Hi all, just shamelessly plugging the 4th installment of my themed deck series: The Banana Saga.
Amazingly this time the deck is not completely awful, but as usual the main feature is the story I have built around it, so check out the deck description if theme decks are your thing.
Deathwing says "I will not be denied" when attacking, and is surprisingly poetic with his sorry emote (accessible only with Mayor Noggenfogger on the board): "The sea could not swallow my regret".
Since they always remember to add a sorry emote, I don't think they'll ever forget to add an attacking one for any hero, especially one for a weapon class.
In short: the fact they don't have to devote any of their 10 cards to invoke. This frees up the space for sidequests and the explorer dragons, which may end up as good as Galakrond in practice, but even if not they're certainly more flexible.
All that being said, I agree it does look asymmetric. Then again, Hunter got and extra legendary in TGT, and that didn't help out the class at all...
I smell some fun potential with deathrattle abuse! With Unearthed Raptor, Necrium Blade, and Necrium Vial, you could get a bunch of candles in your deck, so you just keep getting a free board full of 7/5s!
Shadow of Death is pretty much objectively better than vial for this purpose, as it effectively shuffles 3 (rather than 2) candles into your deck for 1 less mana. It's only worse when cast on an Unearthed Raptor, but I think it will win out overall, especially in Standard where the raptor complications don't exist.
That just makes it all the more mystifying why they worded the card itself that way. But this certainly clarifies how the card interacts with copy effects and deathrattle triggers.
As a digital card game HS has always been able to choose wording to be a little more thematic than precise (Doomerang was a great example of this). I personally quite like this approach because unlike physical card games, there is a given way it will work that is not open for interpretation (i.e. what the code thinks it does), so it only takes a little bit of testing to find an answer when the wording is ambiguous.
In the case of Waxadred, the theme is that he melts into a massive candle when he dies, which is then brought back to life (resummoned) when drawn. The wording portrays this theme succinctly, but in practice the card follows more conventional HS mechanics.
"resummon" because you always have to summon it at least once, before having the effect at hand.
And indeed, if that's the case, DR Rogue just got a nice new toy, not just Myracle.
But probably still insufficient to make it safe from Aggro. The archetype stays in check.
If it just summoned a new copy, why wouldn't they use the word "summons" instead? Dreadsteed doesn't use "resummon", it just "summons a dreadsteed". Likewise, resurrect effect use "summon a minion that died this game" even though these minions have all already been summoned at least once before.
If you ask me the different wording implies a different mechanic at play here.
Re-read the article and you will find the following:
Galakrond's Gifts
In addition to progressing towards his next transformation, whenever you play an Invoke card, Galakrond (wherever he may be) will also grant an activation of his Hero Power. As an example, casting Seal Fate will not only deal 3 damage to an undamaged minion, but also add a random Lackey to your hand, since that’s the Hero Power gained when you play the Rogue manifestation of Galakrond, ‘Galakrond, The Nightmare.’
I.e. all invoke cards also do whatever the corresponding Galakrond hero power does.
I think the key thing here is that Invoke triggers as soon as you play the card, regardless of whether you have played Galakrond yet. So it is not really turn 8 onwards, it's a whole bunch of annoying imps throughout the game. Since Invoke cards are under-statted that's not necessarily that strong, but it sets the scene for Darkest Hours from turn 6 onwards instead.
Because if not, why run a deck in which you pray to get Dream Breath in your mulligan so you can ramp efficiently instead of a deck where you'll always start with your "ramp" card in hand and powerspike much harder post turn 4/5.
Well, perhaps therein lies a problem with the design of the druid quest. You may be right that the quest will work with dragons, but I hope not, lest the only druids we see for the next year and a bit are quest druids.
I imagine the dragon side of druid will have very little choose one in it (Ysera doesn't have choose one, and how many druid dragons can there really be?), so I would be surprised if it was worth combining the two.
If the two decks are well separated, then good. Quest druid is a bit same-y at this point.
Yes... but only in dragon heavy decks. With too few dragons having both in the first couple of turns is unlikely, making it an unreliable mana ramp and a bad draw card.
Besides, the issue with Wild Growth wasn't that it was pigeonholing the class, it's that every deck ran it regardless of archetype.
Given its between purple (for E.V.I.L.) and orange (for Explorers) my guess is it representing the uncertainty around which League will win. It sounds like there is no official winner until the player base has done something, probably like how MSoG had no official winner of the 3 gangs (though gameplay showed the Jade Lotus won that showdown).
As for cards themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if each member of the 2 Leagues were central figures of another legendary card (like they were in the Uldum quests), but I doubt there will be new twisted versions of them themselves. As you said, it would be a bit boring to have the more cards of the same character, but their appearances in card art can help tell the narrative.
I don't know if it was fixed, but I can confirm what frmorrison said. I tried to log in with my 1000-win warlock, but I received an error message. After repeating this 2 more times, I then picked another class with the original skin (hunter) and I continued the brawl.
Oh, so you couldnt even start the brawl, interesting. And here i thought their spaghetti code cant surprise me anymore lol.
Yeah, I wasn't allowed to use Cap'n Valeera for the brawl.
I have been amazed at how many errors have come from what should just be a routine process of adding extra hero portraits. I suspect the fact they use the same voice lines as the base heroes means they are tied to the assets of the originals, which saves space in the memory but if done sloppily can mean they act weird when parts of the HS code haven't been told how to recognise them.
When she lost an eye apparently. I mean, if you already have an eye patch and happen to be of a class where being a pirate is only a re-specialisation away, then who wouldn't?
I first thought the eye patch was a silly addition and she'd look pretty cool anyway without it, but then I looked closer and they did include a vertical scar under her patched eye (unless I'm imagining it) which makes me appreciate it a bit more.
Regardless, given Valeera has much less Warcraft material to work from than most of the other heroes, I understand them choosing to do what they do all the time anyway and take a 'what if' route. Much more worthwhile than some (ahem, Malfurion) who barely changed in my opinion.
I just don't get why they brought Corrupt Garrosh: is this a wow lore reference I'm too dumb to understand?
Rexxar's face seems to come from the Looney Toons
Garrosh is a reference to WoW yes. You fight him corrupted by the heart of Y'Shaarj at the end of Mists of Pandaria. Other changes referencing WoW and Warcraft more widely include Jaina's new clothes and hair style (not the fire mage bit though), Anduin wearing armour as King, and Thrall in his Warcraft 3 (and early WoW?) armour.
Valeera certainly isn't a reference to anything in Warcraft canon (pun intended), but I'm super happy with her as I have been waiting for a pirate rogue hero for ages.
I think a potentially broken card that was woeful in other game modes (a common trend in Battlegrounds) would be
Given a few buffs and she would be devastating, but as long as there is no way to give her poisonous she might be OK at the higher tiers.
Hi all, just shamelessly plugging the 4th installment of my themed deck series: The Banana Saga.
Amazingly this time the deck is not completely awful, but as usual the main feature is the story I have built around it, so check out the deck description if theme decks are your thing.
Deathwing says "I will not be denied" when attacking, and is surprisingly poetic with his sorry emote (accessible only with Mayor Noggenfogger on the board): "The sea could not swallow my regret".
Since they always remember to add a sorry emote, I don't think they'll ever forget to add an attacking one for any hero, especially one for a weapon class.
In short: the fact they don't have to devote any of their 10 cards to invoke. This frees up the space for sidequests and the explorer dragons, which may end up as good as Galakrond in practice, but even if not they're certainly more flexible.
All that being said, I agree it does look asymmetric. Then again, Hunter got and extra legendary in TGT, and that didn't help out the class at all...
Unlikely, since "giving it away free" doesn't usually mean forcing people to spend money on it.
Shadow of Death is pretty much objectively better than vial for this purpose, as it effectively shuffles 3 (rather than 2) candles into your deck for 1 less mana. It's only worse when cast on an Unearthed Raptor, but I think it will win out overall, especially in Standard where the raptor complications don't exist.
It was absolutely known by the time you posted your comment on an article which included the part I quoted.
But never mind. With the set release still over a month away, it matters little if people misunderstand it now.
As a digital card game HS has always been able to choose wording to be a little more thematic than precise (Doomerang was a great example of this). I personally quite like this approach because unlike physical card games, there is a given way it will work that is not open for interpretation (i.e. what the code thinks it does), so it only takes a little bit of testing to find an answer when the wording is ambiguous.
In the case of Waxadred, the theme is that he melts into a massive candle when he dies, which is then brought back to life (resummoned) when drawn. The wording portrays this theme succinctly, but in practice the card follows more conventional HS mechanics.
The best place to check the wording is on the candle token (which can be found by clicking on Waxadred here: https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/cards).
Waxadred's Candle reads: Casts when drawn. Summon Waxadred.
To me it sounds like it will summon a Waxadred regardless of what has happened before or whether Waxadred is still alive or not.
Re-read the article and you will find the following:
Galakrond's Gifts
In addition to progressing towards his next transformation, whenever you play an Invoke card, Galakrond (wherever he may be) will also grant an activation of his Hero Power. As an example, casting Seal Fate will not only deal 3 damage to an undamaged minion, but also add a random Lackey to your hand, since that’s the Hero Power gained when you play the Rogue manifestation of Galakrond, ‘Galakrond, The Nightmare.’
I.e. all invoke cards also do whatever the corresponding Galakrond hero power does.
I think the key thing here is that Invoke triggers as soon as you play the card, regardless of whether you have played Galakrond yet. So it is not really turn 8 onwards, it's a whole bunch of annoying imps throughout the game. Since Invoke cards are under-statted that's not necessarily that strong, but it sets the scene for Darkest Hours from turn 6 onwards instead.
Well, perhaps therein lies a problem with the design of the druid quest. You may be right that the quest will work with dragons, but I hope not, lest the only druids we see for the next year and a bit are quest druids.
I'm just going to let you consider whether that would be balanced for yourself...
I imagine the dragon side of druid will have very little choose one in it (Ysera doesn't have choose one, and how many druid dragons can there really be?), so I would be surprised if it was worth combining the two.
If the two decks are well separated, then good. Quest druid is a bit same-y at this point.
Yes... but only in dragon heavy decks. With too few dragons having both in the first couple of turns is unlikely, making it an unreliable mana ramp and a bad draw card.
Besides, the issue with Wild Growth wasn't that it was pigeonholing the class, it's that every deck ran it regardless of archetype.
Given its between purple (for E.V.I.L.) and orange (for Explorers) my guess is it representing the uncertainty around which League will win. It sounds like there is no official winner until the player base has done something, probably like how MSoG had no official winner of the 3 gangs (though gameplay showed the Jade Lotus won that showdown).
As for cards themselves, I wouldn't be surprised if each member of the 2 Leagues were central figures of another legendary card (like they were in the Uldum quests), but I doubt there will be new twisted versions of them themselves. As you said, it would be a bit boring to have the more cards of the same character, but their appearances in card art can help tell the narrative.
Yeah, I wasn't allowed to use Cap'n Valeera for the brawl.
I have been amazed at how many errors have come from what should just be a routine process of adding extra hero portraits. I suspect the fact they use the same voice lines as the base heroes means they are tied to the assets of the originals, which saves space in the memory but if done sloppily can mean they act weird when parts of the HS code haven't been told how to recognise them.
I went back to Hagatha and used Duplotransmogrifier to get rid of the BFFs. They were cool for 1 run, now I never want to use them again.
When she lost an eye apparently. I mean, if you already have an eye patch and happen to be of a class where being a pirate is only a re-specialisation away, then who wouldn't?
I first thought the eye patch was a silly addition and she'd look pretty cool anyway without it, but then I looked closer and they did include a vertical scar under her patched eye (unless I'm imagining it) which makes me appreciate it a bit more.
Regardless, given Valeera has much less Warcraft material to work from than most of the other heroes, I understand them choosing to do what they do all the time anyway and take a 'what if' route. Much more worthwhile than some (ahem, Malfurion) who barely changed in my opinion.
Garrosh is a reference to WoW yes. You fight him corrupted by the heart of Y'Shaarj at the end of Mists of Pandaria. Other changes referencing WoW and Warcraft more widely include Jaina's new clothes and hair style (not the fire mage bit though), Anduin wearing armour as King, and Thrall in his Warcraft 3 (and early WoW?) armour.
Valeera certainly isn't a reference to anything in Warcraft canon (pun intended), but I'm super happy with her as I have been waiting for a pirate rogue hero for ages.