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[georly]

Good to know.

I'll probably stick to Standard Ranked and Arena then.

That's what a majority of us will be doing, yeah.

Tavern brawls will vary if they're standard or wild (they should tell you, but I have a feeling a lot more wild than standard). Adventures should all be wild, as well. It would suck if you NEED a wild card to win some of them, so I assume they'll balance them around standard (but could potentially be easier if you have wild cards).

 

[Professor Lich]

Are we sure they're still doing Adventures? For some reason I thought they were doing away with them all together.

If not, I find it odd they're just going to 'throw then away,' after they rotate out.

 

[Fishlake]

Personally I don't see the appeal of rotating formats for myself.

Even in MTG I never play them because I would much rather just create a commander/legacy deck that I can use forever or until i get bored. Also as a FTP its in my interest to stay out of it as rotating formats are much more expensive then eternal ones overall.

I have 37 free packs ready for the expansion so I may be able to participate in standard right now but if a ftp can do that blizzard will likely have to nerf the amount of gold they give out. Rotating formats are designed to keep people paying.

Personally I like how eternal formats over time create such a large diversity of decks at lower ranks. there are so many neat little interactions you can do with them. If they stay healthy as well you can have all sorts of decks at higher ranks as well.

Since you can not buy singles in hearthstone wild will be very difficult to break into as well.

It will be interesting to see how the wild format is in a few years. I looks forward to participating in it.

 

[Karsticles]

Are we sure they're still doing Adventures? For some reason I thought they were doing away with them all together.

If not, I find it odd they're just going to 'throw then away,' after they rotate out.

Yeah, I wish they would keep all Adventures Standard. Or at least grandfather some cards into Classic.

Adventures are still a thing, though. They bring in a lot of money.

 

[JesseZao]

Are we sure they're still doing Adventures? For some reason I thought they were doing away with them all together.

If not, I find it odd they're just going to 'throw then away,' after they rotate out.

They want to ease new players into the game. That's what this update is primarily about. Less perceived barriers to entry (sets to catch up on).

 

[Karsticles]

They want to ease new players into the game. That's what this update is primarily about. Less perceived barriers to entry (sets to catch up on).

I wonder how many people are really put off by this. As a new-ish player, more cards to collect is better. I would be pretty salty if I just crafted Dr. Boom, a MASSIVE feat for a new player, and these changes were announced. Now I know to only craft Classic and WotOG legendaries to increase my value.

 

[FeD.nL]

Is Kibler revealing his dragon today?

 

[Professor Lich]

Yeah, I wish they would keep all Adventures Standard. Or at least grandfather some cards into Classic.

Adventures are still a thing, though. They bring in a lot of money.

They want to ease new players into the game. That's what this update is primarily about. Less perceived barriers to entry (sets to catch up on).

Sorry. I should explain myself more. I didn't mean throwing them out of Standard play. That I get and even though I am sad it's happening, but it's good for the game.

I'm taking about the PvE / Boss fight stuff. The really fun to play one player experience. To me, it's really odd that after Standard, a new player will never get to experience them.

If they're technically free, why not still let new players get into them for fun?

 

[georly]

Is Kibler revealing his dragon today?

Should be, I think. He won the votes right?

 

[Maledict]

Personally I don't see the appeal of rotating formats for myself.

Even in MTG I never play them because I would much rather just create a commander/legacy deck that I can use forever or until i get bored. Also as a FTP its in my interest to stay out of it as rotating formats are much more expensive then eternal ones overall.

I have 37 free packs ready for the expansion so I may be able to participate in standard right now but if a ftp can do that blizzard will likely have to nerf the amount of gold they give out. Rotating formats are designed to keep people paying.

Personally I like how eternal formats over time create such a large diversity of decks at lower ranks. there are so many neat little interactions you can do with them. If they stay healthy as well you can have all sorts of decks at higher ranks as well.

Since you can not buy singles in hearthstone wild will be very difficult to break into as well.

It will be interesting to see how the wild format is in a few years. I looks forward to participating in it.

There's a reason every CCG bar Yu-Gi-Oh has ended up with rotating formats. If you don't rotate formats, you end up with a huge number of issues similar to what Hearthstone currently has that end up stifling your game:

1) Price of entry becomes ridiculous. In order to have a set of cards players have to spend more and more money just to have the basics.

2) Power creep - your new cards either have to better than your old cards, or they won't get played. There's only a certain amount of design space out there, and eventually you run into power creep.

3) There's no possible way to balance a large card format. MTG finds it hard enough with just two blocks in standard, and doesn't do well at all with other formats that have more sets. IT cannot stay healthy unfortunately - again, it's just the way these things work. When you have literally billions of interactions between thousands of cards some things will always end up broken and unbalanced, and then the format warps around them.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

*Hates playing for tempo.

*Plays Zoolock, Hunter and Grim Patron Warrior.


EleGiggle

Heh

 

[Emerson]

Should be, I think. He won the votes right?

Technically he hasn't won the vote until 1pm so that's when he's allowed to show the card, he has until tomorrow. I'm sure he will today though.

 

[Karsticles]

There's a reason every CCG bar Yu-Gi-Oh has ended up with rotating formats. If you don't rotate formats, you end up with a huge number of issues similar to what Hearthstone currently has that end up stifling your game:

1) Price of entry becomes ridiculous. In order to have a set of cards players have to spend more and more money just to have the basics.

2) Power creep - your new cards either have to better than your old cards, or they won't get played. There's only a certain amount of design space out there, and eventually you run into power creep.

3) There's no possible way to balance a large card format. MTG finds it hard enough with just two blocks in standard, and doesn't do well at all with other formats that have more sets. IT cannot stay healthy unfortunately - again, it's just the way these things work. When you have literally billions of interactions between thousands of cards some things will always end up broken and unbalanced, and then the format warps around them.

I disagree with 1). The more cards there are, the more potentially viable deck options and substitutions there are.

2) There is SO much design space before this is an issue. There are hardly any deck types. There's usually face, midrange, control, and then SOME classes have a special archetype that works only for them, like Casino Mage and Patron Warrior. Blizzard should primarily focus on expanding these archetypes to include new ideas. Hell Shadowform has been a card since launch, and it STILL isn't viable as an archetype. This is just lazy thinking by you and Blizzard.

3) The game isn't well-balanced now. It wasnt even well balanced when Classic was the only set. Is this really an argument?

 

[Fishlake]

There's a reason every CCG bar Yu-Gi-Oh has ended up with rotating formats. If you don't rotate formats, you end up with a huge number of issues similar to what Hearthstone currently has that end up stifling your game:

1) Price of entry becomes ridiculous. In order to have a set of cards players have to spend more and more money just to have the basics.

2) Power creep - your new cards either have to better than your old cards, or they won't get played. There's only a certain amount of design space out there, and eventually you run into power creep.

3) There's no possible way to balance a large card format. MTG finds it hard enough with just two blocks in standard, and doesn't do well at all with other formats that have more sets. IT cannot stay healthy unfortunately - again, it's just the way these things work. When you have literally billions of interactions between thousands of cards some things will always end up broken and unbalanced, and then the format warps around them.

Yes I know rotating formats solve a lot of problems that otherwise occur I just don't see the draw to them and never have.

I personally think that eternal formats stay healthier if there is a popular rotating format. As you pointed out power creep becomes a problem if the entire game is eternal because you want to get more people to buy packs.

I just prefer them overall.

 

[Raxus]

It is assumed most of the nerfs will be to the base set. But yes there are a bunch of base set cards that wound up tilting the game heavily in the rush direction as well as long term problem children like Knife Juggler and BGH. Hopefully we will hear about the nerfs soon.

 

[Emerson]

It is assumed most of the nerfs will be to the base set. But yes there are a bunch of base set cards that wound up tilting the game heavily in the rush direction as well as long term problem children like Knife Juggler and BGH. Hopefully we will hear about the nerfs soon.

Not an assumption, it was stated by Blizzard all of the nerfs will be to basic and classic cards.

 

[daemissary]

Hafu has been trying to test out if on top of current standings in an arena run if there is a hidden MMR to it as well.

She claims that shes getting much much easier opponents on a starter account when doing arenas, even in the higher standings, things she does not get when playing on her main account. Shes trying to figure out if it's just confirmation bias or if its actually true. She seems quite adamant that there is a hidden mmr to arenas as well

I 100% believe this to be true. I have a main account and an alt account which I only play on every couple of days to clear quests. I used to average over 7 wins per arena on both but now I'm around 5 on my main account and still over 7 on my alt.

In fact, where I notice it most is if I'm around 3-2 or 4-2. On my alt account I always get matched up against scrubs around those W-L records but on my main account I seem to always get matched up against very good players.

I almost exclusively play arena after ranked gets stale so I get in a ton of runs per month and it seems very statistically unlikely that I could average 2 wins less per run without some sort of hidden MMR.

 

[Karsticles]

It is assumed most of the nerfs will be to the base set. But yes there are a bunch of base set cards that wound up tilting the game heavily in the rush direction as well as long term problem children like Knife Juggler and BGH. Hopefully we will hear about the nerfs soon.

I don't think Juggler makes the game more rush oriented. It's usually a late play.

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

I don't think Juggler makes the game more rush oriented. It's usually a late play.

Is it supposed to be? I always mulligan for and play Juggs early, first move if possible. Am I doing it wrong?

 

[Karsticles]

Is it supposed to be? I always mulligan for and play Juggs early, first move if possible. Am I doing it wrong?

Absolutely unless you have to. Juggler is for comboing with other drops, and you need mana for that.

Juggler then Muster for Battle.
Juggler then Unleash the Hounds.
Juggler then Imp-plosion.

Etc.

 

[Owzers]

Is it supposed to be? I always mulligan for and play Juggs early, first move if possible. Am I doing it wrong?

Usually you play something like the spider first, then juggler to run the spider into something and get value. If you just play juggler on an empty board it could die without ever achieving his life mission.

 

[ZealousD]

If Blizzard were more creative, they wouldn't need to rehash. I can think of 5 new mechanics right now for sets to make them interesting and fresh without retreading.

Creative doesn't mean competitively viable. The only way to ensure that a large enough pool of new cards gets used in a system where old cards don't get rotated out is for Blizzard to constantly push the power curve higher and higher. Either that or push the power curve of previous sets further and further down (ie nerf the shit out of everything).

You won't get Spikes excited for new sets unless the cards are competitive. And if only a tiny fraction of new sets are competitively viable than Spikes will just craft what they need and not spend a dime.

 

[Karsticles]

Creative doesn't mean competitively viable. The only way to ensure that a large enough pool of new cards gets used in a system where old cards don't get rotated out is for Blizzard to constantly push the power curve higher and higher. Either that or push the power curve of previous sets further and further down (ie nerf the shit out of everything).

You won't get Spikes excited for new sets unless the cards are competitive. And if only a tiny fraction of new sets are competitively viable than Spikes will just craft what they need and not spend a dime.

I don't see this as an either-or. There are all kinds of minions that can be made for deck types that don't exist yet. I think that a belief otherwise is a kind of confession that one lacks creative nuance for these things (like Blizzard, lol).

 

[veloxStrix]

Is it supposed to be? I always mulligan for and play Juggs early, first move if possible. Am I doing it wrong?

It depends on the deck. With Zoo, for example, you probably don't want to mulligan for it since it has synergy with Implosion and the board flooding strategy of the deck itself.

But with Face Hunter, it's fine. You are looking to win the game by Turn 8 at the latest. You want to play both Knife Jugglers, but can't necessarily rely on them both. The first one typically plays as an Aggro piece whereas the second typically comes down as a comeback mechanic with UtH.

 

[coolasj19]

4,185 Gold. I'd have 5,000 already but I've done about 4 Arena runs to get rid of that last 5 Gold making my number ugly. They were pretty shit runs too. Except for that one were I LITERALLY made a Zoo Lock deck. 3 PO, 2 Doomguard, Flame Imp, etc. only got 8 runs cause I played like crap.

Anyway, I would've just preordered some packs, but the card back is icky and it's not like I'm spending on anything. I have another 140 in quests lined up too. I'm in a HS rut. My AnyFin Reno deck is just getting continuously crapped on. My opponents just toss too many threats on the board. I even had to use Enter the Colosseum! It improved my win rate but it's still not enough! So yeah. The meta is bad for it. The meta is bad for everything I like, tbh. Maybe I should finally try Warrior. Or Priest. I did craft 2 Lightbombs for that 7+ Mana Brawl.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

If Blizzard were more creative, they wouldn't need to rehash. I can think of 5 new mechanics right now for sets to make them interesting and fresh without retreading.

You think you're a better designer? Lol, ok, would love to hear what you have.

 

[Gentle Rodriguez]

Absolutely unless you have to. Juggler is for comboing with other drops, and you need mana for that.

Juggler then Muster for Battle.
Juggler then Unleash the Hounds.
Juggler then Imp-plosion.

Etc.

Pretty much, I've seen people try to Juggler on turn 2 to then muster turn 3 but he gets killed instantly almost every single time so it's not a great play unless you're trying to bait out removal.

 

[Professor Lich]

I don't see this as an either-or. There are all kinds of minions that can be made for deck types that don't exist yet. I think that a belief otherwise is a kind of confession that one lacks creative nuance for these things (like Blizzard, lol).

Just curious, have you ever developed or designed a game before?

Sure, there are a lot of things you CAN do but there are reasons why you don't or shouldn't.

 

[Karsticles]

It depends on the deck. With Zoo, for example, you probably don't want to mulligan for it since it has synergy with Implosion and the board flooding strategy of the deck itself.

But with Face Hunter, it's fine. You are looking to win the game by Turn 8 at the latest. You want to play both Knife Jugglers, but can't necessarily rely on them both. The first one typically plays as an Aggro piece whereas the second typically comes down as a comeback mechanic with UtH.

Even with Hunter, I won't play it if I have other options. It also depends on the matchup. Hunter vs. Warlock specifically save Juggler+UTH to respond to Juggler+Imp-plosion. Grim Patron, toss the juggler out ASAP to trade but save UTH for the killing blow.

4,185 Gold. I'd have 5,000 already but I've done about 4 Arena runs to get rid of that last 5 Gold making my number ugly. They were pretty shit runs too. Except for that one were I LITERALLY made a Zoo Lock deck. 3 PO, 2 Doomguard, Flame Imp, etc. only got 8 runs cause I played like crap.

Anyway, I would've just preordered some packs, but the card back is icky and it's not like I'm spending on anything. I have another 140 in quests lined up too. I'm in a HS rut. My AnyFin Reno deck is just getting continuously crapped on. My opponents just toss too many threats on the board. I even had to use Enter the Colosseum! It improved my win rate but it's still not enough! So yeah. The meta is bad for it. The meta is bad for everything I like, tbh. Maybe I should finally try Warrior. Or Priest. I did craft 2 Lightbombs for that 7+ Mana Brawl.

You crafted two GvG epics for a Brawl? Damn.

 

[ZealousD]

I don't see this as an either-or. There are all kinds of minions that can be made for deck types that don't exist yet. I think that a belief otherwise is a kind of confession that one lacks creative nuance for these things (like Blizzard, lol).

You're living in a fantasy word if you think it is possible for every class to have increasingly more and more equally competitively viable archetypes.

And keep in mind for a second that Blizzard is releasing hundreds of cards every year. That's like a new card every 1-2 days. You think Blizzard (or anyone, really) can keep that pace while also maintaining some kind of perfect balance of creativity and competitive viability without pushing any cards out of the meta?

 

[Owzers]

I'm still kinda blah about the idea that every card i obtain will be off to wild in 1.5-2 years. I want to keep building Reno decks while adding different cards that release in future expansions, but now i'll only be able to do this by going to wild and enduring random annoying things where a small fraction of that already bugs me in the current ladder. Maybe by next spring i'll be sick of Reno and Brann though and i won't mind having them thrown to Narnia.

 

[Karsticles]

You're living in a fantasy word if you think it is possible for every class to have increasingly more and more equally competitively viable archetypes.

And keep in mind for a second that Blizzard is releasing hundreds of cards every year. That's like a new card every 1-2 days. You think Blizzard can keep that pace while also maintaining some kind of perfect balance of creativity and competitive viability without pushing any cards out of the meta?

There would obviously be variance in the viability, but I think we could be doing a lot better than what we have right now. Each Adventure leads to the creation of a few more archetypes, so I don't know why you think this is unrealistic when it happens already.

Yeah, Blizzard releases a lot of cards, but most of them suck as it is. That's up to Blizzard.

Absolutely some cards will get pushed out of the meta, and that is okay. For example, with that new Blood Clone card, Patron Warrior might stop playing something else. Or maybe that 1 damage worm would become standard in the deck. In an ideal world, there become multiple Patron variants that are viable, even. That is when the game really becomes expressive.

This feels a lot like old WoW arguments. Blizzard was incompetent, some people tried to pretend it was the best it could be, others were unhappy, and then Blizzard started listening and fixed problems instead of ignoring them.

 

[Dahbomb]

There have already been a bunch of new mechanics in Old Gods.

Cthun uses a completely new mechanic. A permanent buff acting on a card from anywhere is brand new, the closest we got to this was Mistcaller in TGT but this adds more complexities to it.

Chogall is a new mechanic, there was never a way before to trade HP for mana.

Yogg is an all new mechanic completely.

The Hunter worm is a new mechanic for the game, there was no way for a minion to reactivate itself after an attack.


Blizzard is still adding new mechanics to the game that push what a digital card game can do.

 

[ZealousD]

There would obviously be variance in the viability, but I think we could be doing a lot better than what we have right now. Each Adventure leads to the creation of a few more archetypes, so I don't know why you think this is unrealistic when it happens already.

They create new archetypes but other archetypes get pushed out. LOE gave us Renolock and now nobody plays Handlock anymore. This is the result of an increasing power curve. In a world where standard doesn't exist, new archetypes would push out old ones (making certain cards implicitly useless) while strong archetypes get stronger with fewer and fewer substitutions (making it harder the include new cards).

Yeah, Blizzard releases a lot of cards, but most of them suck as it is. That's up to Blizzard.

EVERYTHING is relative in card games. It is literally impossible to create a card game where every card (or even most) is good. At least half of all cards will be worse than the other half, and therefore "bad".

This feels a lot like old WoW arguments. Blizzard was incompetent, some people tried to pretend it was the best it could be, others were unhappy, and then Blizzard started listening and fixed problems instead of ignoring them.

Aside from the fact that Basic/Classic is evergreen there is not much I can criticize on Standard as a concept. All of this makes sense and is healthy for the game as a whole. These are problems that card games have been grappling with for a long time. If you cannot recognize these basic facts about card game design then it is probably best you leave the game. Blizzard will be perfectly successful without you because what they are doing is very beneficial to new players.

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

Thanks for the juggler assist, folks!!

I assume if I play it in my deck with egg, he'll pop when the 4/4 comes out?

 

[Gentle Rodriguez]

When you say cards suck, do you mean they're not strong or that they're uninteresting? Huge difference.

 

[MattyG]

I've never done one of these 50 pack preorders. Are they worth it? I really like the idea of Whispers of the Old Gods, I'd like a lot of those cards.

Also, just bought Naxrramas. It's kicking my ass. I need to work on my decks.

 

[Owzers]

Thanks for the juggler assist, folks!!

I assume if I play it in my deck with egg, he'll pop when the 4/4 comes out?

yeah, that gets the knife juggler to throw, so does stuff like a sludge belcher dying and a slime coming out and piloted shredders dying.

 

[Apathy]

Fuck rng in this game. It's such bullshit. In the same game, my opponent just happen to get a fucking rusty horn from 1 clockwork gnome and just happen to also have a black knight, and then plays a grand crusader and gets eadric from it, like go fuck yourself man. Unbelievable I have to deal with a guy with a horseshoe up his ass

 

[IvorB]

Don't play Casual as a new player, you will be placed against anybody. Ranked mode will be against similar players.

Really? Is this true. I've only been playing casual since I thought that would be the way to go for a newbie...

Also I got some dust for disenchanting my first card and sprung for one of these guys:

Only played it once but it was pretty great seeing the opponent drop a nice, big, fancy minion for me to copy.

 

[Apathy]

Mill rogue tried to kill me by vanishing my patrons. I had a bunch of activators in my hand so I was just baiting him out

also, geeze, how the hell did kibler get so many votes compared to Amaz and Trump. I love Kibler but I thought he had less fans. Is it just the fact he got some bad ass art?

 

[greepoman]

also, geeze, how the hell did kibler get so many votes compared to Amaz and Trump. I love Kibler but I thought he had less fans. Is it just the fact he got some bad ass art?

Hearthstone has a lot more fans that may not watch streams (or English only streams) so yes they voted for the badass art as did I.

 

[FirstBlood]

I don't think Juggler makes the game more rush oriented. It's usually a late play.

Juggler is at its strongest when it's left alone after turn 2. You drop it early, fishing for early removal and when it's left alone you have a giant tempo swing for turn 3 with muster/UTH/Creeper.

This is where Juggler wins games. The late game combo is useful too but it's not why Juggler is a problem.

 

[Gentle Rodriguez]

Savjz just showed a Priest card.

2 mana Priest Epic spell: This turn, your healing effects deal damage instead.

So basically auchenai effect.

 

[pantsmith]

I've never done one of these 50 pack preorders. Are they worth it? I really like the idea of Whispers of the Old Gods, I'd like a lot of those cards.

Also, just bought Naxrramas. It's kicking my ass. I need to work on my decks.

I bought the 50 classic packs around Christmas, when I was really getting into the game.

IMO the discount is reasonable enough, and gives you a great starting point, but the money is only worth it if you play a lot of Hearthstone.

Given how much I play, it evens out to saving my time in the long run. Your mileage may vary.

 

[BananasWithGuns]

Savjz just showed a Priest card.

2 mana Priest Epic spell: This turn, your healing spells deal damage instead.

So basically auchenai effect.

Here's the image.

http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/hearthstone/507509-liquids-whispers-of-the-old-gods-card-reveal

 

[Dre]

New card reveal by team Liquid:

[/IMG]http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/shiroiusagi/tlpro/articles/2016/0412_whispercard.jpg[/IMG]

EDIT: beaten like my grandma

 

[peakish]

As a priest player it's pretty boring to see a single turn copy of the cool as hell Auchenai.

 

[pantsmith]

Here's the image.

http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/hearthstone/507509-liquids-whispers-of-the-old-gods-card-reveal

It's a one use Auchenai Soulpriest.

Would be neat if it went back to your hand after use, like a more expensive but more flexible shadow form, but that would be too strong with a Justicar'd hero power.

 

[ZealousD]

Embrace the Shadow seems like a deliberate attempt to create an OTK combo Priest. Auchenai is a much stronger general purpose card but the mana reduction on this gives you the chance to do some Velen or Malygos shenanigans with Flash Heal.