Its likely something close to card retirement, evergreen rotation, or an expansion of the basic set and complete removal of classic altogether.
Or perhaps its something scummy. They expand the expansion card pool and remove away classic. In that case standard will be more approachable to new players while also making it more expensive. Obviously this is perhaps the worst of the worst of what can happen, but as long as we're speculating, might as well make it clear that money making will likely be part of the equation.
Perhaps removing classic wouldn't be too bad. It makes each expansion more impactful, from legendaries to even the most mundane 1 drop.
That Edwin nerf and later HoF is only to be expected. It remains the only aggressive tempo card that have survived all 6 years of hearthstone through every iteration of rogues, with the only exception of quest rogue. Hell, it basically crowned two world champions on its own. I don't think there's any other card in hearthstone history that has accomplished so much and remained untouched for so long. Here's hoping that the replacement legendary next year would be at least interesting.
As to whether it will affect anything. It will, but only making the cheese slower. There's little reason why you can't get a 8/8 Edwin out on turn 3-4, which is still pretty good tempo, just no longer an auto win.
Shaman nerf is too tame to stop it, and unfortunately, because 3 attack is still on the borderline of what we can call a decent attack range to kill, its still going to affect tempo, so the only change here would be removal of Dread Corsairs for something like Faceless Corruptor. I was hoping they go further with the attack nerf to 2, so shaman would change up their cards to fit more early game, which will at very least mean we don't see reload after reload every turn.
Well, Edwin VanCleef 's finally getting the nerf hammer and shaman's slap in the wrist nerf will at least see its play go down ever slightly. Let's have a look.
That Edwin one mana nerf is huge, but not huge enough for the card to die. Considering that most decks still run Questing Adventurer is testament that a late game big Edwin would still in someway be helpful enough that he won't be dropped immediately. But no more turn 2 shenanigans with the coin, now you'd have to wait at least until turn 3 before you start dumping everything down. Would this be a significant? Yes. Just about every class no longer gets cheesed, particularly for shaman and druid, and it may also mean that priest don't need that mandatory Shadow Word: Death now.
Boggspine Knuckles nerf however, I'm less impressed with. Essentially what is being done here is removing that Dread Corsair spam on turn 5, and by allowing that dust refund, team5 may have pulled a fast one by virtually guaranteeing that its play rate will come down while keeping the essential strength of the card. I don't have a problem with evolve shaman in general, but I think the attack should be dropped to 2 instead of 3 to weaken its ability to take down minions, which should theoretically force evolve shaman to reduce its usual reload cards bs and start including cards that actually help its early game to compensate, which will change the meta significantly. But hey, I'm not discounting the possibility that this will happen anyway.
What I like would be to see is Kobold Stickyfinger no longer a mandatory inclusion. But likely its going to stay that way until rotation.
So what's changing? Druid, warrior, dhunters, might move slightly up. Shaman and rogue to be slightly weakened. Warlock might change up its cards to remain relevant, while mage will likely duke it out with priest for dumpster, but I'm open to being surprised here. Hunter or paladin on top. Likely its going to be paladin.
Small edit: You can still manage that cheesy turn 2 Edwin, but you need both Foxy Fraud and Shadowstep to do that. Its a massive highroll that can happen, but at the same rate of getting mauled by poodle.
He's an appropriate character at a sensible power level for Classic.
Is he though? Its a must kill card with 12 health, is impactful the same turn you play him, and is miles ahead of Archmage Antonidas. Also, team5 would have the additional burden of having to design spells around this guy in every expansion, so I wouldn't want him permanently in standard.
Why would they need to design spells around him? You cannot cheat any spells out early because you have to wait 'til turn 10 to play him, and on that turn you can only cast 1 spell. As far as 10 mana cards go, his immediate impact is pretty tame. The only thing they'd have to avoid printing is a minion (not even a spell) that pulls him out of your hand/deck, but that's a tiny bit of design space that is very easily avoided.
And while killing a 12 health minion on turn 10 may be non-trivial, you still have all the mana crystals you could ever need, so it's not like having to deal with a 12 health minion on one of the early turns. It is no bigger a problem than trying to remove Ysera or Malygos, and they cost 9 mana.
Kalecgos' usage over his time in Standard (which, keep in mind, started off the back of the low-power Year of the Raven) has been pretty much exactly what you'd want of a Classic legendary: present, but usually left out of decks. That was even with dragon synergies being relevant in mage!
He's been in highlander mage pretty much since Uldum, and its pretty hard to say he's not one of the winners of that deck. All its needed is for the meta to slow down slightly and he wouldn't be too far from being an auto include. Any midrange deck can easily fit this in.
Your point in the design aspect, I can sort of understand. It is after all a 10 cost card. But I still think he's not something I'd like to see in evergreen. Blizzard, frost nova, and flamestrike are already very powerful swings cards on their own with kalecgos, and I'd hate to see more cards introduced making this a consistent feature.
I doubt team5 would be removing Archmage Antonidas anyway. In the right deck, he's still a very powerful card, and I think he still fits your criteria for a classic legendary. You dont need apprentice to make this card good, its already a decent card with frost nova.
He's an appropriate character at a sensible power level for Classic.
Is he though? Its a must kill card with 12 health, is impactful the same turn you play him, and is miles ahead of Archmage Antonidas. Also, team5 would have the additional burden of having to design spells around this guy in every expansion, so I wouldn't want him permanently in standard.
Priest may have a billion answers to boards, but wild barely cares anyway since there's just so many ways of reloading or killing players without boards. When raza was nerfed, hardly anyone had problems with the class, except the usual big priest issues, which can be countered, and it was never going to beat mage in the first place.
Perhaps consider playing Zul'Drak Ritualist instead if big priest is a constant threat. If its raza priest that's the problem, then I sympathize because the only true counter takes 2 cards to do. But the nerfs you suggested will be more impactful to standard, where priest is really just a dumpster class, and that's a real non starter in my opinion
I've never really done this, but I can understand why People do that. It can be a way of venting out your frustrattion against a certain deck.
And I don't think that this has necessarily something to do with how those decks perform on ladder. If I remember correctly, Big Priest had for the most of the time a mediocre winrate, and yet it still managed to become one of the most hated archetypes of all time.
Big priest has this sort nasty way of plastering an inevitability that makes it really annoying to deal with. Convincing Infiltrator on 5, vargoth on 4, or y'shaarj on 4-5. Just seeing one of these highrolls and not having a way to transform them and you know you're likely to be dead, its just a matter of time.
But it'll always be tied to performance. After all, if the deck sucks why'd anyone be afraid of it. The current big priest in standard is no less annoying, but hardly anyone is trying to counter it.
Otherwise, I can't see why anyone would do it. In most cases, even now, tier 1 decks probably only make up somewhere around 20 - 30% of meta. So if you, for example, put double Kobold Stickyfingers, Acidic Swamp Ooze, and Frozen Shadoweaver into your deck in anticipation of evolve shaman, what are you going to do about the games when its not evolve shaman? Its sort of like creating a deck that hard counters the current tier 1 deck whilst being hard countered by every other deck around it.
Well, not being able to see OP's post, i can only guess at the issue. But to address your post, Kobold Stickyfinger is being used in several control decks right now. It hurts everyone who uses a weapon and it actually hurts Bomb Warrior more than Evolve Shaman because Evolve Shaman has a few spells it can use besides the weapon. (Their weapon is preferred of course.)
I play competititve decks but now and then I love to relax and bring out Bomb Warrior for few games now and then during the month and it makes me very sad to see that card become so popular.
His original post asks whether anyone have thought about putting every known counter card to a certain archetype for the sole purpose of 'trolling' that certain deck. I simply post an example, with reasons of why that's not a good idea.
I do agree with you over stickyfingers being jammed into every deck right now to counter shaman being indirectly harmful to other decks that uses weapons, which was why I thought it necessary to nerf shaman in the first place. We can only hope that team5 respond in kind, or that the midexpansion will do something about evolve shaman naturally so its not necessary to nerf them. Otherwise, there's a good deal of decks that simply cannot function because playing weapons in this meta is not possible.
Different, requires no cards of your own, and you're mostly in control of what's going on. Once a while I just like brawls like this, its at least better than an auto concede turn 2 because rng wasn't in your favor.
The last time I've seen people doing this on ladder was at the start of AoO when it was clear that dhunters were extremely broken and its cards were widely available to everyone. Play was around 70% of the meta then, I think
Otherwise, I can't see why anyone would do it. In most cases, even now, tier 1 decks probably only make up somewhere around 20 - 30% of meta. So if you, for example, put double Kobold Stickyfingers, Acidic Swamp Ooze, and Frozen Shadoweaver into your deck in anticipation of evolve shaman, what are you going to do about the games when its not evolve shaman? Its sort of like creating a deck that hard counters the current tier 1 deck whilst being hard countered by every other deck around it.
Sure its satisfying to beat the current top dog. Not so much when you're being beaten by the tiniest runt of the litter.
Edit: If anyone is wondering why my post is worded like this, its because its supposed to be a response to OP, who apparently have removed his post
Sadly both are on the low power level side. Reminds me a lot of Frizz Kindleroost, which ultimately saw very little play. If you want to boost its power level then the card should present an effect that will persist regardless whether the minion lives or die.
Thanks dapperdog! It's very nice of you to provide us with feedback. Are you going to participate in the competition as well?
I've tried to improve Blazewing based on your feedback. It costs 7 to avoid curving out Blazewing on 6, double Mana Giant and Animated Avalanche on 7 and Grand Finale on 8. Might still be too strong, but then it's a 7 Mana do nothing card. Hm.
(Sidenote, just for the record: I forgot about Fire Plume Harbinger, so there is an Elemental cost reduction card already in the game. Doesn't matter, I like the Phoenix and will stick with it.)
Yeah, that should about put it to at least playable levels.
I have a few ideas, but no time to make it look professional so kinda have to pass. But still, I like looking at new cards. Sometimes it makes me wonder why team5 dont just steal a few ideas here
Sadly both are on the low power level side. Reminds me a lot of Frizz Kindleroost, which ultimately saw very little play. If you want to boost its power level then the card should present an effect that will persist regardless whether the minion lives or die.
One more dash of optimism from me that this is that fabled limited wild mode. It would be nice timing too since the rotation would likely be a few weeks away from its announcement.
If its not it, then it will never be for the next 6 years.
If nothing changes then this can only be a positive to all players, since the rewards are now spaced out so we can expect to be receiving something every 1-2 days. I would expect the requirement per level will be halved since its basically from 50 to 100 levels.
Personally this isn't really going to change much for me, since I'm pretty much going save up gold until the midexpansion every release anyway. But definitely a good thing for arena players, and for those in need of the gold.
So I'm finally done with the adventure, here's my opinion of it.
Show Spoiler
There's plenty to like, but also dislike. This is probably the most frustrating of all the book of heroes so far, not least because this is also likely the most difficult, for me at least. Basically you can get your arse kicked convincingly as early as mission 2, where the Doomhammer's minions can destroy the walls very easily (as early as turn 3, he can already basically destroy the first) and nearly all of them can deal direct damage or have rush/charge. Uther's minions on the other hand are largely shit, with only Turalyon (6 mana) providing any semblance of a board swing. I only won because I had him out early, and my King Terenas happily buffed my paragon of light at the very moment I was about to die the following turn. Without of which, it would be the third time I resetted this one.
The next one would be the dark portal match, which is honestly a very interesting concept. Instead of the usual, you're presented to play a Shirvallah control paladin match against zoolock, of which zoolock will always be playing on curve no matter what. I'm not entirely certain what the game expects you to do, rush the portal and ignore board? Not really possible since you can die pretty easily by turn 5 doing that. Control board? Its a zoolock and your cards are expensive and conditional. At the end I only managed it because Turalyon on 6 is pretty much broken and carried me from there. Died twice in this one.
Blackrock blademaster is perhaps the worst offender of them all. OP hero power means you cant play anything for the first 4 turns, and he has both sap and backstab, as well as a score of really good tempo minions. You really have to just pray that he cant equip and buff weapons early in the game or its all downhill from there, and keep Arthas in the mulligan for a turn 5 play along with your weapon. At some point he'll run out of cards, and hopefully you still got some minions in between Arthas going down so your weapon does the job of keeping you alive. Died 3 times, before I realised that Arthas is guaranteed in your phase 1 mulligan so that's pretty much a hint on how to beat this.
As I mentioned, there's a lot to like from this too.
That final 2 matches against Malganis and Arthas is perhaps the best so far. The gameplan is simple, both sides are playing powerful stuff, and the storylines are really good, takes me back to my day playing W3 again. Perhaps the only time so far in the book of heroes that I didn't just mute the dialogue. Testament to how good it was in the old days of Reign of Chaos. My only gripe is that the dialogue has obviously been cut short, and I cannot fathom why team5 thought it was necessary.
So in conclusion: Paladin's cards really suck playing from behind and if you're going to give good stuff to the enemy, its worthwhile doing the same to the player. Turalyon is vastly more powerful as a 6 drop instead of 8, where he's pretty much ignored in standard. And W3 still holds up even after nearly 20 years.
Winslow is basically broken. In control, druid, or any combo deck, you can just get a free win out of nowhere simply by getting lucky, or setup in such a way that its virtually guaranteed to get, say a 0 mana Malygos. Makes it too advantageous playing second by having the coin in hand. There's no way of balancing this I'm afraid. The effect is simply game breaking.
Lotus Seeker is really good design for druid. Maybe a little too good. Druid plays few if any minions, so its virtually ensuring that its effect will almost always be beneficial to itself. The secondary choice will almost never be chosen, unfortunately.
It also has a strange problem of essentially nullifying itself when both choice are taken, like under osiris tear or fandral.
Probably priest for me. I like it more than the 1000 win portrait, although default Anduin's already pretty good. I do play my fair share of priests, so its my first choice.
Rogue's good, but I kinda like Maiev as my rogue main anyway, and the default Valeera isn't really bad herself. Thrall's a good one too, but since we get to choose only one I'll have to pass this time.
[Hearthstone Card (Giant prize) Not Found] is properly balanced, though on the weaker side. Essentially, putting stuff into your deck and then hope to draw it to play this card is a bit too far in my books. I think its better if the cost is reduced according to the number of cards shuffled into your deck that didn't start there. There's not really a lot of cards that can do that and its likely to cost 2 only as early as turn 5.
[Hearthstone Card (Scarlet vanguard) Not Found] though will be auto include into every paladin deck. Essentially the card punishes your opponent for flooding his board, and the card is too menacing to risk attacking face in the early game. So paladin more or less gets a free pass versus aggro and virtually ensure that its face won't be attacked until at least turn 4. Its not even punishing you for including this even if it never gets cheaper. 7 mana 6/6 taunt is not entirely bad. Maybe change the cost to 9 or 10 will do?
I honestly don't get why so many players gets tilted over the Dread Corsair issue when its obviously only a problem when they cheat mana and get the weapon online on turn 2-3. At turn 5, and with shaman's early game being largely nonexistent, in most cases many decks can deal with one random 5 drop, even 2 wouldn't exactly be too much.
I agree with setting Hoard Pillager to a deathrattle. A smart way of denying shaman its bs reload value while maintaining the essential power of the card for other decks.
Its likely something close to card retirement, evergreen rotation, or an expansion of the basic set and complete removal of classic altogether.
Or perhaps its something scummy. They expand the expansion card pool and remove away classic. In that case standard will be more approachable to new players while also making it more expensive. Obviously this is perhaps the worst of the worst of what can happen, but as long as we're speculating, might as well make it clear that money making will likely be part of the equation.
Perhaps removing classic wouldn't be too bad. It makes each expansion more impactful, from legendaries to even the most mundane 1 drop.
That Edwin nerf and later HoF is only to be expected. It remains the only aggressive tempo card that have survived all 6 years of hearthstone through every iteration of rogues, with the only exception of quest rogue. Hell, it basically crowned two world champions on its own. I don't think there's any other card in hearthstone history that has accomplished so much and remained untouched for so long. Here's hoping that the replacement legendary next year would be at least interesting.
As to whether it will affect anything. It will, but only making the cheese slower. There's little reason why you can't get a 8/8 Edwin out on turn 3-4, which is still pretty good tempo, just no longer an auto win.
Shaman nerf is too tame to stop it, and unfortunately, because 3 attack is still on the borderline of what we can call a decent attack range to kill, its still going to affect tempo, so the only change here would be removal of Dread Corsairs for something like Faceless Corruptor. I was hoping they go further with the attack nerf to 2, so shaman would change up their cards to fit more early game, which will at very least mean we don't see reload after reload every turn.
Well, Edwin VanCleef 's finally getting the nerf hammer and shaman's slap in the wrist nerf will at least see its play go down ever slightly. Let's have a look.
That Edwin one mana nerf is huge, but not huge enough for the card to die. Considering that most decks still run Questing Adventurer is testament that a late game big Edwin would still in someway be helpful enough that he won't be dropped immediately. But no more turn 2 shenanigans with the coin, now you'd have to wait at least until turn 3 before you start dumping everything down. Would this be a significant? Yes. Just about every class no longer gets cheesed, particularly for shaman and druid, and it may also mean that priest don't need that mandatory Shadow Word: Death now.
Boggspine Knuckles nerf however, I'm less impressed with. Essentially what is being done here is removing that Dread Corsair spam on turn 5, and by allowing that dust refund, team5 may have pulled a fast one by virtually guaranteeing that its play rate will come down while keeping the essential strength of the card. I don't have a problem with evolve shaman in general, but I think the attack should be dropped to 2 instead of 3 to weaken its ability to take down minions, which should theoretically force evolve shaman to reduce its usual reload cards bs and start including cards that actually help its early game to compensate, which will change the meta significantly. But hey, I'm not discounting the possibility that this will happen anyway.
What I like would be to see is Kobold Stickyfinger no longer a mandatory inclusion. But likely its going to stay that way until rotation.
So what's changing? Druid, warrior, dhunters, might move slightly up. Shaman and rogue to be slightly weakened. Warlock might change up its cards to remain relevant, while mage will likely duke it out with priest for dumpster, but I'm open to being surprised here. Hunter or paladin on top. Likely its going to be paladin.
Small edit: You can still manage that cheesy turn 2 Edwin, but you need both Foxy Fraud and Shadowstep to do that. Its a massive highroll that can happen, but at the same rate of getting mauled by poodle.
He's been in highlander mage pretty much since Uldum, and its pretty hard to say he's not one of the winners of that deck. All its needed is for the meta to slow down slightly and he wouldn't be too far from being an auto include. Any midrange deck can easily fit this in.
Your point in the design aspect, I can sort of understand. It is after all a 10 cost card. But I still think he's not something I'd like to see in evergreen. Blizzard, frost nova, and flamestrike are already very powerful swings cards on their own with kalecgos, and I'd hate to see more cards introduced making this a consistent feature.
I doubt team5 would be removing Archmage Antonidas anyway. In the right deck, he's still a very powerful card, and I think he still fits your criteria for a classic legendary. You dont need apprentice to make this card good, its already a decent card with frost nova.
Is he though? Its a must kill card with 12 health, is impactful the same turn you play him, and is miles ahead of Archmage Antonidas. Also, team5 would have the additional burden of having to design spells around this guy in every expansion, so I wouldn't want him permanently in standard.
Priest may have a billion answers to boards, but wild barely cares anyway since there's just so many ways of reloading or killing players without boards. When raza was nerfed, hardly anyone had problems with the class, except the usual big priest issues, which can be countered, and it was never going to beat mage in the first place.
Perhaps consider playing Zul'Drak Ritualist instead if big priest is a constant threat. If its raza priest that's the problem, then I sympathize because the only true counter takes 2 cards to do. But the nerfs you suggested will be more impactful to standard, where priest is really just a dumpster class, and that's a real non starter in my opinion
Big priest has this sort nasty way of plastering an inevitability that makes it really annoying to deal with. Convincing Infiltrator on 5, vargoth on 4, or y'shaarj on 4-5. Just seeing one of these highrolls and not having a way to transform them and you know you're likely to be dead, its just a matter of time.
But it'll always be tied to performance. After all, if the deck sucks why'd anyone be afraid of it. The current big priest in standard is no less annoying, but hardly anyone is trying to counter it.
His original post asks whether anyone have thought about putting every known counter card to a certain archetype for the sole purpose of 'trolling' that certain deck. I simply post an example, with reasons of why that's not a good idea.
I do agree with you over stickyfingers being jammed into every deck right now to counter shaman being indirectly harmful to other decks that uses weapons, which was why I thought it necessary to nerf shaman in the first place. We can only hope that team5 respond in kind, or that the midexpansion will do something about evolve shaman naturally so its not necessary to nerf them. Otherwise, there's a good deal of decks that simply cannot function because playing weapons in this meta is not possible.
Honestly, not really that bad a brawl.
Different, requires no cards of your own, and you're mostly in control of what's going on. Once a while I just like brawls like this, its at least better than an auto concede turn 2 because rng wasn't in your favor.
The last time I've seen people doing this on ladder was at the start of AoO when it was clear that dhunters were extremely broken and its cards were widely available to everyone. Play was around 70% of the meta then, I think
Otherwise, I can't see why anyone would do it. In most cases, even now, tier 1 decks probably only make up somewhere around 20 - 30% of meta. So if you, for example, put double Kobold Stickyfingers, Acidic Swamp Ooze, and Frozen Shadoweaver into your deck in anticipation of evolve shaman, what are you going to do about the games when its not evolve shaman? Its sort of like creating a deck that hard counters the current tier 1 deck whilst being hard countered by every other deck around it.
Sure its satisfying to beat the current top dog. Not so much when you're being beaten by the tiniest runt of the litter.
Edit: If anyone is wondering why my post is worded like this, its because its supposed to be a response to OP, who apparently have removed his post
Yeah, that should about put it to at least playable levels.
I have a few ideas, but no time to make it look professional so kinda have to pass. But still, I like looking at new cards. Sometimes it makes me wonder why team5 dont just steal a few ideas here
@anchorm4n
Sadly both are on the low power level side. Reminds me a lot of Frizz Kindleroost, which ultimately saw very little play. If you want to boost its power level then the card should present an effect that will persist regardless whether the minion lives or die.
One more dash of optimism from me that this is that fabled limited wild mode. It would be nice timing too since the rotation would likely be a few weeks away from its announcement.
If its not it, then it will never be for the next 6 years.
If nothing changes then this can only be a positive to all players, since the rewards are now spaced out so we can expect to be receiving something every 1-2 days. I would expect the requirement per level will be halved since its basically from 50 to 100 levels.
Personally this isn't really going to change much for me, since I'm pretty much going save up gold until the midexpansion every release anyway. But definitely a good thing for arena players, and for those in need of the gold.
isnt the hero power more than enough to deal with the stuff he puts out?
So I'm finally done with the adventure, here's my opinion of it.
There's plenty to like, but also dislike. This is probably the most frustrating of all the book of heroes so far, not least because this is also likely the most difficult, for me at least. Basically you can get your arse kicked convincingly as early as mission 2, where the Doomhammer's minions can destroy the walls very easily (as early as turn 3, he can already basically destroy the first) and nearly all of them can deal direct damage or have rush/charge. Uther's minions on the other hand are largely shit, with only Turalyon (6 mana) providing any semblance of a board swing. I only won because I had him out early, and my King Terenas happily buffed my paragon of light at the very moment I was about to die the following turn. Without of which, it would be the third time I resetted this one.
The next one would be the dark portal match, which is honestly a very interesting concept. Instead of the usual, you're presented to play a Shirvallah control paladin match against zoolock, of which zoolock will always be playing on curve no matter what. I'm not entirely certain what the game expects you to do, rush the portal and ignore board? Not really possible since you can die pretty easily by turn 5 doing that. Control board? Its a zoolock and your cards are expensive and conditional. At the end I only managed it because Turalyon on 6 is pretty much broken and carried me from there. Died twice in this one.
Blackrock blademaster is perhaps the worst offender of them all. OP hero power means you cant play anything for the first 4 turns, and he has both sap and backstab, as well as a score of really good tempo minions. You really have to just pray that he cant equip and buff weapons early in the game or its all downhill from there, and keep Arthas in the mulligan for a turn 5 play along with your weapon. At some point he'll run out of cards, and hopefully you still got some minions in between Arthas going down so your weapon does the job of keeping you alive. Died 3 times, before I realised that Arthas is guaranteed in your phase 1 mulligan so that's pretty much a hint on how to beat this.
As I mentioned, there's a lot to like from this too.
That final 2 matches against Malganis and Arthas is perhaps the best so far. The gameplan is simple, both sides are playing powerful stuff, and the storylines are really good, takes me back to my day playing W3 again. Perhaps the only time so far in the book of heroes that I didn't just mute the dialogue. Testament to how good it was in the old days of Reign of Chaos. My only gripe is that the dialogue has obviously been cut short, and I cannot fathom why team5 thought it was necessary.
So in conclusion: Paladin's cards really suck playing from behind and if you're going to give good stuff to the enemy, its worthwhile doing the same to the player. Turalyon is vastly more powerful as a 6 drop instead of 8, where he's pretty much ignored in standard. And W3 still holds up even after nearly 20 years.
@DestroyerR
Winslow is basically broken. In control, druid, or any combo deck, you can just get a free win out of nowhere simply by getting lucky, or setup in such a way that its virtually guaranteed to get, say a 0 mana Malygos. Makes it too advantageous playing second by having the coin in hand. There's no way of balancing this I'm afraid. The effect is simply game breaking.
@Pokeniner
Lotus Seeker is really good design for druid. Maybe a little too good. Druid plays few if any minions, so its virtually ensuring that its effect will almost always be beneficial to itself. The secondary choice will almost never be chosen, unfortunately.
It also has a strange problem of essentially nullifying itself when both choice are taken, like under osiris tear or fandral.
Probably priest for me. I like it more than the 1000 win portrait, although default Anduin's already pretty good. I do play my fair share of priests, so its my first choice.
Rogue's good, but I kinda like Maiev as my rogue main anyway, and the default Valeera isn't really bad herself. Thrall's a good one too, but since we get to choose only one I'll have to pass this time.
@linkblade91
[Hearthstone Card (Giant prize) Not Found] is properly balanced, though on the weaker side. Essentially, putting stuff into your deck and then hope to draw it to play this card is a bit too far in my books. I think its better if the cost is reduced according to the number of cards shuffled into your deck that didn't start there. There's not really a lot of cards that can do that and its likely to cost 2 only as early as turn 5.
[Hearthstone Card (Scarlet vanguard) Not Found] though will be auto include into every paladin deck. Essentially the card punishes your opponent for flooding his board, and the card is too menacing to risk attacking face in the early game. So paladin more or less gets a free pass versus aggro and virtually ensure that its face won't be attacked until at least turn 4. Its not even punishing you for including this even if it never gets cheaper. 7 mana 6/6 taunt is not entirely bad. Maybe change the cost to 9 or 10 will do?
I honestly don't get why so many players gets tilted over the Dread Corsair issue when its obviously only a problem when they cheat mana and get the weapon online on turn 2-3. At turn 5, and with shaman's early game being largely nonexistent, in most cases many decks can deal with one random 5 drop, even 2 wouldn't exactly be too much.
I agree with setting Hoard Pillager to a deathrattle. A smart way of denying shaman its bs reload value while maintaining the essential power of the card for other decks.