Yeah, but is that confirmed anywhere? I understand, that they were referred to as "Badlands catch-up packs".
But if they took the effort, to actually make amount of cards from packs "dynamic" (depending on collection), it would be natural, that expansions included are made "dynamic" as well (as in - packs are from expansions currently in Standard).
Otherwise they would need to adjust catch-up packs by hand - either every expansion or every year in November-December expansion. Seems like unnecessary waste of time for programmers if you ask me
So, to think deeper about this - all currently-active players, who have all Commons, Rares, many Epics and some Legendaries... should NOT OPEN the free Catch-Up packs, right?
Why? Because:
1. Right now they give only 5 cards each (? or nowhere near 50 cards for sure)... (so not much, and not much dust either),
2. In case you stop playing temporarily... You will have Catch-Up packs ready for the next time - when you come back to the game?
The point probably is - they offer big number of packs for "returning players".
So they might as well give returning players packs from 5 newest packs at any given point in time. It might be automated system (finally ?), instead of choosing "manually" - which packs to give out (and losing precious programmers time). That's my wild guess.
This card does not have Battlecry, which means it's a continuous effect.
Do you play decks with minions by the way? Because if you do, then by turn 5 you probably have them on the board or some other removal in your hand to deal with it (or even a Silence effect). You kill Tony, and effect disappears, because it's not a Battlecry, YOU GET YOUR DECK BACK. EASY :) only thing you lost is 1 card which enemy drew from your deck, that's it.
Unless... you play a Combo or OTK deck, then yes, losing 1 card might break your win condition.
If you don't play combo, there's no need to worry about it, I bet it won't be played anyways, unless we have a Combo - OTK meta.
I'm not a big fan of "Even" and "Odd" decks, but thanks for interesting ideas, as always.
I find it very interesting, that E.T.C., Band Manager can break the deck rules (restrictions). It can make deck creation more fun. Now you always have to consider whether including ETC is worth it or not
Those are problematic cards indeed. And yes, I hate Big Priest with passion for years now, I would like it to be tweaked, and also introducing graveyard is additional solution to this.
But there are more, possibly more problematic ones. More of them mentioned in MartianBuu twitter-chain (scroll down, 11 tweets in total).
I'm not sure what they can decide to do. At this point, as MartianBuu tweets correctly mentioned - many OP synergies accumulated, which might not fall under "need to nerf that".
We are definitely reaching critical point in Wild, since 2021 and/or 2022 quite often (almost) every expansion see some broken things.
There are few options for Blizzard in my opinion.
1. They have to adjust their philosophy about Wild balancing - basically more active balancing (more than now, but not at the level of Standard).
2. Leave Wild as fully Wild (unnerf everything?) and at the same time introduce new Wild format, with active balancing, when needed.
New format - either rotating sets (Wild and/or Standard sets) or some kind of Limited format (?). In both cases it will be easier for them to balance (less cards / sets in the pool).
I admit, new Wild format is what I expect the most at the moment. It would also be a new opportunity to reward players with (or let us pay for) some Wild packs.
If they lift all bans and un-nerf everything, I can see people thinking "Perfect! Now I can play everything!"...
Whereas in reality, consistent 1-4 turn OTKs or broken combos (impossible to come-back from) - cause inability to play those old, nostalgic decks.
Does anyone, wanting to play nostalgic decks, would be happy with 5-20 % winrate? I highly doubt.
You would have to count on the luck in Matchmaking, so you can face similar-minded player, like you, without a broken-unfair deck.
So I can see Blizzard making Wild a fully Wild mode with 0 balance, because that requires not much effort. BUT, I really hope, if they do so - that they introduce some other Wild format, with proper balancing. Like some kind of Limited mode, or just rotating sets mode.
Any deck that has infinite turns (even 2 turns in a row feels like a lot in a Wild format) - should not be allowed in reasonably-healthy meta. Like never-ever.
I can see such things available in Tavern Brawls, sure. Because that's where the craziest and most broken things happen :)
Remember Deathstalker Rexxar, a Hunter Hero? And his hero power "Craft a custom Zombeast", where you discover 2 beasts and combine them into 1 minion?
How about a card (Hero ?) - "Craft a custom Dragon-Murloc" - where you discover a Dragon, then discover a Murloc - and combine their stats and effects into 1 minion? :)
It's time, for Arena to be back on the (Main) Menu! (I think)
Tavern Brawl. For a few years now, they barely introduced any NEW Tavern Brawls, so I call that low effort (seriously, f*** Heroic Brawl, remember, when they did NORMAL Brawliseum? Where the cost of entering was just like in Arena and not 1000 Gold?).
Single player, although very casual and enjoyable mode, it won't ever be a main focus (recently they also did not add much there).
Arena. Still quite popular, despite the (lack) of dev effort in 1-2 years now (apart from balancing). Still with potential to grow IF they put some effort. I hope it replaces Mercenaries (in main menu) :P
The 1:30 min thing did not change I am pretty sure. Most times when I reached 1:30, I got a bot, until recently.
It "kind-of" changed recently, starting since about 2-3 weeks ago (Thursday - Friday patch ? Might be a patch, which introduced bots to Constructed...).
Now I never reach 1:30 time anymore, because I get matched against "QuirkyTurtle", which seems like a bot for my (EU) region. So currently I wait about 10-25 seconds until I get matched with "QuirkyTurtle", that's it.
Not sure, how is it possible to reach 4+ minutes of waiting, unless it's a bug. Sometimes in Constructed (Standard or Wild) ladder I get a bug where queue lasts 4-5+ minutes and can't find anyone.
In such case, after restarting the client, I get a match pretty quickly. Not sure what triggers it, but it happens (rarely) for months now.
Personally, I am not interested in PvP. I just play some PvE or leave it in the background, to slowly collect coins... and sometimes enjoying the end-boss PvE "puzzle".
But, since Mercs came out, I play up to 1 or 3 wins in PvP daily, because random coins are worth it, until they fix excess coins issue.
Since 1 or 2 weeks, with some patch, I play ONLY against "QuirkyTurtle". The time of the day does not matter. Morning, afternoon, evening, midnight... it's always him in PvP.
He seems like a bot. Takes actions instantly. If I go into queue ASAP after a match... I play again against him, but... he changes his Mercenaries in composition. No human would be able to change them this fast and queue... unless he has dozens of teams ready.
But I kid you not, I don't think I ever saw him play 2 same teams. His teams seem just random. Including something stupid like for example 5 Fighters and 1 Caster. Like, wtf? But if he is a bot, random team compositions should not be surprising.
Yeah, but is that confirmed anywhere? I understand, that they were referred to as "Badlands catch-up packs".
But if they took the effort, to actually make amount of cards from packs "dynamic" (depending on collection), it would be natural, that expansions included are made "dynamic" as well (as in - packs are from expansions currently in Standard).
Otherwise they would need to adjust catch-up packs by hand - either every expansion or every year in November-December expansion. Seems like unnecessary waste of time for programmers if you ask me
So, to think deeper about this - all currently-active players, who have all Commons, Rares, many Epics and some Legendaries... should NOT OPEN the free Catch-Up packs, right?
Why? Because:
1. Right now they give only 5 cards each (? or nowhere near 50 cards for sure)... (so not much, and not much dust either),
2. In case you stop playing temporarily... You will have Catch-Up packs ready for the next time - when you come back to the game?
That's Value, right?
The point probably is - they offer big number of packs for "returning players".
So they might as well give returning players packs from 5 newest packs at any given point in time. It might be automated system (finally ?), instead of choosing "manually" - which packs to give out (and losing precious programmers time). That's my wild guess.
Haha! :D I really like today's flavorful "Reveals: Day 5!" news picture! Laughed out before I even clicked the news :D
(funny and real (I guess) at the same time, plus the Dormant thing, that when you are Enraged you go to sleep (Dormant)).
(Less funny if you are the one sitting and waiting at 5 AM, that's for sure...)
As for "Blackrock 'n' Roll" card, seems strong... except it is a 1 of as a Legendary and you have to survive somehow first and then draw it on time...
Sorry but I am not optimistic about this one, until we see some more Warrior cards.
This card does not have Battlecry, which means it's a continuous effect.
Do you play decks with minions by the way? Because if you do, then by turn 5 you probably have them on the board or some other removal in your hand to deal with it (or even a Silence effect). You kill Tony, and effect disappears, because it's not a Battlecry, YOU GET YOUR DECK BACK. EASY :) only thing you lost is 1 card which enemy drew from your deck, that's it.
Unless... you play a Combo or OTK deck, then yes, losing 1 card might break your win condition.
If you don't play combo, there's no need to worry about it, I bet it won't be played anyways, unless we have a Combo - OTK meta.
I'm not a big fan of "Even" and "Odd" decks, but thanks for interesting ideas, as always.
I find it very interesting, that E.T.C., Band Manager can break the deck rules (restrictions). It can make deck creation more fun. Now you always have to consider whether including ETC is worth it or not
Those are problematic cards indeed. And yes, I hate Big Priest with passion for years now, I would like it to be tweaked, and also introducing graveyard is additional solution to this.
But there are more, possibly more problematic ones. More of them mentioned in MartianBuu twitter-chain (scroll down, 11 tweets in total).
https://twitter.com/MartianBuu/status/1624103409640169472
Grey Sage Parrot, Cataclysm, Spectral Pillager, Twig of the World Tree, Firemancer Flurgl - those are also some of the most problematic.
I'm not sure what they can decide to do. At this point, as MartianBuu tweets correctly mentioned - many OP synergies accumulated, which might not fall under "need to nerf that".
We are definitely reaching critical point in Wild, since 2021 and/or 2022 quite often (almost) every expansion see some broken things.
There are few options for Blizzard in my opinion.
1. They have to adjust their philosophy about Wild balancing - basically more active balancing (more than now, but not at the level of Standard).
2. Leave Wild as fully Wild (unnerf everything?) and at the same time introduce new Wild format, with active balancing, when needed.
New format - either rotating sets (Wild and/or Standard sets) or some kind of Limited format (?). In both cases it will be easier for them to balance (less cards / sets in the pool).
I admit, new Wild format is what I expect the most at the moment. It would also be a new opportunity to reward players with (or let us pay for) some Wild packs.
Fully agree.
If they lift all bans and un-nerf everything, I can see people thinking "Perfect! Now I can play everything!"...
Whereas in reality, consistent 1-4 turn OTKs or broken combos (impossible to come-back from) - cause inability to play those old, nostalgic decks.
Does anyone, wanting to play nostalgic decks, would be happy with 5-20 % winrate? I highly doubt.
You would have to count on the luck in Matchmaking, so you can face similar-minded player, like you, without a broken-unfair deck.
So I can see Blizzard making Wild a fully Wild mode with 0 balance, because that requires not much effort. BUT, I really hope, if they do so - that they introduce some other Wild format, with proper balancing. Like some kind of Limited mode, or just rotating sets mode.
Any deck that has infinite turns (even 2 turns in a row feels like a lot in a Wild format) - should not be allowed in reasonably-healthy meta. Like never-ever.
I can see such things available in Tavern Brawls, sure. Because that's where the craziest and most broken things happen :)
Yeah, good point! I forgot such card as Scourge Tamer exists now. Yep, something like that :)
Remember Deathstalker Rexxar, a Hunter Hero? And his hero power "Craft a custom Zombeast", where you discover 2 beasts and combine them into 1 minion?
How about a card (Hero ?) - "Craft a custom Dragon-Murloc" - where you discover a Dragon, then discover a Murloc - and combine their stats and effects into 1 minion? :)
It's time, for Arena to be back on the (Main) Menu! (I think)
Tavern Brawl. For a few years now, they barely introduced any NEW Tavern Brawls, so I call that low effort (seriously, f*** Heroic Brawl, remember, when they did NORMAL Brawliseum? Where the cost of entering was just like in Arena and not 1000 Gold?).
Single player, although very casual and enjoyable mode, it won't ever be a main focus (recently they also did not add much there).
Arena. Still quite popular, despite the (lack) of dev effort in 1-2 years now (apart from balancing). Still with potential to grow IF they put some effort. I hope it replaces Mercenaries (in main menu) :P
Thanks. This post gave me +5800 Dust, because I totally forgot to dust cards earlier...
Also, it was after 20:45 CEST or so... I thought it ended at 19:00 CEST (as it usually does I think), but not this time? Sometimes lucky I guess :)
The 1:30 min thing did not change I am pretty sure. Most times when I reached 1:30, I got a bot, until recently.
It "kind-of" changed recently, starting since about 2-3 weeks ago (Thursday - Friday patch ? Might be a patch, which introduced bots to Constructed...).
Now I never reach 1:30 time anymore, because I get matched against "QuirkyTurtle", which seems like a bot for my (EU) region. So currently I wait about 10-25 seconds until I get matched with "QuirkyTurtle", that's it.
Not sure, how is it possible to reach 4+ minutes of waiting, unless it's a bug. Sometimes in Constructed (Standard or Wild) ladder I get a bug where queue lasts 4-5+ minutes and can't find anyone.
In such case, after restarting the client, I get a match pretty quickly. Not sure what triggers it, but it happens (rarely) for months now.
Personally, I am not interested in PvP. I just play some PvE or leave it in the background, to slowly collect coins... and sometimes enjoying the end-boss PvE "puzzle".
But, since Mercs came out, I play up to 1 or 3 wins in PvP daily, because random coins are worth it, until they fix excess coins issue.
Since 1 or 2 weeks, with some patch, I play ONLY against "QuirkyTurtle". The time of the day does not matter. Morning, afternoon, evening, midnight... it's always him in PvP.
He seems like a bot. Takes actions instantly. If I go into queue ASAP after a match... I play again against him, but... he changes his Mercenaries in composition. No human would be able to change them this fast and queue... unless he has dozens of teams ready.
But I kid you not, I don't think I ever saw him play 2 same teams. His teams seem just random. Including something stupid like for example 5 Fighters and 1 Caster. Like, wtf? But if he is a bot, random team compositions should not be surprising.
Most people had their favourite meta, favourite deck, so it's hard to say what exact moment they should possibly choose, instead of pure Classic.
And crafting cards is indeed a problem.
My other idea is, instead of Classic ladder with MMR, maybe Blizzard could do Tavern Brawls with specific old meta.
- For example, Journey to Ungoro meta, you can use ALL cards in your collection (if you have them), OR...
- let players choose free pre-constructed decks - so even new players can play for free;
- let us buy Battle-ready decks - Blizzard already sold decks some time ago... (for 20$ i think);
It would mean specific meta would not exist for too long, which might not be bad in my opinion.
But if so - it would be nice if Blizzard could inform us well in advance, which metagame will appear, so that we can be ready :)
They might also consider some additional rewards (I don't know, maybe additional Wild Pack if you win or play some amount of games).
This way Blizzard can also additionally monetize Brawls.
The effect stacks, as in, if you play both copies, you draw extra 2 cards at the start of your turns, so 3 cards in total.
It gets crazier if you combine it with Solar Eclipse :D
I saw in yesterdays Zeddy video, that both of those cards are played in Mill Druid, and he said he had some success with it :)
Thanks for the reminder, as always :)
Indeed. At this pace, we are ready and release could happen on Tuesday, 26.07.2022... (just few days after theorycrafting).
Now it's weird, that it will be nearly 2 weeks (13 days to be exact) for expansion launch starting from now up until 2.08.2022.
Am I missing something? Why we have to wait 1 more week (nearly 2) ?
Don't get me wrong, I am happy to see new cards, but still :)
No Prince Renathal, Reno Jackson, Mr. Smite, Varian, King of Stormwind for Paladins if they use this card, daaaamn :D