I usually keep my duplicates around unless I'm out of dust, in case they get nerfed or rotated to the hall of fame. I think I have 7 Panthara in my collection, but that seemed like overkill.
As I wrote in the guide, the list is far from refined, so you can just substitute additional copies of some of the other cards in the deck and test what works best.
I think the core of the problem is the same as it has always been: the high crafting costs for epic and legendaries. The first ~50 packs you open of an expansion are great value, but once you have all the commons and rares, you're mostly getting dust from packs and you need a lot of dust to be able to craft one legendary. The duplicate protection does help, that was a great move. However, I don't think it's enough to fix the issue.
Preorders are about $1 per pack (regular price is much worse) and packs contain about 100 dust, so if you want to craft a 10k dust deck (not uncommon for control decks), that's a $100 deck. Of course you don't need to craft every single card; some you will have pulled from packs. But even if you're only missing 2 legendaries and 4 epics, that's almost $50 worth of dust. I think that's a lot of money when I can get full indie games for $10 to $20, or even AAA games from a few years ago.
I'm not sure yet whether the progression track is better or worse than the old system for me, since I never used to grind for 10 gold per 3 wins anyway. I complete almost all my quests and then occasionally play more when I'm fine-tuning a deck. But I think it is safe to say that, apart from the first few levels, the new system is not significantly better than the old system.
I think a lot of people were tolerating the old system because they had gotten used to it, not because they actually liked it. So even if the new system is roughly equal in terms of rewards (as Blizzard claims), it's still not going to give them a good impression.
Assuming the MMR is doing its job, 1 in 4 games should be top 2. For people that play Battlegrounds, it shouldn't be a problem to play rough4 games 1 week.
While the system doesn't punish ropers, it doesn't really reward them either, since any time played gains XP, so they might as well actually play the game during that time and maybe have some fun.
When it says "resets next expansion", does that mean next week when Darkmoon comes out, or at the end of Darkmoon? Since you can already unlock Darkmoon cards from the progression track, I'm guessing they set Darkmoon as the current expansion and "next" means the first expansion of 2021. But if I'm wrong, it would be really worthwhile to grind this week.
Vendetta gets played, so there is a demand for removal in Rogue.
Sap isn't always better: for battlecry minions, you'd rather remove them than return them to hand. It depends on the meta; currently we have a lot of battlecries, but with Darkmoon deathrattles could make a comeback.
They're nerfing the Basic and Classic sets to make sure there is more variation in decks as cards come in and out of Standard. So yes, they are weakening the ever-present cards while still putting powerful cards in new expansions, but that is deliberate.
I don't see where this card would be good. DH has a lot of efficient card draw, so it doesn't need value creation unless it is also efficient. But 5/3 is not a great pile of stats on turn 5+.
It might be useful for copying specific cards, but do you want to spend a lot of effort trying to get two copies of Twin Slice in outcast position for 8 face damage when you can instead put Inner Demon in your deck?
In theory there is a place for creating value instead of drawing if it's important to avoid fatigue. But DH has so much damage potential that it's hard to imagine that you can play through your entire deck without being able to win. And I don't think DH has the cards to out-value Priest or Rogue.
If you're building a dedicated shuffle deck, there is probably space for this in addition to Stowaway. In decks with few or no shuffle cards, this might still be playable as Tracking or Master's Call with a body.
A less favorable comparison would be Countess Ashmore, but this is one mana cheaper for similar stats and easier to fit into decks.
Combo it with Violet Illusionist, then you don't need a full hand. You could even play Spirit of the Shark the turn before to get two chances at discovering bombs.
Well, I just saw Occult Conjurer after posting, so if you want to prevent that from triggering while still preventing card draw and continuing to do face damage, Flare might be useful.
Preventing damage from minions can be done by nuking or freezing them, no taunts needed. Hero powers are an issue though: even with freeze effects, Hunter and Mage can still damage you. In the case of Mage, you are at least making them use their mana inefficiently, but a lot of Hunter decks are going to be using their hero power on every turn in the late game anyway.
I didn't know that.
I usually keep my duplicates around unless I'm out of dust, in case they get nerfed or rotated to the hall of fame. I think I have 7 Panthara in my collection, but that seemed like overkill.
As I wrote in the guide, the list is far from refined, so you can just substitute additional copies of some of the other cards in the deck and test what works best.
I think the core of the problem is the same as it has always been: the high crafting costs for epic and legendaries. The first ~50 packs you open of an expansion are great value, but once you have all the commons and rares, you're mostly getting dust from packs and you need a lot of dust to be able to craft one legendary. The duplicate protection does help, that was a great move. However, I don't think it's enough to fix the issue.
Preorders are about $1 per pack (regular price is much worse) and packs contain about 100 dust, so if you want to craft a 10k dust deck (not uncommon for control decks), that's a $100 deck. Of course you don't need to craft every single card; some you will have pulled from packs. But even if you're only missing 2 legendaries and 4 epics, that's almost $50 worth of dust. I think that's a lot of money when I can get full indie games for $10 to $20, or even AAA games from a few years ago.
I'm not sure yet whether the progression track is better or worse than the old system for me, since I never used to grind for 10 gold per 3 wins anyway. I complete almost all my quests and then occasionally play more when I'm fine-tuning a deck. But I think it is safe to say that, apart from the first few levels, the new system is not significantly better than the old system.
I think a lot of people were tolerating the old system because they had gotten used to it, not because they actually liked it. So even if the new system is roughly equal in terms of rewards (as Blizzard claims), it's still not going to give them a good impression.
I tried with Genn and 14 other even cards; didn't work.
I guess it would work if you happen to queue into another odd/even deck, but that's pretty unlikely and still wouldn't give you an advantage.
Something that has good synergy with your hero power. This is what I came up with:
This looks more like a combo deck than a control deck: Il'gynoth + Eye Beam + Mo'arg Artificer = lots of damage.
Assuming the MMR is doing its job, 1 in 4 games should be top 2. For people that play Battlegrounds, it shouldn't be a problem to play rough4 games 1 week.
I got the Pure Paladin legendary from Darkmoon. Also the epic at level 5 was from Darkmoon.
While the system doesn't punish ropers, it doesn't really reward them either, since any time played gains XP, so they might as well actually play the game during that time and maybe have some fun.
When it says "resets next expansion", does that mean next week when Darkmoon comes out, or at the end of Darkmoon? Since you can already unlock Darkmoon cards from the progression track, I'm guessing they set Darkmoon as the current expansion and "next" means the first expansion of 2021. But if I'm wrong, it would be really worthwhile to grind this week.
I think you always get the 4/3 weapon shown under "Related Cards", so that's a good weapon.
As Yogg himself and Puzzle Box have shown, on average a random spell is beneficial for the caster, so Rhyssa would have anti-synergy.
Vendetta gets played, so there is a demand for removal in Rogue.
Sap isn't always better: for battlecry minions, you'd rather remove them than return them to hand. It depends on the meta; currently we have a lot of battlecries, but with Darkmoon deathrattles could make a comeback.
They're nerfing the Basic and Classic sets to make sure there is more variation in decks as cards come in and out of Standard. So yes, they are weakening the ever-present cards while still putting powerful cards in new expansions, but that is deliberate.
It's not even all that weak against silence, since you'd still have a 4/6 left.
I don't see where this card would be good. DH has a lot of efficient card draw, so it doesn't need value creation unless it is also efficient. But 5/3 is not a great pile of stats on turn 5+.
It might be useful for copying specific cards, but do you want to spend a lot of effort trying to get two copies of Twin Slice in outcast position for 8 face damage when you can instead put Inner Demon in your deck?
In theory there is a place for creating value instead of drawing if it's important to avoid fatigue. But DH has so much damage potential that it's hard to imagine that you can play through your entire deck without being able to win. And I don't think DH has the cards to out-value Priest or Rogue.
If you're building a dedicated shuffle deck, there is probably space for this in addition to Stowaway. In decks with few or no shuffle cards, this might still be playable as Tracking or Master's Call with a body.
A less favorable comparison would be Countess Ashmore, but this is one mana cheaper for similar stats and easier to fit into decks.
Combo it with Violet Illusionist, then you don't need a full hand. You could even play Spirit of the Shark the turn before to get two chances at discovering bombs.
Well, I just saw Occult Conjurer after posting, so if you want to prevent that from triggering while still preventing card draw and continuing to do face damage, Flare might be useful.
If you're playing Hunter and you're not able to do face damage every turn, you're probably in more trouble than Flare can solve.
Preventing damage from minions can be done by nuking or freezing them, no taunts needed. Hero powers are an issue though: even with freeze effects, Hunter and Mage can still damage you. In the case of Mage, you are at least making them use their mana inefficiently, but a lot of Hunter decks are going to be using their hero power on every turn in the late game anyway.