I will name my firstborn High Priest Thekal if that rating turns out to be right. That card is so ridiculously overrated.
Btw she'll be born in a few weeks.
11
I will name my firstborn High Priest Thekal if that rating turns out to be right. That card is so ridiculously overrated.
Btw she'll be born in a few weeks.
13
Ok, took me about 2 hours to get 30 wins with Sindragosa. By now, most of my opponents are playing her. The mirror matches are still interesting and strategic and actually pretty cool, but honestly, she is WAY too strong in comparison to ANY other hero.
Even the players who tried to play smart and did their best to play around the Freezing got nuked. When they manage to just sacrifice one minion to get me under 20, they usually fall behind pretty quickly afterwards. And those who don't play smart just lose without a fight. Literally. My first opponent was a White King who gave up after I masterfully pressed the "Enemy Turn" button for 4 turns. He played 3 minions, then realized there was no way he could win. The next opponent was Naz'jar, filling her board up to 5, then realized she shouldn't attack me, and decided to wait for big enough minions to deal some damage. In the meantime, I waited for 9 mana, so I could play Hungry Dragon and hit myself with Dragon's Breath.
Sure, Noth and Heigan were pretty weak, and I can see why they were replaced, but Sindra is ridiculous. All the other Heroes are at their "normal difficulty", while Sindra is closer to a Heroic boss. Only that your opponents have no decks designed to beat you and they don't play against a stupid AI.
I rarely ever say this, but I actually think Blizzard should step in and replace Sindra with something else.
5
Ben, I love you man, but some of this is just... dumb.
You might consider adding Wild Sets to the in-game store, someday in the far future?! JUST DO IT! You don't lose anything. You might have to update the interface a bit, maybe figure out how to list an ever increasing amount of sets without it getting hard to navigate, but just saying "we don't feel like it" and effectively keeping all Wild sets behind a paywall is stupid. Even moreso, when you have said, not even a year ago, how important Wild could be to keep the game fresh and interesting, when Standard is in a critical spot. And no, "just craft old cards" is not a reasonable answer. 20 commons and 16 rares from GvG for 2400 dust is a terrible, terrible deal. Spending 1600 dust on Reno Jackson alone instead of 700 gold + getting a bunch of other cool cards is also a terrible, terrible deal. It only makes the mode more exclusive and hard to access than it already is.
Also, if you despise Classic so much except for the "theme", just give it up already. I know that you are concerned with Standard changing regularly, but if you are so anxious that a card from Classic might ever be too influential, that you can't even figure out how to replace cards you remove, just dump the entire set and be done with it, instead of nerfing/rotating another few cards every year until there is nothing left. I don't even get what your big concern is. Most of the Classic set is either intentionally weak, outdated, nerfed or just situationally useful, pretty much the way you want it to be. There are a few remaining strong cards, that are utilized in many decks. So, either stay true to your word that the core set should feel like a solid basis and deal with it, or remove all of them. This "we might nerf/rotate some more" every half a year is really getting annoying. Even if Classic were still the best set all around, it is nowhere near as influential anymore as it was a few years ago. You release 3 expansions per year, and all of the last few were very strong, very influential, and have changed Standard and Wild massively. We are really beyond the point that every deck consists of 20 classic cards, and the few decks that do are almost always Hunter or Mage decks. Give these classes some reasonable alternatives and choices, and they will stop using Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion, Unleash the Hounds, Fireball, Mana Wyrm etc. in every deck.
And finally, there is a big difference between "buffing" cards and putting them on the powerlevel of, let's say, Voidlord or Call to Arms. Just as there is a big difference between "balancing" a card and giving us Warsong Commander. I think there is PLENTY of space inbetween, and you know, even if you ever made a card a bit too strong by accident, it's a DIGITAL card game. You can change it back. You can change it as many times as you want. Aside from that whole multiplatform update approval issue, try to be a bit more adventurous instead of looking 3+ years ahead for every minor thing. I'm not suggesting to be like the Gwent team that had changed Restore like 3 times in less than 4 months, but don't be like "Oh no, if we give a card a little buff now, it could be too good someday if we ever wanted to do this or that".
22
It may sound silly, but in case of Shifter Zerus and Molten Blade and Shifting Scroll, a refund would be warranted. Ghostly Charger, I agree, is not really that relevant, but the others are to some extend, I'd say. Ghostly Charger should belong to an "Undead" type, that I have been kind of waiting for since Naxxramas, but different story... maybe someday.
While it's not exactly part of any utilized strategy, giving these cards buffs while they are in hand or in the deck adds to their strength, and gives their unpredictable flexibility a clear upside. Shifter Zerus can be improved with effects such as Smuggler's Run or Prince Keleseth, and from there is a random minion +1/+1 or higher. This makes it easier for the card to turn into something a player may find useful in a given situation. Instead of waiting for a minion with a good or even fitting effect, you may also wait for a minion with a helpful statline, and these effects contribute to that.
Same with Molten Blade: Effects from Hobart Grapplehammer or Grimestreet Pawnbroker make it easier for the transformation to suit your needs, and add to the potential of the card itself.
What matters for Shifting Scroll is especially the option to discover it from Primordial Glyph. When other options are less inteteresting, the Scroll can be any random spell with a 2 mana discount. With this change, picking the scroll is almost always the worst choice since you are giving up on the discount that Glyph should provide.
Since the buffs will no longer carry over to whatever these cards transform, they lose some of their utility and power, and are thus worse versions.
As for the Elemental/Mech considerations: I think it's kind of silly to say that The Curator is a mech for some reason and Arcane Golem and Arcane Giant are not, because they don't look mechanical enough. Not only do I disagree on the latter (Arcane Golem certainly does look like a mech to me), but it would also obviously contribute to consistency, which is the point of this entire update. I can understand that War Golem is feeling different enough (though a tribal tag would give the card at least some kind of upside), but when The Curator and the other two cards look like they belong to the same type, make them the same type as well.
Regarding plantlife not counting as Elementals: I can see that in some cases, it might have gameplay implications to change all plantlike creatures into Elementals. Rogues may find use for Servant of Kalimos, when there's a good chance they might discover another Vilespine Slayer. Aside from Slayer being a ridiculously overstatted card: Would it be so bad to add this to the game? Would it cause so much confusion by telling players that living trees and flowers count as elementals in the Warcraft universe?
It's ok when Hearthstone tries to be more intuitive, and thus takes a step away from what Warcraft lore states, but drawing a line here is not really convincing me to be for the better.
And if you make up special rules as with Bogshaper, at least make it consistent with Fen Creeper and Bog Creeper. Maybe you don't want ALL plantbased minions to be Elementals, but when you say that bog beasts are for some reason, I think it would be better to follow up on it with cards that also look very similar.
19
Yay improvements to ladder!!!
...…."There is no change from rank 10 to rank 1."
Oh. nvm.
3
Not only attack, but just deal dmg, if you conceal Ragnaros, he'll lose stealth after dealing dmg, so yup, Hippo + Tiger would be nice combo.
9
I'm afraid to open a KaC pack, cause it's possible to get that shitty card. O_o
5
With the new expansion, Rastakhan's Rumble (RR), just about to launch, I’d like to offer some of my insights and predictions into the upcoming Arena Meta. RR offers several cards that potentially could impact the Arena scene, however due to the lack of an offering bonus on the new set (Confirmed by Dev); we might not see that many new RR cards to choose from. Also, let’s keep in mind that the impact of certain cards will go up and down due to whichever bucket Blizzard initially starts the card off in. If a card is grossly misbucketed (Pre nerf Giggling Inventor), then the card will be picked often and it’s impact will be more significant. With that said, I’ll go over some of my general class rankings and key cards.
Tier 1
Warrior - Still #1 couple days into the new expansion. Dragon Roar is one of the most common cards in Warrior drafts, and have a better win rate then Omega Assembly. Warpath, Execute and Supercollider have slightly lowered appearance rates. Sul'thraze is showing mediocre performance, so take your time evaluating it against it's options when its offered.
Hunter - The dark horse of the expansion, Hunter has finally made it out of the basement. Baited Arrow has been extremely good as well as Headhunter's Hatchet. Fast aggressive hunters can beat Rogues and Warriors before they can stabilize. The set did not provide a lot of good neutral taunts or heals so this works in Hunters favor.
Rogue - A solid 2nd place right - Walk the Plank is performing better then Assassinate so it's a good pick if you see the two up against each other. Serrated Tooth has also found a bit of use and has decent performance given the options it's up against. It's a tough meta for Rogue since Hunter is rearing its aggressive head, so keep an eye on good heals and taunts.
Tier 2
Warlock - With Hunter being played more heavily, Warlock seems to be barely holding on. Demonbolt seems to be extremely popular and performing better then Siphon Soul. Drafting heals and taunts along with AOEs will be imperative for your drafts to do well.
Mage - Blast Wave seems to be making a splash right now for this class adding another AOE to their tool set. It's performing slightly better then Blizzard and is almost seen as often. Pyromaniac is also performing as one of the classes best cards.
Tier 3
Paladin - Tiered down by micro adjustments since it was busted in the Witchwood Expansion, the class has seen better days. A New Challenger... and Bloodclaw has been doing quite well for the class, but the class still requires it's Silver Sword win condition. The new Farraki Battleaxe seems to be average at best, so i'd stay away if the other options are viable.
Priest - Mass Hysteria has one of the worst played win rates for Priest. It's a yolo card and probably only gets used in really bad situations. The class relies on a slower meta to thrive so having Rogue and Hunter hanging out at the top makes for a tough environment.
Tier 4
Shaman - Rain of Toads makes its way into a lot of Shaman decks and has been doing well. Likkim has also been performing well, but shows up less often. However, the class just can't get out of the basement. It's win conditions, Unstable Evolution relies on RNG, and it's other win condition Bloodlust requires board control and setting up.
Druid - The new Mark of the Loa and Savage Striker has been performing well for Druid. The problem with the class is that Ultimate Infestation is so much better then every other card for Druid, it really relies on it to do well. Side note, Webweave has surprisingly good performance. The class most affected by the most recent patch changes, Druid has slipped from the upper half to the bottom of the tier list.
Thoughts and predictions from Dec 3.
Let’s start with the new mechanic Overkill. First, I will say, I don’t see this mechanic having too much impact in the Arena. This isn’t because the mechanic is bad, but more so that the offerings of the new set will be pretty low. We just won’t likely see many Overkill cards offered, and even when they are offered, it’s not always correct to take them over cards from previous sets. There are a couple stand outs that might be correct auto picks, but until we get more information on the bucketing of the new cards, we can’t say for certain how often we will get to experience the new Overkill cards in the Arena. My guess is 1-2 Overkill cards per deck will get drafted.
As with my previous Meta threads, I’ll update the thread on Meta shifts using statistics from hsreplay, as well as my own personal experience in the Arena.
Please keep in mind, the following is my own PREDICTIONS only and will be updated when data has been acquired.
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Will keep an eye on the meta and update this in a couple days time, have fun in RR and let's see how wrong I am on these predictions! :)
16
For single player experience, they should focus only on adding content to dungeon run,
not creating new worse ones.
5
Crafted Captain Greenskin for the newly meta Kingsbane
*wake up to nerfs*
Thanks for making a deck meta for like a week and wasting my dust Blizzard.
There's a reason that sheep aren't the most intelligent animals in the world.
After all of the frustration playing against Kingsbane in wild I have absolutely no sympathy.
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3
At least this card is not even, because of Wild Even Shaman, but if it will get nerfed to 4 mana....
(And prepare yourself for Old Murk-Eye, maybe even with the copy from hand....)
And besides Big Skill Priest, this is the perfect hate card against Anyfin Pala!
2
Autoinclude in Wild Quest Mage.... Also strong in Mecha/Nomi Priest. (And Hemet, Jungle Hunter destroys it.)
7
nope
3
EVIL Cable Rat meets Zola the Gorgon in the Wild and loses....
2
Arcane Watcher: Other than in Slience Priest, this card will be pefect in (Wild) Odd Shaman....
1
Barista Lynchen is insane in Reno decks!
9
The best target for Akali, the Rhino, unless you need the lifesteal from Zilliax.
7
Force a Wild Mecha'thun WL to cast Cataclysm....
-3
The return of Wild Tempo Mage with Flamewaker?
11
Barnes.....