Mal’ganis gave your hero Immune on all turns, though. This would be the equivalent of Violet Illusionist, and even then the set would need to see more cards that inflict self-damage for Void Virtuoso to see use. Problem is the cards that do exist are rotating out along with The Demon Seed and all related support, and The Demon Seed only triggers when you take damage, not avoid it. The Demon Seed would need to be reworked so the deck isn’t completely broken in Wild, as indicated by Team 5, and a card like Void Virtuoso strongly suggests that Stealer of Souls won’t be off the banlist anytime soon.

I can’t help but feel this is both the best and worst time to dangle Heroic Brawliseum in front of players again. Coming on the heels of a new balance patch when things are shaken up as folks try to figure out what the best decks and lists are again? Sure, it’d keep things interesting. But at the steep cost of 1,000 gold, plus the tempting offer of an exclusive cosmetic with no free entry for folks to experiment with and feel out the meta? Now that’s just cruel.

I got my 3 wins after losing to Evolve Shaman mirror match, Blood Death Knight, and won the next 3 matches against (of all things) Death Knight running nothing but Core neutrals like Chillwind Yeti and Cairne Bloodhoof, Dragon Druid running Amber Whelp and Twilight Drake, and a Blood Death Knight who got steamrolled with double Tiny Toys + Convincing Disguise. It was an experience, but the idea of knowing that at any point you could just go 0, 1 or 2 wins and 3 losses was absolutely unpleasant. Imagine being the guy who has to run a budget deck in a ruthless format with little room for error or terrible luck – or the saps running the first two decks I ran across.

If Blizzard really, really wanted their pound of flesh, they could have simply made the skin more accessible by “Play three games” instead of “Win three games”, but apparently there’s enough rubes to fleece where folks somehow don’t have the resources to make functioning decks and yet have the gold to spare on an even worse risk-reward ratio.

TL;DR: Do you like playing Standard and losing on coinflip margins? If you don’t, the Scarlet skin is not for you.

To be fair, that remark was a response to someone who’d asked him what card the developers thought would take off in the meta but never did.

So… Book of Faelin. Honestly feeling mixed about this usage of Team 5’s resources. What I can say is don’t do what I did and play this entire adventure in one sitting, blind. The story was enjoyable enough if average, but interspersing cutscenes during the fights really, really drags on especially when you lose – and against Ozumat and Queen Aszhara, you will lose often. The idea of lorebooks isn’t bad, but when you’re chugging through 17 chapters, some of which you’ll probably repeat, you’ll want to mash that End Turn button. Seeing a Lorebook crumble prematurely really only serves to annoy the player who’s already spent a good amount of time trying to survive Ozumat. I get that Ozumat is a character the team has consistently wanted to feature – but making his encounter this difficult was unhelpful.

As someone who played once and picked Finley as a partner, I’d add that Cousin Errgl’s encounter brings about more questions than answers. If Finley was picked up as an egg by Elise who taught him Common, how does that explain his parents? Why do murlocs have a summer school? Why aren’t there more British murlocs?

I’m not sure if it’s intentional or a bug, but after failing the first attempt with Varian trying to beat it phase by phase, I eventually skipped the phases altogether on attempt 2 with constant Freeze synergies and ignoring Valeera. I actually thought that the game would fail me for going face with Varian but no, that was enough to prove Varden’s worth in leading the combined armies.

I say this now, in case someone at Team 5 realises they should probably have given Valeera Taunt and patch it onto her, but at least the phases have some charming dialogue like Broll wanting to chat with Guff over his Questline.

So what got skipped over was Yu’lon’s Enveloping Mist going from Arcane to Nature, which I find somewhat hilarious in that it completely scuppers Old Guardian’s build for Heroic Lokholar with only Beasts/Dragons, because it no longer activates the Arcane Combo for Blink Fox.

Now I’m certainly forgiving towards the Mercenaries mode as a whole, but the amount of annoyance certain missions required with the forced builds and high counts of failure, the event could genuinely have been more thought out instead of looking like it was designed to completely screw over most players. Casters-only Anointed Blades, I’m looking at you.

Between the Stormwind reveal stream cancel and Guff merrily dunking on Scabbs, is anyone else amused at how prophetic the recent trailer art has been for HSTD articles?

“There’s no excuse; the MS crew should get us our games for free!”
*chuckles* “Oh, just one!”

Now I don’t pride myself on being a particularly competent or good player, but I finally caved and burned 1600 dust on Rokara’s Questline after making it to Diamond 3 with OwlTK before the nerf. I eventually went with Old Guardian’s list because I had Hero!Rokara lying around and not Lord Barov.

It took me seven years since the open beta, but I finally made Legend for the first time. Not trying to boast, just giving the HSTD team a nod for finally helping me over the edge. Thank you for all that you’ve done and continue to do.

May you have a blessed holiday season and all the best for 2022. 🙂

“Never fall back! Oh, never fall – ”
“Wait!”
“What’s that?!”
“They summoned the NERF LORD!”
“Hurry, fall back! Hurry, fall back!” (Fall back! FALL BACK!)

The impression I’m getting from this Hero card is that you want to play a Spell-light deck in order to make the most out of Varden’s Battlecry – and even then, would you? The problem with Mage spells getting recast at random is they need the “targets/casts at enemies” clause or you eat a Pyroblast to the face. And there aren’t really a lot of schooled Spells that Mage runs with a significant, immediate effect without a risk of backfiring.

Maybe as H0lysatan says, Mask of C’Thun gets reclassified as a Shadow Spell. That’d go a long way into making Hero!Varden worth it. Perhaps the better Spells to run would include Flamestrike for the Big Spell Mage memes or Wildfire, plus Build a Snowman for Frost school and… Arcane Intellect for the draw, or Arcane Overflow for the removal + minion? I’m genuinely not certain. The somewhat niche Honourable Kill effect seems a little too slow, especially since it needs targets. Did the devs think that Coldarra Drake Mage was going to be relevant again?

” One thing is anoying me a lot is the new Tamsin form. How she becomes that? When? :O”

There have been other decent explanations floating around on this, actually. The new Tamsin is known as a lich: a robed skeletal figure that holds a high position in the Lich King’s Scourge. In fantasy media, a lich also can’t truly die because its soul isn’t strictly attached to its body, because it’s encased in a special vessel known as a “phylactery”. If that word sounds familiar, that’s because we know it from the legendary spell Tamsin’s Phylactery. It’s likely that Tamsin, ever the resourceful necromancer acolyte, already stashed her soul in her perfume bottle as a backup plan.

You might wonder how Tamsin ever thought to go the lich route, but it’s hardly a surprise. Schoolmaster Kel’Thuzad himself went the same route in the original Warcraft III: despite Arthas’ slaying, he was reborn as the Archlich after Arthas went all death knight and brought Kel’Thuzad’s ashes to the night elves’ Sunwell. In fact, although Archlich Kel’Thuzad was one the earliest bosses players could defeat in WoW, it wasn’t until the Shadowlands expansion where players could destroy his phylactery in the Sanctum of Domination and finally bring true death to one of the series’ most enduring villains. Tamsin’s claim that she was the best of her class might not have been at all exaggerated…

Also, a slight correction. The Horde team isn’t dressed as soldiers, I keep mistaken Guff’s totem for an Alliance hammer like the one Cariel wields. Considering Tamsin is also a part of the Questline art, the analysis that Bru’kan is leading the team on the Varden rescue mission is accurate. Whoops!

Scabbs’ chapter was a good summation of Stormwind’s plotlines. As for why the mercenaries find themselves embroiled in a war despite their collaboration, we’d have to look at WoW lore – which isn’t my forte since I’m a HS main, not a WoW main, but I’ll try.

Alterac Valley is noted for being not only a location contested by the Frostwolf Clan and the Stormpike Expedition, but also a PVP battleground that gives the most Honour Points (prior to the Legion invasion, it seems, when the system was entirely removed), which explains the system used for the HS expansion. If the “Stormpike Expedition” sounds familiar, it’s because Tavish is supposed to be a HS-exclusive member of the clan, which explains why he’s the figurehead Mercenary represeting the Alliance – and much like Cutterbutter was before the Deadmines teamup, his opinion on the Horde was less than favourable. Rokara likewise makes sense as his counterpart given her steadfast loyalty towards the Frostwolf Clan.

None of this actually explains why the mercs are now fighting instead of working together, but we’ve seen that both Kazakus and Katrana (*cough* Onyxia) have been scheming a conspiracy that transcended the faction divide, just as the mercenaries worked together to defeat Edwin VanCleef. Something far larger than the team’s experiences at the Wailing Caverns, across the Barrens, and the Stormwind halls and alleys is at stake here. Given Hearthstone’s predilection for taking things in a lighthearted and ultimately heartwarming direction, I’d wager that the mercs aren’t so much reluctantly fighting each other as much as they’re trying to put up a facade of buying time for Varden to uncover the truth behind Kazakus and Katrana’s machinations.

Or maybe I’m just reading too much into Guff having the absolute time of his life in the Alterac trailer. It’d definitely play into the new expansion title: the mercenaries, while cognisant of the truth, are nonetheless divided – or “fractured” – into their factions. “Fractured” could also refer to the splitting of the ground after the Ice Lord gets unleashed upon the battlefield, a hint towards Kazakus and Katrana’s true plan?

We know Scabbs and Varden got thrown in the clink following Varden’s arrest by Xyrella’s group and Scabbs likely discovering the truth behind Katrana Prestor. By their Questlines, Varden’s journey is likely to take them to Silvermoon City in search for answers about the naaru shards, while Scabbs makes his own escape to spread the truth about the shard conspiracy. Perhaps to reach out to Tavish, who doesn’t have as much at stake in the story so far aside from being a trigger-happy bounty hunter. Which doesn’t make him any less fun, mind. Considering that Guff’s story took him into the Wailing Caverns mini-set, maybe Tavish will reference the Deadmines by diving into the depths to take on Edwin VanCleef’s crew for the shards that “shine all night”?

I’d made a mistake analysing Bru’kan’s Questline – apparently Guff and the others dressed up as Stormwind soldiers to get closer to the conflict? My guess is Bru’kan took it upon himself to defend Stormwind from the demon onslaught in his own way, not just to make it to Varden but also to safeguard the innocents that Tamsin endangered.

Mercenaries mode also confirmed that Kazakus is in close contact with Katrana, and the encounters from Blackrock Mountain seem to be a step-by-step retelling of the Hearthstone adventure of the same name. Maybe there’s another Nefarian encounter or card in the works? “Look, go play some Ranked Mode. This adventure is not for you.”

Yup. I’ve found that this also applies to effects like Snipe Shot and other “Start of game damage” effects. Tavish and Voone were dealing double to Casters when this effect triggered while I was grinding a Fire team. What crit damage does not apply is damage dealt in retaliation, e.g. if a Fighter attacks a Protector, the Protector’s damage dealt in return is not crit. I’m not sure if this was ever explained anywhere, mind.

Having played other F2P games that focus on character collection and grinding, one reason you might want to grind Mercenaries is to prep desirable characters before new content gets added. If you’re grinding to get specific heroes, it’s only going to get worse once other heroes get thrown into the game and dilute the pool.

Mercenaries is hardly the most exciting addition to Hearthstone right now, but the stakes are low and the dev team loses little by letting out this half-formed math equation simulator to the public. It’s an experience outside the PVP barrage of watching you whiff important draws or failing to roll the right tribes in Battlegrounds. It’s a PVE experience that I can work towards without being worried that I picked up the wrong bucket during a dungeon run. I would absolutely not call Mercenaries perfect. But for me, it hit the right spots that I need right now. If it gets Team 5 more endorphins from retaining my app being opened for longer, so be it.

“Also don’t forget to don’t not subscribe.”

I suppose one way would be to restrict the damage to “Take damage from your cards” like how the Amethyst Spellstones used to be powered up? They could go one step further and limit it to “Take damage from your class cards” to prevent Crystallizer abuse – which I imagine other readers might have already proposed in other comments.

“When The Demon Seed rotates to Wild, we will unban it and reposition the card to be more appropriate for the format.”

I’m going to take a leaf out of hirumaredx’s TheDuelLogs and say, “Could The Demon Seed be taken off the Wild format banlist? Maybe if Team 5 stopped creating self-damage cards or nerfed half the self-damage cards that already exist, they… could? The devs really enjoy making the ability to damage yourself a part of the Warlock playstyle and this trend has not exactly gone away, so the answer might likely be a “no”. How could they fix The Demon Seed to become unbanned? They kind of already have by making most of the deck’s major tools weaker in Standard format, and I don’t really see how they could weaken the Questline itself even more without making it unplayable there. The problem with Wild is its access to far too many self-damage tools. If the devs could force players to run Hecklefang Hyena and Ornery Tortoise instead of Crystallizer, that might help… But really, not making too many self-damage synergy cards would at least go a long way.”

Also I’m not sure Warrior genuinely needed the Pirate Quest help. It’s somewhat sad that a 1-drop needs to be buffed to a 2/2 with beneficial effect. Or funny, depending on who you ask.