Hearthpwn

Quote from asteroidm >>

Quote from BrokenCycle >>

I'm on the fence. While this is fine for standard, I'm a bit worried for wild, where warrior already isn't a big player.

I feel armor at it's core is meant to be used as a resource. Gain armor now, use a weapon to kill a minion later. Stacking up on armor is not something that should happen in most games. In that sense I welcome this. If you use armor this way, this card is completely useless, even against warrior.

But... Alexstrasza still hasn't been nerfed. Stacking up on armor was such a big FU to freeze mage and malygos decks. Those are the ONLY decks that WOULD use this card effectively and WILL run it, and they were the work of the devil to begin with. I don't like that one bit.

 It'll be less of an issue where warrior isn't popular though.

 I would still run this in any damage based combo deck. Also druid is popular I believe.

LOL

*slow clap*

 They did it. They actually fucking did it. 

It's still a tech card that only exists in players minds when they decide they might want to play an armor deck. In reality this sees no play.

Just look at this set, the power level is off the charts, you honestly think once decks have been refined there will be any room for a vanilla 5/5? In a matchup against a non-armor class even drawing this card is like, a complete disaster. If the power level of the meta is high you can't afford to have mid-game turns where you do virtually nothing. You might as well just hit concede.

This is a blessing and a curse. It is both Insanely broken and underwhelming. I wanted this back when Warrior could get 200 armor in a game against otk mage. The issue here is that with it being a mid-cost card, most aggro decks will run this. Armor is so important in some matchups, so much so that just by having this card in your deck, you're guaranteed to win. But this card doesn't mainly counter warriors, I mean, it's designed to counter the class that can obtain the most armor, which is warrior, but that doesn't mean it will only affect that class. This card indirectly counters Paladin, Druid, and to a lesser extent Mage. This card has literally made High Priest Thekal a suicide card. Now, this card is dead in 60-70% of matchups, but it's the principle that now this card exists, and is now a problem.

Look, I get it no ones likes playing against Warriors/Druids with 40+ armor stacked on top their health pool but this was not the way to nerf armor. I can easily see games playing out where the outcome is decided entirely on whether or not the aggro player draws this card, that's not fun or interactive for either player. I've seen some people suggest this card should only remove half of the armor count but even that misses the core problem with armor that being that if the control players gets too far ahead it's pracitically impossible for the aggro player to win. What I think Team 5 should've done is rework the armor mechanic entirely so that you can only stack armor up to a certain point like 10 or 15. Along with this change they should also grant Warrior more ways to restore health other than Zilliax so it's not so dependent on armor to stabilize it's health pool. This card is just an incredibly poorly thought-out bandaid solution which does nothing to address the underlying problem with Armor as a mechanic

this is the card that shouldn't exist.

What percent of meta decks actually gain significant armor?  Not enough to run this at the moment even without anti armor tech.

It just puts a hard limit on how many can exist at some point in the future when armor actually is relevant.

Hahahahahaha, that' was what I always want!

Warrior's nightmare!!!

Quote from TrevoRaven8 >>

And it’s a neutral Common with not terrible stats? Guess that’s the end of Warrior then.

 ...and Druid also takes a hit :)

It rather telling that Warrior players believe themselves important enough for other people to actually run this card.

(And if they actually do become that important again, it's proof that this card was necessary.)

Hate cards do not appear until there's something oppressive to hate.

a clunky Golakka Crawler style of hate card that ruins several archetypes beyond its intended target.

Rip grind-down in wild.

I think Alexstrasza might come back thanks to this card. It always hard to justify playing Alex when there are armor class in the meta. 

Quote from NewPlayer >>

Hahahahahaha, that' was what I always want!

Warrior's nightmare!!!

 Aggro-midrange warriors (the very likely direction they will they will go post expansion) are gonna laugh their ass off when you drop a vanilla, no immediate tempo gain, 5/5 on 5 as they clap your face down to under 10 health. But hey, you might've destroyed 2-4 armor so you got that going for you. 

So jokes aside there is a lot to unpack with this card. 

First of all, very poor design. I can understand making a tech card for those Druids and sometimes Warriors that amass unbreakable amounts of armor, but when you are in a situation where you are trying to survive against aggro, this card just shits all over you so hard I can already see the salt this card could bring. personally I think the effect should have been along the lines of: destroy your opponent's increased health or armor if they are above 30 health. Also this a really good tech card for OTK decks to use...like mind boggling good, they just basically took away every OTK deck's weakness.

Second, this card merely existing in the collection deters people from playing Control Warrior, because if CW becomes popular people will reach for this and the rest is self explanatory. I don't mind tech cards anyone can reach for when a certain deck becomes popular, but not when that tech card is basically, "Make Warriors concede."

This card was printed for Wild against 2k Armor Druid and is good enough to see play against a fatigue warrior, should a deck of that variety happen to exist. But i mean, we havent see a real fatigue warrior in a looooong time.

(@Darksun200) who suggested "destroy your opponent's increased health or armor if they are above 30 health."

It could either half the opponent's armor which is reasonable, deal maybe 1-2 damage to life total behind armor which is less reasonable, or go your route but conditions are if they are above 15 health (at 30 health warriors will strategically take damage to their life total before armoring up) which is also reasonable if a bit clunky. Least wordy and most reasonable variant "destroy half of your opponent's armor."

Everybody who suggest the dev to half-ass this effect and even make it more wordy just so they can stay in their flimsy armor fort for a bit longer, y'all cowards. Just adapt to the game changing instead of being lazy.

I dont mind a armor tech card, but i rly dislike the lazy desgin. So why print a card like Thekal and after it this one? And just because they want a counterplay for some Meme Decks that generate hundreds of armor. It makes Thekal as a card unplayable which is a fkn legendary i dont get it. and ye it wont happen often and at the end it will no effect pally in a competetive sense, but it prevent of thekal beein played in a popular deck because this card exist.

If u have concerns about druid and warrior gettin to much armor than find a solution that dont shit on a healthy card with cool effect just because u lack imagination of countering High Armor stacker

Quote from Darksun200 >>

So jokes aside there is a lot to unpack with this card. 

First of all, very poor design. I can understand making a tech card for those Druids and sometimes Warriors that amass unbreakable amounts of armor, but when you are in a situation where you are trying to survive against aggro, this card just shits all over you so hard I can already see the salt this card could bring. personally I think the effect should have been along the lines of: destroy your opponent's increased health or armor if they are above 30 health. Also this a really good tech card for OTK decks to use...like mind boggling good, they just basically took away every OTK deck's weakness.

Second, this card merely existing in the collection deters people from playing Control Warrior, because if CW becomes popular people will reach for this and the rest is self explanatory. I don't mind tech cards anyone can reach for when a certain deck becomes popular, but not when that tech card is basically, "Make Warriors concede."

 Honestly, the poor design happened when they put an unrestricted Health-gain resource into the game, then tied it to the effects of numerous class cards. Armor was always going to become a problem; I'm just surprised at how long it took them to admit it. (It was already quite bad back in the Justicar Trueheart days.) I guess they had to see the Druid shenanigans in Wild to finally come to their senses.

Tech cards do not destroy archetypes. They only keep certain archetypes from becoming oppressive. As long as we don't see 20 percent of the meta consisting of Control Warrior, no one is going to play this card. If we DO see another meta with 20 percent Control Warrior, then the existence of this card is totally justified.

I was playing against a paladin that dropped high priest thekal. I dropped Zephyrs, and although Platebreaker would have won me the game, it wasn’t one of the 3 choices... sometimes the genie’s 3 wishes don’t do what you want!