Hearthpwn

I think a Mage spell is more likely since they already did a streamer reveal of a Warlock spell. Also books and tomes seem more mage-ey  than warlock-ey to me.

Speculation here.

This is the 3rd card in the last 2 days with a 1/1 base statline, and 4th if you count the created minions from Herald Volazj. All of these minion either have to do with the Old Gods in general or N'Zoth in particular. Now 1/1 has not been a common statline in playable minions up till now (I can think of 5 off the top of my head) and all of a sudden we get this many more. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if N'Zoth had some sort of interaction with 1/1s that either buffed him, or buffed those minions, that changed how we viewed these cards.

If the meta slows down at all I think Battlecry Shaman has the potential to be incredibly strong. I've been playing a Dragon battlecry Shaman to some success, and stomp all over warriors and priests because they just run out of hard removal for the number of big threats I can drop. Mistcaller is often the MVP, since it turns every minion in the deck into something that requires an answer if you can find the time to play it.Aggro is as tough as can be expected, and winning that matchup pretty much requires either drawing and winning the joust on Healing Wave or finding multiple healing waves through scarabs.

It makes me wonder what the past 6 months could have looked like if they gave Mistcaller a fair statline of 6/6 or even 5/5. Mysterious Challenger and Dr. Boom suffer no status penalty despite their powerful effects, while Mistcaller receives a major stat loss. Given the state of Shaman it makes you wonder what Blizzard was thinking.

Quote from DoctorDen_ >>

Bad reprint is bad

I think the general sense here is correct, 4/5 is the better statline in a vacuum, but with Shredder out of the picture 5/4s and even 4/4s with good effects will be much more playable. Shredder killed all the 4 health 4 drops and then the drop could kill a lot of 2 or 3 drops. 4 health becomes acceptable since being 2 for one'd isn't as much of a certainty.

The next expansion will be the determining factor though, since a 4/3 3 drop becoming a new staple could make it risky to run 4 health 4 drops again.

I could see it in a year's time, now there are too many changes. After a year they might be ready to revisit the core set once they have a better sense of how it should look. Then I could see them releasing a set of core Death knight cards to build the foundation of the class.

Quote from pstamcar >>

i feel the whole "the meta will be fresh" vibe, but let's look at it through this angle...

 

i like to play Shadowform priest ... they never have (and i'm starting to believe they never will) released cards that would have synergy with it ... though with the release of Garrison Commander and Tournament Medic (plus excavated and Entomb) it finally became strong enough to hit rank 5 with ... well 4 me at least :-) i get it, i can play it vs ANY deck (well combo druid is still a bitch but u know, whatcha-gonna-do) and i feel like i could reach legend with it ... but in a month half of my deck won't be viable (2x zombie, 2x unstable, 2x Deathlord, 2x sludge, 2x Lightbomb, Vol'jin, Antique Healbot) and a year later even more ... 

maybe blizzard will release a card that will bring back some tempo u loose when u play Shadowform but so what? in a year it's back to not viable ... the same goes for mill rogue i've been playing lately (kinda like the coldlight millionaire - meaning wpn-less - but rather with Doomsayer and Conceal) ... it looses Deathlord, Antique Healbot and l8er on Gang Up and Brann Bronzebeard ... the archetype (as it is) will die. and i know most ppl don't give a shit for decks like these (or Reincarnate shaman), but they bring fun and joy to some of us and blizzard is taking away the opportunity for us to work on and tune such decks in the VIABLE meta (we all know wild will not be as important or as focused on competitively as standard).

 

and i also agree they did it a bit fast ... my opinion rly, i know all the arguments for why it's not to fast ...

so yeah, in general i agree with OP.

Quote from JosarHearth >>

All expansions or adventures should be a option. That being said expansions I typically like better because you don't have to pay extra gold for a bunch of bad cards just to get to a good one. 

I don't think it needs to be nerfed but I can understand why Blizzard is looking at it. Going forward, every druid that is not purr aggro is going to run 2 of them from now until the end of time. If you want to switch up the game, these are the cards that do it. 

Druid is not alone however. AoL shares similarities with Fire Elemental, Highmane and Cabal Shadow Priest in this regard.

Quote from moloch519 >>

Quote from ThisWasTheOnlyUsernameAvailable >>

This will make it a little harder for f2p's to keep up if they don't have the time to consistently grind out their dailies and will certainly make HS a little more expensive for me but I'll keep buying those packs as long as I keep enjoying the game.

 I think we might underestimate how expensive it might become to constantly Keep up with the meta. With two full Expansions plus one adventure per year I don't see how anyone (who is not playing multiple hours every day) could Keep up with the pace, using only Gold.

Don't get me wrong I dont think it is wrong to pay Money for a game I have actually enjoyed playing for 3 years now but to me it gives the whole introduction of the new mode a bitter taste because I feel like it is at least to a certain degree a strategy to boost the sale of Cards to commited Long term Players. I don't believe that it is really going to reduce the entry barrier for new Players significantly since the Standard mode will still contain the full classic set plus a Maximum of 4 expansions and 2 adventures.

Not being super excited about the standard change, this news somewhat confirms my expectations that the change has a financial motivation to it. I've spent some money on this game, but on principle it feels bad to spend money on cards with an expiriy date so I was thinking of changing my plans. I have a few hesitations about being able to keep up with this expansion release schedule, especially if they contain more cards per expansion.  Thankfully I'm pretty close to a full classic set so that will help going forward.

To those saying f2p players should just be happy with enough cards for a couple of competitive decks, that is not what all of us find entertaining about the game. For me the best part is exploring interesting combinations and creating new decks, which can't be done without a good selection of available cards. It'll certainly mean being more selective in crafting lesser used epics and legendaries.

Quote from batanete >>

Basically the fact that fatigue warrior based on armor gain and removal has pretty much the same gameplan while being better at it. I suppose taunt warrior has the benefit of being more proactive and not losing as easily to things like paladin and druid, but even then the point remains against basically every other deck.

I created a Hobgoblin Bolster Warrior that is an incredible amount of fun under the right circumstances. It works better in an aggro meta since it can be weak to large board clears and has very little reach to finish off control warriors or Freeze mages. When you get a good draw however, and are buffing your minions left and right you feel incredibly powerful. It also isn't horrible since I've managed to keep it around a 50% win rate which is better than I expected when I created it.

Quote from Onenutmcgee >>

I used to play MTG, where you'd easily throw down $100 for a new box, and/or have to buy singles every 3-4 months.  For anybody that has played any CCG (or even LCG with their monthly sets) this is not new.  So yeah, I'll buy the adventures and probably buy the $50 launch pack deal for the full sets.  This is the best way to keep the meta changing, i'll have a lot of fun with it, i'm happy to support them.

My question is for everybody that voted no or not sure, how many of you spent money previously?  I think that's the bigger change, ie "I spent money, but won't anymore".

I just don't get this line of thinking. When Mechs are gone from the game it'll be cause for sadness because an interesting and unique aspect is being removed and the potential for diverse matchups and running into something different end up being diminished. The same thing will happen with dragons a year from now. 

Knowing we'll being stuck with primarily 12 or so regular decks at any one time is a sad thought going forward, as I was hoping for something more.