While checking out the Legendaries so far this expansion, a common theme became clear to me:
Almost all of them are meant to either enable other cards or the card itself will only work when you use other cards.
At first I thought it might be due to the Mercenary legendaries, but I made a list below and as you can see, not all of them are the Mercenary legendaries, it is in fact about 50/50. And from all the legendaries 12 of the 22 currently revealed ones have strict requirements to run certain cards with them.
So I went back and compared to the last 3 expansions, and I did not see that in those legendaries. In previous expansions most of the legendaries just have innate power, regardless of what else you have in your deck.
The numbers:
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire: 7 of 25 Darkmoon Races mini set: 1 of 4 Scholomance Academy: 5 of 25 Ashes of Outland: 4 of 25
As you can see the trend of adding those cards in expansions seem to be rising, culminating in this one with already almost half of them.
It will be interesting to see if this trend of Legendaries that require some kind of specific cards to be in your deck holds true for the rest of the set too and if the trend continues in future expansions and mini sets.
If you have trouble understanding the concept just check current legendaries to see what I mean:
Cariel Roame Need to run Holy spells in your deck.
Xyrella Can work with Hero Power, but the real power is when you get healing effects from other sources, cause a 6 mana, deal 2 AoE with a 4/4 body kinda sucks. You'd rather just run Holy Nova then.
Stats should be made for all expansions to have a clearer idea. My guess is that they're only trying to promote the expansion's novelties (spells classes, frenzy, watchposts...) through the legendaries of said expansion.
I think this is a way to prevent decks that are just stacked with legendaries. Reno decks were just a combination of tons of different legendaries at the same time, which is hard to provide in easy bundled decks and a strain on newer players. These legendaries all seem like they'd be the only legendary in their decks, maybe with 1-2 other utility legendaries from previous sets. Since they're planning to sell preconstructed lists of cards, it makes sense to make decks as 1-2 legendary buildarounds. It makes deckbuilding clearer and it normalizes the curve of deck costs.
I think this is a way to prevent decks that are just stacked with legendaries. Reno decks were just a combination of tons of different legendaries at the same time, which is hard to provide in easy bundled decks and a strain on newer players. These legendaries all seem like they'd be the only legendary in their decks, maybe with 1-2 other utility legendaries from previous sets. Since they're planning to sell preconstructed lists of cards, it makes sense to make decks as 1-2 legendary buildarounds. It makes deckbuilding clearer and it normalizes the curve of deck costs.
I didn't even think of the preconstructed decks they wanted to start selling. That makes sense with this.
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There are a couple specific examples I take some issue with.
Guff Runetotem: Nearly every Druid spell is Nature. It's barely more restrictive than a card that triggers off of any spell, period.
Cariel Roame: No, you really don't need to run Holy spells. 4 mana 4/3 rush + divine shield is plenty viable without any further upside. Discounting holy spells is just a bonus. (And many Paladin spells are Holy anyway.)
Varden Dawngrasp: I challenge your claim that the 4 damage is this card's biggest asset. Cards that finish off frozen minions have never been very good historically. You're going to run this card as a Frost Nova with a body.
As for my thoughts on the post itself... I think it's a lot less of a problem now that we have the Core Set, and that might have been what prompted the change in design philosophy. Before, you had the concern that a player might open a legendary from a pack that they couldn't use without cards to support it. But now everyone has all the basics covered.
There are a couple specific examples I take some issue with.
Guff Runetotem: Nearly every Druid spell is Nature. It's barely more restrictive than a card that triggers off of any spell, period.
Cariel Roame: No, you really don't need to run Holy spells. 4 mana 4/3 rush + divine shield is plenty viable without any further upside. Discounting holy spells is just a bonus. (And many Paladin spells are Holy anyway.)
Varden Dawngrasp: I challenge your claim that the 4 damage is this card's biggest asset. Cards that finish off frozen minions have never been very good historically. You're going to run this card as a Frost Nova with a body.
As for my thoughts on the post itself... I think it's a lot less of a problem now that we have the Core Set, and that might have been what prompted the change in design philosophy. Before, you had the concern that a player might open a legendary from a pack that they couldn't use without cards to support it. But now everyone has all the basics covered.
I agree fully with the Core set point. That's very smart insight.
Don't fully agree with the cards though, mostly Cariel Roame. You want a legendary that does basically the same thing as a Demon Hunter rare? Illidari Felblade That doesn't seem legendary worthy at all. Reducing Holy spells though? that opens up a bunch of stuff. Mana cheating is almost always really powerful.
But, that's arguing over specifics, mostly when the general trend seems clear across expansions in the last year. I briefly checked previous expansion that will rotate out, but the only expansion that came close was Descent of Dragons, which had build arounds baked into the theme, with Dragons and even went further by adding specific build-around cards with Galakrond.
As an aside to that, I think that's probably where the danger is with this new philosophy: That a particular themed deck is TOO complete and without downsides and weaknesses and there's no 1 particular card that might be too strong but the whole of it is. That might lead to problematic nerf situations, where you might nerf only one card, but invalidate a whole deck in the process.
The outcry about dust refunds will be fierce then.
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I think that a major factor of this is mainly them adding Spell Schools to the game. This is the first expansion that the team has had available to test and try out Spell School based cards, so they are pushing them heavily since they both can and possibly to see how they work out. To me it seems like they went pretty overboard with the Spell School integration into Forged in the Barrens, I see these types of cards falling off and not being made as often after this expansion/miniset. Especially when one of the Spell School Legendaries they expect to pop off turns out flopping or being mediocre (currently my bets are on Tamsin Roame flopping, she's going to need some really strong and impactful high cost Shadow spells to make a meaningful splash).
One the other hand, I think that a lot of the Legendaries you mentioned just don't make much sense for what you're alluding to with this post:
Tavish Stormpike is just another Beast archetype Legendary which Hunters have historically received
Varden Dawngrasp in my opinion can just slot into lists on its own. Obviously the AoE effect is much better to get off, but Mage decks have run Frost Nova in the past just to stall out before combos, and this card comes with a body for just 1 more mana. The card doesn't require Freeze spells to be run for it to be viable, and it will just get better as more Freeze cards get printed over time
Cannonmaster Smythe is yet another take on the Secret Paladin archetype. We saw this at the beginning of Year of the Dragon with Commander Rhyssa, and now the cycle of Paladin archetypes continues
Xyrella won't be as demanding as you think in the longterm. Priests always find ways to do things efficiently, chances are they'll get a card that heals effectively, or they'll just generate the bad ones you're alluding to needing to be run (Desperate Prayer or Flash Heal) via Sethekk Veilweaver or some other card
Firemancer Flurgl is just what seems to be what the team is pushing Shaman's flavor as this expansion. Happened at the beginning of Year of the Dragon as well with Scargil
Overlord Saurfang is just this expansion's build-around Keyword Legendary. Every expansion has one of those, Y'Shaarj, the Defiler is Madness at the Darkmoon Faire's example of it in recent card releases
why did they change all spells to different kinds anyway - to better control their impact by certain classes? ie. nature and all?
Opens up more design space. If they want to print a good card with spell synergy but not be broken, one way around it being broken is limiting which spells activate said synergy.
I'd add Mordresh Fire Eye. The hero power alone is theoretically enough to activate it, but for 10 damage, you kind of need to speed it up with specific cards like Reckless Apprentice.
I also find it worth mentioning that many of the legendaries revealed so far cost 3 or 4 mana. And they are mostly small to medium power spikes in Midrange strategies instead of actual win conditions and finishers. Even if they require specifc cards, many of them will just trigger 1-3 times.
There are still big buildarounds, but so far it seems like most of the legendaries in this expansion are meant to feel more like "good" cards, sometimes for certain builds, but without being too specific or powerful on their own. Maybe to give them an easier feeling; less impactful by themselves, less frustrating to play against, easier to include in decks.
Isn't every card in this game meant to enable or be enabled by other cards ?
On some cards they force the requirement but it's no different than a Frost Nova or a Self-Sharpening Sword if you know what I mean.
Some cards are worse than others in a vaccum, but all cards are better with synergy
Not quite.
Ysera, Unleashed is good on it's own. You can put it in any deck you wish and it will be a strong card.
Kargal Battlescar is pointless without Watchpost cards and can only be put in decks and function if you include them too.
and
Kurtrus Ashfallen works on it's own in any Demon Hunter deck. You can build various archetypes of decks and include this and it will just work.
Firemancer Flurgl is a pointless card in most Shaman decks. It needs specifically a Murloc Shaman deck to work, which means you need other (Shaman) Murloc synergy cards.
and, pulling away from current expansion:
Soul Mirror can find a spot in any Priest deck and work, doesn't matter much which cards you put in with it.
Shadowjeweler Hanar needs you to specifically run secrets with it, or it is a dead card.
That's what I mean. We are getting more Shadowjeweler Hanar's and Kargal Battlescars in this expansion than we are used to seeing.
I do agree with the person above though that mentioned spell schools. That might indeed be part of the reason why we see more specific legendaries now, as a few of them have that stipulation.
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No, we dont. When Ben Brode left, it was the best thing to happen to this game. All features, modes and frequent balanse support we have now began when he left
Not really, just go back to saviors of uldum, all of the legionaries from that expansion where buildarounds, with the exception of Colossus of the moon and Siamat.
No, we dont. When Ben Brode left, it was the best thing to happen to this game. All features, modes and frequent balanse support we have now began when he left
Right? I don't get why people always credit him with making the game better. He was definitely charismatic and good at creating hype, but I feel like that was his best contribution.
The OP is being EXTREMLY biased how he counts cards. He came up with an idea, and then FOUND data that supported his idea. Confirmation Bias. You count Scholomance Academy as only 5 of them need synergy with other cards but that simply isnt true.
If you have trouble understanding the concept just check this to see what I mean:
While checking out the Legendaries so far this expansion, a common theme became clear to me:
Almost all of them are meant to either enable other cards or the card itself will only work when you use other cards.
At first I thought it might be due to the Mercenary legendaries, but I made a list below and as you can see, not all of them are the Mercenary legendaries, it is in fact about 50/50. And from all the legendaries 12 of the 22 currently revealed ones have strict requirements to run certain cards with them.
So I went back and compared to the last 3 expansions, and I did not see that in those legendaries. In previous expansions most of the legendaries just have innate power, regardless of what else you have in your deck.
The numbers:
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire: 7 of 25
Darkmoon Races mini set: 1 of 4
Scholomance Academy: 5 of 25
Ashes of Outland: 4 of 25
As you can see the trend of adding those cards in expansions seem to be rising, culminating in this one with already almost half of them.
It will be interesting to see if this trend of Legendaries that require some kind of specific cards to be in your deck holds true for the rest of the set too and if the trend continues in future expansions and mini sets.
If you have trouble understanding the concept just check current legendaries to see what I mean:
Death Speaker Blackthorn Only works when you have other Deathrattle minions in your deck.
Plaguemaw the Rotting Need to play Taunt minions in your deck for it to work.
Guff Runetotem Need to play Nature spells in your deck for it to work.
Tavish Stormpike Need to have Beasts in your deck for it to work.
Varden Dawngrasp Most of the power of the card is in when you have already frozen the enemy, which requires other cards.
Cannonmaster Smythe Need to run and play Secrets in your deck.
Cariel Roame Need to run Holy spells in your deck.
Xyrella Can work with Hero Power, but the real power is when you get healing effects from other sources, cause a 6 mana, deal 2 AoE with a 4/4 body kinda sucks. You'd rather just run Holy Nova then.
Firemancer Flurgl Need to play other Murlocs for it to work.
Tamsin Roame Need to run Shadow spells in your deck.
Overlord Saurfang Need to run Frenzy minions.
Kargal Battlescar Need to run the Watchpost cards in your deck.
Thoughts on this?
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
Stats should be made for all expansions to have a clearer idea. My guess is that they're only trying to promote the expansion's novelties (spells classes, frenzy, watchposts...) through the legendaries of said expansion.
Take a walk on the wild side...
I think this is a way to prevent decks that are just stacked with legendaries. Reno decks were just a combination of tons of different legendaries at the same time, which is hard to provide in easy bundled decks and a strain on newer players. These legendaries all seem like they'd be the only legendary in their decks, maybe with 1-2 other utility legendaries from previous sets. Since they're planning to sell preconstructed lists of cards, it makes sense to make decks as 1-2 legendary buildarounds. It makes deckbuilding clearer and it normalizes the curve of deck costs.
I didn't even think of the preconstructed decks they wanted to start selling. That makes sense with this.
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
There are a couple specific examples I take some issue with.
Guff Runetotem: Nearly every Druid spell is Nature. It's barely more restrictive than a card that triggers off of any spell, period.
Cariel Roame: No, you really don't need to run Holy spells. 4 mana 4/3 rush + divine shield is plenty viable without any further upside. Discounting holy spells is just a bonus. (And many Paladin spells are Holy anyway.)
Varden Dawngrasp: I challenge your claim that the 4 damage is this card's biggest asset. Cards that finish off frozen minions have never been very good historically. You're going to run this card as a Frost Nova with a body.
As for my thoughts on the post itself... I think it's a lot less of a problem now that we have the Core Set, and that might have been what prompted the change in design philosophy. Before, you had the concern that a player might open a legendary from a pack that they couldn't use without cards to support it. But now everyone has all the basics covered.
Bru'kan - nature spells needed otherwise does nothing
Mimsy Were The Borogoves
I agree fully with the Core set point. That's very smart insight.
Don't fully agree with the cards though, mostly Cariel Roame. You want a legendary that does basically the same thing as a Demon Hunter rare? Illidari Felblade That doesn't seem legendary worthy at all. Reducing Holy spells though? that opens up a bunch of stuff. Mana cheating is almost always really powerful.
But, that's arguing over specifics, mostly when the general trend seems clear across expansions in the last year. I briefly checked previous expansion that will rotate out, but the only expansion that came close was Descent of Dragons, which had build arounds baked into the theme, with Dragons and even went further by adding specific build-around cards with Galakrond.
As an aside to that, I think that's probably where the danger is with this new philosophy: That a particular themed deck is TOO complete and without downsides and weaknesses and there's no 1 particular card that might be too strong but the whole of it is. That might lead to problematic nerf situations, where you might nerf only one card, but invalidate a whole deck in the process.
The outcry about dust refunds will be fierce then.
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
Game designers are potatoes. They highered a bunch of yellow teeth nerds to make cards. We need to get Ben Brode back.
why did they change all spells to different kinds anyway - to better control their impact by certain classes? ie. nature and all?
I think that a major factor of this is mainly them adding Spell Schools to the game. This is the first expansion that the team has had available to test and try out Spell School based cards, so they are pushing them heavily since they both can and possibly to see how they work out. To me it seems like they went pretty overboard with the Spell School integration into Forged in the Barrens, I see these types of cards falling off and not being made as often after this expansion/miniset. Especially when one of the Spell School Legendaries they expect to pop off turns out flopping or being mediocre (currently my bets are on Tamsin Roame flopping, she's going to need some really strong and impactful high cost Shadow spells to make a meaningful splash).
One the other hand, I think that a lot of the Legendaries you mentioned just don't make much sense for what you're alluding to with this post:
Death Speaker Blackthorn is just another take on a Deathrattle archetype minion which we've seen in the past (N'Zoth, the Corruptor)
Plaguemaw the Rotting is another take on the Taunt Druid archetype that existed in the past with Hadronox
Tavish Stormpike is just another Beast archetype Legendary which Hunters have historically received
Varden Dawngrasp in my opinion can just slot into lists on its own. Obviously the AoE effect is much better to get off, but Mage decks have run Frost Nova in the past just to stall out before combos, and this card comes with a body for just 1 more mana. The card doesn't require Freeze spells to be run for it to be viable, and it will just get better as more Freeze cards get printed over time
Cannonmaster Smythe is yet another take on the Secret Paladin archetype. We saw this at the beginning of Year of the Dragon with Commander Rhyssa, and now the cycle of Paladin archetypes continues
Xyrella won't be as demanding as you think in the longterm. Priests always find ways to do things efficiently, chances are they'll get a card that heals effectively, or they'll just generate the bad ones you're alluding to needing to be run (Desperate Prayer or Flash Heal) via Sethekk Veilweaver or some other card
Firemancer Flurgl is just what seems to be what the team is pushing Shaman's flavor as this expansion. Happened at the beginning of Year of the Dragon as well with Scargil
Overlord Saurfang is just this expansion's build-around Keyword Legendary. Every expansion has one of those, Y'Shaarj, the Defiler is Madness at the Darkmoon Faire's example of it in recent card releases
Out of death, comes life.
Opens up more design space. If they want to print a good card with spell synergy but not be broken, one way around it being broken is limiting which spells activate said synergy.
I'd add Mordresh Fire Eye. The hero power alone is theoretically enough to activate it, but for 10 damage, you kind of need to speed it up with specific cards like Reckless Apprentice.
I also find it worth mentioning that many of the legendaries revealed so far cost 3 or 4 mana. And they are mostly small to medium power spikes in Midrange strategies instead of actual win conditions and finishers. Even if they require specifc cards, many of them will just trigger 1-3 times.
There are still big buildarounds, but so far it seems like most of the legendaries in this expansion are meant to feel more like "good" cards, sometimes for certain builds, but without being too specific or powerful on their own. Maybe to give them an easier feeling; less impactful by themselves, less frustrating to play against, easier to include in decks.
forces legendaries to be used in new builds and not simply just be new inclusions in existing builds.
The flip side of that, however, is that no new legendaries get used because the new arches they are built for are worse than what already exist.
Its a gamble.
Some of the cards can be engines and new tools for decks.
Isn't every card in this game meant to enable or be enabled by other cards ?
On some cards they force the requirement but it's no different than a Frost Nova or a Self-Sharpening Sword if you know what I mean.
Some cards are worse than others in a vaccum, but all cards are better with synergy
Not quite.
Ysera, Unleashed is good on it's own. You can put it in any deck you wish and it will be a strong card.
Kargal Battlescar is pointless without Watchpost cards and can only be put in decks and function if you include them too.
and
Kurtrus Ashfallen works on it's own in any Demon Hunter deck. You can build various archetypes of decks and include this and it will just work.
Firemancer Flurgl is a pointless card in most Shaman decks. It needs specifically a Murloc Shaman deck to work, which means you need other (Shaman) Murloc synergy cards.
and, pulling away from current expansion:
Soul Mirror can find a spot in any Priest deck and work, doesn't matter much which cards you put in with it.
Shadowjeweler Hanar needs you to specifically run secrets with it, or it is a dead card.
That's what I mean. We are getting more Shadowjeweler Hanar's and Kargal Battlescars in this expansion than we are used to seeing.
I do agree with the person above though that mentioned spell schools. That might indeed be part of the reason why we see more specific legendaries now, as a few of them have that stipulation.
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
No, we dont. When Ben Brode left, it was the best thing to happen to this game. All features, modes and frequent balanse support we have now began when he left
Not really, just go back to saviors of uldum, all of the legionaries from that expansion where buildarounds, with the exception of Colossus of the moon and Siamat.
Right? I don't get why people always credit him with making the game better. He was definitely charismatic and good at creating hype, but I feel like that was his best contribution.
The OP is being EXTREMLY biased how he counts cards. He came up with an idea, and then FOUND data that supported his idea. Confirmation Bias. You count Scholomance Academy as only 5 of them need synergy with other cards but that simply isnt true.
If you have trouble understanding the concept just check this to see what I mean:
Soulciologist Malicia
Disciplinarian Gandling
High Abbess Alura
Doctor Krastinov
Ras Frostwhisper
Shan'do Wildclaw
Archwitch Willow
Mindrender Illucia
Mozaki, Master Duelist
Professor Slate
Headmaster Kel'Thuzad
Vectus