Ouch. If Zoo is a thing, it will be because of this card. The stats it gives are identical to what you used to get out of Terrorscale Stalker + Devilsaur Egg, except instead of having to play a 3 mana 0/3 beforehand, you get to drop a 1 mana 1/1 with a decent-to-strong Battlecry effect which you are able to generate in multiple ways instead of just 2 cards in your deck. About the only thing Devilsaur Egg does better is it can be popped multiple times. The benefits of this card far outweigh this "downside". We'll be hating on this card for days to come. I'm almost happy I don't play Standard, cause this won't likely be a thing in Wild unless some nerfs happen.
Wow this is...an atrocious card at every level. Like holy shit is this bad. I understand, it's a meme card. But it even sucks at being a meme. You want to go for an OTK with this? Sure, go ahead. Somehow copy this 4 times against an opponent that's not at his keyboard, you deal 30 to face and win the game. The downside? This hits random enemies, does nothing until you have 3 of them (lol what? at least give it attack), and there is a card of the exact same cost that happens to do this card's job much better. It's called Leeroy Jenkins. If you wanna jump through hoops to copy this pile of crap, you might as well jump through hoops copying a minion that actually does something. And that something is deal 6 damage to face (which means it requires one less copy to kill someone) and functions standalone as well.
As for Wild...lol no. If you want to kill people with something like this, there's a little card called Ragnaros that, once again, does this card's job way better. Go play OTK Aviana Rag Druid (the combo is Aviana, Innervate, Kun, Rag, Cube Rag, Faceless Cube, Deathwing), or one of the million possible Aviana Kun combos that finish the game with way fewer requirements. This blows in every way imaginable. And considering that Arena drafts are now decided by factors other than rarity, the fact they had the balls to make this Epic for no good reason makes it even worse. If it were a throwaway common, eh, whatever, pack filler. But enjoy opening these in your Epic slots if you're free to play.
I feel that "be kind and respectful to one another as you experience what Blizzard creates in the future" is a rather...strange choice of words. It's as if he was saying, "the stuff that's coming down the pipeline may be controversial, try not to trash it (and each other) too much". It's such a strangely aimed message that I can't help but wonder if he's either specifically referring to some past projects that may not have received the reaction they hoped for *cough* Diablo Immortal *vomit*, or if he's hinting that that is just the start of the shift that's coming and people should ready themselves and "keep an open mind". I can't see anyone including this in their farewell address if everything that's on the horizon was juuust peachy and fine.
A 6/5 taunt is 6 mana. It’s already slightly over statted and it’s a choose one card. Normally that means it’s under statted. Yes, a 6/7 would be unreasonable
Seems to me you didn't even read my comment, seeing as I specifically mentioned Druid of the Claw and Ancient of War by name as examples of what the standard for Druid minions is. To spell it out again in a different way: by the same logic you are applying, a 4/6 Taunt should cost 6 mana because a 3/6 Taunt (Fen Creeper) costs 5. Yet Druid gets Druid of the Claw, a 4/6 Taunt with the added flexibility of having a 4/4 Charge option, all that for 5 mana, i.e. same cost of Fen Creeper. Both sides of that card are either right on cost or undercosted and get the choose one keyword to boot with no additional downside to it.
A Boulderfist Ogre is already a meh card outside of Arena, and the addition of taunt just barely makes it worth being a class-exclusive card, hence a 6/7 Taunt is more than reasonable. A 12 heal for 6 mana is a joke. Druid used to be able to gain 12 armor for 2 mana less in Branching Paths, and that was the weak side of the card. So no, I stand by my comment, both sides of the card are underpowered, and the thing making this potentially playable is the quest and only the quest. Without the quest, both halves are poor. With the quest, it's a juiced up Moonglade Portal, which was borderline playable. The card's power level is intentionally hamstrung because they made the quest. And unless the quest underperforms heavily, this will keep happening for the next year. In fact, I'm changing my mind. Koalabeere was right in the original comment. This card is bad, because you NEED to play the quest and have it completed in order for this to not suck on both ends.
Well, I wouldn't straight up call this bad but I do think they held back on both halves of the card, particularly the healing, just because the quest exists. It wouldn't be out of the question for the Treant to be a 6/7 if the quest didn't exist. Considering the stats we see on cards like Druid of the Claw and Ancient of War a 6 mana 6/7 taunt for druid wouldn't be all that surprising. I almost hope the quest ends up being rather niche, a thing for the enthusiasts to build around, or we may see Choose One cards taking a turn for the worse in the future for sure, so in that respect, they did kinda shoot themselves in the foot with the quest design.
Well, so much for the 1-health minion synergy being a thing for Paladin. That's both Paladin Legendaries out, neither of them having anything to do with the three 1-health trash synergisers we got previously.
I honestly can't speak to how "crippled" your deck would feel in Standard since I don't play the format, but in Wild, especially in classes like Mage or Hunter, there are so many good cards, especially in terms of removal, that any non-highlander deck you build is aready not including like 7 different viable card choices. At that point, going highlander doesn't change things that much, unless there is a handful of really crucial, irreplaceable pieces you want (like second Ice Block or such). Obviously in standard the penalty is going to be more severe since you both have fewer choices and less direct highlander support, but we're also nearing the end of the year, so Standard is nearing the peak of its card quantity. If there are ever going to be good chances for Standard to have viable highlander decks, it's in this or the last set of the year. The only thing potentially crippling its chances now compared to the next year's cycle is that Standard is currently weighed down by Witchwood, which had a number of cards rotated out to Wild prematurely. So Witchwood isn't as big of a set as it should be.
I dismissed these instantly upon seeing them but they're actually not that bad. Reno is a pretty juiced up Dyn-o-matic and we know how well that guy removes threats, which is what you'd want in a control deck. Elise gives you more value if you're playing the long game, which highlander decks usually did, and she's much more controllable and cheaper, than Malacrass (only question is, what do you want to duplicate in Druid?). Finley shores up your early game by giving you either great defensive hero powers with Druid, Shaman, Priest or Warrior, or good board-control hero powers with Paladin, Mage, Druid and Rogue. The one I have the most doubts about is ironically Brann, since you generally want to go for the control game with highlander decks and King Crush doesn't scream control to me at all. But, just like Reno Lock used to Leeroy + PO + Faceless people to death, so can Brann Bronzebeard + new Brann finish off people who got Alextrasza'd or whittled down by your hero power over the course of the game. However, all of this is assuming that there is sufficient support for good highlander decks in standard, and that value and control start mattering again in Wild (which would require finally gutting Res Priest).
First thing that pops into my head: Eat it Res Priest! Second thing that pops into my head: By god is this incomparably worse against Odd Paladin or Mech Hunter than Devolve. Devolve gives your opponent a random assortment of low cost crap in those matchups, this will potentially make their board even more dangerous, with Warleaders and Grimscale Oracles pumping all that stuff you just transformed to lethal range. Plus, Old Murkeye will eat you alive, especially if you also have a board. Which means it's a well designed card. Great in one matchup in particular, arguably worse in others, so you have to make a choice instead of autoincluding this. For my money, I'm sticking with Devolve.
After some thought, I don't think Wild Quest Mage wants this. Say that you play both quests.
Let me stop you right there, and point out you can only have one Quest active at a time. Kind of disappointing, as I would have liked to see what double-Quest archetypes people can come up with, but it is what it is.
Seriously? Man that's a bummer. They're taking a dump at a gaming tradition here! You acquire as many quests as you can and then you complete them all simultaneously to save time. This is heresy!
Also @Almaniarra, it doesn't work like you think it does. Servant of Yogg Saron casts the spell, not you, so it won't count towards the quest. In this case, you would need something like Unseen Saboteur, which actually says that the player casts the spell.
Question: how will winners be contacted? Here via messages? Cause if I participate through, say Twitch, would I have to go to twitch to figure out I won? I have a Twitch account but use twitch like once every 4 months.
After some thought, I don't think Wild Quest Mage wants this. Say that you play both quests. That means your opening hand is -2 cards, which is already kinda catastrophic (mulliganing Waygate is suicide, if it ends up in the bottom 1/3 of your deck, you can't win). Considering the utter decimation your opener took from having two quests in it, I think running Cyclone is pretty risky, as you're essentially top-decking and you risk running into some pretty terrible bricks. Cyclone wants you to stack a hand full of cheap spells before you play the Cyclone, while this quest wants to be played ASAP so that any stalling or mid-game spell generation you end up doing counts. So your hand shrinks, you're top decking, and you'd need to guarantee Cyclone to really go off and even complete the 10 spells quest at a reasonable pace. For that reason, I'm guessing Cyclone is out of the deck.
At that point, you can just stack a bunch of stall, with freezes, defensive secrets, etc. and complete the quest that way, but then, your Open the Waygate is stuck being useless until you complete the first quest. By that point, decks can do some filthy, filthy things and you start running out of freeze. So completing Open the Waygate off of the spells generated by the hero power is way too slow IMO. You cannot just start working on your Waygate quest by turn 6 or something, by then you should be over halfway done if you want to keep up. The majority of games I've won with my version of Cyclone mage, I'm usually one or two turns away from running out of stall or Ice Blocks, so slowing down the deck with another quest is not something you can afford, I think.
Therefore, I think the two quests each go into a different deck. You put this in casino burn mage, where you can stack your hand full of cost reduced spells and then spam the opponent's face off with Tony and Flamewakers once you accumulate enough mana (or Sorcerer's Apprentices), and Cyclone Quest Mage remains unchanged. Its current builds are just way too efficient to need this.
I don't understand the fixation on Divine Spirit as a "problem card". Divine Spirit is perfectly fine, and supports what Priests want to do perfectly. They want to stick a minion so they can buff it. They want to stick a minion so they can heal it. They want to stick a minion so they can copy it (Boomsday Priest design direction, at least). Divine Spirit is not the problem. Inner Fire is. Why should Divine Spirit pay for Inner Fire's sins? Just stop giving Priest ways to turn health into attack (Confuse, Topsy Turvy) and problem solved. Granted, if Inner Fire goes, then so must Crazed Alchemist, but honestly, would that be such a huge loss for the core set? It is a much more sensible solution than addressing Divine Spirit, which doesn't even do away with the problem entirely. Big beefy minions with a sizeable butt will always be present in the game, and as long as those are present, and Priest continues to get buff cards, they'd find a way to boost the health high enough for swap cards to be a problem for Standard. So just do away with the swap do away with Inner Fire, and let Priests buff health to high heaven if they feel like it. If they want to make a 6/36 Ysera, let them. They can't do much more than that with it if you don't let them turn that big butt into damage.
Edit: Also, would really like to know where they get their Res Priest info from. Every time I look at a Wild meta snapshot, Res Priest is either Tier 1 or 2. So yeah, a lot of people play it. Not necessarily because the deck is sooo enthralling, but because it is one of the go-tos for winrate, and can also occasionally end games at the speed of a hyper aggro deck, cause if you highroll your Barnes into Yshaarj etc., people concede on turn 4. So it gets wins, and can ocassionally also get them extremely fast.
I disagree completely. These quests are tame in comparison.
The original quests usually had a relatively high cost to complete, but when completed tended to be so powerful they could carry a deck on their own (stressing this cause some, like the Hunter quest, sucked no matter what). These new quests have a relatively low cost to complete, but you need to have an entire deck built around the hero power you eventually get out of it, i.e. you can't just slap them into whatever class deck you play and they'll carry the game for you. You have the high up-front cost of losing a card from your starting hand AND not getting like a 5 mana 8/8 as a reward as you used to with some of the original quests. And then, after all is said and done, all you get is a hero power that you NEED to start taking massive advantage of very quickly to make up for the card advantage and tempo you lost by playing the quest.
These, so far, seem to be far from autoincludes. They seem to be fairly niche, which is a good thing, because we know how bad hero-power boosts are for the game (DKs, Genn and Baku). The worst thing Blizzard could do is to now give all the classes a bunch of cards that directly boost and synergize with the quests, and make all the classes all about their quest and nothing else. That would be a disaster for the game on many fronts. At most I'd give each class like 2 or 3 mid-powered cards that have some synergy with the quest and that's it. Hopefully Blizz has learned from their past mistakes.
Definitely nice for a proactive Jade Shudderwock deck. I've often found that in control matchups, the Totem hero power was more of a liability than a benefit, as it allowed easier Defiles, Godfreys, more devastating Psychic Screams, and if the opponent was wise to what you were planning, they'd just leave the totems on the board to make your Shudder worse to play. In the end, I often ended up not using the hero power even when I had mana left over. This helps me get those Jades bigger faster so that my Shudderwock is actually treatening lethal past taunts when played. Pretty nice, and hopefully very, very niche.
I already chimed in on this in a separate thread on the topic yesterday, but to add a few more points. Aside from being pretty spineless in how they just kow-tow to these senseless and unwarranted demands (yo, how about China stops being stuck in the 1700s in terms of puritan views, just a few miles east of them they got the Japanese merrily fawning over schoolgirls showing panties in every game they make...from one extreme to another in Asia it seems).
It's not just that, though, it's, above all, completely arbitrary and with no sense of logic. They censored these cards...and the rest of the cards are ok? Sanguine Reveller? Master of Disguise? Blood Warriors? Whirlwind? All of the skeleton-showing cards like Holy Smite? Apparently peeling the skin off of someone with magic is fine, but a bit of blood from eviscerating someone is not. The line that is being drawn is completely random. So not only is Blizz spinelessly kow-towing, they're doing it lazily and half-assedly too...to the point that they might as well not do it at all cause censoring 8 out of like 50 cards that could fit the description doesn't make the game any more "China-friendly" than it was before.
It's like they rushed to show they're at least doing something, while not taking the time to do it properly, or not thinking through the consequences of what they'd have to do if they start bowing down to China like this. China is not a fan of dead bodies and skeletons. They have their special Skeleton Knight art. But yet there is like a dozen skeleton minions or zombie minions in the game that nobody in China has apparently given a damn about for years. But The Skeleton Knight? Oh that was too much! (If that is the case then Shadowverse probably doesn't even exist in China, seeing as one of the classes is literally all about skeletons and zombies).
So what is it exactly? Is Blizz going to do the barest, laziest minimum like they are now and hope the Chinese are going to just wave it off, or are they actually planning to change Kel'Thuzad's art, redraw Happy Ghoul and Flesheating Ghoul, rename Corpse Taker and Meat Wagon, paint happy ponies on all the Lich King cards (including Arfus)...and essentially just remove and repaint the entire Scourge faction out of the game? they obviously can't take this China-friendly approach all the way, so why in the name of fuck are they even meddling with this in the first place?
I think the whole thing is all sorts of idiotic. Let's think about this for a second. The game was made primarily for a western audience, it's where it debuted and where it was made, so it makes complete sense that it would be stylised in a way that appeals and suits the given audience. Then another audience enters the market, and in order to appeal to them, the game forgets its origins and overhauls a bunch of art and makes new guidelines for future arts in order to appeal to that audience. In the small scale, that seems ok, right? Just get rid of blood, the game's supposed to be kid-friendly so why not, and get rid of sexually suggestive content (which kids probably wouldn't even get, so, why? but whatever). Also let's forget the fact that Garrosh is running around all naked and muscly, it's fine to use stuff like that to appeal to the female audience but god forbid we have some female suggestive characters like Succubi in the game, think of the children! Double standards all around. Fully agree with NightCrawler above.
However, China specifically is a problem territory. Don't they have a thing against depicting things like bones, human remains and stuff? So you're telling me that Roll the Bones and every, single, skeleton card in the game is up to being censored next time cause we got to appeal to the Chinese? Exclude an entire section of fantasy (necromancy) out of the game made for western audiences because the eastern audience might not like it? Next up, Kel'Thuzad will be getting a fresh new paintjob with a mask on so we don't see his skelly bits. Blizzard made its own product. If that product sells on its own merits and if there is a demand for that product in the east, that's the east's thing to deal with if there's a few things here and there that don't appeal to them. It's not like Blizzard came crawling to China to please save the game with their money, so why are the devs the ones who have to adapt? Have some integrity and principles. Stand proudly behind the product you made and say, "do you want it or not?". Don't immediately spinelessly change everything to appeal and please like you're some servant.
It's totally fine that we're murdering hundreds of minions and trying to kill our opponent with axes and fireballs, all accompanied by suitably violent screaming. But god forbid our card art has breasts, butts or any blood on them. Censor immediately! Yanking someone's guts out of their stomach (i.e. eviscerating)? No blood allowed!
We already got Togwaggle talking like a 6 year old. I think the game is already kid-friendly enough.
Ouch. If Zoo is a thing, it will be because of this card. The stats it gives are identical to what you used to get out of Terrorscale Stalker + Devilsaur Egg, except instead of having to play a 3 mana 0/3 beforehand, you get to drop a 1 mana 1/1 with a decent-to-strong Battlecry effect which you are able to generate in multiple ways instead of just 2 cards in your deck. About the only thing Devilsaur Egg does better is it can be popped multiple times. The benefits of this card far outweigh this "downside". We'll be hating on this card for days to come. I'm almost happy I don't play Standard, cause this won't likely be a thing in Wild unless some nerfs happen.
Wow this is...an atrocious card at every level. Like holy shit is this bad. I understand, it's a meme card. But it even sucks at being a meme. You want to go for an OTK with this? Sure, go ahead. Somehow copy this 4 times against an opponent that's not at his keyboard, you deal 30 to face and win the game. The downside? This hits random enemies, does nothing until you have 3 of them (lol what? at least give it attack), and there is a card of the exact same cost that happens to do this card's job much better. It's called Leeroy Jenkins. If you wanna jump through hoops to copy this pile of crap, you might as well jump through hoops copying a minion that actually does something. And that something is deal 6 damage to face (which means it requires one less copy to kill someone) and functions standalone as well.
As for Wild...lol no. If you want to kill people with something like this, there's a little card called Ragnaros that, once again, does this card's job way better. Go play OTK Aviana Rag Druid (the combo is Aviana, Innervate, Kun, Rag, Cube Rag, Faceless Cube, Deathwing), or one of the million possible Aviana Kun combos that finish the game with way fewer requirements. This blows in every way imaginable. And considering that Arena drafts are now decided by factors other than rarity, the fact they had the balls to make this Epic for no good reason makes it even worse. If it were a throwaway common, eh, whatever, pack filler. But enjoy opening these in your Epic slots if you're free to play.
TLDR: What a fail of a card.
I feel that "be kind and respectful to one another as you experience what Blizzard creates in the future" is a rather...strange choice of words. It's as if he was saying, "the stuff that's coming down the pipeline may be controversial, try not to trash it (and each other) too much". It's such a strangely aimed message that I can't help but wonder if he's either specifically referring to some past projects that may not have received the reaction they hoped for *cough* Diablo Immortal *vomit*, or if he's hinting that that is just the start of the shift that's coming and people should ready themselves and "keep an open mind". I can't see anyone including this in their farewell address if everything that's on the horizon was juuust peachy and fine.
Seems to me you didn't even read my comment, seeing as I specifically mentioned Druid of the Claw and Ancient of War by name as examples of what the standard for Druid minions is. To spell it out again in a different way: by the same logic you are applying, a 4/6 Taunt should cost 6 mana because a 3/6 Taunt (Fen Creeper) costs 5. Yet Druid gets Druid of the Claw, a 4/6 Taunt with the added flexibility of having a 4/4 Charge option, all that for 5 mana, i.e. same cost of Fen Creeper. Both sides of that card are either right on cost or undercosted and get the choose one keyword to boot with no additional downside to it.
A Boulderfist Ogre is already a meh card outside of Arena, and the addition of taunt just barely makes it worth being a class-exclusive card, hence a 6/7 Taunt is more than reasonable. A 12 heal for 6 mana is a joke. Druid used to be able to gain 12 armor for 2 mana less in Branching Paths, and that was the weak side of the card. So no, I stand by my comment, both sides of the card are underpowered, and the thing making this potentially playable is the quest and only the quest. Without the quest, both halves are poor. With the quest, it's a juiced up Moonglade Portal, which was borderline playable. The card's power level is intentionally hamstrung because they made the quest. And unless the quest underperforms heavily, this will keep happening for the next year. In fact, I'm changing my mind. Koalabeere was right in the original comment. This card is bad, because you NEED to play the quest and have it completed in order for this to not suck on both ends.
Well, I wouldn't straight up call this bad but I do think they held back on both halves of the card, particularly the healing, just because the quest exists. It wouldn't be out of the question for the Treant to be a 6/7 if the quest didn't exist. Considering the stats we see on cards like Druid of the Claw and Ancient of War a 6 mana 6/7 taunt for druid wouldn't be all that surprising. I almost hope the quest ends up being rather niche, a thing for the enthusiasts to build around, or we may see Choose One cards taking a turn for the worse in the future for sure, so in that respect, they did kinda shoot themselves in the foot with the quest design.
I don't even... I mean...yeah, sure. Mech Hunter is going to be toootally broken when playing the Paladin Quest.
sigh
If you meant to say Mech Paladin, then yeah, it's a copy of a minion on board, which means it copies all the keywords on it.
Well, so much for the 1-health minion synergy being a thing for Paladin. That's both Paladin Legendaries out, neither of them having anything to do with the three 1-health trash synergisers we got previously.
I honestly can't speak to how "crippled" your deck would feel in Standard since I don't play the format, but in Wild, especially in classes like Mage or Hunter, there are so many good cards, especially in terms of removal, that any non-highlander deck you build is aready not including like 7 different viable card choices. At that point, going highlander doesn't change things that much, unless there is a handful of really crucial, irreplaceable pieces you want (like second Ice Block or such). Obviously in standard the penalty is going to be more severe since you both have fewer choices and less direct highlander support, but we're also nearing the end of the year, so Standard is nearing the peak of its card quantity. If there are ever going to be good chances for Standard to have viable highlander decks, it's in this or the last set of the year. The only thing potentially crippling its chances now compared to the next year's cycle is that Standard is currently weighed down by Witchwood, which had a number of cards rotated out to Wild prematurely. So Witchwood isn't as big of a set as it should be.
I dismissed these instantly upon seeing them but they're actually not that bad. Reno is a pretty juiced up Dyn-o-matic and we know how well that guy removes threats, which is what you'd want in a control deck. Elise gives you more value if you're playing the long game, which highlander decks usually did, and she's much more controllable and cheaper, than Malacrass (only question is, what do you want to duplicate in Druid?). Finley shores up your early game by giving you either great defensive hero powers with Druid, Shaman, Priest or Warrior, or good board-control hero powers with Paladin, Mage, Druid and Rogue. The one I have the most doubts about is ironically Brann, since you generally want to go for the control game with highlander decks and King Crush doesn't scream control to me at all. But, just like Reno Lock used to Leeroy + PO + Faceless people to death, so can Brann Bronzebeard + new Brann finish off people who got Alextrasza'd or whittled down by your hero power over the course of the game. However, all of this is assuming that there is sufficient support for good highlander decks in standard, and that value and control start mattering again in Wild (which would require finally gutting Res Priest).
First thing that pops into my head: Eat it Res Priest! Second thing that pops into my head: By god is this incomparably worse against Odd Paladin or Mech Hunter than Devolve. Devolve gives your opponent a random assortment of low cost crap in those matchups, this will potentially make their board even more dangerous, with Warleaders and Grimscale Oracles pumping all that stuff you just transformed to lethal range. Plus, Old Murkeye will eat you alive, especially if you also have a board. Which means it's a well designed card. Great in one matchup in particular, arguably worse in others, so you have to make a choice instead of autoincluding this. For my money, I'm sticking with Devolve.
Seriously? Man that's a bummer. They're taking a dump at a gaming tradition here! You acquire as many quests as you can and then you complete them all simultaneously to save time. This is heresy!
Also @Almaniarra, it doesn't work like you think it does. Servant of Yogg Saron casts the spell, not you, so it won't count towards the quest. In this case, you would need something like Unseen Saboteur, which actually says that the player casts the spell.
Question: how will winners be contacted? Here via messages? Cause if I participate through, say Twitch, would I have to go to twitch to figure out I won? I have a Twitch account but use twitch like once every 4 months.
After some thought, I don't think Wild Quest Mage wants this. Say that you play both quests. That means your opening hand is -2 cards, which is already kinda catastrophic (mulliganing Waygate is suicide, if it ends up in the bottom 1/3 of your deck, you can't win). Considering the utter decimation your opener took from having two quests in it, I think running Cyclone is pretty risky, as you're essentially top-decking and you risk running into some pretty terrible bricks. Cyclone wants you to stack a hand full of cheap spells before you play the Cyclone, while this quest wants to be played ASAP so that any stalling or mid-game spell generation you end up doing counts. So your hand shrinks, you're top decking, and you'd need to guarantee Cyclone to really go off and even complete the 10 spells quest at a reasonable pace. For that reason, I'm guessing Cyclone is out of the deck.
At that point, you can just stack a bunch of stall, with freezes, defensive secrets, etc. and complete the quest that way, but then, your Open the Waygate is stuck being useless until you complete the first quest. By that point, decks can do some filthy, filthy things and you start running out of freeze. So completing Open the Waygate off of the spells generated by the hero power is way too slow IMO. You cannot just start working on your Waygate quest by turn 6 or something, by then you should be over halfway done if you want to keep up. The majority of games I've won with my version of Cyclone mage, I'm usually one or two turns away from running out of stall or Ice Blocks, so slowing down the deck with another quest is not something you can afford, I think.
Therefore, I think the two quests each go into a different deck. You put this in casino burn mage, where you can stack your hand full of cost reduced spells and then spam the opponent's face off with Tony and Flamewakers once you accumulate enough mana (or Sorcerer's Apprentices), and Cyclone Quest Mage remains unchanged. Its current builds are just way too efficient to need this.
I don't understand the fixation on Divine Spirit as a "problem card". Divine Spirit is perfectly fine, and supports what Priests want to do perfectly. They want to stick a minion so they can buff it. They want to stick a minion so they can heal it. They want to stick a minion so they can copy it (Boomsday Priest design direction, at least). Divine Spirit is not the problem. Inner Fire is. Why should Divine Spirit pay for Inner Fire's sins? Just stop giving Priest ways to turn health into attack (Confuse, Topsy Turvy) and problem solved. Granted, if Inner Fire goes, then so must Crazed Alchemist, but honestly, would that be such a huge loss for the core set? It is a much more sensible solution than addressing Divine Spirit, which doesn't even do away with the problem entirely. Big beefy minions with a sizeable butt will always be present in the game, and as long as those are present, and Priest continues to get buff cards, they'd find a way to boost the health high enough for swap cards to be a problem for Standard. So just do away with the swap do away with Inner Fire, and let Priests buff health to high heaven if they feel like it. If they want to make a 6/36 Ysera, let them. They can't do much more than that with it if you don't let them turn that big butt into damage.
Edit: Also, would really like to know where they get their Res Priest info from. Every time I look at a Wild meta snapshot, Res Priest is either Tier 1 or 2. So yeah, a lot of people play it. Not necessarily because the deck is sooo enthralling, but because it is one of the go-tos for winrate, and can also occasionally end games at the speed of a hyper aggro deck, cause if you highroll your Barnes into Yshaarj etc., people concede on turn 4. So it gets wins, and can ocassionally also get them extremely fast.
I think that's the point. DK hero powers and Baku hero powers were terrible for the game, we don't want a repeat of that.
I disagree completely. These quests are tame in comparison.
The original quests usually had a relatively high cost to complete, but when completed tended to be so powerful they could carry a deck on their own (stressing this cause some, like the Hunter quest, sucked no matter what). These new quests have a relatively low cost to complete, but you need to have an entire deck built around the hero power you eventually get out of it, i.e. you can't just slap them into whatever class deck you play and they'll carry the game for you. You have the high up-front cost of losing a card from your starting hand AND not getting like a 5 mana 8/8 as a reward as you used to with some of the original quests. And then, after all is said and done, all you get is a hero power that you NEED to start taking massive advantage of very quickly to make up for the card advantage and tempo you lost by playing the quest.
These, so far, seem to be far from autoincludes. They seem to be fairly niche, which is a good thing, because we know how bad hero-power boosts are for the game (DKs, Genn and Baku). The worst thing Blizzard could do is to now give all the classes a bunch of cards that directly boost and synergize with the quests, and make all the classes all about their quest and nothing else. That would be a disaster for the game on many fronts. At most I'd give each class like 2 or 3 mid-powered cards that have some synergy with the quest and that's it. Hopefully Blizz has learned from their past mistakes.
Definitely nice for a proactive Jade Shudderwock deck. I've often found that in control matchups, the Totem hero power was more of a liability than a benefit, as it allowed easier Defiles, Godfreys, more devastating Psychic Screams, and if the opponent was wise to what you were planning, they'd just leave the totems on the board to make your Shudder worse to play. In the end, I often ended up not using the hero power even when I had mana left over. This helps me get those Jades bigger faster so that my Shudderwock is actually treatening lethal past taunts when played. Pretty nice, and hopefully very, very niche.
I already chimed in on this in a separate thread on the topic yesterday, but to add a few more points. Aside from being pretty spineless in how they just kow-tow to these senseless and unwarranted demands (yo, how about China stops being stuck in the 1700s in terms of puritan views, just a few miles east of them they got the Japanese merrily fawning over schoolgirls showing panties in every game they make...from one extreme to another in Asia it seems).
It's not just that, though, it's, above all, completely arbitrary and with no sense of logic. They censored these cards...and the rest of the cards are ok? Sanguine Reveller? Master of Disguise? Blood Warriors? Whirlwind? All of the skeleton-showing cards like Holy Smite? Apparently peeling the skin off of someone with magic is fine, but a bit of blood from eviscerating someone is not. The line that is being drawn is completely random. So not only is Blizz spinelessly kow-towing, they're doing it lazily and half-assedly too...to the point that they might as well not do it at all cause censoring 8 out of like 50 cards that could fit the description doesn't make the game any more "China-friendly" than it was before.
It's like they rushed to show they're at least doing something, while not taking the time to do it properly, or not thinking through the consequences of what they'd have to do if they start bowing down to China like this. China is not a fan of dead bodies and skeletons. They have their special Skeleton Knight art. But yet there is like a dozen skeleton minions or zombie minions in the game that nobody in China has apparently given a damn about for years. But The Skeleton Knight? Oh that was too much! (If that is the case then Shadowverse probably doesn't even exist in China, seeing as one of the classes is literally all about skeletons and zombies).
So what is it exactly? Is Blizz going to do the barest, laziest minimum like they are now and hope the Chinese are going to just wave it off, or are they actually planning to change Kel'Thuzad's art, redraw Happy Ghoul and Flesheating Ghoul, rename Corpse Taker and Meat Wagon, paint happy ponies on all the Lich King cards (including Arfus)...and essentially just remove and repaint the entire Scourge faction out of the game? they obviously can't take this China-friendly approach all the way, so why in the name of fuck are they even meddling with this in the first place?
I think the whole thing is all sorts of idiotic. Let's think about this for a second. The game was made primarily for a western audience, it's where it debuted and where it was made, so it makes complete sense that it would be stylised in a way that appeals and suits the given audience. Then another audience enters the market, and in order to appeal to them, the game forgets its origins and overhauls a bunch of art and makes new guidelines for future arts in order to appeal to that audience. In the small scale, that seems ok, right? Just get rid of blood, the game's supposed to be kid-friendly so why not, and get rid of sexually suggestive content (which kids probably wouldn't even get, so, why? but whatever). Also let's forget the fact that Garrosh is running around all naked and muscly, it's fine to use stuff like that to appeal to the female audience but god forbid we have some female suggestive characters like Succubi in the game, think of the children! Double standards all around. Fully agree with NightCrawler above.
However, China specifically is a problem territory. Don't they have a thing against depicting things like bones, human remains and stuff? So you're telling me that Roll the Bones and every, single, skeleton card in the game is up to being censored next time cause we got to appeal to the Chinese? Exclude an entire section of fantasy (necromancy) out of the game made for western audiences because the eastern audience might not like it? Next up, Kel'Thuzad will be getting a fresh new paintjob with a mask on so we don't see his skelly bits. Blizzard made its own product. If that product sells on its own merits and if there is a demand for that product in the east, that's the east's thing to deal with if there's a few things here and there that don't appeal to them. It's not like Blizzard came crawling to China to please save the game with their money, so why are the devs the ones who have to adapt? Have some integrity and principles. Stand proudly behind the product you made and say, "do you want it or not?". Don't immediately spinelessly change everything to appeal and please like you're some servant.
It's totally fine that we're murdering hundreds of minions and trying to kill our opponent with axes and fireballs, all accompanied by suitably violent screaming. But god forbid our card art has breasts, butts or any blood on them. Censor immediately! Yanking someone's guts out of their stomach (i.e. eviscerating)? No blood allowed!
We already got Togwaggle talking like a 6 year old. I think the game is already kid-friendly enough.