Not sure this is as great as it looks. The requirement is very reminiscent of the original Hunter quest (though it's not restricted to minions) and while the reward is considerably better and comes in stages, the requirement might just be what kills it. You can't just keep slamming down 1-drops, particularly after already skipping your turn 1, and expect to hold control of the board for long. The Light's Justice isn't going to help much in that regard. By the time your hero power is upgraded, it may be too late. Odd Paladin players know what it's like to be pushing the hero power button from behind. It's like you're doing nothing. The opponent just safely clears off your 1/1s and continues snowballing their advantage and crunching down your life total. And the fact that your deck has to be stuffed with 1-cost cards won't help you climb back into the game.
As for Wild...no. Definitely not. If your gameplan revolves around building a board and pushing damage to your opponent's face, you can't afford to start making headway on that gameplan somewhere around turn 6 (provided you played Carriel on 5). Midrange has been dead for a long time and this won't change that. You won't feel particularly great about your 6/6 worth of stats for 2 mana when you're facing down Res Priest, Celestial Alignment, Voidlords, Darkglare or Mozaki, and if you're facing anything proactive, you're on your death's bed by that point. I wish it wasn't the case, since I preferred Silver Hand Pally back when it was a midrange deck with Justicar Trueheart over the aggro variant. But it's just not the game we're playing anymore.
So...Shuffle Rogue, Pig Priest, Duplicate Mage. Can't think of any other decks that could pull this off. Out of this list, Rogue seems to have the easiest time making multiples of these, but they struggle to kill them off.
I sincerely hope this ends up a clunky fun deck. Cause if this is meta i.e. a deck you can actually play without losing most of your games, the meta will be miserable.
Dunno about Standard but in Wild I'm pretty sure the nerf kills Token Druid...or, well, re-kills, since the deck is mostly dead already. Anyway, there's a world of difference between it being 1 or 2 mana. If a Wild Token Druid went first with Gibberling in hand, you might as well call it right there, cause you were dead around turn 4 (sometimes turn 3). Now the pressure would start a turn later and give the opposing player many more options to deal with the card before it can grow out of control. A turn 2 Gibberling followed by an Innervated +1/+1 board buff dies to a Breath of the Infinite, for instance, where previously the Druid would follow that up with another board buff on turn 2 before you even get to coin the Breath. I'm sure there are similarly unclearable scenarios in Standard that are now solvable when the problem starts a turn behind the curve.
Apotheosis was a problem even without Samuro just because of how much health they'lll regain with just a single large minion
Except the nerf changes nothing about that. It doesn't matter if your opponent winds up with an 8/9 or a 9/10, they still regain a crapton of health and have a beefy boy left over after. In mid-game tug-of-war situations over the board, the lifesteal is mostly irrelevant since at that point most damage will have gone into the minions. In that scenario, the nerf to Apotheosis essentially kills the card, because on small to mid-sized minions the -1/-1 is a big deal. So the nerf has changed nothing significant on big minions and absolutely massacred the card in situations where nerfs weren't really warranted. All of that to essentially nerf just the interaction with Samuro. I don't play Standard but I watch it on Youtube a fair bit and not once have I seen a streamer groan about Apotheosis on anything other than specifically Samuro. Because most of the time, you want to kill all Priest minions anyway so they can't value trade them and heal or buff them in a myriad of ways. But when you stick it on a rush minion, which Priest doesn't normally get access to outside neutrals, and stick AoE on the lifesteal, then it's a problem. And it's a problem only Samuro creates.
As for people not complaining about Samuro, @Avalon, I'd say a good portion of the reason is that many (not all) of the decks that include it or could include it aren't top of the meta for other reasons, so if you get blown out by Samuro in the midgame every 1 in 15 games, it doesn't stick as much. When Handbuff Paladin was doing well in Wild (pre-Crabrider nerf, pretty much), the card was absolutely backbreaking. Between it, Broomstick and unnerfed Crabrider, all of which get pulled by Crystology, there was pretty much no hope for any deck to maintain a board against it.
Not a Standard player myself but I feel the Apotheosis nerf is kinda...misplaced. It's Samuro that's the problem, not a 3 mana +2/+3. Samuro is like the fucking Crabrider, a neutral minion that goes into essentially every deck capable of buffing the guy. Handbuff Pally plays it in Wild and even +1/+1 on the guy turns it into Consecration that leaves a body behind. But usually it's more of a Flamestrike for 4 mana...with a body afterwards.
Between this and Animated Broomstick, they devs are essentially starting to turn minions into removal spells with an upside, to the point where if you just play an honest dude with some stats on the board, you're left standing there like an idiot when your opponent Battlecries and Rushes your board into oblivion. Instead of these abilities coming at a premium, they're being slapped onto already decent minions that are just asking to be broken.
It's good that abomination of a card Gibberling is getting its overdue nerf, but there's still plenty left they've released since Scholomance that's out of line.
Genuine question: is there anyone that actually cares about Malfurion and his story? I haven't played WoW so I don't have that perspective, but to me Malfurion ranks alongside Uther as one of the most boring, one-note characters in WC3. They're like...Obi Wan if they took all the interesting bits out.
Considering you're failing to even identify what an aggro deck is there is little point debating your bias. Your list of problematic aggro decks contains...33 % actual aggro decks. But hey, as long as you dislike it, I guess it qualifies as aggro to you. But you might as well be picking at random and your argument would be about as valid.
While I also don't like the fact they just chose to hide the problem instead of fixing it, or rather they knowingly chose to release an obviously imbalanced piece of mana cheating for Warlock in the first place for like the 6th time without learning their lesson (Skull, Voidcaller, Possessed Lackey, Bloodbloom, Darkglare, now this...about the only piece of mana cheating Warlock never abused is Cho'Gall), your critique is missing a crucial point.
There's a world of difference between an oppressive aggro deck, an oppressive control deck and an oppressive combo deck. Obviously, every time a deck is oppressive, it's a problem. It warps the meta into a state where decks that aren't good against the oppressive deck get completely pushed out of the game (think control vs Raza Priest...most control has vanished since the unnerf to Raza). Strategies that have a hefty foundation and history just disappear because their most common matchup is nearly unwinnable. And while on the surface of it the meta looks healthy and the oppressive deck may not even be boasting a great winrate, the reason is that the only decks that remain in the meta are the ones the deck struggles against. Everything else is completely removed from the statistics, it's not allowed to exist.
Now the difference, and the point I think you're missing, is that each type of oppressive deck has a different effect on the meta. If an aggressive deck is oppresive, it pushes all decks that aren't able to keep pace with it out of the meta. Slower aggro decks than it vanish. Control that can't keep the aggro under control get weeded out and only the hyper-streamlined ones remain, often without a wincon other than surviving. Combos that are either too slow (and thus die over time) or too greedy (not enough early defense) have to optimise into a state where they can keep pace, otherwise they also completely vanish (Quest Mage is a prime example). Midrange mostly disappears. While that is not a healthy meta, it's a meta that forces all decks to adapt a faster pace or die to the main threat. And since the main threat is mostly just minions being on board, that's a goal that can be achieved in a variety of ways.
But when a combo deck becomes oppressive, it's game over. Aggro once again has to go hyperaggro (think the current odd DH that consists of almost nothing but little fucking 1-drop assholes) to kill the combo before it goes off. All decks that can't do that vanish. Midrange has no chance, control has no chance, any slower combo decks have no chance. In fact unless the combo deck is specifically vulnerable to certain tech cards everyone has access to (which Explosive Runes isn't), most non-aggro decks have no chance. Literally the only way to combat an oppressive combo deck is to kill it fast or tech it out (and then you have to draw the tech card before they kill you, so it's not like it's guaranteed).
The devs have to react to oppressive combo decks much more quickly than to oppresive aggro decks, because combo decks being on top forces a supremely unhealthy meta that consists solely of aggro, tech decks and even faster combos.
Sigh... Ok, let me spell it out for you, cause apparently you need that. They mention in the very first sentence that they're banning it in Wild. No mention of Standard. They follow with "After deliberating on the appropriate action, we’ve decided to ban the card in order to maintain its current, and healthier, function in standard". They reference the ban in Wild they've already mentioned with "we've decided to ban the card". They're NOT now saying "'we've decided to ban the card in Standard". They ARE saying they've decided to ban the card in Wild in order to MAINTAIN its current function in Standard. How can you tell? Simple logic. If they were banning it in both Wild and Standard, where exactly would the card be retaining its current, healthier function? IT WOULD BE BANNED IN ALL FORMATS.
This did not need to happen at all. They can keep the game balanced without bans, all they needed to do is to adhere the very basic logic of card games. Card games are balanced around costs. At certain costs, you can expect certain power levels and certain levels of responses. If you start fucking around with the cost, things start breaking. I would understand if there was some unforseen interaction where, say, 2-3 cards, when put together, allowed you to pay life for cards and then you slap immune on top of it as a 3rd/4th piece and it's broken. But no, they literally created a one-card enabler for mana cheating. It didn't have to be Immune that breaks it, it could be an overabundance of armor gain or healing and you have the same issue. You can avoid all of that if you just don't make cards that say "you now aren't limited by mana". Mana is there for a reason. You take it away and you've suddenly removed the core balancing mechanic you put into the game in the first place. They saw what happened with Bloodbloom and then they printed a better version of it.
There is no reason to affect any other mechanics other then blood magic. CosmX's idea is perfectly logical and in line with something like MtG. Mana is part of the cost. Unless the cost is reduced to 0, you can't just skip it. If you're immune, you can't pay the health required so you can't play the card. I mean the game already prevents you from playing cards for life if you don't have enough life to pay the cost. why should it allow you to play cards for health if your health is completely immovable.
Alternatively, Immune could only affect damage (minion attacks, weapon swings/backswings) not payment of life. In MtG this is differentiated as "damage" and "lose life", damage can be prevented, loss of life cannot. Hard to say whether HS has the systems to implement that.
That would definitely be a hard no for me. I loved the first dungeon runs. Played them a ton with all the classes, experimented a lot. And once Bob's Tavern was added, it became even more interesting. But what I was looking forward to after that was new solo content not retreading the old. And no, Book of Heroes sure ain't it, that, for me, is just wasted development time, it's dull as dishwater.
Aside from that, it also seems like the HS team is stretched thin enough as is, without adding another thing to the plate. Let's see. The only formats that seem to receive what I would deem a proper amount of support is Standard and maybe Battlegrounds. BGs have received a burst of content recently but before that, after the removal of the Darkmoon Prizes, it was real samey and uninteresting for quite a while and I would definitely not call the format balanced. Wild has been in need of balancing for quite some time IMO (the same three to four oppressive decks have been dominating the meta for like a year) and nothing of significance has happened. Tavern Brawls are an afterthought. Duels need a complete overhaul/redesign/scrapping and coming up with something else, cause they're flawed from the very fundamental concept (you can have fun with builds and treasures in dungeon runs against the AI, you can't have much fun when all opponents are tryharding you, that will never change). Can't speak for Arena, haven't played it in years. I dread to think what the state of Mercenaries is going to be.
All these things need attention, that's not even mentioning the development of future sets and mini-sets. Adding constant updates to old Dungeon Runs when the team is obviously already struggling doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment of resources. When all modes receive their proper amount of attention, we can consider things like this. We're not anywhere close to there yet.
Wild perspective: Surprisingly reasonable patch, all things considered. The Spring Water nerf gives APMage a huge gaping hole on the 4 mana turn, and the inability to draw for free may force the deck to go off a turn later, or may potentially break the combo when they do go off. Doesn't make the underlying brokenness any better though and that's concerning. They did a similar thing with Aggro Token Druid, where the absolutely crazy shit they could do is still possible, they just hurt their refill so people felt demotivated to play the deck. The things the deck did well, it still does just as well and it's still just as uninteractable. And it's only going to take one or two cards to make it just as broken as it was before because none of the key stuff was touched (Flamewaker, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Incanter's Flow in the case of APMage, Embiggen, Pirate package, Gibberling, Adorable Infestation in the case of Aggro Token Druid.)
The wrecking of Crabrider is well deserved, though the fact that Animated Broomstick is still somehow left intact baffles me. There's absolutely no way a Neutral 1/1 for 1 should be doing as much as that thing does. It would be absurd and complained about if it were class-specific, in Neutral it's just unacceptable. Either raise the cost, or make it give Rush to one guy. Doesn't even make sense flavour-wise that an entire board can ride the one damn broomstick anyway.
First Day of School not being literally the single best turn 1 card outside of Pirates is also nice. Now you actually need a reason to play the card (e.g. handbuffing), rather than this being the default.
From the others...the N'Zoth buff would be interesting for Wild if playing a control game was actually possible. You can put it in like an Odd Taunt Druid now or in Reno Hunter but you fold to the plethora of combo decks out there and most aggro is too fast, so why do you bother? And when it comes to control mirrors the two Priests and Warlock have a chokehold on that anyway. Plus it's now the only Old God that doesn't cost 10, which is weird.
The Shieldmaiden buff is nice, but doesn't change anything for Odd Warrior's viability. You don't have the luxury of armoring up for 5 mana against aggro, control laughs at your attempt to develop a board with a 5 mana 5/5, and the lack of any win condition, especially after the loss of Elysiana leaves the deck dead in the water.
Unbound Elemental's improved stats are definitely a step in the right direction, but doesn't fix the fact the card is just awkward to play in an Overload-centric deck, as are all non-Overload cards. If you're playing a classic Overload Shaman curve, you drop Tunnel Trogg on 1, Totem Golem/Jade Claws on 2 and then you're locked out of your Unbound Elemental mana. Essentially, outside of the turn 1 play of Tunnel Trogg or Surging Tempest, you want to string Overload cards one after another. When you play an Overload card, you get a powerful effect for cheaper now at the cost of tempo later. But if you then follow that up with another Overload card, you never really lose the tempo because you never really pay "full mana" for anything. When you start having to weave in non-overload cards like Unbound Elemental, it gets really awkward because you're forced to play them off curve, on turn 4 or 5. +1 attack on Unbound Elemental doesn't fix that. A reduction in mana cost would.
Woohoo at last! It's always been a desire of mine in fantasy to play as...spiky...pigs? W-wait what? Why is this a thing? Unless they intend to give the tribe some actual synergy, this is about as impactful as slapping the Undead tag on Flesheating Ghoul or Troll tag on Gurubashi Berzerker.
This has the same issue as the whole metoo thing. It's good that abusers and rapists face punishment for their actions, as these people usually just get off the hook easy in a court of law due to a lack of evidence. On the other hand, people no longer get judged in the court of law, they get judged in the court of public opinion now. All it takes is for one person to say something about you and bam, your life is ruined, even if they were lying and malicious in their intent. It turns into a she said he said and the accused person generally ends up being ostracized regardless of circumstances. But unless people just carry voice recording devices on them at all times there really is no other way to flush out the abusers than to speak out. In an ideal world, none of this would be necessary because people would be fucking reasonable. But I won't pretend I have any understanding of what motivates abusers to do what they do. One would think you get into a relationship because you care about the other person, but what do I know. From what I can tell being sane is going out of fashion fast.
Seems like a thoroughly inefficient way of doing things. Essentially the more skins there'd be in the game, the more "classes" would be in the game to patch. What starts as just a jpeg with a few voicelines becomes way more of a hassle than it's worth. If they really implemented skins this way, and this bug really suggests that they did, then they fucked up big time.
Not sure this is as great as it looks. The requirement is very reminiscent of the original Hunter quest (though it's not restricted to minions) and while the reward is considerably better and comes in stages, the requirement might just be what kills it. You can't just keep slamming down 1-drops, particularly after already skipping your turn 1, and expect to hold control of the board for long. The Light's Justice isn't going to help much in that regard. By the time your hero power is upgraded, it may be too late. Odd Paladin players know what it's like to be pushing the hero power button from behind. It's like you're doing nothing. The opponent just safely clears off your 1/1s and continues snowballing their advantage and crunching down your life total. And the fact that your deck has to be stuffed with 1-cost cards won't help you climb back into the game.
As for Wild...no. Definitely not. If your gameplan revolves around building a board and pushing damage to your opponent's face, you can't afford to start making headway on that gameplan somewhere around turn 6 (provided you played Carriel on 5). Midrange has been dead for a long time and this won't change that. You won't feel particularly great about your 6/6 worth of stats for 2 mana when you're facing down Res Priest, Celestial Alignment, Voidlords, Darkglare or Mozaki, and if you're facing anything proactive, you're on your death's bed by that point. I wish it wasn't the case, since I preferred Silver Hand Pally back when it was a midrange deck with Justicar Trueheart over the aggro variant. But it's just not the game we're playing anymore.
So...Shuffle Rogue, Pig Priest, Duplicate Mage. Can't think of any other decks that could pull this off. Out of this list, Rogue seems to have the easiest time making multiples of these, but they struggle to kill them off.
I sincerely hope this ends up a clunky fun deck. Cause if this is meta i.e. a deck you can actually play without losing most of your games, the meta will be miserable.
Dunno about Standard but in Wild I'm pretty sure the nerf kills Token Druid...or, well, re-kills, since the deck is mostly dead already. Anyway, there's a world of difference between it being 1 or 2 mana. If a Wild Token Druid went first with Gibberling in hand, you might as well call it right there, cause you were dead around turn 4 (sometimes turn 3). Now the pressure would start a turn later and give the opposing player many more options to deal with the card before it can grow out of control. A turn 2 Gibberling followed by an Innervated +1/+1 board buff dies to a Breath of the Infinite, for instance, where previously the Druid would follow that up with another board buff on turn 2 before you even get to coin the Breath. I'm sure there are similarly unclearable scenarios in Standard that are now solvable when the problem starts a turn behind the curve.
Except the nerf changes nothing about that. It doesn't matter if your opponent winds up with an 8/9 or a 9/10, they still regain a crapton of health and have a beefy boy left over after. In mid-game tug-of-war situations over the board, the lifesteal is mostly irrelevant since at that point most damage will have gone into the minions. In that scenario, the nerf to Apotheosis essentially kills the card, because on small to mid-sized minions the -1/-1 is a big deal. So the nerf has changed nothing significant on big minions and absolutely massacred the card in situations where nerfs weren't really warranted. All of that to essentially nerf just the interaction with Samuro. I don't play Standard but I watch it on Youtube a fair bit and not once have I seen a streamer groan about Apotheosis on anything other than specifically Samuro. Because most of the time, you want to kill all Priest minions anyway so they can't value trade them and heal or buff them in a myriad of ways. But when you stick it on a rush minion, which Priest doesn't normally get access to outside neutrals, and stick AoE on the lifesteal, then it's a problem. And it's a problem only Samuro creates.
As for people not complaining about Samuro, @Avalon, I'd say a good portion of the reason is that many (not all) of the decks that include it or could include it aren't top of the meta for other reasons, so if you get blown out by Samuro in the midgame every 1 in 15 games, it doesn't stick as much. When Handbuff Paladin was doing well in Wild (pre-Crabrider nerf, pretty much), the card was absolutely backbreaking. Between it, Broomstick and unnerfed Crabrider, all of which get pulled by Crystology, there was pretty much no hope for any deck to maintain a board against it.
Not a Standard player myself but I feel the Apotheosis nerf is kinda...misplaced. It's Samuro that's the problem, not a 3 mana +2/+3. Samuro is like the fucking Crabrider, a neutral minion that goes into essentially every deck capable of buffing the guy. Handbuff Pally plays it in Wild and even +1/+1 on the guy turns it into Consecration that leaves a body behind. But usually it's more of a Flamestrike for 4 mana...with a body afterwards.
Between this and Animated Broomstick, they devs are essentially starting to turn minions into removal spells with an upside, to the point where if you just play an honest dude with some stats on the board, you're left standing there like an idiot when your opponent Battlecries and Rushes your board into oblivion. Instead of these abilities coming at a premium, they're being slapped onto already decent minions that are just asking to be broken.
It's good that abomination of a card Gibberling is getting its overdue nerf, but there's still plenty left they've released since Scholomance that's out of line.
Genuine question: is there anyone that actually cares about Malfurion and his story? I haven't played WoW so I don't have that perspective, but to me Malfurion ranks alongside Uther as one of the most boring, one-note characters in WC3. They're like...Obi Wan if they took all the interesting bits out.
Considering you're failing to even identify what an aggro deck is there is little point debating your bias. Your list of problematic aggro decks contains...33 % actual aggro decks. But hey, as long as you dislike it, I guess it qualifies as aggro to you. But you might as well be picking at random and your argument would be about as valid.
While I also don't like the fact they just chose to hide the problem instead of fixing it, or rather they knowingly chose to release an obviously imbalanced piece of mana cheating for Warlock in the first place for like the 6th time without learning their lesson (Skull, Voidcaller, Possessed Lackey, Bloodbloom, Darkglare, now this...about the only piece of mana cheating Warlock never abused is Cho'Gall), your critique is missing a crucial point.
There's a world of difference between an oppressive aggro deck, an oppressive control deck and an oppressive combo deck. Obviously, every time a deck is oppressive, it's a problem. It warps the meta into a state where decks that aren't good against the oppressive deck get completely pushed out of the game (think control vs Raza Priest...most control has vanished since the unnerf to Raza). Strategies that have a hefty foundation and history just disappear because their most common matchup is nearly unwinnable. And while on the surface of it the meta looks healthy and the oppressive deck may not even be boasting a great winrate, the reason is that the only decks that remain in the meta are the ones the deck struggles against. Everything else is completely removed from the statistics, it's not allowed to exist.
Now the difference, and the point I think you're missing, is that each type of oppressive deck has a different effect on the meta. If an aggressive deck is oppresive, it pushes all decks that aren't able to keep pace with it out of the meta. Slower aggro decks than it vanish. Control that can't keep the aggro under control get weeded out and only the hyper-streamlined ones remain, often without a wincon other than surviving. Combos that are either too slow (and thus die over time) or too greedy (not enough early defense) have to optimise into a state where they can keep pace, otherwise they also completely vanish (Quest Mage is a prime example). Midrange mostly disappears. While that is not a healthy meta, it's a meta that forces all decks to adapt a faster pace or die to the main threat. And since the main threat is mostly just minions being on board, that's a goal that can be achieved in a variety of ways.
But when a combo deck becomes oppressive, it's game over. Aggro once again has to go hyperaggro (think the current odd DH that consists of almost nothing but little fucking 1-drop assholes) to kill the combo before it goes off. All decks that can't do that vanish. Midrange has no chance, control has no chance, any slower combo decks have no chance. In fact unless the combo deck is specifically vulnerable to certain tech cards everyone has access to (which Explosive Runes isn't), most non-aggro decks have no chance. Literally the only way to combat an oppressive combo deck is to kill it fast or tech it out (and then you have to draw the tech card before they kill you, so it's not like it's guaranteed).
The devs have to react to oppressive combo decks much more quickly than to oppresive aggro decks, because combo decks being on top forces a supremely unhealthy meta that consists solely of aggro, tech decks and even faster combos.
Sigh... Ok, let me spell it out for you, cause apparently you need that. They mention in the very first sentence that they're banning it in Wild. No mention of Standard. They follow with "After deliberating on the appropriate action, we’ve decided to ban the card in order to maintain its current, and healthier, function in standard". They reference the ban in Wild they've already mentioned with "we've decided to ban the card". They're NOT now saying "'we've decided to ban the card in Standard". They ARE saying they've decided to ban the card in Wild in order to MAINTAIN its current function in Standard. How can you tell? Simple logic. If they were banning it in both Wild and Standard, where exactly would the card be retaining its current, healthier function? IT WOULD BE BANNED IN ALL FORMATS.
Is it clear now?!
Your reading comprehension blows. Nowhere do they say they're banning it in Standard.
This did not need to happen at all. They can keep the game balanced without bans, all they needed to do is to adhere the very basic logic of card games. Card games are balanced around costs. At certain costs, you can expect certain power levels and certain levels of responses. If you start fucking around with the cost, things start breaking. I would understand if there was some unforseen interaction where, say, 2-3 cards, when put together, allowed you to pay life for cards and then you slap immune on top of it as a 3rd/4th piece and it's broken. But no, they literally created a one-card enabler for mana cheating. It didn't have to be Immune that breaks it, it could be an overabundance of armor gain or healing and you have the same issue. You can avoid all of that if you just don't make cards that say "you now aren't limited by mana". Mana is there for a reason. You take it away and you've suddenly removed the core balancing mechanic you put into the game in the first place. They saw what happened with Bloodbloom and then they printed a better version of it.
There is no reason to affect any other mechanics other then blood magic. CosmX's idea is perfectly logical and in line with something like MtG. Mana is part of the cost. Unless the cost is reduced to 0, you can't just skip it. If you're immune, you can't pay the health required so you can't play the card. I mean the game already prevents you from playing cards for life if you don't have enough life to pay the cost. why should it allow you to play cards for health if your health is completely immovable.
Alternatively, Immune could only affect damage (minion attacks, weapon swings/backswings) not payment of life. In MtG this is differentiated as "damage" and "lose life", damage can be prevented, loss of life cannot. Hard to say whether HS has the systems to implement that.
Seriously does anyone even playtest these? This brawl is literally play first = win, play second = you didn't actually queue for a game.
That would definitely be a hard no for me. I loved the first dungeon runs. Played them a ton with all the classes, experimented a lot. And once Bob's Tavern was added, it became even more interesting. But what I was looking forward to after that was new solo content not retreading the old. And no, Book of Heroes sure ain't it, that, for me, is just wasted development time, it's dull as dishwater.
Aside from that, it also seems like the HS team is stretched thin enough as is, without adding another thing to the plate. Let's see. The only formats that seem to receive what I would deem a proper amount of support is Standard and maybe Battlegrounds. BGs have received a burst of content recently but before that, after the removal of the Darkmoon Prizes, it was real samey and uninteresting for quite a while and I would definitely not call the format balanced. Wild has been in need of balancing for quite some time IMO (the same three to four oppressive decks have been dominating the meta for like a year) and nothing of significance has happened. Tavern Brawls are an afterthought. Duels need a complete overhaul/redesign/scrapping and coming up with something else, cause they're flawed from the very fundamental concept (you can have fun with builds and treasures in dungeon runs against the AI, you can't have much fun when all opponents are tryharding you, that will never change). Can't speak for Arena, haven't played it in years. I dread to think what the state of Mercenaries is going to be.
All these things need attention, that's not even mentioning the development of future sets and mini-sets. Adding constant updates to old Dungeon Runs when the team is obviously already struggling doesn't seem like a worthwhile investment of resources. When all modes receive their proper amount of attention, we can consider things like this. We're not anywhere close to there yet.
Wild perspective:
Surprisingly reasonable patch, all things considered. The Spring Water nerf gives APMage a huge gaping hole on the 4 mana turn, and the inability to draw for free may force the deck to go off a turn later, or may potentially break the combo when they do go off. Doesn't make the underlying brokenness any better though and that's concerning. They did a similar thing with Aggro Token Druid, where the absolutely crazy shit they could do is still possible, they just hurt their refill so people felt demotivated to play the deck. The things the deck did well, it still does just as well and it's still just as uninteractable. And it's only going to take one or two cards to make it just as broken as it was before because none of the key stuff was touched (Flamewaker, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Incanter's Flow in the case of APMage, Embiggen, Pirate package, Gibberling, Adorable Infestation in the case of Aggro Token Druid.)
The wrecking of Crabrider is well deserved, though the fact that Animated Broomstick is still somehow left intact baffles me. There's absolutely no way a Neutral 1/1 for 1 should be doing as much as that thing does. It would be absurd and complained about if it were class-specific, in Neutral it's just unacceptable. Either raise the cost, or make it give Rush to one guy. Doesn't even make sense flavour-wise that an entire board can ride the one damn broomstick anyway.
First Day of School not being literally the single best turn 1 card outside of Pirates is also nice. Now you actually need a reason to play the card (e.g. handbuffing), rather than this being the default.
From the others...the N'Zoth buff would be interesting for Wild if playing a control game was actually possible. You can put it in like an Odd Taunt Druid now or in Reno Hunter but you fold to the plethora of combo decks out there and most aggro is too fast, so why do you bother? And when it comes to control mirrors the two Priests and Warlock have a chokehold on that anyway. Plus it's now the only Old God that doesn't cost 10, which is weird.
The Shieldmaiden buff is nice, but doesn't change anything for Odd Warrior's viability. You don't have the luxury of armoring up for 5 mana against aggro, control laughs at your attempt to develop a board with a 5 mana 5/5, and the lack of any win condition, especially after the loss of Elysiana leaves the deck dead in the water.
Unbound Elemental's improved stats are definitely a step in the right direction, but doesn't fix the fact the card is just awkward to play in an Overload-centric deck, as are all non-Overload cards. If you're playing a classic Overload Shaman curve, you drop Tunnel Trogg on 1, Totem Golem/Jade Claws on 2 and then you're locked out of your Unbound Elemental mana. Essentially, outside of the turn 1 play of Tunnel Trogg or Surging Tempest, you want to string Overload cards one after another. When you play an Overload card, you get a powerful effect for cheaper now at the cost of tempo later. But if you then follow that up with another Overload card, you never really lose the tempo because you never really pay "full mana" for anything. When you start having to weave in non-overload cards like Unbound Elemental, it gets really awkward because you're forced to play them off curve, on turn 4 or 5. +1 attack on Unbound Elemental doesn't fix that. A reduction in mana cost would.
Woohoo at last! It's always been a desire of mine in fantasy to play as...spiky...pigs? W-wait what? Why is this a thing? Unless they intend to give the tribe some actual synergy, this is about as impactful as slapping the Undead tag on Flesheating Ghoul or Troll tag on Gurubashi Berzerker.
Now let's see if the Pen Flinger nerf finally "balances" Darkglare Warlock.
This has the same issue as the whole metoo thing. It's good that abusers and rapists face punishment for their actions, as these people usually just get off the hook easy in a court of law due to a lack of evidence. On the other hand, people no longer get judged in the court of law, they get judged in the court of public opinion now. All it takes is for one person to say something about you and bam, your life is ruined, even if they were lying and malicious in their intent. It turns into a she said he said and the accused person generally ends up being ostracized regardless of circumstances. But unless people just carry voice recording devices on them at all times there really is no other way to flush out the abusers than to speak out. In an ideal world, none of this would be necessary because people would be fucking reasonable. But I won't pretend I have any understanding of what motivates abusers to do what they do. One would think you get into a relationship because you care about the other person, but what do I know. From what I can tell being sane is going out of fashion fast.
Seems like a thoroughly inefficient way of doing things. Essentially the more skins there'd be in the game, the more "classes" would be in the game to patch. What starts as just a jpeg with a few voicelines becomes way more of a hassle than it's worth. If they really implemented skins this way, and this bug really suggests that they did, then they fucked up big time.