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[frequency]

Pagle was a bit of an odd card, there was no reason not to run him before, everyone had him in every every deck and you were at a disadvantage if you didn't. Since the nerf I've seen him once, probably in the deck of some poor soul who opened a pack and got him as his first legendary. There really wasn't a middle ground for him.

I don't think Pagle was that bad. It was a 50% chance of doing what a Mana Tide totem does now.

Maybe it was auto-include in a lot of control decks but whatever. It wasn't the only card that was included in a lot of decks. I don't see them nerfing Leeroy for being auto-include in aggro and now Loatheb being pretty auto-include in control.

Buzzard+UTH/Gadgetzan+spells does way more than Pagle ever did.

He was only a problem if you couldn't deal with him and your opponent got lucky by drawing a few extra cards over several turns. Most of the time Pagle drew 0 to 1 card before dying. It was more that it forced using removal early than it was about card draw most of the time.

 

[Yoshichan]

Someone explain to me: why did Hunters suddenly become the shit? What changed? Eagle Bow was nerfed... so...

 

[Fixed1979]

I don't think Pagle was that bad. It was a 50% chance of doing what a Mana Tide totem does now.

Maybe it was auto-include in a lot of control decks but whatever. It wasn't the only card that was included in a lot of decks. I don't see them nerfing Leeroy for being auto-include in aggro and now Loatheb being pretty auto-include in control.

Buzzard+UTH/Gadgetzan+spells does way more than Pagle ever did.

He was only a problem if you couldn't deal with him and your opponent got lucky by drawing a few extra cards over several turns. Most of the time Pagle drew 0 to 1 card before dying. It was more that it forced using removal early than it was about card draw most of the time.

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I thought Pagle was included in just about every deck for every class before the nerf, I'm sure Blizzard made this specific point when the card was nerfed. It may have worked better in control decks where he would be (mostly) safe on the board for a few turns, but people were (rightfully so) using him in nearly every deck, and that was the problem. Draw him on your first turn with coin = gold.

The other two draws you mentioned are class specific.

 

[Ultrabum]

Someone explain to me: why did Hunters suddenly become the shit? What changed? Eagle Bow was nerfed... so...

Webspinner, haunted creeper, mad scientist. These cards are in most hunter decks now...

 

[Raxus]

Someone explain to me: why did Hunters suddenly become the shit? What changed? Eagle Bow was nerfed... so...

Hunters have always been the shit. Miracle rouge was flavor of the month but the new set more or less crushed their reliability and hunters got a huge boost to their early game with webspinners and spiders.

They aren't going to put a counter for secrets in anytime soon so we have to look to other cards like Hunters Mark.

 

[frequency]

Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but I thought Pagle was included in just about every deck for every class before the nerf, I'm sure Blizzard made this specific point when the card was nerfed. It may have worked better in control decks where he would be (mostly) safe on the board for a few turns, but people were (rightfully so) using him in nearly every deck, and that was the problem. Draw him on your first turn with coin = gold.

The other two draws you mentioned are class specific.

Hmm... Maybe I am the one not remembering correctly.

I'm trying to think back now and I actually can't think of many high end aggro decks in general so I'm not able to say what decks did and didn't include it. I've always played control decks (I just prefer the playstyle).

Anyway. I wouldn't nerf a card based on possibility of being in opening hand with coin. I feel Pagle should have been left alone and as stronger cards are introduced or the meta shifts, it would just eventually be phased out by itself. Like Ysera disappeared for a while there before coming back with Control Warrior. The current Pagle is pretty bad in any situation.

But Pagle aside, I remember enjoying myself a lot more during that period than I do any time after 2 mana UTH.

Edit: I know that Novice Engineer and Sylvannas were nerfed for being auto-include in specific deck types though. Not all decks in general. So maybe I'm confusing Pagle with that.
It seems they've changed their philosophy about that though since they leave Leeroy as is.

 

[Minsc]

Novice Engineer is probably the most OP card they ever made when it was 1/2. It was a card that almost always went 2:1, because you couldn't get rid of it with a hero power, then you'd just buff it to 2/3 or even 3/3 with a sergeant and trade against the next card they played. Huge tempo swing for whoever played the first one.

 

[ZealousD]

Starting to think Undertaker is overpowered. All you need to do is play one deathrattle minion and then it becomes insane value for its mana cost. Sometimes you can't remove it right away and then it turns into a yeti.

 

[Raxus]

Starting to think Undertaker is overpowered. All you need to do is play one deathrattle minion and then it becomes insane value for its mana cost. Sometimes you can't remove it right away and then it turns into a yeti.

Unless they have a silence, early removal (there are tons) or you just plain run out of death rattle minions. Even then, like minsc said they trade 1/1 unlike Novice who would always be free and buffed for most early game removal.

The cards with the expansion are pretty great balance wise. None of them jump out as broken but they are strong in their own right.

 

[Super Nothing]

Starting to think Undertaker is overpowered. All you need to do is play one deathrattle minion and then it becomes insane value for its mana cost. Sometimes you can't remove it right away and then it turns into a yeti.

I played against a Priest the other day who did turn 1 Undertaker, Coin, and Undertaker. I didn't have any removal that early, so they survived until turn 3 when he played a Deathlord. Things just got progressively worse from there. He had two Deathlords by turn 5, and those Undertakers were just getting bigger and bigger. He wasn't able to pull out Inner Fire for the Deathlords, but it was already over anyway.

 

[Zemm]

I'm having one of those days where I Mulligan the 5+ drops then get 6+ drops as replacements.

 

[Acinixys]

I'm having one of those days where I Mulligan the 5+ drops then get 6+ drops as replacements.

Mulligan Rag, Ysera and Deathwing

Redraw Rag, Ysera and Deathwing

Every time

 

[RazorbackDB]

the same builds and full of legendaries in rank 20, this game is getting boring.

 

[Zeroth]

the same builds and full of legendaries in rank 20, this game is getting boring.

Season reset was yesterday, give it a week or so for the legendary players to go back up.

 

[Zemm]

Season reset was yesterday, give it a week or so for the legendary players to go back up.

It'll be the same pretty much, everyone has the cards they need even in ranks 15-20. Plus every cunt is playing Hunter anyway which is cheap to build.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Starting to think Undertaker is overpowered. All you need to do is play one deathrattle minion and then it becomes insane value for its mana cost. Sometimes you can't remove it right away and then it turns into a yeti.

I originally thought so as well. But it can be a very bad card when played off curve and especially late game... times 1000 if in top deck mode.

One of my first experiences with facing this card down was turn 1 double undertaker, turn 2 deathrattle, when I just top decked a backstab. I already had si7 agent but I am sitting at 2 mana. Do I backstab and dagger one or try to hold off si7 agent backstab combo. Turns out, the former is better and I think I went with that, but the second one continued to grow...

I just wrote that off as crazy luck and fortunately it doesn't happen often.

It reminded me of burn mage openers I still hate, but rarely see now, being mana wyrm, coin, mirror image or that type of shenanigans that let mages sneak in enough damage to just ignore taunts and burn your down with fireballs and hide behind ice block.

 

[Haunted]

Generally, if a card has to be played turn 1 to be OP, it's not that OP.


Most aggressive classes have a dream opening that's tough to counter.

 

[RazorbackDB]

Season reset was yesterday, give it a week or so for the legendary players to go back up.

I'm not talking about just today.

 

[Sn4ke_911]

Over 100 New Hearthstone Cards Coming

The next expansion won't be another single-player adventure.

The first expansion for popular online card game Hearthstone is out now. It’s called Curse of Naxxramas and adds 30 new cards. But Blizzard is already hard at work on adding many more new cards.

Hearthstone’s game director, Eric Dodds, tells Massively that the next expansion won’t be another single-player adventure. It will add over 100 new cards that will be available in a new type of card pack.

Currently, you can either earn expert card packs in-game or shell out some cash for bundles of packs of random cards.

Dodds says the new expansion cards will have a bigger impact on the game than the 30 Naxxramas offered.

Longtime players will surely appreciate having 100+ new cards to play with.

 

[Haly]

Excite.

 

[Slashlen]

The new type of card pack is interesting. I wonder how that will work with arena? Will the type of pack be random, or will we always get expert packs? Will this affect the value of arena for grinding for cards?

 

[inky]

Novice Engineer is probably the most OP card they ever made when it was 1/2. It was a card that almost always went 2:1, because you couldn't get rid of it with a hero power, then you'd just buff it to 2/3 or even 3/3 with a sergeant and trade against the next card they played. Huge tempo swing for whoever played the first one.

I had them in every deck. I still miss it =(

 

[CoolOff]

The most insane start I've ever seen from a Rogue. Turn 1, 2, 4 scrub, turn 5 Warlord.

Fuck off.

 

[FormallyFamicom]

The new type of card pack is interesting. I wonder how that will work with arena? Will the type of pack be random, or will we always get expert packs? Will this affect the value of arena for grinding for cards?

I was talking about this very thing with someone a couple weeks ago. Best I could think of is to change the free pack award from Arena to a free pack voucher that you can redeem for the pack type of your choice.

 

[Kettch]

The issue with undertaker for me was that if I got the coin with it, and my opponent played undertaker first...I was just fucked. Got tired of the coin flip deciding so many matches for me.

It is a really good card if you have 1 mana death rattles though. Like webspinner or zombie chow.

 

[Professor Lich]

One thing I was thinking about, do you guys think all 100+ cards will be better and/or different than from what we have now? I wouldn't be surprised if there were some more 'duplicate' cards of what we have now, but just use different art for people who prefer Horde/Alliance or whatever.

They do say new but that doesn't mean exactly different / better, right?

 

[Slashlen]

I was talking about this very thing with someone a couple weeks ago. Best I could think of is to change the free pack award from Arena to a free pack voucher that you can redeem for the pack type of your choice.

That would be ideal for the people who care(like us), but Blizzard likes to keep it simple, and arena rewards are already random other than the pack. It would be easy for them to say "well, it's a random pack now that there's more than 1 kind".

The situation I hope to avoid is where it's always an expert pack, but I could see them doing this to try to limit arena grinding for cards to get more people to buy packs.

 

[Gotchaye]

One thing I was thinking about, do you guys think all 100+ cards will be better and/or different than from what we have now? I wouldn't be surprised if there were some more 'duplicate' cards of what we have now, but just use different art for people who prefer Horde/Alliance or whatever.

They do say new but that doesn't mean exactly different / better, right?

I think that would be pretty disappointing.

100 cards is 25% of what we've already got. Naxx's set was 1/3 class cards, though it was constrained by the need to give all classes an equal, integer number of cards.

So maybe 3-5 class cards for each? There's a lot of room to expand here; class cards have higher budgets than neutrals and many classes have unique mechanics, plus class cards can be spells. That leaves somewhere around 60 neutral minions, if we're ruling out neutral spells. I guess my money's on a new mechanic, with lots of cards in the new set having it, since that does seem like an awful lot to fill out with existing mechanics. Or they could just do more class cards.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I'm really loving paladin. The only downside is it isn't great for laddering (at least low ranks) since I play 1 match vs control and it lasts forever. But the good news is I am winning almost all the control match ups and still doing at least 50/50 vs hunter. I might be 1 up on hunters actually.

I should probably use a tracking utility.

 

[Professor Lich]

I think that would be pretty disappointing.

Yeah, will just have to wait and see. I dunno, it's just hard for me to think up of five new ideas, let alone enough to fill a hundred cards. Just have to wait and see I suppose. I'm excited though, even with only 30 cards, a lot of things changed, so a 100 cards will be crazy.

It'll be the Wild West of card games!

 

[Minsc]

Yeah, will just have to wait and see. I dunno, it's just hard for me to think up of five new ideas, let alone enough to fill a hundred cards. Just have to wait and see I suppose. I'm excited though, even with only 30 cards, a lot of things changed, so a 100 cards will be crazy.

It'll be the Wild West of card games!

They'll introduce a new mechanic for sure. That should account for a good 30+ cards. Something else besides charge, deathrattle, stealth, secrets, etc. Even if it's just something as simple as flying, it could offer a bit of versatility. Though I guess the last thing we need is a minion capable of bypassing taunt. But I'm sure they do something new in it.

 

[BananasWithGuns]

So what kind of timetable would we be looking at for a new expansion?

Obviously Naxxramas just finished up so the card expansion is probably a ways off no?

 

[johnsmith]

So what kind of timetable would we be looking at for a new expansion?

Obviously Naxxramas just finished up so the card expansion is probably a ways off no?

Next year at the earliest, probably summer knowing Blizzard.

 

[Anbokr]

So what kind of timetable would we be looking at for a new expansion?

Obviously Naxxramas just finished up so the card expansion is probably a ways off no?

Wouldn't be surprised if it comes out around Christmas or January.

 

[johnsmith]

Not a chance in hell it comes out this year.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I love Kelthuzad in control paladin.

First pic: Turn before playing kelthuzad. Such a harmless board. Who would ever fear a 1/2 and a 1/1. The mage is probably thinking, wow this paladin has a lot of cards but his hand must completely suck ass. (he is a secret mage btw) And oddly enough he plays an unstable ghoul and pings the creeper, while playing a kirin tor mage that he got from duplicate so he just happened to not have any secrets in his hand. A pretty decent turn you'd think vs the board. I have to kill the unstable ghoul and sacrifice my creeper.

Second pic:

The kelthuzad brings back the creeper, both spawns, and the spawns that were already there. 5 minions! My KT turn was like playing onyxia that brings in whelps every turn. The mage already wasted a polymorph on some other minion, a black knight who already got value... hue hue.... So his response is to frostbolt the KT and ping it. Smart. But for some mental reason he doesn't run the kirin tor mage into it!

Flamestrike anybody? But look at my hand! Holy light hahahaha.

He ended up using another frost bolt and another ping on him, while playing a water elemental (mistakes were made, I killed it for free but I guess it saved him 6hp). Then the turn after he used flamestrike. But the damage was already done. He wasted too much burn cards as removal and I'm sitting at near full hp with heal in hand with aldor/kodo with more cards undrawn with even tirion and lay on hands still yet to be picked up.

He would have to pull off a miracle with crazy stuff like alexstrasza into antonidas... but I killed him well before he could even attempt something like that.

Not a chance in hell it comes out this year.

This is my reaction. But then again this is a f2p and new territory for blizzard.

 

[Therion]

So is the bottom of the ladder always filled with stallers? It's been a month since I was down here, but I don't remember it being this consistently bad.

 

[dimb]

Only things on the board are my Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas. My opponent destroys Sylvanas with a Deathbiter and then plays Rag in some hope to one shot my KT. Sylvanas revives before Rag fires off and she becomes the target. What a dumb card.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Only things on the board are my Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas. My opponent destroys Sylvanas with a Deathbiter and then plays Rag in some hope to one shot my KT. Sylvanas revives before Rag fires off and she becomes the target. What a dumb card.

Which? KT? He made a big misplay (or just a bad play in general). Even if KT revived after ragnaros, even if KT did get hit and even if he wasn't bugged and didn't revive himself, sylvanas would still be revived because - at least according to ben brode's tweet th KT - rag interaction still has KT revive minions other than himself.

Rag is just a poor card vs KT. And I personally love it cause that means maybe Rag gets pushed out of the meta and people stop complaining about RNG swings.

 

[Minsc]

Only things on the board are my Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas. My opponent destroys Sylvanas with a Deathbiter and then plays Rag in some hope to one shot my KT. Sylvanas revives before Rag fires off and she becomes the target. What a dumb card.

I was amused this morning to see a hunter in arena play a turn 4 multi-shot against me, and my board was a secret keeper, acolyte of pain, and a 1/1... the multi-shot hits the secret keeper and acolyte (drawing me a card), the secret keeper pulls a duplicate in to play, and then the duplicate immediately triggers giving me two more acolytes. I would have preferred two more secret keepers, but I wasn't going to complain with essentially 4 more cards in my hand (two of which would end up drawing even more cards). Went on to win easily due to the card advantage.

Duplicate is pretty brutal in arena though. Lost a game pretty hard against a mage that got a duplicate out turn 3 follow by taz'dingo turn 4, and I had no way forward but through... which is really more like backwards in that case.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I was amused this morning to see a hunter in arena play a turn 4 multi-shot against me, and my board was a secret keeper, acolyte of pain, and a 1/1... the multi-shot hits the secret keeper and acolyte (drawing me a card), the secret keeper pulls a duplicate in to play, and then the duplicate immediately triggers giving me two more acolytes. I would have preferred two more secret keepers, but I wasn't going to complain with essentially 4 more cards in my hand (two of which would end up drawing even more cards). Went on to win easily due to the card advantage.

Duplicate is pretty brutal in arena though. Lost a game pretty hard against a mage that got a duplicate out turn 3 follow by taz'dingo turn 4, and I had no way forward but through... which is really more like backwards in that case.

You mean mad scientist I think. Secret keeper is the one that grows when secrets are played from hand.

 

[Aylinato]

You mean mad scientist I think. Secret keeper is the one that grows when secrets are played from hand.

And a weak card at that too

 

[call_kotaku]

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/89449-spark-legendeath-naxx

Playing a bit of this late game rogue deck on the ladder, and I guess I'm climbing okay, but it's hard to deal with having no actual removals or silences, but there isn't really an obvious card for me to remove that'll let me add saps or owls. I actually have to build my board and play around stuff instead of hoping to draw the card that will bail me out of a situation, I guess.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/89449-spark-legendeath-naxx

Playing a bit of this late game rogue deck on the ladder, and I guess I'm climbing okay, but it's hard to deal with having no actual removals or silences, but there isn't really an obvious card for me to remove that'll let me add saps or owls. I actually have to build my board and play around stuff instead of hoping to draw the card that will bail me out of a situation, I guess.

No removals? You have eviscerate, backstab, si7 agent, blade flurry, and even black knight

I've run similar lists before, but I haven't warmed up to haunted creeper in rogue for some reason. And I am preferring argent squire over undertaker, but that could change.

I don't think I like ragnaros in the list although often that 8 damage is pretty crucial towards closing out games when you don't have charge minions, which is also why I don't like it in the list.

 

[johnsmith]

I think I've drawn buzzard + unleashed like once in my last dozen games. Yet when I play a hunter, they ALWAYS have it turn 5.

 

[ShinNL]

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/89449-spark-legendeath-naxx

Playing a bit of this late game rogue deck on the ladder, and I guess I'm climbing okay, but it's hard to deal with having no actual removals or silences, but there isn't really an obvious card for me to remove that'll let me add saps or owls. I actually have to build my board and play around stuff instead of hoping to draw the card that will bail me out of a situation, I guess.

I dunno, I did my daily yesterday as a Rogue and the amount of strong drops in the 3-5 range is crazy. Van Cleef, Dancing Swords, Farseer, SI7 Agent, Master of Disguise, Ambusher, Ambusher, Azure Drake, Loatheb. It's like I'm constantly on Innervate. And with high value spells like Backstab, Sap, Shadowstep and Blade Flurry, it seems like the opponent can never catch up.

I remember killing a Hunter yesterday so disgustingly easy.

Turn 5: Azure Drake.
Hunter: coin, Savannah
Turn 6: Sap, Dancing Swords
Hunter: Savannah
Turn 7: Sap, Loath
Hunter: Savannah
Turn 8: Leeroy Blade Flurry overkill

Soooo much damage when you're free to hit the face with all those 4 and 5 attack powers.

In a lot of other games I just gain the tempo, then keep Shadowstepping Loatheb. Those poor mages. I'm sorry you had to spend 8 mana to draw 2 cards.

That decklist is everything but a tempo deck tbh. A tempo deck sacrifices your own hand for an enormous advantage (can run out of gas because of this). That deck tries to be all value and stuff. That's basically a control deck.

 

[call_kotaku]

No removals? You have eviscerate, backstab, si7 agent, blade flurry, and even black knight

I've run similar lists before, but I haven't warmed up to haunted creeper in rogue for some reason. And I am preferring argent squire over undertaker, but that could change.

I don't think I like ragnaros in the list although often that 8 damage is pretty crucial towards closing out games when you don't have charge minions, which is also why I don't like it in the list.

My last 3 losses were to a massively buff Van Cleef, a yolo deathwing, and an egg + power overwhelming + void terror combo, all of which would've been really all-in plays against any other control deck since I had a better board and more cards. It's frustrating but I guess all those situations could've been better handled.

I feel like undertaker is a better 1-drop than the argent squire, because you can play it in the same turn as a loot hoarder or a harvest golem and immediately have a great board. If you don't run cold bloods or abusive sergeants that let your squires trade up I don't think you'd get as much value out of them as you would a zoo or shaman deck.

Strangely enough I actually really like ragnaros, not even as just a finisher, because usually sylvanas, rivendare, and the sludge belchers eat up the removals and this deck controls the board very well, so it's common to play Rag on turn 10 when you have a good set of minions and just trade for his board for 3 turns to win.

 

[Cipherr]

Thats how I feel about warriors and fiery war axe. I cannot recall ever playing a goddamn war that doesn't have it in their opening hand for my early board presence. EVERY damn time. I cannot understand how that happens.

 

[Dreavus]

One thing I was thinking about, do you guys think all 100+ cards will be better and/or different than from what we have now? I wouldn't be surprised if there were some more 'duplicate' cards of what we have now, but just use different art for people who prefer Horde/Alliance or whatever.

They do say new but that doesn't mean exactly different / better, right?

I don't think they'd go for duplicate cards just yet.

The primary reason MTG does so is either to facilitate a specific limited environment on a pack to pack basis for drafting purposes, or they liked how a certain card performed previously and they need something similar to go into that slot of a new set, sometimes changing the flavour along with it (like the good old Llanowar Elf --> Elvish Mystic).

The big problem if they did so in HS would be the extra redundancy, depending on which card is doubled - x4 of a card is a huge redundancy in 30 card decks that shouldn't be under estimated. Also the fact that cards don't "rotate out" at all at this point like they do in MTG, so we still have access to the old card.

 

[IceMarker]

Why is it easier to win with shitty decks in lower Ranked than in Casual mode?

Isn't that the fucking point of casual mode? This game is such bullshit 90% of the time.

Obviously I need to dust half my card collection so I can half a decent deck with a legendary actually in it.