Probably better to suggest some changes while you're at it.
I don't like face hunter from DoD, but the one we have right now is what I would call 'fair', since its not all in, and taunts do quite a good job against them.
That leaves highlander and dragon hunter, both not really that big on ranked right now. So what is there to nerf? Eaglehorn Bow, Dwarven Sharpshooter, Phase Stalker, Dragonbane? none of those are in my opinion remotely unfair compared to what other classes can do.
Besides which, hunters have been nerfed before. Scavenger's Ingenuity from the previous expansion, and leeroy getting HoF which practically destroyed quest hunter in standard.
Its a small nerf, probably lower its winrate by a small margin, but hardly deck destroying. Evocation not being able to be generated by Cobalt Spellkin and Wandmaker is probably something that should've been thought out from the start. It can still be discovered from Magic Trick though, but the higher cost means you can't just go turn 4 apprentice into evocation, vomit all those spells into Mana Cyclone.
As for Solarian Prime nerf, well, this really doesn't do anything other than stop turn 7 bs so its more susceptible to face decks, and would probably lower its win rate to midrange decks. It was coming though, and mage mains ought to count themselves lucky that the nerf wasn't to solarian itself, and an unexpected Potion of Illusion will still allow you to play that 1 mana prime on the same turn. I'm not really into this nerf, to be honest. Would've been better for team5 to simply expand the spell-damage minion pool, increase the cost of Primordial Studies, or simply remove spell damage from Astromancer Solarian, so we're not facing a game with 2-3 solarian primes at minimum.
The main winners of this nerf is probably priest and paladin. But rogue may make a comeback, and there might yet be a place for warlock to shine too, since mage bs is probably too backbreaking for any midrange warlock to catch up with.
On a side note: I can't tell if the story is true to the lore, but I liked it.
It's pretty faithful. The only thing that was made up was him saving Misha from a bear trap (it's not specified how he tamed Misha in the actual canon). The only major thing missing was Haratha's death, which was Rexxar's original companion. He sacrificed himself to save Rexxar from a warlock that was going to drain Rexxar's life to sustain himself. It's one of the major reasons Rexxar abandoned the Horde.
Also, shame on y'all for seeing a bear caught in a trap and immediately trying to kill it. You've been playing too much Hearthstone - you see Hunter and you just go face :P
Lol, who else in the entire horde uses traps, bear traps no less, and Rexxar himself didn't even comment on it.
And besides, since the trap didn't switch places, I would naturally assumed that either Misha wanted to kill herself or that by beating her we sort of 'tame' (honestly that Rexxar didnt cringe from saying those words baffle me) her. Should've at least have stated that he needed to take out that trap (if he did, well, I didn't see it)
I must say one thing that the story did open my eyes to a history that I didn't know, which was Rexxar actually fought for the horde in the first 2 wars of humans vs orcs.
Obviously he doesn't appear in the first 2 warcraft games, so he must have been an unusually lucky grunt somewhere since the orcs lost the fight canonically.
Can anyone actually confirm if the story relates anything to Rexxar's appearance in Warcraft 3? I knew there was one mission with him and the rest was something like a dlc that needed payment. Far as a I knew that mission was the first time Rexxar met Thrall.
Looks like you have to complete Jaina before playing Rexxar... bummer.
Havent started myself yet, is there a story progression that needs to be told in order? If not, that is a but silly, to not be able to choose which one(s) you want to play first.
the stories are connected
yeah, about as much as an orange is to an apple.
I played through both, and aside from the portraits, there's literally nothing more than the most minute connection between Rexxar's story and Jaina's. The only significant thing connecting the two is that one mission against a naga witch (no idea even if this is canon), of which Jaina spawns you 4 mirror images of herself.
Its possible to suggest that even if you knew nothing of Jaina aside from the fact that shes a human female, playing Rexxar's story wouldn't give you any more insight whatsoever. In fact, since Rexxar fights her father in the game, its possible to misconstrue that Jaina's a pirate or at least a sailor.
Its actually amazing how Jaina's adventure was like a walk in the park and Rexxar's, at least to me, is like trying to walk a very enthusiastic and insistent dog under heavy rain. I died twice in the adventure, once to that very odd mission with Misha where I mistakenly believe the idea was to kill her instead of the trap, and then to Gronn, which was like packing a ton of canned sardines for a field trip and then remembering that the can-opener was left at home.
That mission you refer to was against Daelin, and it was one of the hardest mission in the adventure, but only because your deck and hero power is largely shit, and your opponent has an unforeseen kill switch and two Eye of the Storms out of nowhere. To elaborate, your hp is to deal 4 damage (to a minion no less) in a game where your opponent's hp was to summon a ship with 6 health, and if not killed snowballs the fight. Suffice to say that I only won with some rng from [Hearthstone Card (misdirect) Not Found], of which without there was absolutely no chance of winning.
Its weird that Rexxar actually starts pretty well, with some well thought out cards, and that hp to summon Misha was amazing. For some reason this was then taken away for a crude hp that deals 5 damage to a minion (Gronn plays no minions for 5 turns by the way, if youre wondering). A little disappointing that the final hp wasn't just summon an animal companion, or even all three for 5 mana. Would at least be flavorful, if not making the fight less frustrating.
Was actually pretty sad to see justsaiyan go, but then I read that his earnings are high enough to make a comeback anyway.
Its a pretty rough season, especially for europe where big names were up for relegation. Was actually thinking that viper's going to get off, but glad to know that both he and bunny would still be in another season.
Of course fan favourites boarcontrol and firebat got off. Still sad that firebats given up competing, but it was a long time coming anyway. Maybe he would consider casting, which honestly he's pretty good at.
- Shaman decks in general are really bad. Either they simply dont draw the cards they need (because unhappily this is the only class with the weakest card draw and generation engine in the entire game) or their cards aren't up to snuff when they needed to be. I've tried control shaman, highlander, quest, galakrond, totem shaman and all of them falter in the same way; no card draw, running out of value, or having absolutely no tempo swing cards in the early game. The most broken thing you can actually play without dying in shaman right now is unironically [Hearthstone Card (magic trick totem) Not Found], which under most circumstances will either be ignored by poor players, or just go completely ham on board and allowing you to capitalize with Totemic Reflection into Splitting Axe.
Another decent thing you can do is to play Diligent Notetaker into Dragon's Pack. But nearly all the meta decks with the exception of mage on a poor day can deal with it handily, or simply kill you before you get the chance.
If you plan to play shaman at all, here's a handy tip. Go totem, doesn't matter what archetype. Somehow, someway, if you manage to cast totemic reflections successfully in the early game you are no longer guaranteed to lose that match. Go hard for either mana tide or magic trick totem if you can. Your opponent will be too busy trying to clear your board to focus on their game plan. Dont even bother with cards like Earthquake or Hagatha's Scheme; face decks and bomb warrior just laughs at your face, paladin has divine shield, and mage...well...simply generate more stuff. Instructor Fireheart is a must in all builds. Its just about the only saving grace for shaman thats not a totem.
I've been playing a Highlander-Galakrond Shaman for the past 2 Weeks or so
But I wouldn't say that Shaman doesn't have some good Stuff. There's Transformation- Effects that help against Libram Pally and Tempo Mage, and they have some good Healing/Removal against Face Hunter or Bomb Warrior.
Getting back on Board is a bit tough, but Stuff like 1 Mana Torrent or the whole Galakrond Package really help with that. When it comes to early removal, I found Lightning Bolt/Devolving Missiles + Diligent Notetaker to be efficient enough. Diligent Notetaker btw is probably, in my Opinion, one of Shamans best Cards at the Moment. Getting a second Hex or Earth Shock against Librams, another Round of Witch's Brew or simply another Far Sight is just really good.
The only Thing I'm really struggling against is Demon Hunter. Though I don't know if it's because it counters Shaman or because they have so much Burn and can club you to Death with 10 Attack out of Nowhere.
I see you have been farming paladins all day with this list. Seems to me that this can never really beat mage, unless mage just gasses out on rng. It would struggle against rogue as well, but well teched against bomb warrior and face hunter. Highlander hunter's a trickier proposition.
That Archivist Elysiana inclusion's a bit weird in my opinion, since its anti synergy with highlander cards, and there's no real way shaman ever draws all their cards anyway. And their card draw's so bad that half the time this just gets stuck in hand.
Diligent Notetaker is certainly an mvp and every bit as strong as it looks. Unfortunately, its couched within a class so lacking that its real potential remains unexploited. Same as for trueheart.
Hearthstone already sort of had a musical theme add-on in that Karazhan adventure.
I remembered there was some mini controversy when Ragnaros, Lightlord was introduced, because of so called 'immersion' factor. But card games need themes, and its not beyond its scope to sometimes break some rules. Usually because its done in a comical lighthearted way, we can gather some suspension of disbelieve. But this is something else, that's for sure. Maybe its the k-pop theme, I don't know. Not a fan, and I can empathize with LoR fans to have to put up with this one.
The meta has solidify around face decks and value right now, with the decks to beat in standard comprising of face hunter, soul dhunter, libram (pure or not) paladin and cyclone mage. Basically, if you're going to run off using an off meta deck these are the decks to beat.
Fringe but good decks. Bomb warrior, secret rogue, dragon priest, and druid (whether its guardian or mountseller, same strats). The problem with these decks are not that its not good, but gets beaten generally by the current meta decks dominating ranked. Druid and bomb warrior suffers from consistency (the decks function only if you draw specific cards early, more so than other decks) while secret rogue and dragon priest gets destroyed by face decks fairly consistently.
So let's have a small look at the so called underdog decks/classes, which I have been happily wasting my stars on;
- Shaman decks in general are really bad. Either they simply dont draw the cards they need (because unhappily this is the only class with the weakest card draw and generation engine in the entire game) or their cards aren't up to snuff when they needed to be. I've tried control shaman, highlander, quest, galakrond, totem shaman and all of them falter in the same way; no card draw, running out of value, or having absolutely no tempo swing cards in the early game. The most broken thing you can actually play without dying in shaman right now is unironically [Hearthstone Card (magic trick totem) Not Found], which under most circumstances will either be ignored by poor players, or just go completely ham on board and allowing you to capitalize with Totemic Reflection into Splitting Axe.
Another decent thing you can do is to play Diligent Notetaker into Dragon's Pack. But nearly all the meta decks with the exception of mage on a poor day can deal with it handily, or simply kill you before you get the chance.
If you plan to play shaman at all, here's a handy tip. Go totem, doesn't matter what archetype. Somehow, someway, if you manage to cast totemic reflections successfully in the early game you are no longer guaranteed to lose that match. Go hard for either mana tide or magic trick totem if you can. Your opponent will be too busy trying to clear your board to focus on their game plan. Dont even bother with cards like Earthquake or Hagatha's Scheme; face decks and bomb warrior just laughs at your face, paladin has divine shield, and mage...well...simply generate more stuff. Instructor Fireheart is a must in all builds. Its just about the only saving grace for shaman thats not a totem.
- Warlock. How the mighty has fallen. Zoo dies to face decks, and without Darkglare they can't mount a counter offensive fast enough to avoid dying. Scrap imp builds are too slow, and mage just laughs at it anyway. That's not to say that its not good; you can still win games, but only because your opponent drew like shit. Diseased Vulture and Flesh Giants wins most games, since every other card is basically just cannon fodder.
Ive tinkered around midrange handlock to some success, but its so fair that a single solarian prime just destroys the entire game. You have a better chance against hunters since they can't easily deal with taunts, but dhunter has blade dance so either play around that or you just lose. Priest is 50-50, decided solely by their draws, not yours. Flesh Giant is very good, and the mandatory inclusion of either zzeraku or jaraxxus (play along with tour guide or demonic studies so you can hp on 9 or 10) as a win condition. I've tried a curve version with more early minions, and also a more control version with Dark Skies and Shadowflame. Curving minions are generally the stronger built, ditch the dark skies. In generally, I'm not exactly sold on handlock. Galakrond warlock seems stronger, if only because Veiled Worshipper acts as a much needed draw engine.
Archwitch willow? Dont make me laugh. You either die way before you get it out, or your opponent mind controls your enhanced dreadlords and you can't deal with it. Warlock currently suffers from the lack of quality; best thing around is [Hearthstone Card (kanrethad ebonlock) Not Found] for some really cheesy starts.
- Control warrior is doing very well because nearly the entire ranked is swamped with face hunters and soul dhunters. I've not really tried my hand with it but it doesn't feel too right. Seems like anything thats not a face deck manages to deal with rattlegore then the match is over.
I've been wanting to try my hand at quest warrior again for some time. Maybe after Im done with warlock this would be the one I waste my ranks with. Athletic studies seems really strong and I havent tried Reaper's Scythe with it yet.
- Quest druid is strong, but it always seemed like if you're playing plain quest druid with no Guardian Animals or Exotic Mountseller, and you're not playing Overgrowth, then you're doing something wrong, like fighting a boxing match with your dominant hand behind your back. For what's its worth, malygos quest druid is still really good and can actually win games.
Here's a few cards I think is worth mentioning if you're considering an off-meta deck.
- Togwaggle's scheme (tech card against mage. Yes I've actually had 11 solarian primes in my deck before)
- Ogre summoner (tech against mage, and paladin)
- Frozen shadoweaver (Im actually surprised I dont see this one more often)
- pen flinger (always manages to surprise me how stupidly useful this is against aggro)
- Animated broomstick. Because if youre playing an off meta deck then its likely midrange, which will benefit from this enourmously.
It was hated for the effect, which was unprecedented at that time. There was much hate; but shift the mindless yapping aside and you might find some semblance of reasoning to that hate.
- Glide affects the opponent's hand. That makes dhunters and warlock as being the only classes thus far to have hand disruption tools. Needless to say, players dont like their cards being taken away from them.
- dhunters at that point, and as it is still now, have already gained prominence as being able to do anything. So its not unusual for there to be more than a little hate when glide was introduced.
Glide has thus far not been prominent, but that's largely because tempo dhunters has been supplanted by the much more powerful soul dhunter. Of course, it helps that there is only but one real combo deck in standard right now and control is hardly playable. The card itself is powerful, and I wont count it out just yet, given that it will be 4 expansions before this rotates away from standard.
Full scale content. I like the flavor, the power levels, and the amount of work done on these cards. Congrats.
A few observations;
- I like the idea of adding catastrophes to your hand, giving you an option to play them. But I got to say that druid's is completely broken. Not only does the effect take mana to get rid off, it also takes up a hand slot. Mudwater Leprosy effectively makes it 2 mana to get rid, and mosquito fever might as well just end aggro decks. All these are granted at random, and I would assume that you can get multiple copies of the same disease. So there's actually quite a chance that you can just lock down your opponent from playing, simply by getting lucky with the disease rng.
- Paladin's set is quite amazing. Divine keeper can actually be broken if discovered in mage or rogue, since its only a potion of illusion away from getting infinite divine shields. I think the description should read 'give another minion divine shield when...' so it cant affect itself.
- Those warden totems in shaman is actually interesting, but storm soother is broken. Reminds me of what healing totem used to be before it was nerfed to only effect minions. Since it comes from catastrophe cards, its kinda justified, but coming from a hp? That just end games by itself.
- Hunter's cards are perhaps the only ones that may actually be directly opposed to one another. Either you buff your weapons high or you play the monster's side and get good beast in exchange for self-damage (since minions attacking your face in your turn will also deal the weapon's damage to it). I wonder if this was the intention, given how the catastrophe is mostly beneficial to weapons. Also, the weapon buffs can simply end games on its own. Brings a different meaning to 'I hunt alone' decks. You might have just achieved what blizz could not which is to make minionless hunter actually work.
- So many wonderful thief cards in rogue. But only two cards are completely broken. Fear of the dark is effectively spreading plague with charge instead of taunt, and shroud of darkness is another ball game on its own. I will commend you on shadow bite though; its just one card I wish rogue has in standard right now.
- Priest can never keep their hands empty with this set. I cant help but think that you've just created cards that buff rez priest, the no.1 voted most hated archetype in hearthstone history
- You missed out of meming holy hand grenade. 1 star :p
- Jo'han the Disaster should read 'Cast all elemental invocations with random targets' since two of them are targeted effects.
- Metal God should ideally reduce cost by 1 each time your hero gains armor to prevent cancer synergy with armorsmith.
- The End is funny. It basically makes duel paladin and that niche 1-minion warlock deck more than a meme. Congrats on that.
- Not trying to be dick or anything. But there are quite a little more than a few spelling errors. Minor ones to be sure, and in no way conflicts my admiration with your work here.
I really like the flavor and story for both hunter and paladin. Especially hunter's, which can be a whole adventure on its own.
But having tried it myself, I can tell you that shaman losses board so easily without totems that the fireheart combo is usually just fireheart herself trying to find some removal spell asap or you die. At least that's in standard anyway.
Maybe its just my luck, but fireheart often just offer up expensive spells that I simply dont want to cast the same turn I play her. So double dwarfs doesnt usually make much difference.
Inspired by a few of these to try and come up with a "watery" mechanic.
I think the description should read deal x damage to all other minions. Otherwise this is in fact just a 4/3 most of the time. It wouldn't make sense for it to damage itself anyway, I mean, flavorwise.
bigcums
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Quote From bigcums
My first idea. Any thoughts?
Nice effect. But I think it goes against blizz's design to have a card that can easily permanently change minions attack to 0, since it can lockdown the board.
Flavorwise, its also kinda weird. How can there be an environment that is advantageous only to murlocs?
He clearly has tremendous talent, though I think this piece hardly does him justice. I think the chosen pose is perhaps too ambiguous which is why we have the 1000 win portrait Jaina as we do now.
Its probably the cost of the game more than anything else. Hearthstone is incredibly expensive to have fun in. Spend nothing but 8k gold per expansion and you get like half the epics and somewhere around 4-6 legendaries, which honestly depending on luck, gives you like 1-2 decent decks that are usually 1-2 cards short of what pros are playing.
Spend a little, like 40-60 bucks and you're still probably only half way through the entire collection. Spend a monstrous 130 bucks (both preorders) and you still would not get the full collection.
So for players who leave then come back, they would be staring at a near insurmountable challenge of getting back on par without spending hundreds of US dollars, instantly making it inherently unattractive to ever come back, at least in standard.
Changing the dust system is probably the best way to deal with the problem. A more subtle fix is to change the drop rates per pack. But it is activision-blizz we're talking about here, right?
TheHoax91 - A flavorful and creative idea, but it clashes with a lot of mechanics that shuffle the deck. I prefer the Spell Damage version personally.
Linkblade91 - This could potentially allow a lot of burst, which may be worrisome to some, but it's a nice idea.
Wailor - Sacred Seahorse is kinda neat, although it's difficult to use since it relies on you having multiple Divine Shield minions that have kept their Divine Shield for at least a whole turn. Hammerhead Bloodseeker is probably my favorite of the bunch. Nice flavor and mechanics. Abysall Monstrosity is "cute", but I could see it being either OP or trash.
Valor1204 - Nice flavor, but it seems very weak since it requires you to have several Pirates die on your turn and then it summons a bunch of eggs. As grumpymonk pointed out, the token should also have a watermark.
DavnanaKillder - Balance is a bit difficult to figure out. I'd say maybe drop the Overload to 2 or the cost to 4.
BloodMefist - Deepwalker seems really cool. I don't really see the flavor behind making the effect secret, although none of the other cards which use this mechanic really have flavor associated with it either.
Grumpymonk - Naga Fel Witch is a nice callback to Naga Sea Witch and N[Hearthstone Card (aga Sand Witch) Not Found]. I feel it'd probably benefit DH more than it would Warlock since DH has more large Demons in Standard at the moment. Oacha'noa is a pretty neat card with a huge effect that might be playable. I prefer Naga Fel Witch out of the two, but this is a perfectly serviceable choice as well.
Arkasaur - The art might be a bit too graphic for HS standards, but the flavor and mechanics are absolutely on point.
Neoguli - The idea of a sentient anchor being a minion is extremely funny to me. Unless I'm misunderstanding something though, the effect doesn't seem to actually do anything since any card you draw with its effect would've been just as likely to be drawn as the anchor itself.
MenacingBagel - A really neat idea, although the ability to give Warrior up to 3 removals that don't "kill" seems slightly scary to me.
I'm also going to add another card to my ideas.
Swimming underwater makes for some stealthy work to eliminate her targets, although as she's only a human and can't breathe underwater, she will need to go back up for air (hence why she returns to your hand). I was also thinking of making it a Rogue card since Stealth and bouncing are very Rogue-ish mechanics, although Rogue cards with drawbacks feel a bit strange to me.
This is actually unique enough. Basically if your opponent can't kill it then this can continually come back and forth from the hand and board since that effect will allow it to kill any minion no matter its attack, as it'll just get bounced back after attacking and therefore doesn't count as dying. I wonder if that was your intention.
If only if it were a 3/1 1 drop then its just beautiful with magic carpet.
Firstly, just have to say that many of these are well thought out cards, and if any blizz devs are looking for ideas nicking some of yours is definitely on the cards.
I will pass a few comments on some of the more interesting cards;
- mother dragon and dragon recruitment is a very neat idea. Mother dragon's stats seems a little too big for 6 mana honestly. Perhaps lowering it to a 5/5 or 5/6 is the better choice. But 5/8 for 6, and net draw one card? Bit too much.
- Dastardly minitank is deceptively powerful in face hunter. At its very best it allows 4 damage to face every turn, and the added cost to hp is negligible. Part of me hope this idea never catches on, but its honestly one of the better cards in your list
- Tomb exploration is broken, and in mage its doubly so. Its already bad enough that a decent mage game will see at least 2 solarian primes, and now this? Basically the idea is that you'll never be playing that treasure without also playing another copy of this card, but there's plenty of ways to make it more consistent and mage has never have trouble generating cards. Plus, playing wondrous wand (1 of the 4 fantastic treasures, unless you added more) in mage should be banned to prevent worldwide heart attacks.
- I think your shaman list is a little too weak, and once again suffers from the same disease as with team5's card developers as they are constantly finding reasons to overload cards, not understanding that druid simply does the same thing but without any overload encumbrance. Water merchant is practically extorting mana for such a small body. Ditch the overload, like honestly. Totem of power is probably the best thing here, but not because of its somewhat weird effect, but because its a 0/3 totem for 1. I don't quite understand the effect. Basically if you have overloaded crystals then further overloads that turn don't count?
- Now that darkglare is a shadow of its former self, your warlock list is basically just cannon fodder. Its so niche, I simply can't imagine anyone playing it. Murloc magic is so expensive, for such a massive drawback. Beach scavenger should ideally cost 0 (I assume that the damage is dealt to the murloc, not the hero), and tricky murloc is well, impossible to play without also introducing something like a 4/5 murloc for 4 in the list. Also, lets not forget that hand of gul'dan still exist. So what hole are these cards filling exactly?
- Renogos, yes. Very powerful. Rafaam, FS. No. If that was his final scheme then its not a wonder that he lost at the end.
I hope from the card text it is clear what the card does (it moves up 1 spot everytime you cast a spell). It's possible to explain the effect more in detail, but the cardtext gets really small...
how does this work though, if and when you shuffle stuff into your deck since doing so shuffles the deck as well? Likewise what would happen when you shuffle more of these into your deck?
Its a good design, I grant you, but its likely a card thats good because its easily discovered via Primordial Studies than drawn.
Frostbolt cost 2 by the way, you're probably looking at Ray of Frost
Probably better to suggest some changes while you're at it.
I don't like face hunter from DoD, but the one we have right now is what I would call 'fair', since its not all in, and taunts do quite a good job against them.
That leaves highlander and dragon hunter, both not really that big on ranked right now. So what is there to nerf? Eaglehorn Bow, Dwarven Sharpshooter, Phase Stalker, Dragonbane? none of those are in my opinion remotely unfair compared to what other classes can do.
Besides which, hunters have been nerfed before. Scavenger's Ingenuity from the previous expansion, and leeroy getting HoF which practically destroyed quest hunter in standard.
Its a small nerf, probably lower its winrate by a small margin, but hardly deck destroying. Evocation not being able to be generated by Cobalt Spellkin and Wandmaker is probably something that should've been thought out from the start. It can still be discovered from Magic Trick though, but the higher cost means you can't just go turn 4 apprentice into evocation, vomit all those spells into Mana Cyclone.
As for Solarian Prime nerf, well, this really doesn't do anything other than stop turn 7 bs so its more susceptible to face decks, and would probably lower its win rate to midrange decks. It was coming though, and mage mains ought to count themselves lucky that the nerf wasn't to solarian itself, and an unexpected Potion of Illusion will still allow you to play that 1 mana prime on the same turn. I'm not really into this nerf, to be honest. Would've been better for team5 to simply expand the spell-damage minion pool, increase the cost of Primordial Studies, or simply remove spell damage from Astromancer Solarian, so we're not facing a game with 2-3 solarian primes at minimum.
The main winners of this nerf is probably priest and paladin. But rogue may make a comeback, and there might yet be a place for warlock to shine too, since mage bs is probably too backbreaking for any midrange warlock to catch up with.
Lol, who else in the entire horde uses traps, bear traps no less, and Rexxar himself didn't even comment on it.
And besides, since the trap didn't switch places, I would naturally assumed that either Misha wanted to kill herself or that by beating her we sort of 'tame' (honestly that Rexxar didnt cringe from saying those words baffle me) her. Should've at least have stated that he needed to take out that trap (if he did, well, I didn't see it)
I must say one thing that the story did open my eyes to a history that I didn't know, which was Rexxar actually fought for the horde in the first 2 wars of humans vs orcs.
Obviously he doesn't appear in the first 2 warcraft games, so he must have been an unusually lucky grunt somewhere since the orcs lost the fight canonically.
Can anyone actually confirm if the story relates anything to Rexxar's appearance in Warcraft 3? I knew there was one mission with him and the rest was something like a dlc that needed payment. Far as a I knew that mission was the first time Rexxar met Thrall.
yeah, about as much as an orange is to an apple.
I played through both, and aside from the portraits, there's literally nothing more than the most minute connection between Rexxar's story and Jaina's. The only significant thing connecting the two is that one mission against a naga witch (no idea even if this is canon), of which Jaina spawns you 4 mirror images of herself.
Its possible to suggest that even if you knew nothing of Jaina aside from the fact that shes a human female, playing Rexxar's story wouldn't give you any more insight whatsoever. In fact, since Rexxar fights her father in the game, its possible to misconstrue that Jaina's a pirate or at least a sailor.
Its actually amazing how Jaina's adventure was like a walk in the park and Rexxar's, at least to me, is like trying to walk a very enthusiastic and insistent dog under heavy rain. I died twice in the adventure, once to that very odd mission with Misha where I mistakenly believe the idea was to kill her instead of the trap, and then to Gronn, which was like packing a ton of canned sardines for a field trip and then remembering that the can-opener was left at home.
That mission you refer to was against Daelin, and it was one of the hardest mission in the adventure, but only because your deck and hero power is largely shit, and your opponent has an unforeseen kill switch and two Eye of the Storms out of nowhere. To elaborate, your hp is to deal 4 damage (to a minion no less) in a game where your opponent's hp was to summon a ship with 6 health, and if not killed snowballs the fight. Suffice to say that I only won with some rng from [Hearthstone Card (misdirect) Not Found], of which without there was absolutely no chance of winning.
Its weird that Rexxar actually starts pretty well, with some well thought out cards, and that hp to summon Misha was amazing. For some reason this was then taken away for a crude hp that deals 5 damage to a minion (Gronn plays no minions for 5 turns by the way, if youre wondering). A little disappointing that the final hp wasn't just summon an animal companion, or even all three for 5 mana. Would at least be flavorful, if not making the fight less frustrating.
Was actually pretty sad to see justsaiyan go, but then I read that his earnings are high enough to make a comeback anyway.
Its a pretty rough season, especially for europe where big names were up for relegation. Was actually thinking that viper's going to get off, but glad to know that both he and bunny would still be in another season.
Of course fan favourites boarcontrol and firebat got off. Still sad that firebats given up competing, but it was a long time coming anyway. Maybe he would consider casting, which honestly he's pretty good at.
I see you have been farming paladins all day with this list. Seems to me that this can never really beat mage, unless mage just gasses out on rng. It would struggle against rogue as well, but well teched against bomb warrior and face hunter. Highlander hunter's a trickier proposition.
That Archivist Elysiana inclusion's a bit weird in my opinion, since its anti synergy with highlander cards, and there's no real way shaman ever draws all their cards anyway. And their card draw's so bad that half the time this just gets stuck in hand.
Diligent Notetaker is certainly an mvp and every bit as strong as it looks. Unfortunately, its couched within a class so lacking that its real potential remains unexploited. Same as for trueheart.
Hearthstone already sort of had a musical theme add-on in that Karazhan adventure.
I remembered there was some mini controversy when Ragnaros, Lightlord was introduced, because of so called 'immersion' factor. But card games need themes, and its not beyond its scope to sometimes break some rules. Usually because its done in a comical lighthearted way, we can gather some suspension of disbelieve. But this is something else, that's for sure. Maybe its the k-pop theme, I don't know. Not a fan, and I can empathize with LoR fans to have to put up with this one.
The meta has solidify around face decks and value right now, with the decks to beat in standard comprising of face hunter, soul dhunter, libram (pure or not) paladin and cyclone mage. Basically, if you're going to run off using an off meta deck these are the decks to beat.
Fringe but good decks. Bomb warrior, secret rogue, dragon priest, and druid (whether its guardian or mountseller, same strats). The problem with these decks are not that its not good, but gets beaten generally by the current meta decks dominating ranked. Druid and bomb warrior suffers from consistency (the decks function only if you draw specific cards early, more so than other decks) while secret rogue and dragon priest gets destroyed by face decks fairly consistently.
So let's have a small look at the so called underdog decks/classes, which I have been happily wasting my stars on;
- Shaman decks in general are really bad. Either they simply dont draw the cards they need (because unhappily this is the only class with the weakest card draw and generation engine in the entire game) or their cards aren't up to snuff when they needed to be. I've tried control shaman, highlander, quest, galakrond, totem shaman and all of them falter in the same way; no card draw, running out of value, or having absolutely no tempo swing cards in the early game. The most broken thing you can actually play without dying in shaman right now is unironically [Hearthstone Card (magic trick totem) Not Found], which under most circumstances will either be ignored by poor players, or just go completely ham on board and allowing you to capitalize with Totemic Reflection into Splitting Axe.
Another decent thing you can do is to play Diligent Notetaker into Dragon's Pack. But nearly all the meta decks with the exception of mage on a poor day can deal with it handily, or simply kill you before you get the chance.
If you plan to play shaman at all, here's a handy tip. Go totem, doesn't matter what archetype. Somehow, someway, if you manage to cast totemic reflections successfully in the early game you are no longer guaranteed to lose that match. Go hard for either mana tide or magic trick totem if you can. Your opponent will be too busy trying to clear your board to focus on their game plan. Dont even bother with cards like Earthquake or Hagatha's Scheme; face decks and bomb warrior just laughs at your face, paladin has divine shield, and mage...well...simply generate more stuff. Instructor Fireheart is a must in all builds. Its just about the only saving grace for shaman thats not a totem.
- Warlock. How the mighty has fallen. Zoo dies to face decks, and without Darkglare they can't mount a counter offensive fast enough to avoid dying. Scrap imp builds are too slow, and mage just laughs at it anyway. That's not to say that its not good; you can still win games, but only because your opponent drew like shit. Diseased Vulture and Flesh Giants wins most games, since every other card is basically just cannon fodder.
Ive tinkered around midrange handlock to some success, but its so fair that a single solarian prime just destroys the entire game. You have a better chance against hunters since they can't easily deal with taunts, but dhunter has blade dance so either play around that or you just lose. Priest is 50-50, decided solely by their draws, not yours. Flesh Giant is very good, and the mandatory inclusion of either zzeraku or jaraxxus (play along with tour guide or demonic studies so you can hp on 9 or 10) as a win condition. I've tried a curve version with more early minions, and also a more control version with Dark Skies and Shadowflame. Curving minions are generally the stronger built, ditch the dark skies. In generally, I'm not exactly sold on handlock. Galakrond warlock seems stronger, if only because Veiled Worshipper acts as a much needed draw engine.
Archwitch willow? Dont make me laugh. You either die way before you get it out, or your opponent mind controls your enhanced dreadlords and you can't deal with it. Warlock currently suffers from the lack of quality; best thing around is [Hearthstone Card (kanrethad ebonlock) Not Found] for some really cheesy starts.
- Control warrior is doing very well because nearly the entire ranked is swamped with face hunters and soul dhunters. I've not really tried my hand with it but it doesn't feel too right. Seems like anything thats not a face deck manages to deal with rattlegore then the match is over.
I've been wanting to try my hand at quest warrior again for some time. Maybe after Im done with warlock this would be the one I waste my ranks with. Athletic studies seems really strong and I havent tried Reaper's Scythe with it yet.
- Quest druid is strong, but it always seemed like if you're playing plain quest druid with no Guardian Animals or Exotic Mountseller, and you're not playing Overgrowth, then you're doing something wrong, like fighting a boxing match with your dominant hand behind your back. For what's its worth, malygos quest druid is still really good and can actually win games.
Here's a few cards I think is worth mentioning if you're considering an off-meta deck.
- Togwaggle's scheme (tech card against mage. Yes I've actually had 11 solarian primes in my deck before)
- Ogre summoner (tech against mage, and paladin)
- Frozen shadoweaver (Im actually surprised I dont see this one more often)
- pen flinger (always manages to surprise me how stupidly useful this is against aggro)
- Animated broomstick. Because if youre playing an off meta deck then its likely midrange, which will benefit from this enourmously.
It was hated for the effect, which was unprecedented at that time. There was much hate; but shift the mindless yapping aside and you might find some semblance of reasoning to that hate.
- Glide affects the opponent's hand. That makes dhunters and warlock as being the only classes thus far to have hand disruption tools. Needless to say, players dont like their cards being taken away from them.
- dhunters at that point, and as it is still now, have already gained prominence as being able to do anything. So its not unusual for there to be more than a little hate when glide was introduced.
Glide has thus far not been prominent, but that's largely because tempo dhunters has been supplanted by the much more powerful soul dhunter. Of course, it helps that there is only but one real combo deck in standard right now and control is hardly playable. The card itself is powerful, and I wont count it out just yet, given that it will be 4 expansions before this rotates away from standard.
Full scale content. I like the flavor, the power levels, and the amount of work done on these cards. Congrats.
A few observations;
- I like the idea of adding catastrophes to your hand, giving you an option to play them. But I got to say that druid's is completely broken. Not only does the effect take mana to get rid off, it also takes up a hand slot. Mudwater Leprosy effectively makes it 2 mana to get rid, and mosquito fever might as well just end aggro decks. All these are granted at random, and I would assume that you can get multiple copies of the same disease. So there's actually quite a chance that you can just lock down your opponent from playing, simply by getting lucky with the disease rng.
- Paladin's set is quite amazing. Divine keeper can actually be broken if discovered in mage or rogue, since its only a potion of illusion away from getting infinite divine shields. I think the description should read 'give another minion divine shield when...' so it cant affect itself.
- Those warden totems in shaman is actually interesting, but storm soother is broken. Reminds me of what healing totem used to be before it was nerfed to only effect minions. Since it comes from catastrophe cards, its kinda justified, but coming from a hp? That just end games by itself.
- Hunter's cards are perhaps the only ones that may actually be directly opposed to one another. Either you buff your weapons high or you play the monster's side and get good beast in exchange for self-damage (since minions attacking your face in your turn will also deal the weapon's damage to it). I wonder if this was the intention, given how the catastrophe is mostly beneficial to weapons. Also, the weapon buffs can simply end games on its own. Brings a different meaning to 'I hunt alone' decks. You might have just achieved what blizz could not which is to make minionless hunter actually work.
- So many wonderful thief cards in rogue. But only two cards are completely broken. Fear of the dark is effectively spreading plague with charge instead of taunt, and shroud of darkness is another ball game on its own. I will commend you on shadow bite though; its just one card I wish rogue has in standard right now.
- Priest can never keep their hands empty with this set. I cant help but think that you've just created cards that buff rez priest, the no.1 voted most hated archetype in hearthstone history
- You missed out of meming holy hand grenade. 1 star :p
- Jo'han the Disaster should read 'Cast all elemental invocations with random targets' since two of them are targeted effects.
- Metal God should ideally reduce cost by 1 each time your hero gains armor to prevent cancer synergy with armorsmith.
- The End is funny. It basically makes duel paladin and that niche 1-minion warlock deck more than a meme. Congrats on that.
- Not trying to be dick or anything. But there are quite a little more than a few spelling errors. Minor ones to be sure, and in no way conflicts my admiration with your work here.
I really like the flavor and story for both hunter and paladin. Especially hunter's, which can be a whole adventure on its own.
You can already play a version of this in standard with double Dwarven Archaeologist, Marshspawn and Vulpera Scoundrel, with a few lackeys for consistency.
But having tried it myself, I can tell you that shaman losses board so easily without totems that the fireheart combo is usually just fireheart herself trying to find some removal spell asap or you die. At least that's in standard anyway.
Maybe its just my luck, but fireheart often just offer up expensive spells that I simply dont want to cast the same turn I play her. So double dwarfs doesnt usually make much difference.
A few observations.
Grayghost39
I think the description should read deal x damage to all other minions. Otherwise this is in fact just a 4/3 most of the time. It wouldn't make sense for it to damage itself anyway, I mean, flavorwise.
bigcums
Nice effect. But I think it goes against blizz's design to have a card that can easily permanently change minions attack to 0, since it can lockdown the board.
Flavorwise, its also kinda weird. How can there be an environment that is advantageous only to murlocs?
He clearly has tremendous talent, though I think this piece hardly does him justice. I think the chosen pose is perhaps too ambiguous which is why we have the 1000 win portrait Jaina as we do now.
Its probably the cost of the game more than anything else. Hearthstone is incredibly expensive to have fun in. Spend nothing but 8k gold per expansion and you get like half the epics and somewhere around 4-6 legendaries, which honestly depending on luck, gives you like 1-2 decent decks that are usually 1-2 cards short of what pros are playing.
Spend a little, like 40-60 bucks and you're still probably only half way through the entire collection. Spend a monstrous 130 bucks (both preorders) and you still would not get the full collection.
So for players who leave then come back, they would be staring at a near insurmountable challenge of getting back on par without spending hundreds of US dollars, instantly making it inherently unattractive to ever come back, at least in standard.
Changing the dust system is probably the best way to deal with the problem. A more subtle fix is to change the drop rates per pack. But it is activision-blizz we're talking about here, right?
This is actually unique enough. Basically if your opponent can't kill it then this can continually come back and forth from the hand and board since that effect will allow it to kill any minion no matter its attack, as it'll just get bounced back after attacking and therefore doesn't count as dying. I wonder if that was your intention.
If only if it were a 3/1 1 drop then its just beautiful with magic carpet.
Firstly, just have to say that many of these are well thought out cards, and if any blizz devs are looking for ideas nicking some of yours is definitely on the cards.
I will pass a few comments on some of the more interesting cards;
- mother dragon and dragon recruitment is a very neat idea. Mother dragon's stats seems a little too big for 6 mana honestly. Perhaps lowering it to a 5/5 or 5/6 is the better choice. But 5/8 for 6, and net draw one card? Bit too much.
- Dastardly minitank is deceptively powerful in face hunter. At its very best it allows 4 damage to face every turn, and the added cost to hp is negligible. Part of me hope this idea never catches on, but its honestly one of the better cards in your list
- Tomb exploration is broken, and in mage its doubly so. Its already bad enough that a decent mage game will see at least 2 solarian primes, and now this? Basically the idea is that you'll never be playing that treasure without also playing another copy of this card, but there's plenty of ways to make it more consistent and mage has never have trouble generating cards. Plus, playing wondrous wand (1 of the 4 fantastic treasures, unless you added more) in mage should be banned to prevent worldwide heart attacks.
- I think your shaman list is a little too weak, and once again suffers from the same disease as with team5's card developers as they are constantly finding reasons to overload cards, not understanding that druid simply does the same thing but without any overload encumbrance. Water merchant is practically extorting mana for such a small body. Ditch the overload, like honestly. Totem of power is probably the best thing here, but not because of its somewhat weird effect, but because its a 0/3 totem for 1. I don't quite understand the effect. Basically if you have overloaded crystals then further overloads that turn don't count?
- Now that darkglare is a shadow of its former self, your warlock list is basically just cannon fodder. Its so niche, I simply can't imagine anyone playing it. Murloc magic is so expensive, for such a massive drawback. Beach scavenger should ideally cost 0 (I assume that the damage is dealt to the murloc, not the hero), and tricky murloc is well, impossible to play without also introducing something like a 4/5 murloc for 4 in the list. Also, lets not forget that hand of gul'dan still exist. So what hole are these cards filling exactly?
- Renogos, yes. Very powerful. Rafaam, FS. No. If that was his final scheme then its not a wonder that he lost at the end.
how does this work though, if and when you shuffle stuff into your deck since doing so shuffles the deck as well? Likewise what would happen when you shuffle more of these into your deck?
Its a good design, I grant you, but its likely a card thats good because its easily discovered via Primordial Studies than drawn.