Am I right in saying this means you can't get From the Swamp and Band of Bees together now, because they're in the same pool? If so, that's good. I had it recently and it is both broken and very frustrating. You can kill any enemy minion without issue, but you have to be so careful not to fill your board with them, because unless you have spells that kill your own minions or they miraculously drop a divine shield minion, you can never play anything again.
I think we're getting close to a tipping point where Demon decks actually become good. If that happens in an upcoming expansion, then this card is going to suddenly see a lot of play, especially considering how well it does with buffs like Imprisoned Scrap Imp.
I don't see this being run in Standard unless we get some good beast buffs in upcoming expansions. If there's a Crackling Razormaw type card around, this card suddenly gets a LOT better.
Just a good minion to fill out whichever tribe you are missing in a N'Zoth deck, and just a good taunt for any tribal deck that would like one. Dragon and Beast probably have better options, but could find a place in Murloc, Elemental, Totem, and even Pirate decks.
Not as crazy early game as it seems, because of the need to corrupt, but the strength of this card lies in it having enough stats to be a threat through into the late game, when Priest can drop it to protect their big threats and combo enablers like Sethekk Veilweaver, without spending much of their mana to do so.
A decent curve play for elemental decks to just act as a soft-taunt. It's unfortunate there are no good attack buffs for elementals. If Cauldron Elemental or Whirlwind Tempest were any good, this card could lead to some very fun combos.
Sadly there are very few decks who want to swarm the board and don't already have a better way to do it.
Not to mention, if your hand is full of minions as a zoo-type deck, you a) are probably doing something wrong, and b) would probably rather just play those minions.
Even Blizz acknowledges the OTK potential of this card with the new recipe. It seems good and it's not even close to perfected. I am sure we'll see some very good combo decks with this and N'Zoth.
You say that, but that is how Fortnite does it with their Battle Pass (which also only grants aesthetic rewards), and it's one of the most successful games in the world.
In Fortnite, you pay for a Battle Pass, and then over the course of the season you earn more than enough in-game currency to buy the next one. It just means you have to play regularly to keep up your streak. The more often you play, the more invested you feel, and the more likely you are to pay for other things that do cost money (like pack bundles, etc. in HS's case) I don't see why HS can't use the same model.
My entire opinion of the Tavern Pass revolves around whether it is purchasable with gold, or at least whether subsequent ones are. I am more than happy to pay $20 once, and earn enough gold each expansion to always buy the next one. If I have to pay $20 each time, then it makes absolutely no sense and I will never take part.
Why would adding copies not increase your odds of discovering them? I know with general Discover you can't get duplicates, but I didn't think that applied to Discovering from your deck.
Remember the benefit of this card increases exponentially with how many copies you have in your deck. It becomes more likely to hit the copied card, and draws more when it does.
Also do not forget this is Discover. You have a 1/5 chance of hitting what you want on with just a normal deck of 15 doubles, and that's ignoring natural card draw. The more turns pass, the fewer cards you have to Discover from (and the more copies you can shuffle with Togwaggle's Scheme), so it becomes even better the longer you wait to play it.
Then factor in shenanigans with things like Ticket Master and Shadow of Death (Pogo-Hopper in Wild), and suddenly their are a lot of interesting combos that become possible.
I envision a high-value big Rogue that shuffles high-cost minions with Shadow of Death, then plays Lorekeeper Polkelt to bring Grand Empress Shek'zara to the top and keep from drawing the Shadows. And maybe a Ticket Master version that works like the old Beneath the Grounds/Fal'dorei Strider decks and just plays as many copies of Ticket Master as possible and then draws a ton to get Tickets and/or Shek'zara.
Obviously insane with Freeze. I can see this aiding a huge Freeze mage reassurance, and maybe eventually leading to the Frost Nova HoF that I believe has been due for a while.
Successful and balanced archetypes are supported year on year as a matter of course. There is no reason to think Pure Paladin won't follow suit.
Mech decks first came about in GvG, and Blizz made a whole other expansion about it, and continues to add a little every time.
Dragon decks were all the rage in Blackrock, so Blizz continues to make bits of Dragon synergy in almost every expansion (and again a whole other expansion about it).
Highlander decks first came from LoE, and so many people loved them that Blizz made sure they are still some of the core Ranked decks today.
Pirate Warrior wasn't a thing until Meanstreets, but people enjoyed it so much that Blizz decided Pirates were a Warrior thing now and started giving them synergy.
There are many, many more. Basically, if an archetype is fun and not super bad or too good, Blizz will keep supporting it. They ditched Inspire because it sucked, they ditched Odd/Even because it was oppressive. Otherwise, they'll keep making cards like this that support their successful ideas.
It always amazes me how quick people are to judge a card based solely on whether it would fit in a current deck. The meta always changes after a new expansion. Whether more or less similar to now, there will be some new decks. A card that draws three for 5 mana, regardless of stats attached and especially if they are specific cards, will never be bad. As previous commenters have said, there are some great dragons and mechs in Warrior that just needed a little more consistency to be good, and some which become insane with a buff. Decks have and will change just to make use of good card draw. It happened with Pirates when Patches was good, and it happens in Hunter every time there's a Secret tutor; there's no reason it wouldn't happen with one or both of these cards.
I'm looking forward to trying Don't Feed the Animals in Beastmaster Leoroxx combo Hunter. I feel like that might be the only place it is worth it, unless some more value buff beasts like Wolpertinger are yet to come.
I figured they were connected to Hakkar and Witchwood, respectively, but I didn't even know cardbacks had pages! Got them now. :)
I am still stumped by the last one though… I know it is something to do with Scholomance and isn't a card, but I swear I have looked at every kind of Scholomance guide on this site at this point…
It's not a mage card. You are doing what I did and thinking Polymorph. That's not what it says. Polymerisation is a Yu-Gi-Oh card that combines two monsters. Can you think of a Hearthstone equivalent that might be appropriate for Halloween?
Am I right in saying this means you can't get From the Swamp and Band of Bees together now, because they're in the same pool? If so, that's good. I had it recently and it is both broken and very frustrating. You can kill any enemy minion without issue, but you have to be so careful not to fill your board with them, because unless you have spells that kill your own minions or they miraculously drop a divine shield minion, you can never play anything again.
I think we're getting close to a tipping point where Demon decks actually become good. If that happens in an upcoming expansion, then this card is going to suddenly see a lot of play, especially considering how well it does with buffs like Imprisoned Scrap Imp.
I don't see this being run in Standard unless we get some good beast buffs in upcoming expansions. If there's a Crackling Razormaw type card around, this card suddenly gets a LOT better.
Just a good minion to fill out whichever tribe you are missing in a N'Zoth deck, and just a good taunt for any tribal deck that would like one. Dragon and Beast probably have better options, but could find a place in Murloc, Elemental, Totem, and even Pirate decks.
Not as crazy early game as it seems, because of the need to corrupt, but the strength of this card lies in it having enough stats to be a threat through into the late game, when Priest can drop it to protect their big threats and combo enablers like Sethekk Veilweaver, without spending much of their mana to do so.
A decent curve play for elemental decks to just act as a soft-taunt. It's unfortunate there are no good attack buffs for elementals. If Cauldron Elemental or Whirlwind Tempest were any good, this card could lead to some very fun combos.
Sadly there are very few decks who want to swarm the board and don't already have a better way to do it.
Not to mention, if your hand is full of minions as a zoo-type deck, you a) are probably doing something wrong, and b) would probably rather just play those minions.
Even Blizz acknowledges the OTK potential of this card with the new recipe. It seems good and it's not even close to perfected. I am sure we'll see some very good combo decks with this and N'Zoth.
Then just re-roll it?
You say that, but that is how Fortnite does it with their Battle Pass (which also only grants aesthetic rewards), and it's one of the most successful games in the world.
In Fortnite, you pay for a Battle Pass, and then over the course of the season you earn more than enough in-game currency to buy the next one. It just means you have to play regularly to keep up your streak. The more often you play, the more invested you feel, and the more likely you are to pay for other things that do cost money (like pack bundles, etc. in HS's case) I don't see why HS can't use the same model.
My entire opinion of the Tavern Pass revolves around whether it is purchasable with gold, or at least whether subsequent ones are. I am more than happy to pay $20 once, and earn enough gold each expansion to always buy the next one. If I have to pay $20 each time, then it makes absolutely no sense and I will never take part.
Why would adding copies not increase your odds of discovering them? I know with general Discover you can't get duplicates, but I didn't think that applied to Discovering from your deck.
Remember the benefit of this card increases exponentially with how many copies you have in your deck. It becomes more likely to hit the copied card, and draws more when it does.
Also do not forget this is Discover. You have a 1/5 chance of hitting what you want on with just a normal deck of 15 doubles, and that's ignoring natural card draw. The more turns pass, the fewer cards you have to Discover from (and the more copies you can shuffle with Togwaggle's Scheme), so it becomes even better the longer you wait to play it.
Then factor in shenanigans with things like Ticket Master and Shadow of Death (Pogo-Hopper in Wild), and suddenly their are a lot of interesting combos that become possible.
I envision a high-value big Rogue that shuffles high-cost minions with Shadow of Death, then plays Lorekeeper Polkelt to bring Grand Empress Shek'zara to the top and keep from drawing the Shadows. And maybe a Ticket Master version that works like the old Beneath the Grounds/Fal'dorei Strider decks and just plays as many copies of Ticket Master as possible and then draws a ton to get Tickets and/or Shek'zara.
Obviously insane with Freeze. I can see this aiding a huge Freeze mage reassurance, and maybe eventually leading to the Frost Nova HoF that I believe has been due for a while.
Successful and balanced archetypes are supported year on year as a matter of course. There is no reason to think Pure Paladin won't follow suit.
There are many, many more. Basically, if an archetype is fun and not super bad or too good, Blizz will keep supporting it. They ditched Inspire because it sucked, they ditched Odd/Even because it was oppressive. Otherwise, they'll keep making cards like this that support their successful ideas.
It always amazes me how quick people are to judge a card based solely on whether it would fit in a current deck. The meta always changes after a new expansion. Whether more or less similar to now, there will be some new decks. A card that draws three for 5 mana, regardless of stats attached and especially if they are specific cards, will never be bad. As previous commenters have said, there are some great dragons and mechs in Warrior that just needed a little more consistency to be good, and some which become insane with a buff. Decks have and will change just to make use of good card draw. It happened with Pirates when Patches was good, and it happens in Hunter every time there's a Secret tutor; there's no reason it wouldn't happen with one or both of these cards.
I'm looking forward to trying Don't Feed the Animals in Beastmaster Leoroxx combo Hunter. I feel like that might be the only place it is worth it, unless some more value buff beasts like Wolpertinger are yet to come.
Thank you!
I figured they were connected to Hakkar and Witchwood, respectively, but I didn't even know cardbacks had pages! Got them now. :)
I am still stumped by the last one though… I know it is something to do with Scholomance and isn't a card, but I swear I have looked at every kind of Scholomance guide on this site at this point…
I'm almost done with the HS riddles, but these ones are giving me trouble. Can anyone give me a hint?