Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Bloodlust new meta!

I just won a game against a zoo warlock on turn 5 by playing Bloodlust on my board. I wasn't going to take the bullshit of that warlock any more

He was at 19 and i had Tuskarr totemic, Totem Golem, Flame Juggler and a random totem on board. I don't know but i fucking love Bloodlust

It looks like we're getting our next adventure announced July 28 at 11 PM PDT. Tune in on Twitch's PlayHearthstone channel for the ceremony.

The thing about adventures is that you're getting quite a bit more value paying cash for them (if you buy all the wings up front) than paying gold, if you compare the prices of card packs in both gold and real money. I'm saving up my gold at present, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to pay for the adventure using it or not.

edited 25th Jul '16 12:40:00 PM by Fighteer

Alas the east coast where that's 2am. I'm glad for new stuff but not enough to catch it live.

Concede/Control/BogChamp/Meme Shaman versus Dane's Shadowcaster Machine Rogue (and some random clips.)

As expected just prior to the announcement of a release: this week's brawl is Randomonium again.

Won the brawl on my first try. It turns out Nozdormu is preeeetty good!

No legendaries in my brawl pack, but I'm hardly complaining.◊

Currently watching RDU review his review of WOTOG. Second-most hilarious Hearthstone thing I've watched this month because his reaction every time he hits an incorrect prediction is priceless. (Most hilarious thing was still Drunk Ostkaka.) One of the take-home messages, though, seems to be that reviewing cards in a vacuum tends to make you overvalue value compared to tempo... in a game where more proactive decks are generally favoured.

edited 28th Jul '16 10:11:59 AM by Pyrite

Ok, so I was awake.

"One Night in Kharazan". Lo E sized, release in 2 weeks (Aug 11). Sounds like it's based on the classic raid but when Mediev was alive. Prologue "wing" free to all with 2 cards. Buy the whole adventure in the first week to get the card back.

edited 28th Jul '16 11:34:51 PM by Elle

Man, people who bought Medivh skin will get their money worth retroactively in this Adventure.

So Kripp went on a rant on that Firelands Portal on how mages didn't need another godly common spell for arena.

I gotta agree with him, the spell is insane for arena.

Got some cards off Facebook:

Enchanted Raven: Druid Beast, 1 mana, 2/2

Kindly Grandmother: Hunter Beast, 2 mana, 1/1, Deathrattle: Summon a 3/2 Big Bad Wolf

Firelands Portal: Mage spell, 7 mana, Deal 5 damage. Summon a random 5 cost minion.

Ivory Knight: Paladin minion, 6 mana, 4/4, Battlecry: Discover a spell. Restore Health to your Hero equal to its Cost.

Ethereal Peddler: Rouge minion, 5 mana, 5/6, Battlecry: Reduce the cost of cards in your hand from other classes by (2).

The Curator: Legendary Mech, 7 mana, 4/6, Taunt. Battlecry: Draw a Beast, Dragon, and Murloc from your deck.

Barnes: Legendary minion, 4 mana, 3/4, Battlecry: Summon a 1/1 copy of a random minion from your deck.

Well, I guess it's confirmed then: Medivh is officially Deader Than Disco.

New class confirmed, then?

Interesting to note that, among the five wings, the initial, shorter Prologue wing will be free to all players (and include at least the cards Enchanted Raven and Firelands Portal among the rewards for the wing, it appears).

Beyond just being a smart decision on Blizzards part, if that 1-mana 2/2 Beast is effectively a free card for all players... Well, if that can't make Beast Druid a thing, I dunno what can, really.

edited 29th Jul '16 7:06:58 AM by RegisteredUser

Yay, new stuff.

• Raven - didn't look too hot for me at first, but then it came to me how good it really is: it doesn't die to pings, trades with x/2's, has a Beast tag and costs all of 1 mana. I mean, we had to finally have a 2/2 minion with the overabundance of 1/3's. >.>
• Not-Wolf: Kinda like Haunted Creeper except both better and worse? It trades 1-for-1 with Fiery Win Axe (not that you'd be compelled to beat a 1/1 in the first place) and, unlike Creeper, has a way more threatening body. Probably what that 4 mana 1/1 was meant to be.
• Portal: Arena Mage has never been stronger. Not quite as strong as Faceless Summoner, IMO, since you can get some really bad value cards (Buzzard or BGH) but it's more flexible since you can both remove threats or just rush face.
• Ivory Knight: Healadin! IMO I feel like the heal is not all that important considering that you get to discover a spell. Discovering is amazing. Heals might not be quite as good, considering that Paladin has 11 1-cost Spells out of 28 Spells total and only eight heal for 5 and more.
• Peddler: Requires a lot of set-up to work since only a handful of cards work with it. At worst it's a Pit Fighter, which I guess is good, but you're not really playing a Pit Fighter in Constructed. Good for Arena tho.
• The Curator: Superhard tutoring. Kodo, Mutated Seer and Azure Drake, perhaps? Probably great in Reno decks.
• Barnes: Too unreliable, unless you go out of your way to build a deck around him. Even then he's IMO not all that impressive.

Ivory Knight's healing is definitely nothing but a bonus compared to it Discovering a card... But it's a great bonus. I think it's the most "free" healing in the game, actually, because, well, Discovering something is obviously already good for both value and tempo, so getting a little bit of health back on top of that is just awesome. Like, you pull Consecrate out of it and you have a card whose total text effectively reads something like: "10-mana 4/4 Battlecry: Do 2 damage to all enemies. Restore 4 Health to your Hero." That's pretty awesome. Definitely going to be up there for Paladin's best Arena cards if nothing else.

Barnes is a weird one. It's most easily comparable to Herald Volazj... Which, unfortunately, pretty much provably sucks, as cool as the effect might be. Buuuuut it's also a better version of the effect for a few reasons: First are simply stats. At worst, it's a 3/4 with a vanilla 1/1 for 4 mana. That's a bad result of the card, no doubt, but it's also not entirely terrible. It's at least 4/5 stats for 4 mana, even if they are divided in a bad way. That's better than Volazj, at the very least.

Second is that it's a lot less clunky. It's random, sure, and it can't have as theoretically big a result as a great Volazj which can't really be set up effectively but the fact that you don't need to invest any actions or mana besides the cost of playing Barnes helps a great deal with its usability. It might be likely to whiff, sure, but at least you can play the damn thing.

And third is just that it's a Neutral minion. That alone makes me think that we'll see a lot more people trying it... Probably mostly (and most effectively) in a N'zoth Paladin variant. Getting something like a Sylvanas, Tirion (really, any Deathrattle is decent here) or either of the Rags out of it is hugely positive enough of a result that it'll tempt people. It might be only the territory of highlight videos rather than consistent competitive play, but, that's not nothing. And hey, it turns out Yogg worked out pretty OK for competitive despite it being fucking Yogg.

edited 29th Jul '16 8:12:42 AM by RegisteredUser

I'm interested in seeing how much use the Curator gets. I mean, drawing three cards is good, and if you can draw three *specific* cards, why, that just sounds excellent.

Barnes just sets up insane stuff. Combo Mage comes back. Put only Barnes Malygos and archmage as minions in your deck, draw Barnes first, win.

I wonder if a a silence priest deck would work now, with Herald and Barnes then silence your own stuff for their stats to return. Too bad the 3/5 silence your own minions isn't in standard anymore...

Curator Add Corrupted Seer, Stampeding Kodo, Azure Drake into your deck... Draw em.

Ivory Knight is a worse Etherial Conjurer, less stats and basically you announce whatever you get. For example if you heal for 4 then you got Concencration or Hammer of Wrath. It should be a 5/4 IMO.

Raven I think really needs to be a 2/3 to be good over the more flexible 2 1/1 trees.

edited 29th Jul '16 8:48:14 AM by Memers

I'm super sad that Ethereal Peddler is not a Priest card.

Raven is an obvious set up for Mark of Y'Shaarj next turn, something trees can't do. 2-mana 4/5 would be a tad too strong, IMO.

I'm not sold on Barnes enablign such combos. You still need the 1/1 to survive unless you're firing away at turn 10. Barnes w/Malygos + uh, Fireball + Frostbolt is 19 points of burst, which is probably enough to kill enemy's face, but you need to protect your own. If you let the 1/1 just sit around it's gonna get killed.

Barnes w/Antonidas is prolly better, but it still feels really slow.

What are you talking about, every card is a Priest card.

Not going to make any sweeping statements this time - not until we know all the cards, at least - but I love the theme they've got going, and there are definitely going to be a few new mechanics in the Adventure, so it would be interesting if they ended up used in playable cards.

Also, maybe it's just me, but the Enchanted Raven feels more like it's an early replacement for Living Roots once the latter gets rotated out.

Addendum: In case anyone was wondering about a couple of lines on the official site...

edited 29th Jul '16 11:06:53 PM by Pyrite

Okay, so five wings, one of which is free, the others cost 700g each, buy the whole adventure in the first week to get the card back, release is in two weeks, I have 1265g right now... I need to earn an average of at least 75g per day to get the card back.

That seems... tricky, but doable. Maybe a bit reliant on what quests and brawls I get.

I would roll up the cheese-agro deck of the season and farm Casual or low ranks to make the extra.

Also this: Adventures are the best case for paying money.

edited 29th Jul '16 5:12:34 PM by Elle

It's only 19.99 USD for the whole thing. I might as well spend real money on it.