To be honest, this type of effect never needed to use the combo keyword to begin with, since the description of the effect already specifies everything that distinguishes combo from battlecry: that another card(s) has been played first.
I'm also not sure it would function identically here, since the buff coming from combo would likely make it an enchantment, while the current wording sounds more like modified base stats. I don't think that matters outside of using Doomerang, Hoard Pillager and Rummaging Kobold, but it would technically be a difference.
Oh yeah. That's what happens you quickly internalise an effect upon first reading it and don't bother checking the text again for edge cases. I guess it makes sense flavour-wise; only the most sneaky could hide even the red herring.
I expect the only things that will keep stealth when the Red Herring dies are minions that would have had stealth regardless of the Herring. So, normal stealth minions that haven't attacked yet or something that has been given stealth some other way. 12 health is lots to get through, but it hardly counts as perma-stealth a la Akama Prime.
You can get true perma-stealth though in SI:7 rogue. Slap a Noggen-Fog Generator on the Herring and if the opponent can't AoE it down they'll never be able to target your board. Mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha. (I suppose having 2 Herrings would work too.)
Given Blade of C'Thun is only a relevant point of comparison in rogue C'Thun decks, where the revealed card isn't going to fill its niche any better than the many stronger hard removal cards rogue already has, I'm not sure where the power creep is here.
Very unlikely. The 'Relic' in its name specifies what the vault contains, not what the vault is. It's essentially an adjective, while the text requires 'Relic' to be a noun.
Can we add this to the long list of mage bias after that class got its whole(?) Volatile Skeleton package revealed together so we could evaluate it, while DH gets this in isolation?
I think the underlying question is which enchantments make sense on both minions and weapons, and whether they get carried around between forms even when they don't do anything. Its pretty safe to assume stat buffs will get passed around, and probably things like poisonous and lifesteal too (they're not very easy to apply in warrior, but rogue can do the science).
For the specific topic at hand, generalised to cover all sources of immunity: I guess it depends on what the immunity would translate to on the weapon. It could either mean nothing, treat durability as health and essentially act as "this weapon does not lose durability", or it applies the immunity to the hero when attacking. Likewise, what happens in reverse if Paralytic Poison is applied while Remornia is a weapon?
I think Crabatoa is a better comparison since, like Remornia, that gives you 2 minion attacks plus 1 weapon swing - all at 4 attack - and leaves you with a weapon equipped too. It feels like Remornia will do a better job at being impactful on the following turn(s) too, but Crabatoa's 6/5 body is not something we can just ignore. Because of the class differences and the potential to buff Remornia it's difficult to say which is stronger, but that's a promising sign since Crabatoa is objectively great.
I think the responses so far are a bit unhelpful because they assume people want to always use the same old teams to solve every problem. And yeah, those teams can handle more or less everything, but stopping there makes the game so much less interesting and misses the fact there are LOTS of viable teams that can do much more diverse stuff than just spamming the same AoE spells over and over.
When you build whole teams around the plan for the boss, like I do, then the question posed by OP becomes completely legitimate. Unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to answer because it depends a lot on which zone you are in and what weaknesses the core of your team has. There are a couple of general purpose answers that can be used, like bringing Gruul with his fire resistance equipment whenever you go to Blackrock or being prepared to get punched a lot in Winterspring (taunts and attack debuffs are very useful here).
To get tailored answers though, you really need to identify what is messing your teams up. Most synergistic teams should be able to get to the boss with max 2 casualties along the way if the mercs involved are mostly upgraded, and planning a route that has a resurrection point near the end can often mean you reach the boss at full power. If you are losing more than that on the way, then you should really consider switching in a merc or two that are strong against whatever is causing the problem.
In short, refining your team, including their equipment, should usually solve the problem (and do so without having to resort to anything super optimised). It is fine to bring mercs that have not had enough coins to be maxed out, but it matters quite a lot how you choose to upgrade them. It helps to know what you want to use them for and recognise which abilities and equipment need the coins most. That way they won't be maxed out, but they can be strong enough to carry their weight.
Sinstones are essentially gravestones the souls sent to Revendreth carry on their backs (see pictures of Kael'thas from Shadowlands) that record where they went wrong in life rather than commemorating them. I'm sure Denathrius was aiming for irony when he set that up! When they are absolved of their sins they can put down their sinstone, and I think they can be sent to another realm in the Shadowlands at that point or join the ranks of the venthyr (someone can correct me on that). So I guess the sinstone graveyard is like a record of the souls that passed through Revendreth, just as a normal graveyard is a record of people who passed through life.
So in a twisted way it all makes sense. The card's flavour text makes the same point as you did though.
I'm sure it's good, but I'm not seeing the excitement to be honest, and that's coming from someone with a serious rogue bias. Comparisons with Edwin make little sense since it basically makes Biteweeds which are half the size and I never saw anyone other than me use that card in any game mode. It's clearly better than Biteweed was for a couple of reasons, but both have the problem that they don't grow fast enough to really want to throw cards unless they're useful otherwise.
Octo-bot shenanigans fell off when the Year of the Phoenix rotated and removed all the good 1-drops to damage it with, so memories of that don't really apply here. Also, the second use is inherently weakened by the first - you can only use your cards once. So basically, rogue's going to need a bunch of miracle/combo support this set if this is going to live up to people's expectations. I'm sure there will be some alongside Door of Shadows, but I'm not convinced it would be that great with the tools that currently exist.
Define 'good removal'. One of Paladin's central design features is that they debuff minions instead of destroying them directly. They have a couple of damage-dealing spells, but even that is covered by weapons the vast majority of the time.
So if you are waiting for conventional removal, you'll be waiting for a long time. But if you widen the net to include 2-card combos like Equality + Pyromancer or just shrinking minions so they don't need to be removed, then Paladin's removal is already pretty good.
You could just not put the Shark in your deck, and hey presto! It's the "old type of Mech Mage".
Anyway, I doubt we'll see many mechs in Castle Nathria, if any. They have a negligible presence in the Shadowlands since they don't have souls to get sent there upon 'death', and the local denizens don't generally create them. I think some of Stewart's race made a few, so there could be a paladin mech, but I wouldn't hope for much more than that.
You're talking about him like he should be winning the game more or less by himself, which is excessive for any 3 mana card, regardless of its rarity. The better question is whether dude pally will want a bunch of 3/3 buffs, and whether it is willing to spend 3 mana on a 3/3 that gives that? And of course it is: the effect is worth way more than 3 mana in the mid-to-long run, and only really needs to go off once for it to be a solid card (there are plenty of deathrattles that give stats to use as reference points for that).
The hero power is the most reliable source of dudes, but not the only one, and whenever dude pally is a thing it wants to summon dudes (shocker! :O). So every 3/3 buff truly is free, because the deck wants to summon the dudes for other reasons anyway. It's only when you put Stewart in a deck by himself purely as a pseudo-buff to the hero power that there is a legitimate cost each time.
The fact it can be silenced is minor, because most decks don't run silence, and if they tech it in, then they've weakened their own game plan to deal with yours, so it's still a plus.
Whether the surrounding deck holds up remains to be seen, but I don't see any metric by which Stewart himself is bad.
Aren't you asking quite a lot from a 3-drop? Stewart is quite slow, but it can easily get you 9/9 or more stats over the course of the game, and does so while having near-premium stats on an early-game minion.
My issue with him is that he's a re-hash of a previous paladin legendary (Dragonrider Talritha), right down to the stats. At least Stewart should be a lot better since Silver Hand Recruits are guaranteed to be available whereas dragons in hand weren't, and because the Recruits care about the stats way more than the tribe with the largest minions ever would.
Infuse may be involved, but it would have to do something a lot fancier than that to be touted as "Probably the coolest weapon/minion we’ve ever seen in Hearthstone."
I'd expect it to be more dynamic in how it switches card type, like it keeps going back and forth between minion and weapon while on the board. Maybe something like a minion with rush that says "After this attacks and survives, become a X/1 weapon with deathrattle to resummon this." That way it could be used to trade into small minions and be safer as a weapon on the opponent's turn, making it tricky enough to get rid of that it often feels fun, but still possible to remove with a bit of work so it doesn't get ridiculous.
At this point any mention of deathrattle rogue is basically a meme, so let's hope that Hedge Maze had better not be yet another bait for one. But on its own merits its kinda dangerous, even if you have to first pay 3 mana for it. Having a 0 mana deathrattle trigger can be insane.
Err, the Maze is a druid card (though they should really have chosen a paler brown for it!), so I guess druid is a deathrattle class now as well? Poor deathrattle rogue, it can't catch a break :P
From the set's art we know there are a couple more familiar faces (Kel'thuzad and Rafaam), but of the rest I think it is only Thrall's mother Draka that we knew anything about outside the Shadowlands.
I find Renathal quite, err, interesting on the interesting-scale because he is simultaneously super interesting and not interesting at all. Because everything he does occurs before you start playing, and while you're playing it feels a lot like any other game (albeit with some extra health), he doesn't actually excite me much. I guess that's just my inner rogue itching for shenanigans and being quite disinterested with predictable effects I'm not actively involved in.
What do you predict will be the most problematic card out of the “Prime Suspects”?
Rogue suspect is spicy
That's what I like to hear, especially after she counted the rogue suspect as one of her favourites, and doubly so as I think she has previously said rogue is usually her least favourite class (I hope I remember that right, don't quote me on it). So whatever the rogue suspect is doing, it should be interesting.
I assume it will be Draka, so maybe so serious stealth shenanigans if she applies the skills we saw in the Maldraxxus cinematic, or maybe a shadow spell school theme since they bothered to give it to a door? Given how hard it is to identify a DH suspect, I suppose rogue could also get the broker Xymox if they wanted to go down a burgle/shopping route instead. Dammit DH, if your class aesthetic was broader than "glowing, angry elf with glaives," we wouldn't be so stumped whenever that's not an option :P
To be honest, this type of effect never needed to use the combo keyword to begin with, since the description of the effect already specifies everything that distinguishes combo from battlecry: that another card(s) has been played first.
I'm also not sure it would function identically here, since the buff coming from combo would likely make it an enchantment, while the current wording sounds more like modified base stats. I don't think that matters outside of using Doomerang, Hoard Pillager and Rummaging Kobold, but it would technically be a difference.
Oh yeah. That's what happens you quickly internalise an effect upon first reading it and don't bother checking the text again for edge cases. I guess it makes sense flavour-wise; only the most sneaky could hide even the red herring.
I expect the only things that will keep stealth when the Red Herring dies are minions that would have had stealth regardless of the Herring. So, normal stealth minions that haven't attacked yet or something that has been given stealth some other way. 12 health is lots to get through, but it hardly counts as perma-stealth a la Akama Prime.
You can get true perma-stealth though in SI:7 rogue. Slap a Noggen-Fog Generator on the Herring and if the opponent can't AoE it down they'll never be able to target your board. Mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha. (I suppose having 2 Herrings would work too.)
Given Blade of C'Thun is only a relevant point of comparison in rogue C'Thun decks, where the revealed card isn't going to fill its niche any better than the many stronger hard removal cards rogue already has, I'm not sure where the power creep is here.
Very unlikely. The 'Relic' in its name specifies what the vault contains, not what the vault is. It's essentially an adjective, while the text requires 'Relic' to be a noun.
Can we add this to the long list of mage bias after that class got its whole(?) Volatile Skeleton package revealed together so we could evaluate it, while DH gets this in isolation?
I think the underlying question is which enchantments make sense on both minions and weapons, and whether they get carried around between forms even when they don't do anything. Its pretty safe to assume stat buffs will get passed around, and probably things like poisonous and lifesteal too (they're not very easy to apply in warrior, but rogue can do the science).
For the specific topic at hand, generalised to cover all sources of immunity: I guess it depends on what the immunity would translate to on the weapon. It could either mean nothing, treat durability as health and essentially act as "this weapon does not lose durability", or it applies the immunity to the hero when attacking. Likewise, what happens in reverse if Paralytic Poison is applied while Remornia is a weapon?
I think Crabatoa is a better comparison since, like Remornia, that gives you 2 minion attacks plus 1 weapon swing - all at 4 attack - and leaves you with a weapon equipped too. It feels like Remornia will do a better job at being impactful on the following turn(s) too, but Crabatoa's 6/5 body is not something we can just ignore. Because of the class differences and the potential to buff Remornia it's difficult to say which is stronger, but that's a promising sign since Crabatoa is objectively great.
I think the responses so far are a bit unhelpful because they assume people want to always use the same old teams to solve every problem. And yeah, those teams can handle more or less everything, but stopping there makes the game so much less interesting and misses the fact there are LOTS of viable teams that can do much more diverse stuff than just spamming the same AoE spells over and over.
When you build whole teams around the plan for the boss, like I do, then the question posed by OP becomes completely legitimate. Unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to answer because it depends a lot on which zone you are in and what weaknesses the core of your team has. There are a couple of general purpose answers that can be used, like bringing Gruul with his fire resistance equipment whenever you go to Blackrock or being prepared to get punched a lot in Winterspring (taunts and attack debuffs are very useful here).
To get tailored answers though, you really need to identify what is messing your teams up. Most synergistic teams should be able to get to the boss with max 2 casualties along the way if the mercs involved are mostly upgraded, and planning a route that has a resurrection point near the end can often mean you reach the boss at full power. If you are losing more than that on the way, then you should really consider switching in a merc or two that are strong against whatever is causing the problem.
In short, refining your team, including their equipment, should usually solve the problem (and do so without having to resort to anything super optimised). It is fine to bring mercs that have not had enough coins to be maxed out, but it matters quite a lot how you choose to upgrade them. It helps to know what you want to use them for and recognise which abilities and equipment need the coins most. That way they won't be maxed out, but they can be strong enough to carry their weight.
Sinstones are essentially gravestones the souls sent to Revendreth carry on their backs (see pictures of Kael'thas from Shadowlands) that record where they went wrong in life rather than commemorating them. I'm sure Denathrius was aiming for irony when he set that up! When they are absolved of their sins they can put down their sinstone, and I think they can be sent to another realm in the Shadowlands at that point or join the ranks of the venthyr (someone can correct me on that). So I guess the sinstone graveyard is like a record of the souls that passed through Revendreth, just as a normal graveyard is a record of people who passed through life.
So in a twisted way it all makes sense. The card's flavour text makes the same point as you did though.
I'm sure it's good, but I'm not seeing the excitement to be honest, and that's coming from someone with a serious rogue bias. Comparisons with Edwin make little sense since it basically makes Biteweeds which are half the size and I never saw anyone other than me use that card in any game mode. It's clearly better than Biteweed was for a couple of reasons, but both have the problem that they don't grow fast enough to really want to throw cards unless they're useful otherwise.
Octo-bot shenanigans fell off when the Year of the Phoenix rotated and removed all the good 1-drops to damage it with, so memories of that don't really apply here. Also, the second use is inherently weakened by the first - you can only use your cards once. So basically, rogue's going to need a bunch of miracle/combo support this set if this is going to live up to people's expectations. I'm sure there will be some alongside Door of Shadows, but I'm not convinced it would be that great with the tools that currently exist.
Define 'good removal'. One of Paladin's central design features is that they debuff minions instead of destroying them directly. They have a couple of damage-dealing spells, but even that is covered by weapons the vast majority of the time.
So if you are waiting for conventional removal, you'll be waiting for a long time. But if you widen the net to include 2-card combos like Equality + Pyromancer or just shrinking minions so they don't need to be removed, then Paladin's removal is already pretty good.
You could just not put the Shark in your deck, and hey presto! It's the "old type of Mech Mage".
Anyway, I doubt we'll see many mechs in Castle Nathria, if any. They have a negligible presence in the Shadowlands since they don't have souls to get sent there upon 'death', and the local denizens don't generally create them. I think some of Stewart's race made a few, so there could be a paladin mech, but I wouldn't hope for much more than that.
You're talking about him like he should be winning the game more or less by himself, which is excessive for any 3 mana card, regardless of its rarity. The better question is whether dude pally will want a bunch of 3/3 buffs, and whether it is willing to spend 3 mana on a 3/3 that gives that? And of course it is: the effect is worth way more than 3 mana in the mid-to-long run, and only really needs to go off once for it to be a solid card (there are plenty of deathrattles that give stats to use as reference points for that).
The hero power is the most reliable source of dudes, but not the only one, and whenever dude pally is a thing it wants to summon dudes (shocker! :O). So every 3/3 buff truly is free, because the deck wants to summon the dudes for other reasons anyway. It's only when you put Stewart in a deck by himself purely as a pseudo-buff to the hero power that there is a legitimate cost each time.
The fact it can be silenced is minor, because most decks don't run silence, and if they tech it in, then they've weakened their own game plan to deal with yours, so it's still a plus.
Whether the surrounding deck holds up remains to be seen, but I don't see any metric by which Stewart himself is bad.
Aren't you asking quite a lot from a 3-drop? Stewart is quite slow, but it can easily get you 9/9 or more stats over the course of the game, and does so while having near-premium stats on an early-game minion.
My issue with him is that he's a re-hash of a previous paladin legendary (Dragonrider Talritha), right down to the stats. At least Stewart should be a lot better since Silver Hand Recruits are guaranteed to be available whereas dragons in hand weren't, and because the Recruits care about the stats way more than the tribe with the largest minions ever would.
Infuse may be involved, but it would have to do something a lot fancier than that to be touted as "Probably the coolest weapon/minion we’ve ever seen in Hearthstone."
I'd expect it to be more dynamic in how it switches card type, like it keeps going back and forth between minion and weapon while on the board. Maybe something like a minion with rush that says "After this attacks and survives, become a X/1 weapon with deathrattle to resummon this." That way it could be used to trade into small minions and be safer as a weapon on the opponent's turn, making it tricky enough to get rid of that it often feels fun, but still possible to remove with a bit of work so it doesn't get ridiculous.
Err, the Maze is a druid card (though they should really have chosen a paler brown for it!), so I guess druid is a deathrattle class now as well? Poor deathrattle rogue, it can't catch a break :P
From the set's art we know there are a couple more familiar faces (Kel'thuzad and Rafaam), but of the rest I think it is only Thrall's mother Draka that we knew anything about outside the Shadowlands.
I find Renathal quite, err, interesting on the interesting-scale because he is simultaneously super interesting and not interesting at all. Because everything he does occurs before you start playing, and while you're playing it feels a lot like any other game (albeit with some extra health), he doesn't actually excite me much. I guess that's just my inner rogue itching for shenanigans and being quite disinterested with predictable effects I'm not actively involved in.
That's what I like to hear, especially after she counted the rogue suspect as one of her favourites, and doubly so as I think she has previously said rogue is usually her least favourite class (I hope I remember that right, don't quote me on it). So whatever the rogue suspect is doing, it should be interesting.
I assume it will be Draka, so maybe so serious stealth shenanigans if she applies the skills we saw in the Maldraxxus cinematic, or maybe a shadow spell school theme since they bothered to give it to a door? Given how hard it is to identify a DH suspect, I suppose rogue could also get the broker Xymox if they wanted to go down a burgle/shopping route instead. Dammit DH, if your class aesthetic was broader than "glowing, angry elf with glaives," we wouldn't be so stumped whenever that's not an option :P