Hearthpwn

She has a very good assortment of nature spells to trigger off of and could lead to some heavy turns.  Just need a good win or board condition setup to really push it.  I like it.

Quote from yepapapepeap >>

you think that is an argument for hearthstone not being predatory? that Gatcha games are worse??
that is like saying kicking and hitting someone is not violence because shooting someone does more damage

if anything they are an inspiration, look at the c'thun package, another time limited purchase option that did not used to be there

 Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you still get C'Thun when you open your first Whispers of the Old Gods pack?  I believe that was the change they made back in 2017 or 2018.  I just checked and WotOG packs are available for gold in the shop so its not a time-limited purchase.  As for the Gatcha comparison, you misunderstood what I said and are trying to twist it.  I never said Hearthstone wasn't playing into that.  What I did say was that it it's nowhere as bad as the flood of Gatcha games on the market.  To use a violence example like you did; Hearthstone is a slap to the face compared to the Gatcha games being a baseball bat to the knee asking you where their money is.

I have been playing about 20 or so matches with this deck over the past 5 days and I have some comments.  Please note that these are based on mid-progression play with an unknown MMR

• Ramp is the way. Most often mulligan for at least one source, two if you can.
• Getting the right card off of Nature Studies is a crapshoot, but certain cards are very good takes. Worthy Expedition is a very strong pull as of the 18 “Choose One” cards have a decent usage and can help you out at times.
• N'Zoth, God of the Deep loves to get pulled out from Strength in Numbers and when that happens you’ll be on your back foot against many classes
• Against Demon Hunter you should expect to get your board cleared easily by a Blade Dance turn. Holding or mulliganning for Lunar Eclipse will help you survive the early game some, but you really need to get some level of AOE from Nature Studies to clear the minion rush out.  It’s a very hard matchup and I think I lost most of my matches to a Blade Dance turn clearing my entire board of taunts.
• When playing against Warlocks expect them to have Cascading Disaster and play around it by keeping no more than 2 minions on board at a time to make it inefficient to use. That said, it is another hard matchup due to the amount of removal they pack and some of their removal’s synergy with the Y'Shaarj, the Defiler.
• Hunter, Mage, & Rogue thus far have been more about reading and predicting what their secrets are more than anything else. Figuring out which one it is can make or break your game.  Some secrets like Freezing Trap, Shadow Clone, and Mirror Entity are particularly dangerous for a big minion deck like this
• Priest and Warrior is all about wondering how they’ll clear your board next. Best suggestion is try and same the N’zoth swing turn for after they’ve used at least 1 Plague of Death or Brawl
• Shaman and Paladin are really about surviving the early game and then being able to apply the pressure. These are matchups that you want to select defensive/recovery spells from Nature Studies as you may need them.

Quote from yepapapepeap >>

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

@3nnu1

So, the most I've ever spent in the post-duplicate protection era was $220 for one expansion, but that was unusually high, because I had basically been unable to play much of the 4 months before it, so I didn't have any gold saved up at all.

A more reasonable estimate is $150-190 per expansion, which represents either the bigger pre-order or both pre-orders plus one batch of the largest regular pack bundle.  Whether or not I get both preorders depends on how many gold packs I'll be able to get, as well as whether or not it's the first expansion of a year.  The first expansion of a year is always cheapest, because I will have a few cards I'm confident will never be played in wild that I can disenchant for some extra dust.  Occasionally, I can get it down to $80 for the preorder only, if I have a particularly heavy gold / disenchanted dust run.

So, when it all averages out, a liberal estimate is $500 per year.  I've had years when it was less, but never more than that.  And yes, of course that's a huge amount of money to spend, but it's a trivial amount of my discretionary budget, so it just doesn't matter to me all that much.

 

EDIT:  To give some idea of comparison, it was NEVER possible for me to put a full set together for less than $250 prior to duplicate protection, and it could sometimes break the $300 mark, though usually by then, you could dust craft almost everything.

EDIT 2:  I have watched some Runeterra, and so far, I'm not a fan of the priority system.  I'm having flashbacks to the original attempts to take Magic the gathering online, and translating the priority stack to a digital game was a nightmare.  For game design reasons, I hate the banked mana pool (I believe it's called "spell mana") from the previous turn, and the way they have differing classes of spells that effect the priority stack differently is not something I really want to mess with right now.  And if I did want to do something like that, I'd just get back into Magic.

 an average of 500 dollars pr year, I thought lawyers was suppose to be smart...

if you cannot see that is insane expensive compared to any other game then I confirm you a blizzard spy

$500 a year on a Free to play game is nothing.  That’s less than $42 a month, which is cheaper than getting a daily coffee from Starbucks on the way to work (about $60 a month).  Which gives more enjoyment?  The coffee or the game?  Now if we look at a typical CCG, you’ll spend $800 annually or more as many have 4 sets a year and a booster box will run you around $100, which is only 36 packs.  Is Hearthstone expensive?  Yes it is.  Is it more expensive then It was?  No.  Is it unrealistically expensive?  No.

Quote from Madcookie >>

Quote from Asuryan >>

I see Hearthstone as a CCG, not a video game. Coming from an MtG background, HS is incredibly cheap. I don’t get what all the fuss is about.

 Good point to someone who misses the fact that when you buy paper MTG the cards are yours unlike this digital jpegs that you don't even own. On top of that you can sell your MTG cards at any point, sometimes even at higher price compared to what you bought them for, while selling your account is much more difficult, if not prohibited.

 As someone who has played 5 or 6 different physical TCG’s over the past 20+ years I have to interject.  While some cards do accrue in value, the vast majority of your collection (99%+) will be worth pennies.  There is a massive fallacy in treating TCG’s as having any long lasting value that has been created by MTG’s “Power Nine” (or alpha/beta rares) and the nostalgia value of some Pokemon cards.  Outside of these exceptions, inherent value in the cards drives the market price.  Once cards leave the standard tournament scene they lose a lot of value. Yes there are legacy formats, but by and large you don’t see the same market price.  Let’s not even talk about reprints and their impact.  This leaves your “monetary recoupment” at pennies on the dollar spent.  Great job!  You sold your collection of 30,000 cards that you spent $8000 for $400 bucks.  But, you’ll say, Hearthstone makes no money back!  Which you are correct,  but you also miss a huge difference.  Hearthstone provides avenues to greatly reduce expenses:  duplicate protection; crafting of cards; packs from gold (ftp).  Which is better?  Putting more money in and getting a little back out at the end or putting less in initially in the first place?

I can already see this going into the Malygos Druid that uses Saytr to discount this/Maly.  That first Moonfire trigger's the burst to refresh all 10 crystals and then its off to the races.

Blistering Rot needs some initial value if its going to be played in the mid to late game.  Take for example hitting it with Ironbark, you then have two 2/5 (edit: 1 with Taunt) minions for 3 to 5 mana.  Sand Breath or Call to Adventure might be better fits for a Paladin deck.

I wonder if Betrayal would turn the adjacent minions into Infectious Sporeling if they survived.

Overgrowth looks like a lot of fun.  Turn 2 Breath of Dreams, Turn 3 Overgrowth, Turn 4  have 7 mana.

Divine Shield Enraged Grommash Hellscream anyone?