I kind of disagree – the deck was already playable earlier, Winged Guardian just made players experiment with the deck more and find optimal builds + realize that. I played Embiggen Druid before Galakrond’s Awakening and it was already pretty solid. Of course, Winged Guardian made it better, but it’s definitely not one of the most important cards in the deck.

At any given meta, there are probably a few good decks that haven’t been discovered (or only see off-meta play because general playerbase doesn’t realize how good they are).

Before Discover, all cards that added random cards to your deck added… exactly that, completely random cards. So I think that Discover was a big improvement in that matter. It was even more inconsistent and RNG.

And I know that you guys didn’t always like their card design or balance decisions, but both Mike and Peter were amazing designers.

It doesn’t mean that no Hunter decks are being played, we’re just adding decks from pros & streamers here who post them or play live. And it just happens that we didn’t get those yet (or maybe I just missed them).

Hunter has seen a bunch of play last week and those decks are still viable. It’s definitely not a bad time to be a Hunter! Highlander, Quest and Face builds are all still viable.

Evasive Drakonid is an okay replacement, but Winged Guardian is much better.

Total stats are the same, although I’d argue that 6/8 is a slightly better distribution. Tribes are also similar – Dragon tag is an upside when it comes to Breath of Dreams / Scalerider / Frizz (if you run it of course), but then the Beast tag is an upside because of Witching Hour and Dragonmaw Poacher (which is getting more and more popular as a tech card). But Winged Guardian has extra Reborn, which makes a big difference. Opponents often need to run another mid-sized minion into it to kill it or sometimes even drop an AoE, since they can’t single target remove it because of Elusive. It also makes your board more resistant to AoE clears – e.g. after Warlock drops Twisting Nether, you will still have a 6/1 up. That Reborn part alone has won me a bunch of games.

Long story short – if you just want to test out the deck, you can use Evasive Drakonid and it will be okay. But if you want to run the deck seriously, I’d recommend buying Chapter 1.

I really hope that they figure out drops on YouTube and bring them back soon. I never watched tournaments just for the packs, but they were a welcome addition!

In-game matchmaking against other players is just random there’s no hidden rating or anything.

Maybe the changes rolled out a bit later on EU server, I wouldn’t be surprised.

And yeah, facing AFK in Round 3 really sucks. I’m not a big fan of that Hero design. It’s fun to play as, but it’s not fun for the few players facing you in R3 and the next couple of rounds (when you still have an advantage).

Wait, what? I think that was just a coincidence, because current Hearthstone AI definitely can’t realize that you run Mecha’thun build and do pro plays like that to deny it 😀

Oh, hahah. That’s interesting. Not sure if it should work that way, but it’s neat.

What’s the “returning player” thing? I never quit for long enough to get it :p

But the game has been really unstable on mobile lately, especially on iOS. You might want to try it on PC if you can.

Wow, that’s some nice luck, congratz! I don’t think that Legendary opening rate is higher, they would probably mention it. 2 Legendaries were guaranteed (one for buying the bundle and one in the first 10 packs) but besides that it just really depends on RNG 🙂

Yeah, no portrait is a deal breaker for me 🙁 I don’t really need more Year of the Dragon packs, but I would definitely buy it if it had a cool portrait (like last year).

First of all, I rated RIsing Winds 7/10 when reviewing it, and I certainly don’t think I underrated it. I mentioned Token Druid specifically when reviewing it, saying that the card will be good in the deck. If you mean 5 stars out of 5 stars, then that’s definitely not it, or at least not in the way I rate cards. For me, a card rated at max has to be an absolutely amazing one, a metabreaker, not just a “solid card that fits into a a single, good archetype”. If you rated it 5/5 (or 10/10 in my scale) it would mean that it’s on the same power level as pre-nerf Corridor Creeper or Giggling Inventor, for example. And there’s no way that’s true.

But in this comment chain we were talking about Embiggen Druid, not Token Druid.

Players who aren’t going to buy it got one wing for free – buying players did “overpay” in a way, but they have added 3 bonus cards to the paid wing to compensate for other being free. So free wing had 4 cards, paid wing had 7 cards.

If you face Druid mirrors commonly then I’d say that Poacher is a very good tech. Mirror is all about gaining a tempo edge over the opponent, the deck has basically no comeback mechanics so if you get ahead on the board you will be able to dictate all the trades and get even further ahead or even just kill the opponent over 2-3 turns. And, obviously, 4 mana 8/8 with Rush is a great tempo tool 🙂 E.g. you can clear their T4 Evasive Feywing and still get an 8/3 on the board. The issue is, of course, that the card is really bad against builds that don’t run many Dragons or don’t run Dragons at all. So you really need to look at your own matchup stats before deciding whether to play it or not (just like with any other tech card).

Yeah, Quest Druid will totally dig the card, 2 mana 3/2 that draws a card and adds another 2 mana 3/2 that draws a card to your hand… it’s really great. And in the worst case scenario you could even play it on T3 to summon something against Aggro or draw against Control (e.g. to look for Nourish) if you have nothing better to do.

The only issue is where to fit it, that’s always the problem at the end of Standard year when there’s just so many cards.

The problem is that 4 mana to draw 2 cards is not an amazing draw engine, and 3/2 from the spell obviously won’t benefit from Embiggen. The flexibility is – of course – a big upside, but I think that the card would only REALLY shine in Quest version. Then there’s an issue of fitting it – what would you cut to play it?

And I honestly didn’t have card draw issues when playing the deck. Played it like 15 times so far (I know, not a huge sample size, but I didn’t have much time lately) and ran out of cards maybe once or twice. It has a pretty high curve for a Midrange deck, plus it has Big Ol’ Whelp and Emerald Explorer.

Because that’s how Adventures work – you can’t craft cards from them. There would be no point buying them if you could just craft the cards you need :p

It’s technically not intended, but it’s also not a big deal so Blizzard decided to leave it the way it is.

E.g. Blizzard has informed pro players (Masters Tour Arlington starts next Friday) that they are aware of that and that it will Discovering / Generating cards will work like that and that they shouldn’t worry.

Ever since Conjurer’s Calling and Luna’s Pocket Galaxy nerf in Saviors of Uldum, the class wasn’t doing too well. While Highlander Mage is okay, it’s also very expensive and not many players run it. Plus it didn’t get any new cards yet – I imagine that some of the new cards might be playable in the deck (like new Reno will definitely get tested), then we should see more Mage decks.