^ 0 mana cards are nothing to sneeze at. Consider the effort to which rogues go to get their hands on Wondrous Wands in tempo rogue, a deck where most of the cards drawn will be inexpensive anyway.
Yes, this quest takes more time to pull off, but presumably whatever deck runs it is designed to draw cards & fully exploit the mana discount upon quest completion with big expensive minions.
^ Even if you run every single jade card available to shaman you still only have 7 summon-a-jade battlecries, and you need to invest 5 battlecries into the quest before you get your reward. I don't think this quest will be very strong with jades for that reason, it seems like far too much setup for not enough payoff.
If the card gave <4 mana minions rush instead of charge it'd make the card playable without OTK potential. Would that bring back patron warrior? No, probably not, but it'd make the commander a solid card once again, basically a mini-houndmaster Shaw, without putting a giant design constraint on future warrior and neutral cards that generate tokens in some fashion.
That was my first thought as well, and it ties in with what I perceive to be a trend with Blizzard/team 5 of a severe lack of creativity & innovation ever since Boomsday. Both the settings of the sets and the mechanics introduced have seen an inordinate amount of recycling (spellstones->schemes, echo->twinspell, deathrattle->reborn). It really does feel like whoever wasn't fired in the latest round of layoffs is having to make do with the discarded scraps of previous set designs instead of having generated new ideas to work with. I mean they're trying to pass off "board clears" as a mechanic in the next set FFS!
I genuinely hope I'm wrong to be pessimistic, but it paints a bleak picture.
Many keywords aren't anything new. Charged Devilsaur had rush before the keyword became a thing. Unstable Evolution was an echo card before that keyword was introduced, etc...
Whether the keyword will be interesting depends largely on the cards they will print for it. The warrior one so far looks decent.
Charged Devilsaur is clearly what the rush keyword is based on, but they don't work the same. The devilsaur still goes face if you summon it, rush minions don't. Rush took an existing concept and simplified & improved it.
Unstable Evolution could be reprinted as an echo card, as it is functionally identical to that keyword (and likely the inspiration for it). Doing so word reduce the wordcount on UE and make it more intuitive. By contrast, reborn is a keyword that already exists in the game as another keyword: deathrattle.
Consider the Adapt mechanic from un'goro: they could have given "Deathrattle: summon 2 1/1 plant tokens" it's own unique keyword to save words and to make it seem more special, but they didn't, because that functionality was covered by deathrattle.
To me, reborn is a clear example of forcing a design to be different for the sake of being different. Whereas Adapt takes fairly plain, vanilla buffs and turns them into a cool new mechanic, Reborn takes an old mechanic, puts on a gallon of make up and desperately hopes no one notices that it's still plain ole' deathrattle.
You can potentially get two drustvar horrors, each of which can cast their double spells twice. There are some spell combinations that can just autowin the game, like [token generator] + The Storm Bringer, and now you get two rolls for it, not to mention two rolls on the horror itself. If you can afford to pay 9 mana for a 5/5 then Swamp Queen + quest will probably win the game.
Dude, Hagatha the 7 mana 5/5 is too slow to play in any competitive shaman right now, including control ones. Make it cost +2 with the hero power and it's even worse
What deck is going to let you pass a 9 mana turn? Control warrior? They can just brawl your storm bringer board while you draw bombs
This is the equivalent of saying Tak Nozwhisker is broken with Academic Espionage. You can spend your entire turn getting insane value but it doesn't really matter when even the slowest of opponents is going to punish your for it
In a world where Elysiana still sees play I don't think this argument holds too much water. Obviously this would only ever come into play against control and slow combo decks, but in those cases spending nine mana to develop subpar stats and game-winning value is not inconceivable.
Control shaman has excellent healing options, why would it lose to a couple of bombs?
And of course I did give a preface in my OP outlining how I thought this quest was too slow as-is without further support from OP battlecries.
You can potentially get two drustvar horrors, each of which can cast their double spells twice. There are some spell combinations that can just autowin the game, like [token generator] + The Storm Bringer, and now you get two rolls for it, not to mention two rolls on the horror itself. If you can afford to pay 9 mana for a 5/5 then Swamp Queen + quest will probably win the game.
Double battlecry is nuts with Swamp Queen Hagatha, the question is whether even more value is needed in control shaman and whether you can afford to slow down the deck even more to get it. My intuition says no, but if they print enough decent and cheap battlecries, then who knows?
For the wild shudderwock combo deck it strikes me as a win-more card. Having 1 less cards in hand hurts and you autowin if you get the combo off in time, so you're probably better off with extra draws and control tools rather than the build-a-brann hero power.
The deck is a lot of fun and even warrior isn't an unwinnable matchup, although every turn does feel like playing Russian roulette. I typically switch to another deck if I keep running into warriors.
You can't play the deck without thunderheads though, those and your frogs are the engines that propel the deck forward and low value overload spells are the fuel. Not running thunderhead means you have half as many cards in the deck that turn a hand of meh spells into gold.
^ Buffing Grave horror to 11 would have indirect consequences on a bunch of other decks though. It probably wouldn't matter that much for Nomi priest, but any deck that runs sea giants and lackeys (zoo, water rogue, token druid, bloodlust shaman) can now evolve their sea giants into horrors (and then potentially MGs).
It wouldn't come up as often as the conjurer trick obviously, but especially with rogue it would be a pretty regular occurrence, and I assume people would just complain about that instead.
You'd need a sea giant in your deck, AND a witchy lackey you didn't immediately use. And it's changing 1 minion for another. If all CC did was convert a mountain giant into one Grave horror no one would care beyond face decks. it's having an 7/8 AND a 8/8 or having 4 of the bloody things at turn 5-6 that sets people into a rage.
Besides, right now if you witchy a sea giant it turns into another sea giant anyway so we're not exactly talking about MAJOR UNLIMITED VALUE here. Also we're not talking about whether people complain since that always happens no matter what you do. It's about whether the combo is too strong and if it is what can be done about it and buffing Grave 1 mana would do the job without gutting the deck (you still get 2-4 giants out of a CC. You just now have the ability to die if you do it at the wrong time).
Personally I don't think it's too strong to NEED a nerf, but a proposal like the above seems like a very elegant idea to keep the overall power level while removing one of the biggest complaints that is one of the annoying elements of the deck (also eliminates a 'coin flip win/lose' RNG element).
Of course you CAN question whether such a change is even needed. But if you feel you do I feel this would do nicely for all parties involved.
This is false. If you evolve/devolve a minion into a mana cost that doesn't exist, nothing happens. You won't get a full health Sea Giant, your giant will remain damaged. Trust me, I've tried early on in the season, not realising that Snowfury Giant had rotated out.
That's why this would be a significant change to the decks I mentioned, all of which typically do run giants and lackeys.
Decreased the cost of Whirt the All-Knowing’s Prediction Hero Power to (1)
Decreased the power of Archmage Vargoth’s deck.
Heroic
Decreased the appearance rate of Haro Setting-Sun.
Decreased the power of the following bosses’ decks: Carousel Gryphon, Applebough, Linzi Redgrin, Captain Hannigan, Xur’ios, Disidra Stormglory, Chomper, Anarii Duskgrove, Zuramat, Jepetto Joybuzz, Vas’No, Ranger Ar’ha, Tala Stonerage, and Kara Stamper.
Increased the power of the following bosses’ decks: Dalaran Fountain Golem, Lieutenant Sinclari, Flightmaster Belnaara, Nozari, Dagg Cruelmight, Sharky McFin, Queen Wagtoggle, Dazzik “Hellscream”, Draemus, and Madam Goya
Increased the cost of Applebough’s Apple Toss Hero Power to (3)
Increased the cost of Captain Hannigan’s Raise the Alarm Hero Power to (1)
Increased the cost of Chomper’s Chomp Hero Power to (3)
Decreased the Attack reduction on Haro Setting-Sun’s Darken Hero Power from -2 to -1
Decreased the cost of Whirt the All-Knowing’s Prediction Hero Power to (1).
Decreased the cost of Ol’Toomba’s Tales of Fortune Hero Power to (1).
The deck changes look pretty good, although I have mixed feelings about the nerfs to certain bosses. On the one hand, fuck Haro Setting-sun with a rake, what a disgusting deck and hero power. OTOH, facing these nerfed version when you've already beaten their more powerful predecessors robs the experience of the sense of achievement.
I'm glad the devs are more responsive to feedback but I'm worried they might be a bit *too* responsive, and it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Heroic wouldn't be very heroic if it were a cakewalk.
We're not given too much to go with, but from what clues are out there I'd say Finley is the more likely paladin and Reno ends up as the mage by process of elimination, despite it not fitting his character remotely. The golden fish that Finley uses as a cudgel in the cinematic is definitely more paladin themed, and that class has had past murloc synergies. Meanwhile, Reno's crystal gadget strikes me more as a technomagical mage weapon than a paladin artefact, and the explosion he uses to escape the sand wurm looks more like a fiery mage spell than something holy.
^ Buffing Grave horror to 11 would have indirect consequences on a bunch of other decks though. It probably wouldn't matter that much for Nomi priest, but any deck that runs sea giants and lackeys (zoo, water rogue, token druid, bloodlust shaman) can now evolve their sea giants into horrors (and then potentially MGs).
It wouldn't come up as often as the conjurer trick obviously, but especially with rogue it would be a pretty regular occurrence, and I assume people would just complain about that instead.
I don't think they would make a lackey like that because it would require too much setup and synergy with the right minions. all lackeys so far are pretty easy to use in most situations, they help you some with small effects, and the opponent can get over it. giving a minion reborn feels like a kind of effect you would want to choose and put in a deck with deathrattles and taunts and stuff, it does not feel like the kind of effect you would want to get from a random source.
but I would not be surprised if they made a priest card that was 1/2 mana give a minion reborn.
Getting reborn on a powerful deathrattle or rush minion would obviously be the nuts, but you really don't need that much value for a lackey to be good. All you need is a minion that can trade on board and this hypothetical reborn lackey would turn it into a value-trade.
In that sense it mirrors the witchey lackey b/c in both cases you want a minion already active on the board for maximum value from evolve/reborn, only with Witchy you want a minion to value-trade before you evolve it, whereas here you'd get guaranteed value if you can make the trade.
I dislike nerfing CC because the card is fine in a vacuum. It's oppressive due to the availability of discountable minions, and especially Mountain Giant because there are only 2 minions that cost 12.
Some people want there to be another 12-cost minion with crap stats to hurt the MG+CC combo, but that's rather awkward because 10+ mana discountable minions are still very strongly associated with giants. An inelegant but effective solution would be to have CC summon minions for the manacost they were played rather than their printed cost. It'd probably kill the conjurer deck though, and I'm not convinced that something that drastic is warranted. It may be a top tourney deck, but it's not like there's no competition to it, and ladder is still all mech hunters and bomb warriors.
If you're that bothered by conjurer mage, try playing aggro for a bit. Mages are a free win and you'll quickly come to resent warriors instead.
^ all the EVIL classes are getting a plague card which is a full board clear. And I'd argue WL control tools aren't bad right now, it's just the payoff that is lacking, which is what this quest is trying to address.
^ 0 mana cards are nothing to sneeze at. Consider the effort to which rogues go to get their hands on Wondrous Wands in tempo rogue, a deck where most of the cards drawn will be inexpensive anyway.
Yes, this quest takes more time to pull off, but presumably whatever deck runs it is designed to draw cards & fully exploit the mana discount upon quest completion with big expensive minions.
^ Even if you run every single jade card available to shaman you still only have 7 summon-a-jade battlecries, and you need to invest 5 battlecries into the quest before you get your reward. I don't think this quest will be very strong with jades for that reason, it seems like far too much setup for not enough payoff.
If the card gave <4 mana minions rush instead of charge it'd make the card playable without OTK potential. Would that bring back patron warrior? No, probably not, but it'd make the commander a solid card once again, basically a mini-houndmaster Shaw, without putting a giant design constraint on future warrior and neutral cards that generate tokens in some fashion.
That was my first thought as well, and it ties in with what I perceive to be a trend with Blizzard/team 5 of a severe lack of creativity & innovation ever since Boomsday. Both the settings of the sets and the mechanics introduced have seen an inordinate amount of recycling (spellstones->schemes, echo->twinspell, deathrattle->reborn). It really does feel like whoever wasn't fired in the latest round of layoffs is having to make do with the discarded scraps of previous set designs instead of having generated new ideas to work with. I mean they're trying to pass off "board clears" as a mechanic in the next set FFS!
I genuinely hope I'm wrong to be pessimistic, but it paints a bleak picture.
Charged Devilsaur is clearly what the rush keyword is based on, but they don't work the same. The devilsaur still goes face if you summon it, rush minions don't. Rush took an existing concept and simplified & improved it.
Unstable Evolution could be reprinted as an echo card, as it is functionally identical to that keyword (and likely the inspiration for it). Doing so word reduce the wordcount on UE and make it more intuitive. By contrast, reborn is a keyword that already exists in the game as another keyword: deathrattle.
Consider the Adapt mechanic from un'goro: they could have given "Deathrattle: summon 2 1/1 plant tokens" it's own unique keyword to save words and to make it seem more special, but they didn't, because that functionality was covered by deathrattle.
To me, reborn is a clear example of forcing a design to be different for the sake of being different. Whereas Adapt takes fairly plain, vanilla buffs and turns them into a cool new mechanic, Reborn takes an old mechanic, puts on a gallon of make up and desperately hopes no one notices that it's still plain ole' deathrattle.
In a world where Elysiana still sees play I don't think this argument holds too much water. Obviously this would only ever come into play against control and slow combo decks, but in those cases spending nine mana to develop subpar stats and game-winning value is not inconceivable.
Control shaman has excellent healing options, why would it lose to a couple of bombs?
And of course I did give a preface in my OP outlining how I thought this quest was too slow as-is without further support from OP battlecries.
^Swampqueen Hagatha, not the hero card, Hagatha the Witch.
You can potentially get two drustvar horrors, each of which can cast their double spells twice. There are some spell combinations that can just autowin the game, like [token generator] + The Storm Bringer, and now you get two rolls for it, not to mention two rolls on the horror itself. If you can afford to pay 9 mana for a 5/5 then Swamp Queen + quest will probably win the game.
Double battlecry is nuts with Swamp Queen Hagatha, the question is whether even more value is needed in control shaman and whether you can afford to slow down the deck even more to get it. My intuition says no, but if they print enough decent and cheap battlecries, then who knows?
For the wild shudderwock combo deck it strikes me as a win-more card. Having 1 less cards in hand hurts and you autowin if you get the combo off in time, so you're probably better off with extra draws and control tools rather than the build-a-brann hero power.
What does it do? Permanent passive Brann effect?
The deck is a lot of fun and even warrior isn't an unwinnable matchup, although every turn does feel like playing Russian roulette. I typically switch to another deck if I keep running into warriors.
You can't play the deck without thunderheads though, those and your frogs are the engines that propel the deck forward and low value overload spells are the fuel. Not running thunderhead means you have half as many cards in the deck that turn a hand of meh spells into gold.
I only dust duplicates. If I'm really desperate for dust I have a nice little piggy bank of dustable cards that I also have a golden copy of.
This is false. If you evolve/devolve a minion into a mana cost that doesn't exist, nothing happens. You won't get a full health Sea Giant, your giant will remain damaged. Trust me, I've tried early on in the season, not realising that Snowfury Giant had rotated out.
That's why this would be a significant change to the decks I mentioned, all of which typically do run giants and lackeys.
Oh well, something something great minds...? Might as well leave up the thread as a place to discuss the changes I guess.
I figured I'd post this here since I only found out about the changes while playing the heist.
The Dalaran Heist Balance Changes – July 1, 2019
Today we will be applying the following adjustments to the The Dalaran Heist solo adventure:
General
Moved some Normal and Heroic bosses to different difficulty tiers.
Adjusted the contents of the following starting decks:
** Removed Stolen Steel and Unidentified Contract
** Added Deadly Fork and Eviscerate
** Removed Violet Haze and Southsea Squidface
** Added Buccaneer and Violet Illusionist
** Removed Daring Escape and Shadowcaster
** Added Dark Iron Skulker and Pogo-hopper
** Removed Dr. Boom’s Scheme
** Added Piloted Shredder
** Removed Lightspawn
** Added Kabal Talonpriest
** Removed Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Pain, and Shadowbomber
** Added Crystallizer, Spirit Lash, and Shadow Word: Death
** Removed Lazul’s Scheme
** Added Resurrect
Normal
Heroic
We're not given too much to go with, but from what clues are out there I'd say Finley is the more likely paladin and Reno ends up as the mage by process of elimination, despite it not fitting his character remotely. The golden fish that Finley uses as a cudgel in the cinematic is definitely more paladin themed, and that class has had past murloc synergies. Meanwhile, Reno's crystal gadget strikes me more as a technomagical mage weapon than a paladin artefact, and the explosion he uses to escape the sand wurm looks more like a fiery mage spell than something holy.
A bit off topic but it'd be nice if closed/locked threads had some sort of visual cue in the thread list to distinguish them from active threads.
^ Buffing Grave horror to 11 would have indirect consequences on a bunch of other decks though. It probably wouldn't matter that much for Nomi priest, but any deck that runs sea giants and lackeys (zoo, water rogue, token druid, bloodlust shaman) can now evolve their sea giants into horrors (and then potentially MGs).
It wouldn't come up as often as the conjurer trick obviously, but especially with rogue it would be a pretty regular occurrence, and I assume people would just complain about that instead.
Getting reborn on a powerful deathrattle or rush minion would obviously be the nuts, but you really don't need that much value for a lackey to be good. All you need is a minion that can trade on board and this hypothetical reborn lackey would turn it into a value-trade.
In that sense it mirrors the witchey lackey b/c in both cases you want a minion already active on the board for maximum value from evolve/reborn, only with Witchy you want a minion to value-trade before you evolve it, whereas here you'd get guaranteed value if you can make the trade.
I dislike nerfing CC because the card is fine in a vacuum. It's oppressive due to the availability of discountable minions, and especially Mountain Giant because there are only 2 minions that cost 12.
Some people want there to be another 12-cost minion with crap stats to hurt the MG+CC combo, but that's rather awkward because 10+ mana discountable minions are still very strongly associated with giants. An inelegant but effective solution would be to have CC summon minions for the manacost they were played rather than their printed cost. It'd probably kill the conjurer deck though, and I'm not convinced that something that drastic is warranted. It may be a top tourney deck, but it's not like there's no competition to it, and ladder is still all mech hunters and bomb warriors.
If you're that bothered by conjurer mage, try playing aggro for a bit. Mages are a free win and you'll quickly come to resent warriors instead.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
^ all the EVIL classes are getting a plague card which is a full board clear. And I'd argue WL control tools aren't bad right now, it's just the payoff that is lacking, which is what this quest is trying to address.
Battlecry: give a minion reborn would be the obvious one but that seems very powerful, and in a way also quite similar to witchy lackey.