Hearthpwn

Quote from Dorkpork >>

This is a different game than Yu-Gi-Oh, keep in mind. Yes, you wouldn't need more cycle if you didn't run Malchezaar, but cylce is always good, it's just that too much can screw you over against control. With Malchezaar, you can tech your deck to remove more stuff quicker (it makes your mulligans more consistent when you build your deck around Malch), meaning you can, in theory, do better against aggro.

Now, Hearthstone is very different than most other card games. I must admit that a card like Malchezaar can be strictly bad and not at all good in other card games, but in Hearthstone, I imagine it can be powerful, strictly through the general nature of most Legendary minions. I have limited experience with the card so far, though, having only played five games, but I did win those five games, so I'm so far inclined to believe it's pretty good, especially because he has impacted the game pretty substantially for me at times.

The reason why something like this can never be "end of the story" is the constant change in Hearthstone's meta. In a few months, we'll have ~150 new cards, while ~200 cards are cycling out. That's a pretty considerably different meta. And it depends strictly on that meta how well Malchezaar will preform--playing him in Wild can actually fish you some pretty awesome stuff. So no, the opinions of some or many does not solidify the quality of the card; the quality of the card will change until it cycles out itself, but for right now, I personally believe it's pretty good, because I've so far done well with it.

I've been trying this as well, and Renolock definitely seems like the best shell for Malchezaar, but I'm not convinced that it's ever really "good". There have been games where he's seemed good, but without knowing what I would have drawn each time I found a random legendary, it's hard to say whether it actually has been. By contrast, there have been a number of games in which I've needed Reno, or some other card, and not found it, but instead found a random legendary.

It's worth more testing, and perhaps worth playing as a counter to a mill-heavy meta, but I don't see it being generally "good" ever.

"Must include" is a bit of a stretch, but it's probably better than it ever has been before.

In addition to the cards/reasons you mentioned, without Boom and less incentive to play AoL, AoW is also a bit more popular. TBK also outright kills things now, since before the only taunt that was heavily played was Belcher, and TBK didn't even take care of it fully. Owl and KotG have also been nerfed, so silencing taunts is a bit less viable. It also kills a taunted C'Thun.

I've also been playing Harrison Jones in decks that can reasonably run him, due to the prevalence of Doomhammer.

I've played with him quite a lot today. He's definitely not "good", but he's super fun, and he isn't strictly bad I suppose. 

I've been playing him in a VERY spell-heavy deck. (16 spells, plus Dark Peddlers). He comes down late, so I'm averaging about 10 procs off of him.

If you're anywhere near fatigue, he's really bad. There are a TON of spells that draw cards, and many will draw several. 

He'll often buff enemy minions, but by the time he's finished, most of the board tends to be gone anyway - including himself.

I've gotten Astral Communion in 3 games now, which is terrible. At one point he Unstable Portaled into Jaraxxus, and, of course, Astral Communion was the next spell.

Sometime's he'll outright win you the game, other times he'll lose it for you.

In most cases, I've found him to be a full or partial board-clear that's fairly symmetrical. But it's impossible to rely on that, especially if there are several enemy minions.

There's a huge subset of spells that will just wiff. Blade Flurry, Shield Slam, Anyfin Can Happen, Everyfin is Awesome, Bestial Wrath, Totemic Might, Divine Favor, etc.

You'll usually pull a couple secrets, which is cool I suppose.

Overall, I think Deathwing is probably the closest comparison in terms of effect, but Deathwing is far more reliable, and actually has a larger impact most of the time. Deathwing's never really seen much play.

This is all based on a deck built around casting spells though. He might actually be better with fewer spells.

Quote from melacine >>

How many times do you shake the same person's hand after beating them in a game? BMing is like shaking the same person's hand 15 times or for a whole minute... I wouldn't sit there shaking the winners hand for 30 seconds and I wouldn't do the same after winning either. Does this BMing happen in a real life card game? Only remaining anonymous causes people to be griefers.

"Well played" is the equivalent of a handshake after a game irl. It's neither BM nor spam.

Quote from TianZi >>

Are there even actual decks that favor going second? 

I remember like a month ago I looked through my arena data with like 350ish matches and I was more than 10% higher win rate going first, even while playing rogue whenever possible which is probably the class the benefits most from coin.

As for ranked this month, I had 95% wins starting first and only 71% wins starting second. Maybe other players are getting closer results, I sure hope so. But to me, starting first doesn't even seem fair in either formats, lol.

 

Quote from ShadowsOfSense >>

I think one thing that should always be considered is that with a rotating expansion list being 'legal' in one form of ladder, would this lead to the reprinting of cards? I mean, what happens when Warlock loses cards like Darkbomb and Imp-losion (in the same set)? Mage still keeps a staple selection from its Basic set, for example, but a lot of classes don't use their Basic cards, relying heavily on later expansions to be viable.

I'm not opposed to the idea, but I don't think it would automatically solve a lot of problems, and would instead create entirely new ones. And as people have already said, we don't need it now, at any rate. There are too few cards in the game, I think, especially since people are encouraged to buy Classic packs, only to have that cycled out on them.

Quote from Empyrium77 >>

Is it really that hard to do something simple like making a correct poll? 
"0 = worst yet; 5 = best yet" - there's not even an option to pick 0

Oh wait, it's the Hearthstone community... Everyone has high intellect and analytical skills in it. Nevermind!

Quote from Aether_lackey >>

It's so funny that we finally found out that there are some shady things going on with pack opening. Makes all those guys who bitched about how people are crazy and that there is no chance things work other way than 100% random.

And sure, this is an example of rigging in our favor, but hell, that also proves that blizz messes around with the probabilities, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some other RNG modifiers going on. I'm not even necessarily criticizing, because it sounds reasonable to not have like... 3 imp-losions dealing 2 damage in a row, but as a curious person I can't help to start wondering how far blizz hands are manipulating that 100% RANDOM RNG hahaha 

If I buy 39 Classic, then 39 GvG, then 39 TGT, and I don't pull a legendary in any of these packs, then I buy one of each, will the last three packs each contain a legendary? or does the timer reset whenever I switch pack types? 

No.

I had board control, played Raven Idol, grabbed a Soul of the Forest. Played that. Realized it was actually Poison Seeds.