Ugh I'm pissed Duels is gone because it was a carefree wild way to play and was my main mode. This change is going to just make arena worse with the main problem in duels: you draw the right card off the bat when there's no answer and 1-2 turn snowball wins the game. In arena if someone drops grimmer patron going first on turn 3 it's probably an auto win nearly every time.
I do like the legendary first though and it'd be nicer if they put the treasure second (and hell gave you 3 of them for more consistency rather than draw it and win).
I understand your worry of power creep, but balance and fun is truly a difficult thing... there's a fun video on it I saw long ago, that even mentions your ice rager thing lol.
But that being said, what you're describing here feels disjointed from the message ... you seem to just not like the cycle of aggro/combo/control and want to be able to play "off-meta" decks and make them "meta"? This is nonsensical. Any whacky off-meta deck can only be that because it's off-meta otherwise it'd be mainstream and no longer off-meta. If you give more tools to control, such as more health to survive aggro, then you just increase the viability of combo decks which don't have to worry about aggro as much and can focus on finishing their combo to crush control who has nothing to interact with.
This is a simplification absolutely it's a brief comment, there's midrange and tempo and ramp and blurred lines inbetween. But just pingeonholing in your health to a build takes away all the deck building stuff. What Prince Renathal did is the closest you'll get without crushing the freedoms of coming up with new decks. Also the shadowpriest where it's a start of game effect can easily do a tradeoff in the opposite direction by giving you a special HP it can also take away your health, there's plenty of flexibility here to do what you're asking to a minor degree ... which is what custom card community events are for!
Here's a terrible community card that would be hilarious: Start of Game if your deck has at least 15 secrets, set your health to 50, and change your hero power to (2) mana cast a copy of a secret from your deck.
If you want a slugfest, I find a bunch of Duels decks do an amazing job of this. I just had a 12-2 Mage run where I had a 70% deck of discover cards with the passive powers "cards that don't start in your hand are -1" and "your first discover does -1 to all spells". Each game was absolutely intense of me on the defensive searching for answers getting down to a few hp and usually pulling out the win with a flustered enemy roping: exactly the reaction of something trying but failing to beat a "Control". This is the most enjoyment I've had in HS where games are basically drawing 40 cards in a match and playing double that and needing to read the situation to win until you finally have more value and excess to finish them out.
So I'd suggest playing some Duels with the slower archetypes and see what you think: it does have some learning curves as there's some whacky swings out there, but it's enjoyable for sure.
It was always there on Android at least, you had to long press on the 100G price and it'd popup for a count field of how many packs to buy. Feel sorry for people like @DragonDraena who purchased one of a time what a pain caused by poor hidden UI.
I just threw together that rush darius deck on patch day without checking anything online and none of the legendaries but included the cannons-attack-end-of-turn minion. It was almost always useless because it didn't trigger the +1 attack of hero power, wish it was "trigger your hero power at the end of your turn" then it'd be better.
Anyway I hard streaked 11-0 with that the only extremely close game was the damn void skeletons which I luckskilled out a win with a topdeck +10 dmg leeroy due to the battlecry +2 weapon.
The next day I streaked downwards to 11-3 losing 3 games to those damn void skeletons all of them "ultra-rare" my ass lol it was all I saw in my last 4 games and is insanely OP vs small-minion based decks. But yeah I feel like that +1 to minions is just insanely powerful and should maybe even be a 3 cost HP.
It must be a new bug, I just had the same thing happen to me and came to look for answers. I was al'akir in second and my opponent was flurgl in first: everyone else dead and it was the turn before we got the last tier of treasure ... game just ended and gave me second place no animations even though i had a plenty good board and didn't see anything play-out.
Either the game is ending early and taking your current place, or the server finishes the game before your device (i'm on mobile) can catch up with all the animations so it just ends. I didn't verse that player at all so I had no idea what his board state was like to know if i'd have lost or anything.
I just wish they'd self-hone a bit like some are obviously bad when you get say silent priest: would be nice if they mod it a bit more like if you use the auto deck builder ... whizbang does the 15 core cards then auto deck builds the last 15 so u can at least be competitive
Lorewalker Cho was my first golden! That was quickly followed by a Millhouse Manastorm within first months of playing ... now it's been like what 3-4 years and I finally just opened that Nat Pagle a month ago myself from a brawl pack. I think the question is do I ever dust the golden or do I goldenize the trinity?
Ugh I'm pissed Duels is gone because it was a carefree wild way to play and was my main mode. This change is going to just make arena worse with the main problem in duels: you draw the right card off the bat when there's no answer and 1-2 turn snowball wins the game. In arena if someone drops grimmer patron going first on turn 3 it's probably an auto win nearly every time.
I do like the legendary first though and it'd be nicer if they put the treasure second (and hell gave you 3 of them for more consistency rather than draw it and win).
I understand your worry of power creep, but balance and fun is truly a difficult thing... there's a fun video on it I saw long ago, that even mentions your ice rager thing lol.
If you want a slugfest, I find a bunch of Duels decks do an amazing job of this. I just had a 12-2 Mage run where I had a 70% deck of discover cards with the passive powers "cards that don't start in your hand are -1" and "your first discover does -1 to all spells". Each game was absolutely intense of me on the defensive searching for answers getting down to a few hp and usually pulling out the win with a flustered enemy roping: exactly the reaction of something trying but failing to beat a "Control". This is the most enjoyment I've had in HS where games are basically drawing 40 cards in a match and playing double that and needing to read the situation to win until you finally have more value and excess to finish them out.
So I'd suggest playing some Duels with the slower archetypes and see what you think: it does have some learning curves as there's some whacky swings out there, but it's enjoyable for sure.
It was always there on Android at least, you had to long press on the 100G price and it'd popup for a count field of how many packs to buy. Feel sorry for people like @DragonDraena who purchased one of a time what a pain caused by poor hidden UI.
I just threw together that rush darius deck on patch day without checking anything online and none of the legendaries but included the cannons-attack-end-of-turn minion. It was almost always useless because it didn't trigger the +1 attack of hero power, wish it was "trigger your hero power at the end of your turn" then it'd be better.
Anyway I hard streaked 11-0 with that the only extremely close game was the damn void skeletons which I luckskilled out a win with a topdeck +10 dmg leeroy due to the battlecry +2 weapon.
The next day I streaked downwards to 11-3 losing 3 games to those damn void skeletons all of them "ultra-rare" my ass lol it was all I saw in my last 4 games and is insanely OP vs small-minion based decks. But yeah I feel like that +1 to minions is just insanely powerful and should maybe even be a 3 cost HP.
Absolutely mage, such a powerful pink
Shaman's everywhere in diamond
It must be a new bug, I just had the same thing happen to me and came to look for answers. I was al'akir in second and my opponent was flurgl in first: everyone else dead and it was the turn before we got the last tier of treasure ... game just ended and gave me second place no animations even though i had a plenty good board and didn't see anything play-out.
Either the game is ending early and taking your current place, or the server finishes the game before your device (i'm on mobile) can catch up with all the animations so it just ends. I didn't verse that player at all so I had no idea what his board state was like to know if i'd have lost or anything.
opened 44 packs 4 legendaries, but hit the pity timer on epics almost every single time
literally had more legendaries than epics by the 24 card marker rofl
official post said starting 26th
Tag: Bicker#1201
Region: NA
Trade: You First
Timing: 8AM, 1PM, 10PM Pacific Time
I just wish they'd self-hone a bit like some are obviously bad when you get say silent priest: would be nice if they mod it a bit more like if you use the auto deck builder ... whizbang does the 15 core cards then auto deck builds the last 15 so u can at least be competitive
It's a hammer from the hunter gryphon rider guys in W3 which are "hunters" https://wow.gamepedia.com/Gryphon_Rider_(Warcraft_III)
Tag: Bicker#1201
Region: NA
Trade: You First
Timing: 8AM, 1PM, 10PM Pacific Time
if there's ever a tutor effect this will be insanely OP, but regardless it's always at a least a 4 mana 8/8 which is powerful on its own right
Sounds like overwatch where top 4 is a win so should be same ratio of 50% WR
Lorewalker Cho was my first golden! That was quickly followed by a Millhouse Manastorm within first months of playing ... now it's been like what 3-4 years and I finally just opened that Nat Pagle a month ago myself from a brawl pack. I think the question is do I ever dust the golden or do I goldenize the trinity?
Tag: Bicker#1201
Region: NA
Trade: You First
Tag: Bicker#1201
Region: NA
Trade: You First
Timing: 8AM, 1PM, 10PM Pacific Time
Tag: Bicker#1201
Region: NA
Trade: You First
Timing: 8AM, 1PM, 10PM Pacific Time