Yeah, it looks like it was initially bugged and they had to “unlock” Rank 2:

https://twitter.com/hsdecktech/status/1471655168437489667

I understand the argument, but I do think that it makes sense to not always use the keywords like Echo. Or let me rephrase it – it doesn’t make sense form the perspective of experienced players, but it makes the game more approachable.

If you launch the game as a new player, you have no idea what those keywords mean. You already have to learn a bunch like Taunt, Rush, Battlecry, Deathrattle, how exactly they work and so on. But those are fine, because they appear on lots and lots of cards. But let’s say that there are only 2 Echo cards in Standard at the same time. You need to learn a new keyword and remember what it means for just 2 cards. But if they say “Repeatable this turn”, you don’t need to remember anything, because it says it right there on the card. Now add a few more keywords that are used just for a couple of cards in Standard.

Some HS players are kids. Some players are let’s just say not smart. Some players take long time to learn. By not having multiple “one-of” keywords, the learning curve is not as steep.

The goal of keywords is to make players’ life easier and the game more understandable. Turning “Full-Blown Evil” into an Echo card doesn’t accomplish either of those.

I wouldn’t mind if all of those were keyworded, but I’m not the target audience for making the cards as understandable as possible. For me it’s a visual thing, something that doesn’t really matter, for new players it might make an actual difference.

And by the way, it’s not just Hearthstone – MTG is doing the same thing for the same reasons.

I don’t, but if someone posts them online and I see it, I’ll add them to the post.

I honestly don’t know, I never bought those ranked bundles and there isn’t a lot of info about them online.

Maybe you have to wait a bit for it to show up.

Yep, mini-set cards are added to the packs so if you own all the expansion cards by the time mini-set drops, you’re guaranteed to get them.

I meant the end of quest chain, not the end of event.

But technically if you pick the losing faction, you get Diamond version of the opposing leader on January 11 too.

From what I’ve heard, they can either continue regular work OR attend the event, and they get normal pay if they pick the event. But most of the devs pick the event because it’s apparently more fun, they can do whatever they want there as long as it’s HS-related.

Of course I haven’t been there myself and I don’t know how it looks like in person, but it sounded like a positive thing overall.

Wait, what about the event sounds toxic? I’ve been talking with some devs who were attending it and they loved it.

It’s a known issue, and that’s the only thing I know. I didn’t see any updates about it, sadly.

And yes, you can pull them from packs. The faction leader you picked has duplicate protection because you already have it in Golden, but the other one can be unpacked.

But I 100% agree with your last point. Thie achievements shouldn’t only tell you that you’re missing a card or two, but you should be able to see WHICH cards you’re missing. I hope it’s something they implement in the future.

Same thing for me. Vanndar was the first Legendary I opened from the new expansion 😀 I wish they changed their stance about it.

Yep, they’ve been adding more sets to Duels every expansion and it hasn’t been “rotating”.

I wonder what their plans for Duels are… We’re still stuck with the same Heroes over a year later (well, plus Diablo), and the constantly expanding pool of available expansions is slowly turning it into Wild.

I think that they planned to support it a lot better, rotate Heroes every expansion etc. but the mode just turned out to not be popular enough for that to happen.

Just posted 3 DH theorycrafts.

This issue isn’t on the list most likely because it was already addressed a few weeks ago. We don’t know what it will be yet, but devs have confirmed that they have plans for something to do with Coins after you max out a Merc.

I hope that it will come out in the next major Mercenaries update.

I think that’s a known issue and they’re already working on a fix. I would expect it in one of the upcoming patches.

They already commited to nerfing Questlines if they prevent new strategies from being playable, and I hope that they keep their word.

I honestly didn’t even hate the Stormwind meta, Questline Warlock was the most fun I had in Hearthstone in a while. I have always loved slower Warlock decks – Handlock, Reno Warlock, Cube Warlock are some of my favorite builds in the history of HS. But I can definitely see how some people didn’t have fun with the game lately and I don’t mind it getting nerfed to open more space for other strategies.

Tbf the “Freeze” part is mostly a meme, because every single card Shaman got this expansion is a Freeze card. Most of them aren’t actually “Freeze Shaman” decks, just other decks with some of the new cards added.

We’ll have them before expansion’s launch, just wanted to post a compilation now and then add the missing classes later.

I did try to theorycrafts something like that, but then I realized that Celestial Alignment is just better for those Combo decks. Not only you have two copies (so it’s more reliable), but it takes like 1-2 turns after Celestial to set up your combo, unlike Guff, where it would take you much longer to required mana.

Some people were already running Mr. Smite combo in Anacondra Druid and I think that’s the way to go. But those strategies didn’t really get new cards – maybe Pathmaker for Nourish, but I’m still not sold on that one.

We can go even further back, with Medivh playing Medivh and Khadgar playing Khadgar 🙂 But yeah, I get what you mean, however the difference is that that others are only cosmetic Hero portraits, while Illidan is the basic Hero for Demon Hunter class. They can’t realistically do that for every Hero portrait because they would have to exclude A LOT of iconic characters, but they can do that for base Heroes (like we don’t have an Anduin card or a Malfurion card). And cosmetics are probably considered “non-canon”, unlike the base Heroes and cards – to not look far, the new Mecha skins.

Four seasons even, since the event is supposed to end with the 1st expansion of 2022 (probably early April).

If I remember correctly, people calculated that it will be about 3 games per day on average to get there. But it looks like Alliance players will have it a bit easier, since (from my experience so far) Horde is much more common, so you don’t get nearly as many bonus points for beating players from opposing faction.