The new formats must also fulfill that one corporate criteria of generating profit. Duels fulfilled it via paywall and heroics mode, and so it follows that if a new format must be introduced at all, I'm sure it must go the same route; either paywalling certain features, or present a tacit requirement for players to spend some* money to have fun in it.
I personally like the idea of a rotating 'limited wild' system, with the cards available for this format to change with every expansion. Will certainly be easier to balance, and will allow us to play with decks from previous metas. It wouldn't even take team5 that much to make it happen. But I hold little hope of seeing this ever coming through. Unless there's some pass you have to buy (either in gold or real money) every expansion to play this mode, I just can't see this design document ever getting past management approval.
I would have thought it would help monetise Wild all by itself, at least enough to cover the small cost of implementing it (they don't need to do anything at all to support it beyond choosing new sets every so often). It would actually push people to buy Wild packs, whereas at the moment most Wild players already have what they need for the slowly changing meta and only buy Standard packs.
It would certainly push wild pack sales if this was implemented, but there will come a time when nearly all serious players would already have all the wild cards they need and then the sales will come crashing to a halt, which will ironically come faster than we think because of the duplicate protection. That's probably why it hasn't been implemented yet, despite the fact that it wouldn't even come to close to the resources needed to implement the duels mode.
There needs to be a monetization system for this mode that is equal if not surpassing that of duels for this to ever be a realistic consideration. Sadly that's the kind of world we live in with activision-blizz
As it stands, HS is failing to tap into the advantages of digital games being able to sell old packs to new players, and it cannot be that hard to convince the accounting department with the prospect of a permanent trickle of income from the entire history of the game for a low initial cost of setting it up.
That will not be true in April. In fact, if they didn't rotate the DH Initiate set DH would have more cards in Standard than anyone else because the 5 extra cards they received in each of the Year of the Phoenix expansions make up for the 15 missing Classic cards.
We should wait and see exactly how they decide to approach set rotation and the changes to the Classic set before getting too excited, but with most of these gone DH might actually be able to establish a fair class identity without seemingly being able to do everything.
The new formats must also fulfill that one corporate criteria of generating profit. Duels fulfilled it via paywall and heroics mode, and so it follows that if a new format must be introduced at all, I'm sure it must go the same route; either paywalling certain features, or present a tacit requirement for players to spend some* money to have fun in it.
I personally like the idea of a rotating 'limited wild' system, with the cards available for this format to change with every expansion. Will certainly be easier to balance, and will allow us to play with decks from previous metas. It wouldn't even take team5 that much to make it happen. But I hold little hope of seeing this ever coming through. Unless there's some pass you have to buy (either in gold or real money) every expansion to play this mode, I just can't see this design document ever getting past management approval.
I would have thought it would help monetise Wild all by itself, at least enough to cover the small cost of implementing it (they don't need to do anything at all to support it beyond choosing new sets every so often). It would actually push people to buy Wild packs, whereas at the moment most Wild players already have what they need for the slowly changing meta and only buy Standard packs.
Assuming the main aim is to have a dynamic and interesting meta, the easiest (both to implement and come up with) is to just have a rapidly rotating Wild format. E.g. Basic + Classic* + 3 expansions, with the expansions changing every month. Something of the sort gets suggested often, and the beauty of it is that it is obvious it will work: the meta has to change, the reduced pool of cards gives everything a chance to shine, and balance issues resolve themselves quickly.
* I would keep Basic around, but wouldn't be against to switching out Classic.
My thoughts on your other suggestions:
Explorer: the perfect solution on paper, but is probably too complicated to make work in practice. After all, there will always be something on top, and removing overplayed cards will just lead to other cards being overplayed, which will then be removed etc.
Similar to my thoughts on Tower below, using ban lists feels at odds to HS's usual exploitation of it being a digital game, where nerfs take their place.
Pauper: this reminds me of the Tavern Brawl where you could only use Basic and Classic cards of common and rare rarities. The issue with that brawl is that a lot of important and interesting tools are epic or legendary, so the decks are typically very restricted and there's not as much fun to be had as you first expect imo.
Tower: it'll be fine, but it feels like HS trying to be something it is not. If that is how you want to be playing, then why aren't you just plating MtG instead?
I know it's not quite as simple as that, but I'd rather the devs made HS the best HS can be, rather than devoting time to making is more like something else.
Tribal: say hello to a perpetual murloc meta! This feels too restrictive to be interesting to me, especially as most tribes want support from generally good minions or synergy outside of the tribe itself.
Two-Headed Ogre: this was a recent Brawl, and it is well suited to something that lasts 1 week. The main issue I had with the Brawl is we were strongly incentivised to lean heavily on the hero power to screw over the other 9 classes that have different hero powers, meaning you either had mirror matches or had 15 useless cards in the deck.
You are correct in assuming the aim, which is not only to keep the meta dynamic and interesting, but to keep A meta dynamic and interesting. Also to give those who have full collections a little more variety.
Explorer: The goal of explorer is to allow other classes/archetypes to be on top, at least for a little bit. Not in the scale of Wild where the same decks are constantly being ran for years on end. I prefer card removals instead of all out nerfs. Removals allow for a bit more control in this format without changing others. It worked for Odd/Even decks, it can also work here is how I'm looking at it. I'm not disregarding what you said about nerfing cards instead of removing them, but in a for mat such as explorer, they need for nerfs would be far less.
Pauper: It is a slow format but I only recall the Brawl just being Classic and Basic? Correct me if I'm wrong. I should have clarified this could be applied to either Standard or Wild, or both depending. This is more or less an option for Free to Play players to have so they don't have to struggle so much with cost of the game. I'm a whale, I don't feel that struggle but I think this would be a fair idea for players who have a limited collection.
Tower: This is my way of saying that I'm tired of scenarios where "I should've played around the Pyroblast that was created by the Wand Thief that was created by First Day of School". I'm not asking for a restructure of Standard, just somewhere there's not insane RNG. Praise Yogg but everybody gets tired of praising him every now and then.
Tribal: I wouldn't say a perpetual Murloc meta, but it's something little change things up. Maybe Team 5 will test it as a brawl someday.
Two-Headed Ogre: I don't remember that Brawl, can you post a link?
I really just want other ladder experiences other than what we've had since the inception of Wild if that makes sense.
I don't really oppose the ideas behind any new format, but unlike physical card games where you just get everyone present to agree on a set of rules, digital games like HS have to be more concerned about not splitting the player base too much. Now I look at it this way, it is clear that Tavern Brawls are a decent way to handle different formats without splitting the players across ever increasing numbers of game modes. The approach has its flaws, but I appreciate the game mode a little more now :)
Anyway, that's my only real 'gripe' with most suggested formats, especially as the simple rotating Wild approach achieves the aim so cleanly by itself.
Explorer - A format in which cards, depending on the amount they were played, get rotated out until the new Hearthstone year.
Pauper - A format in which only common rarity cards are allowed.
Tower - A format in which "random" is not allowed, and in which cards that create other cards is not allowed.
Tribal - A format in which all minions must share the same minion type.
Two-Headed Ogre - Make a 15 card deck, combine it with someone else's 15 card deck, and you go against two other players with their combined 15 card decks.
Hell, maybe even a format that rotates with expansions. What if we had Classic, Basic, Darkmoon Faire, and Whispers of the Old Gods in their own format for 4 months until the next expansion? This could've also been done when Boomsday came out, it could've shared a format with Goblins Vs. Gnomes along with mechs from other expansions.
Assuming the main aim is to have a dynamic and interesting meta, the easiest (both to implement and come up with) is to just have a rapidly rotating Wild format. E.g. Basic + Classic* + 3 expansions, with the expansions changing every month. Something of the sort gets suggested often, and the beauty of it is that it is obvious it will work: the meta has to change, the reduced pool of cards gives everything a chance to shine, and balance issues resolve themselves quickly.
* I would keep Basic around, but wouldn't be against to switching out Classic.
My thoughts on your other suggestions:
Explorer: the perfect solution on paper, but is probably too complicated to make work in practice. After all, there will always be something on top, and removing overplayed cards will just lead to other cards being overplayed, which will then be removed etc.
Similar to my thoughts on Tower below, using ban lists feels at odds to HS's usual exploitation of it being a digital game, where nerfs take their place.
Pauper: this reminds me of the Tavern Brawl where you could only use Basic and Classic cards of common and rare rarities. The issue with that brawl is that a lot of important and interesting tools are epic or legendary, so the decks are typically very restricted and there's not as much fun to be had as you first expect imo.
Tower: it'll be fine, but it feels like HS trying to be something it is not. If that is how you want to be playing, then why aren't you just plating MtG instead?
I know it's not quite as simple as that, but I'd rather the devs made HS the best HS can be, rather than devoting time to making is more like something else.
Tribal: say hello to a perpetual murloc meta! This feels too restrictive to be interesting to me, especially as most tribes want support from generally good minions or synergy outside of the tribe itself.
Two-Headed Ogre: this was a recent Brawl, and it is well suited to something that lasts 1 week. The main issue I had with the Brawl is we were strongly incentivised to lean heavily on the hero power to screw over the other 9 classes that have different hero powers, meaning you either had mirror matches or had 15 useless cards in the deck.
You might find https://wow.gamepedia.com/Timeline helpful for that. It doesn't specify when most characters are born, but you can infer many of them using their place in various stories.
I believe Jaina and Thrall are a similar age, and Thrall was born in year 1. That would make them both about 20 in WC3, which fits my expectation, and puts them at 32 during BfA.
I have to say, in the timeline Azeroth just cannot catch a break since WoW started. I get that it is easier to keep character models when they age slowly but sheesh. Anduin really is optimistic about ever finding peace when a new threat to the world appears every year.
And it just feels like you didn't read the whole thing, and i should have used your void caller example for control with warlock missed that.
I admit that was the case since I was rushing a bit to get on with other stuff. Sorry about that.
I guess just as you used Aviana + Kun as a specific example of a wider problem, my analysis can be easily generalised to other Wild archetypes. Long story short, it is rare for new cards to be printed that seriously change the optimised toolkit used in Wild, and it is only going to get rarer as the Wild card pool increases in size. It is an inevitable feature of the Wild format when 'Spike' players are common.
This is why I really want a rotating Wild game mode, kind of like Standard but switching more often and using sets from across the game's history. As Wild itself stagnates, this would give old cards more room to breathe and force players to come up with new strategies because their pool of cards is truly changing (even more than in Standard).
The issue at the heart of this is that Aviana + Kun isn't the combo so much as a way to circumvent the usual mana cap. Throw Ysiel Windsinger into the mix and you essentially have unlimited mana and your only limitation is what cards are available to druid.
The only ways Aviana + Kun wouldn't be used are:
it is difficult to set them up, and/or
the combo can be done in 10 mana or less naturally (maybe 11 or 12 since Innervate has always been a thing).
Obviously 1 isn't the case, and the game is always balanced around limiting the power of 10 mana combos, so option 2 is never the case either. So Wild combo druid will always gravitate to Aviana + Kun, and you cannot really change that without changing one of those cards or just adding another, easier way to get (effectively) infinite mana.
The decks are made even more similar because all the cards involved in reaching the combo (draw, removal, stall, ramp) are just reused because they have long been optimised. This is true in every class, all of which have their own ways of doing it. And it's not just combo either; I'm so fed up of Warlock in Wild because every non-zoo deck has relied on Voidcallers and Bloodreaver Gul'dan for years.
The only real solution is to play in Standard, where possible.
Got to 47 earlier, and am aiming to reach 50 just before Christmas (the daily and weekly quests would leave me about half way through 49 on Christmas Eve, which I know will bug me on Christmas if I don't grind up the difference beforehand).
They cannot undo that nerf anyway because they made it so cards cannot randomly generate themselves anymore. Alex was the special case that put the idea out there, but Renew and Nature Studies forced it into being a general rule.
Perhaps the most important 2 words in the previous paragraph were "have to". The bombing of Theramore was not something that Jaina or Garrosh could skip. This is unlike the Siege of Orgimmar, which Thrall could reasonably skip, so reusing that fight would probably just be lazy.
I'd imagine they'd need to insert that fight in since the story need to explain Thrall's dissapointment with Garrosh, and it would probably be unlikely they'd do that in a text box and basically skim past Mists of Pandaria. But as you said, Thrall's story is so much longer and, I'd add, significant than any other character that the real question is where to stop. It may very well end after Garrosh's first defeat, since there's just so much ground to cover, from his origins to Mannoroth's death, to deathwing's defeat, to the Ogrimmar siege.
I'm hoping the Garrosh story is sufficient by itself to show Thrall's disappointment in him, and I suspect Thrall's story is 9th (if Flux is right) to let everyone else tell their stories so that Thrall can skim over them with dialogue. Does he need to address his mistake with Garrosh? Absolutely, but with such limited space the WoD rematch feels much more appropriate.
One fight I expect we will see again though is the Divine Bell one with Anduin. I'm honestly not sure how Anduin's story is going to be told, because before Legion he had always been the pacifist and/or damsel in distress. Picture the scene: "Oh no! I've been kidnapped by Onyxia. Let's wait 'til next month when Valeera and daddy can rescue me."
I'd expect to see the same final match in Garrosh's story when Thrall's story comes along, but how'd they manage it is another thing entirely since he's supposed to lose to Garrosh the first time.
I wouldn't be surprised if Thrall skipped this fight. The Siege of Orgimmar is not nearly so important to Thrall's story as it is to Garrosh's, so there are surely better events to fill the 8 encounters up with. That's doubly true since Thrall has so much story to cover. I suppose it is possible they go a little bit into WoD to when Thrall kills Garrosh, and then can leave his story when he (tries to) settle down for a quiet life.
As to whether reusing fights is clever or cheap: definitely both! You have to tell the same story from both sides, so why wouldn't you, well, tell the same story? The efficient route is quite often the best one, and for this sort of thing it helps ensure consistency, which is useful for a set of stories trying to give more players the background to the characters they are using.
Perhaps the most important 2 words in the previous paragraph were "have to". The bombing of Theramore was not something that Jaina or Garrosh could skip. This is unlike the Siege of Orgimmar, which Thrall could reasonably skip, so reusing that fight would probably just be lazy.
Yeah, it is quite a neat portrait. I'm only skipping it because I rarely play warrior and I have always disliked using Garrosh to represent me (he's mush too brash and arrogant for my tastes), so being honest with myself, I'd never use it.
I don't have it and have not seen a youtube video showing his emotes, but I expect they are currently the normal ones. However, I believe the intent was to make all Book of Heroes portraits have new emotes eventually.
Since we all know he lost at the end, it would halt our natural sense to press the concede button early.
While I agree they could have added a phase against Alliance/Horde heroes, the assumption I quoted cannot be made. The main purpose of the Book of Heroes is to give greater context to players who aren't familiar with Warcraft lore, and many players wouldn't know Garrosh loses. So avoiding the issue of people conceding and then complaining that it was not obvious what they were meant to do will require removing player agency in one way or another. Having Garrosh tell us heroes beat him was one of several options here.
Was this handled perfectly? No, but I think it was probably the least confusing approach to players who don't know the story. I recall Jaina's fight against Archimonde had the final stuff all flash by during the game, and it was very difficult to follow even if you knew what happened.
The story stops right before his first defeat, so its in effect ignoring the fact that he's dead at the end. Even the final soliloquy brazenly boast his strength and how powerful he is, no one can stop him, Thrall's an idiot, etc. Ironic really.
I expect most of the stories to stop at the end of Mists of Pandaria. Most of the characters' stories are on-going in WoW (including Uther), but their emotes in HS are based on what we knew at the end of MoP, so it is the best way to show players who the basic heroes are as presented in-game.
They might find space to go further with a couple of heroes, e.g. Valeera has plenty to say from the comics - some of which is non-canon now so it'll be interesting to see what they do with that - but they could definitely fit in a bit about her more recent roles since she's been given a lot more to do since HS put the spotlight on her.
As an aside, I think Valeera has accidentally found herself in one of the most enviable positions in Warcraft. She's welcome in and respected by both the Horde and Alliance, and is privy to many of their leaders' discussions, but she is not part of either faction and is under no obligation to carry out their orders. The one thing she is loyal to (the Wrynn family) is voluntary, and she has a... relaxed relationship with SI:7 who don't even know she's sneaking in and out of Stormwind Keep most of the time.
I'm a fairly decent player but I'm no 80% plus WR Hearthstone Pro. The point of this post is to reiterate how unbelievably strong this deck is. Obviously now considering they nerfed 2 of the core cards. I could care less what the "community" thinks, I like to win, I play to win, I like to play powerful decks and I play the decks I have cards for (I'm FTP and have never spent a cent on this game).
That's fine, but if you don't care what the community thinks, then why are you making a thread on a community forum about the deck? We already know the deck is (was?) very strong, so you aren't giving us any new information.
(Complete aside that is not aimed at you but rather all users of American English: "I could care less", by which you mean "I could NOT care less", is one of the few genuinely annoying Americanisms. David Mitchell's video sums it up better than I could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw)
I had been considering making a similar post myself, so I'm sure my thoughts on this are very close to yours.
I personally refuse to down-vote anyone unless it is immediately obvious what my problem would be, e.g. they made an insulting comment with little to no substance to it. If I disagree, I'll instead reply explaining why I think they are wrong. Either I'm wrong, they are, or it is subjective enough that there is no wrong, but in any case someone learns something from the resulting discussion.
Likewise, I wish people did the same to me. I'd much rather know I'm wrong than have an empty down-vote that doesn't tell me anything other than that someone somewhere possibly disagrees with me but not enough to want to change my mind.
I'm not so doubtful they would consider it. A bit of digging found this article from ~10 months ago, where Dean Ayala asked about whether there were any "rotating format ideas [we] liked a lot": https://outof.cards/hearthstone/854-blizzards-dean-ayala-talks-about-no-plans-for-wild-nerfs-asks-the-community-about-rotating-formats. If that was February, and they heard a lot of pleas for a rotating Wild format, it could plausibly have made its way onto the year plan in April as the hidden new game mode for phase 3.
As it stands, HS is failing to tap into the advantages of digital games being able to sell old packs to new players, and it cannot be that hard to convince the accounting department with the prospect of a permanent trickle of income from the entire history of the game for a low initial cost of setting it up.
That will not be true in April. In fact, if they didn't rotate the DH Initiate set DH would have more cards in Standard than anyone else because the 5 extra cards they received in each of the Year of the Phoenix expansions make up for the 15 missing Classic cards.
See https://outof.cards/hearthstone/958-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-demon-hunter-initiate-set, which states the DH Initiate set is in the Year of the Dragon for rotation purposes. Blizz will have originally said it when revealing the Initiate set.
Lots of important cards are in the DH Initiate set, such as: Twin Slice, Battlefiend, Consume Magic, Blade Dance, Umberwing, Eye Beam, and Altruis the Outcast.
We should wait and see exactly how they decide to approach set rotation and the changes to the Classic set before getting too excited, but with most of these gone DH might actually be able to establish a fair class identity without seemingly being able to do everything.
I would have thought it would help monetise Wild all by itself, at least enough to cover the small cost of implementing it (they don't need to do anything at all to support it beyond choosing new sets every so often). It would actually push people to buy Wild packs, whereas at the moment most Wild players already have what they need for the slowly changing meta and only buy Standard packs.
I don't really oppose the ideas behind any new format, but unlike physical card games where you just get everyone present to agree on a set of rules, digital games like HS have to be more concerned about not splitting the player base too much. Now I look at it this way, it is clear that Tavern Brawls are a decent way to handle different formats without splitting the players across ever increasing numbers of game modes. The approach has its flaws, but I appreciate the game mode a little more now :)
Anyway, that's my only real 'gripe' with most suggested formats, especially as the simple rotating Wild approach achieves the aim so cleanly by itself.
The 15 card, shared deck Brawl was super recent and details are found here: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/tavern-brawls/141-half-and-half
Assuming the main aim is to have a dynamic and interesting meta, the easiest (both to implement and come up with) is to just have a rapidly rotating Wild format. E.g. Basic + Classic* + 3 expansions, with the expansions changing every month. Something of the sort gets suggested often, and the beauty of it is that it is obvious it will work: the meta has to change, the reduced pool of cards gives everything a chance to shine, and balance issues resolve themselves quickly.
* I would keep Basic around, but wouldn't be against to switching out Classic.
My thoughts on your other suggestions:
You might find https://wow.gamepedia.com/Timeline helpful for that. It doesn't specify when most characters are born, but you can infer many of them using their place in various stories.
I believe Jaina and Thrall are a similar age, and Thrall was born in year 1. That would make them both about 20 in WC3, which fits my expectation, and puts them at 32 during BfA.
I have to say, in the timeline Azeroth just cannot catch a break since WoW started. I get that it is easier to keep character models when they age slowly but sheesh. Anduin really is optimistic about ever finding peace when a new threat to the world appears every year.
I admit that was the case since I was rushing a bit to get on with other stuff. Sorry about that.
I guess just as you used Aviana + Kun as a specific example of a wider problem, my analysis can be easily generalised to other Wild archetypes. Long story short, it is rare for new cards to be printed that seriously change the optimised toolkit used in Wild, and it is only going to get rarer as the Wild card pool increases in size. It is an inevitable feature of the Wild format when 'Spike' players are common.
This is why I really want a rotating Wild game mode, kind of like Standard but switching more often and using sets from across the game's history. As Wild itself stagnates, this would give old cards more room to breathe and force players to come up with new strategies because their pool of cards is truly changing (even more than in Standard).
The issue at the heart of this is that Aviana + Kun isn't the combo so much as a way to circumvent the usual mana cap. Throw Ysiel Windsinger into the mix and you essentially have unlimited mana and your only limitation is what cards are available to druid.
The only ways Aviana + Kun wouldn't be used are:
Obviously 1 isn't the case, and the game is always balanced around limiting the power of 10 mana combos, so option 2 is never the case either. So Wild combo druid will always gravitate to Aviana + Kun, and you cannot really change that without changing one of those cards or just adding another, easier way to get (effectively) infinite mana.
The decks are made even more similar because all the cards involved in reaching the combo (draw, removal, stall, ramp) are just reused because they have long been optimised. This is true in every class, all of which have their own ways of doing it. And it's not just combo either; I'm so fed up of Warlock in Wild because every non-zoo deck has relied on Voidcallers and Bloodreaver Gul'dan for years.
The only real solution is to play in Standard, where possible.
Got to 47 earlier, and am aiming to reach 50 just before Christmas (the daily and weekly quests would leave me about half way through 49 on Christmas Eve, which I know will bug me on Christmas if I don't grind up the difference beforehand).
They cannot undo that nerf anyway because they made it so cards cannot randomly generate themselves anymore. Alex was the special case that put the idea out there, but Renew and Nature Studies forced it into being a general rule.
I'm hoping the Garrosh story is sufficient by itself to show Thrall's disappointment in him, and I suspect Thrall's story is 9th (if Flux is right) to let everyone else tell their stories so that Thrall can skim over them with dialogue. Does he need to address his mistake with Garrosh? Absolutely, but with such limited space the WoD rematch feels much more appropriate.
One fight I expect we will see again though is the Divine Bell one with Anduin. I'm honestly not sure how Anduin's story is going to be told, because before Legion he had always been the pacifist and/or damsel in distress. Picture the scene: "Oh no! I've been kidnapped by Onyxia. Let's wait 'til next month when Valeera and daddy can rescue me."
I wouldn't be surprised if Thrall skipped this fight. The Siege of Orgimmar is not nearly so important to Thrall's story as it is to Garrosh's, so there are surely better events to fill the 8 encounters up with. That's doubly true since Thrall has so much story to cover. I suppose it is possible they go a little bit into WoD to when Thrall kills Garrosh, and then can leave his story when he (tries to) settle down for a quiet life.
As to whether reusing fights is clever or cheap: definitely both! You have to tell the same story from both sides, so why wouldn't you, well, tell the same story? The efficient route is quite often the best one, and for this sort of thing it helps ensure consistency, which is useful for a set of stories trying to give more players the background to the characters they are using.
Perhaps the most important 2 words in the previous paragraph were "have to". The bombing of Theramore was not something that Jaina or Garrosh could skip. This is unlike the Siege of Orgimmar, which Thrall could reasonably skip, so reusing that fight would probably just be lazy.
Yes, Deathwing is very modest... Thankfully I have cuddly old Magni to even things out.
Yeah, it is quite a neat portrait. I'm only skipping it because I rarely play warrior and I have always disliked using Garrosh to represent me (he's mush too brash and arrogant for my tastes), so being honest with myself, I'd never use it.
I don't have it and have not seen a youtube video showing his emotes, but I expect they are currently the normal ones. However, I believe the intent was to make all Book of Heroes portraits have new emotes eventually.
While I agree they could have added a phase against Alliance/Horde heroes, the assumption I quoted cannot be made. The main purpose of the Book of Heroes is to give greater context to players who aren't familiar with Warcraft lore, and many players wouldn't know Garrosh loses. So avoiding the issue of people conceding and then complaining that it was not obvious what they were meant to do will require removing player agency in one way or another. Having Garrosh tell us heroes beat him was one of several options here.
Was this handled perfectly? No, but I think it was probably the least confusing approach to players who don't know the story. I recall Jaina's fight against Archimonde had the final stuff all flash by during the game, and it was very difficult to follow even if you knew what happened.
I expect most of the stories to stop at the end of Mists of Pandaria. Most of the characters' stories are on-going in WoW (including Uther), but their emotes in HS are based on what we knew at the end of MoP, so it is the best way to show players who the basic heroes are as presented in-game.
They might find space to go further with a couple of heroes, e.g. Valeera has plenty to say from the comics - some of which is non-canon now so it'll be interesting to see what they do with that - but they could definitely fit in a bit about her more recent roles since she's been given a lot more to do since HS put the spotlight on her.
As an aside, I think Valeera has accidentally found herself in one of the most enviable positions in Warcraft. She's welcome in and respected by both the Horde and Alliance, and is privy to many of their leaders' discussions, but she is not part of either faction and is under no obligation to carry out their orders. The one thing she is loyal to (the Wrynn family) is voluntary, and she has a... relaxed relationship with SI:7 who don't even know she's sneaking in and out of Stormwind Keep most of the time.
That's fine, but if you don't care what the community thinks, then why are you making a thread on a community forum about the deck? We already know the deck is (was?) very strong, so you aren't giving us any new information.
(Complete aside that is not aimed at you but rather all users of American English: "I could care less", by which you mean "I could NOT care less", is one of the few genuinely annoying Americanisms. David Mitchell's video sums it up better than I could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om7O0MFkmpw)
I had been considering making a similar post myself, so I'm sure my thoughts on this are very close to yours.
I personally refuse to down-vote anyone unless it is immediately obvious what my problem would be, e.g. they made an insulting comment with little to no substance to it. If I disagree, I'll instead reply explaining why I think they are wrong. Either I'm wrong, they are, or it is subjective enough that there is no wrong, but in any case someone learns something from the resulting discussion.
Likewise, I wish people did the same to me. I'd much rather know I'm wrong than have an empty down-vote that doesn't tell me anything other than that someone somewhere possibly disagrees with me but not enough to want to change my mind.