Hearthpwn

Quote from lv426a11 >>

It says "gain 2 mana crystals next turn". 

What it does - "give two temporary crystals which disappear when used.

Desert Nestmatron will not give you the mana back if cast from full crystals....Maybe that was obvious to some but it just lost me a game :(

 Have you ever tried to coin out a Desert Nestmatron? Because I have lol. Spoiler: it doesn't refresh 4 crystals on turn 3. Temporary mana is treated differently in HS

The warlock quest in wild (The Demon Seed?)

Showdown in standard. Can literally win the game out of nowhere and put a potential 21 damage on the board. Or actually, the Crusader Aura is also a pretty good candidate for a similar reason.

If we are talking about the most broken card ever printed, well, look two lines above. 

Quote from elevenx67 >>

These probably aren't actually bots, they are most likely throwaway accounts. Basically people make accounts and draft Arena until they get an insane deck (retiring any other deck on the way), then sell the account to a streamer who can then stream with an insane deck, drawing more viewers. This has been huge amongst Chinese streamers for a while now.

Blizzard said they addressed this several patches back by forcing accounts that have retired repeatedly into their own matchmaking queues, but clearly that plan isn't working.

 This has also happened to snipe streamers. People really have too much time and money these days.

Quote from Moop547 >>

For some reason, people HATE that class.) I find it very sad and disappointing that the vast majority of people who play this game are net-deckers.

 They hate it for good reason, given its impact on release. 

Of course, they are net-deckers. It's the most efficient way to play the game. People don't want fun, they want to win and keep the ball rolling, even though it's more FOMO at this point than an actual need for winning much to keep up, even at low cost or completely free.

Regarding the topic, the most played classes are probably the ones with the higehst winrates, the cheapest-to-build ones, and the ones who were the most fun for people overall. And personally, I would argue that crazy combos and rng fiestas are more fun than pure stupid aggro. That being said, I have a feeling that Druid, Paladin, and Rogue have been the best classes in history and they had several decks that were RATHER cheap to build, so I would go for these 3. Priest and Warrior are probably at the bottom

Quote from Andrei2007 >>

Quote from D_Lord >>

Quote from Andrei2007 >>

It's an overpriced product. But still cheaper than physical TCGs, and since I enjoy the game, I stick to it. The "free" aspect is an illusion, and grind is so time-consuming that I believe it's more expensive than actually buying a preorder + extras.

 As a long-time f2p player, I disagree. Yes, it got harder since Mercenary and BG idle farming got their rewards nerfed, but you can still make a very substantial amount of gold, dust, and cards by playing arena and constructed/BG. I can build top-tier decks in both formats and I haven't been very smart with my dust recently after coming back when Whizbang got released. Plus you can also get free packs from events like the one going on this week on Twitch. If you look at it like that, it's not more "expensive" since you are basically only playing (which you would do anyway). If you spend money on the game, yes it is actually overpriced. Literally everything in this game is overpriced. I could create all these cosmetics for you as an NFT for like 5-8 $ per cosmetic. And that's a lot more difficult technically than what the HS devs do.

If you enjoy the game, it's what you would do anyway. If you don't enjoy the game, then yes, you are "spending" your time instead of money. But that's what a game is supposed to do to you anyway.

 Yes but the grind isn't fun. New cards are usually strong enough to overtake the meta, and with quests forcing you to pay most classes, you have to grind bad decks until you get the cards for good ones. Arena is not everyone's jam, although it's the best way to get packs (for free if you're really good). But let's compare it to time. If you live in the UK for example you can preorder and buy the track for the equivalent of a minimum wage shift. Skipping maybe 50 plus arena grinds. From there, you still need about 200 packs to complete the set if you wish so, but at least you can do it with good decks.

 Not sure if this is true for new players, but I got 6 pre-made decks when I came back and they either were fun (rogue) or pretty good (plague DK). And one of them was for free after 1 week. We didn't have that luxury when I started, so I get the "grind bad decks" argument, I don't think it's nearly as bad as it used to be 10 years ago. You are limited to 1 or 2 decks when you start, but you also shouldn't expect top 100 legend rank in your first month^^. The game is better if you play for fun, not for grinding out packs on ladder (which isn't worth it anyway).

Regarding the quests argument, you don't have to win these games. Just build a generic deck with one of your 3 classes from the quest and play wild/standard (whichever format you don't grind). Best to do this as aggro deck to finish quickly. It takes roughly 30 minutes to build and play these games and you are done. Alternatively, while we have Twist, you can play a matching Twist hero, or pick one of the 3 classes in arena. You don't have to play a constructed tier 1 deck in a class just because you have a quest.

I also understood your calculation and it's right. You are trading time for money. That's how freemium games work. But my point was that I want to play the game anyway, so I spend my time anyway. This means that I don't trade anything for the money I save. If you feel like you are spending (or should I say "wasting"?) time just for rewards instead of enjoying the game, you are probably ready for a break from the game.

Quote from Andrei2007 >>

It's an overpriced product. But still cheaper than physical TCGs, and since I enjoy the game, I stick to it. The "free" aspect is an illusion, and grind is so time-consuming that I believe it's more expensive than actually buying a preorder + extras.

 As a long-time f2p player, I disagree. Yes, it got harder since Mercenary and BG idle farming got their rewards nerfed, but you can still make a very substantial amount of gold, dust, and cards by playing arena and constructed/BG. I can build top-tier decks in both formats and I haven't been very smart with my dust recently after coming back when Whizbang got released. Plus you can also get free packs from events like the one going on this week on Twitch. If you look at it like that, it's not more "expensive" since you are basically only playing (which you would do anyway). If you spend money on the game, yes it is actually overpriced. Literally everything in this game is overpriced. I could create all these cosmetics for you as an NFT for like 5-8 $ per cosmetic. And that's a lot more difficult technically than what the HS devs do.

If you enjoy the game, it's what you would do anyway. If you don't enjoy the game, then yes, you are "spending" your time instead of money. But that's what a game is supposed to do to you anyway.

Yeah, I am mostly worried about the drawing here. Ramp decks often run out of stuff if they go super hard on the ramping, so I would assume that drawing 6 cards will be something they want to do. And it's probably going to be active most of the time by turn 5.

Celestial Alignment at least needed some kind of deckbuilding. These ramp and draw cards can be played in literally every druid deck. Heck, if I played HP druid in standard, I would add one copy of this card just to draw 6 for more burst.

Another angle here is Odyn, because this basically translates to 15 extra burst damage. Odyn can do crazier things, yes, but it's the combination of draw, burst, and potentially draw + refreshing mana that is super dangerous. 4 mana draw 4? Sure, I'd do that all the time. And another problem is that it makes no sense to reduce the numbers on the refreshed mana. You can't nerf this to refresh 2 mana or else the Thrice part would make no sense for the refreshing.

And the fact that warrior gets ramp kinda makes the recent nerfs to Brann, Sanitize, and Reno ridiculous. Like imagine 6-mana Brann with these cards. There would be games where you go 2nd and play your Brann on turn 3! And you can do that with Doomkin now... Turn 3 Doomkin is disgusting. There is also no downside to these kind of plays anymore because of cards like this one since you will never run out of cards in your hand.

I think we will get an even crazier and very fast-paced meta just because of Druid and Warrior, and potentially pirate dh.

Quote from IanFromAccounting >>

Quote from TigOldBiddy >>

Problem is once u take a break u start very low and climbing is insane with 1x star..

 If that happens it's probably better to focus on playing decks that you find fun and not worry about your rank?

I understand we all have different prioritizations but it seems like over focusing on winning/rank may be killing the OP's enjoyment of the game at the moment. 

 This is the way to go. I can confirm that taking this game too seriously is bad for your brain and playing funny stuff is better. In the end, after you reached legend for the first time in a mode, what are the rewards? 5 packs and 1 epic. And getting from D5 to legend is the real climb, so you get 1 extra pack for your efforts. Idk, this doesn't feel worth it, given that you can also just farm 3k exp within what, 7-8 hours? Playing arena with halfway decent results pays better. And since we have quite a lot of balance changes, you can also often get a lot of your dust back, so it's not hard to get some good cards and decks in a format, even if you are as f2p as I am. It doesn't feel like you need to maximize things anymore. Do your quests, maybe have some fun hunting some of the achievements and then play for D5 in one mode and for fun in the other mode.

Will go to 8 mana and still be really good

2nd druid card that will be in the first balance patch...seriously Blizzard...

Guys seriously, stop freaking out. This does maybe (sometimes) eat a Sif and win a game. Maybe it will eat a Brann or a Boomboss and win a game, BUT this is ONE minion that is RANDOMLY eaten from your DECK for 6 mana. You cannot time this as perfect as let's say Dirty Rat because you have fewer info on what is in your opponent's deck (not to mention, this will never eat a created card like the legendary Excavate rewards). You can literally counter this card by keeping your key minion in your opening hand, so your opponent has to Dirty Rat it. And how often are you going to have this activate more than once when you haven't already won the game? Never! And how often will this hit the right card? 1 in 10, maybe sometimes 1 in 5? The card is ridiculously slow against aggro and not even nearly impactful enough in value matchups. Just compare this to how many cards Boomboss kills out of nowhere and this one occasionally eats 2 if you get super lucky... Gnomeferatu is so much better, Boomboss is so much better, Patchwork is so much better. Mutanus is so much better too. This card is mediocre at best in standard and completely unplayable in wild. If it wasn't a Tourist card, it would see 0 play anywhere. Honestly, if you can't ramp this out by turn 4, it's just not good enough these days.

Good question. Maybe as an aggro deck with some synergy cards that can copy or repeat the 1-cost spell or as a finisher in dragon priest?

You can create several copies of Pet Parrot and each parrot can turn into 4 burst damage. Pip can also copy that burst pain spell, so this looks kinda interesting. Healing out of your own burst range should also be doable for priest, especially if you have enough time during an extra turn...The dh tourist is honestly not that good imo

Fishing Rod has synergy with the pain priest package because you can hit minions and damage yourself and pull out the 1 mana 2/4 that damages you. Might be good enough to spawn 2 of those Sauna ladies for 2 mana each on turn 4. Pet Parrot can also be another copy of that 2/4.

Aside from that, these two look like Atomaton synergy cards.

I think the flavour of the cards is still very good.

But there is too much burst damage, charge damage, mana cheating, and drawing and not enough class identity. It's a bad sign when you have to ban cards in wild, but it's even worse when you have to ban cards in standard.

And personally, and despite playing it myself (or actually because I played it myself?), I think Showdown was a mistake and should have been changed in terms of its mechanic, not its mana cost. Paladin and hunter are too strong and too explosive imo.

Playing fun and meme decks in wild or grinding achievements is honestly more fun than playing actual constructed.

Now I expect a crazy set of cards for hunter, as is tradition.

Regarding the card itself, you could try to build some fringe OTK with this, but tbh, I see this as a card for singleton priest ctrl decks. There are cards like Puppet Theatre that have some decent synergy with it since it creates a 1 mana 1/1. So in some games, you might be happy to clone a Giant, play yours and shrink theirs with this card while developing a 1 mana 8/8 yourself.

But let's wait and see what Hunter will get. I have a feeling there will be something truly degenerate that has heavy synergy with this.