The outcry isn't about spending cash (at least to me). It's pretty unrealistic to think they'll make it accessible by gold anyway. The issue is it's too expensive. The price they're asking for isn't worth the luxury. You can say it's cosmetic but just like the comment from TotalBiscuit on the reveal video on youtube, it's a weak argument to make against the outcry.
It may be cosmetic, but if you think about the value you're getting out of it compared to the other things you can buy in Hurtstone, new Heroes are demanding a lot more for less. It's not like players don't want to pay for the hero, it's just that they don't see their monies' worth, and Blizzard is placing a ridiculous amount of value on something that's more or less insignificant and cosmetic.
I began spending real money in Hurtstone because I have a really good time with it, but I'll try to my best to refuse spending money on this unless it's cheaper or more value is added to the thing.
3
I prefer control decks because I find the cat-and-mouse game between two control decks to be engaging. However, I don't like the hatred against aggro amongst Hearthstone players. Aggro is a legitimate playstyle and it is needed to bring balance to the various playstyles in this game. People complain about Hunters going face all of the time. In reality that is probably the best play anyway. Board control is not just killing all of your opponent's minions, it's knowing when to trade and when to force them to trade with you so you can reduce their health at a reasonable pace while they miss face damage cleaning up your board. If you don't have any favorable or even trades, you go face because trading would be a misplay; you're missing damage for no reason. So either you're a mindless face deck or you're trading poorly; either way the hypocrites of Hearthstone will criticize you for it. A lot of people who play aggro go face without question however, which is incorrect. When they realize they're losing they start trading at the end when it's too late and they're out of damage to close out the game. The race in aggro mirror matches can be interesting, because this is where trading vs. going face matters most. You can't just pummel each other and hope for the best.
That said, there are individual elements of aggro that I feel are an issue. Undertaker was nerfed, so that element has been taken care of, but the tempo gain from mechwarper turns what should be a midrange deck into an aggro deck, because several minions with a lot of stats are played many turns before they should be. It's the same problem with innervating a Spectral Knight or Yeti on turn one. Blastmage has too many stats to go along with his battlecry for 4 mana, and the freezing abilities represent a huge tempo loss for the opponent in addition to the need to fight off so many minions at once.
This is the same problem I have with freezing trap in Hunter. A class that was designed to push a lot of damage faster than most other classes should not also be able to force such a loss in tempo that freezing trap represents. You're already behind simply because there are more aggro minions than there are ways to deal with them, then you add freezing trap on top of it. The power of AOE freezing, the ability to shut down an opponent's entire board with one card, is something I'm not comfortable with either. I don't know what the solution is though, because Blizzard isn't going to remove cards like freezing trap from the game, but I think aggro has more options that fall outside of its playstyle than it should. Equality is arguably broken in aggro pally because all of the minions have one health so there is no downside to castrating the board for 2 mana. But you can't restrict certain cards to certain playstyles so there is no solution to this problem sadly. Freezing trap is not so broken in control hunter but it's a hunter card so aggro can use it too. So it goes.
1
The spare parts are not created equal, and I do agree it is a problem. Stealth, freezing, reversing switch and time rewinder are much better than +1 attack and +1 health (taunt is somewhere in between). The tempo loss from the freezing spare part can be devastating, and is similar to the same problem OP spoke of except with Ice Lance. The spare parts are considered "minor effects," but at least half of them laugh in the face of that description.
1
Here's the thing: you're thoughtstealing from a pool of maybe 25 cards (assuming you play thoughtsteal around turn 3), and you'd only get a duplicate if your opponent has two copies of a card and hasn't drawn either yet or you play two thoughtsteals. Assuming your opponent knows fuck-all about deck building, and only has good cards in their deck, the odds of you drawing a good card from thoughtsteal are fairly good. And the odds of drawing a late-game card increases as the game goes on and your opponent's deck gets smaller unless you've already drawn all of them. As a Warrior my opponent thoughtstole 2 grommashes from me, because he played two thoughtsteals at the end of the game when I only had 5 cards left in the deck. That most likely would not happen on turn 3. I think the card is fine. I struggle to find room for it in my Priest decks because it's only good versus control anyway. You don't want to thoughtsteal pissant aggro minions. I don't see how this card is ruining the game. It doesn't make the cards cheaper like unstable portal does, nor does it draw and play them for free like mad scientist does.
1
The card draw is worth more than you're giving it credit for. Druid's wrath draws a card as well, but only if you do one damage to a minion instead of 3. That's what you're paying in exchange for the card advantage. The three damage is worth 2 mana and the card draw is worth 2 mana. I suppose they could buff it to 3 because it's not going to break the game, but 4 mana is the correct cost for what that card does.
5
I think it's a great concept with a mediocre execution. They should've either made it a 1/7 that couldn't be silenced, a 4/7 that could be silenced, or a 4/7 that couldn't be silenced and change the cost to 6 mana. It is a legendary after all, it's supposed to be a little overpowered without breaking the game. The card's buffed stats upon entering the field should be considered its new base stats because a card cannot be silenced before it is played. I think allowing the card to be silenced is a mistake.
Also, everyone stop making the argument that a card is bad because it can be silenced. Every non-vanilla or buffed card in the game can be silenced, that's not a reason not to play a card. Most people can barely afford to run one silence, let alone two, and every deck has more than two things in it that can eat a silence. Why play the game at all then?
3
I think it's a good card. You have a 1/4 chance of a worse lightning bolt and a 1/4 chance of a better fireball. There's a 75% chance the card will beat lightning bolt, and at worst it ties lava burst on damage-to-mana/overload ratio; otherwise it beats lava burst with every other permutation. It's a mere coin toss that it will beat a yeti for 3 effective mana, and considering most minions in the game have 5 or less health, that makes this a highly valuable card most of the time. Plus it makes something like Ancestor's Call more valuable, if Shamans start to run more spells and less minions. I think AC is a bit too high maintenance but cards of this sort still improve it.
-2
So Feign Death is effectively Reincarnate for your entire board? Should those two cards be the same cost? It seems as if Feign Death should be 3 mana minimum.
2
I don't know what all the bellyaching is about. Most 2-drops in this game are either 3/2 or 2/3. This card is that but with mech synergy and a freeze effect. I don't see how anyone can argue that this is anything but a good card.
Plus, higher health minions have the potential to live longer than top-heavy minions, which means they also have the potential to do more damage over time. This card can potentially get a 2-for-1 or halt an undertaker long enough to get out in front of it, which is fantastic for a 2-drop.
As for the comparisons to Water Elemental, a 4-drop with 6 health and a freeze effect is honestly overpowered, but it's fine for there to be powerful minions of that sort in this game, as long as there are not too many of them (which there are not currently) and so long as a single class does not have too many of them (which Mage certainly does not).
If this card had better stats for its cost people would complain that it was overpowered, and if it were 3 mana with better stats there'd be no need to use it when Water Elemental exists. The card is fine.
2
Why does it need to fit into an existing deck? New cards are supposed to inspire new ideas, we're not supposed to just cram them into old archetypes.
2
GvG needs to introduce more good 4-drops into this game, and this is an example of one. Naxx supplied us with great 5-drops, and now Yeti needs some company. I think people are thinking a bit myopically about this card. Just because it is 4 mana doesn't mean it must be played on turn 4. You can also play it on turn 6 with an Annoy-o-Tron for a 3/4 divine shield taunt, as one of many examples. It is not until a card is released and people come up with different ideas for a card that we will know its usefulness, but I've heard this card is too strong, not strong enough, fits in warrior, doesn't fit in warrior, etc. Whatever, most people in this community do not know what they want or what they're talking about.