It's funny to me that the Control Warrior shell is so sturdy that the most efficacious way to mess with it is to hit its win condition (first Odyn, now this).
I genuinely don't know which approach is better now between Odyn at 9 and Brann at 8. They're similar deals in that you're sacrificing an entire late-game turn. 9 mana is really a lot. The body is bigger, which matters but isn't decisive. Brann lets you run Reno, which is stupid amazing, at the cost of going Highlander. That might be deciding factor, given how spectacular Reno is for a control deck.
Regardless, the big loser is Sludge Warlock, which is having a rough time overall but could still climb by dominating the warrior matchup. If there are fewer warriors, then Sludge Warlock's matchup spread looks pretty bleak.
Some of these Gigantify minions make a lot more sense, sort of the inverse of the good Miniaturize minions. Toy-Snatching Gheist is a strong tempo play at both his normal and gigantic sizes. I like it.
Of the Paladin and Shaman cards, I think Flickering Lightbot has the best chance to see play. Yes, I know it's only discounted stats, but I have a policy to never underestimate a card that can be played for free.
I love the Sock Puppet. It's such a nastily aggressive little minion, works great with Spirit of the Team and such. Doesn't trade well, but a one mana minion with that kind of damage potential is pretty nasty.
For as iffy as Deathwing was in constructed, he's always been a total monster in arena, a panic button of a card who can flip a game in a turn.
Ysera's value generation put away many a game in control matchups once upon a a time. Remarkable how an endless stream of underpriced cards is now too slow.
Back in the days of single player content, lots of bosses had huge health pools. Alex was a great ace in the hole, dealing 50 or more effective damage with her battlecry. A standard Freeze Mage deck could beat so many single-player encounters.
Zarimi up to eight is a huge change. Aggro Zarimi ran a minimum of dragons to cram in all its tricks and still had occasional games of not enough dragons or burning duplicators to generate the extra dragon or two. At eight, the deck building requirement is more stringent and the time to draw and play enough dragons is much longer.
I think Zarimi is supposed to be like Odyn, like, the thing a control deck uses to transition from defense to offense to actually kill you... I just don't know if that deck's any good.
We'll actually see less of him all the same, I think. There were a bunch of "Reno" decks that snuck in duplicates and quickly drew them to reactivate Reno, and those will have to either go legit as Highlander decks or drop Reno. It's a win either way, methinks.
This discussion is reminiscent of why I had to quit Overwatch. I really liked Overwatch. I had a lot of fun with it. The only unlocks were cosmetics, and you got those from loot boxes, which you accrued by playing the game. You got small bonuses for your first win in a day, for playing an unpopular role, and for wins (but that was small).
You could also get currency either with money or from the loot boxes to get specific things you wanted.
Overwatch 2 changed all that. Now, you gain experience only on particular tracks with preset rewards. Want something else for a different hero? Open the wallet. And how do you progress on the tracks? By doing daily and weekly quests, tuned so that you have to complete most quests most weeks to finish the rewards track before it expires. You don't even get rewards for playing unpopular roles because they flattened the roles out.
Every part of it, in other words, is engineered to manufacture FOMO. You get fewer and worse rewards, more slowly, with less agency and much more pressure.
Sound familiar?
More and more it seems like this is just what Blizzard is. It's a shame.
Update: completed a run to Legend with Aggro Dragon Priest. Fun deck! Drove a handlock player into a "friend-trash talk-unfriend" fit, which I always take as a compliment. The deck is a bit tricky, but it has an almost Rogue-like quality where you win a game and then cackle because it feels like you got away with something.
My favorite win was against a handlock/Wheel opponent who crushed my early plays, but I stole his Symphony of Sins with Benevolent Banker, used it to burn much of his deck, and copied his Sargeras with Power Chord: Synchronize to close it out. Much cackling ensued.
I've had some fun with Aggro Dragon Priest. It has kinda bad draw so it's not very consistent, but it has great blowout potential. Timewinder Zarimi is functionally Bloodlust: you build a board, and when it sticks, you drop Zarimi for double attacks. Ticking-Pylon Zilliax is a great buffer when you go wide, and you can use Power Chord: Synchronize and Celestial Projectionist to double him up for even more buffs. You can use the same tricks to flood the board with discounted or free Thirsty Drifters-- I've dropped four in a single turn! Pip the Potent offers dream value.
Hero power was an example (note the "even" language I used). There are other plays warrior loves to use with Odyn, like Bladestorm, Shield Block, Aftershocks (which also got nerfed but still), even double Verse Riff. All are out of reach now. Given the deck's curve, Odyn might as well cost ten now, because it consumes the whole turn.
Odyn's lack of immediate impact makes that a hard thing to navigate. One of the hardest parts of Odyn warrior is finding your opening to drop Odyn and balancing that with survival. You have to be so far ahead you can basically flush a high-mana turn. The burst damage available these days makes finding that point harder, and it's much harder with a more expensive Odyn.
You seem to be writing from the perspective of spell-based burn or control decks. Those have always been warrior's best matchups, since the days of Vanilla and Freeze Mage, just because of how armor works. But most decks won't let warrior just sit there and armor up, and a more than expensive Odyn makes those matchups noticeably harder.
That one mana bump on Odyn is pretty harsh. I think it's a meaningful change. He comes down later even in an ideal situation and your opening to drop him now needs to be even bigger, plus you can't weave in even a hero power on the turn he drops, making that turn even scarier. I like it.
The Paladin changes are broad but warranted. The deck had almost no weakness: efficient healing and board control to beat aggro, speed to beat combo, from-hand burst to beat control. If the individual tools are weaker then maybe Paladin will be forced to pick a lane.
Grom saw occasional play even recently as a finisher in Enrage warrior, since Sanguine Depths makes it so easy to activate his condition. He's still good for a spin sometimes.
Funny thing about the old Jaraxxus: he set your health, current and maximum, to 15. That made him brutal in certain matchups. Between that, the old Alexstrasza, and certain neutrals, control warlock could boast more effective healing than priest. Hard for aggro to beat if you didn't win super fast. However, Jaraxxus was unplayable in certain other matchups. Freeze Mage and certain Druid decks were built around 15-18 damage burst combos, and dropping Jaraxxus put you in immediate danger of getting game-ended, with zero ability to heal or armor your way to safety. Polarizing card. Needed tradeable.
The Galactic Projection Orb forbidden secret technique: use only the slowest-animating spells, especially spells that cast other spells, like Rune and Puzzle Box (it's spells all the way down!). Wait until the very end of your turn to cast the Orb. By the time it's all done animating, your opponent's turn has expired and it's your turn again.
It's funny that they're giving DH "catch up" versions of previous sets' "everyone gets one" cards, like the Spirits of Rastakhan's Rumble and the spell stones of K&C.
It's funny to me that the Control Warrior shell is so sturdy that the most efficacious way to mess with it is to hit its win condition (first Odyn, now this).
I genuinely don't know which approach is better now between Odyn at 9 and Brann at 8. They're similar deals in that you're sacrificing an entire late-game turn. 9 mana is really a lot. The body is bigger, which matters but isn't decisive. Brann lets you run Reno, which is stupid amazing, at the cost of going Highlander. That might be deciding factor, given how spectacular Reno is for a control deck.
Regardless, the big loser is Sludge Warlock, which is having a rough time overall but could still climb by dominating the warrior matchup. If there are fewer warriors, then Sludge Warlock's matchup spread looks pretty bleak.
Some of these Gigantify minions make a lot more sense, sort of the inverse of the good Miniaturize minions. Toy-Snatching Gheist is a strong tempo play at both his normal and gigantic sizes. I like it.
Of the Paladin and Shaman cards, I think Flickering Lightbot has the best chance to see play. Yes, I know it's only discounted stats, but I have a policy to never underestimate a card that can be played for free.
I love the Sock Puppet. It's such a nastily aggressive little minion, works great with Spirit of the Team and such. Doesn't trade well, but a one mana minion with that kind of damage potential is pretty nasty.
Keeping up the theme of mini-set epics being abysmal, I see.
Buy One, Get One Freeze joins Reverberations in the ranks of "cards that punish you for playing big and cool minions", a card genre I really dislike.
For as iffy as Deathwing was in constructed, he's always been a total monster in arena, a panic button of a card who can flip a game in a turn.
Ysera's value generation put away many a game in control matchups once upon a a time. Remarkable how an endless stream of underpriced cards is now too slow.
Back in the days of single player content, lots of bosses had huge health pools. Alex was a great ace in the hole, dealing 50 or more effective damage with her battlecry. A standard Freeze Mage deck could beat so many single-player encounters.
Zarimi up to eight is a huge change. Aggro Zarimi ran a minimum of dragons to cram in all its tricks and still had occasional games of not enough dragons or burning duplicators to generate the extra dragon or two. At eight, the deck building requirement is more stringent and the time to draw and play enough dragons is much longer.
I think Zarimi is supposed to be like Odyn, like, the thing a control deck uses to transition from defense to offense to actually kill you... I just don't know if that deck's any good.
We'll actually see less of him all the same, I think. There were a bunch of "Reno" decks that snuck in duplicates and quickly drew them to reactivate Reno, and those will have to either go legit as Highlander decks or drop Reno. It's a win either way, methinks.
This discussion is reminiscent of why I had to quit Overwatch. I really liked Overwatch. I had a lot of fun with it. The only unlocks were cosmetics, and you got those from loot boxes, which you accrued by playing the game. You got small bonuses for your first win in a day, for playing an unpopular role, and for wins (but that was small).
You could also get currency either with money or from the loot boxes to get specific things you wanted.
Overwatch 2 changed all that. Now, you gain experience only on particular tracks with preset rewards. Want something else for a different hero? Open the wallet. And how do you progress on the tracks? By doing daily and weekly quests, tuned so that you have to complete most quests most weeks to finish the rewards track before it expires. You don't even get rewards for playing unpopular roles because they flattened the roles out.
Every part of it, in other words, is engineered to manufacture FOMO. You get fewer and worse rewards, more slowly, with less agency and much more pressure.
Sound familiar?
More and more it seems like this is just what Blizzard is. It's a shame.
Update: completed a run to Legend with Aggro Dragon Priest. Fun deck! Drove a handlock player into a "friend-trash talk-unfriend" fit, which I always take as a compliment. The deck is a bit tricky, but it has an almost Rogue-like quality where you win a game and then cackle because it feels like you got away with something.
My favorite win was against a handlock/Wheel opponent who crushed my early plays, but I stole his Symphony of Sins with Benevolent Banker, used it to burn much of his deck, and copied his Sargeras with Power Chord: Synchronize to close it out. Much cackling ensued.
Token Beast Hunter is good and fun.
I've had some fun with Aggro Dragon Priest. It has kinda bad draw so it's not very consistent, but it has great blowout potential. Timewinder Zarimi is functionally Bloodlust: you build a board, and when it sticks, you drop Zarimi for double attacks. Ticking-Pylon Zilliax is a great buffer when you go wide, and you can use Power Chord: Synchronize and Celestial Projectionist to double him up for even more buffs. You can use the same tricks to flood the board with discounted or free Thirsty Drifters-- I've dropped four in a single turn! Pip the Potent offers dream value.
Heroic Brawliseum-- does that mini-sey announcement coming soon? Seems early.
Hero power was an example (note the "even" language I used). There are other plays warrior loves to use with Odyn, like Bladestorm, Shield Block, Aftershocks (which also got nerfed but still), even double Verse Riff. All are out of reach now. Given the deck's curve, Odyn might as well cost ten now, because it consumes the whole turn.
Odyn's lack of immediate impact makes that a hard thing to navigate. One of the hardest parts of Odyn warrior is finding your opening to drop Odyn and balancing that with survival. You have to be so far ahead you can basically flush a high-mana turn. The burst damage available these days makes finding that point harder, and it's much harder with a more expensive Odyn.
You seem to be writing from the perspective of spell-based burn or control decks. Those have always been warrior's best matchups, since the days of Vanilla and Freeze Mage, just because of how armor works. But most decks won't let warrior just sit there and armor up, and a more than expensive Odyn makes those matchups noticeably harder.
I disagree. In my post above I say why I think this change is meaningful.
That one mana bump on Odyn is pretty harsh. I think it's a meaningful change. He comes down later even in an ideal situation and your opening to drop him now needs to be even bigger, plus you can't weave in even a hero power on the turn he drops, making that turn even scarier. I like it.
The Paladin changes are broad but warranted. The deck had almost no weakness: efficient healing and board control to beat aggro, speed to beat combo, from-hand burst to beat control. If the individual tools are weaker then maybe Paladin will be forced to pick a lane.
Grom saw occasional play even recently as a finisher in Enrage warrior, since Sanguine Depths makes it so easy to activate his condition. He's still good for a spin sometimes.
Funny thing about the old Jaraxxus: he set your health, current and maximum, to 15. That made him brutal in certain matchups. Between that, the old Alexstrasza, and certain neutrals, control warlock could boast more effective healing than priest. Hard for aggro to beat if you didn't win super fast. However, Jaraxxus was unplayable in certain other matchups. Freeze Mage and certain Druid decks were built around 15-18 damage burst combos, and dropping Jaraxxus put you in immediate danger of getting game-ended, with zero ability to heal or armor your way to safety. Polarizing card. Needed tradeable.
Edwin Van Cleef can die in a fire.
Wind-up Enforcer is a deep "Toy Story 2" reference. Love it.
The Galactic Projection Orb forbidden secret technique: use only the slowest-animating spells, especially spells that cast other spells, like Rune and Puzzle Box (it's spells all the way down!). Wait until the very end of your turn to cast the Orb. By the time it's all done animating, your opponent's turn has expired and it's your turn again.
*sees the new dragon reveals*
Ooh, dragon priest, I like dragon priest! I like when priest cares about the board and tries to contest--
*sees the new Raza*
OH COME ON!
It's funny that they're giving DH "catch up" versions of previous sets' "everyone gets one" cards, like the Spirits of Rastakhan's Rumble and the spell stones of K&C.