It's pretty arrogant to say that someone else only likes winning and doesn't like fun in any other way. It's also changing the subject. No one said you can't put a card in a deck and start a game and implying otherwise is really disengenous. The subject here is whether or not a card effectively does the cool thing it's intended to do. And what you're talking about instead is whether or not the card's existence amuses you.
I get that you don't play Demon Hunter and the card's existence is amusing in and of itself. No one's saying otherwise. But that's not the point. The issue is with people who are actually trying to use the card to do the thing it's intended to do -- which you're not and that's fine, no need to be sensitive about that. Just because you can't answer what other people's play experiences are doesn't mean anybody's trying to stop you from playing the card, you're fine! And if you can't answer an argument that you started, that's no reason for you to feel intimidated or put out or lash out, we're all friends here! The issue is that people who want to play the card for its intended effect are going to have a hard time. I get that you don't understand that and that's fine, but there are more people out there than just the ones who don't care about that.
If you're netdecking to legend, great! Nothing wrong with that. But there's a lot of people who don't have a lot of money or dust who are trying to have fun with with the few resources we have and crafting the wrong thing or trying to use something that looks like it's going to work but doesn't can be a big downer. Coming down on us because we're trying to navigate a budget is kinda toxic. Upthread, I gave high marks to Paladin using the same logic I used for Demon Hunter but you didn't get really mad there, but got mad with Demon Hunter (that you don't play). A glowing review doesn't mean " you're good" and a negative review doesn't mean "you're bad."
People trying to make tight budget decisions aren't coming for you my guy! I hope you have a good time with the set.
What, the Orc and Draenei and Dwarf and Shivarra and Observer and Ogre and Jinyu and Murloc and Sklibb (sporeling!) demon hunters didn't throw you but a worgen one does? %-) And this one isn't even the first worgen demon hunter.
I'm surprised there isn't a Mech demon hunter yet.
The only way the Illidari could out-weird themselves would be if a crystal geode becomes a demon hunter, and I'm here for it.
Scratch that, Therazane as a demon hunter. That would do it.
Not only is the variety of Demon Hunters in HS really fun, it's actually feels more story- and thematically appropriate than WoW. Illidain spent most of his career in a violent conflict with his fellow Night Elves and allied with Naga and Blood Elves and everyone else in Outland; those people should have been the first Demon Hunters. WoW saying it should be only elves, including a bunch of elves that really hate Illidain, is a strange choice. I hope they open the class up to more WoW subspecies. 'Till then, Hearthstone gets the more fun version.
I'm deadly serious about how stupidly cool Therazane would be as a Demon Hunter.
Jitterbug is a powerhouse. The best move when facing Divine Shield opponents is often to leave Divine Shield up. The punish for doing so is now REAL. On top of that, if Pally can generate Divine Shield on their turn and drop a Jitterbug, they are getting card advantage immediately.
The "downside" to Jitterbug is the hit to stats. Sub-Yeti Health is bad, right? Well, when the enemy has to waste a damage source just clearing the Divine Shield, you've likely broken even there or even made a profit. So no real downside.
If Pally gets a wide board early they could win the game by 5 just from card advantage. This is the kind of beatings Death Knight needs to match it. I'm not so sure the other classes deserve it.
Spotlight is harder to estimate without being able to test a deck out. What it does do is punish the crap out of slower decks. Most decks have a hard time generating 5 damage AoE. (With Shadowcloth Needle going away, Undead Priest is really hurting on this point.) That means that the even if you sacrifice the minion holding Divine Shield to enemy crowd control, you still likely have an Elemental ready to swing face.
And if a deck doesn't clear your crappiest Divine Shield minion, you punish with a 2-mana 5/5. And maybe you draw a card.
And do you know what gives you a lot of trash weenies with Divine Shield? Lothraxion the Redeemed. Boy, it would be great if he were in Core -- oh look, he is. I questioned his usefulness in this expansion until now. And until he comes out, Buffet Biggun, Blood Matriarch Liadrin, and Sanguine Soldier can get you some cheap sources as well.
Okay, upon reflection, this card may be waaaaay easier to play than I thought. 3 mana make a 2/1 and a 5/5 by turn 2 is pretty okay.
I immediately thought that this was going to be a Control payoff effect with Starlight Groove. I'm now thinking that Starlight Groove has even more tempo/aggro potential than I originally thought. It will be like Warrior where you are forced to hit face to clear off Armor/Divine Shield so that the Warrior/Paladin can't synergize with it. That's going to be annoying to face and amusing to use.
Funkfin is a Bloodlust. Drop him and maybe a Seal of Blood after your Divine Shielded Silver Hand goons were ignored by your opponent and get that win. Eat your heart out, Grave Strength.
Okay, Paladin's looking solid, maybe as strong as it was at the top of the rotation before last. If Death Knight gets nerfed, so will Paladin and vice-versa, imo. Paladin should've gotten the metal theme instead of Death Knight, because Pally will be fuckin' brutal.
In both cases the goal is to conserve Attack even as minions are lost with the eventual intent to attack the enemy hero with the minion(s) conserving attack as no deck running either of these has the ability to do significant face damage from hand or through hero attacks. Flag Runner comes down a turn or two earlier, conserves more attack because it can gain it from sacrificed minions over time, and combos better with minion-producers and support such as Wrathscale Naga because it costs less.
Quote From Thonson
So if you are lucky enough to have a bunch of rush minions survive a turn
Why would you be lucky enough to have this happen? How on God's green Earth are you relying on luck to do what your deck should be doing every single game? Why would your minions survive attacks when they're supposed to die in order to grant attacks?
On top of this, how is any deck you can beat with this deck not dying to literally any other minion deck? There are a lot of players who don't play Demon Hunter who get really upset when I point out problems here. The same thing happened with previous Demon Hunter cards -- people who didn't play DH got pissed when DH players were down on them, then conveniently forgot their malding when the playrate of the relevant cards turned out to hover near zero. (Azsharan Defector was a hilarious example.)
Any viable deck needs to be able to handle a large number of 2-Health minions coming at it in the midgame because Unholy DK exists. DH generates a bunch of 1-Health minions, and does it more slowly. This doesn't work on paper. We had a better version of this in practice at the top of the last rotation and it was powercrept almost immediately.
Quote From Thonson
So is it a one of that costs 1 more? Yes. But it’s effect has much more burst damage potential!
It has less damage potential. All you're doing is inefficiently clearing minions. None of that is doing significant face damage because it will be cheaply cleared. Having six Health the opponent can't efficiently clear with mounting attack has more damage potential.
Quote From Thonson
In wild, no matter what minions you have on board you can drop Halveria and Broom to make them all Rush minions.
In Wild, I can lock up my opponent's mana, have a wider board, and have taller minions while clearing the opponent's minions by the time Halveria can drop. In Wild, it's even easier for Halveria to be destroyed. You actually don't want weenie Rush minions to gain attack if you're using Wrathscale in either format because you want as much enemy minion Health as possible on the board so you can send more minions into them and generate Wrathscale hits. In Wild, she's the answer to the question that no one asked. I could lose a winning game by playing her.
Again: we've already been playing weenie DH. We don't have to guess its weaknesses. We already experienced them.
Rush Demon Hunter is the most thematic Demon Hunter concept the devs have come up with since release.
(Hell, it's the only thematic Demon Hunter concept the devs have come up with since release, but I give credit where credit is due.)
Having shit on their choices since that time, including just days ago, this is the kind of relief you get after you stop experiencing excruciating pain. But it's still technically relief.
As for the cards themselves -- ehhhhh.
Let's start with the best:
Rush the Stage has the absolute most potential here. It's not the best cost reduction, but tutoring plus cost reduction is potentially huge. If the devs don't abandon Rush going forward (which they well may), this will be key to Demon Hunter Rush success.
Snakebite will be a frustrating card to run. It will have blowout turns, to be sure, but against Control it's going to feel awful. If the devs had thrown the only weenie card worth a damn back into Standard -- Expendable Performers -- Snakebite could be part of a more-reliable package. As it stands, there are a lot of board states where it just whiffs.
But lets say it doesn't whiff. You put out a monster rush 10/10 for 2. Great. Swell. The opponent destroys it and the game moves on.
There's no real follow-up. You don't have super-scary weapon damage to finish or other chunky gals to threaten with. Unholy Death Knight is fielding some thick minions and they don't have to do Hearthsthstone trigonometry to do it.
Being forced to run Immolation Aura in an aggro deck just to combo your good card into acceptability doesn't seem great. And the rest of the package hits like a wet noodle. You're fragile and not sticking any boards here.
Note that unless you're dropping specifically SECURITY!!, you're paying a lot of mana for a bunch of minions who are about to die who will then, maybe, put an okay-statted minion onto the board.
Halveria Darkraven seems just plain bad. Her stats are fucking awful. How is it that Team 5 just got through giving 1-drops and 2-drops +1 Health in the Core set and this 4-drop is coming in sub-yeti with an ability that only works if you're damn near already winning board. You have ZERO stickiness and some of the lowest-Health minions imaginable. The only way her ability even works is if you're popcorning minions, throwing away their attack asap, which means some of those stats will be wasted in your trades. This is some bullshit right here.
Well, in the short-term abandon all hope, 'cause DH is DOA. Outcast is a bad mechanic -- always was -- because it literally can provide nothing but a cost break and it's clear that the devs don't want it to even do that. (SECURITY!! is trash non-Outcast and not great when conditions are met.) The only effects DH has to manipulate its hand order (the Nathria hand-return duo) the devs have already given up on -- and they didn't even intend for the effect to really be used that way, anyway. Rush AND statbuff is a possible way forward, but they stumble at the starting line there.
I'm guessing that, so far, the no-minion Demon Hunter has a healthier chance here than minion-based decks. (Jace Darkweaver is gone so even that mediocre mainstay is off the table.) Sinful Brand into weenies whose only job is dying for face damage seems like it might be a better bet than trying to go toe-to-to with stickier aggro. We have to wait a whole expansion before DH gets to play anything but gimmicky combo.
But after that, the devs might stumble backward into a good mediocre but acceptable idea.
In other news, Infinitize the Maxitude could be acceptably-slow value at the top of rotation but there's little chance of it surviving once deck power curves up going forward. Grindy Control matches would have to come back in a BIG way to make this worth serious consideration after that.
Credit to this card and DJ Manastorm on presentation, though.
Bluegill Warrior got protected from modification because Wild players spoke out. There is no one to speak out for Holy Champion.
This sort of thing is slovenly. It reminds me of the rather clumsy changes that the game went through in its earliest staffing change where all the old cards that the new staff didn't have any attachment to could be tossed with abandon. And it's confusing as fuck because it's so easy to be mislead because of the art.
The treatment feels slipshod, a bit like Overheal itself, which I predict will get a massively overpowered lynchpin card in a future set that will be in every deck once it hits like a wet noodle.
Demon Hunter getting Immolation Aura and Illidari Studies is better than any of the new cards coming the class' way. The only thing that would have been better would have been getting back Silence and Blade Dance -- but I'd settle for sub-mediocrity at this rate. Kayn Sunfury has no home but okay.
Priest is looking intriguing. It gets Shard of the Naaru back which will straight-up be the best reason to play non-Shadow Priest if the reveals are any indication. Unholy DK has better recursion than Priest and Silencing that crap will be vital. Darkbishop Benedictus keeps the most competitive deck in Standard. The problem is is that all of Priest's value is dead, with most of that recursion gone. Catrina Muerte can't bring back anything that really matters until you have 9+ mana. I don't think that either Priest will have a decent control deck after rotation for awhile.
Paladin seems to be getting the previously-ubiquitous Hand of A'dal to make up for the ultra-ubiquitous Alliance Bannerman. The buffed Grimestreet Outfitter seems to be kinda the same idea. Definitely a step-down, power-wise.
Shadowjeweler Hanar seems so much better than what most classes got that it seems almost deliberately perverse. This and Potionmaster Putricide give Rogue more value than Priests and all but the greediest Warriors.
I like a lot of Warrior's early anti-aggro offerings in Core and I have (foolish, naïve) hope for its value options, but the new stuff so far doesn't pick up where Core leaves off. But since everybody else's power level goes down ('cept DK and maybe Undead Priest) maybe Core plus value is good enough.
All anti-aggro decks get Zilliax again, so there's that.
I mean, sure, I agree it is wishful thinking, but Brann's impact must have taught them something.
lolololol. You got me to actually laugh out loud, not euphamistically. They can and will do the same thing twice if it doesn't affect sales. They'll do a hundred must-be-nerfed-day-one-and-playtesters-told-you-so SN1P-SN4Ps but Rastakhan's Rumble can never happen again.
So, in this case, innocent cards can and will pay for Shadowstep's sins, as if Team 5 didn't already have enough self-imposed design limitations.
Phew. It's a good thing the Riff spells don't have the Fire keyword. That way Warrior won't have to suffer from all the excessive amount of synergetic theming they've been suffering from. Y'know, because of how everyone complains that all the Warrior cards just work too well together.
More seriously, the Riff spells are overcosted, they absolutely need a synergetic card to justify them, and they're another example of the really bad package design that Team 5 has wallowed in for years now. Even if the One True Deck that gets created by the missing synergetic effect is good, its support will disappear by the next set and power creep might well crush it before we're a third more through the year (definitely by the end). These would be better cards if they stood on their own two feet. As it stands, even if these cards become good because of The Missing Synergy, the best we can hope for is a Warrior deck that doesn't suck for 4 months.
Outside of the lack of keywording, the theming is fine.
The dev's dedication to making Demon Hunter as uninteresting as possible continues unabated. Today we get mediocre minions that give your hero abilities temporary that will amount to nothing because the minions are overcosted for what they do and the abilities have a silly opportunity cost. The most powerful and effective DH cards have typically had nothing to do with DH's theme and that trend seems to continue: whenever we get close to something on-flavor, the quality drops off.
It doesn't help that Outcast has never jelled as a thematic concept. They'dve been better off making Illidari a tribe.
Blackrock 'n' Roll is good. Does it need a crapton of support? Sure. But it's on-brand, offers a ladder-relevant OTK, and it could get better as rotation goes forward. It's deck-defining but it allows for multiple kinds of decks to use it. And can you imagine discovering this nightmare and casting it twice or more? If Standard becomes too fast for this card, Standard is wrong and this card is right.
DJ Manastorm is weird. It's one of the few times we've seen a "wind-up" effect. The real, serious punishment comes next turn when you lay out not just your free, zero-cost spell on the Manastorm turn but the other beatdown big spells lurking in there. So your hand has to be set up and you have to be at 9+1 to 10 mana to make this go. I can appreciate everyone saying they're sick of Big Spell Mage (not a fan of random crap wins myself), but Manastorm is a weird effect in its own right, right? If it weren't for the RNG nature of the finisher, I think this would be an unambiguously good thing to explore.
Silence has been the answer to many decks -- it's almost the answer to everything -- but it isn't often the answer chosen. There's no guarantee that silence-sources are economical enough to play after rotation.
Silence answers many meta decks right now and isn't terribly meta right now. I don't think that lategame Paladin will be enough to pull it into the meta.
Another reason why the rotation should have been revealed first: it would put these cards in context.
Kangor, Dancing King. Ladies and gentlemen, the current best reason for Cover Artist to exist. This is far more dangerous and interesting to me than Annoy-o-Troupe, as the latter is nine mana, though the latter works in the same deck concept we're getting at here. The other key player is Starlight Groove.
For the low price of four cards -- Kangor, Cover Artist, and Starlight Groove -- Paladin can most likely easily survie into the lategame. This is the basis for a Control Paladin but, more terrifyingly, gives Tempo Paladin a huge amount of luxury. Hearthstone has basically killed value -- every tempo deck is basically value now -- and this is a great example of that phenomenon. Even if you manage to crush a Paladin board, there is tons of recursion and Lifesteal and Divine Shield giving them longevity.
And that combo can be used offensively. You don't have to sit around and let Divine Shield get picked off by opponents. If Paladin still has beefy weapons, such as the reliable Truesilver Champion, then you can facetank the biggest threats and value trade smaller ones with lifesteal minions.
What we're looking for now is big weapons, big in durability and attack, and cheap sources of Holy spells, preferrably handbuff ones.
Edit: We're assuming that Zola the Gorgon rotates out, otherwise that would have a place here as well.
This could be the makings of a bizarre and truly annoying recursion deck with Da Undatakah and Immortal Prelate in Wild where a Prelated Undatakah will want to go into your deck and hand both. Further, it should lose enchantments if it enters your hand but it explictly keeps enchantments if it goes into your deck. So there's your first day of testing.
Mish-Mash Mosher is Batterhead 2.0 with control and stats sacrificed for an increased chance of having the attack needed to clear its targets. It's . . . worse. It's worse. Mosher may be able to snipe some minions behind Taunts, but that corner-case advantage still sees it behind the original. Its greatest advantage is the Undead tag which gives it synergies its predecessor didn't have available; that probably accounts for the 2 less Health.
Audio Medic is an extremely solid card that does the Zilliax job of solving aggro problems with decent minions (with the minor downside of failing a bit when you are forced to float mana, like when you're topdecking).
Crowd Surfer helping your opponent's minions is a huge eeeww-factor relegating it to regrettable devolve/evolve outcomes and the jankiest of obscure jank decks. It can't even justify the card slot it occupies with its stats. It absolutely could have stood to be improved, either statwise or with its ability being more significant for its original user.
Party Animal doesn't have a handbuff deck that can manage the tribal array that would justify it in constructed at the moment.
Annoying Fan and Rowdy Fan I can't see making the cut in constructed, but could be compelling in Arena. Rowdy Fan almost works with Audio Medic, until the latter's Finale keyword makes that awkward.
Candleraiser feels like Fungalmancer. If Dormant doesn't make a comeback, this is an Arena monster but it will never be able ot reliably have the board it needs to justify itself in constructed.
Cowbell Soloist would feel way better if its Health wasn't sub-par. It won't always be able to trade evenly, even less trade up, so, combined with a lack of relevant tribes, I don't think this sees constructed play.
Unpopular Has-Been costs too much. It should have had Taunt or Rush. Arena only.
Edit:
Paparazzi. Those are some solid stats on a Discover effect. In the dog-days of early rotation, I can see this played in some early slow decks. In Arena? Instant pick.
Concert Promo-Drake. Arena-only, even with Tradeable. This just barely missed being the most noxious Lady Prestor spawn in Standard.
Rolling Stone. If the design team is successful, this is an annoying part of an aggro elemental deck that we haven’t seen yet. Traditionally, this is Shaman, but if the devs don’t suck at spreading out archetypes, Mage will have one, too. It’s extremely all-or-nothing unless rotation gives us Fire Fly and/or similar generators that let us hold a 1-cost minion with little opportunity cost.
Photographer Fizzle. The future savior of jank combo streamer decks everywhere. Drop Baleful Banker into the rotation and ya got yourself infinite recursion if you’re patient enough to draw the whole thing back into your hand. You can do this already in Wild, obviously.
Edit: Didn't realize that Fizzle actually puts a spell in your deck with the snapshot -- like Elise the Trailblazer did with the Un'Goro pack. That makes recursion WAY easier. You don't need to recur the Fizzle, just the spell that's now in your deck. You can do that with Radiant Elemental and Shadow Visions and Grand Magister Rommath, among other methods. Though I don't know if Rommath will correctly remember the cards in the photograph.
Four mana is a lot more than you’d like for recursion shenanigans, though. Unless Scarlet Webweaver or another permanent cost reducer shows up in the rotation, this won’t work at all. And Webweaver is still too expensive.
Obsessive Fan. There’s no aura minion that one could justify keeping alive known right now. Maybe Tony, King of Piracy, but that’s a rather silly use for a card that could actually be used to win. There are definitely times where this can win the game, especially for aggro: you get a super-high damage minion out and the opponent needs to kill it before you snowball, for example. But that eventuality doesn’t justify fitting this into a constructed deck.
What says “I want this to live, but I’m okay with it being destroyed if the opponent first pays the tax of destroying a 6-Health minion”?
Emphasis added. I mentioned that it was Warrior-only. I quoted that dev thread upthread as well. You have to completely edit the victim's deck with cards not from the deck before Steamcleaner can do its grisly work, so, as I mentioned, only Warrior can currently do this in Standard reliably because (as implied) only Warrior gets The Fires.
Outside of Standard, people already mentioned the utterly-doable Myra's Unstable Element for Rogue and Warrior gets another option with Explore Un'Goro (as if that were needed).
Specific tutors that cost earlygame mana are generically good because as soon as you have a viable deck with the thing they're tutoring, the tutor is justified unless it has keywords that mess up fetching or recursion. (This would probably be a crappier card if had the Demon tribe, for example.) If the devs hate us enough to bring back Evolve Shaman, for example, this would fetch a Bogspine with few downsides. It's a rare example of a card that can be of reasonable use in Standard, Wild, Duels depending on the sets available, and (in rare circumstances with specific classes) Arena.
It might be that Im misunderstanding how this card works. The wording is a bit confusing, because it looks very much like you get your deck swapped back the minute this thing dies or gets silenced, since its not a battlecry.
Merch Seller has the potential to lock people out of the game. There are many, many, many dead spells you can draw that won't destroy Merch Seller, so if you don't have card draw in-hand when it drops, you can find yourself unable to reach your deck. This is one of the most severe anti-combo cards ever printed as it ALWAYS costs a draw to a deck dependent upon draw. This has the grimly ironic effect of making all the cheap draw Blizz has introduced utterly necessary just to survive.
And it's sitting right next to a neutral that swaps decks. We're looking at a denial package that any class can play that can, at the very least, crush one archetype.
Previously obscure cards like Prosecutor Mel'tranix and Disarming Elemental might actually make this lock stick long enough to get something done. I'd be almost okay with a soft-lock like this if it wasn't for the fact that after you get done forcing your opponent to play Casino Mage, you can follow it up with deck-stealing and perma-immunity.
Reno needs to not be in this rotation, btw. It will make Jailer even more noxious.
It's pretty arrogant to say that someone else only likes winning and doesn't like fun in any other way. It's also changing the subject. No one said you can't put a card in a deck and start a game and implying otherwise is really disengenous. The subject here is whether or not a card effectively does the cool thing it's intended to do. And what you're talking about instead is whether or not the card's existence amuses you.
I get that you don't play Demon Hunter and the card's existence is amusing in and of itself. No one's saying otherwise. But that's not the point. The issue is with people who are actually trying to use the card to do the thing it's intended to do -- which you're not and that's fine, no need to be sensitive about that. Just because you can't answer what other people's play experiences are doesn't mean anybody's trying to stop you from playing the card, you're fine! And if you can't answer an argument that you started, that's no reason for you to feel intimidated or put out or lash out, we're all friends here! The issue is that people who want to play the card for its intended effect are going to have a hard time. I get that you don't understand that and that's fine, but there are more people out there than just the ones who don't care about that.
If you're netdecking to legend, great! Nothing wrong with that. But there's a lot of people who don't have a lot of money or dust who are trying to have fun with with the few resources we have and crafting the wrong thing or trying to use something that looks like it's going to work but doesn't can be a big downer. Coming down on us because we're trying to navigate a budget is kinda toxic. Upthread, I gave high marks to Paladin using the same logic I used for Demon Hunter but you didn't get really mad there, but got mad with Demon Hunter (that you don't play). A glowing review doesn't mean " you're good" and a negative review doesn't mean "you're bad."
People trying to make tight budget decisions aren't coming for you my guy! I hope you have a good time with the set.
What, the Orc and Draenei and Dwarf and Shivarra and Observer and Ogre and Jinyu and Murloc and Sklibb (sporeling!) demon hunters didn't throw you but a worgen one does? %-) And this one isn't even the first worgen demon hunter.
I'm surprised there isn't a Mech demon hunter yet.
The only way the Illidari could out-weird themselves would be if a crystal geode becomes a demon hunter, and I'm here for it.
Scratch that, Therazane as a demon hunter. That would do it.
Not only is the variety of Demon Hunters in HS really fun, it's actually feels more story- and thematically appropriate than WoW. Illidain spent most of his career in a violent conflict with his fellow Night Elves and allied with Naga and Blood Elves and everyone else in Outland; those people should have been the first Demon Hunters. WoW saying it should be only elves, including a bunch of elves that really hate Illidain, is a strange choice. I hope they open the class up to more WoW subspecies. 'Till then, Hearthstone gets the more fun version.
I'm deadly serious about how stupidly cool Therazane would be as a Demon Hunter.
Jitterbug is a powerhouse. The best move when facing Divine Shield opponents is often to leave Divine Shield up. The punish for doing so is now REAL. On top of that, if Pally can generate Divine Shield on their turn and drop a Jitterbug, they are getting card advantage immediately.
The "downside" to Jitterbug is the hit to stats. Sub-Yeti Health is bad, right? Well, when the enemy has to waste a damage source just clearing the Divine Shield, you've likely broken even there or even made a profit. So no real downside.
If Pally gets a wide board early they could win the game by 5 just from card advantage. This is the kind of beatings Death Knight needs to match it. I'm not so sure the other classes deserve it.
Spotlight is harder to estimate without being able to test a deck out. What it does do is punish the crap out of slower decks. Most decks have a hard time generating 5 damage AoE. (With Shadowcloth Needle going away, Undead Priest is really hurting on this point.) That means that the even if you sacrifice the minion holding Divine Shield to enemy crowd control, you still likely have an Elemental ready to swing face.
And if a deck doesn't clear your crappiest Divine Shield minion, you punish with a 2-mana 5/5. And maybe you draw a card.
And do you know what gives you a lot of trash weenies with Divine Shield? Lothraxion the Redeemed. Boy, it would be great if he were in Core -- oh look, he is. I questioned his usefulness in this expansion until now. And until he comes out, Buffet Biggun, Blood Matriarch Liadrin, and Sanguine Soldier can get you some cheap sources as well.
Okay, upon reflection, this card may be waaaaay easier to play than I thought. 3 mana make a 2/1 and a 5/5 by turn 2 is pretty okay.
I immediately thought that this was going to be a Control payoff effect with Starlight Groove. I'm now thinking that Starlight Groove has even more tempo/aggro potential than I originally thought. It will be like Warrior where you are forced to hit face to clear off Armor/Divine Shield so that the Warrior/Paladin can't synergize with it. That's going to be annoying to face and amusing to use.
Funkfin is a Bloodlust. Drop him and maybe a Seal of Blood after your Divine Shielded Silver Hand goons were ignored by your opponent and get that win. Eat your heart out, Grave Strength.
Okay, Paladin's looking solid, maybe as strong as it was at the top of the rotation before last. If Death Knight gets nerfed, so will Paladin and vice-versa, imo. Paladin should've gotten the metal theme instead of Death Knight, because Pally will be fuckin' brutal.
In both cases the goal is to conserve Attack even as minions are lost with the eventual intent to attack the enemy hero with the minion(s) conserving attack as no deck running either of these has the ability to do significant face damage from hand or through hero attacks. Flag Runner comes down a turn or two earlier, conserves more attack because it can gain it from sacrificed minions over time, and combos better with minion-producers and support such as Wrathscale Naga because it costs less.
Why would you be lucky enough to have this happen? How on God's green Earth are you relying on luck to do what your deck should be doing every single game? Why would your minions survive attacks when they're supposed to die in order to grant attacks?
On top of this, how is any deck you can beat with this deck not dying to literally any other minion deck? There are a lot of players who don't play Demon Hunter who get really upset when I point out problems here. The same thing happened with previous Demon Hunter cards -- people who didn't play DH got pissed when DH players were down on them, then conveniently forgot their malding when the playrate of the relevant cards turned out to hover near zero. (Azsharan Defector was a hilarious example.)
Any viable deck needs to be able to handle a large number of 2-Health minions coming at it in the midgame because Unholy DK exists. DH generates a bunch of 1-Health minions, and does it more slowly. This doesn't work on paper. We had a better version of this in practice at the top of the last rotation and it was powercrept almost immediately.
It has less damage potential. All you're doing is inefficiently clearing minions. None of that is doing significant face damage because it will be cheaply cleared. Having six Health the opponent can't efficiently clear with mounting attack has more damage potential.
In Wild, I can lock up my opponent's mana, have a wider board, and have taller minions while clearing the opponent's minions by the time Halveria can drop. In Wild, it's even easier for Halveria to be destroyed. You actually don't want weenie Rush minions to gain attack if you're using Wrathscale in either format because you want as much enemy minion Health as possible on the board so you can send more minions into them and generate Wrathscale hits. In Wild, she's the answer to the question that no one asked. I could lose a winning game by playing her.
Again: we've already been playing weenie DH. We don't have to guess its weaknesses. We already experienced them.
Rush Demon Hunter is the most thematic Demon Hunter concept the devs have come up with since release.
(Hell, it's the only thematic Demon Hunter concept the devs have come up with since release, but I give credit where credit is due.)
Having shit on their choices since that time, including just days ago, this is the kind of relief you get after you stop experiencing excruciating pain. But it's still technically relief.
As for the cards themselves -- ehhhhh.
Let's start with the best:
Rush the Stage has the absolute most potential here. It's not the best cost reduction, but tutoring plus cost reduction is potentially huge. If the devs don't abandon Rush going forward (which they well may), this will be key to Demon Hunter Rush success.
Snakebite will be a frustrating card to run. It will have blowout turns, to be sure, but against Control it's going to feel awful. If the devs had thrown the only weenie card worth a damn back into Standard -- Expendable Performers -- Snakebite could be part of a more-reliable package. As it stands, there are a lot of board states where it just whiffs.
But lets say it doesn't whiff. You put out a monster rush 10/10 for 2. Great. Swell. The opponent destroys it and the game moves on.
There's no real follow-up. You don't have super-scary weapon damage to finish or other chunky gals to threaten with. Unholy Death Knight is fielding some thick minions and they don't have to do Hearthsthstone trigonometry to do it.
Being forced to run Immolation Aura in an aggro deck just to combo your good card into acceptability doesn't seem great. And the rest of the package hits like a wet noodle. You're fragile and not sticking any boards here.
SECURITY!! is the workhorse that's supposed to make the rest of this go. If you don't pull it or Coordinated Strike on Coin, you're fucked. Battleworn Vanguard rotates and the devs once again shut Umberwing out of rotation.
Note that unless you're dropping specifically SECURITY!!, you're paying a lot of mana for a bunch of minions who are about to die who will then, maybe, put an okay-statted minion onto the board.
Halveria Darkraven seems just plain bad. Her stats are fucking awful. How is it that Team 5 just got through giving 1-drops and 2-drops +1 Health in the Core set and this 4-drop is coming in sub-yeti with an ability that only works if you're damn near already winning board. You have ZERO stickiness and some of the lowest-Health minions imaginable. The only way her ability even works is if you're popcorning minions, throwing away their attack asap, which means some of those stats will be wasted in your trades. This is some bullshit right here.
Halveria Darkraven is a worse card than Flag Runner, which costs one less and isn't legendary.
Well, in the short-term abandon all hope, 'cause DH is DOA. Outcast is a bad mechanic -- always was -- because it literally can provide nothing but a cost break and it's clear that the devs don't want it to even do that. (SECURITY!! is trash non-Outcast and not great when conditions are met.) The only effects DH has to manipulate its hand order (the Nathria hand-return duo) the devs have already given up on -- and they didn't even intend for the effect to really be used that way, anyway. Rush AND statbuff is a possible way forward, but they stumble at the starting line there.
I'm guessing that, so far, the no-minion Demon Hunter has a healthier chance here than minion-based decks. (Jace Darkweaver is gone so even that mediocre mainstay is off the table.) Sinful Brand into weenies whose only job is dying for face damage seems like it might be a better bet than trying to go toe-to-to with stickier aggro. We have to wait a whole expansion before DH gets to play anything but gimmicky combo.
But after that, the devs might stumble backward into a good mediocre but acceptable idea.
In other news, Infinitize the Maxitude could be acceptably-slow value at the top of rotation but there's little chance of it surviving once deck power curves up going forward. Grindy Control matches would have to come back in a BIG way to make this worth serious consideration after that.
Credit to this card and DJ Manastorm on presentation, though.
Agreed completely.
Bluegill Warrior got protected from modification because Wild players spoke out. There is no one to speak out for Holy Champion.
This sort of thing is slovenly. It reminds me of the rather clumsy changes that the game went through in its earliest staffing change where all the old cards that the new staff didn't have any attachment to could be tossed with abandon. And it's confusing as fuck because it's so easy to be mislead because of the art.
The treatment feels slipshod, a bit like Overheal itself, which I predict will get a massively overpowered lynchpin card in a future set that will be in every deck once it hits like a wet noodle.
Demon Hunter getting Immolation Aura and Illidari Studies is better than any of the new cards coming the class' way. The only thing that would have been better would have been getting back Silence and Blade Dance -- but I'd settle for sub-mediocrity at this rate. Kayn Sunfury has no home but okay.
Priest is looking intriguing. It gets Shard of the Naaru back which will straight-up be the best reason to play non-Shadow Priest if the reveals are any indication. Unholy DK has better recursion than Priest and Silencing that crap will be vital. Darkbishop Benedictus keeps the most competitive deck in Standard. The problem is is that all of Priest's value is dead, with most of that recursion gone. Catrina Muerte can't bring back anything that really matters until you have 9+ mana. I don't think that either Priest will have a decent control deck after rotation for awhile.
Paladin seems to be getting the previously-ubiquitous Hand of A'dal to make up for the ultra-ubiquitous Alliance Bannerman. The buffed Grimestreet Outfitter seems to be kinda the same idea. Definitely a step-down, power-wise.
Shadowjeweler Hanar seems so much better than what most classes got that it seems almost deliberately perverse. This and Potionmaster Putricide give Rogue more value than Priests and all but the greediest Warriors.
I like a lot of Warrior's early anti-aggro offerings in Core and I have (foolish, naïve) hope for its value options, but the new stuff so far doesn't pick up where Core leaves off. But since everybody else's power level goes down ('cept DK and maybe Undead Priest) maybe Core plus value is good enough.
All anti-aggro decks get Zilliax again, so there's that.
lolololol. You got me to actually laugh out loud, not euphamistically. They can and will do the same thing twice if it doesn't affect sales. They'll do a hundred must-be-nerfed-day-one-and-playtesters-told-you-so SN1P-SN4Ps but Rastakhan's Rumble can never happen again.
So, in this case, innocent cards can and will pay for Shadowstep's sins, as if Team 5 didn't already have enough self-imposed design limitations.
That's a lot of effort for such a simple card. I mean, in spite all his rage he is still just a pig in a cage.
Arrow Smith must be the first of several spell synergy effects to justify Barrel of Monkeys and [Hearthstone Card (Bunch of Bannanas) Not Found].
Being able to spam 2-mana 1/4s will give this "offensive" class a lot of chunky boards against aggro, and that's nice.
The suite of cards seems solid, if fair. I wouldn't count on much of it surviving several expansions, but it looks okay right now.
As long as that next spell synergy card shows up.
Phew. It's a good thing the Riff spells don't have the Fire keyword. That way Warrior won't have to suffer from all the excessive amount of synergetic theming they've been suffering from. Y'know, because of how everyone complains that all the Warrior cards just work too well together.
More seriously, the Riff spells are overcosted, they absolutely need a synergetic card to justify them, and they're another example of the really bad package design that Team 5 has wallowed in for years now. Even if the One True Deck that gets created by the missing synergetic effect is good, its support will disappear by the next set and power creep might well crush it before we're a third more through the year (definitely by the end). These would be better cards if they stood on their own two feet. As it stands, even if these cards become good because of The Missing Synergy, the best we can hope for is a Warrior deck that doesn't suck for 4 months.
Outside of the lack of keywording, the theming is fine.
The dev's dedication to making Demon Hunter as uninteresting as possible continues unabated. Today we get mediocre minions that give your hero abilities temporary that will amount to nothing because the minions are overcosted for what they do and the abilities have a silly opportunity cost. The most powerful and effective DH cards have typically had nothing to do with DH's theme and that trend seems to continue: whenever we get close to something on-flavor, the quality drops off.
It doesn't help that Outcast has never jelled as a thematic concept. They'dve been better off making Illidari a tribe.
Blackrock 'n' Roll is good. Does it need a crapton of support? Sure. But it's on-brand, offers a ladder-relevant OTK, and it could get better as rotation goes forward. It's deck-defining but it allows for multiple kinds of decks to use it. And can you imagine discovering this nightmare and casting it twice or more? If Standard becomes too fast for this card, Standard is wrong and this card is right.
DJ Manastorm is weird. It's one of the few times we've seen a "wind-up" effect. The real, serious punishment comes next turn when you lay out not just your free, zero-cost spell on the Manastorm turn but the other beatdown big spells lurking in there. So your hand has to be set up and you have to be at 9+1 to 10 mana to make this go. I can appreciate everyone saying they're sick of Big Spell Mage (not a fan of random crap wins myself), but Manastorm is a weird effect in its own right, right? If it weren't for the RNG nature of the finisher, I think this would be an unambiguously good thing to explore.
Silence has been the answer to many decks -- it's almost the answer to everything -- but it isn't often the answer chosen. There's no guarantee that silence-sources are economical enough to play after rotation.
Silence answers many meta decks right now and isn't terribly meta right now. I don't think that lategame Paladin will be enough to pull it into the meta.
Another reason why the rotation should have been revealed first: it would put these cards in context.
Kangor, Dancing King. Ladies and gentlemen, the current best reason for Cover Artist to exist. This is far more dangerous and interesting to me than Annoy-o-Troupe, as the latter is nine mana, though the latter works in the same deck concept we're getting at here. The other key player is Starlight Groove.
For the low price of four cards -- Kangor, Cover Artist, and Starlight Groove -- Paladin can most likely easily survie into the lategame. This is the basis for a Control Paladin but, more terrifyingly, gives Tempo Paladin a huge amount of luxury. Hearthstone has basically killed value -- every tempo deck is basically value now -- and this is a great example of that phenomenon. Even if you manage to crush a Paladin board, there is tons of recursion and Lifesteal and Divine Shield giving them longevity.
And that combo can be used offensively. You don't have to sit around and let Divine Shield get picked off by opponents. If Paladin still has beefy weapons, such as the reliable Truesilver Champion, then you can facetank the biggest threats and value trade smaller ones with lifesteal minions.
What we're looking for now is big weapons, big in durability and attack, and cheap sources of Holy spells, preferrably handbuff ones.
Edit: We're assuming that Zola the Gorgon rotates out, otherwise that would have a place here as well.
This could be the makings of a bizarre and truly annoying recursion deck with Da Undatakah and Immortal Prelate in Wild where a Prelated Undatakah will want to go into your deck and hand both. Further, it should lose enchantments if it enters your hand but it explictly keeps enchantments if it goes into your deck. So there's your first day of testing.
No. Yes. Full health allows for overheal.
Mish-Mash Mosher is Batterhead 2.0 with control and stats sacrificed for an increased chance of having the attack needed to clear its targets. It's . . . worse. It's worse. Mosher may be able to snipe some minions behind Taunts, but that corner-case advantage still sees it behind the original. Its greatest advantage is the Undead tag which gives it synergies its predecessor didn't have available; that probably accounts for the 2 less Health.
Audio Medic is an extremely solid card that does the Zilliax job of solving aggro problems with decent minions (with the minor downside of failing a bit when you are forced to float mana, like when you're topdecking).
Crowd Surfer helping your opponent's minions is a huge eeeww-factor relegating it to regrettable devolve/evolve outcomes and the jankiest of obscure jank decks. It can't even justify the card slot it occupies with its stats. It absolutely could have stood to be improved, either statwise or with its ability being more significant for its original user.
Party Animal doesn't have a handbuff deck that can manage the tribal array that would justify it in constructed at the moment.
Annoying Fan and Rowdy Fan I can't see making the cut in constructed, but could be compelling in Arena. Rowdy Fan almost works with Audio Medic, until the latter's Finale keyword makes that awkward.
Candleraiser feels like Fungalmancer. If Dormant doesn't make a comeback, this is an Arena monster but it will never be able ot reliably have the board it needs to justify itself in constructed.
Cowbell Soloist would feel way better if its Health wasn't sub-par. It won't always be able to trade evenly, even less trade up, so, combined with a lack of relevant tribes, I don't think this sees constructed play.
Unpopular Has-Been costs too much. It should have had Taunt or Rush. Arena only.
Edit:
Paparazzi. Those are some solid stats on a Discover effect. In the dog-days of early rotation, I can see this played in some early slow decks. In Arena? Instant pick.
Concert Promo-Drake. Arena-only, even with Tradeable. This just barely missed being the most noxious Lady Prestor spawn in Standard.
Rolling Stone. If the design team is successful, this is an annoying part of an aggro elemental deck that we haven’t seen yet. Traditionally, this is Shaman, but if the devs don’t suck at spreading out archetypes, Mage will have one, too. It’s extremely all-or-nothing unless rotation gives us Fire Fly and/or similar generators that let us hold a 1-cost minion with little opportunity cost.
Photographer Fizzle. The future savior of jank combo streamer decks everywhere. Drop Baleful Banker into the rotation and ya got yourself infinite recursion if you’re patient enough to draw the whole thing back into your hand. You can do this already in Wild, obviously.
Edit: Didn't realize that Fizzle actually puts a spell in your deck with the snapshot -- like Elise the Trailblazer did with the Un'Goro pack. That makes recursion WAY easier. You don't need to recur the Fizzle, just the spell that's now in your deck. You can do that with Radiant Elemental and Shadow Visions and Grand Magister Rommath, among other methods. Though I don't know if Rommath will correctly remember the cards in the photograph.
Freebird.
Child: Mom, I want Elwynn Boar.
Mother: We have Elwynn Boar at home.
Elwynn Boar at home.
Four mana is a lot more than you’d like for recursion shenanigans, though. Unless Scarlet Webweaver or another permanent cost reducer shows up in the rotation, this won’t work at all. And Webweaver is still too expensive.
Obsessive Fan. There’s no aura minion that one could justify keeping alive known right now. Maybe Tony, King of Piracy, but that’s a rather silly use for a card that could actually be used to win. There are definitely times where this can win the game, especially for aggro: you get a super-high damage minion out and the opponent needs to kill it before you snowball, for example. But that eventuality doesn’t justify fitting this into a constructed deck.
What says “I want this to live, but I’m okay with it being destroyed if the opponent first pays the tax of destroying a 6-Health minion”?
Quoting myself:
Emphasis added. I mentioned that it was Warrior-only. I quoted that dev thread upthread as well. You have to completely edit the victim's deck with cards not from the deck before Steamcleaner can do its grisly work, so, as I mentioned, only Warrior can currently do this in Standard reliably because (as implied) only Warrior gets The Fires.
Outside of Standard, people already mentioned the utterly-doable Myra's Unstable Element for Rogue and Warrior gets another option with Explore Un'Goro (as if that were needed).
Specific tutors that cost earlygame mana are generically good because as soon as you have a viable deck with the thing they're tutoring, the tutor is justified unless it has keywords that mess up fetching or recursion. (This would probably be a crappier card if had the Demon tribe, for example.) If the devs hate us enough to bring back Evolve Shaman, for example, this would fetch a Bogspine with few downsides. It's a rare example of a card that can be of reasonable use in Standard, Wild, Duels depending on the sets available, and (in rare circumstances with specific classes) Arena.
It's an aura. The decks switch back if the card is destroyed, silenced, and otherwise leaves play. Two copies don't switch decks again. The devs have made that clear to people who are confused. That's why the combo people are proposing is with The Jailer or with the even cheaper Warrior-only The Fires of Zin-Azshari and Steamcleaner which can easily be done in a control deck.
Merch Seller has the potential to lock people out of the game. There are many, many, many dead spells you can draw that won't destroy Merch Seller, so if you don't have card draw in-hand when it drops, you can find yourself unable to reach your deck. This is one of the most severe anti-combo cards ever printed as it ALWAYS costs a draw to a deck dependent upon draw. This has the grimly ironic effect of making all the cheap draw Blizz has introduced utterly necessary just to survive.
And it's sitting right next to a neutral that swaps decks. We're looking at a denial package that any class can play that can, at the very least, crush one archetype.
Previously obscure cards like Prosecutor Mel'tranix and Disarming Elemental might actually make this lock stick long enough to get something done. I'd be almost okay with a soft-lock like this if it wasn't for the fact that after you get done forcing your opponent to play Casino Mage, you can follow it up with deck-stealing and perma-immunity.
Reno needs to not be in this rotation, btw. It will make Jailer even more noxious.