Hearthpwn

Quote from Moonsorrow >>

Quote from GiantHaystacks >>

It's fine but its shelf life will be very short.  They're not likely to print any more Protoss or Zerg cards (until the inevitable Starcraft II tie-in) so this expansion will be mostly forgotten in a year.

Still, it's a nice distraction for a bit.

 It’s not an expansion it’s a mini set, and the packages particularly Zerg are very strong, it’s even made DK playable in wild. Much better to have an impactful mini set with nothing inherently broken than one low impact that has 1 or 2 outliers like usual. 

 For sure. I can't remember a time that the mini-set completely changed the meta like this one has. I don't typically play Wild, but it says something if it's affected the Wild meta even slightly, as that's a much taller order. 

Quote from b1ak1ce >>

better than most, because its forced archetypes are impactful enough to run and big enough to force build-arounds.

Its strength is also its biggest weakness, save for a few of them, you will never run just one or two SC cards for their utility in another strategy.

Meta-wise, some strategies are too high rolly and old bullshit like dungar and handbuff hunter prevent the meta from being good.

 While I agree with you on it being unfortunate that old decks like Dungar Druid prevent the meta from being good, isn't that kind of always the case with the mini-sets? They're so few cards that they are never able to fully shake-up the meta in a meaningful way. I'd honestly prefer four full-blown expansions without mini-sets each year over three with mini-sets for this reason. (I know it would be more expensive, but this is really the only video game I've played for years, so I do feel like the fun is at least somewhat consistent with the cost.)

Quote from lv426a11 >>

I think point 1 is the real downside.  Only time will tell if this mini-set becomes the true meta, but if it does, pretty much half of every deck will be identical because there's no point going "half-in".

Imo this is the worst approach to card design and leads to either:

a) all the cards being used (because its top tier), or b) none of the cards being used (because its trash tier).

I say this knowing that it's difficult to design new, interesting, and balanced cards.  The "forced synergy" is arguably a lazy way of ensuring that balance is more controllable as future sets are released

 

 

 

I guess I have to agree with you on this being a bad approach to card design. To your point, this expansion makes me totally uninterested in playing Druid because their Protoss cards just aren't good compared to the other stuff Druid can do (Dungar nonsense). I do find it interesting though that I'm having fun with cards that I believe you've correctly identified as being poorly designed. Historically in Hearthstone, I've equated poor design with a complete absence of fun (looking at you, United in Stormwind Questlines...). 

Curious to hear what everyone is thinking about the mini-set so far. I'm actually enjoying ladder more now than I have in a long time. For me, I've really enjoyed that the mini-set is very board-based. It feels more like OG Hearthstone to me. I've mostly been playing Terran decks, and the shift from launching one big Starship, to lots of little ones for cheap has been really enjoyable (if only moderately successful from a WR perspective).

The two main things I'm NOT enjoying about this expansion (or at least questioning) are: 

1. It's taken away A LOT from deckbuilding. If you're going to use ONE of the mini-set cards, you're pretty much using all 15 that are available to you, so your deckbuilding choices are very limited. I guess this could be a pro or con. I think deckbuilding SHOULD be a major/fun part of Hearthstone, but for people who don't find that aspect as enjoyable, this could be a good thing. 

2. The DK Zerg deck is very pervasive. It gets a little old, even though I don't see it as overly powerful or unbeatable. I do wish there was more interesting silence than Librarian though. (I think DK Zerg is becoming ubiquitous enough at this point where at least considering silence tech is reasonable.)

How is everyone else feeling? I know the forums tend to bias strongly in the negative direction, but I'm having fun, and it doesn't feel like the meta has been figured out yet. 

Quote from Gusty >>

This is a good video explaining how the portal works - Everything About Kil'jaeden! | Hearth Tech Special

 Wow this is comprehensive. Thank you for the link! It's interesting to me that they made such a complicated and unintuitive card. I like the card - don't get me wrong, but when someone has been playing HS for almost a decade and really can't tell how a card functions, I think that may be a sign it's overly-complicated. 

So plagues do nothing. And the opponent would never draw the Head because it would get instantly deleted for not being a demon.

Can anyone explain some of the deeper mechanics behind the Kil'Jaeden portal? I was in a game today where my opponent played Kil'Jaeden, and then played Headless Horseman. How does this work? Would he ever draw the head? Does the game literally treat the portal like a deck with infinite cards so he technically could draw it, but there's a 0.00000000000001% chance? I think I also shuffled plagues into his deck, and I had no idea if that mattered or not.

Other than Druid being moderately annoying, I am liking the meta. I do kind of hate Swipe being back. Having that and Yogg really shores up one of Druid’s main weaknesses and they can often feel like they’re having incredible turns time and time and time again.

But have they said when to expect nerfs? I would have thought it would have been before now

I hope they nerf maybe one or two Painlock cards, but certainly not all of them. I think increasing the mana on Imprisoned Horror, or decreasing stats on Infernal would be reasonable, though changing stats on infernal would make it inconsistent with other infernals. 

I’ve also never seen Vona be useful. She’s pretty slow and Painlock as normally either won or lost by the time she would get played in my experience. 

Easily the best legendary of the set. Oh wait…

I agree that Arfus is incredible. I think I’m 9-1 in first 10 games with him. If you are able to drop Azerite Ox on turn 4, it’s usually GG.

Interesting! I’ll give that a shot. Thanks!

Is anyone else having an issue with Arena? I can't start a new run on my computer, but it lets me do it on mobile. (Not sure if they've already acknowledged this as an issue, but I figured someone on Hearthpwn would know.)

I predicted this announcement in a comment yesterday. Good to see movement in the right direction. I have to say though, I am always a little confused by comments on how Blizz is just making a money grab or is greedy. Of course they are making money grabs - they’re a business. Hearthstone exists to make money. The real issue I think is 1) communication and 2) how dramatic some of these profit-driven changes are. It would be like if McDonalds’s sales were slumping, so they decided to change the price of a burger from $5 to $20 overnight. No one would want to buy a burger because they don’t feel like that new price is the “value”. If Blizz wanted to really up the quest requirements, doing so incrementally over time would FEEL less egregious (though the ultimate impact would be the same). I’m surprised they don’t have a PR or Communications team that is flagging some of these changes as poor community relations. 
 It’s nice to see that the community can have an impact though if we all come to a consensus on something. 

I love this game and have been playing since GvG. I normally JUST get the 5 standard wins each week. There’s absolutely no way I would EVER get 15 wins in a week, especially in multiple modes. I guess I’ll be re-rolling the wins quests until I get the Battecry quest and can hopefully get it via a couple of Murloc-centric BG games.

Seriously though, this is going to turn A LOT of people off to the game. It’s just too much of an increase with minimal upside. I have a feeling they will reverse this (somewhat) in the coming weeks if the community backlash is strong enough.