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Rogue Quest Is Getting Nerfed

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In an upcoming balance update, the Rogue Quest (The Caverns Below) will be changed to be less powerful.

Almost three months after the release of Journey to Un'Goro, Team 5 has decided that it's time to tone down Quest Rogue. Soon, The Caverns Below will require 5 minions of the same name to be played, instead of four.

Blizzard LogoZaerhinon

In an upcoming update, we will be making a balance change to the Rogue card:
The Caverns Below.

The Caverns Below now reads: 
Quest: Play five minions with the same name. Reward: Crystal Core.

Since the release of Journey to Un'Goro, Hearthstone has enjoyed a wider variety of competitively viable classes and decks than ever before. We’ve been monitoring overall gameplay, and we’ve decided that—even though everything is varied and many decks are viable—a change to The Caverns Below is still warranted.

The Caverns Below is uniquely powerful versus several slower, control-oriented decks and played often enough that it’s pushing those decks out of play. This change should help expand the deck options available to players both now and after the release of the next expansion. (source)

While Quest Rogue isn't as overpowered as most people think, it is almost unbeatable against control decks. It has also created many aggro decks that directly counter it and are also efficient against midrange and control decks.

According to the latest Vicious Syndicate report, Quest or Crystal Rogue is characterised as a Tier 2 deck with a 51% win rate in Legend. Rogue is also one of the most represented classes in Legend. The same report summarises very well why Quest Rogue has been problematic in the current meta:

Quote

Is the Journey to Un’Goro meta losing its balance? It appears to be the case, and the primary culprit is Crystal Rogue. Its overbearing presence at the highest levels of play is crippling some decks while enabling some of its aggressive counters. Crystal Rogue is not dominating the game, but it’s definitely getting stronger across all levels of play [...]

The date for the balance update hasn't been announced yet.

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Too little too late. You can't ignore something for half an expansion and then come up with this simple of a fix. No excuse for taking this long and essentially killing your player base.

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4 minutes ago, Laragon said:

Too little too late. You can't ignore something for half an expansion and then come up with this simple of a fix. No excuse for taking this long and essentially killing your player base.

I disagree. Cards do not rotate out in every expansion. So, having quest rogue as it is for 5 more expansion, with more possible synergy is the problem (maybe next year, it will be weaker after Gadgetzan Ferryman). 

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I think they had to do this kind of nerf else they would have to forget about printing 1\2 mana neutral\rogue minions with good battlecries\combos. 

On other hand, I am worried about jade druid era. We lost the best counter against it. 

Edited by Strongpoint
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55 minutes ago, Laragon said:

Too little too late. You can't ignore something for half an expansion and then come up with this simple of a fix. No excuse for taking this long and essentially killing your player base.

Yea, I'm sure one quest is the reason a ton of people would just outright quit...

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29 minutes ago, idburns said:

Yea, I'm sure one quest is the reason a ton of people would just outright quit...

Actually, it is. I know of three people that had quitted because of quest rogue (myself nearly as well), and even though they are likely coming back after the nerf, it makes it easy to believe that there were people that quit for good.

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you might know they would nerf it right before I had enough dust to purchase the quest card lol,  but on the other hand I am glad because this quest is the easiest of all the classes to perform making rogues all but unbeatable, hell I have faced oponents who can play the cards reguired all in one turn on the 4th draw and win by the 5th, while every other class has to play 7 or more cards just to do there quest wich ends up being usless anyway due to already being beaten too bad to use the quest or having the activater card stolen/destroyed/silenced rendering the whole deck useless.

 

Now if they if they Nerf the unbeatable wall of taunt warrior quest that leads to instant win Ragnaros power or the easy to finish priest quest that essentially makes them an invincible fatigue deck with reno and other mass heal cards, we might be able to see more balanced wins in ranked play.

In all Honesty tho some of the quests dont make sense or fit the class, like why make warlocks discard half there deck for infinite spawning 2/3 cards that are too weak to be any help and take up 3 spots on the field permanently, Or hunter quest that requires you to play so many little 1 cost cards you are so weak you have no way of coming back with the 15 2/3s to make a difference?

in closing I have said for years this game is horribly imbalanced, your opponent ether beats you into a pulp by turn 4-5 or drags it out for 40+ turns with perfect defense to where you ether lose to fatigue or quit in frustration. 30 health is too low they need to give us like 50-60, or give both players a base starting mana of 2 and get rid of the redundant coin.

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This is a joke honestly, quest rogue was already just mid tier deck, even tho its really uniteractive this is just excessive, nerfing a deck that wasn't a problem in the first place. This is what happens when Blizzard listens to Reddit instead of people who actually understand whats an issue in this game. If there was any card to nerf for being too problematic it would be every single time Primordial Glyph instead of The Caverns Below. This is honestly disgustingly bad joke, pushes rogue, an already below average class even further into the niche and will make the meta get completely out of control as there will be no real deck to punish control decks anymore. Rogue will probably become another dead class, joining hunter and warlock. This is both infuriating and disappointing and makes me lose all faith in Blizzard when it comes to balancing their games. If they would revert one change in this game it would be this for sure every single time. This nerf is a huge buff to already prominent control decks and removes one of the "gatekeeper" decks that held the meta from becoming just control vs control clown fiesta. I guess I will quit Hearthstone till next expansion, thanks for the memories, but you are dead game now.

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3 hours ago, BrightwingMain said:

This is a joke honestly, quest rogue was already just mid tier deck, even tho its really uniteractive this is just excessive, nerfing a deck that wasn't a problem in the first place. This is what happens when Blizzard listens to Reddit instead of people who actually understand whats an issue in this game. If there was any card to nerf for being too problematic it would be every single time Primordial Glyph instead of The Caverns Below. This is honestly disgustingly bad joke, pushes rogue, an already below average class even further into the niche and will make the meta get completely out of control as there will be no real deck to punish control decks anymore. Rogue will probably become another dead class, joining hunter and warlock. This is both infuriating and disappointing and makes me lose all faith in Blizzard when it comes to balancing their games. If they would revert one change in this game it would be this for sure every single time. This nerf is a huge buff to already prominent control decks and removes one of the "gatekeeper" decks that held the meta from becoming just control vs control clown fiesta. I guess I will quit Hearthstone till next expansion, thanks for the memories, but you are dead game now.

The best deck against a control deck is jade druid? It laughs at control decks. The jade Golems keep coming and after the control deck removed them so many times they still keep coming..they have infinite spawning ability and that is what is the best cure for control.

The meta is not exactly showing control as the leading decktype. As explained above quest rogue isnt overpowered ..it's just killing the slow deck types completely and that is unwanted. When you can nerf 1 decktype and regain more than 1 that gives you a more balanced meta. That's a good thing to be honest.

Also is Quest rogue such a solo game that it's not the most fun deck to face a lot.  I say: Nerf that.

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Were Jade Druids ever nerfed? I feel this nerf is primarily needed because the Quest Rogue (yes, it is strong) is creating too many counters and overall those decks are a pain in the butt for more complex archetypes that are late game oriented.

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And in the meantime, YARRRRR! Warrior will still axe questions to the face like there's no tomorrow and Living Meme Druid will still demonstrate that his bark is just as bad as his bite; since either of these decks are too fast for both control decks and solo Rogue with a good draw... Not really certain this will slow the meta down at all.

Oh, well, I was planning to save up for Sherazin, Corpse Flower and get back to Ravioli anyway.

 

5 hours ago, Esthirel said:

Also is Quest rogue such a solo game that it's not the most fun deck to face a lot.

That, however, is true. Frustrating to play against and just as frustrating to play with; turning Hearthstone into a solo game. (*ahem* Freeze Mage *ahem*). I won't be sorry to see it go. Hell i wouldn't be sorry to see Quests go as a whole. Good idea; terrible implementation.

...

I just summarized Blizzard for the last ten years, didn't I?

Edited by Keizoku

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Let's not forget that game is not all about competitive games. Quest rogue destroys slower fun decks. If you make something like jade rogue or elemental N'zoth mage or quest paladin or whatever like this you will be destroyed in a very unfun way. It is way worse than playing against Karazhan Mid Range Shaman or MSG pirate warrior\aggro shaman with out of meta decks. 

 

Another important issue is that quest rogue is a very nasty deck to encounter for a new player with limited experience and collection. Look at any of basic only decks on this site. They are not that bad against meta-decks piloted by rank 20-15 players but quest rogue will rip basic decks to pieces because they are not fast enough and have zero tools to deal with 5\5 boards.

 

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A week after release I thought, and still think, the idea of quests sounded cool ... in theory but in really they are not a good or healthy addition to the game. Not only the rogue quest. Quest are the reason why I stopped playing ranked , just getting to 20. It's not like I cant win but grinding my way through this cancer again and again is simply no fun.

And nerfing rogue quest from 4 to 5 minions definitely makes it weaker but still no fun to play against.

Edited by Caldyrvan

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12 hours ago, BrightwingMain said:

This is a joke honestly, quest rogue was already just mid tier deck, even tho its really uniteractive this is just excessive, nerfing a deck that wasn't a problem in the first place. This is what happens when Blizzard listens to Reddit instead of people who actually understand whats an issue in this game. If there was any card to nerf for being too problematic it would be every single time Primordial Glyph instead of The Caverns Below. This is honestly disgustingly bad joke, pushes rogue, an already below average class even further into the niche and will make the meta get completely out of control as there will be no real deck to punish control decks anymore. Rogue will probably become another dead class, joining hunter and warlock. This is both infuriating and disappointing and makes me lose all faith in Blizzard when it comes to balancing their games. If they would revert one change in this game it would be this for sure every single time. This nerf is a huge buff to already prominent control decks and removes one of the "gatekeeper" decks that held the meta from becoming just control vs control clown fiesta. I guess I will quit Hearthstone till next expansion, thanks for the memories, but you are dead game now.

Ben Brode states that he is surprised how popular Quest Rogue is when taking its win rate in account, and that there has never been a deck so "bad" yet so popular. That is why it was a problem - it was taking up a huge % of decks on ladder.

I feel like Quest Rogue isn't really non interactive. You can fight against their board, which is not the case against for example most mage decks these days. I would take Quest Rogue over Freeze/Quest/Burn Mage as my opponent any day, with any deck.

Reddit is complaining about Vicious Fledgling all the time (once I saw like 6 threads about the card on the front page). If Blizz was listening to Reddit, Vicious Fledgling would be the card getting a nerf. Besides, if that's what the majority of players want, they will probably do it. After all, they need to keep their playerbase. Losing few hardcore players is better for them than losing a lot of casuals.

There are still other aggro decks that will fight against control decks, so no need to worry about the game becoming control vs control all the time.

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All of the other quests are along the lines of "do something you might want to do anyway, but do more of it and get a reward". Warlocks routinely discard cards by playing Doomguard or Soulfire, can you discard 6 cards? Every paladin deck runs Spikeridged Steed, but they have numerous other buffs like Blessing of Kings. Can you play 6 buff cards? It turns out the answer to the question posed by most of the quests is no, if you want to be competitive.

Every mage deck runs 2x primordial glyph, and babbling book, kabal courier, cabalist's tome are all cards that see play, so it is at least plausible that someone could build a mage deck that accidentally fulfills the quest condition occasionally. Discard warlocks want to play soulfire, doomguard, etc, so playing a discard zoo deck you would probably discard 6 cards sometimes.

The reason Quest Warrior is competitive is because control warrior wants to play a LOT of taunts anyway, and if you just removed the quest card from a Quest Warrior deck, it would still be playable. Quest warrior actually mulligans its quest in a lot of matchups. If you built a control warrior deck without using the quest, you would likely fulfill the quest condition in many games just playing naturally.

The quest condition in Quest rogue is completely unnatural. Yes, shadowstep is a card that sees play in miracle decks, which might occasionally result in them playing 3 of the same name. But there is basically no way you would ever design a rogue deck without the quest in mind and notice during play-- that's odd, I just played a minion with that name 4 times.  Also the quest reward is only significant if your minions will be buffed by turning into 5/5s. So you are forced into something that looks like quest rogue decks-- full of tiny minions and bounce effects, with zero early game pre-quest, a strong mid game post-quest if you manage to complete before dying to aggro, and no answer for a late-game control deck that manages to hold out against the initial wave of 5/5s until turn 8+.

I think the 4 minion condition was actually pretty well tuned. On average, aggro decks will kill you and your pathetic 1/1 minions around turn 6 if you haven't managed to complete the quest and stabilize. Control decks will start to laugh at your pathetic 5/5 minions around turn 8-9. If you are lucky and complete quickly, you might outrace an aggro deck. If you are slow and complete too late, you probably die to control. There is a narrow window in the middle where quest rogue is dominant. Even if the 5 minion condition just pushes back average quest completion by 1 turn, that window will shrink to unplayability.

Which will make this just as bad as all of the other quests (except warrior), so maybe that is by design.

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Hmmm. Looking at Vicious Syndicate maybe they are fixing a problem I haven't seen because I have never made legend yet. VS show that Quest rogue is the most popular archetype at legend ranks at  13.26%.  But it is only the 5th most popular archetype where I am in ranks 1-5 at  7.26%.

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16 minutes ago, zifmia said:

All of the other quests are along the lines of "do something you might want to do anyway, but do more of it and get a reward". Warlocks routinely discard cards by playing Doomguard or Soulfire, can you discard 6 cards? Every paladin deck runs Spikeridged Steed, but they have numerous other buffs like Blessing of Kings. Can you play 6 buff cards? It turns out the answer to the question posed by most of the quests is no, if you want to be competitive.

It is true for the current meta but we have 5 expansion before quests go wild. Warlocks will get new discard synergy cards, paladins will get buffs, priests will get deathrattles, hunters will get one drops... 

I am not saying that currently non-viable quest are guaranteed to become competitive, but they  definitely will grow stronger and it is a possibility that we may see them in tournaments. I am not even sure that 5 cards quest rogue won't become viable again in the next expansion(s)

Quests are not like C'thun or Jade golems. They will get cards that work with them in every expansion. Try to look in the future instead of evaluation deck archetypes by looking at the current pool of cards. One of reasons why quest rogue nerf is necessary - they'll become stronger with any fast one or two drop.

 

19 minutes ago, zifmia said:

Hmmm. Looking at Vicious Syndicate maybe they are fixing a problem I haven't seen because I have never made legend yet. VS show that Quest rogue is the most popular archetype at legend ranks at  13.26%.  But it is only the 5th most popular archetype where I am in ranks 1-5 at  7.26%.

That 7.26% indirectly resulted in my first ever legend this month. I got so pissed playing against quest rogues that I went for pirate warrior to smash some Maiev's faces

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15 hours ago, Moos said:

Were Jade Druids ever nerfed? I feel this nerf is primarily needed because the Quest Rogue (yes, it is strong) is creating too many counters and overall those decks are a pain in the butt for more complex archetypes that are late game oriented.

No Jade druid is never nerfed. I don't claim it has been I just explain Control is dominated by more decktypes than just cancer decks. On the other hand I must admit I really don't enjoy playing against a jade druid as well.It has a similar problem to quest rogue being that the luck of the draw of the Rogue/Druid will decide most of the time who wins. I'd rather win because i made the right decisions in the game ;)

In fact everything containing the word jade pushes me away. The spawning a bigger minion everytime  doesn't complement the game at all. It's a dissonant among the different game mechanics in Hearthstone.

Murlocs f.e. are a brilliant concept compared to jade blabla..so much more layered than the never surprising next bigger jade golem.

Don Han Cho is pure maffia and should be a powerful boss.. Crafted him right after Gadgetzan released. Soo cool and soo powerful  but he doesnt bring me the win??

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On 6/29/2017 at 6:53 AM, Strongpoint said:

It is true for the current meta but we have 5 expansion before quests go wild. Warlocks will get new discard synergy cards, paladins will get buffs, priests will get deathrattles, hunters will get one drops... I a

m not saying that currently non-viable quest are guaranteed to become competitive, but they  definitely will grow stronger and it is a possibility that we may see them in tournaments.

I disagree, with the exception of the priest one.  The warlock, hunter, and paladin quests are pretty flawed.  The hunter one will pretty much never be viable.  Hunters need the board to win, they have no come back mechanisms.  Having to shove a ton of 1 drops in your deck then not playing one on turn one pretty much guarantees that the quest will never be good.  Too low value, too many deck building restrictions and the quest reward simply isn't good enough.  Similar problem for the warlock one, not a good enough reward, too clunky in a zoo type deck, and discarding cards in a control deck is BAD, especially when you can just play mister J instead.  Paladin one COULD become viable if they print some absolutely broken buffs, but they would have to be very very strong, buffs are inherently weak, since putting them on your minions means you can get 2 or 3 for 1ed by your opponents removal and creatures.  Plus galvadon just isn't that strong, good for a finisher in a faster deck, but for a slower deck, its pretty meeeeeh.  The priest one could become good though.  It is good in wild.  Though I doubt it, but that one is a possibility.  The two cards in wild that make it good are sludge belcher and death lord, so if we get some good taunt/death rattles (Or deathrattles that heal a lot), then yes, otherwise this one will also be relegated to obscurity.

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5 hours ago, VaraTreledees said:

I disagree, with the exception of the priest one.  The warlock, hunter, and paladin quests are pretty flawed.  The hunter one will pretty much never be viable.  Hunters need the board to win, they have no come back mechanisms.  Having to shove a ton of 1 drops in your deck then not playing one on turn one pretty much guarantees that the quest will never be good.  Too low value, too many deck building restrictions and the quest reward simply isn't good enough.  Similar problem for the warlock one, not a good enough reward, too clunky in a zoo type deck, and discarding cards in a control deck is BAD, especially when you can just play mister J instead.  Paladin one COULD become viable if they print some absolutely broken buffs, but they would have to be very very strong, buffs are inherently weak, since putting them on your minions means you can get 2 or 3 for 1ed by your opponents removal and creatures.  Plus galvadon just isn't that strong, good for a finisher in a faster deck, but for a slower deck, its pretty meeeeeh.  The priest one could become good though.  It is good in wild.  Though I doubt it, but that one is a possibility.  The two cards in wild that make it good are sludge belcher and death lord, so if we get some good taunt/death rattles (Or deathrattles that heal a lot), then yes, otherwise this one will also be relegated to obscurity.

I strongly disagree with your evaluation of potential of the warlock quest, Cards with effect like > draw three cards discard two of them or add three 0\1 imps with negative battlecry to your hand as well as cards that like to be discarded can make the quest quite powerful and better than discard zoo without quest

I pretty much agree with the hunter quest evaluation,  Hunter needs board control and skipping turn one is not a great turn one for them. Looks like anything that empowers quest decks will empower other hunter decks more.  

Priest quest is summon, not play... It may be ridiculously easy to complete should blizzard print something silly like deathrattle that summons a deathrattle that summons a deathrattle. 

 

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43 minutes ago, Strongpoint said:

should blizzard print something silly like deathrattle that summons a deathrattle that summons a deathrattle

So a neutral/priest Dreadsteed?

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9 hours ago, positiv2 said:

So a neutral/priest Dreadsteed?

Dreadsteed was originally suppose to be neutral but they couldn't do it due to Warsong Commander, hence her nerf. It wasn't just the Grim Patron decks that warranted her nerf, it was a developmental issue for future cards and here we are with the issue with The Caverns Below.  My biggest issue with cards being nerfed is they should be made better the first time around, especially this far into Hearthstone. Sometimes it seems like they don't consider the other cards in existence when they are making new ones. Hopefully they learn from this moving forward but I'm not going to hold my breath. 

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10 hours ago, Strongpoint said:

I strongly disagree with your evaluation of potential of the warlock quest, Cards with effect like > draw three cards discard two of them or add three 0\1 imps with negative battlecry to your hand as well as cards that like to be discarded can make the quest quite powerful and better than discard zoo without quest

I pretty much agree with the hunter quest evaluation,  Hunter needs board control and skipping turn one is not a great turn one for them. Looks like anything that empowers quest decks will empower other hunter decks more.  

Priest quest is summon, not play... It may be ridiculously easy to complete should blizzard print something silly like deathrattle that summons a deathrattle that summons a deathrattle. 

 

A card that causes you to draw three cards then discard two of them would be pretty terrible in zoo, tbh.  Your already lowering your consistency with the quest, on top of possibly missing a drop with the quest.  Meh.  I really don't ever see the warlock quest being good in zoo.  Most of the time when zoo plays doomguard on turn 5, they have nothing to discard.  When your playing an aggressive deck that floods the board, discarding six cards is hard, you simply play too many of them too fast in most cases.  I just don't ever see a world in which discard zoo will be better with that quest.  The control route seems slightly more viable to me, but again, discarding cards is bad when you play control, since you discard the cards that make your deck a control deck half the time, especially because you have to run so many low valueish cards (things like silverware golem and the imp) to make a discard gimmick work.  The quest has too much anti-synergy with both control and zoo lock to be used in either, there might be a deck somewhere at sometime that it might possibly see play, but it won't be zoo or control, and even then, I think its highly highly unlikely.

 

On to the topic of quest rogue, The. Nerfs. Can't. Come. Soon. Enough.  As someone who likes to play slower controlish style decks and miracle rogue, I absolutely detest this deck.  It might not be "too strong", but it is meta warping, and in a bad way.  Any deck that has the sort of match ups quest rogue does (incredibly polarizing one way or another) is inevitably going to warp and change the meta, especially if it is popular.  Forcing players to nearly auto lose if they play something that isn't gunther mage or aggro against a deck is a bad way to design a card game.

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      What a way to kick things off; this card looks insane! The dream is that Drakuru takes out two of your opponent’s minions, resurrects them on your side, and survives combat somehow. You’re looking at a 5-for-1 exchange on board.
      In the more likely scenario that it doesn’t survive, that’s still a complete flip of the board state. Even if it’s trading into a single big minion on the opponent’s side, that’s still a 2-for-1, with that 1 on your side being a big tough-to-kill minion. The only worry is that there will sometimes be late-game scenarios where the 6/8 stat line won’t be enough to get you any resurrections, but I’m hopeful those are few and far between.
      Still, even if the Big Shaman archetype doesn’t catch on for Shaman, I expect this card, in particular, to find a home in Renathal Control Shaman lists. This card is doing much of the same work that Sylvanas and Insatiable Devourer are without having to run through the trouble of infusing first.

      Once again, another big expensive card and a solid showy effect to go along with it. Obvious deathrattle/reborn synergy, as well as good with big minions in general. At 10 cost, it will take up your entire mana pool for the turn, though there are things you can do to play around that as a shaman.
      We’ve gotten some clarification from the devs on the mechanics of this one:
      All the copies summoned die at the end of the effect trigger after having attacked. Unfortunately, it won’t be some corruption-style aura effect that a cheeky Showstopper effect can silence off. Your copies are made from your hand from left to right until no more board spaces are available. Beware that Colossals will summon their appendages and take up potential board space from your other copies. Windfury minions will only attack. Sorry Drakuru, no double freebies for you ? Minions that enter Dormant won’t attack, but they won’t die either! The interaction of getting free dormant minion copies on board is interesting, but is there enough to build a deck around? In standard, there is Gangplank, Slimescale, and Pelican Divers, but outside of From De Other Side “synergy,” they might not be worth it. In Wild, at the very least, there is meme potential with getting Magtheridion and The Darkness out with this and getting their battlecries to awaken both copies when you play them out the turn after.
      There’s obvious synergy with the other big cards revealed here, with Prescience loading up your hand with some beefy bois, getting get off reborn, lifesteal and deathrattle value, summon a minion from Overlord Drakuru.

      That’s a lot of keywords for a single card, but they work together to become the stuff of nightmares for any board-based aggro deck. Taunt and lifesteal make this a nightmare to trade into, and even with enough removal to clear the main body and the reborn one, the deathrattle effect still will hit for 3 twice and heal you for 6. So while the 3 attack won’t be anything to write home about, plopping this down will buy you a good deal of time. There’s also the possibility to make use of the leftover reborn 3/1 body to evolve into a 9 or 10 drop.

      This card will get you 2 Mana 2/3 Ghostly Apparitions with the Undead minion type, which can matter for cards like Unliving Champion, or Invincible, for instance. Suppose you trigger the secondary ability here both times. In that case, that’s a pretty sweet deal right there, advancing a Big Shaman win con in 2 ways: The taunt on the Ghostly Apparitions advances your gameplan of stalling the game out until you can stabilize on board enough to play the 5+ Mana minions you’ve tutored out of the deck.
      We’ve theory crafted 3 potential builds that can use this package of Shaman cards.
      First, consider diving head first into the Big Shaman theme, bringing in Vanndar Stormpike and forgoing all other sub-5 cost minions to get max value out of Prescience and From De Other Side. We’re also going to run with the evolve subtheme to take advantage of any leftover bodies that we might get from Stoneborn General, Overlord Drakuru, or Blighblood Berserkers. The departure of the Knights of the Frozen Throne set will make evolving 10 drops better again now that there are no more Snowfury Giants in the Evolve pool, and we get to re-roll for the generally better bodies from the 10 costs. We’re adding in some early-game removal to compensate for the lack of early drops so we can better survive the early game.
      Deck code / link: 
      AAECAaoICunQBMORBKeNBK/ZBNnsA/rsA4qSBfuRBYfUBKrZBArG+QOs7QS12QTgtQS22QTblATGzgTj9gOGoQX4oAUA
      Next, let’s try to use the standard Renathal Control Shaman archetype that’s doing rather well in the meta as a starting point. One safe idea is to look at slotting Overlord Drakuru and potentially Brightblood Berskerker and From De Other Side into this standard XL Renathal Control Shaman as ways of fighting back on board while getting your infuse cards stacked up.
      Deck code / link: 
      AAECAaoIFKjuA6bvA4b6A6SBBMORBMeyBOm2BOnQBJjUBLjZBJfvBKTvBNWyBODtBIqSBdWyBPuRBfSgBbzwBODtBArG+QPTgASVkgTblATgtQSWtwSywQTFzgS12QS22QQA
      We could instead also try and drop all the duplicates from the list and convert it into a Reno deck, as the deck was already playing a lot of one-offs. That gives us just enough room for one of each of these bad boys, which together with Reno will up the turnaround potential of the deck at the cost of a little bit of consistency. Doing so we can end up with this list:
      Deck code / link: 
      AECAaoICunQBMORBKeNBK/ZBNnsA/rsA4qSBfuRBYfUBKrZBArG+QOs7QS12QTgtQS22QTblATGzgTj9gOGoQX4oAUA
      Why not use both and make it a Reno-thal deck? Prescience and Windchill will try to compensate for the loss of card draw from droping one copy of Gorloc Ravager and Famished fool. We are adding in Convincing Disguise to have still enough evolve effects around. The idea of including Bracing Cold and Far Sight is to hopefully discount From De Other Side or the evolve cards so we make use of any leftover bodies in the same turn. Ozumat’s in here not just to get us up to 40 cards, but because it’s a near guaranteed board clear combo with From De Other side, if you manage your hand and board space just right, that leaves you with all its appendages afterward.
      Deck code / link: 
      AAECAaoIKKjuA6bvA6SBBMORBMeyBOm2BOnQBJjUBLjZBJfvBKTvBMb5A9OABJWSBNuUBNWyBOC1BJa3BLLBBMXOBMbOBLXZBLbZBODtBLzwBIb6A6/ZBPrsA/SgBcSsBNnsA4fUBIXUBLGwBJrUBLzOBIahBfigBYqSBfuRBQAA
       
    • By HSEnthusiast
      March of the Lich King, set to release on December 6th, is Hearthstone's third expansion in the Year of the Hydra. Blizzard gave us an early sneak peek at some of the Warrior cards revealed today that we discuss in our latest post.
      Today, we'd like to dive into the Warrior cards revealed by Inven Global.

      Pretty straightforward card. The effect gives us much more value the larger the minion is. It gets really scary with the potential follow-up with Bulk Up giving you this massively overstated minion in hand twice. Or If you can get this on Mor’shan Elite, that’s another nice double dip of value.

      Honestly, this feels like it was tailor-made to be the ideal target of Last Stand, as your opponent can’t easily get rid of it with cheap removal. It lets you use your stats immediately by letting you trade in and stabilize with a big taunt. It might not be too shabby on its own, as the 3 effects make it an annoying wall most opponents will be forced to trade into.

      Wow, they’re really not holding back with hand disruption this set. One (nearly) guaranteed discard is pretty impactful and becomes a must-remove card in any control matchup. This card will absolutely crush the hearts of some Big Spell Mages in the coming months, that’s for sure.
      It should be noted that this discard, the devs have confirmed to us that it will trigger your opponent’s “Whenever you discard a card” effects. So try and clear a Discard Warlock's Tiny Knight of Evil and perhaps try to play around having Suffocating Shadows or Soul Barrage trigger in that matchup. 

      To round off the control toolbox from this expansion, we’ve got a pretty unique effect here. Hopefully, this doesn’t end up being too easy to play around for savvy opponents. You could pre-empt this by running out a Blademaster Okani first and baiting out your opponent into playing a small spell first. But still, while the effect will only be as game-changing as your opponent’s last spell, getting any meaningful spell off seems pretty nice.
      Putting it all together, we have put together an interesting Taunt Control Warrior decklist to try out:  AAECAQcMmu0D784EvIoE2fkDqIoEiN8E784E0qwEmu0DlJUEzJIFiKAECcWSBZTtA47tA5+fBImgBIagBJDUBMSSBcuSBQA= . Slotting in Varian seems like a natural addition to any deck with Silverfury Stalwart and Tealan hops along to be the one divine shield minion you might want to have in your control deck. Rokara and Remornia are just good cards and they’ll go a long way to having your Mor’shan Elite’s active. The rest of the deck is the classic Control Warrior shell that will hopefully give you the armor and removal needed to live long enough to throw down your double-stated taunted win conditions.
      https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/deckbuilder?deckcode=AAECAQcMmu0D784EvIoE2fkDqIoEiN8E784E0qwEmu0DlJUEzJIFiKAECcWSBZTtA47tA5%2BfBImgBIagBJDUBMSSBcuSBQA%3D
    • By Staff
      Murder at Castle Nathria is Hearthstone's latest expansion. It adds a new Infuse keyword that absorbs anima from your friendly minions, a new card type named Locations, and more.  
      (Source)
      .blog-detail .gallery figure { width: 100%; max-width: calc((100% / 3) - 6px); } @media screen and (max-width: 600px){ .blog-detail .gallery { justify-content: center; } .blog-detail .gallery figure { width: 100%; max-width: 250px; } .blog-detail h4 { text-align: center; } } Announcing
      Murder at Castle Nathria
      Hearthstone’s Newest Expansion

      The Shadowlands is normally where souls go after they die, so when someone dies in the Shadowlands, that’s a special kind of mystery. Sire Denathrius invited 10 of his counterparts and enemies to Castle Nathria for a dinner party so that he could address the malicious rumors that he is hoarding anima, the life-energy that is drained from tortured souls and used to power the Shadowlands. But just after the festivities started, Sire Denathrius was found dead! It seems a gaggle of enemies does not a good dinner party make. Now the illustrious Murloc Holmes, and his trusty sidekick Watfin, have been called to solve the case. Scour new Location cards, follow the trail of Infused minions, question the 10 Legendary suspects, and help determine who committed Murder at Castle Nathria!   

      Murder at Castle Nathria will launch worldwide on August 2 with 135 new collectible cards! You can find the full Murder at Castle Nathria reveal schedule, and all cards that have already been revealed, by visiting the card library here. Check back frequently—the list will be updated with new cards as they’re revealed!
      Ten Suspicious Suspects
      Sire Denathrius had a lot of enemies. And it just so happens that 10 of them were under his roof at the time of his demise! Each class will have a Legendary minion that is a prime suspect in Sire Denathrius’s murder. They all have the means and the motive, but it is up to you and Murloc Holmes to determine who is guilty.



      New Keyword: Infuse
      Anima, drawn from wayward souls, powers all the Shadowlands—and those who consume it! Cards with the Infuse keyword sit in your hand and absorb anima from your friendly minions as they die. After the specified number of friendly minions die while the Infuse card is in your hand, the Infuse card transforms into a more powerful version. Infuse your cards to unlock their full power!

      New Card Type: Locations
      Castle Nathria is like no place Hearthstone has ever been before. Explore the castle grounds through the all-new Location card type! Locations are played onto the battlefield for an initial cost, and then have an ability that can be activated for free on your turns, each time for a powerful effect. Each activation costs 1 Durability and has a 1-turn Cooldown. Every class gets their own Location card in Castle Nathria which represents where they claim their suspect was at the time of the murder, and synergizes with the themes of the class.

       
      Locations Gameplay Preview with Brian Kibler and Designer Leo Robles Gonzalez
      Want to get a longer look at the new Location card type? Join Brian Kibler and Game Designer Leo Robles Gonzalez as they explore the new Location card type, try them out in a couple games, and reveal some more new cards! Join them on Friday, July 1, at 11 a.m. (Pacific) on Twitch and Youtube!

      Prince Renathal Login Reward Available Now!
      Log in to Hearthstone to get your first hint at what Castle Nathria holds with the complimentary Prince Renathal Legendary minion!* Grow more powerful as you draw more souls to your cause with 40 life and a 40-card starting deck! Add him to your collection and see what you can do when you have more space to work with.

      * Limited one per account. After Patch 24.6, Prince Renathal will be granted upon opening your first Murder at Castle Nathria card pack instead of upon logging in.
      Pre-Purchase Murder at Castle Nathria
      The Murder at Castle Nathria Mega Bundle includes 80 Murder at Castle Nathria card packs, 5 Golden Murder at Castle Nathria card packs, two random Murder at Castle Nathria Legendary cards, the Sire Denathrius Warrior hero skin, the Denathrius card back, the Sandy Shores Battlegrounds Board, and 10 Mercenaries Packs!*

      The Murder at Castle Nathria Bundle includes 60 Murder at Castle Nathria card packs, 2 random Murder at Castle Nathria Legendary cards, and the Denathrius card back!

      Pre-purchase
      * Battleground Perks are not included in the Mega Bundle pre-purchase this time. We’re reworking how Battlegrounds Perks and rewards work for next Battlegrounds season. Until then, some of the current Perks are being extended. Check out the Patch Notes and stay tuned for more details.

    • By Damien
      This thread is for comments about our Handbuff Paladin Deck.
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