I tried Steamcleaner, but both the chess cards and the 6 added cards are considered to have started in the deck, so that didn't do anything spectacular. My opponent happened to play Ambassador Faelin though, so it was still useful.
Hearthstone isn't an abstract game where all that matters is the numbers. The developers put a lot of effort in artwork, animations, voice lines and sound effects for a reason. If a card makes a lot of players have a bad experience, then that is a problem, even if balance-wise the card is not an outlier.
Also I don't buy the argument that it's the "bronze" players doing most of the complaining. I think that the most vocal people tend to have a lot of time and thought invested into the game and that typically translates into being well above average in terms of MMR.
What worries me a bit is that most of the dev comments talk about how a card functions in the current Standard meta. Those same cards are playable in Wild, Duels and Arena as well though, so I think balance changes should be more about what the correct power level for a card is and less about the meta.
I understand you can't fully judge a card in a vacuum, but over-focusing on the current Standard meta means you can break balance in other modes and also that you might have to undo nerfs and buffs when new cards enter Standard.
Also there might be fun cards that see no play because their power level is way too low. Those may not get the attention they need if your question is "how do we boost this class?" instead of "why is no-one playing these cards?"
That could be an option if you'd keep both copies of the weapon. However, with one Loot Hoarder, you are still likely to draw all your deathrattles before the second weapon is done and I'm not sure what to take our to fit in two Loot Hoarders. Maybe one of the Crimson Sigil Runners? As there are a lot of combo pieces, you can't always get them in outcast position.
After playing a few games, I found that the second copy of Sigil of Silence wasn't very useful: on the combo turn, you can play only one of them and their most useful property is that they cost 0 mana when top-decked late. Maybe it's useful during the game if you run into a lot of Mine Rogue, but I only played a Thief Rogue and a Pirate Rogue.
The second copy of Tuskpiercer wasn't very useful either, since you typically have already drawn both Mailbox Dancers by the time you have used up both weapons and there are no other Deathrattles in the deck. I considered putting in Persistent Peddler, but as this deck cares more about the stage 1 and 2 discounts of the questline than about actually completing it, I don't think trading Peddler is as useful here as in the typical DH questline deck. Also it would weaken the tutor effect.
I replaced one duplicate with Sigil of Summoning, as the extra minions fuel card draw via Feast of Souls, can slow the opponent or can be playable on the combo turn if discounted to 1 or even 0 mana. The other duplicate I replaced with Eye Beam, as you can easily maneuver that into outcast position on the combo turn and you can use it to reduce the number of S'theno strikes that go into minions. I'm not certain these are the best replacements, but they were more useful than the second copies of the cards they replaced.
Original Hearthstone felt to me like twice as expensive as it should have been. This is more like 20 times.
I don't think there is a way to recover from this. They have clearly decided to balance their economy around the megawhales; even if they make changes, they're not going to slash prices to levels where normal players can participate.
I assume the pieces spawn as soon as the colossal appears on the board, but as long as they spawn before the deathrattle is resolved, it should be fine. It is all just assumptions at this point though.
Most of the cards that would be good with this (Tirion Fordring, Ozumat) don't see much play at the moment and I don't know if this effect would be strong enough to change that.
On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that a mana cheat plus rush-like effect isn't good.
The biggest issue is probably that it requires a meta where you often get to 8 mana and minions on board still matter at that point. Not a problem for Druid, but I'm less certain about the other classes.
The mechanics aren't clear from the wording, but I'm not sure that everything this card does could ever fit in its text. That means the alternative would be to not make this card at all, which would be a shame, because I love the flavor of it.
This is just a card that you'll have to try out to know how it works exactly. I don't think that's a problem, you have to experiment with cards anyway to know if they're good in a particular deck and when the best time is to play them.
Since this is a secret, as an opponent you either already know the card and can play around it, or the card is new to you and the first thing you can react to is the sack on the board, which does explain clearly how it works.
Let's say you have the dream draw and play Stonewright on turn 4, then Macaw on turn 5, then this on turn 6; you'll get two 4/2's to use on turn 7. Compared to what other decks can put on the board, that's not all that great. And this is the dream scenario: if you don't draw Stonewright and Macaw, it's going to look much worse.
Apart from the problem of not drawing Stonewright, there is also the question what you're going to play on turns 1-3. You can't snowball if you fall behind on board and unbuffed totems are statted worse than murlocs, mechs or beasts. If Stonewright had a start-of-game effect, it could work, but as a battlecry it just comes in too late and too inconsistently.
This would work particularly well with Shadow Waltz. I'm not convinced yet though that the Shadow package is worth running based on the cards revealed so far: zoo only has a few turns to find its synergies, so it needs more of them than a slower deck would.
I think Burden of Pride is mainly support for Infuse: against aggro it keeps you alive until you can play your infused card, against slower decks it charges your Infuse cards while still putting a reasonable amount of stats on the board.
I've been surprised by how good Demonic Assault is. Burden of Pride isn't quite that versatile, but if any Infuse card is worth playing, Burden of Pride will likely be in the same deck to support it.
I agree that Shadow Waltz wouldn't go into a control warlock: you either go for a board-based strategy or for a board-clearing strategy; mixing them just gives you anti-synergy.
Maybe it would be useful as reload for zoo, but the risk there is that you need it to either be discounted or played after a sacrifice to be good, so if your board just got cleared by an AoE and you either don't run Shadowborn or didn't draw it yet, you're not going to reload fast enough.
Regarding Shadowborn in zoo: the only other Shadow spell I see worth running in zoo would be Impending Catastrophy, but that's a card that you want to play before your board gets wiped, while Shadowborn needs to die to get the discount, so it seems like an awkward combination.
Edit: With Lady Darkvein, it seems they are pushing for Shadow spells in zoo. I think it would need more support than the already revealed cards though.
Vanndar is very good when you play him on curve. The problem is that in the games where you don't draw him in time, you're left with a bunch of expensive minions in your hand in the early game, while late game he's a bad top-deck.
While I agree that the Guff hero is better, I don't think he makes Vanndar redundant. Instead, Guff gives you an alternative early game when you don't draw Vanndar in time, so if Vanndar is worth running at all, he will be run together with Guff.
I guess what I'm saying is that Vanndar's competition isn't Guff, but all the cards that you can't run if you build your deck around Vanndar, like Jerry Rig Carpenter.
Seems like a decent follow-up to ramping with Nourish. It being a one-of limits how useful it is to build a deck around though. In theory you could tutor this card with Capture Coldtooth Mine, but then you can't include any other 8+ mana cards in your deck, which reduces its usefulness considerably.
Maybe you'd just put this in as the 30th/40th card in a deck and accept that it sometimes low-rolls. Even if it discounts something that was already cheap, it still draws you closer to your good cards, which is useful in particular if you're running a 40-card deck.
The Deckbuilder should work for this brawl as well, at least it did in the past.
I tried Steamcleaner, but both the chess cards and the 6 added cards are considered to have started in the deck, so that didn't do anything spectacular. My opponent happened to play Ambassador Faelin though, so it was still useful.
Hearthstone isn't an abstract game where all that matters is the numbers. The developers put a lot of effort in artwork, animations, voice lines and sound effects for a reason. If a card makes a lot of players have a bad experience, then that is a problem, even if balance-wise the card is not an outlier.
Also I don't buy the argument that it's the "bronze" players doing most of the complaining. I think that the most vocal people tend to have a lot of time and thought invested into the game and that typically translates into being well above average in terms of MMR.
What worries me a bit is that most of the dev comments talk about how a card functions in the current Standard meta. Those same cards are playable in Wild, Duels and Arena as well though, so I think balance changes should be more about what the correct power level for a card is and less about the meta.
I understand you can't fully judge a card in a vacuum, but over-focusing on the current Standard meta means you can break balance in other modes and also that you might have to undo nerfs and buffs when new cards enter Standard.
Also there might be fun cards that see no play because their power level is way too low. Those may not get the attention they need if your question is "how do we boost this class?" instead of "why is no-one playing these cards?"
Meanwhile, I saw the buff to Stand Against Darkness and thought "I have to try this card in Even Paladin!"
That could be an option if you'd keep both copies of the weapon. However, with one Loot Hoarder, you are still likely to draw all your deathrattles before the second weapon is done and I'm not sure what to take our to fit in two Loot Hoarders. Maybe one of the Crimson Sigil Runners? As there are a lot of combo pieces, you can't always get them in outcast position.
I really like the idea of this deck.
After playing a few games, I found that the second copy of Sigil of Silence wasn't very useful: on the combo turn, you can play only one of them and their most useful property is that they cost 0 mana when top-decked late. Maybe it's useful during the game if you run into a lot of Mine Rogue, but I only played a Thief Rogue and a Pirate Rogue.
The second copy of Tuskpiercer wasn't very useful either, since you typically have already drawn both Mailbox Dancers by the time you have used up both weapons and there are no other Deathrattles in the deck. I considered putting in Persistent Peddler, but as this deck cares more about the stage 1 and 2 discounts of the questline than about actually completing it, I don't think trading Peddler is as useful here as in the typical DH questline deck. Also it would weaken the tutor effect.
I replaced one duplicate with Sigil of Summoning, as the extra minions fuel card draw via Feast of Souls, can slow the opponent or can be playable on the combo turn if discounted to 1 or even 0 mana. The other duplicate I replaced with Eye Beam, as you can easily maneuver that into outcast position on the combo turn and you can use it to reduce the number of S'theno strikes that go into minions. I'm not certain these are the best replacements, but they were more useful than the second copies of the cards they replaced.
Original Hearthstone felt to me like twice as expensive as it should have been. This is more like 20 times.
I don't think there is a way to recover from this. They have clearly decided to balance their economy around the megawhales; even if they make changes, they're not going to slash prices to levels where normal players can participate.
This could have a lot of different applications:
I assume the pieces spawn as soon as the colossal appears on the board, but as long as they spawn before the deathrattle is resolved, it should be fine. It is all just assumptions at this point though.
Most of the cards that would be good with this (Tirion Fordring, Ozumat) don't see much play at the moment and I don't know if this effect would be strong enough to change that.
On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that a mana cheat plus rush-like effect isn't good.
The biggest issue is probably that it requires a meta where you often get to 8 mana and minions on board still matter at that point. Not a problem for Druid, but I'm less certain about the other classes.
The mechanics aren't clear from the wording, but I'm not sure that everything this card does could ever fit in its text. That means the alternative would be to not make this card at all, which would be a shame, because I love the flavor of it.
This is just a card that you'll have to try out to know how it works exactly. I don't think that's a problem, you have to experiment with cards anyway to know if they're good in a particular deck and when the best time is to play them.
Since this is a secret, as an opponent you either already know the card and can play around it, or the card is new to you and the first thing you can react to is the sack on the board, which does explain clearly how it works.
Let's say you have the dream draw and play Stonewright on turn 4, then Macaw on turn 5, then this on turn 6; you'll get two 4/2's to use on turn 7. Compared to what other decks can put on the board, that's not all that great. And this is the dream scenario: if you don't draw Stonewright and Macaw, it's going to look much worse.
Apart from the problem of not drawing Stonewright, there is also the question what you're going to play on turns 1-3. You can't snowball if you fall behind on board and unbuffed totems are statted worse than murlocs, mechs or beasts. If Stonewright had a start-of-game effect, it could work, but as a battlecry it just comes in too late and too inconsistently.
For evolve fodder, you'd want a battlecry instead of an end-of-turn effect.
Even when infused, I don't think the effect is worth 3 mana plus a card. As a top-deck, it's even worse.
This would work particularly well with Shadow Waltz. I'm not convinced yet though that the Shadow package is worth running based on the cards revealed so far: zoo only has a few turns to find its synergies, so it needs more of them than a slower deck would.
I think Burden of Pride is mainly support for Infuse: against aggro it keeps you alive until you can play your infused card, against slower decks it charges your Infuse cards while still putting a reasonable amount of stats on the board.
I've been surprised by how good Demonic Assault is. Burden of Pride isn't quite that versatile, but if any Infuse card is worth playing, Burden of Pride will likely be in the same deck to support it.
I agree that Shadow Waltz wouldn't go into a control warlock: you either go for a board-based strategy or for a board-clearing strategy; mixing them just gives you anti-synergy.
Maybe it would be useful as reload for zoo, but the risk there is that you need it to either be discounted or played after a sacrifice to be good, so if your board just got cleared by an AoE and you either don't run Shadowborn or didn't draw it yet, you're not going to reload fast enough.
Regarding Shadowborn in zoo: the only other Shadow spell I see worth running in zoo would be Impending Catastrophy, but that's a card that you want to play before your board gets wiped, while Shadowborn needs to die to get the discount, so it seems like an awkward combination.
Edit: With Lady Darkvein, it seems they are pushing for Shadow spells in zoo. I think it would need more support than the already revealed cards though.
Vanndar is very good when you play him on curve. The problem is that in the games where you don't draw him in time, you're left with a bunch of expensive minions in your hand in the early game, while late game he's a bad top-deck.
While I agree that the Guff hero is better, I don't think he makes Vanndar redundant. Instead, Guff gives you an alternative early game when you don't draw Vanndar in time, so if Vanndar is worth running at all, he will be run together with Guff.
I guess what I'm saying is that Vanndar's competition isn't Guff, but all the cards that you can't run if you build your deck around Vanndar, like Jerry Rig Carpenter.
Seems like a decent follow-up to ramping with Nourish. It being a one-of limits how useful it is to build a deck around though. In theory you could tutor this card with Capture Coldtooth Mine, but then you can't include any other 8+ mana cards in your deck, which reduces its usefulness considerably.
Maybe you'd just put this in as the 30th/40th card in a deck and accept that it sometimes low-rolls. Even if it discounts something that was already cheap, it still draws you closer to your good cards, which is useful in particular if you're running a 40-card deck.