This is extremely disappointing. They pretty much made the smallest possible change they could have made to these cards without actually fixing the issue.
Incanter's Flow: They had the opportunity to make a stand and say that they don't want mages to play this way. It's uninteractive and obviously broken. The card is still essentially free. You pay 2 mana for it, 3 mana for it, whatever. If your deck is stuffed full of spells, it takes 2-3 spells for you to break even on mana, every spell after that turns Incanter's Flow into a free Innervate. The amount of mana you cheat with this over the course of the game is unreasonable. So yeah, you slowed down the discount by one turn. The deck is going to play the exact same way and require the exact same response: kill them as fast as possible, before they enter solitaire mode. They still have Refreshing Spring Water, which is a cheaper, one-sided Research Project. Once they've discounted the cards they can still draw just as fast and start going off on mana cheating as they did before. They had the opportunity to axe this playstyle, and even finally nerf Sorcerer's Apprentice, which, much like Aviana + Kun of old just enables like 5 different combos, and they chose not to.
Flesh Giant: Again, the smallest possible adjustment. It's still cheaper than most other giants (Mana Giant is the only one cheaper) and it's still one of the easiest to discount. It also now can't go into Even Warlock for some godsforsaken reason. So yeah, goodbye to that deck I guess. This change is barely gonna do anything. Making it cost 10 was the expected minimum, and they didn't even do that. Also worth noting that, once again, Animated Broomstick remains untouched somehow.
Darkglare: Who would have guessed it, the smallest possible adjustment. Similar to Mage, they once again could have finally said enough is enough and axed the ridiculous mana cheating and they didn't. They chose to keep the card just as broken as it was. Is it broken a turn later? Yeah, sure. All that does is promote aggro, force people to try to kill the warlock before the mana cheating becomes too much, same as they did with Incanter's Flow. They have not opened any new opportunities for control. Doesn't matter if Darkglare costs 2 or 3, or if the giant costs 8 or 9, control is not even gonna make it to turn 8. And apparently, they're perfectly fine with that. Why finally balance Raza Priest when they can just render it irrelevant. Note that Raise Dead once again also remains untouched.
As for the complete annihilation of Il'gynoth...I honestly have no explanation. I get that they don't balance for Wild specifically, but it's hilarious to me that they're ok with Mages blowing people up at incredible speed, in Wild hiding behind Ice Block and cheating insane amounts of mana with Incanter's Flows and Sorcerer's Apprentices, while DH with its one measly, noticably weaker and more vulnerable OTK gets nerfhammered by 2 mana on its key minion. Apparently DH is only supposed to do mindless aggro, nothing else is allowed. It's not like the Il'gynoth combo was even fast compared to how many other decks uninteractably kill the opponent.
Honestly, I'd leave Ignite the way it is and just finally, after years and years of this thing breaking stuff, I'd nerf the goddamn Sorcerer's Apprentice. Even if you nerf Ignite for Wild it won't make a difference. Mage still has Mozaki, APM Flamewaker, Quest all of which abuse Sorcerer's Apprentice, Incanter's Flow and the ridiculous amount of draw that Mage has. And considering these decks now kill people turn 6, and safely hide behind uninteractable Ice Blocks that only Quest Hunter naturally beats, different metas aren't going to really change the viability of these Mage OTKs. They're too fast now to be reliably countered by aggro. So unless we want to keep seeing new versions of zero interaction OTK Mages pop up every time a new expansion releases, Sorcerer's Apprentice needs to get the Summoning Portal treatment.
The payoff is often slightly better than [Hearthstone Card (lakarri sacrifice) Not Found] putting on board a 2/2, giving you a 1 attack weapon and dealing 4 damage randomly.
That is a gross misrepresentation of what the quest actually does. You're taking like 25 % of the questline and comparing that in isolation to Lakkari Sacrifice.
First off, the requirements. Lakkari Sacrifice requires you to tear your own hand to shreds. Sure, there are cards that give you a payoff for doing so. And there are a lot of cards that don't. You're at the mercy of RNG as to which ones you end up discarding to determine whether you're actively two-for-oneing yourself or getting an advantage. Meanwhile, the Warrior Quest requires you to develop your board, something you already want to be doing. I.e. there is essentially no requirement other than you have to play a Pirate deck.
Secondly, the payoff. Lakkari Sacrifice: pay 5 mana to subtract one slot from your board. You then get two 3/2s every turn. It's a massive tempo loss that brings a steady benefit in the long run...assuming we consider two easy-to-kill minions a benefit. You can easily just lose the board to a control deck since those are stuffed with minor AoE that will just wipe your quest reward every turn, while they build a board of their own. The Warrior Quest: draw a weapon for free, deal 2x2 damage for free, then get a 7/7 for 5 mana that subtracts one board slot to get you a weapon (inevitable damage), a pirate (potential damage similar to Lakkari Sacrifice) and shoots 2x2 damage (inevitable damage) every turn. Those things are not on par with each other at all.
Even ignoring the sub-rewards along the way the Warrior Questline way outshines Lakkari Sacrifice and not just because you get a 5 mana 7/7 along with it. You can't keep the Warrior Questline contained because the reward isn't two slow minions that might do something next turn. It's one slow minion and then two immediately impactful rewards that the opponent can do nothing about. Also the rewards trigger at the start of your turn so if the minion happens to have rush or charge, your opponent has no opportunity to respond to its presence.
The questline is definitely not in need of a buff. It may be the case that in standard, the deck you have to build around the questline may not be great, but that might be due to a lack of support, not due to flaws with the questline. I wouldn't know, since I don't play standard. But I can tell you that in Wild the questline is doing quite well. It's not the top dog, but at least a solid tier 2 deck that seems to be actually better than the non-quest Pirate Warriors used to be, or is at least on par with them. That's not something you'd get out of a weak questline.
Care the explain why every time you deign to comment on a thread you go out of your way to thumb down every comment above you? You're in need of some serious forum etiquette learning.
While I agree that there is exactly zero reason why Flesh Giant, of all giants, should be the cheapest, considering how easily it can be (permanenty) discounted in contrast to Mountain Giant, Molten Giant etc. it don't think destroying that card alone fixes the problem. There is still an underlying groundwork of brokenness that allows Warlock to even discount the Giant as quickly as they do (note how utterly useless the card is in Priest). Nerf the giant, definitely, but Darkglare HAS to go too. It's Darkglare that enables all of this shit in the first place and it's absurd to me that it has been allowed to exist in its current state after the first nerf. I mean they nefed it and it became the centrepiece of one of the most dominant decks in Wild's history.
There's no way I should be able to play Quest on turn 1 and then immediately seize the board on turn 2 with coin by playing 6 mana worth of stuff on turn 2 and still have mana left over. Darkglare + Tour Guide + Flame Imp + 2x Kobold Librarian and good luck to the opponent in controlling the board despite the fact I skipped my turn 1. My hand is refilled, I have tons of bodies on the board and the opponent likely has to spend their entire turn just killing the Darkglare.
They should definitely up the giant's cost to at least 10 if not 12, but it's only a matter of time until another card is printed that abuses Darkglare, giant or no, since self damage is such an integral part of Warlock identity. Tying mana cheating to the basic thing Warlocks do is just not on. Make that thing trigger only once a turn, maaaybe refresh 2 crystals instead of one to compensate, though that might still be way too generous of a mana cheat. At best you'd have a free 2/3 that requires an answer, but you can't just run away with the game within the span of a one turn from hand.
So I blew the entirety of my saved-up gold this expansion (haven't done that before, usually save a few thousand) because I knew there was a lot of legendaries I wanted. In 170 packs, I got 9 legendaries...and I didn't want any of them except one. The only one I was interested in that I got wasAnetheron. Wanted about half of the questlines and only got the Druid one. My legendaries were: Grand Magus Antonidas, Auctioneer Jaxon, the Rogue quest (that one I got off the additional free legendary off the reward track at lvl 20), the Druid Quest, The Rat King, Highlord Fordragon, Bolner Hammerbeak, Lothar, Cornelius Roame and Varian, King of Stormwind. I play Wild. All of these cards are useless.
So I then had to follow that up with blowing all of my saved-up dust (10k) to craft the questlines I actually wanted. Still missing the Warrior questline (from the ones I want, otherwise I'm also missing Mage), and realised I don't have enough dust to craft Il'gynoth, so I crafted the DH quest for nothing.
That's nice and all but it's not like they had much of an option to say anything else if they wanted to save face. This coming from Kotick of all people doesn't mean jack. I'm sure one of the most overpaid CEOs in the world that gets millions upon millions in bonuses every year while his staff goes underpaid for the hard work they put in and then get jettisoned, hundreds at a time, so that the company can boast record revenues, is very much in touch with what is happening at the ground level, understands his workers (barf) and is fully capable of enforcing whatever lofty policies he thinks up to look good in the news. And yeah, they can "terminate" the offenders. But there's unceremonious, disgraceful firings and then there's the Ubisoft way of handling sexual predators. I'd be surprised if they didn't go for the latter. Pick a few scapegoats to axe (getting severance and getting to keep their options in the company) while the perpetrators on the executive level get to play dead for a while until it blows over.
Considering the site you're posting this on, one would think you know exactly why the reveal season has been so janky, given that it's been plastered all over the front page.
Glide is always a full completion of a step, since you draw a card at the start of your turn. Similarly, Skull of Guldan needs to hit only one card draw card to complete a step.
I...guess this could be useful in some form of OTK? Ilgynoth OTK wants to draw a lot of cards to get all the pieces, and getting discounts on the card draw makes completing the other steps easier. Could make for a decent imitation of the Refreshing Spring Water card draw insanity. Add to that some Soul Fragment cards to make drawing multiples per turn even easier and this might be quite easy to complete. Arguably the final reward may not even be needed, but after 2 draws Kurtrus has almost paid for himself so it's not like you could even argue he's slow. Hell, he might be a better Thaurissan, since he gives you an automatic double discount on everything you draw in the future. Question is whether the OTK is any good though.
In Wild in a dedicated Mech deck or with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, this might not be bad. Water Elemental stats are hard to take down in one shot, giving you usually 4 parts at least and once you're Dr. Boom all the golems you get have rush. Plus getting a free golem at the start of your turn makes a good magnetic target for your Rushers or otherwise. A free +2/+1 on a Zilliax ain't too bad.
Obviously there's no deck currently that plays a mech gameplan or even relies on Dr. Boom in some major way so this card's desperate for a home somewhere. But in isolation this isn't bad. It just needs a place to shine as a solid midrange dude.
In that case you should uninstall every non-indie game you own. It's fair to say almost every development team is passionate about the game they spent so much time making, and they want their players to be happy with what they made. But on the corporate level...AAA companies don't give a fuck about the players, just their money. If they get a nice juicy paycheck out of you and then you quit in disgust after two months, you're still more "valuable" to them than a passionate, loyal free2play player that has never sent them a cent. If they could make the same money burning garbage rather than trying to sell games, they would. Most of the execs probably don't even know what games are.
I don't know if it shines as much of a spotlight as we might want. Similar shit has happened in Ubisoft (as in, there have been lawsuits about this) and they've gone on like nothing has happened since the lawsuit ended. Couple high-level execs got allowed to leave with a nice, juicy severance package and even got to keep their shares and options in Ubi and that was it. Very much doubt the corporate culture in there has changed much given how they handled the outcome. They're just gonna be more careful that it doesn't become public again, if anything.
A strange move on Blizzard's part. I don't care whether there's a reveal season or not, that's not what gives me pause. I just don't quite understand what them cancelling the reveal season is supposed to do for them. Does it save face in any way? Is it meant to say something?
It's completely understandable for people to cancel their reveal so that they don't look like they promote Blizzard at this time. Though I wonder how many people would have still revealed their card if Allie hadn't cancelled hers first. We'll never know.
Either way, the reason I find this strange is that it's not like Blizzard has been convicted of anything. They've just been sued. And that status is not going to change any time soon. The lawsuit can drag on for months, if not years. Is Blizzard going to not do a spoiler season for any of their content until the lawsuit is settled? Hardly. So at some point they're just gonna have to shrug and move on like normal, whether the issue is resolved or not. Hell, even if they lose in court they're gonna do that. They won't just stay shamefully quiet forever. So what exactly did they expect this PR move to achieve? Are they waiting till it blows over, people forget and they can get on like normal (a la Ubisoft or, hell, a la the Blitzchung incident)? They can't be doing this to show solidarity with those affected, cause that would be an admission that this bad shit has been happening. So what are they trying to say with this?
Not even close. Illidari Inquisitor is 8 to face plus 8 to a minion, which then threatens 16 to face the next turn if it sticks around, 24 if you draw a second one. This is 8 to face plus 8 armor. That's it. A 7/7 Taunt body, sure. But you get one use of this and you're done. No duplicates unless you go out of your way to copy this, no threatened lethal next turn if it sticks around. One swing to face or gross overkill on a minion and that's all you get. And you only get to do this by stacking absurd amounts of attack on your hero over several turns, which has historically never been good in Druid. You don't have to go out of your way to smash your opponent with Illidari Inquisitor. You just put it in your deck and use your hero power once, no prerequisites.
Maaybe this could make for an OTK deck with Brukan, doublecasting your spelldamaged Lightning Bolts and stuff to your opponent's face. However, given the fact Shaman has had access to this sort of playstyle for a long time in the form of Malygos + Ancestral Call and it was always horrible, don't think adding all these extra steps is gonna work out. Maybe there might be some sort of value Shaman available with overload shenanigans, like the Snowfury Spellstone deck of old. I mean, doublecasting your spells when you're Hagatha could be pretty damn neat.
This is extremely disappointing. They pretty much made the smallest possible change they could have made to these cards without actually fixing the issue.
Incanter's Flow: They had the opportunity to make a stand and say that they don't want mages to play this way. It's uninteractive and obviously broken. The card is still essentially free. You pay 2 mana for it, 3 mana for it, whatever. If your deck is stuffed full of spells, it takes 2-3 spells for you to break even on mana, every spell after that turns Incanter's Flow into a free Innervate. The amount of mana you cheat with this over the course of the game is unreasonable. So yeah, you slowed down the discount by one turn. The deck is going to play the exact same way and require the exact same response: kill them as fast as possible, before they enter solitaire mode. They still have Refreshing Spring Water, which is a cheaper, one-sided Research Project. Once they've discounted the cards they can still draw just as fast and start going off on mana cheating as they did before. They had the opportunity to axe this playstyle, and even finally nerf Sorcerer's Apprentice, which, much like Aviana + Kun of old just enables like 5 different combos, and they chose not to.
Flesh Giant: Again, the smallest possible adjustment. It's still cheaper than most other giants (Mana Giant is the only one cheaper) and it's still one of the easiest to discount. It also now can't go into Even Warlock for some godsforsaken reason. So yeah, goodbye to that deck I guess. This change is barely gonna do anything. Making it cost 10 was the expected minimum, and they didn't even do that. Also worth noting that, once again, Animated Broomstick remains untouched somehow.
Darkglare: Who would have guessed it, the smallest possible adjustment. Similar to Mage, they once again could have finally said enough is enough and axed the ridiculous mana cheating and they didn't. They chose to keep the card just as broken as it was. Is it broken a turn later? Yeah, sure. All that does is promote aggro, force people to try to kill the warlock before the mana cheating becomes too much, same as they did with Incanter's Flow. They have not opened any new opportunities for control. Doesn't matter if Darkglare costs 2 or 3, or if the giant costs 8 or 9, control is not even gonna make it to turn 8. And apparently, they're perfectly fine with that. Why finally balance Raza Priest when they can just render it irrelevant. Note that Raise Dead once again also remains untouched.
As for the complete annihilation of Il'gynoth...I honestly have no explanation. I get that they don't balance for Wild specifically, but it's hilarious to me that they're ok with Mages blowing people up at incredible speed, in Wild hiding behind Ice Block and cheating insane amounts of mana with Incanter's Flows and Sorcerer's Apprentices, while DH with its one measly, noticably weaker and more vulnerable OTK gets nerfhammered by 2 mana on its key minion. Apparently DH is only supposed to do mindless aggro, nothing else is allowed. It's not like the Il'gynoth combo was even fast compared to how many other decks uninteractably kill the opponent.
Honestly, I'd leave Ignite the way it is and just finally, after years and years of this thing breaking stuff, I'd nerf the goddamn Sorcerer's Apprentice. Even if you nerf Ignite for Wild it won't make a difference. Mage still has Mozaki, APM Flamewaker, Quest all of which abuse Sorcerer's Apprentice, Incanter's Flow and the ridiculous amount of draw that Mage has. And considering these decks now kill people turn 6, and safely hide behind uninteractable Ice Blocks that only Quest Hunter naturally beats, different metas aren't going to really change the viability of these Mage OTKs. They're too fast now to be reliably countered by aggro. So unless we want to keep seeing new versions of zero interaction OTK Mages pop up every time a new expansion releases, Sorcerer's Apprentice needs to get the Summoning Portal treatment.
That is a gross misrepresentation of what the quest actually does. You're taking like 25 % of the questline and comparing that in isolation to Lakkari Sacrifice.
First off, the requirements. Lakkari Sacrifice requires you to tear your own hand to shreds. Sure, there are cards that give you a payoff for doing so. And there are a lot of cards that don't. You're at the mercy of RNG as to which ones you end up discarding to determine whether you're actively two-for-oneing yourself or getting an advantage. Meanwhile, the Warrior Quest requires you to develop your board, something you already want to be doing. I.e. there is essentially no requirement other than you have to play a Pirate deck.
Secondly, the payoff. Lakkari Sacrifice: pay 5 mana to subtract one slot from your board. You then get two 3/2s every turn. It's a massive tempo loss that brings a steady benefit in the long run...assuming we consider two easy-to-kill minions a benefit. You can easily just lose the board to a control deck since those are stuffed with minor AoE that will just wipe your quest reward every turn, while they build a board of their own. The Warrior Quest: draw a weapon for free, deal 2x2 damage for free, then get a 7/7 for 5 mana that subtracts one board slot to get you a weapon (inevitable damage), a pirate (potential damage similar to Lakkari Sacrifice) and shoots 2x2 damage (inevitable damage) every turn. Those things are not on par with each other at all.
Even ignoring the sub-rewards along the way the Warrior Questline way outshines Lakkari Sacrifice and not just because you get a 5 mana 7/7 along with it. You can't keep the Warrior Questline contained because the reward isn't two slow minions that might do something next turn. It's one slow minion and then two immediately impactful rewards that the opponent can do nothing about. Also the rewards trigger at the start of your turn so if the minion happens to have rush or charge, your opponent has no opportunity to respond to its presence.
The questline is definitely not in need of a buff. It may be the case that in standard, the deck you have to build around the questline may not be great, but that might be due to a lack of support, not due to flaws with the questline. I wouldn't know, since I don't play standard. But I can tell you that in Wild the questline is doing quite well. It's not the top dog, but at least a solid tier 2 deck that seems to be actually better than the non-quest Pirate Warriors used to be, or is at least on par with them. That's not something you'd get out of a weak questline.
Care the explain why every time you deign to comment on a thread you go out of your way to thumb down every comment above you? You're in need of some serious forum etiquette learning.
While I agree that there is exactly zero reason why Flesh Giant, of all giants, should be the cheapest, considering how easily it can be (permanenty) discounted in contrast to Mountain Giant, Molten Giant etc. it don't think destroying that card alone fixes the problem. There is still an underlying groundwork of brokenness that allows Warlock to even discount the Giant as quickly as they do (note how utterly useless the card is in Priest). Nerf the giant, definitely, but Darkglare HAS to go too. It's Darkglare that enables all of this shit in the first place and it's absurd to me that it has been allowed to exist in its current state after the first nerf. I mean they nefed it and it became the centrepiece of one of the most dominant decks in Wild's history.
There's no way I should be able to play Quest on turn 1 and then immediately seize the board on turn 2 with coin by playing 6 mana worth of stuff on turn 2 and still have mana left over. Darkglare + Tour Guide + Flame Imp + 2x Kobold Librarian and good luck to the opponent in controlling the board despite the fact I skipped my turn 1. My hand is refilled, I have tons of bodies on the board and the opponent likely has to spend their entire turn just killing the Darkglare.
They should definitely up the giant's cost to at least 10 if not 12, but it's only a matter of time until another card is printed that abuses Darkglare, giant or no, since self damage is such an integral part of Warlock identity. Tying mana cheating to the basic thing Warlocks do is just not on. Make that thing trigger only once a turn, maaaybe refresh 2 crystals instead of one to compensate, though that might still be way too generous of a mana cheat. At best you'd have a free 2/3 that requires an answer, but you can't just run away with the game within the span of a one turn from hand.
So I blew the entirety of my saved-up gold this expansion (haven't done that before, usually save a few thousand) because I knew there was a lot of legendaries I wanted. In 170 packs, I got 9 legendaries...and I didn't want any of them except one. The only one I was interested in that I got wasAnetheron. Wanted about half of the questlines and only got the Druid one. My legendaries were: Grand Magus Antonidas, Auctioneer Jaxon, the Rogue quest (that one I got off the additional free legendary off the reward track at lvl 20), the Druid Quest, The Rat King, Highlord Fordragon, Bolner Hammerbeak, Lothar, Cornelius Roame and Varian, King of Stormwind. I play Wild. All of these cards are useless.
So I then had to follow that up with blowing all of my saved-up dust (10k) to craft the questlines I actually wanted. Still missing the Warrior questline (from the ones I want, otherwise I'm also missing Mage), and realised I don't have enough dust to craft Il'gynoth, so I crafted the DH quest for nothing.
That's nice and all but it's not like they had much of an option to say anything else if they wanted to save face. This coming from Kotick of all people doesn't mean jack. I'm sure one of the most overpaid CEOs in the world that gets millions upon millions in bonuses every year while his staff goes underpaid for the hard work they put in and then get jettisoned, hundreds at a time, so that the company can boast record revenues, is very much in touch with what is happening at the ground level, understands his workers (barf) and is fully capable of enforcing whatever lofty policies he thinks up to look good in the news. And yeah, they can "terminate" the offenders. But there's unceremonious, disgraceful firings and then there's the Ubisoft way of handling sexual predators. I'd be surprised if they didn't go for the latter. Pick a few scapegoats to axe (getting severance and getting to keep their options in the company) while the perpetrators on the executive level get to play dead for a while until it blows over.
Considering the site you're posting this on, one would think you know exactly why the reveal season has been so janky, given that it's been plastered all over the front page.
I wonder how this interacts with Zul'jin. If you transform does it bring the cost of your hero power back up?
This + 2x Sorcerer's Apprentice + 2x Ignite as your only spells could be a hilariously janky OTK.
I wonder how this interacts with Zul'jin. If you transform does it bring the cost of your hero power back up?
Glide is always a full completion of a step, since you draw a card at the start of your turn. Similarly, Skull of Guldan needs to hit only one card draw card to complete a step.
I...guess this could be useful in some form of OTK? Ilgynoth OTK wants to draw a lot of cards to get all the pieces, and getting discounts on the card draw makes completing the other steps easier. Could make for a decent imitation of the Refreshing Spring Water card draw insanity. Add to that some Soul Fragment cards to make drawing multiples per turn even easier and this might be quite easy to complete. Arguably the final reward may not even be needed, but after 2 draws Kurtrus has almost paid for himself so it's not like you could even argue he's slow. Hell, he might be a better Thaurissan, since he gives you an automatic double discount on everything you draw in the future. Question is whether the OTK is any good though.
In Wild in a dedicated Mech deck or with Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, this might not be bad. Water Elemental stats are hard to take down in one shot, giving you usually 4 parts at least and once you're Dr. Boom all the golems you get have rush. Plus getting a free golem at the start of your turn makes a good magnetic target for your Rushers or otherwise. A free +2/+1 on a Zilliax ain't too bad.
Obviously there's no deck currently that plays a mech gameplan or even relies on Dr. Boom in some major way so this card's desperate for a home somewhere. But in isolation this isn't bad. It just needs a place to shine as a solid midrange dude.
In that case you should uninstall every non-indie game you own. It's fair to say almost every development team is passionate about the game they spent so much time making, and they want their players to be happy with what they made. But on the corporate level...AAA companies don't give a fuck about the players, just their money. If they get a nice juicy paycheck out of you and then you quit in disgust after two months, you're still more "valuable" to them than a passionate, loyal free2play player that has never sent them a cent. If they could make the same money burning garbage rather than trying to sell games, they would. Most of the execs probably don't even know what games are.
I don't know if it shines as much of a spotlight as we might want. Similar shit has happened in Ubisoft (as in, there have been lawsuits about this) and they've gone on like nothing has happened since the lawsuit ended. Couple high-level execs got allowed to leave with a nice, juicy severance package and even got to keep their shares and options in Ubi and that was it. Very much doubt the corporate culture in there has changed much given how they handled the outcome. They're just gonna be more careful that it doesn't become public again, if anything.
A strange move on Blizzard's part. I don't care whether there's a reveal season or not, that's not what gives me pause. I just don't quite understand what them cancelling the reveal season is supposed to do for them. Does it save face in any way? Is it meant to say something?
It's completely understandable for people to cancel their reveal so that they don't look like they promote Blizzard at this time. Though I wonder how many people would have still revealed their card if Allie hadn't cancelled hers first. We'll never know.
Either way, the reason I find this strange is that it's not like Blizzard has been convicted of anything. They've just been sued. And that status is not going to change any time soon. The lawsuit can drag on for months, if not years. Is Blizzard going to not do a spoiler season for any of their content until the lawsuit is settled? Hardly. So at some point they're just gonna have to shrug and move on like normal, whether the issue is resolved or not. Hell, even if they lose in court they're gonna do that. They won't just stay shamefully quiet forever. So what exactly did they expect this PR move to achieve? Are they waiting till it blows over, people forget and they can get on like normal (a la Ubisoft or, hell, a la the Blitzchung incident)? They can't be doing this to show solidarity with those affected, cause that would be an admission that this bad shit has been happening. So what are they trying to say with this?
Not even close. Illidari Inquisitor is 8 to face plus 8 to a minion, which then threatens 16 to face the next turn if it sticks around, 24 if you draw a second one. This is 8 to face plus 8 armor. That's it. A 7/7 Taunt body, sure. But you get one use of this and you're done. No duplicates unless you go out of your way to copy this, no threatened lethal next turn if it sticks around. One swing to face or gross overkill on a minion and that's all you get. And you only get to do this by stacking absurd amounts of attack on your hero over several turns, which has historically never been good in Druid. You don't have to go out of your way to smash your opponent with Illidari Inquisitor. You just put it in your deck and use your hero power once, no prerequisites.
You don't need to play both Bru'kans on the same turn. The Lightning Bloom is an unnecessary extra step.
Maaybe this could make for an OTK deck with Brukan, doublecasting your spelldamaged Lightning Bolts and stuff to your opponent's face. However, given the fact Shaman has had access to this sort of playstyle for a long time in the form of Malygos + Ancestral Call and it was always horrible, don't think adding all these extra steps is gonna work out. Maybe there might be some sort of value Shaman available with overload shenanigans, like the Snowfury Spellstone deck of old. I mean, doublecasting your spells when you're Hagatha could be pretty damn neat.