I can sympathise with what you are saying, but the fact is that Rogue has historically had some of the best early game tools at its disposal that can fend off all but the most brutally aggressive starts. Most Rogue builds these days focus on value generation and combos rather than building an early game board- few classes can compete with the tempo that rogue can generate with backstab/ si/ dagger/ vendetta/ edwin etc. Rogue and mage (along with priest) are my most played classes, and I completely understand why they are so limited with healing/taunt. A rogue with access to healing tailored to the class identity would be pretty terrifying. Think about the nightmare that was the prenerf leeching poison/ kingsbane combo. Every class needs to be vulnerable in certain areas while excelling in others.
While it blows my mind that they thought that the expansion could launch in its current state, hopefully the action will be brutal and decisive. I've found it hard to even log in during the last few days which is pretty depressing given that this is typically the most fun part of the cycle. Fingers crossed that this puts things right.
With all of these tech cards being introduced it makes me wonder if we'll see something that messes with graveyards in the future. I understand that there are technical difficulties to overcome here as stated by the devs, but I can live in hope. I never thought I'd see an armor destroying golden bullet, after all.
The best thing about Elise is the ability to say "I feel fortunate to have witnessed this" after your Shaman opponent hare evolves on turn 3, and when a mogu is thrown in "I appreciate your efforts"
Guess I'll be properly coming back to standard for the first time in months on Thursday then. What a monumental disaster bringing back evolve (and to a much lesser extent, imo, N'Zoth) has been. I applaud their efforts in trying to innovate and hope that they hold similar events in the future, but Blizz has to be prepared to be flexible and act decisively if the miserable state of ladder that exists now happens again. I remember reading that Iksar felt that things were alright a little while back, which is troubling to say the least.
But hey, at least Battlegrounds is fun! The conspiracy theorist in me wants to think that Blizz downplayed the shaman nonsense in order to drive people into the new game mode prior to a new expansion which would tempt them back, but this seems silly...
I'm currently taking a hiatus from ladder- normally I finish in or around legend, but when the meta is as unpleasant (for me at least) as it is now ill take a break rather than torture myself and forever ruin the game for myself. Like Starscream mentioned, Hunterstone was pretty brutal and I came back after a couple of months with my passion for the game renewed for a bit. I'm sure I'll return, fool that I am, when the next expansion hits.
Thanks guys, the info helped! Got consecutive 12-0 and 11-3 with Pala-Mage. Both times I got very lucky with quality cards during the draft. Pools are good for both classes, Paladin has better cards though. Mage's power is really valuable to have, and is a great pick for second class.
On higher number of wins, don't be too relaxed with enemy potential AOE, especially warlock. Those decks usually have their means of defence.
That's the combination of classes that I chose on my free runs and as a fairly mediocre arena player who doesn't touch the mode that often I got 11 and 10 wins. I've actually really enjoyed arena this cycle, much more than ladder which I've barely played recently. Making incremental gains on board and making trades actually feels meaningful in the absence of board clears, leading to some pretty interesting and fun games in my experience.
Just finished wing 4, and ive got to say that the warrior/ hunter combo is the one that ive enjoyed the most. There are some pretty disgusting things that you can do with rush minions (akali pulling a direfrenzied scalehide is a thing of beauty), and the enrage mechanic leads to some bloodlust-esque damage from seemingly innocuous boards. If you are offered Gahzrilla and he wont completely screw the synergies on your deck, pick him, you wont regret it.
I wonder if this might tie into the ongoing storyline in Retail WOW in some way, much like Rastakhan's Rumble was clearly inspired by the happenings in Zandalar last year. NZoth is clearly a massive deal right now in wow, and while 8.3 isn't scheduled until January (probably), I'd love to see more expansions in Hearthstone that are connected to wow. even tangentially. It'd be pretty great if the expansion/ 8.3 patch announcements at Blizzcon revealed common characters/ themes in both games. Hearthstone drew me to WOW rather than the other way around, and even though they dropped the "heroes of Warcraft" from the name I'd love to see linked expansions happen. The league of explorers are in mechagon at the moment and the recruit a friend stuff is clearly inspired by hs, so im guessing that further small integrations are in the pipeline
I remember hearing that Hearthstone's next expansion might be themed around dragons (fingers crossed), which also ties in with speculation about a Dragon Isle zone coming to Retail in the future.
Its sad that a number of fun decks in wild like Big Rogue will probably be more damaged by the collateral damage from the Barnes nerf than Big priest itself. Barnes was an often brutal turn 4 play to be sure, but Vargoth and the resurrection/ graveyard mechanic as a whole are much more problematic, imo. Having said that, I'm glad that Blizzard finally pulled the trigger on the nerf, but worry that Big Priest will continue to plague us more or less indefinitely. Maybe the lack of an early statue or Yshaarj will allow aggro decks to push through that much more easily, who knows?
Diseased Vulture Straddles the line between busted and simply powerful quite nicely. On 6 mana it becomes an azure drake on steroids, and could potentially give neglected cards like spirit bomb a chance to shine. I haven't played much warlock recently, and this will give me a nice reason to revisit the class.
26 mins - my problem is that I cant prevent myself from bming the ai by generating more spells and minions after I have lethal set up lol. Ive only played three or four times this week though, mainly to complete quests as ive taken a break from ladder for a bit. Last week my pb was 19 mins.
My first thought was some kind of cycle/ tog rogue, but im not innovative enough to come up with a golden bullet to save the card (at a competitive level, at least). Even in an ideal scenario where you somehow manage to shuffle multiple copies into an empty deck and draw them with two wondrous wands it isn't a guaranteed kill. This kind of deck is probably playing walk the planks and other removal, and unless you are extremely fortunate its likely that youll have used most of it just trying to stay alive. Of course, your opponent will still have to remove them, but if you are in a position to set up the combo its likely that they are a control deck with board clears. But im strangely pleased that blizz printed this card. Anything that provides meme potential is always welcome, and its better than another vanilla statted throwaway minion that people instantly forget until they open 10 in packs. Hopefully someone will come up with a silly combo that we can play at rank floors.
I can sympathise with what you are saying, but the fact is that Rogue has historically had some of the best early game tools at its disposal that can fend off all but the most brutally aggressive starts. Most Rogue builds these days focus on value generation and combos rather than building an early game board- few classes can compete with the tempo that rogue can generate with backstab/ si/ dagger/ vendetta/ edwin etc. Rogue and mage (along with priest) are my most played classes, and I completely understand why they are so limited with healing/taunt. A rogue with access to healing tailored to the class identity would be pretty terrifying. Think about the nightmare that was the prenerf leeching poison/ kingsbane combo. Every class needs to be vulnerable in certain areas while excelling in others.
Taken directly from the official hs twitter:
https://twitter.com/PlayHearthstone/status/1205318038444077058
While it blows my mind that they thought that the expansion could launch in its current state, hopefully the action will be brutal and decisive. I've found it hard to even log in during the last few days which is pretty depressing given that this is typically the most fun part of the cycle. Fingers crossed that this puts things right.
With all of these tech cards being introduced it makes me wonder if we'll see something that messes with graveyards in the future. I understand that there are technical difficulties to overcome here as stated by the devs, but I can live in hope. I never thought I'd see an armor destroying golden bullet, after all.
The best thing about Elise is the ability to say "I feel fortunate to have witnessed this" after your Shaman opponent hare evolves on turn 3, and when a mogu is thrown in "I appreciate your efforts"
This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside
Guess I'll be properly coming back to standard for the first time in months on Thursday then. What a monumental disaster bringing back evolve (and to a much lesser extent, imo, N'Zoth) has been. I applaud their efforts in trying to innovate and hope that they hold similar events in the future, but Blizz has to be prepared to be flexible and act decisively if the miserable state of ladder that exists now happens again. I remember reading that Iksar felt that things were alright a little while back, which is troubling to say the least.
But hey, at least Battlegrounds is fun! The conspiracy theorist in me wants to think that Blizz downplayed the shaman nonsense in order to drive people into the new game mode prior to a new expansion which would tempt them back, but this seems silly...
Water is wet!
Elune give me strength!
I'm currently taking a hiatus from ladder- normally I finish in or around legend, but when the meta is as unpleasant (for me at least) as it is now ill take a break rather than torture myself and forever ruin the game for myself. Like Starscream mentioned, Hunterstone was pretty brutal and I came back after a couple of months with my passion for the game renewed for a bit. I'm sure I'll return, fool that I am, when the next expansion hits.
That's the combination of classes that I chose on my free runs and as a fairly mediocre arena player who doesn't touch the mode that often I got 11 and 10 wins. I've actually really enjoyed arena this cycle, much more than ladder which I've barely played recently. Making incremental gains on board and making trades actually feels meaningful in the absence of board clears, leading to some pretty interesting and fun games in my experience.
Just finished wing 4, and ive got to say that the warrior/ hunter combo is the one that ive enjoyed the most. There are some pretty disgusting things that you can do with rush minions (akali pulling a direfrenzied scalehide is a thing of beauty), and the enrage mechanic leads to some bloodlust-esque damage from seemingly innocuous boards. If you are offered Gahzrilla and he wont completely screw the synergies on your deck, pick him, you wont regret it.
I wonder if this might tie into the ongoing storyline in Retail WOW in some way, much like Rastakhan's Rumble was clearly inspired by the happenings in Zandalar last year. NZoth is clearly a massive deal right now in wow, and while 8.3 isn't scheduled until January (probably), I'd love to see more expansions in Hearthstone that are connected to wow. even tangentially. It'd be pretty great if the expansion/ 8.3 patch announcements at Blizzcon revealed common characters/ themes in both games. Hearthstone drew me to WOW rather than the other way around, and even though they dropped the "heroes of Warcraft" from the name I'd love to see linked expansions happen. The league of explorers are in mechagon at the moment and the recruit a friend stuff is clearly inspired by hs, so im guessing that further small integrations are in the pipeline
I remember hearing that Hearthstone's next expansion might be themed around dragons (fingers crossed), which also ties in with speculation about a Dragon Isle zone coming to Retail in the future.
3 over the course of the weekend, mostly afk of course
My favorite moment was when the nerfs were announced
Its sad that a number of fun decks in wild like Big Rogue will probably be more damaged by the collateral damage from the Barnes nerf than Big priest itself. Barnes was an often brutal turn 4 play to be sure, but Vargoth and the resurrection/ graveyard mechanic as a whole are much more problematic, imo. Having said that, I'm glad that Blizzard finally pulled the trigger on the nerf, but worry that Big Priest will continue to plague us more or less indefinitely. Maybe the lack of an early statue or Yshaarj will allow aggro decks to push through that much more easily, who knows?
You guys are killing it, the future looks bright.
Diseased Vulture Straddles the line between busted and simply powerful quite nicely. On 6 mana it becomes an azure drake on steroids, and could potentially give neglected cards like spirit bomb a chance to shine. I haven't played much warlock recently, and this will give me a nice reason to revisit the class.
26 mins - my problem is that I cant prevent myself from bming the ai by generating more spells and minions after I have lethal set up lol. Ive only played three or four times this week though, mainly to complete quests as ive taken a break from ladder for a bit. Last week my pb was 19 mins.
My first thought was some kind of cycle/ tog rogue, but im not innovative enough to come up with a golden bullet to save the card (at a competitive level, at least). Even in an ideal scenario where you somehow manage to shuffle multiple copies into an empty deck and draw them with two wondrous wands it isn't a guaranteed kill. This kind of deck is probably playing walk the planks and other removal, and unless you are extremely fortunate its likely that youll have used most of it just trying to stay alive. Of course, your opponent will still have to remove them, but if you are in a position to set up the combo its likely that they are a control deck with board clears. But im strangely pleased that blizz printed this card. Anything that provides meme potential is always welcome, and its better than another vanilla statted throwaway minion that people instantly forget until they open 10 in packs. Hopefully someone will come up with a silly combo that we can play at rank floors.
Anyfin can happen will be a total clown fiesta