I agree with Charge. The card might not be strong, but it might activate some fringe combos (like the Raging Worgen one). Now when releasing each new Warrior/Neutral card Blizzard needs to think about how it might possibly combo with Charge, and if it would be too strong they need to change it.

Yes, you’re right, changing Charge would be good idea. They’ve already did it once – it used to cost 0 mana and just give minion Charge. That one was way more broken than it is right now, but any way to give ANY minion Charge might be abused somehow.

That’s the same reason why they don’t really print any Charge minions – they’ve realized that they lead to pretty “unhealthy” strategies in general.

However, I disagree with Conceal. Since it lasts only a single turn, it’s not that big of a problem. When it comes to the Charge, you have zero ways to react. You can set up the board state with a Taunt or something, but you never know when enemy is going to play it. But when it comes to Conceal, if enemy Conceals a minion there are still some ways to interact with it. You can play accordingly. Some decks can kill them with AoE. If enemy wants to kill you with that minion, you can play defensively, play Taunt, heal up etc. If enemy then wants to combo it with some spells… Yeah, I think something like Loatheb should be in Standard. So you could counter that too.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Conceal gone, honestly, but I don’t think it’s that high on priority list.

I didn’t include all the cards, because that would be way too long. Also, I might have missed some.

I have thought about PO, but I don’t think it’s that bad. It’s only really strong if you build a deck around it – so you play a Zoo-like deck with a lot of small tokens or you play a combo deck with Leeroy + Faceless combo (which will die in Standard after Emperor Thaurissan rotates out anyway).

Given the downside of the card (the minion dying at the end of the turn), I don’t think it’s that bad. It’s just 1 damage over Blessing of Might and 0 damage over Combo’d Cold Blood when it comes to the trading/bursting potential and it doesn’t stay on the minion.

Every strong 1 mana card might be problematic in Zoo, because of the nature of the deck. Drawing 2 cards per turn means that utilizing 1 mana cards is much easier, as you don’t run out of cards after first few turns and can refill easily. But I think PO is just below the line of nerfing it – if you reduce it to +3/+3, it would most likely be too weak.

Yes, that way the meta would be shifting much more often and playing would be more fun. But then again, I don’t see this happening. Hearthstone team is REALLY lazy. And they aren’t the best at balancing things, it takes them really long time to realize what’s wrong and why. This leads me to a conclusion that those 3 months “sets” might not be balanced at all and they would be a complete clusterfuck.

However, that’s a really good idea. And while we’re at it, I’d also increase the length of the seasons. Monthly season are way too short. For casual people they won’t even reach any high rank and it resets. And for pro people, it’s just pointless grinding for the first ~week or so again and again and again. One rotation could be one season and it would be much better in my opinion.

Sadly, it’s not going to happen. Because it’s Blizzard we’re talking about.

Ice Block – yes, I’m not saying that there is no strategy and ways to play around it. And I don’t think the card is too strong. The problem is that it’s very uninteractive and thus not really fun to play against. Yes, another way would be adding more Secret interaction, but if you add too efficient ones (something like Ooze for Secrets), then they would become nearly unplayable.

The cards you said you don’t have problem with are hard to evaluate, because the advantage they give you is very subtle. For example, Fiery War Axe – like I’ve mentioned in the article – might be the single most impactful card in the game. And sure, it’s fine right now, but do you want to see FWA in virtually every Warrior deck 2 years from now? 5 years from now? That might happen, and that’s my main concern. Obviously, there will always be “best” cards, but I don’t think a single card should have 100% inclusion into every deck of a certain class.

When it comes to Azure Drake, I stated that it shouldn’t be nerfed, but rather more Midrange card draw options should be added. Because right now it’s the most played card in the whole game.

And about PW:S – yes, I wouldn’t even dare to touch it right now, considering how weak Priest is. But I was talking about general situation. Priest is weak right now, but it might be the strongest class one year from now. Remember what happened to Shaman? It was considered the worst class in the game, 2-3 expansions and it became one of the strongest.

Murloc Paladin already runs Stampeding Kodos (not every list, but they’re quite common). So it’s already good, actually. Adding a Dragon like Azure Drake wouldn’t be too big of a stretch, as it’s also a cycle tool that Murloc Paladin really needs. So I guess Curator will work really well in Murloc Pally.

It would be one of the most broken outcomes if that was the case, but no, it doesn’t work like that. Minions summoned through effects like that still can proc, but only if their card text stays “AFTER you play” a spell. So for example, Wild Pyromancer would still proc. But then again, Summoning Portal is “WHENEVER you play a spell”. It means that it will only proc when it’s already on the board when you cast a spell.

If you don’t believe me, you can try it with Resurrect. Pyromancer will proc after you resurrect him, Portal won’t.

You’re right, there are more ways to get a card from other class. The most basic way to get any minion is let enemy play it, steal it with Sylvanas and bounce it back with Shadowstep or Brewmaster. Or you can get any class spell with Nexus-Champion Saraad. But like you’ve said, those are all unreliable ways. I understand that this game allows you to get pretty much any card from your opponent’s class in many different ways, but I was mentioning only the ones that actually might see play AND are reliable enough to build a deck around it.

Shifter Zerus is a good point, however. I think that in case the deck like that would work, Shifter Zerus might make sense. After all, if it will keep the discount through the shifts, if you play Peddler while you have Zerus (as other class card) in your hand, now it changes to random minion that costs 2 less. It allows Rogue to make some cute tempo plays. I was playing around with Zerus for a bit and it was always underwhelming, because often when it changed to something good I couldn’t play it that turn, because I didn’t have enough mana or I had to do something else. With -2 mana it would be much easier. Plus, getting a 2-drop or 3-drop (so 0 and 1 mana after discount) would make for a great combo activator.

However, I still think the Rogue would need to get INSANE card that steals from enemy right now for this card to see play.

You can NEVER discover cards from other class. Discover pool is cards from your class + neutral cards (so basically anything you can put into your deck in a given class). But there are no neutral spells, so it’s impossible to discover that. If the card discovers a minion (e.g. Tomb Spider), you can get class minions and neutral minions. If a card discovers a spell (e.g. Ethereal Conjurer) you can only get class spells. That’s how the mechanic works.

If you don’t believe me, look at the Ethereal Conjurer. The card’s text is “Discover a spell”, NOT “mage spell”. Because there is simply no need to say that + there are some cases of enemy getting that card through different ways (e.g. Priest Thoughtstealing it) and then he rolls cards from his own class.

That’s true, I’m really surprised at the first batch of cards. And I REALLY hope that the trend will continue. Right now there are no cards that are ourtight terrible. It’s true that some of them won’t likely see play, but they all make sense and fill some niche or might work in certain archetype (that’s not necessarily popular now, but might be in the future). So I second that, keep it up Blizzard.

Yes, Mage card will be bonkers in Arena. It’s a class card, common and it will get latest expansion bonus (as far as I remember, cards from the latest expansion have +50% rate to show up in arena). So expect to see it in pretty much every Mage deck.

I think that Barnes will definitely be used in Constructed. Curator PROBABLY too, but it requires some testing, so it’s impossible to theorycraft now.

I actually agree that Barnes is more balanced then Shredder. Not only it’s Legendary (so you can’t have 2 copies, unlike Shredder) and you can’t just throw him into pretty much any deck that needs a 4-drop. Here, you need to think about the potential synergies, maybe build a deck around it and include more Deathrattles/effects, things like that. But I still think it’s on the stronger side. What I dislike about it is not how strong it is, but how RNG will win a lot of games again so early. Just like Tuskarr Totemic sometimes wins you the game just because you win a 1/8 roll (Totem Golem).

Loot Hoarders are the most flexible slot in the deck. While they do cycle, they don’t really have any synergy with the rest of the deck. They die to Ravaging Ghoul and Pyromancer, you can’t Cruel Task them, they have no synergy with Battle Rage. They’re good for early cycling, but later in the game when you can set up multiple draws from Acolyte or Battle Rage, they aren’t that useful.

One Blood to Ichor or Ravaging Ghoul can also be removed. They are not vital part of the deck, they don’t synergize extremely well with it, they’re there just because they’re strong individually.

But I’d pick Loot Hoarders as the first to get rid of.

But then you kinda screw yourself if you draw both copies of Worgen/Charge early instead of something actually useful.

I see the point of running 2 copies of each, but I still don’t think that it’s better.

What about C’Thun?

I’m also not a big fan of combo decks. Or rather I get bored of them quite quickly. But I had some fun playing this one 🙂

And no, it’s still a long time before Thaurissan drops out of standard. 2015 expansions (BRM, TGT, LoE) are going to drop out when the first expansion of 2017 gets released. So there’s still about 9 months until he rotates out.

They might, however, add another way to activate the combos by then or add some cheaper combos. if not, pretty much every combo deck will be bad in Standard.

You can’t add Faceless to the combo without Thaurissan procs – Worgen (3 mana) + Charge (3 mana) + Faceless (5 mana) = 11 mana.

Well, you can do that if you go second and save the Coin, but that’s unlikely scenario :p

Thanks!

I have never seen double Worgen version. I know that Lifecoach was using a 2x Rampage version, but that’s different.

Basically, 2x Worgen is not a good choice, because 2nd Worgen is useless. You only need one to perform the combo. And you can’t put him as a 31st card, you have to drop something (most likely card draw) to play him – so it only increases the combo’s consistency slightly.

If you really want to make a 2nd Worgen useful, you’d also need to include a 2nd Charge and another attack buff (like 2nd Rampage or 2nd Cruel Taskmaster). Yes, that would increase the rate at which you draw combo and let you kill enemy in 2 turns instead of 1, BUT you would need to put 3 more situational cards into the deck. And the deck is already full of combo/situational cards and struggles with it.

Not to mention that the 2nd Worgen combo would come handy only in very niche situations. C’Thun and Control Warrior matchups are probably the only ones where 2nd combo might be necessary to win.

So overall, I don’t like that idea.

C’Thun Warrior is awesome. Just Armor up as much as you can and save Taunts for after Combo Warrior has played Emperor. Before Emperor, he can do max 30 damage, so he can’t really surprise lethal you. Play C’Thun as soon as you can, even as 10/10 or something, to bait an Execute. If you bait a second Execute with I don’t know, Ancient Shieldbearer, then the game is basically over once you play Twin Emperor. Or if you manage to go above 60 health total. Save Brann for Ancient Shieldbearer or Twin Emperor.

Aggro decks are also okay against it. It’s not like they completely counter it, but combo pieces are very clunky at the start of the game, so if Warrior draws a lot of them in the early game, he has no way to counter the aggression and basically loses the game. I’ve found out that Aggro Paladin is especially tricky, as Combo Warrior is often stuck with a lot of dead cards in the hand + he can’t “not draw cards” when almost half of his deck is card draw, basically giving Aggro Paladin amazing Divine Favor value every game.