# The Hearthstone Thread

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [April 28, 2014, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172 "2014-04-28T07:42:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 19\
**Page:** 135

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**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2682 "2019-09-30T22:31:17Z")

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> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> I’ve been barely playing the last few months, mostly just doing dailies with wild decks, and I decided to check out the meta and maybe start playing a standard deck. Holy crap they’ve almost all got like 6 legendaries in them, it’s a crazy expensive time to craft a deck. Quest druid looks fun, and it requires me to crack 4 epics and 5 legendaries. Highlander mage needs 10 legendaries! Even the simple highlander hunter requires 7 legendaries. I feel like they’ve been making the game deliberately more expensive by moving towards more specialized legendaries and more class rather than neutral legendaries. The old wallet warrior would probably be a below average cost deck in the current meta.

Yeah, I just re-installed from a multi-set break, and even down at level 24-25 I saw nutty-expensive decks. And gold portraits/Legendary cardbacks, so I can’t be the only one returning now.

And they’ve changed how arena works (there are ‘buckets’ of cards?everything has taunt?) so that’s a bit odd. I do like the single player stuff though.

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**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2683 "2019-10-02T06:04:36Z")

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Weell… I kinda get the too many legendaries complaint, but at the same time, it was kinda boring to play the old decks where the main theme was just “bump more minions”. If anything, it just means that they’re finally printing legendaries that are actually interesting enough to put in decks.

I’ve been playing tempo rogue for 5 years now (whew~!) and the initial GVG tempo Rogue looked a lot more boring than now. I mean, back then, Thalnos was considered a top craft (that is one boring card), and maybe you played Edwin and Leeroy - both of which are classic and are still staples today. The only real difference in Legendaries are Zephrys and Myra’s, and I think it’s reasonable to say that those 2 cards should be legendary.

That said, you could easily still build budget zoo and tempo decks without these legendaries and only drop a few win%, so I’m not horribly fussed about things.

Anyway, the last time I paid for cards was maybe Ungoro or KOFT, and I’m still actually managing to craft all the decks I want (helps that I only want to play Rogue tho). I’m actually surprised that I don’t feel more need to drop money on packs, but hey, good for me.

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2019, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2684 "2019-10-02T06:16:24Z")

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I’m all for more specialty cards to make unusual mechanics that lead to interesting decks. But they’ve clearly done this in the name of greed - lowering the number of neutral legendaries, increasing class legendaries, making legendaries more niche so they work in fewer decks (or to run a certain deck, you’d need to craft a niche legendary just for that deck). If they’d lowered the cost of legendaries, or increased the amount of dust you got from disenchanting, or otherwise made getting those array of niche legendaries more affordable, it’d be good for the game. As it is, it just means you can only afford to play 1 or 2 decks per expansion unless you want to dump a lot of money.

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**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2685 "2019-10-08T18:51:52Z")

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While I no longer play it nearly as much as I used to, I still pick it up every so often. It’s a fun, familiar, and easy game to dip in and out of and see just how silly the meta gets.

But I’m done now. Not that I will be missed, but I no longer will play Hearthstone thanks to their [decision to take prize money from and ban a player for showing support of the protestors in Hong Kong](https://www.vox.com/2019/10/8/20904433/blizzard-hong-kong-hearthstone-blitzchung).

More painfully, just a few months after finally getting a golden weapon, I also will be deleting my Overwatch game. Screw Blizzard and their cowardice and support of a corrupt, authoritarian regime.

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**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2686 "2019-10-08T20:59:04Z")

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> [@Hamlet](#):
>
> While I no longer play it nearly as much as I used to, I still pick it up every so often. It’s a fun, familiar, and easy game to dip in and out of and see just how silly the meta gets.
> 
> But I’m done now. Not that I will be missed, but I no longer will play Hearthstone thanks to their [decision to take prize money from and ban a player for showing support of the protestors in Hong Kong](https://www.vox.com/2019/10/8/20904433/blizzard-hong-kong-hearthstone-blitzchung).
> 
> More painfully, just a few months after finally getting a golden weapon, I also will be deleting my Overwatch game. Screw Blizzard and their cowardice and support of a corrupt, authoritarian regime.

Thanks for this note Hamlet. I’ve been debating whether to try WoW Classic, some colleagues at work play and I have some nostalgia about Vanilla. But screw Blizzard. I’m not giving them my money.

I’d boycott the NBA too but I haven’t followed them since the Sonics got taken from Seattle.

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2687 "2019-11-03T12:06:19Z")

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Blizzard is stupid for not balancing the most egregiously stupid stuff in wild.

I’m not saying they should nerf standard cards because they’re exploitable in wild. I get why they’re not going to do that. But if you’ve got some cards that are in wild and are never gonna be in standard again fucking up wild, what’s the harm in dealing with them? An example being snip snap warlock just fucking wasting everyone’s time with its obnoxiousness. Get rid of that shit.

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**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2688 "2020-01-30T19:02:31Z")

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So, I’m not sure what’s been going on in Hearthstone. I stopped playing about a year ago but for some reason at the beginning of this month I figured I’d swing back in and see what was going on in the game. I blew all the dust I had on building a Zoo Warlock deck and have rocketed up the ranks. When I play consistently for two or three years before my one year break I never made it higher than rank 12. I just made rank 5.

I wonder if enough of the previously good players got bored and wondered off to other games? I know this thread has been pretty much dead for a while. Any one still playing or have insights into what’s going on. Did I just luck into an amazing deck?

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**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2689 "2020-01-30T20:45:15Z")

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> [@Oredigger77](#):
>
> I wonder if enough of the previously good players got bored and wondered off to other games? I know this thread has been pretty much dead for a while. Any one still playing or have insights into what’s going on. Did I just luck into an amazing deck?

I came back after a long absence to try the autobattler mode. I also did a few arena runs and made a couple of cheap decks to complete quests.

I found a lot players were trying to be a bit too cute trying to get max value out of their Galakrond stuff, so my warlock zoo and budget mage stole a lot of wins. I think you did find a good off-meta deck and a lot of people in the lower ranks were playing suboptimally.

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2690 "2020-03-17T04:27:25Z")

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An article about the new expansion was leaked early. [Here’s a copy](https://outof.cards/hearthstone/943-ashes-of-outland-is-hearthstones-next-expansion-new-demon-hunter-class-priest-getting-overhaul-see-the-demon-hunter-cards). New class, significant rework to priest.

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**Author:** ![carnalito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/22d042/32.png) [@carnalito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnalito)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2691 "2020-03-17T10:23:00Z")

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Wow, demon hunter looks very nice. Perhaps its time to make my return to HS 😃

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2692 "2020-03-17T11:46:14Z")

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I’ve been playing battlegrounds a lot. It’s not great, and I’m sure other autochess games do it better, but it’s kind of the perfect level of attention to occupy you while you’re watching something that also does not occupy your full attention.

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**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\
**Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2693 "2020-03-18T00:36:04Z")

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Adding another class seems … iffy? They have a hard enough time keeping the 9 existing ones in balance and there’s usually an orphan class or two that just can’t compete in a given meta.

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2694 "2020-04-08T19:16:49Z")

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The expansion released and 3 expansions from 2 years ago rotated out. New class is apparently way overpowered even with a limited set of cards to work with.

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**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2695 "2020-04-08T22:33:56Z")

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I’m pretty sure everyone expected the new class to be way overpowered they had to ensure that people would want to play it I was one card a way from building a second of their prebuilt decks so I crafted the legendary and it’s doing ok.

Overall I’m enjoying the class its a fun change from the hunter I was playing. The biggest issue is most other people are playing similar decks. I’d expect a nerf in a month and then we’ll see more classes in the rotation.

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2696 "2020-04-08T22:45:15Z")

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It’s apparently so broken that the class completely dominates the top half of the ladder, so much so that they’re going to be nerfing it within days of launch, which is unprecedented. They usually move at a glacial pace.

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**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2697 "2020-04-08T22:50:30Z")

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That’s actually basically what they did to shaman immediately after the last xpac.

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2020, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2698 "2020-04-08T23:25:51Z")

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It took 9 days for Shaman I think, and they tweeted about having changes as early as today, so it’d actually be faster. DH is actually way worse than Shaman is. Apparently the top 40 decks by win rate are all demon hunter decks. The best DH deck has a 94% win rate against non-DH classes. Even the best deck against it, embiggen druid, only wins 33% of the time.

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**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2699 "2020-04-09T15:16:44Z")

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Ridiculously overpowered cards are good for fast sales. I figure Blizzard only cares that they got the money – makes difference to them that the cards will very quickly get nerfed.

I am still 100% f2p.

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**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2020, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172/2700 "2020-04-30T07:09:45Z")

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If you look over at the [hearthstone subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/) right about now, you can see how people feel about demon hunter and the current meta. It’s mostly reimagining other class cards as demon hunter cards (they become crazy OP). Like [this](https://i.redd.it/o762ec2njuv41.png) and [this](https://i.redd.it/3ew49xiu0uv41.png).

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hearthstone-thread/687172.md?page=134)
