Man, that was a dorky announcement video. Looks like some cool stuff, though!
I’m enjoying the latest expansion (Boomsday) thus far. For casual play, I’ve found Whizbang the Wonderful to be a really fun and refreshing twist, a bit of fresh air to the entire game.
Trelane
3586
And don’t forget to craft him golden. It makes ALL the cards in his decks golden!
A pop-up book. Can’t say I saw that coming. Getting the new players indoctrinated young?
New expansion today, no idea if its a good one or not :)
96 packs from saved gold (90 plus the 6 free ones).6 legendaries plus a free one.
I just can’t seem to put this game away. Need to do my dailies.
Dunno if anyone still plays this, but Blizzard released a massive set of nerfs today, totally by surprise.
The story behind this is Blizzard released a new expansion 2 weeks ago, and it had zero impact on the meta game. The same top decks have been dominating for 6 months or more. This set of nerfs effectively kills all of those decks.
I got about 80 packs of the latest expansion, and in the best run of luck in my life I opened 13 legendaries on those packs, 3 of which were golden. Imagine my surprise to find out none of them were viable in any decks because the game was still about Odd Paladin, Shudderwock Shaman, and 4 Druid decks than run 20 of the same cards. Even playing casual all you saw were the same handful of decks.
Hopefully this injects some life back into the game. Druid is has been a cancer on the meta that forced every deck to build around it. The only way to beat a Druid was to combo them faster than they combo you, and have a combo with unlimited value since they often have 50+ life (Shudderwock, Kingsbane sometimes, you have to draw your stuff faster than they do). Then to beat the anti-Druid decks, you have Odd Paladin that rushes down those combo decks with fast aggro. But Odd Paladin, or any aggro deck, lost hard to Druid because they had could gain seemingly unlimited life and had Spreading Plague to stop you dead.
Hopefully Druid dies. Slowing down their ramp should allow more mid-range decks to consistently beat them. If Druid dies that opens up the entire meta, because you no longer have to worry that half your opponents will be playing one of the 4 tier 1 Druid decks.
Trelane
3590
Whoa, huge nerfs to many of the strongest decks in the game. Wonder if Hunter will become dominant now.
My mish-mash of an Elemental mage deck should be more viable at least.
I still play Hearthstone! I suspect it’s losing ground due to MtG: Arena and others, but it’s fun and comfortable for me. I didn’t buy the latest expansion but also saw amazing luck recently, opened a few legendaries in my recent packs (3 in ~10 packs.)
These changes sound very positive for balance and competitive play.
So basically the same thing as the two expansions before that. This is why topped playing and switched to Eternal. That and the atrocious rate in which you earn cards in HS, even with spending money.
That’s not true, Witchwood had a big impact. In part because of the set rotation, but it also brought in the Odd/Even decks and Shudderwock.
The problem has always been the Druid cards. Nourish and Wild Growth were big ones. Every Druid deck runs those as well as Branching Paths, which should also have been nerfed. 4 mana gain 12 armor is ridiculous. I don’t necessarily mind the card draw or the attack gain because it’s a 4 mana version of cards that do the same effect for less. But there’s no equivalent to 4 mana gain 12 life.
Hah, my terrible odd paladin which is used only for quest fulfillment loses nothing! I never did craft that one they nerfed.
kerzain
3595
At least you’ll always have Fungalmancer (until it rotates).
kerzain
3596
Nerfs for February:
Blizzard is nerfing a bunch of basic cards. They’re also nerfing one card that isn’t a basic card.
Cold Blood – Will cost 2 Mana. (Up from 1)
Flametongue Totem – Will cost 3 mana. (Up from 2)
Equality – Will cost 4 mana. (Up from 2)
Hunter’s Mark – Will cost 2 mana. (Up from 1)
Emerald Spellstone – Will cost 6 mana. (Up from 5)
kerzain
3597
Apparently card nerfs aren’t the only changes going live today. Slutty Jaina finally shows a little modesty.
Genn and Baku going to the Hall of Fame, along with Naturalize, Doomguard, and Divine Favor.
Genn and Baku are currently less than a year old too. Whoopsie. I’m happy to see Baku go, but Genn isn’t that bad except in Evenlock, and even Shaman isn’t a huge problem at the moment. I’d rather Evenlock just lose the ability to drop 8/8’s on turn 3, but since those are Standard neutral cards, I can see why they’re just dumping Genn instead. Both Genn and Baku are probably huge issues for future content design though.
As for Naturalize… well, I hate being milled, but damn, Druids will still need a way to deal with early big minions that isn’t just idiotic armor generators or fun-killing taunts.
Divine Favor is such a frustrating card to play against, but damn it’s fun drawing 8 cards. This seems like such a core card for Paladin that I’m left wondering what sorts of draw cards we’ll be forced to craft in the expansions in order to help make up for its loss.
I haven’t played Hearthstone in almost a year exactly. My favorite class was Priest, how’s it doing in the current meta?
It’s doing well, it has at least 3 viable decks.
prolix
3603
Great day for Hearthstone in my opinion, especially with regard to Genn, Baku, and Divine Favor. Genn and Baku have really warped the game for an entire year, and it’s time for something new. Divine Favor was frustrating because it punished opponents for playing correctly (i.e., gaining card advantage). I would have recommended a nerf instead of hall-of-faming it, but I’ll take what we got.
I guess Naturalize was inevitable given the way it could be abused. Also, judging from the fate of Coldlight Oracle, Blizzard doesn’t seem to like mill strategies. Still, I love me some combo and this card was a key part of Togwaggle/Malygos/Hakkar/Hadronox shenanigans so I’ll miss it.
(Blizzard better be printing some good cards for druid, though, because they have torched the crap out of that class.)
Even if you don’t agree with these changes, I still think it’s encouraging because it shows that Blizzard is willing to shake things up. For years they have sat on their hands and done too little too late about obvious game problems, but lately they have been far more proactive. A constantly shifting meta keeps everyone on their toes.
