Random thought: one group of Characters who got a lot of hype, then never really had their time in the sun, were the Rastakhan's Rumble champions. Year of the Troll?
Customers get to have opinions, they get to push for lower prices. If you're going to with the "Blizzard is a company, they need to make money" argument, then don't be upset if people go "I'm a customer, I want good value for my money", and especially don't be upset if they push for the company to offer something affordable.
What on earth do you have to gain from being angry at people who push for lower prices and express their anger at a company that's been doing a _lot_ wrong recently?
If you feel bad because you want to spend money anyway, that sounds like a you problem to me.
There's a difference between haggling and whining.
"Affordable" is a term that's so relative that it's meaningless.
People aren't mostly expressing that they think the product is low value. Even if they were, it's too soon to judge pretty much anything but the art quality yet, and my impression is that people are impressed with the art quality. No, it's almost as if they're complaining that it is good quality. Because then they "have to" spend money on it or something.
Anger you mention. Anger is not an appropriate response to the Mercenaries quality or prices. At worst, it should be a "roll eyes, I won't spend my money on that" and express that matter-of-factly in a forum. But no, as you admit, people are ranting and raving and getting offended.
Anger might be appropriate for other things you imply Blizzard is doing (although that's been going on since 2004, not "lately"). And I don't fault anyone who boycotts Blizzard for its sexism issues. (I'm not, partly because I don't think the Hearthstone team was more than tangentially involved.) But even if that's why people are angry, they're expressing it very poorly. It's almost like they're saying "because this company has done immoral things, they should be redeeming themselves publicly by selling their products for virtually no money!" And that's ... not how things work.
Geez, the flood of negativity for this new game mode is astounding. I'm starting to consider pre-purchasing just to make a statement against the cynicism.
Yes, Blizzard wants money for this game they've invested significant time into. Yes, it's pretty much just a gacha game. Guess what? There's nothing inherently wrong with that. If you don't like gacha games, just don't play it; it's not going to significantly hurt your enjoyment of other Hearthstone games. But don't whine about it and don't villainize the "whales" who will want to pay for this experience. (I think paying for this is a lot more gratifying than paying for pure cosmetics. And it's not "pay to win" if the matchmaking system works well, either; it's "pay to play against other people who pay.")
Those who are saying Blizzard should have made an entirely new franchise for a gacha game, well ... I for one am more likely to enjoy the game because it's WarCraft characters.
Hi, whenever I try to access outof.cards on a non mobile device, it's not letting me sign in to my account. It just gets stuck eternally on the anti-ddos screen.
Hey, it's time for theorycrafting with the new set! and Deckbuilder (Hearthstone) doesn't seem to be working. Instead of normal collectible cards, it's showing hero powers and hero portraits from PvE content.
Before each expansion, I like to theorycraft at least one deck for every class, and challenge others on the Forum to do the same and share what they got. Of course originality is icing on the cake! So here's what I've got so far for Scholomance Academy. Feedback welcome!
Demon Hunter
I'm not a big fan of standard tempo DH, and not very impressed with the Token DH cards that are coming out in Scholomance. So I went all-in with the other package they're getting, the Soul Fragments, and tried to make a control deck out of it (since it includes a new 3-damage AoE and a 7-drop that summons a bunch of 3/3s with Rush).
I really tried to make Healz Druid work, but what I came up with looked awful even with the new SA cards supporting it. So I decided to go less original and focus my deck around Guardian Animals. So I included beast synergies, but no beasts of less than 5 cost except Escaped Manasabers. Then the low end of the curve includes ramp (Lightning Bloom), removal, value-cards, and taunts to stall with.
Germination is included mostly because it's awesome to buff Speaker Gidra with. Two copies of it might be overkill though.
Not too creative on this one either, I just thought I'd see how much more effective Face Hunter could be with Voracious Reader to boost it. I also threw in Rapid Fire (a sometimes-inclusion anyway) with Professor Slate for a removal package that has fun with a new card, even though it's probably too specific a combo to be optimal.
OK, so back in Rise of Shadows, and to a lesser extent in Uldum, I really liked my aggro Spell Damage Burn Mage deck. And this set has more spell damage synergy than we've ever seen before except in RoS. So I'm hoping I can resurrect this concept.
The biggest boon is a lot more card draw to replace what Stargazer Luna once did for the deck; I've more than once wished for pretty much exactly Cram Session to exist, and now it will. So that can replace Arcane Intellect and be an improvement. Then a Voracious Reader (or maybe two? I haven't found the room so far ...) can take Luna's place.
There's no way I'm coming up with a better control priests than a gazillion Priest specialists online; it's just not an archetype I understand very well. So I went with a Zoo Priest concept instead. But then I found myself wanting to include WAY too many cards, so ... the natural solution was to go Highlander and add Zephrys the Great! (But not Dragonqueen Alexstrasza; she's way too slow for the concept.)
Disciplinarian Gandling is kind of the linchpin card of the deck, that will probably have the highest Drawn Winrate. But you can't count on drawing him, so I tried to make the deck strong even if you don't.
I was pretty tempted to theorycraft a Weapon Rogue with the cute new package, but I knew I wanted to use that same package for my Warrior deck, so I decided not to put too decks that were so similar on this thread. I'll still theorycraft a Weapon Rogue, but I dunno if I'll share it.
So instead, I thought I'd update my "The Assassins" deck from AoO. It's an aggro Stealth rogue, which is an archetype I imagine will be pretty popular in SA; but I think my Plague of Madness + weapon removal combo (for hard removal + card draw) will still make this take on the deck original.
As usual, I have lots of ideas for Shaman decks (my favorite class), but the one most likely to actually succeed is probably to take the current Totem Shaman deck and make it even faster. So that's what I theorycrafted so far.
I already did the Soul Fragments thing with DH, and I'm certainly not qualified to figure out how to improve Questlock in the new exp. So I went with the "change your health on your turn" theme. After I put in all the cards I wanted for that package, I had 6 slots left, and I was pretty close to a very evenly-distributed, symmetric mana curve, and I had some dragon-dependent synergies. I considered squeezing in a Galakrond package, but I ended up just saying "Let's see if midrange Warlock can be a thing for once" and adding a couple more dragons that fit the dents in the mana curve.
EDIT: Revised based on a friend's feedback. No longer has an eleganly symmetric mana curve, or as many Dragons for consistency, but has more draw and heal and less ways to hurt itself and is undoubtedly better.
As I mentioned above, I love the new Weapon synergy cards and wanted to center my Warrior deck on that. My dream is that it might even bring Gorehowl back to relevance. So I'm gonna try.
Having such a big hole in my curve at 3 is a bit suspect, but the deck (now updated with feedback from a friend) is worth a try I think. I've tried out the small Taunt package + small Pirate package thing before (with either Enrage or Galakrond as the "main" packages), but the biggest thing that was missing was enough card draw. So hopefully Cutting Class will be a huge improvement on this style of deck.
Personally I think everyone's plans for Aggro Demon Hunters are too slow, not aggro enough.
Outcast effects make cards broken, so my plan is to make my deck so cheap that it's almost always easy to get Outcast effects. I'm talking about almost no cards (2) with a mana cost higher than 2.
Soul Mirror - it's like Lightbomb that doesn't hurt your own board and leaves behind compensation minions for every enemy minion that doesn't die, for just 1 more mana
Imprisoned Scrap Imp - I thought this card was seriously overrated, but now I'm seeing that's because I was thinking of it as a Zoo card, when it's a Handlock card
Nightshade Matron - combo with Hand of Gul'dan is amazing but unreliable
Random thought: one group of Characters who got a lot of hype, then never really had their time in the sun, were the Rastakhan's Rumble champions. Year of the Troll?
It's not optimal, but I scored a win with Fel Barrage + Metamorfin
This card is bonkers. Not sure what deck can support it right now, though.
I really want this to be good, because Shaman is my favorite class and any Pirate deck besides Warrior and Rogue is a cool idea.
But sadly, I think Suckerhook just sucks. At least until they add some better 6-mana weapons to the game.
In a less combo-ey meta, this could be insane because Selfless Sidekick exists.
Build a deck around getting a Bonechewer Vanguard to stick, then playing this?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
There's a difference between haggling and whining.
"Affordable" is a term that's so relative that it's meaningless.
People aren't mostly expressing that they think the product is low value. Even if they were, it's too soon to judge pretty much anything but the art quality yet, and my impression is that people are impressed with the art quality. No, it's almost as if they're complaining that it is good quality. Because then they "have to" spend money on it or something.
Anger you mention. Anger is not an appropriate response to the Mercenaries quality or prices. At worst, it should be a "roll eyes, I won't spend my money on that" and express that matter-of-factly in a forum. But no, as you admit, people are ranting and raving and getting offended.
Anger might be appropriate for other things you imply Blizzard is doing (although that's been going on since 2004, not "lately"). And I don't fault anyone who boycotts Blizzard for its sexism issues. (I'm not, partly because I don't think the Hearthstone team was more than tangentially involved.) But even if that's why people are angry, they're expressing it very poorly. It's almost like they're saying "because this company has done immoral things, they should be redeeming themselves publicly by selling their products for virtually no money!" And that's ... not how things work.
Apparently CloudFlare fixed whatever was going on.
So they have advertised "over 50" initially available Mercenaries ... well, guess what? They already revealed 52 on the reveal stream this morning.
You've got the ten "Mercenaries" of the Year of the Gryphon ...
The ten "original" heroes of Hearthstone classes ...
Gromm, Ragnaros, Jaraxxus, Samuro, Voone, Blink Fox, Antonidas, Cairne, Sylvanas, Diablo, daddy Roame, Gruul, Mukla, Mannoroth, Mutanus, Arthas/The Lich King, Tirion, Varian, Krush, Tyrande, Millhouse, Geddon, Murk-Eye, Rathorian, Saurfang, Alexstrasza, Brightwing, Anacondra, Morgl, Velen, Natalie Seline, Shadow Hunter Vol'jin.
That's 52. All confirmed in the stream.
Interesting that Rathorian made it; he's the only one I (as a non-WoW-player) am completely unfamiliar with from War2, War3, and HS.
Geez, the flood of negativity for this new game mode is astounding. I'm starting to consider pre-purchasing just to make a statement against the cynicism.
Yes, Blizzard wants money for this game they've invested significant time into. Yes, it's pretty much just a gacha game. Guess what? There's nothing inherently wrong with that. If you don't like gacha games, just don't play it; it's not going to significantly hurt your enjoyment of other Hearthstone games. But don't whine about it and don't villainize the "whales" who will want to pay for this experience. (I think paying for this is a lot more gratifying than paying for pure cosmetics. And it's not "pay to win" if the matchmaking system works well, either; it's "pay to play against other people who pay.")
Those who are saying Blizzard should have made an entirely new franchise for a gacha game, well ... I for one am more likely to enjoy the game because it's WarCraft characters.
Yes, I had the same issue on chrome, Firefox, and Edge.
Hi, whenever I try to access outof.cards on a non mobile device, it's not letting me sign in to my account. It just gets stuck eternally on the anti-ddos screen.
Just what the Title says. Only 3 of the Initiate cards made it into the Core Set.
Nice, thanks
Hey, it's time for theorycrafting with the new set! and Deckbuilder (Hearthstone) doesn't seem to be working. Instead of normal collectible cards, it's showing hero powers and hero portraits from PvE content.
As expected, looking back on this batch of ratings with a few weeks of hindsight is humorous.
Before each expansion, I like to theorycraft at least one deck for every class, and challenge others on the Forum to do the same and share what they got. Of course originality is icing on the cake! So here's what I've got so far for Scholomance Academy. Feedback welcome!
Demon Hunter
I'm not a big fan of standard tempo DH, and not very impressed with the Token DH cards that are coming out in Scholomance. So I went all-in with the other package they're getting, the Soul Fragments, and tried to make a control deck out of it (since it includes a new 3-damage AoE and a 7-drop that summons a bunch of 3/3s with Rush).
I refrained from Pit Commander because I have 1/3 Spirit Jailers. I tried to be picky about how many Outcast cards I included, so that Double Jump will be good for tutoring Skull of Gul'dan often.
Druid
I really tried to make Healz Druid work, but what I came up with looked awful even with the new SA cards supporting it. So I decided to go less original and focus my deck around Guardian Animals. So I included beast synergies, but no beasts of less than 5 cost except Escaped Manasabers. Then the low end of the curve includes ramp (Lightning Bloom), removal, value-cards, and taunts to stall with.
Germination is included mostly because it's awesome to buff Speaker Gidra with. Two copies of it might be overkill though.
Hunter
Not too creative on this one either, I just thought I'd see how much more effective Face Hunter could be with Voracious Reader to boost it. I also threw in Rapid Fire (a sometimes-inclusion anyway) with Professor Slate for a removal package that has fun with a new card, even though it's probably too specific a combo to be optimal.
Mage
OK, so back in Rise of Shadows, and to a lesser extent in Uldum, I really liked my aggro Spell Damage Burn Mage deck. And this set has more spell damage synergy than we've ever seen before except in RoS. So I'm hoping I can resurrect this concept.
The biggest boon is a lot more card draw to replace what Stargazer Luna once did for the deck; I've more than once wished for pretty much exactly Cram Session to exist, and now it will. So that can replace Arcane Intellect and be an improvement. Then a Voracious Reader (or maybe two? I haven't found the room so far ...) can take Luna's place.
Combustion sort of takes the place that Shooting Star once held. New 1-drop Spell Damages (!!) Ethereal Augmerchant (also flexible as removal) and Lab Partner make up for the losses of Cosmic Anomaly and Spellzerker. I also replaced Mana Reservoirs with Primordial Studies to try out; hopefully on average Reservoir or a better cheap spell damage minion will show up in the Discover pool? Mozaki, Master Duelist is an improvement on the sometimes-included Azerite Elemental from the old deck, and Ras Frostwhisper can replace the sometimes-included Arcane Explosion while simultaneously adding reach to hit face.
This is the deck I'm most excited to play in the exp, if you couldn't tell. It's expensive though. Time to spend a lot of dust ...
Paladin
Not too creative here again; just using the new tools like First Day of School and Devout Pupil to patch up weaknesses in Libram Paladin with Lightforged Zealot (i.e. it's a "pure paladin," but one without even Lightforged Crusader, because random Paladin cards often suck). Lord Barov is almost a Wild Pyromancer + Equality combo in one card.
I'm not sure how good Argent Braggart and Judicious Junior are, but I'm experimenting with one copy of each.
Priest
There's no way I'm coming up with a better control priests than a gazillion Priest specialists online; it's just not an archetype I understand very well. So I went with a Zoo Priest concept instead. But then I found myself wanting to include WAY too many cards, so ... the natural solution was to go Highlander and add Zephrys the Great! (But not Dragonqueen Alexstrasza; she's way too slow for the concept.)
The biggest challenge for this deck will be generating enough card draw with Northshire Cleric gone and Power Word: Shield nerfed. I did my best, with Raise Dead, Novice Engineer, Loot Hoarder, and Voracious Reader.
Disciplinarian Gandling is kind of the linchpin card of the deck, that will probably have the highest Drawn Winrate. But you can't count on drawing him, so I tried to make the deck strong even if you don't.
Rogue
I was pretty tempted to theorycraft a Weapon Rogue with the cute new package, but I knew I wanted to use that same package for my Warrior deck, so I decided not to put too decks that were so similar on this thread. I'll still theorycraft a Weapon Rogue, but I dunno if I'll share it.
So instead, I thought I'd update my "The Assassins" deck from AoO. It's an aggro Stealth rogue, which is an archetype I imagine will be pretty popular in SA; but I think my Plague of Madness + weapon removal combo (for hard removal + card draw) will still make this take on the deck original.
Sneaky Delinquent and Infiltrator Lilian replace Wasteland Assassin, which is a bit slow for this aggressive of a deck. The deck often went into topdeck mode even with Harrison Jones and Greyheart Sages, so I think the additions of Secret Passages and Voracious Reader will be a big power boost.
Shaman
As usual, I have lots of ideas for Shaman decks (my favorite class), but the one most likely to actually succeed is probably to take the current Totem Shaman deck and make it even faster. So that's what I theorycrafted so far.
It includes just five new cards: Lightning Bloom x1, Tour Guide x2, and Voracious Reader x2. Not much else to say.
Warlock
I already did the Soul Fragments thing with DH, and I'm certainly not qualified to figure out how to improve Questlock in the new exp. So I went with the "change your health on your turn" theme. After I put in all the cards I wanted for that package, I had 6 slots left, and I was pretty close to a very evenly-distributed, symmetric mana curve, and I had some dragon-dependent synergies. I considered squeezing in a Galakrond package, but I ended up just saying "Let's see if midrange Warlock can be a thing for once" and adding a couple more dragons that fit the dents in the mana curve.
EDIT: Revised based on a friend's feedback. No longer has an eleganly symmetric mana curve, or as many Dragons for consistency, but has more draw and heal and less ways to hurt itself and is undoubtedly better.
Warrior
As I mentioned above, I love the new Weapon synergy cards and wanted to center my Warrior deck on that. My dream is that it might even bring Gorehowl back to relevance. So I'm gonna try.
Weapon Warrior is naturally going to take a bunch of face damage, though, so I put in a Taunt package for survivability: Into the Fray x2, Frightened Flunky x2, Infested Goblin x1, Armagedillo, Scrap Golem x1. Then I also added a small Pirate package, because that's practically required in the age of Risky Skipper and Ancharrr, and Dread Corsair fit nicely into all three themes.
Having such a big hole in my curve at 3 is a bit suspect, but the deck (now updated with feedback from a friend) is worth a try I think. I've tried out the small Taunt package + small Pirate package thing before (with either Enrage or Galakrond as the "main" packages), but the biggest thing that was missing was enough card draw. So hopefully Cutting Class will be a huge improvement on this style of deck.
Personally I think everyone's plans for Aggro Demon Hunters are too slow, not aggro enough.
Outcast effects make cards broken, so my plan is to make my deck so cheap that it's almost always easy to get Outcast effects. I'm talking about almost no cards (2) with a mana cost higher than 2.
Meta-Defining
Great
Good
Niche
Abstain (i.e. I have no idea; could be good or could be garbage)
Meme
Garbage
Edited my post above. It now has all 10 classes represented, with improvements to some of the decks I posted yesterday.