Interesting rune requirement but let's remember something. Because of the rune requirement Frost Queen Sindragosa can be discovered by both Frost Strike and Hematurge, so it's a card that will show up occasionally especially when a triple blood DK finds it. However i feel like a double frost + one blood or double blood + 1 frost DK deck will probably use this gladly. One thing to note is that this can destroy divine shield minions, which might be nice in certain meta's.
I personally really like those mixed rune decks, as it gives a lot more interesting options for deckbuilding so seeing non-triple rune decks get support is really nice!
Pretty sure it cant destroy divine shielded minions since the wing has to actually deal damage to freeze the target. Water Elemental doesn't work that way too.
Its likely to be shit, but its definitely an attrition control buster card. One card, and all those stall games goes to bust unless they can transform one of these dudes.
Unfortunately, the meta being what it is, I anticipate that this card will largely be a combo card of sorts, rather than actually included as a stall buster. That this card can work with From De Other Side is funny though unrealistic. You can theoretically also do it with Front Lines or Proving Grounds.
Fortunately, nearly all combo related to this card will likely require this to first die, not easily accomplished in standard. And its a 6 mana card as well that does nothing. But for potential alone, this card is certainly worth consideration.
There's some merit to this card. Playing 3 spells isn't all that hard for frost DK and the gameplan is to stall while hitting face. This card allows that.
Might of Menethil never took off largely because its too expensive, and require corpses, meaning its always detracting from your gameplan, needs to be activated, while being clunky for a stall card. This one is one mana cheaper, establishes a body with a paltry requirement.
I can see this being played in some capacity, but its not a meta busting card. More like a card that suits certain metas.
There's potential here for a deathrattle deck, because this card is essentially a deathrattle trigger that also puts tempo on board.
The only problem is obviously the fact that its 3 mana, and takes up a board slot, which to most decks that want to play this might not be able to afford giving up. And of course, you'll need to sack one of your own stuff to get that 4/5 minion.
I think its mostly going to be played as a deathrattle trigger, because unless eggs are back on the menu its unlikely to ever work as a purely tempo card.
Not really that good, considering that its a colossal.
Basically its 7 mana kill two minions and leave a 6/6. Well, other colossals tend to do that as well, and often enough do more. Crabatoa is the closest resemblance, and the comparison is not in this card's favor.
But what really kills this card is its dual rune requirement. Just can't see anyone dropping Frostwyrm's Fury or Vampiric Blood just to play this card.
Unless team5 pushes these cards hard, like a straight out a BBF card that dominates we'll be unlikely to see this card be played legitimately.
Not a fan of the rune system, and this dual-rune idea will be bound for failure, unless team5 pushes it hard.
The main problem with the rune system is that it simply does not allow for flexibility when choosing cards. The current frost, unholy and blood archetypes in the meta basically builds itself, I think its 90% similar to the one built by team5. So they designs these very powerful 3-rune cards, why wouldn't you just play a 3 rune deck with a really powerful card, instead of mixing and getting less powerful results.
And I fear its impact on the meta. All three rune decks are so extreme in their identity that it kinda warps the meta slightly. Blood decks will always be an auto win vs aggro, etc. And all this design fun team5 must be having also has unintended effects; discovering cards in DK is a lot stronger than in other classes because you can easily end up with powerful cards your deck should theoretically be unable to play. Not to mention the number of times I see Vampiric Blood being played out of discovers.
It doesn't help that Frost Queen Sindragosa is so painfully average, kinda like a more expensive Crabatoa, but with no face damage potential. Now, with the dual-rune requirement we can more or less be sure it'll never see play outside of discovers because imagine building a deck that doesn't play Frostwyrm's Fury or Vampiric Blood
The riders are cool. More likely to be played simply for the extra cards in the deck. Its hard to see this work though, because of the requirements, and susceptibility to silence. Maybe in druid? Because each of those riders do something and druid ramps, draws like the wind anyway.
Traditionally Blizzard games stood out in terms of polish, but that was missing from Mercenaries.
Let me put on my tinfoil hat and say that Blizzard was like Japanese industry of the 70's and 80's, taking existing material and improving it -- not creative or imaginative in a broad sense, but giving cliches and tropes that high-sheen polish that outshined the competition . . .
. . . and that changed after the buyout.
Blizzard was some combination of a) the management and b) the employees and both of those groups have changed lineups. It would have been surprising if things hadn't changed, tbh. But the old-school Blizzard that had so much good time management that their high-polished games had the time for the most random-ass easter eggs imaginable is way out of our rearview mirror.
Im not so sure we can pin that label on blizz's early years (prior to buyout).
The gaming sphere back in the 90s was mostly 2d side scrollers. If Im not mistaken warcraft 1 was the first really popular RTS made, and diablo 1 was pretty much the best, if not the first, game of that genre in the west. Blizz tends to innovate more often than copy.
The real reason for their success is because management wanted quality instead of quantity. They would've continued it too, if it weren't for a sudden shortsightedness on their management's part, and merged with activision. In hindsight any blizz fan would have call it bs, but back then when WoW was running high its likely they gambled that blizz would be the more successful of the two and eventually turn the tables.
Too bad. It could have been blizz-activision, managed by people that loves games, not its finance department. And now its gobbled up by an even more money-eyed taskmaster, its only a matter of time before blizz ceases to be.
The first mistake is arguably deciding to build this within hearthstone's limited infrastructure, taking advantage of an already existing playerbase. The result is something that looks too flat, too ugly, and completely lacking in identity and design.
Compare this to arclight rumble. I think arclight is pretty much a response to mercs' failure as a mobile game. Its night and day between the two, even if both have the same monetization model.
Perhaps, even if cruelly, we can conclude that dying now is better than being a hollowed up shell waiting for its next update. If arclight turns out a success, it might even foreshadow hearthstone's own demise, or the inevitable hearthstone 2 within 5 years time.
The meta is more tolerable than the one previous. At least this time you're not really being scammed out of the game because your opponent drew or discovered specific cards.
DK remains a problem in my eyes though. I've stated it from the start that their cards are much more powerful than other classes, the only thing holding them back is funnily enough the rune system.
Team5's endeavor to make that rune system work will eventually cause an imbalance, because right now each of the DK decks are simply extreme versions of archetypes. If they go further with this we'll reach a point where the game is over as soon as it starts.
One last observation: devs have got to have a look at DK discovering cards, because I dont think it should be permissible for unholy DK to just get blood or frost cards.
Have to give them credit, without the boss rush this game has a definite end far as pve is concerned. So now there's more reasons for those who actually like this game to grind upwards, as opposed to oblivion.
The sad reality was that this was always going to happen, especially since mercs never really did took flight the same way battlegrounds did. Couldn't really make money neither. The moment they practically removed the grind from the game I was pretty much convinced it would die off, but I didn't think it would be this soon.
Oh well, that 90 packs I saved up will be good for one last tango and then this mode will sink into obscurity, an occasional memory of me grinding up 2 hours a day back in the day when that mattered.
Only positive here is that at very least we still get that free pack every week.
Unless you're a pro that plays 4 hours a day, I highly doubt anyone would even bother playing this one. Imagine playing a mode that cost 10 packs and then going up against a group of guys that grinds up hearthstone everyday like its brushing teeth.
Well, well, seems like the changes are so drastically different from what I initially thought. My comments;
- Wildpaw Gnoll effectively got completely destroyed. I can't see why'd anyone would ever play this card, even for memes, its just so inconsistent if not entirely worthless now. Equally useless by association is maestra, which sadly we dont get any dust for. But at least you can play maestra for memes.
- Sinstone Graveyard might still see play. Sometimes its hard to remember that even a 4/4 ghost for free is still a minion that needs answers for.
- Dhunter's scammy wins are slowed down. Not sure if quest would still see play, but Im guessing not because drawing 5 cards is pretty mean, even for dhunter.
- The astalor nerf is hard, especially for the 5 armor. Probably still played in most decks, except now aggro probably doesn't go there anymore.
Buffs:
- Not sure what team5 have in mind with the buffs to priest cards. The buff to Haunting Nightmare is so minute you might not even realised its buffed. The only change here that's noteworthy is High Cultist Basaleph, which makes it infinitely easier to play, especially in undead decks. I was rather expecting Haunting Nightmare to summon itself from its deathrattle.
- Changes to mage is scary. Vast Wisdom is now a card that can be respected on its own because 2 mana to discover two spells is just good.
- Nothing interesting here for druid and DK. Basically the token has 1 extra health and druid's Wither is not quite as shit. But by not addressing the core issue (not enough good undead minions in druid, and unholy DK in standard is too slow) Im not sure what team5 hopes would be accomplished here. Boneguard Commander is already a good card prior to buffs but blood DK might not actually need it.
- I know there's a persistent meme in reddit on how impactful 1 mana is whenever buffs/nerfs are made, but by god some kind of divine intervention is needed to make outcast dhunter in any capacity good. Vengeful Walloper from 7 mana to 6? Its almost an early april fools joke. How about give us a better reason to play the deck at all.
- Warlock changes aren't noteworthy to me, but I concede there might be something in Dar'Khan Drathir. Its very nearly a card you'd just play because its a solid card no matter how you look at it.
- And finally warrior, receiver of plenty buffs but some dodgy ones. The changes to Asvedon, the Grandshield is laughable to say the least because its a situational card, so what is that extra 1 health gonna do? Disruptive Spellbreaker is more respectable, but its still a tech card at the end, not to mention a very slow one.
Nellie change is fine, but I can't see warrior playing this card to be honest. Just so slow, and there's no reason to believe warrior can even last till turn 7 never mind concoct an OTK scenario with Mr. Smite.
Remornia, Living Blade change is equally weak, because its still a 7 mana card, and the reasons for not playing it is still there. You'd much rather just play rokara and swing for 10 over two turns. Had remornia been a 6 mana card (with less stats) it might have seen play simply because its a solid turn 6 play and still allows you to play rokara on curve. Oh well.
But the biggest change has got to be Last Stand. Forget the manathirst it'll never be triggered, but the ability to basically tutor any taunt minion for 1 mana is a game changer. Will this be enough for warrior to be anything better than tier 3? Probably not. But with the nerfs we might yet see a good enough warrior deck somehow.
Probably enrage warrior. Ugh. Bring on the miniset please.
DK with pig is basically the best one here because the class has plenty of tokens and sometimes you get a massive colossal early and just win.
Shaman with monkey can be tricky, because its fairly easy to snowball quickly. Even pig DK will struggle if they cant get the AoE needed to clear board.
Hunter with dog can actually be scary to face, because the chip damage with hp will eventually finish games fairly consistently.
Ox is generally good no matter the class. I think warrior works the best with it because they tend to get plenty of taunt minions.
Oh, and in case someone doesn't already know this, the blessings are fixed per class. So you can go pig DK 100% of the time should you want to do so.
I'll be honest, I dont know why Battlefield Necromancer is being chosen for buffs but it seems to be that the main problem with this card on 2 is that it takes up a corpse to do anything useful. If the card is not consistent in the early game then its probably a miss no matter what they'd do to the token. So I think the probable buff choice would be either to remove the corpse requirement or let it regain the corpse spent.
Concoctions are really strong, but the only reason why rogue is winning lots of games is because of late game astalor win con and early Wildpaw Gnolls. Take away both of that and concoctions are good value cards but remain limited so it cant 100% go pass heavy control decks and its too slow to impact aggro decks, even with Ghoulish Alchemist on 2.
The whole point is to make rogue a playable class while encouraging diversity. The choices team5 have made are spot on for rogue. I cant see otherwise.
Well, we knew it was coming and let's be real its been coming a long way back.
So there's no reason to discuss the nerfs and buffs because there isn't any revealed, so let's have a discussion on how the classes changed would fare in a hypothetical new meta.
- Rogue will go back to thief, and nearly 100% all in on Queen Azshara or bust. Probably Wildpaw Gnoll would get a 1-2 mana nerf because of Potion Belt, which to be fair will completely ruin the card, but Im pretty sure we'll never see Maestra of the Masquerade ever again. Sad to see we wont get the dust from that card.
Can't see any other rogue archetype. There's a chance someone will work draka rogue back in some capacity, along with cards like Bonelord Frostwhisper, who I think works the best in rogue.
- Spell dhunter will still be good despite all this nerfs because what happens is simply that quest dhunter dont get to scam wins out of nowhere anymore.
Can't see outcast dhunter be anywhere near tier 2 unless Vengeful Walloper gets a massive change, like getting charge etc. Outcast is simply a poor mechanic and without easy ways to cheapen cards like skull it'll never be good.
- Warrior, in my opinion, would probably stay a poor class unless team5 goes completely ham on the changes. But admitably there's some really spicy choices here, like nellie (which was the best colossal minion on launch and is currently a joke card) and remornia. The main problem remains; warrior can't draw, and is immensely slower than most decks out there. Thori'belore should be buffed to revive for every fire spell in my opinion. Its not even strictly that great and is still countered by silences.
A chance we'll see an archetype that mirrors what bless priest is doing.
- Undead shadow priest may actually be good. Its not a bad deck, but gets destroyed in the current meta because it can never fight back even one Wildpaw Gnoll on 2. Have a feeling that Haunting Nightmare will be a meta defining card for priest.
Surprised that Sister Svalna isn't getting changed. That deck with Radiant Elemental is scary when it works. Very tilting deck to be certain
- Undead druid will never ever work unless team5 completely overhauls or introduces so many undead cards in the miniset that its impossible to fail.
- Paladin would be fine even without any buffs. But Timewarden is presently so slow and very hard to use properly. Chances are good it gets taunt, or becomes a 3 mana card.
- Hope team5 nails mage right because I dont like the direction of their buffs. Casino mage should never ever be allowed to be more than a tier 3 deck
- Unholy DK changes are funny because the deck is perfectly fine in wild even without many actual wild cards in it. All it takes is a cheap and consistent way to get corpses early on. I think this is one archetype that will benefit from new cards not buffs.
Battlefield Necromancer would probably spawn a 1/2 that gives a corpse back when it dies. Or it gets reduced to 1 rune, which is fine. Not sure what they intend to do with Unholy Frenzy however. 2 mana, likely.
- Hunter will remain perfectly where it is. The change to spitter probably wont change much, unless its like 5 mana. Probably nerfed to 4 mana or capped damage (not likely, but its an option). The real problem here is how easily spitter scam wins with brann. Take brann off and its a perfectly reasonable card at 3.
- And finally warlock. Okay, Im afraid. Because none of the nerfs are hitting minelock, and I still think that deck scam wins out of nowhere. Probably a good time to remind team5 that Runed Mithril Rod is a card that should never have existed.
Wont be surprised to see warlock be tier 1 until the miniset.
One last comment. That Astalor Bloodsworn nerf may not actually reduce its play rate. I think the first and second forms are probably the most impactful and the final form is only ever useful (or abused) in rogue and druid. But I can see why they nerfed it the way they did. Its basically denathrius in another form.
Well, it has to happen sometime.
Our one mana 1/3 Mistake has now arrived.
Pretty sure it cant destroy divine shielded minions since the wing has to actually deal damage to freeze the target. Water Elemental doesn't work that way too.
Its likely to be shit, but its definitely an attrition control buster card. One card, and all those stall games goes to bust unless they can transform one of these dudes.
Unfortunately, the meta being what it is, I anticipate that this card will largely be a combo card of sorts, rather than actually included as a stall buster. That this card can work with From De Other Side is funny though unrealistic. You can theoretically also do it with Front Lines or Proving Grounds.
Fortunately, nearly all combo related to this card will likely require this to first die, not easily accomplished in standard. And its a 6 mana card as well that does nothing. But for potential alone, this card is certainly worth consideration.
There's some merit to this card. Playing 3 spells isn't all that hard for frost DK and the gameplan is to stall while hitting face. This card allows that.
Might of Menethil never took off largely because its too expensive, and require corpses, meaning its always detracting from your gameplan, needs to be activated, while being clunky for a stall card. This one is one mana cheaper, establishes a body with a paltry requirement.
I can see this being played in some capacity, but its not a meta busting card. More like a card that suits certain metas.
There's potential here for a deathrattle deck, because this card is essentially a deathrattle trigger that also puts tempo on board.
The only problem is obviously the fact that its 3 mana, and takes up a board slot, which to most decks that want to play this might not be able to afford giving up. And of course, you'll need to sack one of your own stuff to get that 4/5 minion.
I think its mostly going to be played as a deathrattle trigger, because unless eggs are back on the menu its unlikely to ever work as a purely tempo card.
Not really that good, considering that its a colossal.
Basically its 7 mana kill two minions and leave a 6/6. Well, other colossals tend to do that as well, and often enough do more. Crabatoa is the closest resemblance, and the comparison is not in this card's favor.
But what really kills this card is its dual rune requirement. Just can't see anyone dropping Frostwyrm's Fury or Vampiric Blood just to play this card.
Unless team5 pushes these cards hard, like a straight out a BBF card that dominates we'll be unlikely to see this card be played legitimately.
Not a fan of the rune system, and this dual-rune idea will be bound for failure, unless team5 pushes it hard.
The main problem with the rune system is that it simply does not allow for flexibility when choosing cards. The current frost, unholy and blood archetypes in the meta basically builds itself, I think its 90% similar to the one built by team5. So they designs these very powerful 3-rune cards, why wouldn't you just play a 3 rune deck with a really powerful card, instead of mixing and getting less powerful results.
And I fear its impact on the meta. All three rune decks are so extreme in their identity that it kinda warps the meta slightly. Blood decks will always be an auto win vs aggro, etc. And all this design fun team5 must be having also has unintended effects; discovering cards in DK is a lot stronger than in other classes because you can easily end up with powerful cards your deck should theoretically be unable to play. Not to mention the number of times I see Vampiric Blood being played out of discovers.
It doesn't help that Frost Queen Sindragosa is so painfully average, kinda like a more expensive Crabatoa, but with no face damage potential. Now, with the dual-rune requirement we can more or less be sure it'll never see play outside of discovers because imagine building a deck that doesn't play Frostwyrm's Fury or Vampiric Blood
The riders are cool. More likely to be played simply for the extra cards in the deck. Its hard to see this work though, because of the requirements, and susceptibility to silence. Maybe in druid? Because each of those riders do something and druid ramps, draws like the wind anyway.
Im not so sure we can pin that label on blizz's early years (prior to buyout).
The gaming sphere back in the 90s was mostly 2d side scrollers. If Im not mistaken warcraft 1 was the first really popular RTS made, and diablo 1 was pretty much the best, if not the first, game of that genre in the west. Blizz tends to innovate more often than copy.
The real reason for their success is because management wanted quality instead of quantity. They would've continued it too, if it weren't for a sudden shortsightedness on their management's part, and merged with activision. In hindsight any blizz fan would have call it bs, but back then when WoW was running high its likely they gambled that blizz would be the more successful of the two and eventually turn the tables.
Too bad. It could have been blizz-activision, managed by people that loves games, not its finance department. And now its gobbled up by an even more money-eyed taskmaster, its only a matter of time before blizz ceases to be.
The first mistake is arguably deciding to build this within hearthstone's limited infrastructure, taking advantage of an already existing playerbase. The result is something that looks too flat, too ugly, and completely lacking in identity and design.
Compare this to arclight rumble. I think arclight is pretty much a response to mercs' failure as a mobile game. Its night and day between the two, even if both have the same monetization model.
Perhaps, even if cruelly, we can conclude that dying now is better than being a hollowed up shell waiting for its next update. If arclight turns out a success, it might even foreshadow hearthstone's own demise, or the inevitable hearthstone 2 within 5 years time.
The meta is more tolerable than the one previous. At least this time you're not really being scammed out of the game because your opponent drew or discovered specific cards.
DK remains a problem in my eyes though. I've stated it from the start that their cards are much more powerful than other classes, the only thing holding them back is funnily enough the rune system.
Team5's endeavor to make that rune system work will eventually cause an imbalance, because right now each of the DK decks are simply extreme versions of archetypes. If they go further with this we'll reach a point where the game is over as soon as it starts.
One last observation: devs have got to have a look at DK discovering cards, because I dont think it should be permissible for unholy DK to just get blood or frost cards.
Hard to say, because from my own experience running the aggro enrage build there's really never a situation where I want that card, funnily enough.
Its almost all in on Imbued Axe, Anima Extractor for the win. Light of the Phoenix is just a dead card in the early game, which you really dont want.
But seriously, with unholy DK around the best list is probably featured by VS. Enrage midrange warrior, lol.
Have to give them credit, without the boss rush this game has a definite end far as pve is concerned. So now there's more reasons for those who actually like this game to grind upwards, as opposed to oblivion.
Unfortunate. But not unexpected.
The sad reality was that this was always going to happen, especially since mercs never really did took flight the same way battlegrounds did. Couldn't really make money neither. The moment they practically removed the grind from the game I was pretty much convinced it would die off, but I didn't think it would be this soon.
Oh well, that 90 packs I saved up will be good for one last tango and then this mode will sink into obscurity, an occasional memory of me grinding up 2 hours a day back in the day when that mattered.
Only positive here is that at very least we still get that free pack every week.
Unless you're a pro that plays 4 hours a day, I highly doubt anyone would even bother playing this one. Imagine playing a mode that cost 10 packs and then going up against a group of guys that grinds up hearthstone everyday like its brushing teeth.
Well, well, seems like the changes are so drastically different from what I initially thought. My comments;
- Wildpaw Gnoll effectively got completely destroyed. I can't see why'd anyone would ever play this card, even for memes, its just so inconsistent if not entirely worthless now. Equally useless by association is maestra, which sadly we dont get any dust for. But at least you can play maestra for memes.
- Sinstone Graveyard might still see play. Sometimes its hard to remember that even a 4/4 ghost for free is still a minion that needs answers for.
- Dhunter's scammy wins are slowed down. Not sure if quest would still see play, but Im guessing not because drawing 5 cards is pretty mean, even for dhunter.
- The astalor nerf is hard, especially for the 5 armor. Probably still played in most decks, except now aggro probably doesn't go there anymore.
Buffs:
- Not sure what team5 have in mind with the buffs to priest cards. The buff to Haunting Nightmare is so minute you might not even realised its buffed. The only change here that's noteworthy is High Cultist Basaleph, which makes it infinitely easier to play, especially in undead decks. I was rather expecting Haunting Nightmare to summon itself from its deathrattle.
- Changes to mage is scary. Vast Wisdom is now a card that can be respected on its own because 2 mana to discover two spells is just good.
- Nothing interesting here for druid and DK. Basically the token has 1 extra health and druid's Wither is not quite as shit. But by not addressing the core issue (not enough good undead minions in druid, and unholy DK in standard is too slow) Im not sure what team5 hopes would be accomplished here. Boneguard Commander is already a good card prior to buffs but blood DK might not actually need it.
- I know there's a persistent meme in reddit on how impactful 1 mana is whenever buffs/nerfs are made, but by god some kind of divine intervention is needed to make outcast dhunter in any capacity good. Vengeful Walloper from 7 mana to 6? Its almost an early april fools joke. How about give us a better reason to play the deck at all.
- Warlock changes aren't noteworthy to me, but I concede there might be something in Dar'Khan Drathir. Its very nearly a card you'd just play because its a solid card no matter how you look at it.
- And finally warrior, receiver of plenty buffs but some dodgy ones. The changes to Asvedon, the Grandshield is laughable to say the least because its a situational card, so what is that extra 1 health gonna do? Disruptive Spellbreaker is more respectable, but its still a tech card at the end, not to mention a very slow one.
Nellie change is fine, but I can't see warrior playing this card to be honest. Just so slow, and there's no reason to believe warrior can even last till turn 7 never mind concoct an OTK scenario with Mr. Smite.
Remornia, Living Blade change is equally weak, because its still a 7 mana card, and the reasons for not playing it is still there. You'd much rather just play rokara and swing for 10 over two turns. Had remornia been a 6 mana card (with less stats) it might have seen play simply because its a solid turn 6 play and still allows you to play rokara on curve. Oh well.
But the biggest change has got to be Last Stand. Forget the manathirst it'll never be triggered, but the ability to basically tutor any taunt minion for 1 mana is a game changer. Will this be enough for warrior to be anything better than tier 3? Probably not. But with the nerfs we might yet see a good enough warrior deck somehow.
Probably enrage warrior. Ugh. Bring on the miniset please.
Here's my own observation;
DK with pig is basically the best one here because the class has plenty of tokens and sometimes you get a massive colossal early and just win.
Shaman with monkey can be tricky, because its fairly easy to snowball quickly. Even pig DK will struggle if they cant get the AoE needed to clear board.
Hunter with dog can actually be scary to face, because the chip damage with hp will eventually finish games fairly consistently.
Ox is generally good no matter the class. I think warrior works the best with it because they tend to get plenty of taunt minions.
Oh, and in case someone doesn't already know this, the blessings are fixed per class. So you can go pig DK 100% of the time should you want to do so.
I'll be honest, I dont know why Battlefield Necromancer is being chosen for buffs but it seems to be that the main problem with this card on 2 is that it takes up a corpse to do anything useful. If the card is not consistent in the early game then its probably a miss no matter what they'd do to the token. So I think the probable buff choice would be either to remove the corpse requirement or let it regain the corpse spent.
We'll find out a few hours later.
I'll just chime in here to your comment on rogue.
Concoctions are really strong, but the only reason why rogue is winning lots of games is because of late game astalor win con and early Wildpaw Gnolls. Take away both of that and concoctions are good value cards but remain limited so it cant 100% go pass heavy control decks and its too slow to impact aggro decks, even with Ghoulish Alchemist on 2.
The whole point is to make rogue a playable class while encouraging diversity. The choices team5 have made are spot on for rogue. I cant see otherwise.
Well, we knew it was coming and let's be real its been coming a long way back.
So there's no reason to discuss the nerfs and buffs because there isn't any revealed, so let's have a discussion on how the classes changed would fare in a hypothetical new meta.
- Rogue will go back to thief, and nearly 100% all in on Queen Azshara or bust. Probably Wildpaw Gnoll would get a 1-2 mana nerf because of Potion Belt, which to be fair will completely ruin the card, but Im pretty sure we'll never see Maestra of the Masquerade ever again. Sad to see we wont get the dust from that card.
Can't see any other rogue archetype. There's a chance someone will work draka rogue back in some capacity, along with cards like Bonelord Frostwhisper, who I think works the best in rogue.
- Spell dhunter will still be good despite all this nerfs because what happens is simply that quest dhunter dont get to scam wins out of nowhere anymore.
Can't see outcast dhunter be anywhere near tier 2 unless Vengeful Walloper gets a massive change, like getting charge etc. Outcast is simply a poor mechanic and without easy ways to cheapen cards like skull it'll never be good.
- Warrior, in my opinion, would probably stay a poor class unless team5 goes completely ham on the changes. But admitably there's some really spicy choices here, like nellie (which was the best colossal minion on launch and is currently a joke card) and remornia. The main problem remains; warrior can't draw, and is immensely slower than most decks out there. Thori'belore should be buffed to revive for every fire spell in my opinion. Its not even strictly that great and is still countered by silences.
A chance we'll see an archetype that mirrors what bless priest is doing.
- Undead shadow priest may actually be good. Its not a bad deck, but gets destroyed in the current meta because it can never fight back even one Wildpaw Gnoll on 2. Have a feeling that Haunting Nightmare will be a meta defining card for priest.
Surprised that Sister Svalna isn't getting changed. That deck with Radiant Elemental is scary when it works. Very tilting deck to be certain
- Undead druid will never ever work unless team5 completely overhauls or introduces so many undead cards in the miniset that its impossible to fail.
- Paladin would be fine even without any buffs. But Timewarden is presently so slow and very hard to use properly. Chances are good it gets taunt, or becomes a 3 mana card.
- Hope team5 nails mage right because I dont like the direction of their buffs. Casino mage should never ever be allowed to be more than a tier 3 deck
- Unholy DK changes are funny because the deck is perfectly fine in wild even without many actual wild cards in it. All it takes is a cheap and consistent way to get corpses early on. I think this is one archetype that will benefit from new cards not buffs.
Battlefield Necromancer would probably spawn a 1/2 that gives a corpse back when it dies. Or it gets reduced to 1 rune, which is fine. Not sure what they intend to do with Unholy Frenzy however. 2 mana, likely.
- Hunter will remain perfectly where it is. The change to spitter probably wont change much, unless its like 5 mana. Probably nerfed to 4 mana or capped damage (not likely, but its an option). The real problem here is how easily spitter scam wins with brann. Take brann off and its a perfectly reasonable card at 3.
- And finally warlock. Okay, Im afraid. Because none of the nerfs are hitting minelock, and I still think that deck scam wins out of nowhere. Probably a good time to remind team5 that Runed Mithril Rod is a card that should never have existed.
Wont be surprised to see warlock be tier 1 until the miniset.
One last comment. That Astalor Bloodsworn nerf may not actually reduce its play rate. I think the first and second forms are probably the most impactful and the final form is only ever useful (or abused) in rogue and druid. But I can see why they nerfed it the way they did. Its basically denathrius in another form.
Probably early Feb. Its always 2 months after release, somewhere around then.