ever. No siree. Nothing bad to see here. *Quick, use Vanish before they cotton onto us!*
Seriously though, as much as I love the rogue class, it deserves to be ranted at every now and then. Probably more than most classes, and a lot more than some.
With Warsong Commander giving rush, I guess the spirit of Patron warrior will return, even if the specific details mean it will have to play out differently. Still, it's a nice thing to be able to do, and well worth Gruntled Patron's place in the set.
I'm somewhat against random creation that can't really be played around due to either the variety of potential created cards or the sheer amount of the cards created
Burgle rogue sits quietly in the corner hoping Frosty doesn't look at it.
In fairness, even as a burgle rogue main I tend to agree, just with a caveat. I think the reason burgle decks haven't generated many complaints is that Blizz has done a brilliant job at keeping it strong enough to feel good to playing, but weak enough that it is never really part of the meta. If Blizz can keep value generation at that power level, rather than the excessive strength and quantity seen in the Year of the Dragon, then we'll be in good shape.
The hair colour has changed, but the gloves, tongs, goggles etc all match, so yeah, I'd say it's likely.
It makes me wonder though, does that mean the new Kazakus hasn't tried to take over Gadgetzan yet? Was Finja actually from the Barrens all along and maybe only went to Gadgetzan to try to stop Kazakus?
If only Hearthstone lore was more reliable than "here's the story some guy told in the tavern" I might begin some serious HS lore speculation.
Have they ever described it that way explicitly? My interpretation is consistent with how the non-golden neutrals will be obtained by total class level, where you get them all regardless of whether 1 class is at level 60 or 6 classes are level 10.
It would also be weird to say "10x that across all classes" instead of "that value in all classes" if it required every class to reach the threshold.
I'm pretty sure I got this first try via Celestial Alignment, so it's really not too difficult. Like with many things in druid: if it looks like a pipe dream, it's probably going to work :P
Focusing purely on flavour, hitting everything with an AoE is not impressive, because what's really happening is an area is hit and characters just happen to be in that area. In this guy's case, he shoots in every direction so of course he'll hit everything without needing to target it.
Based on how it didn't know I ever had Barnes when the achievements arrived, I'm pretty sure it wasn't tracked until AoO. (I would have dusted Barnes when he was nerfed in August 2019, conveniently not long before AoO.) Similarly, it has always correctly recognised that I am missing 2 legendaries in DoD, one of which is Dragonqueen Alexstrasza who I dusted upon her second nerf shortly before AoO.
In fact looking at my 10/15 completion of DH in AoO (4 of the missing 5 were dusted in the past), the achievement is only counting from when the achievements were introduced just before DMF.
Of course that doesn't rule out bugs or weird/different behaviour for the streamer you saw. All I can do is report how it has worked for me.
That depends on your long-term plans. If you only want to play in Standard and not Wild or Classic, then sure, it's free dust. However, you won't keep Core set cards if/when they leave the Core set in future rotations, so you'll need your own copies (e.g. from the Classic set) if you want to continue using them in Wild and Classic.
So from what I've seen, most people who play Wild and Classic are keeping their copies so they don't lose the cards later down the line.
Obviously Battlegrounds is completely unaffected, and Duels wouldn't lose very much.
The game only started tracking which cards you had previously owned in Ashes of Outland, when duplicate protection was extended to all rarities (and the way it worked changed slightly, even for legendaries). So unless cards were dusted from pre-AoO sets in the last year, searching "missing" is as reliable for old sets as it is for new ones.
I'm not so convinced about a Lordaeron connection as some people are. I get the link between petals and Arthas' return there, but as @Synnr7 points out, it is Horde territory in (Classic) WoW and I highly doubt the Alliance themed expansion would put so strong a focus on the Horde and undead. Plus I don't think Lordaeron can claim exclusive rights to petals...
Time travel to force Lordaeron into place just seems so unnecessary when we've never been to Stormwind either. Similarly, the fact the Alliance began in Lordaeron doesn't trump the fact the Alliance has been led by Stormwind's king for the entirety of WoW.
In the end though, the Barrens isn't Orgrimmar, and I don't expect the next expansion to be set in Stormwind itself either. It is more likely centred in Alliance land (primarily in the southern part of the Eastern Kingdoms), with some cards almost certainly referencing Stormwind and perhaps Lordaeron too.
I usually like the idea of hero power mages, but the shift towards AoE in its payoff cards loses my interest a bit. There's a bit of a fantasy mismatch with the usual precision of mage's ping. The random targets of the Rag that Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk gave you was already a step away, and this is several steps further.
Not that it doesn't make sense when viewing the class as a whole, of course. It's clear I belong in rogue if big explosions and AoE's don't spark any interest in me...
Well, there's Frosty's rogue rant (unless they have something in store for Galakrond or Necrium Apothecary too). I've got to be honest, I have a soft spot for Whirlkick Master. That's probably because I had multiple discussions arguing it would be good when Scholomance added two 1-cost combo cards, and then again when DMF added a third. So its eventual success is kind of a vindication for me. Plus it helped me get to Legend for the first time early in DMF, before everyone else joined the Whirlkick party. I've barely touched the card since; I'm hipster like that :P
I completely agree on everything else on the list though.
Colour-blindness definitely accounts for some of them (Rain of Fire and Dark Skies are a sickly fel green, and I suspect the orange of Rafaam's Scheme is what motivated it's fire tag. Though I agree with you that the latter is wrong).
I'm pretty sure the colour of the magic accounts for a few other odd ones too, such as Webweave's purple.
I'm going to have to argue against you on Shadow Council though. You're dangerously close to being inconsistent yourself: does the card name/art matter more than the reality of what the spell is doing/representing? Anyway, I'm not really sure it should have a school at all since the shadow council was a physical group of orcs and ogres, and was not magically conjured.
All in all I agree there's a bit of tidying up to do. I suppose that's not surprising when a lot of spells were never designed with spell schools in mind so past artistic liberties can now cause problems.
It's a bit indirect, but I would actually count Yoink! among the weapon synergy cards. Big, high-durability rogue weapons always carry the cost of leaving you effectively without a hero power, so you're never going to be unhappy to get a new one if you are holding a weapon. I'm sure that's not enough for Yoink! to see much play, but it does explain why it appeared in this expansion.
I know it is what got me into HS at the start, but looking at it through the lens of the last 7 years of expansions I have to agree it feels a bit limited. It's probably because the same handful of neutrals are used all over the place, especially as card draw and finishers. Diversity wasn't helped by everyone gravitating to combo decks on day 1 either.
I'm really just hoping it will get a following of meme players like other modes do, so I won't have to face off against the same meta decks all the time. I'm not optimistic though, since the meme potential of Standard and Wild will always be much greater.
"Greetings. I trust you will not waste my time." Such a perfect emote when against someone who ropes on turn 1.
Same. In fact I half expect it to become my favourite Classic deck, if for no reason other than how it pretty much auto-wins against freeze mage. I haven't yet got around to making a rogue deck though, so we'll see how long warrior lasts in that position.
I've also been messing around with Alarm-o-Bot druid. It has hardly been stellar, but the fact it has worked at all is a success in my books.
The big difference between bombs and the albatross is that bombs punish you for drawing cards while the albatross incentivises it. With bombs, it's very often the case you cannot win just because the bombs will kill you before you draw enough cards to win with yourself, so it's just demoralising if you are playing a class that cannot heal much.
I'm not completely against the bomb archetype, as I enjoyed playing a janky version back in Boomsday when there wasn't actually any synergy for it, but Wrenchcalibur meant it crossed the threshold from silly to frustrating.
I appreciate the need to vent when you perceive an injustice, but I think this particular rant is built on a very shaky foundation. You are making comparisons across classes and not even using similar cards as examples.
Where you point out Rancor is no more effective at clearing boards than Consecration, I could respond by pointing out rogue hasn't seen a single bit of AoE since Blackrock Mountain and has been stripped of all that it used to have. That argument has its own flaws, of course, but it highlights the importance of recognising class identity, even when ranting.
In this case, because there are 10 different class identities to keep track of, and each of those is complex, you really have to be precise. For instance, warrior has always been just OK at AoEs (never one of the top classes, but better than some), but that hasn't stopped warrior from being a successful class. Likewise, rogue has always been good at drawing cards and doing lots of things in 1 turn, but it hasn't always been the top class because of it (although I willingly admit it has been consistently good).
If you are going to use those aspects of the classes as the basis of your argument, you must first work out how to compare them in a fair way. It might be possible, but as it stands you're comparing apples and oranges and complaining that an apple isn't a citrus fruit. Perhaps in the morning you'll find a good way to put it all together :)
--------------------
Btw, I'm not sure there is any hypocrisy with the new poisons and the Leeching Poison (LP) nerf. LP was nerfed because it became impossible to finish off the opponent without an OTK because they would heal up any damage you dealt to them. Sure Paralytic Poison helps with survivability, but it doesn't undo any damage dealt by the opponent.
:O But rogue has never done anything bad for the game. Never ever. No siree. Nothing bad to see here. *Quick, use Vanish before they cotton onto us!*
Seriously though, as much as I love the rogue class, it deserves to be ranted at every now and then. Probably more than most classes, and a lot more than some.
With Warsong Commander giving rush, I guess the spirit of Patron warrior will return, even if the specific details mean it will have to play out differently. Still, it's a nice thing to be able to do, and well worth Gruntled Patron's place in the set.
Burgle rogue sits quietly in the corner hoping Frosty doesn't look at it.
In fairness, even as a burgle rogue main I tend to agree, just with a caveat. I think the reason burgle decks haven't generated many complaints is that Blizz has done a brilliant job at keeping it strong enough to feel good to playing, but weak enough that it is never really part of the meta. If Blizz can keep value generation at that power level, rather than the excessive strength and quantity seen in the Year of the Dragon, then we'll be in good shape.
The hair colour has changed, but the gloves, tongs, goggles etc all match, so yeah, I'd say it's likely.
It makes me wonder though, does that mean the new Kazakus hasn't tried to take over Gadgetzan yet? Was Finja actually from the Barrens all along and maybe only went to Gadgetzan to try to stop Kazakus?
If only Hearthstone lore was more reliable than "here's the story some guy told in the tavern" I might begin some serious HS lore speculation.
Have they ever described it that way explicitly? My interpretation is consistent with how the non-golden neutrals will be obtained by total class level, where you get them all regardless of whether 1 class is at level 60 or 6 classes are level 10.
It would also be weird to say "10x that across all classes" instead of "that value in all classes" if it required every class to reach the threshold.