The Mage deck might be the best pick anyway, because it contains Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, giving new/returning players the tools to play highlander decks in every class.
On EU, I already had Battle.Net running and the first time I started Hearthstone, it was still on the old patch. But after I exited the game, the update started and the next time I opened the game I got the HoF and other notifications.
I opened two Classic packs (from this week's and last week's Tavern Brawl) and got all commons I was missing plus two rares I didn't have yet, so it seems to be working. One of the commons I got was Mana Wyrm, which I disenchanted all my copies of when it got nerfed, so the "received" counter doesn't seem to work retroactively (or at least not far back). But I assume that if I'd disenchant it now, I wouldn't immediately open it again.
By the way, Classic isn't going to get Demon Hunter cards for a long time and Priest got their new ones in this patch, so I don't think there is a need to wait longer, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
They have to pick the individual cards when you open the pack, since you could alter your collection by crafting cards or getting rewards between receiving the pack and opening it.
If it's used as a finisher, the mana cost only matters for which turn it can be used on. See for example Leeroy's battlecry, which is mostly irrelevant.
There are also some useful synergies with weapons, such as Aldrachi Warblades and Flamereaper, for cases where you're not able to finish off the opponent yet.
It's weird that this is a card reveal, since filler is usually kept for the card dump after the final reveal stream. Maybe it had rush earlier and they dropped that late in development?
I did re-read it several times, both before posting and now. I really don't see how Owl would be of any help here, since by the time you can actually target Magtheridon with a silence effect it is too late.
I think Power Word: Shield is worse in an Gadgetzan Auctioneer deck now: while a cost of zero can make the cycling be more powerful, the risk of drawing the Auctioneer itself too late increases when there is fewer other card draw. It was quite common for a Priest to play Shield on an opponent's minion just to be able to draw and that option no longer exists after the change.
In the early turns it's not a question of withholding, as you may simply not have the mana yet to use the AoE. In later turns, you may have the choice between clearing the most imminent threats with trades and single-target removal or using AoE; you'll probably want to cash in on those trades before blowing up the entire board.
I think Vilefiend waking up after Twisting Nether is more of a pre-paid removal than a tempo swing: since the opponent gets a full turn to rebuild their board after Nether, you'll probably be behind in tempo, just less so than if you had to start from nothing.
In Wild, you mean? Because Northshire Cleric is headed for the Hall of Fame.
I think they want Priest to rely on generating cards for additional value instead of drawing. See for example Galakrond's hero power and the buff to Thoughtsteal.
I think this might be good in Control Warlock in particular, since you can play it a turn before you're going to AoE the board. Warlock AoE tends to hit friends and foes, but not dormant minions. So it sets up nicely for Dark Skies, Crazed Netherwing, Twisting Nether etc.
Doubling Imp and Omega Agent are from Boomsday and therefore rotating; there isn't much support in the Year of the Dragon sets. But if they'd make something like a Doubling Imp with taunt like the pre-nerf Saronite Chain Gang, I think it's possible to recover from the tempo loss. And there is of course already Faceless Corruptor.
Secrets are only 2 mana on average and it's a discover effect so you can lower that average by skipping the 3-mana Mage secrets unless a really good one is offered. That makes it easier to chain this effect than Whirlkick Master's.
I think the only problem with Oondasta is that it doesn't curve well: if you have an Amani War Bear or Winged Guardian in your hand, you want to play that when you reach 7 mana, not keep it in your hand until you can play Oondasta. Marsh Hydra on the other hand supports your curve.
Even with Strength in Numbers, curve is important: if Oondasta is great when summoned from the deck but not when summoned from hand, it improves those games where you are already doing well, aka "win more".
Edit: Also, after this attacks is easier to satisfy than overkill: you can run the Hydra into Evasive Drakonid or a Tirion from Zephrys and still get the effect.
The main reason it's gotten more expensive is that they release more cards per year: they went from expansions and adventures as separate seasons to every season an expansion and now an expansion plus adventure each season. While it costs more time/money per year to keep up, you do get more game in return.
The switch from one to two class legendaries per expansion is one change that does make things more expensive while not delivering a lot in terms of content. I mean, it's nice that there can be two archetypes per set supported by a legendary, but they could also support the second archetype without including a legendary for it.
On the plus side, they added more events where you can get free packs, have frequent sales (bundles) and the announced duplicate protection for all rarities is very welcome.
I think this is overall a good direction to go in. Priest always had the problem that the good decks weren't fun and the fun decks weren't good. Also for a class that's supposed to be good at healing minions, in practice that healing was used more for side effects like drawing cards off Northshire Cleric or buffing Lightwarden than for keeping your minions alive.
The announcement says that for the DoD season, if you have the pack perks, you'll get the new perks as well. But for the Outland season I can only interpret "players will no longer have to purchase card packs in order to unlock Battlegrounds Perks" as "players can no longer unlock Battlegrounds Perks by purchasing card packs." The inclusion of the Tavern Pass in the Mega Bundle seems to support this, as that would be redundant if packs unlocked perks.
I understand that they don't want to lose money on people playing nothing but Battlegrounds, but $20 every four months seems a bit much unless you're a huge Battlegrounds fan.
The content of a pack is determined when you open it.
Yes and no: there was a server problem some years ago that led to pack openings being rolled back. People who re-opened the packs after the servers were restored reported that the packs had the same rarity distributions the second time around (same packs contained epics and legendaries), but the exact cards they got were different. So it seems Blizzard has an RNG seed for each account (or possibly one per account per set) that determines the rarities in a pack and upon opening they pick the cards you get using a different RNG while looking at your collection to avoid duplicates.
But I agree that the no-duplicate rule most likely depends on the time you're opening the pack and not the time you got the pack, since they wouldn't go through the trouble of complicating their server software by having two versions of the card selection algorithm just to give you worse pack openings.
The Mage deck might be the best pick anyway, because it contains Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, giving new/returning players the tools to play highlander decks in every class.
On EU, I already had Battle.Net running and the first time I started Hearthstone, it was still on the old patch. But after I exited the game, the update started and the next time I opened the game I got the HoF and other notifications.
I opened two Classic packs (from this week's and last week's Tavern Brawl) and got all commons I was missing plus two rares I didn't have yet, so it seems to be working. One of the commons I got was Mana Wyrm, which I disenchanted all my copies of when it got nerfed, so the "received" counter doesn't seem to work retroactively (or at least not far back). But I assume that if I'd disenchant it now, I wouldn't immediately open it again.
By the way, Classic isn't going to get Demon Hunter cards for a long time and Priest got their new ones in this patch, so I don't think there is a need to wait longer, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
They have to pick the individual cards when you open the pack, since you could alter your collection by crafting cards or getting rewards between receiving the pack and opening it.
If it's used as a finisher, the mana cost only matters for which turn it can be used on. See for example Leeroy's battlecry, which is mostly irrelevant.
There are also some useful synergies with weapons, such as Aldrachi Warblades and Flamereaper, for cases where you're not able to finish off the opponent yet.
It's weird that this is a card reveal, since filler is usually kept for the card dump after the final reveal stream. Maybe it had rush earlier and they dropped that late in development?
I think this is worse than Icehowl: since it cannot attack immediately, it's not even good as removal.
I did re-read it several times, both before posting and now. I really don't see how Owl would be of any help here, since by the time you can actually target Magtheridon with a silence effect it is too late.
How is Owl going to help here? Dormant minions are untargetable, as far as I know, looking at how Sherazin, Corpse Flower works.
I think Power Word: Shield is worse in an Gadgetzan Auctioneer deck now: while a cost of zero can make the cycling be more powerful, the risk of drawing the Auctioneer itself too late increases when there is fewer other card draw. It was quite common for a Priest to play Shield on an opponent's minion just to be able to draw and that option no longer exists after the change.
In the early turns it's not a question of withholding, as you may simply not have the mana yet to use the AoE. In later turns, you may have the choice between clearing the most imminent threats with trades and single-target removal or using AoE; you'll probably want to cash in on those trades before blowing up the entire board.
I think Vilefiend waking up after Twisting Nether is more of a pre-paid removal than a tempo swing: since the opponent gets a full turn to rebuild their board after Nether, you'll probably be behind in tempo, just less so than if you had to start from nothing.
In Wild, you mean? Because Northshire Cleric is headed for the Hall of Fame.
I think they want Priest to rely on generating cards for additional value instead of drawing. See for example Galakrond's hero power and the buff to Thoughtsteal.
I think this might be good in Control Warlock in particular, since you can play it a turn before you're going to AoE the board. Warlock AoE tends to hit friends and foes, but not dormant minions. So it sets up nicely for Dark Skies, Crazed Netherwing, Twisting Nether etc.
Doubling Imp and Omega Agent are from Boomsday and therefore rotating; there isn't much support in the Year of the Dragon sets. But if they'd make something like a Doubling Imp with taunt like the pre-nerf Saronite Chain Gang, I think it's possible to recover from the tempo loss. And there is of course already Faceless Corruptor.
Secrets are only 2 mana on average and it's a discover effect so you can lower that average by skipping the 3-mana Mage secrets unless a really good one is offered. That makes it easier to chain this effect than Whirlkick Master's.
I think the only problem with Oondasta is that it doesn't curve well: if you have an Amani War Bear or Winged Guardian in your hand, you want to play that when you reach 7 mana, not keep it in your hand until you can play Oondasta. Marsh Hydra on the other hand supports your curve.
Even with Strength in Numbers, curve is important: if Oondasta is great when summoned from the deck but not when summoned from hand, it improves those games where you are already doing well, aka "win more".
Edit: Also, after this attacks is easier to satisfy than overkill: you can run the Hydra into Evasive Drakonid or a Tirion from Zephrys and still get the effect.
The main reason it's gotten more expensive is that they release more cards per year: they went from expansions and adventures as separate seasons to every season an expansion and now an expansion plus adventure each season. While it costs more time/money per year to keep up, you do get more game in return.
The switch from one to two class legendaries per expansion is one change that does make things more expensive while not delivering a lot in terms of content. I mean, it's nice that there can be two archetypes per set supported by a legendary, but they could also support the second archetype without including a legendary for it.
On the plus side, they added more events where you can get free packs, have frequent sales (bundles) and the announced duplicate protection for all rarities is very welcome.
I think this is overall a good direction to go in. Priest always had the problem that the good decks weren't fun and the fun decks weren't good. Also for a class that's supposed to be good at healing minions, in practice that healing was used more for side effects like drawing cards off Northshire Cleric or buffing Lightwarden than for keeping your minions alive.
But there is a card for it: Shut up, Priest.
The announcement says that for the DoD season, if you have the pack perks, you'll get the new perks as well. But for the Outland season I can only interpret "players will no longer have to purchase card packs in order to unlock Battlegrounds Perks" as "players can no longer unlock Battlegrounds Perks by purchasing card packs." The inclusion of the Tavern Pass in the Mega Bundle seems to support this, as that would be redundant if packs unlocked perks.
I understand that they don't want to lose money on people playing nothing but Battlegrounds, but $20 every four months seems a bit much unless you're a huge Battlegrounds fan.
Yes and no: there was a server problem some years ago that led to pack openings being rolled back. People who re-opened the packs after the servers were restored reported that the packs had the same rarity distributions the second time around (same packs contained epics and legendaries), but the exact cards they got were different. So it seems Blizzard has an RNG seed for each account (or possibly one per account per set) that determines the rarities in a pack and upon opening they pick the cards you get using a different RNG while looking at your collection to avoid duplicates.
But I agree that the no-duplicate rule most likely depends on the time you're opening the pack and not the time you got the pack, since they wouldn't go through the trouble of complicating their server software by having two versions of the card selection algorithm just to give you worse pack openings.