Alglyphic's Comments
(One Day Left) Hearthstone Duels Game Mode Will Be Removed In April 2024
Well… theoretically they don’t need fixes. There was one round of Mythic I couldn’t complete because Vanndar’s conquest of Alterac Valley was complete, so he was just attacking all of my heroes with +50 attack on Speed 2 without waiting for the cooldown. But that’s what happens when you leave a game mode completely to pasture.
(One Day Left) Hearthstone Duels Game Mode Will Be Removed In April 2024
I perhaps have a softer spot for Mercenaries than most, because I had a pretty bad phase in 2021 and just about anything that looked like rewards for effort, even if it was tedious grinding, was good enough for me back then to just get on with the day. And even then, the devs could still manage to shove in some storytelling with Mercenaries through repeating the Kazakus-Onyxia storylines, having Khadgar confront the Echo of Medivh, the League of Explorers tracking the Old Gods all the way back to the Darkmoon Faire, and so on. Mercenaries had the potential to be another source of content generation for Team 5. Duels… not so much, and I can only guess that with every new expansion with the various class archetypes that get introduced, even more balancing headaches would have to be addressed.
Hearthstone is at a mature stage that’s similar to the MMO that spawned it, I imagine. Unless I’m Rarran trying to get people interested in modes, I don’t think I’d recommend the game to newcomers. It’s hard to recommend any game that is absolutely savage to newcomers who have to play against people who’ve been maining since Day 1 of open beta.
(One Day Left) Hearthstone Duels Game Mode Will Be Removed In April 2024
Huh. Gotta say, if there was one mode that Blizzard would have retired I was almost certain it was going to be Mercenaries, but I can’t say it’s a huge surprise for Duels to be on the chopping block.
It’s just occurred to me that following 2021 we haven’t really had a lot of great single player content. Mercenaries has more or less been left out to pasture with Mythic mode, I’m pretty certain nobody PVPs on that despite me never attempting it (when was the last Old Guardian video about it? Aside from pointing out that Baine/Trigore is a problem?). The last Book of Mercenaries-esque story was the narrative for Voyage to the Sunken City. Even the main storyline of Festival of Legends was left up to a single Tavern Brawl that we had to play for two weeks.
It’s really a shame, because the single player stories would have gone a good way in elaborating on the lore of each set. I would’ve at least enjoyed solving the Murder at Castle Nathria.
Top Standard & Wild Legend Decks - Showdown in the Badlands (Week 7) - December 2023
You use Hi-Ho Silverwing to get the single copy of Holy Wrath, Order in the Court to make Shirvallah on top. Finley will swap out Shirvallah into the bottom of your deck if you need him to. But I’ll agree, it seems like a Reno deck for the sake of being a Reno deck and the Holy Wrath combo is mostly an afterthought.
Restructuring At Blizzard, Multiple Hearthstone Employees Getting Laid Off
“It seems that bad news is all that we’ve been getting lately. I wish all the employees good luck and I hope that they land new jobs soon. Those who are still there – keep up the good work. And for people who read this – please don’t use it as an opportunity to kick them while they’re already down like I’ve seen some people already doing on social media.”
Obvious jibes at post-2020 Blizzard aside, I think the biggest takeaway we should leave this with should be something that we can apply looking at this game and hobby as a whole. There are things out of our control, whether it’s problematic workplace cultures, corporate takeovers and cuts, abandoned game modes, cards we don’t have access to, metagames we don’t enjoy, predictions we make on cards that turn out to be wildly misguided.
And you know what, I think it should be alright to be mistaken, to be able to admit “I was wrong” or “I feel terrible about this”. And to get to that point, I think we need to encourage behaviors that in turn encourage those behaviors. I know I enjoy a good bit of kicking someone when they’re down, and I’m more than guilty of BMing via emotes, so I’m not the most morally appropriate person to say all this. But in these times, I think we could use a little more problem-solving and a little more compassion than we’re immediately equipped to demonstrate in a highly fast-paced, competitive gaming environment.
Whatever you think of this, whatever you’re going through, if you’re currently in a situation where you feel the urge to kick someone while they’re down, I hope you can grow into a position where you are able to choose not to do that, and can find that moment of happiness within this game that is why we’re here to start with. Or outside of it. Whichever helps you.
New Hearthstone Expansion Teaser - Runes (Titans? Dwarves?)
Beat me to it.
Brothers of the mine rejoice!
Dual-Class Cards in Audiopocalypse: What Are They Like and What Can We Learn From Them?
Theme-wise, there’s a good few cards from Audiopocalypse that do fit the mechanics and musical genres of mixing the classes together. Yelling Yodeler took me a while, but it’s one of the cards I feel exemplifies this best: yodeling is a major form of European folk music and heavy metal features a lot of death growls and screams – though we don’t really have much in the way of Deathrattle synergies for Hunter, do we? Funnel Cake seems to be based on how Priest seems to have more board presence focus with Overheal synergies – and we do still have Priestess Valishj in the format.
Sure, it’s not visibly obvious for every class combination, and I’ll agree the execution doesn’t feel as clean as Scholomance’s was, but it’s there.
Funnel Cake
“Oh look! It’s head chef Refreshment Vendor. What’s on the menu tonight, chef Vendor?”
“Funnel cake! Funnel cake? Funnel cake! Funnel cake?! Funnel cake! Funnel cake! FUNNEL – “
Cool Ghoul
Took me a while to realise it, but now I have NanowaR of Steel playing on repeat in my head.
“Disco METAL, dancing in the moonlight, dancing in the shadows, metal in the hoooooooouse!”
(Live Now!) Hearthstone 26.2 Patch Notes - Battlegrounds Season 4 With Huge Update, New In-Game Event, Heroic Brawliseum, Bug Fixes
I barely managed to scrape three wins for the Scarlet skin last round, and really, what I said the last time applies here. If you’re not a fan of the current format you’re not going to have a good time, and you’d be better off getting disappointed by the ten packs you could have gotten with the gold you’d spend.
Festival of Legends Guide - New Hearthstone Expansion - Cards, Reveals, Release Date, New Mechanics, and More!
The decision to start out 2023 with a lighthearted expansion was a bold one, perhaps, but following 2021’s overarching story and 2022’s general focus on dramatic or serious themes, it’s possible that we might be in for a return to Raven levels of power de-creep. When was the last time we had a focus on all-out class brawl? There’s Rastakhan’s vibes, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and Boomsday Project to some degree. It’s high time we got back to Hearthstone being unapologetically wacky. Here’s hoping.
Starlight Groove
Current Paladin lists won’t see Stonehearth Vindicator, though, because that minion is leaving Standard along with Fractured in Alterac Valley in the upcoming rotation. Maybe Paladin will get more value generators next set, because I don’t see this getting its effect off consistently enough for it to be worth it.
Void Virtuoso
Mal’ganis gave your hero Immune on all turns, though. This would be the equivalent of Violet Illusionist, and even then the set would need to see more cards that inflict self-damage for Void Virtuoso to see use. Problem is the cards that do exist are rotating out along with The Demon Seed and all related support, and The Demon Seed only triggers when you take damage, not avoid it. The Demon Seed would need to be reworked so the deck isn’t completely broken in Wild, as indicated by Team 5, and a card like Void Virtuoso strongly suggests that Stealer of Souls won’t be off the banlist anytime soon.
Tavern Brawl - Heroic Tavern Brawl - 12 Wins Decks!
I can’t help but feel this is both the best and worst time to dangle Heroic Brawliseum in front of players again. Coming on the heels of a new balance patch when things are shaken up as folks try to figure out what the best decks and lists are again? Sure, it’d keep things interesting. But at the steep cost of 1,000 gold, plus the tempting offer of an exclusive cosmetic with no free entry for folks to experiment with and feel out the meta? Now that’s just cruel.
I got my 3 wins after losing to Evolve Shaman mirror match, Blood Death Knight, and won the next 3 matches against (of all things) Death Knight running nothing but Core neutrals like Chillwind Yeti and Cairne Bloodhoof, Dragon Druid running Amber Whelp and Twilight Drake, and a Blood Death Knight who got steamrolled with double Tiny Toys + Convincing Disguise. It was an experience, but the idea of knowing that at any point you could just go 0, 1 or 2 wins and 3 losses was absolutely unpleasant. Imagine being the guy who has to run a budget deck in a ruthless format with little room for error or terrible luck – or the saps running the first two decks I ran across.
If Blizzard really, really wanted their pound of flesh, they could have simply made the skin more accessible by “Play three games” instead of “Win three games”, but apparently there’s enough rubes to fleece where folks somehow don’t have the resources to make functioning decks and yet have the gold to spare on an even worse risk-reward ratio.
TL;DR: Do you like playing Standard and losing on coinflip margins? If you don’t, the Scarlet skin is not for you.
Iksar's Twitter Q&A #44 Summary - Classic As A Rotating Format, Graveyard Feature, 4 Sets Per Year, Alternate Artwork, Dungeon Run, Dr. Boom and more!
To be fair, that remark was a response to someone who’d asked him what card the developers thought would take off in the meta but never did.
The Complete Guide to Book of Heroes: Faelin - Challenges, Puzzles, and Achievements!
So… Book of Faelin. Honestly feeling mixed about this usage of Team 5’s resources. What I can say is don’t do what I did and play this entire adventure in one sitting, blind. The story was enjoyable enough if average, but interspersing cutscenes during the fights really, really drags on especially when you lose – and against Ozumat and Queen Aszhara, you will lose often. The idea of lorebooks isn’t bad, but when you’re chugging through 17 chapters, some of which you’ll probably repeat, you’ll want to mash that End Turn button. Seeing a Lorebook crumble prematurely really only serves to annoy the player who’s already spent a good amount of time trying to survive Ozumat. I get that Ozumat is a character the team has consistently wanted to feature – but making his encounter this difficult was unhelpful.
As someone who played once and picked Finley as a partner, I’d add that Cousin Errgl’s encounter brings about more questions than answers. If Finley was picked up as an egg by Elise who taught him Common, how does that explain his parents? Why do murlocs have a summer school? Why aren’t there more British murlocs?
Book of Mercenaries: Varden Dawngrasp Guide And Boss Strategy
I’m not sure if it’s intentional or a bug, but after failing the first attempt with Varian trying to beat it phase by phase, I eventually skipped the phases altogether on attempt 2 with constant Freeze synergies and ignoring Valeera. I actually thought that the game would fail me for going face with Varian but no, that was enough to prove Varden’s worth in leading the combined armies.
I say this now, in case someone at Team 5 realises they should probably have given Valeera Taunt and patch it onto her, but at least the phases have some charming dialogue like Broll wanting to chat with Guff over his Questline.
(OUT NOW!) 22.4.3 Patch Notes - Locusts Removed from Kazakusan Treasures, Battlegrounds Balance Changes - March 3
So what got skipped over was Yu’lon’s Enveloping Mist going from Arcane to Nature, which I find somewhat hilarious in that it completely scuppers Old Guardian’s build for Heroic Lokholar with only Beasts/Dragons, because it no longer activates the Arcane Combo for Blink Fox.
Now I’m certainly forgiving towards the Mercenaries mode as a whole, but the amount of annoyance certain missions required with the forced builds and high counts of failure, the event could genuinely have been more thought out instead of looking like it was designed to completely screw over most players. Casters-only Anointed Blades, I’m looking at you.
The Rogue Nerfs Are Here and This Is the New Meta in Patch 22.2!
Between the Stormwind reveal stream cancel and Guff merrily dunking on Scabbs, is anyone else amused at how prophetic the recent trailer art has been for HSTD articles?
“We almost called it the Wheel of FINAL!!!”