Has anyone tested Brann + Dungar? I assume it works as long as you pick the same flight path, but feel like it would break the game if you picked two different paths. Or the other possibility: Pick Westfall and then Plaguelands, Dungar awakens in 2 turns but gets the Westfall and Plaguelands effect!
But no, they would have play tested for a Brann scenario to avoid such madness… right?
Without a dev clarifying there is no way to know. HS tries its best to be intuitive, so I would assume it gets shuffled randomly into your deck. It is also worth noting that Sphere of Sapience specifies that the card gets shuffled to the bottom of your deck so I would assume that any other mechanic that shuffles a card to the bottom of your deck would specify that it does that.
I can't remember when it was, but awhile back I think I remember hearing or reading somewhere how the way they write text changed over time from being super specific to cutting text for things that should seem more obvious and intuitive based on the mechanics. So yes, since it doesn't specify it's likely a shuffle effect. But was just curious if anyone had seen or heard a specific clarification.
I don't remember hearing this anywhere so I'm curious if anyone knows. When you use the tradeable effect does the card draw a random card and then shuffle into your deck, or is it placed on the bottom of the deck? It doesn't really specify on the HS website either, just saying "Cards with the Tradeable keyword can be played like normal, or traded with a random card in your deck for the low price of 1 Mana.". Thought that maybe it literally trades places with a card in your deck at random instead of shuffling, which if so could be interesting with Lorekeeper Polkelt in the game... But likely not since I think the game doesn't predetermine deck order and just picks a card at random to be the card you draw (unless you've played Polkelt).
So has anyone seen a Twitter post, or some other clarification out there from a dev? Since it doesn't specify that it goes to the bottom of the deck I'm going to assume it shuffles in, as the HS team's attitude on text the last 2-3 years has shifted to not always clarifying unless the effect does something different than expected.
The first thing that stood out to me was the lack of the swirl in the middle, but I think this is great! As more and more expansions are released I think having a center image/logo that represents the expansion in the middle while putting the swirl on another portion of the pack like we see in the Stormwind packs is a great idea. We'll see if they keep this trend moving forward.
This is the first time a pack outside of the Class or "Year of" packs that the swirl is not featured in the middle of the pack. I don't know why, because it probably doesn't mean a damn thing, but I find that to be a very interesting detail.
I typically play Noz all (or at least most) of the time I spend playing on the 15th, so just queue into me! Should be easy. :)
He's not the worst card really. I've even played him in Wild, which is harder to find a willing participant to match up with. I put him in decks where I have some "if you're holding a dragon" cards so he can just be the activator I never play.. Or if I've played Frizz then he's a 5 mana 8/8 dragon. Not bad! You could also run him in a Big/Duel Paladin.
Of course the suggestions I'm making are more meme than meta but whatever! I don't take this game too seriously so that it can remain fun and not burn me down. My only goal each month is Diamond in both formats, D5 if I can but it's not a necessity for me to call the month a success! But it's because I'm not pushing for Legend all the time that the decks I mentioned are viable to me.
It’s for Legendary quests which are quests you get once, and usually have bigger rewards.
This is a monthly recurring quest so it’s not in the Legendary Quest category. It’s more like a guaranteed 1500 xp quest each month, which after completing the rewards track that’s a 50gold quest…
Which is an entirely different issue for me! Going on a tangent here… Challenge a Friend used to award 80 gold. Spectate a Friend Win was a pack (100 gold). Now they are both 50 gold (when in bonus levels). Overall the new system is still much better, but when I think of it in those terms it irks me a little…
I was originally thinking Westfall/Deadmines since the area is about the same level as the Barrens/Wailing Caverns. But since they mention "you have leveled up" I start to wonder if maybe it's a place slightly higher in level than the Barrens and Westfall? But then again, since they'll likely want to use an Alliance controlled territory, I could still see Westfall as the destination with the Deadmines to follow as the mini set theme.
And for anyone still wanting to play Mecha’thun Warlock, there is still a combo with Shadowhunter Vol’jin that worked pretty well prior to Wailing Caverns release. With the right draws it could be done as early as turn 9, or 8 with The Coin. Hemet to kill the 3 or less cards after you have a 0 cost minion in hand. With the deck empty and the only minions in your hand being Vol’jin, Mecha’thun, and one or more 0 cost minions you play the 0 cost minion(s), Vol’jin one of your 0cost guys to pull your only remaining minion, Mecha’thun, then Cataclysm! No stealer required!
It will be harder against aggro because it takes at least 2-3 more turns to get there,but it still works! It might also be faster than the Dollmaster combo but I really don’t remember.
The Stealer ban is something I personally am fine with. I wasn’t really facing decks with it often, and both when I faced it and when I played it, I felt the animation times and unlucky draws kept it from being super consistent. I had many opponents lose because they drew the Illusionist too late to really go off, and then I just killed them next turn. But that said, the interaction was definitely problematic with all cards essentially becoming free, and getting easy wins when drawing certain cards early in the animations.
So yeah, a Wild ban while keeping it in the current form for the sake of Standard is fine. I don’t think it’s a super powerful card in Standard, but they plan ahead right? Warlock may have more draw planned in the next expansion, or expansion 3 for this year. So changing the card to fit Wild might kill it in Standard, ruining any planned Standard synergy from upcoming sets.
Can’t wait to see what Stealer turns into in April 2023! My guess is something like “At the end of your turn, draw a card. It costs health instead of mana.” or “Battlecry: The next X cards youdraw cost health instead of mana.” Another option is keep the same effect, raise the cost and stats. But with things like Skull and Voidcaller the cost increase doesn’t really solve anything so maybe a battlecry or change to the effect limiting how many cards can get their cost converted to HP
Was thinking as I opened the article that Elemental Shaman would work for this! Especially since I just got my first 1k portrait, and it’s Thrall! And what’s the first deck in the list?! Got to do it now!
I personally haven’t been playing a ton lately, but I kind of felt like this card wasn’t too big of a deal. I mean, I have been playing every day, but not always for long periods of time. MI wasn’t really seeing it a ton when I found the time to jump on.
Was I running into the Mecha’thun decks playing this as part of their combo? Yes, but not often. Where they winning on turn 5 or 6? A few times, but around half (or more) times they either took longer and gave me time to win or whiffed on what they needed to draw off of Twist. That or the animations were taking too long and they roped out!
I tried playing it myself and was maybe successful in around half or less of the games I played, due to the same problems listed above. I’d say that maybe I was playing it wrong but… come on! It’s a fairly simple deck to pilot. You just need to get the right draw order and you win. But with bad draw order, you can lose!
Anyway, with that said I’m fine with their decision. I know they want it to be available in Standard for now and anerf would kill it in that format. They maybe even have more draw planned to pair well with this guy in the next couple sets. If that’s the case, more draw and no action on the card suddenly makes this even more dangerous in Wild. So a ban may seem heavy handed to some, I think it’s fine! I’ll probably dust the guy for now and recraft later if they do make some good standard options to go with him in the next set or two.
I’m a little upset by this, but only because I wanted to run a counter deck to the Stealers using Stealer, Twist, and then Brann, Mutanus, Brewmasters, Stingers (the Warlock murloc that makesyour next murloc cost HP), replay Mutanus! Would have been fun watching the diabolical fish man just CHOMP away a bunch of needed combo pieces
It would also be really neat to have a unified meta...
Aside from just having a (potentially) more interesting meta, for NA Wild players (and maybe EU too) it would increase the player pool significantly as we've already established before that players in the East tend to play more Wild than Standard.
So if the cross region play eventually hits Hearthstone, what happens to players who have cards on two servers? I personally have only ever really played NA, but dabbled a little on the EU server as a F2P person there. I might have a few cards on there that I don't have on my main account. So would they merge? Or perhaps Hearthstone will stay regionalized in their servers, especially since they have their entire Grandmasters league set up by server regions. Who knows! Can't wait to see what happens with that though.
Last time they did this it offered me a couple different bundle sizes but only the most current expansion pack bundles. Pretty sure I had all the cards in that expansion at the time, and I played Wild more now and back then! This time I got the Phoenix packs in an offer and the bigger Wild bundle, which makes sense as I play lots of Wild and my only missing Standard card is Lunacy, a "Phoenix" card. So they made some changes and improved their algorithm this time around for sure!
Not the best group, but Sunsorrow was decent in a wild Libram Paladin not too long ago, which I believe Darkbane was a part of, because you could drop a ton of free Wisdom librams on her for some burst damage and/or board clearing pings.
I got the $19.99 Bob's Bargain, which I guess because I have all Standard cards except for Deck of Lunacy (that I disenchanted) so the Phoenix packs were chosen due to them having a chance to get that one card.
The second was a $29.99 bundle of Wild packs! Most of my collection's gaps are in GvG, TGT, and then smaller gaps in other wild sets.
First, I feel like getting the bigger Wild bundle is a sign that I spend too much on this game! Second, at least the algorithm is better than last time! The previous deal like this I got offered only Standard bundles when again, I had all the cards I could have gotten from the packs in them. I would have bought the Wild bundle last time but it wasn't offered.
This time though I'm honestly thinking of not buying anything from the deals. With the no duplicates rule plus the updated rewards track, I'm able to get everything with just a single Pre-order bundle and a large chunk of the gold I save up during an expansion. So I could buy the bundle and go nuts with Wild cards. I'd get at least 3 legendaries - the two in the bundle plus one more minimum from my Wild packs pity timer (yes, I'm pretty much certain they follow the same rules as regular packs! I opened Wild and Standard packs across two accounts and all gave me a legendary within 7 or less packs). But because I am able to get the new sets completed, that leaves gold and dust each expansion to go towards Wild cards I might need/want. So in essence those are now a bad use of my actual dollars.
Bots? Who knows! But they do match you with people of different records and deck power if they can't find an opponent similar to you play against you after X amount of time in a queue. So maybe with the decline of Arena's popularity you are actually just getting matched against really good players, with really good decks that are better than your deck around the point you get to the 6 win mark because there aren't enough people around your deck's level to play against at that point?
Keep in mind, the average number of Arena wins per run is 3 (or at least it used to be several years ago). This occurred because some people go 0-3, and very few people go 12-0, 12-1, or 12-2. So it actually averaged out that 3-3 was the typical Arena run when the mode was much more popular.
Has anyone tested Brann + Dungar? I assume it works as long as you pick the same flight path, but feel like it would break the game if you picked two different paths. Or the other possibility: Pick Westfall and then Plaguelands, Dungar awakens in 2 turns but gets the Westfall and Plaguelands effect!
But no, they would have play tested for a Brann scenario to avoid such madness… right?
I can't remember when it was, but awhile back I think I remember hearing or reading somewhere how the way they write text changed over time from being super specific to cutting text for things that should seem more obvious and intuitive based on the mechanics. So yes, since it doesn't specify it's likely a shuffle effect. But was just curious if anyone had seen or heard a specific clarification.
I don't remember hearing this anywhere so I'm curious if anyone knows. When you use the tradeable effect does the card draw a random card and then shuffle into your deck, or is it placed on the bottom of the deck? It doesn't really specify on the HS website either, just saying "Cards with the Tradeable keyword can be played like normal, or traded with a random card in your deck for the low price of 1 Mana.". Thought that maybe it literally trades places with a card in your deck at random instead of shuffling, which if so could be interesting with Lorekeeper Polkelt in the game... But likely not since I think the game doesn't predetermine deck order and just picks a card at random to be the card you draw (unless you've played Polkelt).
So has anyone seen a Twitter post, or some other clarification out there from a dev? Since it doesn't specify that it goes to the bottom of the deck I'm going to assume it shuffles in, as the HS team's attitude on text the last 2-3 years has shifted to not always clarifying unless the effect does something different than expected.
The first thing that stood out to me was the lack of the swirl in the middle, but I think this is great! As more and more expansions are released I think having a center image/logo that represents the expansion in the middle while putting the swirl on another portion of the pack like we see in the Stormwind packs is a great idea. We'll see if they keep this trend moving forward.
This is the first time a pack outside of the Class or "Year of" packs that the swirl is not featured in the middle of the pack. I don't know why, because it probably doesn't mean a damn thing, but I find that to be a very interesting detail.
I typically play Noz all (or at least most) of the time I spend playing on the 15th, so just queue into me! Should be easy. :)
He's not the worst card really. I've even played him in Wild, which is harder to find a willing participant to match up with. I put him in decks where I have some "if you're holding a dragon" cards so he can just be the activator I never play.. Or if I've played Frizz then he's a 5 mana 8/8 dragon. Not bad! You could also run him in a Big/Duel Paladin.
Of course the suggestions I'm making are more meme than meta but whatever! I don't take this game too seriously so that it can remain fun and not burn me down. My only goal each month is Diamond in both formats, D5 if I can but it's not a necessity for me to call the month a success! But it's because I'm not pushing for Legend all the time that the decks I mentioned are viable to me.
It’s for Legendary quests which are quests you get once, and usually have bigger rewards.
This is a monthly recurring quest so it’s not in the Legendary Quest category. It’s more like a guaranteed 1500 xp quest each month, which after completing the rewards track that’s a 50gold quest…
Which is an entirely different issue for me! Going on a tangent here… Challenge a Friend used to award 80 gold. Spectate a Friend Win was a pack (100 gold). Now they are both 50 gold (when in bonus levels). Overall the new system is still much better, but when I think of it in those terms it irks me a little…
MY MAN!!! That's what I'm talking about!
I was originally thinking Westfall/Deadmines since the area is about the same level as the Barrens/Wailing Caverns. But since they mention "you have leveled up" I start to wonder if maybe it's a place slightly higher in level than the Barrens and Westfall? But then again, since they'll likely want to use an Alliance controlled territory, I could still see Westfall as the destination with the Deadmines to follow as the mini set theme.
Still works! :)
And for anyone still wanting to play Mecha’thun Warlock, there is still a combo with Shadowhunter Vol’jin that worked pretty well prior to Wailing Caverns release. With the right draws it could be done as early as turn 9, or 8 with The Coin. Hemet to kill the 3 or less cards after you have a 0 cost minion in hand. With the deck empty and the only minions in your hand being Vol’jin, Mecha’thun, and one or more 0 cost minions you play the 0 cost minion(s), Vol’jin one of your 0cost guys to pull your only remaining minion, Mecha’thun, then Cataclysm! No stealer required!
It will be harder against aggro because it takes at least 2-3 more turns to get there,but it still works! It might also be faster than the Dollmaster combo but I really don’t remember.
The Stealer ban is something I personally am fine with. I wasn’t really facing decks with it often, and both when I faced it and when I played it, I felt the animation times and unlucky draws kept it from being super consistent. I had many opponents lose because they drew the Illusionist too late to really go off, and then I just killed them next turn. But that said, the interaction was definitely problematic with all cards essentially becoming free, and getting easy wins when drawing certain cards early in the animations.
So yeah, a Wild ban while keeping it in the current form for the sake of Standard is fine. I don’t think it’s a super powerful card in Standard, but they plan ahead right? Warlock may have more draw planned in the next expansion, or expansion 3 for this year. So changing the card to fit Wild might kill it in Standard, ruining any planned Standard synergy from upcoming sets.
Can’t wait to see what Stealer turns into in April 2023! My guess is something like “At the end of your turn, draw a card. It costs health instead of mana.” or “Battlecry: The next X cards youdraw cost health instead of mana.” Another option is keep the same effect, raise the cost and stats. But with things like Skull and Voidcaller the cost increase doesn’t really solve anything so maybe a battlecry or change to the effect limiting how many cards can get their cost converted to HP
Was thinking as I opened the article that Elemental Shaman would work for this! Especially since I just got my first 1k portrait, and it’s Thrall! And what’s the first deck in the list?! Got to do it now!
I personally haven’t been playing a ton lately, but I kind of felt like this card wasn’t too big of a deal. I mean, I have been playing every day, but not always for long periods of time. MI wasn’t really seeing it a ton when I found the time to jump on.
Was I running into the Mecha’thun decks playing this as part of their combo? Yes, but not often. Where they winning on turn 5 or 6? A few times, but around half (or more) times they either took longer and gave me time to win or whiffed on what they needed to draw off of Twist. That or the animations were taking too long and they roped out!
I tried playing it myself and was maybe successful in around half or less of the games I played, due to the same problems listed above. I’d say that maybe I was playing it wrong but… come on! It’s a fairly simple deck to pilot. You just need to get the right draw order and you win. But with bad draw order, you can lose!
Anyway, with that said I’m fine with their decision. I know they want it to be available in Standard for now and anerf would kill it in that format. They maybe even have more draw planned to pair well with this guy in the next couple sets. If that’s the case, more draw and no action on the card suddenly makes this even more dangerous in Wild. So a ban may seem heavy handed to some, I think it’s fine! I’ll probably dust the guy for now and recraft later if they do make some good standard options to go with him in the next set or two.
I’m a little upset by this, but only because I wanted to run a counter deck to the Stealers using Stealer, Twist, and then Brann, Mutanus, Brewmasters, Stingers (the Warlock murloc that makesyour next murloc cost HP), replay Mutanus! Would have been fun watching the diabolical fish man just CHOMP away a bunch of needed combo pieces
Aside from just having a (potentially) more interesting meta, for NA Wild players (and maybe EU too) it would increase the player pool significantly as we've already established before that players in the East tend to play more Wild than Standard.
So if the cross region play eventually hits Hearthstone, what happens to players who have cards on two servers? I personally have only ever really played NA, but dabbled a little on the EU server as a F2P person there. I might have a few cards on there that I don't have on my main account. So would they merge? Or perhaps Hearthstone will stay regionalized in their servers, especially since they have their entire Grandmasters league set up by server regions. Who knows! Can't wait to see what happens with that though.
Last time they did this it offered me a couple different bundle sizes but only the most current expansion pack bundles. Pretty sure I had all the cards in that expansion at the time, and I played Wild more now and back then! This time I got the Phoenix packs in an offer and the bigger Wild bundle, which makes sense as I play lots of Wild and my only missing Standard card is Lunacy, a "Phoenix" card. So they made some changes and improved their algorithm this time around for sure!
Well I mentioned this topic to my wife and because she needed to get me a Father's Day gift still, it became the 40 Wild Pack bundle. LOL
2 Free Legendaries: Don Han'Cho and King Mosh, both of which I previously had golden and DE'd to recraft into something useful.
From packs, I got pretty damn lucky! And this is after already opening 10 Wild packs previously to get the Legendary in the first 10 packs:
Lynessa Sunsorrow
Mogor the Ogre
Golden Malkorok
Eydis Darkbane
Not the best group, but Sunsorrow was decent in a wild Libram Paladin not too long ago, which I believe Darkbane was a part of, because you could drop a ton of free Wisdom librams on her for some burst damage and/or board clearing pings.
I got the $19.99 Bob's Bargain, which I guess because I have all Standard cards except for Deck of Lunacy (that I disenchanted) so the Phoenix packs were chosen due to them having a chance to get that one card.
The second was a $29.99 bundle of Wild packs! Most of my collection's gaps are in GvG, TGT, and then smaller gaps in other wild sets.
First, I feel like getting the bigger Wild bundle is a sign that I spend too much on this game! Second, at least the algorithm is better than last time! The previous deal like this I got offered only Standard bundles when again, I had all the cards I could have gotten from the packs in them. I would have bought the Wild bundle last time but it wasn't offered.
This time though I'm honestly thinking of not buying anything from the deals. With the no duplicates rule plus the updated rewards track, I'm able to get everything with just a single Pre-order bundle and a large chunk of the gold I save up during an expansion. So I could buy the bundle and go nuts with Wild cards. I'd get at least 3 legendaries - the two in the bundle plus one more minimum from my Wild packs pity timer (yes, I'm pretty much certain they follow the same rules as regular packs! I opened Wild and Standard packs across two accounts and all gave me a legendary within 7 or less packs). But because I am able to get the new sets completed, that leaves gold and dust each expansion to go towards Wild cards I might need/want. So in essence those are now a bad use of my actual dollars.
Bots? Who knows! But they do match you with people of different records and deck power if they can't find an opponent similar to you play against you after X amount of time in a queue. So maybe with the decline of Arena's popularity you are actually just getting matched against really good players, with really good decks that are better than your deck around the point you get to the 6 win mark because there aren't enough people around your deck's level to play against at that point?
Keep in mind, the average number of Arena wins per run is 3 (or at least it used to be several years ago). This occurred because some people go 0-3, and very few people go 12-0, 12-1, or 12-2. So it actually averaged out that 3-3 was the typical Arena run when the mode was much more popular.