Ok, Dar’Khan does not do his work forever. My bad.

But it is still one helluva swing.

The portals DO work forever.

The Rogue Poison Chess piece plan is not great.

The Poison Chess pieces are fragile and everyone on Blizzard is playing it.

Frankly, Chess Pieces are limited in what they can do.

Real minions can go to face – and your opponent is at 20 life.

Play cards that turn stupid chess pieces into real minions and do so repeatedly.

For Warlock: Disciplinarian Gandling and Desecrated Graveyard are cheap, come out fast, and make 4/4s which give the chess pieces hissy fits. Sargeras, of course.

Arch Villain Rafaam gives you a whole deck of useful minions.

Symphony of Sins does so many things – and since the game is slow, you will play multiple movements.

Dar’Khan Drathir goes to face now. Goes to face forever. And he is a 6/6.

Note that Poison Pieces do not make Desecrated Graveyard go away.

Once Dar’Khan or the Portal are out they do their work forever, Poison Pieces or not.

Have fun!

This would seem to be a tech card against decks that do a lot of buffing.

I rush and kill your buffed creature.

I can’t replay the card having just spent 8 mana.

You kill Kologarn.

But what is in your hand is now much less impressive.

A clear use for this card is against mech decks.

And there are a lot of mechs in this expansion.

This is one of the more powerful hero powers in the game.

Anyone who has played Magic the Gathering knows that scry which gives you mild choice about what card comes next on your deck, works out to be powerful.

Not as powerful as card draw – but still considerable.

Doing the same to your opponent is also big.

Add to this that many decks do not make use of their hero power that much.

Rogue does not always need a dagger.

Druid is sometimes too busy ramping and playing giant monsters to want to bother with +1 armor and +1 attack.

If your opponent is playing a combo deck and you know what cards you are dreading …

Algalon’s hero power buys you major life insurance.

This is a big deal.

Death Knight which makes a corpse nearly every turn will have little use for this card.

Control Paladin will be happy to give up making dudes in order to wreck an opponent’s game plan.

Actually, the brawl is really really really easy.

Key point.

If you lose, the next time you play, the game remembers your status and the opponent’s status.

So the two of you “reincarnate” right where you died – but you have a fresh deck and so does the opponent.

The opponent’s secrets may change.

So what you do is keep reincarnating and taking Diablo down a little, then reincarnating and taking Diablo down a little.

Rinse and repeat enough – you will win.

This card might be a little hard on Quests.

When you fulfill the quest, you had better have 5 mana left with which to play your killer prize.

Otherwise you have just given your opponent a free killer prize.

This will be particularly hard on Priest Quest, since they HAVE To pay 7 or 8 for their final spell.

So the prize is sitting in their hand like a sitting duck.

Countermeasure? The quest player runs Theotar.

She swaps for Theotar herself … and hopes the opponent is not also running a certain 7 mana Murloc who likes to eat things.

Great card design.

Tactical choice about which is more important.- armor now or something to play next turn.

Late game that interesting choice goes away and you just pull up your finisher.

But a very useful card for control warrior.

8 mana.

This one is going to have to wait for the patch and the buff.

Can’t beat this card for flavor.

Holy Petunias if you love control decks.

Fortunately, the Paladin situation is very straightforward.

Goodbye Librams.

Like Goodbye Forever.

Spellcasters everywhere will be happy to see Oh My Yogg go away.

Few secrets produced as many tears from opponents.

Lord Barov’s loss will be more impactful for Control Warrior than for Paladin builds.

Lord Barov was one of the basic board clears.

Microsoft can’t buy Activision/Blizzard too fast in my book.

The situation at Act/Blizz is just too chaotic.

Too many things are buggy.

Too many things are going wrong.

Of course they have lost too many people.

Some were lost because of the gender scandal.

Others were lost because they got sick of the dumpster fire at work.

Bringing in Microsoft will be like bringing in the marines.

Is there anyone in Hearthstone who can help?

I’m getting desperate here.

On a PC, my Mercenaries game is frozen in tutorial in the Tavern.

Pages won’t click so I can only see the Fighter page. No other page.

It won’t let me build a full party because I can only use the 3 fighters.

The tutorial won’t advance. I can’t open my packs or play the game because the tutorial is unfinished.

I have tried multiple times to submit a technical problem ticket to Hearthstone.

The page won’t accept the ticket.

I have paid $90 for mercenary packs I can’t use.

The game won’t play.

Hearthstone won’t even let me submit the problem.

All advice appreciated.

I’m at the end of my rope with frustration.

Is this happening to anyone else?

I started the tutorial – finished the first mission and was sent to build my tavern.

Once in the tavern – all I could see was the fighters page. Clicking on any other page would not let me see either protectors or casters. I unwisely deleted my “default” party.

Now all I can make is a party of 3 mercenaries which is not enough.

I am frozen. Can not move backwards. Can not move forwards.Can not open my packs.

I play on a PC.

Anyone else having this problem or is it just me?

Am I doing something stupid or is this a major bug in the tutorial?

Not being able to control the target is some bad.

You can do fantasies about hitting just the right card….

like hitting Mindreader Illucia if you are trying to protect a combo.

But you are going to have to be the most skilled player in Hearthstone to know exactly when your opponent has just one target and the target is good – or multiple targets all of which would be good.

Against control warlock want to hit a 1/3 that puts two soul fragments into her deck?

You are fighting secret paladin and want to hit N’Zoth?

Well, lucky you, you hit crabrider.

Want to be sure to kill ten cards out of your opponent’s deck.

Don’t play a big murloc hoping to hit Tickatus.

Play Tickatus.

Want to win games?

Don’t play either.

Give Stonehill a break here.

Blizzard has given him lots and lots of more Hearthstone variants to cover plus ever more frequent updated changes.

The work has quadrupled or quintupled.

The size of the Hearthstone Top Deck staff has not quadrupled or quintupled.

Those poor guys are dying from overwork.

Be grateful Stonekeep stays in this business

Or we all would be screwed.

Hearthstone Economics Question.

(Stonewall is the Grand Master of Hearthstone Economics)

A player is trying to get arcane dust for specific acquisitions.

Is he or she better off buying regular packs for cash and disenchanting what is not needed

Or buying the golden pack and disenchanting what is not needed.

For simplicity assume that the actual cards in the pack are all useless and they all will be disenchanted to finance other purchases.

Well argued.

Well put, Stonekeep!

Randomness bothers Spike.

It can bother Johnny.

Little Timmy ADORES randomness.

I am the Timmy-est of all Timmy’s.

For god’s sake, I still play Duels and a lot of Duels at that.

I think the randomness is just fantastic.

It makes for entertaining games.

It makes for “remember these forever” moments.

Some of those moments are Heroic Triumphs.

Some of these are Slapstick Comedies.

Some of these are Ancient Greek Tragedies.

But they give Hearthstone a lot of its soul.

Plus,

Without RNG,

How would Trolden spend his time?