This might not actually be an upgrade- a lot of aggroish decks flood the board with little minions that you wouldn't want to pay 4 mana to rez- this is why i stoped using Shadow Madness- too many bad/small minions screw up the discover options. 

Waiting for resto-druid tree form

We've seen the same mechanics before with with different names and very slight alterations, that's how.

twinspell: jade idol/unstable evolution/echo.

scheme: spellstone but simpler

lackeys: spareparts, lichking cards, rogue legendary that produced a few different poisoins, etc ad nauseum. 

Well twin spell and scheme are "new" mechanics, but they are very slight modifications of existing ones. Twinspell- You cast the spell and get spell back, but only one time. Which is the nerf many proposed to Jade Idol years ago. Scheme is just like the spellstones except you don't have to do anything to upgrade them. So they took existing ideas, toned them down/made them simpler. Can't blame anyone pointing out the obvious, they are just recycling ideas. 

Yes it's more difficult to come up with new, exciting mechanics and still keep the game balanced, but come on, it's not Blizzard is a tiny, struggling company. They could definitely pull that off, and probably will if the player base shrinks. 

He isn't over powered, except maybe in mech decks, which aren't that good anyways. He is too widely used though, so I hope the next expansion has so good class specific 5drops to compete with his slot.

I love how so many talk as if match making is perfectly random and this is a known fact. I haven't seen any evidence of that, and I'd love to see that instead of just smug assertions. 

It's actually pretty challenging to make a truly random algorithm, much easier to approximate randomness.

Is there any incentive for Blizzard to make an algorithm that is not "truly random"? Of course, Blizzard has a bunch of goals- all centered around maximizing profit. Blizzard is a for-profit enterprise. 

Motivations could include: varying matches to improve the player experience (I haven't seen much of that, but definitely possible). Queuing people into counters who are on a win-streak or just about to reach a new ranking. This could cause them to tech their deck with new cards or try a new deck, increasing the likelihood they need to craft cards or open packs. Could also be to stop players on losing streaks, as they might rage quit the game entirely. Along the same lines, it could be especially prevalent at ranks 1 and 2, players that might reach legend and lose motivation to play after achieving that key accomplishment. 

I'm sure there are other motivations, but its not unreasonable to question the assertion Blizzards matchmaking algorithms are completely fair/randomized, as other parts of the game are most definitely not, for example: the appearance rates of cards in arena drafts is micromanaged in bucket systems, packs have pity timers etc.

I'll love when they spew bullshit about class identity and then print cards like rexxar... AOE and ultimated lifesteal poison rush minions for hunter? Meanwhile Druid can't even have naturalize anymore, because it makes sense for a class to have no AOE, not single target removal, nerf mana acceleration, so if they fall behind ever they are just done.

Maybe at a certain point, advice has to be very specific to the deck, the meta, and even the region or time of the season. I routinely have opposite experiences of other players using the same deck, both good and bad.

Not very well balanced, but pretty fun. I like exploring the different shrines and matchups despite the frequent games that are completely one-sided

Quote from designerspeak >>

HS replay stats:

Last week : 

6,447,947 games played

This week (so far) : 574,000 (and counting) at the time of this reply. The game seems to still be doing ok. Is there stuff Blizzard should be doing with the game? YES! But I (and lots of others) still find it fun and are hopeful about the future of Hearthstone.

 

 That doesn't say whether the game is gaining/losing/keeping players. Anyone have this stat from a month ago and a year ago?

Well, let's imagine for a minute there is in fact a problem. I think an easy way to deal with that is more frequent, smaller expansions. People will play around with average, random cards as long as they are new. I remember when everyone was trying to play volcanosaur and that guy who spawns the chest, just because they released before the expansion. I remember it was actually quite fun. A lot of cards never see play because they overshadowed by other cards, but if they had smaller releases every month or two, people would play around with the individual cards more, experience more of a sense of discovery and excitement.

Yikes, Blizzard's defenders are even out in force here... after the company releases news of record profits and huge layoffs. Disappointing but not unexpected. 

There was one tavern brawl where you got to take two turns in a row, and that was the only time I've ever seen someone willingly play duskfallen aviana. That person was me. It's completely unplayable in constructed or arena, has to take the top worst card in standard. I think it's worse than temporus, because at least you are guaranteed to make use of the effect if you don't die. Also it has some value as dragon sitting in your hand to activate synergies. 

Quote from Rachel2206 >>

The way I think they will handle the problem is by printing some hate cards like golakka crawler against pirates. There could be a legendary which sets the hero power back to its normal form or a spell/minion which blocks the hero power (but better than current options in wild). My favourite option would be a spell/minion which benefits from the use of the opponents hero power - in extreme: deal 1 damage for every time your opponent used his hero power ,

 I like this idea. Or how about instead of that card that copied your opponent's hero power, you give them yours instead? Imagine giving odd paladin something useless like healing or armor up. Maybe they could ransom it back, like togwaggle. 

Quote from Sinti >>

Quote from sanchogrande >>

Quote from endlesstides >>

Why not just accept that Genn and Baku are in the game and will stay in Standard until they are Rotated?

 As obvious a mistake as they are, Blizzard won't backtrack now. It's not just a Card they are Nerfing, it's entire Archetypes. 

 True, they aren't going away (sigh). But maybe little nerfs would help? Just decreased stats or increased mana? That's how OP cards are traditionally nerfed. It's been made clear that for certain classes the downside of going all even/odd is way more than offset by the upside of the hero power. 

Nerfs to legendaries are very rare though. I assume this is due to the economic costs involved. It's better financially to nerf a classic card that is tangentially related to the problem.

Thats not rly gonna change them, can be 10 mana 1/1s and it will be played :)

 They should try that out and see. Having basically a dead card in the deck might be an effective but not crippling nerf.