>>for example, add some of the features that players have asked for a long time, or improve the crafting system
>>and make it easier to get cards. If Blizzard’s answer is good, both games will thrive

As much as I would LOVE to see this for HS, I’m skeptical. One big “problem” for HS is that they already have so-called whales who are willing to pay >$100 each expansion just so they can try out all the new toys. If you make it easier to gain cards, there’s a good chance those players are going to spend significantly less, which will hurt the revenue stream. Conversely, I don’t know how many new players they are going to entice for a 5.5 year old game by making it nominally easier to get started. …But here’s to hoping. 🙂

By the raw numbers, it doesn’t look like tempo warrior and mech hunter are as successful–which surprises me, because my Bomb Hunter is just chewing up most of these greedy N’Zoth decks to the point where I feel guilty playing it. Murloc Paladin is the exception–looks like it should place around Rez Priest and Highlander Paladin in turns of competitiveness. Perhaps an intentional omission given there were already 2–frankly more interesting–Paladin decks listed?

>>“you can Maly + Innervate + Swipe for 21 face damage ”

I think he’s assuming you also have 2 moonfires in hand. (4+5) + (1+5) + (1+5) = 9+6+6 = 21. If you’re playing Malygos Druid, most games you are trying to hold Maly in-hand and bide your time until you can OTK your opponent, which is usually some combination of 2 moonfires, 1-2 swipe(s), and sometimes a faceless to duplicate your Maly.

No, they’re different. For example, Lazul’s default is something like 1 mana: create a 1/1 copy of a deathrattle minion from your deck. Very fun!

>>but since a 3-durability Mysterious Blade will likely still be around on turn 4

Mysterious Blade plus the bonus is a 3/2, not a 2/3. Thinking of Headhunter’s Hatchet? The argument still holds water, though: you need to build board fast with this archetype meaning under most circumstances you’d prefer to spend Turn 4 playing either another minion or buff while holding the 2nd Blade charge as a minion-killing threat.

It is possible to force the Truesilver on Turn 4, but most of the time you’ll end up either doing a low-value swing on Turn 3 just so you don’t lose the charge or swing-then-Truesilver on Turn 4, which seems even worse because you lose the surprise 4 damage. I end up in this exact scenario sometimes when playing the Whizbang secret deck–I’ve tried both ways and neither ever ends well.

You really don’t like the rogue? Granted, the still pic doesn’t really do it justice, but the swords glow and the animation for them is really slick.

I’m usually the last person to care about aesthetics–never pay money for new portraits, DE all my goldens, etc, but I saw that for the first time in game last night and though “geez, maybe I SHOULD play more rogue on ladder…”

I’d say Swashbuckler if you’re playing Quest or Fence, otherwise Cat. I give Cat the edge because out of the 13 reborn cards it can pull, 8-10 of them are pretty nice 1-4 mana cost additions to your opening hand and even the rest are usually decent. Compare that to the random “from another class” cards, where there are so many options that are either counter-productive, very poor value/synergy for your deck, or just too expensive to play until much later.

I think Secret Paladin and Cyclone/Quest Mage will become very interesting; both getting significant enough power increase from this to become meta-worthy. A few existing meta decks will just be augmented: Evolve probably fits into many existing Quest Shaman and Token decks, Kun will be auto-include for Quest Druid, and Bloodhoof for Aggro Warrior. I can see most if not all 5 neutrals being swapped into existing meta decks–i.e., Curator to thin out Highlander decks, N’Zoth for anything with more than 4 deathrattles, and Emperor + Rag + Syl are just that good. I’d also like to believe Sylvannas + N’Zoth is enough to finally make Deathrattle Rogue a thing again, but I don’t think it will be.

Other than that, I don’t predict things shaking up too much–e.g., I don’t foresee Control Priest or Quest Rogue becoming meta-worthy. But I hope I’m proven wrong in that regard–I always like seeing things changed up.

Zephrys sounds disgusting in this brawl–I don’t know what they were thinking not banning it outright!

I suspect this might be a stepping stone for future, broader projects–e.g., a way for players to manage their actual deck library through an HTML interface, or a tool that can reference their library and leverage AutoComplete to show them decks that they’re close to crafting, or maybe just a new way for Blizzard to data mine what cards/archetype players are interested in.

I think the biggest challenge right now is that the HS community has just gotten so good at min/max’ing their decks for the highest win rates. For instance: I actually think priest OVERALL is in a fairly weak spot right now. The new quest archetype is fun but too slow to be competitive, and the resurrection, wall, and Nomi archetypes that were borderline OK in RoS have all fallen off since SoU. The single exception is this aggro/combo archetype, which ~8% of players play and has a win rate of ~55%–and its literally made by incorporating all the best set pieces from the other archetypes and dropping the rest. Injured Tolvier and Neferset Ritualist were made to supplement the new quest. Psychopomp was intended for resurrection and wall. Bwonsamdi was intended for Spirit of the Dead shenanigans. None of them are ladder-worth on their own, but someone discovered you could mix them all together along with Lightwarden/Cleric/Divine Spirit/etc to create a very successful hybrid, and then everyone else quickly copied them.

Regarding incorporate “class downsides” to balance out this archetype: all you can really do is nerf Cleric. Otherwise, Cleric and Acolyte provide ample card draw, and face damage and multi-minion buffs are irrelevant to your win condition. Nerfing Cleric would hinder this archetype at the cost of totally cripping every other priest deck. And if they did: all these priest players would just netdeck whatever the 2nd most successful aggro deck is (currently Murloc Shaman, but Tip the Scales Paladin and Aggro Warrior are close behind), so other than seeing different cards the overall meta wouldn’t change much.

What’s the thinking behind Siamat in the murloc deck? Obviously its a versatile card, but I presume there’s a preferred game plan–e.g., do you want to drop it on curve as Taunt + DS to try to shelter your murlocs, or do you want to try to hold it back as a possible late game threat and/or answer?

Congratulations on scoring an interview with Blizzard staff!

>>you get packs after finishing a run, NO MATTER whether you downed plague lord

This isn’t precisely true. I ran out of time last night so I conceded Chapter 2 right after the first tavern–I want to say that’s Boss #4–and my run finished but I wasn’t awarded the corresponding packs. I want to guess that to win your packs, you need to finish a run and at least beat the first 7 bosses with any progress/downing on the final boss as optional.

I recall something similar with Dalaran: if I remember right, I received Zayle immediately after I reached the final boss(es) of Chapter 5, however I didn’t actually beat Chapter 5 until many weeks later.

>>However, unlike the previous bosses which reset between runs, Plague Lords will keep
>>the same health total & phase you left them in.
What happens if you replay a boss that you’ve already beaten? Do they reset to full health?

I’m surprised you put Mage Quest and Warrior Quest on the chopping block but not Warlock Quest. The former 2 are at least generic enough to justify budget homebrews or speculate about comebacks in future expansions; the latter seems like its pretty much as good as its going to get right now which is ~40% assuming you have a bunch of other legendaries to synergize.

I like the Sea Giants–this archetype can sometimes struggle to apply pressure until the quest is complete, so dropping an 8/8 can buy you some more time.

@Non123p: there are a lot of cards that are OK in this archetype, so I’d try one of them. Namely: a 2nd TImber Wolf or Cult Master, Hyena, Savanna Highmane, Eccentric Scribe, any reborn, any battlecry -> summon tokens… That said: nothing is going to be as good as Halazi–he just adds so much value to this archetype. Pre-completion, he gives you a lot of cheap tokens that help you progress; post-completion, he’s letting you constantly threaten lethal. I wouldn’t say he’s “must craft” for this deck, but you’re definitely going to lose some games you would have otherwise won with him in. Good luck!

This brawl… Ugg!! I accept that Blizzard just loves the dungeon run format for some reason, but why does it have to be so high-rolly? They reward us with broken cards, but then they make the bosses twice as broken and the “challenge” is either finding a combination from the offered random cards that synergizes so they are broken-squared…or just lucking into Robes of Guadiness, which is how I ultimately won. Would it be so awful to either reduce the power levels across the board or the deck building a little less RNG?

I wrote that based on the premise that Highlander Mage–and mage in general for that matter–is no longer competitive on ladder post nerf. Looking at the stats just now, its actually not as bad as I presumed (53% overall winrate with favorable matchups against quest and weak against aggro and tempo), so feel free to take that with a grain of salt.

I can definitively say though that I personally would feel very bad if that was the legendary that I paid $5 for because I would need to also craft a lot of other epics and legendaries to make a viable mage highlander deck, which simply is not worth it for a deck that is barely above the 50-50 water mark.

Grrr… $5 for a random legendary; that’s a tough choice. Especially with this set. Per the guide Stonekeep just wrote, there are ~10 out of the 23 that are really nice. On the other hand, there are many (Octosari, Supreme Archaeology, Raid the Sky Temple, Colossus, Anka, Reno, etc) that are borderline unplayable. And all of them except Siamat, Amet, and arguably Zephrys really need to you tailor your deck around them to shine. Really tough call.