You don't need the second Cultist: I just tested it vs the Innkeeper and the echo copy remains in your hand when Glinda is destroyed, it just won't create another echo when played.
Do echo copies in your hand disappear if Glinda Crowskin dies in the middle of your turn? If so you could still do it, but you'd need both Mogu Cultist in hand first.
I would expect the echo copy already in your hand to stick around, just not generate another echo when you play it.
While I do have Glinda in a deck I play, generally if she sticks I try to keep her alive, so I'm not 100% certain of the interaction.
Edit: I tested it and it works as I expected: the echo copy you had in your hand remains, but does not have echo itself.
You have to get rid of Glinda Crowskin as well to be able to play the 7th Mogu Cultist. You could use Grim Rally for that, but it does add a card and a mana to the combo.
This enables a lot of value generation with Soulwarden, especially if Soulwarden itself is discarded. This was a possible win condition for pre-rotation Standard discolock, but then you needed some luck to discard one Soulwarden and draw the other in time. With Expired Merchant you have much more control over what you discard.
You can generally expect end-of-turn effects to go off only once. If your opponent cannot remove a good end-of-turn effect immediately, often you have already won. See for example Ysera, The Lich King.
Since this minion itself is terrible when resurrected, I don't see this going into a resurrection deck. Instead, it might be useful to resurrect minions that are summoned with reduced health, like Injured Blademaster, Witchwood Grizzly and Damaged Stegotron, or deathrattle minions like Convincing Infiltrator.
I wonder if those particular cards are a hint towards the overarching plot of this year: a recurring villain and a dragon, plus Nefarian saying "I'll be back" when you defeat him in the brawl...
Probably not going to pre-order: I bought the Heist and the Wild bundle recently, so I've spent enough money on Hearthstone for now. I got a lot of dust on the rotation and haven't spent much of it yet, so if I don't draw the cards I want from the packs I buy with gold, I can just craft them.
You cannot see ancient cities in their glory days because they don't exist anymore; it's not about access but the thing you want to access no longer being there. The card backs still exist: they're in everyone's client, otherwise your opponent wouldn't be able to see them. A card back isn't a physical item, it's a piece of digital cosmetics that you are denied access to unless there is an unlock flag in your account on Blizzard's server.
Apparently you thought the unlocking would be a one-time opportunity. Blizzard never stated that as far as I know, although in the first years that was how things were. If you're disappointed that they're not as exclusive as you assumed they would be, that's fine, but not all old players will feel the same. As someone who has most of the old card backs, I'm entirely fine with newer players getting another chance to unlock them.
By the way, I think this is the second or third time an old card back was rewarded in a brawl, certainly not the first.
It depends a lot on the match-up. For example, playing Big Spell Mage vs aggro was easy: mulligan for removal, hope you draw DK Jaina in time. But vs control you had to figure out whether you would be best off taking it to fatigue or not, how many threats is enough to bait out removal, how to pace your own board clears, which cards to dump when your hand got too full etc, while every turn trying to set up for creating a Water Elemental that turn and/or the next. Probably not the hardest deck ever, but the difference in difficulty per match-up was huge.
Any kind of miracle deck is tricky, since you cannot plan your entire turn ahead when you're drawing or generating cards at every step. Rogue is most famous for this of course, but Lyra in Priest and currently Cyclone and Luna in Mage are similar.
Burgle/Steal Rogue is different every game and there are different ways to build the deck: use Spectral Cutlass or not, Academic Espionage or not, only a few pirates or a lot of them etc.
Another Rogue deck that stands out for me is Dane's Big Rogue. While it contains a lot of legendaries, you might have some of the oldies already if you played until GvG.
Other favorites of mine are Even Warlock and Quest Druid.
Priest is far from boring at the moment. I've played Nomi, Star Aligner, Clone and Clone/Buff Priest in recent weeks. They're not top-tier, but not terrible either.
I think having fun with Warlock is a lot harder in Standard at the moment. There is always Zoo of course, but that's not terribly exciting. Plot Twist was an interesting idea, but a lot of work for too little pay-off. I've been playing Demon Handbuff recently and got a few wins vs Warrior (might have been lucky they either didn't run Brawl or didn't draw it), but buffed minions that can't attack immediately are just too inflexible vs rush and magnetize.
It's not that early, really, if July is reveal season and the expansion launches early August, which would be 4 months after RoS. It feels shorter than usual because with the nerfs and buffs and the phased Heist release we had a lot of things happening between set releases.
You can duplicate Glinda with Expired Merchant and Soulwarden, so if she doesn't stick right away, you can try again.
You don't need the second Cultist: I just tested it vs the Innkeeper and the echo copy remains in your hand when Glinda is destroyed, it just won't create another echo when played.
I would expect the echo copy already in your hand to stick around, just not generate another echo when you play it.
While I do have Glinda in a deck I play, generally if she sticks I try to keep her alive, so I'm not 100% certain of the interaction.
Edit: I tested it and it works as I expected: the echo copy you had in your hand remains, but does not have echo itself.
You have to get rid of Glinda Crowskin as well to be able to play the 7th Mogu Cultist. You could use Grim Rally for that, but it does add a card and a mana to the combo.
I can already imagine Zalae's review: "I want to talk about the art".
This enables a lot of value generation with Soulwarden, especially if Soulwarden itself is discarded. This was a possible win condition for pre-rotation Standard discolock, but then you needed some luck to discard one Soulwarden and draw the other in time. With Expired Merchant you have much more control over what you discard.
Removing duplicates or shuffled cards would also synergise with Impbalming.
FIrebat also published a video of the deck in action:
You can generally expect end-of-turn effects to go off only once. If your opponent cannot remove a good end-of-turn effect immediately, often you have already won. See for example Ysera, The Lich King.
Maybe it could even be combined with Akali, the Rhino, which can be pulled by Oondasta and then draw a War Bear.
Since this minion itself is terrible when resurrected, I don't see this going into a resurrection deck. Instead, it might be useful to resurrect minions that are summoned with reduced health, like Injured Blademaster, Witchwood Grizzly and Damaged Stegotron, or deathrattle minions like Convincing Infiltrator.
I wonder if those particular cards are a hint towards the overarching plot of this year: a recurring villain and a dragon, plus Nefarian saying "I'll be back" when you defeat him in the brawl...
There are two spots per region, looks like equal treatment to me.
Probably not going to pre-order: I bought the Heist and the Wild bundle recently, so I've spent enough money on Hearthstone for now. I got a lot of dust on the rotation and haven't spent much of it yet, so if I don't draw the cards I want from the packs I buy with gold, I can just craft them.
You cannot see ancient cities in their glory days because they don't exist anymore; it's not about access but the thing you want to access no longer being there. The card backs still exist: they're in everyone's client, otherwise your opponent wouldn't be able to see them. A card back isn't a physical item, it's a piece of digital cosmetics that you are denied access to unless there is an unlock flag in your account on Blizzard's server.
Apparently you thought the unlocking would be a one-time opportunity. Blizzard never stated that as far as I know, although in the first years that was how things were. If you're disappointed that they're not as exclusive as you assumed they would be, that's fine, but not all old players will feel the same. As someone who has most of the old card backs, I'm entirely fine with newer players getting another chance to unlock them.
By the way, I think this is the second or third time an old card back was rewarded in a brawl, certainly not the first.
It depends a lot on the match-up. For example, playing Big Spell Mage vs aggro was easy: mulligan for removal, hope you draw DK Jaina in time. But vs control you had to figure out whether you would be best off taking it to fatigue or not, how many threats is enough to bait out removal, how to pace your own board clears, which cards to dump when your hand got too full etc, while every turn trying to set up for creating a Water Elemental that turn and/or the next. Probably not the hardest deck ever, but the difference in difficulty per match-up was huge.
Any kind of miracle deck is tricky, since you cannot plan your entire turn ahead when you're drawing or generating cards at every step. Rogue is most famous for this of course, but Lyra in Priest and currently Cyclone and Luna in Mage are similar.
Burgle/Steal Rogue is different every game and there are different ways to build the deck: use Spectral Cutlass or not, Academic Espionage or not, only a few pirates or a lot of them etc.
Another Rogue deck that stands out for me is Dane's Big Rogue. While it contains a lot of legendaries, you might have some of the oldies already if you played until GvG.
Other favorites of mine are Even Warlock and Quest Druid.
Priest is far from boring at the moment. I've played Nomi, Star Aligner, Clone and Clone/Buff Priest in recent weeks. They're not top-tier, but not terrible either.
I think having fun with Warlock is a lot harder in Standard at the moment. There is always Zoo of course, but that's not terribly exciting. Plot Twist was an interesting idea, but a lot of work for too little pay-off. I've been playing Demon Handbuff recently and got a few wins vs Warrior (might have been lucky they either didn't run Brawl or didn't draw it), but buffed minions that can't attack immediately are just too inflexible vs rush and magnetize.
It's not that early, really, if July is reveal season and the expansion launches early August, which would be 4 months after RoS. It feels shorter than usual because with the nerfs and buffs and the phased Heist release we had a lot of things happening between set releases.
There are a few more playable cards in Blackrock Mountain, but Emperor is the only one that isn't easy to replace by anything else.
Dark Iron Skulker is nice since Rogue doesn't have a lot of AoE options.
Gang Up used to be a unique card, but now there is Lab Recruiter who is usually just better.
Demonwrath is useful in Control Warlock, Demonlock and Renolock.
Lava Shock is good in overload decks.
Resurrect is too good for its cost...
But all of those are cheap crafts, so not really a reason to buy the adventure.
Unless the card DB is broken, there seem to be no epics in BRM, and of the legendaries Emperor Thaurissan is good and unique, Nefarian and Chromaggus are playable but easy to replace, while Rend Blackhand is less versatile than Crowd Roaster and Majordomo Executus is a meme card.
If you really like dragons, getting BRM might be worth it, otherwise crafting select cards would be more efficient.