True, though they've repeatedly made a big point about following these 10 throughout the year so I doubt they'd add more.
It looks like the focus is more on the Horde characters in the Barrens (as seen in the trailer), while the Alliance 5 will feature more in the second expansion, possibly followed by a clash in expansion 3 (Alterac valley??). What difference that 'focus' actually makes I don't know. Perhaps they will be ordered Horde then Alliance in the Book of Mercenaries?
I suspect they wanted to not repeat any races, so they kind of had to include those two to make up the numbers. The Barrens trailer definitely mimics a few frames from the OG WoW trailer, hence why I'm adamant they wanted a WoW Classic vibe. Not to mention the focus on an early leveling zone.
There are 5 Horde and 5 Alliance races. Goblin and worgen (and pandaren too I guess) were left out, probably because they were going for a WoW Classic vibe and they were the last to be added in WoW.
It's not quite impossible to rig it, but it is way too much effort to be worth bothering with. I had to meet a friend on ladder with a deck designed to multiply Oh My Yogg! as many times as we needed.
I'm keen to see what the OoC team decide to say about it, if anything other than not to bother trying.
Yeah, it does seem a bit wasteful to give a class that is little more than an overlap of rogue, hunter and warlock a class mechanic that all 3 are already known for.
I'm wondering whether they are shifting the deathrattle synergy from rogue to DH going forwards. DH sorely needs some more class mechanics while rogue has more than enough of them to spare, so maybe moving one that rogue has historically not had much success with* would be sensible.
* Necrium Apothecary at 4-mana is the only time I remember it being meta-relevant.
The more I look at the few rogue cards we know, the more I expect to see a 1 attack poisonous weapon for rogue, maybe a 5 mana 1/3. It would be the sort of thing you'd hold onto for a while (motivating switching up your hero power with Yoink!) and want to be immune when attacking with.
With Self-Sharpening Sword around and the change to Assassin's Blade, the class doesn't need another big weapon to throw attack buffs onto and smash face with, so now would be a good time to make a weapon focused on removal instead.
Of course I'm probably wrong, but I can always make it for myself in Wild with Kingsbane and Envenom Weapon :)
It's notable that the Battleguard doesn't have taunt itself, so doesn't consume its own effect like, say, Pint-Sized Summoner does. It can therefore be considered a free 2/3 that is a must kill but also protected by a taunt minion. So it could be more powerful than it first seems.
I first thought it was too slow and niche to actually see play, but then it occurred to me that playing this practically guarantees you can hit the opponent's face next turn since it removes taunt. Perhaps that doesn't make a difference often enough to be worth running it though.
More than that, he's putting the poison on the side of the hammer which should never be whacking into anything. I'm sure the poison works fine, but that there's a rogue just out of shot face-palming and thinking "this is why I don't give poisons to warriors!"
They said every class will get its 1/3 drop 1 with class identity, here is the warrior one. I'm not sure if this is useful, the only moment where it can be ok is if you play it turn 1 but even that, if not hero are damaged it wont be a big threat. Warrior can find better than that, for exemple the pirat is better.
Those class identity 1-drops were in the Core set, and mostly weren't 1/3s.
Anyway, I agree that warrior probably won't make as much use out of this as many people are expecting. While it's undoubtedly a good card in the grand scheme of things, I'm just not sure if it aligns very well with how warrior tends to play.
I'm just going to point out that Warbot, which is basically the same card with a mech tribe but no chance to get more than 1 attack, wasn't ever played competitively.
That doesn't mean Warsong Envoy won't be played, but it's definitely not a sure thing. I think part of the reason is that both cards only have upside when they lose health, so they aren't as sticky as you normally expect 1/3s to be.
Old Flurgl has come a long way since being a random murloc in Dungeon Run introduced so eloquently by Togwaggle with "Kobolds not be understanding murlocs. They talk talking with not talking well."
Giving murlocs AoE and a bit of burst might give them a chance if they lose the board, and might therefore mix things up enough that I take an interest in murlocs again.
To be fair, i have to re-do this statement. I now have 11600 gold, which is far more, than i ever had before an expansion before, by just "normally" playing. (bought the tavern pass though).
Maybe the new system isn't as bad as we thought on beginning.
Yeah, the fact everyone seems to now be significantly ahead of where they were in previous expansions means the rewards track probably started out fine (about equal to the old system) even before the improvements were made. Certainly it would have been absolutely fine once the intended XP giving events are factored in, and there wasn't actually any sign that the devs had lied to us.
Really it was a failure of communication much more than anything else. I hope people look back at it all with a critical eye and recognise they overreacted. Some good came out of that overreaction, but that doesn't excuse how aggressive and inconsiderate some people became.
I'm hoping it counts which cards you have owned previously (like the duplicate protection), because I did have all the Scholomance cards until I dusted some after nerfs. I don't really want to re-craft Alura if I can avoid it.
How old do you want to be? Illidan is already 10,000 years old! It raises a good question though: have all the elderly night elves been hobbling around with arthritis for 10,000 years? How else would they have become elderly?
In the form they took it certainly would, and I'd never expect them to fill the back-catalogue of cards this way! But the idea of diamond cards just as a kind of golden++ has been around for a long time, and it is that more mundane version I have always quietly dreaded.
That all looks pretty sweet, and a large part of me is letting out a sigh of relief that only a few cards will have diamond versions. I don't think my dust reserves would have survived an upgrade to my all-golden rogue legendary collection :P
Still no rogue hero portrait though, so I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Mathias Shaw will be the pre-order hero in the (very probably) Alliance focused expansion in the summer. (C'mon Blizz. I can't be wrong yet again, can I?)
True, though they've repeatedly made a big point about following these 10 throughout the year so I doubt they'd add more.
It looks like the focus is more on the Horde characters in the Barrens (as seen in the trailer), while the Alliance 5 will feature more in the second expansion, possibly followed by a clash in expansion 3 (Alterac valley??). What difference that 'focus' actually makes I don't know. Perhaps they will be ordered Horde then Alliance in the Book of Mercenaries?
I suspect they wanted to not repeat any races, so they kind of had to include those two to make up the numbers. The Barrens trailer definitely mimics a few frames from the OG WoW trailer, hence why I'm adamant they wanted a WoW Classic vibe. Not to mention the focus on an early leveling zone.
There are 5 Horde and 5 Alliance races. Goblin and worgen (and pandaren too I guess) were left out, probably because they were going for a WoW Classic vibe and they were the last to be added in WoW.
I'm not sure what you expected from a gnome in Warcraft. At least it's not Guff.
It's not quite impossible to rig it, but it is way too much effort to be worth bothering with. I had to meet a friend on ladder with a deck designed to multiply Oh My Yogg! as many times as we needed.
I'm keen to see what the OoC team decide to say about it, if anything other than not to bother trying.
Yeah, it does seem a bit wasteful to give a class that is little more than an overlap of rogue, hunter and warlock a class mechanic that all 3 are already known for.
I'm wondering whether they are shifting the deathrattle synergy from rogue to DH going forwards. DH sorely needs some more class mechanics while rogue has more than enough of them to spare, so maybe moving one that rogue has historically not had much success with* would be sensible.
* Necrium Apothecary at 4-mana is the only time I remember it being meta-relevant.
The more I look at the few rogue cards we know, the more I expect to see a 1 attack poisonous weapon for rogue, maybe a 5 mana 1/3. It would be the sort of thing you'd hold onto for a while (motivating switching up your hero power with Yoink!) and want to be immune when attacking with.
With Self-Sharpening Sword around and the change to Assassin's Blade, the class doesn't need another big weapon to throw attack buffs onto and smash face with, so now would be a good time to make a weapon focused on removal instead.
Of course I'm probably wrong, but I can always make it for myself in Wild with Kingsbane and Envenom Weapon :)
It's notable that the Battleguard doesn't have taunt itself, so doesn't consume its own effect like, say, Pint-Sized Summoner does. It can therefore be considered a free 2/3 that is a must kill but also protected by a taunt minion. So it could be more powerful than it first seems.
I first thought it was too slow and niche to actually see play, but then it occurred to me that playing this practically guarantees you can hit the opponent's face next turn since it removes taunt. Perhaps that doesn't make a difference often enough to be worth running it though.
Hmm. I feel like someone should have told them that Guff is British slang for fart...
More than that, he's putting the poison on the side of the hammer which should never be whacking into anything. I'm sure the poison works fine, but that there's a rogue just out of shot face-palming and thinking "this is why I don't give poisons to warriors!"
Those class identity 1-drops were in the Core set, and mostly weren't 1/3s.
Anyway, I agree that warrior probably won't make as much use out of this as many people are expecting. While it's undoubtedly a good card in the grand scheme of things, I'm just not sure if it aligns very well with how warrior tends to play.
I'm just going to point out that Warbot, which is basically the same card with a mech tribe but no chance to get more than 1 attack, wasn't ever played competitively.
That doesn't mean Warsong Envoy won't be played, but it's definitely not a sure thing. I think part of the reason is that both cards only have upside when they lose health, so they aren't as sticky as you normally expect 1/3s to be.
Old Flurgl has come a long way since being a random murloc in Dungeon Run introduced so eloquently by Togwaggle with "Kobolds not be understanding murlocs. They talk talking with not talking well."
Giving murlocs AoE and a bit of burst might give them a chance if they lose the board, and might therefore mix things up enough that I take an interest in murlocs again.
Yeah, the fact everyone seems to now be significantly ahead of where they were in previous expansions means the rewards track probably started out fine (about equal to the old system) even before the improvements were made. Certainly it would have been absolutely fine once the intended XP giving events are factored in, and there wasn't actually any sign that the devs had lied to us.
Really it was a failure of communication much more than anything else. I hope people look back at it all with a critical eye and recognise they overreacted. Some good came out of that overreaction, but that doesn't excuse how aggressive and inconsiderate some people became.
Well poop. I never cared about Alura and was so glad to finally dust her...
I guess I can at least wait and see if it is satisfied by already having the achievement for owning all Scholomance cards.
I'm hoping it counts which cards you have owned previously (like the duplicate protection), because I did have all the Scholomance cards until I dusted some after nerfs. I don't really want to re-craft Alura if I can avoid it.
How old do you want to be? Illidan is already 10,000 years old! It raises a good question though: have all the elderly night elves been hobbling around with arthritis for 10,000 years? How else would they have become elderly?
In the form they took it certainly would, and I'd never expect them to fill the back-catalogue of cards this way! But the idea of diamond cards just as a kind of golden++ has been around for a long time, and it is that more mundane version I have always quietly dreaded.
That all looks pretty sweet, and a large part of me is letting out a sigh of relief that only a few cards will have diamond versions. I don't think my dust reserves would have survived an upgrade to my all-golden rogue legendary collection :P
Still no rogue hero portrait though, so I'm going to go out on a limb and predict Mathias Shaw will be the pre-order hero in the (very probably) Alliance focused expansion in the summer. (C'mon Blizz. I can't be wrong yet again, can I?)