Of course private life can make a difference in someone’s professional career and it has always been like that. I don’t know why people act like it’s some sort of a new thing.

The thing is that when you work for a company, especially a big company, you’re there because you’re making them more money than they pay you. That’s really the only reason. But now, if you do something that might damage their image to the point that people would stop supporting them or buying their products, they don’t want to keep you anymore, because you’re losing them money.

Like in this case. Zalae was a bad PR for Blizzard – people were talking about him quite often on social media, they were bringing him up quite often, I’ve heard many people won’t watch Grandmasters because of him and so on. If they did nothing and let him play like nothing happened, I’m sure that many people wouldn’t like it.

Heck, even in a smaller company, what you do in private life can make you look bad in your professional life. When your boss finds out that you’re doing something that he doesn’t approve, even if it’s your own business, there’s a very high chance that it will impact your career whether you feel it’s “fair” or not. E.g. he might not give you a raise/promotion, or even find a reason to fire you.

Also, domestic abuse is something very different from smoking cannabis. One is clearly wrong and one is arguably not that bad, or even good for your health in many cases. But honestly? Yes, many people would fire you for smoking in places where it’s illegal to do so (like in my country, I personally know a couple of people who got fired because their employer found out that they’re into it).

That’s just how it works. Is it how it SHOULD work? That’s another story.

I’m not sure if I understand your problem correctly, but Core cards aren’t playable in Classic format.

For example, if you have a Core version of Cenarius and not the Classic one (now called Legacy in Wild), it won’t be playable in Classic format.

Yes, it does. I think that only Golden packs don’t have pity timers (but I’m not 100% sure on that).

Yes, it’s bugged…

Eh, I see people asking for a nerf to Tickatus, but I can’t agree with it. I don’t like nerfing decks that are already pretty meh.

Also, after playing some Control Warlock, I don’t think it’s Tickatus that “shuts down” Control decks as much as Jaraxxus. I faced Control Priests and won games without Tickatus even being relevant – the game was over before they hit fatigue because of 6/6’s every turn. Control Warlock is just a deck that thrives against Control and gets destroyed by Aggro. I don’t think that Control decks having a counter / bad matchup is a bad thing. Every deck should have those.

RSW is already bad if no conditions are met – 4 mana to draw 2 cards is maybe not as bad as a 6 mana 4/6, but both are terrible cards that would see no play, and that’s all that matters when it comes to cards like that.

I honestly think that nerfing it to 5 would kill it, it would become too slow against Aggro and you would no longer be able to play it and still use all of your mana, so you’d have to delay it very often. E.g. right now you often play it on T5 and then still drop Apexis Blast – all plays like that would be delayed by a turn. The biggest selling point of RSW is that you can play it and it won’t disrupt your gameplan. And it’s a build-around card, those are meant to be stronger. Warrior and Rogue are often playing 0 mana card draw if they build the right deck too, and other classes also have or had access to cheap draw.

Anyway, I’m almost sure that Lunacy will be their first choice. And honestly, it might be enough – Spell Mage is strong, but it’s actually not AS powerful as some people might think and its play rate might suggest. It has like 52-53% WR on average, which is pretty normal for a Tier 1 deck. Just hitting Lunacy should bring it closer to 50% WR. Maybe they decide to nerf a second card just in case, and then Flow or RSW are the most obvious choices, so we’ll see.

Yeah, Durability down to 2 is the most obvious nerf. Making it pull 2 instead of 3 Secrets means that it’s still a good option, but no longer deciding games when played on curve.

It’s a bit like Warrior’s Ancharrr, which was busted at 2/3, and then still very strong, but no longer imbalanced at 2/2.

By that well I meant as well as last expansion, it’s still far behind Paladin and Mage in terms of WR, and one of the main reasons why it works so good is a good matchup against the most popular deck on the ladder (Spell Mage). That’s why I don’t think it needs a major nerf. Keep in mind that nerfing Pen Flinger is already a nerf to Rogue (of course assuming that Flinger will get hit), if you throw in its good matchup (that’s ~30% of the ladder) getting a nerf AND another nerf on top of that, that would be too much IMO.

Aggro Rogue is now ~2.5% of the ladder, I wouldn’t call that “full”. And according to the stats, Aggro Rogue is like mid Tier 2, so I don’t think it really need any more nerfs right now.

Don’t worry, I don’t think that they’re reading comment section here 🙂 But that’s an interesting bug! Indeed, you can get some extra XP this way. I probably won’t go out of my way to do it, but maybe I’ll try next week if it’s not fixed.

Oh yeah, I’ve seen some Murloc Shaman decks, they seem to have got a nice buff with the new cards. Cool that you’re enjoying it and playing something off-meta.

Well, remember that Jandice Barov is a Rogue card too, so the class might not get “its own” nerf 🙂 But otherwise, interesting guesses!

And what’s the deck you’re playing?

And the bug? Because I honestly haven’t heard about it.

I would guess Self-Sharpening Sword late last expansion, but Aggro Rogue isn’t doing THAT well right now, so I’m not sure if they will hit the card.

Jandice has insane played WR right now, the 5-drop pool became really good after the rotation, that’s why I think they might nerf her, because it’s not only a “current” problem, she will remain OP as long as they keep printing good 5 mana minions.

But I agree that Spring Water can get hit rather than Flow. However, Flow is easier to nerf – you increase its cost to 3 and you’re done. Weaker, but still playable. With Spring Water, it’s much harder to come up with a nerf that doesn’t outright kill it.

In a similar vein, you could say that Reno is a 6 mana 4/6 that heals you to full, how is he balanced?

Yeah, I get that Refreshing Spring Water is a bit too strong, but you can’t say that being at 4 mana is its only condition. A pretty major deckbuilding restriction (you have to run exclusively or at least almost exclusively spells) is another condition.

And the biggest problem is that I don’t see a way to nerf it without killing it. Putting it to 5 kills it. Making the spells refresh mana by 1 kills it.

That’s true – it’s been officially confirmed now! 🙂 https://twitter.com/Songbird_HS/status/1379490771577962497

You okay?

I also think that they’re pushing too many skins / bundles / etc. lately, but keep in mind that design team which creates new cards, engineering team which fixes bugs and marketing/sales team which works on all the promos, bundles etc. are all separate. You can’t take a marketing person and tell them to help with bug fixing, for example. That would end up even worse, haha.

Yeah, they probably wouldn’t comission artwork like that just for a single blog post, so I’m pretty sure that some of them will be turned into portraits etc.

Well, not exactly. Mercenaries will be a part of this year’s expansions story – they will be back in 2nd and 3rd expansion, possibly even mini-sets, and will get their own PvE mode.

I’m pretty sure that they will also be present in Mercenaries game mode, but that’s a different thing. This blog post contains no info about new mode itself, but rather those characters.

Eventually we’ll get all the Rewards Track portraits anyway… after over 3 years worth of expansions, that is 😀

Yes, thanks for pointing it out!

However, a quick update: Section 4.3 of the rules state that MOBILE app should be eligible for drops. It’s just TV and “media device” apps that won’t work. At least that’s some good news 🙂