Wow... That statement about Arena balance sounded incredibly lazy. They didn't even bother to mention the problematic cards whose appearance rates were decreased. It sounded like: "Hey guys! We are fixing Arena! What is changing? You can guess! Trust us, everything will be fine now!". Just... wow...
Turns out the update matters mostly for the end portion of the track. Only those that have advanced a lot will feel any substantial difference. The changes are very small for the people lagging behind. So, they are mostly rewarding the people that are playing more. Their whole idea is to make it so people have to sink more time into the game if they want to be rewarded. Fair enough. I have other games to play so i'm not putting much time into it. That's not going to change.
Well... Absolutely nothing changed for me. I'm still level 34. The exp requirement for the next level dropped like... 800 points. And that's it. I already closed the client and logged in again to see if it was a visual glitch or something but that's not the case. So... yeah. Can't say i'm happy.
Skull is from Ashes of Outland. It's not leaving standard for the next year and a half. The expansions that are leaving in the next rotation are Rise of Shadows, Saviours of Uldum and Descent of Dragons.
It seems that they think it's super fair that DH can do 8+ damage in hero attacks very easily. The functionality of Blade Dance has not changed. It's just slightly worse. But 3 mana to deal 8+ damage to three enemy minions is still incredibly efficient. So, i don't think things are going to change a lot. Also, i can't believe they keep ignoring Skull of Gul'dan. That card fuels every single DH deck. It's actually the main issue. Even the hyper aggro strategies use it. It's that busted. If that thing costed 8 mana, it would still be 10000 times better than Lay on Hands. It can't stay this way for the next year and a half.
I still disagree with the change to Dinotamer Brann. The pay off is barely worth it now. You can achieve the same thing (one mana discount on Krush) by just adding Beastmaster Leoroxx, King Krush itself and a few other strong beasts. And you can do that on a deck with duplicates. It's a much stronger pay off but it requires more cards. And it can't be shut down by bombs or birds.
It's basically the Murozond the Infinite (one of my favorite cards ever) effect but based on what you played instead of your opponent's. It can be really strong in response to an opponent's board clears. One example of a powerful use: you play Kalecgos and a strong spell at 10 mana (let's say, Power of Creation). Then your opponent manages to clear everything. Now, you can play Toki, Time Manipulator and she will replay those two cards for free. You get a Kalecgos (without the battlecry, obviously), two random 6-cost minions, a 6/6, you have two mana left and, since you haven't played a spell yet, you can use a spell for free (because of Kalecgos). That's a big swing. It also fits with Toki's original gimmick (which was getting cards from the past) but, instead of adding them to your hand, you get them on the board immediately. Her stats are weaker than Murozond's because you have more control over the effect.
It seems they are slowly removing the constructed minions from the pool. Once the game leaves beta, there should only be Battlegrounds minions left. I feel like they didn't need to remove Crowd Favorite for now. The card was fine. The others won't be missed though. Also, i'm surprised that Junkbot has not been removed. The card is simply not viable in its current state.
I wasn't expecting a nerf to Dinotamer Brann at this point. Seems a little bit late for that. The card isn't an issue in Wild, either. The pay off is much weaker now. It's a one mana discount on King Krush with an irrelevant 2/4 body attached. There are other early game cards that could have been targeted to weaken the face strategies (Intrepid Initiate is a big offender) without hurting the late game finishing potential in slower decks. It's just another hit to late game strategies for Hunter (Guardian Animals was the other one). The 8 mana curve is all messed up now.
Blade Dance is weaker now but nothing has been done to alleviate the high damage problem in DH. They can still gain huge amounts of attack and that probably still makes Blade Dance very efficient at what it's already doing. I don't think this will be impactful enough.
Shardshatter Mystic now has the correct cost. It should make DH more vulnerable to aggression but the card is still equivalent in power to Duskbreaker so that might not be enough.
Dreadlord's Bite wasn't something i was expecting to be nerfed. The card is strong but it doesn't feel all that broken. Maybe i'm just blinded by the other almighty cards from the class.
Finally they decided to address Voracious Reader. Hopefully, this will slow hyper aggressive decks enough that they will simply vanish in favor of aggressive midrange decks. The card itself can burn in hellfire though.
Lorekeeper Polkelt enabled so many strategies but people ended up picking him up for hyper aggressive strategies. Hopefully, this will keep him viable for slower builds and kill off his viability for hyper aggro decks. It's good that i have a golden copy so i will gain 1600 dust for free, basically!
Hey, look! It's an annoying 1-drop with Elusive! Where did i see that before?...
She seems to have more potential than the unnameable one, though. It's going to be interesting to figure out all the possibilities. That level 2 ability is pretty strong as well.
I watched it, and rather than disappointed I felt dissatisfied because the winners were about as expected with TLOU2 winning most of it and I was hoping that other games would at least take a bit more of the awards. It felt like TLOU2 only deserved about 2 of the awards which were the Best Voice Acting and the Best Innovation which made complete sense as the game was a good technical game just not a very good game overall. I wished Legends of Runeterra would have won the Best Mobile Game but no surprise Among Us won that category without much of a challenge (though I think it's not right to nominate a game that's not released in 2020 but oh well). I'm very very very happy that Hades won a few awards at least because I loved that game so much and I think that it had a good chance to win the GOTY despite being an indie game. Overall, this year's awards felt a bit underwhelming but that's just my opinion.
For the announcements, I'm sad that there's no Elden Ring announcement (I swear that game does not exist). I'm a bit weirded out by the sheer amount of co-op zombie shooters that got announced but they all seemed pretty good so I'm hyped for that. Ruined King which was Riot's RPG game finally got a trailer and I'm hoping it's a good game. The Smash Ultimate announcement was amazing and I got baited for half a second when Sephiroth "stabbed" Mario.
I would be really happy if Hades had won the GotY. I'm a huge fan of indie games (i'll always choose to play Terraria, Grim Dawn or The Binding of Isaac over any AAA game) and roguelites and it was a good surprise to see a game of the genre getting so close to the top.
I feel like Ori and the Will of the Wisps suffered from the same problem as Hollow Knight did a few years ago. An amazing game that came out very early in the year and ended up overshadowed by stuff that came out later. Cuphead came out late in the same year and got all the attention. I'm not saying that Cuphead is bad but Hollow Knight deserved more recognition. Ori II also came out very early this year and has been left behind in the wake of all the other titans that were released later.
The Game Awards just ended. Unfortunately, Legends of Runeterra lost on the Best Mobile Game category to Among Us. There weren't any big surprises when it comes to the winners. The Last of Us Part II got the Game of the Year award and several others, Hades got the Best Indie Game and Best Action Game award and Ori and the Will of the Wisps didn't get a single award which really upsets me. That game really deserved at least the Best Action/Adventure award. Did anyone else watch the show? Did anything surprise you or there were any announcements that you liked? I didn't really pay too much attention. I was just listening to the audio while tinkering with some deck ideas in HS.
Yes, i hope they redesign it. But that will only happen after it has already left a mark on the game. We will have to wait and see what happens. I'm not completely against RNG but it feels much better when it's conditional or controllable.
Yeah, you are right. I'm just being pessimistic because this landmark kinda upsets me. I know the comparison isn't good and that the card can actually do the opposite and win the game for you but i think this is the first card in the game that can actually cause the person who played it to lose the match. I don't think we have any other cards that can do that. Even a card like The University of Piltover has some immediate synergies it can take advantage of. But this thing is like a coin flip. The person who gets the better discount might be able to win the game on the spot. I really wasn't expecting them to start releasing stuff like this.
It looks like they really want to appeal to the casual players of Hearthstone. The people that love their Yogg stuff. It might expand the game's appeal to a larger crowd but it will scare away the people that dislike that kind of uncontrollable RNG.
Braum likes it a lot as well! Getting attack and Tough on top of Challenger and Regeneration is pretty huge! This landmark is really strong and interesting to build around.
The low cost of the hero power gives the class way too much flexibility in their turns. They almost never waste mana because of that. It's the Genn Greymane effect without suffering from any restrictions. It's absolutely ridiculous.
People might argue something like "Ah, it's only one damage! It doesn't matter!". Remember pre-nerf Patches the Pirate? As far as i know (i wasn't playing the game at the time but i research a lot), during the reveal period people were underestimating the card because a 1/1 with Charge isn't anything special. One damage isn't a lot, right? Well, turns out that any damage matters against aggro especially for classes that lack healing. It puts you immediately in a race against time. DH does exactly that. It puts you on a clock from turn 1. Any damage you take early on can accumulate really fast and they never run out of gas. Their waves of damage are constant and almost unstoppable. Can you outlast their onslaught of damage from turn 1? Most classes can't. That hero power shouldn't cost 1. I do believe this to be one of the reasons for this class' insane power. They make the most out of their mana in every game.
Wow... That statement about Arena balance sounded incredibly lazy. They didn't even bother to mention the problematic cards whose appearance rates were decreased. It sounded like: "Hey guys! We are fixing Arena! What is changing? You can guess! Trust us, everything will be fine now!". Just... wow...
Turns out the update matters mostly for the end portion of the track. Only those that have advanced a lot will feel any substantial difference. The changes are very small for the people lagging behind. So, they are mostly rewarding the people that are playing more. Their whole idea is to make it so people have to sink more time into the game if they want to be rewarded. Fair enough. I have other games to play so i'm not putting much time into it. That's not going to change.
Well... Absolutely nothing changed for me. I'm still level 34. The exp requirement for the next level dropped like... 800 points. And that's it. I already closed the client and logged in again to see if it was a visual glitch or something but that's not the case. So... yeah. Can't say i'm happy.
Skull is from Ashes of Outland. It's not leaving standard for the next year and a half. The expansions that are leaving in the next rotation are Rise of Shadows, Saviours of Uldum and Descent of Dragons.
It seems that they think it's super fair that DH can do 8+ damage in hero attacks very easily. The functionality of Blade Dance has not changed. It's just slightly worse. But 3 mana to deal 8+ damage to three enemy minions is still incredibly efficient. So, i don't think things are going to change a lot. Also, i can't believe they keep ignoring Skull of Gul'dan. That card fuels every single DH deck. It's actually the main issue. Even the hyper aggro strategies use it. It's that busted. If that thing costed 8 mana, it would still be 10000 times better than Lay on Hands. It can't stay this way for the next year and a half.
I still disagree with the change to Dinotamer Brann. The pay off is barely worth it now. You can achieve the same thing (one mana discount on Krush) by just adding Beastmaster Leoroxx, King Krush itself and a few other strong beasts. And you can do that on a deck with duplicates. It's a much stronger pay off but it requires more cards. And it can't be shut down by bombs or birds.
First time participating in one of these.
It's basically the Murozond the Infinite (one of my favorite cards ever) effect but based on what you played instead of your opponent's. It can be really strong in response to an opponent's board clears. One example of a powerful use: you play Kalecgos and a strong spell at 10 mana (let's say, Power of Creation). Then your opponent manages to clear everything. Now, you can play Toki, Time Manipulator and she will replay those two cards for free. You get a Kalecgos (without the battlecry, obviously), two random 6-cost minions, a 6/6, you have two mana left and, since you haven't played a spell yet, you can use a spell for free (because of Kalecgos). That's a big swing. It also fits with Toki's original gimmick (which was getting cards from the past) but, instead of adding them to your hand, you get them on the board immediately. Her stats are weaker than Murozond's because you have more control over the effect.
It seems they are slowly removing the constructed minions from the pool. Once the game leaves beta, there should only be Battlegrounds minions left. I feel like they didn't need to remove Crowd Favorite for now. The card was fine. The others won't be missed though. Also, i'm surprised that Junkbot has not been removed. The card is simply not viable in its current state.
I wasn't expecting a nerf to Dinotamer Brann at this point. Seems a little bit late for that. The card isn't an issue in Wild, either. The pay off is much weaker now. It's a one mana discount on King Krush with an irrelevant 2/4 body attached. There are other early game cards that could have been targeted to weaken the face strategies (Intrepid Initiate is a big offender) without hurting the late game finishing potential in slower decks. It's just another hit to late game strategies for Hunter (Guardian Animals was the other one). The 8 mana curve is all messed up now.
Blade Dance is weaker now but nothing has been done to alleviate the high damage problem in DH. They can still gain huge amounts of attack and that probably still makes Blade Dance very efficient at what it's already doing. I don't think this will be impactful enough.
Shardshatter Mystic now has the correct cost. It should make DH more vulnerable to aggression but the card is still equivalent in power to Duskbreaker so that might not be enough.
Dreadlord's Bite wasn't something i was expecting to be nerfed. The card is strong but it doesn't feel all that broken. Maybe i'm just blinded by the other almighty cards from the class.
Finally they decided to address Voracious Reader. Hopefully, this will slow hyper aggressive decks enough that they will simply vanish in favor of aggressive midrange decks. The card itself can burn in hellfire though.
Lorekeeper Polkelt enabled so many strategies but people ended up picking him up for hyper aggressive strategies. Hopefully, this will keep him viable for slower builds and kill off his viability for hyper aggro decks. It's good that i have a golden copy so i will gain 1600 dust for free, basically!
Hey, look! It's an annoying 1-drop with Elusive! Where did i see that before?...
She seems to have more potential than the unnameable one, though. It's going to be interesting to figure out all the possibilities. That level 2 ability is pretty strong as well.
I would be really happy if Hades had won the GotY. I'm a huge fan of indie games (i'll always choose to play Terraria, Grim Dawn or The Binding of Isaac over any AAA game) and roguelites and it was a good surprise to see a game of the genre getting so close to the top.
I feel like Ori and the Will of the Wisps suffered from the same problem as Hollow Knight did a few years ago. An amazing game that came out very early in the year and ended up overshadowed by stuff that came out later. Cuphead came out late in the same year and got all the attention. I'm not saying that Cuphead is bad but Hollow Knight deserved more recognition. Ori II also came out very early this year and has been left behind in the wake of all the other titans that were released later.
The Game Awards just ended. Unfortunately, Legends of Runeterra lost on the Best Mobile Game category to Among Us. There weren't any big surprises when it comes to the winners. The Last of Us Part II got the Game of the Year award and several others, Hades got the Best Indie Game and Best Action Game award and Ori and the Will of the Wisps didn't get a single award which really upsets me. That game really deserved at least the Best Action/Adventure award. Did anyone else watch the show? Did anything surprise you or there were any announcements that you liked? I didn't really pay too much attention. I was just listening to the audio while tinkering with some deck ideas in HS.
Yes, i hope they redesign it. But that will only happen after it has already left a mark on the game. We will have to wait and see what happens. I'm not completely against RNG but it feels much better when it's conditional or controllable.
Yeah, you are right. I'm just being pessimistic because this landmark kinda upsets me. I know the comparison isn't good and that the card can actually do the opposite and win the game for you but i think this is the first card in the game that can actually cause the person who played it to lose the match. I don't think we have any other cards that can do that. Even a card like The University of Piltover has some immediate synergies it can take advantage of. But this thing is like a coin flip. The person who gets the better discount might be able to win the game on the spot. I really wasn't expecting them to start releasing stuff like this.
It looks like they really want to appeal to the casual players of Hearthstone. The people that love their Yogg stuff. It might expand the game's appeal to a larger crowd but it will scare away the people that dislike that kind of uncontrollable RNG.
This thing can be enabled very easily through Fading Memories. It also affects champions. Seems pretty scary.
Strong card for sheer aggression but it's completely worthless if you fall behind. It could be very helpful for Hecarim decks.
So, we got Weasel Tunneler but even more obnoxious (Pesky Specter) and Duskfallen Aviana as a landmark. Ok.
Braum likes it a lot as well! Getting attack and Tough on top of Challenger and Regeneration is pretty huge! This landmark is really strong and interesting to build around.
The low cost of the hero power gives the class way too much flexibility in their turns. They almost never waste mana because of that. It's the Genn Greymane effect without suffering from any restrictions. It's absolutely ridiculous.
People might argue something like "Ah, it's only one damage! It doesn't matter!". Remember pre-nerf Patches the Pirate? As far as i know (i wasn't playing the game at the time but i research a lot), during the reveal period people were underestimating the card because a 1/1 with Charge isn't anything special. One damage isn't a lot, right? Well, turns out that any damage matters against aggro especially for classes that lack healing. It puts you immediately in a race against time. DH does exactly that. It puts you on a clock from turn 1. Any damage you take early on can accumulate really fast and they never run out of gas. Their waves of damage are constant and almost unstoppable. Can you outlast their onslaught of damage from turn 1? Most classes can't. That hero power shouldn't cost 1. I do believe this to be one of the reasons for this class' insane power. They make the most out of their mana in every game.