Can someone explain why so many years after its inception, the game still usually has one class with a ~30% PR? Talk about balance…

Is there anywhere that I can see all the mercs with their abilities and equipment in spreadsheet form. Been googling for a while.

Totally not a direct rip off of (allegiance) bannerman from Legends of Runeterra which is a 4 mana 3/3 that gives your board +1/+1.

I strongly disagree:
Required xp reduced in place of events: says who?
3x tiers past 50 with proportionately less rewards: a cosmetic that many in the community screamed for
100 more xp and fewer quests that you’d reroll: economic
Complete quests in brawls and bg: how the game should be (play it your way)
500 gold + 5 packs is a lot as a random free handout

If you read bunnyhopper’s article, the new system actually gave about the same amount on average, so anything on top is already a “better” system than the old one.

That said, there’s still the test of time (aka the mini sets) as StoneKeep mentioned.

First off, this is seemingly the most passionate article I’ve ever read on this site. I really appreciate you weighing in. Although I don’t agree with some things in the article, I respect a thought out opinion, as do you, apparently. Reading bunnyhopper’s article is the extent of my number crunching resource, so I honestly don’t know if the new system is economically worse. That out of the way, now my take.

About fixing the “broken” new system; the most common suggestion is I’ve seen is “more/ double/ extra xp or gold”. As was mentioned, if economically both systems are similar, I believe making more tiers with proportionately less rewards per tier would go a long way. It’s the feeling of recieving consistent reward that makes one want to continue playing.

About “irrational” outrage; I believe the reason people are venting so much is because they still like the game and want to play it. Ironic, I know. Artifact, for example, had a (arguably) bad monetization structure. Instead of mass fury, the game simply disappeared into obscurity, like so many others.

About punishing ropers; it’s natural for someone to want an edge. In the old system, for “play 3 games with warlock”, I’d sometimes pack a deck with 30 self-damage cards and play casual mode. I’d be done in less than 15 minutes. It probably annoyed my 3 opponents hoping for a competitive game. The old system rewarded playing aggro for fast wins. It still does, btw, if you’re trying to get the 1k dk portrait for example;). The system currently rewards roping. If it’s correct morally? Maybe not. If it’s inherently wrong and punishable? Why should it be? This is a problem with the system, not necessarily the players that simply want an edge.

About harassing streamers and devs; hating on someone that disagrees with you is wrong. That said, players are frustrated and want their voices heard. How should they protest? Paint murals in front of trump tower? I think not. If blizzard makes a massive event to publicize their game, that’s probably the best place to do it. Private streamers are simply trying to make a living doing what they enjoy. Don’t attack them. But the tournament was literally a PR attempt. Sure, they hired streamers to compete, casters to cast, and many others to make it happen. All these people unfortunately ended up in between the community and the blizzard top brass. It’s unfortunate.

All that being said, over the past few months, I’ve slowly migrated to LoR. I actually stopped playing HS, nothing to do with ther battle pass. What I disliked was the ever increasing RNG as well as the structure of deck building. But that’s for another time. I’ve ranted on the bottom of other posts about that. The breaking point for me was how much more mobile data HS uses. Go figure. I still respect HS and truly enjoyed it, which is why I still log in to this site most days to keep up with the news. It’s the only place I can find consistent thought out and intelligent articles. Thank you again for not making as if the drama was nonexistent, even if we disagree. Keep doing what you do. I read the entire article as well as every comment before posting this, hopefully others will, too.

Who’s the god of metal now?

Meme is real with this one. That’s one god of metal. It’s 34 btw, because the mechwarpers are also mechs.

As a side note I’m slowly migrating to LoR because rng is way less dominant there yet the game it’s still complex and high skill cap.

Well put. There are many timmy’s in hs because of the highroll potential (and great animations). Blizzard needs to cater to an impossible variety of players.

I personally like my ccgs where we both players know each other’s deck for the most part, and only pure skill in deck building/ piloting reaches the top of ladder. I don’t mind facing rng in my game from time to time, as long as it isn’t a dominating factor. For this reason, my favorite decks included secret hunter (from before the spell stone nerf), old-school secret highlander hunter, embiggen druid (yes, really), a homebrew pain warrior (that I built and started tweaking the that 1/3 pirate was released), a homebrew pure pali (last expansion) and a homebrew control pali (current).

However, I’m aware that timmy exists, so I don’t vent. Some of the most interesting and enjoyable conversations I’ve had in game were with opponents that played an rng deck and super highrolled/lowrolled.

With highlander mage at the peak. Playing around cards would mean “maybe I shouldn’t make too threatening of a board, since my opponent might YOLO his (one of!) box of yogg causing someone (no idea who) to insta-win”…

There are a lot of things that if blizzard would copy from LoR would be great news. Yeah, this is one of them.
Instead of power creeping to keep the game fresh, LoR adds creative keywords making the game more complex. (Plunder, nightfall, etc.)
Riot clearly stated that they want every single card to be at somewhat playable and they balance update every few weeks to make that possible.
There’s no deck built around one or two broken cards (hi, Ezreal).

And the list goes on…

What’s even stranger about the card is that it’s an obvious fact that blizzard has tried to push hand buff archetypes meant times (warlock, paladin, hunter, etc.). This card directly hard counters any such strategy.
My thoughts on the nerf though, it may be enough. Time will tell. Now that it’s understated, it may not be an auto-include any more. Like any tech card that’s match specific, you need to decide if it’s worth running for the matches where it’s strong. Players would probably stop running it if hunter became top meta for example. I understand your pain as DH, but having cards that control specific decks from going rampant is usually good for a balanced meta.
Imagine there’d be an understatted card that reads “next turn your opponent’s cards can’t be played at reduced value”. People would complain that it “kills DH, pali, rogue and druid”. I think such a card would be amazing at keeping a meta balanced. Having strong decks in existence is fine (hi pali). Going against the same 2 decks every time isn’t. Enter tech cards.

Druid is a paradox. It’s class identity is supposed to be
1) the force (big beasts)
2) of nature (plant tokens)
3) will rise against you (ramp).
Every time blizzard makes enough cards for druid to what he does best, players complain that “it’s cheat”. Cheating out two 5-drops on T3 or a swarm on T2 is literally what druid is supposed to be able to do thematically. I’m not saying that it isn’t annoying to face. If you don’t like it, tech against it. I don’t see the complaints to be well founded.
I happen to not play druid, partially because I don’t play “tier 1 meta decks” unless I built it myself. Just my personal playstyle.

As someone that main decked pure pali (successfully) throughout the last expansion, I believe that it is very misunderstood how to build the deck. The reason pure pali was so “bad” last expansion, was because there was a completely different meta. DH, warrior, and rouge defined what else could be played. Also, players didn’t tech correctly.

I spent a while searching around for the following innovations that I came up with and couldn’t find them online.
I ran call to adventure giving me 4 draws to get aldor attendant. Therefore I didn’t run any other 1-drop minions. Getting access to libram discount is key to winning. I ran only murgur as a 2-drop minion since my alternative pull with CtA is preferably bronze explorer or dragon rider talritha. Murgur was mainly for late game in longer matchups.
Hand of a’dal was actually pretty bad. Sure, +2/+2 and draw seems strong, but without perfect draw (attendant into hand) I can’t play it on curve. Also, you’d rather get only (discounted) librams from lady liadrin. For the same reason, I only ran one other buff card besides librams (see below).
I ran Nozdormu the Timeless. This is the most underrated pali card imo. It makes up for lack of early game. It hard counters druid and soft counters any aggro deck.
I ran lightforged blessing. It likewise helps make up for early game. In the mirror match, only I can heal me minions with libram of hope and amber watcher since they also heal face after I play my twinspell. Noz into blessing is often game winning when played on curve.
I used air raid as a non-minion stall card. It also has synergy with 2 of the 3 librams.
The only “filler” was 3-drops. I ran talritha and bronze explorer. Both are pretty weak as is, but can have strong synergies when they pull together.
When the ladder was nothing but DH, I ran get down as a one off. It came in clutch many times.

I’m not amazing at hs, yet I had an overall 57% winrate. I lost exactly 1 game to druid, and 3 games to DH. I had a positive winrate against every class (including pali) except priest. I hated the inevitable 30+ minute game against priest so much, that I conceded every time b4 the match started. It could be that’s why I had such “bad” WR.

Aside for being bad draws from your quest HP, they’re bad draws in general imo. The real value of fragments is in destroying them. Quest Warlock’s problem wasn’t exactly sustainability until now. I can’t see this being stronger than the current versions.

I almost thought this entire expansion would only 1 (slightly frazzled but overstatted) vanilla card. I guess “demons? Demons.”

The meme combo potential is real with this one. (Oh, hi Mark)

Incidentally, brawl is probably not such good synergy with the new legendary card.

It’s not political, but #AllClassesMatter 😉

I don’t play wild that much, but there’s an “improved” DK OTK paladin that uses librams since it’s the only 0 cost spel in that class. Coin from licensed adventurer + 2 librams is the full OTK w/o discounts. First day of school might solve that issue.

For example, if you play it on Turn 2, then you can use Overgrowth on turn 3.
Correction(?): T1 Nature Studies into T2 Overgrowth.