Do we have any information about Illidans upgraded heropowers form cards like Justicar Trueheart, Genn Greymane or Baku the Mooneater?

The coin is there to counter the disadvantage of going second. However in it's current state it is not an equalizer, but an (unfair) advantage for the player who goes second.

My proposal is to have the coin you get from going second ONLY give you one mana crystal. It shouldn't count as a spell /  card and will not work as a combo enabler.

Coins generated later in the game can work as normal.

What do you think?

We're kind of in a down-time between Reveal Season and a new expansion coming out, so while we wait for Tuesday I thought I'd ask a question: what are your favorite Hearthstone cards by rarity? This came up in a conversation with my father, and turns out going through the list was harder than I expected.

To start things off, here are mine:

• Basic - Frostbolt. 
• Common - Jade Spirit. I've had a lot of fun playing Jade decks; I like their inevitable nature, growing bigger threats.
• Rare - Stonehill Defender. Taunt is my favorite Keyword, and he's a staple of Quest Taunt Warrior (my favorite deck).
• Epic - Scion of Ruin. Dragons are my favorite minion type, and summoning three guys with Rush is great.
• Legendary - Fire Plume's Heart. It's got to be; sorry, Frost Lich Jaina. You know I love you too.

I assume all cards are fair game here, although you're welcome to do Standard-only if you want.

I started playing HS after the nerf to Raza so never had to deal with this deck in a big way before.

I played 7 games on the wild ladder today at Bronze 10 and 6 of those games were this deck and I lost every game. Granted I was playing non-tier 1 decks like Spell Hunter & Quest Burgle Rogue, but still every game played out the same and I got completely destroyed.

For those who played it prenerf what worked? My only thought was bring back Bomb Warrior and just shuffle bombs like mad but aside from that (which is obviously inconsistent based on draws) I’m kind of at a loss. Any help would be appreciated - as much as I love the new ladder system quite frankly this was the single least fun day I’ve ever had with this game so if this is what Wild looks like now then I’ll just dust my Wild cards and jump back to standard.

Hey guys, i've really enjoyed the year of the dragon overall and want to know what you think. 

1. What have been your favorite decks to climb or just play from each expansion meta? 
2. What rotating cards from YotR are you going to miss most?
3. Favorite YotD cards not necessarily for power?

All of the year of the dragon cards will still be around in standard for the next year, but between raven cards rotating/nerfs/power level of future expansions a lot of them won't see the kind of play they have.  So year of the dragon has had it's own unique meta.

My personal experience:

Witchwood/Year of the Raven was where I began hearthstone, so this year felt unique to me because it was the first one where every card being played was one I knew from it's release.  

In Rise of Shadows my favorite deck for the ladder was bomb warrior.  Both booms were nutty, and having a "control" deck that also could play as a sloppy midrange beat em up was really fun.  I'm definitely in the minority but I even miss the warrior mirrors.  Playing bomb vs control and bomb mirror was so ridiculous and its not something you really saw after the end of the RoS meta.  My favorite card from that expansion was Muckmorpher.  I really liked those two minutes where big shaman was a thing.  

In Saviors of Uldum, and for the entire year of the dragon, my favorite deck was quest shaman.  Now bludgeoned to death by nerfs (unjustly so imo), it used to be a super fun deck to play.  Ridiculous value engine, interesting tempo lines, lots of rng effects like discovers and mutates to try to hedge, deck was nutty.  Unfortunately the Wild cards event put an early end on my enjoyment of the deck because evolve made the deck broken and the center of the meta.  About a week into the event I took the longest break i've ever taken from HS until it was over because the game was unplayable to me.  

I also loved quest druid, and my favorite card from Uldum is Oasis Surger.  I love elementals, the art, and the nutty power level.  This deck is still very good nowadays and a go to climbing deck.

Descent of Dragons was a pretty huge spike in power, Pushing and rebuilding a lot of the other decks from the meta while adding Galakrond and another reason to play highlander.  I loved Galakrond Shaman for the brief amount of time it was almost balanced between the two waves of nerfs but it was short lived because now the deck is fairly weak.  I was really bummed how they handled Shaman this expansion, but it's still been quite enjoyable and a pretty decent meta with a lot of variety and not as much polarization.  I've enjoyed highlander hunter, aggro hunter, highlander rogue, and quest druid.  DoD added my favorite card from the expansion to quest druid, Ysera, Unleashed.  Card is nuts.  Mad flavor and closes out games in style.  

Cards i'm going to miss from year of the raven

Shudderwock (favorite card of all time, opened it in my first WW pack),

Hagatha the Witch

Flobbidinous Floop

Electra Stormsurge

Wardruid Loti

I won't type too much more in case the thread flops but I really want to know other peoples experiences and feelings with the expansions.

Hear me out... Demon Hunter has very few spells right now. That means Arcane Dynamo has a large chance of pulling Inner Demon. So, Kael'thas Sunstrider - Twin Slice, Second Slice, Inner Demon, Twin Slice, Second Slice, Inner Demon, Blur, Blur, Inner Demon, Consume Magic, draw into Mana Burn, Inner Demon. Do it with Warglaives of Azzinoth, and not even a Voidlord will stop you. That's 36 or more damage.

I am aware this is a meme. I am aware that Mages become Immune, Druids have 30K armor, and Warlocks have a board full of taunts on turn 5. I am aware you need 11 cards to do this. But, I think making this dream happen is the perfect excuse for me to dip into Wild. I just wanna punch a Priest in the face, with no way for them to stop it.

Any brave souls out there who want to join me?

Hello, I am trying to help a fellow LOR player improve his skills. I'll take any advise on how I am as a coach!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZgz0JX8_b8&feature=emb_logo

What is the last date to pre-purchase Ashes of outland bundle ?

1st Arena rotation for Ashes of Outland is coming on April 7.

Drafting Pool

"Free" Arena Ticket

Players who have an active Arena run when rotation happens will have their current run retired and will receive an Arena Ticket as compensation (plus any reward for current number of wins for that run).

• Play out your run to x-2 (x wins and max. 2 losses) if you want more rewards from your run, or just leave it at 0-0 if you dont want to bother playing.

Friendly Neighborhood Gladiator: if you do plan on leaving your run at 0-0, you might as well start two games and concede to two players, getting some positive karma :) You will get the identical rewards for 0-0 and 0-2 score.

Hello, I'm VengaDragon.

I recently dedicated my time to being a full time content creator and social media influencer. Before I posted here, I wanted to make sure I honed my skills as a streamer and built up a Twitch Community. Since January, I've been streaming four days per week and added a YouTube channel to my online presence. 

SCHEDULE & VIDEOS

TWITCH

Twitch Link: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 5:45pm EDT

YOUTUBE

YouTube Link: Monday, Tuesday & Friday (New Channel & Schedule 4/4/2020)

I'm psyched to be here. Ask me questions in this thread and let's get to know each other.  Right now, I have about 10 consistent viewers and my YouTube Channel has only a few subscribers. 

NO REALLY! WHO ARE YOU?

I know I'm new and people don't know me, I also know that I'll add value to the Hearthstone Community. I'm a person who likes to be positive and spread goodwill. I played online poker full time for years and did pretty good, so much so that I have money and time to work as an influencer for the rest of 2020. I hope you have an open mind and enjoy my videos and social media stuff. You can find out more about me as I post more content and go all in on Hearthstone. 

Meta-Defining

• Battlefiend
• Umberwing
• Eye Beam
• Kayn Sunfury
• Hand of A'dal
• Greyheart Sage
• Blackjack Stunner

Great

• Chaos Strike - best comparison is an improved Shiv
• Sightless Watcher
• Glaivebound Adept
• Twin Slice
• Blade Dance
• Priestess of Fury
• Skull of Gul'dan
• Furious Felfin
• Crimson Sigil Runner
• Fungal Fortunes - if Book of Specters could find a deck, this can too
• Zixor, Apex Predator - only in a deck dedicated to buffing him, naturally, but I think that could become meta
• Mok'Nathal Lion
• Pack Tactics
• Scavenger's Ingenuity
• Astromancer Solarian 
• Evocation
• Incanter's Flow
• Murgur Murgurgle
• Kul Tiran Chaplain - remember Kabal Talonpriest?
• Soul Mirror - it's like Lightbomb that doesn't hurt your own board and leaves behind compensation minions for every enemy minion that doesn't die, for just 1 more mana
• Shadowjeweler Hanar
• Serpentshrine Portal
• Kanrethad Ebonlocke - solid addition to solid Zoo builds
• Darkglare - will be the key combo piece of some meme deck, but will also just be in other decks
• Kargath Bladefist
• Bladestorm
• Imprisoned Gan'arg
• Maiev Shadowsong - overrated, not going to be as ubiquitous as Zilliax
• Burrowing Scorpid
• Guardian Augmerchant - will be at least as ubiquitous as Fire Fly

Good

• Shadowhoof Slayer
• Aldrachi Warblades
• Satyr Overseer
• Chaos Nova - very strong card, but for now I think the control DH deck's weakness will pull it down
• Consume Magic
• Ur'zul Horror - may not have room to be played because of an abundance of strong 1-drops in the competition
• Feast of Souls
• Altruis the Outcast
• Illidari Felblade
• Raging Felscreamer
• Command the Illidari
• Metamorphosis - overrated
• Warglaives of Azzinoth - overrated
• Imprisoned Antaen
• Fel Summoner
• Immolation Aura - not sure about the deck it goes in, though
• Spectral Sight
• Glowfly Swarm
• Augmented Porcupine - a personal favorite of mine, so I may be overrating it, but I don't think so
• Deep Freeze
• Libram of Hope
• Underlight Angling Rod
• Aldor Truthseeker
• Libram of Wisdom
• Imprisoned Sungill
• Libram of Justice
• Aldor Attendant
• Scarlet Subjugator - deceptively powerful in a trading-heavy deck
• Natalie Seline - it's a sad statement on power creep that I can "only" rate this Good
• Reliquary of Souls
• Skeletal Dragon
• Sethekk Veilweaver
• Dragonmaw Sentinel
• Imprisoned Homunculus
• Akama
• Bamboozle
• Ambush
• Ashtongue Slayer
• Spymistress
• Shattered Rumbler - might be wishful thinking on my part, but it looks decent on paper
• Marshspawn
• Keli'dan the Breaker
• Shadow Council - Warlock can afford to run Sacrificial Pact and other tech cards with this as a backup way to use them
• Imprisoned Scrap Imp - I thought this card was seriously overrated, but now I'm seeing that's because I was thinking of it as a Zoo card, when it's a Handlock card
• Nightshade Matron - combo with Hand of Gul'dan is amazing but unreliable
• Kael'thas Sunstrider - centerpiece of mid-tier decks
• Teron Gorefiend

Niche

• Coordinated Strike - just doesn't have the oomph of Unleash the Hounds
• Soul Cleave - only in dedicated lifesteal decks
• Inner Demon
• Blur - I think it's being underrated, but that's not saying too much
• Wrathscale Naga
• Wrathspike Brute
• Flamereaper - overrated and slow
• Hulking Overfiend
• Pit Commander
• Coilfang Warlord
• Ashtongue Battlelord
• Archspore Msshi'fn
• Ironbark
• Overgrowth - seriously overrated; Wild Growth is dead at 3 mana and this will be similar
• Imprisoned Satyr
• Bogbeam
• Nagrand Slam - probably with Kael'thas Sunstrider
• Helboar
• Apexis Smuggler
• Imprisoned Observer
• Netherwind Portal
• Lady Liadrin
• Power Infusion - maybe not in the immediate meta, but eventually will find a deck that uses it as much as paladins use Blessing of Kings
• Dragonmaw Overseer
• Apotheosis
• Renew
• Dirty Tricks
• Lady Vashj
• Boggspine Knuckles
• Torrent
• Vivid Spores
• Bogstrok Clacker
• Hand of Gul'dan
• Bloodboil Brute
• Bonechewer Raider
• Magtheridon - very good but only in very specific decks
• Mo'arg Artificer
• Dragonmaw Sky Stalker
• Rustsworn Cultist - maybe in DH token decks
• Terrorguard Escapee - good for setting up Sea Giant or similar
• Frozen Shadoweaver
• Bonechewer Brawler
• Rocket Augmerchant

Abstain (i.e. I have no idea; could be good or could be garbage)

• Soul Split
• Scrap Shot
• Starscryer
• The Dark Portal
• Corsair Cache

Meme

• Mana Burn - in the long run people will realize they're paying 2.5 mana to deny their opponents 2
• Nethrandamus
• Netherwalker
• Ysiel Windsinger
• Marsh Hydra - the kind of solid, slow card that's broken in Arena but never sees competitive Constructed play
• Beastmaster Leoroxx
• Imprisoned Felmaw
• Apexis Blast
• Font of Power
• Psychic Conjurer - only in dedicated thief priest decks
• Shadow Word: Ruin - nobody plans to let their opponent build up that big a board
• Cursed Vagrant
• The Lurker Below
• Totemic Reflection
• Enhanced Dreadlord
• Unstable Felbolt
• Warmaul Challenger
• Waste Warden - too specific a tech
• Replicat-o-tron
• Blistering Rot
• Bonechewer Vanguard
• Ruststeed Raider
• Felfin Navigator
• Overconfident Orc - it's no Tar Creeper, just hit it with a 1/1 and then value-trade it away
• Imprisoned Vilefiend
• Ethereal Augmerchant
• Soulbound Ashtongue - only for Warlock combo decks

Garbage

• Germination
• Psyche Split
• Bulwark of Azzinoth
• Scrap Golem
• Sword and Board
• Al'ar - too easy to just kill the egg
• Scrapyard Colossus - ok off of evolve effects or in Arena, though
• Infectious Sporeling
• Supreme Abyssal
• Scavenging Shivarra
• Disguised Wanderer
• Rustsworn Initiate

Players can register their own one-person event, which still allows the early opening of Ashes of Outland Card Packs the weekend of April 3 – 6, along with a first taste of Demon Hunter gameplay versus AI.

I cant get a match against the AI in the fireside

Hi guys! Are you feeling lucky today?

I set up a Fireside Gathering and just finished my pack opening... and WOW is was a really great one! Probably my best one ever (I play since Beta).

I got both bundles, so there was a total of 145 packs.

Here is the results:

Commons - 100%
Rares - 100%
Epics - 74% (34 of 46)
Legendaries - 54% (15* of 25)

*One is Kael'thas Sunstrider, so it does not count as "opened".

I am truly impressed by this high amount of orange cards! It`s one every 10.4 packs!!!
Here is the list!

Metamorphosis

Archspore Msshi'fn

Ysiel Windsinger

Beastmaster Leoroxx

Evocation

Murgur Murgurgle

Lady Liadrin

Reliquary of Souls

Akama

Lady Vashj - Golden

The Lurker Below

Keli'dan the Breaker

Teron Gorefiend - Golden

Maiev Shadowsong

I just wanted to share my joy and with this send good energies to all of you! Happy opening and good luck!

Please also share your results here!

Has anyone started a Fireside Gathering to open their packs yet?  I tried it but I couldn't open the packs.   I read that all gatherings are private now but you can still get Nemsy.    I can't establish my tavern yet so i'm guessing I have to wait until after it's over to do that and then I should get Nemsy?  I stupidly made it last 8 hours lol.  Oh well.

What do you think about new cards, what will be good in Wild?

Kael'thas Sunstrider is already being played and if not great, it is definitely a fun card (for the player that is using it).

Druid is getting interesting cards, for example Overgrowth and Imprisoned Satyr. I bet we will see a Dane video with Ysiel Windsinger.

Both Mage legendaries are really solid - Astromancer Solarian, Evocation. Reno mage is as we know Tier 1 now, and they both seem to be good addition to it.

Priest's Soul Mirror - interesting card but I can't tell if it's great or bad.

Akama for rogue - too slow or is it?

That's my two cents. + I hope we will see Demon Hunter being played.

Greetings there! I'm here to present you my version of how I would change Druid's Core Sets. I'm jumping the bandwagon a bit with the changes after seeing some other people trying their reworks and generally accepting classes may need some updates.

This time, I've put crossfire onto Druid. Some people may be surpirsed I'm taking a closer look at this class instead of some other ones, but I'm willing to experiment with a slightly differend approach to Druid than most people are used to. I'll try to shift the class to resemble more of what nature in real life can be. Expect to be a bit like my previous Warlock thread where I may start with too many expansion cards going to Core sets. Feel free to correct me and pinpoint mistakes.

Strengths and Weaknesses

New Sets

Explanations

Hall of Fame

Some cards that were considered, but didn't make the cut

So because individual class reviews and theorycrafts take a lot of time and usually end up being pointless, I thought I'd try something more compact this time around.

I'm gonna be ranking the 10 classes from best to worst and explain why and which decks they'll use. Before I do that I'm gonna explain some general assumptions that I base these things on:

Overall

So after looking at the set in its entirety and considering all the rotating stuff I came to the conclusion that there will be 3 types of decks that will succeed in the coming meta:

-very aggressive ones

-very defensive ones

-those using Zephrys the Great

the reason for this is that, aside from the addition of Demon hunter who looks to be very aggressive in general, we lose both Leeroy Jenkins and Zilliax.

Leeroy Jenkins means that aggressive decks will have to double down on their aggression because they no longer have an easyy finisher. It also means that slower midrange decks won't have this finisher either, meaning their kill potential is severely reduced, making them weaker against both aggro and control. Finally, without Zilliax, one of the best anti-aggro and comeback tool is gone. It's actually frightening to see how many successful decks relied on being able to recover at least some health and swing the game back in their favour to win. Zilliax was the main reason why we had very few actual aggro decks and the ones we did have were average at best (for instance Face Hunter, despite having ridiculouss aggro potential, was inferior to the much slower, but far more efficient Dragon Hunter)

The last point is that Zephrys the Great  becomes the single most effective comeback tool in the game. He allows you to heal, clear the board, deal with a minion or find lethal. As explained above, matchups will become much more polarized and having acccess to a flexible finisher or emergency fallback is probably the best thing to improve your winrate.

These are the assumptions I'm going into this with and all my judgements below are based on them. So let's get into it:

#1 Demon Hunter

So let's explain this. Demon Hunter is overpowered, there is no way around it.

However, this is absolutely necessary. When they designed a new class they not only had to put it together from scratch, but also introduce it to a completely new meta, meaning there's very little to actually build upon balance-wise. This left them with two choices:

-make DH op and nerf them later

-play it safe and buff them if necessary

The second option would be downright idiotic. Buffing cards is so much harder to do than nerfing. Basically, if Demon Hunter turned out to weak they'd have to guess which cards would improve their performance if buffed. NOt only that, a weak class would see significantly less play, meaning less data to go off.

Instead, they chose the best option and just made the class clearly busted. This way they can accurately assess where the intended strengths and weaknesses are and nerf them accordingly.

That being said, I think the most aggressive Demon Hunter builds will be the most successful, both initially and in the long run. Kayn Sunfury makes it so you can reliably finish your enemies and don't get walled off by Taunts that you can't remove. Skull of Gul'dan is just broken in general´and will probably be the first card on the nerf block.

Other archetypes like Token and Big Demons will probably pale in comparison, but still see play somewhere down the line, depending on how the meta develops and which cards get the nerf hammer.

Highlander DH is also an options that has been experimented with. I'm personally not convinced that it's better than just running all your good cards twice, but as explained above, Zephrys is pretty nuts.

#2 Paladin

Paladin is an interesting case, because they come into this expansion with basically nothing, but received a set so strong it's on par with K&C Warlock.

Librams are nuts and will be the defining shell for Paladin for a while (until something even better comes around). The question is how to optimally use the Libram package?

Some people are adamant about Pure Paladin finally becoming a thing, but I don't really believe it myself. The thing about Librams is that they work well with a select number of Neutral cards that I really don't want to pass up on, mainly Wild Pyromancer, Argent Squire and the new Replicat-o-tron. The upside of Pure Paladin is the tempo boost fromLightforged Zealot and the reload of Lightforged Crusader. However, I don't think either of those are necessary. Lady Liadrin is the only reload you'll need, and Crusader tends to fill your hand with clunky stuff, which has anti-synergy with Liadrin herself. Zealot is more appealing, but only really makes sense in a deck that tries to put on pressure, which i don't think Paladin needs to be. In this new meta, Healing will be a very powerful tool to stop aggro (especially DH, because they bypass taunts). As such you can actually sacrifice tempo and swing back with Libram of Justice and Libram of Hope as well as generally good cards like Amber Watcher. Another reason is the fact that Pure Paladin doesn't really have a good sticky 1-drop to capitalize on Hand of A'dal which is the main reason I wanna run neutral 1-drops like Argent Squire or Murmy

Just in general, Paladin has received one of the best lategame value engines currently available while also having a very solid earlygame package.

Another option is Murloc Paladin. Murgur Murgurgle is just great in general and will probably see play outside of tribal decks. Imprisoned Sungill is very underated as delayed triple murloc ready to receive buffs  (and a good way to play around removal and still have a board). Felfin Navigator speaks for itself.

Highlander Paladin, despite using Zephrys, is probably too slow (and can't use Librams as well as regular Pally, so I feel that rules them out by default)

this might be the meta were Control Paladin finally shines.

#3 Hunter

Hunter is here because of Dragon Hunter and Face Hunter, not necessarily because of the new set. Both decks lose effectively nothing and gain EVERYTHING from Zilliax rotating. Face Hunter is probably the best counter to aggressive Demon Hunter, who has some real trouble dealing with Leper Gnomes and Secrets. Dragon Hunter on the other hand will probably work decently all around and not lose that much to decks with healing or taunts because Rotnest Drake is busted.

Highlander Hunter will be around in some capacity, but I'm not sure how strong they'll be. Once again, Zephrys might pull through, but overall I'm not sure if Hunter can wait until turn 7 and 9 for the big powerspikes.

The new Hunter cards are definitely interesting but I fear the might be a tad too slow. Handbuffing is historically awkward, and even when efficient options are available. Zixor, Apex Predator might be good enough to carry the archetype, but it heavily depends on how common Rogue is in the meta because boy oh boy will Flik Skyshiv fuck you up.

I think there might also be a way to play Beastmaster Leoroxx efficiently by runnig King Krush and Octosari, and using them as a massive tempo boost and reload in some sort of midrange deck. You don't actually need to summon all 3 beasts for it to be worth it.

Finally I wanna point towards Vereesa Windrunner and say that despite her not having seen much play in recent times she's still a very powerful effect that has also received indirect support via Corrosive Breath and older cards have a tendency to be forgotten even when they could potentially shine.

#4 Rogue

Now I'm gonna go out and bring you a very bold and controversial prediction here: I don't think Galakrond Rogue will be very good.

Yes, I'm being serious, I think that what is currently one of the best decks in the game will fall almost completely out of relevance. The reason being that Galakrond Rogue is VERY SLOW. We've kinda gotten used to the meta being a lot slower in the last year, thanks to Zilliax and a few other tools that allowed classes with limited defensive options to have an answer to aggressive decks. This is no longer the case.

Galakrond Rogue depends on being able to play Invokers early and mostly just respond to stuff while shitting out lackeys for tempo and value. Outiside of that it relies on Heistbaron Togwaggle and Galakrond, the Nightmare for the big swing turns. HOwever, Demon Hunter won't let you get to those turns...like ever. At the same time heavy control decks will just simply outheal or outtaunt you, which is even more relevant now that the Leeroy + Shadowstep burst is gone.

This doesn't mean that Rogue is out of the game though. One of the main benefits of Galakrond was big draw through consistent Galakronds and Togwaggles. This was necessary because Rogue didn't really have good enough draw outside of them (Neither Sprint nor Gadgetzan Auctioneer are particularly great anymore). However, we have perfect substitutes these days with Dirty Tricks and Greyheart Sage. Not only that, but both Secret and Stealth Rogue seems to go in a much more promising direction tempo wise, even though in the theorycrafting streams it seemed a bit subpar, which I feel was due to suboptimal deck building (for fuck's sake Kibler, you're playing an Aggro deck, you need to run Eviscerate)

Overall the future of Rogue is a bit uncertain, but just the sheer amount of good cards they received leads me to believe that they'll worm their way into at least tier 2...as they always do.

#5 Warlock

In another bold prediction I'll claim that Warlock is actually looking pretty good. They already benefit a lot from Leeroy leaving as we speak and the have at least decent healing options (especially [Hearthstone Card (Sacrifical Pact) Not Found], which hurts Demon Hunters a lot and also any other aggro deck, because they all run Frenzied Felwing).

Galakrond Warlock will probably stick around in some capacity. If I'm not mistaken Blizzard has removed dormant minions from the random summoning pool (or maybe it's just The Darkness and I have false info) so the card won't be significantly worse.

However, what I am really looking forward to are two "new" archetypes, namely being Control Handlock with Shadow Council as well as Plot Twist Warlock.

Let me explain:

I very much agree with Trump (no, not the orange one, the one with barcode for hair) and his assessment that Shadow Council is a legit play in a control deck that mostly draws cards and accumulates reactive tools. Essentially you'd be playing Embiggen Druid but with control tools. Additionally you can set up your Imprisoned Scrap Imp to buff your hand even further, and since we now have a decent amount of proactive demons (or just ones with taunt) you should always have something useful to play after using Council. As said above, Control will have to go very defensive, and Warlock doesn't really have simple lategame win conditions, so this might genuinely be a good way to take over the board in the midgame, as well as having a realistic answer to other control decks. Do not underestimate the power of dropping overbuffed minions turn after turn.

Plot Twist Warlock would be a twist indeed, but far from an unrealistic one. Aranasi Broodmother gives us more heal, which is great, Enhanced Dreadlord is just good in general and a great target off Fel Lord Betrug. Even better, we get Kanrethad Ebonlocke who gives us a legit lategame powerbomb that will most likely summon taunts, lifesteal or another Betrug (who is great because we also run Supreme Archaeology). we can even double up on Ebonlocke if we summon him from Betrug. If all that still isn't enough you can run Zzeraku the Warped and combine him with fatigue damage to create a last ditch effort (or just run Chef Nomi,  idk, whatever works). AlsoKeli'dan the Breaker is pretty lit and makes it so we don't necessarily need two copies of Siphon Soul or Twisting Nether

Overall I think there will be some form of Control Warlock, if only because Sac Pact beats Demon Hunters hard.

Oh yeah, and Zoo is also a thing I guess...they didn't really get much support. Don't believe in the Discard hype, it sucks.

#6 Warrior

Now I'm really uncertain about the actual strength of Warrior. They lose A LOT. Both [Hearthstone Card (Eternium Reaver) Not Found] and Town Crier were essential in taking the early game, and now we only have....Imprisoned Gan'arg...yay. Also the loss of Acolyte of Pain is crippling.

I don't think Galakrond Warrior as we know it can stick around. You were already at the mercy of drawing your Galakrond and Invokers in time, and now you basically lose half your draw. Battle Rage might have to be a genuine buildaround if the deck wants to be playable.

However, not all is lost, because the taunt package could pull through. Kargath Bladefist is a great recovery tool so I'm fairly certain some form of defensive Warrior will be played.

On the other hand we also have Enrage Warrior, who still has Bloodsworn Mercenary, which is still busted.

I don't see Warrior taking the lead on anything, but rather them responding to whatever the meta throws at them.

If everything fails, Pirate Warrior can probably do something decent. Face is the place.

#7 Mage

Much like Warrior, Mage could go either way. Spell-only Mage looks to be garbage. It's an RNG fest and probably a fun deck to play, but there's no way it actually gets above 50% winrate. The biggest problem is the fact that MAge has so little efficient draw that it's hard to capitalize on Incanter's Flow. Arcane Intellect is alright, but just not enough and generated spells aren't nearly as good.

This pretty much leaves only Highlander Mage, which still has a bunch of powerful cards and the new Evocation to keep them afloat. The main problem is the rotation of Luna's Pocket Galaxy. this was the card that actually won game, because while MAge would usually just go even normally, being able to play a bunch of big guys for 1-mana was how they overwhelmed opponents in the lategame. Now you just play a bunch of big dudes one by one and see them removed by Control decks or ignored by Midrange ones. I'm not familiar enough with the deck to judge it accurately, but I think it will be so much weaker without Luna's.

There are however at least two other Archetypes that I think might see some resurgence. One is Big Spell Mage, which got Deep Freeze as another way to swing the board, and the other is...yes...Cyclone Mage. I can't tell if either of those is nearly good enough, but I can say that Starscryer helps them both A LOT.

Also there is technically a version of Cyclone Mage that uses Incanter's Flow and Gadgetzan Auctioneer to do....something, I'm not sure what yet.

Mage will be "fine", but don't expect them to have much of an impact.

#8 Druid

Druid is the prime example of a class that will probably be really strong later in the year, but so far we only have the set-up without the payoff.

Embiggen Druid sounds like it would stick around, but I'm skeptical, mainly because of Demon Hunter. Embiggen Druid is very slow early if they don't get the explosive early with Strength in Numbers and Breath of Dreams. This means that DH can set up on you and punch face and by the time you get a big taunt out they just play Maiev Shadowsong or Kayn Sunfury and sm0rc you to death.

The deck could still be a thing thanks to "Evasive" being a really powerful keyword against Control decks relying on spell removal, but I think they'll be much worse because of their polarized matchup spread.

Quest Druid behaves similarly. They didn't really get any new tools and they are still as slow as ever, which will lead aggro decks to exploit them. Steel Beetle could be key to surviving long enough to turn the game around, but I don't believe the deck gets any better. Ysiel Windsingercould be pretty strong in the future, but we don't really have the spells for her yet.

Imprisoned Satyr could be a real sleeper (heh) hit. I'm not entirely sure on the mechanic, but I believe the Satyr awakens before you draw at the start of your turn, making it very easy to set up, especially if your deck is thin on minions anyways. Moreoever, you can just play both Satyrs at once (or over two turns) and enable some strong combos (currently Malygos + double Germination for an easy 32 damage burst with Moonfire...or even use Elise the Enlightened). The main problem is that Ramp combo druid will be too slow and too easily rushed down. The more combo piececs you include the less consistent your deck will be and Quest Druid lives and dies by its consistency.

On the other side there's the potential for Spell token Druid. Most of the token summoners are spells and Glowfly Swarm is nuts. Fungal Fortunes could be used with a very minimal minion package (Keeper Stalladris and [Hearthstone Card (Goru the Might Tree) Not Found] is waht I'm talking about mostly) so there might be something here. Probably won't be a very consistent deck though.

#9 Priest

Poor Priest. We got the class overhaul we always wanted and it changed very little....at least for now. Yeah, maybe removing ALL card draw from the class wasn't such a good idea. Much like Mage, I dislike the idea of trying to win off of random cards instead of actually playing what's in our deck. It doesn't help that Reliquary of Souls is by far the worst Prime in this expansion and will probably see more play in a different class (more about that later).

Rez Priest will stick around, but will be so much weaker. Zerek's Cloning Gallery and Zilliax are huge losses, as is Mass Hysteria. Additionally there are now so many Rez counters that even if the deck was good it would just get countered to hell. None of the new cards really support it either.

There is a glimmer of hope though. I think Galakrond, the Unspeakable will be much better than previously seen. It's already become a decent addition to Rez Priest, but I honestly think there could be some form of Control Priest that will be able to utilize him better than ever. Let me remind you that infinite ressource generation is very powerful and there's currently nothing to compete with that (outside of LIbram Paladin, which Priest conveniently counters with Mass Dispel). Even better, some of Priest's worst minions are rotating to Wild, so you get a decent selection of playable minions to generate.

Even further, Control Priest can actually use some of the few draw cards left, that being Cleric of Scales (which encourages a Dragon control package, which doesn't look too bad thanks to Aeon Reaver and maybe even Chronobreaker, and they also can make best use out of Kronx Dragonhoof to fetch their Galakrond and start outvaluing their opponent early.

Finally, Priest has some very decent healing tools, which should be relevant against Aggro decks and Soul Mirror is probably one of the best swing cards for any Control deck and complements the idea of a Priest deck that tries to control with both spells and minions.

Overall Priest is looking uncertain, but not completely dead. It's just gonna take some out of the box thinking to make it work, and even if it doesn't, there's some set up for the future.

#10 Shaman

We've reached the bottom. I guess this  is where The Lurker Below lives.

Much like Paladin, Shaman enters with basically nothing...and gets nothing in return. No win conditions, and very little support to the remaining archetypes. Let's break this down:

Aggro Overload Shaman is gone. Thunderhead was the backbone of the deck and it's gone. It still has some great cards but nothing to really hold them together.

Quest Shaman was already dead. Mind Control Tech leaving cements that fact. Now any deck that can go wide or tall just runs over them.

The biggest bummer is the lack of support for Control Shaman. Hagatha the Witch is gone and with her the only chance of having a decent lategame value engine. Spirit of the Frog is gone, so no more good draw. Finally, there's the lack of efficient healing. As mentioned before, healing is going to be king for control decks. Shaman now only has Witch's Brew (which is way too slow) and Walking Fountain (which is good, but comes out way too late and probably only heals for 8).

What they do still have is a barrage of boardclears and powerful single target removal. Technically a control shell is still possible...but what for? We don't have any lategame bomb anymore. The best we can muster is Galakrond, the Tempest, who, at this point, is probaby the weakest of all the Galakronds. Compared to other lategame plays, two 8/8s with Rush aren't really that impressive anymore, and you can't really win just off of those (especially since Shudderwock is gone as well). I still believe Galakrond will be a necessary package to succeed (and who knows, maybe some of the cards will get unnerfed eventually), but we still need some sort of lategame plan...and maybe there is.

So a fellow user on this site pointed out that in the current set, the only 1-mana legendary is Reliquary of Souls. Now look at [Hearthstone Card (Fist of Ra-den) Not Found]. Here's the deck they came up with:

Basically the idea is to use Fist to summon a bunch of Reliquaries with 1-mana spell.

Additionally I would consider the possibility of adding Ancestral Spirit to really double down on the idea of (awkwardly) building a huge wall of taunt lifesteals, which at least somewhat deals with the healing issue. This is where Lady Vashj comes in as an actual draw engine. Since we shuffle a bunch of primes in the deck fatigue isn't that much of an issue.

Will this be good? Probably not. But Shaman can't exactly be picky and any lategame plan is better than none.

Aside from this memery and any other variant of Galakrond Shaman that may or may not include a spell package we also have Murloc Shaman. This will probably be the only "good" Shaman deck, purely based on the fact that Felfin Navigator synergizes extremely well with Scargil and Underbelly Angler is still nuts.

there's also Evolve Shaman, but....come on, have you seen the cards? You're going to be playing against opponents with big removal or ones that just trade away everything you play, so there's never going to be time to develop a board, value trade it and then evolve it. If Evolve Shaman sees any play it's because someone figured out a hidden strategy to glue it together and it's most certainly going to involve abusing Bloodlust.

Yeah, Shaman doesn't really look that promising. It's not that their cards are terrible, but rather that everyone else is just so much better. It's gonna be hard to build a Shaman deck that actually outperforms any of the meta decks.

Conclusion

I already said everything I needed to. Go away now.

Yes, I left. No, you do not care. No, the reasons do not matter. Yes, it was when others were leaving to "boycott".

Now, I've played some Runterra, but I'm a mobile-only and well, I don't live in whatever country mobile is released on. No game has filled the slot HS left, and I'm wondering if it's worth going back. 

My question, is based on your experience, knowing full well that your answer is subjective, do you think the game has improved? You can measure it in whatever category or metric you would like, but do you see progress from what, 6 months ago?

Title says everything. Go get your Demon hunters. :)

With the release of the latest expansion closing ever closer, I have started to update my standard decks sans Witchwood, The Boomsday Project, and Rastakan's Rumble cards.  It hinders me in play because others are still using these cards, but for me I am finding new ways to work around not having some cards that I thought were key. 

I also know which cards I am likely to be changing out with Ashes of Outland cards once the rotation has happened.  Has anyone else tried doing this yet?  If you have, what are you finding in your updates?