Beautiful, and about damn time! The weapon cards have always been so ugly! 

Shan'do Wildclaw combos with Dinotamer Brann at 10 mana. Me like :)

God damnit... Just Kel'Thuzad is enough reason to get the bundle. As a Horde main, I hate playing as Jaina, and all the other Mage heroes I don't have. It will be nice to have a portrait that doesn't anger my inner Horde.

Is mine? 

Ok, that's it. I'm taking a break until at least the next round of nerfs. I am sick and tired of every match I play in both standard and wild being against fucking demon hunter. Fuck this shit.

I thought we sort of got it when they mentioned we would get another round of nerfs before the new expansion. That felt like a tease of the announcement of the announcement to me.

I'm predicting next week after the nerfs hit they'll announce it. Possibly on Thursday 7/16?

Hey anchorm4n! I love it! There is a lot to unpack here, and I just woke up. I'll go through what you posted later when my brain is working and I have time and give you some more thorough input. 

First, great keyword to build off of and great flavor! I'm excited! 

The biggest thing that stood out to me was seeing Alexstrasza. While yes there are Cloud Serpent Dragons in Pandaria, the Dragon Aspects have nothing to do with the flavor of the set. 

If I recall correctly, you have not played WoW. I don't know if it's a game that you would be into playing or not. I stopped playing at the start of BfA, and my life doesn't really allow for the time sink any more. I haven't been paying the closest attention, but I know there are some major changes to the early leveling in WoW with Shadowlands. It honestly might do you some good to pick up the game, and go and play through the MoP expansion to get a feeling for the area, the creatures you would find, and just the overall flavor that you will want to bring into your set. WoW is a major commitment in both time and $, but with the new leveling, it might be easier for you to quickly get to the point that you can explore the area around the Jade Forest where the Order of the Cloud Serpent resides. 

An example of a small detail that you might be missing out on by not experiencing the original content:

When I think of the Pandaren Cloud Race and the Order of the Cloud Serpent, I think of the grind of the daily's to get my reputation to exalted so I could even ride one of those amazing beautiful Cloud Serpent Mounts. The daily quests "reveal the decrets of training a cloud serpent to become a loyal mount". You literally pick a Cloud Serpent from an Egg, and hatch and train it overtime to become your mount before you're allowed to ride the Cloud Serpent Mounts. (This has since changed so you can ride cloud serpent mounts without the rep grind. But there are Cloud Serpent Mounts to unlock with the grind.)

There's many other examples of creatures and things around the area. Just a thought that it might be good to go experience the source content first-hand. 

I'll dive deeper into what you've created so far later today. Great start! Can't wait to see more!

I think it is a matter of them doing something for themselves, and taking on a new project to help them focus on their mental health. It's great they are working on their mental health, and I wish them nothing but the best on their journey. 

I think it also is Blizzard moving around their talent. Hearthstone is an established game, with a solid VFX team. Hadidjah will be greatly missed, but it's good to take your amazing talent, and move it to a new project. My guess is they have moved over to the D4 team as that ramps up for possible 2021 release. (Please take your time Blizzard, don't let Activision make you release the game before it's read. Please tell me you learned from your mistakes with the D3 launch. Seriously, take years and year, just please release D4 as the perfect game it deserves to be. Anyway, Diablo rant concluded.)

I'm honestly fine with the change for Standard. It will help freshen up the meta, especially when the new rotation hits. Pull back Standard Highlander decks just a tad.

In Wild, DQ Alex is not a problem at ALL (Do any Wild games even make it to turn 9 anymore?). This nerf will be perfect if come April 2021 DQ Alex is reverted back to her former glory. 

Dragonqueen Alexstrasza - While I am sad to see this nerf, it was needed. She is just too powerful as a Neutral Highlander card in Standard. Now, in Wild? That's another story. I hope she gets this nerf reverted when she rotates to Wild. 

Corsair Cache - I wish they had removed the + Durability instead of the attack. I hate this card. Weapons are really powerful and having such a strong weapon tutor is a little ridiculous. Honestly, this card should be 3 mana so it doesn't curve into 3 mana weapons so perfectly. 

Metamorphosis - yup! Good nerf.

Kayn Sunfury - The exact nerf my Golden copy of Kayn Sunfury has been waiting for! :D

Warglaives of Azzinoth - Good nerf, especially for the sake of wild. 

Dragoncaster - Also a fine and predictable nerf.

Fungal Fortunes - Also a good nerf.

Galakrond, the Nightmare - "Hey, let's make a card that draws you 4 cards, AND changes their cost to 0!" "That sounds like a great idea!"

- Team 5, 2019.

These might give the meta a tiny shake up before the next expansion. Honestly, the game is just in desperate need of that next expansion now.

Quote From Majere

Quote From GoliathTheDwarf

It only makes sense that they would wait for the Felfire Festive to end and close out the Outland theme before moving on to announcing the new theme. 

This.

Having said that,  I'd argue that this year's summer festival has been a less effective distraction from a stale meta than previous years, as the solo adventure was a bit underwhelming, there has been no arena reset, and the 3 x legendary quests, while welcome, didn't do as much to create the sense of an ongoing festival vibe as previous years' double gold rewards, or last year's buffing of boomsday cards / addition of sn1p sn4p. Also, the nerfs to primarily demon hunter cards haven't really shaken the meta up very much, meaning that essentially the same decks have been tier 1 since the AoE release settled down.

As a general rule, I feel team 5 did a much better job of pacing meta shakeups in Year of the Dragon than they have so far in Phoenix. Last year the teaser for the August expansion caught me off guard, as the RoS expansion still felt fairly fresh at the time, and the boomsday buffs, wild cards returning to standard for a limited time, and Galakrond's Awakening all seemed like interesting and varied ways to shake things up a bit. Hopefully things will improve as the year goes on.

 

I agree. I am very disappointed in how year of the Phoenix has started off compared to year of the Dragon. The meta's never got stale last year, the content was released at good pacing, where you were still excited to play, while new stuff was being announced. I thought they would keep that momentum going into year of the Phoenix.

Instead, we are sitting in basically the same spot we were in at the beginning of the year. Felfire festival was super boring. I forgot it was happening until I would get my new "legendary" quest. (Bring back double gold god damnit! That was a true festival)

Mid expansion event was a complete lackluster bust, did nothing to change the meta. Adventure was meh. Which is fine since it was free, which was a nice change of pace. But AoO really needed something to shake it up midway through, and despite the record number of nerfs, we just never got it. 

I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Adding a 10th class was never going to be a simple task, and is definitely going to take multiple expansions before it feels right. I have high hopes for expansion #2 to start fixing a lot of issues. This is supposed to be the year of "rebirth" and so far, it feels Blizz has taken steps backwards instead of forwards. 

AoO is battling for the #1 spot on my list of worst expansions/metas, and honestly at this point, I think it has surpassed the MSoG Pirate Warrior meta. Really disappointing and worrisome having the first expansion of the year being the worst expansion in the history of the game.

The new game mode they release this year is currently what I'm looking forward to most. Hopefully I don't end up disappointed once that is revealed. 

My experience is not universal, but every time this brawl comes up, I hear some of the worst complaints. 
Power to you for enjoying this one. A majority of the community HATES this one.

Thank god I was one and done with this one. This is honestly my least favorite brawl ever. 

Seriously, this is the 6th time we've had this brawl!?! Why do they continue to bring this one back? It's so fucking bad!! Retire this one for good please. 

FYI - DH's HP works really great for those chickens.

Quote From Riffraff

I can relate to so much of this! When I first started playing the game I didn’t know what net decking was, and I avoided the ladder. I missed many months of card backs because I only played casual thanks to ladder anxiety. I only have two golden heroes (hunter and warlock) which belies how long I have been a daily player. 

Now I don’t worry about rank or falling on the ladder, and I want to work towards 500 wins on all the other classes. The grind is brutal!

I also really want to get the 1000 win Gul’dan. I think it’s my favorite art in the game.

I agree. 1000 win Gul'dan is the best portrait art in the game.

Quote From Avalon

Come on I can't be the only one interested in this thread!

Just hit 1000 wins with Priest! Raza the Chained is one hell of a card.

That's why I drop a golden one on the board! ;)

Congrats on your new portrait! Now go onto the next grind!

Quote From anchorm4n

Difficult topic for me. I decided to grind to golden Warlock a little more than a month ago and while I'm really looking forward to reaching this goal, the games themselves feel somewhat meaningless. I'm only 30 wins away now, so I'll finish this grind, but I'll also try to remember not to do this anymore in the future.

Congrats to King Anduin anyway. It's a really cool portrait! 

Congrats on almost reaching golden Warlock! I did that push back during SoU. A few weeks back I picked it back up to start working on my 1000 win Warlock. Discardlock in Wild works really well for the grind right now. You can get some really fast wins on turn 4.

I'm at 696 with Warlock right now. I'm also throwing in some Hunter games here and there to hit my 1000 with Hunter. I'm at 905 with Hunter at the moment. I just care more about getting the Warlock portrait than "derp-face Rexxar". I'll stick with Sylvanas, except for Face Hunter decks. I feel the 1000 win Rexxar is the perfect portrait for a Face Hunter deck. 

Here's my complete list (all classes lvl 60 unless specified(aka DH)):

Hunter (905), Warlock (696), Paladin (634), Shaman (600), Rogue (576), Priest (270), Warrior (236), Druid (178), Mage (175), DH (112 lvl 37).

What's sad is the OG 9 classes would all be golden, with many 1000 win classes had I not started playing the game with an irrational fear of the ladder. I felt out of my league on ladder and had an anger management issue when it came to losing stars and rank. I also sometimes get pulled away in the middle of the game, so I hated having to leave in the middle of a ranked match because real life called.

I used to just play Casual mode and hit ladder for the minimum required to get the card back each month. Then slowly over the years ventured more and more onto ladder, hitting rank 10 each month, then rank 5. Now, I have gotten over that and don't care at all about what rank I am or how many stars I am. Hit at least Diamond 5 each month with no effort, and am 2x Legend. Hit legend last month without even noticing that I was going to hit legend. 

I have 8990 total wins on my account. That's 4382 wins that I should have applied to ranked mode for my portrait wins. So I'm playing catch-up from years of avoiding ladder. Oh well, live in learn. 

Bonus Fun Fact: The first class I took to ladder was Priest back during Whisper of the Old Gods with some janky home brewed deck. Maybe that's why I felt out of league on ladder? Hunter was the first class I started trying to force myself to get good with and play on ladder. Started playing Secret Hunter on ladder in MSoG. Not much better experience... Hunter was first to hit 500 during Boomsday? (fuck I don't remember when I got my first golden...)

Some ideas I have had that I think would be nice improvements

1.) Site achievements for 2nd and maybe even 3rd place. Give some love to those people who get so close to winning. Doesn't need to be a fancy border, just something to recognize their achievement. 2nd place out of 40 submissions is still impressive. 

2.) On the Competition Home page after a competition has been completed, I feel there needs to be a section that separates the finalists from the rest of the entries. Currently to see the finalist cards for a past competition, you have to open transparency report and find the cards in the Competition Entries.

The current layout of the Competition Home page is this:

• Winner
• "This Week's Theme"
• Your Entry
• Competition Entries

I propose the layout be something like this:

• "This Week's Theme"
• Winner
• Finalists (in order excluding the Winner)
• Your Entry
• Competition Entries (excluding Winner and Finalists)

This makes going back and seeing who the finalists were easier, and would showcase the 2nd place and 3rd place winners. 

3.) Discussion Thread - can be overwhelming, and I feel there are some people who are afraid to post on there. It can get chaotic, and some people's cards can get a shit load of feedback, while others can get passed over or get very little. I don't have any ideas for improvements, and I really am not sure if there even could be a way to make any. Just throwing it out there as a thought.

I'm surprised you didn't win this season. You'll get it next season for sure!

I'm going to respond to your improvements/suggestions for sake of discussion and to get the idea juices flowing. 

1) I actually don't agree with this even though I used to. I think there is another solution to the finalist voting that will still allow the finalists to take part in the final voting process. (more on that in #3)

2) I think it would be interesting to hold a vote on a starting time. My only complaint about the current starting time is that I feel like I'm waiting forever on Monday's for the new week to start. It would be nice to have a new WCDC to help me procrastinate starting my work week on Monday morning's. 

3) I think the voting system is perfect for the first round of voting. With how many submissions there are, asking people to do more than a simple 5 star rating would be too much. I try to give each card enough time, because I know the amount of effort that people put into their cards, and I want to give them the amount of time on their card that they deserve. But sadly, life is life, and we can't always have the time to do that. There were a couple of weeks that I had other things going on and I wasn't able to vote on every single card. 

When it comes to the finalist voting however, I feel there is room for improvement. The 5 star rating doesn't feel right for how we are voting. Since all the cards are displayed for us to look at, we are rating the cards in a vacuum scoring it as so. Instead we are comparing the cards to each other and are choosing the one(s) we want to win, and the one(s) we don't want to win. Finalists vote their card 5 stars, and all others 1 star. 

I propose instead of rating, we choose the order we think cards deserve to be in. This way, finalists would still be able to vote on their card choosing it to be #1. But they would be forced to choose a card to be #2, #3, #4, #5 and so on...Take the averages of how everyone ordered the cards and you will get the top order of all the finalists.

Just an idea which I'm sure has it's own set of flaws too. But it's here for discussion!

I like that you highlighted that no Hunter card won. I honestly feel there were a few weeks that the only reason I lost was because of some (possibly in the sub-conscience) Hunter hate. And definitely some weeks where my Hunter cards should have made the finals at least. Makes me not want to make Hunter cards, which sucks because it's my favorite class and I really like designing cards for it. 

As for Season 2, I am looking forward to the discussion on what improvements could be made. Don't get me wrong, the system that is already in place has some amazingly solid bones! There's just always room for improvements once everyone experiences and learns!

Thanks again to all the mods for an amazing season! I'm glad I was able to squeeze in a victory in the last couple of weeks. Maybe I'll practice making Paladin cards to prepare to take on linkblade next season! ;)

Quote From KANSAS

The cards this time around weren't too popular. The only cards to get a score above 3 were the top 8 that made it to the finalists. And there were 4 cards that got a score below 2. 

The community is salty about pirates XD