Admittedly the list hasn’t been completely successful, even though I haven’t played nearly enough to get a grasp for what the meta is like. Hilariously, the deck outright loses to big bodies that get mindlessly played every turn since there’s only so much removal/taunt you can shove in. It’s a sad day when you’re losing to things like Burly Shovelfist and Faceless Behemoth.

Maybe I’ll experiment further by swapping out Deathlord for Khartut Defender(?), but I’ve relearned the biggest issue with Mill – its dependency on its own draw cards. Still managed to get some hilarious plays against players who have no idea how to deal with the archetype.

Funniest match I’ve had was probably an Activate the Obelisk Priest, who after decking out and having only 10/15 quest completion drops a Mind Visioned copy of Valeera the Shadow… then quits after he realizes he’s botched his own quest requirements.

Players of the Sunwell! Have you heard about the Church of Anti-Smorc? Would you like to have the staying power to stave off aggressive decks while punishing slower builds? Would you like to relive the glory days of watching important 1-of cards burn away in a satisfying shower of salt? Now you can!

This is a list I found when trying to see if Mill Rogue was as solid in Sunwell as it somewhat was, and it’s still as fun as ever:

x2 Backstab
x2 Preparation
x2 Shadowstep
x1 Togwaggle’s Scheme
x1 Lab Recruiter
x2 Sap
x2 Elven Minstrel
x2 Vilespine Slayer
x2 Vanish
x1 Valeera the Hollow

x1 Brann Bronzebeard
x2 Coldlight Oracle
x2 Deathlord
x1 Antique Healbot
x2 Rotten Applebaum
x2 Sludge Belcher
x1 Zilliax
x1 N’Zoth, the Corruptor

###WILD Hybrid Mill-N’Zoth Rogue
AAEBAaIHBvUPhRfgrAKA0wLg+gKggAMMtAHEAe0CzQP4B4YJ/g2BDoHCAtvjAsXzAq+RAwA=

“Me choose to go mill, me no need to kill.
Everybody knows that the mill is the skill.”

It does feel particularly awkward since, if we were going by the lore for Year of the Dragon, Dr. Boom’s synergy has been Mechs. Pirate Warrior hasn’t been a thing since Golakka Crawler and Patches’ “too little, too late” nerf before he was sent off to Wild, so… Ancharrr is definitely confusing. It might be enough for it to work as a tutor for Pirate techs, though the only one we have right now is Bloodsail Corsair (not that weapon reliance is huge now either), so it’ll have to be up to future reveals to see if there was a point.

Not putting Pirates on the field also feels weak – an effect like Captain Hooktusk dropping Pirates with Rush would be awesome – but I’m not exactly keen on reliving the “Eyeeeee’m in CHAAAAAARGE” era any time soon, and Warrior already has solid Tempo, Mech and Control builds to work with. I can live with them receiving a card on the level of “Dumbfallen Aviana” this set.

To be fair, given the airship theme for this set and some of the other cards like Secure the Deck, pirates aren’t completely out of place. Time will tell if this card turns out to be meme, destined for Purify-level turnarounds or Splintergraft-level pointless.

wronchirexxar.gif

“Well played. Well played. Well played. *hound* Well played. *hound* Well played…”

So looking over the review for the Druid sidequest card and how awkward it is to fit in an existing recipe, what you’re saying is…

The card can’t Secure a Deck?

I’ll see myself out…

“But if they don’t add enough, we might see the main theme of this expansion fail completely”

I think that’s summed up my issue with the Year of the Raven (and maybe, Uldum to a certain extent) – the new mechanics were hyped so much, Blizzard’s subsequent lack of representation felt underwhelming. Baku and Genn decks were dominant, sure, but I’ve always felt that it was because of a lack of support for other classes than simply Baku/Genn existing. Out of 4 odd/even class cards, only two were ever even remotely relevant. (Hero Power Odd Mage, what’s that?) Fast forward to Uldum… and now the only Quest with any relevance is Druid’s. Everything else just builds onto the older decks.

I guess Team 5 always had a fear of introducing too many new things to support the latest expansion gimmicks… and maybe after seeing that it hasn’t worked all that well and things are just as polarising/broken, it feels refreshing that they’ve gone all in with Dragon synergy this time. Then again, this might also be the full extent of synergy we get so we get disappointed again. But the universal Dragon synergy is at least a step in the hopefully right direction.

When your opponent gets Turn 2 Underbelly Angler and you get Corrupted Seers.

“Sweet, I have board clears! …Wait”

Tavern Brawl: Tinyfin Block was my introduction to this deck – and it was incredibly stupid with the draw and buff options quickly snowballing.

I’d netdecked the list here (https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/corbetts-mech-paladin-brawl-block-tinyfin-mode/) and added Solemn Vigil into the deck, just to add more draw options – prior to that, I did have games in the Brawl where Divine Favour wasn’t possible due to both sides having small hands, or when I’d whiffed both Crystology and Divine Favour. In the early game you can trade mechs and Silver Guys into enemy minions and draw 2 cards after Solemn Vigil gets heavily discounted. Unfortunately I forget which cards I swapped out.

I’m a little on the fence about what we know for Quest changes. I appreciate the idea behind it, though I would probably have appreciated a swing in the other direction at least: if you roll a 50g Quest, could players be given the option to always roll for a harder, more rewarding Quest? Daily quests is my main method of gold since I haven’t arenaed in a long time, and having the option to roll for slightly more gold would be nice.

Alternatively, players could be given options when rerolling – roll a quest of higher, lower, or equal difficulty/rewards? A random roll for higher rewards would account for Quests such as “Challenge a Friend” and “Play 100 Murlocs”.

It’s an odd conundrum we find ourselves in. I remember how the Year of the Raven had become stale since all most cards did was feed the classes with the best Baku/Genn decks. But at least you could craft those two legends and know that for the Year of the Raven, you were more or less set. This time… well, if you hadn’t gone all in with crafting your Control Warrior tools, your Combo Priest pieces, or other cards nobody realized could be useful (I’m pretty sure nobody ran the Bwonsamdi/Talanji combo), you’re crippled with a subpar deck.

I’m honestly rather bummed that as much as the newer quests are easier(?) to complete, they mostly haven’t had the groundbreaking impact the originals had. They’re straddling that awkward place between “gets run over by aggro” and “eventually loses to control”. No kidding, this is the most expensive era of Hearthstone. In retrospect, it makes Team 5 charging 2.8k gold and 2.1k gold for the respective solo player content all the more annoying.

There’s been several in my farming the brawl to clear dailies. As you mentioned, each class seems to have a semi-random pool of synergistic cards for this Brawl, for which Rogue has a few cards that would duplicate wishes. Mimic Pod and Thistle Tea, for a couple, plus the hero power of DK Valeera. Which didn’t matter in my opinion, since there’s only so many points where dropping a wish would make sense – it’s usually Flame Imp, Houndmaster, Backstab or Twilight Drake in the early game, I’ve found. Twisting Nether for a field wipe. Pyroblast for lethal.

Lorewalker Cho is also a thing but far less spicy than I’d hoped since all he did was stop the on-tempo Hobgoblin Paladin from playing his wish…

> No wishing for more wishes

Well, save for Augmented Elekk topdecks.

“Now,” thundered Rafaam, “What have we learned?”

The members of EVIL glanced at each other before responding in perfect four-part harmony:

“I will not face when Flame Ward is cast or the board blows up…”

Pandaren commanding mogu was previously seen in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, to be fair, with Aya Blackpaw calling on Kun the Forgotten King to spawn mogu Jade Golems.

It looks like Mr. Chu, the Warrior minion in Dalaran Heist is leading this fray, so it makes sense for him in villainous context?

“What doesn’t blook you, will grook you… twice!”

I had a vague hunch that Boomsday and subsequent expansions were revisiting themes of previous sets – Boomsday to GvG, Rastakhan’s to TGT, Rise of Shadows referencing Old Gods with Lazul. With handbuffing returning it’s fun to see Mean Streets of Gadgetzan getting referenced – and at least Blizzard hasn’t revisited the degeneracy of Jade Golems.

Shadowy Figure only copies Deathrattle minions, mind you, so that won’t be your cloning engine.

Mixed feelings about this one. It took me a few moments to realise that it’s not impossible to pull off, but is it unplayable? Star Aligner was never expected to be a thing, after all. Slow control decks will probably have a few means of removing minions so you can expect a good amount of damage to hit face, and classes without easy 5 damage to respond will be frantically trying to attack into this. I fully expect a Trolden video of Alexstrasza one turn, then Desert Obelisk + Coin + 2x Vivid Nightmare for the win at some point.

Personally I’m glad I’m not skilled enough to have ever been in the blast radius of Star Aligner degeneracy.

Thinking about it, I get the idea that Priest wants to be a sort of Spell-driven class the way it used to be with Radiant Elemental/Lyra the Sunshard. Sand Drudge is a thing, after all. The problem is that so far we don’t have anything else that would benefit from such a synergy or activate it, since Mage and Rogue have all the cheap removal spells, and similar spells for mana cost or board clears that Priest needs for survivability have mostly rotated. Sure, Test Subject/Grave Horror are already things, but haven’t really helped Priest stand out enough, and Grave Horror moonlights as a Mage minion more often than not.

I’d say it’s time Anduin revisited some of the ideas that made Priest a great class in the Gadgetzan-Un’Goro era, or at least other concepts that seemed they could be a wincon like Holy Champion. Maybe a Rare/Epic weaker reprint of Lyra, a la Princess Huhuran to Terrorscale Stalker. Maybe a Mana Geode variant of Sand Drudge that spawns more minions when healing effects are triggered. Maybe more cards that synergise with stolen cards like Rogue received, or Silence synergies attempted with Purify and Dalaran Librarian.

Or maybe just give Priest cheaper options to work with instead of playing passively and dropping big removals, when it’s likelier that the Priest will have his hindquarters kicked before he gets to use them…

In retrospect, it makes sense for Reno to be the new Mage.

Reno was one of the first cards to embody the Highlander archetype, and the Kabal from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was (kinda) built around that archetype. What was one of the classes featured in the Kabal? Mages!

Whether the design team actually factored this convenient alignment of the planets in is anyone’s guess…

Yep. The recent AMA explained it as:

– Elise is a Druid; her attack quote indicates her Druid heritage by attacking with plants
– Brann’s gun usage is a fit for Hunter
– “Sir” Finley Mrrrglton was knighted as a Paladin
– Reno… gets Mage as the final hero class, and gets to wield wicked-looking spell gatling guns