I think its because of the brutality of the board swing enabled by this card. For the most part, if this clears board and generates more than 2 skellys the game is over.
But I dont think its ever a problem to be honest, especially if mage is going to get nerfed in multiple areas. Its still 6 mana after all.
Im only stating what is obvious to me. And from what I can see, based on the designs of both HS and LoL I can't see any note of plagiarism or design choices from HS that clearly mimic LoL's star guardians. Both are white, slim designs with short skirts because that's referencing sailor moon, perhaps the only magical girl anime that ever reach high popularity in the west. There's not much room for uniqueness when both sides are trying to mimic the same thing. If I paid an artist to draw me a character referencing sailor moon I wouldn't expect something too different from both HS and LoL's efforts.
You can argue on the timing, and that's making assumptions that blizz didn't already got working on it before LoL released theirs. Its kinda like the battleborn vs overwatch thing again, we'll never truly know if BB is a blatant ripoff of OV. But at the end, is it really that relevant? Products must stand on their own two feet at the end after all.
And lastly, dont read too much into the downvotes. If you believe youre making a good comment and you can justify it reasonably, then surely your only main concern is your argument and not its popularity points. Certainly no need to lash out, it is the internet after all.
You're probably best off waiting for the patch to come in. The current meta is fairly polarizing to the point that there's no real reliable deck to climb with unless youre willing to sink hundreds of hours in.
But if you need something to reliably destroy the first few tiers, try quest hunter, or aggro druid the cheapest deck around right now (though I personally dislike the deck). Once you reach diamond, its probably miracle rogue or some kind of hp mage.
Let us know if you ever reach legend in the current state of hearthstone.
Not too bad an experience, but probably because Im playing with a skin I'll never pay money for, and the RoS music made my day.
As for the fight itself, its certainly not impossible to win with the four classes as long as you keep in mind;
- Opponent's secret is (in my experience) always Mana Bind. So there's no sense in testing for anything
- Opponent starts with 4 extra mana but without a lick of sense. More often than not it'll just hp your minions or play big stuff. The key here is to discover spells that deal with big stuff and most of the time you're clean.
- Hilariously, if youre playing warlock and you have Robes of Protection, the AI will start killing his own stuff with spells as long as he cant target your face.
- Always mulligan for nozdormu. There's simply no other card that's more important than this one. No sense waiting either. Play on 4, doesn't matter what your opponent does, he's 4 mana ahead. Dont bother mulligan for early game, because your opponent will easily get rid of it. You want either value or impactful cards around 2-4 mana. Let the 0 mana spells help with controlling the early game.
- There are no easiest deck here. All have their own strengths and weaknesses. Although I have to be frank in saying that warlock is hard, mostly because warlock spells are shit and they have little to no way to protect their board. You're really best trying to get as much card draw as you can, because its a demon buff deck in essence and even the shittiest discover pools will eventually make good somehow.
Lol, I dont play BG these days but I really feel the grind with that final quest. Getting 1st place is fairly daunting, even back then when I played it casually. Lord knows what the average number of games it'll take to actually get it.
Deleted the quest soon as I saw it. Probably made for exclusive BG players, I'd imagine. Just separate the damn game, blizz, they cant even use the gold gained in BG itself now.
There's a pattern that comes up whenever I see the new expansion achievements. Generally speaking, the goal is for those achievements to be completed within 30-40 odd games, which is doable within 4 months if that's all you're playing, and then there's those which are absolutely mind boggling like Gone Fishin' which might as well be impossible if not insufferable even if thief rogue was all that was being played for 4 months.
Fun is obviously not the goal, because none of them are. The goal is engagement, to get us to actually play certain decks or certain styles. Obviously not with the intention to win. Whirlpool required 12 minions on board, which means you're flushing away your own board which 90% of the time just never happens in a competitive match. Cards like Frantic Hippogryph (which hilariously I completed this almost exclusively against bots) will simply never see any competitive play, not even in bronze wild because the card is shit, I'd imagine team5 managing a smile thinking some poor sod gotta actually attack with this card 80 fucking times.
And then there's the most infuriating thing; the xp reward only lasts 4 months. Why? For being too generous I'd imagine, can't fit it into the design document or that's one name crossed out of the bonus list for that year.
Both are actually inspired by sailor moon, and doubtless countless other magical girl moments in western media. That's hardly plagiarizing on blizz's part.
Its more related to win trading, something higher legend players tend to do to boost up their friend's ranks. Back in the old days where tournament invitations were granted based on legend rank, its not unusual for something like this to happen.
But it'll take for a very specific brand of maliciousness to report a player for 'intentionally' losing.
A bit weird that you should find it irritating, because in my experience encountering a bot while achievement hunting is one of the few ways I got some of the more tedious shit finished up. I even design decks specifically in case I meet up with bots, and at very worse I'll just concede or raise my MMR slightly so I dont get to see them anymore.
To be honest, the way the achievements are being designed, I dont mind meeting up bots in wild, especially very low bronze wild.
There's a lot that can be said for both sides, but I think Theotar, the Mad Duke is simply an unhealthy addition to the game. My points as below;
- This card is simply a mandatory inclusion regardless of whether you're aiming for disruption. The reasoning is simple; this card is a win con in of itself and ironically, cannot truly be countered by anything but itself. So by default you might argue that its inclusion is simply down to whether you can accept a 4 mana 3/3, hence why most aggro decks dont play it. But go one game where your opponent plays this and you dont - spoiler: its not going to be a fun time.
- Its disruption effects being so powerful and consistent, it allows team5 to justify OP singular cards and that is more than enough reason this card shouldn't exist in its current state. The design in nathria is already concerning; brann, sire denathrius, sinstrider, draka, mage's infinite freezes, wildseeds, etc. And I personally feel team5 did this deliberately because in their minds the counter in mad duke is just perfect. Unfortunately, it makes for a very unfun experience to win or lose not based on skill or momentum, but whether or not a certain card is played or countered before it can be played.
- The card is too consistent. More often than not you'll lose because your opponent stole your win con and converted a loss to victory. And what's the tradeoff? Mutanus the Devourer is random and cost 7, Dirty Rat can screw you early in the game, steamcleaner, platebreaker, etc. are very specific counters. Theotar is by far more consistent with very little fail states. Brann+Theotar is a genuine strategy that can win games. Even multiple turns mutanus with shaman can't do that.
- And lastly, because druid exist. Let's be clear here; 4 mana to steal a win con usually allows the opponent a chance to steal it back. But not so when you're druid. Not to mention that the tradeoff (Poor stats for mana) is completely redundant in a class that ramps to 20 mana and is often 4 mana above the opponent. In a world where this card can decide games, in no way is this compatible with the current playstyle of druids.
All that said, I think a nerf is all it takes to even up the odds. Here's a few options,
- Mana nerf to 6 would still make it playable but no longer as mandatory an inclusion. Mostly likely what team5 would do.
- Let your opponent choose your cards, so you choose theirs and they choose yours. Perhaps the most radical change here but it makes theotar 'fairer'.
- Make all choices random. Basically just kill the card.
Bundles always cost cheaper than buying the packs directly. That's the whole point of bundles, the way blizz offers discounts for hearthstone. The runestones didn't change its price, it only makes the purchase more tedious and obscure its pricing, requiring its customers to translate the runestones to real cash.
Man, some of these decks really show us why we have 3 good and bad classes currently. Paladin's too slow and have no draw, warrior cant reload after a clear, priest without win cons, deathrattles in druid being completely redundant, secrets in rogue are a joke. At least relic dhunter looks fine, but probably because of the clearly inefficient builds all round.
Speaking of theme: I'm surprised they didn't make a brawl built around Murloc Holmes and perhaps discovering cards to put in your deck, making it so players play lots of Holmes and spend the brawl guessing what their foe designed.
Probably because it'll take too much time per match waiting for both sides to build up and that captain blackheart's treasure brawl (the one where you start with 2/3 pirates and discover a card per turn) is effectively that, just without the deck building part.
But a brawl with murloc holmes theme seems great. 20 health, start with 3 mana and 10 cards in hand, every turn guess a card from your opponent's hand and discard it if successful.
Its likely because the cards have no deathrattles on their own, but rather given deathrattles by Lady Darkvein. And the hero card factor in deathrattle minions, not those triggered. Hence why Selfish Shellfish triggers in her battlecry even if it was silenced before killed.
That's a fairly common tactic used throughout history, and in our maligned industry its standard practice. Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself.
So new patch new bugs, one especially big one because it appears that the xp bonus from the tavern pass is noticeably gone. Apparently just a visual bug, but it does make playing hearthstone today look less enticing.
If this isnt another big indication on why they should just split BG away from hearthstone I dont know what is. A big patch that has absolutely nothing to do with regular hearthstone inevitably added more bugs into it.
We can say that now, because the good classes can either match or stall enough that wild spirits seems just fine. It all depends on what team5 is nerfing and whether the nerf is going to diversify the current meta. Maybe hunter would just be good, so there's no need for a nerf, but I can definitely see some arguments hitting this card, given that allegedly in development the card was originally 4 mana.
Looking at the meta before the nerfs though, Im not 100% sure that wild spirits will be just good. Seems like the sort of card you'll slot in and mulligan keep in every hunter deck regardless of whether the other wildseed cards sees play.
I just felt that if we're going to nerf all three good classes then the natural winner would be hunter, as evident before the last nerf. Wild Spirits has such a crazy winrate then, and I cant see why it wouldn't be the case if both rogue and druid gets nerfed. That card is one of the best card in quest hunter of all things, kinda shows us alot.
This time, I think team5 would scale everything down to give the bad classes a chance, and outside of buffs, I think rogue, druid, mage and hunter needs some toning down to accomplish that. Maybe warlock as well, but I wouldn't push it.
- Would be surprised if Edwin, Defias Kingpin doesn't get a revert, making it the first card in hearthstone history to get buffed and then reverted in less than a month. If team5 do not wish to create history, then they'll likely hit two other cards, Sinstone Graveyard (for virtually creating impossible to counter giants before turn 6) or Necrolord Draka (wouldn't surprise me too much if the durability is reduced to 2, or cost goes up to 5)
Rogue has been dominating the meta in a very unhealthy fashion. Forget your implocks and aggro druid, this deck can finish up by turn 6.
- Im not sure what team5 will do to mage. Not introducing Living Dragonbreath into standard is just one of those boneheaded moves given that they're trying to push out one of the most obnoxious elements in hearthstone. At this point, its very likely Nightcloak Sanctum or Flurry (Rank 1) would be targets, but I think team5 would just nerf Wildfire and mordresh back to what it was and call it a day. Basically, team5's idea here would be to tone mage back to midtier and pray no one gets their board frozen 6 turns in a row too many times.
- Wildheart Guff? No. Someone in their design team evidently can't sleep without jerking off to this card, so it'll stay. What else then? Nourish back to 6 perhaps, because the Jerry Rig Carpenter into nourish is simply too good, so much so that every other choose one spell are barely considered.
Perhaps druids wont be nerfed at all. Basically ramp druid is living off the fact that it has a good matchup towards both mage and rogues, so removing that may solve much of the issues in of itself.
- Hunter will get another nerf somewhere. Probably Wild Spirits to 4. Or perhaps we'll finally see the quest get nerfed. Third condition from 2 spells to 3 likely.
- And of course, I think its fairly obvious both Kael'thas Sinstrider and mad duke are going to be nerfed. Sinstrider because they're never going to nerf brann or denathrius, and theotar because this one card is simply too good. This card is extraordinarily consistent. Too consistent.
Any chance of them looking at Prince Renathal at all? I still think its fairly evident team5 cant balance cards around 40-30 health. Best to address this now, before its too late. Its very likely there's a new class next expansion, so that's one extra tightrope you dont need baggage for.
From what I understand, classic has so few real players that blizz introduced their own bots in an attempt to lessen the matchmaking time. You'll know its a blizz bot if there's no uniform highlighting around the cards, heros and hero powers, something alot of real players are doing when botting the game.
Of course, blizz bots are fairly notorious for their lack of sophistication that Im not surprised if its illogically playing cards. Im fairly convinced that blizz bots only know how to pilot basic decks, so anything that's above a common card would probably generate a fk up every now and then.
Wild bottom ranks are filled with bots too and also alot of extra helpful cards, so if youre looking to finish up those purposefully tedious achievements, join the club and go hunt around bronze wild. There's no reason to play classic beyond nostalgia anyway.
I think its because of the brutality of the board swing enabled by this card. For the most part, if this clears board and generates more than 2 skellys the game is over.
But I dont think its ever a problem to be honest, especially if mage is going to get nerfed in multiple areas. Its still 6 mana after all.
Im only stating what is obvious to me. And from what I can see, based on the designs of both HS and LoL I can't see any note of plagiarism or design choices from HS that clearly mimic LoL's star guardians. Both are white, slim designs with short skirts because that's referencing sailor moon, perhaps the only magical girl anime that ever reach high popularity in the west. There's not much room for uniqueness when both sides are trying to mimic the same thing. If I paid an artist to draw me a character referencing sailor moon I wouldn't expect something too different from both HS and LoL's efforts.
You can argue on the timing, and that's making assumptions that blizz didn't already got working on it before LoL released theirs. Its kinda like the battleborn vs overwatch thing again, we'll never truly know if BB is a blatant ripoff of OV. But at the end, is it really that relevant? Products must stand on their own two feet at the end after all.
And lastly, dont read too much into the downvotes. If you believe youre making a good comment and you can justify it reasonably, then surely your only main concern is your argument and not its popularity points. Certainly no need to lash out, it is the internet after all.
You're probably best off waiting for the patch to come in. The current meta is fairly polarizing to the point that there's no real reliable deck to climb with unless youre willing to sink hundreds of hours in.
But if you need something to reliably destroy the first few tiers, try quest hunter, or aggro druid the cheapest deck around right now (though I personally dislike the deck). Once you reach diamond, its probably miracle rogue or some kind of hp mage.
Let us know if you ever reach legend in the current state of hearthstone.
Not too bad an experience, but probably because Im playing with a skin I'll never pay money for, and the RoS music made my day.
As for the fight itself, its certainly not impossible to win with the four classes as long as you keep in mind;
- Opponent's secret is (in my experience) always Mana Bind. So there's no sense in testing for anything
- Opponent starts with 4 extra mana but without a lick of sense. More often than not it'll just hp your minions or play big stuff. The key here is to discover spells that deal with big stuff and most of the time you're clean.
- Hilariously, if youre playing warlock and you have Robes of Protection, the AI will start killing his own stuff with spells as long as he cant target your face.
- Always mulligan for nozdormu. There's simply no other card that's more important than this one. No sense waiting either. Play on 4, doesn't matter what your opponent does, he's 4 mana ahead. Dont bother mulligan for early game, because your opponent will easily get rid of it. You want either value or impactful cards around 2-4 mana. Let the 0 mana spells help with controlling the early game.
- There are no easiest deck here. All have their own strengths and weaknesses. Although I have to be frank in saying that warlock is hard, mostly because warlock spells are shit and they have little to no way to protect their board. You're really best trying to get as much card draw as you can, because its a demon buff deck in essence and even the shittiest discover pools will eventually make good somehow.
Lol, I dont play BG these days but I really feel the grind with that final quest. Getting 1st place is fairly daunting, even back then when I played it casually. Lord knows what the average number of games it'll take to actually get it.
Deleted the quest soon as I saw it. Probably made for exclusive BG players, I'd imagine. Just separate the damn game, blizz, they cant even use the gold gained in BG itself now.
There's a pattern that comes up whenever I see the new expansion achievements. Generally speaking, the goal is for those achievements to be completed within 30-40 odd games, which is doable within 4 months if that's all you're playing, and then there's those which are absolutely mind boggling like Gone Fishin' which might as well be impossible if not insufferable even if thief rogue was all that was being played for 4 months.
Fun is obviously not the goal, because none of them are. The goal is engagement, to get us to actually play certain decks or certain styles. Obviously not with the intention to win. Whirlpool required 12 minions on board, which means you're flushing away your own board which 90% of the time just never happens in a competitive match. Cards like Frantic Hippogryph (which hilariously I completed this almost exclusively against bots) will simply never see any competitive play, not even in bronze wild because the card is shit, I'd imagine team5 managing a smile thinking some poor sod gotta actually attack with this card 80 fucking times.
And then there's the most infuriating thing; the xp reward only lasts 4 months. Why? For being too generous I'd imagine, can't fit it into the design document or that's one name crossed out of the bonus list for that year.
Both are actually inspired by sailor moon, and doubtless countless other magical girl moments in western media. That's hardly plagiarizing on blizz's part.
Its more related to win trading, something higher legend players tend to do to boost up their friend's ranks. Back in the old days where tournament invitations were granted based on legend rank, its not unusual for something like this to happen.
But it'll take for a very specific brand of maliciousness to report a player for 'intentionally' losing.
A bit weird that you should find it irritating, because in my experience encountering a bot while achievement hunting is one of the few ways I got some of the more tedious shit finished up. I even design decks specifically in case I meet up with bots, and at very worse I'll just concede or raise my MMR slightly so I dont get to see them anymore.
To be honest, the way the achievements are being designed, I dont mind meeting up bots in wild, especially very low bronze wild.
There's a lot that can be said for both sides, but I think Theotar, the Mad Duke is simply an unhealthy addition to the game. My points as below;
- This card is simply a mandatory inclusion regardless of whether you're aiming for disruption. The reasoning is simple; this card is a win con in of itself and ironically, cannot truly be countered by anything but itself. So by default you might argue that its inclusion is simply down to whether you can accept a 4 mana 3/3, hence why most aggro decks dont play it. But go one game where your opponent plays this and you dont - spoiler: its not going to be a fun time.
- Its disruption effects being so powerful and consistent, it allows team5 to justify OP singular cards and that is more than enough reason this card shouldn't exist in its current state. The design in nathria is already concerning; brann, sire denathrius, sinstrider, draka, mage's infinite freezes, wildseeds, etc. And I personally feel team5 did this deliberately because in their minds the counter in mad duke is just perfect. Unfortunately, it makes for a very unfun experience to win or lose not based on skill or momentum, but whether or not a certain card is played or countered before it can be played.
- The card is too consistent. More often than not you'll lose because your opponent stole your win con and converted a loss to victory. And what's the tradeoff? Mutanus the Devourer is random and cost 7, Dirty Rat can screw you early in the game, steamcleaner, platebreaker, etc. are very specific counters. Theotar is by far more consistent with very little fail states. Brann+Theotar is a genuine strategy that can win games. Even multiple turns mutanus with shaman can't do that.
- And lastly, because druid exist. Let's be clear here; 4 mana to steal a win con usually allows the opponent a chance to steal it back. But not so when you're druid. Not to mention that the tradeoff (Poor stats for mana) is completely redundant in a class that ramps to 20 mana and is often 4 mana above the opponent. In a world where this card can decide games, in no way is this compatible with the current playstyle of druids.
All that said, I think a nerf is all it takes to even up the odds. Here's a few options,
- Mana nerf to 6 would still make it playable but no longer as mandatory an inclusion. Mostly likely what team5 would do.
- Let your opponent choose your cards, so you choose theirs and they choose yours. Perhaps the most radical change here but it makes theotar 'fairer'.
- Make all choices random. Basically just kill the card.
Bundles always cost cheaper than buying the packs directly. That's the whole point of bundles, the way blizz offers discounts for hearthstone. The runestones didn't change its price, it only makes the purchase more tedious and obscure its pricing, requiring its customers to translate the runestones to real cash.
Man, some of these decks really show us why we have 3 good and bad classes currently. Paladin's too slow and have no draw, warrior cant reload after a clear, priest without win cons, deathrattles in druid being completely redundant, secrets in rogue are a joke. At least relic dhunter looks fine, but probably because of the clearly inefficient builds all round.
Probably because it'll take too much time per match waiting for both sides to build up and that captain blackheart's treasure brawl (the one where you start with 2/3 pirates and discover a card per turn) is effectively that, just without the deck building part.
But a brawl with murloc holmes theme seems great. 20 health, start with 3 mana and 10 cards in hand, every turn guess a card from your opponent's hand and discard it if successful.
Its likely because the cards have no deathrattles on their own, but rather given deathrattles by Lady Darkvein. And the hero card factor in deathrattle minions, not those triggered. Hence why Selfish Shellfish triggers in her battlecry even if it was silenced before killed.
That's a fairly common tactic used throughout history, and in our maligned industry its standard practice. Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself.
So new patch new bugs, one especially big one because it appears that the xp bonus from the tavern pass is noticeably gone. Apparently just a visual bug, but it does make playing hearthstone today look less enticing.
If this isnt another big indication on why they should just split BG away from hearthstone I dont know what is. A big patch that has absolutely nothing to do with regular hearthstone inevitably added more bugs into it.
We can say that now, because the good classes can either match or stall enough that wild spirits seems just fine. It all depends on what team5 is nerfing and whether the nerf is going to diversify the current meta. Maybe hunter would just be good, so there's no need for a nerf, but I can definitely see some arguments hitting this card, given that allegedly in development the card was originally 4 mana.
Looking at the meta before the nerfs though, Im not 100% sure that wild spirits will be just good. Seems like the sort of card you'll slot in and mulligan keep in every hunter deck regardless of whether the other wildseed cards sees play.
I just felt that if we're going to nerf all three good classes then the natural winner would be hunter, as evident before the last nerf. Wild Spirits has such a crazy winrate then, and I cant see why it wouldn't be the case if both rogue and druid gets nerfed. That card is one of the best card in quest hunter of all things, kinda shows us alot.
This time, I think team5 would scale everything down to give the bad classes a chance, and outside of buffs, I think rogue, druid, mage and hunter needs some toning down to accomplish that. Maybe warlock as well, but I wouldn't push it.
My comments on possible nerfs;
- Would be surprised if Edwin, Defias Kingpin doesn't get a revert, making it the first card in hearthstone history to get buffed and then reverted in less than a month. If team5 do not wish to create history, then they'll likely hit two other cards, Sinstone Graveyard (for virtually creating impossible to counter giants before turn 6) or Necrolord Draka (wouldn't surprise me too much if the durability is reduced to 2, or cost goes up to 5)
Rogue has been dominating the meta in a very unhealthy fashion. Forget your implocks and aggro druid, this deck can finish up by turn 6.
- Im not sure what team5 will do to mage. Not introducing Living Dragonbreath into standard is just one of those boneheaded moves given that they're trying to push out one of the most obnoxious elements in hearthstone. At this point, its very likely Nightcloak Sanctum or Flurry (Rank 1) would be targets, but I think team5 would just nerf Wildfire and mordresh back to what it was and call it a day. Basically, team5's idea here would be to tone mage back to midtier and pray no one gets their board frozen 6 turns in a row too many times.
- Wildheart Guff? No. Someone in their design team evidently can't sleep without jerking off to this card, so it'll stay. What else then? Nourish back to 6 perhaps, because the Jerry Rig Carpenter into nourish is simply too good, so much so that every other choose one spell are barely considered.
Perhaps druids wont be nerfed at all. Basically ramp druid is living off the fact that it has a good matchup towards both mage and rogues, so removing that may solve much of the issues in of itself.
- Hunter will get another nerf somewhere. Probably Wild Spirits to 4. Or perhaps we'll finally see the quest get nerfed. Third condition from 2 spells to 3 likely.
- And of course, I think its fairly obvious both Kael'thas Sinstrider and mad duke are going to be nerfed. Sinstrider because they're never going to nerf brann or denathrius, and theotar because this one card is simply too good. This card is extraordinarily consistent. Too consistent.
Any chance of them looking at Prince Renathal at all? I still think its fairly evident team5 cant balance cards around 40-30 health. Best to address this now, before its too late. Its very likely there's a new class next expansion, so that's one extra tightrope you dont need baggage for.
From what I understand, classic has so few real players that blizz introduced their own bots in an attempt to lessen the matchmaking time. You'll know its a blizz bot if there's no uniform highlighting around the cards, heros and hero powers, something alot of real players are doing when botting the game.
Of course, blizz bots are fairly notorious for their lack of sophistication that Im not surprised if its illogically playing cards. Im fairly convinced that blizz bots only know how to pilot basic decks, so anything that's above a common card would probably generate a fk up every now and then.
Wild bottom ranks are filled with bots too and also alot of extra helpful cards, so if youre looking to finish up those purposefully tedious achievements, join the club and go hunt around bronze wild. There's no reason to play classic beyond nostalgia anyway.