Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Looking back, what a paradigm shift in the community from "Priest is dead" to "Priest is feasting". With the cancerous Priest decks running around now, I actually half-hope that Priest truly was dead xD

Purify was what we needed all along

Is it that bad? I haven't played that much constructed lately so I don't know exactly how rampant cancer Priest decks are right now, haha. I think the scariest thing I've seen so far is the Resurrect Priest, but Mage takes care of it nicely - if you can sheep their best res targets first the deck is pretty much dead. :D

Because whenever RNG is involved, it's bound to produce a tumour that steadily tilts the opponent. *coughBarnescough*

So if you don't already know, the Welcome Pack was released today! It's 10 Classic packs and 1 free Classic class legendary for $5. Only one can be purchased per account.

I bought mine knowing that I already have most Classic cards and 5/9 class legendaries. Unfortunately, I got a duplicate card (Edwin VanCleef), but I did get a Nat Pagle in one of the 10 packs, so that's kinda nice.

Also, Tyrande Whisperwind is the new Priest hero available during an upcoming promotion!

So I was planning on writing a blog post about Hearthstone and in that I would have included what I got from the 10 packs, but I really cba to do that at the moment so I'll just tell you I got 3 Legendaries total from the Welcome Pack! I normally would never spend money on a F2P game (haven't been playing too much so I'm still like halfway to wing 2 of Karazhan by saving up gold, rip me) but 10 packs for $5 is a pretty good deal, imo.

I don't know if I'll actually play the Legends I got, but they're cool for my collection, I guess (in a pinch, lots of dust too) - got King Krush from buying the pack, and also opened Captain Greenskin and Al'Akir. I laughed when I opened Greenskin but I think it might actually see more play in my decks than the other two, since I'm partial to Warrior and I could try some kind of pirate deck with him.

But yeah! Got a lot of other great cards out of this too - I definitely recommend it if your collection needs a boost and you have 5 bucks to spare.

I don't like having to see the 'Buy the Welcome Bundle!' button every time I log in, haha. I totally would buy it again if you would let me, Blizzard ;(

Anyway, I've been playing a lot of ladder recently and it seem like about 1/3 of the games I play are against aggro shamans. And what's infuriating is that they always win because of their direct damage spells like Lava Lash and Lightning Bolt that have insane synergy with minions like Tunneling Trogg. I'm normally not one to complain about the game, because I really like playing it, but it's frustrating when 1/3 games are lost because of a broken archetype.

Has anybody else had similar frustrations with a certain class/archetype (aggro shaman)? What do you think Blizzard should do to fix this problem?

It's witchcraft, I swear almost every Aggro shaman mulligans for/draws into exactly turn 1 Tunnel Trogg, turn 2 Totem Golem, turn 3 Feral Spirit/did you bring some fish and 4 mana 7/7

Like how does this keep happening

RNGeesus works in mysterious ways.

With my tempo mage I can fairly reliably mulligan a turn 1 mana wyrm, turn 2 mirror image + arcane missles. It's magic \o/

But yeah when I see an aggro shaman mulligan for those exact cards I sometimes just concede, depending on my hand. Aggro shaman is too good in its current state.

Nerfs incoming! I'm kind of happy about these, mainly because they don't affect me (negatively).

The Shaman nerfs will help a bit, though I'm not sure if it's really enough to deter Aggro Shamans - at the same time they can't really do any more without just killing Shaman, I suppose. I would have gone for Tunnel Trogg instead, maybe something like "Gain 1 attack for each Overload card you play" rather than per crystal.

Call of the Wild nerf is fine, I don't play Hunter, I don't like seeing that card when I'm already losing.

Execute nerf is probably the one I am least happy about since I play Warrior most, but I guess it's a fair nerf. The Charge nerf (buff?) I support, clearly aimed at OTK Worgen.

No opinion on Abusive Sergeant.

Aaaand probably the most controversial change - Yogg's Battlecry! I think this nerf is insane and hilarious. I don't play it so it won't affect me, but this absolutely kills Yogg (like the way he always kills himself). I can see him thrown in a few fun decks still, but I don't think there will be many Yogg-centric decks after this.

This is the best set of nerfs I've ever seen. Tuskarr Totemic needed a lot of fixing and this nerf was very forward-thinking (they can print cards that now revolve around the non-basic totems). I dislike Execute's cheap cost so I'm glad they changed it. Call of the Wild as well. Rockbiter Weapon makes Doomhammer slightly efficient to combo and gives opponents a chance to Ooze/Harrison it.

I'm really happy with these nerfs. Tuskarr Totemic, I think, is really only going to see play in totem-centric decks now that it can't summon Totem Golem or Mana Tide Totem.

Rockbiter weapon, like Winter said, is going to have a big effect on the efficiency of Doomhammer. I also think that it's nice that Shaman's can't instantly remove things like Mana Wyrm and Tunneling Trogg on turn 1 now.

Execute was also nerfed fairly imo. More aggressive warrior decks will probably be most affected by this, but in control warrior decks, I think it'll be fine. Control warriors usually have some extra mana on their turns anyway because of the playstyle.

I think Charge is almost more of a buff than a nerf (except ofc in OTK Worgen). I always preferred if Charge just let me charge with no attack boost for a lower cost, since I never really utilized that +2 attack.

Call of the Wild is... I guess nerfed fairly. I personally thought it was a good power card at 8 mana, but in reality it's probably better at 9 mana.

I also don't have much of an opinion on Abusive Sergeant. It's main value comes from it's +2 attack effect anyway.

Yeah, I think Call of the Wild is still totally playable at 9 mana. It's essentially 3 Animal Companions cast at once, so making it 9 seems fair.

I thought about Abusive Sergeant a bit more, and I think the biggest blow to it is that it lost its ability to trade with 2 health minions - same as what happened to Leper Gnome, it's played a lot less now, now that it's a 1/1 instead of a 2/1.

I just want to mention that when Tyrande and Malfurion enter a battle against one another, the dialogue is really cute

And none of the cards that were nerfed bother me much, since they're from classes I don't use as much. I was sad to see the Tuskarr Totemic nerf, but only because I liked getting something other than the basic totems from him on the rare occasions I play Shaman lol

Nakuzami said:

I just want to mention that when Tyrande and Malfurion enter a battle against one another, the dialogue is really cute

And none of the cards that were nerfed bother me much, since they're from classes I don't use as much. I was sad to see the Tuskarr Totemic nerf, but only because I liked getting something other than the basic totems from him on the rare occasions I play Shaman lol

Click to expand...

Happens to me most of the time and I must admit that it's quite awkward
since I mainly priest. {XD}

There's also some special dialogue when Fandral is played against her. :D

So since there's apparently an expansion reveal tomorrow at BlizzCon, what does everyone think the theme is going to be? We've seen some teasers for the expansion showing life in Gadgetzan.



It looks like there might be a gang theme going on, since the teasers show a goblin gang, a murloc gang, and a pandaren gang.

MEAN STREETS OF GADGETZAN!!

There's a cinematic trailer, but honestly we just want to see gamplay so here's a video showcasing some of the new cards


I'm so excited for this, watched the Blizzcon reveal yesterday and it looks awesome - new mechanics include potion crafting and faction cards! They're really making an effort to bring Priest back too, as many expected - aside from that really solid 3-drop they also threw in a few Dragon Priest cards.