With the new Arena rework, they changed the positions of Arena and Taver Brawl in the main menu. Funnily, the little label signing a new brawl is still displays on the button where is used to be – which is now Arena 😀

Dear Stonekeep, isn’t there already a signature art for “The Origin Stone”, generated by “The Forbidden Sequence” ?

A few quite viable decks for the bugged state (only Dark Moon cards) of the brawl:

1. (by League_Elder from reddit)
### Darkmoon Warlock
# Class: Warlock
# Format: Wild
#
# 1x (2) Midaway Maniac
# 1x (3) Free Admission
# 1x (3) Man’ari Mosher
# 1x (4) Fire Breather
#
AAEBAa35AwSS3gOT3gOV3gOW3gMAAAA=
#

2. (by Ben Hearthstone from X/Twitter)
### All-Neutral Death Knight
# Class: Death Knight
# Format: Wild
#
# 1x (2) Costumed Entertainer
# 1x (2) Crabrider
# 1x (2) Prize Vendor
# 1x (2) Wriggling Horror
#
AAEBAe2qBgTx3gO24QPK4wOR5AMAAAA=
#

3. (encountered personally)
### Handbuff Shaman
# Class: Shaman
# Format: Wild
#
# 1x (2) Costumed Entertainer
# 1x (3) Grand Totem Eys’or
# 1x (5) Fleethoof Pearltusk
# 1x (6) Claw Machine
#
(sorry, no actual deck code, I don’t own the Totem)
#

YouTube and Twitch drops for Hearthstone are definitely independent, I just got the 2+2 packs from last nights watch.

Here comes King Rastakhan once again, I waited sooo long for it 🙂

About signatures: 5000 Gold pieces is a HOARD of treasure, but – at least you can get them without real money. All hail F2P!

What about the “official” bots? Are they still used in the low ranks of Standard, when the game cannot find real opponent for you?

Exspecially compared to paid Rewrds Track, which has half the price and gives you much more value.

And they have never done such a thing before… oh wait … XD

The main problem with this line of thinking is not that it is cynical, but also counterproductive. About a year ago, just before Microsoft acquired Activision, I saw a video discussion about the story of Blizzard, their games and the economics of the company under different managements and owners.
Its main conclusion was that the profitability of these namely F2P games is depending on the “whales” you mentioned above, players who buy everything and spend huge amounts of money – and they are a relatively small portion even among the paying players.
If I were the company leader, I would ask myself: “Why do the whales (or all the paying people) play the game and pay?” Because they just love to lose their money? No, they are here because they enjoy the game, the competitive play against decent opponents. They won’t do that if all their opponents were bots or “casual noobs”.
As a developer, I have two choices to build and maintain a decent playerbase: sell the game so cheap, almosr everyone can afford it – or sell the real good stuff for high price, and spend some of the income from the whales to “feed” many F2P/casual players, and give them a real chance to be competitive (ideally just a bit less than a paying one). If I cut them down like ballast, eventually I will lose the whales as well.
Or could it be that the long-term goal is to slowly let Hearthstone die, without causing a uproar by just shutting it down – because it is not very profitable anymore compared to their other products?…

Since the brawl is wild, I simply used Automaton Priest:

# 2x (0) Raise Dead
# 1x (1) Animate Dead
# 2x (1) Astral Automaton
# 2x (2) Creation Protocol
#
AAEBAa0GAaSRBQPXzgOm8QXt9wUAAA==

The direction of the rotation can be different from game to game. I do not know exactly how, I think it depends on wheather you play the first turn or not. This is why I suggested to wait for the right game which rotates counter-clockwise for you.
I admit, this tactic can’t win all or most of the games, because it depends on luck, but it is a super easy way to win at least one game with very little effort to get the reward pack.

With the addition of Death Knight, this brawl became completely broken. Here is the ultimate strategy: play Death Knight, and wait for a game when your minions rotate counter-clockwise, so you give your right-most minion to your opponent. Whatever cards you have, just be sure to use your hero power everey turn to summon a ghoul. It will be put on the rightmost position, and, because rotation happens before its automatic death, you can effetively steal all minions on the board for yourself. easy win.

Because they are stingy and greedy 😀

Dear Stonekeep, there was also a shop update on July 18, you can buy KelThuzad+card back for gold (and maybe other skins I already have).

I did not get the first one either, maybe at the end of the vote, on july 10th.

It should be because of Death Knight. Since 3-rune cards are part of standard, but specifically banned from all discover pools, this might mean an exception, so this card can discover all legal-in-format legendary minions, including 3-rune Death Knight ones.

I am VERY, TRULY DISAPPOINTED about this. Oh, not because of the new mode itself, but the replacement of Classic. This was the only ladder format where you could have any hope as a F2P user to eventually collect the cards for a competitive deck and reach legend without actually spending real money – and they took it away. And for completely no reason: why couldn’t they just put in the new format and leave Classic as it was? How would this be any worse?…
Well, I am totally angry. Tank you very much, dear Activision.

Dear Stonekeep,

Do we know anything in particular about all the old adventures available for gold in the in-game shop? Will it stay from now, or it is only temporary?

Great idea with this Plaguemaw, I will try it. Even better then the endless Dreadsteed 😀

Dear Stonekeep, in the description you wrote “5x Druid packs” to all bundles by mistake.