3203

My being so very over Hearthstone notwithstanding, these seem reasonable. Blade Flurry was freakishly good, not necessarily imba, but I could definitely see the reasoning that its very presence closes off a fair amount of potentially interesting Rogue weapons/weapon-boosters.

3204

This week’s Tavern Brawl seems custom made for people like me who basically own next to nothing beyond Naxx. Levels the playing field, beyond me seeing most of these cards for the first time :) Using this opportunity to clear out my 3 “win X as Y” quests and get enough gold for an arena run.

3205

Pretty good changes. Really glad druid got a kick in the pants since that should finally open druid up to other deck types instead of “What body do you wanna put on your FoN+roar chassis”.

Owl nerf is a little weird, but it’s still largely playable.

Big game hunter change is solid. It’s still playable since it’s a neutral card that can remove a large threat, but instead of your opponent spending 7+ mana to drop a large threat that you counter with 3 mana and then spend the rest of your mana building your board, you can counter with 5 mana.

Hunter’s mark change is solid.

Blade flurry got hit pretty hard, I could kind of see making one change or the other (2 mana but only deals damage to enemy minions, or 4 mana and still deals face damage) but both is pretty rough.

Knife juggler’s still playable for some decks but is less ridiculous.

Leper gnome is less disgusting. Still good for aggressive decks (Largely guaranteed at least 2 face damage) but not as horrific as it was.

Arcane golem is completely dead.

Molten giant is largely dead. They’re trying to act like dipping lower is safer now that FoN+roar is gone, but never mind the fact that almost any other class except priest is still likely to burst you around 10 life, let alone 5 life.

Master of disguise nerf that everyone was clamoring for.

Overall pretty happy with that. Those nerfs and Nax and GvG getting shitcanned should shake things up nicely. Surprised they didn’t go after some legendaries (Primarily Alexstrazsa. Freeze mage is probably going to be in the catbird seat since you can just stall until you Alex and then burst your opponent down 15 points the following turn (Which means there’s probably going to be a lot of freeze mages, so rev up your warrior decks to counter them)) but overall good stuff.

3206

Blade flurry double hit is retarded. Removing the hero impact would’ve been fine. Gold standard for clears is consecrate, 4 mana, 2 pt clear that hits the hero. Blade flurry now is a minimum of 6 mana, arcane explosion, that doesn’t even hit the hero? Or you invest 2 cards, and 7 mana, to get a 3 pt flamestrike?

Little surprised(but, i guess, not really), that pally’s are apparently totally fine…

3207

Since forever, Rogue has been a boring class with exactly 1 viable combo deck, a lesser version of the dilemma Druid was stuck in. Unless they nuke the Classic components of these combos from orbit, there’s no design space to take the classes anywhere interesting in the future.

3208

Probably because these changes are directed more at Standard than Wild. Shielded Minibot, Muster for Battle, etc are leaving anyway so they didn’t bother nerfing.

3209

Some more info from a livestream event, which I didn’t watch but Hearthpwn posted about.

No more Sorry emote
You will get a quest to complete two games in Standard which rewards you with 5 free old god packs
You will get another quest to complete seven games in Standard which rewards you with yet another 5 free old gods packs.

And there’s some Old Gods cards shown in the post, also.

3210

Before today I wasn’t feeling too positive about the design of this expansion, but that live stream was a lot of fun to watch. Should at least be an interesting couple of weeks after the release while people navigate the fresh meta. Looking forward to it.

3211

You will get a quest to complete two games in Standard which rewards you with 5 free old god packs
You will get another quest to complete seven games in Standard which rewards you with yet another 5 free old gods packs.

I watched the livestream, and I’m pretty sure Ben Brode said the quests required you to win games, not just complete them (which usually means win or lose). I’d be happy to be wrong, because I don’t play as much Hearthstone these days and have mostly junk cards, so actually winning games is going to be tough for me…

3212

Considering Hearthstone quests are nearly all “win”, not “play”, I’d bet you’re right. And that’s why I don’t play Hearthstone anymore.

3213

You will get C’thun and a bunch of free packs just for signing on. The meta is going to be completely unestablished, and a lot of brand new players will be playing at launch. It shouldn’t be that terrible to get a few wins on WotoG’s release, especially at low ranks.

3214

A few packs, of which perhaps four or five cards might be relevant to any given deck, will not likely make me competitive regardless of the current meta, and since I wouldn’t be playing regularly regardless, even if it somehow does accomplish that feat for a brief time, I’m sure it will be back to getting my shit kicked in soon enough. I mean, I might drop in just to see because free packs are free packs, but the way they fix it is letting me make progress win or lose, not by having brief windows where I might lose a little bit less.

3215

All depends on how much you enjoy playing the game, I think. If you reset the one quest per day that you’re allowed, you can get the number of “win” quests down to about 2/3 of the total. (The others being stuff like kill minions, deal damage to heroes, play minions, etc which can be progressed even with losses.) That’s still a lot, of course. To complete those remaining win quests, you have to be willing to play formats where you can win about 50-50, if you don’t have cards (or patience) to do it in constructed. My favorite is Arena, which is affordable with quest rewards alone if you’re playing a few times a week so you can get the win quests done as you go along (as opposed to repeatedly doing the arena runs back-to-back and thus not getting as much quest credit). Most Tavern Brawls are 50-50 propositions as well. If you don’t like the game well enough to be playing those 50-50 formats for 6-10 games to complete your win X quests, well, then it’s probably not for you anyway.

3216

If that’s your attitude about it, then you’re correct that it won’t be worth it for you. If you do want to give it a fair shake, this is a great time to do it. The primary goal for this expansion is to level the playing field for people who haven’t been playing the game for years. They’re not just giving you a few packs - they’re giving you up to 13 packs (65 cards) and a powerful legendary for free. You’re still not going to be able to keep up with the top level players who spend lots of money on the game, but they are at least honestly trying to make the C’thun stuff competitive which is cool.

3217

I gave their business model a fair shake when the game came out. That is the most level the playing field was ever likely to be. It is just severely wrong for the way I would enjoy the game they’ve made. I really don’t think it’s a good model in general, but obviously they’re making money hand over fist, so they’re unlikely to change it.

3218

So, I just started out trying this game. Is there any way to get the adventures, since solo play is all I really want, without having to pay for them? Or is that the business model?

Thanks!

3219

They can be purchased with gold. Last I checked a complete adventure set represented weeks worth of dailies (and, as I keep harping on, mostly winning games). I think you are likely to find them underwhelming, also. I imagine the post-Naxx ones are a bit more interesting design wise, but they’re still just a handful of boss fights and that’s about it. It seems like most people play them for the fixed reward cards.

If you’re looking for singleplayer TCG content, I would strongly recommend investigating Hex. I am somewhat biased, for sure, and I don’t want to claim Hex is going to be better for everyone . But Hex has way more of a focus on the singleplayer than I expect Hearthstone ever will.

3220

First of all, as a new player, don’t bother unlocking the Naxxramas adventures for gold. Either buy them outright or ignore them. In a few days the rewards from them will be limited to a Wild mode that goes live, a mode not intended for new players. I know you want to play solo and all, but this is still worth knowing since (except for one quest exception and a few one-off achievement rewards) you can’t earn quest gold in solo mode, and you’ll want to focus on being competitive in Standard if you ever plan to earn more gold/packs to play with.

Secondly, Naxxramas adventure wings won’t be purchaseable or unlockable after the 25th, so if you are going to unlock it you better do it before then.

You get the first wing of Naxxramas for free, but you better hurry up and unlock it if you want it. You can unlock subsequent wings for 700 gold each, but to unlock any after April 25th (for gold) you’ll have to unlock the first wing. Or you can just buy outright with money.

Anyway, you can unlock adventure wings for Naxxramas, League of Explorers, and Blackrock Mountain for 700 gold per wing. Each wing gives a minimum of one legendary and some other cards for most adventures.

You will earn gold by playing competitively. You can each 40-100 gold a day with repeatable daily quests (and one daily quest just outright gives a pack of cards), and you can also earn up to another 100 gold a day (enough to buy a pack of cards) by winning competitive matches (10 gold per 3 victories).

Also, as a new player, there are a bunch of ways to unlock card packs as you go, some of them solo, some of them competitively. Read this and find out how you can get up to 25ish classic card packs worth of gold and packs as one-off achievement rewards. That link also details the possible gold rewards for various quests.

Finally, even if you want to play solo, you really need to do the weekly brawl as much as possible, your first victory of the week gives one card-pack outright as a reward, and Brawls are the best way for new players to advance and feel competitive many weeks. But to play Brawl you must get at least one class up to level 20, which is pretty easy to do.

Finally, as already mentioned in this thread, if you login during the promotional period next week you will get a free legendary, 2 free epics, and up to 13 Old Gods expansion card-packs for logging in and doing a couple quests you’ll be given.

3221

What are the two free epics? I must have missed that.

3222

Beckoner of Evil. They’re C’thun followers. I thought they were epic rarity, but they’re commons.

2mana 2/3 Battlecry: Give your C’thun +2/+2 wherever it is.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/31114-beckoner-of-evil