I thought so too, but then they said “tie in to this Hearthstone year’s theme” at the end of their reveal post.

If they’re going to introduce, it would either be at the very beginning(like we saw for demon hunter) or the very end. Tying together the final reveal and Hearthstone year announcement is unusual timing, but would make sense if introducing a new class

Hmmm revealing most of the expansion, and then doing a final reveal(perhaps all cards for an unannounced class) along w/ the 2022 theme + core set changes. Just baseless speculation – but this would be one way to introduce monk…

My issue is that this was clearly designed to encourage playing other dragons. Instead, the majority of decks do the opposite, using it with ramp/mana cheat in spell heavy decks.

Perhaps change the text to “If # of minions in your deck are Dragons” etc?

Team 5 I thought we learned our lesson about giving aggro refill(see Divine Favor)

Why?

This almost certainly does ramp. For those who don’t play WoW, Agony is a warlock damage over time spell that deals more & more damage the longer it lasts.

Regardless of it’s power level, IMO this is one of the coolest warlock cards they’ve made in a long time. Perfectly represents Hearthstone’s take on a damage over time mechanic and Agony in particular

Too much healing now, but was necessary for Demon Seed to even be achievable(just overturned that it currently provides too much). A ton of the toolkit will rotate soon(printed before Demon Seed was even in early design) that I question if it will even be viable without Tour Guide, Backfire, Giants, Raise Dead…

For full transparency, I want to begin stating that I’m a warlock main. I also want to thank you for putting together this article addressing warlock’s overall design, which I agree needs to be discussed.

However, I have to say that this comes off incredibly biased and one-sided, grossly skewed towards the current state of the class, and failing to acknowledge other classes that have also utilized similar toolsets. For example, mana cheating in some form has been used by mages(Incanter’s Flow) and most other classes at some point during Hearthstone’s history. We’re also in the 3rd set of a rotation, meaning the healing and removal/AOE card pool for all classes is at its highest possible point, not just warlocks.

Now, long term warlock design is and has been a major challenge. In my opinion, the biggest problem is the inability to design balanced warlock archetypes for standard outside of Zoo, which seemingly end up being either OP(Cubelock/Demon Seed) or uncompetitive(discard/plot twist) with little in between. I also believe that, similar to WoW, warlock lost a significant portion of it’s class identity/design space when demon hunter was introduced(let’s be honest, Big DH feels like a warlock archetype). Disruption is also supposed to part of warlock’s identity, but Tickatus is a perfect example of how the community throws a fit when such a card is printed, and so far, Team 5 seems hesitant to embrace disruption in Hearthstone overall, which is an important tool for most card game control strategies.

Again, thank you for bringing up this topic for discussion, and I look forward to any reply

“Disruption” is listed for the warlock strengths on the class identity post that Team 5 put out last year

Stonekeep – I really don’t understand…I thought hand disruption was a warlock class strength? And yet, they’ve only gotten 1 hand disruption card per year?!?

2019 – Chaos Gazer(Peter Whalen even made a comment about adding more hand disruption to warlock)
2018 – Demonic Project
2017 – Gnomeferatu(technically destroys from deck not hand)

Very very cool, but what do you do with it? Quest/control seems to have the tools, but without a clear win condition, particularly when you’re often approaching fatigue. Mechathun? Summoning 1/1 imps with Galakrond? haha

As an iPad player appreciate the update! Sucks to have to wait an extra day, but based on all of the issues being posted on the subreddit, it’s definitely better to get everything fixed and then submit for the mobile update approval process. The repeatable free arena rewards in particular yikes

Very surprised that we haven’t seen nerfs yet. I figured they would be announced shortly following HCT

25 packs in and so far Oblivitron and Madam Lasule…so yeah…haha. Also servers seem to be struggling on EU

Forgot to factor in the overload before Kragwa, but still haha

IF you can get it to stick, this copying Malygos, then a combination of Lava Burst + Lightning Bolt next turn, and then Kragwa to refill…wow

For some reason I’ve always kept mine around just in case it would some day even be semi-viable haha

So…other than zoo, what exactly is warlock’s identity post-rotation? Hopefully the rest of the set gives some direction since it really didn’t get any viable archetypes last year(which I get given the dominance of cubelock) other than maybe discard?

This is a card that always needs to exist in some form in standard. It doesn’t have to be amazing, but there should always be a neutral tech card option for combo disruption. If there’s ever a change to the classic set, a card like deathlord/dirty rat/this should be one of the 1st in line to be added