I finished the last two earlier this week. I got most done on the first try, thanks to the guides here and Old Guardian's videos. The hardest one was definitely "Murlocs on Ice"; I was lucky to get it in two tries, but I can imagine people getting stuck on it for longer than that.
The risk of not finding a big card is a good point; you would indeed need a pretty top-heavy deck to make it likely to hit a good card. On the other hand, the mulligan does help a bit in improving the ratio of expensive cards in the deck and a 4-damage AoE might still be good enough.
Perhaps a bigger problem is this costing 5 mana, which may not be fast enough. Meanwhile, Paladin has divine shields so it might not actually clear the board.
I used the fire comp, although with Antonidas instead of Chi-Ji because I haven't leveled the latter as far. Climbing was easy, but the boss battle is pretty tricky. You can't really take it slow because the Maw's ability will keep buffing the opponent, but if you play too aggressively you might not land a final blow with the spawns. I got it on the second try though.
I think it's not such a bad card specifically for Big DH, since what you need there is finding your big cards and surviving until you have enough mana to play them, and this card does both of those things.
I don't think Big DH will be good though; it was way behind other decks in power level and this card doesn't look like it will be enough to change that.
My first try was with the fire comp suggested here, but I had too much health left on the Trolley by the time the murlocs hit the board.
Second try was with all 5 murlocs + Malfurion. I got the Amalgimation treasure for Mutanus, which let me eat the Trolley and gain a ton of health plus some attack from poor Murky who was at the other side of Mutanus. Then I killed off Popsicooler as fast as I could (I had already weakened it turn 1 by having Murky give it taunt and attacking into it) and had just enough health left on Mutanus to finish off the remainder of the enemies.
The "actually" was more in response to myself thinking "60%, is it really that bad?" and it turned out to be even worse (slightly). Your estimate was pretty accurate.
I don't understand why the rewards are so bad though (the payout is about 70% of the dust value put in). Even if the payout were 100% or slightly above, the event would still be a net win for Blizzard, as players would be converting real money and gold into cards, which is the whole point of the Hearthstone economy.
Your remark made me curious about what winrate you need to break even, so I made a little program to compute the chance distribution of total wins for 30%-70% winrate:
win
30.0%
35.0%
40.0%
45.0%
50.0%
55.0%
60.0%
65.0%
70.0%
0
34.3%
27.5%
21.6%
16.6%
12.5%
9.1%
6.4%
4.3%
2.7%
1
30.9%
28.8%
25.9%
22.5%
18.8%
15.0%
11.5%
8.4%
5.7%
2
18.5%
20.2%
20.7%
20.2%
18.8%
16.5%
13.8%
10.9%
7.9%
3
9.3%
11.8%
13.8%
15.2%
15.6%
15.2%
13.8%
11.8%
9.3%
4
4.2%
6.2%
8.3%
10.2%
11.7%
12.5%
12.4%
11.5%
9.7%
5
1.8%
3.0%
4.6%
6.4%
8.2%
9.6%
10.5%
10.4%
9.5%
6
0.7%
1.4%
2.5%
3.9%
5.5%
7.1%
8.4%
9.1%
8.9%
7
0.3%
0.6%
1.3%
2.2%
3.5%
5.0%
6.4%
7.6%
8.0%
8
0.1%
0.3%
0.6%
1.3%
2.2%
3.4%
4.8%
6.1%
7.0%
9
0.0%
0.1%
0.3%
0.7%
1.3%
2.3%
3.5%
4.9%
6.0%
10
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
0.4%
0.8%
1.5%
2.6%
3.8%
5.0%
11
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
0.2%
0.5%
1.0%
1.8%
2.9%
4.2%
12
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
0.2%
0.6%
1.7%
4.0%
8.4%
16.1%
It seems you actually need a bit over 60% winrate to have a >50% chance of 5 wins, which is when the rewards are worth more than the cost.
This is assuming that your win rate is going to be consistent across all matches, which isn't realistic, since I expect opponents will be matched on win/loss count like Arena and Duels. So as a run progresses, your winrate should come closer to 50%. However, I don't expect this effect to be as strong for the first half of the run, where you're trying to get to 5 wins.
It would be nice to know what the actual values are for the {0} and {1} placeholders in the ability descriptions. In particular, the fact that Blazing Song at level 5 still gives +3 heal power (same as level 3) means that it's less interesting to prioritize that as an upgrade.
Holy comp was a good suggestion. I used a variation though with Anduin + Natalie + Kazakus as the starting party in most fights.
I like Natalie in combination with Anduin because with her 3rd equipment you can alternate between AoE healing and damage every turn. In normal fights you can keep her out of sync with Anduin's Holy Nova, so you have an AoE heal every turn, while in the boss fight you can keep their AoE damage in sync to dispose of the summoned skeletons.
Kazakus I mainly added to the party because I hadn't unlocked his equipment yet and that required defeating the same heroic boss. Summoning taunt golems repeatedly was pretty useful though, especially after I got a reward dealing 10-damage AoE every time a golem died.
I used Appetizers as the equipment for Cookie instead of Seasoned Pan, because I'm less worried about doing damage and more worried about a merc getting sniped before they can be healed. As I never actually put Cookie on the board in my run, I think it was the right call.
For me, Prime Gaming says the legendary card unlock ends in 22 days, which would be the 25th of May.
Do you know when the refunds for the last round of nerfs end? I have a few Sunken packs that I haven't opened yet because I'd like to claim the golden epics from the reward track first, but if it takes me too long to reach level 75 it might be better to open them anyway in case I'll unpack nerfed cards.
Reverting Kael'thas should be easy since it doesn't impact their e-sports and doesn't require new card text translations. However, as long as Switcheroo is a problem too, that revert wouldn't actually fix the Wild ladder.
Banning Switcheroo from Wild, even as a temporary measure, might still be better though than keeping it active until a long-term fix is implemented.
Switcheroo is broken in Wild; maybe the solution is not to nerf that card though but remove cheap Charge minions from the pool instead to avoid similar super quick high-roll decks in the future
Pufferfist: just too much power + stats for its mana cost
Defias Cannoneer (one shot or higher cost) and/or Mr. Smite (battlecry instead of aura): I'd like Pirate Warrior to be toned down a little; maybe not strictly needed from a balance point of view, but I'd rather play against new decks
Wildheart Guff: while I like this card, I can't deny that if a 5-mana card is an auto-keep off the mulligan, it's probably too strong
personal pick: any card in Quest Hunter, since I like playing minions and this deck punishes you for doing so
I had Gruul + Anduin + Natalie, since I was trying to complete a "heal 900 damage" task at the same time. Probably not the quickest approach, but I got it done in 21 turns, so well below the 30 turns allowed. Gruul makes it so easy, since you deal lots of damage while taking very little with the fire resistance item equipped.
The same comp worked for the second task (keep all your mercs alive) as well and was actually a better fit there.
The other three characters were Brightwing (the one that had the heal task), Wrathion (mainly hoping to collect some coins) and The Lich King (more healing, taunt + freeze gives healers more time to patch up a focused merc, Human synergy with Anduin). But I barely used these, it was Gruul + Anduin + Natalie doing most of the work.
A secret cow level popped up in Mercenaries. I guess it's an unannounced promo for Diablo Immortal.
I finished the last two earlier this week. I got most done on the first try, thanks to the guides here and Old Guardian's videos. The hardest one was definitely "Murlocs on Ice"; I was lucky to get it in two tries, but I can imagine people getting stuck on it for longer than that.
The risk of not finding a big card is a good point; you would indeed need a pretty top-heavy deck to make it likely to hit a good card. On the other hand, the mulligan does help a bit in improving the ratio of expensive cards in the deck and a 4-damage AoE might still be good enough.
Perhaps a bigger problem is this costing 5 mana, which may not be fast enough. Meanwhile, Paladin has divine shields so it might not actually clear the board.
I used the fire comp, although with Antonidas instead of Chi-Ji because I haven't leveled the latter as far. Climbing was easy, but the boss battle is pretty tricky. You can't really take it slow because the Maw's ability will keep buffing the opponent, but if you play too aggressively you might not land a final blow with the spawns. I got it on the second try though.
I think it's not such a bad card specifically for Big DH, since what you need there is finding your big cards and surviving until you have enough mana to play them, and this card does both of those things.
I don't think Big DH will be good though; it was way behind other decks in power level and this card doesn't look like it will be enough to change that.
My first try was with the fire comp suggested here, but I had too much health left on the Trolley by the time the murlocs hit the board.
Second try was with all 5 murlocs + Malfurion. I got the Amalgimation treasure for Mutanus, which let me eat the Trolley and gain a ton of health plus some attack from poor Murky who was at the other side of Mutanus. Then I killed off Popsicooler as fast as I could (I had already weakened it turn 1 by having Murky give it taunt and attacking into it) and had just enough health left on Mutanus to finish off the remainder of the enemies.
The "actually" was more in response to myself thinking "60%, is it really that bad?" and it turned out to be even worse (slightly). Your estimate was pretty accurate.
I don't understand why the rewards are so bad though (the payout is about 70% of the dust value put in). Even if the payout were 100% or slightly above, the event would still be a net win for Blizzard, as players would be converting real money and gold into cards, which is the whole point of the Hearthstone economy.
Your remark made me curious about what winrate you need to break even, so I made a little program to compute the chance distribution of total wins for 30%-70% winrate:
It seems you actually need a bit over 60% winrate to have a >50% chance of 5 wins, which is when the rewards are worth more than the cost.
This is assuming that your win rate is going to be consistent across all matches, which isn't realistic, since I expect opponents will be matched on win/loss count like Arena and Duels. So as a run progresses, your winrate should come closer to 50%. However, I don't expect this effect to be as strong for the first half of the run, where you're trying to get to 5 wins.
Thanks for the explanation, worked like a charm first try!
It would be nice to know what the actual values are for the {0} and {1} placeholders in the ability descriptions. In particular, the fact that Blazing Song at level 5 still gives +3 heal power (same as level 3) means that it's less interesting to prioritize that as an upgrade.
Holy comp was a good suggestion. I used a variation though with Anduin + Natalie + Kazakus as the starting party in most fights.
I like Natalie in combination with Anduin because with her 3rd equipment you can alternate between AoE healing and damage every turn. In normal fights you can keep her out of sync with Anduin's Holy Nova, so you have an AoE heal every turn, while in the boss fight you can keep their AoE damage in sync to dispose of the summoned skeletons.
Kazakus I mainly added to the party because I hadn't unlocked his equipment yet and that required defeating the same heroic boss. Summoning taunt golems repeatedly was pretty useful though, especially after I got a reward dealing 10-damage AoE every time a golem died.
I used Appetizers as the equipment for Cookie instead of Seasoned Pan, because I'm less worried about doing damage and more worried about a merc getting sniped before they can be healed. As I never actually put Cookie on the board in my run, I think it was the right call.
For me, Prime Gaming says the legendary card unlock ends in 22 days, which would be the 25th of May.
Do you know when the refunds for the last round of nerfs end? I have a few Sunken packs that I haven't opened yet because I'd like to claim the golden epics from the reward track first, but if it takes me too long to reach level 75 it might be better to open them anyway in case I'll unpack nerfed cards.
Reverting Kael'thas should be easy since it doesn't impact their e-sports and doesn't require new card text translations. However, as long as Switcheroo is a problem too, that revert wouldn't actually fix the Wild ladder.
Banning Switcheroo from Wild, even as a temporary measure, might still be better though than keeping it active until a long-term fix is implemented.
Nerf candidates:
Faelin, but also Hooktusk and Ini.
Several of these mention an underwater form. Was that an idea that got dropped later in the design phase?
I thought I'd put it muted in a tab just to get the pack, but I've been listening for over half an hour now. Well done!
That Salt bbcode might be useful in the future.
I had Gruul + Anduin + Natalie, since I was trying to complete a "heal 900 damage" task at the same time. Probably not the quickest approach, but I got it done in 21 turns, so well below the 30 turns allowed. Gruul makes it so easy, since you deal lots of damage while taking very little with the fire resistance item equipped.
The same comp worked for the second task (keep all your mercs alive) as well and was actually a better fit there.
The other three characters were Brightwing (the one that had the heal task), Wrathion (mainly hoping to collect some coins) and The Lich King (more healing, taunt + freeze gives healers more time to patch up a focused merc, Human synergy with Anduin). But I barely used these, it was Gruul + Anduin + Natalie doing most of the work.