Hearthpwn

I feel like the way pack opening works in Shadowverse is like this but way more elegant.  This new method seems to be bridging the gap between the old way and the way Shadowverse works while ignoring why they are each good in their own way.

Quote from AnonSpartan >>

That's 6 free packs towards your Boomsday pity counter. 

 It would be if I was considering buying any more Boomsday packs, but with the new expansion coming soon and because I'm F2P I'm saving gold already for the next expansion.

My reaction: "It's been Oct 18th PST for over 14 hours now, where are they?"

It is around noon PST.

Quote from rockeru >>

I feel the same ever since Ben Brode left the building. At least before they had a stance and they always sticked to it down the road.

With this latest balance patch they said that no nerfs were needed but since the community demanded one they nerfed destroyed a bunch of random cards just for the sake of making a balance patch. The comunity was outraged by the polarity in the meta but this patch doesn't address that in the slightest. It's like they're not even playing the game. 

 This is actually the worst part.  They said nothing was wrong, then they were proven wrong by someone who provided quantitative data, who they basically brushed off and called insignificant, then they backpedaled on "nothing is wrong", but didn't actually fix the problem.  They're completely tone-deaf.

Ok how about these:

Twig of the World Tree - 3 cost 1/3 down from 4 cost 1/4, gives empty mana crystals instead of full ones.

Giggling Inventor - Tokens do not have Divine Shield.

Saronite Chain Gang - Produces a Saronite Chain Gang token instead of "a copy of this minion".

"Improved Hero Power" (Baku, but also Justicar Trueheart) - Warrior gets 3 defense instead of 4, Paladin makes a 2/2 instead of 2 1/1s, Rogue weapon gains increased durability (maybe 1/3 or 1/4) instead of attack.

Play Dead and Terrorscale Stalker - Both increased in cost by 1

Carnivorous Cube - Creates 1 copy instead of 2.

Need I continue?

Shadowverse.  You get infinite free stuff (I've been playing for a while and I still open 1-2 free packs per day at least, plus more during promotions) so free-to-play is a thing.  The gameplay is way more interesting than Hearthstone and matchups are way less polarized, except for Darkfeast Blood (I think they might Nerf that deck soon).  Also they do 2 update cycles per month and are very aggressive in nerfing cards, more often than not they will change something in at least one of the two cycles in a month, and they aren't shy about buffing underplayed cards either.

The bad part about Shadowverse is that Legendary cards are not limited to one per deck, so playing "on a budget" is kind of hard; most decks need 5-8 Legendaries, which can be a daunting task.

I'm trying to log in on mobile (Android phone if it makes a difference).  I downloaded the new patch, but I get stuck at the screen with the gates and the flashing blue symbol; I can't even make it to the Hearthstone splash screen.  My internet connection is otherwise working (as evident from being able to make this post), just HS seems borked.  Is anyone else having a similar issue?

I agree that I would prefer Mana Wyrm at 1 mana 1/2 than 2 mana 1/3.

Blizzard: "Nothing's wrong, Giggling isn't worth nerfing"

Also Blizzard: "Giggling is broken at 5 mana, it's even broken at 6 mana, it needs to be 7 mana"

Thanks Blizzard.

Vanilla HS was the best meta.  All 9 classes were viable and nothing was overpowered.  Budget (I.e. <= 1 Legendary) decks could compete with decks with 5+ Legendaries (looking at you, Wallet Warrior), and you didn't have to budget-ify an expensive deck; the budget build was often the correct build!  Also RNG was a lot less; there were far fewer "if I draw Keleseth on 2" types of games, because there were far fewer of those types of cards.

The main thing that was bad about vanilla was that Force/Roar was still a thing.  I think the perfect meta would be vanilla, but with Force of Nature nerfed.

HS only because MTGA doesn't have a mobile client yet.  As soon as I can play MTGA on my phone, I'm done with this game.  Blizzard has shown that they don't know how to design cards anymore, and they aren't willing to take action on cards they designed poorly, they just double down on their bad mistakes.  As a paper MTG player, at least if MTGA has the same problems, I have a local community who I can talk to about it and infinite content to consume from the actual pro players in the form of strategy podcasts and articles, as opposed to watching streams which are usually horribly commentated, horribly moderated, and just watching a guy click buttons while memeing and not interacting with chat at all.  At least that's how I've felt watching HS pro streams (Amaz, Hafu, Kripp mostly).  The "content creators" who actually create content are mostly around the same level as me (top 5 ranks, sometimes Legend if I tryhard), so I don't feel like I get much out of them and listen mostly for fun and not to improve at the game.

Speaking as a rank 5+ player (haven't ended a season under rank 5 since the last change), your results are dictated by your rank.  At rank 5+, there is near-zero of the following decks:

Kingsbane Rogue

Spiteful Druid

Quest Warrior

Mage (of any kind)

Not to say you will never ever face these, but they are very rare, like maybe 1 in 10-15 games.  Odd Paladin and Even Shaman are rare as well, but not quite as rare as the others.  Right now, almost all my games are against one of the following:

Ramp Druid (Maly/Togg/both)

Odd Rogue

Odd Warrior

Zoolock

A few of my games (maybe 3/10) are against:

Shudderwock Shaman (tempo or combo)

Deathrattle Hunter

The other decks are more or less nonexistent.  I don't remember the last time I saw a Priest.

Actual prediction: No nerfs, at least not soon.

Reason: The game is fine, but the game has changed.  Gone are the days when a 1/2 for 1 that pumped +1+1 every turn is "too good", and the days when a deck with a 60+% winrate is a balance issue.  Gone are the days when auto-wins with no possibility of interaction is a problem.  Remember the days when the earliest you could get an 8/8 was turn 4, and you had to take the first 3 turns doing absolutely nothing to get it, and that got a card nerfed (Molten Giant)?  Well, today, in multiple different classes, you can get 8/8 worth of stats on turn 3 and still curve out like normal, and that's considered OK.

Basically, in today's HS, you have to do something powerful, or die.  Decks that are not just batshit broken are not playable anymore, and that's ok, but don't expect power level nerfs in the near future.  Everything is broken, and so nothing is broken.