Unlabelled Hearthstone - A Farewell to Zoo - What not having a legend-viable budget deck means for Hearthstone.

2/21/2017 01:03:00 am
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Hearthstone - A Farewell to Zoo - What not having a legend-viable budget deck means for Hearthstone.

A Farewell to Zoo - What not having a legend-viable budget deck means for Hearthstone.

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 02:58 AM PST

Zoo has always been a tricky deck to describe.

It has at various points been spoken of in the same hushed tones as Face Hunter and Burn Shaman by those who claim it's as malignant as any cancer you can conceive; called a control deck, that utilizes board presence and efficient minions; run everything from Shieldbearer to Crazed Alchemist to Dr. Boom to murlocs (my personal favorite). Aggressive, mid-ranged, value-based, tempo deck - Zoo's hard to pin down.

So what's the common thread running through all these lists that put them all under the 'Zoo' umbrella? Life Tap and minions?

Actually, it's accounting.

On the face of it, the algorithm that underlies the Zoo strategy is a fairly simple one.

  • Populate the board with minions.
  • Take the most efficient trades possible to maximize your own board presence while minimizing your opponent's. This crucial, since repeatable damage from minions is your sole win condition
  • Send the balance damage you have into the opponent's noggin. Repeat this process until a hero portrait explodes.
  • Tap last.

Complications and caveats to the strategy arise in the form of: conserving or expending minion resources in anticipation of taunts, clears or simply being mindful of the lethal clock; positioning to optimize Argus taunts or the Dire Wolf conga line to squeeze as much value and damage out of every token as you can; and deciding when even Zoo has had enough of board control, to take into account burst, remaining possible clears/heals, and your own life total. [Why, yes, tapping to 6 while Garrosh waits patiently with an equipped Gorehowl sounds wonderful.]

It's actually a great deck that exemplifies the pinnacle of Hearthstone's minion-based combat, running on the principle of just outpacing your opponent on on-board tempo, keeping up with cards using life tap and utilizing varying amounts of value-based finishers to burst damage to close out games as the meta demands. It was as flexible as it was effective and was one of the best decks to learn how the game works.

Sigh. Was.

Hindsight now makes thinking "Zoo will always exist in some form" seem rather silly. Sure, it's been pushed in different directions to varying degrees and has always had to adapte to different metas, but Zoo has always been supported in some form or the other. The migration from a sticky token deck to a flood deck that could keep reloading the board in spite of clears in WotOG wasn't a conscious decision - but at least the set offered Darkshire Councilman and Forbidden Tentacles to support this strategy. While ONiK made the deck about as absurd as it's ever been - at least the supporting cards were there.

MSoG gave Zoo a terrific one-two punch. Maelstrom and Shamanstone aside, printing no new support cards while bolstering Dragon Priest and Reno support specifically hamstrings zoo to an extent where it would struggle to stay afloat even if hadn't been outpaced by Pirate Aggro. But oh, outpaced it was ... because while the speed of the deck has varied, Zoo has always been a deck about building up a damaging board advantage regularly over several turns.

In all honesty, it's not quite that Pirate Decks can outdamage zoo, or out-populate Zoo flood in the first couple of turns with Patches. It's the weapons. The weapons are a terrific tool for allowing the Pirate decks to maintain and add to a board lead against a deck that lives and dies by board presence and lacks any significant comeback mechanic. [Abyssal Enforcer Zoo never quite took off, for some reason.] So now Pirates push damage with early minions and curve into burn, and they do this faster and more efficiently than zoo, while smacking the piss out of it with an assortment of Jade Golems and seafaring demons.

When you don't have a single damned matchup you want to run into on ladder and the next rotation promises to take away your best source of burn, it's probably time to call it quits.

So farewell, Zoo. Your eternal persistence in the face of opposition seems to have come to an end before Hearthstone did. You're out of eggs, your power is underwhelming, and you don't dare summon much of the tribe Team 5 keeps failing to saddle you with. Perhaps you'll be back, in a form as yet unknown, eager to take revenge upon the hooked and clawed plunderers who went to town on your booty. Maybe if they finally print a bunch of good demons. But it seems unlikely, and so for now, I cast your boat into Booty Bay - um, I mean, Gadgetzan Bay.

Of course, the death of Zoo is kind of a problem. It's a huge frickin' deal and exemplifies much of the set's issues. Let me go through the implications and issues of pushing Zoo out of the meta, and the manner in which it was done.

Cost

To start with, regardless of the builds with Booms, Mal'Gani, Sea Giants, Gormok and other fancy top-end, Zoo has always had a core that was cheap. If lacking value, it could always be teched to be a faster version, with plenty of cards offering reasonable serviceable substitutes, whether we're talking about Shredders or Azure Drakes and Faerie Dragons.

The game-plan was adaptable and never relied on particular card choices, and was always largely accessible. You could poach Nerubian egg and Haunted Creeper and Loatheb [a.k.a Mr. Gives Me A Chance Against Freeze Mage] for 700 gold, and Imp Gang Boss for a slightly less accessible but still doable 1400. Hating Zoo out of the meta with, not merely build-around cards, but legendary build-around cards that draw from a variety of card pools means that even the cheapest face-aggro deck on ladder has a significant dust barrier for budget players looking to be competitive.

Do you know what eventually made me spend actual money on Adventures? [Last couple wings of LoE and BrM.] Spending a long time on the game without spending any many, grinding my way into better and better versions of a deck that I knew could take me to legend once I got good enough. After dragging my murloc sligh version to rank 8, my Juggler-Egg-Creeper version of the deck ran so smoothly, I wept. And Loatheb, a card that BLOCKED AoE. I could have kissed the bloody 5/5.

Call me cynical, but I find it particularly hard to get my friends into the game when I can't even give them a realistic goal to work towards without dropping cash. The death of Zoo certainly doesn't help me in that regard at all.

Composition

Aside from some obvious ones [Huh, I think Councilman might be a good fit for a flood deck], Zoo has never featured build-around cards. Debates on the exact number of Power Overwhelmings, Doomguards, Sea Giants, Soulfires, Leeroys, and whether or not to even include these cards propped up on /r/competitivehs all the time when Zoo was still common on ladder. There was never really a fixed list, a must-include, or a card that enabled the entire strategy, without which the deck would crumble. [My own preference, btw, was 2 Giants, 1 Doomguard, 1 Leeroy and all the POs. This is WotOG Flood Zoo, of course. But I ran void terror, so what do I know.]

Obviously, MSoG kind of crappered this philosophy to the extreme. It's not just that Patches/Kazakus/Drakonid form a busted trio around whose power their respective decks coalesced, it's the fact that every deck that has been assembled organically by the playerbase - Freeze Mage, Tempo Mage, Token Druid, Zoolock, tempo-based Rogue builds, the entire Hunter class - are no longer anywhere approaching viable in the meta.

This is a dangerous direction to the take the game in. Prescribed decks shouldn't warp a competitive game this much, as the game stales quickly without viable innovation. I've had to stick mostly to Renolock to keep the game fun, as it's still a largely adaptable and flexible deck - and the meta is certainly kind to it - but even though I actually have a couple of meta decks stashed aside, they're all so stale by now that I still feel like I only have one.

Contribution

Zoo was a flipping amazing deck to use to teach someone Hearthstone.

Concepts like tempo, value, card advantage, resource management, Hearthstone's own proactive minion combat system and others could all be demonstrated very well. Mastering Zoo was a good way to learn the game, not simply by piloting it well, but also for learning about the decks you fought. The power level of the deck meant you could go pretty high and learn how to adapt to each matchup (if only by remembering what wrecked you) and be exposed to a lot of the game. With Zoo I've beaten Control Priests in Fatigue, Warriors on turn 5, dropped Leper Gnomes into doomsayers for lethal and eggs into wide brawl-able boards. If the game ever had a basic deck, it was freaking Zoo. And now it's gone.

Honestly, the new player experience was never peachy, but I was able to get through it with this deck. It got me my first Golden Portrait, caches of dust and gold and funded my decks from Renolock to C'thun Druid (whoops). I never would have played this game as much as I did without good old Zoolock, or dropped any money into it, and without it as a powerful, educational entry-level deck to make ... or without any serious viable alternartive in Hunter or Rogue or Mage ... I can see why there's so much damned complaining about getting new players into this game.

I think Team 5 should figure out a way to support such archetypes and make sure that their top-end isn't so utterly busted so as to choke out any attempt at experimentation, or middling decks that don't pack value or burn to the gills. A Murloc Paladin that isn't quite so all-in and is more sustainable, or neutral beasts that have as much utility as TGT's mid-ranged dragons, or hell, just bringing mechs back with better synergy that doesn't stop at "Mechwarper". "Building" a mech board by discovering more mechs if you control mechs sounds like a pretty sweet gimmick to center it on, while getting players cards to play with that they may not have crafted.

Just consider making your card design broader and without a pre-conceived deck to jam every good card into. And don't forget about Zoo. It was awesome.

submitted by /u/BlueTigerOrpheus
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New mechanic for paladin

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 05:43 AM PST

What about if you could upgrade your hero power with additional powers such as +1 health, taunt, give them a battlecry or any other upgrades. Would be neat if the dudes change appearance based on their powers like chess pieces. What do you guys think?

submitted by /u/theperfectknight
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F2P decks for new players

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 08:36 AM PST

Greetings /r/Hearthstone!

This is Smorc, an admin from AskHearthstone. No one has posted F2P lists for Mean Streets, so the admins and teachers from AskHearthstone have put together a list of F2P decks. We hope to help both new and returning players succeed on ladder. (We also include a full version of each deck so you know what to build toward.)

The best part about each of these decks is that they're cheap and require no adventures in order to build. That makes them perfect for completing quests and even for laddering!

So without further ado please take a look at our catalogue!

Decklists:

Priest

Cost: 960 dust

Archetype: Combo

Brief description: Inner fire priest is a Combo deck, the goal being getting a minion on board with high health, playing some combination of health buffs on it and inner fire-ing to hit your opponent in the face for a lot, hopefully killing them outright, either with a creature from the turn before or a stormwind knight if your board is clear. Mulligan for removal like holy smite and shadow word pain. Try to draw cards with Northshire Cleric to get to your combo as quickly as possible. Dont be afraid to use power word shield as cycle, even if it makes your combo a bit weaker. Remember to count your damage often, as the amount of burst you can do is often quite large.

Additional Cards to Craft- Doomsayer

Link – Inner fire Priest

Full Version – Rage/ Toast

Mage

Cost: 900 dust

Archetype: Control

Brief description: As a Control Mage you're trying to keep removing your opponents board with spells until he runs out of cards. Then you have some of your own lategame sizeable minions to finish the game. The trick to efficient removal is to try and set up for a big AoE turn, freeze effects and hero powers are a great way to achieve this. Make sure you don't take too much damage though!

The Faceless Summoners and the Boulderfist Ogre are your "big lategame threats". These can be replaced by the best expensive minions you own. Anything big and scary works.

Additional Cards to Craft: Doomsayer, 1 Ice Block

Link – Control mage

Full Version – Sjow's reno mage

Hunter

Cost: 1120 dust

Archetype: Midrange

Brief description: The trick to playing a midrange deck is always to find out if you're the aggressor or the control player. A midrange deck can do both to a certain extend. If your opponent is more aggressive than you, you try to gain control of the board at all cost. If you're the more aggressive deck you need to try to threaten your opponents health total.

This particular list is slightly more aggressive than usual and it features some beast synergies which can lead to some really strong turns. In particular Unleash the Hounds is a card that can win games if combined with either Scavenging Hyena or Knife Juggler.

Additional Cards to Craft: None

Link - Midrange Hunter

Full Version - Midrange Hunter

Druid

Cost: 1360 dust

Archetype: Midrange

Brief description: Jade Druid is a deck that tries to overwhelm the opponent with progressively bigger Jade golems. It's different from Midrange Jade Shaman because it takes a bit longer to get going but the upper limit for Jade golems is theoretically infinite, so you can grind out control decks with ease. In the mulligan, against control you search for ramp cards like jade blossom, wild growth, and innervate, and against aggro you search for removal cards like living roots and wrath, and jade idol.

Additional Cards to Craft- Aya Blackpaw, Fandral

Link: Jade Druid

Full Version: Jade Druid

Warlock

Cost: 1560 dust

Archetype: Midrange

Brief description: Zoo is a board control deck centred on playing small minions, buffing them, trading efficiently and then hitting your opponent's face. The deck abuses warlock's life tap mechanic heavily, allowing it to not run out of resources even after your hand runs dry. Mulligan for 1 drops and try to get a good curve. Mastering positioning and when to go face is the key to being good at this deck.

Additional Cards to Craft None

Link - Zoo

Full Version - Zoo

Rogue

Cost: 1420 dust

Archetype: Aggro

Brief description: As agro rogue you want to activate "combo" and play multiple minions a turn to overwhelm your opponents. Make efficient trades in the early game, and then finish the game with a buffed up assasian's blade. It is important in this deck to set up lethals over a few turns, so take note of how much damage you have it hand and prepare to go face when you have enough damage.

Additional Cards to Craft: Leeroy Jenkins, Edwin VanCleef

Link – Aggro Rogue!

Full Version - Rdu's Aggro Rogue

Warrior

Cost: 1280 dust

Archetype: Midrange

Brief description: In this deck you play minions that do well vs agro, so play this deck if you run into a lot of agro shaman and pirate warrior.Tempo warrior uses whirlwind effects to clear your opponents minions, while enabling you to draw cards and buff your minions. Whirlwind down your opponents board, and draw several cards to create large swing turns vs aggressive decks.

Additional Cards to Craft: Grommash, Ragnaros

Link – Tempo Warrior

Full Version 1 - Tempo Warrior

Full Version 2 - Dragon Warrior

Shaman

Cost: 1600 dust

Archetype: Midrange

Brief description: Midrange Jade Shaman is a midrange deck that tries to overwhelm the opponent with increasingly difficult to deal with Jade golems. Try to deal with your opponent's creatures as efficiently as possible while putting your own threats on the board. Cards like Jade Claws and Lightning bolt are the ones you should be looking for in your mulligan. Try to plan ahead with your overload so you can drop your big threats like jade chieftain as soon as possible.

Additional Cards To Craft- Aya Blackpaw

Link – Midrange Jade Shaman

Full Version- RayC

Paladin

Cost: 1620 dust

Archetype: Aggro

Brief description: This paladin deck has 2 approaches to winning games. You either use your Smuggler's Run and Grimestreet Outfitter to set up some really powerful future turns, or you use the synergy offered by Steward of Darkshire to give all your small minions a divine shield. The low cost of the deck means you can empty your hand really fast. This makes card draw important. Against aggressive decks Blessing of Wisdom is how you can keep enough fuel to keep going. Against slower decks Divine Favor can draw you a lot of cards. Be careful when you have no card draw in hand though, if you're looking like you're about to run out of cards you might want to use your hero power to make sure you can keep spending your mana.

Additional Cards to Craft: Small Time Recruits, Wickerflame Burnbristle

Link: Aggro Paladin

Full Version: Sloon's Aggro Murloc Paladin

 

When building one of these decks, keep in mind BRM, TGT and LoE are rotating out of standard when the next expansion comes out. So while some cards from these sets can be very beneficial to your deck, it is only good for the short term. So keep that in mind when you decide what to craft

Feel free to post any questions you have in the comments below or speak to one of the teachers / admins live on the discord server for immediate feedback. Don't forget to start your sentence with @VioletTeacher to notify them of your question!

Sincerely,

The AskHearthstone Team

submitted by /u/Jon314159
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Kripp saved by Dirty Rat

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 12:00 AM PST

[Theory] No new 'Spell Damage' or duplicating cards will be released in 2017.

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 09:39 PM PST

I know what you're thinking. Is this guy crazy? Well, yes, I am. But I've been around a while. Remember one year ago when we got some card changes in preparation for Standard to keep Hearthstone fresh?

Yeah. One of those changes was to Blade Flurry. The community was quite taken aback when the card was seemingly overnerfed. But what was the reason for it?

"Blade Flurry is a problem because it enables both board clear and heavy burst damage, and it's also an obstacle to adding better cards for Rogues."

Adding better cards for Rogue. Uh huh. That didn't happen. So let's fast forward to today. Currently, we're preparing ourselves for the Year of the Mammoth, with some cards becoming Wild-only with the next rotation.

One of those spells is Ice Lance. What does Blizzard state as the reason?

"Ice Lance also prevented us from making powerful Spell Damage cards and designs that allowed you to duplicate your cards."

Aha. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and it's time to go play some Burgle Rogue.

submitted by /u/Zeekfox
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What the Deck!? Ep 3 Axe Flinger OTK

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 03:56 AM PST

What the Deck!? The series show where each week I take one of hearthstone's most meme-worthy and under appreciated cards and build a deck around them. This week's featured card is Axe Flinger. With a little help from Don Han'Cho and Brann Bronzebeard, Bouncing Blade + Axe Flinger provide a 30 damage OTK.

Hope you enjoy! Here is last week's episode featuring Enhance-o Mechano.

submitted by /u/Earwinfirwat
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vS Data Reaper Presents: How Impactful is Small-Time Buccaneer, Patches and the Pirate Package?

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 09:19 AM PST

Greetings!

The Vicious Syndicate Team has published an article on the subject of Patches, Small-Time Buccaneer and the impact of the Pirate package.

In this article, you will find an analysis of turn 1 scenarios involving the Pirate package and its effect on the win rates of multiple archetypes utilizing pirates.

The full article can be found here

As always, thank you all for your fantastic feedback and support. We are looking forward to all the additional content we can provide everyone.

Reminder

• If you haven't already and would like to you can Sign up here to contribute your track-o-bot data.

Thank you,

The Vicious Syndicate Team

submitted by /u/ViciousSyndicate
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Yea, I'm not gonna miss shaman nerfs/rotations.

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 05:26 AM PST

Why Hearthstone would benefit massively from more game modes not just more cards.

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 01:44 AM PST

Last week a lovely redditor linked me to this talk by MtG creator Mark Rosewater about design lessons he has learned over the last 20 years (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHg99hwQGY). If you've not seen it then I strongly suggest you check it out as there are so many great points about game design and player psychology which apply to all games including Hearthstone.

In one section of the video he talks about the (player created) format "Conquest" and how it helped to revitalised Magic and gave players different ways to enjoy the cards on top of the standard rules.

Sadly one of the limitations of Hearthstone as a digital card game is that it is difficult for players to explore different game types unless they print off the cards themselves and so we are left playing the same standard game mode over and over which gets repetitive. Tavern Brawl can be a good escape but there is no real depth to it and there are rarely brawls that you can sink many hours into.

I think if there were other games modes on offer (even just one more) then it would let us get more enjoyment out of our existing cards and give us a place to go when we get tired of the standard grind. It would keep the game fresher between releases and would open up the card pool further so more under-utilised cards could potentially find a place.

tldr; Finding new ways to play with the existing cards could add considerably more to the game than simply adding cards each expansion.

submitted by /u/Soup_Roll
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Average Gold Received by Doing the Absolute minimum in Hearthstone: Year of the mammoth Edition

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 09:03 PM PST

I'm going to break down how much gold you be making this year if the only thing you do is complete your optimally re-rolled quests.

I'll be referencing a post that I made a couple of months ago. It the post, we established that an optimally completed quest generates approximately 58.82 gold per quest. While not perfect, we can assume that if you are correctly re-rolling your quests, each quest should generate about 59 gold(We'll use G to represent gold).

58.82 G/day=411.74 G per week.

411.74 G/week=21,410.48(rounded down to 21,410) G per year.

That's great, but I already did this last year, what's new?

With the Year of the Mammoth, we are getting 3 full-size, 130+ card expansions to waste our money on. This will reduce our overall packs-per-expansion rate from last year, as we will not have the less expensive Adventure sets between large releases.

21,410 gold can buy you 214 packs, or 142 Arena runs.

so, over the course of one year, we have enough gold for 214 packs, how many packs per expansion can we buy?

214/3 expansions=71.33(repeating, of course) packs per expansion.

So what's the real-world value of 71 packs?

We can pre-order 50 packs on an expansion for 50 USD, making this the cheapest way to get packs from Blizzard(with the exclusion of the one-time Welcome Bundle).

so at it's cheapest, 1 pack=1 USD, meaning that an average optimal quest generates almost $.60, and we can receive over $200 dollars a year by completing quests.

This is excluding the the other freebies that Blizz gives us. One pack a week for completing a tavern brawl, excluding the odd week where we get a card back. and the packs given away at the beginning of each expansion.

TL;DR:71 packs per expansion, every 4 months, earned only by quests that have been optimally re-rolled.

EDIT Mammoth isn't capatilized in the title and I can't change it and I hate everything now. Also not "Absolute minimum", rather, "reasonable minimum". Got away with using absolute in my last post, you latenight Redditors must be more hardcore.

submitted by /u/ryansylvia
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Found a guy playing hearthstone in my college brochure

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:22 AM PST

http://i.imgur.com/1PuQ4ISh.jpg

He's playing the free first mission from Karazhan.

College is RIT

submitted by /u/DuhPai
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Firebat offers to host Amnesiac vs Pavel grudge match!

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 11:21 AM PST

Turns out renounce is pretty gooooooooooood

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 09:53 AM PST

Snap concede by Zalae

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 03:47 PM PST

Suggestion on the Hearthstone Zodiac

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 05:26 AM PST

I suggest we give the 2 years before Year of the Kraken respective creatures.

Year of the Mammoth 2017 (Mammoth for (rumored) Un'Goro being full of extinct creatures)

Year of the Kraken 2016 (Kraken for Old Gods, since Krakens are known to have tentacles, and tentacles were a recurring feature in this expansion)

Year of the Dragon 2015 (Dragons for Blackrock Mountain, a creature that was extremely relevant in BRM)

Year of the Spider 2014 (Spider for Naxxramas, a creepy little creature that fit the whole Naxx vibe, especially the first wing)

  • All the creatures have been relevant to whatever the first expansion of that year have been. You may ask about 2014 not being something like Year of the Murloc since that was the year Hearthstone came out, but I feel that doesn't do justice to Naxx/GvG as the 2014 expansions.

I just feel like 2015 and 2014 deserve some sort of title.

submitted by /u/Ender_Melons
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Ben Brode: Power Creep in Hearthstone

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:33 AM PST

Toast gets Devolved

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 08:27 PM PST

Ratsmah Renounces Defeat

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 09:53 AM PST

F2P newb here - should I save up gold or spend it now?

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 07:45 AM PST

Hi,

I am a newbie F2P-player with no (golden) ragnaros/sylvanas. I do not have any gold nor dust right now. I would like to think what you guys advise me to do the coming months, to best prepare myself in order to finally create a decent (budget) deck when the new expansion comes and the meta calmes down (a few weeks in). For example, right now I really would love to play dragon priest but I am unable to purchase it, and since most of it cards will be rotated out I think it's a poor investment.

I could: a) Save gold until the new expansion comes. When it is released, I could spend all my gold (a few thousand probably) on cardpacks and start to work towards a new, fresh deck. b) Save gold until the expansion comes and play arena with it. Please keep in mind that my average is only around 3 wins. c) I could spend my gold now, on arena. I would get some dust occasionally + card packs, since I still miss ALOT of (classic) cards. With some luck, I could perhaps disenchant a legendary that sees little use and craft a regular ragnaros/sylvanas before the expansion hits. d) I could spend my gold on packs (which ones?) just to increase my collection. I don't really like this option though.

My main goal is to get two or three decent decks when the new expansion comes around, for constructed play. Apart from that I would like to play arena as I enjoy it alot.

Any input is highly appreciated!

submitted by /u/TheProf82
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Hall of Fame free dust calculator

Posted: 20 Feb 2017 01:26 AM PST

I've made a spreadsheet to calculate how much dust you need to get as much free dust as possible.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12JXl2-nU3kOgo6wXX7Sap8kNg72b_Rfl-NQsGUN86Og/edit

Feel free to try it out. Any comments and suggestions are welcome:)

Here is a download-only copy, if the original is a complete mess for you:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mQS_1DzIpEW61QerfvlzBxJa8GQavwBbYKfhJvL0u-g

submitted by /u/mawilek
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A Letter to HS Devs on golden "Gelbin Mekkatorque" and "ETC"

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 04:08 PM PST

Below is a letter that I'd like to present to Hearthstone developers and hope they will read it someday. If any of the hearthstone community agree with me and think it will be a good change, please give support comments to this thread. Thanks a lot.

Dear Hearthstone Developers:

I am writing this in the hope that there will be a change in the method to obtain golden "Gelbin Mekkatorque" and golden "Elite Tauren Chieftain". I sincerely hope a developer who can have a word on this issue will read it through, consider my plea seriously, and bring it up to the table.

I consider myself belonging to a group of hearthstone players called maniac card collectors, whose ultimate goal is to collect every single hearthstone card, regular and golden versions. I understand this is a very small group of the hearthstone community, and does not have a huge voice in the community forums, but nonetheless we are the group who make significant support to the game, so I do hope our concern does not remain ignored.

The subject of this letter is on golden "Gelbin Mekkatorque" and golden "Elite Tauren Chieftain", and I plead these two cards can be made obtainable in the future. Golden "Gelbin" was awarded to players with real money purchase during beta period, and golden "ETC" was awarded to Blizzcon 2013 attendants, both are before the official release of hearthstone. As of today, there is no way to obtain these two cards in game anymore, especially golden "Gelbin" (unless you buy someone else's account, which I believe is illegal by Blizzard policy). Although an insignificant issue to the majority of hearthstone players, I believe such state is unhealthy to the game, and it will be better off if then can be made obtainable.

Below are my major justifications and thoughts on why making golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" obtainable is better:

1) Over the years of hearthstone development, Card Backs have established themselves as the symbol for participation in limited time promotional / special events, not certain cards.

It is important for the game to offer players with items that highlight / demonstrate a player's engagement in special activities that are time limited. And card backs have done an amazing job in this regards. We have card backs associated with other games / Blizzcon / pre-order / e-sports / seasonal participation / etc. The function of golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" served the same role as these card backs. Golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" was awarded in the very early ages of hearthstone, where the card backs serving this purpose is not fully established yet. But since later card backs have taken this role over completely (e.g. only Blizzcon 2013 awarded golden card, all Blizzcon afterwards is associated with card backs), the position of golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" has become awkward and unnecessary. Removing this restriction on golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" better define the identity of card backs vs. cards.

2) Making cards unobtainable by whatever means hurts the incentives of card collector players significantly.

To the collector community, collecting more and more hearthstone cards is an important and fun part of playing hearthstone. And as a "collectible card game", I do believe every single card, regular or golden, should have a way to be collected.

I myself, started playing hearthstone just so as to have some fun and collect some cards, dreaming of the possibility of having every card in the future. Although it is the collection part that brought me into this game, I later fell in love with its gameplay, and now I am a legend player for every season. However, I never let go of my collection dream, and have invested greatly to fill my collection. But unfortunately, I started hearthstone after official release, so I didn't participate in the beta, and now I am in a situation that I will never have a full collection whatsoever because of golden "Gelbin". The idea that I will never be able to get a golden "Gelbin" have haunted me for endless nights and days. And knowing that you are punished for forever unable to get a full collection just because you didn't participate in the beta is cruel and unjustified. With the ever-growing card pool of hearthstone cards, and the simple fact that 100% collection is impossible because of golden "Gelbin", I have been losing faith on my continuation as a hearthstone card collector and money investment in the game.

I believe similar experiences are shared by many other collectors in this game. The concept of golden "Gelbin" basically dictates that the only person allowing for a full collection are those limited players, and no more new collectors will be welcomed to join this journey. This makes the full collector community an ever-shrinking one instead of an ever-growing one. It kills the incentive of every new potential collectors who may want to adventure into this game. Giving us the dream, the possibility of getting every card one day will surely delight us, making us willing to purchase more packs in order to fulfill and dream of being a full collector, and also serve the interest of the company well.

3) With the "year of Mammoth" and the introduction of "Hall of Fame" set, it gives the set better identity and consistency by making golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" craftable.

Every other cards in the "Hall of Fame" set change to become unobtainable with the original obtaining method, but can be crafted with dust since the change.

Within the upcoming "Hall of Fame" set includes there kinds of cards: cards moved from classic set to wild, cards associated previously with quest concerning basic/classic sets, and Gelbin and ETC. All the other two categories are associated with cards that are no longer obtainable by their original method, but is now only obtainable through crafting. The cards from classic set (e.g. Azure Drake) can previously be obtained from classic set, but after the change it can only be obtained by crafting. "Captain's Parrot" and "Old Murk-Eye" (both regular and golden), is originally only obtainable through quest and can't be crafted directly. But since "year of Kraken", they became unobtainable from quest anymore, but nevertheless can be obtained by crafting. Now golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" become the weird spots in the set that remained uncraftable when their original method no longer apply, and does not comply with the other cards in the same set. If golden "Captain's Parrot" and "Old Murk-Eye" can be changed to craftable, then I believe the same thing should be done on golden "Gelbin" and "ETC". (Of course, Blizzard may be worried about the elite status of these two cards, and don't want to make them causing the usual prize of 3200 dust. In this case, it is Blizzard's decision on how to make them expensive / hard to get (e.g. causing higher dust price than usual 3200 dust, making them cash-purchasable-only in the shop, rewarded by completing quest "collect every single golden classic card", etc.). But however hard / expensive they may be, they should not be made impossible to get. As the case of TCG, the limited cards, though expensive, will be available to circle through market, and therefore didn't theoretically go extinct. But the story with golden "Gelbin" is different, and it is really extinct for any account doesn't have then now. Further, especially for golden "Gelbin", it was essentially given out for free for the old players, so I believe making it obtainable now for a price will not piss off the current owners of it.)

Just to restate again that hearthstone is a game I love, it is incredibly fun to play, and features amazing card art and sound tracks. I've spend countless of money and hours in this game, and reach legend every season. But the idea that I am excluded from being able to have a full collection just because I started after official release is unbearable. You may not hear many voice on this matter because our community (collectors starting after-beta) is small and hearthstone pros / celebrities do not speak on this issue. Even those hearthstone celebrities who are aiming for a full golden collection (e.g. Kripp) will not raise the question for this matter specifically, because they usually started early and have golden "Gelbin" and "ETC" sitting in their collection. But there do exist others who are unfortunately a little late in the game. I understand that I am asking for my own interest here, but I do hope for the best of hearthstone, and I think this is a tiny thing that can make the hearthstone experience better. I hope the developers can understand our concern. The state on golden Gelbin and ETC may be an easy and small decision for the developers, but it is an "impossible mission" for us customers. Thanks again for bring hearthstone, an amazing game, into our love.

Yours Sincerely,

A Hearthstone Card Collector

submitted by /u/HearthstoneCollector
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I think I'll stop playing Arena for a few days.

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 02:39 PM PST

It was just one of those times where you throw up your hands and say "I can't win."

http://imgur.com/dDgFvBh

Edit: Image should be fixed.

submitted by /u/inkwelled
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Wouldn't Lorewalker Cho be a good choice in Paladin Grimy Goon deck?

Posted: 19 Feb 2017 10:41 AM PST

I was just thinking, usually you would only have 2 spells within the deck (2x Smugglers run), It would be a perfect tech choice in a 28/30 minion card deck. I would test it but i don't want to spend the dust :)

Some one plz do dis

submitted by /u/Pwnage291
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