While I find a good thing that the project wasn't simply quitted, now may be too late to join the party: aside from HS (in its leading position) the market has just recieved LoR as a main competitor and on top of that Artifact's name is already labeled as one of the biggest fail of recent years.
It'll be a very difficult target to reabilitate the game in front of the player base and Valve really need to pull out something exceptional to make it work. I hope that at last the game could achieve a decent niche in the general market because its gameplay was something different from usual and having another option around cannot hurt anyone in the long run afterall.
I don't know if they've stated something about Expeditions already running when the patch will hit, but if nothing have been said it's far better to even retreat with 0-0 and get a free Champion than keep playing and achieve 7 victories because the rewards will not be so good after Tuesday.
Deck manipulation effects are always good and this has even a decent body attached, so it will probably be a stable card in DH. But I would really like to see more of said effects spread accross all Classes (more or less): give us the chance to make choices instead of simply pray RNG.
Razakus Priest has returned thanks to the un-nerf of Raza the Chained (there are tons of different variant for that, each one more or less ok), while for Malygos you should look up to some Maly Druid (combo).
Priest has as a weakness low card draw but a lot of value generation, it's opposite to the other new class demon hunter which has a lot of draw but bad card generation..
You're totally right, but I prefer every day to be able to draw from my own deck that to generate random spells. It's the difference between a good and a bad "mechanic". At last RNG value will keep filling up Funny Moments videos.
No news atm, but I think that if Sacrificial Pact will be abused a lot they'll probably look into it (but that also mean that there will be really tons of Demons around to justify 2x of it into a decklist). Having it like a situational removal or tech card is ok.
That old art for Lorewalker Cho seems more similar to the actual new expansion coming out, Ashes of Outland. Maybe was that this set was postponed so long for some reasons and they've finally decided to put it out now? Or maye it's just the same artist.
I don't think they will make death knights in HS, since there are already some death knights as heroes. I say it wouldn't make sense. But monk will for sure have a class if dmh goes well
It's pointless that during an expansion they printed what are "flavored" as Death Knight: that were "Hero Card" and several others have been printed outside of said expansion set. The only thing that actually is named as "Death Knight" are the cards generated by Arfus and The Lich King, but if they ever going to introduce Death Knight as a new class they just need to rename those two.
Nope: a dormant card is an invulnerable token on the board, it fills a slot but is not affected by any kind of effect (at last for what we know at the moment).
Considering how casual is HS' playerbase I even doubt that many players are aware of such method to farm easy dust, so if the system will not be exploited too much maybe Blizzard would simply allow it to exist. Otherwise the best solution is probably to just gift each player the amount of dust value corresponding to how many copies of the HoF/nerfed cards he has, instead of having the player to disenchant said cards in order to obtain the refound.
If they play it at the end of your turn to have her ready for their attack you can still play an Ephemeral minion and Death Mark, while if they play her at the start of their turn than you'll have the priority to use even slow spell or play a minion to face her (something with some Play or Summon effect).
What you say is correct, but I was thinking of using Death Mark outside of combat as a sort of removal in combo with an Ephemeral unit. Not the most efficient solution but still another option for Ionia, if paired with SI.
The last patch's nerf to The Rekindler will slow it down a bit and, on top of that as @OldManSanns said, it's a very linear and predictable deck so it's not that hard to setup up for a good answer to its plays (draw luck be on your side).
It still a very powerfull and easy to pilot deck, so if it'll keep be that strong maybe another nerf to some core cards (once again The Rekindler) may be on its way in the near future.
It's a well rounded patch that touch some of the more problematic cards that had risen up recently in the meta, while also buffing or reworking completly some other undertuned ones. It's also good to see they're keeping and eye on some of other "problematic" cards for future fixes becuase it shows how they're at last aware of what may be in need of changes.
I repost here what I've already wrote directly in the article, for a more detailed discussion.
What a nice round of changes! I was expecting a nerf to Troop of Elnuks, since it can lead to a victory too early in the game and only by sheer RNG. It would probably not see play anymore at this point.
Flash of Brilliance is a surprise: it was so good to cycle it for Ezreal and Heimerdinger while also gaining a low cost spell most of the time that this change feels more like a nerf, so I don't know if it will be good enough to be included in such archetype anymore but I'll test it out.
Hecarim and Kalista seems both more balanced now, the first because was tuned down (but I don't know if this will be enough) and the second because seems far more interesting, solid and powerfull than before (time for some testing!).
Also nice to see another nerf to Elusive units and Mark of the Isles. I'm a bit disappointed for the change to Mageseeker Investigator, since it was one of the few "silence" effects in the game but this new one allows probably more counterplay while adding also more flexibility to the card itself.
What a nice round of changes! I was expecting a nerf to Troop of Elnuks, since it can lead to a victory too early in the game and only by sheer RNG. It would probably not see play anymore at this point.
Flash of Brilliance is a surprise: it was so good to cycle it for Ezreal and Heimerdinger while also gaining a low cost spell most of the time that this change feels more like a nerf, so I don't know if it will be good enough to be included in such archetype anymore but I'll test it out.
Hecarim and Kalista seems both more balanced now, the first because was tuned down (but I don't know if this will be enough) and the second because seems far more interesting, solid and powerfull than before (time for some testing!).
Also nice to see another nerf to Elusive units and Mark of the Isles. I'm a bit disappointed for the change to Mageseeker Investigator, since it was one of the few "silence" effects in the game but this new one allows probably more counterplay while adding also more flexibility to the card itself.
Those things that you're mentioning are actual in-game feature (combat's results can be seen with the Oracle's Eye, while by right clicking on a card and then on the little eye under it you can see the full art).
The only third party tool that come to my mind for LoR is actually the deck tracker, that will allow you to see your full decklist, keep a database of your statistics and other similar features.
The draw animation was the one that required the most speed up since it was too slow, expecially when you draw multiple cards. But everything else seems a bit too fast now and I would probably slow it down by a 20%.
While I find a good thing that the project wasn't simply quitted, now may be too late to join the party: aside from HS (in its leading position) the market has just recieved LoR as a main competitor and on top of that Artifact's name is already labeled as one of the biggest fail of recent years.
It'll be a very difficult target to reabilitate the game in front of the player base and Valve really need to pull out something exceptional to make it work. I hope that at last the game could achieve a decent niche in the general market because its gameplay was something different from usual and having another option around cannot hurt anyone in the long run afterall.
I don't know if they've stated something about Expeditions already running when the patch will hit, but if nothing have been said it's far better to even retreat with 0-0 and get a free Champion than keep playing and achieve 7 victories because the rewards will not be so good after Tuesday.
Deck manipulation effects are always good and this has even a decent body attached, so it will probably be a stable card in DH. But I would really like to see more of said effects spread accross all Classes (more or less): give us the chance to make choices instead of simply pray RNG.
Razakus Priest has returned thanks to the un-nerf of Raza the Chained (there are tons of different variant for that, each one more or less ok), while for Malygos you should look up to some Maly Druid (combo).
You're totally right, but I prefer every day to be able to draw from my own deck that to generate random spells. It's the difference between a good and a bad "mechanic". At last RNG value will keep filling up Funny Moments videos.
No news atm, but I think that if Sacrificial Pact will be abused a lot they'll probably look into it (but that also mean that there will be really tons of Demons around to justify 2x of it into a decklist). Having it like a situational removal or tech card is ok.
That old art for Lorewalker Cho seems more similar to the actual new expansion coming out, Ashes of Outland. Maybe was that this set was postponed so long for some reasons and they've finally decided to put it out now? Or maye it's just the same artist.
It's pointless that during an expansion they printed what are "flavored" as Death Knight: that were "Hero Card" and several others have been printed outside of said expansion set. The only thing that actually is named as "Death Knight" are the cards generated by Arfus and The Lich King, but if they ever going to introduce Death Knight as a new class they just need to rename those two.
Nope: a dormant card is an invulnerable token on the board, it fills a slot but is not affected by any kind of effect (at last for what we know at the moment).
Considering how casual is HS' playerbase I even doubt that many players are aware of such method to farm easy dust, so if the system will not be exploited too much maybe Blizzard would simply allow it to exist. Otherwise the best solution is probably to just gift each player the amount of dust value corresponding to how many copies of the HoF/nerfed cards he has, instead of having the player to disenchant said cards in order to obtain the refound.
If they play it at the end of your turn to have her ready for their attack you can still play an Ephemeral minion and Death Mark, while if they play her at the start of their turn than you'll have the priority to use even slow spell or play a minion to face her (something with some Play or Summon effect).
What you say is correct, but I was thinking of using Death Mark outside of combat as a sort of removal in combo with an Ephemeral unit. Not the most efficient solution but still another option for Ionia, if paired with SI.
It swap their position on the board, once they've been declared as attacker or blocker.
Almost any Region has a way to deal with her, so she's not particulary difficult to remove:
To me, it seems like a good number of solutions (more or less efficient) that can be used by almost any deck.
I don't see even in that any confusing wording: if you casted a spell that turn, it will activate the Play effect otherwise not.
The last patch's nerf to The Rekindler will slow it down a bit and, on top of that as @OldManSanns said, it's a very linear and predictable deck so it's not that hard to setup up for a good answer to its plays (draw luck be on your side).
It still a very powerfull and easy to pilot deck, so if it'll keep be that strong maybe another nerf to some core cards (once again The Rekindler) may be on its way in the near future.
It's a well rounded patch that touch some of the more problematic cards that had risen up recently in the meta, while also buffing or reworking completly some other undertuned ones. It's also good to see they're keeping and eye on some of other "problematic" cards for future fixes becuase it shows how they're at last aware of what may be in need of changes.
I repost here what I've already wrote directly in the article, for a more detailed discussion.
What a nice round of changes! I was expecting a nerf to Troop of Elnuks, since it can lead to a victory too early in the game and only by sheer RNG. It would probably not see play anymore at this point.
Flash of Brilliance is a surprise: it was so good to cycle it for Ezreal and Heimerdinger while also gaining a low cost spell most of the time that this change feels more like a nerf, so I don't know if it will be good enough to be included in such archetype anymore but I'll test it out.
Hecarim and Kalista seems both more balanced now, the first because was tuned down (but I don't know if this will be enough) and the second because seems far more interesting, solid and powerfull than before (time for some testing!).
Also nice to see another nerf to Elusive units and Mark of the Isles. I'm a bit disappointed for the change to Mageseeker Investigator, since it was one of the few "silence" effects in the game but this new one allows probably more counterplay while adding also more flexibility to the card itself.
Glad to see they're looking into Shadow Assassin and Glimpse Beyond for future fixes.
Those things that you're mentioning are actual in-game feature (combat's results can be seen with the Oracle's Eye, while by right clicking on a card and then on the little eye under it you can see the full art).
The only third party tool that come to my mind for LoR is actually the deck tracker, that will allow you to see your full decklist, keep a database of your statistics and other similar features.
The draw animation was the one that required the most speed up since it was too slow, expecially when you draw multiple cards. But everything else seems a bit too fast now and I would probably slow it down by a 20%.