I very much understand disliking curse-lock, but on the scale of warlock decks that suck to play against, it's pretty good. At least it produces some interesting games where you maintain a full hand and block their win condition. I'd take that over The Demon Seed every day.
I dont think thats intresting at all, having to keep your hand full all the time, thats a annoyance and kinda falls into the not letting you play the game department, which are the worst kinda decks there are.
Sure its better then demon seed, but like evrything is so thats not saying much. Not being THE worst ever doesnt make it good.
I'll contest that the priest questline looks like a badly designed card, but is actually kinda masterful. It can never win (at least not by using the quest) before turn 10, and in practice it's usually several turns later. So most decks have plenty of time to beat it. Also, the whole way along you have to decide between what's optimal and what progresses the quest, especially once you have missed a turn, but sometimes even when still playing on curve. There's even genuine opportunities for counterplay since you can't play Xyrella the turn you complete the questline, so she's vulnerable to disruption, and you can't play the shard for at least 1 turn after that either. So overall, I agree with every statement that it looks dumb, but never that it is dumb.
Basicly its the 1 and only questline , that actully fits the idea behind questline, slow/long and diffcult to complete with small rewards as go along to help you with it and a game winning/ending reward (littarly in this case), where as most others are very fast/easy to complete and/or just dont have that game winning reward (druid being just some burst and armor-
Nobody was playing Sira'kess Cultist for the stats and Dragged Below was just an overall shit card. If they were going to buff the mechanic, I'm glad they went with the two worst pieces. Realistically, those buffs will help it against Aggro decks and not really change the matchup vs. Control.
I know no one was playing it, thats what i want for curse lock.
And just helping vs aggro , makes it better overall and more playable, which is not soemthing i want to see at all., and vs control can tamsinn plus both of the single target curse spells now in 1 turn. Curses if playable are just toxic, so iid rather they dint get buffs at all, if theyd have had a 30% winrate thatd be completly fine
Had really hoped for lightbomb to 5 and sprint to 5 (seeing as its terrible, rogue lacks draw and rogue is susposed to be good at draw)
and the 7 mana shaman naga to prefer enemies like solarian/rune of archmage and such cards
Also not a fan at all of curses being buffed in anyway, i really hope they dont become remotly playablle stimm,; cause if they are thats gonna be terrible as helll play experience
The stealth effect on behemoth makes sense flavorwise, but the problem is that when it attacks it losses its stealth, so in effect what this does is merely make it stealth if there's no enemy minions around. I think the mana reduction to 7 would be enough. 8/10 for 7 mana with lifesteal, that's very nearly illegal.
As for the proposed buffs to rogue, Im not sure if it needs any help except reverting gnoll back. The main problem with rogue is simply that it has much less options than it did before. Losing Wand Thief is one of the biggest reason why only pirate rogue can exist today. This can be remedied in the midset or future expansions. I think we can survive with pirate rogue for the next 3 months. Its hardly a bad deck, only losses badly to dhunter who will doubtless be nerfed.
Also, fel warlock needs more than buffs, it needs an overhaul. Its just really weak, and in need of a good pay off. None of the cards offer that, and a small mana push here and there would not change this.
Burgle rogue actully needs help, more then just gnoll( and the rogue in AV wasnt a burgle deck, it was a tempo deck that run maestra and gnolls to be free of passage.
Tooth of Neferian and burglar are just terrible/really weak cards
Pirate Rogue doesnt need (much) help, if blizz wants burgle rogue to be anything but completly dead and worthless it actulyll really needs the buffs.
And current lack of options for rogue is aslo its overall lack of draw after loss of swindle and passage, there is sprint but its terrible and smokescreen which is even worse unless have a full on DR deck (which is aslo doesnte xcist/is terrible atm)
Props on the article but...you're out of your mind if you think Lightbomb at 5 is reasonable. Even in Wild that's be offensive (I run it in Wild Questline Priest, a meme deck, and it destroys). It's a more predictable and generally more powerful boardclear than Mass Hysteria, it deserves to be more expensive as a result.
But lightbomb just doesnt see play, and mass hysteria can clear alot more boards then lightbomb.
Aslong they got more hp the attack (which isnt exactly uncommon), lightbomb doesnt clear. Mass Hysteria often is actully 5 mana twistin,g nether.
god plz yes i would love the rotating wild set as new mode, and its exactly what the community have asked for years (i have read this request everywhere on reddit and other socials) is a lot of work for the devs but it have a lot of potiential in bringing new decks and fun to this game.
Im not agains to rotating wild, but i dont see why it would have to replace classi
Given how often this comes up, I think the only reasonable balance change to wild is to switch it to a format that gets to a random assortment of expansions which switch every month. Keep whatever the current core set is, and make the most recent expansion plus 3-5 others legal each month. Rotating sets make it like a weird version of standard, which might be enough to attract me to th mode.
As more expansions come out, the problems of broken decks and degenerate wombo combos are only going to get worse. It's just entropy at work. Nip it in the bud with rotations.
Your opinions are your own, but this is mostly how I recall that year: Quest rogue, pirate warrior, jade druid, druid-being-so-far-into-S-tier-it-can-win-with-anything-it-likes-Stone, cube-lock with way too much healing, Kingsbane with permanent lifesteal... I swear people view the Year of the Mammoth with rose-tinted lenses that might as well be made out of actual rose petals. The year had plenty of cool stuff, but its metas generated just as many complaints as any other, so I've never really understood all the love it gets.
Year of the mammoth was when i played the most Hearthstone basicly out of any year/time in HS.
Kingsbane with lifesteal wasnt ever a super populair deck or a very good winrate (tier 4 /bottom tier 3 for most) and its oneof y all time favorite decks and is my second most played deck of all (after Jade Rogue)
Quest rogue got nerfed and in kobolds (which what a year of mammoth mode would most likly be on) it really wasnt prominent
Thing i liked the least was physic scream and how common bigpriest was
But even as strong as they where, the power lvl was alot more reasonable overall then current day HS, and just despite druid was alot more you could do/ Get away with alot more then can in current HS.
Maybe its not logica , but i personaly really really lliked HS during that time period, far far more then HS in current day
This list is dumb. Primarily because of Kael'Thas though, I'm still left amazed on why they would unnerf that over Gibberling, Hand of A'dal, Nitroboost Poison, Skull of Gul'dan or many other things really.
I hope it's because they're still waiting for these cards to actually rotate to unnerf them because the fear of being too strong in standard for one week. But then again, they also unnerfed Il'gynoth.
Many are rotated, and are bunch of 100% safe unnerfs, that are wild (and were lalst time time aswell) and they dint revert like faceless corrupter or mogu fleshshaper and what not.
Or others wouldnt be broken in standard even if unnerfed even for just the week , flametonque at 3hp ,or meta at 5dmg wouldnt be broken in standard, and wargliaves is rotating yet dint get unnerfed and no way would be broken (certainly that 1week) in standard
I find it worrying how many of these cards are not good enough to see play in standard in their unnerfed forms, eg Kayn Sunfury, Shattershard Mystic, Bloodboil Brute, ...
I think that says a lot about the power level of the previous year.
Scholomance and DoD reallyl started showing the great powercreep and then Stormwind they want overboard with it.
Congrats guys! You're the first ones to put this given that Blizz had most of the day the site off.
Now talking about core set, in general I really like the changes done overall. But they missed the mark again with Mage cards. Although some are a pretty much BIG success, there are some that are there with not that much of a purpose. If I were on charge, I'd done the following:
Snap Freeze -> Ray of Frost: WAY more useful in most of the scenarios. Snap Freeze is just a bad card.
Shooting Star -> Magic Trick: More useful for giving support to nagas or in general as a card. Shooting Star without good spell damage and Firebrand is useless.
Ethereal Conjurer -> Goblin Blastmage: It's just a very bad card. The only use it had was when an RNG Font of Power gave you REALLY bad cards. Goblin Blastmage is an OK card and very good support to mech mage.
Pyromaniac -> Snowchugger: Very slow and without Tour Guide don't think it's worth the slot. Snowchugger is direct support to mech mage and a good card in general that could fit the 2 mana slot, tempo wise.
It seems they REALLY want us to play nothing but Big Spell Mage only, because it's the only archetype which had support (and by support I mean A LOT of it). Secret Mage got also some love, but it has anything to do with the current expansion, probably will be something for the upcoming ones.
As I said, overall very good changes, but they don't seem to know what to do with Mage...
Gonna be honest, I'm somewhat disappoint with this Core set. Not that there aren't some neat changes, but it feels like a lot of stuff just wasn't thought out at all while other stuff got removed prematurely without reason.
Take DH for instance. We keep Metamorphosis around but it's still the nerfed version and it hasn't even seen play in Fel DH, so....what's the point? Then we get Flamereaper, which also has never seen play and barely even has synergy at all. Meanwhile you keep Felscreamer around, when the only purpose of that thing is too cheese with big demons...out of which only 2 remain.
Then you get to Druid where they massively overcompensate for the rotation of Lunar Eclipse and Overgrowth by adding both Wrath and Living Roots, just to make sure that Druid no longer loses to turn 1 Trogg. Oh and Nourish is back at 5 so if you run Florist it's like Overgrowth never left.
Meanwhile Mage doesn't even get Snowchugger while the neutral section is desperately lacking in useful mechs. Is Piloted Shredder still so broken that you wouldn't put it in Core? Also Pyroblast to replace Mask of C'Thun except it doesn't work with Clumsy Courier, Iceblood Tower or Magister Dawngrasp. Great. Could have had Power of Creation at the very least, but no, let's just make sure Big Spell Mage remains a jumbled mess. But hey, at least Kalecgos is here and now it costs 1-mana less to not actually run him in any deck.
Other stuff is puzzling as well but at least there's indication for future themes this year. Would love to see Discard decks make a return now that Jeklik is back and buffed.
Most puzzling thing is, War axe its useless who is still in core. Like atleast replace it with kings defender or the axe from Withwood that buffs a rush minion
Also no cloak, no faceless corrupter, no altruis, no blade dance, no glaivebound adept, no 5 mana giggling,, no mogu fleshshaper,, no possed lakcey, NO level up, no mana wyrm, no metamorphis, no flametonque(would be 100% fine even in standard), no war axe but is kept in core despite freakign kings defender excisting which is still terrible just a bit less thne Useless war axe.
Is alot missing from unnerfs that wouldve been totally fine and were nerfed for standard, not wild and wouldnt be bosoting already good decks(which kael arguably does)
Also no dreadsteed (but flrugl toxfin can be tutored and equaliy consceration or pyromancer are miles and miles betetr )
Is she really? I mean, yeah she's the most important character lore wise, but the trailer and expansion artworks focus on Finley, Ambassador Faeli and their expedition.
Varian got a Diamond and he as much or less to do with the expansion then Azshara, basicly just most important lore character that is in the set
I wonder why they went with a Diamond Sivara, instead of the choice that seemed more obvious to me in Queen Azshara. I guess they didn't want to make the generated cards Diamond...but they could have just been Golden or somethin'. She is a main character and Queen of the Naga, and the Mage has a couple Diamond cards already.
All well. Still excited, because a lot of the skins look pretty cool!
Maybe azshara will have something special like had with diamond vandar/drekthar, cause if not. Its a huge missed opertunity.
I think 2v2 would see more play than Arena, Duels, and mercenaries. What would be something more innovative than something I haven't already said?
Also an idea is increasing standard deck size to 32 or 34. Sometimes we just want to fit that last card in our deck and don't have a slot. Just adding 2-4 more cards to decks would be a cool change.
In MTG you can have as many cards in your deck as you want. Yet, everyone plays with 60 cards, because adding more cards will just increase the inconsistency of your deck.
Also, adding the 2x2 mode definitely cannot be " easily made". This is a major overhaul and redesign of complete UI and logics.
Also, just imagine, now you have to wait 75 seconds for your opponents turn. In 2x2 you could be waiting 225 seconds, roughly 4 minutes for your next turn.
Legends of Runeterra made it work. Also I don't think adding 2 cards would worsen a deck especially if it's a control deck.
even for control 2 less cards mean you are less consistent with your deck so might not have the removall or the healin where youd otherwise have had it.
Extra cards are only really usefull in fatigue matchups and even then you could just include like kazzakusan to egt 10 cards once your deck is empty and not make your deck less consistent in general/vs all other matches
I dont think thats intresting at all, having to keep your hand full all the time, thats a annoyance and kinda falls into the not letting you play the game department, which are the worst kinda decks there are.
Sure its better then demon seed, but like evrything is so thats not saying much. Not being THE worst ever doesnt make it good.
Basicly its the 1 and only questline , that actully fits the idea behind questline, slow/long and diffcult to complete with small rewards as go along to help you with it and a game winning/ending reward (littarly in this case), where as most others are very fast/easy to complete and/or just dont have that game winning reward (druid being just some burst and armor-
I know no one was playing it, thats what i want for curse lock.
And just helping vs aggro , makes it better overall and more playable, which is not soemthing i want to see at all., and vs control can tamsinn plus both of the single target curse spells now in 1 turn.
Curses if playable are just toxic, so iid rather they dint get buffs at all, if theyd have had a 30% winrate thatd be completly fine
Had really hoped for lightbomb to 5 and sprint to 5 (seeing as its terrible, rogue lacks draw and rogue is susposed to be good at draw)
and the 7 mana shaman naga to prefer enemies like solarian/rune of archmage and such cards
Also not a fan at all of curses being buffed in anyway, i really hope they dont become remotly playablle stimm,; cause if they are thats gonna be terrible as helll play experience
Burgle rogue actully needs help, more then just gnoll( and the rogue in AV wasnt a burgle deck, it was a tempo deck that run maestra and gnolls to be free of passage.
Tooth of Neferian and burglar are just terrible/really weak cards
Pirate Rogue doesnt need (much) help, if blizz wants burgle rogue to be anything but completly dead and worthless it actulyll really needs the buffs.
And current lack of options for rogue is aslo its overall lack of draw after loss of swindle and passage, there is sprint but its terrible and smokescreen which is even worse unless have a full on DR deck (which is aslo doesnte xcist/is terrible atm)
But lightbomb just doesnt see play, and mass hysteria can clear alot more boards then lightbomb.
Aslong they got more hp the attack (which isnt exactly uncommon), lightbomb doesnt clear. Mass Hysteria often is actully 5 mana twistin,g nether.
Curses dont need a buff at all, that deck if its any good its increbdly toxic.
And they where nerfed in development curses, so hopefully wont be buffed
Im not agains to rotating wild, but i dont see why it would have to replace classi
Dont change wild to that,
New format ONTOP sure.
Changing Wild HELL NO
Year of the mammoth was when i played the most Hearthstone basicly out of any year/time in HS.
Kingsbane with lifesteal wasnt ever a super populair deck or a very good winrate (tier 4 /bottom tier 3 for most) and its oneof y all time favorite decks and is my second most played deck of all (after Jade Rogue)
Quest rogue got nerfed and in kobolds (which what a year of mammoth mode would most likly be on) it really wasnt prominent
Thing i liked the least was physic scream and how common bigpriest was
But even as strong as they where, the power lvl was alot more reasonable overall then current day HS, and just despite druid was alot more you could do/ Get away with alot more then can in current HS.
Maybe its not logica , but i personaly really really lliked HS during that time period, far far more then HS in current day
Many are rotated, and are bunch of 100% safe unnerfs, that are wild (and were lalst time time aswell) and they dint revert like faceless corrupter or mogu fleshshaper and what not.
Or others wouldnt be broken in standard even if unnerfed even for just the week , flametonque at 3hp ,or meta at 5dmg wouldnt be broken in standard, and wargliaves is rotating yet dint get unnerfed and no way would be broken (certainly that 1week) in standard
Scholomance and DoD reallyl started showing the great powercreep and then Stormwind they want overboard with it.
Youd keep War axe then?
Most puzzling thing is, War axe its useless who is still in core. Like atleast replace it with kings defender or the axe from Withwood that buffs a rush minion
Also no cloak, no faceless corrupter, no altruis, no blade dance, no glaivebound adept, no 5 mana giggling,, no mogu fleshshaper,, no possed lakcey, NO level up, no mana wyrm, no metamorphis, no flametonque(would be 100% fine even in standard), no war axe but is kept in core despite freakign kings defender excisting which is still terrible just a bit less thne Useless war axe.
Is alot missing from unnerfs that wouldve been totally fine and were nerfed for standard, not wild and wouldnt be bosoting already good decks(which kael arguably does)
Also no dreadsteed (but flrugl toxfin can be tutored and equaliy consceration or pyromancer are miles and miles betetr )
Got all naxx cards, no diamond loatheb.
And drekthar so insanly overpriced, 25 euro for a single diamond card
Varian got a Diamond and he as much or less to do with the expansion then Azshara, basicly just most important lore character that is in the set
Maybe azshara will have something special like had with diamond vandar/drekthar, cause if not. Its a huge missed opertunity.
Seems weird to me isnt a diamond queen Azshara s the free diamond Nor the collect 25 legendaries, when she is pretty much the icon of the set...
even for control 2 less cards mean you are less consistent with your deck so might not have the removall or the healin where youd otherwise have had it.
Extra cards are only really usefull in fatigue matchups and even then you could just include like kazzakusan to egt 10 cards once your deck is empty and not make your deck less consistent in general/vs all other matches