It's a noble goal and you cannot fault them for trying (until it likely fails and people complain about a lack of refunds I suppose).
Perhaps the real loss is that they might never print any cards that are designed to be bad (e.g. Magma Rager, Majordomo Executus and Desert Obelisk). There are plenty of complaints people throw at the HS design and balance teams, but 'not supplying cards for the meme players' is not one of them.
Sure HS positioned itself at the meme end of the card game market and LoR much less so, but these cards are pretty much free wins for the devs because you know someone will like them no matter how underpowered they are.
Shudderwock - one of the most degenerated cards ever printed. Most of the times you either draw it or lose it, which feels terribly bad. I can't even say "go rot in Wild", cause this fucker is even more stupid over there. Seriously, this is my argument against all the people that keep saying "I love Ben Brode, when he was at Blizz things were much funnier". No.
In fairness it was Brode who argued against Shudderwock because of its interaction with Grumble. Running the show =/= complete control over everything. I'm also happy to see Shudderwock leave though.
Anyway, I won't really miss much because I play Wild as much as Standard. If anything I'm looking forward to lots of the frustrating cards cycling out and seeing very little play in Wild so I can finally use them without feeling dirty.
That really just leaves Whizbang, who doesn't benefit at all from the larger pool of options in Wild, making it harder to get some wins with him there. If there is ever a card to promote to the Classic set it is him, and I suppose we'll finally have an answer on whether the devs intend to do this soon.
I played Pokemon way too much, and Shuckle is one of my favourites. I love how stupidly polarised its stats are (insane defenses, terrible everything else), and liked the idea that even if it gets angry it is so pathetic at attacking that it cannot really do anything about it (the move 'power trick' notwithstanding).
I use the username as a reminder that no matter how angry I could get playing HS, I cannot do anything about whatever caused it, and nor can it actually do anything meaningful to me.
Then I made it super nerdy by using the nickname of the gift Shuckle from Cianwood city in Gold and Silver. 'Shuckie' is so thinly veiled that anyone who knows the Pokemon will know what I meant, and anyone equally nerdy as me will know what I really meant.
To my belief right now, I feel they are a big part of contribution to the powercreep, as they might be important enough to stay on the same level with other high value cards (like hero cards and others).
A 2 mana 3/4 with even a Rush is acceptable nowadays, and I haven't seen anybody (and myself) whine about it. Some cards also basically holding a package of many cards in it, like hero cards, a card attached with discovery mechanic, and more. Currently with the new cards we have, they now got a lot of value as almost twice as the vanilla and old cards. Not all of rush minions are that, but very close.
So now I don't really know what Blizzard are going to do when rush mechanic becomes part of the game now, as the powercreeps demands more strong overall cards, with having high stat points or a value generators, that's my concern.
I do heard they want to avoid high powercreeps (stated when they done some recent nerfs this year, if I remember correctly), but I doubt they're going to avoid that.
The only 2 mana 3/4 rush I can think of is Underbelly Fence, which has a condition that is rarely met on turn 2 and requires a low tempo card to have been played before it. If it was an unconditional 3/4 with rush people would not be OK with it.
I'm not saying rush minions haven't brought with them some level of power creep (all types of cards have when Blizz is trying to push an archetype), but it is not so great as your comment implies.
He's an auto-include in minion-based Aggro-Tempo decks.
If the meta is Aggro-Tempo oriented, Leeroy becomes popular.
Either way, about sheer popularity, Zilliax is far more obnoxious. In Wild too. Now THAT is a card that is truly everywhere, with very few exceptions.
Agreed, Leeroy comes in and out of fashion a bit. I guess by having the highest burst output in a single card in most of these decks, and often being the thing to finish you off, it is not surprising he becomes the focus of complaints. I'm not personally calling for him to be sent to the HoF, but I do wonder whether it is good design for the highest burst damage card for most classes (ignoring combos) to be neutral.
Compare that to Zilliax, who is so commonly played yet so rarely complained about. I guess it does so much stuff that it is always useful, but it does this at the cost of stats, so it isn't crazy strong at the one or two relevant things it does in any given instance. Hence it is rare you feel cheated when it is played against you. Plus it was always destined to rotate out of standard, making people more tolerant of it.
These discussions are always biased by the state of the game at the end of each year, which is why calls for HoF'ing different cards come in and out of 'fashion'. Remember when Gadgetzan Auctioneer was near the top of most people's lists? Right now Malygos isn't a concern for very many people, but it certainly was last year and I could understand them considering him.
The only card I actually see going though is Divine Spirit, or maybe Inner Fire which is possibly easier to justify since priest is naturally associated with health buffs more than attack buffs. DS is probably the bigger limit on design space however, especially since swapping stats is a priest thing and Crazed Alchemist is in the Classic set anyway, so .DS is by far the better target.
Like many other people I'd be quite happy for a complete priest overhaul in Basic and Classic, but what that would mean for the HoF is a little unclear. It may also be something where we have to be careful what we wish for (I don't want a single resurrection card in priest's evergreen sets, ever!).
They absolutely should have been made a bit more difficult since I've done most of them with my default burgle rogue deck.
With such a large pool of wild cards I can understand things being easier than they were with Naxx and BRM, even if the bosses are objectively a similar difficulty (they may not be!). I wonder how people who have only been playing for about a year feel, since their collections will be comparable to mine back at the early adventures.
Perhaps Blizz should reuse the Lich King model, and impose real deck building restrictions, ideally as restrictions at the deck building stage (we know the technology is there because some tavern brawls have done this). All it would require is storing a deck at the encounter itself rather than using one of our normal 18 (again tavern brawls already do this). A cruder version is to only allow certain classes which might find things less trivial, e.g. you have to survive against the dragons with hunter so no endless freeze shenanigans.
I suppose we could technically impose these restrictions on ourselves, but people don't work that way. They want a challenge, but also take the easiest route.
I don't know about obtaining them as rewards. Perhaps a good check would be whether anyone ever got adventure cards as rewards years ago for past adventures. I don't recall seeing that ever happen.
Certainly the new cards can be drafted and played before they are obtainable, so maybe someone mis-read that and spread misinformation that way?
In any case, the number of arenas you would have to do to have a tiny chance of getting them makes it a horribly inefficient way to get them, especially if you aren't normally an arena player. Better just to spend the gold on the adventure at that point.
At least with playing arena i would have a different experience every time playing it. More value from it than buying the thing i'd only play once
Sure, and you get the usual rewards too. But I would assume you would already play arena quite a bit if you considered that the best use of your gold.
If you don't consider 150 gold to be worth it normally, the tiny (and I do mean tiny because it is from a pool of ALL standard cards, and most of the time you don't get an individual card in the rewards) chance of getting an adventure card as a reward is unlikely to change that.
I don't know about obtaining them as rewards. Perhaps a good check would be whether anyone ever got adventure cards as rewards years ago for past adventures. I don't recall seeing that ever happen.
Certainly the new cards can be drafted and played before they are obtainable, so maybe someone mis-read that and spread misinformation that way?
In any case, the number of arenas you would have to do to have a tiny chance of getting them makes it a horribly inefficient way to get them, especially if you aren't normally an arena player. Better just to spend the gold on the adventure at that point.
In standard, unnerfed Galakrond shaman might well be it. It is certainly not the only time a deck/class has been completely dominant, but it was the only time I have ever chosen to avoid playing the game for a couple of weeks, and that was at the start of an expansion when I should have been making the most of all the new cards and an unrefined, diverse meta.
As DoubleSummon said, it is now a rule for echo cards. I am pretty sure it doesn't affect the original card though, so for future reference you will want to use Prep on the first use of Cheap Shot instead of the last.
Crafted 3 epics yesterday, 2cmana cyclones and a plague of murlocs for elemage and control shaman respectably, needlessly to say Both decks suck.
Thanks blizzard for being able to test decks cheaply.. Oh wait.
If you want to test decks cheaply, let other people do it for you then craft cards if the deck is found to be good. Or if it is an option you can get a friend to make the deck, then use that deck in games against them.
Asking to be able to test everything cheaply yourself is asking for a lot more than your off-hand comment makes it sound. If you can come up with a way to do it that both lets you test against the meta and doesn't decimate Blizzard's profits (they justifiably wouldn't do it if it did), then you should let them know.
Anyway, I play exclusively meme/low power decks, so either everything I craft is a bad idea or nothing is. Though I'm pretty sure Bolf Ramshield qualifies as a truly bad idea. I don't remember what the plan was, but I know it didn't even meet my low low expectations.
It would be an interesting way to help new collectors out with Wild packs, as it is much more efficient for getting commons when it takes 3 times as long before you are only getting duplicates (aka 5 dust).
I cannot think of any other great uses for grouping multiple sets, but it does open up a world of possibilities if they want to take them. Perhaps tribal packs where all the cards are elementals, or pirates etc, along with associated synergy cards. I doubt they would do it but it would be an interesting option for the people who would love to play those decks but just don't have the means to make them.
I like this one. Rogues have always problems to find a good play on t2 without the coin and usually end up hero powering, which is kinda awkward, if the opponent have >1 hp minion on his side of the board already. So, I can see this fit in some decks.
It's the other way around, because rogue has a hero power which is good early game (and mostly early game) it can afford to hero power on 2 with no significant drawback as such rogues generally don't run 2 drops and don't actually need them.. if you look at the rogue 2 cost cards it's generally some cards you don't want to play on 2 (sap/eviscerate/zephyrs).
So I don't think rogue is in need for 2 cost cards for curve purposes..
With the discover mechanic getting nerfed so hard it no longer a consistent mechanic when you want to play specific things like for example.. toggwaggle if the 400% chance to get class cards was still in effect this card would be insane.
I understand what you are saying, but I, personally, don't like just hero powering - I prefer to play something, progress towards my goal in the game (and "usually" hero powering doesn't get me there). I liked Inspire for example, I like Jan'Alai, Baku warrior and different Quest decks where you goal is to actually hero power. But hero powering just because you don't have anything to do - is a sign of weakness for me. Again, it's just my personal preference :).
The beauty of the rogue hero power is it gives you a weapon that sits around until you want to use it. Often there is nothing good to poke on turn 2, but maybe you're wishing you have an extra 1 damage on turn 4, and then again on turn 6. In that case you're happy you pressed the button on turn 2 and you don't have to mess up your curve on turns 4 and 6.
In any case, you expect to use the hero power at some point in almost every game with every class. Rogue just has the luxury of doing it preemptively on turn 2 rather than needing to do it reactively (unlike like mage or druid), and knowing it has a good chance of being useful eventually (unlike all classes other than warlock. It is no coincidence the rogue and warlock hero powers are usually considered the two strongest).
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For the record I like the card too, and agree it makes a solid turn 2 play because it means you probably cheat out something 2 turns early later on which can easily make up for a slow turn 2. But I doubt people actually play it in competitive decks, partly because a hero power turn 2 isn't awkward at all in rogue.
Personally, I think it should have been worded as “Deathrattle: Give a friendly minion Attack equal to this minion’s Attack” in order to be a lot clearer. This would still be fairly short but more in line with how other cards are worded and the effect would be immediately obviou
That sounds no less ambiguous to me. However, I think the key thing is neither wording uses the word 'set', which would be the norm if it was to, well, set the attack rather than provide a buff.
I expect Reno and the Fist of Ra-Den were just cards they really wanted to make, and since they are no harder to obtain than commons they could mix up rarities across classes without it making any meaningful inequality. I.e. the strength of the cards matters far more than the colour of the gem.
Personally I'm more interested in how they distributed the other rarities, which I imagine was primarily to guide how frequently they appear in the Arena.
As for whether they are worth $20, that depends on lots of things: how good they end up being (currently we can only guess for most of them); how likely you are to make use of the weaker ones; how much expendable income you have to spend on it; and how much you enjoy the adventure itself.
I tick enough boxes to know it will be worth it for me, but I cannot really answer for you.
I'M not sure I understand how it works. Does it buff a random minion with its attack or does it change a friendly minions attack to whatever it had at the time of death?
I would assume it is meant as a positive deathrattle, so it will be a buff of +(this minion's attack). I guess the possibility that it has more than 2 attack at the time of death makes it difficult to word with a clear, unambiguous + sign present. At least, not without it being clunky like my own attempt above, which I agree with the devs is OK reason to choose ambiguous wording in a digital card game (though I know others disagree).
Generalising a few comments above: it is good if you want a pirate to stick around (and if that is the aim a 1/3 can be better than a 3/1 even with stealth). That doesn't currently do too much in standard, but I have a long history with Shady Dealer so can see the potential in wild. It is also a nice reliable target for Shadow Sensei, Plague Scientist or Plaguebringer, Cold Blood or Crazed Chemist etc.
I doubt it is going to make it into competitive decks, but for anyone who wants to play around with the buff cards available to rogue it is a solid option, and its deathrattle means you won't be sad if it dies.
Atiesh and Sword of Justice both say it. It is there because weapons only normally lose durability if you attack, but these ones are designed to have a set number of effects.
It's a noble goal and you cannot fault them for trying (until it likely fails and people complain about a lack of refunds I suppose).
Perhaps the real loss is that they might never print any cards that are designed to be bad (e.g. Magma Rager, Majordomo Executus and Desert Obelisk). There are plenty of complaints people throw at the HS design and balance teams, but 'not supplying cards for the meme players' is not one of them.
Sure HS positioned itself at the meme end of the card game market and LoR much less so, but these cards are pretty much free wins for the devs because you know someone will like them no matter how underpowered they are.
In fairness it was Brode who argued against Shudderwock because of its interaction with Grumble. Running the show =/= complete control over everything. I'm also happy to see Shudderwock leave though.
Anyway, I won't really miss much because I play Wild as much as Standard. If anything I'm looking forward to lots of the frustrating cards cycling out and seeing very little play in Wild so I can finally use them without feeling dirty.
That really just leaves Whizbang, who doesn't benefit at all from the larger pool of options in Wild, making it harder to get some wins with him there. If there is ever a card to promote to the Classic set it is him, and I suppose we'll finally have an answer on whether the devs intend to do this soon.
I played Pokemon way too much, and Shuckle is one of my favourites. I love how stupidly polarised its stats are (insane defenses, terrible everything else), and liked the idea that even if it gets angry it is so pathetic at attacking that it cannot really do anything about it (the move 'power trick' notwithstanding).
I use the username as a reminder that no matter how angry I could get playing HS, I cannot do anything about whatever caused it, and nor can it actually do anything meaningful to me.
Then I made it super nerdy by using the nickname of the gift Shuckle from Cianwood city in Gold and Silver. 'Shuckie' is so thinly veiled that anyone who knows the Pokemon will know what I meant, and anyone equally nerdy as me will know what I really meant.
The only 2 mana 3/4 rush I can think of is Underbelly Fence, which has a condition that is rarely met on turn 2 and requires a low tempo card to have been played before it. If it was an unconditional 3/4 with rush people would not be OK with it.
I'm not saying rush minions haven't brought with them some level of power creep (all types of cards have when Blizz is trying to push an archetype), but it is not so great as your comment implies.
Agreed, Leeroy comes in and out of fashion a bit. I guess by having the highest burst output in a single card in most of these decks, and often being the thing to finish you off, it is not surprising he becomes the focus of complaints. I'm not personally calling for him to be sent to the HoF, but I do wonder whether it is good design for the highest burst damage card for most classes (ignoring combos) to be neutral.
Compare that to Zilliax, who is so commonly played yet so rarely complained about. I guess it does so much stuff that it is always useful, but it does this at the cost of stats, so it isn't crazy strong at the one or two relevant things it does in any given instance. Hence it is rare you feel cheated when it is played against you. Plus it was always destined to rotate out of standard, making people more tolerant of it.
These discussions are always biased by the state of the game at the end of each year, which is why calls for HoF'ing different cards come in and out of 'fashion'. Remember when Gadgetzan Auctioneer was near the top of most people's lists? Right now Malygos isn't a concern for very many people, but it certainly was last year and I could understand them considering him.
The only card I actually see going though is Divine Spirit, or maybe Inner Fire which is possibly easier to justify since priest is naturally associated with health buffs more than attack buffs. DS is probably the bigger limit on design space however, especially since swapping stats is a priest thing and Crazed Alchemist is in the Classic set anyway, so .DS is by far the better target.
Like many other people I'd be quite happy for a complete priest overhaul in Basic and Classic, but what that would mean for the HoF is a little unclear. It may also be something where we have to be careful what we wish for (I don't want a single resurrection card in priest's evergreen sets, ever!).
They absolutely should have been made a bit more difficult since I've done most of them with my default burgle rogue deck.
With such a large pool of wild cards I can understand things being easier than they were with Naxx and BRM, even if the bosses are objectively a similar difficulty (they may not be!). I wonder how people who have only been playing for about a year feel, since their collections will be comparable to mine back at the early adventures.
Perhaps Blizz should reuse the Lich King model, and impose real deck building restrictions, ideally as restrictions at the deck building stage (we know the technology is there because some tavern brawls have done this). All it would require is storing a deck at the encounter itself rather than using one of our normal 18 (again tavern brawls already do this). A cruder version is to only allow certain classes which might find things less trivial, e.g. you have to survive against the dragons with hunter so no endless freeze shenanigans.
I suppose we could technically impose these restrictions on ourselves, but people don't work that way. They want a challenge, but also take the easiest route.
Sure, and you get the usual rewards too. But I would assume you would already play arena quite a bit if you considered that the best use of your gold.
If you don't consider 150 gold to be worth it normally, the tiny (and I do mean tiny because it is from a pool of ALL standard cards, and most of the time you don't get an individual card in the rewards) chance of getting an adventure card as a reward is unlikely to change that.
I don't know about obtaining them as rewards. Perhaps a good check would be whether anyone ever got adventure cards as rewards years ago for past adventures. I don't recall seeing that ever happen.
Certainly the new cards can be drafted and played before they are obtainable, so maybe someone mis-read that and spread misinformation that way?
In any case, the number of arenas you would have to do to have a tiny chance of getting them makes it a horribly inefficient way to get them, especially if you aren't normally an arena player. Better just to spend the gold on the adventure at that point.
In standard, unnerfed Galakrond shaman might well be it. It is certainly not the only time a deck/class has been completely dominant, but it was the only time I have ever chosen to avoid playing the game for a couple of weeks, and that was at the start of an expansion when I should have been making the most of all the new cards and an unrefined, diverse meta.
As DoubleSummon said, it is now a rule for echo cards. I am pretty sure it doesn't affect the original card though, so for future reference you will want to use Prep on the first use of Cheap Shot instead of the last.
If you want to test decks cheaply, let other people do it for you then craft cards if the deck is found to be good. Or if it is an option you can get a friend to make the deck, then use that deck in games against them.
Asking to be able to test everything cheaply yourself is asking for a lot more than your off-hand comment makes it sound. If you can come up with a way to do it that both lets you test against the meta and doesn't decimate Blizzard's profits (they justifiably wouldn't do it if it did), then you should let them know.
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Anyway, I play exclusively meme/low power decks, so either everything I craft is a bad idea or nothing is. Though I'm pretty sure Bolf Ramshield qualifies as a truly bad idea. I don't remember what the plan was, but I know it didn't even meet my low low expectations.
It would be an interesting way to help new collectors out with Wild packs, as it is much more efficient for getting commons when it takes 3 times as long before you are only getting duplicates (aka 5 dust).
I cannot think of any other great uses for grouping multiple sets, but it does open up a world of possibilities if they want to take them. Perhaps tribal packs where all the cards are elementals, or pirates etc, along with associated synergy cards. I doubt they would do it but it would be an interesting option for the people who would love to play those decks but just don't have the means to make them.
The beauty of the rogue hero power is it gives you a weapon that sits around until you want to use it. Often there is nothing good to poke on turn 2, but maybe you're wishing you have an extra 1 damage on turn 4, and then again on turn 6. In that case you're happy you pressed the button on turn 2 and you don't have to mess up your curve on turns 4 and 6.
In any case, you expect to use the hero power at some point in almost every game with every class. Rogue just has the luxury of doing it preemptively on turn 2 rather than needing to do it reactively (unlike like mage or druid), and knowing it has a good chance of being useful eventually (unlike all classes other than warlock. It is no coincidence the rogue and warlock hero powers are usually considered the two strongest).
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For the record I like the card too, and agree it makes a solid turn 2 play because it means you probably cheat out something 2 turns early later on which can easily make up for a slow turn 2. But I doubt people actually play it in competitive decks, partly because a hero power turn 2 isn't awkward at all in rogue.
That sounds no less ambiguous to me. However, I think the key thing is neither wording uses the word 'set', which would be the norm if it was to, well, set the attack rather than provide a buff.
I expect Reno and the Fist of Ra-Den were just cards they really wanted to make, and since they are no harder to obtain than commons they could mix up rarities across classes without it making any meaningful inequality. I.e. the strength of the cards matters far more than the colour of the gem.
Personally I'm more interested in how they distributed the other rarities, which I imagine was primarily to guide how frequently they appear in the Arena.
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As for whether they are worth $20, that depends on lots of things: how good they end up being (currently we can only guess for most of them); how likely you are to make use of the weaker ones; how much expendable income you have to spend on it; and how much you enjoy the adventure itself.
I tick enough boxes to know it will be worth it for me, but I cannot really answer for you.
I would assume it is meant as a positive deathrattle, so it will be a buff of +(this minion's attack). I guess the possibility that it has more than 2 attack at the time of death makes it difficult to word with a clear, unambiguous + sign present. At least, not without it being clunky like my own attempt above, which I agree with the devs is OK reason to choose ambiguous wording in a digital card game (though I know others disagree).
Generalising a few comments above: it is good if you want a pirate to stick around (and if that is the aim a 1/3 can be better than a 3/1 even with stealth). That doesn't currently do too much in standard, but I have a long history with Shady Dealer so can see the potential in wild. It is also a nice reliable target for Shadow Sensei, Plague Scientist or Plaguebringer, Cold Blood or Crazed Chemist etc.
I doubt it is going to make it into competitive decks, but for anyone who wants to play around with the buff cards available to rogue it is a solid option, and its deathrattle means you won't be sad if it dies.
Atiesh and Sword of Justice both say it. It is there because weapons only normally lose durability if you attack, but these ones are designed to have a set number of effects.
Oh no! Sharkbait lost a foot?! I hadn't noticed his WoW model had a hook too. He was fine during TGT and I know I was looking after him.