The second puzzle has been confirmed to be broken by celestion on the wow-secret finding discord. Guess we will have to wait a bit before unlocking the cardback.

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doesn't have dedicated teams to its premier auto-battler and this new gacha Mercenaries game.

Except both Mercenaries and Battlegrounds have do dedicated teams. Iksar mentioned it in one of his q&as earlier this year.

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Team 5's resources are not going into Hearthstone, the CCG, and it's noticeable

I'm sorry, but what? You do have in mind that they release 3 expansion each year with 3 additional mini-expansion in between? Each of them with unique themes and mechanics may I add. Not to mention the frequent balance patches which primarely hit standard constructed.

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1) Standard is a mess this expansion - the triangle of aggro/control/combo is deeply broken with combos at the moment.

Elemental shaman, handbuff paladin, Quest rogue, Aggro-Priest, Fel-demonhunter and more are a few examples of non-combo meta decks. Besides, when was the meta ever not "broken"?

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2) Arena and Duels don't get the kind of support that incentivizes playing them.

And that's on purpose. Ben talked about it in one of the Blizzconline interviews how Tavern Brawl, Arena and Duels are supposed to be secondary gamemodes that you play every now and then. Standard, Battlegrounds and now Mercenaries on the other hand are supposed to be main ones.

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3) I'm not sure how much Classic is getting played, but I found it pretty boring after a couple days despite having a complete Classic collection.

Similar thing to the Point above. You just play the mode if you want something consistent on which you can always rely on no matter how everything else in the game goes.

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4) Wild. Players have been asking for NEW WAYS to use THEIR EXISTING COLLECTION for years and years and years now.

1. Duels

2. The devs made it very clear that the main purpose of wild is to have a place where you can play your decks once they rotated out. It is not in their intention to make it a standard 2.0

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I have paid for every pre-order for years, and played nearly every day, but I NEVER get every card in an expansion

I only bought the big pre-order, played semi-regularely and have easily managed to get every card of the set since Darkmoon. Seems like a you-problem to me.

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I stopped playing Hearthstone a week after United in Stormwind, and was hoping to return for Mercenaries. I'll check in again at the next set rotation in April.

I mean, do what you want, but maybe you should atleast play the tutorial and one run before saying that the mode is not for you.

What's so wrong about publishing a bunch of bundles? No one forces you to buy them, and more options are always better than less.

I think this is a good opportunity to highlight a quote from Ben Lee during a Blizzconline Interview "Hearthstone has become a platform for card games"

Last time I regularely checked reddit if someone made progress...I probably won't do it this time since they found a new topic to rage over.

I think the new main UI shows pretty well what the devs meant when they said that they see Hearthstone as a "Platform for Cardgames".

That's the reason why you don't like it? Why did you ever started playing Hearthstone to begin with then? I personally think it's exciting to have alternative version of the contructed mode with a huge focus on pve and I don't really mind the packs then.

No one said that you have to be up to date in every mode. I see it more as a permanent alternative to constructed and if the matchmaking actually works in the way they described it (as in you fight a similar level team in pvp), you should also be able to play it casually. Or you ignore it just all together and focus on the countless pve missions and their 2 (3) difficulties.

So that's Hearthstones first cross-promo if we don't count the tavern brawls hu? I wonder if they are also adding a Overwatch Mercenaries once OW2 launches.

That's a hell lot of content for a single mode.

I guess they kept Ghastcoiler because it fits the "let friendly minions die" (purposly didn't said Deathrattle because of cards like Bird Buddy) identity of the beasts rework.

The actual patchnotes are most likely released after tomorrows Mercenaries stream.

must be a typo, he actually talked about random hero/coin skins feature

The Mercenaries leak already included October 12th as the release date. Plus the BG updates usually happened around 4 weeks after the expansion launch

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(if the overhaul means what I think it means)

I don't know what you think, but in this case overhaul means that every tribe gets reworked in order to have a more distinct direction. They already followed this philoshopy with elementals (gain a bonus for each time you play another elemental) and quillboars(generate blood gems and gain a bonus for spending them) for example. The older tribes however don't have that. Dragons are currently the best examples here. There are cards like:

Red Whelp, Cobalt Scalebane and Razorgore who gain a automatic bonus at the start/end of turn

Glyph Guardian, Waxrider Togwaggle and Heral of Flame who gain a bonus for killing stuff

Bronze Warden, Drakonid enforcer and Nadina the red for divine shield synergy

Aswell as a bunch of cards with unique abilities without being build around cards like:

Steward of Time (Selling), Hangry Dragon (winning rounds), Murazond (enemy warband)

The overhaul would presumably nail it down to one or at most two different mechanics.

You probably don't want to hear this, but the modes are still in beta because they are still planning to change fundamental aspects of it. Think about the permanent 25% Darkmoon Prizes chance in BG, the complete tribe overhauls or how synergistic the offers during a Duels run are.

That's what beta means from a developer standpoint.

First wait, then judge. Blizzard always put (a) heavily unique spin(s) on existing genres.

but releasing a mini-set so close to a new "premier way to play, like Constructed and Battlegrounds", doesn't seem like a smart move. The mini-set would totally go under most peoples radars if that's the case. That's also why both Duels, Battlegrounds and every single pve mode after Dungeon run released either 3-4 weeks before or after a major content update.

Seems like we are going to hear from it very soon (not tm)! Some people received an upload notification for it on the official youtube channel and one user even managed to screen record it. I really didn't expected to hear from it so soon, but if anything that makes me even more hyped!

source

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/pamjko/i_was_able_to_record_the_mercenaries_leak/

Edit:

AND IT'S LAUNCHING OCTOBER 12TH!

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/pamdeq/got_this_just_now_in_my_youtube_subscribed_list/ha5k6q2/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3

nope, him being a dragon was the plottwist for the last Exploreres fight. Though the BG version uses a different art than the one in the Adventure.