Varied quests encourages playing between formats, which is good for Blizzard.
It really, really doesn't, though, with the sole exception of the quest you cannot reroll. As long as a reroll option exists, I will always choose that over actually playing Battlegrounds.
Players are willing to give new things a try when they are free. Free Arena/Duels tickets encourage people to try those modes. Battlegrounds being completely free has made it extremely popular. Hearthstone itself snares most of its players by being "free" (in air quotes). We've all tried all of these things not because of quest rewards, but out of simple curiosity. But once you've tried them, you know whether or not you like them. This weekly incentive to try them again is not engaging; it's annoying.
Almost everyone on Reddit argues that the Tracking change is a nerf, and the way they justify it just sounds like people who try to make themselves look better than they are because they understand the "difficult to comprehend" value of deck thinning.
Yes, I get the feeling people have grown so accustomed to trying to convince people that the discard isn't hurting them, they've gone a bit overboard and started to believe it's the most important aspect of the card. In reality, the positive statistical impact of one or two cards' worth of deck thinning is super tiny -- literally exactly as tiny as the danger of "needing" the cards you lost.
This change doesn't make the card better or worse. It just makes it work the way they probably wanted in the first place.
I don't find any of this confusing at all. Given all the Nature (and normal) Spell Damage flapping about, I'm very happy that Wrath of Air Totem and Lava Burst are out. If they were still in, Burn Shaman would be Tier 0, and there would be no room for any other Shaman archetype. Zapper alone makes Wrath of Air waaaay too strong of a highroll.
Actually, discussions about this card are pointless because there's no right or wrong answer. The utility of discard vs Discover depends largely on the archetype and deckbuilding. People go around and around for days because they can't even agree on what Hunter is "supposed" to be, but they don't ever address that because it's not the obvious question in front of them.
Even if you think Discover is worse, you can't pretend it's actually bad, so as a simpler card, the new version is much better for Core.
The deck-thinning argument is pretty weak IMO, depending on how your deck is built.
Assuming you mulligan for early-game plays, and assuming a fairly even curve distribution beyond 3 mana, chances are not super-small that your old Tracking would fail to live up to the dream of "draw a big one and trash two small ones." You would often end up trashing at least one medium-to-big card. That kind of deck-thinning isn't all that great.
Old Tracking was good, but only because it was a poor man's Discover. Now it's actual Discover, which means combos are less risky and longer games are less risky. Enabling a non-aggro Hunter, even if indirectly, can only be a good thing.
It's now more generally useful than Commencement, so only Lady Liadrin competes for the slot until we see a 7-drop from Barrens. It's hard to imagine Paladin not running Librams (and therefore Liadrin), but that leaves room for at least one of these guys.
My thoughts on individual cards are on their respective discussion pages. I'll use the space here for deletions and my overall reactions.
It feels good to see all of the garbage cards taken out. It also feels good to see the overused cards taken out, nostalgia be damned. In fact, they could have gone a little farther on that front. Like, I'm glad we get to play without Blizzard for the next year, but couldn't we also do without Brawl? That has always been the most toxic card in the game IMO, but it has never been touched.
Rogue without Eviscerate is going to feel weird. They are going to have to work so much harder to threaten lethal. But this change is definitely in line with the focus shifting back to the board for most classes.
I love that Shaman has been pared down to a more Elemental- (and lightning-)focused set.
It seems many classes are getting support for their hero powers, either directly or indirectly. That makes sense for the Core set, I think. It's the job of expansions to create archetypes and define play patterns.
The buffs are generally good without being good enough to outshine the power level of expansion cards. These changes make formerly unplayable cards playable, but not at all broken. As we know, competitive decks use cards that are slightly broken, and it looks like those are still to be found in expansions. For example, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a build-around legendary in the Core set. Baron Rivendare adds some zing to a Deathrattle deck, but he doesn't define it the way N'Zoth, the Corruptor did.
So in summary, while I may be a bit disappointed in one or two of the individual choices they made, I think Team 5 did a great job curating this inaugural Core set. I look forward to the fresh new meta we are about to plunge into!
There are way too many bad Warrior cards for this to create. Some aren't even strictly bad, but since Warrior has several different archetypes, you're going to get stuff that just doesn't fit your game plan.
Remind you that most of the bad card are not in Warrior core set this time , so... Amazingly, there is almost no "bad spell" in the Warrior core set, 3 weapon are good if you don't have to put it in your deck yourself, and the minions are good also.
As a CW main for 6 year I can assure you every CW deck will run at least 1 copy of this card, 2 if there is no better value generator in the next expansion for the class
You're probably right -- I hadn't really analyzed the list that closely yet. Warrior seems to be in a pretty good place overall, for all of its usual archetypes.
There are way too many bad Warrior cards for this to create. Some aren't even strictly bad, but since Warrior has several different archetypes, you're going to get stuff that just doesn't fit your game plan.
It really, really doesn't, though, with the sole exception of the quest you cannot reroll. As long as a reroll option exists, I will always choose that over actually playing Battlegrounds.
Players are willing to give new things a try when they are free. Free Arena/Duels tickets encourage people to try those modes. Battlegrounds being completely free has made it extremely popular. Hearthstone itself snares most of its players by being "free" (in air quotes). We've all tried all of these things not because of quest rewards, but out of simple curiosity. But once you've tried them, you know whether or not you like them. This weekly incentive to try them again is not engaging; it's annoying.
Yes, I get the feeling people have grown so accustomed to trying to convince people that the discard isn't hurting them, they've gone a bit overboard and started to believe it's the most important aspect of the card. In reality, the positive statistical impact of one or two cards' worth of deck thinning is super tiny -- literally exactly as tiny as the danger of "needing" the cards you lost.
This change doesn't make the card better or worse. It just makes it work the way they probably wanted in the first place.
You might be surprised at how soon you get over these feelings.
I don't find any of this confusing at all. Given all the Nature (and normal) Spell Damage flapping about, I'm very happy that Wrath of Air Totem and Lava Burst are out. If they were still in, Burn Shaman would be Tier 0, and there would be no room for any other Shaman archetype. Zapper alone makes Wrath of Air waaaay too strong of a highroll.
Comments like this one remind me how great it is to have you back on the site.
Actually, discussions about this card are pointless because there's no right or wrong answer. The utility of discard vs Discover depends largely on the archetype and deckbuilding. People go around and around for days because they can't even agree on what Hunter is "supposed" to be, but they don't ever address that because it's not the obvious question in front of them.
Even if you think Discover is worse, you can't pretend it's actually bad, so as a simpler card, the new version is much better for Core.
The deck-thinning argument is pretty weak IMO, depending on how your deck is built.
Assuming you mulligan for early-game plays, and assuming a fairly even curve distribution beyond 3 mana, chances are not super-small that your old Tracking would fail to live up to the dream of "draw a big one and trash two small ones." You would often end up trashing at least one medium-to-big card. That kind of deck-thinning isn't all that great.
Old Tracking was good, but only because it was a poor man's Discover. Now it's actual Discover, which means combos are less risky and longer games are less risky. Enabling a non-aggro Hunter, even if indirectly, can only be a good thing.
Literally every streamer: Ritual of Doom may not be good because you'll never get that many minions to stick.
Me (yelling at my TV): Fiendish Circle is a thing!
There's no way they put cards like these in Core if they aren't planning to support them in expansion sets.
But I can opt out of the new Noz, so his bugs will never affect me personally.
Good riddance to the old ones. Alex was too good (in combo decks), Onyxia was too bad, and Noz was too buggy.
Every conceivable archetype in the game is getting hit with this rotation. For every Savage Roar, there's an Eviscerate that's also going away.
With Landscaping, it's 3/5 + 2/2 + 2/2 on turn 3 or 4. That is a LOT of pressure.
It also lets you Corrupt Moontouched Amulet and play it the same turn.
Someone remind me what the weaknesses of Demon Hunter were supposed to be ... feels like this pretty much sews up the "board clear" gap.
One word takes the card from unplayable to great!
It's now more generally useful than Commencement, so only Lady Liadrin competes for the slot until we see a 7-drop from Barrens. It's hard to imagine Paladin not running Librams (and therefore Liadrin), but that leaves room for at least one of these guys.
My thoughts on individual cards are on their respective discussion pages. I'll use the space here for deletions and my overall reactions.
It feels good to see all of the garbage cards taken out. It also feels good to see the overused cards taken out, nostalgia be damned. In fact, they could have gone a little farther on that front. Like, I'm glad we get to play without Blizzard for the next year, but couldn't we also do without Brawl? That has always been the most toxic card in the game IMO, but it has never been touched.
Rogue without Eviscerate is going to feel weird. They are going to have to work so much harder to threaten lethal. But this change is definitely in line with the focus shifting back to the board for most classes.
I love that Shaman has been pared down to a more Elemental- (and lightning-)focused set.
It seems many classes are getting support for their hero powers, either directly or indirectly. That makes sense for the Core set, I think. It's the job of expansions to create archetypes and define play patterns.
The buffs are generally good without being good enough to outshine the power level of expansion cards. These changes make formerly unplayable cards playable, but not at all broken. As we know, competitive decks use cards that are slightly broken, and it looks like those are still to be found in expansions. For example, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a build-around legendary in the Core set. Baron Rivendare adds some zing to a Deathrattle deck, but he doesn't define it the way N'Zoth, the Corruptor did.
So in summary, while I may be a bit disappointed in one or two of the individual choices they made, I think Team 5 did a great job curating this inaugural Core set. I look forward to the fresh new meta we are about to plunge into!
You're probably right -- I hadn't really analyzed the list that closely yet. Warrior seems to be in a pretty good place overall, for all of its usual archetypes.
OK, I'm starting to feel like they are overdoing it on tutor effects.
5 Attack seems to be the sweet spot for Rush, so sure.
There are way too many bad Warrior cards for this to create. Some aren't even strictly bad, but since Warrior has several different archetypes, you're going to get stuff that just doesn't fit your game plan.
Wow, so hard to kill. Seven mana does not seem like enough.