Bad. It has obvious synergies with the quest, but only the battecry is guaranteed to count into the quest unless you're willing to kill this card the same turn you play it. So what's the essential difference that makes this card better than, say, Backfire?
Yes it draws 2 cards. But warlock doesn't need help in that department.
But the biggest problem with this card is card slots. Handlock is pretty full right now, so the only other quest deck this can work in is either in zoo or turbo quest. In nearly all scenarios, this card is too unpredictable and costly to me.
Whack-A-Gnoll Hammer into Truesilver Champion is very strong. It does go on curve too, so it'll probably happen more often than you think given that most 4 mana weapons will deal at least 3 damage, and nearly all of them are strong in their own right. If for any reason this card sticks for another turn you have a 30 percent chance of getting a Doomhammer for free.
The only problem with this card is that you first need to have a weapon, not swing on turn 4, and the fact that this minion isn't an elemental so it cant immediately slot into elemental shaman. But if aggro shaman becomes a thing, this card is nearly an instant pick as long as there's credible 3 mana weapons around.
This isn't strictly as useless as people might think it is. Most cards in your opponent's deck aren't filler so you're almost always going to get something useful but the best part about this card is that it swaps into your opponent's deck which means one of their draws is now going to be useless to their gameplan.
Can it backfire? If you're running quest, or stealth rogue, or poison rogue, the chances of this backfiring is immensely low, while your opponent has to live with a crap card in their deck.
That said, most decks would probably not run it. The current meta isn't value, its mostly either quest mage or aggro now. But if we ever have a slower meta, this might not be as bad in an aggro deck, or even just quest rogue.
Grind strangers via felwood, dont put rare mercs in your team like Cariel, etc. because then one slot of the boss chest will almost always just give you useless coins. My team is usually 3 mains (whatever comp Im playing that day) + one extra guy (usually epic/legendary that I feel is most useful like Sylvannas or Cairne)
Try and focus on specific mercs when doing strangers. Task 16-18 will grant you packs, and that's the best reward you could ever wish for as f2p.
I usually get about 8 strangers done per day. Its absolutely doable on f2p. The only thing Ive ever purchased was that 5 bucks deal and 100 gold for heroics mode. Everything else was grinded.
Is playing pvp for chests really better than just farming pve? In higher difficulty levels, you can just retire a run halfway and get a good chance at scoring legendary coins. Not to mention that you can easily just fill your team with legendary and epic level mercs so the boss chest guarantees at least 10 coins for something other than cornelius coins. Considering that even at mid level MMR Im reading that players are meeting up with level 30 mercs with level 5 abilities, so it has got to be hard to actually win if you dont have a good team ready, and the time investment has got to be around 10 minutes per match even against a semi competent team.
Took me 3 weeks in pve to get all the mercs except for Uther, which Im 100 coins away. Probably get it done tomorrow to be honest.
Apparently when the patch is up you'll get your run refunded on heroics. So you know the drill, just play heroics until two losses then wait for the patch to go live. Get your reward and your free ticket for being such a sport.
Probably not good. 3 mana draw 3 is always a good card...but in a class where drawing is never a problem where will this card fit? It cant be discounted when you draw it so its not even strictly better than Acrobatics in a quest deck and in all other dhunter decks its just Skull of Gul'dan all day everyday. The best part is that this card is better off discounted by skull and never traded back.
The only niche I can see is that its a tradeable card so in big decks it might be useful.
Silverback Patriarch have been practically shat on since its inception. Besides, Bloodclaw was supposed to be an important bit for that heal paladin that never existed.
The macaws are basically repeat cards and Golakka Glutton is basically its counter. Because if Sunwing Squawker follows from a Blessing of Authority or Libram of Wisdom Im pretty sure that's just advantage paladin without some sort of quick counter. That said, Im pretty sure the glutton wouldn't actually see much play unless there's a huge very important beast ahead in the reveals.
For what its worth at least the glutton does immediately removes Moonfang, which is a definite plus in some decks.
As for those stuff that improves after trading; that's a little harder to justify, because trading it is precisely the thing you'd do if you don't need it. Doing so just to upgrade the them with no guarantee of getting them back is a hard sell.
Games are designed with target audiences in mind. I don't play sports games (Madden, NBA, etc) because I find them dull, reptitive, and not really into sports. I also like shooter games, but not Call of Duty type games. Does this mean I need to go bitch on reddit/forums about how those games to cater to me or try to include me? No. I realize what I like and I dislike.
Anyhow point is: Gamers can (and have) twisted the market place of games into a different space. It's up to developers to make sure that their own vision for the game doesn't get swept under the bed by the clamoring of mass players demanding games cater to their every specific need.
I just want to touch upon this point in your comment.
If the devs want to market this to specific groups of people, they can just go clean with another IP, or just use the WoW brand as hearthstone has done. Instead, they plastered this into hearthstone so its clear that they expect a sizeable amount of hearthstone players as part of its regular audience. So the 'bitching' will obviously come from an audience of hearthstone players in the hearthstone reddit.
In any case, you make a compelling point that people shouldnt expect games to fit sizes where it suits them, but this isn't (mostly) really about the game being shit, its criticism directed at specific actions taken by devs which the playerbase aren't impressed by. I don't need to play fifa or madden to know that lootboxes aimed at kids comes with large, looming ethical issues, and I certainly dont need to play it to criticise it.
There's at least three high level tasks that require you to use your abilities to complete. I dont have a list for you, but from my experience;
- Theres at least two high level tasks that require you to do damage while being in a team, something like do X fire damage with this merc in your team.
- There's one high level task that require 6 bounties (task 14-15?), and task 18 is usually 4-6 heroic bounties
Depending on the merc, there's usually one very annoying task that require you to use an ability no one generally uses, or a task that require your merc to die. Sylvannas has one that require you to kill 15 enemies with death volley (which require her to die), mutanus needs to use devour 60 times, Dawngrasp needs to deal damage with ice lance, etc. So if you're going to grind, choose wisely. Some of them are more annoying than others.
This will eventually bite back because this isn't really a fix as much as it is a hassle for pvp players, especially to casuals.
The problem with mercs pvp is that most builds are centered around a few core units. Like Malfurion on nature builds, or Barongeddon in fire builds. And unlike pokemon, mercs don't really have sweepers (except perhaps a few cheeky sylvanas strats) so you cant really rely on one unit to do all the heavy lifting, and you cant just switch out units to prevent a snipe. So its absolutely valid to just concede on losing one or two mercs because if you've lost a core unit and your opponent doesn't, is there any reason to not just concede and save both time and sanity?
Either way, why even bother with this fix? Win trading can only go so far in the MMR and its not like the fix prevented it, it just slows the process down. Its better to adjust it to a minimum of one or two units lost, if at all, certainly not three.
We got that legendary coin sack last week for 5 bucks, and now there's the epic coin sack for 3 bucks. So I wouldn't be too surprised if blizz thought that legendary stuff should be twice as expensive.
None of the deals are great in my opinion. Ive very nearly have all the mercs through nothing more than grinding the game, and let's be honest here, the gameplay is currently not really enticing enough that its interesting or necessary to buy up bundles.
Its probably canceled less because of the ongoing controversy and more because they haven't much to give us. Diablo 4, overwatch 2, another hearthstone expansion. What else is there that we don't know already? If Im not mistaken overwatch 2 is slated at late 2022 and diablo 4 wont be out until at least 2023 or further.
Its hard to believe that mercs is but 2 weeks old at this point and they are already trying to milk this thing to the orbit. I havent seen the bundles on sale myself, but if this is true that there are more bundles incoming then its hard not to connect the dots. That the game is very grindy and that its deliberately made to be unconfortable, to be relieved with small purchases of course.
Given what happened in the last few days with the whole air elemental debacle, you'd think they let it simmer down before offering yet more bundles for purchase.
Bad. It has obvious synergies with the quest, but only the battecry is guaranteed to count into the quest unless you're willing to kill this card the same turn you play it. So what's the essential difference that makes this card better than, say, Backfire?
Yes it draws 2 cards. But warlock doesn't need help in that department.
But the biggest problem with this card is card slots. Handlock is pretty full right now, so the only other quest deck this can work in is either in zoo or turbo quest. In nearly all scenarios, this card is too unpredictable and costly to me.
Whack-A-Gnoll Hammer into Truesilver Champion is very strong. It does go on curve too, so it'll probably happen more often than you think given that most 4 mana weapons will deal at least 3 damage, and nearly all of them are strong in their own right. If for any reason this card sticks for another turn you have a 30 percent chance of getting a Doomhammer for free.
The only problem with this card is that you first need to have a weapon, not swing on turn 4, and the fact that this minion isn't an elemental so it cant immediately slot into elemental shaman. But if aggro shaman becomes a thing, this card is nearly an instant pick as long as there's credible 3 mana weapons around.
This isn't strictly as useless as people might think it is. Most cards in your opponent's deck aren't filler so you're almost always going to get something useful but the best part about this card is that it swaps into your opponent's deck which means one of their draws is now going to be useless to their gameplan.
Can it backfire? If you're running quest, or stealth rogue, or poison rogue, the chances of this backfiring is immensely low, while your opponent has to live with a crap card in their deck.
That said, most decks would probably not run it. The current meta isn't value, its mostly either quest mage or aggro now. But if we ever have a slower meta, this might not be as bad in an aggro deck, or even just quest rogue.
Grind strangers via felwood, dont put rare mercs in your team like Cariel, etc. because then one slot of the boss chest will almost always just give you useless coins. My team is usually 3 mains (whatever comp Im playing that day) + one extra guy (usually epic/legendary that I feel is most useful like Sylvannas or Cairne)
Try and focus on specific mercs when doing strangers. Task 16-18 will grant you packs, and that's the best reward you could ever wish for as f2p.
I usually get about 8 strangers done per day. Its absolutely doable on f2p. The only thing Ive ever purchased was that 5 bucks deal and 100 gold for heroics mode. Everything else was grinded.
I got lucky with two legendaries off packs to be honest. Grinding those legendaries is literally hell.
Is playing pvp for chests really better than just farming pve? In higher difficulty levels, you can just retire a run halfway and get a good chance at scoring legendary coins. Not to mention that you can easily just fill your team with legendary and epic level mercs so the boss chest guarantees at least 10 coins for something other than cornelius coins. Considering that even at mid level MMR Im reading that players are meeting up with level 30 mercs with level 5 abilities, so it has got to be hard to actually win if you dont have a good team ready, and the time investment has got to be around 10 minutes per match even against a semi competent team.
Took me 3 weeks in pve to get all the mercs except for Uther, which Im 100 coins away. Probably get it done tomorrow to be honest.
Because this is somewhat important.
Apparently when the patch is up you'll get your run refunded on heroics. So you know the drill, just play heroics until two losses then wait for the patch to go live. Get your reward and your free ticket for being such a sport.
Source:
https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/news/23739023
Probably not good. 3 mana draw 3 is always a good card...but in a class where drawing is never a problem where will this card fit? It cant be discounted when you draw it so its not even strictly better than Acrobatics in a quest deck and in all other dhunter decks its just Skull of Gul'dan all day everyday. The best part is that this card is better off discounted by skull and never traded back.
The only niche I can see is that its a tradeable card so in big decks it might be useful.
Silverback Patriarch have been practically shat on since its inception. Besides, Bloodclaw was supposed to be an important bit for that heal paladin that never existed.
They will usually start with interesting cards, and reveal the best at the last. That's usually the modus operandi.
The macaws are basically repeat cards and Golakka Glutton is basically its counter. Because if Sunwing Squawker follows from a Blessing of Authority or Libram of Wisdom Im pretty sure that's just advantage paladin without some sort of quick counter. That said, Im pretty sure the glutton wouldn't actually see much play unless there's a huge very important beast ahead in the reveals.
For what its worth at least the glutton does immediately removes Moonfang, which is a definite plus in some decks.
As for those stuff that improves after trading; that's a little harder to justify, because trading it is precisely the thing you'd do if you don't need it. Doing so just to upgrade the them with no guarantee of getting them back is a hard sell.
I think this is the only animated opening that actually feature a character with moving and matching mouth animation while singing.
I just want to touch upon this point in your comment.
If the devs want to market this to specific groups of people, they can just go clean with another IP, or just use the WoW brand as hearthstone has done. Instead, they plastered this into hearthstone so its clear that they expect a sizeable amount of hearthstone players as part of its regular audience. So the 'bitching' will obviously come from an audience of hearthstone players in the hearthstone reddit.
In any case, you make a compelling point that people shouldnt expect games to fit sizes where it suits them, but this isn't (mostly) really about the game being shit, its criticism directed at specific actions taken by devs which the playerbase aren't impressed by. I don't need to play fifa or madden to know that lootboxes aimed at kids comes with large, looming ethical issues, and I certainly dont need to play it to criticise it.
There's at least three high level tasks that require you to use your abilities to complete. I dont have a list for you, but from my experience;
- Theres at least two high level tasks that require you to do damage while being in a team, something like do X fire damage with this merc in your team.
- There's one high level task that require 6 bounties (task 14-15?), and task 18 is usually 4-6 heroic bounties
Depending on the merc, there's usually one very annoying task that require you to use an ability no one generally uses, or a task that require your merc to die. Sylvannas has one that require you to kill 15 enemies with death volley (which require her to die), mutanus needs to use devour 60 times, Dawngrasp needs to deal damage with ice lance, etc. So if you're going to grind, choose wisely. Some of them are more annoying than others.
Try shaman. If the merry go round goes to your right you'll likely win it most of the time.
This will eventually bite back because this isn't really a fix as much as it is a hassle for pvp players, especially to casuals.
The problem with mercs pvp is that most builds are centered around a few core units. Like Malfurion on nature builds, or Barongeddon in fire builds. And unlike pokemon, mercs don't really have sweepers (except perhaps a few cheeky sylvanas strats) so you cant really rely on one unit to do all the heavy lifting, and you cant just switch out units to prevent a snipe. So its absolutely valid to just concede on losing one or two mercs because if you've lost a core unit and your opponent doesn't, is there any reason to not just concede and save both time and sanity?
Either way, why even bother with this fix? Win trading can only go so far in the MMR and its not like the fix prevented it, it just slows the process down. Its better to adjust it to a minimum of one or two units lost, if at all, certainly not three.
We got that legendary coin sack last week for 5 bucks, and now there's the epic coin sack for 3 bucks. So I wouldn't be too surprised if blizz thought that legendary stuff should be twice as expensive.
None of the deals are great in my opinion. Ive very nearly have all the mercs through nothing more than grinding the game, and let's be honest here, the gameplay is currently not really enticing enough that its interesting or necessary to buy up bundles.
Its probably canceled less because of the ongoing controversy and more because they haven't much to give us. Diablo 4, overwatch 2, another hearthstone expansion. What else is there that we don't know already? If Im not mistaken overwatch 2 is slated at late 2022 and diablo 4 wont be out until at least 2023 or further.
Probably because Voljin is an epic while Garrosh and Sylvanas are legendaries.
Its hard to believe that mercs is but 2 weeks old at this point and they are already trying to milk this thing to the orbit. I havent seen the bundles on sale myself, but if this is true that there are more bundles incoming then its hard not to connect the dots. That the game is very grindy and that its deliberately made to be unconfortable, to be relieved with small purchases of course.
Given what happened in the last few days with the whole air elemental debacle, you'd think they let it simmer down before offering yet more bundles for purchase.