Hearthpwn

You can play Kindling Elemental to discount your Vexallus which allows you to play this card alongside Guild Trader for up to 70 damage.

Lots of silenceable stuff this xpac, makes me think that bad things will happen to starfish.

They are the og animal companions. They have a different name for flavour.

Quote from Psy_Kik >>

What I find most confusing about Blizzard's atitude to additional gold, is that the free gold would really result in nothing, or the equivalent of nothing for most players. The whole system is designed so that everyone ends up with the whole lot of rares each set, a few epics, and a smattering of the available legendaries. Taking away 500 gold or whatever from an event doesn't hurt their bottom line, because that 500 gold results in nothing very little...maybe one extra epic.

The only logic I can see to it, is perhaps they worry it might make people realise that a few extra free packs makes really no difference to their situation, so therefore purchasing a few extra packs, as many do from time to time, makes no difference either.

Since they removed the randomness of the packs (not complaining exactly, it just is what it is) the entire playerbase is just sat there with their bowls held out, waiting for their standardised delivery of gruel, that they will get, without fail. It's never enough, and many always ask for more, and yet at the same time it is enough, as 95% of the playerbase is in the same situation. Honestly at this point they could do away with the gold system/reward track and just give all players all rares, and let them pick a couple of legendaries of their choice... same result.

I do know this though. It's boring.

So they've added a bunch of gold sink mechanics into the game but for no real reason, cause gold is irrelevant?

If you want to play more than one game mode the extra gold can be the difference between having battlegrounds perks or not, playing casual or competitive duels, having access to the mini set or not, etc.

I don't believe for a single second that their marketing team didn't analyze this through and through and made the call that giving out 'locked goodies' instead of free spendable gold increases revenue.

 Depends on what you are looking for. I personally value the unique skins higher than some extra gold/dust.

A quick reminder that they removed the stealth from Edwin and it still was one of the best highroll cards in the format until they uped the mana cost to 4 mana. This costs 2!

So Druid is the next in line to get a random ass deathrattle theme thats never gonna be properly supported?

Do you mean the maze? That's a druid card. I don't think Rogue has been revealed yet.

No, he was a 1/1 that gained +1+1. Not for long tho.

I just went through them and after rotation 14 out 48 shaman cards will be somewhat locked to a specific archetype. Mage has 12 cards that are comparably specific. 

I really don't think Shaman is an outlier or that it is that big of a deal. 

Quote from DNsingbanana >>

I mean, it's not just totem shaman that go thrashed. Any shaman that is not murloc just got 5 unusable class cards because of the stupid murloc archetype.

 And before that, it had a bunch of unusable cards because of the totem archetype. Thats just how it works if they make archetype-specific class cards. Pretty much every class has a number of very niche, very specific cards right now. It's not that big of a deal nor an only Shaman thing. 

Quote from Pherosizm >>

I wouldn't say it's down the toilet, but it will lose a few cards.

Splitting Axe, Totemic Surge, Totemic Might, EVIL Totem are out.

But you still have a new Flametongue Totem, Trick Totem, Totemic Reflection, Mana Tide Totem, Totem Goliath, Circus Amalgam and Grand Totem Eys'or.

Throw in Tour Guide and some spells and you could still have a deck.

Even before rotation, (as in, right now) this deck was not great. Maybe in the mini set before eys'or rotates out next-next year they will give totem shaman a little love. :P

The archetype also gets Draenei Totemcarver .

I believe Flametongue isn't core, no? 

Yeah, the great and fun counterplay of randomness and the problem of aoe freeze was its existence in a class whose only pushed theme each expansion is random spell generation. 

Just go wide... What a bullshit argument. There are quite a number of decks that cannot get 4+ minions on the board in which case this is a 0 mana nova and because it is 0 mana it is ridiculously easy to play removal alongside it to guarantee freezes. Now add all that to the fact that multitarget freezes are uninteractive and unfun af. It might not break the format nor be particularly good but the mere existence of the card means that Blizzard is willing to print more aoe freezes going forward which is a shame.

Why Blizzard why?

You just did the right move and got rid of most aoe freeze effects and now you bring this shit in :(

So a power of the wild that also buffs your hand and deck. Sure....