Hearthpwn

I really like the fact that hearthstone doesn't have noncreature permanents. In MtG, some colors can kill enchantments, some artifacts and some creatures, so if there's a really powerful artifact in a format, you basically have to play a color that can kill it or just hope it doesn't overwhelm you. In HS, the only persistent cards are minions, and every class can kill minions - the class identity differences come in how you kill them, not just the fact that your class simply can't deal with a certain type of card.

I'm a bit torn on Nether Portal because on the one hand it sort of shows that they're exploring that concept further, but on the other hand it limits what they can do in the future. If next expansion they print a bunch of "Enchantment" cards, they're going to need to print a bunch of cards that kill enchantments, and the already bad Nether Portal will now be possibly the worst card in the game (you have to put all this investment into it, and then your opponent just kills it with the hate card they were saving for an actually good enchantment).

Since Mage and Paladin both got secret-ologist cards that let them add secrets to their hand, I thought about what that could look like in other classes. I tried a hunter one that relied on beast synergy.

I also came up with a shaman and priest one that can discover non-collectible secrets. I tried to make it so the off-class secrets wouldn't be able to be quite as secret as the other classes (Shaman's because your opponent will learn how much overload after one turn and be able to narrow it down to one of 2 secrets, preist because it has to take effect next turn or it fizzles). Disclaimer: I thought the shaman and priest one were fun exercises but I don't think these would ever actually make sense in actual Hearthstone because secrets are too important for class identity.

I didn't bother using a card creation tool, I may do so later. Or I might try to think of -ologists for the other classes.


Beastiologist - 2
Hunter - Common
Minion
Battlecry and Deathrattle: If you control a beast, add a random hunter secret to your hand.
2/2


--------

Secret Overload (You have X less mana next turn. Not revealed to your opponent until next turn.)

Elementologist - 2
Shaman - Rare
Minion
Overload 1
Battlecry: Discover an Elemental Secret
2/2


Static Shock - 1
Shaman - Not Collectible
Spell
Whenever a minion attacks your hero, deal 3 damage to it.

Cleanse Spirit - 1
Shaman - Not Collectible
Spell
Whenever an opponent plays a spell, remove overload from all cards in your hand.

Stasis Trap - 1
Shaman - Not Collectible
Spell
Secret Overload 1
Whenever an enemy minion attacks one of your minions, freeze it and deal 3 damage to it.

Windwalk - 1
Shaman - Not Collectible
Spell
Secret Overload 1
Whenever one of your minions survives damage, it becomes immune this turn.

Ankh of Reincarnation - 1
Shaman - Not Collectible
Spell
Secret Overload 2
Whenever one of your minions dies, resummon it.

Totemic Justice - 1
Shaman - Not Collectible
Spell
Secret Overload 2
Whenever one of your totems dies, draw 2 cards.

--------

Cryptologist - 3
Priest - Rare
Minion
Battlecry: Discover a Shadow Secret
2/2


Psychic Scream - 1
Priest - Not collectible
Spell
On the start of your next turn, summon a Psyfiend minion with attack and health equal to the number of enemy minions.

Psychic Link - 1
Priest - Not collectible
Spell
Whenever an enemy attacks next turn, reduce all enemy minions' attack to 0 for that turn only.

Void Madness - 1
Priest - Not collectible
Spell
Take control of the enemy minion with the least attack on your next turn only.

Void Vision - 1
Priest - Not collectible
Spell
On your next turn, put a copy of a random spell in your opponent's hand into your hand.

Shadowgames - 1
Priest - Not collectible
Spell
On your next turn, put a copy of a random enemy minion into your hand.

Cleansing Shadows - 1
Priest - Not Collectible
Spell
Whenever an opponent plays a minion next turn, silence it and draw a card.

2 pieces of extremely relevant info that you may or may not know:

1. Molten Giant was nerfed from 20 base mana to 25 (essentially, you can only get a free molten if you are on 5 life).

2. Hearthstone now has 2 constructed formats, standard and wild. Wild contains every set in the history of HS, but Standard only contains . Cards like Sludge Belcher and Mal'Ganis are not standard legal, so you must play wild if you choose to play them.

Molten Giant is probably unplayable in any kind of controlling warlock deck. Taking the place of handlock (and demonlock in standard) are decks that use Kazakus and Reno Jackson and decks entirely full of 1 ofs. These decks generally shed the synergistic cards like sunfury protector and just play 28 really good control/value cards with a reasonable curve. One synergistic card that is in almost all Renolock decks is Brann Bronzebeard, which doubles the effects of your battlecries and works with a number of cards in your deck. Emperor Thaurissan is also basically essential to any controlling warloc strategy - it's a card that reduced the mana cost of every card in your hand every turn it lives. Some (but not all) Renolock decks use the leroy/power overwhelming/faceless OTK combo that is possible again with Thaurissan reducing the costs. Another thing to note is that it is possible to use Reno and Kazakus if your deck started with duplicates, but now has none (so if you have 28 1-ofs and 2 hellfires and you've already drawn one, you could use the effects of either of those cards).

A 10/1 would definitely be played with Charge in warrior decks. I think a 9/1 or 8/1 would too.

Quote from pomonkeypo jump

perhaps I steal an Ice Barrier instead of an Ice Block.

um how about test for Ice Barrier and then Kezan the Ice Block?

Some broken hero power-based effect could be revealed that would change this. But if they continue to basically print value cards with inspire, I think it will have a major issue that I'd rather draw cards, kill your inspire guys and drop a rag than play an inspire effect and hope it lives. Ancient of Lore is 7 mana to guarantee drawing 2 cards than are in your deck because they are the most powerful cards you could choose and/or they are designed to counteract what your opponent is doing. Saraad is 7 mana for only 1 guaranteed draw and its a random spell so you better hope you already drew your answer to your opponents Lore and the legends they are digging towards. It has the potential advantage of sticking on the board and giving you 3 or 4 cards, but this is a pipe dream in constructed IMO and even then 1 execute could easily be more relevant than 4 a bunch of cobra shots and moonfires.

For a deck that abuses Inspire to be viable, it either needs an effect so strong that it's worth hitting your hero button just for some grim patron/Preparation/Ice Block caliber effect (which we haven't seen yet) or you have to be planning on hitting your hero button anyway. This is obviously bad against aggro and combo decks that don't really care about you getting 2 1/1s a turn or even really getting a 3/5 or a random spell every turn. IMO it wont even be good against most control decks because I think actually drawing cards with Arcane Intellect/Northshire Cleric/Acolyte of Pain is more relevant than any of the Inspire effects we've seen so far, because a traditional control deck will draw into powerful cards that can neutralize your inspire cards and then kill you.

Based on the cards we've seen so far does anyone think Inspire could be viable in constructed?

Quote from BerryInvasion jump

What were they thinking? Maybe introducing Brawl to all new players in a pretty casual way? The mayority of the players probably don't even knew that Brawl was comming, so pre-made decks was the way to go, 100%. You have years on you to play Brawl, no need to ask for too much this early. 

 I agree with this.

I think one challenge going forward is that if you are playing isolated games there is no way to separate players with good decks and players with bad decks, and inexperienced players aren't going to like just getting rolled every game. Even with arena, you lose game one and get some easier competition. Maybe the reason that you need to be rank 20 is that they will use rankings to seed people (unless people game the system with that as well)? I hope there are some deckbuilding decisions in the future, but I don't have a problem with blizz dipping a toe in and seeing how the community reacts.

Also, none of these things will be balanced. They spend months playtesting the real game and still make huge mistakes like Undertaker. You can't really expect a weekly side attraction to have the level of balance you expect in constructed.

Lately I've seen a lot of different decks that have 2 cards that need to played in the early game to be effective and basically fulfill the same role, but they are both 1-ofs. The logic behind this is usually that "you want options," "one of the cards is better in X situation" or that "it sucks to get 2 of X card in your hand."

Most of these decks are being posted by legend players who are much better than me, but I don't think this logic makes any sense statistically.

If you have an early game card, you generally need to see it in the first 10 cards in your deck or else it is either a blank or highly conditional. If you decide to do something like play 1 flame imp and 1 argent squire, each of them has a 1/3 chance of being in the top 10 cards (including the ones you see when you mulligan).

So you have:

4/9 chance of seeing neither

2/9 of just seeing argent squire

2/9 of just seeing flame imp

1/9 of seeing both

So if one of those cards is better in a certain matchup, you have a 1/9 chance of having options and being able to play the correct one at the correct time, but you have a 2/9 chance of being stuck with the wrong card.

Further, I don't think deckbuilders should spend much time thinking about the 1/9 case because it is likely a huge blowout for one player. If you draw 2 flame imps agasint hunter by turn 3, you are basically going to lose and I don't think replacing 1 with an argent squire really solves this problem. So you get to kill a leper gnome and hopefully help out some other trade. Great! What are you going to do with the imp? Not play it? You either play it and deal 3 to yourself, not play it have nothing to play against an aggro deck, or tap into something else and deal damage anyway.

Generally I think if your deck is tons of 1 ofs like this it means you don't know what your good cards are. If you try to make a deck that has different options in different situations and has some way to compete with every deck, you are just going to draw the wrong cards more often than the right ones and hurt your good matchups more than you help your bad ones.

Do you have a list?

I'd put in Emperor and cut basically anything for him. I'd definitely cut 1 Twilight Drake for 1 ET - which would you rather have with a bunch of cards in hand?

Most hearthstone games are won by the player who can use more better cards. Using weapons for trading is really valuable because you basically get to use one of your good cards to deal with 2 opposing good cards. However, the drawback of taking face damage means that there is a possibility of losing despite playing more good stuff because your opponent killed you with burst.

you always need to make plays to win - only pass up trading opportunities if the face damage could lose you the game AND avoiding the weapon trading still gives you a path to victory either by winning the more better cards battle with other stuff or by racing with your weapons to set up your own burst victoty.

Thanks!

You have a haunted creeper and an avenge (and no other minions). Your opponent kills the creeper. Will the avenge put the buff on one of the spectral spiders?

Face Hunter is a symptom of a the problem that when a control deck gets behind, there are very few ways for it to truly come back and take over the game. When I play any sort of aggro or tempo deck I love when my opponents play Rag, Sneed and Ysera - I can just ignore them and end the game before they have enough time to make an impact. The only class with real "comeback" ability IMO is Druid no other class can consistently get immediate impact from their late game cards.

MTG has the opposite problem - you get into the late game and control decks play insane proactive cards like Cruel Ultimatum (if you don't play magic just look it up, you can figure out how insane it is) or just counter everything and turn off your deck. This is the main reason MTG players usually see aggro as the "good guys."

If Blizz can give all classes control cards that can just take over against any deck and more cheap anti-aggro like Zombie Chow, Face Hunter would be no more than a gimmick and almost all Hunter players would have to use their more powerful cards like Highmane. However be careful what you wish for - if the balance tilts in the other direction it will be even more rage inducing.