Board 8 > Hearthstone Topic #??: Time for Blizzcon

(+) Yeah! (+)

Side note, guess it hasn't been linked yet, so second wronchi animation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTO0RfuYnhU" data-time="

And accompanying card

1/4 Taunt (becomes a 2/4 taunt if the opponent has two minions).

Seems ok, there have been a few 2/4 taunts for 2 (Wyrmwrest Agent and Vulgar Homunculus). I don't expect that it will be convincing any standard decks to drop Keleseth, though.
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Guys

Arena. 6-2 versus warrior

How many warpaths do you think is reasonable to play around?
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I drafted seven Defiles once. Hopefully not that many.
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If there's one thing this weeks brawl is good for, it's winning with Magma Rager.
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https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/22636896/rastakhan-s-rumble-card-reveal-schedule
Card reveals start Monday the 19th, and end Wednesday the 28th, with pre-release being the weekend and release on Dec 4th. Looks like its really compressed this time around.

They also mention 6 free packs, a random free legendary Loa on login, plus their two Spirits.

I wonder if they intentionally overlapped it with Artifacts release
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I pre-ordered.

Going to go in relatively blind by not looking at any of the cards unless I manage to see them in here.
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The guy had SIX warpaths.

I mean come on.
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also i did a brawl. I won with a tempo rogue by playing leroy on 5.
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Brawl theoretically lets you get turn 2 kills; stuff like Young Dragonhawk into double cold blood Abusive Seargeant, double Shadow Step.

Faced someone who seemed to be teching against that kind of play, all the 1 mana taunts they could find (we're talking 2x Goldshire Footman) and some silence and Freeze effects into Frost Lich Jaina.

Eventually squeezed out a win with a relatively generic Inner Fire Priest, but not until after they had a few turns with Jaina; I think I would have lost if the game had gone a few more turns.
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I found a good way to beat Hadronox Druid at rank 25 playing 30 Random Cards To Finish A Quest Hunter. You just need them to attack into a Freezing Trap with Hadronox, and then literally two turns later attack into a second Freezing Trap with their other Hadronox.
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So...laggy got play 6 divine shield minions and were trying to complete it with espionage rogue.

Still at zero >_>
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r/thathappened
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anyways, Artifact NDA lifted today and the streamers are all streaming it

what's the interest level at around here? if there's a decent amount of players on board 8 we could probably have internal tournaments. there's supposed to be a pretty robust tournament organizer in game that can do different rulesets and gamemodes
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CoolCly posted...

what's the interest level at around here?

None for me, I'm too cheap for Artifact.
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I feel like I have a solid understanding of cards games from my time playing Yu-Gi-Oh semi-competitively, Magic very casually, and then Hearthstone and Gwent, yet everytime I've attempted to watch an Artifact stream I have no idea what's going on.

I don't understand any of it. Sure, if I wanted to actually get into it I could go through some extensive tutorials and figure it out, but I feel like it's a bad sign if the casual viewer is lost. Any other card game is pretty simple to understand at a basic level as a viewer.

Toast played today and concluded that a combination of an awful paid model and a very confusing experience for viewers meant that it was not a game he'd be playing. Even Reynad gave up after a few hours, and he loves card games.

Kripp spent $120 and got 7 copies of a starting hero, which is the equivalent of a basic card in Hearthstone, meaning that being able to sell it is useless because every player already owns it.

Apparently there's also no way to buy packs and draft runs, which are pay to play, with in-game currency either.

I'm probably leaning towards not playing this game.
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the artifact hype has seemed pretty forced honestly and with everything kept under wraps behind NDA I've been highly suspicious of it. not saying I want it to succeed or fail -- it doesn't matter to me either way -- but my gut instinct would be to avoid it personally until I've seen confirmation that it's actually any good.

but the manufactured, very fake seeming hype has been a big red flag for me especially.
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Personally, I think Artifact looks awesome. I love everything about the way gameplay looks.

I also don't think there's anything wrong with the purchase price for the game or the way purchasing packs goes. I'm pretty okay with spending a bit of money to get my collection going, and filling it out with the market for a bit extra is fine. My big problem with Hearthstone is that I would spend $50-150 on a set and get a decent collection but then not really have a good way to get the cards I don't have without tons of grinding.... which I should not feel like I need to do when I spend a bunch of money every few months. So I think the collection market in Artifact is what I want in a card game.

But a big problem came up with the NDA came out that you have to use an event ticket ($1) to play Draft mode (kinda like Arena in Hearthstone), and $1 to play ranked constructed. We thought you would be able to play draft in tournament mode but this wasn't available in the beta. So it seems like you pay to buy the game, you pay to buy packs and cards, and you ALSO have to pay to play certain game modes. I think requiring you to pay to play game modes that will reward packs is fine, but to lock out game modes completely is pretty ridiculous. I shouldn't have to feel like I need to pay a regular entry fee just to play the game.

Also, you get a couple starter decks and those heroes were showing up in packs that people opened, which is pretty useless since you don't use them and you can't sell them... since everyone else already has them. This means if you get them in a pack you basically aren't getting a card.

So I was pretty disappointed. Basically, I'm willing to spend some money to get into the game and to buy cards, I don't really feel like I need a free to play mechanic. But I DONT want to have to pay entry fees on top of that.

So a couple hours ago I requested a refund on my repurchase and this is the feedback I gave.

Two reasons:

1. Event tickets look way too pervasive. Ranked constructed and all draft modes? I can understand you want to lock prizes behind a paywall entry, but it feels way too much like you are requiring extra payment to play the game on a regular basis. I'm willing to pay the $20 to buy the game and pay more to obtain my collection.... but I'm not going to keep paying just to actually play game modes. This has been taken too far.

2. Starter deck heroes and cards can be found in the Call to Arms packs. Everybody gets these cards for free. You can't use them in your decks and there's noone to sell them to since everyone else has them. There's no reason to open these, except perhaps custom game modes with no limits. But that's such a niche reason that doesn't justify obtaining extra copies... These cards should just be considered Basic with unlimited use, not part of the Call to Arms set.

I've been looking forward to this game since TI7 and think it looks like a blast. I'm willing to spend a reasonable amount to obtain cards, but I shouldn't feel so limited on what to do with them.

I prepurchased because I thought it was a given that I was going to buy this game and enjoy the hell out of it, but after seeing how it's working out with the NDA lifted, I just don't know that I can justify this game. Please refund my purchase.

Fix these issues by release and I'll be back, but if you don't, then I guess I won't be.

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Then just now this update got posted on the Artifact steam page

The Artifact public beta is starting later today. All attendees from this year's International and everyone who redeemed a beta key will find the game activated in their Steam account.

Since lifting the NDA on the private beta yesterday, there's been an overwhelming amount of feedback on all parts of the game. Much of that feedback has been a clear signal that we underestimated how much interest and excitement the community has around certain features that weren't available in the initial beta build.

We want to take a few minutes to talk about some of those missing features now:
There was no way to do a draft event with friends. We didn't prioritize this play mode, and had planned to enable it sometime after release. We've heard your feedback: drafting with friends is a core part of what you want to spend your time doing in Artifact. In the next Artifact beta build, you can select Call To Arms Phantom Draft in any user-created tournament.

There was no way to practice the draft modes without spending an event ticket. Drafting is incredibly fun, but can also be very intimidating. We agree that it's important to have a way to practice before venturing into a more competitive mode. In the next Artifact beta build, everyone who has claimed their starting content will find a Casual Phantom Draft gauntlet available in the Casual Play section.

There was nothing to do with duplicate starter heroes. We're adding a system that allows extra, unwanted cards to be recycled into event tickets. This feature will ship before the end of the beta period.
The first two changes will be live for everyone when the public beta activates later today. We'll ship the recycling system, as well as other improvements to the beta, over the next week and a half.

Please enjoy the beta, and keep sending us your feedback.

we did it bois thx valve i'm back in
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I may or may not have just lost a game in arena I had no business losing because my opponent was roping every turn, stretching the game out way longer than it had any right to be. Secondary cause of losing was my stomach is feeling like crap and I had to make a decision between winning the game and ruining my pants.
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i mean, call me when it's possible to build a competitive deck without putting down $100+.

remains now and forever my stance on Artifact.
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k ill tag you in a week when the game releases
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Hearthstone is about as far as I can go with the TCG buying for cards thing. And it sounds like Artifact is way worse.
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MTG Arena is very possible to make a legit deck while being F2P. Plus you get to keep all cards you draft! /shamelessplug
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i drafted a warrior in arena. Warrior is one of my weaker classes so I don't draft it often, but the class is very strong right now. I got two supercolliders (among other strong cards). But supercollider is so OP. I mean I don't think I drafted very well. I'm 5-0 but I've been fortunate to not be hand screwed with all the late game I have.
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A lot of arena is knowing when to play around things and when you just can't. You should treat a 0-0 game like a 7-2 game at first imo because you never know what kind of player or deck your opponent has. If your opponent has shown to be like really bad or really good that can change your play. But after that you should start to play around stuff based on your record and the board state.

If you see warrior draft that. If you see shaman ignore that.
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KokoroAkechi posted...

I play a version of Tesspionage a lot and I've said for a long time that Tess is like the worst card within the confines of the deck. But, that one game in like ten when you do play it it's the most spectacular thing ever.

I chronicled my adventures with a Tess deck back in witchwood days. I played her like, one in ten games. Usually is just a win more card or a tempo play.

Not particularly great, but at the same time... you have NO idea what she's capable of!

<3 Tess
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UltimaterializerX posted...

I'm actually happy Artifact seems like trash, because I've been calling Richard Garfield a fucking moron for 25 years. It'll be great to see him crash and burn. Magic the Gathering is fucking garbage and Artifact won't be any different because it's designed by an idiot.

sorry you're not as successful as him :(
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trdl23 posted...

MTG Arena is very possible to make a legit deck while being F2P. Plus you get to keep all cards you draft! /shamelessplug

The big reason I'm not playing MtG Arena is that it doesn't have a mobile client last I checked.

I would have probably stopped playing Hearthstone years ago if I couldn't play it on my cell phone (where it's better than most of the competition).
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UltimaterializerX posted...

He of course roped every turn, because Blizzard is trash and has refused to fix this problem of intentional slow play for five years.

I've actually had a lot less problem with roping lately, now that they made the first couple turns very short. There's no restrictions on later turns technically, but once people start playing cards at a reasonable pace they seem to continue playing cards at a reasonable pace (usually).
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lol ok
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So the warrior went 12-2. The two losses were to a druid where I didn't draw supercollider and to a priest that just had good counter tools to my deck.

Iirc the break down for classes was

3 warriors
3 druids
2 priests
2 mages
1 rogue
1 paladin
1 warlock
1 hunter

The only other person who almost beat Me was the hunter and that was at high wins. Basically I have two hp and he had explosive up so I played stuff and armored every turn until I had a board strong enough to kill him in one turn. Thankfully he didn't have any burst and I had plenty of taunts.
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KokoroAkechi posted...

If you see warrior draft that. If you see shaman ignore that.

i remember a time when kripp said warrior would never be good at arena because their hero power does literally nothing, when hero powers offer so much value for most other classes

interesting that things can turn around so hard
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metroid composite posted...

trdl23 posted...

MTG Arena is very possible to make a legit deck while being F2P. Plus you get to keep all cards you draft! /shamelessplug

The big reason I'm not playing MtG Arena is that it doesn't have a mobile client last I checked.

I would have probably stopped playing Hearthstone years ago if I couldn't play it on my cell phone (where it's better than most of the competition).

Fair! They say there will be a mobile client upon full release, but this is WotC, so ????
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CoolCly posted...

KokoroAkechi posted...

If you see warrior draft that. If you see shaman ignore that.

i remember a time when kripp said warrior would never be good at arena because their hero power does literally nothing, when hero powers offer so much value for most other classes

interesting that things can turn around so hard

the bucket system and warrior getting consistently good arena cards for like forever has basically done this.
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btw my deck from memory.

1 Dire mole
1 Town Crier
1 Rockpool Hunter
1 Cruel Taskmaster
1 Scarlet Crusader
1 Sewer Crawler
1 Blackwald Pixie
1 Walnut Sprite
1 Mind Control Tech
1 Dragonslayer
1 Arathi Weaponsmith
1 Kor'kron Elite
1 Guild Recruiter
1 Nesting Roc
1 Witchwood Grizzly
1 Stampeding Kodo
1 Spark Drill
2 Sated Threshadon
1 Volcanosaur
1 Violet Wurm
1 Primordial Drake
1 Gilean Royal Guard

1 Execute
2 Warpath
1 Brawl
1 The Boom Ship

2 Supercollider
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if anyone is watching the card reveals can you tell me if hunter is given even one card that can deal direct damage
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I was curious about like how good my deck actually was so I plugged it into heartharena and got a 73.3 score. This is really good for arena right now.
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MariaTaylor posted...

if anyone is watching the card reveals can you tell me if hunter is given even one card that can deal direct damage

They didn't reveal any Hunter cards, just ten cards or so in total. Main takeaways are that Mage gets Ragnaros and they're trying to make Discolock a thing again. Don't want to elaborate in case you don't want to know any of the new cards.
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