Hearthpwn

Just to clarify, earlier this month we began a new Hearthstone year - The Year of the Phoenix.  When that happened, cards from the Year of the Raven rotated out of standard (The Witchwood, The Boomsday Project, and Rastakhan's Rumble).  The cards from last year, the Year of the Dragon, (Rise of Shadows, Saviors of Uldum, Descent of Dragons, and Galakrond's Awakening) will remain playable in standard until April 2021.  The cards from this year (Ashes of Outland and the next two expansions) will remain playable until April 2022.

Sacrifical Pact - 0 mana, destroy a friendly demon, restore 5 health.

Bad Luck Albatross - change it to a 3 mana, 3/3, keeping the current deathrattle.

Frenzied Felwing - change it so that it has a minimum cost of 1 mana.

Kael'thas Sunstrider - every third spell you cast costs 2 mana.

Open the Waygate - change Time Warp to 7 mana.

I would leave Bloodbloom alone and nerf Darkest Hour - 6 mana, destroy a friendly minion and summon a random minion from your deck.  It would still be a mana cheat and let you bring out a powerful minion early, but it's not overwhelming.  Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound on turn 6 is still a nice high roll.

Priestess of Fury - 7 mana 5/6, deal 5 damage randomly to all enemies.

Altruis the Outcast - take away the face damage.

Quote from Thaulopi >>

I do understand its mechanic, but what about Ironbeak Owl and Big Game Hunter? Why do you need a legendary for that?

But, yet again, I am just a Bronze player, what do I know?

 I agree Maiev Shadowsong is overrated.  It is stronger Tempo play than Spellbreaker (used to be or still is in Wild) when to body of the target matters, but many times the body does not matter.  It's a good card, but not meta-defining in my opinion.  On a budget, Ironbeak Owl is a decent sub.

If you were legend last month, then you would get 11 stars per win and -1 star per loss.  So with a 50% win rate you would ascend the ladder rather quickly.  Your first win would move you up to bronze 7 (with 2 stars); then you lose and go to bronze 7 (1 star) then you win and go to bronze 4 (3 stars); then you lose and go bronze 4 (2 stars); and so on.  New players wouldn't get the star bonus in the first month so they would have quite a grind, but returning players should get back to their previous ranks pretty easily.  Not sure what your complaint is all about.

I miss his over the top personality.  Nobody laughs like Brode.

Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue, Pirate Warrior, Undertaker Hunter, Secret Mage ... just to name a few decks that are more aggro than today's meta.

LOL, that was great. Thank you for honoring the chicken.

Hearthpwn is closing but https://outof.cards/ is opening. Flux and team run the site. It will have all the awesomeness of Heathpwn plus more. 

Sad to read the news. Flux and staff, thanks for all your hard work and dedication.  See y'all at Out of Cards.

I've really enjoyed the adventure.  I'm enjoying working through beating all the wings with every hero on normal and heroic.  Normal mode is pretty easy, but I'm enjoying trying to win with sub-optimal treasure and meme decks.  I'd rate it 8.5 out of 10.

Quote from Kaladin >>

Quote from FortyDust >>

Sorry for not reading the millionth Hearthpwn thread on this subject, but the answer is:

Only bad players say aggro takes less skill than other archetypes.

 only bad players make absurd blanket statements.  

Again I pose the question - given unlimited dust and a limit of 100 games, what archetype would yield the best result for a brand new player who has never played a competitive card game?

 In a perfectly balanced meta, I believe your hypothesis is correct that a brand new player would have a higher win percentage with aggro, but not entirely because the strategy of aggro is easier to understand, but because aggro exploits situations where players draw sub-optimal cards.  Aggro is commonly less affected by your opening hand of cards (and mulligans) because aggro decks are often comprised of low cost (and relatively high attack) minions.  So yes, a strategy of play all your minions and go all in face works when your opponent has bad draw. 

The basic control strategy of play removal and heal/armor up/play big taunt is not hard to understand. Since there is a lot of aggro in every meta, I expect a new player could have decent success playing a variant of control warrior.  Would they win many mirror matches? Nope, but they could punish aggro decks. Honestly, I wouldn't expect a new player to win many mirror matches of any deck. I expect they would win favored matches, lose unfavored matches, and lose mirror matches.

Regardless of deck type, I think the best players win nearly all favored matches, win many mirror matches, and win some unfavored matches. The best players having an optimal understanding of both their deck/strategy and their opponent's deck/strategy. 

For what it is worth, i believe new players gravitate toward aggro because the decks are lower cost.  I don't think new players view control decks as too hard to master.  I believe they simply don't have the cards/dust for control decks.

Quote from Spiderhaz >>

Aggro is very easy to play. Of course, you need to know when to trade and when not to trade, but compared to other decks Zoo Lock, Tempo Rogue, Old Kingsbane, Old Pirate Warrior, etc... don't take have a lot of decisions making. It's either go face or trade, play a minion or dont. Whereas control and combo have to focus on drawing out cards, keeping card advantage and managing resources. Also as an aggro player you almost never look at your hp, only your opponents.

 I think you're underestimating the skill level required to "know when to trade" at a high level.  Playing aggro well requires a player to identify their opponents removal options and as much as possible play around them.  Knowing when to trade and what to trade with requires moderate skill to do well as does knowing when to go "all in" face.  Playing against aggro with a control deck is often merely a function of drawing AOE removal like Warpath or Brawl.  Sometimes control is as simple as draw removal, play removal.  Other times control decks take a lot of skill to pilot, especially in mirror matchups.  It doesn't take much skill to pilot any deck in a mediocre manner; it takes skill to pilot most every deck in an optimal manner.

Thanks for the good Kibler video.  The Preparation issue makes more sense now.  I still wish they would have left it alone, but perhaps we'll get some new Rogue archetypes down the road as a result.

I agree with most of what you wrote, but I don't understand how Preparation limits design space.  Pre-nerf it lowers spell cost by 3, post nerf by 2. If I were a dev and wanted to create an 8 cost spell, but was afraid would be overpowered when played on turn 5 with Preparation, I could instead budget the spell at 9 cost.  Wouldn't this address the same design space issue as the nerf? Am I missing something in my analysis?

I agree with the nerfs to EVIL Miscreant and Raiding Party, but not to Preparation. They could have nerfed Waggle Pick if they needed another way to balance Tempo Rogue's power.  Why nerf every Rogue deck just to slow down Tempo Rogue?  So what that Preparation is nearly all Rogue decks ... so is Backstab and Eviscerate. Edwin VanCleef and Shadowstep are in most decks too.  Many classes have auto include cards ... most druids run Swipe, most paladins run Consecration and Truesilver Champion, most priests run Power Word Shield and Northshire Cleric, and warriors run Shield Block and Shield Slam.  I'm not sold on the auto-include nature of Prepartion being a problem, and I'm not convinced this really opens up design space for Rogue spell either. If you didn't want to give rogues any 7 or 8 cost spells because you were afraid they would be cast on turn 4 or 5, is it really better now that they can be cast on turn 5 or 6? The same effect could have been granted by budgeting these spells as 8 or 9 cost spells (or even 10 or 11 cost if necessary).