Hearthpwn

Been said in an interview that titans would not be part of this set

finalmode - there is an entire body of peer-reviewed literature within the social sciences which discuss the interplay between the stories and representations presented in a society's media, and the attitudes expressed by individuals within that society.

It's all well and good to say 'it doesn't matter', but that flies in the face of scientific study. Humans are altered by the things they see (and don't see), and the amount of times they see those things - whether they are at work or play.

Otter, don't bother, honestly. These guys are extremely twitchy about this topic. Basically, if you tell someone that something they like may be socially suboptimal, they'll get distressed and either attack you or try to sweep it under the rug.

It all gets rather shrill and counterproductive unfortunately.

Hah. This topic is one of the most fraught on the internets. People are extremely twitchy about their favourite things being criticised for lack of diversity. It becomes GG-this, SJW-that, get you politics out of my games, blahedy blah. In short, high on emotion, low on intellectual content.

People like seeing people that look/sound/act like them (or their ideals) being represented in their games. That's a pretty uncontroversial fact. If you want more women or non-white people playing a game, you represent them accordingly in your game world.

As it stands, the default 'hero' in most mediums is the white, straight, able-bodied male. Because social history. Personally I'd prefer that default challenged a little more by Blizzard, - I know that suggestion challenges/enrages/scares some people, but ignoring the social utility gain, it's plain good business sense.

Thinking some more - the issue with debut is that if it's a 0-cost, it makes melody cards impossible to balance. either they'll be crap without debut, or too good with debut. It constrains design space too much. You'd probably need to make it a 2-cost spell.

Regarding other cards - you also need to be cognizant of the class identities of other classes - eg Bard cant have better spread wide cards than pally, or better weapons than warrior, or better healing than priest. That's one of the hardest things about adding a new class. i think, in order to focus on the versatility of the bard, you want to include cards that have multiple small effects eg (3) - deal 1, heal 1, put a 1/1 into play, draw 1

Great work, really good ideas that come together to form a coherent, flavorful whole

Some of the cards are ridiculously good though! Open Mic, white noise, fiddle. choirball....but honestly, balance is not a primary role of a designer anyway.

Succubus and Jaraxxus are for different decks. A deck with Succubus/Soulfire/Doomguard has to play fearlessly. Play like you're wearing a kilt in a stiff breeze, bold and free!

Well Warlock decks generally aren't like those of other classes as they should have a far sharper curve.

Drafting and playing warlock is pretty easy I find. grab every decent early drop, avoid expensive cards, play with reckless abandon and start clicking life tap when you're out of cards.

Hmm, looking at my stats I've only played Warlock twice out of 50ish arenas. Both were 9ers though

RNG is a crutch players use when they don't wish to acknowledge their own shortcomings. Own your losses folks, it'll only make you better

I lose far more games to Truesliver than MC.

I don't put priest particularly high on the Arena list - definitely below Warrior, Paladin and probably below Mage and Warlock

'As well, since they come back with 1 health, Enrage effects will trigger automatically'

AFAIK they come back undamaged, with health changed to 1, no enrage.

One more Valen? You can only play one.

Thanks for the link; Those two decks seem horrible though. Infinite expensive cards, they'd get rolled by anything with a decent curve.

A control deck doesn't want to give up a slot for damage to the face.

A rush deck doesn't want to give up a slot for a 7 drop with no immediate impact.

Mind Blast and Velen don't go in the same deck.

He doesn't seem to do enough to warrant the cost.