Hearthstone

[Phage]

No free TGT packs confirmed on twitter. First the blackrock wing, now this.

guess they've decided they don't need to do the free incentives any longer since people will still funnel a shitton of money into the game

 

[Metro]

They're making $300 million a year with a children's card game paying their staff maybe 1% of that in salaries. Freebies aren't needed anymore.

 

[Jozoz]

When they released GVG they added a number of balance changes.

The thing I'm most excited for is a possible Shredder nerf. They're just never gonna make a new 4 drop that will compete with Shredder. It's just that ridiculous.

Even as a 4/2 I think people would still run it, which says a lot.

 

[Scruffy]

shredder is great and would be great at 4/2 as well, but i don't see why nerfing it. it's neutral, anyone can play it, and come on, how much fun do you want to take out of the game? "random" happenings like the shredder's are what make the game interesting

 

[Metro]

Shredder is fine. Did they nerf Yeti?

 

[Phage]

When they released GVG they added a number of balance changes.

The thing I'm most excited for is a possible Shredder nerf. They're just never gonna make a new 4 drop that will compete with Shredder. It's just that ridiculous.

Even as a 4/2 I think people would still run it, which says a lot.

Yeah, nah.

They nerfed Gadgetan Auctioneer, Flare, and Soulfire when GVG came out. Over a month later they nerfed undertaker. Sure, that's technically "a number" but they were very conservative changes.

More pertinently, none of those are buffs, which is what the discussion is about: whether or not Blizzard will be buffing these clearly unplayable pieces of shit like Acidmaw. The last time they buffed a card was in Beta nearly 2 years ago. There's no reason to believe they'll start buffing again.

I'm not sure why you think they're nerfing piloted shredder lol. It's been nearly a year since it came out, and it's not oppressive - just the most mana efficient 4 drop minion. Of course you people all screamed at me that a Dr. Boom nerf was "necessary", and look where that ended up.

If anything, one of, or some combination of: Frothing Berserker, Battle Rage, Warsong Commander, and/or Grim Patron will be nerfed. Frothing is by far the most egregious (everyone with at least half a brain agrees that Frothing is the real all-star for every midrange/control matchup) - but it's really Battle Rage and Warsong that allow these cards to be ridiculous.

 

[Metro]

Frothing will probably be capped or given less health.

 

[Jozoz]

Another smart nerf would be to make the Warsong a 3/2.

That way you can only do 2 whirlwinds while keeping charge on your patrons/frothing. Or do they keep the charge even after the warsong dies? If so then that obviously wouldn't work.

You have to be careful with what is nerfed. It's a fine line between overpowered and unplayable.

I'd be really sad to see Patron Warrior end up like Miracle Rogue.

 

[Seari]

Am I the only one that thinks patron warrior isn't that OP? People play full board of minions then get KO'd and cry that they had 30 hp.

 

[Metro]

I'm not sure I understand your second sentence. It's broken because you can OTK someone from an empty (your) board. This is precisely why they nerfed Miracle Rogue/Leeroy.

 

[sser]

I've always thought Battle Rage was the culprit. It's way, way too easy to draw a shitload of cards for 2-mana and digging deep into their deck is how Patron beans you. I'd either make it minions only or increase it to 3-mana, probably the former. As it is, it's way too easy to just have one minion + a wounded warrior and draw two cards for two mana. Having consistent card draw is what gives Patron the sick Emperor plays, and the Emperor hitting a full hand is what gives you the OTK loss.

On the other hand, it would be interesting to see what would happen if the Emperor could not lower a card to 0-mana.

 

[Jozoz]

Yeah Battle Rage might be a good thing to nerf as well.

Making it 3 mana might just kill the deck though, but the first nerf could work.

 

[Phage]

Am I the only one that thinks patron warrior isn't that OP? People play full board of minions then get KO'd and cry that they had 30 hp.

You do know that Patron can get a full kill with no board, right?

You do know that after literal 1200 games collected among 3 professional players playing at high ranks, the only deck with a positive matchup vs Patron was Control Warrior, right?

You know that empirically you are incorrect, right?

 

[Seari]

Interesting. I guess I just zerg them with eboladin(I'm grinding rank, don't judge me). They usually die or they wasted their whirlwinds to stay alive, and then they die.

 

[Phage]

It's also worth mentioning that even at rank 1 (currently fell to 2) I was facing Patron warriors who held rank 2 and were making very glaring play mistakes.

 

[Metro]

eboladin(I'm grinding rank, don't judge me).

THE SKILL!

 

[Phage]

at last, i can finally quit this god forsaken game

the finishing blow:

 

[Phage]

This is the deck I used to push through rank 1:

as a bonus, here is the deck I used to push from rank 8 to the start of 1:

The second deck is actually extremely strong in the lower ranks because it punishes aggro very hard as long as you get a chow and a ramp card. At rank 1 however there was simply too much patron warrior and other midrange decks, which is where combo druid excels. Shout outs to Fel Reaver - he's extremely good in the combo gameplan of applying consistent pressure to close games out around turn 9. Another nice part of him is that if he does eat up a big removal or BGH, it's that much safer to play Dr. Doom or Ragnaros.

tl;dr I think that Druid is actually a Tier 1 deck, despite what liquid hearth and tempo storm say. My winrate was actually extremely high (must have been like 70-80%) - the only downside is the taunt druid games take a long time.

 

[Phage]

also eat it, sser and Grinolf

 

[Ash_Firelord]

Wondering if ppl here feel they have to spend money in HS to be competitive.

I build most of my Heartstone collection based on daily quests and arena runs. Only broke down to buy the "adventures" that are basically card sets in disguise. So far I'm pretty pleased with the amount of real-life golds I've spent VS what I've gotten out of the game.

Edit: mind-nummingly forgot 1st paragraph.

 

[hivemind]

Phage

If you are ever bored/have free time could you try doing it on the EU server too?

I'm really curious if there is a substantial difference between the NA and EU servers and this seems like a good way to find out.

I'd do it myself but I'm bad at the game and would rather play something else.

Edit: I forgot that you actually lose all of your cards when you switch servers in HS, so never mind I guess.

 

[Phage]

Wondering if ppl here feel they have to spend money in HS to be competitive.

I build most of my Heartstone collection based on daily quests and arena runs. Only broke down to buy the "adventures" that are basically card sets in disguise. So far I'm pretty pleased with the amount of real-life golds I've spent VS what I've gotten out of the game.

Edit: mind-nummingly forgot 1st paragraph.

I don't think you do. As shown above, I just hit legend, and the only money I've spent on the game was the two adventures - considering the ungodly amount of time I've spent on the game, I'm totally fine with that $55 total. I suppose that is spending money however.

There's certainly a hurdle for new players to cross, but if they learn how to arena (IE follow tier lists for a week and watch Ratsmah), then time can be exchanged for gold fairly consistently. The empirically best deck in the game by a decent margin, Patron Warrior, has a very low dust cost http://hearthstoneplayers.com/th3-rats-rank-1-legend-grim-patron-warrior-guide/ 800 for that one (plus 700 gold for the first wing of BRM). That should be easily obtainable in a month or so. If someone wants to shortcut this wait, they can throw down 50 bucks for some packs - which frankly is fair to me since this is a game with huge servers to maintain and staff to produce content (even if it's not as much content as it should be)

Other notable low-dust decks (that are extremely strong)

Midrange Hunter 1440 dust: https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/decks/aggressive-midrange-hunter
Aggro Paladin 2900 dust: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/249004-top-30-legend-na-mazbazs-aggro-paly
Mech Shaman 3780 dust (half of which is dr boom): http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/256219-legend-mech-shaman-100-win-rate-from-rank-3-to

Also worth mentioning that after you craft a couple of key cards (like Piloted Shredder, Dr. Boom) a lot of doors open up in terms of deck building.

tl;dr - new players can get by fine, but they need to learn how to arena, and spend their dust intelligently.

 

[Phage]

Phage

If you are ever bored/have free time could you try doing it on the EU server too?

I'm really curious if there is a substantial difference between the NA and EU servers and this seems like a good way to find out.

I'd do it myself but I'm bad at the game and would rather play something else.

Blerrg

Well, there are two primary things preventing me:

1.) No account, meaning I'd have to grind out a deck that I like enough (that druid deck is really expensive)
2.) The time. I'm not really looking forward to repeating the legend grind anytime soon unless there's a huge reward in it (hopefully blizzard will revamp the system further someday)

So, tl;dr, maybe if I had an account with all the cards (or enough for the decks I'd want to play), but that's just too much time (in both getting the cards, then grinding to legend)

On the other hand, maybe after TGT there will be a deck that's really cheap and I like.

 

[Explorerbc]

Wondering if ppl here feel they have to spend money in HS to be competitive.

I think a lot of people overlook the "fun" factor when it comes to spending money for hearthstone. Everyone argues that you can be competitive without spending much by making a cheap aggro deck, which is true, and therefore new players should be fine.

The problem is a new player, and any player basically, doesn't want to grind just one or two simple decks for ever, but wants to try different and interesting stuff. And then he is hit with a huge paywall that doesn't allow him to enjoy the game. Wanna try this cool legendary? Wanna play this niche deck ? Nope, you'll never get them.

I've been playing since release and I have the cards needed to play 90% of the popular decks, but I am always dissapointed to find I can't try something a bit more silly or innovative because it uses obscure cards.

 

[Metro]

Anyone new is going to be behind a $100+ paywall at this stage. You can get by without most of BRM but all of Naxx is almost required. Then you're going to need about 50+ packs from classic and 30+ packs from GvG. Never mind another 30+ from TGT. Of course, if you had the benefit of starting around open beta then you can be totally F2P.