Hearthpwn

Quote from Ophion1990 »

In arena it seems really bad. You can't really hope to get a bunch of demons, since the chance to get a demon deck is gonna be significantly lower with 120 new cards. Don't see this as a decent pick at all.

5 mana deal 5 damage to a minion is fine in Arena (Compare with Holy Fire, which does it for 6 mana and in Arena has an effect arguably worse if more reliable), so this'll see play.

Seems okay in Constructed, can go in a Demonlock as it either damages or buffs and it is actually pretty solid at both: 5 damage + an effect goes for around 6 (Holy Fire, Starfire), this reduces the mana by 1 in exchange for making it an either-or effect, and +5/+5 is pretty solid (And can amusingly make an insane Jaraxxus). 

This card seems pretty solid in Arena, though, 5 mana 5 damage is quite nice in Arena since 5 damage hits all kinds of goodies and BoK is very good in Arena, so 5 mana +5/+5 seems similiarly solid, you need Demons to enable the buff but that is helped by being able to also serve as removal. Seems like not the top tier pick, but a high tier pick.

Quote from burningskies »

Quote from RukiMotomiya »

"So the best card Shaman is getting is a 2 drop that is fairly vulnerable to dying and makes an already bad Shaman card completely obsolete"

Dust Devil was already obsolete by, well, basically most any other 1/2 drop. Also, Ancestor's Call isn't bad, it just needs appropriate big monsters to function. (Which means it might not shine until further expansions)

Fair point about Dust Devil, but does it help that Blizzard is more or less abandoning the card for the Zap-o-matic? That's the best new Shaman card we have seen and it is still basically just a better version of a bad card. It's good. But not great. Yet it's the best new thing? Sorry for being extremely underwhelmed. And the rest of the new shaman cards we have seen are really dicey.

And Ancestor's Call is bad. Sorry, but it is. The RNG means you must have minimal minions in hand in order to utilize it best. But what really kills the card is, in addition to that, it's an acceleration card that helps accelerate your opponent as well. People are trying really hard to theorycraft around it. It's just not viable. And if you have to wait until some made up future expansion beyond GvG for it to be viable, then that means the card is bad now and will continue to be bad concerning GvG. I mean I certainly haven't seen anything in GvG that helps with its viability. It's beyond silly to rely on some random thing in the future from some expansion that hasn't been announced yet to say a card might (not even guaranteed but might) be good then.

To be fair, the "made up random thing" is...basically minions that cost 8 or more and don't suck, and I am going to guess Blizzard will be making those in the future, Ancestor's Call's problem is basically just that there aren't many superhuge guys out that are really good to bring out early. Also, people need to stop caring about it accelerating the opponent as much: Call, if played right, should put a huge advantage on the board you and that is the important part, especially since as long as anything aside from hyper control/Handlock is played and as long as hyper Control runs things that aren't just huge. And Call might still be viable right now with Malygos, Ysera and Sneed's Old Shredder, maybe Rag, though right now the big guys are probably not big enough for it.

Anyway, my actual thoughts on the card are: Pretty good! This could be interesting in a Control Rogue as a cheaper alternative to Assassinate and a way to destroy weapons in one card or alongside Assassinate in slower formats and has the bonus of being 1 mana earlier and thus hitting the key 4 mana slot vs. Handlock. It also is a bit faster than an Assassinate, which is nice depending on the meta. It costs 1 mana more than Deadly Shot in exchange for being great vs. weapon classes, having rare utility vs. Handlock and having additional synergy with stuff like Blingtron (The difference between Yeti + Blade vs. Blingtron + Sabotage is Blingtron + Sabotage +1s instantly and Yeti + Blade does not, though it is possibly not enough regardless).

It seems like one nice thing about this is it will be a good Arena epic for Rogues: Prep is basically entirely useless in Arena, Kidnapper is basically useless everywhere and Patient Assassin is only okay, Deadly Shot is already quite nice in Arena, so this psuedo-Deadly Shot with upside is a solid Arena pick. Poor Warrior seems in trouble this Arena cycle.

Quote from Balckovic »

Quote from kaworu876 »

Quote from Balckovic »

Why do people always try to justify a rng card, because "it can hit stealth minions". So does Deadly Shot, but is it played....ever? nope. Because RNG sucks balls. 

I happily play Harrison Jones as a vanilla than this card.

Harrison Jones is a good card because it offers card advantage - you don't just kill a weapon, you draw cards and get a creature.  This card is potentially good for the same reason - card advantage.

It's also difficult comparing spells and creatures, particularly when discussing Rogue where a "spell" has greater utility because of cards like Preperation.

But if it's so good and offers such card advantage, then why does Deadly Shot never sees any play? Unless you play it just for the combo effect, and then it's a worse and more expensive Ooze, which isn't that great, too. In miracle, I don't know which card it should replace + it's situational and to "waste" a prep on a card, which doesn't cost 0 mana is not the brightest idea either...

Deadly Shot only doesn't see play because Control Hunter is not a thing. If Control Hunter was a thing, Deadly Shot would see play.

"So the best card Shaman is getting is a 2 drop that is fairly vulnerable to dying and makes an already bad Shaman card completely obsolete"

Dust Devil was already obsolete by, well, basically most any other 1/2 drop. Also, Ancestor's Call isn't bad, it just needs appropriate big monsters to function. (Which means it might not shine until further expansions)

Quote from Tito617 »

GvG should be renamed to RNGvRNG. The only RNG that should exist in a CCG is card draw.

I suppose MTG should be called RNG: The Gathering, then.

Quote from lewins7 »

It's literally impossible for Azure Drake to trade less than 1 for 1, this shouldn't be too difficult to understand.

Well, it isn't literally impossible (Any card that survives hitting it or something like a Rag trades 1-for-1 with it), but it is rather difficult to trade 1-for-1 with it.

In Arena, this card is fine, probably around the same level of Ancient Brewmaster who is a solid Arena pick. 5 attack + Windfury can help finish games, as Windfury's problem has usually been that it is only on below curve creatures, the Overload 1 is a slight bother but not as bad in Arena. It should slot well into 4 into Fire Elementals. It is somewhat of a bother to have only 25% lethal if you need two hits and they have a minion out.

In Constructed, this is significantly worse as decks are more likely to be able to deal with it, the Overload is slightly worse (Because you're more likely to have quality 5-drops like Azure Drake, Loatheb and Sludge Belcher), and the effect is not as good because you are more likely to run into things like taunted Giants, taunted Ancients and whatnot, and you are more able to get sudden burst over this. It could still see play though, especially in a slower meta than a faster one. It's one of those borderline playable cards, where it isn't bad but it won't always have a place as it isn't especially good.

Very good card in Arena! Stranglethorn Tiger is already a good card in Arena and this guy is a 5 mana 6/6 in a format where power is more important, especially since the 50% chance to "miss" is not as relevant, so he's gonna be pretty good. Probably not Oger/Yeti/Tank/Dwarf/Sen'jin level, but that's still very solid. Especially considering this works well with Rogue being able to ping, say, an Ogre, and you can always reduce options for it to hit bad things.

In Constructed, this is probably not going to see much play, but only because big semi-vanilla creatures like this aren't as good in Constructed. It'd b e fun to try a deck with this and Ambusher focused on just getting guys bigger-than-curve out.

Quote from Pilleri »

Quote from kaworu876 »

Quote from Pilleri »

Quote from iandakar »

 

The one thing that makes me unhappy about all this is that Blizzard has not announced they would be removing any of the "obsolete" Classic set commons and rares from The Arena. Drafting luck is going to have a very large role for The Arena success also in the future.

How is this a bad thing?  Isn't it how it should be?  If I have a complain about arena thus far, in an overall sense, it's that drafting engine is too simplistic and too much emphasis is put on play skill, rather than draft skill.  I'm hoping they introduce more "limited" formats in the future.

If I already have 1x 1drop (e.g. Zombie Chow) in my The Arena deck, the deck is supposed to be midrange not aggro, and I am offered the following choice:

1 mana 1 health minion
1 mana 1 health minion
pretty much any other card in the game

...it's not really about "draft skill" to pick the third option almost regardless of what it is. You just need to have fingers crossed for it to be a playable card instead of a terrible card.

This will happen regardless though. And you can't just eliminate all the crappy cards from the game. Plus some 1 mana 1 health minions can be good (Worgen Infiltrator, or if you want an example that doesn't solve the issue Abusive Sergeant can be good in a midrange Arena deck, even if it is never great...but then, Arena should have cards that are not great to pick and that are indeed bad to pick).

EDIT: Also, Warleader will still be a reasonable pick, just slightly worse. Remember that Spider Tank is a single card.

"A 4 mana 3/5 vanilla common is an Arena all-star worthy of a top 10 spot in The Arena 12 run deck lists."

Sen'jin is not a vanilla nor should it be counted as one. The taunt is important a fair amount of the time.

Quote from Pilleri »

Quote from Cam8 »

There are a few cards though that seem powerful for their cost, Mechwarper in particular comes to mind
...

Spider Tank however is a card we needed from Day One to trade more efficiently with 2-drops, but again, it has the sub-type of Mech, and I kind of wish it didn't.

This. In my opinion, Mechwarper and Spider Tank have the potential to become metagame-defining cards post GvsG launch. The good thing about this is that any class with a class Mech of their own can utilize both of them, along with Harvest Golem. So the metagame is not likely to be dominated by a single Mech deck of a single class. BUT there will not be as much incentive to run non-Mechs than before the set, because

1) Spider Tank and Harvest Golem are the most powerful 3 mana neutral minions in the game, and both of them will be Mechs
2) Their synergy with Mechwarper is strong
3) -> why not add 1-2 Mechs more to benefit more from Mechwarper?



Dr. Boom and other 7 mana minions are a welcome addition, since previously almost nobody has been using 7 mana minions in their decks. Prophet Velen and Baron Geddon have occasionally made an appearance, but the consensus so far has been to wait until 8 mana for Ragnaros the Firelord.

Isn't 1) a faulty assumption, though? If we assume Constructed, Spider Tank is only the strongest on stats and Harvest Golem is pretty debatable because its low cost and the 1 health of the damaged Golem make it rather easy to remove, with this presumably mostly working with a Deathrattle + Mech thing, However even then you are only dominating the 3-slot, as your 2 mana play is a 2 mana 2/3, and you're not doing much to compete against something like a Fiery War Axe or Flame Imp, especially if you coin Mechwarper hoping to T2 Tank (Mechwarper gets destroyed, no T2 Tank).

In addition, Spider Tank and Harvest Golem are assumed to be the most powerful 3 drops, but in Constructed (This is rather pointless to discuss in Arena for many reasons) that is pretty debatable. Big Game Hunter is much stronger in a Control or Handlock meta. Shattered Sun Cleric is debatably better because of the buff, especially since it allows 3/2s to even trade with Spider Tanks. Earthen Ring Farseer is better in slower decks and this is not including class cards like Unbound Elemental, Frothing Berserker and Aldor Peacekeeper.  (The new Flamecannon is also really problematic for decks with this structure)

While Spider Tank and Mechwarper will be good, I'm not sure they'll be metagame defining enough to be "Power Creep". They'll be good options, but then you're supposed to add reasonable options, and I'm not entirely convinced these are a ton better than what we have, even if they are fairly good (I'm more worried about Tinkertown Technician, honestly). 

@iandakar: I was more just wondering if they decided to cut Yeti or not, it indeed doesn't affect the point much.

@Pilleri: They can't really just go and remove specific cards from Arena, for a variety of reasons, plus if the mix of good-to-bad Arena cards is roughly equal it will stay around the same overall, especially since for example Spider Tank may not be as useful as Yeti and such. This is another reason formats will be wanted later (To seperate Arenas).

"Arena is a completely different beast.  Yeti is one of the most desired cards in Arena but no viable deck runs it now.  "

Not quoting full post to avoid making a giant quote wall to respond to only one line, but isn't Yeti still used in Ramp Druid?