Is there an issue where the site sometimes doesn't recognise Patreon supporters? I became a supporter right at the end of November, and Patreon took my second payment on 1st January, more than 30 days after the first. Premium hasn't been active since the 30 days passed, despite still being linked to my paying Patreon account.
I don't mind the ads so I am quite happy to live with them (and give you a little extra revenue through them), but this probably wants looking into nonetheless.
Please explain why it costing 5 would destroy the card. Even at 5 I would expect it to be above the usual power level.
On a broader matter, I agree that something being part of class identity should allow overtuned cards of that type in the class. But that should not mean we accept it when something as high-roll-y as Necrium Apothecary comes along, especially after years of complaints aimed at Barnes were finally acted on.
It is always a bit tricky to pin down the bigger problem when a new card comes out and does broken things with a card that has been perfectly fine for ages. In the case of Aviana + Kun the Forgotten King + (anything you like) we had last year, it was deemed to be the fault of Aviana despite her being fine for years.
In this case however, I think it is obvious the Apothecary is the problem. Why? Because even without deathrattle triggers it is above the usual power level, and at an early enough turn that answers are limited. Sure you have to combo it, but a 4 mana 2/5 which draws a specific card and gains a huge deathrattle is way beyond anything similar at the same mana cost. Heck you can even say it is better than Seeping Oozeling since it also draws the card, and that costs 2 more!
"Blizzard pushed out another round of card nerfs for the year, this time focusing on nerfing previously buffed cards in the Boomsday Buff patch and some problematic cards, including one hellraiser from Wild, Barnes.
This was the first time Blizzard nerfed a wild-only card showcasing they do pay some attention to the format and it is possible we could see it happen again in the future since there is now precedent."
A slight slip up here as Aviana was nerfed last year, but otherwise a great summary!
I am obliged to say Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim since that takes my top spot, but since that game needs no introduction, I'll give a shout-out to Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. That game was almost criminally under-advertised when first released on the original Xbox (there's an HD remake of it on Steam now I think).
While I still played on main consoles I loved the Halo and Gears of War series, but in the end I always considered Stranger's Wrath my favourite shooting game. Seriously, if anyone here likes shooting games but would be interested in much more interesting, funny and surreal mechanics and environments than the usual roster provide, then you should absolutely take a look at it.
It is impossible to do the game justice here, but as a taster, one of the 'weapons' is a chipmunk with megaphones that foul-mouths the enemies to lure them to a spot. It will also insult you while it sits on the crossbow. Oh yeah, you have a double-barreled animal firing crossbow! I have still never found a cooler weapon.
It looks like a very small nerf, until they have to trade into a 5 health minion, which are a lot more common than minions with 6+ health. I have no doubt it will still be strong, but the nerf isn't insignificant either.
Alongside other changes I could see them changing the 2/1 to a 1/2 (still with rush), which is a whole lot less effective at clearing minions. Not sure where the dust refunds would land with that but it feels like the most effective single change to me.
I bucketed the Galakrond stuff into what I assumed their expectations to be too. I mean, you just look at it and everything is a great card by itself that activates overpowered cards. Then they had the cheek to give that version of Galakrond the card that invokes twice... as a battlecry... in a class that has been based heavily on exploiting battlecries for the last 4 months (or 20 months if you count Shudderwock). How could that not lead to an overpowered deck?
Sadly I don't expect the change to evolve effects will ever come, but I'm dreaming with you.
Tess does replay hero cards yes, so this sounds like a bug to me too. Probably one Blizz won't miss for long so I would expect to see it get fixed reasonably quickly.
I have always been surprised this isn't explicitly said anywhere in the shop. Double clicking it has never been intuitive beyond something you inevitably try when you get frustrated at only getting 1 at a time.
I have mostly played with a slight refinement to the Galakrond rogue deck recipe, which looks like a solid starting point for a deck. I had a few clunky draws in the early game but lackeys are pretty good at helping catch up.
The Questing Adventurers really earned their places in the deck, and were the primary use for the coins from Umbral Skulker. Otherwise the coins were rarely super helpful in this deck, especially as I rarely invoked twice early enough for them to lead to massive tempo plays. They do have one neat feature though: Kronx + Galakrond costs 13 mana, so if you hold onto them while waiting to draw one of these, you can really speed things up.
I'm planning on trying a big combo Galakrond deck, where I expect the Umbral Skulkers to be more important.
Agreed. The way the giveaway worked was great (and I'm not just saying that because I got super lucky and won!). I have always been half-present in card discussions during reveal seasons, but never engaged quite so much as I did this time, and certainly never contributed to card scores properly before. Now I'm one of the 135 who voted on all of them!
I said something similar to your opinion about the return of the Rag. card back and I'll say it again here: there is absolutely nothing special about the people who already own the Tyrande hero. There was no true effort involved in obtaining it. You just signed up for Twitch prime and, if from one of the regions where she was not available, lied about where you were. I guess you also linked your Twitch and Blizzard accounts. That's all you had to do.
Having the Tyrande hero means nothing other than that you happened to have been playing HS during the time she was available and were aware of the few small steps you had to take to get her. In my mind that is not something that gives you bragging rights or any reason to want other players to be unable to use her or have some superficial tweak as though the original is more special in some way.
Now if Blizz were to hand out golden heroes or 1000 win portraits to everyone, or card backs that actually took a bit to effort to earn e.g. through heroic single player content or competitive play, then yes I'd take issue with that. But those take time and genuine effort, not 2 minutes and a few jumps between different websites.
The other echo cards aren't being refunded because no one would have crafted them to be abused this way. The issue was never really that it was in principle possible to get 0-mana echo cards, but that you could build a deck in such a way that it was easy to.
I see, and certainly appreciate how adding mech and elemental opened up more possibilities for underused existing cards.
The tricky part is finding a mechanic that distinguishes it from other tribes. I guess for forsaken you could play off their ability to replace body parts and have a passive effect where friendly forsaken minions dying heals damaged friendly forsaken minions. That would open up an archetype that plays very differently to anything else.
I have never understood the desire for an undead tribe, especially when there is already an implicit association between undead and deathrattle (this has been diluted over time but certainly in Naxx people would have linked the two).
So, as a completely sincere question, what exactly do you want the tribe for and how would you want it to work?
Another tech card. It obviously won't be played unless the meta takes a very surprising turn, but it is nice that Blizz are putting all these tech cards out there so no one asks for them anymore.
Soooo... Evasive is becoming a keyword next expansion, yeah?
I reckon they named the 3 evasive cards just to mess with the people asking for the keyword. Somewhere at Second Dinner Ben Brode is laughing up an earthquake right now.
Is there an issue where the site sometimes doesn't recognise Patreon supporters? I became a supporter right at the end of November, and Patreon took my second payment on 1st January, more than 30 days after the first. Premium hasn't been active since the 30 days passed, despite still being linked to my paying Patreon account.
I don't mind the ads so I am quite happy to live with them (and give you a little extra revenue through them), but this probably wants looking into nonetheless.
Please explain why it costing 5 would destroy the card. Even at 5 I would expect it to be above the usual power level.
On a broader matter, I agree that something being part of class identity should allow overtuned cards of that type in the class. But that should not mean we accept it when something as high-roll-y as Necrium Apothecary comes along, especially after years of complaints aimed at Barnes were finally acted on.
It is always a bit tricky to pin down the bigger problem when a new card comes out and does broken things with a card that has been perfectly fine for ages. In the case of Aviana + Kun the Forgotten King + (anything you like) we had last year, it was deemed to be the fault of Aviana despite her being fine for years.
In this case however, I think it is obvious the Apothecary is the problem. Why? Because even without deathrattle triggers it is above the usual power level, and at an early enough turn that answers are limited. Sure you have to combo it, but a 4 mana 2/5 which draws a specific card and gains a huge deathrattle is way beyond anything similar at the same mana cost. Heck you can even say it is better than Seeping Oozeling since it also draws the card, and that costs 2 more!
"Blizzard pushed out another round of card nerfs for the year, this time focusing on nerfing previously buffed cards in the Boomsday Buff patch and some problematic cards, including one hellraiser from Wild, Barnes.
This was the first time Blizzard nerfed a wild-only card showcasing they do pay some attention to the format and it is possible we could see it happen again in the future since there is now precedent."
A slight slip up here as Aviana was nerfed last year, but otherwise a great summary!
I am obliged to say Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim since that takes my top spot, but since that game needs no introduction, I'll give a shout-out to Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. That game was almost criminally under-advertised when first released on the original Xbox (there's an HD remake of it on Steam now I think).
While I still played on main consoles I loved the Halo and Gears of War series, but in the end I always considered Stranger's Wrath my favourite shooting game. Seriously, if anyone here likes shooting games but would be interested in much more interesting, funny and surreal mechanics and environments than the usual roster provide, then you should absolutely take a look at it.
It is impossible to do the game justice here, but as a taster, one of the 'weapons' is a chipmunk with megaphones that foul-mouths the enemies to lure them to a spot. It will also insult you while it sits on the crossbow. Oh yeah, you have a double-barreled animal firing crossbow! I have still never found a cooler weapon.
It looks like a very small nerf, until they have to trade into a 5 health minion, which are a lot more common than minions with 6+ health. I have no doubt it will still be strong, but the nerf isn't insignificant either.
Alongside other changes I could see them changing the 2/1 to a 1/2 (still with rush), which is a whole lot less effective at clearing minions. Not sure where the dust refunds would land with that but it feels like the most effective single change to me.
I bucketed the Galakrond stuff into what I assumed their expectations to be too. I mean, you just look at it and everything is a great card by itself that activates overpowered cards. Then they had the cheek to give that version of Galakrond the card that invokes twice... as a battlecry... in a class that has been based heavily on exploiting battlecries for the last 4 months (or 20 months if you count Shudderwock). How could that not lead to an overpowered deck?
Sadly I don't expect the change to evolve effects will ever come, but I'm dreaming with you.
The speed of it makes me suspect they released the set expecting shaman to be a problem, but thought they'd let the player-base confirm it first.
Tess does replay hero cards yes, so this sounds like a bug to me too. Probably one Blizz won't miss for long so I would expect to see it get fixed reasonably quickly.
I have always been surprised this isn't explicitly said anywhere in the shop. Double clicking it has never been intuitive beyond something you inevitably try when you get frustrated at only getting 1 at a time.
I have mostly played with a slight refinement to the Galakrond rogue deck recipe, which looks like a solid starting point for a deck. I had a few clunky draws in the early game but lackeys are pretty good at helping catch up.
The Questing Adventurers really earned their places in the deck, and were the primary use for the coins from Umbral Skulker. Otherwise the coins were rarely super helpful in this deck, especially as I rarely invoked twice early enough for them to lead to massive tempo plays. They do have one neat feature though: Kronx + Galakrond costs 13 mana, so if you hold onto them while waiting to draw one of these, you can really speed things up.
I'm planning on trying a big combo Galakrond deck, where I expect the Umbral Skulkers to be more important.
Agreed. The way the giveaway worked was great (and I'm not just saying that because I got super lucky and won!). I have always been half-present in card discussions during reveal seasons, but never engaged quite so much as I did this time, and certainly never contributed to card scores properly before. Now I'm one of the 135 who voted on all of them!
I said something similar to your opinion about the return of the Rag. card back and I'll say it again here: there is absolutely nothing special about the people who already own the Tyrande hero. There was no true effort involved in obtaining it. You just signed up for Twitch prime and, if from one of the regions where she was not available, lied about where you were. I guess you also linked your Twitch and Blizzard accounts. That's all you had to do.
Having the Tyrande hero means nothing other than that you happened to have been playing HS during the time she was available and were aware of the few small steps you had to take to get her. In my mind that is not something that gives you bragging rights or any reason to want other players to be unable to use her or have some superficial tweak as though the original is more special in some way.
Now if Blizz were to hand out golden heroes or 1000 win portraits to everyone, or card backs that actually took a bit to effort to earn e.g. through heroic single player content or competitive play, then yes I'd take issue with that. But those take time and genuine effort, not 2 minutes and a few jumps between different websites.
The other echo cards aren't being refunded because no one would have crafted them to be abused this way. The issue was never really that it was in principle possible to get 0-mana echo cards, but that you could build a deck in such a way that it was easy to.
I see, and certainly appreciate how adding mech and elemental opened up more possibilities for underused existing cards.
The tricky part is finding a mechanic that distinguishes it from other tribes. I guess for forsaken you could play off their ability to replace body parts and have a passive effect where friendly forsaken minions dying heals damaged friendly forsaken minions. That would open up an archetype that plays very differently to anything else.
Innkeeper: "If you make a wild deck, you can only use it in wild games."
Me: "Yes, I know. You've told me this hundreds of times before!"
Needless to say I'd be surprised if they didn't make it abundantly clear to new players and veterans alike.
I have never understood the desire for an undead tribe, especially when there is already an implicit association between undead and deathrattle (this has been diluted over time but certainly in Naxx people would have linked the two).
So, as a completely sincere question, what exactly do you want the tribe for and how would you want it to work?
Another tech card. It obviously won't be played unless the meta takes a very surprising turn, but it is nice that Blizz are putting all these tech cards out there so no one asks for them anymore.
I reckon they named the 3 evasive cards just to mess with the people asking for the keyword. Somewhere at Second Dinner Ben Brode is laughing up an earthquake right now.