Hearthpwn

I am in favour of the changes (and usually any changes) to BGs - it is a mode that needs consatnt content refreshes IMO, or it gets stale.

If anything I feel like the lack of new minions with this new update is the problem - I have all the tribes as it stands worked out and have played every possible interpretation of them several times over.

Some of the buddies are OP - they'll be balanced - it is what it is. But I want more minions in the pool that I haven't seen or played with with new and interesting effects...Most of the buddies just double up on stuff we've already seen - I don't find them as exciting as I thought they might be.

Zoo Warlock and Control Warriors with Old Gods that didn't cheese out the game by duping their deck.

Yep you've got to go back to WotoG to find the best meta displayed in the data.

I spent more time on Mercs (maybe 10hrs total) before abandoning it forever.

Duels is the better mode though...still terrible... but better - it's a clownfiesta. If you like clownfiestas I guess I can see why you'd like it. It should have been a lot better than it was - Dungeon Runs were a good time. But in a head-to-head mode the power levels possible remove all sense of player agency. This is something Blizzard needs to re-learn - it is why battlegrounds is popular and remains so, and constructed is getting less popular - flashy broken shit removes player agency.

If you liked Mercs, just buy Darkest Dungeon and don't look back - it costs like 5$ has great atmosphere, depth, difficulty, art....soul. Mercs has zero soul and the depth of a puddle. It's mobile shit-show cow-clicker.

Quote from sanchogrande >>

Quote from Bengalaas >>

IMHO even the nerf to the 1-drop was unnecessary in Standard mode.

 It's silly to have 1-cost 2/2 minions with a desireable effect. 

I'm not sure why you think this deck is not nerfable in standard. It's the top WR and top playrote deck in many tiers. It typically ends games before turn 10, and it has few counters. Traditionally, that all makes for a good nerf target.

 Aren't the top decks now rogue - both theif and poison, libram paladin and control warlock?

Pirate warrior might feature heavily further down the ladder, but you don't see it very much near the top anymore.

Oh and aggro hunter as well...once the masses realise aggro hunter is eating faces again people will switch to it - a lot of the popularity of pirate warrior was due to it's relative cheapness.

Quote from MightyMaus >>

Quote from MyDude33 >>

 Buddy, you just don't understand what they mean. It's more about how they match you with people. Once you find where you're supposed to be in terms of your ranking then you will likely have a win rate close to 50% with some variance because the game mode has a lot of luck involved. This is because you will simply be matched with similarly skilled players ("Worthy Opponents"). 

My rank is around 6500. But if I was able to play players with a ranking of 2500 I guarantee my win rate would be 80% or higher and then taper off as my ranking rises and close in on the 50% mark. Simply by playing against people closer to my level. Not by some forced algorithm. 

 As a developer, I DO understand what it means. The Luck stat itself is literally rigging the game for or against you depending on how well you're doing. Then the pay to get 2 more choices increases your ability to get a better hero by 50%. It's not nefarious, It's not an insult to the game or anything sneaky. It's something they themselves have discussed and a norm in auto-battlers. I don't though, understand how you guys can't understand it.  

Paying to get a 50% chance to get a better hero increases your chance to win exponentially, which is rigging. Adding a luck stat to keep you at 50% is rigging. Even pushing you to play against people better or worse than you based on your w/l and rating is rigging. It's literally all forced algorithms. 

 You keep using the term 'rigging' and then conflating it with stuff like buying the battlepass to increase your odds of getting a good character. I think you are being disingenuous. You know very well that when people say 'rigging' what they mean is the game adjusting an RNG roll to favour an outcome, beyond what is displayed on screen to the players. This they do not do, either in arena, constructed or battlegrounds, yet throughout the game's history smooth brains have tried to suggest that they do. Let it go, deal with your losses and bad luck like a normal person.

Ok, so armor in battlegrounds was/is great - it has totally smoothed the difference between good and bad heroes.

However - using it as a way to make lazy balance changes rather than spicing things up more with actual hero power adjustments isn't cool. it is important for the Battlegrounds experience to keep changing, and not for it to stagnate.

Quote from 3nnu1 >>

There have been tons of bots in hearthstone for years. Some people try to deny it, they are the same ones who will tell you the game is not rigged. 

 There are many bots in hearthstone, there have been for a long time. Aggro shaman bots were quite common once and that was years ago. They were a good deal harder to spot than the hero power/rope variety that is way more common (and obvious) these days.

That has sweet fuck all to do with hearthstone being rigged, or the people that claim it isn't (the sane). The people that will deny it are the vast vast  majority. You are the crazy paraoid minority mate, with zero evidence except your own paranoia and inability to accept your losses as fair.

Quote from FortyDust >>

Quote from Xssx >>

 An opinion can be wrong, but not stupid.

 

 I don't know who told you this, but it's incorrect.

An opinion based on misinformation, ignorance, lack of research, or closed-mindedness is stupid, even if it turns out to be correct for the wrong reasons. I'm not saying your opinion on the meta is any of those things, but opinions can definitely be stupid.

I will say it's EXTREMELY premature to talk about a meta at all less than a week after the launch of a new expansion.

 Other people's not stupid opinion 

3³ = 9

Owl Warlock is the new hotness, but I'm not convinced it's all that good, just feels that way when the OTK comes together fast, but most of the time it does not. Quest Warrior still seems crazy strong. Not had much time to develop impressions other than that, I've been enjoying more Battlegrounds and Arena (which seems really fun at the moment).

Armor for the shitty heroes has rekindled my interest and fun in the mode for now. The gap between the the top and the bottom tier isn't just smaller in theory and stats - you can feel it as a player. I still want more variety and cool shit in the game. I appreciated what they tried to do with Diablo even though in practice it was a bit of a failure. BGs is game mode where variety is vital, I'm cool with experimenting like that, just don't leave the mode to stagnate - it gets old very quickly without constant changes.

Was Moonfang that great? I mean, it saw/sees some very niche play but...

Its just a replacement Grommash. No need to worry about it going into pirate warrior, except the slowest control varieties. It's not easy to get 15 armor without playing a control deck with warrior right now.

The tower is cool, this card just sucks though. It's just fancy card draw, where you force a good result with big spells. We've seen stuff like it many times before - super boring effect for a legendary with nice art.

Nice flavour

It is frustrating that they turned pirate warrior (standard, not even going into wild) into a deck for idiots to get wins with. They saw from the numbers it was a popular deck - even prior to MR smite or even the buffs. I mean lets be clear- at expansion lauch the deck was WEAK. They buffed it hard becasue they saw people were playing with it in large numbers anyway.

The reason it's popular is becasue it was minion based, and it didn't just play itself - it was the only viable minion based mid-range deck that played out in a kinda traditional hearthstone way (and it really wasn't that viable at sub-50 winrate). Now they've buffed it to the moon and added Mr Smite it is no longer fun to play, and closer to 60% winrate. It feels dirty like pre-nerf warlock/mage - I know by playing it I am ruining the game for my opponent, and wins aren't satisfying with broken play after broken play.

The lesson Blizzard need learn from this is dial it back a bit, go back to minion based combat, and less BS decks designed to give Timmy wins and completely remove the game from your opponent. Less High rolls, less broken shit, less damage from nowhere. More minions with cool effects that don't immediately (or within three turns) win the game, and room to play them. FFS Blizzard, deal with power creep.