Saying “it can attack immediately” is a bit misleading. It can’t attack immediately if the original mech you’re fusing with can’t!

This would be a reason not to, then, presumably. Or an alternative win condition if you don’t draw grumble in time. I wouldn’t rule it out.

I had some success with a token druid build. Ultimate Infestation and Nourish for the draw, coupled with Spreading Plague or Whispering Woods for the wide board, coupled with Power of the Wild, Branching Paths, Soul of the Forest and Savage Roars for the finish. Oaken Summons into Ironwood Golem is a great way to get early board presence and taunt as well as a bit of healing.

Personally, I love a lot of those ideas. It’s good to have something to work towards and to get you to try stuff that takes you out of your usual routine. I’m not sure about the cosmetic board changes as the main point of cosmetic rewards, I think, is to show them off to your opponent but the rest seems cool.

There is a down side to rewards that Team 5 sometimes allude to, in that some people will feel compelled into a less than enjoyable experience in order to get them. The golden hero reward is a perfect example as, until you get all 9 (got my last one a few months back), you feel you have to play a particular class in order to get the reward for that class so after getting it for your favourite ones you’re left playing classes you don’t like because you already have the golden hero for the ones you do.

I think the reason they didn’t want to give rewards for Dungeon Run was for a similar reason, they wanted the fun of Dungeon Run to be the incentive and not to force people into a mode they may not like in order to feel they’re not losing out on stuff.

Having said that, the sense of accomplishment each time you get a golden hero is still worth the slog, for me, and, of course, it encourages you to try classes you wouldn’t normally and, perhaps, find that you enjoy them after all.

Jaraxxus is just so much fun!

I’m currently 9 wins 0 losses with the following:

### Brawl Deck
# Class: Warlock
# Format: Wild
#
# 1x (1) Power Overwhelming
# 1x (4) Shadowflame
# 1x (9) Lord Jaraxxus
# 1x (9) Mal’Ganis
# 1x (9) Voidlord
# 1x (10) Sea Giant
#
AAEBAf0GBpMB0wGJBs4Gwg/o5wIAAA==

Never saw it as a problem myself. I don’t have any issue with it as it is.

Nice article. I thought that anecdote about the two surgeons highlights a point, though. In that sometimes it’s not about a choice being better because it’s more probable. You have to weigh the cost of losing vs. the benefit of winning. The high risk surgery isn’t necessarily the wrong decision just because there’s more chance of dying than surviving if the alternative of not doing the surgery is that you definitely die in two months and the consequence of it working is that you are cured. You have to make a qualitative judgement as to whether the extra two months is worth losing the possibility, no matter how slim, of another 40 years or so!

That can translate into the game too. You could make a risky play that is likely to fail and puts you in an untenable situation if it does but the situation is so dire that not going for it means you almost certainly lose the game in the long run anyway. So the odds of a play working aren’t the only factor to consider.

A tournament server would still have patch timing issues, though. If the main servers get patched a week or two before a tournament and the tournament was still going ahead with the old patch then nobody would be able to practice their decks any more on the normal servers. There would need to be a way for the competitors to access the tournament servers from their own machines or they’d be locked out of practicing the old patch matchups.

“Chromie: I would have expected it to be a Legendary, being a named character, but none of the Arena-exclusive cards have such a gem. ”

I suspect none of the cards have gems because they are uncollectible as I seem to remember Blizzard have been removing gems from uncollectible cards that used to have them. Chromie still has the shape of a legendary card, though, with the dragon border, so i suspect will still be treated as one.

The anchor is guaranteed a place, you’re only voting for the other members.

You’re already getting a kind of draw from Tracking and Stitched Tracker but you don’t normally want too much draw in a recruit deck because if you draw your big beasts before you play Kathrena she becomes much less powerful. Personally I worry about Tracking in these kinds of decks because of the way you end up removing three cards from your deck by using it. That’s offset a bit by the Dire Frenzy to put some back in again but, even so, I’m curious about the Harrison choice because of that. I guess draw helps with the Emeriss plan in that you want a bigger hand to get the Emeriss buff on and draw will help you pull your Dire Frenzied stuff which will then double the Dire Frenzy buff. It almost seems like two competing win conditions!

Emeriss is a meme card that is generally considered too slow but if you can pull it off on even a few good chargers in your hand it can be really good. Buff an unleashed hound with Dire Frenzy and pull a couple before Emeriss and you have two 1 mana 8/8 chargers next round! If you have King Krush in hand he’s a 16/16 charger for 9 and if you have Krush and a Hound then that’s 24 burst. Alternatively, A Witchwood Grizzly is going to be a 24 health as a base before deducting 1 per card in the opponent’s hand so, worst case, a 6/17 taunt!

One advantage of Frenzy here is that it adds three more beasts in the deck for Kathrena to pull. This can be really useful if you’ve pulled most of your good stuff already. So I would say a Witchwood Grizzly might be a good target if you haven’t activated Kathrena yet. Outside of that it’s usually best on cheap charge minions like the hounds from Unleash.

I’ve been playing Meati’s version with the Knife Jugglers ever since the Nerfs and it’s been doing really well. My first few games went 7 / 1 and I’m still 65% after about 40 games now. I find the Knife Jugglers can be really good against Odd Paladins to ping their guys. With the Primal Fins, cheap minions and 1 mana totems you can get quite a lot of knives pretty quickly.

The problem with just altering the Dunegeon Run each time is primarily one of theme. The Dungeon Run is all about adventurers running around getting treasure from a kobold-filled Dungeon. It certainly wouldn’t have fitted an expansion all about mysterious goings on in an enchanted forest.

You would have to re-skin the Dungeon Run completely. Not call it a Dungeon run, not have any bosses related to kobolds or dungeons or things found in dungeons. You could use some of the same treasures but you’d want to add new ones as well and you should have a whole new cast of characters and heroes more themed to the current expansion.

Oh wait, that’s exactly what they did! 😀

This Brawl has been great fun. All sorts of combos:

Warrior (Animated Berserker, Frothing Berserker)
Priest (Inner Fire, Lightwell)
Hunter (Jeweled Macaw, Animal Companion)
Shaman (Murkspark Eel, Murmering Elemental)
Warlock (Soulfire, Clutchmother Zavas)
Rogue (Sinister Strike, Eviscerate)

They’ve repeatedly said that buffing cards is not a good idea and I agree with them. It doesn’t really solve anything.

I guess I’m not seeing the same issues you are. I’ve always managed to find off-meta decks that I enjoy playing. Or, occasionally, actual meta decks are fun too! I tend to alternate between Wild and Standard but I don’t find Wild broken. Admittedly I’m trying to get my last Golden class as Warlock and so am having great fun with a Naga Warlock of my own!

The main issue with Standard at the moment is just that Witchwood cards haven’t made sufficient impact to displace the pre-Witchwood decks and, as long as the nerfs address that, then I’ll be happy. in my opinion, Blizzard’s track record with nerfs have been spot on so I have every confidence that they will continue to keep up the good work.

The problem is that NSW became different because steps were taken to make the general effect of cost-reduction cards consistent. So either you have to make things inconsistent, change all the other cost-reduction cards to work differently, or make some change to the wording on NSW so that it is seen as a different effect. I’m not entirely sure what wording you can use that wouldn’t be unwieldy…

Ironic user name 😀

In my opinion, the nerfs have, to date, been highly successful in fixing problems with the meta and in injecting new vitality to the game. I don’t see any more need for pessimism this time round.

Pretty sure this is Trump’s deck which he’s been getting crazy win rates with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE9yFmxtXgM&t=1401s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERfd5phZi_w

I’m 60% with it over 43 games.