Welp, RIP Legends of Runeterra. I ended up dropping you off, but you put out a valiant effort. You ended up doing better than any Hearthstone contender would've ever dreamed of doing. I'm not gonna say that the game is going to go unsupported now, but it feels incredibly impractical to manage both a digital card game, and an entirely different physical card game.
Which also begs the question as to why they're trying to go into the physical card game market. Getting a successful physical card game is extremely hard because the genre is monopolized by the three TCG overlords that owe a lot of their existence to the fact that they were there first. Flesh and Blood has seen some pretty good success and Lorcana has been holding its ground alright, so it's not impossible, but most card games end up dropping out of market after a year or two. I guess if there's a chance, people will take it.
The way the cards are designed visually also looks a bit off since the non-hero cards just have this white space of nothingness on them. I realize this is still in development, so we might be looking at early versions of the card design and this isn't the final product, but it'd be really weird if it is. It feels as if part of it is still a blank sheet of paper, which make it feel a bit lifeless.
Welp, RIP Legends of Runeterra. I ended up dropping you off, but you put out a valiant effort. You ended up doing better than any Hearthstone contender would've ever dreamed of doing. I'm not gonna say that the game is going to go unsupported now, but it feels incredibly impractical to manage both a digital card game, and an entirely different physical card game.
Which also begs the question as to why they're trying to go into the physical card game market. Getting a successful physical card game is extremely hard because the genre is monopolized by the three TCG overlords that owe a lot of their existence to the fact that they were there first. Flesh and Blood has seen some pretty good success and Lorcana has been holding its ground alright, so it's not impossible, but most card games end up dropping out of market after a year or two. I guess if there's a chance, people will take it.
The way the cards are designed visually also looks a bit off since the non-hero cards just have this white space of nothingness on them. I realize this is still in development, so we might be looking at early versions of the card design and this isn't the final product, but it'd be really weird if it is. It feels as if part of it is still a blank sheet of paper, which make it feel a bit lifeless.
Parkitect recently celebrated its sixth anniversary, which added the ability for users to create their own custom campaigns, and Texel Raptor themselves recommended one to download, so it's basically like getting a new DLC... which they also said was coming soon.
I guess this makes up for Planet Coaster 2 having its disappointing launch.
Speaking of which... has any of you taken advantage of Black Friday deals? I know PlayStation has some nice sales going on like AC Valhalla, Horizon: Forbidden West and Diablo IV. I'll probably dip my toes in Diablo for the first time this weekend... The one downside is that all those sales are only for the digital versions and I have a disc console with limited space for downloads but eh.
I've used the Steam sale to buy a game for a really good friend of mine because it was on her wishlist. I could've set the gift to be delivered to her on Christmas, but I decided to give it to her right then and there because I wanted to avoid the possibility of someone else buying the same gift in-between then and Christmas. She was absolutely ecstatic when saw the gift in her inventory.
The ones on the battlefield that is. One of the unwritten rules of Hearthstone card design is that if a card doesn't specify what area of the gameboard it affects, it generally means the battlefield. Twisting Nether for example doesn't specify that it only destroys minions or locations on the board in spite of the fact that that's exactly what it does.
I'm sorry it took me so long to get to actually writing about this. It is cool to see you back and still making cards, and it's a fun nostalgia trip to see this set finally completed.
I'll leave some really short feedback about everything since there's so much to go through. Maybe at some point, I'll go through and try to be a bit more thorough.
Death Knight
I love Egyptian imagery and I love the Canopic Jars. My only real criticism here is that having both Jar Guardian and Canopic Underling feels unnecessary since they're both extremely similar cards. I don't like Blessing of Isiset since spells should always have base effects.
Demon Hunter
The one weakness that I think Team 5 is steadfastly against bending in DH is hard removal, so I'd say Bone Devourer Shivarra doesn't feel very DH-y. Pit Lord Calamity is a very similar deal.
Druid
Blessing of Persepholes doesn't specify a time that it occurs, so I don't know when the effect ends. Crossroad Matron is kinda cool, but the only Choose Thrice card is Sleep Under the Stars, so it feels a bit strangle.
Hunter
Doesn't seem to be anything huge to comment on.
Mage
Thawing Tears looks like it does too much and it might be too powerful. Power of the Seven also looks too difficult to reliably get a second cast of since you now only have 3 more mana to cast all of those other spells.
Paladin
If I'm reading this correctly, it looks like Sword in the Stone needs Young King Arthur (from Merlin's Time Portal) to open. If this worked with the Legendary Arthur, people would just use that instead. This isn't really your fault, but sadly the Paladin Secrets would be undersupported in a world where they no longer exist in Core. Trusted Commander feels extremely good since it would buff itself meaning it's at base at least a 2 mana 4/3.
Priest
Scorned Enchantress is weak because it's just a 4/12 minion on the turn you play it, then it needs to live for a turn. Even back in the day, relying on one big minion to live was not exactly a great strategy. Bella transforming minions into The Beast is really funny flavorwise, but it feels bad because I don't want to give my opponent minions.
Rogue
That is all.
Shaman
United We Stand feels a bit un-Shamany since they don't really do hard removal like this. Taken to the Moon is like this too and it's also just Life Sentence for Shaman. Off With Their Heads is another card like this too.
Warlock
Witch Trial scares me because there's definitely a way to break it. Bubbling Cauldron and Trail of Breadcrumbs are cute, but they're probably too weak. Monkey's Blood is also weak and I don't know why it uses flavor wording.
Warrior
Legendary Underdog is funny. I don't know if it steps on the toes of Badlands Brawler too much.
Neutral
The cards that generate Story cards feel like weird design to me. It's like if a card said "Discover a Quest". It kinda goes against the point of Quests in my opinion. Wicked Stepmother does also unfortunately step on the toes of Steamcleaner. Zorro also looks like it ramps up too easily since playing non-Legendary cards is something every deck does anyway.
Final update: Counterattack Stance has now been replaced by Retaliation Aura due to a lack of support for Paladin Secrets. My original intention was that this was just sort of a floating timeline where Paladin Secrets still existed, but they're very unlikely to come back in 2025, so it doesn't make sense to keep it around.
Balance is something I'm extremely iffy about. I thought it would be extremely powerful like this, but almost everyone I spoke to said that it would be completely fine and not broken at all. So, yolo!
This is a pretty huge curveball. At the same time though, also a pretty exciting one. We can speculate the whole time as to what themes we'll see, but we can better guess ourselves as we see cards from the other expansions in the year.
2025 roadmap revealed and I'm glad to know that none of the themes overlap too much with my own. Given the track record of a lot of my friends having their ideas revealed by Blizzard soon after starting them, this is a bit of a relief.
I'm also thinking of maybe changing Counterattack Stance since the Standard year would presumably still not have any Paladin Secrets, so this one card wouldn't really make much sense.
[Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where cards that Discovered once but granted multiple cards under certain circumstances (like Master’s Call) would reduce the cost of Alien Encounters multiple times when those conditions were met.
This wasn't intentional?
I thought this was a cool interaction that was fun to play with.
Unlocked all of the achievements for Victory Heat Rally. Such a fun game!
I'm not sure how I unlocked the achievement for winning 200 races before the one for all paints unlocked since there are 12 characters which each require 16 race wins to unlock all their paints, which would be 192 races (assuming you don't go over the threshold of 16 for any character). Maybe the challenge medals count as race wins for the achievements but not for unlocking paints?
Eh, but who do I care? I had an absolute blast unlocking everything.
I really don't like Rogue's Starship gimmick in this set.
Every other class gets their own cool pieces, and Rogue's only piece is a Legendary that literally does nothing until you launch the Starship. Everything else is just taking everyone else's pieces.
Just because Burgle is a mainstay mechanic in Rogue doesn't mean that it needs to be involved everywhere. Why can't Rogue have their own Starship pieces?
Update: I've just now found out in-between playing sessions that there actually is a single race mode.
It's in the Versus mode. Despite appearing as a multiplayer mode, it doesn't force you to play with more than one person and it does allow you to pick single races.
You totally meant to put 69 on one of those life counters, didn't you?
Also, damn do I want one of those dragons.
Anytime, Flux. :)
Really fun Hearthstone combo I've been using.
I'll just copy-paste what I said in the article.
Welp, RIP Legends of Runeterra. I ended up dropping you off, but you put out a valiant effort. You ended up doing better than any Hearthstone contender would've ever dreamed of doing. I'm not gonna say that the game is going to go unsupported now, but it feels incredibly impractical to manage both a digital card game, and an entirely different physical card game.
Which also begs the question as to why they're trying to go into the physical card game market. Getting a successful physical card game is extremely hard because the genre is monopolized by the three TCG overlords that owe a lot of their existence to the fact that they were there first. Flesh and Blood has seen some pretty good success and Lorcana has been holding its ground alright, so it's not impossible, but most card games end up dropping out of market after a year or two. I guess if there's a chance, people will take it.
The way the cards are designed visually also looks a bit off since the non-hero cards just have this white space of nothingness on them. I realize this is still in development, so we might be looking at early versions of the card design and this isn't the final product, but it'd be really weird if it is. It feels as if part of it is still a blank sheet of paper, which make it feel a bit lifeless.
I platinumed A Hat In Time last night.
Without any of the DLC sadly. :(
Parkitect recently celebrated its sixth anniversary, which added the ability for users to create their own custom campaigns, and Texel Raptor themselves recommended one to download, so it's basically like getting a new DLC... which they also said was coming soon.
I guess this makes up for Planet Coaster 2 having its disappointing launch.
I've used the Steam sale to buy a game for a really good friend of mine because it was on her wishlist. I could've set the gift to be delivered to her on Christmas, but I decided to give it to her right then and there because I wanted to avoid the possibility of someone else buying the same gift in-between then and Christmas. She was absolutely ecstatic when saw the gift in her inventory.
Christmas comes early for all of us sometimes.
No. It's just Life Sentence on all enemy minions.
The ones on the battlefield that is. One of the unwritten rules of Hearthstone card design is that if a card doesn't specify what area of the gameboard it affects, it generally means the battlefield. Twisting Nether for example doesn't specify that it only destroys minions or locations on the board in spite of the fact that that's exactly what it does.
I'm sorry it took me so long to get to actually writing about this. It is cool to see you back and still making cards, and it's a fun nostalgia trip to see this set finally completed.
I'll leave some really short feedback about everything since there's so much to go through. Maybe at some point, I'll go through and try to be a bit more thorough.
That is all.
Final update: Counterattack Stance has now been replaced by Retaliation Aura due to a lack of support for Paladin Secrets. My original intention was that this was just sort of a floating timeline where Paladin Secrets still existed, but they're very unlikely to come back in 2025, so it doesn't make sense to keep it around.
Balance is something I'm extremely iffy about. I thought it would be extremely powerful like this, but almost everyone I spoke to said that it would be completely fine and not broken at all. So, yolo!
This is a pretty huge curveball. At the same time though, also a pretty exciting one. We can speculate the whole time as to what themes we'll see, but we can better guess ourselves as we see cards from the other expansions in the year.
2025 roadmap revealed and I'm glad to know that none of the themes overlap too much with my own. Given the track record of a lot of my friends having their ideas revealed by Blizzard soon after starting them, this is a bit of a relief.
I'm also thinking of maybe changing Counterattack Stance since the Standard year would presumably still not have any Paladin Secrets, so this one card wouldn't really make much sense.
This wasn't intentional?
I thought this was a cool interaction that was fun to play with.
Opened 7 packs for the set so far.
Exarch Akama and Signature Farseer Nobundo.
After getting into Civilization just a little bit ago, I've finally won my first game of Civ 6 on the normal difficulty just a couple of days ago:
Unlocked all of the achievements for Victory Heat Rally. Such a fun game!
I'm not sure how I unlocked the achievement for winning 200 races before the one for all paints unlocked since there are 12 characters which each require 16 race wins to unlock all their paints, which would be 192 races (assuming you don't go over the threshold of 16 for any character). Maybe the challenge medals count as race wins for the achievements but not for unlocking paints?
Eh, but who do I care? I had an absolute blast unlocking everything.
I really don't like Rogue's Starship gimmick in this set.
Every other class gets their own cool pieces, and Rogue's only piece is a Legendary that literally does nothing until you launch the Starship. Everything else is just taking everyone else's pieces.
Just because Burgle is a mainstay mechanic in Rogue doesn't mean that it needs to be involved everywhere. Why can't Rogue have their own Starship pieces?
Kibler walks up to you, grabs a deck of cards out, looks at you with a determined glare, and utters two words...
"Well met!"
What do you do?
Update: I've just now found out in-between playing sessions that there actually is a single race mode.
It's in the Versus mode. Despite appearing as a multiplayer mode, it doesn't force you to play with more than one person and it does allow you to pick single races.