They didn't screw up this year. They screwed up BAD last year. This year we are paying the price as they have to clean up.
This is the best way to summarize it !
Also, your long post was nice ;). I already knew the basics of what you're saying (mostly reading out of curiosity), but your point is well documented and well written, argumentation is pretty clear, good job !
I would really like to be able to buy the old adventures in Gold. Having started around MSG, I bought Karazhan with gold accross several months (doing dailies and playing arena, while saving gold slowly). And it was a lot of fun, as well as some good card value !
I sometime play the previous adventures again, with new decks, for example the Lich King with Spell Hunter. And I would really like to play the old adventures and mess with them with various decks, but I don't like being stuck behind a paywall, just because I was not there when they first came out... I wouldn't even mind not getting the card rewards, just enjoying this PvE experience would be nice.
Just compare this with Spiritsinger Umbra. If you have 2 Umbra and you play a deathrattle minion, it triggers twice. If you have 3 Umbra, playing a minion triggers its deathrattle 3 times.
This is just the same thing. You have 2 gonks, you overkill a minion -> you can attack two additional times.
Before Rastakan, this was not good because : 1) Not enough draw (now we have master's call, which might change things) 2) There was no deck where this would have been good. Spell Hunter is a no-no because you don't want minions in your deck ; Cube hunter did not have enough beasts, and would often rather draw a cube or deathrattle trigger rather than a boosted beast ; Secret Hunter maybe but you might not have enough beast to be SURE of having a target.
Now with Rastakan, we might see some new "Beast Hunter" deck with Master's Call, and in THIS deck, dire frenzy might end up being useful.
Somewhat related : Also note that giants (and most probably Shirvallah, since it's basically the same effect) have their original non-discounted cost while on the board. For example, if you try to use unstable evolution on a Sea Giant, while having several minions on board (thus its cost reduced below 10), it will evolve in a 11-mana minion, because the reduction is not applied.
Thus, when baleful banker copies it, it copies a non-cost-reduced Shirvallah (since it keeps its full cost on board). And the cost reduction effect is then applied ONLY when Shirvallah is in your hand.
Thing that I would be interested in knowing : If the only spell you ever casted during a game was Luna's pocket galaxy, and Shirvllah was still in your deck, what's its cost when later drawn ? Is it 1 because the galaxy "erases" the normal discount, or 0 because it's 1 - 7 (galaxy's effect then discount), or is it 18 if the discount erases galaxy's effect ? Same question with a lucky Academic espionage.
And somewhat worse than RNG, some game boards have just no replay value. Take the Stormwind board for example (the normal, not the Old Gods one). You can break a bunch of things (boxes, sign, windows, well, ...), but then they stay broken and you can't do anything with them. Sure there's still the clock that moves (sloooowly), the bell that can ring and you can open/shut the door, but that's so ridiculous, it becomes boring after like 5 seconds ! All that's left is the Griffin, and even that is not really entertaining. What am I supposed to do, play with the griffin during the 10+ min I'm roping my opponent because I don't like his deck ? Come on Blizzard, give us some more interesting boards !
At least wait for the first ViciousSyndicate meta report (usually ~10 days after release), they have a pretty good insight on what is good and what isn't. If you want to be extra safe and not waste any single dust, wait for the 2nd ViciousSyndicate report (1 week after the first).
exactly, you won't be able to beat every deck. no deck can.
Isn't tier 1 defined that it should bea ble to beat every deck consistently? Maybe I understand the tier system wrong, but I always understood it like that that they were the crème de la crème that could beat anything everytime, unless you are terribly unlucky, other than other tier 1 decks.
Nope, that's not how it works.
A Tier 1 deck is a deck that has the best average winrate against the current field of decks (including their popularity). If a deck is extremely popular, and counter-deck that has a very high winrate against it can be Tier 1 even if it loses (on average) to every other deck. Deck tiers can thus vary depending on variations in popularities of current decks.
Consider the extreme example of a Rock-Paper-Scissor game. Imagine that currently, 50% of players play Rock, 30% play Paper, and 20% play Scissor. Then Paper would be a "Tier 1 deck" because it wins 50% of its games, while losing only 20% (and 30% draws). But if players then realize that, Paper will probably become more popular, and Scissor (which was Tier 4 due to its horrible winrate against too many Rocks) will become Tier 1 in its place.
An I don't know why people think this will refresh any mana crystals, where on the card does it say you refresh or gain any mana crystals?
Well, it does not say "empty" either, so...
No, you are not GAINING any mana crystals. If you lose mana crystals, why would the mana crystals you already used be refilled? Nobody thought Surrender to Madness would refil your mana crystals, because that would make no sense. It makes just as little sense here.
Well, what would happen if you are at 3 mana crystals when you cast this, thanks to coin + 2 innervate ? Or thanks to pint-sized summoner, summoning portal, or unstable portal ? Then you would get to 5 crystals from 3, thus you definitely do not LOSE mana crystals.
It's neither "lose" nor "gain", it's "set" which has never been used before. Thus we cannot be sure how it works until we have confirmation
You collection is pretty weak. Unless you want to put some actual money into it, I would recommend you stick with playing Whizbang (which you already have, great !) and grind gold and dust by doing quests. Whizbang decks are not ultra-competitive-Tier-1, but they are on average better than anything you could build with your current collection. AND it's really fun to play with a random deck among 18 possibilities each game.
Since you've been out for a long time, I also recommend you check the single player content, it's a lot of fun, and can help you discover new cards and improve at the game, at no cost ! If you haven't done it yet, last year's Knight of the Frozen Throne adventure gives you a free legendary (DK) when you complete the prologue.
The App is great, but as for the website I much prefer ViciousSyndicate. ViciousSyndicate has less data (sadly, due to fewer players sharing their data), but their archetype detection algorithms are much better (and thus winrates more accurate). They also provide great meta analysis, weekly (except nerf or expac release weeks, when the meta is far too unstable to analyse), with graphs. And everything is free.
5
Gul'Dan is by far the single best hero card. His hero power is insanely good, and his battlecry is very powerful too.
I'd say something more like this :
Tier 0 :
- Gul'Dan
Tier 1 :
- Rexxar
- Jaina
- maybe Zul'Jin (his battlecry is absurdly good, but his hero power is meh)
Tier 2 :
- Malfurion
- Hagatha
- Dr Boom
Tier 3 :
- Valeera
- Anduin
- Uther
Tier 4 :
- Thrall (ok-ish)
- Garrosh (trash)
1
This is the best way to summarize it !
Also, your long post was nice ;). I already knew the basics of what you're saying (mostly reading out of curiosity), but your point is well documented and well written, argumentation is pretty clear, good job !
0
I would really like to be able to buy the old adventures in Gold.
Having started around MSG, I bought Karazhan with gold accross several months (doing dailies and playing arena, while saving gold slowly). And it was a lot of fun, as well as some good card value !
I sometime play the previous adventures again, with new decks, for example the Lich King with Spell Hunter.
And I would really like to play the old adventures and mess with them with various decks, but I don't like being stuck behind a paywall, just because I was not there when they first came out... I wouldn't even mind not getting the card rewards, just enjoying this PvE experience would be nice.
0
Just compare this with Spiritsinger Umbra. If you have 2 Umbra and you play a deathrattle minion, it triggers twice. If you have 3 Umbra, playing a minion triggers its deathrattle 3 times.
This is just the same thing. You have 2 gonks, you overkill a minion -> you can attack two additional times.
0
Wait, did you just have 1 Gonk ?
You know the stacking only works when you have multiple Gonks, right ?
0
Before Rastakan, this was not good because :
1) Not enough draw (now we have master's call, which might change things)
2) There was no deck where this would have been good. Spell Hunter is a no-no because you don't want minions in your deck ; Cube hunter did not have enough beasts, and would often rather draw a cube or deathrattle trigger rather than a boosted beast ; Secret Hunter maybe but you might not have enough beast to be SURE of having a target.
Now with Rastakan, we might see some new "Beast Hunter" deck with Master's Call, and in THIS deck, dire frenzy might end up being useful.
0
Somewhat related : Also note that giants (and most probably Shirvallah, since it's basically the same effect) have their original non-discounted cost while on the board.
For example, if you try to use unstable evolution on a Sea Giant, while having several minions on board (thus its cost reduced below 10), it will evolve in a 11-mana minion, because the reduction is not applied.
Thus, when baleful banker copies it, it copies a non-cost-reduced Shirvallah (since it keeps its full cost on board). And the cost reduction effect is then applied ONLY when Shirvallah is in your hand.
Thing that I would be interested in knowing : If the only spell you ever casted during a game was Luna's pocket galaxy, and Shirvllah was still in your deck, what's its cost when later drawn ? Is it 1 because the galaxy "erases" the normal discount, or 0 because it's 1 - 7 (galaxy's effect then discount), or is it 18 if the discount erases galaxy's effect ? Same question with a lucky Academic espionage.
5
Yeah, I totally agree !
And somewhat worse than RNG, some game boards have just no replay value.
Take the Stormwind board for example (the normal, not the Old Gods one). You can break a bunch of things (boxes, sign, windows, well, ...), but then they stay broken and you can't do anything with them. Sure there's still the clock that moves (sloooowly), the bell that can ring and you can open/shut the door, but that's so ridiculous, it becomes boring after like 5 seconds ! All that's left is the Griffin, and even that is not really entertaining. What am I supposed to do, play with the griffin during the 10+ min I'm roping my opponent because I don't like his deck ?
Come on Blizzard, give us some more interesting boards !
0
At least wait for the first ViciousSyndicate meta report (usually ~10 days after release), they have a pretty good insight on what is good and what isn't.
If you want to be extra safe and not waste any single dust, wait for the 2nd ViciousSyndicate report (1 week after the first).
0
Nope, that's not how it works.
A Tier 1 deck is a deck that has the best average winrate against the current field of decks (including their popularity).
If a deck is extremely popular, and counter-deck that has a very high winrate against it can be Tier 1 even if it loses (on average) to every other deck.
Deck tiers can thus vary depending on variations in popularities of current decks.
Consider the extreme example of a Rock-Paper-Scissor game. Imagine that currently, 50% of players play Rock, 30% play Paper, and 20% play Scissor. Then Paper would be a "Tier 1 deck" because it wins 50% of its games, while losing only 20% (and 30% draws).
But if players then realize that, Paper will probably become more popular, and Scissor (which was Tier 4 due to its horrible winrate against too many Rocks) will become Tier 1 in its place.
0
Well, what would happen if you are at 3 mana crystals when you cast this, thanks to coin + 2 innervate ? Or thanks to pint-sized summoner, summoning portal, or unstable portal ?
Then you would get to 5 crystals from 3, thus you definitely do not LOSE mana crystals.
It's neither "lose" nor "gain", it's "set" which has never been used before. Thus we cannot be sure how it works until we have confirmation
0
Well, it does not say "empty" either, so...
1
First week after release, this will crash the game.
THEN they will try fixing it.
1
You collection is pretty weak. Unless you want to put some actual money into it, I would recommend you stick with playing Whizbang (which you already have, great !) and grind gold and dust by doing quests. Whizbang decks are not ultra-competitive-Tier-1, but they are on average better than anything you could build with your current collection. AND it's really fun to play with a random deck among 18 possibilities each game.
Since you've been out for a long time, I also recommend you check the single player content, it's a lot of fun, and can help you discover new cards and improve at the game, at no cost !
If you haven't done it yet, last year's Knight of the Frozen Throne adventure gives you a free legendary (DK) when you complete the prologue.
2
The App is great, but as for the website I much prefer ViciousSyndicate.
ViciousSyndicate has less data (sadly, due to fewer players sharing their data), but their archetype detection algorithms are much better (and thus winrates more accurate).
They also provide great meta analysis, weekly (except nerf or expac release weeks, when the meta is far too unstable to analyse), with graphs.
And everything is free.