My guess is that the thinks that Highlander means “Velen combo” deck, because nearly every Highlander Priest build was running one.

To the creator, Highlander means no duplicate cards (only singletons, to support cards like Reno Jackson, Kazakus etc.). It’s a reference to the line from Highlander movies, “there can be only one”.

I think the devs have mentioned during K&C reveal season that they don’t plan to print more Rogue Secrets soon, it was just a thing in that expansion.

But they might have obviously changed their mind!

I’m quite sure that the deck was drafted before hotfix. I drafted like 3 or 4 decks after that and they were nowhere near close to the previous insane power level, just like my opponents. Relatively small sample size, so still hard to say, but it feels better now.

But the thing is, Kripp wasn’t really wrong. It’s not the fault of a new drafting system. It’s the fact that they’ve significantly increased average power level of every Arena decks WHILE making that change.

The change about “showing 3 cards of similar power level” has nothing to do with crazy powerful Arena drafts. Kripp was right that it couldn’t get worse, because Blizzard has nowhere stated that the average power level will go up so significantly while switching to the new system.

Edit: Just checked it. Deck was drafted on 14th, hotfix went live on 16th. Draft on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/238780967?t=02h06m23s

It does not matter at all, it will disenchant for 1,600 now and still for 1,600 after it rotates out 🙂

Do you mean Hall of Fame or just regular rotation?

If Hall of Fame, you should wait until the card rotates out before disenchanting it.

If you’re talking about normal rotation, it doesn’t change anything, it will disenchant for the same amount anyway.

Nothing, it won’t happen. Hearthstone is based on Warcraft’s lore and they have no reason to change it. Adding a StarCraft expansion wouldn’t fit at all and would be super confusing.

They might make another game based on StarCraft’s lore in the future, obviously, but it’s not this one.

It heavily depends on the matchup and situation, but there are definitely many times when you have Aluneth but shouldn’t play it.

One of those situations is when you have a strong tempo turn – e.g. you can do something like Kirin Tor Mage + Counterspell + Kabal Crystal Runner. It puts 9 attack on the board and Counterspell, which makes it very hard for your opponent to AoE that board down. Keeping up the tempo and aggression is often more necessary than getting that card draw going.

Also, when you’re playing against another fast deck, and you stare at something you really need to clear (e.g. Murloc Warleader vs Murloc Paladin) – then playing Aluneth and just dying is not really a good play.

Overall, you want to play Aluneth as soon as you can, but not if you a) can make a really strong tempo turn and b) you absolutely have to clear something on the board and you won’t be able to if you play Aluneth.

It’s really on a case-to-case basis, but I probably skip playing Aluneth around 1/3 of time I can play it. Remember that playing it is a big tempo loss immediately, even though you catch up pretty quickly, you still might be giving your opponent an opening you don’t want to give.

Well, that’s what card reviews are for… Of course it’s impossible to realistically measure the card’s power without knowing what meta we will have and what other cards will get printed. Even the worst card might be good with enough synergies.

But it’s just a fun thing to do. This is just my early opinion of the card, I can’t be sure about ANYTHING at this point, but this card just looks really bad to me, given how restrictive it is. With so many more cards to come, I can be completely wrong, but I don’t mind, since I just enjoy talking about the new cards.

I don’t call every card bad. I call cards that I think will be bad “bad”

How in the world is this card good for Tempo and Control decks? Tempo decks, like their name suggests, want to play a tempo game. 7 mana 3/3 that is useless in some matchups is not a tempo game.

And when you play Control, you have a big hand of your own… You don’t want to REPLACE it with your opponent’s hand almost ever. You prefer your cards, because they fit your deck better and you have synergies of your own. Even if you end up with 2 or 3 more cards than you had, you still would rarely want to do that. Like, stealing Possessed Lackey or Skull or Prince Taldaram etc. from Warlock – opposing Control deck will always run a bunch of cards that are useless in your deck.

And you’re completely ignoring the fact that this card is 100% dead in case your opponent has less cards than you do. I don’t know if you noticed, but it does not COPY your opponent’s hand and adds to yours. It replaces your hand with your opponent’s one.

Even if this card has potential in one matchup (Warlock), you don’t put a card that is good against let’s say 15% of the ladder and sucks against everything else into your deck.

Thus, this card is bad. It has some potential, but only in Aggro vs Control. Which I don’t believe is enough for it to see play. But you don’t have to take my word for it, just play around with it once it comes out and see for yourself.

But real talk. Everyone is saying how bad Warrior and Shaman are right now, but Rogue is also in a pretty terrible spot after the latest nerf, which almost killed the Tempo archetype.

We haven’t had a strong slow/combo-oriented Rogue archetype in a while and I’d love to see one! I know that Miracle is, well, always “a thing”, but realistically only for the few dedicated players, who spend most of their time playing the deck.

“pretty sure they will”

You’re talking about the Odd/Even cards? Then I’m more than “pretty sure” that they won’t. Devs already confirmed that you won’t be able to draft them in Arena, just like C’Thun and his related cards (even though they were also alright by themselves).

You’re right that Soulthief would be good in Aggro vs Control matchup. But I think you didn’t consider Aggro or Midrange mirrors, who will also have a nearly empty hand at that point.

You also don’t consider the fact that playing a 7 mana 3/3 is a big tempo loss unless you’re ahead on the board, and that alone can give your opponent an opportunity to come back.

The card has a lot of potential in some situations, but it just looks way to inconsistent to be good.

You can read my whole review on the card’s page: http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/cards/azalina-soulthief/

“There are going to be alot of over powered odd or even cards”

Not really, though. The ones we already know are almost all of them. Not every class is going to get one.

You can’t run this in Spiteful Summoner deck. Spiteful Summoner, Grand Archivist and the two big spells you run – Free from Amber and Mind Control are ALL even cards.

I see your point. We’ll have to wait to see more Warlock cards, but Genn Handlock might actually be a thing.

Good thing, the average power level of an Arena deck was really too high. A deck that could easily get to 12 wins before the change was average now. I had the most insane Arena draft ever and I only went 10-3 (and trust me, that would be easy 12-0 or 12-1 before) – after 5 wins I’ve faced other bonkers decks every time. Lost one game to Paladin draft with 3 Tarims, lol.

Only Shaman is getting a Hero card this expansion.

There might not be anything “unique” like Quests, Hero Cards or Legendary weapons this expansion. Or they might come up with something new. We’ll have to wait for more cards to see!

Yeah, everything REALLY depends on what kind of cards they print for Mage now and in the upcoming expansions. I think that Black Cat has a lot of potential, because the card is crazy good when it works. But we need at least a few powerful odd-cost cards (especially spells) to make it work.

Thank you very much! 🙂

Baku and Genn effects look at your deck at the start of the game, but those Battlecry minions don’t. It’s technically possible to play both odd and even cards, and play one of them once you’re left with no odd/even cards in your deck.

But none of those minions really fit that purpose. The only card that was ever played in that manner was Reno Jackson in combo decks – but Reno’s effect is much stronger than any of those cards.

You’re right that it’s possible, but it’s definitely not worth it.

Even with just a few even cost cards in your deck, there is a very high chance that one of them will be stuck near the bottom of your deck. You’d still have to draw nearly whole deck to activate the effect. And at that point, when you’re with a few cards left in your deck, you actually don’t want to draw the cards.

It’s like – you COULD play two copies of some cards in Highlander decks, but most of the optimized lists didn’t, because it decreased the consistency by a lot. Even a single card. Now, if you’d add let’s say 6 even cost cards, on average one of them would be in the last 5 cards.

And without the card draw part, this card is bad for the majority of the game. So you’d be playing a 3 mana 3/3 with Spell Damage (we had a Mech like that, can’t remember his name right now), which has a card draw around the time when you don’t want to draw cards anymore…

You’d definitely want to play it with Baku and only odd-cost cards.