New Neutral Minion - Mr. Smite

Imagine getting Mr. Smite from The Juggernaut and insta-win the game.

We also need to remember all the other pirates (around 12) that's being added to the pool, people might not see it but Juggernaut got a bit of nerf with all these new class pirates with mostly crappy stats and battlecries that works best with the class that the pirate belongs too. This expansion will water down the Juggernaut a bit.

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We also need to remember all the other pirates (around 12) that's being added to the pool, people might not see it but Juggernaut got a bit of nerf with all these new class pirates with mostly crappy stats and battlecries that works best with the class that the pirate belongs too. This expansion will water down the Juggernaut a bit.

I dunno. Ignoring Mr Smite, the average pirate in the Deadmines is more or less on par with the average from elsewhere in Standard. The small ones aren't any smaller than the previous small pirates, and the big ones are pretty typical for 'large' pirates (i.e. mid-sized minions). So I don't think the Juggernaut will be affected all that much on average, but it does add a couple of crazy outcomes with Mr Smite and Defias Cannoneer.

Blizzard is starting to annoy me to be honest.

Blizzard: "Let's get rid of charge and replace it with rush.  Charge is such a hard mechanic to balance and creates uninteractive mechanics"

Also Blizzard: "jUsT kIdDinG!  wE bRoUgHt BaCk ChArGe!"

Looks massively overrated outside of the fact that it has Charge itself (which is most likely the first thing they'll nerf, if it does turn out OP). In an aggro deck this is at best a minor Leeroy replacement (arguably worse because +1 mana which is very relevant). Honestly, a lot of problems in the current meta stem from the fact that direct damage is surprisingly hard to come by if you have to build your deck around minions,, which is part of the reason why the degenerate OTK decks are allowed to get away with all their shit. I'm actually interested in what a more late-game bursty minion meta would look like.

Not to mention that minion aggro making a bigger return (as opposed to just burn damage) could actually enable dedicated control decks to return, since the only reason those aren't around is because the playerbase insists that Quest Mage is a viable deck despite statistics proving the opposite.

The only problem with this is how bonkers it is off of The Juggernaut. It evokes flashbacks of Dr. Boom randomly discovering the perfect hero power every turn.

If only Captain Hooktusk wwas around to see it. Could have been glorious...and really broken.

The card doesn't say "other pirates" so that one will have charge.

We need to see how many cheap pirates can combo with that but looks scary...

Quote From Sykomyke

Blizzard is starting to annoy me to be honest.

Blizzard: "Let's get rid of charge and replace it with rush.  Charge is such a hard mechanic to balance and creates uninteractive mechanics"

Also Blizzard: "jUsT kIdDinG!  wE bRoUgHt BaCk ChArGe!"

I actually disagree. At some point in the past they made a lot of very questionable decisions of "this is not happening" which have lead to...confusing balancing choices.

Remember when they said Shadow Priest wouldn't be a thing because they couldn't figure out how to make damage in Priest work without enabling OTKs? Well, if they hadn't gone back on that we wouldn't have Shadow Priest now, which is arguably  the most interesting direction the class has gone in. The game evolves and stuff that was busted 2 years ago might barely be relevant nowadays. I see no problem in occasionally testing the waters and just throwing out crazy shit like this. Sure, it might backfire and be horribly overpowered, but at this point they nerf stuff within a week so I don't see the issue. As much as powercreep is frustrating to experience, I'd still prefer it over total stagnation or a constant stream of unplayably weak gimmick archetypes.

Remember how everyone complained about Leeroy Jenkins so so long, and then complained about Alexstrasza the Life-Binder for being the "Leeroy Jenkins replacement". Well looks like we "finally" got an actual POWERCREEPED Leeroy Jenkins! WHY?

Who thought that printing Leeroy Jenkins and Tundra Rhino in 1 as a 6 cost minion was okay?!? Also this directly contradicts blizzards "Moving away from Charge" thing they did by rotating all the charge cards during the previous rotation. 

Lets look at what decks can abuse him in standard:

Pirate warrior is going to become the most oppresive deck in the game, especially because The Juggernaut can randomly summon Mr. Smite. Also any Aggro deck will use him as a the new powercrept Leeroy Jenkins. Also Handbuff Paladin can cards such as Highlord Fordragon, Alliance Bannerman and Righteous Defense in order to buff up a HUGE Mr. Smite and kill your from in hand. 

Oh and in wild every aggro deck will use him, but most importantly Pirate warrior will probably become a rank S+ deck. And of course Handbuff paladin will also use him i bet. The one thing we can be thankfull of, is that Mr. Smite is EVEN costed, so ODD decks such as ODD DH and ODD Paladin can't use him. (Which is probably the only reason Leeroy Jenkins might still see play.)

Honestly why did they decide to print a card that turns Pirate warrior, which is a tier 1 deck in both standard and wild into a tier S deck instead of supporting archetypes that need help? Do they REALLY want everyone to stop playing HS and play Mercenaries or BGs instead THAT badly? 

The only "good" thing about Mr. Smite is that the board is finally going to matter... somewhat. So uh.. when are they raising your health from 30 to like 40? Cuz i feel like thats going to be important if the powercreep keeps going up like this.

This guy may be the reason I craft Hooktusk!  LtEddy is going to have to get back to some Even Pirate Rogue for a future “Mishaps” episode!

It has charge so it'll be good one way or another. Impressive, considering that if this card is even remotely good you'll be expecting team5 to get death threats.

Aside from the obvious pirate warrior deck, it has a interesting niche in rogue where Efficient Octo-bot exists. Just discount a few good pirates and burst them to hell with smite at 5 mana or less.

Im not that worried to be honest, because its still a 6 mana minion that deals but 6 damage. And since there's no deathrattle pirate as yet, its basically never realistically doing more than charging itself. The one reason it could get more heat than it deserves is getting this via the juggernaunt, which is basically game over unless something weird happens.

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Quote From Sykomyke

Blizzard is starting to annoy me to be honest.

Blizzard: "Let's get rid of charge and replace it with rush.  Charge is such a hard mechanic to balance and creates uninteractive mechanics"

Also Blizzard: "jUsT kIdDinG!  wE bRoUgHt BaCk ChArGe!"

I actually disagree. At some point in the past they made a lot of very questionable decisions of "this is not happening" which have lead to...confusing balancing choices.

Remember when they said Shadow Priest wouldn't be a thing because they couldn't figure out how to make damage in Priest work without enabling OTKs? Well, if they hadn't gone back on that we wouldn't have Shadow Priest now, which is arguably  the most interesting direction the class has gone in. The game evolves and stuff that was busted 2 years ago might barely be relevant nowadays. I see no problem in occasionally testing the waters and just throwing out crazy shit like this. Sure, it might backfire and be horribly overpowered, but at this point they nerf stuff within a week so I don't see the issue. 

Going back and finding a way to make an archetype that has never really existed before "viable" is completely different than renouncing a specific mechanic, only to bring it back... Shadow Priest was essentially only a meme until this year.  Pirate decks have never been a meme and have always had a strong presence since Patches was released.

And then on top of bringing it back, enabling it in such a way that it makes an already strong archetype even stronger.  Oh, and as others have stated:  Powercreeping it's predecessor.

There's a difference between making the game interesting and making it frustrating.  

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As much as powercreep is frustrating to experience, I'd still prefer it over total stagnation or a constant stream of unplayably weak gimmick archetypes.

I'd much rather stagnation, then frustration.  One can be circumvented by experimentation/playing other modes.  The latter forces people out of the game and ostracizes people.  Gimmick archtypes are only gimmicks if they never get supported.  The only notable situation where I can think blizzard forced an archetype without adequate support was "frost shaman" with Moorabi.  Beyond that, they seem to be trying to print supporting cards for archetypes as they go along so what is a "gimmick today, dream tomorrow" so to speak.

Also, I'd much rather balance, interactive board play, and fair mechanics over "POWER LEVEL OVER 9000!!!!!" mechanics.  Questlines were a mistake, and it took them way too long to realize that (and nerf them).  Maybe HS is gravitating away from my interest, but just saying: there are certain immutable ways to design and balance a game, the last few expansions haven't really been all that stellar in my opinion.

This is what is wrong with HS.

They are pushing an archetype that has already been proven to work instead of giving something outlandish like this to the T3 decks that need anything.

It's very strong and a game ender.

IF you get this through The Juggernaut, GG

This is one of those cards that could either be broken or just overrated by the community. I'm leaning towards broken and meta-defining because it might speed up the meta even more. This is Leeroy reincarnated, with better stats and an aura effect to boot. 

Regardless of what Mr. Smite's influence in the game is going to be, this card angers me so much because it's more proof that the current dev team is probably one of the worst in the game's history. Didn't Iksar or some other dev say before that they're eliminating the charge keyword from the game?Then why did they print this monstrosity all of a sudden? Are they just screwing with us, trying to induce us into going on Zeddy-like rants? 

Seriously, f*ck these devs. They clearly don't know what direction they want to take the game in; they keep going back on their word, reprinting broken shit (like reincarnating RAZA PRIEST in Hunter, a class that LOVES to go face), and failing to introduce a diversity of archetypes. They suck, plain and simple. 

The card is released, and it is exactly as broken as people were afraid.

It was my understanding that pirate Warrior was already really good, so why would they go and print this?

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It was my understanding that pirate Warrior was already really good, so why would they go and print this?

The devs are either clueless and incompetent, or they are intentionally making Hearthstone more frustrating by creating Tier SSS decks to make people suffer and hate the game. There is no other reason to give cards like mr. Smite to an already powerful deck. And not only mr. Smite, they made another super strong pirate for warrior in this mini-set. It is really absurd.

Love the card ! but im also sure that this will be nerfed in some time .... 

It's so much fun having devs that bring to life a lot of new fun cards like the parrots but... Lulz guess what can't play em or anything else have fun competing with this shit.