Hearthstone Players!

Whoa, chief! WTF? I was ribbing you...didn't expect that kind of reaction, jeez. Friday is still HOURS away!

Ah well. I have sensitive ribs. Many the man has tried to poke me ther only to draw back a bloody stump.

Look I love this site and you are F:AT as far as I am concerned. Not to diminish the contributions of everyone else, which are considerable, but this place would not be here if not for you. At least that is how I see it. I respect your mad game when it come to writing and reviewing and appreciate all the time you have devoted to providing content which I has gotten me through many a bowl of cornflakes in the morning.

That said.... Every time I make any reference to Shadow Era you must have an alarm that notifies you, because the very next post you will jump in and say " hey everyone, I tried Shadow Era for a second and thought it sucked". If you said as much about it in an official review I would have to call bullshit because in fact, you obviously didn't give it much of a shot. I don't really care all that much whether SE is enjoyed by you or anyone else on this site. I have no stake in the fortunes of that game. If I did care more I would spend the time to write an article that compares it to HS. Because I have been too lazy to do that, I will have to let you off the hook for being too lazy to dig into it before you decreed to F:AT that it was..... your favorite word to ding any game) workmanlike.

But aside from that, let's hug it out and be friends?

Ugh, too much RNG in this Brawl. I'm way below a 50% win percentage and not much of that can be chalked up to my sucky play (he says, humbly). When I get a good deck then it's a blast, but I just get tired of getting blown out by 2-3 legendaries in a game when I don't draw any. On the other hand, I have a 60 gold Druid quest and after tinkering with my deck it's kind of sucking right now, so at least the Brawl gives me a fighting chance.

My favorite match was a blowout where I was playing as a Druid and got 2 Kel'Thuzads on the board at once. The game was already well out of my opponent's reach by the time that happened but it was cool seeing my Treant get double resurrected before he conceded.

I'd say I'm above 50% pretty solidly, maybe even pushing 2/3 wins.

Sure there are some blowouts, but those go both ways. Curve is just as important as ever, and knowing the crazy stuff you mulligan is coming back is an advantage. I definitely try to mulligan for tempo, and sometimes the deck has it, sometimes it doesn't.

Still having fun with it, and I've been playing a lot of Rogue and even Warrior (which I don't even keep a deck for in constructed).

As a Rogue today I got two Onyxias in my opening hand. That's pretty nuts. More so, both eventually hit the table, one refilling the board right after the opponent had finished clearing it from the first.

This is my favorite brawl so far, by a significant margin.

Possible leak for new expansion,

imgur.com/a/1rr7L



It's essentially a boulderfist ogre with a divine shield that refreshes itself every turn.

Could be fake, we'll know more details on Wednesday.

Interesting. That's probably legit. Fjola Lightbane was one of the most powerful Val'kyr to serve the Lich King, along with her twin, Eydis, but was captured by the Argent Crusade and was one of the encounters in the Trial of the Crusader raid.

I'm also curious to see what the Fordring Blades and Aura Mastery cards are.

I have fallen behind on HS, largely due to a huge vacation. That last Brawl was OK--it was basically Arena without the draft part, which I thought was fun. Shaman was tough though, because Shaman spells suck, by and large. Lots of Totemic Might out there.

New Brawl just queued up--Heart of the Sunwell, build your deck--but you start with 10 mana. I predict many a Mind Control Priest. Off the top of my head, I will go Resurrect Priest. Sure to be crazy stuff to steal and recur on the cheap.

//EDIT//
A few Brawls in. Man, be on the lookout for Miracle Rogue. Gadgetzan Auctioneer + cheap spells + 10 mana = quick wins. Priest can hang, I think, more than others, because Priest has the best Area of Effect spell in the game to deal with it (Lightbomb). Miracle Rogue usually needs Gadgetzan to live for one turn, though they often Conceal it. I won games on turn 2 and 3 without a lot of skill as a pilot. Some other things to note in this format:

Arcane Golem has no downside.
Area of Effect is key. You need asymmetric clears. Be thinking Equality/Consecrate, Malygos/Lightning Storm, Blade Flurry, Flamestrike, Lightbomb, Shadowflame, Grim Patron + Commanding Shout, even things like Frost Nova. Kel-Thuzad trades--whatever. If the game goes long, it will come down to who cleared last.

Grand tournament expansion announced with over 130 new cards. A new mechanic, "inspire" which triggers off using your hero power.

Some of the cards revealed, us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/expansions-...and-tournament/cards

Due out next month.

Nice! This get me playing Arena again for sure. I like the Inspire mechanic as well--I feel like that expands the choices folks have to make in a turn in an interesting way.

I'll probably do the 50 pack preorder. I mean, fuck it.

This week's brawl is FUN. I'm running a ridiculous Warlock deck, tons of extremely expensive cards and then imps to clog up the board. It's working pretty well. Fun to bring in some Manipulators to that one.

See, this Brawl drives me apeshit. It's Mr. Suitcase all over. Just huge crap flying out there T1.

That said, I did just have a T2 concession victory with a Rogue against a Shaman that was pretty funny.

Deal: Chromaggus, Gallywix, Cold Blood

T1: Draw Deadly Poison. I play Chromaggus and Dagger (no attack). Shaman plays Mini-Mage, Dalaran Mage, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt, so I take 12, which he puts all on my face. Ow. Shaman is feeling good.

T2: Draw the Oil, which Chromaggus doubles. Deadly Poison to start the combo chain, then Oil->Oil->Cold Blood on Chromaggus, making him a 16/8, and I now have a 9/2 dagger in my hand. Shaman takes 25 to the face. He RNGs the totem, then concedes.


One of the better ones I had in the last Brawl came towards the end. I was playing Warrior, and was dealt an opening hand with two Iron Juggernauts (that plant the 10-point mine). I put both on the the board as fast as possible, then drew a third one that came out a bit later. I was playing against a Druid, I had about 25 health and a few points of armor. Druid has 18 cards in his deck, and three of them are bombs. With 19 health, he plays Azure Dragon. Draw? Bomb. Redraw? Bomb. fin.

I watched some of the games between Amaz and Trump. There was some interesting stuff going on. (Incidentally, the front page of Hearthpwn has all of the cards shown during play.) There were a couple good Shaman cards shown: Totem Golem (3/4 for 2 Overload 1, counts as a totem) and Thunder Bluff Valiant (3/6 for 5, Inspire: Give all your totems +2 attack.) A lot of people are excited about the Tuskarr Totemic (3/2 for 3, Battlecry: Summon ANY random totem) because Amaz played two and got the Golem both times, but that's still a 1 in 8 chance. What Shaman needed was less RNG, not more. If you get a 3/2 and a 3/4 for 3 mana, great. But if all you get is a 1/1, you've just played a worse Razorfen Hunter, since the Tuskarr will die more easily. Definitely some interesting stuff, though.

This great tournament thing is amazing in terms of timing. It's stealing away all these guys that I usually play Magic with. Duels:Origins seems to be having a ton of problems with their release dates after a clumsy rollout on iOS. Steam release is next week and who knows when for Xbox One and PS4. All these guys that were super excited about Magic Duels Origins are now doing Hearthstone all the time cuz of this tournament thing. The timing is brilliant.

The Grand Tournament is a new expansion that releases in a month, Barney--this was just the announcement and some sneak peak stuff. Your friends might be distracted by Tavern Brawl, which is a weekly (Wed --> Sun) "themed" variant game.

I watched some guy playing DUELS:ORIGINS and it at that short glance it has some issues. He'd turned down all animations he could but it's still slow as hell with the big sweeping, "I plaayed a laaaaand" animations. And just that MAGIC itself is inherently slower.