As much as I don't want to be a Doomsayer, this might be the beginning of the end.
Blizzard is clearly turning into a shitshow internally. So far, Hearthstone has been spared from most of the fallout (I don't count the Blitzchung thing because it would have literally happened the exact same way in any other context. The entertainment industry is now partially owned by China, deal with it) but eventually it's gonna feel the sting.
I have no idea how much influence Mike had on Hearthstone for the past year, but it's pretty obvious that the game has improved significantly (coincidentally around the time Ben Brode ditched, make of that what you will). However, the "smol indie company" meme exists for a reason, and one of those reasons is that the hearthstone dev team has always been significantly smaller than other games.
If they're cutting personnel now (and they do, this is not Mike leaving on his own accord, he was clearly moved to more important projects, presumably because he is actually competent at his job and clearly Blizzard is dire need of people like that) to me it means that Hearthstone is not something they'll continue to pour many ressources into.
Maybe the game isn't as profitable as it needs to be, maybe they have data that suggest that online Card Games aren't sustainable. Whatever it is, there is no reason that they would shrink the team for a game they plan giving quality attention, which is especially worrying because Legends of Runeterra is basically the biggest rival Hearthstone has had in a long time, and now would be the time for some genuine competition.
However this turns out, enjoy the game while it lasts...and if you want to keep playing card games, maybe give LOR a try. At least that game has a company behind that doesn't actively antagonize its fanbase (even though they are still a Chinese sockpuppet and you should never forget that).
Elemental Mage is still basically unplayable which gives me the big sad.
In theory you have a midrange deck that can draw most of its burn spells for 1-mana, but in practice it's just way too slow.
Kinda wish there was a deck to use the new Hero Power Elemental Daring Fireeater and Jan'alai in a deck that isn't complete garbage, but I guess that's out of the question.
They could also make it so elusive units cannot block (or at least add it to most of them).
Nothing feels worse than a deck that can beat your face in while also value trade into your attacks.
Deny needs to be nerfed either way, it's just stupid, especially in a game where card draw is an absolute luxury and denying your opponent any crucial play without a downside is just absurd.
It would be kind of nice to have like a "Practice" mode where you could at least play against the A.I. with all the cards unlocked. That would give people a chance to try new and different mechanics to at least get a feel for how they play and if it's even reasonable to try in the meta.
Silly player, then how would Blizzard get you to spend your dust unwisel and encourage you to buy more packs?
Meanwhile Ionia gets to just cancel spells for basically no tempo loss (3-mana is a joke) while also having an insanely versatile arsenal.
LoR isn't really a game where you can just win the war of attrition if you don't have some sick lategame cards. Either you win fast and hard or you play the long game and have a deck built accordingly.
Spells are incredibly impactful, which is why they are also pretty high cost (compare to Hearthstone, where basically every comparable spell is at least 1-mana cheaper)
You're essentially complaining about Twisting Nether existing in another game, and much like Twisting Nether the best way to play around it is by not just throwing your minions out at will (or just trying to gain an advantage before that, it's a 9-mana spell after all). There are plenty of good minions that leave behind bodies after death (if they don'T just straight-up revive themselves). If Shadow Isles control becomes meta there will be counters.
I'm on the fence. Like you, I've won almost every single game where I've picked Tirion. This probably suggests that it's out of balance. But I think it's close. I wonder if making it 2-mana is fair, considering that neutrals are far more common and varied than Demons (Jaraxxus's buff).
Also, unlike Jaraxxus, the minions you play aren't costing you LP.
Like the only "downside" is that some of your best minions come from TT1 and TT2...which isn't really that bad considering the buffs. But I wonder if the buff cost is increased if it becomes too strong a nerf to those minions.
It also struggles if it doesn't get Rivendare or Demons.
They will probably nerf him, 2 mana HP seems like a logical candidate, or maybe change the HP to give +1 attack or health. Redesigning it would be the last choice, imo.
Yeah sometimes you don't get Demons or Rivendare, but the minions scale up so well throughout the game, you get the victory anyways. Golden Selfless Hero and Zapp are my MVPs. Bolvar is also one of my favourites.
at the same time they still haven't nerfed Cobalt Guardian and Spawn of N'Zoth despite those things constantly running away with games if they appear early enough.
Rafaam and Edwin are also still able to snowball games consistently and with little option to fight them and A.F.K. is still basically a guaranteed top 4 unless you get really bad rolls
Some heroes are always going to be better than others, and at the very least Tirion brings something different to the table instead of just hoping to stack tribals and hope your opponent's are weaker.
On one hand, fuck Twitch. THat platform is rotten to the core and plagued by insane deicions making and other garbage.
On the other hand, YouTube isn't any better, if not worse.
I hope this doesn't end up affecting regular streamers as well, because despite everything Twitch does wrong, it's at least not as downright incompetent as YOuTube
how can it be abused with CC? You can't even play both on the same turn and 7-drops aren't even that good on average (in fact, Avalanche itself is one of the better ones)
Also not sure that for 9-mana the extra 7/6 is that valuable. You wanna play this early and for tempo.
How'd you enjoy 90% of your matches being mirrors, cause this deck is literally the only thing I've seen the past few days.
Back to wild we go!
Surprisingly enough, I didn't run into the mirror as often as I thought I would. Still a lot of Hunters and Rogues out there, even though they don't stand a chance at all.
Even ran into one Holy Wrath Paladin who actually beat me. Guess that deck isn't all that bad when Rogue isn't as common.
Obviously the deck is pretty popular right now because it's finally a playable version of Embiggen. Either way, if Blizzard's recent policy is anything to go by we'll have hotifx nerfs at least by the time all the Adventure chapters are out.
I understand it being popular due to being a 'new' deck in the middle of the expansion, but that matchup spread on hsreplay looks ominous.
I tried token druid as that seems to be one of the only decent decks that's actually favored against it, but it didn't perform that well for me.
What's your track record against token druid, if you faced any?
I believe I only faced two and I beat them both, mainly by just piling on taunts that they had no way of getting through. If you can play on curve then token druids are no problem, since they essentially lose if they don't have Mulchmuncher by the time you drop the Winged Guardian.
On the other hand, if token druid gets the perfect curve you can't do much about it since they'll just rush your face and then Mulchmuncher the first taunt you play.
How'd you enjoy 90% of your matches being mirrors, cause this deck is literally the only thing I've seen the past few days.
Back to wild we go!
Surprisingly enough, I didn't run into the mirror as often as I thought I would. Still a lot of Hunters and Rogues out there, even though they don't stand a chance at all.
Even ran into one Holy Wrath Paladin who actually beat me. Guess that deck isn't all that bad when Rogue isn't as common.
Obviously the deck is pretty popular right now because it's finally a playable version of Embiggen. Either way, if Blizzard's recent policy is anything to go by we'll have hotifx nerfs at least by the time all the Adventure chapters are out.
So I just cracked the Legend Barrier for the first time. Usually I don't bother because I don't wanna spend the effort only to get a bad losing streak and get stuck between ranks forever.....but apparently Embiggen Druid is so OP right now that I could just roll through most of my games.
It might just be one of the least counterable decks I have ever played. Sure, it depends on draw RNG a lot, but if it gets a good curve there's basically fuckall you can do to stop it.
So yeah, I guess I'll be enjoying my extra rewards at the end of the month and won't need to bother going for Rank 5 next season.
Also I'm gonna have as much fun as I can with Winged Guardian before it gets nerfed into oblivion. Turns out there'S a reason why Soggoth the Slitherer was statted the way he was.
yes, instead we should all just consoom product and get excited for next product.
Better not question the authorities, wouldn't want our social credit score to suffer
As much as I don't want to be a Doomsayer, this might be the beginning of the end.
Blizzard is clearly turning into a shitshow internally. So far, Hearthstone has been spared from most of the fallout (I don't count the Blitzchung thing because it would have literally happened the exact same way in any other context. The entertainment industry is now partially owned by China, deal with it) but eventually it's gonna feel the sting.
I have no idea how much influence Mike had on Hearthstone for the past year, but it's pretty obvious that the game has improved significantly (coincidentally around the time Ben Brode ditched, make of that what you will). However, the "smol indie company" meme exists for a reason, and one of those reasons is that the hearthstone dev team has always been significantly smaller than other games.
If they're cutting personnel now (and they do, this is not Mike leaving on his own accord, he was clearly moved to more important projects, presumably because he is actually competent at his job and clearly Blizzard is dire need of people like that) to me it means that Hearthstone is not something they'll continue to pour many ressources into.
Maybe the game isn't as profitable as it needs to be, maybe they have data that suggest that online Card Games aren't sustainable. Whatever it is, there is no reason that they would shrink the team for a game they plan giving quality attention, which is especially worrying because Legends of Runeterra is basically the biggest rival Hearthstone has had in a long time, and now would be the time for some genuine competition.
However this turns out, enjoy the game while it lasts...and if you want to keep playing card games, maybe give LOR a try. At least that game has a company behind that doesn't actively antagonize its fanbase (even though they are still a Chinese sockpuppet and you should never forget that).
oh I did exactly that (already tried it before the adventure), but it's just incredibly slow.
Basically you need to snowball ahead and then burn them down or you need to Elemental Evocation an Animated Avalanche early.
If you don't manage that you're basically just playing a subpar aggro deck with mostly vanillas
It also hurts that there'S no efficient board clear to pair with (unless you wanna put in Shooting Star with Cosmic Anomaly)
Elemental Mage is still basically unplayable which gives me the big sad.
In theory you have a midrange deck that can draw most of its burn spells for 1-mana, but in practice it's just way too slow.
Kinda wish there was a deck to use the new Hero Power Elemental Daring Fireeater and Jan'alai in a deck that isn't complete garbage, but I guess that's out of the question.
They could also make it so elusive units cannot block (or at least add it to most of them).
Nothing feels worse than a deck that can beat your face in while also value trade into your attacks.
Deny needs to be nerfed either way, it's just stupid, especially in a game where card draw is an absolute luxury and denying your opponent any crucial play without a downside is just absurd.
Probably gonna get hit with the next nerf patch.
Either that or the rest of Ionia.
Deny should be 4-5 mana at least. It's ridiculous that you can basically cancel an entire turn for your enemy while only using your spell mana.
Silly player, then how would Blizzard get you to spend your dust unwisel and encourage you to buy more packs?
Ah yes, I remember when I crafte Lady in White thinking that there had to be some way to make that card playable
There wasn't
Meanwhile Ionia gets to just cancel spells for basically no tempo loss (3-mana is a joke) while also having an insanely versatile arsenal.
LoR isn't really a game where you can just win the war of attrition if you don't have some sick lategame cards. Either you win fast and hard or you play the long game and have a deck built accordingly.
Spells are incredibly impactful, which is why they are also pretty high cost (compare to Hearthstone, where basically every comparable spell is at least 1-mana cheaper)
You're essentially complaining about Twisting Nether existing in another game, and much like Twisting Nether the best way to play around it is by not just throwing your minions out at will (or just trying to gain an advantage before that, it's a 9-mana spell after all). There are plenty of good minions that leave behind bodies after death (if they don'T just straight-up revive themselves). If Shadow Isles control becomes meta there will be counters.
at the same time they still haven't nerfed Cobalt Guardian and Spawn of N'Zoth despite those things constantly running away with games if they appear early enough.
Rafaam and Edwin are also still able to snowball games consistently and with little option to fight them and A.F.K. is still basically a guaranteed top 4 unless you get really bad rolls
Some heroes are always going to be better than others, and at the very least Tirion brings something different to the table instead of just hoping to stack tribals and hope your opponent's are weaker.
THe only thing about Tirion I have a problem with is when he goes demons you'll never killl his Soul Juggler and then he just wins
yeah, Quest Hunter is a pretty underrated deck. I think most people are turned off by the amount of specific legendaries you need for it.
On one hand, fuck Twitch. THat platform is rotten to the core and plagued by insane deicions making and other garbage.
On the other hand, YouTube isn't any better, if not worse.
I hope this doesn't end up affecting regular streamers as well, because despite everything Twitch does wrong, it's at least not as downright incompetent as YOuTube
how can it be abused with CC? You can't even play both on the same turn and 7-drops aren't even that good on average (in fact, Avalanche itself is one of the better ones)
Also not sure that for 9-mana the extra 7/6 is that valuable. You wanna play this early and for tempo.
only in Zoo though. No other deck runs enough 1-drops that are also just good vanilla minions and not pllayed for their battlecries.
Could see Zoo with the new Demon, Flame Imp and Void Walker + the regular Galakrond package. Only downside is you don't get to use Beaming Sidekick.
I believe I only faced two and I beat them both, mainly by just piling on taunts that they had no way of getting through. If you can play on curve then token druids are no problem, since they essentially lose if they don't have Mulchmuncher by the time you drop the Winged Guardian.
On the other hand, if token druid gets the perfect curve you can't do much about it since they'll just rush your face and then Mulchmuncher the first taunt you play.
Surprisingly enough, I didn't run into the mirror as often as I thought I would. Still a lot of Hunters and Rogues out there, even though they don't stand a chance at all.
Even ran into one Holy Wrath Paladin who actually beat me. Guess that deck isn't all that bad when Rogue isn't as common.
Obviously the deck is pretty popular right now because it's finally a playable version of Embiggen. Either way, if Blizzard's recent policy is anything to go by we'll have hotifx nerfs at least by the time all the Adventure chapters are out.
So I just cracked the Legend Barrier for the first time. Usually I don't bother because I don't wanna spend the effort only to get a bad losing streak and get stuck between ranks forever.....but apparently Embiggen Druid is so OP right now that I could just roll through most of my games.
It might just be one of the least counterable decks I have ever played. Sure, it depends on draw RNG a lot, but if it gets a good curve there's basically fuckall you can do to stop it.
So yeah, I guess I'll be enjoying my extra rewards at the end of the month and won't need to bother going for Rank 5 next season.
Also I'm gonna have as much fun as I can with Winged Guardian before it gets nerfed into oblivion. Turns out there'S a reason why Soggoth the Slitherer was statted the way he was.
Bomb Warrior is really underrated in terms of Galakrond decks, especially in a meta full of Rogues which like to draw a lot.
Wouldn't use it now though, since it gets beaten pretty hard by Big Druid
I wasn't talking instant death as much as giving your opponent time to build a board or a minion that you can't deal with and will lose to.