Hearthpwn

If Quests are good, this is good. Simple as that.

Decent card, and it's nice that Shaman finally gets a new totem. Might even end up in Even Shaman: Another Totem for Thing from Below, and Lackeys can help a lot with tempo as we've seen with Rogue.

But something about it seems... I don't know, something doesn't fit here. Hey Team5, what did you have to say about Shaman's class identity again?

Weaknesses: Card draw, card generation

Nevermind.

Eeeh... yay?

If Druid wouldn't be notorious for having no board clears besides Starfall (which IS a Choose card at least), I'd be more excited. You pretty much have to play nothing or just cheap cards for 4 consecutive turns, and can only profit from it from turn 6 onwards. Unless Druid gets numerous cards, that help the class to stabilize in the lategame and are ideally Choose cards, it's not worth it.

Just for the cards that are in Standard, I don't think I would play it. But it's too early to say more. The concept is interesting, and a permanent Fandral effect should not get underestimated, but there needs to be a LOT of support for this to give Druid a new playable deck.

Maybe if there are more "on draw" effects, that help Warlock to play a bit more passive. Flame Leviathan would be awesome in Warlock these days. But otherwise, I don't think it's good.

Sure, you can draw a lot of cards with Plot Twist. I'm not pretending you'd only end up with 5 cards left once the quest is completed. But once you have completed the quest, what are you doing? Half your remaining cards can cost 0 (since you will still draw a card per turn with regular cost), but what cards are in your deck that this cost reduction would give you a big advantage? Is your deck all lategame minions to get the most out of your hero power, or will there be cards that are just not impactful at roughly turn 8 and later, regardless of what they cost?

More importantly, Warlock doesn't have all that many lategame minions that are impactful. You can play Arch-Villain Rafaam, and then it's up to RNG. but there are quite a few bad legandaries around.

In the end, you get a tool that helps you to speed up in the lategame, but Warlock's actual problem is, that its lategame plan is not good enough compared to Warrior or even Shaman, and making it to the lategame is also not easy (though they will get a "plague" spell that likely helps with that).

Maybe I'm not seeing the potential of what is essentially Barnabus the Stomper for Warlock, but it's not very exciting. Especially not, since I fully expect that any Warlock with the quest would also become another deck that plays Archivist Elysiana.

Another Epic board clear for Priest that kills everything. Good to know things are back to normal, after Mass Hysteria was only a Rare.

Anyway, powerful stuff but comes out a bit too late, and at 9 mana, your turn is pretty much over. In Standard, it really depends on whether Priest gets a win condition that justfies this. Maybe one of it will be added to Nomi Priest, just to have a safe board clear available, and it can be followed by Grave Horrors.

In Wild, it is at least a board clear that won't go into Big Priest. But even for any other Priest deck, there are enough better alternatives for it with Lightbomb, Psychic Scream and even Dragonfire Potion. Maybe a Reno deck would appreciate another "kill everything" spell, but that deck needs more help than just this.

It's alright, but I hesitate to say it is actually "good".

Not "bad", but not great either. Mecharoo is the better 1-drop, even without mech synergies. Then again, there are not all that many great 1-drops in Standard, so maybe it will show up somewhere.

Definitely decent in Arena, and ok for a common neutral.

From what it looks like... I can't really imagine it. Many of the minions you'd resurrect are not very impactful against Big Priest (Tar Creeper, Unstable Ghoul, Explosive Sheep, Abomination), Big Priest has means to handle standalone threats like the Lich King, and should you have the iniative on the board, Psychic Scream will punish you hard. Sylvanas might be able to turn the game around, but it's difficult for me to imagine it would win the game on the spot.

But maybe I'm wrong. Against most of the aggressive decks, however, I can imagine it would do fairly well, as Taunt Druid always has.

Quote from sandwoman >>

I feel like i cheated. I finally accumulated enough gold to get the last chapter of the Dalaran heist and so I used the Zayle card, and kept restarting the match until I got the priest. And well, did all the buffing etc and completed the first level of the lower citadel :)

many more stages to go!

 Considering that you went for the inefficient deal of the heist just to get Zayle, you certainly earned your "cheating" device. And using Zayle this way is kind of ingeneous.

Besides, the concept of restarting bosses until you get it right is sometimes even expected. A few heroic boss strategies and especially the strategies against the Lich King for some classes (like Mage) involve restarting until you get a really good hand.

Anyway, congrats!

According to the latest VS report (from last Thursday), the global play-rate of hunter is 24.7%, followed by Warrior 16.3%, and Mage at 15%. Between ranks 4 and Legend, Hunter is 27.3%, Warrior at 18.6%, and Mage at 13.8%. And at Legend, Hunter is 20.3%, Mage at 19.9%, and Warrior at 19.6%... The next frequent classes are Rogue and Shaman at about 10-14%. The rest is far below 10%.

Honestly, this is not a balance issue anymore. Ok, it might still be, but more than anything, I think it is a cultural issue. Maybe nerfing the top three classes would help, but to me, it really looks like no conceivable balance patch could even hope to fix what is broken: A community that only cares about winning, to a point that a large part of it will ONLY play whatever is arbitrarily rated "Tier 1".Whatever gets nerfed, I dare predict that in no time, 20%+ will move on and play the survivor instead.

Before the nerfs, Lackey Rogue had a playrate of well over 20%. And after dozens of thread of people talking about what "the real problem" is, the nerfs happened, and it was already predictable that Hunter would take Rogue's place. And here we are, with lots of players playing the next "Tier 1" like it's the only one in the game, bringing us to the exact same point again.

I know this sounds a bit offensive, but... I think this is exactly what this toxic, self-serving, hardcore-competitive community deserves for "lul rank 20" kindergarten level attitudes and insults on a daily basis; for making "braindead" an established term in Hearthstone lingo; for religiously rating decks and cards in "tiers"; for pretending that reaching Legend is all that matters, and for drowning criticism in hype while drowning optimism in negativity and hostility: A game where everyone plays the same few decks so that everyone can hate each other for playing the same few decks. Have fun!

But I also blame the developers for this. I said this a few times before: When the game structurally only rewards winning, when deckcosts statistically keep going up, when Blizzard sells and advertises Hearthstone primarily as an esports title, when they bring out 3 expansions per year to create more powerful and by sheer coincidence more polarizing decks, and when the only way they know how to handle balancing is nerfing older cards so that new ones will dominate the field entirely, they only foster an environment where this exact outcome should surprise nobody. Players are pushed hard to justify their resource-management, so most players will go all in on winning with "the best deck in the game".

These are my experiences with the cards from the list I have:
Al'Akir the Windlord is cool, but I usually end up not using him, both in Big and Even Shaman. Cards like Ragnaros the Firelord, The Lich King or even Walking Fountain are either as good or better. Al has been nerfed twice indirectly already (Rockbiter Weapon and Flametongue Totem) and is just not that great as a finisher anymore. At best, he can synergize with Earthen Might in that he generates an Elemental and make extra use of the attack boost, but I really don't think he's worth crafting.

Luna's Pocket Galaxy is a card I still haven't used, even after the buff. Not because I think it's weak, but because I don't have the three or four legendaries that it interacts best with. However, I had mixed results with other decks that focus on one specific card in your deck, like Spiteful Druid or OTK Paladin or Maylgos-Decks, and to me, it's always a double edged sword. I had way too many games, where the missing piece was in the last 10 cards or less, or cards were drawn too early that were supposed to benefit from a deck-effect. and then I wonder whether I want to play a deck where specific cards need to show up earlier and others have to show up later. LPG is one of those cards. It's certainly fun if these strategies work out, but the total opposite when your deck is shuffled the wrong way. When the wrong cards show up in your hand, maybe already after the mulligan, you sometimes want to concede right after the game has started.

Gral, the Shark is a card I've never been impressed with. Even if you have a Spirit of the Shark on the board, he's mediocre - a big beast that begs to get killed, and you are even more frustrated when it gets transformed or silenced, because you lost two cards in one. Myra's Unstable Element, on the other hand, can be very impactful, and is a card that feels pretty good in the right deck (like Kingsbane). I don't use it often, because I don't play Rogue often, but it's one of the better legendaries the class has.

It's your decision, so do what you think is right.

I don't think Uther will ever be more than a somewhat viable instant-win condition that might gain more consistency over time, or disappears entirely because of some changes we can't foresee. On the one hand, statistically, Paladin should get more and more and more tools to prolong a game, as Hearhstone continues to develop. But who knows if there will ever be a card that prohibits both players to use their hero power for the rest of the game or aggressive decks reaching a point where it's downright impossible to survive 10 turns. Not to mention that Team5 just stated very explicitly that Paladin won't be getting board clears anytime soon, which is already one of the main problems with staying alive for the class.

KT, on the other hand, is still more of a "fun" card after all these years, that can be good in some few decks. I think if we ever get to a point where KT would be actually good and a powerful card, there might be better alternatives, like Catrina Muerte for Priest. But it's still less limited in use than Uther. If you value that more, that's your answer.

However, keep in mind that you think about disenchanting a Wild legendary for the sake of crafting a Wild legendary you disenchanted ealier. I don't know why you disenchanted KT in the first place, but better be safe than sorry before you make the same mistake again. Collecting 1600 dust can take a while, as you probably realize right now. If possible, I would delay the decision for now. If KT is the only card you want right now and for the time being, keep grinding for dust until you can afford it without sacrifices.

Quote from TardisGreen >>

Quote from Dunscot >>

The sad thing about Big Priest is, it really keeps players out of Wild and the mode is dying ...

 Wrong.

Wild is full of busted decks.  We can get rid of one, but the best decks are the best, and if you aren't playing one of them, and you care about winning, you are doing it wrong.

Wild is all about playing the most busted decks.  Nothing ever rotates.  There are too many cards to balance anything.

Of course, this gets boring.  That is one of the reasons why very few people play it.  And that number will continue to dwindle.

But it is not because of Big Priest.  It's the direct result of having too many cards.  Sometimes more is less, and this is one of these situations.  People playing their "creative decks" get their head handed to them, and just don't get it.

Wild is not full of "busted" decks, Wild just has a higher power level than Standard. Having more cards available can look like a downside but it also an upside. EVERY deck can be reasonably countered, and I personally think it is way more balanced than Standard right now. As for "everyone plays the strongest deck", Wild is no different than Standard: Some players want to play only the strongest deck, some players don't. Pushing out the latter creates a stale game and is a problem that needs to be addressed if the game wants to appeal to more people than the toxic competitive scene. Honestly, Standard isn't doing much better on that front either.

Yes, there will always be a "strongest" deck. However, there is a point in getting rid of one deck that is warping the entire mode and causes such a polarizing experience. Currently, Wild has many very aggressive decks (Odd Paladin, Murloc Shaman, Odd Rogue, Token Druid...), that all can beat Big Priest (keep in mind the Barnes coinflip), most of them lose (or would lose) most of the time to dedicated control decks (Jade Druid, Cubelock, Odd Warrior, Reno Shaman...), which in turn stand 0 chance against Big Priest. That is defnitely not a healthy state of the game.

By your logic, any of the other balance changes I mentioned (Aviana Druids, Sea Witch Giant decks) were not necessary, because Wild isn't supposed to be balanced anyway. But they actually were necessary, because they had way too much gravity in that mode, were very hard to counter for most classes and decks, and gave the mode a bad reputation. The same applies to Big Priest.

Maybe people really don't like Wild because allegedly, it doesn't change often enough (honestly not much less than Standard). Maybe they do think there are too many cards and everything is super unfair and don't want to try it out just because of that. I can't prove you wrong.

But I am quite certain, that the current state of Wild is not good, and that Big Priest is a big reason for that. Maybe removing that deck one way or another would have no effect on anything, but I think after more than a year, it's worth a shot.

Are you talking just about Classic, Basic, or the core set consisting of Classic and Basic? Because Priest's Basic set really isn't that bad: a good early game minion that draws cards, a good cycle spell, two good removal spells, a strong lategame spell, and even a half-decent board clear. Most of these cards are a bit outdated (especially Holy Nova and Mind Control) and don't really help you to win games, but other classes have it worse. Radiance is crap, no question there.

If you talk about just Classic or both sets combined, then yes, Priest isn't very good, though I'd honestly wager that Druid's or Warlock's core set is at least as bad as Priest's by now. And most other classes have lost a few teeth over time as well, though I'll admit that Priest's best cards are nowhere near as good as, for example, Warlock's best cards. Priest does have some decent cards, just no basic synergy going on that works by itself (like Hunter or Mage), where new cards can easily fit in and make it better. Priest relies entirely on expansions that provide strong synergies and game-plans so that all the support tools from the core set can be worthwhile, but because Team5 likes bad expansion cards and introduces new themes every time without continuing one, it usually takes several expansions until you get something that works. Again, I think some classes don't look much better by comparison.

That doesn't make it fair, of course. And I'm furious about Radiance as well. And I think it's wrong that Priest is bad most of the year, though I don't think they ever intend to fix it, or at least not by making Priest better, but by making every other class as bad.

The sad thing about Big Priest is, it really keeps players out of Wild and the mode is dying. That may sound a bit extreme, but I really can't play Wild Casual anymore (at least on NA).  If I want to play Wild for fun or just to do quests, I have to play ranked now and accept that I'll be stuck at the current rank floor, if I don't feel like playing something very refined. 

In Casual, it usually takes 1-2 minutes, sometimes longer, just to find another player, and half the time, it's a Big Priest.  Across several days, I keep seeing the same names showing up, which shows how few people even bother with it anymore. I doubt that out of millions of players, more than a couple hundred, maybe a few thousand, play Wild Casual, and slightly more play Wild Ranked, where I've also had instances of seeing the same opponent 3-4 games in a row.

Probably not the sole fault of Big Priest, but definitely a result of Team5 treating the format like a dumpster for so long.

It might not be as oppressive as KunViana Druid with Star Aligner, because that deck had virtually no counters, but it is definitely as oppressive as Giant Warlock and Hunter. These decks had to get to Turn 5 to slam down a bunch of giants, and just a handful of cards like Lightbomb or Poison Seeds could deal with that.

Big Priest is even worse. It is not quite as explosive (usually), but no control deck can hope to muster enough resources to deal with all these resurrections, and most midrange decks can't push through all the board clears. And it's telling that a Turn 4 Barnes has a 75% winrate, and it just depends on what minion he pulled out. An Obsidian Statue will stop most aggressive deck.

Star Aligner Druid was nerfed after I think 2 months or so, and with all the other nerfs is borderline unplayable by now. Big Priest exists since Frozen Throne, and is established as one of the best decks in Wild since Kobolds AND it got a buff with RoS.

Honestly, I don't even aks for a nerf. But after almost 2 years, they could FINALLY add cards to other classes or the neutrals to target it, so that there is more than enough means to deal with Big Priest to let the deck fall out of the meta once and for all. If they can make something so specific and decisive as Skulking Geist to counter Jade Druid, I'm sure they can make a card that blocks all resurrection or some such.

Currently at 10300 gold again. That probably is enough already, but I'm still a bit sour, cause I wasted a lot of gold (about 2000) last month just to get another legendary out of RoS. It was about 20 packs since the last legendary, and of course, I hit the pity timer. And then it was The Boom Reaver...

I guess I will end up with about 12k when the next expansion comes out. Maybe more, if we get another Midsummer Fire Festival this year. But I've been barely playing this month and did not enjoy the game very much lately.