Great change. While I'm personally not into OTK decks based on Stonetusk Boar shenanigans or Anyfin decks in general, the initial change would have literally killed those decks forever. This lets them have a balanced standard while keeping those decks living and running in Wild, where they belong. Especially after The Caverns Below unnerf, this is most welcome
What's hilarious is that the Jaina from the Solo Adventure - despite having the same portrait as the purchaseable one - has actually new voice lines. I really can't fathom why they wouldn't use them for the new skin
Wow. Well, I guess the librams dream lasted for a couple of days.
These cards are on the cusp of unplayability; Imprisoned Sungill is easily the worst imprisoned card in the set, as it's just way too basic - I'm playing nothing on turn 1 to have a 2.5 mana-worth minion on turn 3? Wow...
And that legendary is just so meh. Murloc Paladin has only ever been good because of Tip the Scales, and that wasn't a proper murloc deck, that was a combo/mana cheat deck. We need to understand how powerful can 5 murlocs with divine shield be, and if they can change the tides of battle on turn 8. But I guess you really don't need to play a murloc deck to play this, but in that case, can this really be a finisher?
Sightless Watcher is insane, and the fact that it's a basic card, meaning that it will be forever in Standard until it gets either HoF'ed or nerfed to the ground is scary stuff.
Inner Demon looks like it's supposed to be a finisher, but paying 4 times more than Heroic Strike to have double the attack doesn't sound that exciting, even though DH will get in AoO Kayn Sunfury. It is indeed a basic card, power level wise - and let's hope it stays that way.
Altruis the Outcast is a really good card that lightens the burden of playing sub-optimally to trigger the Outcast effects on your cards, and makes your overpowered Outcast cards even more broken. Maybe a little too overpriced, but for combo purposes is still very powerful - and that's why it's priced this way, you can literally kill your opponent just by playing low cost cards from your hand.
Nethrandamus is... I don't know. Is his effect similar to Corridor Creeper's? Either way, it's a big investment on a Dragon that almost makes it a Dragonqueen Alexstrasza - almost. But I don't see this as an effective finisher for the kamikaze archetype; sure, you can just summon an 8/8 and 2 random 10 mana cost minions for 9, but we need to know the pool, and how the randomness can affect this. It can be powerful, but we neeed to know if it can be unfair. Even though I guess every card in DH can be unfair if drawn with Skull of Gul'dan. Oh boy, either this or Kayn Sunfury drawn with Skull of Gul'dan, and you have an OTK already done. Oh boy
It's okay-ish, but in classic you have Mark of the Wild - which is arguably the same power level wise - and that hasn't seen Standard play since Standard was created, and believe me, it wasn't because it costed 2 at 7 mana or more. So yeah; if we see this, it will only be because of Kael'thas Sunstrider, and that's it.
The only deck that can potentially abuse this is Plot Twist Warlock, as it is the only Warlock deck that can manipulate the card draw order without excessively relying on RNG.
Otherwise, it's a slightly better Siphon Soul with a conditional upside. Which isn't bad per se, but with the cards we've seen up until now, it's too tame to be impactful. We can see this as the replacement for Lord Godfrey in Standard, and if we look at it under this light, well... We'll see
A new friend for Quest Hunter, Unseal the Vault might really enjoy this one.
Other than that, this card is so much open to many shenanigans, especially in Wild, and I love it. This is my favorite type of cards; a really good card baseline, that gets your gears spinning so that you can pull the maximum unfairness possible. I like this
Wait, so we're dancing this old dance again? First the murloc epic weapon, now the buff legendary?
So Team 5 is going to keep giving Paladin the "we have 100 class identities" thing again?
About the card: I do enjoy a good card generator - and Liadrin is an incredible card generator; it works with spells that you played on both your hero and your minions, but... is that good enough? Will Paladin be able to control the board or pressure the opponent in a way that makes this card the great play it's supposed to be? Because turn 7 is far away, and a card that has no impact on the board right away risks to be a fluke instead of a trump card.
I guess we'll be looking out for low cost and valuable spells from Paladin
For all Gwent aficionados, this card's effect is the Duel mechanic.
However, low attack means this card is not that exciting, and if there are no handbuffs it's hard to justify running it; if this card targets a 3/2 , it's an unconditional but worse SI:7 Agent; if it targets a 2/3 it isn't that better. Sure, it's decent against other 1 attack minions, but not that many around here unless you're facing Rogue - and even then, not that many either. This minion just doesn't feel good enough.
You can sum this minion up as a 1/X, with X = target's Health times its Attack. So it becomes effectively a 3 mana deal 5 against a 2-attack minion with 5 or more health; a 3 mana deal 4 against a 3-attack minion with 4 or more health; a 3 mana deal 3 against a 4-attack minion with 3 or more health, and so on and so forth. Without any "auto-damage" trigger on the board or a hand-buff played turns before, this is for all intents and purposes a weak basic level removal that, in the best of cases, leaves a 1 attack minion behind to compete for the board.
If this is enough for Warrior, then by all means. If Galakrond Warrior is still a thing after this expansion comes out, then we might see this card around - it's broken with Galakrond's effect. We'll see if other Warrior archetypes will want to tackle this card
At the end of the day, while it's clear Demon Hunter has stolen most of its cards from the Neutral pool - which is cool, as most neutral cards are just pack filler either way - one thing actually changed:
There are now MORE LEGENDARIES each set. It's apparent that Demon Hunter hasn't taken away any legendary spot from the neutral pool, so... Oof for that.
It appears however that the set has actually lost epic slots - previously, the total epics for a set was 27, in this expansion, the number is decreased to 23 - which hilariously enough means it will be faster for big spenders to earn the full epic collection of a set, thus making the epic duplicate protection they just introduced less relevant, but only for big spenders
One MUST be Yogg. The rest is really up in the air... From the Year of the Raven, the most likely could be Giggling Inventor and Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and Raiding Party. I can't really pinpoint any good candidate for the Year of the Dragon... Maybe Archivist Elysiana?
Either way, I'm glad they're doing this sort of things, this is really what the game needs and what Wild needs.
So let's take Frodan's word and reason on the fact that the changes they're about to implement are massive and will guarantee HS success in the following decade.
Let's start going for exclusion:
* UI Improvements; they might happen, but in no way they will have an impact on player retention/acquisition, as HS has arguably some of the best UI in online card games to date
* New keywords; while new keywords and mechanics are cool, by themselves they will never be able to make a game survive longer. Discover didn't make HS last 10 years longer, and it still is the most praised mechanic of the game. Let's not forget that whatever keyword a new expansion can throw at us, it will move out of the standard format in 2 years;
* New cosmetics and cosmetic economy; this by itself has absolutely no impact on the longevity of a game, unless the game is incredibly f2player friendly - which it isn't, and it only got worse;
* New game modes; interesting possiblilty, however only one game mode doesn't guarantee the game survival for another decade. However, more than one... Here we enter the realm of "it may actually be the thing". Adding an Arena mode that actually works more like Draft or Limited from MtG, that allows the player to draft cards, build a deck from the pool of drafted cards, and keep all the cards for themselves. A mode such as this would really let HS make a big jump;
* Revamped economy system: another big possibility, HS sore spot has always been how the economy - especially the Dust based one - is incredibly unfair and punishing towards the players. This year has been especially egregious under this point of view; 4 expansions - yes, Galakrond's Awakening is an expansion just like Naxxramas was, so 4 expansions - and a devastating power creep made it so that grinding becomes less and less rewarding. However, is a revamp in the economy system something that could make you say "they will cement HS for another decade for all players"? I have my doubts - and knowing Activision Blizzard, I doubt they will want to earn less money;
All in all, when Frodan says "if they can execute", means that it will be something complex. I'm hopeful, but honestly, I'll keep my expectations low.
Oh yeah. Honestly? I think this daily quest model would do wonders to HS economy, this SHOULD be the main daily quest system. It's unfortunate that it's just 2 weeks
Honestly? These leaks are actually pretty interesting; so Paladin could actually try some sort of Menagerie tactic by going Murloc/Dragon hybrid with Scalelord and Skyfin ? This becomes even more interesting in Wild thanks to The Curator , Menagerie Warden, Zoobot and Gentle Megasaur .
Hunter gets more dragon synergy, and Warrior gets more self-wound synergy - even though it still lacks threatening and deck-defining engines for it. Explosive Evolution is an interesting tool for Shaman - even if a little bit costly - and Skydiving Instructor looks like an interesting tool for zoo/aggro decks. Everything else is alright, and can actually spark enough interest in deckbuilders to change things around
I'm so excited for this game, you have no idea: this game has a lot of potential, I hope the development team has good ideas for the game moving forward. The foundations are there, let's hope they can make some interesting things with them
Adventure cards used to be craftable only once they would go to the Wild format, meaning they won't. However, they can be acquired through the purchase of the Adventure - which can be done through gold or irl money
Ok, so the dream of having all explorers as Hero Cards is gone. I guess one class is getting a Legendary while the rest get nothing because... reasons?
Great change. While I'm personally not into OTK decks based on Stonetusk Boar shenanigans or Anyfin decks in general, the initial change would have literally killed those decks forever. This lets them have a balanced standard while keeping those decks living and running in Wild, where they belong. Especially after The Caverns Below unnerf, this is most welcome
What's hilarious is that the Jaina from the Solo Adventure - despite having the same portrait as the purchaseable one - has actually new voice lines. I really can't fathom why they wouldn't use them for the new skin
Wow. Well, I guess the librams dream lasted for a couple of days.
These cards are on the cusp of unplayability; Imprisoned Sungill is easily the worst imprisoned card in the set, as it's just way too basic - I'm playing nothing on turn 1 to have a 2.5 mana-worth minion on turn 3? Wow...
And that legendary is just so meh. Murloc Paladin has only ever been good because of Tip the Scales, and that wasn't a proper murloc deck, that was a combo/mana cheat deck. We need to understand how powerful can 5 murlocs with divine shield be, and if they can change the tides of battle on turn 8. But I guess you really don't need to play a murloc deck to play this, but in that case, can this really be a finisher?
So...
Sightless Watcher is insane, and the fact that it's a basic card, meaning that it will be forever in Standard until it gets either HoF'ed or nerfed to the ground is scary stuff.
Inner Demon looks like it's supposed to be a finisher, but paying 4 times more than Heroic Strike to have double the attack doesn't sound that exciting, even though DH will get in AoO Kayn Sunfury. It is indeed a basic card, power level wise - and let's hope it stays that way.
Altruis the Outcast is a really good card that lightens the burden of playing sub-optimally to trigger the Outcast effects on your cards, and makes your overpowered Outcast cards even more broken. Maybe a little too overpriced, but for combo purposes is still very powerful - and that's why it's priced this way, you can literally kill your opponent just by playing low cost cards from your hand.
Nethrandamus is... I don't know. Is his effect similar to Corridor Creeper's? Either way, it's a big investment on a Dragon that almost makes it a Dragonqueen Alexstrasza - almost. But I don't see this as an effective finisher for the kamikaze archetype; sure, you can just summon an 8/8 and 2 random 10 mana cost minions for 9, but we need to know the pool, and how the randomness can affect this. It can be powerful, but we neeed to know if it can be unfair. Even though I guess every card in DH can be unfair if drawn with Skull of Gul'dan. Oh boy, either this or Kayn Sunfury drawn with Skull of Gul'dan, and you have an OTK already done. Oh boy
Another Kael'thas Sunstrider tool and another card that shows us how Ysiel Windsinger really has no place in Standard right now.
It's okay-ish, but in classic you have Mark of the Wild - which is arguably the same power level wise - and that hasn't seen Standard play since Standard was created, and believe me, it wasn't because it costed 2 at 7 mana or more. So yeah; if we see this, it will only be because of Kael'thas Sunstrider, and that's it.
The only deck that can potentially abuse this is Plot Twist Warlock, as it is the only Warlock deck that can manipulate the card draw order without excessively relying on RNG.
Otherwise, it's a slightly better Siphon Soul with a conditional upside. Which isn't bad per se, but with the cards we've seen up until now, it's too tame to be impactful. We can see this as the replacement for Lord Godfrey in Standard, and if we look at it under this light, well... We'll see
So finally, Pure Paladin will now become its true self; Nerd Paladin!
Love this, here's hoping it's good
A new friend for Quest Hunter, Unseal the Vault might really enjoy this one.
Other than that, this card is so much open to many shenanigans, especially in Wild, and I love it. This is my favorite type of cards; a really good card baseline, that gets your gears spinning so that you can pull the maximum unfairness possible. I like this
Wait, so we're dancing this old dance again? First the murloc epic weapon, now the buff legendary?
So Team 5 is going to keep giving Paladin the "we have 100 class identities" thing again?
About the card: I do enjoy a good card generator - and Liadrin is an incredible card generator; it works with spells that you played on both your hero and your minions, but... is that good enough? Will Paladin be able to control the board or pressure the opponent in a way that makes this card the great play it's supposed to be? Because turn 7 is far away, and a card that has no impact on the board right away risks to be a fluke instead of a trump card.
I guess we'll be looking out for low cost and valuable spells from Paladin
For all Gwent aficionados, this card's effect is the Duel mechanic.
However, low attack means this card is not that exciting, and if there are no handbuffs it's hard to justify running it; if this card targets a 3/2 , it's an unconditional but worse SI:7 Agent; if it targets a 2/3 it isn't that better. Sure, it's decent against other 1 attack minions, but not that many around here unless you're facing Rogue - and even then, not that many either. This minion just doesn't feel good enough.
You can sum this minion up as a 1/X, with X = target's Health times its Attack. So it becomes effectively a 3 mana deal 5 against a 2-attack minion with 5 or more health; a 3 mana deal 4 against a 3-attack minion with 4 or more health; a 3 mana deal 3 against a 4-attack minion with 3 or more health, and so on and so forth. Without any "auto-damage" trigger on the board or a hand-buff played turns before, this is for all intents and purposes a weak basic level removal that, in the best of cases, leaves a 1 attack minion behind to compete for the board.
If this is enough for Warrior, then by all means. If Galakrond Warrior is still a thing after this expansion comes out, then we might see this card around - it's broken with Galakrond's effect. We'll see if other Warrior archetypes will want to tackle this card
At the end of the day, while it's clear Demon Hunter has stolen most of its cards from the Neutral pool - which is cool, as most neutral cards are just pack filler either way - one thing actually changed:
There are now MORE LEGENDARIES each set. It's apparent that Demon Hunter hasn't taken away any legendary spot from the neutral pool, so... Oof for that.
It appears however that the set has actually lost epic slots - previously, the total epics for a set was 27, in this expansion, the number is decreased to 23 - which hilariously enough means it will be faster for big spenders to earn the full epic collection of a set, thus making the epic duplicate protection they just introduced less relevant, but only for big spenders
A NEW CLASS??????
WHAT?????
It looks damn cool too.
Oh hey, they're also adding Demon Hunter.
One MUST be Yogg. The rest is really up in the air... From the Year of the Raven, the most likely could be Giggling Inventor and Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and Raiding Party. I can't really pinpoint any good candidate for the Year of the Dragon... Maybe Archivist Elysiana?
Either way, I'm glad they're doing this sort of things, this is really what the game needs and what Wild needs.
So let's take Frodan's word and reason on the fact that the changes they're about to implement are massive and will guarantee HS success in the following decade.
Let's start going for exclusion:
* UI Improvements; they might happen, but in no way they will have an impact on player retention/acquisition, as HS has arguably some of the best UI in online card games to date
* New keywords; while new keywords and mechanics are cool, by themselves they will never be able to make a game survive longer. Discover didn't make HS last 10 years longer, and it still is the most praised mechanic of the game. Let's not forget that whatever keyword a new expansion can throw at us, it will move out of the standard format in 2 years;
* New cosmetics and cosmetic economy; this by itself has absolutely no impact on the longevity of a game, unless the game is incredibly f2player friendly - which it isn't, and it only got worse;
* New game modes; interesting possiblilty, however only one game mode doesn't guarantee the game survival for another decade. However, more than one... Here we enter the realm of "it may actually be the thing". Adding an Arena mode that actually works more like Draft or Limited from MtG, that allows the player to draft cards, build a deck from the pool of drafted cards, and keep all the cards for themselves. A mode such as this would really let HS make a big jump;
* Revamped economy system: another big possibility, HS sore spot has always been how the economy - especially the Dust based one - is incredibly unfair and punishing towards the players. This year has been especially egregious under this point of view; 4 expansions - yes, Galakrond's Awakening is an expansion just like Naxxramas was, so 4 expansions - and a devastating power creep made it so that grinding becomes less and less rewarding. However, is a revamp in the economy system something that could make you say "they will cement HS for another decade for all players"? I have my doubts - and knowing Activision Blizzard, I doubt they will want to earn less money;
All in all, when Frodan says "if they can execute", means that it will be something complex. I'm hopeful, but honestly, I'll keep my expectations low.
Oh yeah. Honestly? I think this daily quest model would do wonders to HS economy, this SHOULD be the main daily quest system. It's unfortunate that it's just 2 weeks
Honestly? These leaks are actually pretty interesting; so Paladin could actually try some sort of Menagerie tactic by going Murloc/Dragon hybrid with Scalelord and Skyfin ? This becomes even more interesting in Wild thanks to The Curator , Menagerie Warden, Zoobot and Gentle Megasaur .
Hunter gets more dragon synergy, and Warrior gets more self-wound synergy - even though it still lacks threatening and deck-defining engines for it. Explosive Evolution is an interesting tool for Shaman - even if a little bit costly - and Skydiving Instructor looks like an interesting tool for zoo/aggro decks. Everything else is alright, and can actually spark enough interest in deckbuilders to change things around
I'm so excited for this game, you have no idea: this game has a lot of potential, I hope the development team has good ideas for the game moving forward. The foundations are there, let's hope they can make some interesting things with them
Adventure cards used to be craftable only once they would go to the Wild format, meaning they won't. However, they can be acquired through the purchase of the Adventure - which can be done through gold or irl money
Ok, so the dream of having all explorers as Hero Cards is gone. I guess one class is getting a Legendary while the rest get nothing because... reasons?
Here's Reno's HP confirmed on the HS subreddit
FeelsBadMan