I will say this though, and this is my personal opinion: the reason why I haven't completely given up on Mercs (and HS in general) is that the devs still care about the game. I don't put my money on it because I don't like a lot of the current design decisions (or because I don't want to spend 20€ on 8 Jpegs and a couple of voicelines in BGs case [come on, T5, lower those prices, I bought Valheim for 17€ around 5 months ago and have almost 300 hours of play time already while juggling studies and work, that's just so much more value than what you're offering it's almost sad]), but I understand why people still put money on this game. Just look at how the devs still try to cater to the requests of the community while having to deal with Bobby Kotick's greedy little shadow everywhere. Iksar doesn't need to do weekly AMAs, he chooses to. Celestalon doesn't need to do weird puzzles for us, he chooses to (although dude, spend more time fixing bugs, Wildpaw Gnoll is a buggy mess, for example). Those are just some examples. But we also see a lot of community interaction through advertising content creators and other background stuff like that. That's why HS survived through 7 years of game life or the rise of other digital card games like LoR or MtG Arena or Artifact (LUL) or other "HS killers".
I dont actually recall a Wildpaw Gnoll bug, far as I know its working as intended. Can you clarify on this?
Quote From ElSabidon
And it's not like we only see Activision's grubby little fingers in Mercenaries, I feel a non insignificant percentage of the design process in Standard HS is revolved around selling the newest expansion above all things, which is why the newest expansions feel like the most broken ones (just look at a card like Soulciologist Malicia, an insanely powerful card that was a staple for a couple of expansion cycles before being rendered useless not because she was nerfed but because the environment around her just started chewing her for breakfast) [yes, this is a power creep rant, you can ignore it].
I dont think there's anything particularly wrong if expansions are designed to overtake the previous meta. In fact, I'd argue that's particularly one thing it should be doing: freshen up the meta, something which the midset tends to fail doing.
There are cards that are still seeing play from earlier expansion. Librams, amusingly enough, sees more play after it was first introduced and are still seeing play now. Insane cards can be pushed away simply because of the meta is not conducive to it, not necessarily because of power creep.
Regarding the Gnoll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I10Xy831K9Q Starts at 1:28. And something similar did happen to me. In my case, I was playing wild, added Grumble, Worldshaker to my hand (so far so good), played him and returned him to hand using Shadowstep (at which point Wildpaw Gnoll's cost did not decrease) and replayed him, with Wildpaw Gnoll increasing its cost. I don't have Maestra, so I was always a Rogue, so the card couldn't even get "confused" by that factor.
Regarding the Librams: they did get buffed. Aldor Attendant started as a 2 mana 2/3. Not saying that's the only reason the package became good, but it did become much more efficient from that point onward. But that wasn't my point regarding power creep. I believe the current design process has the flaw of shunning past expansions too hard. Yes, a card like The Demon Seed can exist, but if every other warlock archetype gets completely outclassed by it, then that card becomes a problem. And while it's impossible to have a meta where every card has similar power levels, it is possible to have metas where weaker archetypes can still fight with stronger ones, like the Un'Goro meta or even the OG Old Gods meta. It just feels the current metas revolve too much around the new instead of harmonizing the new with the old.
EDIT: Although I do have to say, the Libram package is still one of their best designs regarding balancing the new with the old.
Thanks for the Wildpaw Gnoll note. Interesting bug. Gonna test a little of this myself later.
Regarding the impact of current expansions versus the old, I still think team5 got it mostly right, or at least the intention is correct: new expansions should introduce new decks, and the goal is to have as many new cards see play as possible. Often enough this means power creeping, or deliberate design decisions to disadvantage old cards in favor of newer ones. A good example would be the introduction of new frost spells in shaman, so usage of Primal Dungeoneer is theoretically disadvantaged, as inclusion of frost spells affects its consistency.
Harmonizing with the old is hard when you're trying to get people to play new cards. To do this, they would need to dedicate some cards to support old existing decks, but this would run counter to their design decision to have the new expansion stand out. Witchwood was deliberately designed to be weaker than the preceeding expansions, and as a result many of its cards never saw light of day.
Besides, there's no reason to believe the old decks can't function in the new ecosystem. Rush warrior can still play, and control priest arguably just evolved into the current existing quest priest. Face hunter from barrens is still here, as is the many iterations of libram paladin. One of the ways I enjoy hearthstone is to engineer old decks to new expansions and while I dont always meet success, that doesn't mean they're completely unplayable.
Also, I think we can all agree that stormwind's meta is an anomaly: a once in a lifetime situation where cards are so disgustingly polarizing that it strangled the game for weeks. Using that as examples should be done sparingly, because I think its unanimous, that this is the extreme end of examples of unhealthy new expansion cards (pre-nerfed).
That Gaby concede is legitimately one of the craziest things Ive seen in a tournament (albeit in this case a semi-tournament) setting. Literally got destroyed by maestra.
I enjoyed that tournament to be honest. Let's hope for more from the community for these concept fun tournaments. Maybe one day we'll even see seatstory cup again.
I will say this though, and this is my personal opinion: the reason why I haven't completely given up on Mercs (and HS in general) is that the devs still care about the game. I don't put my money on it because I don't like a lot of the current design decisions (or because I don't want to spend 20€ on 8 Jpegs and a couple of voicelines in BGs case [come on, T5, lower those prices, I bought Valheim for 17€ around 5 months ago and have almost 300 hours of play time already while juggling studies and work, that's just so much more value than what you're offering it's almost sad]), but I understand why people still put money on this game. Just look at how the devs still try to cater to the requests of the community while having to deal with Bobby Kotick's greedy little shadow everywhere. Iksar doesn't need to do weekly AMAs, he chooses to. Celestalon doesn't need to do weird puzzles for us, he chooses to (although dude, spend more time fixing bugs, Wildpaw Gnoll is a buggy mess, for example). Those are just some examples. But we also see a lot of community interaction through advertising content creators and other background stuff like that. That's why HS survived through 7 years of game life or the rise of other digital card games like LoR or MtG Arena or Artifact (LUL) or other "HS killers".
I dont actually recall a Wildpaw Gnoll bug, far as I know its working as intended. Can you clarify on this?
Quote From ElSabidon
And it's not like we only see Activision's grubby little fingers in Mercenaries, I feel a non insignificant percentage of the design process in Standard HS is revolved around selling the newest expansion above all things, which is why the newest expansions feel like the most broken ones (just look at a card like Soulciologist Malicia, an insanely powerful card that was a staple for a couple of expansion cycles before being rendered useless not because she was nerfed but because the environment around her just started chewing her for breakfast) [yes, this is a power creep rant, you can ignore it].
I dont think there's anything particularly wrong if expansions are designed to overtake the previous meta. In fact, I'd argue that's particularly one thing it should be doing: freshen up the meta, something which the midset tends to fail doing.
There are cards that are still seeing play from earlier expansion. Librams, amusingly enough, sees more play after it was first introduced and are still seeing play now. Insane cards can be pushed away simply because of the meta is not conducive to it, not necessarily because of power creep.
- The boons can be easily farmed in felwood against our dear friend Lord Banehollow, where there's a near guarantee of 2 of them stacked one match away from one another
- The excess coin issue is an outstanding thing that has yet to be resolved, and in my opinion, will likely end up as a means to get more portraits rather than exchange for other merc coins.
- It would appear that the design document has made out mercs to be some kind of money making mode, unlike both battlegrounds and duels. So many promos and sales, it almost makes regular hearthstone look tame by comparison. The latest is a 15 bucks promo for a portrait + 5 packs, I kid you not.
And then the latest change, which was to guarantee legendary coins from boss chest, only works when you've beaten a heroic boss at level 30. In effect this would change nothing: vets would rather grind it on barrens heroic 1, and newcomers (without better collections) would struggle to ever beat these at all.
All this leads me to believe that the grind is deliberate, and will likely stay on for the foreseeable future. As to whether mercs has a foreseeable future at all, that's a story for another time.
I've stopped grinding strangers ever since AV started because ranked standard was actually fun for the first time in 3 months and my attentions has largely been there. Haven't even played much duels at all, let alone mercs. In term of being a game, in my opinion, mercs would need to address the following;
- Retaliatory damage for physical attacks is dumb. Like seriously. The best team currently in PvE is either nature bros, or spam fire, mostly because they deal AoE or are simply more efficient: dealing more damage while taking less.
- Losing a merc in PvE is devastating, and the mechanics around reviving them are inconsistent at best. Meaning, there's no reason to take risks and fight more difficult fights. So what we have here is a game whereby best results are gained by strategically avoiding fights. Not good, when fighting is supposed to be fun.
- The gameplay is very one note. Pokemon avoided this by having EVs (meaning you can have the same pokemon with different stats and therefore different gameplans) and enabling switching, which means sniping is not a guaranteed option. In mercs however, whenever you see a beast build you know 100% how it plays out (King krush is always offensive, etc.) and sniping is near impossible to avoid. This makes the game very repetitive, and too efficient.
- And lastly, mercs feels a lot like a game that is designed not to be fun first, but as a cash generator. A similar souless triple AAA tripe that we see year to year, designed specifically to make money first and gameplay a secondary (if at all necessary) option. Except mercs lack the casual appeal and reach of your typical assassin's creed, madden, starwars etc.
Who is this game made for? A question yet unanswered.
It cheapens Wildpaw Gnoll by at least 1 (usually 2, because the only 1 drop is Swashburglar), and naturally allows you to play Double Agent without any activators. Gnoll alone is major, because its a 4/5 rush for 3 most of the time.
Also, its hilarious, and sometimes you get a disguise like priest and everyone goes full greed only to be punished hard.
Its certainly not a meme now to include maestra in thief rogue.
I find it strange that reaching 20 mana is somehow rated at 2/5 speed whereas summoning the cubs reaches 4/5.
Ive been trying to finish the pups achievement in bronze wild and its testing my patience because there's only realistically 8 cubs per game you can generate without going weird with stuff like Faceless Manipulator and at 120 that's a minimum of 15 games, assuming you generate at least 8 per game. Whereas reaching 20 mana took an effortless one game.
Just curious to know if anyone thought out an easier route for this because its very much similar to warlock's kill 100 minions with Desecrated Graveyard, very tedious - much like most of AV's achievements.
Honestly, Im beginning to have second thoughts about Tour Guide. 90% of the time I'd mulligan this just to get a better chance at getting Wildfire, which is honestly the best card in this list. I might at some point experiment with Shivering Sorceress or add in one Devolving Missiles to have a better matchup against paladin and priest, because tall decks really tests this deck.
I find that Multicaster is really not required because the deck is fairly midrange, and most of the time Im just playing two cards per turn at most. I'd rather be discovering stuff, and there's 5 tutor cards in there already.
Not having Ice Barrier still peeves me, but I think its better to chance it off discovers because some games its just useless, and you'd want to be aggressive if you can. Might experiment with Fire Sale in exchange for Starscryer if things get too aggressive.
Edit: I think I should at least mention that Rune of the Archmage is still just too good to ignore completely. Its not 'random bs go' because the spells will target enemies whenever it can, so 90% of the time it'll just clear board, or do some small damage to opponent's face. Mage has a massive weakness to tall boards, and this is an easy way out of it. Maybe 2x would be too much, but if we're sticking to the big spells ping mage idea, then at least 1 would be fitting.
Im surprised that you managed to find the timeline for this thing. Cannot have been fun combing through his massive streams for this specific information.
Well, at least someone has done it so we don't have to :)
It's been on our radar for the past few days as well, they just haven't been very forthcoming with sharing all useful images, details, and so on (plus the qualifier was supposed to take place and finish on Monday, but because of the surprise patch and issues that followed had to be cut in half and also played on Tuesday). Kind of annoying when you're trying to get a full picture. But as Flux points out, it's never a guarantee we catch these things timely or manage to put everything together, so thank you for spreading the word here!
I'm curious about that starting time, as that's the one thing I didn't see publicly announced on Twitter or Discord and couldn't get a reply about. Perhaps you know more. Did he only mention it on his stream in passing?
Agreed that the details aren't really out there. I went through his twitter several times and couldn't find out much myself. It was only in reddit that I saw the time in the first place. Chances are good he explained it in his streams, but I dont have the time to shift through all that.
Well, I actually knew this was a thing a few days back but since only Reddit is showing it, I thought I should at very least keep all informed that Thjis is hosting an invitational tournament today (21st Dec) on 2pm CET. Watch it via his twitch or through the other participants. Far as I know, Kibler, bunnyhopper, nohandsgamer, gaby, and curiously Cora (currently in blizz as designer) are part of it.
At very least because its less serious than blizz run tournaments we can expect there to be a mix of tier 1-2 decks along with a few less viable but fun decks as well. It is, after all, the first tournament post patch.
For anyone serious about hearthstone esport, or just ranked standard should give it a watch. Its one of those rare non-blizz tournament I've seen in ages.
Fallen hero is an interesting inclusion. Why not Amplified Snowflurry? Its basically another tour guide.
I think there's enough justification to swap Deep Freeze with Rune of the Archmage, which will likely improve your matchup against midrange decks that aren't paladin. Deep freeze doesn't curve into dawngrasp anyway.
You probably need either Ice Barrier as the only ice spell or you might need to play Fire Sale as well, depending on the meta. Magister Dawngrasp has been buffed but the issue with survivability still stands, and I really dont think you can get away with not having some defensive tools around for a 7 mana card.
Yes, it might be funny to see dawngrasp having a 5 damage hp, but I think if you breached the 3 damage barrier your hp is already good enough to win the game on its own, so there's no reasons why you need Wildfire as the only fire spell.
Ping mage might not need so many heavy spells to win games. I havent tried it myself, but I think you just never play stuff like Mask of C'Thun or Deep Freeze. Even Rune of the Archmage seems too much, because you always just want modresh to finish the game. For that reason, you'd want stuff like Taelan Fordring. Some spell tutors like Starscryer and Frostweave Dungeoneer is almost too crucial as well, because you always want your wildfires early. Of course, if you plan to put heavy spells in, you should also consider Deepwater Evoker, which can provide some health along with tutoring a spell.
Im rather surprised to see that they didn't sell those skins separately like they did with the mech skins. Kinda sad, because Im pretty sure that there are plenty of players who will buy one or two skins, but certainly not 25 bucks for 4.
Is there a reason why this isn't just applied to all bounties across normal and heroics? Almost looks like team5 submitted the change document only for it to be watered down at the end by management.
I mean seriously, some of the heroic bosses aren't easy to grind without a strong team, and arguably changes like these should be aimed at helping those without better collections.
Its still just easier to grind up strangers, or better yet, just solo one merc up on heroics barrens level 1 for that guaranteed 10 coins you need in 5 min, rather than suffer through a 30 min run of which you may or may not succeed to beat.
So all in all, a nice change that will likely end up doing absolutely nothing, not to veterans or newcomers.
Good lord, my dust collection will be smiling today. Seems like there is a positive in not dusting those golden cards months back after all.
Alright, here's my take on the changes;
- Celestial Alignment nerf is more likely to change things a bit with druid rather than as a necessary power nerf. Most druids nowadays just ramp so they can play this card, not ramp to big stuff like they used to so this change is welcomed so we see more variety. Unfortunately once again team5 have ignored my request for lightning bloom to get nerfed, but since trogg is now no longer a cheesable card guess we'll all see more Drek'Thar openings then.
- Alliance Bannerman got one of the least likeliest nerf ever, with a small health change. Would it be impactful? I doubt it. The card is and was always a tempo loss to begin with but it does mean that if you have a weapon in hand this card is straight up never surviving anything. I dont think this card going anywhere soon.
- Efficient Octo-bot and Runed Mithril Rod would probably never be played again, being now too expensive and conditional. Octobot's nerf means you cant coin into this anymore and there's more contrivance required to believe it'll trigger without you doing it yourself. Rod on the other hand is just too expensive at that range because once the heat gets up you cant equip this thing without dying.
- I didn't think they'd nerf Snowfall Guardian to be honest, because I thought they can easily just give us Living Dragonbreath in the next core set. Guess we wont be seeing that card next April. A nerf to 6 means its unlikely to be an auto keep in the mulligan against tempo decks because its simply too slow now.
- Touch of the Nathrezim has been slightly touched upon. Likely we'll still be seeing much of this anyway.
- The two most biggest nerf today would actually be to Irondeep Trogg and Mo'arg Artificer. No more cheesing of trogg means no more druid bs, no one turn 1 concedes, and almost certainly sending priest back to the drawing board. At least I can now comfortably remove this from my paladin decks because it sucks now, hard. One of the biggest thing this card does being replicating several Noble Mounts placed on it that paladin never loses board ever again. Wouldn't be surprised if I never see trogg ever again, which is just as well because I have a golden copy of it.
Mo'arg Artificer nerf needed to happen because dhunters and warlocks have been abusing this card since its inception. At least now its significantly harder to play, but I don't think it'll disappear from the meta entirely. What it does is sometimes just irreplaceable, especially to dhunters who lacks better removal options. It doesn't just die to Immolation Aura and School Spirits now, which might crop out to be somewhat significant because its still an impossible card to ignore on board.
As for buffs. Magister Dawngrasp is certainly a winner here. Don't be too surprised to see your opponent with a 4 damage hp now. I reckon that she'll be played in more ping decks rather than big decks, because the most important thing about this card isn't the value it brings, its actually surviving playing an 8, now 7, mana card without dying. That hp being now a straight up upgrade means its no longer an embarrassment playing it.
The way Wildfire works with this card makes me wonder how many will try that interaction with Frost Lich Jaina, one of the reasons this change happened in the first place if Im not mistaken.
Tavish getting that 2 mana hp is nice, but I dont think it'll change too much. Its still a 1 in 3 for huffer and from my experience playing this, you'd still much rather have the original hp if aggression is your thing. Might make it less awkward to fill your mana curve at very least.
From what I can see: Ping mage might be moving up a few tiers because of Wildfire and Magister Dawngrasp, no change to both paladin and quest warrior, warlock takes a few steps back, while big mage is no longer a 100% shot to the head. Up on top will continue to be face hunter, paladin and quest warrior, while the bottom will be priest, warlock and mage still, though less embarrassingly bad.
Priest and mage have massive upsides though, since this change touched 4 different OTK decks. I think pros would be moving on to either rogue or freeze shaman, assuming owlock is dead now.
Edit: Forgot mozaki mage exist. Fingers crossed that its not going to dominate because celestial alignment got nerfed.
I doubt it. I got my arse handed to me by an innocent Wildpaw Cavern, and I had fireshaper passive. Any freezes honestly, just destroys dhunter in duels its not even funny.
Not to mention that Immolation Aura is not available in deckbuilding, so you lose the one good AoE spell the class has. That alone seals the deal, its just so much weaker than the other burn decks available.
Also, I dont know whats the deal, but getting that passive that deals 2 damage per fel spell is so ludicrously difficult I swear its in the ultra rare pool. My entire deck was fel spells and it just never pops out.
Edit: I should add that I've rarely ever see dhunters in duels, and usually I just never lose to them. They have a massive advantage in the first two games and then its all down hill from there. It was only by exploiting the imps that I got to 8 wins at all.
Yeah, team5 could do better explaining how infinite arcane works. I remember looking up several reddit posts to find out that it actually discovers from your deck, and at the start of the game, which means you cant thin down your deck for a more consistent discover chance.
Mage as a duels class is really tough, because most of the time they'd just get mowed down by burns decks. That's mostly why embercaster just doesn't cut it anymore, unless you're running quest portal, where embercaster has a definite niche. Infinite Arcane however gives you a chance, because you can theoretically (I did this plenty of times) just lockdown your opponent with never ending freezes or loathebs. Forget the embercaster + wildfire. Its more fun to destroy opponents with five turns of mordreshes, which was definitely a highlight for me that one time.
Yogg cakes just for fun to be honest. Its definitely not competitive because of consistency, and because you're not choosing either embercaster or infinite arcane. Still, duels is that one mode where its fully casual so if you're in for fun, then why not?
Thanks for the Wildpaw Gnoll note. Interesting bug. Gonna test a little of this myself later.
Regarding the impact of current expansions versus the old, I still think team5 got it mostly right, or at least the intention is correct: new expansions should introduce new decks, and the goal is to have as many new cards see play as possible. Often enough this means power creeping, or deliberate design decisions to disadvantage old cards in favor of newer ones. A good example would be the introduction of new frost spells in shaman, so usage of Primal Dungeoneer is theoretically disadvantaged, as inclusion of frost spells affects its consistency.
Harmonizing with the old is hard when you're trying to get people to play new cards. To do this, they would need to dedicate some cards to support old existing decks, but this would run counter to their design decision to have the new expansion stand out. Witchwood was deliberately designed to be weaker than the preceeding expansions, and as a result many of its cards never saw light of day.
Besides, there's no reason to believe the old decks can't function in the new ecosystem. Rush warrior can still play, and control priest arguably just evolved into the current existing quest priest. Face hunter from barrens is still here, as is the many iterations of libram paladin. One of the ways I enjoy hearthstone is to engineer old decks to new expansions and while I dont always meet success, that doesn't mean they're completely unplayable.
Also, I think we can all agree that stormwind's meta is an anomaly: a once in a lifetime situation where cards are so disgustingly polarizing that it strangled the game for weeks. Using that as examples should be done sparingly, because I think its unanimous, that this is the extreme end of examples of unhealthy new expansion cards (pre-nerfed).
That Gaby concede is legitimately one of the craziest things Ive seen in a tournament (albeit in this case a semi-tournament) setting. Literally got destroyed by maestra.
I enjoyed that tournament to be honest. Let's hope for more from the community for these concept fun tournaments. Maybe one day we'll even see seatstory cup again.
I dont actually recall a Wildpaw Gnoll bug, far as I know its working as intended. Can you clarify on this?
I dont think there's anything particularly wrong if expansions are designed to overtake the previous meta. In fact, I'd argue that's particularly one thing it should be doing: freshen up the meta, something which the midset tends to fail doing.
There are cards that are still seeing play from earlier expansion. Librams, amusingly enough, sees more play after it was first introduced and are still seeing play now. Insane cards can be pushed away simply because of the meta is not conducive to it, not necessarily because of power creep.
Northshire Farmer into macaw for that perpetual freeze.
You're an evil one aren't you?
Just a few comments of my own:
- The boons can be easily farmed in felwood against our dear friend Lord Banehollow, where there's a near guarantee of 2 of them stacked one match away from one another
- The excess coin issue is an outstanding thing that has yet to be resolved, and in my opinion, will likely end up as a means to get more portraits rather than exchange for other merc coins.
- It would appear that the design document has made out mercs to be some kind of money making mode, unlike both battlegrounds and duels. So many promos and sales, it almost makes regular hearthstone look tame by comparison. The latest is a 15 bucks promo for a portrait + 5 packs, I kid you not.
And then the latest change, which was to guarantee legendary coins from boss chest, only works when you've beaten a heroic boss at level 30. In effect this would change nothing: vets would rather grind it on barrens heroic 1, and newcomers (without better collections) would struggle to ever beat these at all.
All this leads me to believe that the grind is deliberate, and will likely stay on for the foreseeable future. As to whether mercs has a foreseeable future at all, that's a story for another time.
I've stopped grinding strangers ever since AV started because ranked standard was actually fun for the first time in 3 months and my attentions has largely been there. Haven't even played much duels at all, let alone mercs. In term of being a game, in my opinion, mercs would need to address the following;
- Retaliatory damage for physical attacks is dumb. Like seriously. The best team currently in PvE is either nature bros, or spam fire, mostly because they deal AoE or are simply more efficient: dealing more damage while taking less.
- Losing a merc in PvE is devastating, and the mechanics around reviving them are inconsistent at best. Meaning, there's no reason to take risks and fight more difficult fights. So what we have here is a game whereby best results are gained by strategically avoiding fights. Not good, when fighting is supposed to be fun.
- The gameplay is very one note. Pokemon avoided this by having EVs (meaning you can have the same pokemon with different stats and therefore different gameplans) and enabling switching, which means sniping is not a guaranteed option. In mercs however, whenever you see a beast build you know 100% how it plays out (King krush is always offensive, etc.) and sniping is near impossible to avoid. This makes the game very repetitive, and too efficient.
- And lastly, mercs feels a lot like a game that is designed not to be fun first, but as a cash generator. A similar souless triple AAA tripe that we see year to year, designed specifically to make money first and gameplay a secondary (if at all necessary) option. Except mercs lack the casual appeal and reach of your typical assassin's creed, madden, starwars etc.
Who is this game made for? A question yet unanswered.
It cheapens Wildpaw Gnoll by at least 1 (usually 2, because the only 1 drop is Swashburglar), and naturally allows you to play Double Agent without any activators. Gnoll alone is major, because its a 4/5 rush for 3 most of the time.
Also, its hilarious, and sometimes you get a disguise like priest and everyone goes full greed only to be punished hard.
Its certainly not a meme now to include maestra in thief rogue.
I find it strange that reaching 20 mana is somehow rated at 2/5 speed whereas summoning the cubs reaches 4/5.
Ive been trying to finish the pups achievement in bronze wild and its testing my patience because there's only realistically 8 cubs per game you can generate without going weird with stuff like Faceless Manipulator and at 120 that's a minimum of 15 games, assuming you generate at least 8 per game. Whereas reaching 20 mana took an effortless one game.
Just curious to know if anyone thought out an easier route for this because its very much similar to warlock's kill 100 minions with Desecrated Graveyard, very tedious - much like most of AV's achievements.
I took some inspiration from your build, made one of my own. So far looks promising with a few wins.
# 1x (1) Tour Guide
# 2x (1) Wildfire
# 2x (2) Amplified Snowflurry
# 2x (2) Manafeeder Panthara
# 2x (2) Pandaren Importer
# 2x (2) Starscryer
# 2x (2) Wandmaker
# 2x (4) Deepwater Evoker
# 2x (4) Reckless Apprentice
# 1x (4) Varden Dawngrasp
# 2x (5) Arcane Overflow
# 1x (5) Taelan Fordring
# 2x (6) Grey Sage Parrot
# 1x (7) Clumsy Courier
# 1x (7) Magister Dawngrasp
# 2x (7) Mask of C'Thun
# 1x (8) Mordresh Fire Eye
# 2x (9) Rune of the Archmage
AAECAf3VAwabzQPY7AOd7gOx9wOgigSoigQM97gD+84D/tED+90D0+wD1uwDyfkDkoEEk4EElIEEoZIE+6IEAA==
Honestly, Im beginning to have second thoughts about Tour Guide. 90% of the time I'd mulligan this just to get a better chance at getting Wildfire, which is honestly the best card in this list. I might at some point experiment with Shivering Sorceress or add in one Devolving Missiles to have a better matchup against paladin and priest, because tall decks really tests this deck.
I find that Multicaster is really not required because the deck is fairly midrange, and most of the time Im just playing two cards per turn at most. I'd rather be discovering stuff, and there's 5 tutor cards in there already.
Not having Ice Barrier still peeves me, but I think its better to chance it off discovers because some games its just useless, and you'd want to be aggressive if you can. Might experiment with Fire Sale in exchange for Starscryer if things get too aggressive.
Edit: I think I should at least mention that Rune of the Archmage is still just too good to ignore completely. Its not 'random bs go' because the spells will target enemies whenever it can, so 90% of the time it'll just clear board, or do some small damage to opponent's face. Mage has a massive weakness to tall boards, and this is an easy way out of it. Maybe 2x would be too much, but if we're sticking to the big spells ping mage idea, then at least 1 would be fitting.
Im surprised that you managed to find the timeline for this thing. Cannot have been fun combing through his massive streams for this specific information.
Well, at least someone has done it so we don't have to :)
Agreed that the details aren't really out there. I went through his twitter several times and couldn't find out much myself. It was only in reddit that I saw the time in the first place. Chances are good he explained it in his streams, but I dont have the time to shift through all that.
Well, I actually knew this was a thing a few days back but since only Reddit is showing it, I thought I should at very least keep all informed that Thjis is hosting an invitational tournament today (21st Dec) on 2pm CET. Watch it via his twitch or through the other participants. Far as I know, Kibler, bunnyhopper, nohandsgamer, gaby, and curiously Cora (currently in blizz as designer) are part of it.
At very least because its less serious than blizz run tournaments we can expect there to be a mix of tier 1-2 decks along with a few less viable but fun decks as well. It is, after all, the first tournament post patch.
For anyone serious about hearthstone esport, or just ranked standard should give it a watch. Its one of those rare non-blizz tournament I've seen in ages.
If its any consolation, just go in there with suicide warlock and grind out 15 min for 2 packs. Its play, not win after all.
Fallen hero is an interesting inclusion. Why not Amplified Snowflurry? Its basically another tour guide.
I think there's enough justification to swap Deep Freeze with Rune of the Archmage, which will likely improve your matchup against midrange decks that aren't paladin. Deep freeze doesn't curve into dawngrasp anyway.
You cant do that. Unless youre from brazil, where legislation forces blizz to split the bundle.
You probably need either Ice Barrier as the only ice spell or you might need to play Fire Sale as well, depending on the meta. Magister Dawngrasp has been buffed but the issue with survivability still stands, and I really dont think you can get away with not having some defensive tools around for a 7 mana card.
Yes, it might be funny to see dawngrasp having a 5 damage hp, but I think if you breached the 3 damage barrier your hp is already good enough to win the game on its own, so there's no reasons why you need Wildfire as the only fire spell.
Ping mage might not need so many heavy spells to win games. I havent tried it myself, but I think you just never play stuff like Mask of C'Thun or Deep Freeze. Even Rune of the Archmage seems too much, because you always just want modresh to finish the game. For that reason, you'd want stuff like Taelan Fordring. Some spell tutors like Starscryer and Frostweave Dungeoneer is almost too crucial as well, because you always want your wildfires early. Of course, if you plan to put heavy spells in, you should also consider Deepwater Evoker, which can provide some health along with tutoring a spell.
Im rather surprised to see that they didn't sell those skins separately like they did with the mech skins. Kinda sad, because Im pretty sure that there are plenty of players who will buy one or two skins, but certainly not 25 bucks for 4.
Is there a reason why this isn't just applied to all bounties across normal and heroics? Almost looks like team5 submitted the change document only for it to be watered down at the end by management.
I mean seriously, some of the heroic bosses aren't easy to grind without a strong team, and arguably changes like these should be aimed at helping those without better collections.
Its still just easier to grind up strangers, or better yet, just solo one merc up on heroics barrens level 1 for that guaranteed 10 coins you need in 5 min, rather than suffer through a 30 min run of which you may or may not succeed to beat.
So all in all, a nice change that will likely end up doing absolutely nothing, not to veterans or newcomers.
Good lord, my dust collection will be smiling today. Seems like there is a positive in not dusting those golden cards months back after all.
Alright, here's my take on the changes;
- Celestial Alignment nerf is more likely to change things a bit with druid rather than as a necessary power nerf. Most druids nowadays just ramp so they can play this card, not ramp to big stuff like they used to so this change is welcomed so we see more variety. Unfortunately once again team5 have ignored my request for lightning bloom to get nerfed, but since trogg is now no longer a cheesable card guess we'll all see more Drek'Thar openings then.
- Alliance Bannerman got one of the least likeliest nerf ever, with a small health change. Would it be impactful? I doubt it. The card is and was always a tempo loss to begin with but it does mean that if you have a weapon in hand this card is straight up never surviving anything. I dont think this card going anywhere soon.
- Efficient Octo-bot and Runed Mithril Rod would probably never be played again, being now too expensive and conditional. Octobot's nerf means you cant coin into this anymore and there's more contrivance required to believe it'll trigger without you doing it yourself. Rod on the other hand is just too expensive at that range because once the heat gets up you cant equip this thing without dying.
- I didn't think they'd nerf Snowfall Guardian to be honest, because I thought they can easily just give us Living Dragonbreath in the next core set. Guess we wont be seeing that card next April. A nerf to 6 means its unlikely to be an auto keep in the mulligan against tempo decks because its simply too slow now.
- Touch of the Nathrezim has been slightly touched upon. Likely we'll still be seeing much of this anyway.
- Bloodsail Deckhand will still see play because of the interaction with the quest and Whetstone Hatchet. But at very least it means anything will kill this now. Wish the nerf happened to Stormwind Freebooter too.
- The two most biggest nerf today would actually be to Irondeep Trogg and Mo'arg Artificer. No more cheesing of trogg means no more druid bs, no one turn 1 concedes, and almost certainly sending priest back to the drawing board. At least I can now comfortably remove this from my paladin decks because it sucks now, hard. One of the biggest thing this card does being replicating several Noble Mounts placed on it that paladin never loses board ever again. Wouldn't be surprised if I never see trogg ever again, which is just as well because I have a golden copy of it.
Mo'arg Artificer nerf needed to happen because dhunters and warlocks have been abusing this card since its inception. At least now its significantly harder to play, but I don't think it'll disappear from the meta entirely. What it does is sometimes just irreplaceable, especially to dhunters who lacks better removal options. It doesn't just die to Immolation Aura and School Spirits now, which might crop out to be somewhat significant because its still an impossible card to ignore on board.
As for buffs. Magister Dawngrasp is certainly a winner here. Don't be too surprised to see your opponent with a 4 damage hp now. I reckon that she'll be played in more ping decks rather than big decks, because the most important thing about this card isn't the value it brings, its actually surviving playing an 8, now 7, mana card without dying. That hp being now a straight up upgrade means its no longer an embarrassment playing it.
The way Wildfire works with this card makes me wonder how many will try that interaction with Frost Lich Jaina, one of the reasons this change happened in the first place if Im not mistaken.
Tavish getting that 2 mana hp is nice, but I dont think it'll change too much. Its still a 1 in 3 for huffer and from my experience playing this, you'd still much rather have the original hp if aggression is your thing. Might make it less awkward to fill your mana curve at very least.
From what I can see: Ping mage might be moving up a few tiers because of Wildfire and Magister Dawngrasp, no change to both paladin and quest warrior, warlock takes a few steps back, while big mage is no longer a 100% shot to the head. Up on top will continue to be face hunter, paladin and quest warrior, while the bottom will be priest, warlock and mage still, though less embarrassingly bad.
Priest and mage have massive upsides though, since this change touched 4 different OTK decks. I think pros would be moving on to either rogue or freeze shaman, assuming owlock is dead now.
Edit: Forgot mozaki mage exist. Fingers crossed that its not going to dominate because celestial alignment got nerfed.
I doubt it. I got my arse handed to me by an innocent Wildpaw Cavern, and I had fireshaper passive. Any freezes honestly, just destroys dhunter in duels its not even funny.
Not to mention that Immolation Aura is not available in deckbuilding, so you lose the one good AoE spell the class has. That alone seals the deal, its just so much weaker than the other burn decks available.
Also, I dont know whats the deal, but getting that passive that deals 2 damage per fel spell is so ludicrously difficult I swear its in the ultra rare pool. My entire deck was fel spells and it just never pops out.
Edit: I should add that I've rarely ever see dhunters in duels, and usually I just never lose to them. They have a massive advantage in the first two games and then its all down hill from there. It was only by exploiting the imps that I got to 8 wins at all.
Yeah, team5 could do better explaining how infinite arcane works. I remember looking up several reddit posts to find out that it actually discovers from your deck, and at the start of the game, which means you cant thin down your deck for a more consistent discover chance.
Mage as a duels class is really tough, because most of the time they'd just get mowed down by burns decks. That's mostly why embercaster just doesn't cut it anymore, unless you're running quest portal, where embercaster has a definite niche. Infinite Arcane however gives you a chance, because you can theoretically (I did this plenty of times) just lockdown your opponent with never ending freezes or loathebs. Forget the embercaster + wildfire. Its more fun to destroy opponents with five turns of mordreshes, which was definitely a highlight for me that one time.
Yogg cakes just for fun to be honest. Its definitely not competitive because of consistency, and because you're not choosing either embercaster or infinite arcane. Still, duels is that one mode where its fully casual so if you're in for fun, then why not?