I live in Toronto, with a friend who used to live in New York. She got upset once when the Starbucks in Toronto was running a promotion that wasn't offered in New York - apparently, it was "preferential treatment," or some bullshit. I suggested that companies have the freedom to market their products in different places however they want to market them, and that exercising that freedom didn't amount to "preferential treatment" - at the time, there was a holiday in Canada, but not in the USA. Hence, the promotion.
To answer your question - no, it isn't racism.
It's also perfectly acceptable for Blizzard to offer in-game cosmetics to folks based on their skill-level. Christ. It's a competitive card game.
Given that the topic under discussion was whether the version of Aggro Shaman presented by VS was new, I thought that it would be relevant, and interesting, to point out that it's a few cards different from decks that saw tournament play at the time. I didn't reach any conclusion, other than stating (twice) that it's a matter open to interpretation - "the VS deck was kind of played seven years ago, but not entirely...here are some of the differences."
Nothing petty was intended. Perhaps my outrageous ellipsis rocked your world way out of orbit . . . good luck in coming back down to earth.
I suppose it depends on what anyone means by "new deck" - the list is a few cards off of the old Aggro Shaman builds that were featured in ESGN Fight Night, during the Beta. Typically, in the "olden days," aggressive decks playing Argent Squire would also often play Abusive Sergeant, as the AS buff would allow the Squire to kill an enemy 2/3, while the 1/1 remained on the board. The Fight Night Shaman decks often featured Ragnaros, rather than Al'Akir, as the latter was only thought to be good enough to play in combination with Rockbiter, while Rag was just good. They also played Shattered Sun Cleric, rather than Harvest Golem, as there were often totems in play that could receive the SSC buff. Mid-rangey versions would often play Defender of Argus for the same reason.
If "a few cards different from a Beta deck" qualifies as "new," then it's a new deck, I guess . . .
You are free to believe whatever you wish. The freedom of others is concomitant with your own - as a result, whatever your wishes happen to be will have no bearing on others. You are correct - no one has to believe that you were raped when you say that you were. The folks at Blizzard may, or may not, believe the allegations against Zalae. Regardless of their individual beliefs on the matter, a decision was made in accordance with their own guidelines. However, while the decision seems motivated for the reasons Echo mentioned, it's also possible that at least part of the time between the allegations being made, and Blizzard's ruling, was spent investigating the claims. It's also very unlikely that we will ever know what their "review" involved.
FWIW - this is the infraction.
6.1.15
Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard's image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms.
Perhaps it is worth mentioning that "engaging in any act" is consistent with simple allegations of acts being committed, provided that, at Blizzard's discretion, they are satisfied that the acts actually occurred. Again, you and others are free to believe what you wish, at your own discretion.
How does something that a person does in real life affect his rights to participate in a computer game tournament?
Here's the rule (6.1.15) -
"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damage’s Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms."
It's also worth recognising that no one has a "right to participate in a computer game tournament" - you get the invite from Blizzard if you meet their eligibility requirements, and you lose the invite when you don't.
Hunter is like 3rd best class according to HS replay in standard, but it is mostly face hunters which is boring... warrior got destroyed though...
True.
Along with Rogue and Druid, Hunter is the only non-Paladin class with a pair of decks in the green on HSReplays. However, the overall Hunter class win-rate isn't helped by having the worst deck in the class (Beasts, 45% WR) being played three-times as often as its two best decks combined (Aggro and Combo Hunter, both with 51% WR.) The most-popular Aggro Hunter list on the site plays nine cards from Barrens, while the Combo deck plays ten. While the class didn't get many smorc-y replacements for the cards it lost to rotation, some of the cards it received are certainly doing well.
It seems a little unlikely that they will just re-introduce the old expansions, one-by-one. Then Classic mode simply becomes "Wild, but a few years ago," and there wouldn't be anywhere in-game to actually play "real" Classic HS. In addition, "Wild, but a few years ago" likely wouldn't appeal to as many players as Wild mode itself, so adding new content to the mode wouldn't necessarily un-slump any sagging interest in the player-base.
FWIW - I'd be perfectly happy if it stays as-is, for the next ten years. The game seems capable of sustaining a mode that lots of folks play "just for a break" from other modes. If a small portion of the player-base mains the mode, and everyone else plays it once in a blue moon, it would likely still be more popular than Duels. Presumably, the goal isn't to make every addition to the game as popular as Battlegrounds, admitting failure each time that doesn't happen . . .
The Watchful Grunt isn't a beast though, so I don't think it has much synergy with Tavish Stormpike unless I'm missing something.
This is correct - any synergy that the author has noted is likely due to a bug.
Given that the list runs four Posts, I'm surprised that it doesn't include Kargal Battlescar - Hunter seems very weak in the new meta-game, and having big-ish plays later in the game seems pretty important to the success of the class. I often simply run out of cards in hand by turn seven or eight, and Hunter no longer has the speed required to close out games before it runs out of gas . . .
I mean there was a similar card called Warbot in GvG which was never played. This is strictly better but I am not sure it will see play. Warrior 1 mana 1/3-s had to be crazy busted to be played, this is allright, but not busted. And with Risky Skipper rotating, the enrage style tempo warrior decks might struggle a lot
The value of 1-mana 1/3s was a lot less when FWA was 2-mana. I'm not sure if the 2015 metagame is relevant in 2021 . . .
1-mana 1/3s typically see lots of play, even when they are vanilla (Dire Mole was played in plenty of decks that didn't care it was a Beast.) This will likely see play in just about every Warrior deck for the next two years. 4-stars.
If Hunter ever receives playable burn spells, this might be a "next turn kill" enabler - as it is, the class only has Arcane Shot for 2 damage, Quick Shot for 3 more, and nothing for 0 since Kill Command is rotating. AS is weak enough that it currently doesn't see play in Face Hunter, so I'm not too optimistic.
Otherwise, it's a nice refill, it thins out the deck, and it might help L&L see play in Standard. I'm guessing that the format will be somewhat slower after rotation, and this card might be more playable than it seems at first glance. I gave it 3 stars, as it certainly isn't a bad card.
Perhaps it's worthwhile recognising that the fellow is characterising this as "taking a break" from HS - he might return. There are precedents for folks being shifted internally, then unshifted when they are no longer needed in their new "job" - Celestalon was shifted onto HS years ago (I can't remember where he was prior to HS), and solo-ed LoE initial design while other members of the team took holidays. He left HS after LoE and came back years later.
(source = Angry Chicken 400.)
We know that members of the HS team have been shifted internally from developing low-priority assets (we've only seen a few new TBs over the past year) to high-priority (all the expansions have been on-time, if not early, despite work-from-home orders.) It isn't too unlikely that such shifting is also taking place between different teams, in order to keep all the Blizz high-priority stuff on-time.
I was playing some non-combo Quest Rogue in wild for 4/4 lackeys and believe me you don't even need bounce with Bloodsail Flybooter and with lackeys anymore to complete the quest. If you are lucky enough, 2 copies of it will complete it for you and that's not that hard, i know that because i played a lot in wild.
In my opinion, it should be reverted because of Bluegill and Boar nerfs. I really think that the unnerf of The Caverns Below is fair enough with charge nerfs but i'm repeating again, you don't even need bounce to complete it with Bloodsail Flybooter now.
I respectfully mention again - bouncing a lot in the early game doesn't really work in Wild, leaving the deck wide open to aggro. I congratulate you on your success, and agree that "if you are lucky" Flybooter will solo the quest - though aggro typically goldfishes an inactive opponent by turn four in the older format. HSReplays currently has the deck posting a 43% win-rate. The 5/5 buff won't matter too often - I'm not sure if the revert to four bounces, rather than five, will make up the distance between Quest Rogue and the other top-tier Rogue decks (Kingsbane is currently 57%, and Odd Rogue is 58%.) In any event, GLHF.
FWIW - VS started doing Wild meta-reports when Un'Goro launched. Quest Rogue wasn't viable in Wild pre-nerf (it placed only 24th-best on the VS report), and disappeared completely after the nerf. Its game-plan of "do nothing but bounce, then suddenly win" left it vulnerable to aggro decks. Needless to say, the pace of aggro hasn't slowed down in the past four years, so my guess is the card is fine in Wild.
Some folks continued playing Deathwing Rogue after the nerf to Apothecary - the deck has consistently posted a win-rate between 46-47% on HSReplays, and around 43% on VS. In order for either "new-ish" Rogue deck to see play, it's a safe bet that they will have to perform better on ladder than either Kingsbane or Odd Rogue, both of which have win-rates around 53%. My guess is that neither deck will make the cut - aggro finds a way.
I know Blizzard staff have been working from home for nearly a year now, but I'm impressed at how much they've been able to keep up the pace of releases and updates. I'm a bit concerned that a change of this size is going to introduce a lot of bugs - and given that they've delayed now it seems that's on their minds, too. I hope the people running this aren't under too great a pressure/crunch at this point.
But even if there are problems, the Hearthstone team have become so much more responsive to fixing things quickly, putting out patches and communicating with the community, that you know things will be fixed - even if not immediately - and that's a big plus compared with the old days.
It's likely also worthwhile recognising that the team is much bigger than in the olden days - when Celestalon was a guest on the Angry Chicken 400 podcast, he mentioned there are over 120 folks assigned to HS. There were about 70 when Brode left. They can do more stuff, more often, because Blizz has given them the human resources necessary to do the work.
Unless Blizzard changes their policy in the future, which seems unlikely, you will permanently lose anything you disenchant today if it rotates out of the Core set in the future. If you have Tirion, for example, and choose to dust him, you'll be fine for a year (or two, or three . . .) Once the devs choose to replace Tirion with a different Legendary, you will no longer have the card in your collection. Folks are assuming, likely safely, that new cards introduced in the Core set which rotate in the future will be permanently added to the Legacy set - the new Ysera won't simply disappear if it is replaced in a year or two, but you won't be able to dust it when it goes to Legacy.
You'll also need to keep your cards if you intend on playing Classic mode, as many of the better cards in Classic have rotated out of the Core set.
There haven't been many Beast-synergy minions that aren't themselves Beasts that have ever seen play - I guess Houndmaster saw play during the Beta, and Kathreena was a very powerful card in Standard for a couple of years. It isn't obvious that this card would see much play if it were a 2/2 - but paying 2-mana for a 1/1 surely must make it the weakest new card in the set.
I live in Toronto, with a friend who used to live in New York. She got upset once when the Starbucks in Toronto was running a promotion that wasn't offered in New York - apparently, it was "preferential treatment," or some bullshit. I suggested that companies have the freedom to market their products in different places however they want to market them, and that exercising that freedom didn't amount to "preferential treatment" - at the time, there was a holiday in Canada, but not in the USA. Hence, the promotion.
To answer your question - no, it isn't racism.
It's also perfectly acceptable for Blizzard to offer in-game cosmetics to folks based on their skill-level. Christ. It's a competitive card game.
I think you misunderstood the post.
Given that the topic under discussion was whether the version of Aggro Shaman presented by VS was new, I thought that it would be relevant, and interesting, to point out that it's a few cards different from decks that saw tournament play at the time. I didn't reach any conclusion, other than stating (twice) that it's a matter open to interpretation - "the VS deck was kind of played seven years ago, but not entirely...here are some of the differences."
Nothing petty was intended. Perhaps my outrageous ellipsis rocked your world way out of orbit . . . good luck in coming back down to earth.
I suppose it depends on what anyone means by "new deck" - the list is a few cards off of the old Aggro Shaman builds that were featured in ESGN Fight Night, during the Beta. Typically, in the "olden days," aggressive decks playing Argent Squire would also often play Abusive Sergeant, as the AS buff would allow the Squire to kill an enemy 2/3, while the 1/1 remained on the board. The Fight Night Shaman decks often featured Ragnaros, rather than Al'Akir, as the latter was only thought to be good enough to play in combination with Rockbiter, while Rag was just good. They also played Shattered Sun Cleric, rather than Harvest Golem, as there were often totems in play that could receive the SSC buff. Mid-rangey versions would often play Defender of Argus for the same reason.
If "a few cards different from a Beta deck" qualifies as "new," then it's a new deck, I guess . . .
You are free to believe whatever you wish. The freedom of others is concomitant with your own - as a result, whatever your wishes happen to be will have no bearing on others. You are correct - no one has to believe that you were raped when you say that you were. The folks at Blizzard may, or may not, believe the allegations against Zalae. Regardless of their individual beliefs on the matter, a decision was made in accordance with their own guidelines. However, while the decision seems motivated for the reasons Echo mentioned, it's also possible that at least part of the time between the allegations being made, and Blizzard's ruling, was spent investigating the claims. It's also very unlikely that we will ever know what their "review" involved.
FWIW - this is the infraction.
6.1.15
Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard's image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms.
Perhaps it is worth mentioning that "engaging in any act" is consistent with simple allegations of acts being committed, provided that, at Blizzard's discretion, they are satisfied that the acts actually occurred. Again, you and others are free to believe what you wish, at your own discretion.
Here's the rule (6.1.15) -
"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damage’s Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms."
It's also worth recognising that no one has a "right to participate in a computer game tournament" - you get the invite from Blizzard if you meet their eligibility requirements, and you lose the invite when you don't.
True.
Along with Rogue and Druid, Hunter is the only non-Paladin class with a pair of decks in the green on HSReplays. However, the overall Hunter class win-rate isn't helped by having the worst deck in the class (Beasts, 45% WR) being played three-times as often as its two best decks combined (Aggro and Combo Hunter, both with 51% WR.) The most-popular Aggro Hunter list on the site plays nine cards from Barrens, while the Combo deck plays ten. While the class didn't get many smorc-y replacements for the cards it lost to rotation, some of the cards it received are certainly doing well.
It seems a little unlikely that they will just re-introduce the old expansions, one-by-one. Then Classic mode simply becomes "Wild, but a few years ago," and there wouldn't be anywhere in-game to actually play "real" Classic HS. In addition, "Wild, but a few years ago" likely wouldn't appeal to as many players as Wild mode itself, so adding new content to the mode wouldn't necessarily un-slump any sagging interest in the player-base.
FWIW - I'd be perfectly happy if it stays as-is, for the next ten years. The game seems capable of sustaining a mode that lots of folks play "just for a break" from other modes. If a small portion of the player-base mains the mode, and everyone else plays it once in a blue moon, it would likely still be more popular than Duels. Presumably, the goal isn't to make every addition to the game as popular as Battlegrounds, admitting failure each time that doesn't happen . . .
This is correct - any synergy that the author has noted is likely due to a bug.
Given that the list runs four Posts, I'm surprised that it doesn't include Kargal Battlescar - Hunter seems very weak in the new meta-game, and having big-ish plays later in the game seems pretty important to the success of the class. I often simply run out of cards in hand by turn seven or eight, and Hunter no longer has the speed required to close out games before it runs out of gas . . .
The value of 1-mana 1/3s was a lot less when FWA was 2-mana. I'm not sure if the 2015 metagame is relevant in 2021 . . .
1-mana 1/3s typically see lots of play, even when they are vanilla (Dire Mole was played in plenty of decks that didn't care it was a Beast.) This will likely see play in just about every Warrior deck for the next two years. 4-stars.
If Hunter ever receives playable burn spells, this might be a "next turn kill" enabler - as it is, the class only has Arcane Shot for 2 damage, Quick Shot for 3 more, and nothing for 0 since Kill Command is rotating. AS is weak enough that it currently doesn't see play in Face Hunter, so I'm not too optimistic.
Otherwise, it's a nice refill, it thins out the deck, and it might help L&L see play in Standard. I'm guessing that the format will be somewhat slower after rotation, and this card might be more playable than it seems at first glance. I gave it 3 stars, as it certainly isn't a bad card.
Old Kazakus had three different costs, but ten different effects (only eight at 1-mana.)
Perhaps it's worthwhile recognising that the fellow is characterising this as "taking a break" from HS - he might return. There are precedents for folks being shifted internally, then unshifted when they are no longer needed in their new "job" - Celestalon was shifted onto HS years ago (I can't remember where he was prior to HS), and solo-ed LoE initial design while other members of the team took holidays. He left HS after LoE and came back years later.
(source = Angry Chicken 400.)
We know that members of the HS team have been shifted internally from developing low-priority assets (we've only seen a few new TBs over the past year) to high-priority (all the expansions have been on-time, if not early, despite work-from-home orders.) It isn't too unlikely that such shifting is also taking place between different teams, in order to keep all the Blizz high-priority stuff on-time.
I respectfully mention again - bouncing a lot in the early game doesn't really work in Wild, leaving the deck wide open to aggro. I congratulate you on your success, and agree that "if you are lucky" Flybooter will solo the quest - though aggro typically goldfishes an inactive opponent by turn four in the older format. HSReplays currently has the deck posting a 43% win-rate. The 5/5 buff won't matter too often - I'm not sure if the revert to four bounces, rather than five, will make up the distance between Quest Rogue and the other top-tier Rogue decks (Kingsbane is currently 57%, and Odd Rogue is 58%.) In any event, GLHF.
FWIW - VS started doing Wild meta-reports when Un'Goro launched. Quest Rogue wasn't viable in Wild pre-nerf (it placed only 24th-best on the VS report), and disappeared completely after the nerf. Its game-plan of "do nothing but bounce, then suddenly win" left it vulnerable to aggro decks. Needless to say, the pace of aggro hasn't slowed down in the past four years, so my guess is the card is fine in Wild.
Some folks continued playing Deathwing Rogue after the nerf to Apothecary - the deck has consistently posted a win-rate between 46-47% on HSReplays, and around 43% on VS. In order for either "new-ish" Rogue deck to see play, it's a safe bet that they will have to perform better on ladder than either Kingsbane or Odd Rogue, both of which have win-rates around 53%. My guess is that neither deck will make the cut - aggro finds a way.
Nice to see the Buzzard un-nerf for Wild.
It's likely also worthwhile recognising that the team is much bigger than in the olden days - when Celestalon was a guest on the Angry Chicken 400 podcast, he mentioned there are over 120 folks assigned to HS. There were about 70 when Brode left. They can do more stuff, more often, because Blizz has given them the human resources necessary to do the work.
Unless Blizzard changes their policy in the future, which seems unlikely, you will permanently lose anything you disenchant today if it rotates out of the Core set in the future. If you have Tirion, for example, and choose to dust him, you'll be fine for a year (or two, or three . . .) Once the devs choose to replace Tirion with a different Legendary, you will no longer have the card in your collection. Folks are assuming, likely safely, that new cards introduced in the Core set which rotate in the future will be permanently added to the Legacy set - the new Ysera won't simply disappear if it is replaced in a year or two, but you won't be able to dust it when it goes to Legacy.
You'll also need to keep your cards if you intend on playing Classic mode, as many of the better cards in Classic have rotated out of the Core set.
There haven't been many Beast-synergy minions that aren't themselves Beasts that have ever seen play - I guess Houndmaster saw play during the Beta, and Kathreena was a very powerful card in Standard for a couple of years. It isn't obvious that this card would see much play if it were a 2/2 - but paying 2-mana for a 1/1 surely must make it the weakest new card in the set.
???
They recorded the BlizzCon content at least two weeks ago - they aren't "running" anything right now.