I like this deck, but man it is insanely hard to pilot. You have to hold back and drop pyromancer + either cleric or acolyte at just the right time–too soon and you don’t draw enough cards, too late and you’re probably dead on board way before you get to Nomi.

I’m thinking Mega Fins (Hafu + Dog + Trump + RDU), with Rust Buckets (Thijs + Kibler + Amaz + Kolento) as a close second. I LOVE Firebat and Zalae, but they aren’t always as…fortuitous?…in competitions as most of the latter, and I’m thinking DisguisedToast and xChocoBars aren’t going to commit to this game enough to have their usual edge.

No, you shouldn’t–that way, I have a 0.02% higher chance of winning!

In all seriousness: even if the odds are ridiculously low, I think its cool that HSTD does this. Blizzard does gift them the codes, but its still extra work on their end to setup a fair contest which they didn’t have to do. If you do like this site, I’d recommend participating.

On my tablet, its always laggy for a day or two after the patch deploys but then it clears up. I usually limit myself to brawls and causal matches for those days so I don’t get upset if I toss a game. 😉

Teamfight Tactics, the League Of Legends autobattler. It’s been in “beta” since June with no sign of when said beta will end. Fortnight, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Slay the Spire, and Ark: Survival Evolved all did similar: for all practical purposes, they release an functional-but-unfinished game and then just continuously patch and balance for months and sometimes years until they feel like its done. If that’s your preferred method to develop your product that’s fine; it’s just not what “beta” has historically meant for video games.

>> …is currently only supported on mobile devices with more than 2 GB of RAM. This means
>> that some older devices may not be able to run Battlegrounds. As we progress out of Beta,
>> we will be optimizing the experience so that players with older devices can participate in this
>> new game mode.

Oh poo. I’ll have to check my tablet; it’s my primary HS device and old enough that it might not meet that. Hopefully “progress[ing] out of Beta” doesn’t mean the same thing here that it does for TFT…

The one archetype that you didn’t mention that I can see trying it is Resurrect Priest. For control matchups, you can play towards hiding your N’Zoth behind a wall of taunts and hope to dupe it the turn after, and for all other matchups you will probably eventually have a turn where something sticks and most of your minions you’re pretty happy to have duplicated. To be clear: I think it will be more of a side-grade / “win-more” card which won’t really catch on, but I can see people trying to make it work.

I think the HP is intentionally underwhelming because they are trying to compensate for the awesome battlecry. But yeah: unless straight-up control priest becomes a thing again, I don’t see this card making too much actual play just because random priest minions aren’t too great.

I REALLY don’t like Boogeymonster at Tier 5. I could maybe see it at Tier 4 where you sometimes just want a solid body, but by Tier 5 you’ve got a full bench and you’re looking for buffs, upgrades, and tribal synergies. Boogeymonster has none of the above. Maybe if they changed it so he also grows when hit into or made him like Zapp where he has some intelligence in who he hits, but as it stands, he’ll easily be the least-played card by a wide margin.

This. I always find myself wanting to write something at the end of OG’s articles to contribute to the conversation and yet being blocked because he’s already said everything worth saying.

One thing to remember: because coins don’t carry over, there’s a huge hidden upside to HPs that cost 1-2. Murloc King, for example, sound weak, especially if you don’t have a Warleader to synergize, but if you see a minion that you like and don’t have enough gold to buy, you can still freeze and spend your extra gold getting free 1/1s. And even if you don’t find anything you like before hitting your last gold: it’s probably still more valuable to buy seven 1/1s rather than rerolling one last time for the opportunity to freeze and buy next round.

I learned a little watching streams. Battlecries occur once when you play (ie, in Bob’s Tavern) and are permanent. Eg, Alley cat gives you 2 immediate bodies for your team and each can be sold back for 1G/ea, so she’s actually a great opener but useless later on. “At start/end of turn” also applies to Bob’s Tavern, assuming you’ve played the minion: eg, opening with a Micro Machine is just a 1/2 the first match, but then 2/2 the next match, then 3/2, etc. You could then play a Looper to battlecry: +2/+0, sell the Looper, buy a 2nd Looper, rinse – repeat. A lot of the battlecries seem to lend themselves to that Play-And-Sell strategy. Conversely, deathrattles and “whenever something dies” effects are strictly temporary and revert at the end of the match. “Whenever you summon” apply both in the tavern and to the “temporary minions” summoned during combat.

It promises to be extremely strategic and fun– I’m excited!

This sounds really interesting–I’m still unclear how its all going to work, though. It sounds like my minions are going to auto-fight the opponents’ until one side is clear, then we’ll both go to Bob’s Tavern afterwards and all our minions will be fully restored. Does that mean we get (re)play every minion we can before start of combat until we run out of either cards or board space? And how exactly will battlecries work? E.g., if I get an accumulating +2/+2 every time I start Pogo Hopper that sounds ridiculously overpowered, but if I don’t get a new 1/1 cat every time I start Alley Cat that sounds very underwhelming. …Can’t wait to hear how this all sorts out.

>>Game will be accessible through Hearthstone client in the new “Modes” section

My main problem with it is A.) it costs 9 mana, so it will be near impossible to play a worthy minion on the same turn, and B.) it’s friendly minions only so you can’t play it off your opponent. That means you’re either finding a way to cheat mana a la Tog Wand or Warlock Quest or you’re playing something that discounts itself a la Shivalla or Sea Giants. If you do hit it, the effect is strong enough that you’ll probably win, but it seems too conditional to be consistent.

Think of Invoke like old school C’Thun mechanics except from a hero card instead of a minion. Whenever you play say “Shield of Galakrond”, your Galakrond (whether its in deck or in hand) gets buffed–then you play it later for a huge effect. The exact effect differs for each class: the example they gave is priest destroys 1/2/4 random enemies if you’ve invoked at least 0/2/4 times, respectively. If you invoke 4 times, you also get a 5/2 weapon. And some cards gain effects based on the number of times you’ve previously invoked.

They also said something about whenever you Invoke, your get the effect of whatever your future hero power–the example they gave was Rogue-Galakrond’s hero power is “Add a random lackey to hand”, so for 5 mana you get a 4/5 taunt, a buff to your Galakrond (assuming you haven’t played it yet), and a random lackey in hand.

I personally am hoping the “nerf” Desert Hare to cost 2 mana instead of 3. Not because I think it would actually fix things–three 3-mana on turn 3 is still fairly powerful plus you’d still have all the synergy with Flesheater and Thing from Below–I just really want to see players complain about a cost reduction. 😉

Shaman is even more cruel IMHO. With the 1/1, your opponent at least has the option to attack. With an 0/2, it’s usually just going to sit there until next round when you can hit in and press the button again. Then they start their turn with a single totem against your 4 demons and the realization that any minions they play will be on your side of the board before their next turn starts.

Except there is no card entitled “Mysterious Secrets”?

Did you perhaps mean the common mage spell “Ancient Mysteries” which draws a 0-cost secret? And if so: did you perhaps skip last week’s speedrun? (A golden Ancient Mysteries was last week’s reward for completing in <40 minutes; the implication was that the offer expired on Tuesday but perhaps its still active.)

As I recall: it is the real-world time starting immediately after mulligan’ing on the first boss and ending when you lethal the final boss.

In other words: you should forfeit yesterday’s run and start a new one if you want to compete for the speedrun rewards.