I think all that really matters is that the rank spells all cost 2 or less. Any higher and you'd always wait 'til you have 5 mana, but going lower is perfectly reasonable. Besides, there are still 4 more rank spells to see, so at this point we don't know that mage is the only class whose rank spell doesn't cost 2.
In this case, because HS is built to only let you choose 1 target per effect, so the Rank 2 and 3 versions wouldn't work as targeted spells. The alternative is to hit the left- or right-most minions, but perhaps that would make it too trivial to play around.
You can argue over whether the limit to 1 chosen target should be changed, but that's an entirely separate matter.
There are lots of solid cards from the past it can be compared to, and even at 2 damage it still compares quite well. So at worst it is an OK card, and definitely not terrible.
*The story of Team Galactic is still pretty much the same, although fleshed out a bit more. (I would say the story of most pokemon games isn't that great)
* I never really pay a lot of attention to the early pokemon game stories, but they add a bit more setup I would say, don't expect miracles
I fully accept Pokemon is aimed at kids so you can't expect deep stories, but if you're going to insist on having villain teams they should be somewhat engaging, or at least convey what they're about. Team Plasma did it super well, since animal rights activists make so much sense in a world that revolves around making animals fight, so it is easy to believe Ghetsis could manipulate them with that facade. B2W2 also did a great job of showing how Team Plasma was truly torn on its ideals, and that many of them were genuinely trying to do the right thing.
How they went back to inane nonsense with Team Flare, having just got the nuance of a villain team spot on, I'll never know. No matter how hard they tried to sell it, fashion is not a good basis for a villain team, especially when that 'fashion' means putting on ugly orange suits :P
Anyway, the only reason I care so much about the story in these games is that long ago I set myself the challenge of using every single (non-legendary) Pokemon family in a team during the story and up to the E4. With team sizes ranging from 6 to 9, that meant going through the stories a lot of times. I finished all Pokemon in Gens 1-7 shortly before Gen 8 came out, but stopped there because I don't own a Switch (plus I have no desire to keep it up my whole life!).
In the absence of hero power synergy I very much doubt it, but it is really not as far off as it might seem. The value of using a hero power twice varies, but it summing to 1 mana is about right in most cases.
It probably won't be used competitively, but it's worth remembering that while the rogue hero power is really good, it is also actively detrimental if you have a proper weapon equipped and usually weak in the late game when you don't have the health to spare using it for removal. So rogue is definitely a class that would happily swap out its hero power for any other one sometimes.
Platinum did a lot of heavy lifting for gen 4, I hope they take a lot from platinum. Mainly having more than 2 fire types in the regional dex..
The remakes have tended to mix in the 3rd game for story and mechanics, but not the wild Pokemon, so you're probably stuck with Chimchar and Ponyta for fire types sadly.
Having only played Diamond, could you give me some idea of just how much Platinum fixed? Because Diamond and Pearl have a LOT more problems than just having 2 fire types:
Team Galactic make no sense whatsoever (they all just follow Cyrus with no idea what his plan is. Even the admins!);
the animation and text speed is slow beyond the point of frustration;
there are way too many trainers with Gyarados, which is too strong with too few weaknesses to just give to every other water trainer;
too many of the new Pokemon are just evolutions of old ones, and too many of those aren't even obtainable until the post-game;
the story's pacing is way off;
the Elite Four ratchets up levels so much that you are forced into grinding for ages or cheesing the last fights by stalling with endless revives;
I like Cynthia fine, but her fight isn't actually enjoyable
why do I have to deal with the fog?! It's not even close to fun, but somehow isn't even the worst thing, oh no, that honour goes to
the damn swamp mechanic where you get stuck every other step! Just why? Who wants that?
These are all little annoyances that can easily be fixed in the remakes though, if they weren't already fixed in Platinum. Certainly they had learned their lesson going into Black and White, which hasn't got a single one of those issues.
A dwarven hunter, a draenai priest, and a night elf(?) DH in Kurtrus? Things are looking pretty rosy for my mercenary predictions (mercenary-character-speculation), and those 3 were the least secure!
Competitive spirit still requires you to have at least 1 minion to trigger, so I assume it is not quite equivalent. Perhaps if DH gets a minion-buff sigil we'll be able to test it, but DH doesn't really buff minions so that's probably not likely.
I'm not too worried about it looking unusual for a DH card - all classes expand their toolkit by doing something they didn't before - I'm just disappointed it means DH is joining the club of deathrattle classes specifically. The 2 classes DH is closest to, namely rogue and hunter, are already deathrattle classes, while warlock is a pseudo-deathrattle class due to the self-sacrifice stuff.
So what exactly is going to be novel about it? It feels like it would be so much more worthwhile to give DH something that rogue and hunter don't do, rather than making them even more similar.
Good point. After I wrote it I realised there would probably be a big BG patch before the mini-expansion. I almost never play BG and usually ignore its updates, hence why I forgot about it. I'm sure someone will point out I missed duels updates too, for much the same reason.
It's a good thing I covered myself by saying "it could be something sooner" :)
They didn't make it into patch 20.0, so no. I'd assume the "next major patch" will be the mini-set associated with the Barrens, but it could be something sooner.
On the other hand: it wouldn't be the only card that could have a comeback. There's people thinking that we'll see a new Kazakus, because of some artwork having a resemblance of his belt.
Now I look at it, the first teaser image is actually a perfect match for Kazakus' belt, which has a bit too much going on for it to be coincidental. Maybe MSoG will have a sizable appearance after all.
Now my mind wonders back towards Iksar saying "We have the first version of a 'newer, cooler' cosmetic coming soon, so looking forward to seeing what people think." Tri-class hero portraits of Aya, Kazakus and/or Don Han'cho maybe? Man, what a slap in the face to us rogues it would be (again) if we finally get another non-Valeera hero, and have to share it with shaman and druid. I'm not sure if I'd be fuming or applauding the sheer audacity of it.
I noticed that too. Without something like the Jade Lotus around to motivate ninja murlocs, I'm not sure what Finja would be doing in the Barrens though. Perhaps some themes/characters are going to be present from Gadgetzan (which isn't too far away from the Barrens)? Or, since rogue doesn't need a specific reason to have a ninja character, maybe the time of murloc rogue is upon us?
The art looks like its just a small part of a larger image though, so it is likely a spell, meaning Finja might not return as a minion in its own right.
Oil is also used on Spectral Cutlass in Wild. Unless I'm forgetting something, weapons buffs aren't really used anywhere else because the other rogue decks either don't care much about weapons, e.g. mill, or use weapons primarily for their deathrattle, e.g. Necrium Blade. Plus if you are going to care about weapon buffs elsewhere, you have to ask yourself why you aren't using Kingsbane or Cutlass, and it's rare that there is a good answer to that.
Perhaps another appropriate comparison for NB Poison is Cold Blood, since it's base form is exactly the same and the immediate gain from triggering the effect is also the same (+2 attack) just on different things. Weapons buffs > minion buffs though, making the effect of NB Poison better than Cold Blood, so the fact it currently costs less doesn't make much sense, especially when Cold Blood isn't a bad card to begin with.
Tinker's Sharpsword Oil is the better comparison than Deadly Poison, and that card still holds up today in Wild. Given how well Nitroboost Poison compares to Oil, even at 2 mana, I don't doubt it would remain very strong at 2.
To be honest I never understood why 1-mana corrupt cards exist. Even in aggro decks it trivialises the corrupt condition so much that it doesn't really justify making them stronger than average cards once corrupted.
Fair enough. Since you're consistent with your opinions on out-of-class heroes I can't fault you :)
I think beneath it all is a question of how to define a class. Are the abilities in the Warcraft games enough, or does their design inherently pigeonhole players into narrow sub-sets of the wider class as it would be experienced if the game was more open like D&D? I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here, though I lean towards the latter, especially with the martial classes which cannot easily be defined by which school(s) of magic they learned.
Certainly I would say the rogue class is a lot broader than just assassins. They're not typically jailers, true, but it does encompass spies, thieves, pirates, ninjas, swindlers and crime lords. All of those do different things using the same basic skills. I.e. the class is united by its methodology (especially its use of stealth, agility and 'dishonourable' tactics) much more than its role in society. In that picture, Maiev being a jailer isn't a problem so long as she ticks the more fundamental boxes of what it is to be a rogue.
Since warden is not a playable class, insisting they rigidly follow characters' classes equates to not wanting Maiev as a hero portrait at all.
Yes she could be a priest based on her role during the War of the Ancients, but is a priestess of Elune really the same thing as the playable priest class? No. So Tyrande shouldn't be here either. Nor N'Zoth, Deathwing, Lady Vashj etc.
So she's fine as the nearest thing, which is a rogue.
I think all that really matters is that the rank spells all cost 2 or less. Any higher and you'd always wait 'til you have 5 mana, but going lower is perfectly reasonable. Besides, there are still 4 more rank spells to see, so at this point we don't know that mage is the only class whose rank spell doesn't cost 2.
In this case, because HS is built to only let you choose 1 target per effect, so the Rank 2 and 3 versions wouldn't work as targeted spells. The alternative is to hit the left- or right-most minions, but perhaps that would make it too trivial to play around.
You can argue over whether the limit to 1 chosen target should be changed, but that's an entirely separate matter.
There are lots of solid cards from the past it can be compared to, and even at 2 damage it still compares quite well. So at worst it is an OK card, and definitely not terrible.
I fully accept Pokemon is aimed at kids so you can't expect deep stories, but if you're going to insist on having villain teams they should be somewhat engaging, or at least convey what they're about. Team Plasma did it super well, since animal rights activists make so much sense in a world that revolves around making animals fight, so it is easy to believe Ghetsis could manipulate them with that facade. B2W2 also did a great job of showing how Team Plasma was truly torn on its ideals, and that many of them were genuinely trying to do the right thing.
How they went back to inane nonsense with Team Flare, having just got the nuance of a villain team spot on, I'll never know. No matter how hard they tried to sell it, fashion is not a good basis for a villain team, especially when that 'fashion' means putting on ugly orange suits :P
Anyway, the only reason I care so much about the story in these games is that long ago I set myself the challenge of using every single (non-legendary) Pokemon family in a team during the story and up to the E4. With team sizes ranging from 6 to 9, that meant going through the stories a lot of times. I finished all Pokemon in Gens 1-7 shortly before Gen 8 came out, but stopped there because I don't own a Switch (plus I have no desire to keep it up my whole life!).
In the absence of hero power synergy I very much doubt it, but it is really not as far off as it might seem. The value of using a hero power twice varies, but it summing to 1 mana is about right in most cases.
It probably won't be used competitively, but it's worth remembering that while the rogue hero power is really good, it is also actively detrimental if you have a proper weapon equipped and usually weak in the late game when you don't have the health to spare using it for removal. So rogue is definitely a class that would happily swap out its hero power for any other one sometimes.
The remakes have tended to mix in the 3rd game for story and mechanics, but not the wild Pokemon, so you're probably stuck with Chimchar and Ponyta for fire types sadly.
Having only played Diamond, could you give me some idea of just how much Platinum fixed? Because Diamond and Pearl have a LOT more problems than just having 2 fire types:
These are all little annoyances that can easily be fixed in the remakes though, if they weren't already fixed in Platinum. Certainly they had learned their lesson going into Black and White, which hasn't got a single one of those issues.
Yep. And I'm pretty sure the teaser zoomed in on a brown eye on the 20th March will be the rogue gnome.
I'm really just waiting on confirmation that Kurtrus Ashfallen is the DH merc before calling bingo on the whole thing :)
A dwarven hunter, a draenai priest, and a night elf(?) DH in Kurtrus? Things are looking pretty rosy for my mercenary predictions (mercenary-character-speculation), and those 3 were the least secure!
Competitive spirit still requires you to have at least 1 minion to trigger, so I assume it is not quite equivalent. Perhaps if DH gets a minion-buff sigil we'll be able to test it, but DH doesn't really buff minions so that's probably not likely.
Ouch. I'm feeling the burn on this one, but I don't know if it's the card or Flux's sass!
I'm not too worried about it looking unusual for a DH card - all classes expand their toolkit by doing something they didn't before - I'm just disappointed it means DH is joining the club of deathrattle classes specifically. The 2 classes DH is closest to, namely rogue and hunter, are already deathrattle classes, while warlock is a pseudo-deathrattle class due to the self-sacrifice stuff.
So what exactly is going to be novel about it? It feels like it would be so much more worthwhile to give DH something that rogue and hunter don't do, rather than making them even more similar.
Good point. After I wrote it I realised there would probably be a big BG patch before the mini-expansion. I almost never play BG and usually ignore its updates, hence why I forgot about it. I'm sure someone will point out I missed duels updates too, for much the same reason.
It's a good thing I covered myself by saying "it could be something sooner" :)
They didn't make it into patch 20.0, so no. I'd assume the "next major patch" will be the mini-set associated with the Barrens, but it could be something sooner.
Now I look at it, the first teaser image is actually a perfect match for Kazakus' belt, which has a bit too much going on for it to be coincidental. Maybe MSoG will have a sizable appearance after all.
Now my mind wonders back towards Iksar saying "We have the first version of a 'newer, cooler' cosmetic coming soon, so looking forward to seeing what people think." Tri-class hero portraits of Aya, Kazakus and/or Don Han'cho maybe? Man, what a slap in the face to us rogues it would be (again) if we finally get another non-Valeera hero, and have to share it with shaman and druid. I'm not sure if I'd be fuming or applauding the sheer audacity of it.
I noticed that too. Without something like the Jade Lotus around to motivate ninja murlocs, I'm not sure what Finja would be doing in the Barrens though. Perhaps some themes/characters are going to be present from Gadgetzan (which isn't too far away from the Barrens)? Or, since rogue doesn't need a specific reason to have a ninja character, maybe the time of murloc rogue is upon us?
The art looks like its just a small part of a larger image though, so it is likely a spell, meaning Finja might not return as a minion in its own right.
Oil is also used on Spectral Cutlass in Wild. Unless I'm forgetting something, weapons buffs aren't really used anywhere else because the other rogue decks either don't care much about weapons, e.g. mill, or use weapons primarily for their deathrattle, e.g. Necrium Blade. Plus if you are going to care about weapon buffs elsewhere, you have to ask yourself why you aren't using Kingsbane or Cutlass, and it's rare that there is a good answer to that.
Perhaps another appropriate comparison for NB Poison is Cold Blood, since it's base form is exactly the same and the immediate gain from triggering the effect is also the same (+2 attack) just on different things. Weapons buffs > minion buffs though, making the effect of NB Poison better than Cold Blood, so the fact it currently costs less doesn't make much sense, especially when Cold Blood isn't a bad card to begin with.
Tinker's Sharpsword Oil is the better comparison than Deadly Poison, and that card still holds up today in Wild. Given how well Nitroboost Poison compares to Oil, even at 2 mana, I don't doubt it would remain very strong at 2.
To be honest I never understood why 1-mana corrupt cards exist. Even in aggro decks it trivialises the corrupt condition so much that it doesn't really justify making them stronger than average cards once corrupted.
Fair enough. Since you're consistent with your opinions on out-of-class heroes I can't fault you :)
I think beneath it all is a question of how to define a class. Are the abilities in the Warcraft games enough, or does their design inherently pigeonhole players into narrow sub-sets of the wider class as it would be experienced if the game was more open like D&D? I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here, though I lean towards the latter, especially with the martial classes which cannot easily be defined by which school(s) of magic they learned.
Certainly I would say the rogue class is a lot broader than just assassins. They're not typically jailers, true, but it does encompass spies, thieves, pirates, ninjas, swindlers and crime lords. All of those do different things using the same basic skills. I.e. the class is united by its methodology (especially its use of stealth, agility and 'dishonourable' tactics) much more than its role in society. In that picture, Maiev being a jailer isn't a problem so long as she ticks the more fundamental boxes of what it is to be a rogue.
Since warden is not a playable class, insisting they rigidly follow characters' classes equates to not wanting Maiev as a hero portrait at all.
Yes she could be a priest based on her role during the War of the Ancients, but is a priestess of Elune really the same thing as the playable priest class? No. So Tyrande shouldn't be here either. Nor N'Zoth, Deathwing, Lady Vashj etc.
So she's fine as the nearest thing, which is a rogue.