I had the same experience as you, Lyra, though that occurred one or two weeks ago.
When I reached Legend and wanted to update the decklist in OoC, I clicked on my deck (Quest N'zoth Priest) and tabbed out. When I returned to my client, the list was empty for some reason. But then i just copy/pasted the deck code and so far I didn't encounter any problems. I also had the same message which you mentioned in the OP, but, oddly enough, it disappeared after reselecting my deck.
Many people also encountered the same issue, but in standard. I guess the new patch brought some bugs with it:
If you look closely, you can see that the opponent managed to finish their quest on turn 6. Whoa, what a surprise! Who would have thought that increasing the requirement by two spells wouldn't have had any impact on the quest completion whatsoever?!
Tbh I'm not really that salty about losing that game (it happened somewhere after turn 10 and I had some shitty draws). But I came here just to vent a bit, that the nerf wasn't impactful at all. I dunno, I could be wrong. What are your impressions from your encounters against the "nerfed" deck? If you play aggro, do you manage to beat it often?
I was talking about restrictions in general. Those don't have to be narrowed down to the ones I mentioned. If you would like to find more competitive players, so that you improve the survivability of your deck or to face a challenge, there could be an option to mention it. I dunno how such lounges would look like in the face of hs, but in the past I've played on YGoPro with a friend and we had the possiblity to set such custom options and to announce them to others.
Tbh I've always wondered what the point of casual was. Let's be real here, this mode is just like ranked - there's an MMR system based on players' winrates or collection (in case of new players) - with the only exception that it doesn't offer any rewards other than 10 g per three wins. Since players can get matched with others w/o any restrictions taking place whatsoever, it's inevitable for a meme deck to face something more competitive. And that's something unpleasant for both sides. ArngrimUndying and RangDipkin explained the reasons for that, so I'm not going to repeat them.
For me casual should get an overhaul, if the devs want to make it more popular. If we could set some kind of restrictions there, we could satisfy all types of players. Meme decks can get matched with eachother and pull off their fun combos in peace; people, who want to practise for the ladder or a tournament, can find more suitable partners etc. I suggested that change ever since I joined hs-related forums, but a fellow user here made a very nice thread about it:
I am aware, that we won't see a such overhaul in the near future (I'm not an expert, but this suggestion requires s lot of dedicated work), but imho that's what casual truly needs. Right now I don't see a reason to play there. Like DelkoHS said, we could use meme decks on the ladder and get easy stars thanks to the multiplier. This was the case for me, when I gave the new ranking system a try - I just created a fun Raza Thief deck and played it all the way to Diamond 5. If a person reaches the point, when they don't get bonus stars anymore, then can just meme in one if the milestones, so that they don't lose ranks.
So, uhm, some of you already know, that I managed to hit Legend in wild in the first week of this month. I already expressed what I thought about the new ranking system in the respective thread, but I would like to continue my story.
Quest N'zoth Priest was my main deck for a long time now, but since it didn't feature that many new cards, I wanted to try out something new. I also got tired of the Quest Mage wild meta, so I decided to switch to Standard and explore more what the game had to offer. My first legendary from packs was Reliquary of Souls and I wanted to play it. I didn't have a clue how to build a deck around it, so I copy/pasted Regis's deck:
But I felt like there weren't enough synergies with the aforementioned legendary, so I crafted Activate the Obelisk and cut Galakrond in favour for it. After reaching Platinum, I made some adjustments to the deck - I added Renew, Skeletal Dragon (I had to craft both copies of it) and Sandhoof Waterbearer and today I did something, which I considered unthinkable in the past:
Show Spoiler
I managed to hit Legend in both formats in the same month. In the previous ranking system I would have never done that, because it would have taken me too much time and it wouldn't have been rewarding at all. Tbh it's not like I got something extra from doing it, but this time I just did it for the journey itself and I really enjoyed the deck I played. Hitting that HP constantly felt really good - it was really strong in the control vs control MUs.
Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification. But the way you are describing it, it sounds like the druid Togwaggle deck is the better option, because it's faster and more consistent.
Finally, I had the feeling Murozond Priest is broken, but apparently it's much more inconsistent than I think. I hope it won't rise as the new Combo tyrant after the nerfs.
What is this deck, if I may ask? I can hardly imagine a broken interaction with Murozond the Infinite. Did you mean Temporus? The card is admittedly ill designed and could lead to one-sided interactions, if priests were to get something similar to Time Out!.
Anyway, you are right about the Sorcerer's Apprentice nerf. As much as I hate seeing nerfs to Basic/Classic cards, the apprentice is indeed overperforming in that deck.
It's actually a bigger inconvenience than you're giving it credit for. Remember, you are doing next to nothing (both tempo-wise and survivability-wise) when you are dinking around generating random spells, the one caveat for this statement being when you discover a discounted spell you can play right away.
This means that aggro and midrange, control to an obvious lesser degree, are able to pressure your face. Spending mana simply to add more mana (cards) to your hand affects the game in no way until you get average or good cards and start spending that mana to deal with the opponent's threats.
A really good example of this is that 5 mana generate 3 spells card (Cabalist's Tome?). Why do you think most non-Quest non-otk mage decks didn't use that? One reason is because you spent so much mana at the end of the day, essentially doing nothing but generating and adding cards to your hand, that you massively fell behind on board and were at that much more risk to dying.
Tl;dr - At the end of the day you spend mana to add more cards that cost mana to your hand, which again you have to spend quickly. Adding 2 additional spells to that actually is a big deal because it slows you down a lot and makes you more at risk for dying if you don't just generate cheap spells 100% of the time
.
Yeah, I would have agreed with those arguments if it wasn't for the fact, that cyclone mage 1) runs cheap spells and 2) benefits from casting them in combination with Sorcerer's Apprentice +Flamewaker/Stargazer Luna, so you aren't really doing nothing if you have those cards. And you still have some defensive options in the form of secrets and freeze effects.
I remember Cabalist's Tome and how running and playing it was a huge penalty for trying to complete the quest. Now you have cheaper alternatives, some of which also offer some kind of a board presence - Violet Spellwing (a fair turn 1 play) or, if you decide to start with the quest, you have Licensed Adventurer.
So, the present quest mage has undoubtedly a lot of strong synergies. It's not as weak as it used to be in the past, like you are describing it.
Not going to lie, I'm really disappointed with the nerf to Open the Waygate. The two extra required randomly generated spells are a such a minor increase, that it's barely noticeable. IF someone had any problems with Exodia Quest Mage prior to RoS, the 2-point increase would have been smooth af. But from the last few expansions mages got so many good ways to generate spells, that it deserved a bigger hit. Things like Mana Cyclone, Magic Trick, Licensed Adventurer and now Evocation can really pump up those numbers, especially if they are used alongside Sorcerer's Apprentice. And let's not forget Ray of Frost, that fulfills two roles at once - stalling and quest progressing. There just aren't any bad RNG-based spell generators, as they were in the past. Now there's no real penalty, when you build your deck to complete the quest.
The thing I hate about that deck is the highroll potential. This is what I despised in former community hated decks as well - Naga Sea Witch Warlock/Hunter, Big Priest, Darkest Hour Warlock, Star Aligner Druid, OG Quest Rogue etc. The last time I faced Cyclone Mage in wild, the opponent completed their quest on turn 5 with the help of Sorcerer's Apprentice, used Time Warp on the following turn alongside 2 giants and killed me with a randomly generated Fireball. Talk about highroll.
That's my opinion regarding the mage deck. The other nerfs are more or less fair: Bloodbloom's cost doubles and I doubt we will see Darkest Hour Warlock ever again. Mecha'thun warlock got hit hard, but the deck will replace the spell with Drakkari Enchanter and it will survive. Odd DH received a lot of hits, so it's very unlikely it will remain competitive in wild. As for Standard: Combo DH is going to stay - it seems that the devs are satisfied with its presence. I think mid-range DH will become stronger, now that its aggressive variant got hit in many different ways. Tbh I'm kinda excited about the Sac Pac change - I know, that Lord Jaraxxus is still a weak win-condition in comparison to Galakrond or some Plot Twist shenanigans, but I've always missed playing him and now I'm looking forward to running a control warlock deck in standard.
Specifically regarding classic-expansion content. At what point does blizzard feasibly stop the re-release train? I always said that Wrath was the peak of WoW (both in terms of it's core demographic, popularity, peak concurrent subscribers and it's ability to create good content that didn't completely obviate the systems that it had developed prior). I mean, I don't think it's feasible for Blizzard to just re-release all expansions. There has to be a stopping point. I feel fairly confident that they will release Burning Crusade though. (Just look at Hearthstone and WoW…
Someone can correct me, if I am wrong, but I didn't see an official response about the final legacy expansion. It's very likely to be Wrath due to the reasons you and Flux mentioned above, but IMHO we will see another survey from Blizzard asking us what we would want next. If enough players want Cata, then we might see that expansion as well. If people aren't in the mood for it, then Classic would be based on a 2-expansion package.
I knew that Flux would come here and share his opinion on the matter. Glad to see, that he is also hyped about tbc.
Anyway, I don't think I can contribute more to the thread, since both of you started a very thorough discussion and you are commenting on some specific things (like realm transfers), which I'm not knowledgeable of. Sykomyke, you probably feel more confident about what you should do after reading Flux's posts. But since you wrote to me earlier and I assume you would like to hear my opinion, I must say that your dilemma is really complicated. On the one hand you can't/don't want to log in regularly because of things irl or lack of motivation to grind, but on the other hand you still want to experience the content the game offers. And I assume, that you can't afford to log in too casually, because you won't get enough value out of your subscription. If I dismiss the previous sentence for a bit, I would tell you to join your friend in his raids, when you have time and you are in the mood, and to try to satisfy that feeling of "FOMO" as much as you can. But imho the other feeling - "falling behind others" - will stay and you just have to decide what's more important for you - to have fun or to grind. Because, as you already know, the game requires a lot of time investment from you for 1) farming gold, 2) farming materials (for craftables), 3) farming rep, 4) doing attunement quests, 5) farming honour (if you are a pvp person) and 6) obtaining gear. That's why you will constantly get that feeling of falling behind others, if you take breaks. I don't know anything about good gear in vanilla and the gear requirements for the classic end-game raids. If you don't want to miss out on the content and at the same time you don't want to put yourself in that tedious grind, you could try to convince a GM/RL to save a spot for you. In the worst case scenario you'd have to pass on the loot but I think you would manage to participate. If that's not the case (like Naxx, for example, that is a gear-check), then, as terrible it may sound, you should do something else other than playing Classic WoW in your free time.
So that would be my answer - if you are enjoying reliving some of the Classic content on a casual matter and you think you would get enough value out of your subscription, then you could stay and continue to play. If you think people would want you to be well geared for raids and you don't want to grind it, you should quit Classic WoW and do something else (switch to a different game, hobby etc), until tbc launches. It wouldn't be worth it to punish yourself doing something you won't feel satisfied from. You will just feel worn-out and you won't have any energy for your daily tasks. This is the thing you should say to yourself whenever you have that "FOMO" and just recall how you feel, when you log in and don't get any enjoyment from what you are doing. Not to mention, once tbc launches, the previous grind for gear would become pointless. You would replace it with green items from Outland elites or quest rewards. If you feel some kind of a remorse towards your friend for leaving them, then I would say that even in that case you shouldn't be hard on yourself. You can explain them how you feel with the game and I'm sure they would understand. You are spending your own free time in it, after all; you don't have to play for the sake of someone else.
You're holding on to an idea of what used to be when you've already moved past it, and you hope for it to go into a direction that would help recapture that old feeling...even though it probably won't.
TL;DR you're somewhat forcing yourself to commit time to a game that you no longer truly enjoy because you're hoping that at some point you'll be able to recapture the old magic, even if that is probably not going to happen.
Well said. I've watched some Classic WoW videos, where people complained that Classic =/= Vanilla. To my understanding, the old, innocent playthrough is gone. Most people play the game with a new, goal-oriented mindset. While that may not be a bad thing on its own, reliving that old magic isn't possible anymore. We aren't the players we used to be in our childhood/youthful years. We have developed new, more optimal strategies on how to play that game.
[Edit] Ahm, in the quoted paragraphs you were talking about how we as players can grow out of our nostalgic feeling for a game and leave it behind us. And I agree with that statement. I just wanted to add, that reliving the old magic we got from a game isn't possible. Not when the players' perception and knowledge of the game developed throughout the years.
Well, I've got to say - congratulations for resolving your issues irl. It might be a cliche for some, but those are really the things that matter at the end. As fun as WoW could be, we must never forget it's only a game and as such it should just satisfy our need for entertainment. So, once again, gratz for having a stable relationship and a solid job position.
As for the rest of your thread - tbc is definitely going to happen, but you have to be patient. To my understanding, bwl was recently set in stone and there's still Ahn'Qiraj and Naxx before tbc gets released. I can understand your current dilemma - even though I have never played on classic servers, I've watched a lot of Classic WoW videos and got the impression that there's just a lot of tedious grind, that some people enjoy. Just like you I also don't like the fact, that classes aren't balanced in vanilla and some specs can't see the light of the day (I main feral kitty in wotlk with a boomkin offspec). If you can't stand those aspects of the game, then I could advise you to be honest with yourself and your friend and tell them, that you will return to WoW only when tbc launches. In the meantime you could try out a different game (or a different MMO), switch to a different hobby or try to find another tbc private server and invite your friend there. I'm sorry to say, that I can't recommend a good one, since I am a wrath baby and only play that expansion (for now) on Warmane. Imho you shouldn't punish yourself doing things you don't like and just find something, that can entertain you in your free time. So, good luck with your dilemma and I hope you found something useful in my post.
But the albatross can only delay Raza, not really prevent it (unless you go hard with duplicates).
Also, albatross may be nerfed for Standard purposes soon (to be seen how).
Damn, I didn't get a notification. Well, for quite some time now my main deck is N'zoth Priest, so you can imagine how well I make use of the various deathrattles and deathrattle synergies there.
Of course the albatross can only delay Raza, but isn't this our strategy - to put duplicates in the opponent's deck, so that we turn off their Reno and apply too much pressure for them to handle?
I had the same experience as you, Lyra, though that occurred one or two weeks ago.
When I reached Legend and wanted to update the decklist in OoC, I clicked on my deck (Quest N'zoth Priest) and tabbed out. When I returned to my client, the list was empty for some reason. But then i just copy/pasted the deck code and so far I didn't encounter any problems. I also had the same message which you mentioned in the OP, but, oddly enough, it disappeared after reselecting my deck.
Many people also encountered the same issue, but in standard. I guess the new patch brought some bugs with it:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/cant-play-priest/27427
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/the-selected-deck-is-not-valid-for-this-game-mode/27472/13
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/unable-to-play-decks/27324
So, yeah, try building that deck from scratch or paste the deck code if you have it.
Really, that user is the troll? I either forgot what kind of answers he used to give or I just had a better opinion of him.
Bad Luck Albatross might have been nerfed, but it's still a good card. Especially in combination with N'Zoth, the Corruptor, Twilight's Call, Psychopomp, Grave Rune. I just beat a jade druid by shuffling a lot of birds in their deck. I even Psychic Screamed a few.
So, uhm, do you remember that nerf to Open the Waygate?
If you look closely, you can see that the opponent managed to finish their quest on turn 6. Whoa, what a surprise! Who would have thought that increasing the requirement by two spells wouldn't have had any impact on the quest completion whatsoever?!
Tbh I'm not really that salty about losing that game (it happened somewhere after turn 10 and I had some shitty draws). But I came here just to vent a bit, that the nerf wasn't impactful at all. I dunno, I could be wrong. What are your impressions from your encounters against the "nerfed" deck? If you play aggro, do you manage to beat it often?
@Lyra
I was talking about restrictions in general. Those don't have to be narrowed down to the ones I mentioned. If you would like to find more competitive players, so that you improve the survivability of your deck or to face a challenge, there could be an option to mention it. I dunno how such lounges would look like in the face of hs, but in the past I've played on YGoPro with a friend and we had the possiblity to set such custom options and to announce them to others.
Tbh I've always wondered what the point of casual was. Let's be real here, this mode is just like ranked - there's an MMR system based on players' winrates or collection (in case of new players) - with the only exception that it doesn't offer any rewards other than 10 g per three wins. Since players can get matched with others w/o any restrictions taking place whatsoever, it's inevitable for a meme deck to face something more competitive. And that's something unpleasant for both sides. ArngrimUndying and RangDipkin explained the reasons for that, so I'm not going to repeat them.
For me casual should get an overhaul, if the devs want to make it more popular. If we could set some kind of restrictions there, we could satisfy all types of players. Meme decks can get matched with eachother and pull off their fun combos in peace; people, who want to practise for the ladder or a tournament, can find more suitable partners etc. I suggested that change ever since I joined hs-related forums, but a fellow user here made a very nice thread about it:
https://outof.cards/forums/hearthstone/hearthstone-general/2665-tables-a-way-to-play-hearthstone-with-your-own-rules
I am aware, that we won't see a such overhaul in the near future (I'm not an expert, but this suggestion requires s lot of dedicated work), but imho that's what casual truly needs. Right now I don't see a reason to play there. Like DelkoHS said, we could use meme decks on the ladder and get easy stars thanks to the multiplier. This was the case for me, when I gave the new ranking system a try - I just created a fun Raza Thief deck and played it all the way to Diamond 5. If a person reaches the point, when they don't get bonus stars anymore, then can just meme in one if the milestones, so that they don't lose ranks.
Who's the person you are referring to? I'm really curious.
So, uhm, some of you already know, that I managed to hit Legend in wild in the first week of this month. I already expressed what I thought about the new ranking system in the respective thread, but I would like to continue my story.
Quest N'zoth Priest was my main deck for a long time now, but since it didn't feature that many new cards, I wanted to try out something new. I also got tired of the Quest Mage wild meta, so I decided to switch to Standard and explore more what the game had to offer. My first legendary from packs was Reliquary of Souls and I wanted to play it. I didn't have a clue how to build a deck around it, so I copy/pasted Regis's deck:
But I felt like there weren't enough synergies with the aforementioned legendary, so I crafted Activate the Obelisk and cut Galakrond in favour for it. After reaching Platinum, I made some adjustments to the deck - I added Renew, Skeletal Dragon (I had to craft both copies of it) and Sandhoof Waterbearer and today I did something, which I considered unthinkable in the past:
I managed to hit Legend in both formats in the same month. In the previous ranking system I would have never done that, because it would have taken me too much time and it wouldn't have been rewarding at all. Tbh it's not like I got something extra from doing it, but this time I just did it for the journey itself and I really enjoyed the deck I played. Hitting that HP constantly felt really good - it was really strong in the control vs control MUs.
Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification. But the way you are describing it, it sounds like the druid Togwaggle deck is the better option, because it's faster and more consistent.
What is this deck, if I may ask? I can hardly imagine a broken interaction with Murozond the Infinite. Did you mean Temporus? The card is admittedly ill designed and could lead to one-sided interactions, if priests were to get something similar to Time Out!.
Wow, turn 4? That sounds crazy.
Anyway, you are right about the Sorcerer's Apprentice nerf. As much as I hate seeing nerfs to Basic/Classic cards, the apprentice is indeed overperforming in that deck.
Yeah, I would have agreed with those arguments if it wasn't for the fact, that cyclone mage 1) runs cheap spells and 2) benefits from casting them in combination with Sorcerer's Apprentice +Flamewaker/Stargazer Luna, so you aren't really doing nothing if you have those cards. And you still have some defensive options in the form of secrets and freeze effects.
I remember Cabalist's Tome and how running and playing it was a huge penalty for trying to complete the quest. Now you have cheaper alternatives, some of which also offer some kind of a board presence - Violet Spellwing (a fair turn 1 play) or, if you decide to start with the quest, you have Licensed Adventurer.
So, the present quest mage has undoubtedly a lot of strong synergies. It's not as weak as it used to be in the past, like you are describing it.
Oh, I strongly agree with this statement.
Not going to lie, I'm really disappointed with the nerf to Open the Waygate. The two extra required randomly generated spells are a such a minor increase, that it's barely noticeable. IF someone had any problems with Exodia Quest Mage prior to RoS, the 2-point increase would have been smooth af. But from the last few expansions mages got so many good ways to generate spells, that it deserved a bigger hit. Things like Mana Cyclone, Magic Trick, Licensed Adventurer and now Evocation can really pump up those numbers, especially if they are used alongside Sorcerer's Apprentice. And let's not forget Ray of Frost, that fulfills two roles at once - stalling and quest progressing. There just aren't any bad RNG-based spell generators, as they were in the past. Now there's no real penalty, when you build your deck to complete the quest.
The thing I hate about that deck is the highroll potential. This is what I despised in former community hated decks as well - Naga Sea Witch Warlock/Hunter, Big Priest, Darkest Hour Warlock, Star Aligner Druid, OG Quest Rogue etc. The last time I faced Cyclone Mage in wild, the opponent completed their quest on turn 5 with the help of Sorcerer's Apprentice, used Time Warp on the following turn alongside 2 giants and killed me with a randomly generated Fireball. Talk about highroll.
That's my opinion regarding the mage deck. The other nerfs are more or less fair: Bloodbloom's cost doubles and I doubt we will see Darkest Hour Warlock ever again. Mecha'thun warlock got hit hard, but the deck will replace the spell with Drakkari Enchanter and it will survive. Odd DH received a lot of hits, so it's very unlikely it will remain competitive in wild. As for Standard: Combo DH is going to stay - it seems that the devs are satisfied with its presence. I think mid-range DH will become stronger, now that its aggressive variant got hit in many different ways. Tbh I'm kinda excited about the Sac Pac change - I know, that Lord Jaraxxus is still a weak win-condition in comparison to Galakrond or some Plot Twist shenanigans, but I've always missed playing him and now I'm looking forward to running a control warlock deck in standard.
Btw
Someone can correct me, if I am wrong, but I didn't see an official response about the final legacy expansion. It's very likely to be Wrath due to the reasons you and Flux mentioned above, but IMHO we will see another survey from Blizzard asking us what we would want next. If enough players want Cata, then we might see that expansion as well. If people aren't in the mood for it, then Classic would be based on a 2-expansion package.
I knew that Flux would come here and share his opinion on the matter. Glad to see, that he is also hyped about tbc.
Anyway, I don't think I can contribute more to the thread, since both of you started a very thorough discussion and you are commenting on some specific things (like realm transfers), which I'm not knowledgeable of. Sykomyke, you probably feel more confident about what you should do after reading Flux's posts. But since you wrote to me earlier and I assume you would like to hear my opinion, I must say that your dilemma is really complicated. On the one hand you can't/don't want to log in regularly because of things irl or lack of motivation to grind, but on the other hand you still want to experience the content the game offers. And I assume, that you can't afford to log in too casually, because you won't get enough value out of your subscription. If I dismiss the previous sentence for a bit, I would tell you to join your friend in his raids, when you have time and you are in the mood, and to try to satisfy that feeling of "FOMO" as much as you can. But imho the other feeling - "falling behind others" - will stay and you just have to decide what's more important for you - to have fun or to grind. Because, as you already know, the game requires a lot of time investment from you for 1) farming gold, 2) farming materials (for craftables), 3) farming rep, 4) doing attunement quests, 5) farming honour (if you are a pvp person) and 6) obtaining gear. That's why you will constantly get that feeling of falling behind others, if you take breaks. I don't know anything about good gear in vanilla and the gear requirements for the classic end-game raids. If you don't want to miss out on the content and at the same time you don't want to put yourself in that tedious grind, you could try to convince a GM/RL to save a spot for you. In the worst case scenario you'd have to pass on the loot but I think you would manage to participate. If that's not the case (like Naxx, for example, that is a gear-check), then, as terrible it may sound, you should do something else other than playing Classic WoW in your free time.
So that would be my answer - if you are enjoying reliving some of the Classic content on a casual matter and you think you would get enough value out of your subscription, then you could stay and continue to play. If you think people would want you to be well geared for raids and you don't want to grind it, you should quit Classic WoW and do something else (switch to a different game, hobby etc), until tbc launches. It wouldn't be worth it to punish yourself doing something you won't feel satisfied from. You will just feel worn-out and you won't have any energy for your daily tasks. This is the thing you should say to yourself whenever you have that "FOMO" and just recall how you feel, when you log in and don't get any enjoyment from what you are doing. Not to mention, once tbc launches, the previous grind for gear would become pointless. You would replace it with green items from Outland elites or quest rewards. If you feel some kind of a remorse towards your friend for leaving them, then I would say that even in that case you shouldn't be hard on yourself. You can explain them how you feel with the game and I'm sure they would understand. You are spending your own free time in it, after all; you don't have to play for the sake of someone else.
Well said. I've watched some Classic WoW videos, where people complained that Classic =/= Vanilla. To my understanding, the old, innocent playthrough is gone. Most people play the game with a new, goal-oriented mindset. While that may not be a bad thing on its own, reliving that old magic isn't possible anymore. We aren't the players we used to be in our childhood/youthful years. We have developed new, more optimal strategies on how to play that game.
[Edit] Ahm, in the quoted paragraphs you were talking about how we as players can grow out of our nostalgic feeling for a game and leave it behind us. And I agree with that statement. I just wanted to add, that reliving the old magic we got from a game isn't possible. Not when the players' perception and knowledge of the game developed throughout the years.
Well, I've got to say - congratulations for resolving your issues irl. It might be a cliche for some, but those are really the things that matter at the end. As fun as WoW could be, we must never forget it's only a game and as such it should just satisfy our need for entertainment. So, once again, gratz for having a stable relationship and a solid job position.
As for the rest of your thread - tbc is definitely going to happen, but you have to be patient. To my understanding, bwl was recently set in stone and there's still Ahn'Qiraj and Naxx before tbc gets released. I can understand your current dilemma - even though I have never played on classic servers, I've watched a lot of Classic WoW videos and got the impression that there's just a lot of tedious grind, that some people enjoy. Just like you I also don't like the fact, that classes aren't balanced in vanilla and some specs can't see the light of the day (I main feral kitty in wotlk with a boomkin offspec). If you can't stand those aspects of the game, then I could advise you to be honest with yourself and your friend and tell them, that you will return to WoW only when tbc launches. In the meantime you could try out a different game (or a different MMO), switch to a different hobby or try to find another tbc private server and invite your friend there. I'm sorry to say, that I can't recommend a good one, since I am a wrath baby and only play that expansion (for now) on Warmane. Imho you shouldn't punish yourself doing things you don't like and just find something, that can entertain you in your free time. So, good luck with your dilemma and I hope you found something useful in my post.
Damn, I didn't get a notification. Well, for quite some time now my main deck is N'zoth Priest, so you can imagine how well I make use of the various deathrattles and deathrattle synergies there.
Of course the albatross can only delay Raza, but isn't this our strategy - to put duplicates in the opponent's deck, so that we turn off their Reno and apply too much pressure for them to handle?
Nerfed or not, I will always run the albatross against that deck.