prolix
3143
Nice! Did not know that about the 61 ticks.
Over the weekend I completed one of my long-standing goals, which was to beat an opposing warlock by casting Sacrificial Pact on his Lord Jaraxxus. (I was playing a Reno Jackson dreadsteed deck.) Good times.
I’ve been on the receiving end of that. Not fun.
This may be the silliest Tavern Brawl yet. Though it was also the shortest between starting and getting my free pack…
Turn 1.1 : Play Gruul.
Turn 1.2 : Opponent concedes.
I came up with a faster one.
Turn 1.1 : Play Onyxia
Still turn 1.1 (I didn’t hit end turn yet) : Opponent concedes.
Also, Questing Adventurer is game-breaking in this brawl.
Blizzard have outdone themselves with this one.
Squee
3148
After playing a few games of it, this brawl kinda grew on me. Largely because so many classes have fun tools/sweepers for dealing with the dinky minions. Played my first few games with the obvious warlock, and dread infernal is extremely useful, and then my next game I made a priest deck and had a really fun back and forth swingy game. My opponent thought he was hot shit with a turn 1 juggler coin Sylvanas, turn 2 highmane highmane, turn 3 Mukla’s champion hero power, but excavated evil got me back in to the game, and then he took control from me again with UTH, Brann, houndmaster, which I then slapped down with Nefarian (Giving me hunter’s mark), hunter’s mark the big hound, cabal shadow priest a 1/1 hound with charge, run it in to his big hound.
Fun stuff. A lot of cards that can let you run away with the game, but sweepers are even more powerful than normal so you get a lot of huge swings. Definitely not something I’d want to play a lot of but it’s kind of a hoot.
Brawl regularly sounds like a good time to me and way more appealing than regular Hearthstone, but for some reason they’ve locked it behind having every class at level 20, which given that I don’t think I even have one class to level 20, means playing way more regular mode Hearthstone than I have any actual desire to do. :(
I think they have locked it behind having one class at 20. I got brawls unlocked for my daughter fairly easily months ago and she most certainly doesn’t have all classes at 20.
EDIT: Yep. The wiki says 1 hero at least at level 20.
Wendelius
I misremembered, apparently. That’s not nearly as bad. And still way more regular Hearthstone than I want to play.
prolix
3152
Really hate this brawl since it just rewards people with swingy legendaries like Alexstrasza and Onyxia. I vastly prefer the brawls with premade decks.
What a terrible brawl. Six straight concessions after 1-2 turns of the other guy dropping something ridiculous right out of the gate. Then got my pack when the other guy conceded after I did the same. Glad I’m done with that. Although I did go back in once more to finish off my “play minions costing 5 or more” quest since it counts the original cost, not the modified cost.
prolix
3154
I crafted Dr. Boom today.
I am not proud.
Squee
3155
You have turned to the dark side. There’s no coming back now.
New things coming to Hearthstone, including more deck slots and a new standard format!
I dont understand the new “standard” mode. It seems to have bene put in place so designers can balance the last years cards easier than all of them, but does that mean they are giving up on balancing the normal game (sorry “wild”)?
Looks like it’s the same idea that’s used with Magic. They limit the pool for most common tournament play to a specific set of cards, in a moving window going <distance> back.
As you keep adding cards, it gets progressively harder to balance the entire pool of cards. Whatever that one big nerf was a little while back, to an original (I think?) card that was a big OP when combined with a newer one. I doubt they’ll give up on keeping the entire pool relatively balanced, they just don’t have to keep pouring more and more effort to balancing every new card with every already existing card combo.
The other point is that it does make it easier for new players to get up to speed. If they’re only needing to pay attention to cards from the Standard block, it’s easier to build a deck than if they’re dealing with facing any card from the entire pool.
Yeah, that was inevitable. Having to balance everything against Dr. Boom forever, or Harvest Golem, or hell even Chillwind Yeti is a bit of a shackle for the designer.
prolix
3161
I agree that this was inevitable; they just can’t balance it all. Random thoughts:
(1) Ironically, by eliminating one set of balancing problems (goodbye Mad Scientist, Dr. Boom), they’ve created a whole new set. Some archetypes are screwed (e.g. Secret Paladin - goodbye Minibot, Muster for Battle, Piloted Shredder, Dr. Boom, Avenge) while others are mostly unaffected. I’m not really interested in seeing even more combo Druids, but get ready for that unless they nerf Savage Roar or introduce something to counter it.
(2) I play a lot of control decks, and I am not real thrilled about losing a lot of staple anti-aggro cards (e.g. Sludge Belcher, Deathlord, Lightbomb, Antique Healbot). I understand aggro decks are losing tools too, but I feel like they have more fallback options. I would hope they are planning replacements.
(3) Doubling the number of deck slots was nice, but by introducing a new constructed play mode, the net increase is zero if you play both modes. Better than nothing, I guess.
(4) I don’t understand why they won’t let new players play deprecated adventures (Naxxramas is first on the block). The adventures are fun! They should make the old adventures either cheaper or free, and just not reward any cards for it. Taking adventures away entirely is lame.
(5) They said they will be reevaluating all the classic cards as part of this shakeup. Nerfbat recommendations: Savage Roar and Tirion Fordring for sure. Perhaps also Jaraxxus, Truesilver Champion, Doomhammer, Knife Juggler?
When is Standard coming? Might be a great time to jump back in…I was discouraged by all the different sets I was likely to have to get to be competitive.
