I don't see it that critically. The Spotlight Cache changes might have been controversial, but I think it's a good change. Not only do I get more than 1 new card a month with it (compared to before). While chasing cards I do want, I also get cards that I would have never purchased with Tokens and I still have fun experimenting with them. I guess the main thing people dislike is that you have less control over what cards you get, but I think that's the great thing about it.

The living Tribunal for example was seen as a generally bad card on release, so many people didn't purchase him with Tokens. Then he was in the Spotlight Cache rotation together with Jean grey, which many people wanted (and ironically turned out to be pretty meh), so naturally many people also got the living Tribunal and more people played with it. And it turned out: he's actually pretty good and a lot of fun on top of it. Hell, I even reached Infinite and won an infinite conquest with him. All of that didn't happen when he released under the old system.

As for the balance changes: I see where people are coming from, but I don't have a problem with it. Sure, it never feels good when cards you own get nerfed, but what's the alternative? Not nerfing strategies that are too good? Or even worse: not nerfing cards with big synergy potential that are indivitually so good that they are still played in a variaty of strategies, even if the card has nothing to do with it. Not doing either of that is the perfect recipe for extremely fast powercreep.

I've also seen people complain about them nerfing old instead of new cards when it comes to problematic strategies. Sure marketing, money etc. may or may not have something do with that. Neither of us can do anything other than guessing on that part. But it still seems reasonably to me from a player/meta perspective. Nerfing cards generally discourage people from experimenting with them and I'd rather have people experiment less with old cards (that people already experimented with a ton), than with new cards.

Take the controversial recent Collector nerf for example: Collector was nerfed specifically because of its synergie with Loki, which was released only a week before the nerf. They could have given Loki the -2 power nerf instead of the collector and the decks strength would still roughly be where it is today, but it would also ensure that Loki would never find a place in any deck that does not involve the collector. I don't want to discuss how succesfull this specific change was, but rather the idea, the concept behind it.

Lastly, and that's really nothing against you, but I don't like how inflationary the term "cash crab" has become. A cash crab describes a game that was cheaply made for the sole purpose of making money and that's usually following a current hype. Take the thousends of Battle Royale games that suddenly appeared during the big hype for example. Usually made within just a couple months using mostly existing, purchased, or quickly made assets and then abondend a few months after release to start working on the next game. There's even a whole genre for that on the mobile market called "hyper casual games" with companies that are releasing multiple games a month, sometimes even per week, in the hopes to make the next Flappy Bird. Not agreeing with a monetization does not make a game automatically a cash crab.

I know that this is a lot of text and I don't blame you or anyone else for not reading through all of this. It's just that these thoughts have been in my mind for a while now and for some reason I get especially "talky" after I wake up.

Feels good to be able to play Renolock and Dragon Priest again, even if they aren't the best decks out there. Now if only the format didn't remind me of my jade druid ptsd.

His Hero power is "2 mana: Give your hero Divine Shield. They gain +2 Attack and Windfury this turn".

Getting Flashbacks from the Ironwood Golem reveal. When they were supposed to reveal the card they instead started a tournament and after every round (most of which were control mirrors) they revealed a fraction of the card and talked about it for 10 minutes. It took almost 2 hours until they revealed everything, and the card wasn't even interesting in the slightest.

My heart wishes that they are going to add this feature for certain merc abilties too, but my mind says that it won't happen.

Mixtapes cardpool isn't random, so you should still be able to discover titans with it.

My bad then, must have misremembered it. Though the qoute does make it sound like they atleast want to roughly hit the season mark.

They actually stated they want to change the rules every season aka month. I highly doubt that they are going to make any balance changes that are specifically targeted towards this mode, because of it's ever changing nature. In the worst case (a tier 0 deck) they are probably going to ban a card there for a couple weeks, until the next set of twist changes arrive.

Previous Battle-ready decks they offered cost like 20$. So it's probably going to be something around 1.5k-2k gold if they stick to the price.

Took a while, but now we finally know what the "spell locked" part during phase 1 on the roadmap was.

I actually bought the Title, because it's litterely awesome. Well, mostly because it goes well with pretty much any deck or Avatar combination. Also because I like the Green Goblin skin and don't find many of the offers compelling enough.

I can also see how some people are going to buy the Avatar to show off that they were there and somewhat succesfull during this Season. It's also worth noting that this is one of the few ways for f2p players (outside of saving Gold) to get Avatars of card variants.

It's also worth noting that the boosts you get from the battlepass are bound to character levels. So you can unlock the boosts instantly with money, but you won't be able to use it until you grinded with a character to a certain level. Hopefully f2p who reach that level already unlocked the boost aswell by then.

This has nothing to do with manipulation. For 99.99% of cards you can play the next one without having to wait for the animation to finish, to make it a smooth gameplay experience. The opponent however doesn't get to see the cards you played in real time. For them it always looks like you are waiting for the animation to finish before playing the next card.

So everyone could play 10 cards in 10 seconds, however for your opponent these cards would be displayed throughout, let's say, 30 seconds. If this theoratical play would happen during the last 10 seconds of your turn, then it would look for your opponent as if the rope stops at the last second and that your are still playing cards.

It's also important to note that your turn time only starts once all animations are resolved on your side, and not when the enemy played all their cards.

It's still coming with the next update, probably 1-2 weeks from now. Seasons are scheduled and happen automatically without the need of an update.

It's worth noting that Hollow Hound has synergy with the already existing hand attack buffs DK has.

Previously the main selling point of handhelds were that you could play with them anywhere, however this doesn't really seem to be the case here, since you need to be in the same wifi as the playstation. Not sure how many people are willing to spend likely 100~200$ on top of the 450$ Playstation, just so they can play the games in their bed and on the toilet.

For Overwatch they already announced a bunch of pvp and some pve content aswell as new Systems for season 6, however that season should start around a month before the Blizzcon. So at the very least I expect a new cinematic and details about Season 7, hopefully also including the Sombra and Roadhog reworks. I also expect them to briefely tease the Story mission they have for that season (the announcement of seasonal pve content kinda went under the radar, because of the cancelation of the hero missions)

I would also expect some kind of announcement for Warcraft Arclight Rumble. It's been in closed beta for over a year now and was briefely seen in the Blizzcon trailer. It also just got a big update that included big changes to how the player progresses through the campaign.

I know that there were a lot of controversies around Blizzard since the last Blizzcon, but I'm just glad that it's back. I really missed having a single day that's full of cinematic and trailers for Blizzard games.

I guess that's true. Though while they delivered nothing yet does it not mean that they aren't going to deliver anything pve related at all in the near future. They "just" canceled the hero missions that were supposed to containt highly replayable pve missions and a huge skilltree for each hero. The Story missions in the veins of Archives are still coming.

I mean, Fortnite also abondend its pve main mode in favor of the live service for the pvp game.