I can’t say that I have enough experience in the matchup (haven’t played the Baleful version of Quest Druid yet) to judge. Maybe the version is great against N’Zoth builds after all, and better overall, but people just haven’t learned how to play it correctly yet – it happens! I’ll definitely test it out soon – there’s just so much to play now that I didn’t get opportunity to playtest everything yet (given that between the event and Blizzard/Blitzchung drama, there was a lot happening this week).

Early tier lists are tricky to make, because I have to base them on my limited experience and limited stats available. So I often end up placing decks or writing their descriptions based on “gut feeling” more than extensive experience. But I don’t really know a better way to do it 🙂 When I update it ~two weeks later, I usually have enough stats to work with that I’m more confident in the list. I can’t leave it hanging for that long, though.

And yes, Zephrys is an answer! But it’s a hit or miss one, because it might not be active yet at the time your opponent drops N’Zoth. Sometimes you get those perfect games with 2x Nourish, lots of cycle etc. and then Zephrys is active early, but other times it’s not until way past your opponent’s Turn 10.

P.S. Could you link me the build you’ve been playing?

Apologizes about the Armor error – fixing it now (I just got the 7/7/7 number stuck in my head :D).

As for the Baleful Banker – right now, Banker decks report lower win rate than regular builds. According to stats we have so far, I don’t believe that adding Banker to your deck is beneficial. You can still get N’Zothed before you can, and it’s not a great card to have in other matchups (especially getting it in your early hand, where you REALLY want stuff to come back after skipping the first 4-5 turns). But of course, we just have stats from the first few days, things can change when we get more. Maybe it’s just that people don’t know how to play the Banker builds correctly yet.

And then, when talking about the answers I meant AoE board wipes like Brawl, Plague of Wrath, Plauge of Death, Equality + Pyro, Twisting Nether etc. I could have made it more clear.

But thanks for your input, I’ve added a mention of Baleful Banker in the deck’s description and I’ll be looking at the deck closely when updating the tier list after meta stabilizes.

I believe that Weibo statement was written by NetEase, who operate Blizzard games in China, and not Blizzard itself. At least it sounds like that. I mean, American company wouldn’t talk about China as “our country”, right?

Of course, there’s no way to prove it, but at least it sounds that way. And Blizzard could still force them to remove it. Just giving some more context.

Yep, sorry, Corbett fixed it already!

Oh yeah, sorry about that, it was a mistake. We aren’t back to rarity-based picks, it’s just that card buckets were (experimentally) removed in this latest patch. It means that you won’t be offered 3 cards of a similar power level (dictated by Blizzard) at each pick – meaning that you can see e.g. a bad, an average and an amazing card in a single pick, just like it was back in the day.

When the change was first talked about by Iksar on reddit, it was commonly misunderstood as going back to rarity picking altogether, but he clarified it.

The second part with Neutral cards will be out in the upcoming days, so stay tuned! 🙂

Yes, they are separate cards with separate import codes.

Sadly, our site doesn’t allow to have 2 cards with the same name, so I decided to remove the “Wild” versions and only have the “Standard” versions for now, until the event ends. So while I get why it would mess up with Wild decks codes, I didn’t think that Standard would be affected in any way.

Our decks are tagged as Standard AND they have the Standard versions of the card included, so I have no clue why it doesn’t import properly to HDT. Have you tried exporting from other sources, like HearthPwn or something? If it would work fine there, then it probably means that the problem lies on HSTD…

Sorry to hear that. Yes, it’s most likely the video ad. But to be honest, I usually have at least 3-4 tabs with our site open at the time and it doesn’t slow down my PC in any meaningful way.

But the thing is, they should import as Standard in game – I just tested it again. They are tagged as Standard on our site. It has to be something to do with HDT, out of my control. I don’t really know what can I do about it. Since HDT and Hsreplay are created by the same company, maybe they found some workaround for that.

Can’t you import them in game, and then HDT will automatically pick them up?

They’re selectable, like any other portrait in HS.

But really it’s different strokes for different folks. I like most of them to be honest. But the opinions are really diverse. Some love them, others hate them. The only thing that people generally agree on is that Rexxar looks bad, lol.

https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/iksar-we-have-some-plans-to-remove-ds-but-it-comes-with-some-other-sweeping-changes/

They did not change – you still have regular Hero Powers. They’re Golden though (so you don’t lose the feature of 500 wins portraits).

To be honest i also hoped that they would have new voice lines 🙁 But it’s still better than nothing. Maybe it’s a start to adding more cosmetics, something people have been asking for years now?

While I’m in no position to tell anyone what to do, I don’t think that anyone should feel pressured to quit because of the incident. Blizzard has made a terrible decision and it’s a PR nightmare now, but if it’s the game you enjoy, I don’t see why you should stop playing it.

The thing that people forget is that every company is doing terrible things. Companies that produce the things you eat, the things you watch, the things you wear, the smartphone you’re possibly browsing the site from now etc. – and yet you still buy their stuff. Because in this day and age, it’s nearly impossible to distance yourself from every poor corporate decision, you would have to start living in a cave.

Most of the people who boycott the game and stopped playing weren’t that into it (at least not anymore) and were looking for a reason to quit. Which is still great, of course, if that’s how they want to tackle this case.

The only thing I can say is to not forget about the incident, keep talking about it. Don’t just let it slide. Because that’s what they were hoping for – to do a quick cover up and for people to forget in a few days. If it won’t work, maybe they will have to revise their stance.

Yeah, to be honest I like most of them more than the regular ones (maybe partially because I got bored of the regular ones already :p), but Hunter looks really bad IMO…

I think that no one is saying that the punishment is “unfair” in that sense – it’s their right to do it and no one questions that part.

It’s just that you can work within the rules and still make decisions that will be perceived as unjust and will make you an asshole.

And I think that casters aren’t mentioned enough in this. I think that it was a shitty move. What’s even worse is that in the official Chinese statement they mention that those casters will never be hired again to cast any tournament. Great.

Of course, China is to blame first and foremost. But what crazy world are we living in when they can dictate their terms to any company around the world and they will cave in? I hate using that terms, but it really is a slippery slope.

Like I’ve said, I did expect some sort of punishment, but not that much. There’s a lot of space between standing against China + removing themselves from that market and completely following what China ordered them to do (which is clearly the case here). Blizzard games like WoW or HS are really big in China, so it’s not like they don’t have at least some leverage.

Come to think about it, I believe that they DID change minions that transform in hand to not retain any buffs / mana cost changes etc. But I’ll need to test it out since I haven’t played with Floop + mana discounts ever since Year of the Raven’s Malygos Druid.

Like I’ve said below, I agree that there should be some kind of “punishment” (even though I honestly thought that he will end up with just a warning), because they don’t want everyone to start involving politics into interviews – that’s not the right place to do it. We’re clear here.

But come on, removing him from Grandmasters, taking away his winnings AND banning him for a year? And then firing both of the casters for simply letting him say a few words? That is a much bigger political manifestation than the interview itself. And a terrible one on top of that.

This is not an official statement from HSTD, just my personal opinion:

This is complete and utter bullshit. I absolutely hate this decision. I agree that we should not mix gaming and politics. Deleting the interview from official VoDs? Understandable. I wouldn’t even mind a slap on the wrists for Blitzchung for “breaking the rules”. But they just ruined lives of three people over nothing. Or wait, let me rephrase it – over simply manifesting that they want freedom.

It’s plain as day that it was all because of pressure from China. But Blizzard is not a Chinese company. So for whoever made that decision, it was a choice between money and standing up for human rights. Guess what won today.