I'm pretty sure there is a reason for having so many of these complicated trashy meme-y cards as epics, namely limiting their impact/occurrence in the actual game and keeping them out of the hands of total beginners. Magic has a very similar pattern, with most of these types of cards being printed as "trash/crap rares". While it's not exactly analogous, because drop rates in arena are not based solely on rarity, nevertheless I don't think it's a coincidence that most convoluted janky cards are released as epics.
Edit: Here are two of many articles by Magic head honcho mark Rosewater explaining the need for bad rares in Magic. The situation isn't identical, but a lot of the arguments do translate to HS.
I wouldn't mind seeing more legendaries but I don't think this is a very strong argument or a very good solution. The pity timer is a backstop, a condition that will hardly ever be met. In my experience the average frequency of getting a legendary is about once per 20 packs, which means you have to open twice the expected number of packs for the pity timer to kick in. In other words, suppose they changed it to 35 packs: in practice it'd hardly ever matter because it's still a lot more likely you'll open a legendary naturally before you get pitied.
I'd rather see the base rate of legendaries increased a little, which would make sense considering how the total number of legendaries per set has increased and considering how many legendaries are critical centerpieces in specific decks.
I think it's a conscious choice by the devs not to have multi-tribe units, or more tribes for that matter. Hearthstone's design philosophy has always emphasised simplicity, and dual classes go against that in more ways than just making it hard to fit the text into the box. I think Amalgam and Hench-Clan Hag are clear exception-to-the-rule type cards that get past the rules by having all tribal tags, which is in a sense still less "complicated" than having two.
I think the problem with battlegrounds right now is how much more adaptable murlocs are in lategame thanks to poisonous and divine shield. Of the three keywords that are game breaking, murlocs have access to two of them, on all murlocs(the third being swipe-attack). Not only that, unlike a lot of other buffs, most of the murloc stuff affects the whole board. I think Bagurgle was an outright mistake, murloc would've already been one of the stronger classes with just the nerfs to beast and mech. Toxfin also definitely should be T5, because poisonous is OP, doubly so if you can give the minion divine shield.
I also wouldn't mind seeing useless minions like The Beast and Sated Threshadon removed. When you upgrade Soul Juggler, it should deal 2 instances of 3 damage per demon instead of 6, which is a strict downgrade. Lastly, I think they should add minions that can buff minions that don't have a tribe. A large portion of the available creatures is essentially unplayable lategame because all of the scaling mechanisms revolve around tribes.
I just hope they don't end up gutting all the fun stuff in shaman that's borderline playable like miracle or token shaman. If they're going to do a "day 1 patch" they should nerf the cards that are actually causing problems directly.
I could see the new mana cyclone mage running this alongside both of the mage side-quests. That deck probably want to include the side quests anyway, loves to draw early and tends to lack decent proactive plays for the first few turns, so questing explorer would fit right in, assuming side-quests prove to be viable.
It's pretty counter-intuitive but unlike Shield of Galakrond, which you get upon logging in as advertised, to unlock your Galakronds you have to go to the pack-opening section. There your screen will freeze up for a bit and then a chest will appear much like at the end of the month for your ranked rewards.
They probably should have added some sort of gleam or animation to the opening packs button to make this all a bit more obvious.
The new hunter legendary dragon, Veranus isn't a spell itself but it combines very well with most of hunter's removal tools: unleash, explosive trap, Desert Spear, lynxes, etc. The hunter class isn't traditionally good at dealing with wide boards so your options are pretty limited. There's also Crushing Walls if you're running Zul'jin anyway.
There is an inherent counter-synergy between this card's condition and payoff which sinks the card for me. At the earliest, you can get this card online by turn 4 (Coin 3-drop, 3-drop, 4-drop), which would be fine, but that requires you to stuff your deck full of inexpensive minions in order to curve out... netting you a statistically mediocre minion summoned from your deck.
Meanwhile, if you go for big minions, there's no way you can complete the quest before you could feasibly play whatever it you're summoning from the deck anyway. At best you get to summon two big dudes for the price of one somewhere in the later stages of the game, when that tempo advantage is a lot more likely to get dealt with by mass removal.
If this worked with spells, you could easily build a deck with mostly spells and a handful of big dudes to capitalise on Strength in Numbers, but as it stands the card is its own worst enemy.
I'm not sure this would actually work with Garden Gnome, at least not if you have a Treant out. I would assume the Gnome cares about the current cost, not the printed cost.
That said, after you play gardening gnome Aeroponics cost 1 mana (or less), so that's a neat trick.
He's a better argent commander.... except he can't go face. Probably still worth if, especially in any deck that cares about the dragon tag. Reminds me a lot of Scaleworm, and I wouldn't be surprised if this guy saw similar application as a meat-and-potatoes all around decent dragon.
If you have a way to trigger it immediately, great, it's a Mark of the Lotus, which is probably worth 1.5 mana if we're fair.
However, the fact that your opponent is aware of the quest counter and can clear your board when you're close to completion makes this much worse. It's like a competitive secret except it's out in the open.
Looks like a pretty yucky card to me. Might be decent in wild Muster for Battle type decks, but for standard, even with the weenie support already in paladin, it's not looking too hot IMO.
I'm pretty sure there is a reason for having so many of these complicated trashy meme-y cards as epics, namely limiting their impact/occurrence in the actual game and keeping them out of the hands of total beginners. Magic has a very similar pattern, with most of these types of cards being printed as "trash/crap rares". While it's not exactly analogous, because drop rates in arena are not based solely on rarity, nevertheless I don't think it's a coincidence that most convoluted janky cards are released as epics.
Edit: Here are two of many articles by Magic head honcho mark Rosewater explaining the need for bad rares in Magic. The situation isn't identical, but a lot of the arguments do translate to HS.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/good-bad-and-ugly-truth-2005-07-18-0
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/rare-well-done-2002-02-25-0
I wouldn't mind seeing more legendaries but I don't think this is a very strong argument or a very good solution. The pity timer is a backstop, a condition that will hardly ever be met. In my experience the average frequency of getting a legendary is about once per 20 packs, which means you have to open twice the expected number of packs for the pity timer to kick in. In other words, suppose they changed it to 35 packs: in practice it'd hardly ever matter because it's still a lot more likely you'll open a legendary naturally before you get pitied.
I'd rather see the base rate of legendaries increased a little, which would make sense considering how the total number of legendaries per set has increased and considering how many legendaries are critical centerpieces in specific decks.
I think it's a conscious choice by the devs not to have multi-tribe units, or more tribes for that matter. Hearthstone's design philosophy has always emphasised simplicity, and dual classes go against that in more ways than just making it hard to fit the text into the box. I think Amalgam and Hench-Clan Hag are clear exception-to-the-rule type cards that get past the rules by having all tribal tags, which is in a sense still less "complicated" than having two.
I think the problem with battlegrounds right now is how much more adaptable murlocs are in lategame thanks to poisonous and divine shield. Of the three keywords that are game breaking, murlocs have access to two of them, on all murlocs(the third being swipe-attack). Not only that, unlike a lot of other buffs, most of the murloc stuff affects the whole board. I think Bagurgle was an outright mistake, murloc would've already been one of the stronger classes with just the nerfs to beast and mech. Toxfin also definitely should be T5, because poisonous is OP, doubly so if you can give the minion divine shield.
I also wouldn't mind seeing useless minions like The Beast and Sated Threshadon removed. When you upgrade Soul Juggler, it should deal 2 instances of 3 damage per demon instead of 6, which is a strict downgrade. Lastly, I think they should add minions that can buff minions that don't have a tribe. A large portion of the available creatures is essentially unplayable lategame because all of the scaling mechanisms revolve around tribes.
I just hope they don't end up gutting all the fun stuff in shaman that's borderline playable like miracle or token shaman. If they're going to do a "day 1 patch" they should nerf the cards that are actually causing problems directly.
I could see the new mana cyclone mage running this alongside both of the mage side-quests. That deck probably want to include the side quests anyway, loves to draw early and tends to lack decent proactive plays for the first few turns, so questing explorer would fit right in, assuming side-quests prove to be viable.
It's pretty counter-intuitive but unlike Shield of Galakrond, which you get upon logging in as advertised, to unlock your Galakronds you have to go to the pack-opening section. There your screen will freeze up for a bit and then a chest will appear much like at the end of the month for your ranked rewards.
They probably should have added some sort of gleam or animation to the opening packs button to make this all a bit more obvious.
The new hunter legendary dragon, Veranus isn't a spell itself but it combines very well with most of hunter's removal tools: unleash, explosive trap, Desert Spear, lynxes, etc. The hunter class isn't traditionally good at dealing with wide boards so your options are pretty limited. There's also Crushing Walls if you're running Zul'jin anyway.
There is an inherent counter-synergy between this card's condition and payoff which sinks the card for me. At the earliest, you can get this card online by turn 4 (Coin 3-drop, 3-drop, 4-drop), which would be fine, but that requires you to stuff your deck full of inexpensive minions in order to curve out... netting you a statistically mediocre minion summoned from your deck.
Meanwhile, if you go for big minions, there's no way you can complete the quest before you could feasibly play whatever it you're summoning from the deck anyway. At best you get to summon two big dudes for the price of one somewhere in the later stages of the game, when that tempo advantage is a lot more likely to get dealt with by mass removal.
If this worked with spells, you could easily build a deck with mostly spells and a handful of big dudes to capitalise on Strength in Numbers, but as it stands the card is its own worst enemy.
She seemed like the sort of card that was bound to become part of some obscene combo until they changed the echo rules
Weirdly, this patch moved Sathrovarr to wild, so even though I still have my free copy, I can't play him.
I was talking about Glinda. You can't disenchant your free golden Sn1p-Sn4p even if you wanted to, it's uncraftable.
TBH I'd rather get 400 dust than the option to dust my card for 1600.
I'm not sure this would actually work with Garden Gnome, at least not if you have a Treant out. I would assume the Gnome cares about the current cost, not the printed cost.
That said, after you play gardening gnome Aeroponics cost 1 mana (or less), so that's a neat trick.
Better Blackwing Corrupter. Tremendous card.
Rogue will probably love this.
He's a better argent commander.... except he can't go face. Probably still worth if, especially in any deck that cares about the dragon tag. Reminds me a lot of Scaleworm, and I wouldn't be surprised if this guy saw similar application as a meat-and-potatoes all around decent dragon.
Very happy with this card. Finally a good 1-drop for shaman that you actually want to play on 1, unlike señor Sludge Slurper.
If you have a way to trigger it immediately, great, it's a Mark of the Lotus, which is probably worth 1.5 mana if we're fair.
However, the fact that your opponent is aware of the quest counter and can clear your board when you're close to completion makes this much worse. It's like a competitive secret except it's out in the open.
Looks like a pretty yucky card to me. Might be decent in wild Muster for Battle type decks, but for standard, even with the weenie support already in paladin, it's not looking too hot IMO.
No-neutral Paladin is this expansion's Freeze-Shaman I guess.
I like that they're keeping casino mage alive after Flamewaker rotates. Works great with the new sidequest and mana Cyclone.