Hearthpwn

RNG...Fun and interactive.

The bright side is that we get to use cards that we might not have...also no more shaman OP stuff.

That's a great initiative to help new players out.

The garanteed legendary from basic set will mean at worse 400 dust or an epic of your choice.

I think this is definitly the right direction to help new players out....should we expect something similar with later expansions ?

They missed the blades of azinoth on the card back, what a shame.

I'm a little disapointed the skipped talking about the difficulty of the heroic mode so far.

Beside the prologue and the chess event, heroics were lackluster and felt not so "heroic".

Hoping for better encounters in the last wing.

This is something we've been asking for for a long time...blizz china did it, now it's our turn to have the same.

Incoming last boss Unicorn priest.

RIP annoy-o-tron, your head will be a good puppet.

The hype train is showing no signs of weakness.

The imp seem interesting an could create a new warlock archetype around discards.

The grimoire seem like one of those scary harry potter books.

All in all, can't wait to see what's next and more importantly, to play the adventure.

Great, another card back that will be used for a while until the next best thing come out, if only we could use a random card back every game, but i guess....the technologie isn't there yet.

Free stuff ?? Ain't gonna complain about that one.

Hello guys , i wanted to talk about the design philosophy of hearthstone before the next adventure get revealed in order to see where the game have come from and where it could be heading.

Classic era :

During the classic era, aggro decks had an objective and 1 only, dominate the early game through overwhelming number of small minions, and try to finish the game through some kind of burst.

Exemples of these decks are backspace rogue, stun paladin AKA aggro divine favor, aggro mage, murloc warlock and aggro warrior.

These decks all used some very early efficient minions and/or weapons and finished the game with some burst when they have lost the board control, mostly by using leeroy or spells for those classes who had them.

The interesting thing is that those decks relied mostly on the chance that the opponent doesn't have an early board clear to get enough damage from their minions, otherwise they would not be able to finish the game in time.

a turn 4 helfire, swipe or auchenai+circle of healing were usually enough to stabilise and some taunt or heal meant control decks have won.

Pure aggro sadly wasn't the best option, but the midrange decks have found great success, exemples of these decks would be miracle rogue, classic handlock , midrange or ramp druid and the most famous of them all : zoo.

These decks would try to get board control very early thourgh spells , or by efficient minion trading and wouldn't let it go until they can set up their win condition.

Some of these decks used a burst combo for a win condition , some only traded minions efficiently while adding more minions until the opponent couldn't hold his own any longer.

Control decks would use removals for the majority of the game until they can get to the late game and win using very powerful minions ; usually legendary ones.

Notable exemples of these would be : control paladin, control priest, and the non giants control warlock.

Each and every one of these decks had very good AoEs if they were overwhelmed, but they also had many single target removals in order to survive until they can use their own win conditions , be it a Tirion , a Ysera or even a Jaraxxus .

The interesting thing about this periode is that archetypes had a very clear distinction and weaknesses.

Control decks would win against aggro

Aggro would win against midrange

Midrange would win against control

Very few exceptions were there like miracle rogue having some problems with warriors or the midrange hunter being able to counter aggro decks using the buzzard + unleash.

I hope some of you reading this will find it helpful and/or informative.

I will talk about the post naxxramas era the next time if not too many people don't hate this style of work.

Any aditionnal informations , point of views , tips or thoughts about the subject are highly welcomed , also if there are any ideas you'd like to see me talk about in my next post , do let me know.

Enjoy.

You don't need to be smart to realise what makes warrior strong.

1. Fiery war axe gives the warrior a great control over the early game against pretty much all aggro decks, while other classes need to use spells and removals, warrior can simply use the axe, play a minion and he get the tempo from aggressive decks.

2. Brawl : While other AoEs have a hard time dealing with aggro decks, brawl makes you deal with 1 minion only and if you're lucky, you could win the game on the spot if one of your minions is the one who survive. In a world where deathrattle is gone, brawl is a very efficient way to clear the board compared to when we had tons of deathrattle and brawl would only create as many tokens as there were minions.

3. Cheap removals : In a fast meta, what makes a good control deck is its ability to stabilise and fast...while priest needs to pay 2 mana for a SW: pain or 3 mana for death, warrior got 1 mana conditionnal removals..these removals are what gives warrior the needed tempo gain to survive when other control decks can't. Renowarlock for exemple have a 3 mana 4 damage spell, a 4 mana3 damage AoE and a board wipe at 8 mana, these numbers are too slow for a meta where you could get as low as 10 hp by turn 4.

4. Cheating the max HP limit : we all know it, we all seen it, warriors with 50 or even more HP makes you just look at them as ask yourself : Do i even have enough damage in my entire deck to kill them ? Warriors lost shieldmaiden but replaced it with ancient shieldbearer that gives twice as much armor for an easy condition to meet.

Add to that justicar that could have been a warrior card and you get a class capable of getting to some insane total HP.

For older players that started the game very early, it was possible to go completly f2p and never spend anything on the game...i did it and many others did.

Sadly for newer players that join after 2 or 3 expansions/adventures, it is very hard to keep up because most decks needs cards from multiple different places and not just the latest adventure/packs.

There are always the budget decks but new players are attracted to the big shinny legendaries, the epicness of seeing ragnaros coming from beneth the earth in a flamy way is just so coolthe first time.

Hearing jaraxxus say his line , destroying your hero and taking his place is what got me hocked in the first place and i'm sure many viewers that wanted to try the game had a moment like this with one legendary or another.

Sadly for a new player to get such cards he either must be veeeeeery lucky, spend an insane amount of time with frustration or spend money on the game.

In the end i have to say some catch up mecanisms for new players would be really welcomed, and i'm not talking about the free packs from quests/brawls, those barely help....i'm talking about something like having any new account get some crafting discounts or maybe a free legendary of your choice that CAN NOT be disenchanted later, to help those players play decks that they actually enjoy.

Waiting until a new set is released to change the meta is simply a bad idea.

No deck was ever on top for 2 sets in a row....new cards always mean new decks even if it is the same class.

Best example is the sunshine hunter and after the nerfs/naxx , we've had undertaker hunter.....that was dominent for at least 3/4 seasons before the nerfs.

Kombolock....i miss thee.