Hearthpwn

Quote from Darq1 >>

Another take on Priest early-game cards to switch to proactive gameplan.

The many reasons Priests are terrible at the moment:

• Unlike what OP said, Priest is *too* reliant on combo.  Many of their cards do almost nothing on their own.  So many games, you have circle, but are just waiting around to draw Auchenai or you die.  Also, many combo pieces do nothing on their own.  They have no value outside of the combo.  Embrace the Shadows does nothing on it own.  Flash heal does almost nothing on it's own.
  • Along these lines, Priest lack threat density mostly because Priests need to carry so many combo pieces, there just isn't enough room to carry too many threatening minions.
• No early game.  In order to get value from Priest's hero power, you need something to stick on the board with more than 2 health and have it survive.  Dragon Priest can accomplish this, but there are no other archetypes that can challenge the early game. 
  • Along those line, Northshire used to be good in classic set.  The 3 health was hard to deal with in the early turns.  However, zoo, shaman, or 3 attack weapons easily kill it these days.  It provides no board presence anymore.
• No comeback mechanisms.  This is what Lightbomb did so well.  Once you loose the early game, which is most of the time, there's no good way to clear the board. 
• Priest actually don't have enough healing.  When they get low on health in the mid-game, they can't heal up fast enough to avoid burst.  It used to be a joke that Paladins could heal better than the class that supposedly specialized in healing.  Then, Priests got Flash Heal and Justicar and they were the best healers again.  But now, Paladins have Forbidden Healing and Rag the Lightlord and once again, they are the kings of survivability.   Rag would actually be a perfect Priest card.  It's everything Lightwell should be (has attack, heals at the end of the turn, not the start of the next one), but Pally's got it.

Solutions:

• Priests need some minions that generate tempo on their own and are not situational.  Something that can be played when you're ahead or behind.  This will allow priests to be more proactive and replace situational combos.  Positive Example, Dark Cultist.  Negative Example, Shifting Shade.  This card provides value, but not tempo.  Doesn't help you with board control.
• Card Draw that doesn't depend on having board control.  Sucks to have to play Northshire and heal an enemy minion when desperate for a specific card.  That, or have to carry a pyro/circle and hope you have them both when you need them at the same time your opponent has stuff on the board.

So, I'm a relatively casual player.  I spend cash on adventures, but I'm F2P only on all the other content.   As such, gold and dust are always pretty hard to come by for me.  I've still only got 1/3 of the Classic ledgendaries and because it takes so long to save up the dust, every one one I craft is valuable to me.  This leads to a dilemma for me when deciding what to craft with the introduction of standard. 

On the one hand, I can craft the "good" ledgendaries from an expansion, I still want N'Zoth, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, Xaril, and a few others, not to mention Justicar, Chillmaw, and a few others from TGT.  But, now these cards have a shelf life.  If I craft them, they disappear from Standard after some time. On the other hand, I can fill out my collection of ledgendaries from Classic.  While they may not technically be as useful at the moment, I can use them forever.  For example, I still need Malygos, Van Cleef looks more playable, Al'Akir, Baron Geddon.

I'm really not asking what specific card to craft.  I'm asking more from a crafting philosophy perspective.  Essentially, "rent" a newer useful ledgendary or "buy" a classic one.  How do you guys handle the balance?

Quote from JEndymion >>

Quote from DarkArchon21 >>

This is basically a shitty Unstable Portal that doesn't give the discount.

Great expert analysis there.  Is that Ustable Portal great when it gives you 1 and 2 drops that the discount is worthless for?  Late game this card gives you a minion that has value late game, early game it can help your curve if you don't draw a minion on curve.  It has way less RNG and flexability.

You could still have generic quests that add more flavor and encourage deck building.  For example:

 - Deal at least 15 damage to your opponent in one turn.

 - Win X games *against* specific class.

 - Kill X opponents with a weapon.

 - Kill X minions with traps.

The main limitation I see in terms of design space though is that Blizzard seems to want to make quests playable at any level.  So, you can't really have win "X games with Y card in your deck." because new players might not have that card.  Even basic cards, even though they're free, take a while to earn.  So, it would be unfair to them.  The solution would be, just like in WOW, to get more complex quests as you increase in level.  Say, new quests once every class is level 30, 40, 50, 60.  That would also give incentive to play different classes.

This change had to happen not least because it's ultimately what's best for the game long term.  Here are the main reasons I see:

1. Decrease the entry barrier for new players.  You limit the maximum card pool size they need to collect to be competitive.  If there was no standard, you could see that after a few more years of expansions and adventures there could be thousands of cards to collect and hundreds of dollars to spend to by old adventures.
2. Balance.  By putting a time horizon on cards, you limit the damage of any balance missteps.  How many people still call for Dr. Boom to be nerfed today?  Now, he will be phased out soon without having to be nerfed and the community complaining.
3. Natural, cyclical shake up of the meta.  New cards shake up the meta, but it usually only makes certain decks more powerful, while only occasionally giving rise to a new archetype.  But, the removal of cards will shake things up even more and decrease the power of certain decks, which will let new decks rise in their ashes.  And it's on a schedule, so everyone will be able to see it coming and plan accordingly.
4. Design Space. Let's say there was no standard.  Can you imagine in 10 years, the game is still going on.  The card set is 3000 cards.  What a nightmare it would be to design and test cards, to try and predict every broken combo the millions of players might possibly exploit.  The only way to combat that would be to play it safe and not design anything interesting.  With Standard, the designers will be able to make more interesting cards and have confidence they don't break the game.  Or, if the designers want some interesting card effect, but a potential combo is broken, they simply wait till that card is phased out before introducing the new one.

I don't think this has any financial motivations at all honestly.  It doesn't spur people to buy new cards,  Let's be honest, the people who play and love Hearthstone would acquire any new cards Blizz puts out.  This fact will not be changed by Standard.

From the Bliz post:

Time for Reflection
The arrival of Standard format will also be an excellent time for us to take stock of Hearthstone. While normally we’re quite conservative about making balance changes to Hearthstone cards (and we’ll continue to be in the future), we’re planning to take the new Hearthstone year as a golden opportunity to re-evaluate a number of cards in the Basic and Classic card sets, including class cards, and make some long-considered adjustments.

Does anyone want to take any guesses on what this means?  Could it mean they might actually buff some classic cards to make them more inline with current power levels (like make Silverback Patriarch 2/4 taunt)?  Or, what cards from classic were OP?