Hmm yeah you’re right that the flavor of summoning a 1 cost unit is a bit weird. I think that they added that option just because they wanted more Keg and 1 Cost unit support cards and combining them into one card saves them an extra card slot for the expansion. What if he were a 3 mana 3/2 with “Play: Create a Fleeting Parrrley in hand or summon a Powder Keg”? That way he’d be like a much worse L1 Katarina or a much worse Dreadway Deckhand. I think it would be a good change because it keeps him good in the decks he’s intended for without making him a powerful card in every Bilgewater deck. I do worry that as a Plunder activator it might be a bit too good, but because it would be a 4 mana Plunder activator for only the turn you play it, it can’t be combined with Rex or many other Plunder Payoff cards. It also fits the Flavor much better because it would be the Petty Officer adding Gangplank’s spell to your hand.
That's a cool idea, but I strongly expect something like OldmanSanns said. They will probably just up the cost by one or drop the attack by one
You're probably completely correct, as this is the easiest (and most boring) change they could make. But it would probably still bring him down enough in power level to be much less appealing to just slap him into almost every bilgewater deck ever.
I kind of like him being a 3/2 to help Keg decks, so I hope that they make him create the 1-cost unit in hand instead of summoning it. Then people would actually be motivated to pick the Keg option.
Edit: I think your suggestion would probably make him okay-ish when compared to House Spider or Deadbloom Wanderer but it would remove all of his flavor (being part of the Keg package and the random 1-costs package). It also doesn’t make lore sense why a part of Gangplank’s crew would be summoning the Dreg Dredgers
For flavor, then, perhaps he only summons the powder keg. But I will point out that his current status does not have any kind of flavor at all, IMO. How is there flavor to getting a completely random 1-cost follower? How does it makes sense that he summons a poro, or a Solari Soldier, or Cithria, or even a Barkbeast or ....?
But that list of cards I posted there is not denial, baby rage, refusal, hatred, delusion, or anything else of the sort. Its pure, hard fact. Every single one of those 34 cards is currently listed in a Tier A or Tier S deck on the mobalytics tier page. This is a fact that is 100% beyond dispute (as of the time I posted the list).
Edit: How exactly is Swim not playing anymore when he literally just played a tournament this weekend?
Edit #2: updated the list because I had missed a couple cards.
BBG is an absolutely amazing card game player, excellent streamer, and all around good person.
However, you are just not correct in your opinion here, and that comment by BBG was one little comment on one day. Maybe he just didn't see much variety that day, or maybe he's talking mainly about tournaments (which are a LOT different from ladder).
Here is the actual link to the Mobalytics tier list. If you go down through all the A-tier lists, you will see the following new champions in decks:
-Leona (with Lux)
-Diana and Nocturne
-Trundle with Warmothers and Tryndamere
Warmothers probably doesn't count as a new deck, but adding Trundle and the NEW ramp to it makes it a LOT stronger.
Diana/Nocturne is 100% new, and Nicmakesplays hit #1 NA with his version of it very early in the expansion. Leona/Lux also plays a lot of new cards.
In fact, lets list off all the CoTM cards that are in a Tier S or Tier A deck. Aurelion Sol, Infinite Mindsplitter, Revitalizing Roar, Cygus, Sunburst, Screeching Dragon, Trundle, Starshaping, Leona, Nocturne, Troll Ravager, Crescent Guardian, Doombeast, Hush, Mentor of the Stones, Solari Priestess, Behold the Infinite, Diana, Guiding Touch, Lunari Shadestalker, Zenith Blade, Jack the Winner, Pale Cascade, Stalking Shadows, Solari Shieldbearer, Solari Soldier, Rahvun, Unspeakable Horror, Troll Chant, Troll Scavenger, Lunari Duskbringer, Spacey Sketcher, Gift Giver, and Stygian Onlooker.
I think that's a few more than 10, TBH.
Bottom line: BBG was exaggerating, and probably focusing mainly on the tournament scene, not on ladder.
Edit: updated the list of cards due to a couple of small mistakes. It is now completely accurate.
You've misused the terms former and latter, just fyi. Former refers to the first thing you said, latter the last thing you said. Edit - it's been fixed now.
I feel like splashing 6 Targon cards is going to hurt your allegiance too much. Along those lines, Solari Soldier is only better than Cithria of Cloudfield on the turn he's played. Otherwise, he's identical to her. So, Solari Soldier should probably just be Cithria of Cloudfield which will drop your splash from 6 to 3, making your allegiance significantly more consistent.
Just to give some hard numbers, let's suppose you've drawn 10 cards, and none of them were targon cards. 30 cards left in the deck, 6 of them are not demacia. That means there is a 20% chance that the next card is targon, or 1 out of 5 times you're in this situation, you will miss your allegiance. If you had only 3 targon cards, it would be a 10% chance, or 1 in 10 times.
Long story short, you roughly double your chances of hitting allegiance if you drop from 6 cards to 3. (Though, obviously, these percentages change a bit if any targon cards are drawn before playing the allegiance).
The 1-drops aren't that great on their own, but they are needed because of Blighted Caretaker. You cannot afford to miss having fodder for the Caretaker. Possibly, though, I could drop the entire package of Blighted Caretaker, Cursed Keeper and Hapless Aristocrat for something else.
A full board of dragons/celestials would actually make it cost 12 less, since it's reduced by 2 for each dragon/celestial. So, it's theoretically possible for the card to cost 3, but that would never happen, since the game would have ended before that kind of situation could happen.
But yeah, @OP - it literally says on the card that it's enemies. And since the card is the Champion spell of Aurelion Sol, you could have clicked on the opponent's deck, clicked their Aurelion Sol, and clicked over to his Champion spell to read the card text, even if there was no Sol on the board.
Atrocity has no good targets in this deck, though. The highest attack unit has only 4 attack. And all of the units are vulnerable to just being killed off if you try to Atrocity on them (since nothing has more than 3 health). I'd consider putting 2x They Who Endure in place of 2x ... something. Hapless Aristocrat is not a good thing to replace, nor is Elise. Those are both way too important for the early game curve. But I've found Doombeast to be pretty lackluster, so maybe 2x TWE could replace the 2x Doombeast.
Honestly, I'm surprised you've lasted this long. I quit playing HS with any seriousness months ago. And it's been at least 3 months since I even logged in (well, except once, literally just get the freebie legendary with the new set).
I do disagree about Legends of Runeterra. I think it has a massive amount of variety, and plenty of ways to interact with what the opponent is doing (aka "answers").
Lastly, if you want to try a completely different card game that is none of the above nor Magic, I'd suggest Eternal.
You may want to make a slight edit to your claim that you're not playing nerfed cards. Basilisk Rider did get a nerf. It used to be a 5/3. Now it's a 4/3.
I'm pretty sure mistwraiths would utterly destroy this deck. Nothing in the entire decklist (except leveled Diana) has more than 2 attack, so fearsome would just completely run you over, especially since there is also no defensive removal or attack buff. The best you could do is challenge one mistwraith every attack phase with Diana.
I won't be able to help with sending in any data for the Omen Hawk thing anymore, because I've officially decided that Swim's build of the Elise/Kalista Mistwraiths is not correct. Over the course of about 10-15 games, I had the following happen:
Cursed Keeper buffed by Omen Hawk at least 3 times, one of those being double-buffed. Doesn't get more useless than that.
Needed a way to kill my own unit and didn't get it.
Bricked a Wraithcaller. Twice. And in one of those cases, there were only 2 Omen Hawks left out of 31 cards.
Was forced to try to use Atrocity as removal much more often than I ever had any way to use it for lethal.
So, that does it. Omen Hawk is just not correct for this deck. Even just one bricked Wraithcaller will essentially lose a game immediately. My solutions are as follows:
All hail your Lee Sin overmaster! The next two weeks are going to be completely warped around him and Bastion.
Lee Sin is pretty overtuned, if they get the right cards. The best ways to deal with him involve just killing him outright.
That's a cool idea, but I strongly expect something like OldmanSanns said. They will probably just up the cost by one or drop the attack by one
You're probably completely correct, as this is the easiest (and most boring) change they could make. But it would probably still bring him down enough in power level to be much less appealing to just slap him into almost every bilgewater deck ever.
For flavor, then, perhaps he only summons the powder keg. But I will point out that his current status does not have any kind of flavor at all, IMO. How is there flavor to getting a completely random 1-cost follower? How does it makes sense that he summons a poro, or a Solari Soldier, or Cithria, or even a Barkbeast or ....?
Even with celestials, LoR is still completely different from Hearthstone.
Yes, there is an element of random chance thrown in, and there is insane value with Asol, no question.
But, my money is on them nerfing/fixing things to the point that it's totally fine, and just another way to play this great game.
As we know from two weeks ago, they said Petty Officer was on the chopping block. The question is, what will happen to the ugly little guy?
My personal prediction - he now summons a 1/1 Dreg Dredger and you can no longer choose a Powder Keg as an option.
Interpret my post however you want to.
But that list of cards I posted there is not denial, baby rage, refusal, hatred, delusion, or anything else of the sort. Its pure, hard fact. Every single one of those 34 cards is currently listed in a Tier A or Tier S deck on the mobalytics tier page. This is a fact that is 100% beyond dispute (as of the time I posted the list).
Edit: How exactly is Swim not playing anymore when he literally just played a tournament this weekend?
Edit #2: updated the list because I had missed a couple cards.
BBG is an absolutely amazing card game player, excellent streamer, and all around good person.
However, you are just not correct in your opinion here, and that comment by BBG was one little comment on one day. Maybe he just didn't see much variety that day, or maybe he's talking mainly about tournaments (which are a LOT different from ladder).
Here is the actual link to the Mobalytics tier list. If you go down through all the A-tier lists, you will see the following new champions in decks:
-Leona (with Lux)
-Diana and Nocturne
-Trundle with Warmothers and Tryndamere
Warmothers probably doesn't count as a new deck, but adding Trundle and the NEW ramp to it makes it a LOT stronger.
Diana/Nocturne is 100% new, and Nicmakesplays hit #1 NA with his version of it very early in the expansion. Leona/Lux also plays a lot of new cards.
In fact, lets list off all the CoTM cards that are in a Tier S or Tier A deck. Aurelion Sol, Infinite Mindsplitter, Revitalizing Roar, Cygus, Sunburst, Screeching Dragon, Trundle, Starshaping, Leona, Nocturne, Troll Ravager, Crescent Guardian, Doombeast, Hush, Mentor of the Stones, Solari Priestess, Behold the Infinite, Diana, Guiding Touch, Lunari Shadestalker, Zenith Blade, Jack the Winner, Pale Cascade, Stalking Shadows, Solari Shieldbearer, Solari Soldier, Rahvun, Unspeakable Horror, Troll Chant, Troll Scavenger, Lunari Duskbringer, Spacey Sketcher, Gift Giver, and Stygian Onlooker.
I think that's a few more than 10, TBH.
Bottom line: BBG was exaggerating, and probably focusing mainly on the tournament scene, not on ladder.
Edit: updated the list of cards due to a couple of small mistakes. It is now completely accurate.
Well, now we know where all of those people went when they left Blizzard recently.
However, game design takes a LONG time, so don't expect any real announcements of actual projects anytime soon.
You've misused the terms former and latter, just fyi. Former refers to the first thing you said, latter the last thing you said. Edit - it's been fixed now.
I feel like splashing 6 Targon cards is going to hurt your allegiance too much. Along those lines, Solari Soldier is only better than Cithria of Cloudfield on the turn he's played. Otherwise, he's identical to her. So, Solari Soldier should probably just be Cithria of Cloudfield which will drop your splash from 6 to 3, making your allegiance significantly more consistent.
Just to give some hard numbers, let's suppose you've drawn 10 cards, and none of them were targon cards. 30 cards left in the deck, 6 of them are not demacia. That means there is a 20% chance that the next card is targon, or 1 out of 5 times you're in this situation, you will miss your allegiance. If you had only 3 targon cards, it would be a 10% chance, or 1 in 10 times.
Long story short, you roughly double your chances of hitting allegiance if you drop from 6 cards to 3. (Though, obviously, these percentages change a bit if any targon cards are drawn before playing the allegiance).
The 1-drops aren't that great on their own, but they are needed because of Blighted Caretaker. You cannot afford to miss having fodder for the Caretaker. Possibly, though, I could drop the entire package of Blighted Caretaker, Cursed Keeper and Hapless Aristocrat for something else.
Maybe something like this:
-3x Hapless Aristocrat
-3x Blighted Caretaker
-3x Cursed Keeper
+3x Frenzied Skitterer
+3x Arachnoid Horror (to go with Elise) OR Fading Memories (to trigger Nightfall)
+1x Doombeast
+2x They Who Endure (to go with dying things) OR Haunted Relic (to go with Kalista)
A full board of dragons/celestials would actually make it cost 12 less, since it's reduced by 2 for each dragon/celestial. So, it's theoretically possible for the card to cost 3, but that would never happen, since the game would have ended before that kind of situation could happen.
But yeah, @OP - it literally says on the card that it's enemies. And since the card is the Champion spell of Aurelion Sol, you could have clicked on the opponent's deck, clicked their Aurelion Sol, and clicked over to his Champion spell to read the card text, even if there was no Sol on the board.
Atrocity has no good targets in this deck, though. The highest attack unit has only 4 attack. And all of the units are vulnerable to just being killed off if you try to Atrocity on them (since nothing has more than 3 health). I'd consider putting 2x They Who Endure in place of 2x ... something. Hapless Aristocrat is not a good thing to replace, nor is Elise. Those are both way too important for the early game curve. But I've found Doombeast to be pretty lackluster, so maybe 2x TWE could replace the 2x Doombeast.
Honestly, I'm surprised you've lasted this long. I quit playing HS with any seriousness months ago. And it's been at least 3 months since I even logged in (well, except once, literally just get the freebie legendary with the new set).
I do disagree about Legends of Runeterra. I think it has a massive amount of variety, and plenty of ways to interact with what the opponent is doing (aka "answers").
Lastly, if you want to try a completely different card game that is none of the above nor Magic, I'd suggest Eternal.
A comment about Solari Solider - the reason he gets used so often is because he is a 1-cost nightfall activator.
You may want to make a slight edit to your claim that you're not playing nerfed cards. Basilisk Rider did get a nerf. It used to be a 5/3. Now it's a 4/3.
I'm pretty sure mistwraiths would utterly destroy this deck. Nothing in the entire decklist (except leveled Diana) has more than 2 attack, so fearsome would just completely run you over, especially since there is also no defensive removal or attack buff. The best you could do is challenge one mistwraith every attack phase with Diana.
I won't be able to help with sending in any data for the Omen Hawk thing anymore, because I've officially decided that Swim's build of the Elise/Kalista Mistwraiths is not correct. Over the course of about 10-15 games, I had the following happen:
So, that does it. Omen Hawk is just not correct for this deck. Even just one bricked Wraithcaller will essentially lose a game immediately. My solutions are as follows:
-3x Omen Hawk
-1x Atrocity
+2x Hapless Aristocrat
+1x Neverglade Collector
+1x Ravenous Butcher