Golden cards in arena? I’m actually looking forward to this change considering I like to hoard golden cards. And now golden cards will have even more value!

3 cost Aviana into dumping your whole hand is nice too.

Is there any clarification on how you get the dust if you have both a golden and non golden version of a card? For example, I have a golden rag and a non-golden rag. Will the golden version take precedence and therefore I get 3,200 dust? Will I get 4,400 dust (1,200 for regular rag, 3,200 for gold rag)? I know it mentioned I’ll get dust up to the value of a playset, but I don’t see clarification on if I have a playset in gold and a regular playset.

You can’t craft more than 2 copies of any card (1 for Legendaries). If you have a playset of a card already, you cannot craft more than that.

Sorry, typo. Meant to say “Warlock DOESN’T lose Voidwalker in a trade with it”

I think the STB nerf will definitely make a difference. Going down to 1 health means that any damage will kill it. Mage can ping it away instantly, Paladin HP trades with it, Druid and Rogue HP can take it out with an attack, Voidwalker can trade on it, UTH can 1 for 1 it. This will save 2-3 damage and a card in hand for most classes. Now Druid doesn’t have to waste Wrath on STB, Rogue can save Backstab, Mage can save Frostbolt, Warlock does lose Voidwalker in a trade with it. This makes a huge early game difference. For aggro decks, losing that 2-3 damage means a lot and gives the opponent more time to stabilize. This hurts Pirates more than you might think.

That’s why I said “free”, that’s not considering the time spent doing all of those runs….

Also, that’s a lot of “Meow”s…..

Wow, just think about it, that BrianWong guy got over 70 “free” packs in the month of January!

As I mentioned, ladder is full of aggro decks because they are just faster. If you don’t like playing against aggro decks, then don’t play on ladder. Aggro decks are actually not as strong as you might think. Sure, they are strong early when Control usually doesn’t have the answers, but if Control manages to survive and keep the board under control, aggro will fall apart. As for aggro decks, they try to win before you can get your feet on the ground. But that’s what aggro decks do. Every deck type has a weakness and every deck type has a strength. If ladder was faster to climb, you probably wouldn’t see as many aggro decks on ladder. You also need to build your deck based on the most popular decks; there is no one-size-fits-all for decks. I really haven’t been struggling on ladder with my Renolock because I built it to be able to handle the early game and stall until it can take control. You’re going to lose to aggro no matter how you build your deck because sometimes you get bad draws, and sometimes the opponent gets amazing draws, but you’ll also get your share of good draws and them bad.

Remember, aggro is a deck type that some people enjoy playing. They have strong strategies, but so does control; they just play at different speeds. Just because you don’t like the play style doesn’t mean that aggro shouldn’t have a fighting chance.

I totally agree that the meta is actually in a good state right now. The balance in strength between Control, midrange, aggro, etc. all seems near equal. I think it is great that people can play any type of deck that they enjoy and win with it. People just complain about aggro when it is good because it is popular on ladder and seen often on ladder. Aggro is popular on ladder because it can go through games faster. Climbing the ladder to Legend or higher takes a lot of time, and Control decks just take too long to get wins for some people. The large number of aggro decks on ladder just makes it appear that it is the deck that is broken, when it is really the ladder system that is broken by taking way too long!

With the addition of Kooky Chemist (or whatever it is called), I would mention it in the tips alongside Crazed Alchemist.

Now bring back the ranked season 1 card back. It’s the only ranked card back I don’t have 🙁

Are you going to include deck lists for the decks for this brawl? I’m surprised you didn’t include them yet.

But the White King’s emotes are so good.

Because this is an Aggro deck. Sure, it does 2 damage, but it is 2 IMMEDIATE damage for only 1 mana. It’s an aggressive card and a pirate. It can be used in combo with Flanetongue Totem, pull out Patches, etc. An aggressive deck wants aggressive cards. Azure Drake is a 5 mana minion. By turn 5, you’re hoping to finish the opponent off. The deck already has 1 Azure, 2 is too many.

I’m not too happy with the proposal of changing arena to standard. One of the fun things about arena is being able to use any card! If they want to make the new sets have a greater impact on arena, then they should just increase the rate that those cards appear. Or if they really want a standard arena, then have Standard arena and Wild arena, sort of like how ranked and unranked constructed is. The fun of arena is getting all sorts of different cards, not for people to just build Jade decks.

As for the Ranked suggestions, I think all three possibilities you mentioned in this post are great ideas. It would make ranked less painful and make Legend more attainable for people who don’t invest all their time into it.

If we are going to have Classic cards shifted to Wild, then we should have some cards shifted to Standard. Justicar is one of those cards because it is such a unique card. Another consideration is something like Antique Healbot, because that sort of heal is what some classes have just been lacking. Personally, I don’t agree with shifting cards out of Classic to Wild because having the base set is one of the things that makes Hearthstone’s rotation unique compared to MTG, Pokémon, etc. If they don’t like a card in Classic, then nerf it, but don’t rotate it out or you might as well just rotate all of Classic out. What if we open a Classic pack and I pull some of those rotated out? It doesn’t make sense to split a pack up like that.

The Mime was changed so you’ll need to update this post.

Nice post for new players, however I have to disagree with Antonidas and Jaraxxus being safe crafts. Class legendaries are not safe crafts at all by definition, so unless they can fit well into most builds of that class, then they really aren’t a very safe craft. Antonidas might be more okay than Jaraxxus because he at least fits into a tempo or Control deck, but he is still a card that I’d leave out of my mage deck if I didn’t have a lot of cheap spells. Jaraxxus is just bad if you’re not control; you need control cards to make sure you don’t die when you turn into Jaraxxus. Compare these two to your other picks. Tirion is probably the best class card in the game. Solid stats, sticky minion, gives a weapon, taunt, nobody is going to question you for playing this in any Paladin deck. Van Cleef is able to get big whether you play cheap spells or cheap minions and really any Rogue build could fit him in somewhere. Grommash is an excellent finisher. The Charge works for Control, Tempo, Aggro, really any build, and the solid HP and decent 4 base attack makes him able to trade really well and put a huge threat on the board that your opponent has to handle. Compared to these, I just don’t think Antonidas and Jaraxxus are “must craft”. I think people should wait to open those in a pack.

Criticism aside, I think your picks for Neutral Classic Legendaries were spot on and I can’t think of better safe crafts than those.