I guess the test is how well the card currently performs in Galakrond warlock when up against decks that don't run demons. If it is actually still pretty good then making it only target friendly minions makes good sense. If it is bad even when you have a huge number of expendable 1/1 demon tokens, then perhaps the mana cost and inability to target Jaraxxus is best.
I'm sure HSreplay or similar sites could find an answer to that, though I haven't looked myself.
Sylvanas, Alleria and the other one are in the game, as either Hunter alt skins or legendary cards....
MURADIN is the only sibling I know who's missing from the Bronzebeard boys
There's Arthas' sister...
any other notable siblings I'm missing?
Maiev has a brother called Jarod, and Jaina has a brother Derek who is now undead sailor. Calia Menethil (Arthas' sister) could be an interesting priest.
I cannot think of any others to add to your list, unless you want to count all children of Cenarius as Lunara's siblings. So far as I know though, they all got along other than Illidan & Malfurion, and I suppose Vareesa doesn't much like Sylvanas anymore. So maybe Vareesa to finish the triad for hunter?
Edit: by the same logic Calia and Arthas weren't exactly on friendly terms in the end, so I'll second linkblade91's 'final answer' of Calia.
I'm going to analyse it way more than it is really worth doing, but hey, everyone is stuck at home and has time to kill these days. I also write this fully aware that the entire assumption of this thread might be wrong.
So I gave the purpose of hero skins some more thought and decided what we want is diversity across each of:
Race: Warcraft has plenty of cool races to use, and Hearthstone pushes them to the limit (e.g. how much was done with kobolds), but is only slowly creeping in the unorthodox races for heroes.
Currently rogue has a blood elf (Valeera) and a night elf (Maiev), so no more elves please!
Specialisation: some heroes fit some archetypes perfectly while others feel out of place commanding some decks (e.g. piloting a void-y, shadow priest with Madame Lazul or baby Anduin respectively).
The rogue class encompasses a wide range of roles from ninjas to pirates, petty criminals to secret agents, and thieves to assassins. It is probably much wider than any other class, so it doesn't help the fantasy that the 2 existing heroes are both sneaky lawful characters. At least Cap'n Valeera provides a pirate for those who have 1000 wins with the class.
Personality: everyone likes some heroes more than others (except OG Lord Jaraxxus; everyone likes him the best) and the emotes play a large part in that. I personally hate Garrosh's arrogance, so am glad to have Magni's friendliness to replace him.
Currently rogue has the silky smooth Valeera and the coarse Maiev, but both are reasonably courteous and well composed so there's plenty of room to explore here.
With them in mind, I'll split the existing rogue legendaries along each line, ultimately deciding who would be best by who does well in all categories. Note I don't consider how prominent they are in Warcraft lore because we all know that has little to do with it.
Split by race
There's a few humans in Edwin, Sonya and Tess, and I doubt there's much appetite for more human heroes. Hooktusk being a troll wouldn't be super novel, but I wouldn't say trolls have been overused either.
More interesting are the undead/forsaken (Lilian Voss, Myra Rotspring and Anka), kobolds (Togwaggle, Tak and Flik), broken/draenai (Akama and Hanar), goblin (Gallywix), pandaren (Aya Blackpaw), sha (Shaku) and mantid (Xaril).
There's also a few far-from humanoid legendaries (Anub'arak, Gral, Waxadred, Sherazin and Face Collector), which I'd love but doubt would happen.
Split by specialisation
We probably don't want any more sneaky rogues, so that's Tess, Voss, Akama and Sonya out. The spec.s of a few others are difficult to pin down (e.g. what do you call Sherazin), which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it would be good to actively cover known rogue roles since there's so many that still need filling. For this reason I guess Hooktusk is of the list too since technically we already have a pirate (though it is a lot of work for most players).
A notable trait is greed, seen in Gallywix, Togwaggle, Waxadred, and Shaku.
An overlapping group is that of criminal bosses (or similar), with Gallywix, Togwaggle, Aya and Edwin.
The other interesting pair are the poison/toxin makers: Xaril and Myra.
Split by personalities
I'll only mention those I actually know the personalities of and that would be sufficiently different to Valeera and Maiev to be interesting here.
The easy one: Togwaggle. Through his commentary of Dungeon Run, appearances throughout the Year of the Dragon and his glorious movie trailer (absolute perfection) he is easily one of Hearthstone's most prominent and goofy characters. Certainly a change from the more elegant and eloquent Valeera.
We know less about Hooktusk, but we do already have her in the game as a hero in Rumble Run and a trio Tavern Brawls, so we know her emotes and they are the perfect mix of confident, brash and cheeky that would serve the class well.
Aya Backpaw could be interesting as a younger, less restrained alternative. Her being the boss of a criminal organisation would no doubt lend itself to some unique emotes too.
Gallywix could also use some thug boss emotes. Also, it is about time there was a goblin hero to properly convey the side of the race about greed instead of inventions, and no one embodies that more than Gallywix does.
From Boom Labs we know Myra has taken her undeath to heart, and of course has an unhealthy obsession with poisons and death all-round (fitting for a deathrattle class).
Anub'arak and Akama both have grudges with their masters, having seen them desecrate their homes. I know they had large(ish) roles in WC3 and WoW, so I'm sure there's plenty to work from for their personalities. There is a similar amount to work from for Xaril too I believe, though I don't know it very deeply.
Conclusion
There's plenty of good choices, though a couple of the 'safe bets' (namely Togwaggle and Hooktusk) would probably have happened already if they were planned to. Of those remaining who ticked all my boxes I would bet most on Gallywix but frankly I'd be happy to have anyone representing a different aspect of the class than a sneaky elf does.
I'd love Captain Hooktusk. They already have emotes for her and the voice acting was brilliant. Sadly the fact she wouldn't be 'new' as a hero might make it less likely.
Re res priest: there are the spiritual successors to Weasel Tunneler res decks that aim to res the Albatross as many times as possible, so even res priest considers the card.
Did you survive long enough to see the Antaen wake up? I'd be interested to see if it took any damage from the attack, which should be retained in its dormant state.
As for whether it is intended or not, it is hard to say. Dormant rules clearly affect what can target and interact with them, and could be viewed as an extension to stealth. Since it is clearly intended that you can attack a stealth minion if it appears from Bamboozle I can picture a world where dormant behaves similarly, though I also have my doubts.
Anyone else thinks Ysiel should read "Your spells cannot cost more than (1)" ?
Because as it is it looks very difficult to get value out of it.
I think it is fine as it is; it just had the misfortune of being in the same set as Kael'thas Sunstrider, which is easier to use in a class that has lots of expensive and super cheap spells. I guess Ysiel doesn't require cheap spells in your deck so it has a place in different decks that way, but I admit I have struggled to find a place for her.
As it stands, she's a lot like Aviana was back in TGT before MSoG gave us Kun: she's fine as long as you get 1 big spell with her as she's basically a cheap 5/5 who's scary to leave up, but not enough to make a high tier deck out of.
After you play hs for 5 years, you are able to tell who is a good player and who is not. Winning games doesn't exactly mean you are a good player in hs nowadays, especially in wild. There are so many rng related scenarios that win you the game. An AI cannot possibly tell who is really as good as you. I could tell they weren't players who deserved legend. But that wasn't my point anyway, my point was: why have i not been facing legend players for about 25 matches straight?
I would not like facing legend players at rank 5 either too. The ladder should come gradually. Facing legend players every match at 5 is not fun.
Come on, it is rare you can tell how good a player is from a single game, regardless of what rank they are. There has to be a particularly technical and/or unorthodox play that ends up winning them the game to know they are good, or unjustifiable sloppy plays to know otherwise. Most games against competent players (who may or may not be legend worthy) just don't tell you enough to work from, especially at the start of an expansion when it takes time to learn what to expect, and doubly so when the 9 classes people have learned before have all but disappeared.
Returning to the main question, underlying it is the question of how you judge how good a player is. If you have the same MMR as someone else then by that measure you are about as good as them, no matter how arrogant you want to be about it. Of course all MMR calculations will be imperfect (win-rate based measures would underestimate a brilliant player who insists on playing tier 4 decks for example), and it seems to me your issues are with the MMR calc rather than the system using it. So I advise you try to come up with solutions there instead.
I am loving the new system - because 1) it's making the climb less of a grind, 2) the rewards are actually now rewarding enough to make the effort mean something, and 3) most importantly (to me) since it's "more forgiving" I'm seeing so many different, not hyper-refined-tier-1 decks throughout the climb.
The main reason I never played the ladder on the old system was I get so tired of facing the exact same 2 or 3 decks over and over and over, so Casual (GENERALLY) had greater variety and people willing to play fun or interesting decks. At least in the first week I'm not seeing that anymore, even as I get to the "more serious" leagues i.e. played a person yesterday on Gold 2 with a funky High Priestess Jeklik disco/buff deck featuring Deathwing. That's what I like to see and I am here for it.
My experience on point 3) is the exact opposite. I'm a meme player who stubbornly refuses to use decks I know are strong, so used to keep myself at the low-mid ranks (15-10) to better my odds of encountering non-meta decks. Like you this was about variety rather than preying on the weak.
The issue now is that my MMR is actually quite solid, getting 8x multiplier in both Wild and Standard, so I have only encountered the folks who traditionally made their way to rank 5 with meta decks. The frustrating part is that I cannot manipulate it by staying at low ranks any more. Now the system tells me I'm a good player and forces me to play against people who care about climbing the ladder, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I appreciate the additional end of month rewards I get with very little effort because the 8x multiplier makes is easy to reach Platinum 5 with a 30% win rate, but I play HS for the fun of variety not the rewards. So sadly, the new system is even more likely to push me into casual than the old one.
I personally suspect Kayn is over-rated and that he won't do as much as people expect, but I could be very wrong. If you like aggro then you'll probably like that side of Demon Hunter so go for it. Besides, he's bound to make you smile/laugh at least a few times, and if that comes at the expense of a Res priest then I fully support it.
Kargath does indeed seem like a good, solid reliable card that you can't go too far wrong with. Without Acolyte of Pain warrior card draw takes a hit though, so I would advise you to not dream too big about the prime card.
Yes... they did say that. But it was only there between the first and second nerfs of the deck, and that small amount of time was reduced further as it took time for people to return to the deck and think to try him out there.
Since rogue is one of the big card draw classes (alongside warlock and druid) the need to draw it twice isn't that concerning. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if trusty old Waxadred gets played alongside Akama to have two great reasons to run Stowaway even before considering more gimmicky shuffle cards.
Both avenues for rogue have a couple of gems in wild that didn't have the tools to work with before.
For secrets, Cheat Death is going to be a nightmare alongside Shadowjeweler Hanar, and simply having more secrets to work with makes the all available secret synergies more reliable.
For stealth, the MSoG stealth package provides a few more options. I'm particularly interested to see how a jade-deathrattle-stealth deck will pan out, especially as they are reliable targets for some of my all-time favourite cards: Unearthed Raptor, Shadowcaster and Sonya Shadowdancer. It's probably not super competitive but there's now enough to piece it together.
Well, ladder got a major overhaul 2 days ago giving more rewards, all card rarities now have duplicate protection, there's a new class available to play in a few days, and Leeroy and MCT are now in the Hall of Fame. So yes, it has improved, and certainly way better that it was during the Doom in the Tomb event from about 6 months ago *shudders*.
Whether all of that makes you enjoy the game or not you'll have to decide for yourself, but it is worth trying out again for sure.
Whether DH feels new and fun all rests on the 1 mana hero power and the outcast mechanic, because beyond that it doesn't do anything especially novel imo.
I personally don't expect to find the class that fun since it brings together all the parts of rogue and warlock I never liked much (aggro-tempo and big demon cheating respectively). But that's just me, and I understand them not starting the class off with the shenanigans I most enjoy in other classes.
The biggest difference between Blur and Time Out! is that the latter is active during your opponent's turn (when you would normally take the most damage), while Blur only protects you from damage taken on your own turn (normally from attacking things with your hero). In other words Blur is like a heal, but it does not guarantee you will live 'til your next turn.
The difference with freezing ends up practically non-existent, since the minions with freeze effects normally have to deal damage to freeze, so attacking them and taking 0 damage prevents that problem (I assume).
It should work fine, just like with legendaries in the past. As with legendaries though, unless you're determined to have them golden there isn't much reason to craft them until you have finished opening your (day 1) packs.
Just wanted to check. You only get one of the decks, correct?
I'm a little torn about arrangements like this. On one hand it provides returning players with an incentive, on the other hand, why wouldn't FTP players just unpack their packs day 1, play a little, then go on a 4 month hibernation just so they can get the free cards? Some of the legendaries do look very very good.
You only get 1 yes.
As for your apparent concern: if people enjoy the game enough to want to bother exploiting this, they are surely better off actually playing the game and generating resources the old fashioned way. Else the cards serve no purpose.
I guess the test is how well the card currently performs in Galakrond warlock when up against decks that don't run demons. If it is actually still pretty good then making it only target friendly minions makes good sense. If it is bad even when you have a huge number of expendable 1/1 demon tokens, then perhaps the mana cost and inability to target Jaraxxus is best.
I'm sure HSreplay or similar sites could find an answer to that, though I haven't looked myself.
Maiev has a brother called Jarod, and Jaina has a brother Derek who is now undead sailor. Calia Menethil (Arthas' sister) could be an interesting priest.
I cannot think of any others to add to your list, unless you want to count all children of Cenarius as Lunara's siblings. So far as I know though, they all got along other than Illidan & Malfurion, and I suppose Vareesa doesn't much like Sylvanas anymore. So maybe Vareesa to finish the triad for hunter?
Edit: by the same logic Calia and Arthas weren't exactly on friendly terms in the end, so I'll second linkblade91's 'final answer' of Calia.
I'm going to analyse it way more than it is really worth doing, but hey, everyone is stuck at home and has time to kill these days. I also write this fully aware that the entire assumption of this thread might be wrong.
So I gave the purpose of hero skins some more thought and decided what we want is diversity across each of:
With them in mind, I'll split the existing rogue legendaries along each line, ultimately deciding who would be best by who does well in all categories. Note I don't consider how prominent they are in Warcraft lore because we all know that has little to do with it.
Split by race
There's a few humans in Edwin, Sonya and Tess, and I doubt there's much appetite for more human heroes. Hooktusk being a troll wouldn't be super novel, but I wouldn't say trolls have been overused either.
More interesting are the undead/forsaken (Lilian Voss, Myra Rotspring and Anka), kobolds (Togwaggle, Tak and Flik), broken/draenai (Akama and Hanar), goblin (Gallywix), pandaren (Aya Blackpaw), sha (Shaku) and mantid (Xaril).
There's also a few far-from humanoid legendaries (Anub'arak, Gral, Waxadred, Sherazin and Face Collector), which I'd love but doubt would happen.
Split by specialisation
We probably don't want any more sneaky rogues, so that's Tess, Voss, Akama and Sonya out. The spec.s of a few others are difficult to pin down (e.g. what do you call Sherazin), which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it would be good to actively cover known rogue roles since there's so many that still need filling. For this reason I guess Hooktusk is of the list too since technically we already have a pirate (though it is a lot of work for most players).
A notable trait is greed, seen in Gallywix, Togwaggle, Waxadred, and Shaku.
An overlapping group is that of criminal bosses (or similar), with Gallywix, Togwaggle, Aya and Edwin.
The other interesting pair are the poison/toxin makers: Xaril and Myra.
Split by personalities
I'll only mention those I actually know the personalities of and that would be sufficiently different to Valeera and Maiev to be interesting here.
The easy one: Togwaggle. Through his commentary of Dungeon Run, appearances throughout the Year of the Dragon and his glorious movie trailer (absolute perfection) he is easily one of Hearthstone's most prominent and goofy characters. Certainly a change from the more elegant and eloquent Valeera.
We know less about Hooktusk, but we do already have her in the game as a hero in Rumble Run and a trio Tavern Brawls, so we know her emotes and they are the perfect mix of confident, brash and cheeky that would serve the class well.
Aya Backpaw could be interesting as a younger, less restrained alternative. Her being the boss of a criminal organisation would no doubt lend itself to some unique emotes too.
Gallywix could also use some thug boss emotes. Also, it is about time there was a goblin hero to properly convey the side of the race about greed instead of inventions, and no one embodies that more than Gallywix does.
From Boom Labs we know Myra has taken her undeath to heart, and of course has an unhealthy obsession with poisons and death all-round (fitting for a deathrattle class).
Anub'arak and Akama both have grudges with their masters, having seen them desecrate their homes. I know they had large(ish) roles in WC3 and WoW, so I'm sure there's plenty to work from for their personalities. There is a similar amount to work from for Xaril too I believe, though I don't know it very deeply.
Conclusion
There's plenty of good choices, though a couple of the 'safe bets' (namely Togwaggle and Hooktusk) would probably have happened already if they were planned to. Of those remaining who ticked all my boxes I would bet most on Gallywix but frankly I'd be happy to have anyone representing a different aspect of the class than a sneaky elf does.
I'd love Captain Hooktusk. They already have emotes for her and the voice acting was brilliant. Sadly the fact she wouldn't be 'new' as a hero might make it less likely.
Re res priest: there are the spiritual successors to Weasel Tunneler res decks that aim to res the Albatross as many times as possible, so even res priest considers the card.
Did you survive long enough to see the Antaen wake up? I'd be interested to see if it took any damage from the attack, which should be retained in its dormant state.
As for whether it is intended or not, it is hard to say. Dormant rules clearly affect what can target and interact with them, and could be viewed as an extension to stealth. Since it is clearly intended that you can attack a stealth minion if it appears from Bamboozle I can picture a world where dormant behaves similarly, though I also have my doubts.
I think it is fine as it is; it just had the misfortune of being in the same set as Kael'thas Sunstrider, which is easier to use in a class that has lots of expensive and super cheap spells. I guess Ysiel doesn't require cheap spells in your deck so it has a place in different decks that way, but I admit I have struggled to find a place for her.
As it stands, she's a lot like Aviana was back in TGT before MSoG gave us Kun: she's fine as long as you get 1 big spell with her as she's basically a cheap 5/5 who's scary to leave up, but not enough to make a high tier deck out of.
Come on, it is rare you can tell how good a player is from a single game, regardless of what rank they are. There has to be a particularly technical and/or unorthodox play that ends up winning them the game to know they are good, or unjustifiable sloppy plays to know otherwise. Most games against competent players (who may or may not be legend worthy) just don't tell you enough to work from, especially at the start of an expansion when it takes time to learn what to expect, and doubly so when the 9 classes people have learned before have all but disappeared.
Returning to the main question, underlying it is the question of how you judge how good a player is. If you have the same MMR as someone else then by that measure you are about as good as them, no matter how arrogant you want to be about it. Of course all MMR calculations will be imperfect (win-rate based measures would underestimate a brilliant player who insists on playing tier 4 decks for example), and it seems to me your issues are with the MMR calc rather than the system using it. So I advise you try to come up with solutions there instead.
My experience on point 3) is the exact opposite. I'm a meme player who stubbornly refuses to use decks I know are strong, so used to keep myself at the low-mid ranks (15-10) to better my odds of encountering non-meta decks. Like you this was about variety rather than preying on the weak.
The issue now is that my MMR is actually quite solid, getting 8x multiplier in both Wild and Standard, so I have only encountered the folks who traditionally made their way to rank 5 with meta decks. The frustrating part is that I cannot manipulate it by staying at low ranks any more. Now the system tells me I'm a good player and forces me to play against people who care about climbing the ladder, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I appreciate the additional end of month rewards I get with very little effort because the 8x multiplier makes is easy to reach Platinum 5 with a 30% win rate, but I play HS for the fun of variety not the rewards. So sadly, the new system is even more likely to push me into casual than the old one.
Maiev is probably a very safe craft.
I personally suspect Kayn is over-rated and that he won't do as much as people expect, but I could be very wrong. If you like aggro then you'll probably like that side of Demon Hunter so go for it. Besides, he's bound to make you smile/laugh at least a few times, and if that comes at the expense of a Res priest then I fully support it.
Kargath does indeed seem like a good, solid reliable card that you can't go too far wrong with. Without Acolyte of Pain warrior card draw takes a hit though, so I would advise you to not dream too big about the prime card.
Yes... they did say that. But it was only there between the first and second nerfs of the deck, and that small amount of time was reduced further as it took time for people to return to the deck and think to try him out there.
Since rogue is one of the big card draw classes (alongside warlock and druid) the need to draw it twice isn't that concerning. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if trusty old Waxadred gets played alongside Akama to have two great reasons to run Stowaway even before considering more gimmicky shuffle cards.
Both avenues for rogue have a couple of gems in wild that didn't have the tools to work with before.
For secrets, Cheat Death is going to be a nightmare alongside Shadowjeweler Hanar, and simply having more secrets to work with makes the all available secret synergies more reliable.
For stealth, the MSoG stealth package provides a few more options. I'm particularly interested to see how a jade-deathrattle-stealth deck will pan out, especially as they are reliable targets for some of my all-time favourite cards: Unearthed Raptor, Shadowcaster and Sonya Shadowdancer. It's probably not super competitive but there's now enough to piece it together.
Well, ladder got a major overhaul 2 days ago giving more rewards, all card rarities now have duplicate protection, there's a new class available to play in a few days, and Leeroy and MCT are now in the Hall of Fame. So yes, it has improved, and certainly way better that it was during the Doom in the Tomb event from about 6 months ago *shudders*.
Whether all of that makes you enjoy the game or not you'll have to decide for yourself, but it is worth trying out again for sure.
Whether DH feels new and fun all rests on the 1 mana hero power and the outcast mechanic, because beyond that it doesn't do anything especially novel imo.
I personally don't expect to find the class that fun since it brings together all the parts of rogue and warlock I never liked much (aggro-tempo and big demon cheating respectively). But that's just me, and I understand them not starting the class off with the shenanigans I most enjoy in other classes.
The biggest difference between Blur and Time Out! is that the latter is active during your opponent's turn (when you would normally take the most damage), while Blur only protects you from damage taken on your own turn (normally from attacking things with your hero). In other words Blur is like a heal, but it does not guarantee you will live 'til your next turn.
The difference with freezing ends up practically non-existent, since the minions with freeze effects normally have to deal damage to freeze, so attacking them and taking 0 damage prevents that problem (I assume).
I doubt the game would show it anywhere. You could write it down yourself if you want it recorded somewhere.
It should work fine, just like with legendaries in the past. As with legendaries though, unless you're determined to have them golden there isn't much reason to craft them until you have finished opening your (day 1) packs.
I chuckled when I imagined Palutena saying it, but I don't know if it was actually intended as a Kid Icarus reference or not.
You only get 1 yes.
As for your apparent concern: if people enjoy the game enough to want to bother exploiting this, they are surely better off actually playing the game and generating resources the old fashioned way. Else the cards serve no purpose.