Well, it's true that ultimately, the meta is human-driven.

But, I do have great hope for the next expac, for if you look at Humanity :

*take a peek at Humanity*

if you look at humaniiity...

*stares longer*

oh god... We're so screwed.

This expansion has a lot of sane and balanced cards. I like it.

We have been forcefed broken and oppressive card for so long that we forgot what normal feels like.

It's just my personal opinion of course... I realize munchkin and netdecker alike will simply ignore most of this expansion content and continue to play their tiered archetype.

*scottish accent* Damned gamer, they've ruined the game. >:-( 

The dev team has explained once that fitting text on card was an incredibly strenuous process; mainly due to the variety of language they try to support. (in some article about updating deathstalker rexxar's hero power with last published beast if I remember correctly)

I guess that's them giving up...

The Rokara hero card was a big offender for me.

First, it states that you get a weapon, but won't elaborate on what makes it special.

Then you play it, get the weapon; but again, it won't elaborate on what "smashing" means.

So you attack with it, and you think you understand : it cause the stroke minion to deals damage equal to its attack to your opponent.

But no, you're wrong : in fact you actually cause the minion to perform an actual attack against the opponent, triggering on-hit and on-attack effects. Which does not always make sense. :-/ And that fact can elude you for a long time if you never get to hit one of those minion where it matters. Infuriating.

It does not trigger before the opponent's battlecry, does it ? :-(

EDIT : Shame. I'd love to have at least one silencing secret in hearthstone.

Thanks for your answers.

It's worth noting that Sketchy Stranger can net two more secret in Standard.

One could probably strech it a bit by playing Tess and/or Contraband Stash for a couple more non-rogue secret iteration.

Trying to bounce/copy sketchy stranger repeatedly would probably be pushing it too far. Too costly, and too slow. Even for an optimist like me :-D

It's a lot more viable in wild, obviously. Where more secret are readily and undirectly (Shadowjeweler ?) available.

I'm placing a small bet on both Horde Operative and Kezan Mystic causing the copied/stolen secret to summon it for the wrong player.

Quote From dapperdog

It might end up being a card every player must have/craft because the only counter to this is by playing your own theotar.

I'm under the impression the devs expects Renathal to be the counterplay here.

Theothar heavily punish "one trick pony" decklist; meanwhile Renathal allow such deck to become "two trick pony" by adding 9 more cards to their list.

Seems sane to me.

Great RAGE! generation engine.

Blizzard is really coming down on "one trick pony" deck with these two past extension.

Let's take a moment to appreciate the fact it's a "opponent next turn"-only effect and not a "until the start of your next turn".

So these pesky mill deck won't be able to abuse it.

I don't know much about the current state of Druid in standard.

But in wild/unranked, played Druid decklist are 90% cancerous combo, and 9% ultra aggro smorc.

So, my guess is that this expansion is the result of dev struggling to push new and saner archetype; without giving the current cancerous ones more ammunition.

https://twitter.com/Songbird_HS/status/1547312664279261184

It will work on card  when they have already been played.

It will result in minion being taken control of; and weapon, secret, sigil, locations, etc... to be destroyed (as only one can be in play at a time)

It makes it a lot better. Not OP yet, but better. And definitely more oppressive/annoying.

https://twitter.com/Songbird_HS/status/1547312664279261184

Apparently, you get to take control of minion already on board. So Copycat will works in some cases.

EDIT : It also works on weapon, secret, locations, etc... In which case, your opponent's one will get destroyed (as you cannot have two of them on your side)

Broadly speaking, it makes Harvester of Envy slightly  way  more threatening/annoying.

Quote From dapperdog

If by some miracle you can infuse it by turn 4 this card is amazing.

The problem is most paladin aggro decks can't really draw or generate enough stuff on board. So the idea that this card is infused by turn 4 is kinda iffy, though certainly not impossible.

Surely, you must be thinking about standard.

Wild's paladin has got plenty of options to summon at the very least 3 minion by turn 3/(2+coin).

Quote From dapperdog

Its the new baku/genn. The downsides are fairly trivial because some classes simply draws way too well. You can legit just play more draw options and cheaper minions to fill your curve while playing control. That's not impossible certainly.

While I dont think every deck will be playing it I wouldn't be too surprised to see some competitive decks with it, because 10 additional health is really a mountain against burn/aggro decks.

That ^^^

Also, it's an okay tech card against Mill/Fatigue decklist. Which is an archetype that got some support recently. If a competitive decklist emerge. Renathal will see play too.

Yep. There's a shift in the way they design cards. I've a hard time putting it into word (*), but I'm under the impression they want :

- cards to be nuanced. I.E. You no longer get a fixed value out of one card. Deckbuilding, state-of-the-match, and opponent's counterplay should matters.

- archetype to be pluridimensionnal. A decklist may be good at doing one thing; But it should be built around several "package".

Which should hopefully do good  for the fairness and health of the game.

Warlock is a good illustration of these change; it got two curses added these two last expansion : Agony and Abyssal Curse :

They fundamentally do the same thing : deal ever-increasing FAAACE! damage.

They could both - theorically - be abused, individually, in "meme-y" way. But the agony package (Tamsin + elekk + curse) has [empyrically] proven to be weak. And the abyssal one is currently prophetized to be as bad.

They don't exactly synergize with one another; but they do synergize with Tamsin Roame. (Their relationship to opponent's drawing and overdrawing is... interesting and somewhat conflictual)

I think those two package will see play; but never alone, as the sole selling point of a decklist. I can picture a deck playing both, a murlock deck playing agony for the oracle synergy, control deck playing abyssal alongside their spellcost disruption card, etc. They will perhaps not T1 decks , but CCG are not only about those anyway. (if your only focus is ranked gaming... well, you're a debat point for another day)

IF they had made only one type of curse, (like Curse of agony shuffling 3 abyssal curse instead, or the abyssal package dealing fatigue damage), or add another card later then it could be different. We're talking about self-increasing damage here, adding more source/flexibity can tip the scale - quickly -, and make the whole resulting package overpowered/abusable.

Libram was a similar experiment. It was arguably fun and fair while it lasted. But releasing a whole new set of libram-themed  cards to standard could murder the whole package balance in wild. It would devolve into a 0-cost clown-fiesta deck with 90% of card being libram-related. Think balance-druid, but the opponent is not even invited to the mana-cheat party.

( * Damn, these few paragraph has costed me two hours already ! And nobody will even read them :-( )

I'm afraid Curse of Agony will carry you way further than Hakkar :

- Easier to draw (2 card vs 1 legendary)

- Easier to play (1 mana vs 9)

- Agony token card will be drawn more consistently than the first Hakkar's blood.

- You don't rig your own deck.

- It synergise with Tamsin Roame (and she synergise with Dragged Below and Abyssal Wave)

It's a shame, because Hakkar really have that Timmy-esq aura to it, that make us want him to be viable :-/

Those arguments about the holy cards give me a bad "circular logic" vibe :

There's currently no good holy decklist -> Therefore its not worth giving those new holy spell a thought -> Therefore none will be given -> Therefore no good holy decklist  will emerge -> Therefore its not worth giving those new holy spell a thought -> [Rince and repeat]

It's not the most constructive line of reasoning :-/

At least, it got the good taste to be a common neutral. So every class will gets an opportunity to abuse it. (But yeah... we all know who will really Abuse it ad nauseam...)

Even as someone who will probably play it extensively, I would prefer it if it didn't damaged player too.

Weird tribe choice, considering that warlock got no "do somtehing if you played a naga" spell. And there's not that much intrinsic value to being a naga to begin with. (being in the discover pool of Crushclaw Enforcer and Amalgam of the Deep?)

It's a really one-dimensional card. Either Abbyssal Curse is good, making this card good; either it's plain bad. And Abbyssal Curse seems to me to be some prudent experiment on T5 part - meant to be just okay, but not over-representated like the libram serie may have been -

It does have my curiosity.

Yep, they are really milking the proverbial cashcow here...

They are basically monetizing an animation's work that should already be priced in the whole expansion development cost...

At least, there's an option for buying it in gold.

That being said, I guess you have to also consider the consumer mindset... There's actually people who would protest :

- If it was not available at all.

- If it were cheap. Because somehow, it's a way to say "I am a die hard Horde player". So lessening its price would lessen the "die hard" part.

If you know you cannot please everyone, I guess it's logical to try to make the most out of it.