This essay assumes all the changes will be relevant to standard.

The odds are that some old cards will be changed in response to developments in Wild.

Biscuit Mage is an oppressive deck in wild.

(Mage cheapens their spells, fills their hand with a lot of biscuits, drops a flamewalker and does 30 points of damage in one turn.)

This deck has all of the Marks-of-Cain that makes Blizzard nerf a deck.

a) Non-reactive.
b) Very widespread.
c) No fun to play against.

d) Ends games quickly before opponents can develop their game plan.
The opponent doesn’t get to play Hearthstone and just has to watch him or herself lose.

Blizzard hates all of the above but d) is a giant red flag for Blizzard – and rightfully so.

Add to that

e) Biscuit Mage is powered by mana reduction.

Blizzard has learned that mana reduction often has to be very very carefully policed.

What to expect?

Expect Conjure Mana Biscuit to take a huge hit.

Expect a ban on anything costing 0 mana.

Nerfing Flamewalker is a non-trivial thought here.

Having it do only one damage rather than two guts the effectiveness of the entire Biscuit plan.

e)

Just the posts.

The win conditions in plain old Warlock Control are pretty good as they are.

Reincarnating 6/6 taunters for free plus Tickatus plus being able to replay your minion removal AND having Y’Sharaaj be big in and of himself is very powerful.

Particularly when your opponent has lost a bunch of cards from his deck.

Early Tickatus decks ran a package of Watch Posts.

The new version eschews those in favor of Tamsin Roame.

In my playtesting, this is a huge mistake.

My Tamsin Roame version loses as much as Vicious Syndicate says it does.

The Watch Posts SIGNIFICANTLY slow down aggression and buy Warlock time to corrupt a few cards and regain control of the board.

I go with the full package. Two each of Far, Mor’shan and Ogremancer.

VS is right that Ogremancer is not overwhelming against No-Minion Mage.

However, it is a nice midlevel big body to fend off the aggressive decks that complicates the aggros that run spells too.

The Ogremancers might be negotiable. the Far Watchposts and Mor’shan’s are huge helps.

Those of us who have played Magic would have thought that a Rogue Yoink spell would have been a bounce spell.

(Bouncing a friendly minion for one).

This is a great card with lot of cool uses. But I wouldn’t have called it Yoink.

And frankly bounce is really powerful and useful for rogues.

Silly me.

The Classic and Basic cards are not rotating out of Wild – just standard.

My beloved Wild cards are safe.

(Or are safe until Blizzard prints something better – which they often do.)

I play a lot of pirates in Wild.

The pirate world will be very different.

The new pirates coming in are very strong.

But the deck is losing some huge huge staples.

Stonekeep.

Great job of reporting. But then you always do a great job of reporting.

Can we get an article about what Classic or Basic cards are LEAVING the core set?

Those of us with “favorite” decks will have to start thinking about replacing what we are about to lose.

Not only would such a list be very helpful

But your analytical comments on what this means would be great too.

You are good at “reading a set”.

Downside to the card as written.

You spend nine mana. You fill your hand with spells till your hand is full.

Unless you drew a one mana spell – when you had ten mana …

You are about to mill the next card in your deck.

Getting nine or ten spells for one milled card might be a good deal.

But there are decks where players take cyanide and cry bitter tears when the wrong card is milled.

The main use for this is in a deck with a lot of minion buffing.

Take a Paladin who has buffed some Silver Hand Recruit to a 10/10 lifegaining divine-shielded monster.

You return that to his hand.

Even if he drops his best creature in return you are still ahead of the game.

Think about the card efficiency.

You just spent one card to neutralize a four card investment.

Pretty sweet.

Fine minds think alike here.

I like to watch Trolden videos,

So if I can get beaten with grace and outrageous style … I’m game.

When one’s own deck is doing nothing and you are beaten by just big guys doing things better …

Boring loss of an entrance ticket.

I have been a regular heroic duels player …

But then what the heck.

I’m Timmy.

Ooh. Cool treasures.

Ooh. Absolutely broken and disgusting combos.

(Usually in the hands of my opponents – but still fun to watch even as you are being tossed off a cliff.)

And for those of us of the less competent persuasion –

Having a game mode that really depends on you being lucky and getting a treasure that synergizes with your deck

As opposed to being normal and getting “that’s nice dear” treasures that have nothing to do with the cards you have …

Well, randomness is life.

Seeing the perfect match treasure for your deck in the selection pool is happy happy time.

I don’t think most other Hearthstone players see things the same way.

All Hearthstone formats reward skill –

But Duels may offer the smallest skill-reward-premium

Due to the mega-effect of just drawing the right treasures.

I am a hardcore player who is not at all unhappy about the things the rest of the community is unhappy about.

No I am not a paid Blizzard shill. I am just a happy guy who likes Hearthstone a lot.

I think the new Progression System is a lot of fun because of all the different ways you make money. I love having forty five different ways to line my pockets rather than less than ten. I won’t complain if they want to up the payoffs.

The new unbalanced decks were not terrible for the game. They were skill intense. They were fun to play. I don’t think Hearthstone needs ten perfectly balanced classes all the time. They need the game to change. The game changes a lot so there are always reasons to build new decks and have new experiences.

The randomness factor- a huge plus for me- was well executed with lots of fun Trolden-like events.

Expansion flavor was excellent.

Duels is an absolute blast – and even when you get blown out you get blown out in fun and interesting ways.

The cards were fun and the game was fun. (and still is)

And there was always something new to learn. The game never got stagnant from a skill standpoint.

So I think the regulars are complaining too much.

This was a great year.

If you have all the Scholomance Epics, you are supposed to get all the Duels Starting Treasures, right?

I have all the epics but some copies are Golden rather than regular.

Am I being punished for having golden copies by not being allowed to get the third treasure?

It seems that way.

If you get silence in your opening hand, keep it.

Silence is priceless in this matchup.

A brave sensible and gutsy commentary by Stonekeep.

The defense of devs and streamers was right on target.

I love Hearthstone and play it constantly.

But we need to remember – it really is just a game.

Holy Petunia Face!

Randomness goes amok!

Big Splashy Effects go amok!

The Timmys of the world are going to adore this set.

I am one of the biggest Timmys of all.

I’m a Timmy,

I love big fun moments.

I am thrilled when a game has a dynamic that could one could send to Trolden.

For me the RNG cards are the coolest thing ever.

If we have to have fewer of them to keep the Spikes of the world happy,

I guess so be it.

But I love drawing a card that could give me King Krush or could give me Doomsayer or could give me a vanilla 1/1.

Sign me up for the Yogg-Saron fan club.

The budget strategy articles have been very worthwhile.

Is the following subject worth a strategy article?

When and how to use Mindrender Illucia?

It seems there is a lot of complexity here involving not only when one’s own hand will be safe enough to pass over – but also when the opponent’s hand will be particularly vulnerable.

The challenge gets far more complex in the Priest mirror match where both sides have Mindrenders.

It seems even more complex when there are multiple bombs one is trying to protect as well as defuse.

The Highlander matchup has dual Zephrys, dual Dragonqueen Alexstrazas, dual Galakronds and dual Kronx’s.

There ought to be a way to think about maximizing Mindrender value and minimizing Mindrender risk in a world of multiple parallel threats.

Net of the other features of the system,

I really really like quests.

I mean like, like quests a lot.

They reward me for playing the game in unusual ways

(Building decks that have unusual characteristics)

and they reward for things over and above just winning.

How the other features work can be a matter of discussion.

If I would want something very much like quests to continue.

Note that Educated Elekk is a bad choice for a Highlander Deck.

If you shuffle any spell into your deck that you already have,

Goodbye Highlander.

Zephrys and Dragonqueen Alexstraza’s effects are much more powerful than that of the Elekk.