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The game could have been designed to be less grindy in the first place.

I mean, there are people who like grind. And those are certainly part of the main target audience.

I just hit legend with this fel-deamonhunter list.

The deck felt quite solid against most Decks. Mages were rarely a problem because it can easily win without playing minions. Though an early Metamorfin is great for early board control. It also has quite a lot of heal against aggro decks.

Jace Darkweaver is also an incredible card. It not only gives you a huge ammount of attack to close out the game (rarely had less than 10 after playing him, even on curve), but it can also clear the enemy board, while also healing you up. The deck generally has a lot of healing potential as well. Zai, the Incredible also proved himself to be quite usefull. Mostly for copying Jace against slower matchups, but he's also great with Eye Beam, discounted spells through Felgorger or fel spells in general, since that makes Jace even better.

The only problematic matchups I found were Libram paladin (constant minion buffs makes it hard to survive and I have yet to win against libram of Judgement) and Big Warrior. I also struggled a bit again aggro Druid, but it is definetely manageable if you try to avoid a good Arbor Up.

Overall a pretty cool deck for a Archetype that's rarely seen on ladder.

The game is balanced around standard, and there the deck was non-existand.

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(largely because apparently they were counting in the xp from achievements when doing their calculations, underestimating how difficult these things are to grind)

I think you mixed something up here. They were originally counting the event bonus xp, which they scrapped when reworking the track. So objectively failing can't be said for sure, since we have no Idea how high the planed event XP was supposed to be.

"We originally included event reward XP when calculating our intended cadence of rewards. We’ve rethought this and recognize that the rewards track should stand on its own and not require event XP bonuses, making rewards predictable and consistent across an expansion."

https://outof.cards/hearthstone/2302-blizzard-responds-to-the-hearthstone-rewards-track-less-xp-required-gold-bonus-next-week-more-xp-gains

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The question now is how much xp exactly. I think playing on solo adventure also grants xp, but the amount being so small as to be insignificant.

"Currently planning on PvP to award the same XP as Constructed Ranked PvP and for PvE to award the same amount of XP as Arena/BG/Duels."

https://twitter.com/IksarHS/status/1433826071263137800

actually he said that

"Currently planning on PvP to award the same XP as Constructed Ranked PvP and for PvE to award the same amount of XP as Arena/BG/Duels."

It was introduced in the core-set, so it's still relatively new.

The new Illucia is kinda interesting. The effect is obviously more similar to Azalina Soulthief (lol remember her?) who saw some slight experimentation in control decks. The fact that the new hand is only temporarely is both an up and downside. Now I can play her without completely loosing my hand for example, which also makes it a reasonable curve play to spy into my opponents hand.

Trump and Kripp also uploaded early acces videos btw.

pretty sure that the only other way to get them is through bounties, daily pvp rewards or merc quests.

It's one of the progression mechanics. Other are the bounties and pvp arena. Just like with constructed you won't stop playing once you got a whole collection (which will take even longer with mercenaries if you want to max out every merc (note that the only way to gain merc xp is through playing)).

I wonder why they added these files so early, considering that it's suppost to launch in over 4 weeks from now. Maybe they are planning an early acces just like with Battlegrounds or Duels? Though they would have surely mentioned it in the stream if that was the case (back then atleast).

Every Bartender skin seems more awesome than the one before it. Well, except Ve'nari who I find kinda boring and forgetable.

I gladly give up the unique animations if that means more of these awesome seasonal skins.

That's quite a lot of anger for an completely optional puzzle. I find the Idea of a Community puzzle quite exciting. Last time the problem was that everyone just copy pasted the answer from the people who solved it without even knowing that there was a big secret going on. That's probably why they tried a different approach this time.

I'm talking about this part

Quote From Celestalon

You were on the right track with that spreadsheet from Patch. You just needed more data.

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The expectation was that you realized you were on the right path after steps 2 and maybe 3, and started a big social media campaign to get tons and tons of people in the community involved and to report their data each day.

Was hoping to have this be a huge community-driven event.

That the pvp arena is supposed to be the main mode seems to be the general perception, but I feel like the focus, from a gamedesign perspective, lies on the pve part. The mode was announced as a pve experience with an additional pvp version and the game design also reflects that in multiple ways.

1. The Bounties are in the center of the map, while the pvp arena is closer to the edge. That's just a small thing, but it does impact what you unconsciously prioritize.

2. Quests - This one is obviously very vague since they have barely shown any of them, but the ones we do know about can either be completed in every game "Deal 75 damage with arcane shot" or is pve exclusive like "Complete the Ferocious Quillboar bounty". We have yet to see one that rewards you playing pvp.

3. The pvp rewards are limited to once per day. The bounties on the other hand don't have that limit and, judging by the shown gameplay, the pvp rewards don't seem to be much more than the ones for bounties.

4. Building up on that, the bounties have much more contant than the pvp. As I mentioned in my previous comment, there appears to be tons of different bounties. Not only that, but there are bounty loot exclusive attacks, passive Items and ofcourse enemies. When we look at the pvp section again, you'll find out that it uses the same ladder as BG. And just like BG there don't seem to be seasonal rewards. This in combination with my third point again means that playing pve regularely is the optimal way of gaining progress.

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Now tell me, why did we need a new mode?

People also said that about Battlegrounds, yet here we are. I personally think the answer to the question is that the game lacked a main pve mode for people who enjoy those. Yes, there were Dungeon runs in the past, but that got kinda boring ones you have gone through all the chapters in every difficulty.

Mercenaries on the other hand seems to have a huge amount of not only mercenaries to level, but also a wide selection of bounty missions with an even bigger ammount of variaty than dungeon runs had. The gameplay showed that the bounties are seperated into regions, with each of them having three bounty missions. While they havn't said an exact number, the size of the slider implied that there are around 8-10 different areas, so roughly 60 different bounties to go through. On top of that there is also the heroic difficulty, as well as post launch legendary one. AND they promised regular updates, which will surely include more areas and gameplay mechanics, just like for the other 2 premier modes "Constructed" and "Battlegrounds".

Why that? Having the option to buy a bundle is always better than not having the option, or am I missing something?

They did mention that a big Duels update is on the way in the latest patchnotes and confirmed new Duels heroes during a Blizzconline Interview.

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It's also worrisome that they said so little about the enemies you'll be facing. Surely the challenges faced are just as important as the heroes used - but we only see bounty contracts, the fighting pit, and a few bosses? Hrm.

The press kit has a 25 minute video that features a whole run, you might be interested in that one.