For the final Tamsin fight, since the party splits when Tamsin gets below 20HP (not necessarily turn 7), my strategy was to trying to avoid card draw, not damaging Tamsin, and use my mercs to kill the constant demons. Once in fatigue, she loses since her hero power does not generate any value and I still have enough cards in my deck

This is really scary for standard, as it’s a really cheap board clear (wild has flurgl+toxfin). If pen flinger could have gone face, this would be even worse than the hysteria combo

Almost, it will activate the effect of the first battlecry every time, so it can activate multiple times per turn

But I want to play the game not to maximize gold gain, but to actually have fun. The game is not bad for F2P players, it is bad for F2P casual players. I can assure you that 0% of casual players are masters qualifiers, which in return gives them at most 80 packs for playing 2 hours a day.
I like my casual home-brew weird decks that try to do something different. Arena and duels are simply not fun for me, and battlegrounds gives virtually no rewards. This leaves only constructed as the way to earn gold, and while is was fine then, the new system is just not enough

I’m F2P. I’ve spent somewhere around an hour a day on average playing, and started a long time ago (GvG). I was fine with the price, because just by completing quests I got ~70 packs each expansion, which was the right amount to have every common and rare, with being able to easily craft whichever epic or legendary I want (still have more than 30k dust, and duplicate cards more than double that). But THIS time, it is different.
The rewards track just isn’t good enough now. Only when the average daily quest is the equivalent of 60 gold we would break even, but the fact is that when 1000xp is worth 30 gold (40 after the “fix”) it is just not enough for us, the casual F2P players to keep playing the game. Not only progress is really slow now, it got boosted early on with all of the advancements that were immediately completed.
Not only that but everyone forgets the most annoying part – the middle of the year expansion extension, which will force us to buy more old packs, and even when we spend all of our gold, we would still open old cards (epics and legendaries, because duplicate protection guarantees the new commons and rares, but who cares about them anyway?)

Just a few thoughts:
* As a F2P casual player I get really upset when the “whales” try to speak up for me. Until now, I didn’t feel that the game was too bad for f2p, and I kept playing.
* The new system is different, and I see that we get less gold, which is important because I want to play with the new cards immediately, and not have to craft a lot. Old packs just do bot matter here
* The mini sets seem to be the worst thing here. If it is what they promoted, you would have to buy OLD packs and only have a chance to get new cards, which is a frustrating experience (the double protection might still guarantee all of the commons, but not all of the cards)
* I like the new XP based reward system as a concept, but doing 3 daily quests and only getting a pack for it happens a lot, and it feels bad
* Roping is a problem I’ve encountered and my solution was to give XP according to the board impact that turn. This is harder to implement (but already happens in omnislash tracker), but it gives more XP for closer hard-earned games, send can help meme decks (which I play a lot). This can still be abused, but the opponent will now have fun playing
* Most players are like me. They play just to have fun, and don’t want to pay for every expansion (they might’ve bought the welcome bundle, for example, but no more). Those players are now outraged, which means blizzard will probably fix this sooner than later, because without a playing community Hearthstone will die
* Duels monetisation is also bad, because casual players, who open on average ~60 packs, will get on average 9(!) epics, which is less than needed to unlock a hero power, and half as less as needed to unlock the strong treasure

Amnesiac, for example, actually played kobold geomancer for the world championship (2016) and almost won the entire thing.

Spell damage shaman actually did work, and it was the best deck for MONTHS, until spirit claws were nerfed. This shows that with a good enough support card this archetype could see play. Now the question is whether this card is enough

fixed

This card is already bugged. It dows not work (game won’t start) on the hall of explorers board (second board from LoE)

*My Tier List for the “No Amalgam” Patch*

My A tier a heroes that do something “broken”. Those include Rafaam, Edwin, and Yogg (Rafaam and Yogg get minions for cheaper than 3g and edwin can buff units that were designed not to be buffed easily, like Zapp or cleavers). Deryl can arguably here, but it is too RNG based for me to be A tier

B tier are really strong heroes that have something “unfair” about them. Here I have A. F. Kay (big turn 3 power spike and early cobalts, but falls in power over time), Deryl (with the ability to get big minions on low tavern tiers), Nefarian (late game king), The Curator (amalgam super valuable), Sindragosa (smaller power spike than AFKay, but can get +1/+1 on minions later in the game), and Akazamzarak (ice block and splitting image are super broken, but you can’t get them consistently).

C tier are good heroes that can get top 4 consistently and even first if you play them correctly – Patchwerk, Millificent Manastorm, Elise, Jaraxxus, Rat King, George, and Shudderwock*

D tier are heroes that require precise play or good luck to push for victory, but it is still very possible – Bartenderotron, Lich Baz’hial, Rag, Lich King, Toki

all of the heroes above can win games and I like to play all of them to have more diverse games. F tier shouldn’t be picked unless you get all 3, which are Sylvanas, Sir Finley and Queen Wagtoggle

* Shudderwock is the hero with the highest highroll potential. I had a game that went turn 1 buy 2/3 murloc, turn 2 level, turn 3 buy alleycat and hero power, turn 4 buy 2 alleycat which generate 2 3* minions (golden tabby and golden alley) and fill the board, which allowed me to level easily and get super buffed mechs with the hero power

Fal’dorei Strider is a great example for a card that we can compare with. Assume you draw 3 dragons after you play Frizz. You get 2 mana discounts instead of a free 4/4 (which is worth ~3 mana). Fal’dorei was played in decks that had a high amount of draw, so getting all spiders was quite common, which gives more tempo than 2 mana discounts.

I don’t say this card isn’t good, because it is, but the fact that you get a tempo push later in the game (much later and smaller than Keleseth, which explains Keleseth’s restrictions) just doesn’t put this card in my “overpowered” list. Control decks that care more about value won’t play this in every deck (because 2 mana discount on big dragons doesn’t mean much and they care more about value) and aggressive decks won’t play a (4) 5/4 without an immediate effect.

Where this card really shines is in an tempo/mid-range dragon deck which might get more support in this expansion. My candidate for this type of deck is rogue, with Waxadred, Candle Breath, Galakrond, and more good support cards (dragons and card draw) that mostly exist, this type of deck will be the natural home for Frizz, but it is not the card that will make it playable by itself.

With all that said, I still think this card is good, and maybe there will be more good dragons that will prove me wrong, but I just can’t Imagine a scenario where this card is the most played card of the set (in highest % of decks).

Nevertheless, thanks for the response, and great review as always. I think that seeing other people’s POV, especially when they are this elaborate can make us as a community better at rating cards and guessing their power level.

Frizz Kindleroot is strong, REALLY strong, but I don’t think it’s 10/10. Dragon Consort had a similar effect and never saw play. 5/5 with 2 mana discount on ANY dragon (hand or deck) wasn’t strong enough even with Chromaggus next turn when there were no good answers for it. Getting the discount later in the game is good, but you need to have a lot of dragons for it to work. If a dragon deck runs 10 dragons, you need to draw on average 6 cards for this to be good. It will be amazing in dragon decks, but will not be the thing that creates them single-handedly and that’s why I think it’s not 10/10

Very good article as always! I actually developed a new way to rank cards, which gives them a score between 0-5 stars according to these parameters (P.R.E.S.S.):
Panicking – forces you opponent to change their plays (e.g. Sylvanas Windrunner)
Requires thinking – cards with depth that becomes better the better you as a player play them (e.g. Grim Patron)
Exciting – big effects or big theme (e.g. Deathwing)
Synergistic – cards that make your other cards better (e.g. Tunnel Trogg)
Strong in a vacuum – can it be good by itself, with little support from other cards (e.g. Zilliax)
this ranking gives me a pretty accurate prediction for which cards to craft as a f2p player.

Wrong Nozdurmo in the first deck, or you intended to have the OG one?

Well, they said the singleplayer content for DoD is an adventure, which is better than another dungeon run (for me, I really enjoyed the OG run and the dalaran heist, and less the monster hunt and ToT). But this year is certainly the best, and not boring like last year or crazy powerful like the mammoth (KFT and KnC). I think that adventures are the best way to tell a story, and luckily, we have one the greatest story in hearthstone history (George and Karl saga /s). I’m actually pretty excited for this expansion and hope ot will live up to the expectations.

What about quest deathrattle paladin? This seems like it would be a strong deck that will crush control. Just think about 2/2 sylvanases and ragnaroses

My cheat brann was the “no-face” anomaly + stealthed minions. It also worked out great

My favorite strategy as Brann is “treasure hunter”. You pick Flo and Dinotracking and try to get as many treasures as possible (especially Gnomebliteration, Hearthstone, and Bauble of Beetles which can let you go infinite and deal massive damage to the boss’s hero) and synergy cards like Bloodsworn Mercenary which can dup Flo. When going to Bob just remove unnecessary cards and try to add as many Flos to your deck as possible. The only boss that I didn’t manage to kill from 300 HP was death, but I got him to less than 100 even with unlucky draw

You’re right, buut I managed to get rummaging kobold and shudderwock from my hero power, so it ended up well for me