Hearthstone: Dawn of the Mammoth

The Kraken looks cooler, though

Oh, hey, what a huge, huge announcement! I saw the Year of the Mammoth video on Youtube last night on Hearthstone's official channel and went 'pfft, another video to tell those n00bs how the rotation works.' And I wake up this morning, didn't quite bother to check the internet... and lo and behold, apparently something more drastic is in the works beyond just the rotation!

Apparently, Blizzard realized that, hey, some cards in the Classic set are just too powerful, so they're moving them into Wild, basically lumped together with Gelbin, ETC and Murk-Eye in a brand new 'Hall of Fame' set. Definitely a lot better than, well, 'Promo'. It's a change I'm a bit sad because, shit, I grinded the dust for my Ragnaros and my Sylvanas! But at the same time I understand why Blizzard is doing it -- it's the same mentality behind why Dr. Boom was such a problematic card. There are also a couple cards that are just limiting design space, and we finally get rid of Freeze Mage after years of it basically staying solid because its entire kit is in the Basic/Classic set.

Some people are all like 'oh no, Blizzard are dicks for moving cards you told us will be eternally here' but man, you get the dust. So even if you crafted and didn't pull Ragnaros and Sylvanas (I crafted both) you're still getting the dust back to make, oh, whatever OP Legendaries we're getting next. And the alternative is to pretend that it's not a problem for Sylvanas and Rag to dominate the 6 and 8 mana slots forever... which, while not as big a problem as the Pirate Package (thankfully they announced the nerf to that before this) it's still a thorn in Hearthstone's side.

Of the cards moving out of Standard into Wild this year are:

• Azure Drake: I personally don't think Azure Drake is as problematic or as omnipresent as Sylvanas, Ragnaros, Shredder or Boom, but it is a very powerful card and one that has always seen play everywhere. It's a card that you can just plop into your five-mana slot without much thought -- card draw is excellent, but Azure Drake also does double duty as Spell Damage (who doesn't like Spell Damage?), a body, and a dragon. Yet it's honestly very balanced -- you can't really change anything without making him unplayable, but at the same time Azure Drake is kind of suffocating everyone else in the 5-mana slot. So. I just hope the new set introduces at least one or two mid-game dragons, because, well, Azure Drake leaving is yet another nail in the coffin of dragon decks.
• Sylvannas Windrunner: Need I say more? Nowhere as annoying as Boom, that's for sure, defintiely one of the most powerful cards in the game. It's a bit sad that such a major lore character and such a staple of Hearthstone is finally scooted over to Wild, and a part of me really doesn't want to see her go. But the blog post does hint at some Deathrattle build-arounds in the future, which means, well, I'm probably going to do some really degenerate things in Wild with N'Zoth, Sylvannas, and all the rest.
• Ragnaros the Firelord: NOOOOOOOOOOO! MY BABY! I love Ragnaros. He's very strongkt, he is very powerful, he has some of the best voice acting and I just love him and while I understand why he's going away nooo my fire-lobbing baby.
• Conceal: A bit of a surprising card to be removed, and the only one out of these six that got me really scratching my head. After essentially losing Blade Flurry, Rogue loses another important and powerful part of their arsenal. I understand if Conceal is a bit frustrating to play against, but booting it to wild completely is surprising... though it's definitely better than nerfing it to the ground the way poor Warsong Commander or Force of Nature suffered, but that still leaves Standard Rogue with one less tool. Mind you, Rogues do always find a way to survive. So.
• Ice Lance: See, none of the mage cards are honestly broken individually. It's when they are together when suddenly for very little mana you get a crapton of spell damage, and for six mana (two Frostbolts and two Ice Lances) you deal 14 damage. Add all the Spell Damage, discount it if you have to with Sorcerer's Apprentice, add extra Flamewaker/Mana Wyrm triggers... yeah. Ice Lance isn't exactly a problem card, it's the archetype. And this makes Blizzard hesitant in including more cards that interact with spells the way, say, Flamewaker does. So yeah, Ice Lance has had its day for three years, it's time to, well, wreak havoc in wild. 
• Power Overwhelming: Another staple in Warlock and Zoolock, it's a bit sad because Warlock isn't in a particularly powerful spot at the moment, and to see one of their most powerful tools removed is a bit of a boo. I'm both glad and sad that they didn't nerf its cost to two mana instead, but yeah -- Leeroy/Power Overwhelming/Faceless Manipulator combos are just so uninteractive the odd moment or two that you have to face them in combat.

Hopefully Warlocks, Mages and Rogues get a replacement for the holes that their Classic set now have compared to the other classes. Maybe they can be similar, or entirely different (a new strong weapon or weapon-interacting card for Rogues? Please?) but if only to satisfy my Fake OCD, I really want them to get more. 

Also, we're just getting the dust without having to disenchant the cards. Which is awesome! When all the awesome cards are moving to Wild, a lot of people salted the earth with their entire GvG/Naxxramas collections. But that's not what I want to do! I want to keep my Ragnaros and Sylvanas, if nothing else they have been very faithful soldiers over the years, but at the same time not getting dust refunds would feel shitty, but at the same same time I don't want to disenchant Ragnaros, full dust refund or not. So this is literally the best thing that could happen regarding dust refunds and whatnot.

C'mon Lich King!

Also, Blizzard's shaking things up. Instead of doing the Expansion-Adventure-Expansion formula like they've been doing for the past two years, in 2017 we're getting three expansions. If nothing else it's going to be more cards, a bigger influx of new things and definitely a bigger meta shakeup than the lulls that we usually experience during Adventure seasons. The appeal of Adventures is the storyline behind them (though, yes, earning the cards are cool too) but it seems to me that they really want to tell their stories -- and with Gadgetzan, there was scant little way to do that, to tell about the stories of the Jade Lotus, the Kabal and the Grimy Goons, at least in-game. And as much as I want to learn more about the rise of the Old Gods, there wasn't much storytelling in that regards either So Adventures will now be reduced to something that's used as a storytelling medium, and we'll get little mini-Adventures in every expansion to tell us the story of these expansions.  WHICH IS FUCKING AWESOME, BY THE WAY! Hearthstone really needs to embrace the storytelling aspect of this world they've built, and while I understand that gameplay is their biggest priority at the moment, man, the flavour is as important.

So, what I'm guessing will happen is that the 130-card expansions will just drop a huge bomb on us, and then we'll have small mini-Adventures to tell us the story of the expansion. I'm not sure if we'll have some pre-requisites to play the single-player PvE mode, or if the PvE content will unlock several cards (the way C'thun is free for everyone -- maybe you'll now have to work for some cards you get for free?). Either way, it's definitely awesome. One of the biggest weaknesses of the Adventure model is that the cards are doled out like eight or ten every week, despite the fact that everyone knows what the new cards will be even from the get-go, and there's relatively steep entry fee for free-to-play players to unlock Adventure wings. So yeah, changing the models up while still keeping the spirit of Adventures alive is definitely the way to go.

Speaking of which, that image I mirrored up there? Seems to be a pretty interesting roadmap to 2017. I'm not sure if the imagery around the three expansions are supposed to be hints, or if I'm reading too much. The first one does have weird looking leaves and ferns... which isn't the first thing I would put in for Un'Goro crater and dinosaurs, but ancient ferns are kind of, well, thematic? The second card has a blue hue of magical runes, so maybe Dalaran, or a Malygos-themed expansion? There's also a little tavern brawl insignia thing between expansions 1 and 2, which looks kind of suspicious. The third expansion at first glance looks to be just a sheet of paper, but there's a huge bag of gold next to it that might be decoration or a hint. Another Goblin-styled expansion? Or have they not planned that far ahead?

In any case, though, it might just be them putting random cool-looking effects to throw us off and the expansion after Un'Goro might be something completely random, like, oh, I dunno, the Lost Treasure of Murlocia or something like that and nothing to do with arcane runes. 

Call me Phantom Assassin one more time,
I dare you.

And whatever the next expansion is (*cough*Un'Goro*cough*) we're getting a lot of freebies. Daily login rewards, plus, at long last, Maiev Shadowsong! Maiev is a Rogue skin, and all you have to do? Play ten games. That has got to be the least stressful way to get a hero skin, far less troublesome than other free hero skins like Morgl and Liadrin. I really hope Blizzard makes more of these hero skins -- I honestly don't imagine it to be any harder than recording some voice-overs, animation similar to the Golden Cards... not every hero skin has to be as fancy as Medivh's insane crow animation or all the pretty moon rune motifs that Tyrande has.

Also, Maiev Shadowsong isn't my favourite character in Warcraft III, not by a long shot, but this does mean that Valeera's most likely going to join Anduin Wrynn in the bench of unused heroes for a long, long time. I do like Valeera's voice over a fair bit more than Anduin, though, so maybe I'll break her out sometimes.

So yeah, whatever the expansion is, it's nice to see that Hearthstone at least isn't afraid to evolve and make the player experience a lot more pleasant. The fact that they're willing to do such radical changes like going back on their previous affirmations is definitely a good sign -- not that they're fickle, but that they're learning about what's best for their game.

In other news, Pokemon Go, if you're still playing that (I still have it installed on my phone but haven't touched it in a couple of months) has now been updated with Johto Pokemon! It's about fucking time. Now give us a proper battle system.