Hearthstone

[Aikouka]

I'd rather have to pay 10 bucks for a Dr. Boom. Who's with me?

I probably ought to finally craft him. It seems that Emperor Thaurissan and Dr. Boom are pretty much mainstays in almost any deck.

Speaking of cards, I feel kind of bad for a friend of mine. He's the type that doesn't want to spend any money on the game, but holy hell... it isn't pleasant when he goes up against someone with some good cards. Although, the game seems to put him up against others with crappy cards quite often. I almost thought that the game was doing it on purpose until it put him up against someone with a modest number of GvG cards.

I've been spectating him a bit, and to be fair, some of his losses were due to some really bad misplays.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I would say the cost to get Emperor Thaurissan is more than justified over almost anything else in the game at the moment. It effectively gives you back the mana it cost to play it almost on the very same turn you play the card (as long as you have a few cards in your hand). There almost isn't a single deck it doesn't help (rush warlock might be the only deck since you typically won't have many cards left in your hand by turn 6-7 unless you also have Jeeves (and played Jeeves first so that you draw the 3 cards before you get the -1 cost from Emoeror).

As for player matching, the matchmaker software tries to put people of equal "skill" together ("skill" meaning a combo of number of matches and win %). It will start you out against other people who have almost no wins just like you, and will move you up against better and better opponents as you rack up wins.

 

[JTsyo]

Anyone else notice new heroes are expected?

 

[Majes]

Anyone else notice new heroes are expected?

If only they had new abilities. I guess the new skins will appeal to some people.

 

[Vivendi]

So lots of new things coming to hearthstone soon. More new hero portraits announced today, looking at the silhouette, 2nd mage will probably be Medivh.

More importantly, new game mode!!! Tavern Brawl, it will have different deck rules each week or so (with a bit of downtime before next brawl). It will be free to play. Will give classic free packs for a win per each week for the firt few times.

Friends list limit increased from 100 to 200.

Decks slots to be increased sometime in the "future".

Different cardbacks and hero portraits can be saved for each deck.

 

[Aikouka]

More importantly, new game mode!!! Tavern Brawl, it will have different deck rules each week or so (with a bit of downtime before next brawl). It will be free to play. Will give classic free packs for a win per each week for the firt few times.

The way they described the downtime seemed weird. Exactly how much will we have? ...and why is there even downtime anyway? Why can't this just be a custom battle mode? What they're really just talking about are modifiers, which are featured in other games from Unreal Tournament to Super Smash Bros. When I first read it, I figured things might just be randomized every time, but it sounds like the rules will be for a set amount of time, which they never mentioned.

 

[Fallen Kell]

A deck slot increase is appreciated, and is really necessary for Brawl Mode to be viable if you ask me.

 

[Aikouka]

A deck slot increase is appreciated, and is really necessary for Brawl Mode to be viable if you ask me.

I get the feeling that brawl decks will be more like Arena where they're temporary rather than requiring a deck slot. They did mention that one of the modes would be using premade decks.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well just ran into the first sucker to spend $10 for a portrait change....

 

[Aikouka]

By the way, the first Weekly Brawl starts this Wednesday.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, ran into another $10 portrait changer... That said, played a decent battle against him (he was a mage). I was in my druid deck. He was breaking out all the right cards, but I was lucky to almost always have the answer.

Long story short, after forcing all his transforms out of his deck, I was sitting with deathwing and both the "wonder twins" (fuegen and stallag) as well as a big game hunter (which I had yet to have a use for), and we are well past turn 10. I plopped down both the wonder twins figuring what the hell (the enemy mage is down to 12 health at this point as I have been smacking away whenever I can, but had been giving up board control over the last 1-2 rounds, since I had deathwing in my hand to regain it, but had yet to draw both wonder twins). This left me with an almost dead iron bark on the board, plus the two wonder twins, but he had at least 5 low attack minions out (one of them was the 2/4 do 2 damage on spell, which is why he didn't smash all his minions against the ironbark last round). So he unloads his hand, freezing all my minions, casts a do 3 random enemy minion damage, and then plops down a tazdinga (3/5+taunt), leaving just 1 card in his hand. An additional 4 damage spread across my hero and finished off the ironbark, but both the wonder twins survived. He then proceedes to attack my hero hoping to knock me down before I could do anything since he figured he had a free turn with the freeze on my minions (he must have never been hit with the deathwing, wonder twins combo, but then again, not many people have since deathwing doesn't sit in many decks).

So, of course, Deathwing is the play (it also only cost me 8 since I had Emperor on the board 2 turns), and I hero power to hit the mage down to 11 hp (I only lose a big game hunter and the sludge beltcher that I just drew out of my hand), but it clears the board, and double summons Thaddius (since both twins died when Deathwing appeared, their deathrattles trigger after both were already dead, meaning they each summon a Thaddius). So now, I have no cards in my hand, but a 12/12 Deathwing, and two 11/11 Thaddius's on the board, all of which will one hit kill the enemy and he only has 1 card in his hand (2 once he draws). He draws a 6/5+taunt, and casts a freeze spell on one of the Thaddius's, emptying his hand... game over.

 

[MikeyLSU]

brawl is open, this week it is one player gets nafarian, the other gets Ragnaros, both with 60 health effectively.

Interesting, I played one as ragnaros and got killed, then I played one as Nafarian and killed the other guy. So my initial thoughts are at least with players who don't know the full deck(me) Nafarian is better.

You get a free deck for your first win

 

[Vivendi]

Nefarian certainly seems to favored a lot more in this matchup. I won nearly all games with him except the very first one where I just jumped in and didn't know what a lot of the cards did and another where I drew horribly useless cards and hero power gave me unplayable spells all game, I mean really bad (feign death X2, then totemic might, finally deadly poison). Otherwise I find it's remarkbly easy to win with Nefarian even if your draw isn't perfect.
When I'm playing as Rag, I have to plan a lot more and manage my cards carefully to get to the late game. Even then, 4 wins only out of 11 games.

 

[Wardawg1001]

Nefarian certainly seems to favored a lot more in this matchup. I won nearly all games with him except the very first one where I just jumped in and didn't know what a lot of the cards did and another where I drew horribly useless cards and hero power gave me unplayable spells all game, I mean really bad (feign death X2, then totemic might, finally deadly poison). Otherwise I find it's remarkbly easy to win with Nefarian even if your draw isn't perfect.
When I'm playing as Rag, I have to plan a lot more and manage my cards carefully to get to the late game. Even then, 4 wins only out of 11 games.

They both have their advantages, I think once you understand how to play as and against each hero it becomes fairly balanced (well, as balanced as a game can be with so many ridiculously overpowered cards/abilities).

Nefarian has the highest upside with his zero cost spells. If you get the right spells, he's damn near unstoppable. Nefarians advantage is in the early game since he can play really strong minions right away and establish board control. But if you whiff on your first few hero powers and lose control of the board, you'll probably never get it back.

Ragnaros has a clear advantage late game, but he has to make it there. Use your weapon every turn so you can get to your OP hero power. Don't be afraid to take a lot of damage on the way there. Do everything possible to keep the board clear of enemy minions. Most of Nefarians minions are high mana cost and he'll have used the cheaper ones during the early turns, so he'll usually only be able to play 1-2 minions per turn later on, so its just a matter of attrition at that point. Keep trying to kill whatever he plays with your hero power, and if it misses then trade. Eventually you'll either gain a massive board control advantage, or your constant 8 damage hits to the face will take you to victory. Make it a point to try to save your flamestrikes for Onyxia or his spell that fills the board with 2/2's. The only way you lose late game is if you let him flood the board with weak minions and they start eating up all your hero power hits.

 

[JTsyo]

They should really show the decks so you know what you're doing.

 

[darkewaffle]

Played 3, got Rag 3 in a row, won on the 3rd and that was enough for me. It's a neat idea but I can't say I'm compelled to do anything more than just enough to get the reward.

Rag can hold his own if he survives long enough but doing that is no small feat with some of the ridiculous combos/cards Nefarian can play from the get go.

 

[CPA]

Holy crap is Nefarian OP in that matchup. Starting with 5 mana is the real killer. Seems like you could just play random cards with him and still win most of the time.

 

[MikeyLSU]

I thought someone had said we were getting more creatable decks. I;d really like to be able to go over the 9 deck limit.

 

[Rhezuss]

I won with Ragnaros...not easy but I managed to control the board effectively and slamming 6/2 minions at 60HP is not that big of a deal especially since it make your weapon go into Deathrattle quickly.

That 8 damage to a random enemy is fun!

 

[Fallen Kell]

Well, finally had a couple good days with getting decent cards in packs. Yesterday I got another Sneed's Old Shredder (3rd or 4th time I have gotten this card), and today I got a golden Tinkmaster Overspark. I dusted both (obviously), and crafted original Mage legendary, Archmage Antonidas. That pretty much completes my mage now (I have both legendaries and all but one copy of 1 minion and 2 spells). It also makes one of my mage decks pretty much unstoppable:

1 Mirror Image
1 Mana Wyrm
1 Arcane Explosion
2 Flamecannon
2 Frostbolt
2 Unstable Portal
1 Sorcerer's Apprentice
2 Arcane Intellect
2 Duplicate
1 Frost Nova
1 Ice Block
2 Mirror Entity
2 Flamewaker
1 Cone of Cold
1 Echo of Medivh
1 Fireball
1 Polymorph
2 Ethereal Arcanist
1 Emperor Thaurissan
1 Flamestrike
1 Archmage Antonidas

Now obviously you need to play the deck right. Your ideal draw is duplicate, flamecannon, ethereal arcanist or flamewaker (and force the duplicate on that minion). With all the low cost spells, Archmage will be an excellent play, especially if you get Emperor out to lower the cost of the Archmage, as that will possibly let you get 2-3 spells on the same play (4 if you have the coin). And with that much direct damage in your hand, the game is over.

 

[smakme7757]

I won with Ragnaros...not easy but I managed to control the board effectively and slamming 6/2 minions at 60HP is not that big of a deal especially since it make your weapon go into Deathrattle quickly.

That 8 damage to a random enemy is fun!

I've won 2 games with Rag. Both times the Nefarian i played against had a really slow start and i got to play 2x Core Hound pups which he was never able to kill.

I lost my first game with nefarian today. Got some completely shitty cards. Forgot the name, but they were like: "Do damage equal to your weapon damage to a minion" and stuff like that. Had a really slow start. Then I lost. Fair enough.

You can definately win as Rag, but if Nefarian get a good starting hand and a few decent cards draws in a row it's really hard to win.

Put it this way, I just won a game with a Windfury Razorgore as nef. No chance for Rag to stop an ever growing turn 3 Razorgore with Windfury.

The worst thing about Ragnaros is that you can play a really good game and you might even be winning. The Nef gets the luckiest card draw and pulls everything back in his favour. That's what makes Nef so f'ing hard to beat.

 

[CPA]

I've won 2 games with Rag. Both times the Nefarian i played against had a really slow start and i got to play 2x Core Hound pups which he was never able to kill.

I lost my first game with nefarian today. Got some completely shitty cards. Forgot the name, but they were like: "Do damage equal to your weapon damage to a minion" and stuff like that. Had a really slow start. Then I lost. Fair enough.

You can definately win as Rag, but if Nefarian get a good starting hand and a few decent cards draws in a row it's really hard to win.

Put it this way, I just won a game with a Windfury Razorgore as nef. No chance for Rag to stop an ever growing turn 3 Razorgore with Windfury.

The worst thing about Ragnaros is that you can play a really good game and you might even be winning. The Nef gets the luckiest card draw and pulls everything back in his favour. That's what makes Nef so f'ing hard to beat.

Yep. I was Rag and had Nef down to 1. I had 7 and control of the board. He didn't have any minions and only one card in hand after draw. Only thing he can do is play his 2 mana spell card power. BAM! Hits me with 10 damage Pyroblast. Son of a ......

 

[CalebRockeT]

Yep. I was Rag and had Nef down to 1. I had 7 and control of the board. He didn't have any minions and only one card in hand after draw. Only thing he can do is play his 2 mana spell card power. BAM! Hits me with 10 damage Pyroblast. Son of a ......

I could never draw any serious damage spells as Nef. I got crap like Preps, Deadly Poison, Shiv. I lost in the same fashion as you when my opponent tapped into Pyroblast and combo'd it with Eviscerate. 0 mana, 14 damage. GG. So frustrating.

 

[quikah]

This brawl is pretty much 100% luck based. I played about 10-15 games and would say it was pretty close to 50/50 who won. There is almost no skill really in this matchup. It is still fun, but hopefully the next brawl is a bit better crafted.

 

[CPA]

This may sound absurd, but I think they should add a mode where it's a 3 or 4-player game. They would have to allow for more than 30 cards in a deck, but think of the strategy involved.