Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic: No more need to pop the Block

(+) Yeah! (+)

At least soon that will be the case.
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I agree with Kripp that Ice Block on its own wasnt THAT bad. The problem was when RNG led to a 3rd or 4th one. Theres very little counterplay around it (unlike almost any other secret).
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2 copies of ice nova and 2 copies of ice block is essentially four turns worth of stall. it's just too much. the only way to beat that is with a bunch of direct damage, and even then you can't get through the ice block. then they can RNG their way into additional ice blocks or other stall tools.

as someone who has generally played decks that try to fight for the board I don't think any class has annoyed me as persistently as mage. shaman annoyed me more when they were the most oppressive. priest annoyed me more when they were the most oppressive. but mage has constantly had this factor of being annoying nonstop for the last 3 years. I don't think mage has ever been bad but even during times when they weren't super good they've always been able to get 4+ turns of stall which is just flat out ridiculous.

I would say good riddance to ice block but it'll still be ruining wild for some time
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also I agree counterspell is annoying as hell too, especially because only one class has the ability to do this which is pretty ridiculous when you think about it.
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Gonna take me some time to get rid of the new arena changes. Feels like everyone has some crazy good decks now.
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I started my first arena run with the new format this morning. Was given Paladin, Priest, and Warrior. Decided to throw conventional thinking to the wind and went with Warrior to see what kind of deck I'd end up with.

Went 7-0 before I had to go to work.

I guess 2 War Axes, 3 Weaponsmiths, 1 Blood Razor, and 2 spellstones will do that.
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Had another 11 win run, this time with mage. Final boss was a paladin where I lost a raven joust (Firelands portal to a dinosize). The firelands was lethal. The next turn he played a true silver.

Like every deck I saw was insane. Paladins with like multiple vinecleavers, stegas, tiron, etc. Saw one dude with two carines, tirion, tarim, and lich king.

to be fair my mage was extremely strong too. I mean double blizzard, flamestrike, firelands, dragon fury, three ravens, etc.
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Yeah, I've noticed that, too. It seems like everyone is universally stronger. I had a ton of picks of 3 highly rated cards. I think the only 2 bad cards in my entire deck were Fight Promoter and Windfury Harpy, and even the Harpy ended up hitting a Priest's face for 24 damage in one of my matches.

And I had a turn on a board with one minion on his side where I was able to Doomsayer into Fight Promoter and then set up lethal the following turn. It's all about picking synergistic cards now, which is a lot more fun.
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I'm now at 6 arena runs without getting an amount of gold that ends it 5.

Put me out of my misery.
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This is like what my shaman arena was like


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7th arena update: No 5 gold, but I did get a Woecleaver out of the pack, so yay, I guess?

Time to not get it again with Mage. At this point I'm just picking the meme options because I have no interest in playing the games. My deck is 2/3 spells and I expect it to go very poorly.
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8 runs, still no 5 gold. This is no longer funny. I've been retiring runs at 2 losses because I can't bring myself to play this mode more than I have to.
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wouldn't it make sense to try for higher wins so you get more reward boxes per run == more chances to open gold values that end in 5? it would be more cost efficient and time efficient for number of games played. as it stands now you're paying 150 gold more often and wasting more real time in order to open less arena reward boxes overall.
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After 2 losses I'm generally not optimistic about the deck, and I dislike playing arena games almost as much as I dislike having an odd number of gold.

I know I'm being illogical, but I just can't stand seeing 5 gold.
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This is nowhere close to your level of complaint, Ulti.

Anyway, I got it finally! 6 win Shaman with a deck that ended up being pretty good. I can finally stop playing arena.
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https://twitter.com/DisguisedToast/status/974332139830362112?s=19

4 new cards revealed, all related to the odd/even mechanic.
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Arena is going to be really weird in this set.
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Glad we didn't have to wait two weeks for the next cards.
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There was a developer video along with the cards, if youre interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_oFhGORxTw" data-time="

Lots of beast tags so far this set, I wonder if theres some neutral synergy coming there.
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Okay so they're completely removing the restricting aspect of building a deck around even/odd by printing crazy cards to support those decks?

Not really sure I understand the design choices here to be honest. It seems like you'll be able to just search "even" or "odd" and click every card with text to fill half of your deck if they keep printing cards like these.

I mean I realize they've only shown like 10 cards but I'm still not a fan of this so far.
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idk those cards are all on the high power level, but im not sure they are good enough to push the deck by itself.
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Having upgraded Druid hero power seems pretty oppressive from the start of the game. A powerful effect like that feels like it's supposed to be a reward for having to build a less than optimal deck. There's nothing less than optimal about a 5 mana 4/8 with taunt.

The condition seems absolutely pointless when you're obviously not going to run that card in anything but an "odd" deck. They shouldn't be giving more tools to enhance a gimmick centered around deck building because it completely removes the challenge of playing a "bad" deck in the first place.

If you're playing a highlander deck you're obviously limiting yourself but they didn't go printing 5 mana 4/8 taunts for that deck.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that cards having conditional effects centering around deck building are bad because it's going to trigger 100% of the time. Nobody is going to run a 5 mana 2/6 taunt in their deck but everyone will run two of that card in their "odd" deck.
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If youre playing that with Druid you arent running Swipe Wild Growth or UI

I think thats a huge punishment
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I'm assuming the Darkness candles will counter the odd-cost deck

drakonid operative is a card with a much easier restriction and i think its better than all those cards. I think operative is too strong for the game. Druid had a 4 mana 4/10 it was only okay
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LiquidOshawott posted...

If youre playing that with Druid you arent running Swipe Wild Growth or UI

I think thats a huge punishment

Some aggro Druid lists already don't run any of those cards and now they get a 5 mana 4/8 taunt.

KokoroAkechi posted...

Druid had a 4 mana 4/10 it was only okay

Are you talking about the C'thun card? I mean that card also didn't have taunt so it's not quite the same. I think this card is going to be a lot more oppressive than it seems.
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I like how he talks about "face hunter" in that video as if it could ever be a thing. like taunt minions aren't already out of control in this meta and two of the best classes have insane amounts of healing.
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skullbone posted...

Some aggro Druid lists already don't run any of those cards and now they get a 5 mana 4/8 taunt.

Aggro Druid can play a 5 mana 8/8 that only kills you sometimes and a 5 mana 5/5 that buffs another minion +3 without any deckbuilding restrictions. I won't write Odd Aggro Druid off until we see more cards, but I think you'd pretty firmly want to be in midrange if you're running this. But you're also losing the entire armor package besides Malfurion, so that deck would kind of need a 5/8 taunt to not die against aggro.
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Who didn't realize 0 was even? I thought it was just a bunch of regular people on r/hearthstone, which I wouldn't label as professional.
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On the Omnistone podcast, Kibler and Frodan were having a discussion on whether zero would be considered odd or even, with Frodan saying something like "In traditional mathematics it would be considered neither". Firebat stayed silent the entire time.
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It comes from the like mislearning or misidentifying even/odd and zero with positive negative and zero. I think
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1x Mana Wyrm
1x Frost Bolt
1x Mana Addict
1x Primordial Glyph
1x Shimmering Tempest
1x Earthen Ring Farseer
1x Frozen Clone
1x Hired Gun
1x Kabal Courier
1x Shallow Gravedigger
2x Stonehill Defender
1x Violet Illusionist
3x Volcanic Potion
1x Kabal Chemist
1x Steam Surge
1x Water Elemental
1x Cobalt Scalebane
1x Nesting Roc
1x Blizzard
1x Bone Drake
1x Scaled Nightmare
2x Firelands Portal
1x Flamestrike
1x Tortollan Primalist
1x Deathwing
1x Deathwing, Dragonlord

This draft was a bit of a trainwreck.
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Had an arena game where my opponent played SEVEN OPERATIVES. And I had lyra stick on the board for like multiple turns. It was like the most insane arena game I've had.

https://hsreplay.net/replay/W829DQGt7QTrHjdfGsuzGA
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first time back in hearthstone for a while, was feeling pretty burned out on the game in general

literally my second match in arena I face off against a priest who gets frost lich jaina off of kabal courier. coincidentally I had drafted a priest deck so greedy that I actually grinded him out and he started roping me at the end like a butthurt child.

so it seems as if literally nothing has changed since the KOFT arena meta...

(even cards that are now banned from arena are still showing up to cause frustration!)
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Just opened a golden runespear :D Ill save the gold for the next expansion
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The problem with arena now is that everyone has amazing decks so instead of not playing around shit because they are unlikely to have it, we are now not playing around shit because they have every answer multiple times over

I played a Warlock the other day who was able to clear my board every turn with some sort of spell for 8 straight turns. I still won but it was so ridiculous

Everyone just has so much removal and nobody is playing any bad cards at all.

well "nobody" is a bit of an overstatement. I myself drafted a pretty poor deck and so my expectations going into this run have been pretty low.

on that note just lost to Bonemore

it's like I really did jump through a wormhole back to 2017
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I've done like 2 shamans, 2 mages, 2 warlocks, 2 paladins, priest, and a rogue I think.

I'm pretty sure warlock is bad. Paladin and mage can be pretty insane they just have extremely high power level class cards. Shaman has that insane arena only card too, but I've found it kind of hard to use in a way where you can take advantage of it effectively.
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well 1-3 that was fun

last match played against topdeck antonidas into topdeck primordial glyph
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Btw the priest went 7 wins. I lost to a mage after he dropped mediv (a few turns after a kazakus which activated) and I lost to a potion and fireball. The turn before I used a nightmare from ysera on the mediv and a twilight acolyte to try to set something up.
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