Too many people underestimate what a 1 drop can really do. The only reason why a 2/1 1 drop is bad is because it can be hp down, since that's not usually possible for a 1/2, it needs to be traded or your opponent needs use resources to deal with it. That's game changing in a tempo oriented game.
Even in worst case scenario, this card becomes a 2/2 with one spell investment, and the fact that it can snowball makes it a magnet for removal. Sadly since its not available in standard, its not going to see any play, not because its a poor card, but the bar for a good card in wild is absurdly high. Still, having a 1/2 for 1 is leagues ahead of a 1/3 for 2.
Reducing its cost but removing its eternal brother Wild Pyromancer
In other words, all this has accomplish is to make it even harder to full clear with equality, and makes Consecration almost mandatorily required if you're going to play this card.
It also have to answer this question: why play this over Libram of Justice, which at very least can get to 0 mana and gives you a weapon to destroy something.
As I have already pointed out in the other thread, I seriously doubt that the former Basic cards will be disenchantable. To add something constructive to the discussion, I'd like to suggest that someone directly asks Iksar in his weekly Q&A about it. Sadly those take place at 4 a.m. at my place, so maybe one of you guys could do the job? I would really love to be wrong about this and it might even change if / which package I will preorder (maybe that's why they're silent about it?).
I'd have to agree unfortunately. If Thonson's calc is correct, then that's basically giving away 16100 dust without another thought, and that's a fairly huge collection of dust, not even counting dusting the normal cards.
Not to say that corporate greed extend to such pettiness, but its something that really just need further clarifications.
If you had recorded it, you can make an argument directly with blizz, since its widely acknowledged that there is a pity timer for legendaries at 40 packs. And if they simply ignore your ticket, you can bring it to reddit and see if there's other players with the same problem. If the uproar is big enough, then something might just happen.
Its not really about us berating your post, its really about showing others the proper evidence. Otherwise, how'd anyone, including yourself, can be absolutely sure you've opened up 40 of the same packs without any legendaries.
I really wanted this one, but 10 bucks is way too steep for me. Had the packs been something else, perhaps. But rogue packs? I do find myself playing lots of rogue myself, but I prefer a more well rounded collection.
Having a mode where the consumer i.e. us, get to actually make informed choices on card viability? Well I guess we're pretty informed on what the answer is to that question.
Unfortunately, having a mode like this is simply impossible because I'd imagine that the goal is to get us to actually want to play standard. Even if its only against friends, if there was a mode that is just better or cheaper than standard (let's imagine for a second that the cards from the new classic mode is actually completely given to us) then there would be a downward trend of standard players and hence both profits and relevance of expansions. Battlegrounds was almost that until it costed 20$ to actually be competitive. Duels is arguably more expensive than standard, and arena remains a joke of its former self. I'm fairly certain at some point the new mercs mode will be monetized as well, given that the idea is eventually for it to be pvp.
The best of both worlds would be to have a tavern brawl of sorts that features actual made decks from the recent expansion on week one. Its not like they can't and haven't done it before. If I'm not mistaken there was a tavern brawl on week one of release for Rastakhan where they gave us actual decks made from the new cards for each class and told us to go nuts. If nothing else we got to actually have a feel for the new cards before wasting our dust on them. Sadly that was never to be repeated, and I think its fairly obvious why.
Happy to say that this card is no longer trash, in the upcoming meta game that will likely see burn decks weakened significantly. The idea is that if you have initiative and your opponent can't remove your board, then this card just wins you the game. The lower mana cost means its no longer as punishing to play since it doesn't have taunt, and a 5/7 statline is not really bad for a 6 drop.
It does have some drawbacks though. A 6 drop that only sometimes does something is not exactly a sterling play. Since it doesn't have rush or taunt, its therefore extremely reliant on you maintaining board to get value, and hearthstone being a game that generally requires players to remove board to not lose, this card is only ever going to be inconsistent at best. Still, there's a small possibility this card sees some play, likely in paladin or priest.
In my earlier post on this card I didn't really think much about it cause' board clears aren't exactly in demand, and this one takes too much set up to be good.
But now that the core set is out, and I saw to my horror how many removal options have been effectively removed from standard, this card is suddenly more valuable than it first seems. Specifically, the loss of Wild Pyromancer is especially painful to classes like paladin and priest, and with rogue having no board clears at all means its really just this card or the somewhat unreliable Wretched Tutor, and since this card doesn't damage your own minions, its really a worthwhile exploration to make this card work.
Outside of that, there's a slight chance this sees some play with zoolock, depending on whether tempo-board based battles are going to dominate the next meta. Its really just an Abusive Sergeant away from swinging board, and since Nerubian Egg is in standard there might be more than one reason to include sergeant into the deck.
Don't bet on it. Assassin's blade has a 10 damage total output compared to SSS which incidentally has the same damage output. The difference is 1 mana. So how would team5 nerf this card without completely making it redundant? I mean, if SSS was 4 mana now its literally just assassin's blade
I am very confused why they are taking this long to kick off the reveals. Usually reveal season lasts at least 2 weeks leaving at least a week between the final reveal and the expansion release to have space for theorycrafting and the pre-release events.
If the expansions drops on the 23rd and we are epecting the reveals to start on the 9th, that means we have just exactly 14 days for all the reveals, which means there'll be even more per day than usual?
I mean, I prefer not having a huge gap between reveals and release because it just makes the current meta feel even worse, but at this point it's getting a bit cramped
In Darkmoon it was literally done in 2 weeks. I think we were seeing somewhere around 10 card reveals per day then, there being 1 or 2 days between the final reveal and release date. Maybe this is the new norm, like the earlier release dates (the first expansion used to be released the first week of April)
Yup, its been confirmed that mind shatter is no longer a possibility. So the question goes; why the hell would you want to run a dead card in your deck? For the sake of consistency? Let's be honest here, this is priest we're talking about. Drawing cards is hard enough, but after the first mind spike upgrade Shadowform simply bricks your draw. I supposed team5 simply chicken out on the concept of a 3 damage for 2 mana hp at last minute.
So the pertinent question would be whether 2 damage for 2 mana every turn is good enough for a class that traditionally play defensively? The answer is yes. Being able to consistently remove minions from board without taking damage is no joke. But one card rarely makes a whole deck. And its particularly true with this card. Expect team5 to do something to massively support this card. Otherwise, I can't see why they'd even bring it back then subsequently removed mind shatter, perhaps the coolest part of the card.
Yeah, I read Iksar's comments wrongly. I still can't agree with his assessment though. That medium power neutral 1-2 drop already exist in the form of Spirit Jailer and Flame Imp, as well as Darkglare, which incidentally even after the nerf is still a must kill 2 drop. Zoolock is very strong, but hardly game breaking, and the real power of that deck comes in the form of Flesh Giants and the Kanrethad vomit combo on turn 2 anyway. Fact of the matter is, zoo has been relying less and less on hp compared to its earlier iterations, and since most burn cards like Soulfire or Leeroy are properly purged from standard, I can't see what he's seeing.
As for my idea of a 1/2 stealth, recover 1-2 health every turn, beast. Well, Ive never truly been a fan of this 'class identity' stuff myself, and defensive options means hunter can explore something other than aggro all day long. Unlike rogue, hunter aren't as good at controlling tempo so I think its only appropriate that they get some kind of healing option. Its not like its going to break the meta anyway, hunters simply can't control board as well as other classes can.
It really wanted and tried to do something different. Going the paid route was probably not their smartest move because it killed any interest in the game from the get go and raised the bar to impossible heights.
LoR later moved on in as 'artifact but better' and more or less signed the real artifact's death warrant. 2.0 was never really going to work with LoR practically doing it better.
Hunter can't heal or clear the board so you can't make use of it.
Druid ramp is a core mechanic but it can feel helpless to play against.
Warlock's sheer power of Life Tap can make them 1 medium-power Neutral drop away from domination.
1. Hunters can't heal or clear boards. And incidentally they can't draw cards neither. Now that most of the aggro cards from hunter will be purged from standard, its really time for hunter to actually be able to draw/generate cards. Then we'll start seeing some variety.
I also don't understand what's so difficult for them to just make a few conditional healing options for hunter, like maybe 2 mana 1/2 stealth beast that heals face for 1 at the end of the turn. Hell, you can make that heal for 2 and it still wouldn't be oppressive.
2. Make ramp conditional, like Breath of Dreams or Greedy Sprite instead of Overgrowth, which incidentally is more oppressive than Wild Growth on 2. And we have another year before overgrowth rotates. I can't remember any other time in history druid ramp being more polarizing than the one we're seeing now, and overgrowth has got to be that culprit.
3. Maybe this is just me, but I don't find life tap at all oppressive that it restricts card design. Draw 1 for 2 health. Warlock tends to have better draw cards than other classes, and since Mountain Giant is gone, where does this 'domination' come along? Touching on that point, what other card can possible top mountain giant on 4 as that dominating medium-powered neutral drop anyway? and we've been dealing with that for 6 years. I don't particularly remember warlock being on tier 1 every meta mountain giant was in standard.
I feel like the majority of players who do not even reach diamond 5 have too much of a influence on balance.
It might do to put in a few examples, because I can't remember a balancing decision made that actively disregard high legend players' opinions whilst being cheered on by this particular segment of players.
There will always be disagreements on balance changes. But I think we can agree that team5 does not make balancing decisions because they're being egged on by one particular segment of people. Certainly if they had more than half a cockroach's brains worth in their head, they would know that relying on reddit for opinions on balancing would be like taking hair styling tips from patients in a cancer ward.
A wholly unimpressive card...if it weren't for the fact that nearly every other good card from classic have just been purged from standard.
There's actually a niche for this to exist in rogue, which has just lost Questing Adventurer, edwin, and its many lackeys. Generating a bunch of 1/1s might not seem like much, but if we close our eyes real tight, its basically just a wider questing, that incidentally have a limit due to board space.
Outside of rogue, its only viable in druid, dhunters, and mage. Not that any of these classes would ever be interested.
This thing saw no play as a 4/4, so team5 decided after a collective meeting of the brains to make it a 5/5, instantly transforming this from an execrable pile of stinking trash, to slightly less trash than before.
But jokes aside. The real reason why this one will never see play is simply because of the mana cost, as opposed to the guaranteed body. Even if this was a 6/6 body (which means at its lowest low row of Stonetusk Boar its still 8/7 stats for 7) its a 7 mana card that doesn't win you the game. Then there's the variance of getting something really good like Teacher's Pet or the legendary King Krush, as opposed to Stonetusk Boar or the famous River Crocolisk being so great, is there any reason to not just play a good card as opposed to something that might be good.
Bear in mind that cards like these are designed for memes. Its simply impossible for team5 to ever make this a good card because its just going to replicate the famous 'will rag hit minion or hit face' scenarios in all games. Narrowing the beast pool so it gets you good beasts more than 50% of the time will make this playable, but at the cost of making the game frustrating for everyone, including those who play it.
Too many people underestimate what a 1 drop can really do. The only reason why a 2/1 1 drop is bad is because it can be hp down, since that's not usually possible for a 1/2, it needs to be traded or your opponent needs use resources to deal with it. That's game changing in a tempo oriented game.
Even in worst case scenario, this card becomes a 2/2 with one spell investment, and the fact that it can snowball makes it a magnet for removal. Sadly since its not available in standard, its not going to see any play, not because its a poor card, but the bar for a good card in wild is absurdly high. Still, having a 1/2 for 1 is leagues ahead of a 1/3 for 2.
Reducing its cost but removing its eternal brother Wild Pyromancer
In other words, all this has accomplish is to make it even harder to full clear with equality, and makes Consecration almost mandatorily required if you're going to play this card.
It also have to answer this question: why play this over Libram of Justice, which at very least can get to 0 mana and gives you a weapon to destroy something.
I'd have to agree unfortunately. If Thonson's calc is correct, then that's basically giving away 16100 dust without another thought, and that's a fairly huge collection of dust, not even counting dusting the normal cards.
Not to say that corporate greed extend to such pettiness, but its something that really just need further clarifications.
If you had recorded it, you can make an argument directly with blizz, since its widely acknowledged that there is a pity timer for legendaries at 40 packs. And if they simply ignore your ticket, you can bring it to reddit and see if there's other players with the same problem. If the uproar is big enough, then something might just happen.
Its not really about us berating your post, its really about showing others the proper evidence. Otherwise, how'd anyone, including yourself, can be absolutely sure you've opened up 40 of the same packs without any legendaries.
I really wanted this one, but 10 bucks is way too steep for me. Had the packs been something else, perhaps. But rogue packs? I do find myself playing lots of rogue myself, but I prefer a more well rounded collection.
If you did manage to get in, I'm curious how long it took you to get a match against an actual player.
Having a mode where the consumer i.e. us, get to actually make informed choices on card viability? Well I guess we're pretty informed on what the answer is to that question.
Unfortunately, having a mode like this is simply impossible because I'd imagine that the goal is to get us to actually want to play standard. Even if its only against friends, if there was a mode that is just better or cheaper than standard (let's imagine for a second that the cards from the new classic mode is actually completely given to us) then there would be a downward trend of standard players and hence both profits and relevance of expansions. Battlegrounds was almost that until it costed 20$ to actually be competitive. Duels is arguably more expensive than standard, and arena remains a joke of its former self. I'm fairly certain at some point the new mercs mode will be monetized as well, given that the idea is eventually for it to be pvp.
The best of both worlds would be to have a tavern brawl of sorts that features actual made decks from the recent expansion on week one. Its not like they can't and haven't done it before. If I'm not mistaken there was a tavern brawl on week one of release for Rastakhan where they gave us actual decks made from the new cards for each class and told us to go nuts. If nothing else we got to actually have a feel for the new cards before wasting our dust on them. Sadly that was never to be repeated, and I think its fairly obvious why.
Happy to say that this card is no longer trash, in the upcoming meta game that will likely see burn decks weakened significantly. The idea is that if you have initiative and your opponent can't remove your board, then this card just wins you the game. The lower mana cost means its no longer as punishing to play since it doesn't have taunt, and a 5/7 statline is not really bad for a 6 drop.
It does have some drawbacks though. A 6 drop that only sometimes does something is not exactly a sterling play. Since it doesn't have rush or taunt, its therefore extremely reliant on you maintaining board to get value, and hearthstone being a game that generally requires players to remove board to not lose, this card is only ever going to be inconsistent at best. Still, there's a small possibility this card sees some play, likely in paladin or priest.
In my earlier post on this card I didn't really think much about it cause' board clears aren't exactly in demand, and this one takes too much set up to be good.
But now that the core set is out, and I saw to my horror how many removal options have been effectively removed from standard, this card is suddenly more valuable than it first seems. Specifically, the loss of Wild Pyromancer is especially painful to classes like paladin and priest, and with rogue having no board clears at all means its really just this card or the somewhat unreliable Wretched Tutor, and since this card doesn't damage your own minions, its really a worthwhile exploration to make this card work.
Outside of that, there's a slight chance this sees some play with zoolock, depending on whether tempo-board based battles are going to dominate the next meta. Its really just an Abusive Sergeant away from swinging board, and since Nerubian Egg is in standard there might be more than one reason to include sergeant into the deck.
Don't bet on it. Assassin's blade has a 10 damage total output compared to SSS which incidentally has the same damage output. The difference is 1 mana. So how would team5 nerf this card without completely making it redundant? I mean, if SSS was 4 mana now its literally just assassin's blade
In Darkmoon it was literally done in 2 weeks. I think we were seeing somewhere around 10 card reveals per day then, there being 1 or 2 days between the final reveal and release date. Maybe this is the new norm, like the earlier release dates (the first expansion used to be released the first week of April)
Kinda reminds me of that time I had a dream of fitting an entire birthday cake into my mouth. Well played
Yup, its been confirmed that mind shatter is no longer a possibility. So the question goes; why the hell would you want to run a dead card in your deck? For the sake of consistency? Let's be honest here, this is priest we're talking about. Drawing cards is hard enough, but after the first mind spike upgrade Shadowform simply bricks your draw. I supposed team5 simply chicken out on the concept of a 3 damage for 2 mana hp at last minute.
So the pertinent question would be whether 2 damage for 2 mana every turn is good enough for a class that traditionally play defensively? The answer is yes. Being able to consistently remove minions from board without taking damage is no joke. But one card rarely makes a whole deck. And its particularly true with this card. Expect team5 to do something to massively support this card. Otherwise, I can't see why they'd even bring it back then subsequently removed mind shatter, perhaps the coolest part of the card.
Yeah, I read Iksar's comments wrongly. I still can't agree with his assessment though. That medium power neutral 1-2 drop already exist in the form of Spirit Jailer and Flame Imp, as well as Darkglare, which incidentally even after the nerf is still a must kill 2 drop. Zoolock is very strong, but hardly game breaking, and the real power of that deck comes in the form of Flesh Giants and the Kanrethad vomit combo on turn 2 anyway. Fact of the matter is, zoo has been relying less and less on hp compared to its earlier iterations, and since most burn cards like Soulfire or Leeroy are properly purged from standard, I can't see what he's seeing.
As for my idea of a 1/2 stealth, recover 1-2 health every turn, beast. Well, Ive never truly been a fan of this 'class identity' stuff myself, and defensive options means hunter can explore something other than aggro all day long. Unlike rogue, hunter aren't as good at controlling tempo so I think its only appropriate that they get some kind of healing option. Its not like its going to break the meta anyway, hunters simply can't control board as well as other classes can.
The 3 lane thing is probably what killed it for most casuals who can stomach the 20$ price tag.
I only watched the game in action and the number of times the screen have to flip was amazing.
It really wanted and tried to do something different. Going the paid route was probably not their smartest move because it killed any interest in the game from the get go and raised the bar to impossible heights.
LoR later moved on in as 'artifact but better' and more or less signed the real artifact's death warrant. 2.0 was never really going to work with LoR practically doing it better.
1. Hunters can't heal or clear boards. And incidentally they can't draw cards neither. Now that most of the aggro cards from hunter will be purged from standard, its really time for hunter to actually be able to draw/generate cards. Then we'll start seeing some variety.
I also don't understand what's so difficult for them to just make a few conditional healing options for hunter, like maybe 2 mana 1/2 stealth beast that heals face for 1 at the end of the turn. Hell, you can make that heal for 2 and it still wouldn't be oppressive.
2. Make ramp conditional, like Breath of Dreams or Greedy Sprite instead of Overgrowth, which incidentally is more oppressive than Wild Growth on 2. And we have another year before overgrowth rotates. I can't remember any other time in history druid ramp being more polarizing than the one we're seeing now, and overgrowth has got to be that culprit.
3. Maybe this is just me, but I don't find life tap at all oppressive that it restricts card design. Draw 1 for 2 health. Warlock tends to have better draw cards than other classes, and since Mountain Giant is gone, where does this 'domination' come along? Touching on that point, what other card can possible top mountain giant on 4 as that dominating medium-powered neutral drop anyway? and we've been dealing with that for 6 years. I don't particularly remember warlock being on tier 1 every meta mountain giant was in standard.
It might do to put in a few examples, because I can't remember a balancing decision made that actively disregard high legend players' opinions whilst being cheered on by this particular segment of players.
There will always be disagreements on balance changes. But I think we can agree that team5 does not make balancing decisions because they're being egged on by one particular segment of people. Certainly if they had more than half a cockroach's brains worth in their head, they would know that relying on reddit for opinions on balancing would be like taking hair styling tips from patients in a cancer ward.
A wholly unimpressive card...if it weren't for the fact that nearly every other good card from classic have just been purged from standard.
There's actually a niche for this to exist in rogue, which has just lost Questing Adventurer, edwin, and its many lackeys. Generating a bunch of 1/1s might not seem like much, but if we close our eyes real tight, its basically just a wider questing, that incidentally have a limit due to board space.
Outside of rogue, its only viable in druid, dhunters, and mage. Not that any of these classes would ever be interested.
This thing saw no play as a 4/4, so team5 decided after a collective meeting of the brains to make it a 5/5, instantly transforming this from an execrable pile of stinking trash, to slightly less trash than before.
But jokes aside. The real reason why this one will never see play is simply because of the mana cost, as opposed to the guaranteed body. Even if this was a 6/6 body (which means at its lowest low row of Stonetusk Boar its still 8/7 stats for 7) its a 7 mana card that doesn't win you the game. Then there's the variance of getting something really good like Teacher's Pet or the legendary King Krush, as opposed to Stonetusk Boar or the famous River Crocolisk being so great, is there any reason to not just play a good card as opposed to something that might be good.
Bear in mind that cards like these are designed for memes. Its simply impossible for team5 to ever make this a good card because its just going to replicate the famous 'will rag hit minion or hit face' scenarios in all games. Narrowing the beast pool so it gets you good beasts more than 50% of the time will make this playable, but at the cost of making the game frustrating for everyone, including those who play it.