Hearthpwn

Quote from OverholtNA >>

It's a 9 mana play that doesn't affect the board. The hero power is largely useless against combo, and it takes a lot going right to find a situation where you can safely play it again aggro or midrange unless you've managed to get a Doomsayer off. And even then, your wellies can often be removed from hand before you stabilize with the lifesteal.

It's a very strong card, but putting on the same level as Deathstalker Rexxar or Ghoul Man seems a bit much to me. The latter two have both been staples in T1 decks. Has control Mage ever hit that level?

 I very much believe that the Hero Card Power Standings are Rexxar, Jaina, and then Gul'dan. Gul'dan feels more powerful than it is because decks are built around it. Decks don't have to be built around Jaina, besides needing to live to turn 9. Gul'dan's lifesteal doesn't matter at full life, whereas water elementals even when the lifesteal is irrelevant can trade on board and freeze key enemy minions.

This is a different way to combat aggro decks. Aggro needs to damage you asap and keep the damage rolling, while this card produces early game value when that archetype is faced. It's cool to see an anti-aggro strategy that doesn't revolve around taunts or cheap board clears.

Then it's just a matter of how good and how consistent random druid spells are.

Quote from Padge >>

Quote from AntonydusWurm >>

what i really want to make clear here, you don't need to buy any packs with real money. it's completely unnecessary, i rarely even play the game at all anymore. maybe earn 80 gold a day maximum and when i look at my collection - the card amount is the same or even more than from the expansion i bought money packs from. the only difference is + 3 to 5 legendaries more and a couple more epics. cards that don't see play regardless.

please just stop wasting your money on cards that have 0 real world value, just glorified pixels. thanks!

 You do realise that if everyone listened to you and noone spent nay money on the game, it would generate zero revenue and just shut down? 

Free to play players are fine but when they start lecturing people about funding a game that then enables them to play for zero cost, I lose a lot of respect for them as a person  

Same with people who are 'proud' they've never spent a penny. Congratulations on being a free loader. 

To answer the op, probably around £100/£150, I started playing when koft had been out for a bit.

 I'm here today to share some economic consideration with you, who have not presented a rational view of things.

First off, cross-marketing. When you're in the B.net client loading up your game of Hearthstone, what surrounds you are other games that profit Blizzard - from their point of view it doesn't matter which Blizzard game you spend money on, as long as it's a Blizzard game. The B.net client itself acts as consistent advertising and environmental encouragement toward their desires.

Second off - content cross-branding. You may have noticed that the content of Blizzard games cross-brand to a ridiculous degree. Many Hearthstone cards, for example, are taken from World of Warcraft. They learned this technique (and others) from the father of modern media and animation capitalism, Disney. What this does is, to an extent, teach the player different Blizzard games while playing one, and deepening their appreciation for Blizzard lore, thus encouraging them to play multiple Blizzard games.

Third off - the value of time and attention. Any time a player spends in a Blizzard game is not time spent doing something else, such as playing the game of a competitor. That player then talks to his friends about the Blizzard game, and while he himself may spend $0 on Blizzard games his friend may end up spending thousands. This is called Market Share, and it doesn't require payment from everyone in the market.

Hopefully this has been helpful.

Quote from 1xbenx1>>

It's 2019 and everyone wants outrage and blood.

 

That's nothing new. The primary purpose of laws is so that when people break them, the "community" can have a party dancing on their suffering. Nevermind that it's usually some form of suffering in the first place that *led them* to break the law.

We *also* *don't* like them - we're complicated creatures who both like and don't like many things. We're corrupt.

Until we stop enjoying unnecessary suffering, it will continue.

i'm not buying the value of this card. Alexstrasza is a 8/8 body for 9 mana that does 15 damage. This is a 4/12 body for 10 mana that with another card (Pyroblast) does 10 damage.

As for the "tempo" of placing this card alongside an AoE, how exciting to get *four* attack on board - play two of them and you'll do as much as *one* giant!

The only way this sees play is if the deck is built around it - it needs to be a high-cost spell-based deck (not just Big Spell Mage with a bunch of AoEs) so that there's always a good followup spell to play each turn, requiring your opponent to remove it or suffer significant consequences. If some good expensive Twinspell cards come out for Mage then maybe this will fit into a new Control Mage archetype.

What makes it weaker is that it's primarily used with Hunter's Mark, and post-nerf Hunter's Mark can't be used alongside Keleseth.

For an anti-Giant build you'll drop the Keleseth and run Candleshot with Hunter's Marks, but if you don't care about countering Giants, aggro, or Paladin then Candleshot is completely droppable.

Quote from Ixlid >>

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Don't forget that most of Un'Goro cards are neutral on this list. The first expansions every year are supposed to have good neutral cards, but most of the popular neutral cards don't influence the meta that much since they are not being the core of the deck, the class cards are the cards that really defines the meta.

 That's a good point. Here are the Top 5 class cards and 10th and 20th from Un'goro in times played on the standard ladder over the past 24 hours -

1) Shadow Visions - 320k

2) Crackling Razormaw - 260k

3) Radiant Elemental - 160k

4) Spikeridged Steed - 130k

5) Direhorn Hatchling - 110k

10) Fire Plume's Heart - 63k

20) Crystalline Oracle - 21k

and from Rastakhan's -

1) Springpaw - 200k

2) Baited Arrow - 160k

3) Mass Hysteria - 140k

4) Master's Call - 100k

5) Daring Fire-Eater - 100k

10) Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk - 50k

20) Immortal Prelate - 16k

The gap is narrower, indicating that neutral Un'goro cards are really strong, but even just the class cards from Un'goro are substantially stronger than the ones from Rastakhan's.

It's not close - Un'goro has much stronger cards. Here are Un'goro's most popular cards, along with times played over the past 24 hours on the standard ladder:

1) Stonehill Defender - 320k

2) Tar Creeper - 250k

3) Fire Fly - 250k

4) Shadow Visions - 220k

5) Crackling Razormaw - 170k

And now Rastakhan's Rumble's most popular -

1) Springpaw - 140k

2) Baited Arrow - 110k

3) Mass Hysteria - 97k

4) Firetree Witchdoctor - 77k

5) Daring Fire-eater - 74k

Making too big of a deal over hunter's popularity is a mistake. Hunter is always popular - even when it's bad it's mid-tier in popularity. It's a cheap class to make decks for and it's straightforward aggressiveness is fun for a lot of people. It's one of the most popular classes in World of Warcraft as well, being simple and fun to play.

Hunter is the most powerful class in Standard format right now, but not by much. So I'd recommend no more than a mild nerf.

Zilliax is overrated. It's a card in the vein of Saronite Chain Gang - good in every deck but rarely great in any deck. Very few decks synergize well with Zilliax, so playing it feels out of place with the general game plan. In most decks, Zilliax is one of first cards to cut when you need a specific tech card instead.

Because most players play a variety of decks, nearly all of which Zilliax is good in, it's a very popular card. For any player playing a variety of decks, and of course any tournament player, it's a must-craft. But there isn't a single deck in the game in which Zilliax is anywhere near as important as let's say, Malygos is to Malygos Druid or even Necrium Blade is to Deathrattle Rogue.

So if a card that is consistently the 25th to 30th best card in a wide-range of competitive decks qualifies as S-tier, then it's S-tier. I don't think it qualifies.

Pre-nerf Giggling Inventor was a similar card but much better than Zilliax. It went into everything, was better than Zilliax in everything, and forced Mossy Horror into the meta by itself. What tech card does Zilliax force into the meta?