Alglyphic's Comments
Rise to the Occasion
…Welp. It looks like the sibling rivalry between the Roame sisters isn’t going to end well.
Rats of Extraordinary Size
Actually, they didn’t! If you assume that the brown rat is the Rat Token representative, there are clearly only three Rat Tokens in the artwork of Rats of Extraordinary Size. The art simply depicts the card having being played when there was already a full board and there are four 5/5 Rat Tokens in the player’s hand.
“But there’s clearly seven gray rats on the field!” you’d say, and, uh…
From Dungeons to Duels (and Beyond): Revisiting Rumble Run
I personally lucked out on a Secrets-based Hunter deck and finished the Rumble Run on my first attempt – then I wondered why there was no associated challenge with the other classes. So I tried playing through the content again as other classes, and… well, everything went downhill from there. Wasn’t just the fact that everything was so imbalanced against the player, it cemented Rastakhan’s Rumble as one of the more forgettable sets in the game’s history.
Were Witchwood and Boomsday Project great as expansions? In my opinion, not very, but at least you somewhat felt that the cards and the solo content had some modicum of effort put in. Rastakhan’s Rumble on the other hand felt so underwhelming the only cards I remember from the era are either the joke cards Rogue got for Legendaries or the degenerate Druid/Paladin OTK combo enablers.
Tavern Brawl - Ragnaros' Fire Festival
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/evidents-ragnaros-fire-festival-patron-warrior/
Evident’s old list from waaaaaay back in 2017 still works, although it has a heavily Taunt-based build for some reason which shouldn’t be necessary. (That’ll teach me to netdeck as usual.) I didn’t have Blood Brothers so I swapped in copies of Bomb Wrangler and Sudden Genesis, but I’ll agree with other commenters and recommend an Enrage/Egg-based list.
Stealer of Souls Banned in Wild Next Week (Wednesday), First Constructed Card Ban in Hearthstone
I think it’s fair to say that the main issue was how ridiculously consistent the deck is, akin to pre-errata Hysteria-Wretched Tiller. The problem with Stealer of Souls is that there’s no way to fix the card like they did with Hysteria, short of making it useless – I’ve seen suggestions like making it such that it only converts the cost for drawn Demons.
I’ll agree that the ban is a radical solution, but the idea that is just opens the floodgates to additional ban demands is a bit much. I doubt that players who want certain cards nerfed or removed would halt their complaints if Stealer of Souls wasn’t banned. Regardless, I think most would agree that the devs really dropped the ball by forgetting the interactions of Plot Twist. A nigh-perfectly consistent Mecha’thun OTK is not something anyone should consider healthy for the game.
Book of Mercenaries: Xyrella Guide And Boss Strategy
Garona’s encounter is as painful as I remember from Valeera’s chapter. That said, we should be expecting some spicy lore as this chapter reveals that both Tavish and Scabbs were separately hired by Katrana Prestor to find the shard of the naaru. Hopefully HSTD’s lore speculators will be putting out an article soon!
Lore of Legendaries: Forged in the Barrens
Rokara’s story does give something of an introduction to the mercenaries, although I can’t help but feel that as a preview into the Horde-aligned mercenaries, it feels… pretty underwhelming. Maybe it’s because these Hearthstone-unique folks don’t have the history shared by the campaigns in the Book of Heroes, but most of the chapters feel so unessential.
There IS a bit of intrigue with the involvement of Kazakus, which I hope future Books of Mercenaries actually delve into and not have a repeat of Guff/Varden/Tamsin’s intro chapters.
Lore of Legendaries: Madness at the Darkmoon Faire & Darkmoon Races
Monty Python expansion crafting, anyone?
Armament Studies
Rogue/Spell
Cost: 1
Discover a Weapon. Your next one costs (1) less.
“Then equippest thou thy Discovered Weapon towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my eyes, hall snuff it.”
Alec Dawson: "Big Changes Coming to Hearthstone in 2021", "Hall of Fame as it has existed will be no more"
It’s not so much that the developers aren’t proactive – they very much are; exactly how proactive they should be is a discussion for another time. But the fact that they aren’t sure what to tell us about whether Edwin VanCleef is getting a nerf or not – or getting Hall of Famed or Wilded or not – appears to the layperson or average, uninvested player that the devs don’t know what’s happening in their own game. Appearing as though you have no idea what you’re doing is, perhaps, worse than Team 5 mishandling the EXP system integration, because it justifies players’ fears and accusations that development has gone off the rails or the developers flat out don’t care.
Personally, the F2P rework hasn’t bothered me that much. I mostly get annoyed at the start of expansions, splurging on 60 to 80 booster packs with gold and raging over the dismal legendary pull rate. But I do wish that EXP gain outside of quests was more visible the same way getting 3 wins for 10 gold used to be.
Alec Dawson: "Big Changes Coming to Hearthstone in 2021", "Hall of Fame as it has existed will be no more"
I’m pretty sure “Phoenix” was meant to allude to 2020, with the introduction of the Demon Hunter class and other mechanics on top of the EXP system as a sort of renaissance for the game… which certainly didn’t pan out the way the developers intended. There’d be very little sense in naming a year after an emblem only to have its symbolism apply to the last few months after most of the major content has rolled out.
Hearthstone certainly had a challenging 2020, during which they lost a lot of the goodwill they once enjoyed, and I’ll not dive into the tired debate of how much of it was their fault or how much of it they deserved. But if anything, the question of whether Edwin’s nerf is a thing or not seems to indicate that Team 5 still hasn’t quite figured out how to communicate upcoming changes and/or drive hype around them. I don’t wish any more crap on the developers than they already got during Darkmoon Faire, but the fact that they haven’t quite coordinated over the status of Edwin is… concerning.
As for “class style”… I think the flavour argument is a pretty poor one to make considering the myriad of playstyles Blizzard tried to implement with each set (viability notwithstanding). We’ve had Big Hand Warlock, Druid AND Mage. We’ve been told Rogue doesn’t deserve big healing, hence the Leeching Poison nerf, while Heal Paladin and Warlock ran amok (mostly the latter, though). I still haven’t quite gotten over the fact that Priest was meant to be the class that represented the “Cloning” sciences in Boomsday Project and yet Druid was running absolutely wild with their ability to make multiple Malygoses.
But we shall see. It’s fun to theorise, and bonus points if you get it right, but I think for this year going forward we ought to manage our expectations. You become less likely to be emotional and disappointed that way.
Top Standard & Wild Legend Decks - Darkmoon Faire Week 3 - December 2020
Personally I liked to think of it as a meta comment. “So I’m afraid that we’ll have… nothing. Which is exactly what’s going to happen for the near and likely extended future due to Demon Hunter’s thing being consistent aggro, so I’m adding nothing after the word ‘have’. Ignore this blurb as a moment of silence for the “slowing down” that corrupted mechanics were supposed to give us.”
Top Standard & Wild Legend Decks - Darkmoon Faire Week 3 - December 2020
” The problem is that World Championship happens a week from now, and releasing a balance update so shortly before it wouldn’t be great for the competition. So I’m afraid that we’ll have”
I’m pretty sure the above segment was left unfinished by accident, but it’s bizarrely humorous to think of it as Stonekeep running out of things to say and something in his mind just decided “screw it”.
Bladed Lady
Considering that Soul Demon Hunter is one of the top tier decks? Yup, it’s not nearly as difficult as one might think. Between Marrowslicer, Soulshard Lapidary, Twin Slice and Chaos Strike, the deck has plenty of options. Demon tag even gives this lady more value if you happen to get Felosophy off of Wandmaker. Demon Hunter’s going to get real silly, real quick – again.
Patch 18.2 (Constructed) Coming Next Tuesday - Nerfs to Secret Passage, Cabal Acolyte, Darkglare + Buffs to Totem Goliath & Archwitch Willow + Bug Fixes
I wish I had enough wins with Rogue to agree with the Secret Passage nerf, but perhaps I shouldn’t be aiming for a weapon-based build. That said… Is Priest really in a position that tears up the meta where the Cabal Acolyte nerf was necessary? The few times I’ve pulled off the Wave of Apathy + Acolyte combo it’s rare for Acolyte to steal the minion that matters as long as there’s more than one minion, so even if you want to propose that Acolyte’s health doesn’t matter since it’s meant to be a two-card removal combo, the effect isn’t consistently pulled off enough. The biggest play I did was pulling it off on a Warrior’s Rattlegore but that’s a one-in-a-million sort of thing.
Scholomance Academy Card Review #2 - Headmaster Kel'Thuzad, Combustion, Infiltrator Lilian, Brittlebone Destroyer, Disciplinarian Gandling and more!
Given the randomness of Galakrond Priest’s Invoke, I’d say Gandling is at least a nice way to make use of the various 1-to-3 drops that may be generated like Scarlet Subjugator or Grandmummy. A good number of them have Deathrattle effects too – you can always play Reliquary for its Deathrattle and save the Prime for later. I’ve even had a few games where Sethekk Veilweaver dropped Whispers of EVIL, so there’d be a point to the random Lackey generated.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be a necessary inclusion in Galakrond Priest, but it’d be an interesting Invoke roll compared to the Resurrection-synergy cards. Looking at you, Catrina.
Nerfed Four Times, Still the Best Deck in the Game - What Is Going on With Demon Hunter?
I’m not a particularly serious player, but the situation with Demon Hunter reminds me of my experience with Mage – over the years, it seems that Mage’s pool of cards to work with have been increasingly random, with the few times it’s been viable were because the random elements were just aligned enough to be effective, as with Conjurer Mage. Until we got to that point, Mage had to work with theoretically interesting ideas like Book of Specters and Dune Sculptor or pray for a Hail Mary with Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron. Mage had little consistency to work with because the class already had a straightforward Basic set of 6 face damage for 4 mana.
So where does that leave Demon Hunter? It might be that the only way to rein in the class would be for the new set to give Demon Hunter nothing of note, as the short end of the expansion stick has been passed around for a good few classes, on top of other classes having something to build a deck on.
Taking Stock of the Year of the Raven – The Impact of Rastakhan’s Rumble Keywords
> Spirit of the Dragonhawk made no sense outside of Odd Mage
Well… it’s also a 2 mana card. It wouldn’t have made sense inside of Odd Mage, either.
Lore of Legendaries: Descent of Dragons
> it looks like Erkh is the first female ethereal within the Hearthstone universe
Actually… not really. Ethereal Peddler from One Night in Karazhan was already distinctly female with her voice and slightly curvy figure. Transmogrifier, too, although mostly from her voice clip.
Tavern Brawl - When Clones Attack!
I don’t know if randomized Brawl packs are now intentionally meant to cover certain themes (Mechs and Elementals for Mage, Tokens for Druid etc), but Rogue is… silly for this Brawl. It actually makes Cannon Barrage pretty alright, but I couldn’t tell you how effective it is. My only game involved a Turn 2 Patient Assassin and the Warrior I was facing chose death. Poor bastard didn’t even wait for me to drop my Sonya Shadowdancer…
Umbral Owl, Celestial Alignment shenanigans? Off the top of my head those are the synergies that stand out, but how useful those would be is something I’m not getting just yet.