I'm guessing it got broken by the latest update? Anyone else experiencing this?

Murlocs in Battlegrounds are just a bit too weak to be enjoyable, right now.

I think an easy way to buff them would be to simply remove the Murloc Tidecaller from the pool of minions. It would make all murloc generation and discovery effects a little bit stronger, and it would help Fungalmancer Flurgle quite a lot.

Any thoughts?

Competition Theme: Rune Scape

Demon Hunters are preparing their Sigils, but it's time for other classes to get in on the action!

• You must create a spell which does something only at the start of your next turn
  • Just like the Sigils, your spell shouldn't have any other effect but one that happens at the start of your next turn
• Your spell cannot be a Demon Hunter card
  • We've seen what Demon Hunters are doing with this effect - let's get creative!
• Your spell cannot be a Secret
  • Cards like Competitive Spirit kind of work like this, but we want straight up spells for this competition

FenrirWulf continues the trend of delving into the Barrens for this week's theme. Are you prepared to get creative?

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, May 3 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, May 8 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, May 8 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, May 9 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, May 9 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, May 10 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

Akama - and more to the point Akama Prime (AP) - is a card that I have wanted to find interesting for the last year, but it has always been underwhelming. I'm hoping that by writing all my thoughts down I can begin to understand why, and then better understand card design too.

As a 3 mana 3/4 stealth, the first body is a solid card by all accounts, and certainly in the same league as the first bodies of the other prime cards. If anything it is better than most of the primes' first bodies because stealth denies the opponent the ability to remove the minion before it accomplishes something, and isn't situational like rush or spell damage.

The problem arises with the prime version of Akama. All the prime cards were designed to be bonkers strong, and something you couldn't print as a normal minion. Where the other prime cards achieve this with a hefty block of text detailing a fancy effect, Akama takes a more succinct and elegant approach by simply switching out 'stealth' for 'permanently stealthed', which we know from adventures can be very powerful. I have no doubt that if AP was a collectible card, it would indeed be bonkers strong.

So where's the problem? I think it is that the odds of drawing Akama twice by turn 6 are tiny, even in rogue. Statistics tell us you need to be ~75% of the way through your deck on average to draw AP, by which point you're probably long past turn 6. If you're against aggro or playing aggro yourself, the game is probably over before you see AP, so it is only worth evaluating against slow decks, and therein lies the issue: most slow decks have a way to deal with a 5 health stealthed minion.

Even when they cannot remove it immediately, AP still takes a whole turn before it can attack and show off the permanence of its stealth, and it probably has to attack at least twice before people it becomes interesting, making AP really, really slow. Compare that to the other primes, all of whom have much faster effects except Reliquary Prime, but at least that has a set of stats and abilities that make it more likely to achieve something significant right away.

The end result is that AP is in practice only marginally better than a 6 mana 6/5 stealth, a stat-line that can conveniently be compared to two cards that have been around in the Classic set since 2014: Stranglethorn Tiger and Ravenholdt Assassin. I think the tiger did see a tiny bit of play in druid at one point, but that's about all these two ever did in constructed. So AP sitting between them makes it seem like AP is actually just a bad card on its own. I'd say he's weaker than MSoG's attempt at this sort of effect (Lotus Assassin), and you can run 2 of those without any worries about shuffling them first.

Am I contradicting myself? First I say I think AP is a bonkers card, then a bad one? Again, timing is everything. If you could play AP on turn 6 and have him be part of a wider plan to pressure the opponent, then he's great. But if you have him on turn 14, when your opponent has stabilised or you are playing a deck that doesn't put on much pressure, then he doesn't do very much.

The (flawed) logic behind the design

It's quite easy to see how AP was made the way he was. Not only does it look cool and powerful at first glance (the community rated Akama quite highly), but we've seen first hand how powerful permanent stealth can be in adventures.

It's also notable that the prime mechanics (deathrattle and shuffle) are both things rogue had synergies for, and it stands to reason that rogue would have an easier time abusing primes than other classes. Stowaway in particular seems to alleviate the slow draw of AP. The trouble with the Stowaway solution is that you still need to have drawn both Akama and a Stowaway, and you have to be playing a fairly slow deck to justify him when you don't see Akama.

The fix

Fixing AP is simple: give him more health. I'd lean towards 7 to put him just out of range of modern Flamestrike +1 spell damage (which is so common and cheap in mage today that it's pretty much always going to be there). That way it makes 1 more class have to work to remove him, but makes almost no difference to classes that couldn't kill him to begin with, or who have un-targeted hard removal. It also gives him the opportunity to trade into a taunt minion without being reduced to piddly health that can be removed by small AoE.

The design lessons

We already know a card's power depends strongly on when it is drawn and played. This is doubly true for uncollectible cards that are shuffled into your deck. So the lesson is to ensure such a card is a good late game card at bare minimum. It doesn't matter how good it is as an early-to-mid game card if it's almost never going to be drawn then.

I'm McF4rtson from Hearthpwn. Just dropping by to share class borders I've gathered over the years. I slowly, but steadily, maintain a repository of public use class borders over there as well.

Ninja	Warden	Riftblade (experimental)	Motherboard (experimental)	Improved Sea Witch
{{CCLASS=ninja5958}}	{{CCLASS=warden1846}}	{{CCLASS=riftblade5344}}	{{CCLASS=beepboop5916}}	{{CCLASS=seawitch22739}}

Did anyone notice that the ranked ladder seasonal reward epic card (of April) was a duplicate? I am missing quite a few Wild epics still, but did not receive any of them. Perhaps only Standard cards are offered as ranked ladder seasonal rewards?

Although somewhat understandable, it is not mentioned specifically anywhere in-game, I think 🤔

This is not really meant as a complaint, but it does feel bad that the Wild cardpool is not included (at least so it seems). Especially since you can reach Diamond 5 also in both Wild and Classic modes nowadays.

GRIM ENCOUNTERS

A Hearthstone Battlegrounds expansion

Everyone, get in here and welcome to the Grim Guzzler! I'm Plugger Spazzing, the boss of this place, and from now on I'll be your host. Our beloved Bob unfortunately had to take a break for reasons totally unrelated to me (just ask my laywer). Six years ago, a horde of adventurers paying a children's card game ransacked my bar just for fun. But now, we're back in business! If you like beer, brawls, literal hot chicks, brawls, and getting in here, this is the place for you! Did I say brawls already? 'Cause that's important! Here's what we have in store today:

• 30 new minions!
• 4 new heroes!
• Frenzy : Something good came out of the Barrens after all! Patrons LOVE to hurt each other!
• Pints : What would the Grim Guzzler be without its Dark Iron Ale? For the very affordable price of 1 Coin, you can give a minion +3 Health!
• Dark Iron dwarfs : A brand new minion type! Dark Irons like three things: taking damage, having high Health, and BEER!

(Note: I started this before Quilboars were revealed, I didn't expect they would have such a similar mechanic)

THE SET

PLUGGER SPAZZRING'S LINES

The new bartender isn't as nice as Bob...

Right, I've got another tribe here, but instead of doing it on a PowerPoint as per usual, I'm just gonna do the traditional method of putting the cards on this post behind the spoilers. The Quilboar tribe was fully revealed the other day which forced me to scrap my other tribe, the Kobolds, due to how staggeringly similar they were. This led me back to square one, and then suddenly, Nagas came to mind as a potential new tribe. 

The Nagas mainly function around one mechanic, surpassing Attack thresholds. The simplest card to demonstrate this idea is the Starving Seahunter, which gains Windfury once it reaches, or surpasses, the 5 Attack threshold. This effect will only go off once on the minion, similar to a delayed Battlecry. We also have minions with repeatable Attack triggers, such as the Advance Hydroguard or the Swamplands Stalker.

There is also a small synergy within the tribe related to Golden cards, which was partially inspired by the inclusion of a new version of Zola the Gorgon (Zola, Golden Witch). Goldscale Temptress is the other synergy with Golden minions.

Thank you for looking at this tribe!

Heroes

Minions

Golden Minions

I was playing paladin with Reckoning in play. My opponent plays Tundra Rhino and gives it Immune with Bestial Wrath. He attacks with it and it dies from Reckoning even though it had Immune.

Normally, things with immune can't be targeted, and if you play an AoE they just ignore the damage. But I guess since Reckoning hits a single target, but you aren't the one picking the target, it works differently.

Also, could you destroy an Immune minion with a random effect like Deadly Shot? Or would that work differently?

Loving this Tavern Brawl. I finally get to enjoy Tess Greymane and Bazaar Burglary again. Let the fireworks commence!

I've just randomly come up with an idea for a league or a series of tournaments for Wild players who would enjoy theorycrafting decks.

So the format would be similar to what Brawl Blocks were, so forcing decks to be built from cards from set expansions. There would be a few expansions, with voting at the end of each cycle on which expansion to add to the pool, up to six or seven; or vote for an expansion to be rotated with another. Then every two months, it's reset to four expansions. The last two weeks before the reset would be playoffs. Also, Core 2021 would be an omnipresent set to give each class more tools that are interchangable and cover some stuff that expansions cannot.

It's still a loose idea, but I think it would be a great idea overall to showcase the community's creativity.

Competition Theme: 'Tis But A Scratch

It's time to weather the storm! Show us some cards that really know how to take a beating.

• You must create a card which uses the Frenzy keyword
  • It doesn't have to have Frenzy itself, it just needs to feature the Keyword in its card text

ChickyChick is finally taking us on our long overdue tour of the Barrens. Hey, what's that mechanic over there?

As always, I can be reached through Discord or here on the site via PM if you have any issues to report.

Competition Phases

Here are the phases of this card design competition

• Submission Phase: Starts on Mon, Apr 26 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sat, May 1 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Voting Phase: Starts on Sat, May 1 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Sun, May 2 16:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Finalist Phase: Starts on Sun, May 2 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400). Runs until Mon, May 3 17:00 EDT (GMT -0400)
• Winner Selected: After finalist voting concludes and we validate votes.

Discussion Thread Rules

No thread rules were added to this season. Please populate and manually edit this thread with them.

I want to start by saying I don't mind Demon Hunter at the moment. Its power is fine now that Twin Slice and Blade Dance are gone, so I don't harbour any of the hate I had for the class that I did throughout the Year of the Phoenix.

Nevertheless, I still keep wondering why the class needs to exist, especially from an archetype/mechanics viewpoint. I had hoped that within a year it would be given something that makes it feel truly distinct, but as it stands everything it does is just a slight twist on what other classes could do if they were given the tools, if they don't already do basically the same thing. Let's break down DH's archetypes and mechanics to see what I mean:

Hero attacks

Even at the time DH appeared, multiple classes had direct synergy for the hero attacking: warrior had Hack the System, Armored Goon and Galakrond, while druid had Secure the Deck and Gonk, the Raptor had only just rotated out.

It wasn't long before rogue and warrior were given a hefty weapon package in Scholomance, and in DMF shaman joined in with their Enhancement cards. Come Barrens, and rogue has massive weapons that look and feel a lot like DH's attack buffs.

Even without all the fancy stuff, rogue's hero power has been silently begging for cards that synergise with your hero attacking since 2014. Blizzard just never made the cards. It's not a class identity thing either, because most of DH's weapon attack synergy cards would look perfectly sensible in rogue.

Big demons

Warlock...

OK, so you could argue that warlock's class identity prohibits it from getting the burst damage that many of DH's big demons do. Fine, but they don't really need to be demons. You could make exactly the same cards with the beast tribe instead and hand them to hunter. Or maybe make them mechs, or elementals, or dragons etc. Its not difficult to find another appropriate class for the effect if you just switch out the tribe.

Token decks

Surprisingly not druid, because druid's token decks always use mass board buffs and minions buffs are one of the few things DH can't do.

However, what other class has token decks but (almost) no board buffs? Hunter! We can ignore the fact Unseal the Vault buffs the whole board because you usually only press that button once so it's really just 1 big bit of burst damage. What we can't ignore is that Swarm of Locusts is literally just a slightly bigger Command the Illidari, or that they shared token synergy cards in Scholomance.

Tempo deathrattles

The Barrens deathrattle cards could easily have been given to rogue or hunter, and no one would have been shocked. We would all have just gone "Ooh, deathrattle rogue/hunter has a new look."

Lifesteal burst/OTK

OK, so here I admit the other classes with lots of lifesteal would be very weird with Il'gynoth, since all of paladin, priest and warlock are awful at burst damage (at least in Standard). That said, Il'gynoth really just makes an OTK deck, and to be honest it doesn't matter much that the lifesteal keyword is involved. It still follows the process of: stay alive; draw the deck; play ~5 cards and win.

Basically what I'm saying here is that we didn't need DH for another OTK archetype to exist. It could have just been re-branded to fit the theme of another class and the world would turn much the same.

Soul fragments

Warlock... (I don't even need to add anything this time.)

Outcast

Finally, something truly unique to DH! It has one teeny tiny problem though, and is the main reason big demon DH never took off and bonkers cards like Coilfang Warlord are never played: outcast strongly disincentivises playing anything expensive. The end result that outcast isn't a DH mechanic so much as it is an aggro DH mechanic. The trouble is, when the strongest staple cards have outcast (as they would be because the very point of outcast cards is that they are powerful when the condition is met), all DH decks are going to want to use them, rendering entire supported archetypes worthless.

Outcast would be so much better as a mechanic used infrequently to support aggro decks without being central to the class. At that point it could easily be slipped into one of the other classes as their flavour for a year or so. So rather ironically, I think the one thing that truly does set DH apart would be better off as something that didn't.

Concluding remarks

Sadly, the most I can say to justify DH's existence at this point is that at least it meant the other classes could be pushed in other directions. They often went in roughly the same direction anyway, but I suppose that's not DH's fault.

I'm not optimistic about the class' ability to diversify this year while it is still dominated by the staples and design choices from the Year of the Phoenix, but maybe next year the rotation will herald a new era in which HS has 10 meaningfully different classes. 

So, this is absolutely nothing, but I just hit legend for the first time (playing about 7 years, never particularly seriously until the last few months) and have been almost entirely F2P the entire time (I bought the most recent tavern pass and Kharazan back in the day.)

So, I ground my way from D5 to L16480 using a slightly aggro secret Paladin. I feel kinda scummy about it, but Paladin and Mage are my mains, and this seemed like the right meta to make the push.

Anyhow, that's all. I'm just happy for the win (and slightly buzzed on a couple of celebratory IPAs)

I am trying to figure out why APM Mage is not getting nerfed but the Tiller otk decks got nerfed in only a week. Can anyone share their thoughts on what key differences make APM Mage fine for the meta as opposed to Tiller decks, or of any other similarities?

Here are the similarities I see so far:

Both can combo as early as turn 4 but go off consistently by about turn 7

Both are countered by certain hunter secrets

Both are countered by certain mage secrets

Both are countered by hyper aggro decks

Both deal about 60 damage maximum

Dirty rat effect needs to be duplicated or the deck can still combo due to redundancy in combo pieces

Both are delayed by Loatheb

So there is a lot of weaving going on in Priest lately with the Veilweaver-bloodweaver-Rally combo that generates tons of spells and discounts them.
It sure can be pretty fun to generate spells and sling those cards with multiple weavers on the board but I see the same "misplay" again and again.

Do you guys agree that playing a Renew with a single veilweaver only to generate a random card is a misplay? You essentially trade a card, you consciously put in your deck for a random one. Seems like a bad deal to me.

There are obviously exceptions:

- Multiple veilweavers
- Desperation for a clear
- Lots of spare mana with a light hand

But i've seen way to many priests throw away their renews for the sake of a random card.

Does anyone know how does Vectus' Whelps work with Aegwynn's Deathrattle effect? Do those Whelps then make other minions you draw inherit the Whelp's powers, like any enchantments it gets (ex. Lifesteal or Rush)?

Clefthoof the card you summon four times with Nagrand Slam usually doesn't have card text. They're plain 3/5 that only attack immediately because of the text on the spell, not because of any card text on the Clefthoofs. However, I just discovered that when you gain control of an opponent's Clefthoof by using Silas Darkmoon it gains Rush as card text. And yes, you can also immediately attack with it, tho I didn't because I misplayed and missed lethal as this interaction came as a total surprise to me.

Haven't tested it, but I'm assuming this works with Initiation, Mind Control, and similar cards too.

Thought I let you all know in case you ever feel the need to steal your opponent's Clefthoof.

This is a bit of a lame topic, but I made a bunch of cards based around adages from where I live. Appart from commenting my cards, I would really love it if you shared cards based around adages from your home country/region, so that we can learn a bit from each other's cultures and expand our worldview a little bit :)

I picked three adages in Spanish and two in Catalan, since both of this languages are spoken in my home region.

Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda.

A qui es burla, el dimoni li furga.

Al que madruga, Dios le ayuda.

Li diu el mort al degollat: qui t'ha fer eixe forat?

En abril, aguas mil.

I hope you enjoyed this small selection of cards and the explanations of their flavor. As I said early, I'm looking forward to see similar cards from adages in other languages :)

This week I rerolled the "deal x dmg to minions in BG" to get  "finish top4 in bg". I rerolled that into "spend 500 mana". Now I rerolled another quest (5 wins BG, Duels, TB) and got "deal x dmg to minions in BG" AGAIN!

I can't play BG. All my clients (mobile, Windows VM) are so slow that the rope is halfway done, when I enter Bob's Tavern. 

I know that some people play only BG and they are happy about that. That should not be changed. But if they don't play ranked then they can reroll this into sth. which isn't ranked quest. But as non BG-player you can't avoid BG quests! Why are BG rerolls not rerolled into non-BG-quests?