Hearthpwn

For Beny I'd say he needs to be a bit more squishy, since he grants a huge boost to priest play style whether you auchenai or not.  I also think Anveena should cost three, since you are essentially getting unlimited 1/turn arcane explosion.

Anyway here's my card:

 

What do you think?  I was debating whether to make him cost 4 or possibly have 3 health.  While he has huge potential power it would require a specific board state to get him going, and the opponent still has a turn to react before he can do anything so I wasn't sure.

Well, consider how Volcanic Drake is costed: This is the same thing as that. It's just that this has more potential. Twisting Nether (if this card was Thaurissan'd). If you had this with a full board with a Thaurissan'd Twisting Nether/Thaurissan'd this, you get 28/4 which is RIDICULOUS (but will get cleared on your opponent's turn). With Flamestrike, you could board clear and this would be a 14/4, which is kind of insane. Holy Nova on this that clears some minions, then board cleanup with your other minions, then this into Divine Spirit gives you some insane stats on an 8 health creature. You could conceivably (with Priest) Turn 10 Holy Nova + Scavenging Drake + Divine Spirit + Divine Spirit = blah/8? I dunno, +1 attack and 2 mana would be more reasonable to me.

:)

If the Rogue hero power went back to how it was before it got nerfed, this could be a good card. As it stands, by default you pay 6 mana for a 2/3 weapon. Or 8 mana for a 3/3 weapon. Wheras you could pay 5 mana for a 3/4 weapon. :/

I think the Rogue hero power in general is just weak - if Rogue got more low cost weapons and the hero power was "Give your weapon +1 Attack or +1 Durability at random", then their Hero power interactions would be a lot more useful. As it stands, this is just not worth the effort. Even if it was +2 attack per hero power, this doesn't quite make up for the mana loss.

@Kwilkill: If you're not prepared to actually suggest anything, why would you start calling people out for lack of creativity? 

As regards the card with combos, I guess you could have Maiden of the Lake + Garrison Commander on one turn, then next turn Deadly Poison + Hero Power + Hero Power and you'd have a 5 attack weapon for a total of 13 mana. I guess you could Blade Flurry that, and get a Spell Damage +1Flamestrike + 5 face damage. But the disadvantage is that you empty out your hand and spend an extra bajillion mana, and for the face damage you could've done an Eviscerate anyway at face + Hero Power for 4. There's also the fact that you're relying on an empty Turn 6 essentially. The situational nature of this combo makes it pretty much completely inviable. What combo could you possibly be talking about?!

This is unfortunate for the Rogue class. There've been a lot of setbacks for Rogue in the meta as of late, so it's kind of disappointing to see that the flagship card reveals are such horrible ones for Rogue.

Thoughts?

"RNGsus really, really hates this guy."

Hard Counter to: Arcane Missiles, Avenging Wrath, Bomb Lobber, Bouncing Blade, Flamecannon, Goblin Blastmage, Knife Juggler, Mad Bomber, Madder Bomber, 

Soft Counter to: Cleave, Flamewaker, Forked Lightning, Multi-Shot, Ragnaros the Firelord, Shadowboxer, Ship's Cannon

Combos: Cold Blood, Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, Abusive Seargent, Defender of Argus

Feel like you're getting wrecked by RNG? Now Rogue has a way to stop it's low health Stealth creatures getting f***ed by juggles and bombs. Combo this with Cold Blood and you've got almost a no drawback Doomguard (1 less attack, 1 more mana from Cold Blood). Combo with Defender of Argus and you get a much better Mogu'shan Warden. RNG won't save your opponent from having to deal with this minion. Has potential in a Oil Rogue deck.

"RNGsus really, really hates this guy."

Summon: "Hey you! Over here."

Attack: "Dodgin' Bullets."

Well this card seems situational, you say as you first glance at it. 5 mana for 7 health and no attack? Huh. It's got charge. And this weird text after it? Thinking about it, you realize there's a reason this card is an Epic.

Hard Counter to: Arcane Missiles, Avenging Wrath, Bomb Lobber, Bouncing Blade, Flamecannon, Goblin Blastmage, Knife Juggler, Mad Bomber, Madder Bomber, 

Soft Counter to: Cleave, Flamewaker, Forked Lightning, Multi-Shot, Ragnaros the Firelord, Shadowboxer, Ship's Cannon

Combos: Cold Blood, Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, Abusive Seargent, Defender of Argus

Feel like you're getting wrecked by RNG? Now Rogue has a way to stop it's low health Stealth creatures getting f***ed by juggles and bombs. Combo this with Cold Blood and you've got almost a no drawback Doomguard (1 less attack, 1 more mana from Cold Blood). Combo with Defender of Argus and you get a much better Mogu'shan Warden. RNG won't save your opponent from having to deal with this minion. Has potential in Rogue decks.

So there you have it, two conflicting opinions. :P

Actually, looking back at it, Sinti is right on this one - the drawback isn't a drawback.

I don't really see why anybody would play this?

I dunno, I just think entirely negating your hero power is silly, so basically you would never Hero Power while this is in use because it would just waste mana. If it had better stats (3/4? 2/5?) I could see it, or if it only restored 1 Health, but as it is it seems pretty strange (1 extra stat point and you have to pay with your hero power?).

Quote from DynamischerDiskord jump

I forgot to mention a possible side effect: Since for players with decent classic and GvG sets arena is less valueable than buying a TGT pack, people have more incentives to farm gold.  So maybe we will see some more Facehunters farming gold in the future.

Or whatever replaces Facehunter in the new meta (but let's be honest, Blizzard haven't done anything to nerf Hunter this expansion)

I think this should really be "Give a Demon/Minion +2 Health and draw a card." At least it would be more original.

#BlizzardConspiracy

Get it trending guys!

So that was "The Grand Tournament". Coo'. Shaman's getting some love. Not the cards I expected from this expansion, but then again they're going in a completely different mechanical direction. The hero power interaction is nice, but centering an expansion around it seems like it could become tired quickly.

Anyway, I'm not going to give up on this because this is how I feel the Shaman class should be developed in the future. And I also did say that I was talking about the next expansion cycle for these ideas. Obviously I'll have to take into account the new mechanics and cards being introduced for future imaginings (Rogue expansion for example) so there's that. In the meantime, here's an explanation of Ascendance:

So you get two Hero Powers: You can't equip a weapon in this state and you can use both hero powers in one turn. With the new cards that interact with Hero Powers such as Garrison Commander you might be able to cast 4 hero powers in a turn. (2+(1overload)+2+(1overload)+1-(1overload)+1-(1overload)), thus using 6 mana in that turn. You can cast spells and summon creatures - it's basically like a timed Lord Jaraxxus that doesn't change your health and gives you 10 armor. With the new expansion, these cards won't really be balanced against it, so there's that. But for now, Ascendance as a spell gives you the ability to become pretty tanky as a Shaman for two turns. Not only that, it's lore-friendly.

Please leave feedback!

Well, there's the possibility of including Garrison Commander in your deck, but it takes up valuable slots so I'm not sure this really helps Warlock except if you're trying to build a deck around Survivability and card draw? It seems dubious whether this will see any use in Warlock.

Oh my god.

This is physically repulsive. The ridiculous stereotypes and double standards are just aaaggh.

If you're going to have a tournament, have it as a TOURNAMENT, not as something to cater to some suspected audience you may or may not have (I personally didn't enjoy watching that). Why can't you just have a normal tournament?? IT'S JUST PEOPLE

I am generally disappointed with the caliber of cards that were introduced yesterday. While they may be 'fun' and have a new, quite interesting keyword, there isn't a strong enough lore connection. In that regard, I am apathetic about the expansion in general. :/

In regards to arena rewards, I think that Blizzard is trying and stumbling with making arena rewards more fruitful for new players. But at the same time, they're trying to encourage real-money transactions. Here's my analysis of Team Five's motivations:

• The people who pay for packs are dedicated to the game more than F2P players

• The F2P players don't harm Blizzard's bottom line as long as the company can compensate for their existence

• By making arena rewards random, F2P players can be 'lured' into playing more Arena, becoming more dedicated to the game

• Concurrently, this will force dedicated players to actually buy packs instead of playing Arena.

• In the end, we will have a larger crowd of dedicated players who will all eventually start buying packs

• Without more new content, most of these 'dedicated' players will become bored/poor and stop playing

• Thus, expansions must be a regular occurrence, involving much more work from the developers than the adventures, which are a cash influx every 6 months or so.

So there you have it. While it seems like a majority of players on the forums are disappointed with the way Blizzard is handling the community, this actually just a vocal minority, and the rest (mostly f2p) don't voice their opinions on the matter. This is the way Blizzard will make money, by a system of subtly addictive mechanics for new players, steadily forcing them into the Real Money business which is at the heart of Hearthstone's profits.

At least that's my view.

Honestly we haven't seen really any of the cards from this expansion, so I'd wait it out. You can buy Naxx wing 3 at any time, but preempting some possibly really good card reveals by doing it gains you nothing. I say save! Hoard your cash!