Hearthpwn

Most of the Epic class cards have been really weird so far

You would think Blizz has learnt their lesson with LAME Leviathian with all the negative feedback but nope...they're coming back again with this idiot design. 

For the sake of discussion can patron warrior simply run this card as filler for an extra chance at whirlwinds? It has great body that helps with patron warriors topdecking weakness as well. 

Why are warriors such mazohists..

I can't understand. There is a lot of bad boring epic cards in TGT so far. Why are Blizzs doing this? 

YES! GRIM PATRON BUFF, JUST WHAT EVERYONE WANTED FROM TGT ;))))

Really, only a 6/7 for an epic class card. When a common basic card boulderfist ogre has the same stats. The card doesn't feel powerfull in anyway for a class epic. It could at least have a real whirlwind effect and damage all minions. Might be usable in control that way. If this was 5 mana then it would feel like an epic. Right now the card feels too clunky to play in patron and why would you play this over a boulderfist ogre in any other warrior deck? Plus the ability is to random to make good use of it as it won't even damage your opponents minions.

Oh, FUCK.  THIS.  :/

Patron Warrior is already annoying enough, but this card will pretty much make it a staple - almost as bad as face huntard.  :X

You would think Blizz has learnt their lesson with LAME Leviathian with all the negative feedback but nope...they're coming back again with this idiot design. 

Will this go to GP deck? Probably not

Will it spark a new deck? OTK or Enrage? Possible

Interesting card - if hard to find a place for in most decks.

Acolyte of pain and this guy are best buddies.  

Play an acolyte or two, whirlwind, draw...  if you draw these guys, draw more!  Repeat.  

That interaction nice - but not enough to build a deck around.  Will be fun to experiment to see what else you can accomplish with this.  I expect a fun card in constructed, but not played at the highest levels.

Sick art i must say, and pretty cool card! won't make it into constructed tough i think

Beautiful artwork.

Maybe this card will be used to combat power creep?  That's the only good bit on the card I'm seeing so far unless you are desperately keen to have no control over when you can use a card's effect.

Also, this is clearly a Pirate - admittedly a 30' tall one - but a Pirate nonetheless. Sea Plunderer is the term you might use if you forgot the word Pirate and were trying to describe Blackbeard's occupation.

So Bash the best Warrior card so far ? Really disappointing.

If the nerf to grim patron warrior is true, then this card can be used to boost the deck back up. It is rumoured that minions with above 3 attacks will loose charge from warsong commander. So Inner Rage, Task Master and Frothing, will not be very viable. Instead patrons have an additional whirlwind effect from this, albeit unreliably, yet more consistent if you take all the draw mechanicsm into considerations. This effect is good if you have armoursmith, acolyte og patron down. Which is not always, but often. Sometimes you lack a whirlwind. With Justicar and Bash additions maybe a fatique warrior would appear, with patrons, armoursmith and lots of armour. Either way, a cool but likely not too good card.

Really? That's a pretty big nerf ..It just feels wrong.

Quote from Crusader2010 jump

"Design Principle #7: Give The Player a Scapegoat

What's something every player is going to do a lot? Lose. The less experienced you are, the more it's going to happen. So what's a game designer going to do about it? There are a bunch of things. You can make the game fun despite losing. You can build in features to help make more games closer (with things like catch-up features and reversals) so that even a loss can feel close. You can sometimes even make losing enjoyable."

Very few games are close, very few games are actually fun (including victories),  there are very few opportunities to mount a comeback (hello Flamestrike). Instead of giving us bad cards to blame for our losses, why not do both of the following?:

1. Create a new play mode where "luck of the draw" is not applicable, i.e. you choose what cards to play from your deck based on the amount of mana you have. New ladder for this play mode, new arena mode too. Basically a different "baby" Hearthstone. Replace "on draw" effects with battlecry, and card draw effects giving mana crystals (just an example). That's where skill is going to show - where luck is a choice and everything else is not random.

2. Instead of making bad cards (because they need to exist so that good cards remain good), why not make SIMILAR/BALANCED cards with DIFFERENT EFFECTS which implies giving us the CHOICE of when to play a card.

Take this warrior card for example. You can't control ANYTHING about it, except putting it in your deck. This completely contradicts point 2 from above since that effect is completely unusable in a proper way. And we very well know how irritating luck and lack of luck are during a card game.

This is what I want - CHOICES. Ok, for a new player maybe a body of 6/7 for 6 mana is going to be great since they haven't crafted Sylvannas yet (which I consider a weak card, but that's another discussion), but why wouldn't that new player use an Ogre for example?! Since the ogre has 6/7 and does nothing, why not make this card with a comparable effect, implying choice??? (e.g. a 4/8 with charge). 

It's very hard to explain this in writing, but SOME of those design principles you linked are WRONG or they can be changed into a different concept/execution so as to be beneficial to every player, the fun and the game.

Another example is magma rager, most of the 1-cost minions, a lot of the 2-cost ones, etc. Why not give us ALTERNATIVES (i.e. SIMILAR IN POWER) rather than a CLEAR BAD AND A CLEAR GOOD card???  I'll give just one example here:   juggler + unleash. How about one of the 2 mana minions that are completely useless now have an effect like "for every 1-cost minion summoned by a spell, give it a random buff" (buffs could be +1 health/attack, stealth/divine shield/taunt/immune this turn/can't be targeted by spells or hero powers). This would mean that I have a choice to make ->  deal one damage randomly with juggler, or have some buffs on each hound.

There is also the Arena that has to be taken into consideration. Why oh why the most successful decks in it are those heavily based on minions and value/board control ??? doesn't this ring any bells in the head of the designers that something is wrong? Indeed, a lot of minions are bad in constructed but good in arena, AND THAT IS FINE! But a lot of other cards are useless EVERY TIME.

But I think this revolves around another STUPID design perspective:

"Design Principle #4: Force Players to Improvise

Another truism of game design is that you can't give the players everything they need. Games at their core are about allowing players to challenge themselves. A good game designer gives the players some tools but not enough to easily complete the task. Why? Because the goal of game design is to force the players to seek out their own solutions."

Why stupid? because forcing players to improvise means everyone will copy something very prevalent, and it'll lead to boring and silly games (hello current meta game, face hunters, aggro paladins and patron warriors). Giving us the tools to achieve something AND MANY DIFFERENT CHOICES will distinguish skilled players from lucky ones, allow for more think-tanks and friendlier people.

Too bad an evolution in player thinking and general community values is not envisioned by these designers that only know how to follow something blindly and not THINK whether it can be improved. Does it require more work too? of course. But if you are lazy, then please quit your jobs, Blizzard designers, and go do something you actually consider fun and entertaining. You could also give me your salaries and I'll do it for you - from conception up to right before the implementation.

Conclusion: this card is and is going to be bad. Bad cards are NOT necessary in a game, if the design takes a different direction than the current one. Our card collection is CLUTTERED like hell and they still add useless cards that MIGHT see play after 1-2-3 expansions and/or adventures - simply because we'll remember about it and feel good when we can include a useless card in a deck and win with it. I'd much rather have CHOICES and equally powerful cards to play with RIGHT NOW, not to browse over the pages until after the Xth expansion.

 

 

Are you a game designer, though? Because I don't feel like you have the right to say such things if you don't know how to actually make a card game.

Big nerf? Its the only correct one. You can still flood the board with patrons and do alot of dmg. It is the berserker with 40dmg that is the problem so IF berserker lose his charge the deck is still very god and not OP. Blizzard should rly do that nerf.

Shield Maiden is still better