Hearthpwn

Wait so Voidcaller is a nono but Skull of Manari and Lackey are perfectly fine? That seems a weird distinction to me. It's not like you have a wide variety of options at 5 or 6 mana to remove a big stonkin demon that you wouldn't be able to play on 4. Seems odd that Voidcaller would be where they draw the line, when they were fine with Naga Sea Witch stinking up Wild for like half a year.

Nope, because nobody wants to play against even more of that degenerate shit :-)

China has some weird meta if this data is accurate. Haven't seen a Mechathun Warlock in like a month on EU, not on legend, not while climbing. Also, Odd Warrior? How is nobody running a Paladin OTK over there, all these decks listed lose really hard to it, they don't run any counters at all, no Dirty Rats, no Zihis, no Skulking Geists, only one deck runs Loatheb. And where did Resurrect Priest go? It's one of the top 4 decks in Wild on EU. Are we playing the same game?

Luvly. I've played obscene amounts of the Rumble Run and while I would have welcomed the ability to just pick the shrine I want (seeing as I've beaten the mode with 20 out of 27 possible options, rolling the ones I haven't beaten yet has gotten so tedious I just stopped playing), this is the next best thing. The bucket adjustment is also very welcome, at least assuming it ends up doing what I hope it ends up doing. Running the Warrior Overkill shrine and not getting a single Rush minion the whole draft, then getting 2x Crowley as a Dragon Warrior blew. Getting repeatedly mauled by lvl 4 Hooktusk with double your deck size, card-stealing shrine with discounts and Raging Contender wasn't much fun either. Hopefully this brings things more in line without trivialising the content. Having gone this far, it would be a shame if the last 7 shrine wins were given to me essentially for free.

Well, let's be fair here, brain dead aggro is still very much in effect, Odd Rogue has been braindeading it all over Wild since Witchwood and Even Shaman hasn't been too far behind (some are more midrangy, some just aim to burn you do death from 20 if they feel like it). You're right about Blizzard fucking itself in the ass with recent designs though. Unless something is done post-rotation, Baku and Genn are going to gradually kill Wild players' will to live. Those two have been nothing but trouble since they came out (Odd Pally, Even Pally, Odd Rogue, Even Shaman...simple pattern, all the aggro-focused ones).

Don't expect Cutlass to ever be touched. Firstly, weapon removal kills it dead, where Kingsbane was impervious, secondly, that deck fails pretty hard on ladder because the stronger it gets, the weaker it gets. Playing Thief Rogue against Rogue is not fun, I can tell you from experience. Essentially the only way you have of winning the matchup against another Rogue archetype is crossing your fingers that Espionage gives you something busted and you draw it quickly. If your version even runs Espionage, that is. Your whole deck essentially turning itself off whenever you go against Rogue is a huge hit to that strategy.

Well holy fuck. This might just be the most radical round of changes I've seen in Hearthstone. And as a Wild player, I welcome them wholeheartedly.

Wild Growth: The popularity of Wild Growth in pretty much every Druid deck created two problems. Firstly, you had to have a damn good reason NOT to play it in your deck, rather than have a reason to include it in the first place, because skipping 2 and 3 drops and going straight to 4 is just too good. The differences between minion power are the most noticeable at these levels, so if your opponent is playing around with 2 and 3 drops and you start dropping Ironwood Golems, who really cares what they played, now they need immediate spot removal to maintain their position. So in that respect, you had very little choice, your deck essentially started with 2 Wild Growths in it no matter what it was trying to do. Secondly, it meant that pretty much no low cost card that isn't removal saw play in Druid. Why play Wardruid Loti when you can play a 4 drop in the same turn instead because you ramped? Druid's kit was thus just reduced to early game ramp and early game removal/draw and from 5 mana up is where thing started branching out. That's pretty limiting for design not only of cards but also archetypes. When even token decks play Wild Growth, it's a sign that it's just too much. And I like that Jade Blossom still isn't just a strictly better Wild Growth because you don't get excess mana from it.

Nourish: This one I'm a bit more doubtful about. Having hit the earlier piece in the ramp chain, and arguably the more crucial one, means you're usually not just skipping your turn 1 and 2, you're also skipping your turn 3 to ramp to 4 mana. Then on turn 4...you skip again because you can't play Nourish for 5 anymore either. Exactly how many turns can you afford to skip against aggro? The answer is not this many. It makes dedicated ramp decks kinda dead in the water. I guess partially that was the point, as many of them could just opt out of playing much removal, opt out of playing mid-turn drops like Ironwood Golem (then again, now you HAVE to play Ironwood Golem, cause what else is there? That's another problem we face now) and would just ramp like crazy regardless of circumstances. Now your ramp has to be a lot more deliberate and safe. I just feel like, ramp being one of my favourite strategies, they weakened the core identity of Druid to a point I'm not sure it can recover from. I'm definitely curious how various Druid decks will shape up now, how many of them cut the ramp and curve like everyone else and how many double down and ramp even harder (innervates, Biology Projects, etc.) to maintain their identity (Aviana + Kun OTK Druids, Taunt Druids, etc.). There's no doubt a lot of Druid decks will now require a good bit of overhauling in their mana base, but there's also no doubt esentially all Druid decks will wind up significantly weaker because of it.

Level Up!: Phew dodged that one. Stopped playing Odd Pally just when Rastakhan came out. In Wild, you still got Warhorse Trainer and Quartermaster, but Level Up provided so much consistency it was kinda inevitable you were going to get pummelled into the ground on turn 5 without preemptive boardclear. And if you ever let one board stick, it was guaranteed you're taking the damage. Now everything isn't so stacked in Odd Pally's court, you don't get both the best Silver Hand Recruit generators (Muster, Stand Agaisnt Darkness) and the best support (Steward of Darkshire, Level Up, Quartermaster). However, in Even Pally it feels kinda off, as their generation isn't as bursty, but more steady and slow, it's relatively easy to keep the Silver Hand Recruit numbers down to a point where this isn't even desirable. I've faced many an Even Paladin and only a small percentage of them even bothered with Lightfused Stegodon because the Sliver Hand simply wasn't that core a piece of their strategy. They cared about the bodies to buff with Steed and Kings more than the type of body it was. This may leave Level Up kinda stranded in the middle of nowhere. And it definitely makes Odd Pally worse against high-aggression decks. That taunt saved me in many games in the past, now I'd be SOL.

Saronite Chain Gang: Here I'm not sure that was the right call. It doesn't change much in Wild because the Dopplegangster interaction remains unchanged, then again, Wild has the most ways to answer a Shudderwock deck in the first place. However, if they simply don't want this deck to be a thing, I'd say a much more prudent choice would have been to change Grumble. Without Grumble, the deck falls to pieces. It can flood a board once and cross its fingers that it's enough, or it can keep bouncing/copying Shudderwocks with Zola/Brewmasters, but then it can only ever play one Shudder a turn, making the deck relatively toothless in comparison. My guess is they didn't like the latter scenario either, seeing as the combo is massively slowed down but still devolves into "play Shudderwock every turn and hope they eventually bleed out", which isn't particularly fun. Either way the combo is either dead or weaker (Doppleganster being slower and not defensive at all), which is fine by me. I prefer a board-centric Jade Shudder Shaman anyway, and that feels like a much more healthier strategy to play than that coinflippy bullshit was.

Leeching Poison: This is just straight up murder of an archetype. Pirate Kingsbane with Myra's Unstable Element can still continue existing because that one just goes face until you keel over, but the endless Kingsbane + Coldlight battles are over for good with this change. And as much as I love classes sticking to their identity (Rogue is the only class that has a baseline weapon and a great number of weapon buffs yet barely ever focused on that), Kingsbane was the wrong way to go. If you're playing a control/value deck, you just could. Not. Win. Because the only counter to Kingsbane was kill them in one turn (good luck with their Saps, Vanishes, Blade Flurries, Doomerangs, Evasions, etc.) which control decks suck at anyway, rush them down before they can establish their pieces (most control decks can't muster the tempo to do that), take away enough of their pieces that they're slowed down to a crawl (Dirty Rat out Coldlights, Shinyfinders, break their weapon repeatedly) which required a significant sacrifice in deck space and still often wasn't enough with the right draw, or copy their weapon (tried that, NEVER works). Simply put, you could not reliably beat that deck as control, ever, (unless you somehow maybe managed to stick a Water Elly as Frost Lich Jaina) and there was essentially no amount of teching you could do to combat that because the weapon cannot be silenced or stolen, it just always is. Well, now...now it just isn't even a concern outside aggro. Not being able to steal upwards of 60 life every game kinda throws a spanner in the works for that deck, to the point of killing it completely, but honestly, the way it murdered every slow deck without potential for counterplay just was not healthy. Maybe Thief Rogue can pick up the pieces with Spectral Cutlass and fill in that weapon-focused gap in Rogue, but now at least you can counter it easily. Partially sad to see Kingsbane stoop to aggro instead of finally being a Control-focused Rogue, but definitely glad that that particular implementation is gone. There is the distant possibility that control Kingsbane survives by timing its Leeching Poisons on the hit + Doomerang turn, but if so, it definitely becomes an infinitely more beatable deck, cause they can only do that a few times (twice with Doomerang plus potentially two more times on hit if they nail every Mimic Pod) before their health starts depleting permanently, and even Violet Illusionist can only stave off the damage for so long.

Eh, I don't see the face-clearing strategy working. Usually, you try to AoE minions to not take tons of face damage. Now, yes, some of the attack-buffing cards for Druid also provide armor, so you have incentive to play armor-gaining cards and spellstone in the same deck, but this ain't one of them. You combo this with Gonk and clear a couple of 2/2s, you'll end up taking a lot of damage. That said, combining Gonk with this and Twig of the World Tree could end with some pretty fun 20 mana turns...if the setup on the opposing side of the board is right.

I only just realised that Zul'jin will recast your quest. So you play Quest with some mild 1/1s sprinkled in and this to complete, eventually, then Zul'jin replays the quest and you can complete the quest again using Carnassa's own Broods. Not saying it'll be good, just kinda funny, and this card means you don't have to go crazy on the 1 drops in your deck.

Quote from Kovachut >>

Will tempo rush enrage warrior be a thing? I would love to see something new from this class.

 Off topic, where the hell did you get those HoMM 3 gifs?

Could potentially be good with Zul'jin, if you run him in a deck with spells that just summon and buff beasts, you get to summon a board and have some of it attack enemies along the way. I'm not saying Zul'jin will be good, far from it, but if you're looking to find a use for this...

You know what's better than Loatheb? A Loatheb that lasts 4 turns. You pull this against an Exodia Mage when they're nearing the end of their deck and...booya, game over. Now, yes, you set yourself back too, but if you already have a board, which is often the case, you just get to keep your advantage while preventing them from closing the game out. Instead they'll just close the client. And this goes for most combo decks. Shudderwock? Delayed by 3 turns. Bloodreaver Gul'dan and N'Zoth. 4 turns. If you're proactive and they're not, this can lock them out so hard they concede on the spot. They need their mana a lot more than you need yours and you got a 5/5 out of it along the way. This might be a staple of midrange decks for years to come, cause heavy control just can't wiggle out of this quickly enough before they die. I'm not necessarily saying that's a good thing.

The effect is not worth a card I'd say. Even if it gives two minions +4 health, let's say, wouldn't you rather just have another minion with Rush instead? Or a piece of removal? Or a weapon? Instead of two Divine Spirits on a stick? Actually scratch that, it's not even a Divine Spirit, cause it only works on Rush minions and nothing else. No Rush minions in hand = this is a dead card. 1 Rush minion in hand = this is absolutely not worth a card. 2 Rush minions in hand = it's, like, maaaybe decent? In a Druid, sure, a utility/ocassionally dead card is fine, you got plenty of card draw that you want to run in your deck anyway, it's whatever. In Warrior? Exactly how many mediocre to dead draws can you afford in a Rush Warrior and how much sub-par card draw do you have to tech your board-centric Rush deck towards to make this be an ok investment of a card. I'd say way too much.

Don't like either side of this card. From the flavour perspective, what does Zul'jin have to do with casting spells? Firing various arrow shots, summoning beasts...he's a berzerker. From the gameplay perspective, about the only things you're going to be happy about recasting 100 % of the time are secrets, if they have been activated already. The rest of Hunter spells are targeted. You get a Wolf from Flanking Strike, then blow him up with Explosive Shot. You summon 2 Wolves from Emerald Spellstone, then Hunter's Mark one of them and Arcane Shot the other. Even if you build the deck the right way you're just flipping coins on the targets because as much as you need spells that summon beasts, like Call of the Wild, you need spells that kill opposing minions or face. That face can be yours. Those minions can be yours. Unless you literally just run secrets, spellstone and spells like Call of the Wild and Unleash the Hounds, you'll be crossing your fingers with this card. And the summon spells will overfill your board, most likely, so instead of getting a full Call of the Wild, you might get a Huffer and that's it because you'll have 2 3/3 Wolves and 4 1/1 hounds in play. Before they blow themselves up. Did I mention things blow themselves up?

Obviously this requires set-up on the turn you play it. Malfurion the Pestilent and play this on 9, or Feral Rage and play this on 10. Combined with the Spirit of the Raptor a turn before, this can be pretty devastating. However, similar to the Pirate legendary, it requires you to run some otherwise pretty bad cards to make this good, and for that reason alone, powerful as this is, it won't see play without some more heavy support. It does give midrange Beast Druid some identity at the very least, as before it was just drop beasts, then maybe copy beasts with Menagerie Warden and...that's it. Now we may have something a little bit more interesting to try, but the attack-granting cards just aren't there in terms of power level.