Feel like I'm a bit late to the game but my username came from back when I would skype my friends to play games with them. I didn't (and still don't) have an actual headset and so because of that, when someone would talk, there'd be a bit of echo. Granted this isn't my first username, but it's been this way for about 10 years or so.
It's funny in my opinion because although that's how the name originated, it's always been applicable to me in some other way. Like now whenever I'm in a discord call or some other voice program since I still lack any way to prevent echo, I just type in a voice to mic channel. After a couple of times of doing this (and depending on how well I know the owner of the server), the channel becomes renamed to the "Echo Chamber" since it's just a wall of text from me, making it seem like I was just talking to myself the entire time. There's also the fact I don't like how my voice sounds and thus, don't talk a lot, resorting to using soundboard of people to talk when I have to, this being similar to the Greek myth where a nymph named Ekho (not the same spelling but it's close enough) can only repeat what others say to her, like a parrot, or in this case, like me repeating the words of a person using a soundboard.
I also just like how the name sounds, which I guess is important as well.
Edit: Oh and since some people are talking about profile pictures, mine is my dog, Percival. He's a very good boy
So many things about this product don't make sense to me. First comes the name, Jumpstart. Not only is this a name for a mechanic in standard right now, but at least right now it's not even clear why it's named that. I guess if your new it can jumpstart your collection with a bunch of themed cards, but that doesn't seem great. It's not a thing for a new player to jump in to start playing, as seen in how it's mainly for limited, with some of the cards being only commander/legacy/vintage playable while others being standard legal.
It feels like it would be a fun limited set based on what we know so far, but beyond that, I don't really see who this is supposed to be designed for. Maybe there are some eternal format bombs being reprinted in them? Who knows, I'm just being skeptical until I see what's actually being in the themed lists I guess.
Yeah definitely, it's a super weird deck honestly. Even though the deck's plan is fairly straightforward, a lot of the times it's not clear how to get into that position. I'd recommend taking it into casual first, or trying it at a ranked floor if you are concerned about losing ranks because there's a bit of a learning curve.
I'm glad you enjoyed the article, as well as more MTG stuff coming out!
Golos was originally my go-to commander for Brawl because Field of the Dead is a format defining card. However, my main issue is that it always kind of boiled down into playing the same thing every game and despite how much my inner Johnny and Spike may say this is good, it just felt too streamlined for my liking. I might get around to covering some of the older commanders again since there are certainly some fun ones I'd enjoy covering in the future, but we'll just have to see where the series goes since there's still a lot of refinement I want to do.
If you want to vote for the topic of next week's article, I've narrowed it down to the 7 gods from Theros Beyond Death so if any of these interest you, make sure to let me know!
The n/n+1 stat line is still pretty much the standard for most cases in my opinion as time and time again we've gotten cards that either has that exact statline or something similar, a la [Hearthstone Card (core beast) Not Found] or Captured Jormungar. The area where this rule falls apart, for the most part, are at very low mana costs and very high mana costs. Let's take the aforementioned Dire Mole for an example. There are already numerous 1 mana 1/2s in the game, even some with keywords, such as Goldshire Footman. These cards are pretty much all bad unless they have a strong ability because they just don't make enough impact on the board compared to a two-drop. Blizzard realizes this and hence prints overstated 1 drops.
The same thing can be applied to 10 mana cards as well. The only two vanilla 10 drops are Ultrasaur and Faceless Behemoth, both of which are unplayable (despite my efforts to make Ultrasaur playable). For that amount of mana, the payoff would need to be worth it, which a 10/11 (or the equivalent of 10/11 in stats) isn't.
There's also occasionally cards that have a premium statline and ability, such as Kabal Talonpriest. These cards are made to push a certain class/archetype as at the end of the day, even vanilla statlines aren't enough to make a card worth running.
Pretty interesting to see that Mech Paladin started seeing a rise in winrates before shotbot got released. Wondering if this was caused by people trying to get in some practice with the archetype before it would get a 'buff'.
Is there any way to see where the other heroes placed? I'm curious to see where the best bunch of blocks, Pyramad, places when compared to everything else.
The main reason why the 6 mana 4/4 is considered bad while the 5 mana 4/4 is considered good is mainly because of the expected output of each of the mana costs. Considering how many minions have at least 5/5 worth of stats in the 6 mana pool, it would be expected to get stats better than a 4/4. If we look at the 5 mana legendaries, a lot of them have stats between being a 5/5 to a 4/4 and since your spending less mana on the spell, it's only natural to expect less of a payout in terms of stats.
Another important thing is that even though I have it labeled as bad doesn't always mean "if you get this stuff constantly then the weapon is worthless". If we look at the 10 mana slot, both king phaoris and nozari are listed as bad, but if your playing Eye of the storm when you have this weapon out, you would still be getting 3 5/6 taunts and either another 5/5 or a 4/12, which both I would say are good things to happen, it's just that compared to the rest of the cards there, these two are lackluster.
That being said, I'm glad you still enjoyed it and everything!
Hey, I'm back with more math, here's the breakdown of getting a desirable card out of the new shaman weapon. For the criteria of what makes a legendary good, it needs to reach specific criteria. For legendaries 4 mana and below, their stats must be either premium or on-rate of a normal card of the same mana cost. for example, casting a 3 mana spell must get at least a 3/3 worth of stats, if not more. For legendaries 5 and above, I used this formula to see if they would be considered hits or not, (attack + health)/2 = mana cost of spell - 1. For example, if I cast a 6 mana spell, if I got a 5/5 or above out of it, it would be considered a hit. I did make some exceptions, such as zilliax being a good hit because despite his awful stats he has enough keywords to make me feel inclined to put him there.
Aside from that, I have situational cards, these being ones that can be certain good in a specific matchup or god awful depending on what the scenario is. For example with Kalecgos, he's super strong to get as your last tick of the weapon as if he survives, next turn you can play any spell you want. However, if you have more weapon charges left, the weapon now essentially reads "For the first spell you cast, lose 1 durability", which surprise surprise, is bad. This is also the area where the effects of the cards might backfire, such as Dr. Morrigan pulling out an important battlecry minion or Baron Geddon killing you/giving your opponent lethal.
10 mana, 11% chance for a specific outcome
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hits, 44% chance colossus of the moon, deathwing, mecha'thun, the boomreaver
situational, 22% chance hakkar, the soulflayer, kalecgos
bad, 33% chance emeriss, king phaoris, nozari
7 mana, 4.3% for a specific outcome
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Hits, 52% chance Arch-Villain Rafaam, blastmaster boom, bwonsamdi, the dead, chef nomi, countess ashmore, high inquisitor whitemane, goru the mightree, gonk, the raptor, prophet velen, shu'ma, siamat, tak nozwhisker,
hits 70% chance, armagedillo, cairne bloodhoof, heistbaron togwaggle, illidan stormrage, hogger, kragwa, the frog, kronx dragonhoof, lady in white, mojomaster zihi, nithogg, reno the relicologist, toki, time-tinker, veranus, zerek, master cloner
situational, 20% chance dr. morrigan, glinda crowskin, oblivitron, the beast
bad, 10% chance flik skyshiv, the black knight
5 mana, 5.5% for a specific outcome
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hits, 66% chance anka, the buried, barisa lynchen, bandersmosh, captain greenskin, darius crowley, dark pharaoh tekahn, elise the enlightened, harrison jones, malygos, aspect of magic, prince liam, waxadred, zilliax
Going by this, the best spells to cast in my opinion are 5 cost spells, a 66% chance to get a minion with good stats significantly outweighs the chance you lowroll and give your opponent a free card with duskfallen aviana or summon a 2/2. Overall this weapon is in a strange spot, if control shaman can come back again I can totally see this card running because a Hagatha's Scheme that comes with a body is very strong, as well as getting a bunch of extra stats when rain of toads is cast. Regardless, the card looks strong, it's just whether someone can find a good home for the card.
Great work. I wanted to zoom in on the first turn after Reno is played, when the board will likely only have your opponent's minions. In this case, I would move 54 cards from Ehh to Hits and 14 from Ehh to Bad (mostly cards that affect minions). That results in a greater than 50% chance of a 'Hit' on that turn.
Hits
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arcane breath, awaken, backstab, BEEES!!!, blast wave, brawl, cheap shot, cone of cold, corrosive breath, dark skies, demonbolt, demonfire, Earth shock, Earthquake, equality, explosive shot, hagatha's scheme, hex, holy water, humility, hunter's mark, icicle, improve morale, lightning breath, marked shot, mass hysteria, molten breath, penance, plague of death, polymorph, ramming speed, ray of frost, rolling fireball, scorch, seal of fate, shadow bolt, shadow word: death, shadow word: pain, shooting star, shrink ray, silence, siphon soul, snap freeze, starfall, subdue, time rip, twisting nether, unidentified contract, vendetta, walk the plank, wanted!, Warpath, Whirlwind, wing blast
Bad
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Ancestral Spirit, blessed champion, blessing of kings, blessing of might, cold blood, embalming ritual, grave rune, hand of protection, mark of nature, pharoah's blessing, sand breath, storm's wrath, sweeping strikes, Windfury
That's completely fair. I wanted to focus more on how useful the hero power would be over a long period of time instead of just the first turn as at least in standard there is no way to swap to some other hero power. Either way, the hero power is significantly better than what it first appears to be.
A New Challenger, Academic Espionage, animal companion, arcane missiles, assassinate, astral rift, autodefense matrix, avenging wrath, betrayal, big bad voodoo, Bite, blazing invocation, blessing of the ancients, blizzard, bloodlust, call of the void, cannon barrage, cinderstorm, claw, cleave, clever disguise, cloning device, consecration, counterspell, crystalsong portal, corruption, curse of weakness, cybertech chip, dark prophecy, deadly shot, desperate measures, dimensional ripper, divine hymn, divine spirit, dr. boom's scheme, dragon roar, dragon's hoard, dragon's pack, dreamway guardians, Eureka!, Execute, Explosive Trap, eye for an eye, fienndish circle, fiendish rites, flame ward, flamestrike, floop's glorious gloop, force of nature, freezing trap, frost nova, frost shock, gift of the wild, haunting visions, headcrack, heavy metal, heroic strike, holy nova, holy ripple, hunter's pack, hunting party, ice barrier, impferno, into the fray, invocation of frost, kangor's endless army, landscaping, lazul's scheme, learn draconic, lightforged blessing, luna's pocket galaxy, magic trick, mass ressurection, mind controlm mind vision, mindgames, mirror entity, mirror image, misdirection, multi-shot, necrium vial, never surrender, noble sacrifice, omega assembly, pick pocket, pilfer, pounce, power of creation, power of the wild, power word: replicate preparation, pressure plate, radiance, rafaam's scheme, rat trap, rebuke, redemption, repentance, righteous cause, righteousness, rockbiter weapon, sanctuary, sap, savage roar, seance, secret plan, shadow madness, shadow of death, sinister deal, sinister strike, snake trap, snipe, soul infusion, soul of the forest, soul of the murloc, spellbender, splitting image, stolen steel, swarm of locusts, swipe, the forest's aid, thoughtsteal, time out!, togwaggle's scheme, tome of intellect, unexpected results, unleash the beast, unleash the hounds, upgrade, vaporize violet haze, vivid nightmare, whispers of EVIL, wispering woods, witching hour, witchwood apple, worthy expedition, zereks cloning gallery
Ehh, 150/362, 42% chance:
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Ancestral healing, Ancestral Spirit, arcane breath, arcane shot, awaken, backstab, baited arrow, bane of doom, beakered lightning, BEEES!!!, bestial wrath, biology project, blast wave, blessed champion, blessing of kings, blessing of wisdom, blessing of might, bomb toss, brawl, cheapshot, circle of healing, cold blood, cone of cold, conjurer's calling, corrosive breath, crystal power, dark possession, dark skies, darkest hour, demonbolt, demonfire, demonic project, devastate, dire frenzy, drain life, Duel!, Earth shock, Earthen Might, Earthquake, elemental evocation, embalming ritual, embiggen, equality, Eviscerate, explosive shot, extra arms, feral spirit, fireball, flark's boom-zooka, forked lightning, frostbolt, goblin prank, grave rune, hagatha's scheme, hand of protection, healing touch, hellfire, hex, hidden oasis, holy fire, holy light, holy smite, holy water humility, hunter's mark, icicle, impbalming, improve morale, inner fire, inner rage, kill command, lava burst, lightning bolt, lightning breath, lightning storm, mark of nature,
mark of the loa, mark of the wild, marked shot, mass hysteria, moonfire, molten breath, mortal coil, mortal strike, mutate, nether breath, nine lives, penance, pharoah's blessing, plague of death, plague of flames, plague of madness, plague of murlocs, plague of wrath, plot twist (doesn't teeeechnically draw cards), polymorph, praise galakrond!, pyroblast, rain of fire, rain of toads, ramming speed, rampage, rapid fire, ray of frost, regenerate, revenge of the wild, rolling fireball, sand breath, sorch, seal of fate, shadow bolt, shadow word: death, shadow word: pain, shield slam, shooting star, shrink ray, silence, siphon soul, snap freeze, spirit bomb, sound the bells!, stampeding roar, starfall, storm's wrath, strength in numbers, subdue, surrender to madness, sweeping strikes, the beast within, the boomship, the storm bringer, time rip, tip the scales, topsy turvy, totemic smash, treenforcements, twisting nether, unidentified contract, unsleeping soul, vendetta, void contract, voltaic burst, walk the plank, wanted! Warpath, Weapon's Project, Whirlwind, Windfury, wing blast, witch's brew, zap!
Card Draw, 41/354, 12% chance:
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Aeroponics, Ancient Mysteries, arcane intellect, battle rage, book of specters, breath of dreams, call to adventure, candle breath commanding shout crystology, elementary reaction, fan of knives, far sight, ferocious howl, Flare, flash of light, hammer of wrath, hidden wisdom, holy wrath, juicy psychmelon, lay on hands, mass dispel, masters call, myra's unstable element (you just lose lol), nourish (either mode sucks buns), overflow, power word: shield, predatory instincts, Prismatic Lens, raiding party, research project, rocket boots, shield block, shiv, slam, sprint, starfire, the soularium, tracking, Wild Growth, wrath (50% of the time).
Here's the breakdown of every spell you can get from the hero power and whether it is good, aka never detrimental, might be not good in a situation if you don't have a board for it, Meh, this being either targeted cards that can shoot yourself in the foot or cards that might have undesirable effects, such as overload, card draw, because sometimes you really want it and other times it's not good but in my opinion, it's important to have its own little area, bad cards, these being ones that essentially are impossible to use properly or would replace the hero power, assuming you want to keep it, and finally Yogg box, because Yogg box basically is just the hero power 10 times so I thought it deserved its own spot.
All together I feel that the hero power is definitely not as bad as it first appears to be as there's a lot of times when it'll either give you some minor bonus at the start of the turn, potentially kill an enemy's minion or just do something to not impact the game a ton. Obviously there's scenarios where the default mage ping will be better than this hero power but I don't think this ruins the card as much as people might initially think. Not to mention the chances it just kills you are very low, with Myra's Unstable Element and Overflow being the only two spells (around .6%) that probably lose the game for you from just drawing too much and hitting fatigue super fast.
If we go by milling in terms of hearthstone, that was just making the opponent overdraw, I think that would be fair since most ways to print cards in this vein are just cards that'd draw both cards, which is something many decks would want it would still most likely decimate control decks, but I think that creates more of a challenge in making a control deck that is able to pressure someone down instead of durdling until late game to slam a bunch of stats in play.
By this do you mean a control deck that is a midrange deck? If your control decks strategy is to play a lot of high value minions on curve throughout the game then it is no longer a control deck.
Looking back at what I typed, it wasn't very clear what I meant. What I should have said was to make control decks less in the vein control warrior has been the last year or two, where you get to the late game and just win via slowly outvaluing the opponent/having the opponent concede because the match is going essentially nowhere. That being said I do think there is a line between just a midrange deck and a control deck but that is beside the point.Quote From FortyDust
I think it's safe to say that when someone talks about "mill decks" or "mill as a strategy," they are talking about killing the opponent by running them out of cards -- milling as a win condition.
Forcing the occasional overdraw has never been controversial as far as I know.
Thats fair, the only time I can remember people complaining about overdraw is either when they are playing a control deck or when kingsbane mill rogue was a thing in wild which basically was just Kingsbane Rogue to begin with.
It depends on what you mean by mill in my opinion, as it differs between the game. If we go by milling in terms of MtG, this being getting rid of cards from the top of the deck, then absolutely not. Mill in this sense is like a burn deck where your opponent's life total is irrelevant and instead their life total becomes their deck size. Given that decks for hearthstone are only 30 cards, they'd either have to make the cards unreasonably expensive a la void contract or make them do very little, such as gnomeferatu, both of which are not good cards. Having a viable mill card in hearthstone would probably be the most unfun thing ever produced because unlike in MtG, where it's a gag/niche archetype that sees fringe play, cards that get burned in hearthstone cease to exist. Comparing it to MtG, many of the top decks throughout the history of the deck would try to get as many cards in the graveyard as possible and as such, milling isn't a good thing in every matchup.
If we go by milling in terms of hearthstone, that was just making the opponent overdraw, I think that would be fair since most ways to print cards in this vein are just cards that'd draw both cards, which is something many decks would want it would still most likely decimate control decks, but I think that creates more of a challenge in making a control deck that is able to pressure someone down instead of durdling until late game to slam a bunch of stats in play.
Dont understand why they didnt ban oko from everything else.
for the foreseeable future I think they're going to try to just ride this out for as long as they can.
Oko right now is one of the cards pushing the most packs of Eldraine right now, but even if they were to ban him in standard, the card is still dominant in pretty much every other format he is legal in. The card is still going to be desirable to pretty much everybody aside from standard players. The fact he is still unbanned is limiting others from entering standard and so WotC is incentivized to ban him since then others are more likely to buy into the format and thus, packs.
As for why they didn't ban Oko when Field of the dead got hit, this was before everybody realized "oh wait Oko is actually just the best card printed in the last several years" and threw him into every style of deck. It also looks bad to ban a card that was just released as well, but with the effect, Oko has on the format I think 1 month is a fairly good amount of time before he gets hit.
Yeah last week getting your deck to be full with BFF is cool and all, but it's kinda sucking the fun out of doing it fast for me since it's just "play a card and go face for 2-3 turns". At least the rewards are nice.
"but the stats seem to suggest a 4% increase in winrate in games where the happy armadillo got played compared to those where it didn't. Tomb Warden, the only non-legendary of top 5 also enjoys the existence of Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, but causes a 2.5% bump in winrate when played regardless."
I feel like this is less that the cards are performing really well and more the fact control decks have a high win rate for pretty much all cards played. This is because typically the longer the game goes on the more cards you play and with things like Tomb Warden in particular, it's just a large wall that can act as a nail in the coffin for some other types of decks. You can probably replace it with some other big taunt or big mech have a similar result occur.
That being said, I do think the cards are good, but their strength doesn't come from them being strong on their own and instead of slotting into an already tried and true deck that is shaping the meta.
I think the largest reasons why the quest decks aren't doing well, like what pretty much everybody else has stated, is simply that the meta isn't in a great spot for them. The whole issue kind of boils down to you jump through a bunch of hurdles to get a hero power that is supposed to synergize with your deck and push you to win, but either the hero power isn't strong enough, like in the case of rogue or hunter, or it just can't compete with other late-game alternatives. I think it is fairly safe to say that almost all the hero powers you get from quests are worse than the Dr. Boom's hero power, which you get from playing a single card instead of dedicating a good portion, if not the entire deck to get a similar power level hero power.
It's pretty safe to say that some of these quests are going to get better next year, once Dr. Boom (and I guess Hagatha to a lesser extent) rotate out since there will be significantly less powerful control options for the late game (hopefully they don't decide to create more heroes for one class).
On that note though, I think another large reason why the quest decks don't have a high win rate is that right now, pretty much all of them don't win you the game. If you take a look at all the successful quest rewards in the past, even those which were less successful such as Nether Portal, they would all be powerful to carry you to win the game, if not too powerful coughCrystal Corecough. I love Ascendant Scroll and all, but there are too many 'junk' spells you can get to really have it be a proper win condition. Sure the Heart of Vir'naal can pick on more midrange decks but it doesn't hold a candle to the value generated from Hagatha and Dr. Boom.
First golden hero I got was rogue during MSOG before the STB nerf simply because rogue had like 3 viable archetypes and I loved playing them all, followed by hunter during Boomsday (and mainly in wild due to both secret and mech being absurdly fun) and just recently got paladin despite it being my go-to ranked class for about a year.
My other classes are all in the 300~ range, with the exception of druid and warrior since I do not find the classes to be fun most of the time. The classes I am currently working on the most are shaman and warrior, using a totem shaman for wild and a control warrior in standard, at least for now.
Feel like I'm a bit late to the game but my username came from back when I would skype my friends to play games with them. I didn't (and still don't) have an actual headset and so because of that, when someone would talk, there'd be a bit of echo. Granted this isn't my first username, but it's been this way for about 10 years or so.
It's funny in my opinion because although that's how the name originated, it's always been applicable to me in some other way. Like now whenever I'm in a discord call or some other voice program since I still lack any way to prevent echo, I just type in a voice to mic channel. After a couple of times of doing this (and depending on how well I know the owner of the server), the channel becomes renamed to the "Echo Chamber" since it's just a wall of text from me, making it seem like I was just talking to myself the entire time. There's also the fact I don't like how my voice sounds and thus, don't talk a lot, resorting to using soundboard of people to talk when I have to, this being similar to the Greek myth where a nymph named Ekho (not the same spelling but it's close enough) can only repeat what others say to her, like a parrot, or in this case, like me repeating the words of a person using a soundboard.
I also just like how the name sounds, which I guess is important as well.
Edit: Oh and since some people are talking about profile pictures, mine is my dog, Percival. He's a very good boy
So many things about this product don't make sense to me. First comes the name, Jumpstart. Not only is this a name for a mechanic in standard right now, but at least right now it's not even clear why it's named that. I guess if your new it can jumpstart your collection with a bunch of themed cards, but that doesn't seem great. It's not a thing for a new player to jump in to start playing, as seen in how it's mainly for limited, with some of the cards being only commander/legacy/vintage playable while others being standard legal.
It feels like it would be a fun limited set based on what we know so far, but beyond that, I don't really see who this is supposed to be designed for. Maybe there are some eternal format bombs being reprinted in them? Who knows, I'm just being skeptical until I see what's actually being in the themed lists I guess.
Yeah definitely, it's a super weird deck honestly. Even though the deck's plan is fairly straightforward, a lot of the times it's not clear how to get into that position. I'd recommend taking it into casual first, or trying it at a ranked floor if you are concerned about losing ranks because there's a bit of a learning curve.
That aside, hope you enjoy trying it out!
I'm glad you enjoyed the article, as well as more MTG stuff coming out!
Golos was originally my go-to commander for Brawl because Field of the Dead is a format defining card. However, my main issue is that it always kind of boiled down into playing the same thing every game and despite how much my inner Johnny and Spike may say this is good, it just felt too streamlined for my liking. I might get around to covering some of the older commanders again since there are certainly some fun ones I'd enjoy covering in the future, but we'll just have to see where the series goes since there's still a lot of refinement I want to do.
If you want to vote for the topic of next week's article, I've narrowed it down to the 7 gods from Theros Beyond Death so if any of these interest you, make sure to let me know!
The n/n+1 stat line is still pretty much the standard for most cases in my opinion as time and time again we've gotten cards that either has that exact statline or something similar, a la [Hearthstone Card (core beast) Not Found] or Captured Jormungar. The area where this rule falls apart, for the most part, are at very low mana costs and very high mana costs. Let's take the aforementioned Dire Mole for an example. There are already numerous 1 mana 1/2s in the game, even some with keywords, such as Goldshire Footman. These cards are pretty much all bad unless they have a strong ability because they just don't make enough impact on the board compared to a two-drop. Blizzard realizes this and hence prints overstated 1 drops.
The same thing can be applied to 10 mana cards as well. The only two vanilla 10 drops are Ultrasaur and Faceless Behemoth, both of which are unplayable (despite my efforts to make Ultrasaur playable). For that amount of mana, the payoff would need to be worth it, which a 10/11 (or the equivalent of 10/11 in stats) isn't.
There's also occasionally cards that have a premium statline and ability, such as Kabal Talonpriest. These cards are made to push a certain class/archetype as at the end of the day, even vanilla statlines aren't enough to make a card worth running.
Pretty interesting to see that Mech Paladin started seeing a rise in winrates before shotbot got released. Wondering if this was caused by people trying to get in some practice with the archetype before it would get a 'buff'.
Is there any way to see where the other heroes placed? I'm curious to see where the best bunch of blocks, Pyramad, places when compared to everything else.
The main reason why the 6 mana 4/4 is considered bad while the 5 mana 4/4 is considered good is mainly because of the expected output of each of the mana costs. Considering how many minions have at least 5/5 worth of stats in the 6 mana pool, it would be expected to get stats better than a 4/4. If we look at the 5 mana legendaries, a lot of them have stats between being a 5/5 to a 4/4 and since your spending less mana on the spell, it's only natural to expect less of a payout in terms of stats.
Another important thing is that even though I have it labeled as bad doesn't always mean "if you get this stuff constantly then the weapon is worthless". If we look at the 10 mana slot, both king phaoris and nozari are listed as bad, but if your playing Eye of the storm when you have this weapon out, you would still be getting 3 5/6 taunts and either another 5/5 or a 4/12, which both I would say are good things to happen, it's just that compared to the rest of the cards there, these two are lackluster.
That being said, I'm glad you still enjoyed it and everything!
Hey, I'm back with more math, here's the breakdown of getting a desirable card out of the new shaman weapon. For the criteria of what makes a legendary good, it needs to reach specific criteria. For legendaries 4 mana and below, their stats must be either premium or on-rate of a normal card of the same mana cost. for example, casting a 3 mana spell must get at least a 3/3 worth of stats, if not more. For legendaries 5 and above, I used this formula to see if they would be considered hits or not, (attack + health)/2 = mana cost of spell - 1. For example, if I cast a 6 mana spell, if I got a 5/5 or above out of it, it would be considered a hit. I did make some exceptions, such as zilliax being a good hit because despite his awful stats he has enough keywords to make me feel inclined to put him there.
Aside from that, I have situational cards, these being ones that can be certain good in a specific matchup or god awful depending on what the scenario is. For example with Kalecgos, he's super strong to get as your last tick of the weapon as if he survives, next turn you can play any spell you want. However, if you have more weapon charges left, the weapon now essentially reads "For the first spell you cast, lose 1 durability", which surprise surprise, is bad. This is also the area where the effects of the cards might backfire, such as Dr. Morrigan pulling out an important battlecry minion or Baron Geddon killing you/giving your opponent lethal.
10 mana, 11% chance for a specific outcome
hits, 44% chance colossus of the moon, deathwing, mecha'thun, the boomreaver
situational, 22% chance hakkar, the soulflayer, kalecgos
bad, 33% chance emeriss, king phaoris, nozari
7 mana, 4.3% for a specific outcome
Hits, 52% chance Arch-Villain Rafaam, blastmaster boom, bwonsamdi, the dead, chef nomi, countess ashmore, high inquisitor whitemane, goru the mightree, gonk, the raptor, prophet velen, shu'ma, siamat, tak nozwhisker,
situational, 8.7% chance Archmage Antonidas, baron geddon,
bad, 39% chance azalina soulthief, blackhow gunspire, boommaster flark, dinotamer brann, jan'alai, the dragonhawk, lord godfrey, swampqueen hagatha, valdris felgorge, vereesa windrunner
6 mana, 5% for a specific outcome
hits 70% chance, armagedillo, cairne bloodhoof, heistbaron togwaggle, illidan stormrage, hogger, kragwa, the frog, kronx dragonhoof, lady in white, mojomaster zihi, nithogg, reno the relicologist, toki, time-tinker, veranus, zerek, master cloner
situational, 20% chance dr. morrigan, glinda crowskin, oblivitron, the beast
bad, 10% chance flik skyshiv, the black knight
5 mana, 5.5% for a specific outcome
hits, 66% chance anka, the buried, barisa lynchen, bandersmosh, captain greenskin, darius crowley, dark pharaoh tekahn, elise the enlightened, harrison jones, malygos, aspect of magic, prince liam, waxadred, zilliax
situational 11% chance dollmaser dorian, leeroy jenkins,
bad, 22% duskfallen aviana, gral, the shark, halazzi, the lynx, myra rotspring
4 mana, 5.8% chance for a specific one
hits, 41% chance frizz kindleroost, griftah, high priest amet, houndmaster shaw, nozdormu the timeless, the glass knight, whizbang the wonderful
situational, 35% chance archmage vargoth, dragonbane, grand lackey erkh, harbinger celestia, high priestess jeklik, vessina,
bad 23.5% chance, sky gen'ral kragg, flobbidinous floop, scargill, war master voone,
3 mana, 6.25% chance for a specific one
hits, 56.25% chance chenvaala, commander rhyssa, dragonrider talritha, electra stormsurge, high priest thekal, king mukla, mindflayer kaahrj, sn1p-sn4p, tinkmaster overspark,
situational 12.5% chance, , stargazer luna, zentimo
bad, 31.25% chance, brightwing, edwin vancleef, face collector, madame lazul, wardruid loti
2 mana, 10% chance for a specific outcome
hits, 60% keeper stalladris, khadgar, millhouse manastorm, sir finley of the sands, zayle, shadow cloak, zephrys the great
situational, 20% bloodmage thalnos, crystalsmith kangor
bad, 20% lorewalker cho, nat pagle
1 mana, 100% chance
bad chameleos
Going by this, the best spells to cast in my opinion are 5 cost spells, a 66% chance to get a minion with good stats significantly outweighs the chance you lowroll and give your opponent a free card with duskfallen aviana or summon a 2/2. Overall this weapon is in a strange spot, if control shaman can come back again I can totally see this card running because a Hagatha's Scheme that comes with a body is very strong, as well as getting a bunch of extra stats when rain of toads is cast. Regardless, the card looks strong, it's just whether someone can find a good home for the card.
That's completely fair. I wanted to focus more on how useful the hero power would be over a long period of time instead of just the first turn as at least in standard there is no way to swap to some other hero power. Either way, the hero power is significantly better than what it first appears to be.
Thats fair, the only time I can remember people complaining about overdraw is either when they are playing a control deck or when kingsbane mill rogue was a thing in wild which basically was just Kingsbane Rogue to begin with.
It depends on what you mean by mill in my opinion, as it differs between the game. If we go by milling in terms of MtG, this being getting rid of cards from the top of the deck, then absolutely not. Mill in this sense is like a burn deck where your opponent's life total is irrelevant and instead their life total becomes their deck size. Given that decks for hearthstone are only 30 cards, they'd either have to make the cards unreasonably expensive a la void contract or make them do very little, such as gnomeferatu, both of which are not good cards. Having a viable mill card in hearthstone would probably be the most unfun thing ever produced because unlike in MtG, where it's a gag/niche archetype that sees fringe play, cards that get burned in hearthstone cease to exist. Comparing it to MtG, many of the top decks throughout the history of the deck would try to get as many cards in the graveyard as possible and as such, milling isn't a good thing in every matchup.
If we go by milling in terms of hearthstone, that was just making the opponent overdraw, I think that would be fair since most ways to print cards in this vein are just cards that'd draw both cards, which is something many decks would want it would still most likely decimate control decks, but I think that creates more of a challenge in making a control deck that is able to pressure someone down instead of durdling until late game to slam a bunch of stats in play.
I think these cards can be fun but I think you would be grasping at a deck too gimmicky to try to properly use any of these.
That being said I'm buying deathbellow warcry because that card is stupid silly in older formats.
Oko right now is one of the cards pushing the most packs of Eldraine right now, but even if they were to ban him in standard, the card is still dominant in pretty much every other format he is legal in. The card is still going to be desirable to pretty much everybody aside from standard players. The fact he is still unbanned is limiting others from entering standard and so WotC is incentivized to ban him since then others are more likely to buy into the format and thus, packs.
As for why they didn't ban Oko when Field of the dead got hit, this was before everybody realized "oh wait Oko is actually just the best card printed in the last several years" and threw him into every style of deck. It also looks bad to ban a card that was just released as well, but with the effect, Oko has on the format I think 1 month is a fairly good amount of time before he gets hit.
November 18th can't come soon enough.
Yeah last week getting your deck to be full with BFF is cool and all, but it's kinda sucking the fun out of doing it fast for me since it's just "play a card and go face for 2-3 turns". At least the rewards are nice.
"but the stats seem to suggest a 4% increase in winrate in games where the happy armadillo got played compared to those where it didn't. Tomb Warden, the only non-legendary of top 5 also enjoys the existence of Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, but causes a 2.5% bump in winrate when played regardless."
I feel like this is less that the cards are performing really well and more the fact control decks have a high win rate for pretty much all cards played. This is because typically the longer the game goes on the more cards you play and with things like Tomb Warden in particular, it's just a large wall that can act as a nail in the coffin for some other types of decks. You can probably replace it with some other big taunt or big mech have a similar result occur.
That being said, I do think the cards are good, but their strength doesn't come from them being strong on their own and instead of slotting into an already tried and true deck that is shaping the meta.
I think the largest reasons why the quest decks aren't doing well, like what pretty much everybody else has stated, is simply that the meta isn't in a great spot for them. The whole issue kind of boils down to you jump through a bunch of hurdles to get a hero power that is supposed to synergize with your deck and push you to win, but either the hero power isn't strong enough, like in the case of rogue or hunter, or it just can't compete with other late-game alternatives. I think it is fairly safe to say that almost all the hero powers you get from quests are worse than the Dr. Boom's hero power, which you get from playing a single card instead of dedicating a good portion, if not the entire deck to get a similar power level hero power.
It's pretty safe to say that some of these quests are going to get better next year, once Dr. Boom (and I guess Hagatha to a lesser extent) rotate out since there will be significantly less powerful control options for the late game (hopefully they don't decide to create more heroes for one class).
On that note though, I think another large reason why the quest decks don't have a high win rate is that right now, pretty much all of them don't win you the game. If you take a look at all the successful quest rewards in the past, even those which were less successful such as Nether Portal, they would all be powerful to carry you to win the game, if not too powerful cough Crystal Core cough. I love Ascendant Scroll and all, but there are too many 'junk' spells you can get to really have it be a proper win condition. Sure the Heart of Vir'naal can pick on more midrange decks but it doesn't hold a candle to the value generated from Hagatha and Dr. Boom.
First golden hero I got was rogue during MSOG before the STB nerf simply because rogue had like 3 viable archetypes and I loved playing them all, followed by hunter during Boomsday (and mainly in wild due to both secret and mech being absurdly fun) and just recently got paladin despite it being my go-to ranked class for about a year.
My other classes are all in the 300~ range, with the exception of druid and warrior since I do not find the classes to be fun most of the time. The classes I am currently working on the most are shaman and warrior, using a totem shaman for wild and a control warrior in standard, at least for now.