Without accurate data on how much hearthstone is actually bringing into the total revenue, we can't speculate much on why the decision to take away the master tour prize pools. But I think the low viewership is probably being brought into equation here, which I think is unfair. You dont need nostrodamus to predict lower viewership when you switch platforms from twitch to youtube.
But it is known that blizz games have taken a beating when it comes to revenue. Far as Ive read dragonflight isn't doing all that well neither, and I cant imagine overwatch 2 doing better than 1 in terms of revenue. Diablo 4 is not out yet but the signs are encouraging far as game is concern but we'll have to wait and see. As for hearthstone its as bit baffling because this is about as monetize as it ever got for the game, so its kinda hard to believe the game is not bringing in the cash for the business. I think hearthstone deserves more love, but cant say for sure without seeing the finances.
I wouldn't call hearthstone stale, but games have got to the point that there's simply way too many choices, even in the turn-based TCG-like genre. Seems like nowadays any turn based game has a 50-50 change to involve cards in some capacity. Hypothetically, if blizz is prepared to throw money at the game and make hearthstone 2 we might see something of a resurgence. But realistically in my opinion, there's a good chance blizz would be in the backwater by 5 years, despite its impressive library. Just cant see microsoft managing this well at all.
Im not getting the either or situation though. Its xp and gems, not that I pay much attention to the gems anyway. Far as I know, you get both. Wouldn't make any sense to take one away and Im sure reddit would be in flames if xp is taken away.
Sometimes when games are too short you dont see the xp ticking. That's my only explanation as to why you dont see it.
Oh yes, lock one skin behind a paywall that doesn't even give you the skin 100% of the time.
I guess the only good thing about it here for me is that Im not exactly that keen on it. But scummy nevertheless. You'd think that the state of standard currently that it won't be a good idea to lock a skin in it but what do I know?
Add in coins gens, Shadowstep etc. You can legit just draw the entire deck and win by turn 3-4. Deny opponents with forensic duster for that extra sauce. Easy for FTP players too.
Also, I think its worth mentioning that this is the only mode that Troll Centurion will ever be good enough to see play.
Unfortunately, shes not really that crucial, even in aggro pure pally. The meta is really unkind to paladin, you're really just dropping Kotori Lightblade as a river croc that your opponent can never ignore, because her best utility is indeed just turn 2 play into Seal of Blood on 3 if your opponent's stupid enough to leave her alive.
But there are ways you can make her slightly better in that deck. Her best partner card is actually For Quel'Thalas!, where you can very easily ramp up damage to face, and for 4 mana that's much more reliable than seal of blood. But that isn't a staple in pure pally, though I personally would replace sermons in that deck for it.
In conclusion, dont craft if you dont have it, because the stats aren't in her favor. Also, pally isn't in a great spot and who knows whether you'll get your dust's worth in the next year. I'll only recommend crafting it if youre a major pally player. If you want faster decks, go for aggro mage or frost DK.
Its funny how the topic of this thread makes it look like LoR is dead, like artifact, when in reality its probably second only to hearthstone as an online card game.
I dont play LoR but I watched some of the games. So I did a quick search and would you believe it, there's always at least one article calling the game dead every year. So I read the 2022 article of that and all I can surmise is that LoR's PvE is unpopular but was the focus for Epicgames at one point, but now they are backtracking back to PvP , probably because they just realised that most people dont play card games for a casual, PvE experience.
There was also some kind of controversy with LoR worlds, but I didn't notice it nor have I followed through the story deep enough. I can't say watching LoR is an easy experience because as a casual who's trying to watch for fun, there are times I cant follow the game at all. Someone would be at 15 then suddenly die out of nowhere, its like watching pre-nerf stormwind quest mage.
I will say though. The LoR reddit is so minute it almost looks like the game came out yesterday. Cant even go there for a laugh.
As for what I can make out of your comments, there will always be more 'bad' or netdecks that are efficient, and there are those 'cool' decks that dont work as well, aren't consistent, or just plain garbage. Happens in all card games. This does not make a game good, bad, or dead. Ironically I feel LoR can take a page off hearthstone and make their games more approachable or, for lack of a better word, 'easy'. Artifact wasn't necessarily doomed by its pricing structure, its more likely everyone couldn't follow the game well enough to want to play it. LoR to me is just an easier artifact, but its a 10 turn convoluted mess compared to hearthstone, a game where even a 10 year old can figure out whats happening within 2 minutes.
Like it or hate it, if it takes a galaxy brain to play a game where people supposedly play for fun, then that's just narrowing down the playerbase, something both gwent and artifact attempted and took to the grave with them.
I would be interested to read the perspective of actual LoR players on the pros and cons of the game, in comparison to hearthstone or any other TCGs.
On your collection manager, lower right, you'll see a glowing button labelled 'crafting'.
Click on that, search for Shattering Blast, right click and it will bring up an option to craft if you dont own any. Costs 100 dust, so if you dont have the dust, you cant craft it.
There's two other options if you already own the card. One is to disenchant (removes the card and gives you dust) and the other is to upgrade, which will turn your card golden for a cost (rares = 800 dust, epics = 1600 dust etc.)
Far as I know, there's no reason why you cant craft this card unless you dont have the dust (100) to do so.
I know its unpopular, but it had to done sooner or later, because we're gonna have to take another year of him before rotation. And whether or not anyone agrees, its highly unlikely that team5 designs aggro cards without considering the 40 health.
Frost DK for example have actual difficulties reaching 40 damage, so we may argue that its either renathal gets hit or we buff their burn. Other decks like dhunter and spooky mage burns health so easily its very nearly tilting. So if I have to choose between toning down the prince or buffing everyone's aggro, I'd take the former anyday.
I dont think it was nerfed because of the 1 hour priest mirrors, the record is currently 1.5 hours control warrior matchup if Im not mistaken. Four lovely turns of 35 seconds waiting for your opponent to click hp.
They said its done with limited data, and Im not surprised, because these buffs are very cautious. The real reason for them doing it now is because of the usual end of year holidays. We wont be seeing them for another two weeks, so they decided to push out something, even if its not exactly what everyone wants/thinks.
I mean, anyone who watched those 1 hour priest mirrors in worlds would likely know there's something wrong somewhere.
That said, at least they did the duty on rogue, so that's one thing.
The biggest buff to DK is actually seeing other classes being nerfed. But what Im curious about is how team5 is actually pricing the idea of corpses in DK. Corpse Bride almost never ever reaches that number, whereas Meat Grinder is practically unplayable whether or not it gives one extra corpse. The only true significant change here is to Obliterate, which used to be unplayable, but may now overtake Asphyxiate, especially since rogue got nerfed.
Other nerfs; changing Anub'Rekhan really doesn't change much except druid needs to set up astalor by actually playing him, and now needs 11 mana or an Innervate to do the combo. Yes, it does prevent them from spamming the whole three tiers of astalor with brann in one turn, but changes nothing of that ridiculous win con for that class. At least you'll see it coming now. My only hope is that druid remains tier 2-3 regardless, because it seems like team5 is adamant on this bs play style where your opponent gets 4 mana above your own on turn 5.
Miracle rogue may very much turn 100% on the sharks now, making it even more deliriously high rolling than it was before. The shark build has always been a pet peeve for me, but because it never really exist in standard Ive largely overlooked it. But wouldn't be too surprise to see it resurface (though hopefully not). Draka being nerfed makes this less likely, but pro players always somehow make rogue work regardless.
DK may actually climb to the top half of the tierlist now, because blood DK does make mince meat of aggro and can hold its own, just not against rogue bs. I still dont like the presence of blood DK in the meta, but after a fairly bad first two weeks for the lich king, I guess we'll wait and see.
Edit: I typed in meat wagon the first time. Turns out that even if you look like a meat wagon from the old games a small camera shot of your grinder up front automatically makes you a Meat Grinder instead
To be fair, hearthstone's esport scene started declining way before this youtube deal even exist.
But more to the point, this is beyond youtube and twitch. Card games are simply not that viewer friendly to ever break the esport scene, so its not surprising to me that its simply 'thrown in' the deal with other games. Games are too long, having 35 seconds pauses between turns doesn't help, and there's generally no excitement or engagement until the very end. Compared to pokemon vgc for example, you can have an entire 2 out of 3 match completed within one hearthstone game.
I dont think the esport scene will get axed, and that's likely because the cost is likely much smaller than we think. We dont get those nice regionals anymore where top 16 guys are invited to the bahamas for their matches. Not even sure what happens next after this worlds, could be just the occasional online masters tours and that's about it. China isn't even in the next one.
If they do end up axing it, the one small token victory that I will take is that bunnyhopper actually won a worlds, that man deserved it. Probably the last of the old guard from the good old days.
The harsh reality is that if blizz wants hearthstone to go back to the 2016 days of esport, they would need to pump a lot more money into scene, and get the productions up a notch. Balance the game, or at least introduce some differences, like a noz rule where every turn is only 15 seconds long.
But at the end I think they'll just take that disgusting youtube money and forget about it, any day.
It really doesn't matter how many cards the class has. Team5 is responsible for the power level of the class, whether or not the class has ten or a hundred less cards than other classes doesn't even factor into the conversation. There's tons of cards that dont ever see play, and specifically classes like warrior might as well not even exist in the current meta.
But I do agree that DK doesn't need buffs. And the reasoning is fairly straight forward. Their cards are busted for their cost already. Heart Strike is a 1 mana deal 3, where the standard being 2 mana for the same damage. Vampiric Blood gives 10 health and draws a card for 2 mana. Boneguard Commander summons a board full of 1/2 taunts. Frostwyrm's Fury is straight out busted. But to answer the question as to why DK isn't doing well despite all these cards is simple;
- The rune system, as I opined a month ago, doesn't encourage better deckbuilding it simply restricts each archetype to their respective runes and disables interesting interaction (and thus interesting deck building). Imagine if I could play a frost deck that can actually decently control, or gain corpses. Or if I could insert a few niche cards into blood control like Horn of Winter etc. Instead, all we get is the standard blood, frost etc. deck that's really not much different from what team5 themselves came out with. So there's really a dearth of options.
- DK draws like shit. In a world where your class draws worse than every other class other than warrior, you're really not going anywhere. Hence why warrior themselves are currently shit too. I mean, we used to poke fun at priest for this and suddenly that class can draw their whole deck now.
- The pop off turns of the current meta is nuts. Turn 4 12/12 draka weapons, etc. DK is simply not fitted to deal with any of these. Or indeed most classes as a matter of fact. That is why the solution is not buffing DK, its toning down the obvious bs the other classes are doing.
Besides, DK is doing very well in arena. I think that alone shows how much pumped up their cards are, when the meta isn't putting out 12/12 stealth minions on turn 4. I think when the meta is more 'fair' then DK will come out on top, and get inevitably nerfed because their cards are power creeping existing standards as it is.
I would prefer team5 to remove the rune system and balance DK's cards. But this is obviously never going to happen.
Because they've invested into the game emotionally. Not everyone treats their stuff like a couple of soiled gloves.
So blizz shat on their game and they, as fans, call them out on it.
Without accurate data on how much hearthstone is actually bringing into the total revenue, we can't speculate much on why the decision to take away the master tour prize pools. But I think the low viewership is probably being brought into equation here, which I think is unfair. You dont need nostrodamus to predict lower viewership when you switch platforms from twitch to youtube.
But it is known that blizz games have taken a beating when it comes to revenue. Far as Ive read dragonflight isn't doing all that well neither, and I cant imagine overwatch 2 doing better than 1 in terms of revenue. Diablo 4 is not out yet but the signs are encouraging far as game is concern but we'll have to wait and see. As for hearthstone its as bit baffling because this is about as monetize as it ever got for the game, so its kinda hard to believe the game is not bringing in the cash for the business. I think hearthstone deserves more love, but cant say for sure without seeing the finances.
I wouldn't call hearthstone stale, but games have got to the point that there's simply way too many choices, even in the turn-based TCG-like genre. Seems like nowadays any turn based game has a 50-50 change to involve cards in some capacity. Hypothetically, if blizz is prepared to throw money at the game and make hearthstone 2 we might see something of a resurgence. But realistically in my opinion, there's a good chance blizz would be in the backwater by 5 years, despite its impressive library. Just cant see microsoft managing this well at all.
Im not getting the either or situation though. Its xp and gems, not that I pay much attention to the gems anyway. Far as I know, you get both. Wouldn't make any sense to take one away and Im sure reddit would be in flames if xp is taken away.
Sometimes when games are too short you dont see the xp ticking. That's my only explanation as to why you dont see it.
As usual, play noz. This is the only day you get to actually see its effect consistently.
Chinese people generally celebrate this day even if they're not in or born in china. In any case, its just used as a reason to give out stuff.
I don't play battlegrounds, and not interested to pick it up.
But man, I'll have to download that 4gb update anyway right blizz? Just give them that separate client server already.
This event is a bit weird because its completely BG related instead of being a mishmash of both. I guess that frees me up to completely ignore it.
Oh yes, lock one skin behind a paywall that doesn't even give you the skin 100% of the time.
I guess the only good thing about it here for me is that Im not exactly that keen on it. But scummy nevertheless. You'd think that the state of standard currently that it won't be a good idea to lock a skin in it but what do I know?
Brann Bronzebeard, Coldlight Oracle, Elven Minstrel, Forensic Duster, Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, Spirit of the Shark
Add in coins gens, Shadowstep etc. You can legit just draw the entire deck and win by turn 3-4. Deny opponents with forensic duster for that extra sauce. Easy for FTP players too.
Also, I think its worth mentioning that this is the only mode that Troll Centurion will ever be good enough to see play.
https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Kotori_Lightblade
Yeah, or at least that's what I heard. Because her physical appearance doesn't really show it :P
Unfortunately, shes not really that crucial, even in aggro pure pally. The meta is really unkind to paladin, you're really just dropping Kotori Lightblade as a river croc that your opponent can never ignore, because her best utility is indeed just turn 2 play into Seal of Blood on 3 if your opponent's stupid enough to leave her alive.
But there are ways you can make her slightly better in that deck. Her best partner card is actually For Quel'Thalas!, where you can very easily ramp up damage to face, and for 4 mana that's much more reliable than seal of blood. But that isn't a staple in pure pally, though I personally would replace sermons in that deck for it.
In conclusion, dont craft if you dont have it, because the stats aren't in her favor. Also, pally isn't in a great spot and who knows whether you'll get your dust's worth in the next year. I'll only recommend crafting it if youre a major pally player. If you want faster decks, go for aggro mage or frost DK.
Its funny how the topic of this thread makes it look like LoR is dead, like artifact, when in reality its probably second only to hearthstone as an online card game.
I dont play LoR but I watched some of the games. So I did a quick search and would you believe it, there's always at least one article calling the game dead every year. So I read the 2022 article of that and all I can surmise is that LoR's PvE is unpopular but was the focus for Epicgames at one point, but now they are backtracking back to PvP , probably because they just realised that most people dont play card games for a casual, PvE experience.
There was also some kind of controversy with LoR worlds, but I didn't notice it nor have I followed through the story deep enough. I can't say watching LoR is an easy experience because as a casual who's trying to watch for fun, there are times I cant follow the game at all. Someone would be at 15 then suddenly die out of nowhere, its like watching pre-nerf stormwind quest mage.
I will say though. The LoR reddit is so minute it almost looks like the game came out yesterday. Cant even go there for a laugh.
As for what I can make out of your comments, there will always be more 'bad' or netdecks that are efficient, and there are those 'cool' decks that dont work as well, aren't consistent, or just plain garbage. Happens in all card games. This does not make a game good, bad, or dead. Ironically I feel LoR can take a page off hearthstone and make their games more approachable or, for lack of a better word, 'easy'. Artifact wasn't necessarily doomed by its pricing structure, its more likely everyone couldn't follow the game well enough to want to play it. LoR to me is just an easier artifact, but its a 10 turn convoluted mess compared to hearthstone, a game where even a 10 year old can figure out whats happening within 2 minutes.
Like it or hate it, if it takes a galaxy brain to play a game where people supposedly play for fun, then that's just narrowing down the playerbase, something both gwent and artifact attempted and took to the grave with them.
I would be interested to read the perspective of actual LoR players on the pros and cons of the game, in comparison to hearthstone or any other TCGs.
Sorry to hear that, because somewhere early in 2022 I had the same problem.
Its likely a server, region specific issue. I haven't encountered a bunch of this problem throughout this month.
Ah yes, the annual evolve shaman tavern brawl.
Mull for Evolve, play it turn 1 and there's a good chance your opponent's face explodes immediately.
On your collection manager, lower right, you'll see a glowing button labelled 'crafting'.
Click on that, search for Shattering Blast, right click and it will bring up an option to craft if you dont own any. Costs 100 dust, so if you dont have the dust, you cant craft it.
There's two other options if you already own the card. One is to disenchant (removes the card and gives you dust) and the other is to upgrade, which will turn your card golden for a cost (rares = 800 dust, epics = 1600 dust etc.)
Far as I know, there's no reason why you cant craft this card unless you dont have the dust (100) to do so.
I know its unpopular, but it had to done sooner or later, because we're gonna have to take another year of him before rotation. And whether or not anyone agrees, its highly unlikely that team5 designs aggro cards without considering the 40 health.
Frost DK for example have actual difficulties reaching 40 damage, so we may argue that its either renathal gets hit or we buff their burn. Other decks like dhunter and spooky mage burns health so easily its very nearly tilting. So if I have to choose between toning down the prince or buffing everyone's aggro, I'd take the former anyday.
I dont think it was nerfed because of the 1 hour priest mirrors, the record is currently 1.5 hours control warrior matchup if Im not mistaken. Four lovely turns of 35 seconds waiting for your opponent to click hp.
They said its done with limited data, and Im not surprised, because these buffs are very cautious. The real reason for them doing it now is because of the usual end of year holidays. We wont be seeing them for another two weeks, so they decided to push out something, even if its not exactly what everyone wants/thinks.
I mean, anyone who watched those 1 hour priest mirrors in worlds would likely know there's something wrong somewhere.
That said, at least they did the duty on rogue, so that's one thing.
The biggest buff to DK is actually seeing other classes being nerfed. But what Im curious about is how team5 is actually pricing the idea of corpses in DK. Corpse Bride almost never ever reaches that number, whereas Meat Grinder is practically unplayable whether or not it gives one extra corpse. The only true significant change here is to Obliterate, which used to be unplayable, but may now overtake Asphyxiate, especially since rogue got nerfed.
Other nerfs; changing Anub'Rekhan really doesn't change much except druid needs to set up astalor by actually playing him, and now needs 11 mana or an Innervate to do the combo. Yes, it does prevent them from spamming the whole three tiers of astalor with brann in one turn, but changes nothing of that ridiculous win con for that class. At least you'll see it coming now. My only hope is that druid remains tier 2-3 regardless, because it seems like team5 is adamant on this bs play style where your opponent gets 4 mana above your own on turn 5.
Miracle rogue may very much turn 100% on the sharks now, making it even more deliriously high rolling than it was before. The shark build has always been a pet peeve for me, but because it never really exist in standard Ive largely overlooked it. But wouldn't be too surprise to see it resurface (though hopefully not). Draka being nerfed makes this less likely, but pro players always somehow make rogue work regardless.
DK may actually climb to the top half of the tierlist now, because blood DK does make mince meat of aggro and can hold its own, just not against rogue bs. I still dont like the presence of blood DK in the meta, but after a fairly bad first two weeks for the lich king, I guess we'll wait and see.
Edit: I typed in meat wagon the first time. Turns out that even if you look like a meat wagon from the old games a small camera shot of your grinder up front automatically makes you a Meat Grinder instead
To be fair, hearthstone's esport scene started declining way before this youtube deal even exist.
But more to the point, this is beyond youtube and twitch. Card games are simply not that viewer friendly to ever break the esport scene, so its not surprising to me that its simply 'thrown in' the deal with other games. Games are too long, having 35 seconds pauses between turns doesn't help, and there's generally no excitement or engagement until the very end. Compared to pokemon vgc for example, you can have an entire 2 out of 3 match completed within one hearthstone game.
I dont think the esport scene will get axed, and that's likely because the cost is likely much smaller than we think. We dont get those nice regionals anymore where top 16 guys are invited to the bahamas for their matches. Not even sure what happens next after this worlds, could be just the occasional online masters tours and that's about it. China isn't even in the next one.
If they do end up axing it, the one small token victory that I will take is that bunnyhopper actually won a worlds, that man deserved it. Probably the last of the old guard from the good old days.
The harsh reality is that if blizz wants hearthstone to go back to the 2016 days of esport, they would need to pump a lot more money into scene, and get the productions up a notch. Balance the game, or at least introduce some differences, like a noz rule where every turn is only 15 seconds long.
But at the end I think they'll just take that disgusting youtube money and forget about it, any day.
It really doesn't matter how many cards the class has. Team5 is responsible for the power level of the class, whether or not the class has ten or a hundred less cards than other classes doesn't even factor into the conversation. There's tons of cards that dont ever see play, and specifically classes like warrior might as well not even exist in the current meta.
But I do agree that DK doesn't need buffs. And the reasoning is fairly straight forward. Their cards are busted for their cost already. Heart Strike is a 1 mana deal 3, where the standard being 2 mana for the same damage. Vampiric Blood gives 10 health and draws a card for 2 mana. Boneguard Commander summons a board full of 1/2 taunts. Frostwyrm's Fury is straight out busted. But to answer the question as to why DK isn't doing well despite all these cards is simple;
- The rune system, as I opined a month ago, doesn't encourage better deckbuilding it simply restricts each archetype to their respective runes and disables interesting interaction (and thus interesting deck building). Imagine if I could play a frost deck that can actually decently control, or gain corpses. Or if I could insert a few niche cards into blood control like Horn of Winter etc. Instead, all we get is the standard blood, frost etc. deck that's really not much different from what team5 themselves came out with. So there's really a dearth of options.
- DK draws like shit. In a world where your class draws worse than every other class other than warrior, you're really not going anywhere. Hence why warrior themselves are currently shit too. I mean, we used to poke fun at priest for this and suddenly that class can draw their whole deck now.
- The pop off turns of the current meta is nuts. Turn 4 12/12 draka weapons, etc. DK is simply not fitted to deal with any of these. Or indeed most classes as a matter of fact. That is why the solution is not buffing DK, its toning down the obvious bs the other classes are doing.
Besides, DK is doing very well in arena. I think that alone shows how much pumped up their cards are, when the meta isn't putting out 12/12 stealth minions on turn 4. I think when the meta is more 'fair' then DK will come out on top, and get inevitably nerfed because their cards are power creeping existing standards as it is.
I would prefer team5 to remove the rune system and balance DK's cards. But this is obviously never going to happen.
Those priest mirrors man, slowly eating those casters alive.
1 entire hour, 40 card list to fatigue. And the best part is that I only watched one of those things. Plenty more to come.