There's actually a small chance that the mercs dont actually feature in its entirety in the next expansion. Tamsin's dead dead, and Cariel as well as Kurtrus's arcs are complete. The only incomplete arc is currently Xyrella's, and its likely that Tavish and Varden will be there. But Guff, Brukan, Rokara, and Scabbs have actually little to no reason to continue beyond this point.
Drek'thar seems like someone that will be in the miniset as a marquee, like how Edwin and Naralex was before. I wouldn't be surprised to not see him in the expansion, but certainly in the miniset. Admitably my WoW knowledge here is limited, so I dont know where the miniset would be placed in the region.
The problem Im having with this card is simply that it fills the board, but does nothing else. Ironically if you fill the board completely, you cant even play Animated Broomstick to secure value trades or tempo. That's not to say that the card's trash, but its very meta dependent, and of course the support spells have to be really good too for this to work at all.
I hope the frost spells in shaman dont actually freeze, because I'd be seriously considering just playing freeze effects in doomhammer shaman and completely making everyone's life miserable. With Multicaster as a draw engine, this can actually be a sad reality.
They're actively bringing back an archetype that has not only been laughed at for years, but also the freeze mechanic, probably one of the most hated in the entire hearthstone world.
Something tells me that either freeze shaman will be the next most hated deck in the next expansion, or it'll be that nice quiet boy that no one gives a shit about.
The card itself is kinda meh. Even if you summon a board full of 3/4s, none of those have taunt or rush, so its basically a much weaker Soulciologist Malicia, with an arguably more difficult condition to meet. Or in other words, a 7 mana do nothing. Unless the next expansion is heavily board centric, Im not optimistic of this card's chances.
Its a confirmed bug. Might be a visual bug to be exact, and if you have 300 coins then the game will allow you to craft him, I havent seen any news anywhere confirming this but I read it somewhere in reddit. Otherwise, you'll see the crafting animation but when you let go everything goes back, mercifully without deducting your coins.
Yeah, I was a bit too happy to see a chance to get an epic on the cheap, but stuff like that is obviously a visual bug or it'll be fixed within hours.
If its any consolation, Sneed's not very good to be honest. Tried him and couldn't for the life of me think why I'd use him over many others.
Pretty much only Kurtrus and Gruul deal additional damage to specific enemy tags. Nearly everyone else synergizes with tags on the same team.
Kurtrus deals additional damage to demons, which are nearly all in felwood. Gruul deals add damage to dragons, which are nearly all in blackrock mountain.
But honestly, there's really no need to use any of them if you're farming boss chest. Fire teams will beat nearly everything in turn 1-2 except specifically against elementals that resist fire. So if youre thinking of farming, just use a fire team. Or use arcane team if you dont have Geddon.
Antonidas/Geddon/Alexstrazsa
Antonidas/Geddon/Ragnaros
Millhouse/Blink fox/Any other AoE merc
Beats every normal pve team easily. The only time you'll ever need to sub them out is against specific bosses and against merc fights.
Most important merc is geddon. If you have him but not the other fire mercs, you can play Millhouse/tavish/Geddon, for a turn 2 finish.
Its not that they cant do it. The fact that there is a hidden horde-alliance tag means its clearly possible. But that they have decided against it makes me suspect that its for balancing reasons that we dont have double-triple tags. I mean, if Edwin is a human/pirate, that means he can technically slot into human teams, get buffs from both humans and pirates, which means that's another layer to consider when designing the merc abilities, synergies, etc. Just too much work for really not much gain.
If u put Edwin in human team, then he can be buffed twice as human and once as a pirate. He can get 3 buffs, but he can't share his own buff with non-pirates, so his teammates will be weaker, so pure pirate team would be better anyway (3x pirate buff for all).
Also you can make orc/horde team where everybody gets buffs from horde and orc tags so what's the difference?
I would agree with one thing, and that's the horde and alliance tags should be removed, because of ambiguity and also because its just ridiculous considering many builds require both horde and alliance members.
But to answer your point; Let's assume for argument sake you have 6 mercs, 3 human & 3 pirates. All of them have the human/pirate buff giving around 5/10 stats each. If Edwin fits both tags, that's an astounding 30/60 buff on one merc. Edwin would have a statline of 42/130 at the start of the game, and since one of his ability allows him to attack twice, that's 84 health in one attack. Even if his teammates were weaker, you start with such a monstrous merc only a boss would be able to remove it, and that's only if they have an OTK ability.
And this sets a dangerous precedent, because then current and future mercs need necessarily be endowed with 1-3 tags for the sake of consistency. If team5 tells me that they don't want to do that because that's too much work balancing each and every tag, I wouldnt fault them one bit.
I can see we would need to agree to disagree on this one. You might believe that adding additional tags for the sake of logical consistency is a good thing, and that's a perfectly valid argument. But I think the devs's intentions are about game balance, which is also perfectly fair to them.
Yea yea, but they could add hidden race tags for pirates (tauren/human). And with more and more merceneries this this will be total mess. They should add 2nd label with faction name and this would solve most problems - "Tauren - Pirate", "Troll - Horde", "Human - Neutral" etc.
Its not that they cant do it. The fact that there is a hidden horde-alliance tag means its clearly possible. But that they have decided against it makes me suspect that its for balancing reasons that we dont have double-triple tags. I mean, if Edwin is a human/pirate, that means he can technically slot into human teams, get buffs from both humans and pirates, which means that's another layer to consider when designing the merc abilities, synergies, etc. Just too much work for really not much gain.
Its a bit like pokemon in this respect. Flygon is ground/dragon, but it clearly has wings and can learn fly so why isn't it part flying as well? Aggron can learn surf as stupid as it sounds, but is 4x weak to water. Or hilariously primeape can learn iron tail whilst having none. Sometimes we suspend part of our disbelieve for the sake of gameplay, story, or balancing, and that's not always a bad thing.
Its about 4k right now in twitch, somewhat small for a tournament. Unsurprising, since its essentially streaming 3 different modes, hoping maybe that its audience actually plays all three modes and will gladly sit through all of them.
I watched some of mercs, and its honestly hard to sit through it all. The players tend to rope alot, and unlike hearthstone there's only ever three moves per turn, so there's not much excitement. Although admitably there were a few unexpected skillful plays, like those Cairne speed battles.
Lol, are we seriously suggesting that wearing a singlet beneath that vest with both shoulders and sides exposed as being technically equal or superior or if you prefer, serving a similar role, to what is a mere triangle over Jaina's vest?
Im just pointing out that Jaina nerf is an overreaction to a nonexistent circumstance. Its just as mind boggling as is that removed Tracer's pose in overwatch. The fact that you can point out that Tamsin Roame's pic is almost if not more revealing only nails my point further.
Perhaps Im flogging a dead horse here by pointing this out. I just find it funny every time I see a new pic that contrast badly with the decision to nerf Jaina's portrait.
That portrait is indeed amazing. Both in terms of artwork, and the fact that blizz actually allowed it to go through. I mean, we're supposed to be disgusted by the nonexistent controversy that was the objectification of Jaina's center lines, and somehow this one is completely a-okay? Or is there something Im not noticing?
There's always the chance that we get that portrait in the tavern pass next expansion. Make it happen blizz.
Dont be too surprise if garrote rogue is still a valid deck that basically populates legend until the next expansion. The nerf was handy, but all it essentially does is to raise the bar a little further, because you really only need a +3 spell damage to pull of the 30 damage OTK. The warrior matchup will suck even further, but that has never really been questioned, and warrior still needs to play against other decks too.
Not to say that garrote shouldn't be nerfed, but I'd rather play against garrote rogue all day than even a mere game against quest mage. At least with garotte you're allowed to play the game and your opponent has to actually have a brain in his head. Quest mage at its best deprives you of both a game and the thought that your opponent may actually be an neglected 8 yr old with poor concepts of sportmanship.
Even crystal caverns don't suck fun at such a rate as sorcerer's gambit. You dont play around quest mage. You pray around quest mage.
Warrior in standard at least isn't really all that good. Been destroying warriors left right and center. Playing as warrior, I often get my arse handed to me as well.
The problem with warrior is the same usual issue with having to quest on 1, and depending on the built, is either inconsistently drawing pirates, or having no board clears or healing to sustain against swarming aggro decks.
The current most powerful built of quest warrior is probably control quest, but if quest mage and garrote rogue are being nerfed, it wouldn't be long before this deck losses its best matchups and start struggling.
Will this be it? Will I finally see the end of the hated quest mage? Now that the reward only grant +2 spell damage, it might be arguable that youre better off just playing Imprisoned Phoenix. It was only to be inevitable anyway, because I'd never believe wholeheartedly that team5 will leave it until the next expansion, given how polarizing this deck actually is. It may not win alot, but its very good at bursting blood vessels. Probably the one reason I held off from meming and just play garotte rogue.
Which brings us to the nerf to Garrote, which in my opinion, only needed a change so the bleeds dont scale with spell power. What this nerf essentially does is to ensure that Guild Trader is a near mandatory inclusion, and you need to save at least one of the augmerchants for a finish at the end. Either that, or you play one additional Wicked Stab (Rank 1). Either way, I dont think this is the end, but the end of quest mage means more tempo decks and that means garotte rogue will eventually get worse one way or another. Still think its the best deck though.
Razormane Battleguard nerf is fine, probably to be expected given how powerful taunt druid is at cheesing early games. Renew renewal is also fine but wont be changing much, and kinda makes us wonder what was the point of nerfing this in the first place considering that when it was nerfed it was literally 2 weeks before stormwind.
Well, blizz, that's more than enough teases. Bring on the new expansion announcement of an announcement already. We all know its Alterac Valley, just give it to us - and the usual mandatory initial card reveal.
Got my five packs. Not that its going to do alot since I have all the mercs. Probably saving until the next update.
It does seem like up until a certain point there's really no reason to buy anything because grinding up for them is actually a valid option. Though I'd imagine that once youve exhausted all the mercs tasks, grinding up a new legendary/epic is going to take a lot longer than it would now. Given that the last three bosses added were no joke (took somewhere around 15-30 min to complete Blackhand), and each has only a chance to grant like 10-20 legendary coins, the grind can only get worse.
Well, that was an okay adventure. At least it had as much story as with Tamsin's, and unlike the others it actually had a tone other than the usual disney-eques family humor. That's one storyline resolved at least, and there seem to be 4 more;
- Scabbs and Varden's escape from prison, and probable confrontation with someone
- Tavish probably has a storyline, but so far its not exactly clear other than the one battle in dwarven district. The new expansion may give him an objective to focus on.
- Xyrella's storyline with the shard. I would be pleasantly surprised if blizz pulls a fast one and decides against an obvious happy ending in this one.
- Brukan and Rokara. Not sure what to do with this two. We know Rokara stole the juggernaunt, probably focused on that. While Brukan is really just there. Aside from his flashy naked half body showoff on the boat, what else is he supposed to be doing?
The last battle was a complete joke compared to the second last though.
Amazing that they easily fixed the problem with Warden's Insight but took so long to do the same for Hidden Oasis. And now poor Tyrantus will have to wait even longer. At least its fixed now.
The pack quality of mercs drops significantly the more you open, because up until a certain point you'll start getting more portraits instead of mercs/coins, and since there's no dust system there can be packs that are just completely duds, unlike regular hearthstone.
I dont think there's a problem with the drop rate, but if you're trying to get everything without grinding, that's going to take quite a lot of packs.
Its probably not good, and probably never will be good in standard. The premise of Tickatus as a good card is completely in either controlock, or in some kind of discardlock, and both aren't always consistent in standard. Especially in this meta, tickatus might well just not exist, given that so many decks just counter controlock so well.
I wouldn't craft it if I were you. But if you have spare dust, and feeling like you'd rather be happy meming than winning, then why not? Just be aware that the next expansion is in a month's time, so dust spent now feels kinda moot.
There's actually a small chance that the mercs dont actually feature in its entirety in the next expansion. Tamsin's dead dead, and Cariel as well as Kurtrus's arcs are complete. The only incomplete arc is currently Xyrella's, and its likely that Tavish and Varden will be there. But Guff, Brukan, Rokara, and Scabbs have actually little to no reason to continue beyond this point.
Drek'thar seems like someone that will be in the miniset as a marquee, like how Edwin and Naralex was before. I wouldn't be surprised to not see him in the expansion, but certainly in the miniset. Admitably my WoW knowledge here is limited, so I dont know where the miniset would be placed in the region.
The problem Im having with this card is simply that it fills the board, but does nothing else. Ironically if you fill the board completely, you cant even play Animated Broomstick to secure value trades or tempo. That's not to say that the card's trash, but its very meta dependent, and of course the support spells have to be really good too for this to work at all.
I hope the frost spells in shaman dont actually freeze, because I'd be seriously considering just playing freeze effects in doomhammer shaman and completely making everyone's life miserable. With Multicaster as a draw engine, this can actually be a sad reality.
They're actively bringing back an archetype that has not only been laughed at for years, but also the freeze mechanic, probably one of the most hated in the entire hearthstone world.
Something tells me that either freeze shaman will be the next most hated deck in the next expansion, or it'll be that nice quiet boy that no one gives a shit about.
The card itself is kinda meh. Even if you summon a board full of 3/4s, none of those have taunt or rush, so its basically a much weaker Soulciologist Malicia, with an arguably more difficult condition to meet. Or in other words, a 7 mana do nothing. Unless the next expansion is heavily board centric, Im not optimistic of this card's chances.
Its a confirmed bug. Might be a visual bug to be exact, and if you have 300 coins then the game will allow you to craft him, I havent seen any news anywhere confirming this but I read it somewhere in reddit. Otherwise, you'll see the crafting animation but when you let go everything goes back, mercifully without deducting your coins.
Yeah, I was a bit too happy to see a chance to get an epic on the cheap, but stuff like that is obviously a visual bug or it'll be fixed within hours.
If its any consolation, Sneed's not very good to be honest. Tried him and couldn't for the life of me think why I'd use him over many others.
Pretty much only Kurtrus and Gruul deal additional damage to specific enemy tags. Nearly everyone else synergizes with tags on the same team.
Kurtrus deals additional damage to demons, which are nearly all in felwood. Gruul deals add damage to dragons, which are nearly all in blackrock mountain.
But honestly, there's really no need to use any of them if you're farming boss chest. Fire teams will beat nearly everything in turn 1-2 except specifically against elementals that resist fire. So if youre thinking of farming, just use a fire team. Or use arcane team if you dont have Geddon.
Antonidas/Geddon/Alexstrazsa
Antonidas/Geddon/Ragnaros
Millhouse/Blink fox/Any other AoE merc
Beats every normal pve team easily. The only time you'll ever need to sub them out is against specific bosses and against merc fights.
Most important merc is geddon. If you have him but not the other fire mercs, you can play Millhouse/tavish/Geddon, for a turn 2 finish.
I would agree with one thing, and that's the horde and alliance tags should be removed, because of ambiguity and also because its just ridiculous considering many builds require both horde and alliance members.
But to answer your point; Let's assume for argument sake you have 6 mercs, 3 human & 3 pirates. All of them have the human/pirate buff giving around 5/10 stats each. If Edwin fits both tags, that's an astounding 30/60 buff on one merc. Edwin would have a statline of 42/130 at the start of the game, and since one of his ability allows him to attack twice, that's 84 health in one attack. Even if his teammates were weaker, you start with such a monstrous merc only a boss would be able to remove it, and that's only if they have an OTK ability.
And this sets a dangerous precedent, because then current and future mercs need necessarily be endowed with 1-3 tags for the sake of consistency. If team5 tells me that they don't want to do that because that's too much work balancing each and every tag, I wouldnt fault them one bit.
I can see we would need to agree to disagree on this one. You might believe that adding additional tags for the sake of logical consistency is a good thing, and that's a perfectly valid argument. But I think the devs's intentions are about game balance, which is also perfectly fair to them.
Its not that they cant do it. The fact that there is a hidden horde-alliance tag means its clearly possible. But that they have decided against it makes me suspect that its for balancing reasons that we dont have double-triple tags. I mean, if Edwin is a human/pirate, that means he can technically slot into human teams, get buffs from both humans and pirates, which means that's another layer to consider when designing the merc abilities, synergies, etc. Just too much work for really not much gain.
Its a bit like pokemon in this respect. Flygon is ground/dragon, but it clearly has wings and can learn fly so why isn't it part flying as well? Aggron can learn surf as stupid as it sounds, but is 4x weak to water. Or hilariously primeape can learn iron tail whilst having none. Sometimes we suspend part of our disbelieve for the sake of gameplay, story, or balancing, and that's not always a bad thing.
Its about 4k right now in twitch, somewhat small for a tournament. Unsurprising, since its essentially streaming 3 different modes, hoping maybe that its audience actually plays all three modes and will gladly sit through all of them.
I watched some of mercs, and its honestly hard to sit through it all. The players tend to rope alot, and unlike hearthstone there's only ever three moves per turn, so there's not much excitement. Although admitably there were a few unexpected skillful plays, like those Cairne speed battles.
Thanks flux. Bold move from blizz in my opinion.
No packs? Just checking
Lol, are we seriously suggesting that wearing a singlet beneath that vest with both shoulders and sides exposed as being technically equal or superior or if you prefer, serving a similar role, to what is a mere triangle over Jaina's vest?
Im just pointing out that Jaina nerf is an overreaction to a nonexistent circumstance. Its just as mind boggling as is that removed Tracer's pose in overwatch. The fact that you can point out that Tamsin Roame's pic is almost if not more revealing only nails my point further.
Perhaps Im flogging a dead horse here by pointing this out. I just find it funny every time I see a new pic that contrast badly with the decision to nerf Jaina's portrait.
That portrait is indeed amazing. Both in terms of artwork, and the fact that blizz actually allowed it to go through. I mean, we're supposed to be disgusted by the nonexistent controversy that was the objectification of Jaina's center lines, and somehow this one is completely a-okay? Or is there something Im not noticing?
There's always the chance that we get that portrait in the tavern pass next expansion. Make it happen blizz.
Dont be too surprise if garrote rogue is still a valid deck that basically populates legend until the next expansion. The nerf was handy, but all it essentially does is to raise the bar a little further, because you really only need a +3 spell damage to pull of the 30 damage OTK. The warrior matchup will suck even further, but that has never really been questioned, and warrior still needs to play against other decks too.
Not to say that garrote shouldn't be nerfed, but I'd rather play against garrote rogue all day than even a mere game against quest mage. At least with garotte you're allowed to play the game and your opponent has to actually have a brain in his head. Quest mage at its best deprives you of both a game and the thought that your opponent may actually be an neglected 8 yr old with poor concepts of sportmanship.
Even crystal caverns don't suck fun at such a rate as sorcerer's gambit. You dont play around quest mage. You pray around quest mage.
Warrior in standard at least isn't really all that good. Been destroying warriors left right and center. Playing as warrior, I often get my arse handed to me as well.
The problem with warrior is the same usual issue with having to quest on 1, and depending on the built, is either inconsistently drawing pirates, or having no board clears or healing to sustain against swarming aggro decks.
The current most powerful built of quest warrior is probably control quest, but if quest mage and garrote rogue are being nerfed, it wouldn't be long before this deck losses its best matchups and start struggling.
Will this be it? Will I finally see the end of the hated quest mage? Now that the reward only grant +2 spell damage, it might be arguable that youre better off just playing Imprisoned Phoenix. It was only to be inevitable anyway, because I'd never believe wholeheartedly that team5 will leave it until the next expansion, given how polarizing this deck actually is. It may not win alot, but its very good at bursting blood vessels. Probably the one reason I held off from meming and just play garotte rogue.
Which brings us to the nerf to Garrote, which in my opinion, only needed a change so the bleeds dont scale with spell power. What this nerf essentially does is to ensure that Guild Trader is a near mandatory inclusion, and you need to save at least one of the augmerchants for a finish at the end. Either that, or you play one additional Wicked Stab (Rank 1). Either way, I dont think this is the end, but the end of quest mage means more tempo decks and that means garotte rogue will eventually get worse one way or another. Still think its the best deck though.
Razormane Battleguard nerf is fine, probably to be expected given how powerful taunt druid is at cheesing early games. Renew renewal is also fine but wont be changing much, and kinda makes us wonder what was the point of nerfing this in the first place considering that when it was nerfed it was literally 2 weeks before stormwind.
Well, blizz, that's more than enough teases. Bring on the new expansion announcement of an announcement already. We all know its Alterac Valley, just give it to us - and the usual mandatory initial card reveal.
Got my five packs. Not that its going to do alot since I have all the mercs. Probably saving until the next update.
It does seem like up until a certain point there's really no reason to buy anything because grinding up for them is actually a valid option. Though I'd imagine that once youve exhausted all the mercs tasks, grinding up a new legendary/epic is going to take a lot longer than it would now. Given that the last three bosses added were no joke (took somewhere around 15-30 min to complete Blackhand), and each has only a chance to grant like 10-20 legendary coins, the grind can only get worse.
Well, that was an okay adventure. At least it had as much story as with Tamsin's, and unlike the others it actually had a tone other than the usual disney-eques family humor. That's one storyline resolved at least, and there seem to be 4 more;
- Scabbs and Varden's escape from prison, and probable confrontation with someone
- Tavish probably has a storyline, but so far its not exactly clear other than the one battle in dwarven district. The new expansion may give him an objective to focus on.
- Xyrella's storyline with the shard. I would be pleasantly surprised if blizz pulls a fast one and decides against an obvious happy ending in this one.
- Brukan and Rokara. Not sure what to do with this two. We know Rokara stole the juggernaunt, probably focused on that. While Brukan is really just there. Aside from his flashy naked half body showoff on the boat, what else is he supposed to be doing?
The last battle was a complete joke compared to the second last though.
Amazing that they easily fixed the problem with Warden's Insight but took so long to do the same for Hidden Oasis. And now poor Tyrantus will have to wait even longer. At least its fixed now.
The pack quality of mercs drops significantly the more you open, because up until a certain point you'll start getting more portraits instead of mercs/coins, and since there's no dust system there can be packs that are just completely duds, unlike regular hearthstone.
I dont think there's a problem with the drop rate, but if you're trying to get everything without grinding, that's going to take quite a lot of packs.
Its probably not good, and probably never will be good in standard. The premise of Tickatus as a good card is completely in either controlock, or in some kind of discardlock, and both aren't always consistent in standard. Especially in this meta, tickatus might well just not exist, given that so many decks just counter controlock so well.
I wouldn't craft it if I were you. But if you have spare dust, and feeling like you'd rather be happy meming than winning, then why not? Just be aware that the next expansion is in a month's time, so dust spent now feels kinda moot.