GvG has breathed new life into Hearthstone. After several long months of dealing with the same brainless Zoo and deathrattle hunter decks the community was begging for something new. Blizzard gave them just that. No one can deny that Goblins vs Gnomes has shifted mindsets in both how to play decks but also in how to build them. New synergies and even resurgence of old cards long since unplayed has become common place on every region's ranked ladder. One card however has come under a great amount on scrutiny and hate. Unstable Portal.
"Omg this card is broke." This phrase seems to be repeated in every single forum related to hearthstone. People have been demanding a nerf to this card since release, however, is it warranted? Below I will examine the math behind Unstable Portal and look to see if the massive variance is justifiable for what the card actually does. I will also state the cards I myself have received with Unstable Portal and will note if I lost or won the match because of the effect of said card. Now please keep in mind that deck design and player skill are also factors in achieving a win and just because a player gets a great card from unstable portal is not a lock for a win.
The Math
At current there are 340 minions you can pull with an Unstable Portal. These are minions from any class or set. This means basic, classic, Naxxramas, and Goblins vs Gnomes are available. This means you have a 1 in 340 chance of pulling the desired card you would like. of this 340, 168 of them you can play for free. So this means just under 1/2 of the time you are going to get something you can play instantly. Now while this may sound great, let us not forget there are many horrible cards in the 3 or less mana range. Wisp, Target Dummy, Bloodsail Corsair, Angry Chicken, to name a few.
When you look at 4 or more, there are only 172 cards, and many of these can be considered not that great at their mana cost. Due to the unstable portals second effect of a -3 to the casting cost of a minion these once considered "bad cards" now gain a massive value due to being played ahead of curve for a massive tempo swing. Will this guarantee a victory? This question is not a simple one to answer. Player skill level as well as deck design will factor heavily in this. From personal experience I can say that when a 5 or more card was granted from Unstable Portal, my personal % of achieving a victory did increase. This was mostly due to the impact of the minion being played ahead of curve or due to what the minion did. When using Unstable Portal past turn 5 getting a 5 or more minion still had a great impact. This allowed for multiple 4 mana+ cards to be played the same turn. This ends up forcing your opponent to expend more cards to deal with these minions or be .
The topic that seems to get the most attention when talking about unstable portal is the fact you can get some impactful legendary minions off of Unstable Portal. For 4 or greater legendary minions there are 55, This is 31.9% of the 172 cards of the 4 or more minions. When you look at it from the 3 or less aspect only 7 legendary cards are available of the 168. This is 4.1% and of those 2 of them have no attack value. Legendary is not in any way shape or form an indicator in success, however the impact of many legendary cards can be very dramatic. The chance to be able to play an impactful legendary for a reduced mana cost makes this card arguably the most powerful card to come out of the Goblins vs Gnomes set if not all of Hearthstone.
Personal Results
Since the Release of Goblins vs Gnomes in the Na Region I have been recording the results of my personal use of Unstable Portal. The following is a list of the results I have personally gotten Next to each card I will identify if I won that match with a "W" or lost that match with a "L".
From these results you get 12 wins 9 loses or 57.1% of the time I was able to win while using Unstable Portal. Again deck design and player skill are factors that can and should be considered before drawing any conclusions about this card.
Conclusions
Unstable Portal has introduced a very unique mechanic to a class that needed some diversity. The variance of what the card can bring to the table is so great that each card has a .294% of being summoned. It is because of this variance that the power swing this card can or can not provide brings this card into the range of unplayable. When you also add in a mana reduction 4 to whatever minion is pulled from Unstable Portal the card not only becomes playable, it gains extreme value. A free 4 or less minion can be a massive tempo swing when you consider this card only cost 2 mana. When you look at the fact that it changes the value of 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,20 to 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,17 respectively, its value is increased even more. Is the card powerful? With out a doubt yes. Is the card too powerful ? No. When you look at the fact that this is a class specific card and look at the amount of really horrible cards you could possibly get with it, you see the negatives begin to negate the upside by a relatively even margin. I will say however that perhaps the possible value of the card, which again is subject to deck design and player skill, can be an advantage.
Unstable Portal, while impactful is not a broken card from a design perspective. It is however, a card that can make tournaments or streams more exciting from a viewing perspective. It will also be one of the most frustrating things for pro level players to deal with and may make mage the most banned class in that style of tournaments.
I can see u put a lot of work and thought into this and i mean no disrespect, but from my standpoint your W/L ratio is totaly random and has no information value about how impactfull Unstable Portal is, cause we dont see when u played it (what turn, what situation, what stage of board etc) and how much it did/didnt help u win that particular game. Sure when u get good legendary or 0mana BGH, it can be assumed that it helped u considerably towards win but no real proof of it in reality. I dont want u to think i call u liar or anything like that just that how u present it, it doesnt say almost anything about Unstable Portal other then it summones Legendaries A LOT :)
It can be VERY powerful, for instance I got turn 6 Alexstrasza'd the other day. But other times I've seen getting really awful minions, and that's where it's downfall is. There is such a wide variety of minions that it can choose from obviously, so more times than not they will get something they don't want.
I can see u put a lot of work and thought into this and i mean no disrespect, but from my standpoint your W/L ratio is totaly random and has no information value about how impactfull Unstable Portal is, cause we dont see when u played it (what turn, what situation, what stage of board etc) and how much it did/didnt help u win that particular game. Sure when u get good legendary or 0mana BGH, it can be assumed that it helped u considerably towards win but no real proof of it in reality. I dont want u to think i call u liar or anything like that just that how u present it, it doesnt say almost anything about Unstable Portal other then it summones Legendaries A LOT :)
No your not calling me "a Liar" however you are over looking the fact that it was stated at least 3 different times in the editorial that deck design and player skills are factors one should take when considering this card. Now I could have made a video with all the games I played with it spliced all the matches together but that would have been like a 3 hr long video and who the hell has time to watch 3hrs of me playing...
When you're evaluating the impact of a card statistics are a very important tool. And one of the main things Blizzard uses to determine if a card needs a change. I bring this up, because at current the metric math you would need to actually break down the effect of a card and take into account deck design strength in the meta and factor in a base average of player skill would be ridiculously convoluted and still would not be accurate at all.
Now this isn't to say your expectations are unjustified, but more to say that providing said proof that you would accept is unreasonable if not unreliable at best.
i love this card......i play mage and it tells me which mage......in casual i win 80 % easily..........yeah its powerful but random...
but the fact is ,even the worst card it can get is then free ( 0 mana ) so why not to try playing this
Of course a free body on the board can be really amazing, however when you spend 2 mana to get a 0-2 mana card in play it is really garbage. 3 or more the value does increase. I mean 236 cards you can get a mana value off of. Who wouldn't play it, and that is the root of the editorial. Is it too good?
It is very powerful but I don't think its broken. My personal experience has been like 50% legendary so far, I don't know if I'm very lucky but it does seem to hand out a LOT of orange. Just today my draws have been Mekgineer Thermaplugg, The Beast (turn 3 gg) and Malygos.
I think this card really is the breath of fresh air mages needed in constructed. There is a lot of variance, but the chance to get value (ie 3+ mana minion) is high, so I think every sort of mage deck (aggro, midrange OR control) should play 2x. There are some minions that are WAY broken at -3 mana cost, so Unstable Portal is similar to if a card would say: "2% chance to instantly win the current game". I don't think such a card is broken, especially given that it occupies a card slot and can turn out a dud too.
The -3 cost for one minion mechanic is not too dissimilar from druid ramp mechanics (even costs 2 mana like Wild Growth). It is very powerful that druids are able to cast minions that cost 1 more mana than the opponent can play on the same turn, but its not game breaking.
It's not broken, but, I do think it is absolutely terrible for the game. People thought Tinkmaster was bad? Limit the card to arena and I'm fine with it.
I think they need to stop nerfing cards, because they keep providing answers for them as they release more content anyway. they nerfed auctioneer but there are around 5 cards that counter spells now.
I think the only justifiable nerf was the one to leeroy, everything else has been pretty much a wtf moment besides secrets. Unstable portal is no different than the shredder cards, yet no one has said a word about them.
If anything, they should change Undertaker to gain attack only(that way he has a similar alignment to micro machine) and possibly take 1 spider off of haunted creeper, and make loatheb's effect affected by silence (that one im not 100% on, but i feel as he is now, you literally play a minion and hope they trade or your own loatheb to force them to trade into each other)
with the hunter nerfs, i think they were absolutely ridiculous. hunter has pretty much no card draw now. They literally nerfed UTH like 3-4 times since this game was in beta. the buzzard combo with it and timberwolves only happened if you allowed it to, so it was basically nerfed due to players idiocy. its like "hey, he's a hunter, let me flood my board against him" that is the equivalent of wearing a big fucking "kick me" sign. hunter cards are clearly not the issue with the class. its the hero power and i have been saying that since the beginning, same with Warlock and tapping. you cannot change either of those because it breaks the entire game, and they are meant to be the easiest learning curve and the better decks in the game to keep people who play for free coming back.
with that said, unstable portal allows f2p players to use cards that maybe they will have a harder time obtaining since they arent plebs like the rest of us and spend their hard earned cash on fucking digital booster packs. as Chiv has pointed out, sometimes you will get a ragnaros or something of insane value, but that is so far and few between that you could literally have the same chance of walking outside ride now (hearthstone players outside LOL) and get struck by lightning. hell, as bad as the RNG is in this game anymore, you may even have a greater chance of that happening XD.
My issue with it is that it seems like getting legendaries and insane cards are waaaaaaaay more common than the COMMON cards. They need to reduce the rate at which legendaries are pulled and that should balance the card. It is insane right now and it's very difficult to play against. Not good for the game.
also, my personal experience with it has netted me 0 legendaries from it. i have got at best an echoing ooze. the worst card i pulled from it i believe was a hungry crab
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Ok.. so SOMETIMES you get bad cards.. but they do something and rather than nothing.. but those few times you get good cards, they are REALLY good. t3 trion is REALLY good.. t3 (any 6 drop) .. real good... you only get a leper gnome? Oh well.. 2/1 for 1 extra mana for a chance at something that will basically give you a huge advantage is worth it. Point being.. the "bad" part is getting a minion that is sub-par.. but does something.. when you get something good.. you basically win unless you are a bad player.
I think, also, that what people are really struck by (& remember most prominently) is the unusual or outstanding card it might net.
I know that I was originally think along the lines that it might be OP... then I deliberately started keeping track of ALL the cards it pulled, instead of just the unusual ones. Not to the extent of detail that you did, but really paying attention, anyway.
Today for instance, over several games I got "good bargains" a couple of times... just cards that I have & use in other decks, but with a discount on their mana cost. I got "meh" cards mostly... OK I guess, but nothing I would have chosen if given a selection.
I have indeed pulled legendaries before, but never (so-far anyway) anything that could win me the game by itself. Never have got a Ragnaros, or a Sylvanas (sp?), or the other handful of Very Useful Legendary Cards. Nobody starts a thread to rave about the last few Leper Gnomes or Hungry Crabs they got from the Portal. :)
What tickles me about the card is it's very RNG-ness... you really never can tell what it might net. Maybe I will use it less in the future as the "new" wears off, but it's been great fun in my mage decks. As you noted, mage can sometimes get very repetitive & stuck in a rut.
For that matter, I've liked and appreciated the mechs very much. Right now I've been running a nice mechy mage deck and another variation what has mechs & troggs that I'm tinkering with.
I just wish that there were a few more troggs available, and maybe ones which aren't so reactive only. Considering that they all react to spells, they would seem to be the logical mage cohorts... maybe a trogg that grants battlecry buffs?
PS. Another thing I like about Unstable Portal, is that you get to sample other class cards, that you may not even recognize, without having to steal them from your opponent, as in the case of priests.
Your opponent might not like your use of the Portal, but I bet it doesn't pull half the vitriol that something like ThoughtSteal does. Or MindVision, Or Mind Control, or other priest tactics that can seem more like a personal attack than just card play.
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we are not amused....
(nothing upsets a delicate situation like a large explosion...)
I've been playing with it a lot and I think it's a fair card, that's not an auto include. I used to be in the this card is OP camp, but more and more I've been getting closer to Life Coach's opinion of the card, which is that it's kind of average, and there are a lot of variants of mage it has no business being in. Basically if you use the Apprentice that makes spells one less, the value of the card is ridiculous. If you're playing a mid rangey deck without the apprentice, like a mech deck then it's kind of average. You have to find time to play it that doesn't set your tempo back and then it's kind of a crap shoot. And in aggro it's just too slow more often than not. Right now I play it in a mid range mech deck mostly because it's fun, but I kind of suspect the deck would be as good or better if I swapped it out for something else.
I mean the card is basically thought steal. The cards are a lot alike. I find in both cases they have the biggest impact on the control matchup and if they hit big your chances of winning are pretty good, and if it doesn't you've probably dug yourself a bit of a hole by wasting a card and mana. That said because of the discount Portal is a great deal more flexible. You don't hate to see it in your opening hand vs. aggro for instance.
That's true... even a Shieldbearer snagged by the Portal can be useful. I tend to think of it in terms of "hero power = 2 mana for 1 damage" vs "Unstable Portal = 2 mana for ?" Even in the case of Shieldbearer (or I guess the worst case would be Target Dummy) at least it's a body on the board & will usually come in handy. The upside is far better than the downside IMO.
Not tragic, no... I could do a tear-jerking operetta on "Tragic Outcomes I Have Known" in my short Hearthstone career! :) (As I suspect could many others...)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
we are not amused....
(nothing upsets a delicate situation like a large explosion...)
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GvG has breathed new life into Hearthstone. After several long months of dealing with the same brainless Zoo and deathrattle hunter decks the community was begging for something new. Blizzard gave them just that. No one can deny that Goblins vs Gnomes has shifted mindsets in both how to play decks but also in how to build them. New synergies and even resurgence of old cards long since unplayed has become common place on every region's ranked ladder. One card however has come under a great amount on scrutiny and hate. Unstable Portal.
"Omg this card is broke." This phrase seems to be repeated in every single forum related to hearthstone. People have been demanding a nerf to this card since release, however, is it warranted? Below I will examine the math behind Unstable Portal and look to see if the massive variance is justifiable for what the card actually does. I will also state the cards I myself have received with Unstable Portal and will note if I lost or won the match because of the effect of said card. Now please keep in mind that deck design and player skill are also factors in achieving a win and just because a player gets a great card from unstable portal is not a lock for a win.
The Math
At current there are 340 minions you can pull with an Unstable Portal. These are minions from any class or set. This means basic, classic, Naxxramas, and Goblins vs Gnomes are available. This means you have a 1 in 340 chance of pulling the desired card you would like. of this 340, 168 of them you can play for free. So this means just under 1/2 of the time you are going to get something you can play instantly. Now while this may sound great, let us not forget there are many horrible cards in the 3 or less mana range. Wisp, Target Dummy, Bloodsail Corsair, Angry Chicken, to name a few.
When you look at 4 or more, there are only 172 cards, and many of these can be considered not that great at their mana cost. Due to the unstable portals second effect of a -3 to the casting cost of a minion these once considered "bad cards" now gain a massive value due to being played ahead of curve for a massive tempo swing. Will this guarantee a victory? This question is not a simple one to answer. Player skill level as well as deck design will factor heavily in this. From personal experience I can say that when a 5 or more card was granted from Unstable Portal, my personal % of achieving a victory did increase. This was mostly due to the impact of the minion being played ahead of curve or due to what the minion did. When using Unstable Portal past turn 5 getting a 5 or more minion still had a great impact. This allowed for multiple 4 mana+ cards to be played the same turn. This ends up forcing your opponent to expend more cards to deal with these minions or be .
The topic that seems to get the most attention when talking about unstable portal is the fact you can get some impactful legendary minions off of Unstable Portal. For 4 or greater legendary minions there are 55, This is 31.9% of the 172 cards of the 4 or more minions. When you look at it from the 3 or less aspect only 7 legendary cards are available of the 168. This is 4.1% and of those 2 of them have no attack value. Legendary is not in any way shape or form an indicator in success, however the impact of many legendary cards can be very dramatic. The chance to be able to play an impactful legendary for a reduced mana cost makes this card arguably the most powerful card to come out of the Goblins vs Gnomes set if not all of Hearthstone.
Personal Results
Since the Release of Goblins vs Gnomes in the Na Region I have been recording the results of my personal use of Unstable Portal. The following is a list of the results I have personally gotten Next to each card I will identify if I won that match with a "W" or lost that match with a "L".
Millhouse ManastormW, Captain GreenskinW, Mal'GanisW, MalorneL, Ragnaros the FirelordW, Big Game HunterW, ShadowbomberL, Grommash HellscreamW, Cairne BloodhoofW, Voodoo DoctorW, Iron JuggernautL, ShieldmaidenL, Tinkertown TechnicianL, Siege EngineL, Windfury HarpyL, Bloodsail RaiderL, Violet TeacherW, Dunemaul ShamanW, Ogre NinjaL, Mini-MageW, Iron SenseiW
From these results you get 12 wins 9 loses or 57.1% of the time I was able to win while using Unstable Portal. Again deck design and player skill are factors that can and should be considered before drawing any conclusions about this card.
Conclusions
Unstable Portal has introduced a very unique mechanic to a class that needed some diversity. The variance of what the card can bring to the table is so great that each card has a .294% of being summoned. It is because of this variance that the power swing this card can or can not provide brings this card into the range of unplayable. When you also add in a mana reduction 4 to whatever minion is pulled from Unstable Portal the card not only becomes playable, it gains extreme value. A free 4 or less minion can be a massive tempo swing when you consider this card only cost 2 mana. When you look at the fact that it changes the value of 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,20 to 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,17 respectively, its value is increased even more. Is the card powerful? With out a doubt yes. Is the card too powerful ? No. When you look at the fact that this is a class specific card and look at the amount of really horrible cards you could possibly get with it, you see the negatives begin to negate the upside by a relatively even margin. I will say however that perhaps the possible value of the card, which again is subject to deck design and player skill, can be an advantage.
Unstable Portal, while impactful is not a broken card from a design perspective. It is however, a card that can make tournaments or streams more exciting from a viewing perspective. It will also be one of the most frustrating things for pro level players to deal with and may make mage the most banned class in that style of tournaments.
I can see u put a lot of work and thought into this and i mean no disrespect, but from my standpoint your W/L ratio is totaly random and has no information value about how impactfull Unstable Portal is, cause we dont see when u played it (what turn, what situation, what stage of board etc) and how much it did/didnt help u win that particular game. Sure when u get good legendary or 0mana BGH, it can be assumed that it helped u considerably towards win but no real proof of it in reality. I dont want u to think i call u liar or anything like that just that how u present it, it doesnt say almost anything about Unstable Portal other then it summones Legendaries A LOT :)
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It can be VERY powerful, for instance I got turn 6 Alexstrasza'd the other day. But other times I've seen getting really awful minions, and that's where it's downfall is. There is such a wide variety of minions that it can choose from obviously, so more times than not they will get something they don't want.
No your not calling me "a Liar" however you are over looking the fact that it was stated at least 3 different times in the editorial that deck design and player skills are factors one should take when considering this card. Now I could have made a video with all the games I played with it spliced all the matches together but that would have been like a 3 hr long video and who the hell has time to watch 3hrs of me playing...
When you're evaluating the impact of a card statistics are a very important tool. And one of the main things Blizzard uses to determine if a card needs a change. I bring this up, because at current the metric math you would need to actually break down the effect of a card and take into account deck design strength in the meta and factor in a base average of player skill would be ridiculously convoluted and still would not be accurate at all.
Now this isn't to say your expectations are unjustified, but more to say that providing said proof that you would accept is unreasonable if not unreliable at best.
i love this card......i play mage and it tells me which mage......in casual i win 80 % easily..........yeah its powerful but random...
but the fact is ,even the worst card it can get is then free ( 0 mana ) so why not to try playing this
Of course a free body on the board can be really amazing, however when you spend 2 mana to get a 0-2 mana card in play it is really garbage. 3 or more the value does increase. I mean 236 cards you can get a mana value off of. Who wouldn't play it, and that is the root of the editorial. Is it too good?
It is very powerful but I don't think its broken. My personal experience has been like 50% legendary so far, I don't know if I'm very lucky but it does seem to hand out a LOT of orange. Just today my draws have been Mekgineer Thermaplugg, The Beast (turn 3 gg) and Malygos.
I think this card really is the breath of fresh air mages needed in constructed. There is a lot of variance, but the chance to get value (ie 3+ mana minion) is high, so I think every sort of mage deck (aggro, midrange OR control) should play 2x. There are some minions that are WAY broken at -3 mana cost, so Unstable Portal is similar to if a card would say: "2% chance to instantly win the current game". I don't think such a card is broken, especially given that it occupies a card slot and can turn out a dud too.
The -3 cost for one minion mechanic is not too dissimilar from druid ramp mechanics (even costs 2 mana like Wild Growth). It is very powerful that druids are able to cast minions that cost 1 more mana than the opponent can play on the same turn, but its not game breaking.
It's not broken, but, I do think it is absolutely terrible for the game. People thought Tinkmaster was bad?
Limit the card to arena and I'm fine with it.
I think they need to stop nerfing cards, because they keep providing answers for them as they release more content anyway. they nerfed auctioneer but there are around 5 cards that counter spells now.
I think the only justifiable nerf was the one to leeroy, everything else has been pretty much a wtf moment besides secrets. Unstable portal is no different than the shredder cards, yet no one has said a word about them.
If anything, they should change Undertaker to gain attack only(that way he has a similar alignment to micro machine) and possibly take 1 spider off of haunted creeper, and make loatheb's effect affected by silence (that one im not 100% on, but i feel as he is now, you literally play a minion and hope they trade or your own loatheb to force them to trade into each other)
with the hunter nerfs, i think they were absolutely ridiculous. hunter has pretty much no card draw now. They literally nerfed UTH like 3-4 times since this game was in beta. the buzzard combo with it and timberwolves only happened if you allowed it to, so it was basically nerfed due to players idiocy. its like "hey, he's a hunter, let me flood my board against him" that is the equivalent of wearing a big fucking "kick me" sign. hunter cards are clearly not the issue with the class. its the hero power and i have been saying that since the beginning, same with Warlock and tapping. you cannot change either of those because it breaks the entire game, and they are meant to be the easiest learning curve and the better decks in the game to keep people who play for free coming back.
with that said, unstable portal allows f2p players to use cards that maybe they will have a harder time obtaining since they arent plebs like the rest of us and spend their hard earned cash on fucking digital booster packs. as Chiv has pointed out, sometimes you will get a ragnaros or something of insane value, but that is so far and few between that you could literally have the same chance of walking outside ride now (hearthstone players outside LOL) and get struck by lightning. hell, as bad as the RNG is in this game anymore, you may even have a greater chance of that happening XD.
Check out my decks & feel free to make suggestions!
My issue with it is that it seems like getting legendaries and insane cards are waaaaaaaay more common than the COMMON cards. They need to reduce the rate at which legendaries are pulled and that should balance the card. It is insane right now and it's very difficult to play against. Not good for the game.
I have no time for gains!
also, my personal experience with it has netted me 0 legendaries from it. i have got at best an echoing ooze. the worst card i pulled from it i believe was a hungry crab
Check out my decks & feel free to make suggestions!
Ok.. so SOMETIMES you get bad cards.. but they do something and rather than nothing.. but those few times you get good cards, they are REALLY good. t3 trion is REALLY good.. t3 (any 6 drop) .. real good... you only get a leper gnome? Oh well.. 2/1 for 1 extra mana for a chance at something that will basically give you a huge advantage is worth it. Point being.. the "bad" part is getting a minion that is sub-par.. but does something.. when you get something good.. you basically win unless you are a bad player.
Best card I got was a 2 mana Blingtron 3000.That is the only legendary Ive got in 20-30 uses or so and it gave both the players Arcanite Reaper..
Just pulled turn 3 Gazlowe against a ramp druid with a Clockwork Gnome already in play. Fun times...
I think, also, that what people are really struck by (& remember most prominently) is the unusual or outstanding card it might net.
I know that I was originally think along the lines that it might be OP... then I deliberately started keeping track of ALL the cards it pulled, instead of just the unusual ones. Not to the extent of detail that you did, but really paying attention, anyway.
Today for instance, over several games I got "good bargains" a couple of times... just cards that I have & use in other decks, but with a discount on their mana cost. I got "meh" cards mostly... OK I guess, but nothing I would have chosen if given a selection.
I have indeed pulled legendaries before, but never (so-far anyway) anything that could win me the game by itself. Never have got a Ragnaros, or a Sylvanas (sp?), or the other handful of Very Useful Legendary Cards. Nobody starts a thread to rave about the last few Leper Gnomes or Hungry Crabs they got from the Portal. :)
What tickles me about the card is it's very RNG-ness... you really never can tell what it might net. Maybe I will use it less in the future as the "new" wears off, but it's been great fun in my mage decks. As you noted, mage can sometimes get very repetitive & stuck in a rut.
For that matter, I've liked and appreciated the mechs very much. Right now I've been running a nice mechy mage deck and another variation what has mechs & troggs that I'm tinkering with.
I just wish that there were a few more troggs available, and maybe ones which aren't so reactive only. Considering that they all react to spells, they would seem to be the logical mage cohorts... maybe a trogg that grants battlecry buffs?
we are not amused....
(nothing upsets a delicate situation like a large explosion...)
PS. Another thing I like about Unstable Portal, is that you get to sample other class cards, that you may not even recognize, without having to steal them from your opponent, as in the case of priests.
Your opponent might not like your use of the Portal, but I bet it doesn't pull half the vitriol that something like ThoughtSteal does. Or MindVision, Or Mind Control, or other priest tactics that can seem more like a personal attack than just card play.
we are not amused....
(nothing upsets a delicate situation like a large explosion...)
I've been playing with it a lot and I think it's a fair card, that's not an auto include. I used to be in the this card is OP camp, but more and more I've been getting closer to Life Coach's opinion of the card, which is that it's kind of average, and there are a lot of variants of mage it has no business being in. Basically if you use the Apprentice that makes spells one less, the value of the card is ridiculous. If you're playing a mid rangey deck without the apprentice, like a mech deck then it's kind of average. You have to find time to play it that doesn't set your tempo back and then it's kind of a crap shoot. And in aggro it's just too slow more often than not. Right now I play it in a mid range mech deck mostly because it's fun, but I kind of suspect the deck would be as good or better if I swapped it out for something else.
I mean the card is basically thought steal. The cards are a lot alike. I find in both cases they have the biggest impact on the control matchup and if they hit big your chances of winning are pretty good, and if it doesn't you've probably dug yourself a bit of a hole by wasting a card and mana. That said because of the discount Portal is a great deal more flexible. You don't hate to see it in your opening hand vs. aggro for instance.
Best card I pulled was a turn 5 Tirion Fordring with Duplicate in play. Once Tirion died and I got Ashbringer and 2 copies, my opponent conceded.
I got these 2 from portals. The game was lost anyway, but even so, its just luck.That's true... even a Shieldbearer snagged by the Portal can be useful. I tend to think of it in terms of "hero power = 2 mana for 1 damage" vs "Unstable Portal = 2 mana for ?" Even in the case of Shieldbearer (or I guess the worst case would be Target Dummy) at least it's a body on the board & will usually come in handy. The upside is far better than the downside IMO.
Not tragic, no... I could do a tear-jerking operetta on "Tragic Outcomes I Have Known" in my short Hearthstone career! :) (As I suspect could many others...)
we are not amused....
(nothing upsets a delicate situation like a large explosion...)