Hearthstone

[Flame Dragon]

The 3 KnC compensation packs for Ranked being down before are out now, check the gift tab on the Battlenet launcher to get them.

Weird that they aren't just sent the the account. Thanks for the tip though since I likely wouldn't have gotten them otherwise.

[Shradow]

Don't know if anyone's been following the HS social media but there's a bit of a thing going around.

 

Dave Kosak first tweeted he was going out camping looking for the next expansion: https://twitter.com/DaveKosak/status/971155958771605509

 

Then Ben Brode and Ben Thompson set out in search of him: https://twitter.com/BenThompsonArt/status/972160219110191105

 

And now it looks like Yong Woo is next: https://twitter.com/ywoo_dev/status/973044498807906305

 

People are guessing it's some sort of mystery-related expansion, most likely in Duskwood, especially after one bit of promo art we got:

 

With the tease we got when the Year of the Raven was first announced, the first expansion one looks like one of the Emerald Dream portals in Duskwood, too:

[Dokutah]

Ah so thats why Heartcards community goes crazy with possible Murloc Holmes lol

 

Detective theme + dream world...that sound like Persona series. Although its kinda make sense due to what i skimmed through Emerald dream is supposed to act as accessable blueprint of each moment in time since Azeroth creation thus perfect to review crime scene

[Dokutah]

[Shradow]

I love these reveal videos.

 

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/expansions-adventures/the-witchwood/

 

Cards revealed so far:

 

Echo puts a ghostly copy of the card you play into your hand to play again for that turn only each time you play it, basically how Unstable Evolution works.

Rush allows a card to attack minions only the turn it's played, basically how Charged Devilsaur works.

 

It also seems like there's a new Dungeon Run sorta thing to this one.

[Kazooie]

The card reveal at the end looks like a Hero Card.

 

I AM HYPED. Hero cards are one of my favorite mechanics to be introduced into the game, so seeing more would be really cool. I really hope it's a hero card and not just artwork that looks like one.

 

That said, I'm really excited in general, this set is looking cool, both of those neutral legendaries will be fun to funk around with and try to make work, and I've been waiting for a Worgen theme. <3

[Shradow]

I'm really hoping some form of Control Warrior can be made to work with Baku the Mooneater, imagine having Tank Up from turn 1.

 

The screams of, "It's too OP!" and "Nerf it! Nerf it!" are still so funny even after rewatching the reveal. Glad it's a Shaman card there at the end, with the new standard expansion Shaman's gonna be reeeeeaally bad after the rotations so they'll need something OP.

 

Also, when we login once the expansion launches we get 3 free packs and a free class legendary: https://twitter.com/Hearthpwn/status/973245328689389568

[Flame Dragon]

I love how happy Ben seems to be. It is campy, but they are clearly having fun with it.

 

Echo seems like it can be REAL strong at 2 and busted at 1. Curious what they'll end up looking like. The 2/4 only seems ok.

 

Rush seems like a nice fix to charge. Makes them a lot more into removal spells.

 

Agree with Birdie that more Hero cards is exciting. The Death Knights were easily the best cycle of last year so seeing them explore that space some more is cool.

 

I'm really hoping some form of Control Warrior can be made to work with Baku the Mooneater, imagine having Tank Up from turn 1.

I'm really curious how the even and odd creatures will play out. The fact that all the princes have seen play means these have a shot too. Curious if the reduction carries to the Death Knights.

 

I'm curious if they'll have another class cycle like last years Quests/DK/Weapons.

[👀 REP 👀]

I'm pretty sure Genn doesn't reduce your DK Hero Power since the card says "starting hero power", which is a shame. I would of at least liked to play around with it in some memey hunter deck using DK Rexxar.

Also, something to note about Baku is that (I think) it should still work with Quests despite them being odd since they'll always be in your opening hand. As long as you don't mulligan the quest Baku should proc. The only quest deck I can think of this being super relevant in is Quest Warrior. You do lose access to a lot of removal options, most notably Execute and Sleep w/Fishes. Still, you have Shield Slam, Brawl, and some weapons for removal. You also lose Armor Smith and the Drywhisker + Sentry combo but Tank Up should more than make up for it. Molten Blade gets a special mention since it can let you "cheat" your deck by getting even costed weapons.

[Shradow]

Well remember that Anduin keeps the 1 cost (previously 0 cost) Hero Power if it's reduced by Raza first, I don't see why this new 1 cost reduction would be any different. It may say "starting Hero Power" but I think that's just to avoid affecting the Hero Power in cases like Tavern Brawls where you start as a different boss or something, same with Justicar who also has the same "starting Hero Power" wording.

 

EDIT: Oooooh, Brode has confirmed that the Shaman Hero Card is the only Hero Card of the set. He'll definitely need the help, and almost the whole evolve archtype that his DK works with is being rotated out while the rest of the DKs remain relevant.

 

Plus, I like the idea that they might keep printing more Hero Cards/Legendary Weapons/Quests, but it's not necessary to print one per class every expansion.

 

They've also said that DK Rexxar will finally be updated to include new beasts (including KnC ones that weren't previously included) with this next expansion.

[Shradow]

New video with new cards:

 

 

I didn't realize that these were gonna be an actual archetype with supporting cards. I figured it'd be one-off legendaries that would have to be good enough to push the deck limitation on their own. This is cool. And these cards look to be good, which is exactly what you want, strong cards to justify the limitation.

 

Also, "and most importantly, Huffer." funking lol, Blizz keeping with the "always Huffer" meme.

[Flame Dragon]

I'm curious how the cost restriction will play out. That is a huge limit on deck building and pushing it hard could be unfun for a lot of players. I wasn't impressed by Cat at first, but realized it is a Drake for 2 less that only gives up -1/-1. The Eel just seems really good. I'm not sure about the Stag since Druid naturally has access to a 4/6 taunt. 2 more health is certainly a lot, but the deck building restriction could easily kill it. Moth can be used with Inner Fire, so thats good. Not sure what to think of it though.

[Shradow]

Also Brode tweeted this out:

 

And it's been confirmed that the odd/even cards won't show up Arena.

[Kazooie]

So, the new cards...

 

The only one I think will be 'decent' really is the Cat. Card cycle is strong, and if any deck can pull off the Odd restriction, I think it's some weird, funking Elemental Mage deck. It might not be good exactly, but I think it's doable.

 

The others...

 

Gloom Stag is pretty bad I think, most of Druid's good stuff is Even cost, and then this thing is only 2 more health than Druid of the Claw, who's well worth giving up that extra 2 health since it also can charge to take out threats/ a little bit of quick damage. I dunno, even in odd cost decks, it has direct competition who is more flexible, so I don't see it working.

 

Murkspark isn't bad itself, but Shaman doesn't really... Work? It doesn't have a lot of good even cost stuff right now, once the rotation comes around, and you lose out on Feral Spirits and Mana Tide in the 3 drop slot. I don't think Murkspark is the issue, but Shaman is gonna need some damn good support to recover from the Freeze Shaman disaster. If the Hero card is good, at least you can play it in the Even deck. Card great, deck not looking so hot.

 

Moff seems terrible to me. It doesn't work in a dragon focused Priest deck, cause you lose Duskbreaker. There isn't really another Minion focused Priest deck either, and even if there was, giving up Shadow Ascendant/other 2 drops for this is... Kinda bad. It's really hard to keep up the minion pressure when you don't really have great minions to play to make Moff work. Depends on what else we see from the expansion I think.

[👀 REP 👀]

The main issue I have with the Shaman one is that, well, your hero power costing (1) isn't good enough to put such restrictions on your deck unless you're running something like Bloodlust which pairs well with spawning totems with a 1 mana hero power... but it's an odd card so you can't even use it for that. Hell you can't even use the new totem cards from KnC outside of the 2 mana 1/1 where you might of been able to use it for memes. In general I don't see Shaman running either of these two, so I find it odd that they'd print a card like that for Shaman. Especially when its usually a worse Medivh's Valet (granted, Valet is busted but that's for another time).

 

I don't care much about the other ones. Moth seems bad and Stag is underwhelming, although the upgraded hero power for Druid is actually pretty damn good. The only one that stands out to me is the cat because that's a really powerful card. My only issue is that maybe the odd only restriction might be bad for it. A lot of good cards for mage are even, and I don't think the upgraded hero power is enough to make up for that fact.

[Shradow]

Interesting, they're removing the Enrage keyword (not the mechanic, it's just being reworded on the 9 cards, yes only 9, it exists on): https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21614307

 

I didn't even realize how underutilized the mechanic has been that's it's only ever been on 9 cards, 6 of them being in the classic set. And aside from that it also makes sense to remove it because Enrage as a keyword doesn't mean anything on its own, it still needs the accompanying text saying what the effect is. So the text isn't really getting any longer by removing the keyword.

[Shradow]

A couple updates, we're getting a special event for the Year of the Raven: https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21634714

 

And here's the card reveal schedule starting with the 26th: https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21634713/the-witchwood-card-reveal-schedule

[Shradow]

 

A little look at Echo with a couple card reveals:

 

Face Collector seems like sort of just a fun card that's probably not too good, but I really like Warpath. At 2 casts it's almost like Consecration and at 4 casts it's almost like Flamestrike, plus it's really good against decks like Dude Paladin and stuff that wants to flood the board.

[Flame Dragon]

Warpath does look really strong. As someone who loves control I can see it putting in a lot of work.

[👀 REP 👀]

Face Collector seems pretty juicy for memes and maybe as a value card if Control Rogue ever become a thing, but I doubt that will happen. 
Warpath seems interesting, although it's a shame that it's coming in when Sleep with the Fishes is rotating out. Still seems like a solid choice for any control deck as pretty good AoE.

[Shradow]

Card reveal stream VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/243150383

 

Revealed cards: https://imgur.com/a/OX2x6

 

I'm excited for Houndmaster Shaw, and I really hope Nightmare Amalgam is able to see play in something, it's pretty cool. Hagatha the Witch is less OP than I would've thought at first glance, but maybe Shaman will get some insane spells this expansion, and I'm interested to see how going the Mage route of random spell generation will work for the class.

[Kazooie]

I haven't looked at all the cards yet, but I wanted to mention that Hagitha was... Kinda underwhelming from a Standard perspective.

 

Shaman doesn't have a ton of incredible spells in Standard, so unless it gets some damn good ones coming up, there's a fair number of really bad ones you'll get, some okay ones, and only some really good ones.

 

On the other end, the newest expansions haven't been really kind to Shaman on that front either. Frozen Throne was kind of a nightmare with the Freeze Shaman side focus, and even in Un'goro, they only really got Volcano of note. I'm not entirely sold on Hagitha yet, I think it's definitely got potential to be good, but... Shaman needs some good spells.

 

3 Damage AoE isn't bad though, that's nice.

[Shradow]

It's kind of a boring card for how they hyped it, though. It's just sort-of-Hellfire into sort-of-Lyra.

[👀 REP 👀]

So the Shaman cards are pretty underwhelming imo, especially with all the hype Hagatha got. 3 damage AoE is fine and all, but if there was something Shaman didn't need it was more AoE. Getting random spells is ok I guess? Like there are some juicy spells that you can get, but there are also some really not so good ones and the ones that are in standard... well, they could be better. The 1 mana 0/1 is kind of boring and probably not very good. All this obviously depends on what spells we actually get this expansion, but unless we get some bombshell spells I don't see these two cards (and I guess this theme if they go with this as the theme for the set) going far. Notably some of the "bad" shaman spells can be pretty good in specific situations (stuff like Freeze Shock comes to mind).

[Dokutah]

I share my disappointment with shaman line up, since even their best spell works wonders in a very localize situation their low mana cost not really cut it and overload really becomes legit hinderance rather than acceptable drawback. So yeah, this expansion need better spells to compensate all Shaman Playstyle that going flop this rotation.

 

Havent amaze with the rest other than these hillarious 3: Vivid Nightmare because healable copy its a big can of combo worms, Rebuke super-cheap dinied button lol, and Nightmare Amalgam is my spirit animal...although i dont understand the freakin Epic price tag for it