When you've saved up like 9000 gold since the last expansion plus have some unopened packs from pre- and post-launch events, you can easily have over a hundred packs to open every set. Each pack has 5 cards. That's 600 spacebar presses to open your packs and reveal the cards. And that's the experience for me now when I'm mostly free-to-play. In the period when I used to buy packs in addition to what I earned, I could often have double or triple that amount to open. I've been playing card games since mid-2000s. The kid in the kidstore charm is gone, I've opened way too many packs in my life to give a damn about each individual pack.
What ends up happening on launch is I just sit there, pressing spacebar 600+ times while I'm having a video playing in the background. Only after I'm done do I actually go over what I've opened. The whole thing would be infinitely more pleasant if I could just have all the cards from the packs added to my collection, then I can go have a look what I got. I don't need to spend 30+ minutes hammering the spacebar and watching pack popping animations and cards slowly turning over. It's just a needless waste of time that's preventing me from actually having fun playing the game.
Compare this to Thing from Below. 4 mana more, no taunt, +3/+3 in stats. Sure it's a Totem, you can use totem-specific spells on it but still...that ain't a great comparison to a card that came out ages ago.
That is...weird. No. 1 what the hell is Paladin doing getting cards from other classes? Priest? Sure. Rogue? Absolutely. But Paladin?? No. 2 you're playing Pure Paladin yet your value wincon will be non-Paladin legendaries? Doesn't seem very Pure (also there will be like no synergy between your deck and what you discover). No. 3 faaack is this slow. It's a war golem until you pay an extra 3 mana to discover. And while we all wish our discovers consisted of 7+ mana cards, the result might be you get a 4 coster at best on your discover and then you start really wondering why the hell you bothered playing this card. Granted, in Standard the range of discovers is going to be more limited, so depending on the class-specific Legendary pool your odds might get better, but still, that's a lot of mana investment for unreliable results.
This might be pretty grody in Wild. It's no fuss for a Mage to splurge out 2-3 secrets early on. If even one stays up by turn 4 it's bad news when this hits the board.
I have to say, I really like the diverse support classes are getting this expansion. Rogue is getting some funky miracle/spam support plus hefty secret support to build on top of undersupported archetypes from the past, Pally is going back to its roots with Silver Hand Recruits, a playstyle that hasn't seen success in a long while, Mage is getting a brand new mechanic with skellies... I like it. Here's hoping none of this ends up disgustingly overpowered so that we can actually experiment with these things, rather than get mauled from day 1 by the same 2-3 broken decks.
I mean, I'm happy DH is being given something new to do, given how limited the class has been so far (especially in Wild). I just wish it was something that has a future. I very much doubt they're gonna be printing relics after this, this feels more like a Jade situation. And in that case, this whole package is going to live and die with this expansion, and DH is gonna be back to square one.
Ey'sor is pretty damn busted. It just so happens to be by far the best card in a deck that is currently pretty much unplayable. I've won more games with Totem Shaman off of the back of Ey'sor than any other card. If it sticks one turn it's devastating, if you hold it back a bit, drop it, Lightning Bloom, then copy it with Totemic Reflection/Splitting Axe, it takes over the game on its own.
I've been burned by Board Priest attempts far too many times to put stock in this anymore. High Priest Amet couldn't do it, Stormpike Aid Station couldn't do it, this can't do it either. Sure, you can make it a straight up combo kill but the dream of a board-centric Priest is just never becoming a reality.
I'm a bit confused. Out of all these minions, the only one that really has anything going for it in the game as it is currently is Sparring Partner, as he will be considerably easier to find than Defender of Argus. The others....Yrel only provides in-combat buffs, making her fairly worthless beyond maybe a bit of a midrange push that transitions into menagerie. I see no applications for Tipper and Silverback, no idea why Silverback is even being introduced. Kooky Chemist...maaybe you can make something happen with Naga (apply Spellcraft buffs, and swap stats to make them permanent), he has very minor use on cleaves (+2 attack on hydra, a worse Virmen Sensei, +3 attack on Foe Reaper, about equal with Metaltooth given the health loss), negative synergy with demons (you want that big butt on Battlemasters, not glass cannons).
This all smells a bit like the Taunt package they introduced, then gradually wiped. Except this doesn't even have any internal synergy with each other or most anything else in the mode.
Disagreed. If you start with the Mini-Myrmidon you can have persistent, free scaling from turn 3, which no other tribe has. With that line of play, you're also mostly safe from damage on turns 1 and 2 as the Mini-Myrmidon only loses to exactly 1 minion (Scallywag), and either ties or beats the rest. So an early play that is quite logical immediately follows into permanent scaling that will keep you afloat until you get the Shoal Commander, which, funnily enough, seems to also come earlier than it should. Compare this to Prized Promo Drake + Tarecgosa. Dragons get this scaling engine at Tier 4 + 4 where Naga get it at tier 2 + 3, in addition to already having the buff target potentially prebuffed from previous turns, while Dragons sit on fuck-all for scaling outside of Chromawing until they reach Tier 4.
No other tribe can get a surefire-keep scaling target plus a free (as in, no need for repeated investment) targetable scaling engine going before tier 3. Even Demons have to keep buying demons AND paying health to scale Wrathweaver. Most tribes get it around tier 4, Quilboar at tier 3 (Bannerboar). Meanwhile in Naga-land you can just sit on your hands and the Spellcrafts just keep piling up every turn....
Wat? They left Lava Lurker on 2? Are they mental? That needs to be at least a tier 3, possibly a 4.
Also the butchering of Murlocs and Quilboar didn't seem warranted, the Tier 6's seemed to just about make them competitive. Obviously Nagas are taking a hit, but cutting endgame Murloc scaling in half does not seem a commensurate change.
Also Pirates are still a joke and have been for ages, even after the introduction of the new minions (Peggy, avenge, etc.), surprised they're not getting anything.
Props on the article but...you're out of your mind if you think Lightbomb at 5 is reasonable. Even in Wild that's be offensive (I run it in Wild Questline Priest, a meme deck, and it destroys). It's a more predictable and generally more powerful boardclear than Mass Hysteria, it deserves to be more expensive as a result.
Holy crap I must have blocked this brawl out of my mind. It's so MINDNUMBINGLY BORING! Seriously, who came up with this, played a game of it and said: "Yeah! That's exactly what I was going for!". I'd rather play classic+basic set HS than this.
I don't think it is, 3/4/3 sounds much better. If the Questline was an infinite value option for a midrange deck, it would be fine. The issue is it fits into aggro and comes out at around the time the deck slowly starts running out of steam. If it just came way too late for Aggro to even be a consideration, the effect would be perfectly fine. An Odd Warrior could use it as an inevitable finisher (similar to DMH), for instance, with doubled effect from Brann or Zola. There's no threat of that deck aggroing anybody down, hence it can have infinite value.
I...don't understand how that preserves the combo whatsoever. You pay 3 mana (!!!) to draw no cards and create a 4 mana 1/1 boar and a 1 20/20 darkness, assuming you already have them in hand. Where's the combo? I don't think that effect would see play in Priest even if it was 0 mana.
I wouldn't mind if they blanket applied this to everything, period. Nothing should summon an identical copy, just copy of the base minion. They could bundle that with the Vivid Nightmare change I suggested. Getting kinda sick of infinite Shudderwocks all the time.
When you've saved up like 9000 gold since the last expansion plus have some unopened packs from pre- and post-launch events, you can easily have over a hundred packs to open every set. Each pack has 5 cards. That's 600 spacebar presses to open your packs and reveal the cards. And that's the experience for me now when I'm mostly free-to-play. In the period when I used to buy packs in addition to what I earned, I could often have double or triple that amount to open. I've been playing card games since mid-2000s. The kid in the kidstore charm is gone, I've opened way too many packs in my life to give a damn about each individual pack.
What ends up happening on launch is I just sit there, pressing spacebar 600+ times while I'm having a video playing in the background. Only after I'm done do I actually go over what I've opened. The whole thing would be infinitely more pleasant if I could just have all the cards from the packs added to my collection, then I can go have a look what I got. I don't need to spend 30+ minutes hammering the spacebar and watching pack popping animations and cards slowly turning over. It's just a needless waste of time that's preventing me from actually having fun playing the game.
Well, more like 3 more mana cause of the Overload.
There's no way people aren't gonna make an OTK with this.
Compare this to Thing from Below. 4 mana more, no taunt, +3/+3 in stats. Sure it's a Totem, you can use totem-specific spells on it but still...that ain't a great comparison to a card that came out ages ago.
That is...weird. No. 1 what the hell is Paladin doing getting cards from other classes? Priest? Sure. Rogue? Absolutely. But Paladin?? No. 2 you're playing Pure Paladin yet your value wincon will be non-Paladin legendaries? Doesn't seem very Pure (also there will be like no synergy between your deck and what you discover). No. 3 faaack is this slow. It's a war golem until you pay an extra 3 mana to discover. And while we all wish our discovers consisted of 7+ mana cards, the result might be you get a 4 coster at best on your discover and then you start really wondering why the hell you bothered playing this card. Granted, in Standard the range of discovers is going to be more limited, so depending on the class-specific Legendary pool your odds might get better, but still, that's a lot of mana investment for unreliable results.
This might be pretty grody in Wild. It's no fuss for a Mage to splurge out 2-3 secrets early on. If even one stays up by turn 4 it's bad news when this hits the board.
I have to say, I really like the diverse support classes are getting this expansion. Rogue is getting some funky miracle/spam support plus hefty secret support to build on top of undersupported archetypes from the past, Pally is going back to its roots with Silver Hand Recruits, a playstyle that hasn't seen success in a long while, Mage is getting a brand new mechanic with skellies... I like it. Here's hoping none of this ends up disgustingly overpowered so that we can actually experiment with these things, rather than get mauled from day 1 by the same 2-3 broken decks.
Fuck that weapon scares me. So excited to face that stupid all-1-drop Odd DH in Wild again...
I mean, I'm happy DH is being given something new to do, given how limited the class has been so far (especially in Wild). I just wish it was something that has a future. I very much doubt they're gonna be printing relics after this, this feels more like a Jade situation. And in that case, this whole package is going to live and die with this expansion, and DH is gonna be back to square one.
Ey'sor is pretty damn busted. It just so happens to be by far the best card in a deck that is currently pretty much unplayable. I've won more games with Totem Shaman off of the back of Ey'sor than any other card. If it sticks one turn it's devastating, if you hold it back a bit, drop it, Lightning Bloom, then copy it with Totemic Reflection/Splitting Axe, it takes over the game on its own.
I've been burned by Board Priest attempts far too many times to put stock in this anymore. High Priest Amet couldn't do it, Stormpike Aid Station couldn't do it, this can't do it either. Sure, you can make it a straight up combo kill but the dream of a board-centric Priest is just never becoming a reality.
I'm a bit confused. Out of all these minions, the only one that really has anything going for it in the game as it is currently is Sparring Partner, as he will be considerably easier to find than Defender of Argus. The others....Yrel only provides in-combat buffs, making her fairly worthless beyond maybe a bit of a midrange push that transitions into menagerie. I see no applications for Tipper and Silverback, no idea why Silverback is even being introduced. Kooky Chemist...maaybe you can make something happen with Naga (apply Spellcraft buffs, and swap stats to make them permanent), he has very minor use on cleaves (+2 attack on hydra, a worse Virmen Sensei, +3 attack on Foe Reaper, about equal with Metaltooth given the health loss), negative synergy with demons (you want that big butt on Battlemasters, not glass cannons).
This all smells a bit like the Taunt package they introduced, then gradually wiped. Except this doesn't even have any internal synergy with each other or most anything else in the mode.
Oh wow, finally! So excited to not touch this.
Disagreed. If you start with the Mini-Myrmidon you can have persistent, free scaling from turn 3, which no other tribe has. With that line of play, you're also mostly safe from damage on turns 1 and 2 as the Mini-Myrmidon only loses to exactly 1 minion (Scallywag), and either ties or beats the rest. So an early play that is quite logical immediately follows into permanent scaling that will keep you afloat until you get the Shoal Commander, which, funnily enough, seems to also come earlier than it should. Compare this to Prized Promo Drake + Tarecgosa. Dragons get this scaling engine at Tier 4 + 4 where Naga get it at tier 2 + 3, in addition to already having the buff target potentially prebuffed from previous turns, while Dragons sit on fuck-all for scaling outside of Chromawing until they reach Tier 4.
No other tribe can get a surefire-keep scaling target plus a free (as in, no need for repeated investment) targetable scaling engine going before tier 3. Even Demons have to keep buying demons AND paying health to scale Wrathweaver. Most tribes get it around tier 4, Quilboar at tier 3 (Bannerboar). Meanwhile in Naga-land you can just sit on your hands and the Spellcrafts just keep piling up every turn....
Wat? They left Lava Lurker on 2? Are they mental? That needs to be at least a tier 3, possibly a 4.
Also the butchering of Murlocs and Quilboar didn't seem warranted, the Tier 6's seemed to just about make them competitive. Obviously Nagas are taking a hit, but cutting endgame Murloc scaling in half does not seem a commensurate change.
Also Pirates are still a joke and have been for ages, even after the introduction of the new minions (Peggy, avenge, etc.), surprised they're not getting anything.
Props on the article but...you're out of your mind if you think Lightbomb at 5 is reasonable. Even in Wild that's be offensive (I run it in Wild Questline Priest, a meme deck, and it destroys). It's a more predictable and generally more powerful boardclear than Mass Hysteria, it deserves to be more expensive as a result.
Holy crap I must have blocked this brawl out of my mind. It's so MINDNUMBINGLY BORING! Seriously, who came up with this, played a game of it and said: "Yeah! That's exactly what I was going for!". I'd rather play classic+basic set HS than this.
I don't think it is, 3/4/3 sounds much better. If the Questline was an infinite value option for a midrange deck, it would be fine. The issue is it fits into aggro and comes out at around the time the deck slowly starts running out of steam. If it just came way too late for Aggro to even be a consideration, the effect would be perfectly fine. An Odd Warrior could use it as an inevitable finisher (similar to DMH), for instance, with doubled effect from Brann or Zola. There's no threat of that deck aggroing anybody down, hence it can have infinite value.
I...don't understand how that preserves the combo whatsoever. You pay 3 mana (!!!) to draw no cards and create a 4 mana 1/1 boar and a 1 20/20 darkness, assuming you already have them in hand. Where's the combo? I don't think that effect would see play in Priest even if it was 0 mana.
I wouldn't mind if they blanket applied this to everything, period. Nothing should summon an identical copy, just copy of the base minion. They could bundle that with the Vivid Nightmare change I suggested. Getting kinda sick of infinite Shudderwocks all the time.