No class should base its power in its Hero Power. Why? Because your Hero Power is there from the beginning EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. The Hero Power is a core design of the game that helps classes have an identity, but it’s always supposed to be a huge tempo hit if used early (and also to not feel terrible if you didn’t draw a 1 or 2 drop in your opening hand). The Hero Power is more useful in the later stages of the game where you can weave it in with excess mana.

Remember The Grand Tournament? Inspire was a failure of a mechanic because Hero Power is not good in the early game. Remember The Witchwood? That’s the Meta we got when Hero Powers became too strong. Hearthstone Team learned very little from the problems of The Witchwood and the first new class since development turned out to be OP because they failed in the basic design of a class: the Hero Power.

I think it’s you who is trolling.

Yep. Hero Power definitely needed to be 2 mana. Being it 1 mana makes the class not lose that much tempo in the early game and that’s toxic.

The biggest design mistake with DH is its Hero Power costing 1. All classes have cards that synergize with their Hero Power, but their Hero Powers cost 2 for a reason: they’re supposed to be a big tempo loss if you use them early in the game. DH’s Hero Power costing 1 triggers all the class synergy cards from very early on without losing too much tempo and that is what was toxic. Genn and Baku turned out OP for this very reason, despite the huge deckbuilding sacrifices you needed to make, and Team 5 seemed to not learn the lesson there. 2 mana “your hero power gets +2 attack until end of turn” would have been a perfect Hero Power and more in line to what other classes have.

On the other hand, I totally agree that not all was bad. Getting a new class has been demanded by the community for the longest time, and Illidan is indeed an iconic and cool character that was very badly represented in Hearthstone until now.

Please, Blizzard, fix that Hero Power. Thanks.

I play Wild. Odd Rogue has been my go-to aggro deck. Every time I’ve faced a Demon Hunter I have lost. In Wild. I don’t need to say how this is wrong in so many levels. Not playing Hearthstone in a while now, thanks Blizzard.

I love Sap. So I love this.

Sense Demons is a Wild staple. Turns out that tutoring powerful demons is worth it.

“Alright then, keep your secrets”

The hares are back on the menu!

War Golem is crying

So we’re now at the point that 2 mana 2/4 are vanilla stats huh

This feels ridiculously strong

Well they have been true to their word and this is indeed a big announcement and a ton of good stuff coming to Hearthstone. The only thing I think is sad is I’ll miss Leeroy. T_T

Best change by far is the duplicate protection. That change in economy was long overdue.

I think it’s great that Blizzard has finally stepped up their game with new modes, friendlier economy and even a new class. Competition with other CCGs has been fiercer than normal and we have other great card games to thank. I’m currently playing tons of MTG and LoR and very little HS, but I might come back to this game more if the changes feel good. The polish of HS is still unbeatable among digital CCGs.

Looks like what Brian Kibler said so long ago is finally visible to everyone. Evergreen sets are a bad idea. Especially the Classic set. I understand the need of a Basic set so that players can still play the game when they come back to it after a long hiatus. But the Classic has been there forever and that has only provoked Blizzard nerfing and HoFing it to oblivion. Currently you can’t play good decks with only Basic + Classic cards, yet some of those cards are ALWAYS present. We need a rotating Classic set just like Kibler proposed several years ago.

As to the article, are we really mentioning Cleric and no Mage cards? Frostbolt and Fireball have always been there and never touched, for example.

This is interesting. Fans have complained about the direction the game has gone for several expansions, so if there’s a new design team, then it will be a different direction, right? So why all the moaning by those same fans? Ben Brode is an awesome guy, but remember that with him there were tons of super-aggro metas. His last legacy was Genn and Baku. Once he left the game improved imo. Now they just need to stop printing soooo many RNG cards and infinite value and the game will be good again. It would be nice to have Hearthstone Vanilla some time too, just so we can experience what it is to fight fatigue matches once again.

I had a full board of 9 mana minions by T2. Totally fair.

If it were add 2 random Warlock cards to hand it would be crap. Since it’s Discover it’s gonna be sooooo much better. Auto-include in Handlock.

I don’t think we should underestimate this in Token/Evolve builds.

Loatheb was reeeeeally good. It hit pretty much all decks. This doesn’t hit all decks so I think it’s worse. But it can still be super good to screw over telegraphed plays. Or if it faces Quest Shaman haha!

Well, correcting myself. I don’t think you can play it T1 unless you have the coin. T2 there’s several combinations of getting it to 0 mana, but won’t happen most of the time. T3 is when you will more reliably have it cost 0 mana. Happy Ghoul did come often on T2

Happy Ghoul is back. Although at least you can’t play it T1 or T2. But dropping a 0 mana 3/3 is great tempo even in T3.