Hearthstone

Not surprised with most of the changes. Blade Flurry is harsh on a class that's already pretty weak to begin with. I'd thought they touch Savage Roar but with them killing charge in force it's really not necessary anymore. I'll say this about Blizzard, it looks like they finally understand just how a broken mechanic charge is and have tried to reduce it in the most OP cards. Looks like Standard is slowing down, a lot.

Might be slowing down too much, although I guess that's a welcome change from the balls to the wall meta we've had for so long now. I predict Reno being pretty dominant in both standard and wild with druid getting gutted so hard.

Twilight Sparkle_sl said:

Might be slowing down too much, although I guess that's a welcome change from the balls to the wall meta we've had for so long now. I predict Reno being pretty dominant in both standard and wild with druid getting gutted so hard.

Click to expand...

Freeze Mage is completely intact and other than control warrior with their armor I don't see what beats it now. The format is slower, all the heavy one-turn damage combos from hand have been nerfed, silence was nerfed making freeze/doomsayer more reliable. Zoo lost all its sticky minions which means blizzard/CoC are now guaranteed to fog them. Healbot is gone and BGH nerfed, limiting your ability to respond to Alexstraza and still survive the next turn. The rush decks aren't fast enough and the slow decks that try to control the game will still eventually fall victim to Thaurissan into Antonidas generating 6 fireballs, a combo you can't do shit about if you're not Warrior.

Freeze mage is in a precarious position in standard. Yeah, they haven't lost much, but what they did lose is a pretty big deal. Losing mad scientist means you're not only missing out on deck thinning, you also have to actually pay the mana cost to play your secrets, which will slow down your ability to cycle. Also, control warrior looks to be tier 1 in standard, which is a pretty harsh gut punch as well. Also, you're overestimating how much rush decks are losing. Face hunter is definitely losing a step between arcane golem and glaivezooka going away, but aggro shaman is only losing crackle. Renolock can still do 20 points of burst from hand and zoo can do 13 from hand if they can stick a creature.

Standard is looking like it's going to be a lot of reno and control warrior, which is a pretty grim meta to try and play freeze mage in.

Renolock is rush?

I'm also wondering what the renolock burst is. Currently their burst kill is arcane golem, power overwhelming, faceless manipulator but that combo no longer works.

I'm guessing standard Renolock will be running Jaraxxus on top of Leeroy combo too, gives you a much better win condition against warriors, and with a presumably slower meta you can afford to be greedy. Wonder how many warriors will be running frost giant burst as their finisher. It's terrible in the mirror match but better in every other matchup.

Renolock can do crazy damage in one turn especially if you get emp out with the combo in hand.

You cant OTK but you can get damn close with leeroy +2x Power and then copy it with Faceless = 28 right there.

its pretty easy to get an extra Power from Dark Peddler. I almost always get it

Not to mention your opponent has to be worried about not clearing everything off the board when it gets close to turn 10.

If you are not running Leeroy in Reno then you are pretty much wrong. It synergizes with so much shit in that deck.

Speaking of freeze mage, I forgot they didn't touch Alex. Should have made it just a heal, not a nuke to the opponent's face too.

Arbitrary_sl said:

I would have preferred that they kicked all of those cards out of the core set and had them be Wild only rather than the route they've chosen. Those are some huuuuuuge changes.

The Blade Flurry change is really unusual. I guess their Future Future League testing showed that Rogue was going to be super dominant?

Click to expand...

Are you assuming that Blizzard is putting in the same effort WotC is putting into MTG design? At best I expect them to do some theorycrafting and then have a meeting or two to finalize changes. Hell the FFL would mean they have the sets laid out into 2017 and at least partially designed them, no way that's the case for Hearthstone.

Fawe_sl said:

Owl isn't run for the body. It's that most classes don't have any class cards with silence. Neutrals with silence shouldn't exist imo. Owl should be Hunter or Druid class card but they'd never change it now. Personally Druid makes more sense since they already have a silence minion, making Priest & Druid (edit: And Shaman) the only classes to have silences on class cards.

Too late now though.

Click to expand...

If I read that right you are saying that there should not be any neutral silence, period? Silence being limited to 3 classes would just mean they need to invent other "remove-a-minion-without-killing-it" solutions for all classes like the polymorphs a mage has.


Keeper nerf is too much - should've been 2/3 or 3 mana for 2/2. Ancient of Lore is too bad, but I guess you could play that "draw 3 for 5 mana or ramp" that I can't name right now. I'm not sure Leper Gnome needed it. I'm glad the owl made it through ok (I like dumb beast decks for hunter/druid even if they are mediocre).

I think the reason for nerfing Blade Flurry was that they wanted more room in adding some good weapons to the rogue class in the future without breaking the game with some crazy burst combo.

Have to say that it's hard to judge those nerfs overall without taking in consideration how things will shake up with the new expansion cards and the new format.

Changing blade flurry to minion only would have sufficed. They didn't need to double the mana cost on top of that. Koyuki mentioned something in his stream that I agreed with, it's actually a triple nerf if you count each point of casting cost increase as a separate nerf, which you really should. Look at how many cards have gone from overpowered to completely unplayed from a single increase to their casting cost?

Leeroy Jenkins - almost completely unplayed until Reno decks added him with Thaurissan.

Soulfire - completely unplayed

Flare - completely unplayed

Gadgetzan Auctioneer - almost completely unplayed until tomb pillager (and Thaurissan) brought miracle back

Sylvanas Windrunner - well she's still very playable, but she went from an auto-include in almost everything to only fitting in a few select decks

Blizzard/Frost Nova/Cone of Cold - iirc freeze mage completely died until Naxx brought mad scientist to the meta


Regarding the upcoming changes

Ironbeak Owl - Silence is still an incredibly powerful effect, but I suspect people needing a neutral silence will be more likely to use spellbreaker now.

Hunter's Mark - Despite the nerfs, I suspect hunters will be forced to run either Ironbeak or hunter's mark to punch through taunts. I think ironbeak being a beast will be enough to make hunters prefer it over spellbreaker, but double hunter's mark will probably be best

Big Game Hunter - After thinking about it, I think control and slower midrange decks will still want to run one. It's still removal with a body, and with the standard meta presumably being quite a bit slower + new cards from whispers, I'd expect to see quite a lot of fatties being played.

Knife Juggler - Probably still an auto-include in aggro decks. An unanswered juggler is still an assload of free damage

Leper Gnome - Probably not good enough for anything but suicide rush decks, and even they may not want it.

Arcane Golem - Unplayable shit now, maybe would have been playable as a 5/5.

Molten Giant - I think moltens are unplayable now. Not getting free giants until 5 health now is too risky for anyone but mage, but duplicate and echo are both rotating out.

Ancient of Lore - Druid probably still runs this, they just might pick healing a bit more often now.

Force of Nature - 6/6 for 5 wouldn't be very good because a neutral 5/6 for 5 already exists. 3 2/2s for 5 is trash.

Keeper of the Grove - Despite the nerf to the body, I think the sheer versatility of keeper makes it remain a 2 of in every single druid deck.