good timing by blizzard

i do not care for cosmetics, but i am easily tempted by any kind of quest, task, etc that offers me a reward.

Thank you stonekeep for talking me out of it!
I deleted the quest and never looked back

the only way to win is not to play
-war games, 1983

Lord Marrowgar is a good card.
It just deactivates Grave Strength and it’s totally awful when it gets hit by Mutanus, but I would definitely play it

I can recommend Demon Hunter/Rat which I played to 5/2 (weekly quest)

losses came against /pig, which can play game breaking cards far ahead of the curve

I do not think that HotS and Hearthstone are comparable, because Hearthstone is so much simpler and therefore more easily accessible.

What I do fear is that a chain of causality is pushing dominoes, and we are right in the middle of it.
When living costs increase, the money spent for a game that can also be played for free are easily cut.

Less earnings for blizzard means less future investments into game development, so the end of the road may be blizzards stopping all development alltogether and freezing the state of the game. While I would still enjoy it, there will be some point in the future where I would lose interest (although people still play chess, and the rules have been the same for centuries now)

The introduction of the new class (Death Knight) ws ah half fail/half success, because it seems to be too weak for constructed and too strong for arena.

As for the alternative game modes, only battlegrounds seemed to be successful, while mercenaries and duels never really took off (i do play mercenaries, but to be honest it could really benefit from some variety)

To invigorate the player base and the game itself some successful ideas would be necessary, but at the end of the day only ca$h matters for Blizzard, and if nobody spends his money for the game any more, it will die

correct.

apparently i am still living in the past
(e.g. still playing classic and a lot of wild)

I see basically 3 routes to go:
1. Totem Shaman with lots of useless Totem buff spells for your opponent
2. Silver Hand Paladin with lots of useless Silver Hand buff spells for your opponent
3. Rogue with cards that depend on cards from foreign classes (not sure if that works)

Most decks contain mostly minions, but some decks consist almost entirely of spess, and those decks are hit hard by Loatheb – it’s almost like a Time Warp aganist those decks.

Cult Neophyte is not as effective against individual spells as such, but against decks that want to play several spells in one turn

I like Mechwarper + Mecha-Shark, but you need 5 Sharks at once for 30 damage, and 2-3 Mechwarpers to discount them, so it’s a turn 5 combo at best (and you run out of space if you want to do it below 8 mana, because you need 3 Mechwarper and 5 Sharks)
still managed to beat some decks, but helpless against pogo and patches

Soulfire + Hand of Guldan looked impressive

Murloc Holmes + Innervate was surprising … Murloc solves the case every time on turn one!

Flurgl + Toxfin keeps pogo and patches in check nicely (obviousy)

Cutting Class does not really cut the class – you have to attack turns 4 and 5 with 15 attack (without the coin), or you coin out the dagger on T1, follow up with Poison-Poison-draw on T2, allowing you to attack for 11 on T3, and live the dream of attacking for 19 on T4 for the win – provided you have not been killed by that time (usually you die on their turn 4), there is no taunt in the way and you drew the right mix of draw and poison in the early turns

Piranha Swarmer also looked like a nice card to have multiples of

Aldor Attendant + Libram of Wisdom is worth a try, but rather mediocre in its results

Ice Block + Frost Lance is powerful but super slow. make sure you mulligan away as many ice blocks as possible, you will start ot curse them later as they clog up your hand. Once you have 10 cards in your hand you fire your first salvo of Frost Lances, usually cutting your opponent’s life total in half. From then on your turns consist mostly of Ice Block-ping-go and you pray for enough Frost Lances to end the game quickly. If you are up against Warrior, you are out of luck, because the theoretical maximum of damage in one turn is 36, and once he is at 37 you cannot kill him any more, because you only draw one card per turn. Smart opponents also refuse to trigger your Ice Blocks and your hand becomes even more clogged.

How could we all forget Loatheb, the king of tech cards, and his evil daughter Cult Neophyte

I had a lot of success with pirate rogue using smothering starfish to deliver the final blow through a wall of taunt minions.

on the other hand, Rustrot Viper stole a lot of games for me against pirate rogue by killing the swordfish (saving me 8 life) and leaving a spider tank behind.

Dirty Rat, Mutanus and Theotar often screwed me by hitting Tavish, Master Marksman (Questline Hunter) when I was not cautious

yes, I play a lot of wild

That was a fun deck!
I played against a warlock who spawned all kinds of bring-extra-minions-minions like onyxia.

started with dragoncaster (mvp!) – puzzle box and finished with troll centurion into dragoncaster – malygos – pyroblast for an honorable player kill.

i would probably add some cheap aoe effects against the various onyxias running around.
mage parrot (substituted jepetto which i did not own) gave me an extra puzzle box.
Astalor (+Brann) may be even more broken in this format than ever.
Denathrius after the nerf probably not so much.

That was a fun deck!
I played against a warlock who spawned all kinds of bring-extra-minions-minions like onyxia.

started with dragoncaster (mvp!) – puzzle box and finished with troll centurion into dragoncaster – malygos – pyroblast for an honorable player kill.

i would probably add some cheap aoe effects against the various onyxias running around.
mage parrot (substituted jepetto which i did not own) gave me an extra puzzle box.
Astalor (+Brann) may be even more broken in this format than ever.
Denathrius after the nerf probably not so much.

this is probably an oversimplification, but by nature of their hero powers, warrior and priest are defensive classes.

I understand that Blizzard is very cautious not to let control decks the upper hand, because they are frustrating to play against for many players. The games often drag on with little action. Being blown away by a aggro, combo or midrange deck allows you to quickly play a new match, but being ground away slowly by control while still trying to put up a fight (because as long as there are cards in your deck there is hope) is time consuming and of little fun, even if the improbable late wins are all that more satisfying

“Also, if you don’t care about Golden cards in your collection, you can always get rid of the Golden and craft a normal version (it’s a good deal because it leaves you with a lot of extra Dust).”

I did exactly that wit a golden Tome Tampering and netted 1200 free dust.

!! awesome !!

thanks for the good and free content thoughout the year 🙂 !!

i had no void rippers, so i used mutate from rise of the shadows instead

also lightning bloom lost a lot of its appeal after the nerf

I am going to buy the Classic bundle to get closer to completing the legacy set.

However, I am still missing rares like Nordrassil Druid, Crimson Clergy and War Cache but duplicate protection does not help me to get them.

Why is that?

I do not own The Soularium, but Expired Merchant filled the gap perfectly 🙂