I suspect what they did was take their “buckets” from dungeon runs and make an algorithm that randomly picks them, then assigned it a name based on whatever buckets were picked the most. For example: if you look at the infamous “Mercenaries 280”, you see that the entire deck is pirates and weapons with the exception of a few armor cards–namely Justicar Trueheart, Heavy Metal, and Yip–which seem entirely out of place. But there’s no Omega Assembly, Doctor Boom, or any of the other great cards you might expect if you were just randomly picking any warrior cards out of a hat.

There were originally more warrior decks, Mercenaries 280 just beat them all out. I don’t know that there were 279 other warrior decks with pirate themes per-say–I suspect the number is a hash value, not a sequential enumeration–but I do recall seeing 2-3 other warrior decks the first day I played.

I don’t think this will count towards your pogo tally, since that card explicitly says “each other Pogo-Hopper you PLAYED” while this says summon. And since its a summon, it won’t trigger battle-cry. So probably not for pogos; moreso good deathrattle minions like Cairne.

It’s a neat idea, but not a Two-Turn-Kill. To do that: substitute Batterhead for Linecracker and Mad Summoner for Whirlwind Tempest. T9: drop Linecracker + Ancestral Spirit (to help it stick). T10: if they have any minion with < 5 health, drop Whirlwind Tempest + Windfury; attack in to minion to kill it, then you can either go face for 3×10 immediately or kill any other enemy minion with < 9 health to go face for 2×20.

I also like Spirit of the Frog to help thin out this deck and find the combo sooner.

Ps,- I love your YouTube videos!

I suspect the ideal Quest Paladin curve will be something like Crystology on T1, Quest + Murmy on T2, and then either this guy plus another 1 drop on T3 or a Call to Adventure. In other words: with all these tutor effects, I think Quest Paladin is going to be less focused on spitting out reborn minions as fast as possible so to race for quest completion and more focused on tempo and value.

I appreciate the dedication to flavor, but come on! A locust is a bug, not a beast!

I feel really bad for Dekkster, the streamer who was asked to reveal this card. He’s been working so hard on growing his audience, he finally gets big enough to be asked to do a card reveal, his followers were so proud…and then he gets this card. He tried really hard to sell it in his video, too, but its just too overcosted at 5 mana to be competitive–which most neutral commons are supposed to be.

Contrast with Firebat’s card reveal, where he basically said “yeah, the only deck that even might play this card is Quest Druid”.

Conceptually this sounds like a fun experiment. I just worry a little for what the “meta” will possibly look like towards the end of the week.

>>I allready wrote a comment, but seems you only read the reply’s on your own comment.
No offense meant; I just usually don’t re-read these threads after I go through them once.

>>Get a Heistbarron + Spirit of Shark for double Draw 3x cards. Myra’s unstable element
>>your deck. Togwaggle’s Scheme 7+ Desert Obelisk into your deck. And draw all 6 of
>>them and play them all for 6 mana. And you do 30 damage.
I guess that could work; I just cringe at all the necessary conditions (you forgot needing either coin or Prep for your Myra turn) and how slow, all to setup a combo that probably won’t even present lethal. But you do you, man–if chasing this meme makes you happy, by all means, go for it.

Rogue has the best way for getting extra copies into her deck, but then she still needs to draw them and has no way to discount them–unless you count Togwaggle’s Wand, and at that point seriously why aren’t you just playing Leeroy instead? Keep in mind: this is a 5-mana cost card so you can only play 2 per turn without a trick, and they’re 0/5 so they die to almost anything that late in the game.

Druid can play Obelisk, Faceless, and Goopsprayer all in the same turn so long as Jepetto hit two of them, and that give you 4. Elise’s battlecry will replicate the discount, giving you even more potential ways to make 3 or more on the same turn (or possibly even 6 if you can replicate a discounted Goopsprayer). The problem, again, is that it’s just too easy for your opponent to reclaim board, and then what to you do?

Possible activators I can think of in standard:
Neutral: Faceless Manipulator, Dollmaster Dorian
Druid: Goopsprayer, Floopmaster, Elise
Paladin: quest
Priest: resurrection effects, Seance, PW: Replicate, Vivid Nightmare, and technically Unsleeping Soul
Rogue: scheme, Lab Recruiter
Warrior: Bloodsworn Mercenary, Dimensional Ripper, Boom Reaver

Of all these, druid seems to be the only one with a chance, and that assumes some Jepetto -> Elise chicanery. And even then: you have one strong turn, and then you’re done. Your opponent doesn’t even need to board-clear–they just need to take out all but 2 obelisks. I’m sure they’ll announce a few more cards with some potential synergy, but cards like this make me cry which I open them.

I had mixed feelings about this until you mentioned Chef Nomi. Thinning you deck out by 7 cards forces this a do-or-die scenario–either you opponent has a board clear and then you’re out-of-gas or they don’t and you probably win–but maybe you don’t care if you’re running a secondary win condition like Nomi or Mechac’thun.

Good thought-provoking article. I would argue that we already have something comparable to Kicker in the “Forbidden” cards (although all the ones they’ve printed so far have been underwhelming) and the “Echo”/Cast Again cards. I would also argue that Heroes are already somewhat comparable to Planeswalkers in effect–both give you an ongoing “once-per-turn” ability and many will also grant an ongoing effect similar to an emblem, but I will admit that Hero cards just don’t feel as “cool” as PWs.

Your most interesting proposition is Scry. I think one of the biggest challenges with Hearthstone right now is that it is so much “feast or famine”, so if you’re playing an off-meta deck (e.g., homebrew, budget, meme-y) its really easy to loose tempo, get punished, and spend the rest of the game praying you top-deck what you need to stabilize. In Magic, a lot of midrange and combo decks will include Scry cards so they can increase the odds of drawing the cards they need without sacrificing too much tempo.
But as you predict, the problem is: how in HS do you help the players caught behind without also just helping winning players snowball more? [See: Corridor Creeper] Between the smaller decks, the use of automatic mana crystals instead of land cards, and the generous mulligan rules, I can’t think of any way to make Scry less of a potential offensive weapon.

The other thing to remember: Darius isn’t a true Overkill; his card explicitly says “After this attacks and kills a minion..”, so even if you did for example find Darius off a Weaponized Pinata and then throw Beeeees into him on your own turn, he shouldn’t buff himself the same way Linecracker would.

>>After becoming an admin, I had much less time to write about stuff, and card reviews were really
>>time-absorbing. I have to say that I’ve missed it – reveal season is my favorite time of the HS
>>expansion cycle (I like it even more than the early days of an expansion, believe it or not) and writing
>>about new cards only added to that experience.

The sacrifices from being promoted. 🙂 Thank you for making the time to do this; I hope you enjoyed writing it as much as we enjoy reading it.

Duke, I think you’re mistaking the constraint that Overkill can only trigger on your turn for meaning that Linebreaker / Ticket Scalper need to be attacking. I made the same mistake.

I think you two got it right. Any other class would be excited for the potential value, but mage just wants to drop Giant on Turn 4 into Conjuring on Turn 5 and then SMOrc to victory.

I think the big reason is because 20 cards is a huge number, so under normal conditions the reward won’t activate until you are close to fatigue at which point you probably don’t want to draw any more cards. Obviously Plot Twist changes that math a lot, but in the current meta Plot Twist decks are pretty much meme decks and people tend to judge future cards based on their impressions on the current meta. If this new expansion also gives Warlock something like White Eyes or Dire Frenzy, I think that changes the math a lot.

Kethcup: I think because they’re comparing it against previous cards like Eater of Secrets and Flare. The former not only punishes your opponent but gives you a nice payoff, and the latter is cheap and cycles so you don’t feel too bad if your opponent is playing any secrets.

I agree that a 5/4 for 4 mana isn’t bad; however I don’t think its going to see any widespread play unless either 1.) secret decks become at least 33% of the meta, or 2.) there’s a specific new deck that can easily cycle but really hates secrets. Otherwise, you’d probably prefer to draw a card that either synergizes with your own win strategy or which has impact against more meta decks.

This card at least looks playable, which is more than I can say for the other new cards. Specifically: I could see this in imp decks that want to go wide–it give all the imps +1 attack plus it has taunt which hinders value trades. It’s not much, but at least its something.