And... and there's the talk of cost, of course, but considering the adventure mode is 100% optional, and it's just for geeks like me who really love to play through something with story substance instead of just grinding the ladder (which TBH is something that barely excites me at all these days). Sure, the story's nothing particularly special, but I'm such a big fan of how the Great Dalaran Heist is structured. Besides, you get actual packs if you go for the $3 cost or whatever, which honestly means you just spent the money on packs and just get the rest of the wings of the adventure as a bonus.
I admittedly have been pretty busy, and has mostly just dicked around with Rakanishu in the first chapter, but didn't really do enough to really make a long, long post. It'd just be me be all "oh em gee I really love single player modes", which is the sort of post I've made a couple of times already before in the past... but it really doesn't really tell anything. But then we've got a fuck-ton of news! A bunch of great news for card nerfs, which isn't particularly strange at this point of time in the expansion considering Blizzard's recent track record... but what's entirely unprecedented is a series of CARD BUFFS, which is amazingly exciting.
Let's talk about the card nerfs first, which mostly affects Rogue cards!
- Preparation only discounts the next spell by 2 instead of 3!
- Raiding Party costs 4 instead of 3!
- EVIL Miscreant now has 4 health instead of 5!
- Archivist Elysiana costs 9 instead of 8!
And, as far as I can tell, mostly concerns Standard Rogue, something that I know people's been buzzing about. It's not as bad as other decks that people have complained about in the past, and a brief glimpse at statistic-collecting fan sites doesn't really make me think that the rogue decks is particularly oppressive... but I haven't played Standard in over three expansions, being almost exclusively Wild, so my opinion on how annoying or oppressive a deck can be in Standard is definitely not up-to-date. Apparently Rogues are dominating, and the only real counter to Rogue is Warrior, which is why the two of them dominate the Standard ladder? EVIL Miscreant gets a single health point deduction, and... I dunno, I guess it's neat? Clearly the focus of the nerf are the other cards in this list, and EVIL Miscreant I guess just gets knocked down a slight peg because he's too efficient as a value generator? I think I've seen this card tried a couple of times in Wild, in either weird Togwaggle decks, or as what I assume is just a swap-in/swap-out with Blink Fox or SI7 Agent as Rogue's 3-mana drop, but it's probably not going to affect the card's viability that much. On the other hand, the deck that this card belongs to...
I do appreciate how we're getting nerfs, though, particularly to two new Rise of Shadows cards, instead of just rotating everything into Wild. Again, admittedly, none of these cards are too oppressive in Wild. Preparation and Raiding Party sees a fair amount of play in the Kingsbane Rogue decks, and Raiding Party's always felt too powerful, but with the addition of more and more powerful Rogue pirates (Hench-Clan Burglar in particular) and Rogue weapons (Waggle Pick in particular) Raiding Party being nerfed definitely makes a fair amount of sense. I had always felt like tutoring three cards for three mana and a combo effect is always a bit too powerful, particularly in conjunction with Kingsbane in Wild, but not too powerful... but it's neat that they nipped this in the bud. I'm surprised they left Waggle Pick relatively unmolested, though. Pretty heavy nerf, since it's a combo card.
More devastating to Rogue's combo output, though, is Preparation. It's a card people have been clamouring to nerf at some point, and it's honestly surprising that after cards like Nourish, Wild Growth, Fiery War Axe, Ice Block and so many other powerful Classic class cards were either hall of famed or nerfed, Preparation is still untouched. The fact that it only discounts the next spell by 2 really hurts the viability of other Rogue spells like Vanish, Walk the Plank and, most damningly, Raiding Party. Instead of being able to Prep + Raiding Party for zero mana as they can do now, you need 2 mana to cast Raiding Party even with Preparation, and that's not counting other expensive spells in Rogue's arsenal, like Myra's Unstable Element, Sprint, Walk the Plank, or, in Wild, things like Tinker's Sharpsword Oil.It's curious, because I've seen some people campaigning for Edwin VanCleef or Waggle Pick to get nerfed... and the latter seems kinda strong, but I guess the deck's gross, easily-abused combos are shattered by nerfing Preparation and Raiding Party? It's a neat set of nerfs, I think, and anything that helps to level the playing field is a-okay by me, especially since I'm not particularly affected by this.
Archivist Elysiana is... she's interesting. She gets nerfed from 8 to 9, which honestly isn't something that's too significant? Elysiana is a card that I don't think most casual or ladder players really care about -- only really super-long, super-value control decks run Elysiana, but I know that the tournament people have been grumbling really heavily because she's turned a lot of control-v-control matches in tournaments into an RNG fiesta... but they just simply refuse to ban her. She's one mana more expensive, which... I don't think it matters? Her effect's still there, and the one-mana bump only really stops her from being cast in the same turn with Youthful Brewmaster or Baleful Banker. I do personally like this change since I'll still get to have my Elysiana fun with my control decks, even if I'm not sure if that's going to address the tournament scene's complaints.(Give me back my old Yogg-Saron, come on, it's not like he's going to be that powerful now)
Next up, though, is a surprising and completely out-of-nowhere announcement of a series of CARD BUFFS, in an event called "Rise of the Mech", which honestly is sort of out of nowhere, and is going to run throughout most of June. We're getting buffs to ten Boomsday Project cards, which is definitely getting a huge thumbs-up from me because I've always felt like other than Zilliax, Mecha'thun and the Dr. Boom hero card, there weren't a whole ton of super-useful cards in that expansion. Sure, Wild's got a pretty consistent aggro mech hunter deck, but that's actually relatively going to be untouched by this update, which buffs a lot of random Boomsday Project cards.
And it's... it's honestly more than a bit bizarre. Just why Boomsday, specifically, out of every current Standard set? I mean, I guess Dr. Boom is also in the newest expansion, but why Boomsday alone instead of all of the other cards? And why now, instead of halfway through Boomsday or Rastakhan's Rumble?
Oh well. I'm not complaining. I love my Mechs. Logging in on any day between June 3 and July 1 will earn every single player a golden legendary, SN1P-SN4P. Or, as he will be known in any post I make in this blog, simply "Snip-Snap", because I hate typing in 733t. Snip-Snap is a pretty neat and powerful little card, basically being a Replicating Menace on steroids. And anyone who's faced a mech hunter in wild will know that Replicating Menace's pretty damn powerful when magnetized to another mech. Snip-Snap is not only cheaper by one mana, with a more decent statline if you're forced to play it alone (3-mana 2/3 as opposed to Menace's 4-mana 3/1), the Echo really helps out if you drew Snip-Snap in the late-game. It's a pretty powerful card that can be played both in the early and mid/late-game, and that really ends up shoring a lot of the problems that Boomsday-era mech decks sort of have. People have also pointed out the potential of an OTK deck with Snip-Snap and Reckless Experimenter, which... yeah, that's kind of scary, if we're being honest. I like him. He's a good strong crab boy.
EDIT: Brief little update from a couple of days later, where they nerfed poor Reckless Experimenter to pre-emptively cut down on the OTK combo for Snip-Snap, and... it's... interesting. Did they just straight-up not realize? I'm genuinely baffled. Like, sure, maybe not every single card interaction is obvious, but the combination of magnetic (i.e. sometimes-charge), echo and deathrattle really probably should've involved them looking at cards that synergize with either of those. And since we don't actually have Echo-synergy cards... I dunno. It's not like Reckless Experimenter is a forgotten card in Wild either, too. Eh.For the rest of the cards, though... we're getting a whole ton of buffs, with two Boomsday class cards from each class getting a buff. We'll quickly talk about these changes!
Both Gloop Sprayer and Mulchmuncher have had their costs reduced by one to 7 and 9 respectively. And they're... neat? Treant decks have had a recent surge in popularity thanks to the Forest's Aid being unexpectedly good, but they're almost always token decks. Mulchmuncher being reduced by 1 probably won't suddenly make it super-duper viable, but it's at least a smaller penalty to someone who wants to not play a high-winrate token deck but dick around with treants. My gut says it won't be super good. Gloop Sprayer's buff is also pretty appreciated. He's such a weird card and if we're being honest I mostly just see him in weird decks that cheat out multiple Malygoses or whatever, but, again, he's always a bit too expensive compared to other similar cards, so it's nice to give him a nice little buff. Probably neither of these will make it into either standard or wild meta, but at least now they're "neat, just need support" instead of embarrassingly ignored.
I have Flark's Boom-zooka and I've tried too many times to dick around with this card to know that a simple cost reduction from 8 to 7 is not going to make it suddenly be good. Hell, I wouldn't even say that reducing it to 6 would make it good either. But Necromechanic going from 5 to 4? Suddenly she has basically passed the vanilla stat, being a 4-mana 3/6, and triggering deathrattles twice? Yeah. I'm a bit cautious but I honestly think that Necromechanic will probably be the best card out of the Boomsday-buffed cards, and might be the gateway to a better-performing deathrattle rogue... or even as a one-off in a hunter mech.
Oh hey, Unexpected Results is neat. I would've probably written this card off if Rise of Shadows didn't just add Khadgar as well as a bunch of other random spell damage synergy. 4 mana was always a bit too expensive for what's essentially a wacky gimmick, but at 3 mana you really end up starting to really consider throwing it in, because now even without the spell damage bonus, it's already a decent, good card.
Luna's Pocket Galaxy going down from a frankly super-expensive 7 to 5 is definitely warranted. I still am somewhat cautious, though... I've learned to try and not get too excited about a card that does nothing on the turn you play it. 5 mana is a lot less of an ask to sacrifice than 7, though, so I can actually see wacky OTK decks try and cheese some wins with Luna's Pocket Galaxy for sure. Also, a reminder to watch Luna's Pocket Galaxy's amazing reveal back in the day.
I really don't have much to say about Paladin, to be honest. Crystology going from 2 to 1 is pretty great, but it's... it's on the cusp of playability in Wild, and already played as-is in Standard, so it might actually made a decent impact? It's particularly powerful in Standard, since Standard players don't have Divine Favor anymore. It's cool.
Less cool is Glowstone Technician, who was just straight-up embarrassing at 6 mana. He's now slightly less embarrassing at 5 mana, being a bit more comparable to Grimestreet Enforcer now.
Likewise, Extra Arms going from 3 to 2 is how the card really should've been in the first place, since 3-mana +2/+2 was honestly pretty embarrassingly expensive. Cloning Device being 2 mana was also always over-priced, since 2-mana steal a card is honestly so bad compared to Thoughtsteal or Psionic Probe, and the Discover effect does not allay that. These two are now bumped up from "too expensive" to "fair", which, while probably not going to break the meta, is definitely a nice sentiment.
Violet Haze basically suffers from the "are you kidding, that's ridiculously expensive!" problem that Cloning Device used to have, and no one really plays around with Violet Haze. I mean, I guess you could compare old Violet Haze to Burgle, except shittier, but not even Burgle Rogue decks run Burgle-the-card. At 2 mana it's a lot more fair.
Pogo-Hopper going to 1 is... interesting. I know Pogo-Hopper decks are one of the more hilarious meme decks that streamers like to play around with, and while I didn't really try too hard to make Pogo-Hopper work, reducing the cost of the bunnies to 1 mana really makes the early part of the deck's game plan a lot smoother. Again, with Togwaggle's Scheme, Pogo-Hopper decks actually seem to be decently viable. My gut instinct still goes for "no", but at least it's going to be decently-funny instead of just sort of sad.
Storm Bringer goes from 7 to 6, which is still kind of an expensive super-Evolve effect, and I still don't think you'll play this spell unless you get it by accident from Hagatha the Witch or something. Again, though, it's a card that I feel like they sort of fixed, going from "funny but super impractical" to "hmmm, this is fair".
Thunderhead is interesting, though. Thunderhead has always been on the cusp of playability in Overload decks, but a 4-mana 3/5 isn't super-duper viable, and the slight increase in health does wonders in making Thunderhead a lot less likely to die. I definitely think that if nothing else, people will actually start considering making Overload decks, and all this needs with the newly-buffed Thunderhead is probably a bunch of new synergy cards in the future.
Mmm, nothing too special. Dr. Morrigan is one of the worst legendaries out there, as I have had the misfortune to experiment with. She's just so goddamned expensive, a 7-mana 5/5... and now she's 6 mana. Which is... still so goddamned expensive, but a lot more in line with what a 5/5, even a constantly-regenerating 5/5, should cost. Still don't see her being used a whole ton, but maybe she finds a home in these weird Plot Twist decks?
Spirit Bomb goes from costing 2 to 1, which is all right. It's basically a minion-focused Soulfire with some self-harm synergy, which... is fair. I wouldn't say it outperforms something like Vulgar Homonculus in decks that want to trigger Amethyst Spellstones or whatever, but it's at least sort of a genuinely non-ironic tech card now. Again, a lot of these buffs are actually putting genuinely m'eh/bad cards into "okay, I might consider this now", which is nice!
You only really ever see these two Autobot boys when they are discovered by Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and never really inserted into a deck voluntarily. Well, maybe Security Rover as a one-off, but as someone who experimented a lot with Warrior Mech back in the day, most Warrior Mech decks actually don't run them, and just rely on the increased class-card bonus of Dr. Boom Mad Genius and Omega Assembly to pull one of these two. And none of them are bad! They're just not good enough.
And the changes are pretty slight. Security Rover gets a single health point boost, and Beryllium Nullifier gets a single attack point boost, but that honestly goes a fair bit in making the two get slightly stronger, increasing the likelihood of Mech Warrior really performing. Again, Mech Warrior, while not being the best deck right now, is probably going to be equally benefited with the addition of Snip-Snap, and I'm definitely pretty curious to see a Mech Warrior deck that actually doesn't just rely wholly on Dr. Boom Mad Genius, but on the actual Mechs. Warrior is also the only class that seems to have both the buffed cards be part of the same theme or archetype, so it's definitely interesting!
Overall... good show, Hearthstone. A lot of unexpected changes to the game, buffs at all is amazing, as well as nerfs that honestly feel absolutely fair. Definitely getting two thumbs up for me, even if I'm still going to spend the rest of this month dicking around with the adventure mode.
No comments:
Post a Comment