Hearthpwn

Expected move.

If I remember correctly, Faeria initially wanted to go pay-to-play route but later decided to go the standard pack-based one. I don't think I know any digital card game with such business model.

By the way, the prices you listed mean that each player would need to pay $180 each year. That's quite a paywall for a game that needs a large playerbase, that's not sustainable. I wouldn't be surprised if the poll tells that most people are not willing to pay the sum each year but you would probably get completely different results, if your proposed model would've required $50-100 a year, pretty much like previous Blizz's 2 adventure+expansion model.

1. Ice Block because Eater of Secrets will rotate this year, unless they make a new anti-secret tech.
2. Doomguard because it's a powerful charger that is used in both fast aggressive and slow combo decks now, unless Warlocks get only weak cards in the new set.
3. Gadgetzan Auctioneer, if they intend to make new cheap spells or mass spell generators
4. Malygos, if they intend to make new cheap damaging spells or cost-reducing effects
5. Faceless Manipulator, because they might want to push people to use Prince 3
6. Shadowstep, if they add new minions with very powerful battlecries usable by Rogue
7. Molten Giant and Ancient of Lore in their unnerfed versions, since they've already hinted that they are considering it

I doubt they will HoF more than 3-4 cards though.

Regarding Divine Spirit / Inner Fire: I understand that people think Inner Fire is what enables the combo because they get killed when that card is used. But the same effect can be achieved by alchemists or new 3/3 demon. Doubling/quadrupling a minion's health by Divine Spirit is the real enabler of the combo. So if Blizz decides that they don't want this combo to happen, they will nerf/rotate that card. But imo it's very unlikely. The game needs viable combos such as this one, or it will devolve into either curvestone or greedy slugfest.

That's an interesting idea but there might be too many expensive/combo cards for an aggro deck. If you are running Dinosize, Uther, Bullies, Beardo and Blessing of Wisdom, that's at least 7 cards out of 30 that don't contribute to a rush gameplan and can screw your Divine Favors. Perhaps, a more midrange variant without Divine Favors would work better? Maybe add Loot Hoarders to draw cards instead?

Quote from Alexincoming >>

Quote from Ilfirinor >>

I'm glad that everything has worked out well for the topic starter in the end. But since he got 4 more golden legendaries (usually 1 in 200 packs) than expected average, an average dust return would have been 11200 dust lower, so any person that considers buying the same amount of packs should be wary of getting just 12k dust for their ~200$.

 If in place of those golden legendaries that i opened they were just the normal versions, it would only be 6400 dust lower since 4 golden legendaries would be worth 12800 dust and 4 regular ones would be worth 6400.  And again just talking about Patches/Raza.

Quote from hillandder >>

4 manas 8/8, why not use?

I'm glad that everything has worked out well for the topic starter in the end. But since he got 4 more golden legendaries (usually 1 in 200 packs) than expected average, an average dust return would have been 11200 dust lower, so any person that considers buying the same amount of packs should be wary of getting just 12k dust for their ~200$.

Remember that companies use the most beneficial metrics in their reports. If their revenues are rising, they will report it. They will report increase in MAU after giveaways that required to log in. They will report increase in number of registered accounts when everything else is in decline, since accounts can't be deleted.

Don't disenchant the cards. You will get a surge of dust from the nerfs this week and HoF'ed cards in a couple of months anyway.

Dark Pact is not a problem. Is is pretty lackluster when used on a different minion. The problem is skull/lackey combined with powerful demons. So if control lock becomes too powerful after the patch, they will either increase cost of skull/lackey by 1 (unlikely + doesn't impact umbra combo) or rotate Doomguard. There is no need to make Dark Pact even worse than it's now.

If the data is true, that might be the reason we get the first non-prepurchase pack sale in Mammoth Bundle. If the trend continues, they might even make "Starter/Welcome Bundles" for each new expansion.

Paying 50$ per exploit attempt doesn't sound like exploiting the game. It sounds like the game would be exploiting you.

In my opinion, a proper nerf would be to make the first use of hero power cost (0) each turn. So that the second and all subsequent uses would cost (2). That was even its original intended use and would have preserved its usefullness for basic and Justicar-upgraded hero powers, while making insane combos with Shadowreaper and Velen impossible. 

So, they basically took TES:L ranked system but made/left it more grindy because floors are every 5 ranks instead of each rank. In the end, probably, everyone who got past r15 each month previously will eventually get into r5-Legend bracket because win streaks and floors will make sure people move up, if they play decent decks. That will probably make r15 the new casual mode with tons of unusual decks.

League of Explorers and MSoG were previous expansions before a rotation. And LoE was imo the most diverse and most balanced Hearthstone has ever been. So hardly the problem is that it's the last expansion in a year, the problem is with the expansion itself (if there is even a problem at all).