Review for the Year of the Raven announcement
About damn time. This announcement took too long. Mammoth was announced way earlier then this was. Well, at least we'll have the next expansion announce in a week or two. Now to the announcement
Hall of Fame Rotations
Ice Block
Everyone saw this coming. Crutch Block needed to go. It allowed bad mages to play like dummies all match and get free wins because they had get out of jail free cards. It wouldn't have been an issue if there was good secret counters, or a way to counter this card, but there isn't. So goodbye Crutch Block. You will not be missed.
Coldlight Oracle
Another expected and well reasoned removal. Coldlight has been in a shitload of decks all year, especially for Mages since it gave them even more card draw for their combo decks. It's drawback wasn't even a drawback as people who play Coldlight WANT their opponents to draw cards, as it brings them closer to fatigue. Coldlight leaving kills what little tools Mill Rogue had left, not that it mattered since Mill decks are fun decks anyway. It pains me to see Coldlight go Hall of Fame since it was a great card draw engine for classes with shit carddraw, like Hunter and Rogue (Pre-K&C), but if Coldlight had to go for the greater good, then I can accept that.
Molten Giant
OH MY GOD! BLIZZARD ACTUALLY LISTENED FOR ONCE! Not only did Molten get rotated like we requested, but they also reverted the nerf too! This means so many old decks that were killed after the Molten nerf are viable again. The question whether this will mean Handlock will come back from the dead is yet to be seen, especially since Wild Cubelock is just flatout better then Handlock ever was. But it's so great to see Molten is finally a good card again. If we could see more buffs and nerf reverts in the future, that would be fantastic.
Easier Quests
I don't know anyone who asked for this, but I'm glad it's happening anyway. A lot of these quests are just so infuriating to do, to the point where everyone I know just rerolls them. Not only are they getting easier, but they're rewarding more gold too. Will this help with the new player experience and the other free to plays whomhave trouble keeping up due to how expensive the game is? Probably not, but that's a separated topic altogether.
Tournament Mode
Tournament Mode was possibly the most requested Hearthstone feature, ever! It was on the top of the mew gamemode poll Hearthpwn had, has been begged to be implemented for years, and has been exclusive to China for a long time too which angered the rest of the playerbase. Well now, we're finally getting it, and I really love how they're doing this. You have the option to play at home against strangers around the world, or at a Fireside Gathering, and even form your own. The tournaments are even running on the HCT competitive formats too, which I really love as we see some really creative decks come out of the Conquest format. Hell, just the announcement of Tournament Mode makes Firesides actually worth it now, as table game shops can hold their own grassroot tournaments now. This in my opinion is the highlight of the announcement, since we've wanted this for so long, and it looks like they didn't fuck it up.
Lunara Druid Portrait
We finally got our Druid portrait, and wow it looks stunning. I love Lunara, so I'm really happy to see she's gonna be the free new year portrait.
Verdict
The announcement should have been a week sooner instead of so close to the announcement of the 1st expansion. They took way too long just for a simple Hall of Fame announcement. The Tournament Mode announcement is huge, though it probably could've been a separate Developer Update since it's not even in beta yet and they've hardly revealed any of the features. The hero is great, and I look forward to that. Another plus that no one seems to have picked up on, is the fact that we got zero announcements of a Heroic Brawl. Last year the two Heroic Brawls had announcements at the beginning of Year of the Mammoth, so it seems they've listened to the negative backlash of them and the new Brawliseums will be replacing them, which is fine since they work just like Arena, just with constructed decks.
Now there are a couple negatives I wanna address. Firstly, the fact there are no more Adventures. Look. I don't like the three expansions with single player missions in each one. The single player missions were short, had terrible rewards, no Heroic Mode, and weren't as great as Blackrock and League of Explorers were. Not to mention Adventures were perfect for F2Ps since you were guaranteed all the cards, and the cards Adventures offered are much bigger and inventive then any expansion can offer. Quality over quantity everytime.
Secondly, I don't like the new teasers. I can't make any guesses with them, and they also kill any chance for an Alliance vs Horde expansion. With Mammoth, you had clear teasers: Jungle plants for Un'goro, icy Death Knight runes for Frozen Throne, and treasure for Kobolds & Catacombs. But now I have no clue. Again, this is a personal gripe.
It was a good announcement in the end. The Tournament Mode announcement alone was what sealed the deal, so I'm gonna give the announcement an 8/10. If it was sooner or if the clues were better, I'd give it a 9. We'll have to wait and see what the new year brings us once we get that QnA, and the 1st expansion is revealed next month.
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Blizzard tweeted that the final card dump will be on 3 april
source
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Gonk was disappointing, this is even more disappointing
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This card would be good if it came with a 5/6 dragon body...
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Coldlight Oracle died for this
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Pretty good with Gorehowl
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its a bad druid spell lol
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Nice hand reading card
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10 mana 8/8 do nothing in hunter the turn you play it....... this is trash tier
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only hero card is for shaman
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You can click the picture to see where it will be revealed