Thank you!

The cards would be unplayable then unless they would have started in your hand every game. In a lot of the games you wouldn’t even draw those and just play a terrible deck.

To be honest, most of the ideas that make them NOT apply at the beginning of the game would just outright kill them. Even decks really have to HP on T1 or else they are at a huge disadvantage. Similarly, Odd decks often use that HP on T2 and often on T3 too. Playing only Odd/Even cards would be too high of a cost if you would have to wait until the mid/late game to actually upgrade them.

I mean, come on, Justicar Trueheart was the original Hero Power upgrade and you could play her in a regular deck. And she wasn’t even that popular outside of Warrior, simply because Aggro and most of MIdrange decks couldn’t afford to wait that long for the upgrade. Why bother upgrading when the game is already over or nearly over.

Sorry, fixed it!

If by “safe” you mean that the card will see play next year, I wouldn’t go that far yet. Both the Aggro and the regular version are losing some important cards, so it’s hard to say whether it will see play next year. The card is very powerful, but without a deck to support it, it might not see play. So it all depends on what Blizzard’s plans for Mage next year are.

What do you mean by update?

No, no. Him casting FFA is also great. It’s not about “luck”, anyone can high roll and low roll it, but the average result is very good. Getting a 4/7 + 8/8 for 8 mana (pretty average outcome) that will then cast MC next turn if it’s not dealt with it is still a great play. There are really no 8+ mana minions that can screw you over. The worst statted minions are 5/5 or 5/4, but even that outcome is not the end of the world. The only minion that can potentially screw you is Hakkar, but it can be as bad or even worse for your opponent.

Grand Archivist casting FFA is significantly better than you casting it from your hand, even if the outcome is random. It’s better to have a 4/7 (that, I repeat, will cast MC next turn most likely) + another mid-sized minion than having a chance to pick something bigger like 12/12. A single minion will be removed much more easily than two of them. The only time when casting FFA yourself is better is when you’re desperately looking for something specific, like a big Taunt.

What could he screw up? The only spells he can cast are Free from Amber and Mind Control. No Psychic Scream or something else that could screw you.

Archivist into MC is one of the strongest swings you can have. Your opponent drops Lich King, you play Archivist, now you have a 4/7 AND 8/8 while your opponent has nothing.

That said, I agree that adding 2nd Free from Amber might be a good idea. I’ve played A LOT of Spiteful Priest when it was a thing (before Spiteful Summoner got nerfed) and I felt like running 4 spells in total was optimal. Significantly lower chance to draw all of them before you play your Spitefuls.

Depends on what you need to craft? I wouldn’t say that it’s the meta deck yet – it might turn out to be good, but we will need to give it some more time before we surely know.

But I’ll be honest – I think that Aggro Shaman might be pretty big after rotation, especially if it gets 1 or 2 more good cards next expansion.

We bother posting it because it’s played in Rastakhan post-nerf meta, and player achieved a high Legend rank with it in a Rastakhan post-nerf meta. Not pre-Rastakhan, not 5 months ago, but a few days ago.

We post decks that are relevant in the current meta. Yes, anyone can jump 30 pages back and look at the decks from 6 months ago, but how could a player know which of those decks still work?

So what that it doesn’t have new cards? Are you implying that we shouldn’t post meta decks without new cards? That would be straight up stupid. It means that we wouldn’t post anything if an expansion wasn’t very impactful?

Odd Warrior is a slow deck, unlike Deathrattle Hunter, you don’t need to activate them quickly. They can stay on the board for many turns before you AoE everything (with Flurry or Brawl) and then get a nice board presence. If you put a decent board, they are also a nice anti-AoE protection – even if your opponent AoEs you get a 5/5 back.

I don’t necessarily think that Eggs are great in Odd Warrior, but they make some sense.

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That’s basically it. If you play in a Control matchup and want more value, you can also take the Blood damage first a few times to get more of them shuffled (=more Legendaries).

Notice date on the comment. It was written in Un’Goro, nearly 2 years ago.

We’ve considered that, but it’s already difficult to get quick responses from winners. If we had to first consult with them whether they want this bundle or something else, it would be even harder. Between that and a clunky gifting system in Battle.net, it would be a lot of hassle to handle it like that.

I’m really sorry about that.

Sadly, the bundle can’t be gifted to someone who already bought or received it.

We’re really sorry about that 🙁

No info about them yet, maybe they plan more events like the current Hakkar one? It’s a really fun way to give out card backs, compared to what they usually do.

The nerfs are definitely positive for the class overall, but you’re absolutely right that they might not be enough to bring it back. I have some hope for the Mage class. The aggressive Odd Mage builds might be more promising than the slow, Control-oriented Big Spell Mage. I think that the meta might become pretty late-game oriented, and we will need a solid Aggro/Burn deck to punish slow strategies such as Mecha’thun decks or Resurrect (Clone) Priest.

But so far, most of the nerf patches had some surprises when it comes to the meta. One new deck that has a bad matchup vs Big Spell Mage popping out and becoming Tier 1 might be enough to bring slow Mage back to the table.

Branching Paths is so good, because it can be used as draw vs Control OR Armor vs Aggro when you need it, other cards sadly don’t have the same appeal.

Another issue is that playing a small card draw minion like Novice Engineer or Loot Hoarder in the late game can be risky, since you also need a way to kill it off yourself. A good player would just leave it there on empty board (1/1 or 2/1 is not threatening anwyay) and make your Mecha’thun combo useless. Plus it makes your Oaken Summons worse. Thalnos is the only one I’d consider because the Spell Damage can be useful sometimes. But then again, it’s not really a “budget” option if someone doesn’t already have it.

I would probably rather go for a second Oaken Summons and a Claw as the replacements. 2nd Oaken Summon is obvious, since it both thins your deck and gains Armor (so has similar use to Branching Paths) and Claw for the sake of Auctioneer/Pyromancer synergies.

On the one hand, I agree with nerfing the Basic/Classic staples, because that makes new expansion more exciting.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine how bad it might be for more casual players, who get the cards they were sure of taken from them time and time again.

The concept of Basic & Classic is just not as good as they initially thought, but they’re (for a good reason) scared of making a big revamp of the system, so they slowly nerf the evergreen sets. It’s the biggest nerf target by far for a while already. And that’s a terrible approach in the long run. They will eventually make those sets nearly irrelevant if that trend continues, but they will also make millions of players angry on their way.

My guess is that they want to make the meta less reliant on Basic & Classic sets. The less evergreen staples we have, the easier it will be to make expansion cards that aren’t too strong, but see play.

I’ve been repeating multiple times that the current Basic & Classic sets add more problems than they solve, the whole thing should be rethought a long time ago.