Hello once more and welcome to another Touchstone Tavern, our weekly column that covers everything that happened in the world of Hearthstone (Free) this past week. As you can probably guess, the world of Hearthstone currently revolves around the upcoming expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, so most of the news had something to do with the upcoming set. There’s talk about the state of Priest and Rogue, new mechanics (good and bad?) coming to the game, Murloc Yule Log, and plenty of videos with card reveals and other fun stuff. So, let’s not delay and let’s jump right in, shall we?
Murloc Yule Log Is Best Yule Log
If you enjoy Yule log videos, you’ll love this Murloc one. Coming just in time for the holidays, this 53-minute long video is a great way to put your troubles behind for a bit and focus on something simple and silly. There are all kinds of things happening in the video, but I won’t spoil them because that would be a pity. Enjoy your Murloc Yule Log video.
Will Rogue be the New Priest?
Priest has been in a pretty sorry state for quite some time, but this writer believes that Rogue is about to take its place. Priest is getting quite a buff with Mean Streets but Rogue isn’t. He sees Rogue as having strong decks at the moment but difficult to pilot. The other problem is with the direction Blizzard is pushing Rogue. Rogue is starting to look a lot like Priest – stealing cards – but it’s doing it in a worse way than Priest. With Blade Furry nerfed, Rogue is not the weapon class anymore unless the remaining Rogue cards from Mean Streets are some kind of weapon buffs. Otherwise, the class will be very weak for the foreseeable future.
Devolve and Jade Idol are Terrible-Designed Cards
This writer isn’t crazy about two new cards, Devolve and Jade Idol. Devolve is a Shaman spell that transforms your opponent’s minions into minions worth 1 less mana (the opposite of Evolve). The writer thinks that Shaman didn’t need another way to remove minions off the board and this much RNG will make it frustrating. Jade Idol, the Druid spell that summons a Jade Golem or puts three copies of Jade Idol back in your deck, isn’t a favorite either because you won’t be able to fatigue Druids now. And with Jade Golems getting stronger as the game wears on, Druids will be unbeatable in late game. Overall, he sees these two cards as simply too good for the game. What do you think?
New Shaman Card Is Frightening
Remember the 4-mana 7/7 meme? Well, let’s all say welcome to the 5-mana 10/10 meme, although this one’s a bit different. The new Shaman Legendary White Eyes is a Taunt 5-mana 5/5, but the fun part is that it shuffles The Storm Guardian into your deck. What is The Storm Guardian, you ask? Just a 5-mana 10/10 Taunt, which sounds frightening, but it’s not the menace that you’d think upon first laying eyes on it. What do you think? Great or useless?
Is This the 2-Drop Priest Needed?
In addition to the other great cards Gadgetzan is bringing to priest, the class is also getting the 2-mana Mana Geode that summons a 2/2 Crystal whenever a minion is healed. This writer believes that this card will fix the problem that Priests have had in turn 2. The class has lacked a strong 2-turn play compared to other classes, but maybe this card will do the trick and give Priest strong early plays.
Jade Golem Is an Interesting New Mechanic
As we wrote about in our story, the new Jade Golem mechanic, which is part of the Jade Lotus gang, will be an interesting experiment. The way it works is every time a card of yours summons a Jade Golem, that Jade Golem gets +1/+1 from the last one. In a way it’s like C’Thun but you don’t get one minion, you get many. Whether this mechanic will end up seeing much play remains to be seen, but I’m interested in trying it out and seeing what comes out of it.
Ex-Hearthstone Stream Viewbotter Reveals How It’s Done
If you want to know how some streamers can get thousands of views seemingly out of nowhere, then read this story about viewbotting. This former partnership manager for one of the largest Twitch viewbotting services talks about how he could add tens of thousands of viewers to Hearthstone channels using thousands of bots masquerading as fake viewers and chat users. He provided evidence of his actions, so this isn’t just talk. The story also talks about how he would test streams to see if bots could be detected or whether he could just continue doing to with immunity. A very interesting story that will make you doubt the numbers you see in streams.
Expansions and Adventures Ranked from Worst to Best
It’s no secret that Hearthstone‘s expansions have been uneven, and this story attempts to rank them according to their impact on the meta and their legacy on the game. The worst one was The Grand Tournament because while it gave us some strong cards, it also gave us the keyword Inspire that has barely been used (which is a shame because I like the idea of it). It also had the worse ratio of hits to misses, and the deck it spawned was the infamous Secret Paladin, not the most challenging or fun deck to face. The second worse was One Night in Karazhan partly because the developers hadn’t realized how disappointed people were about the state of priest and also because the bosses weren’t that great and the neutral cards weren’t that hot either. Also, Moroes was a wasted Legendary and the Beast-Dragon-Murloc deck hasn’t materialized.
Blackrock Mountain comes next in the list. The adventure tried to make Dragons viable but didn’t quite get there – despite adding some strong cards to the meta. Many of the set’s cards did find use in various decks, and Grim Patron and Emperor Thaurissan were very strong, with the former giving us the powerful Patron Warrior. Goblins Vs Gnomes comes next with the fantastic Dr. Boom. While the mech decks didn’t end up being that hot, there were some fantastic cards that became mainstays (including cards that made Midrange Paladin viable). We also got Piloted Shredder, the card that ended up almost in every single deck. Whispers of the Old Gods was the third best, since the expansion gave us the loved and hated Yogg-Saron but also good cards for almost all the classes.
The runner-up is The League of Legends, the set that gave us great Legendaries like Brann and Reno and also the Discover mechanic, and the winner is, of course, Curse of Naxxramas. This is the adventure that gave us Sludge Belcher, Mad Scientist, Voidcaller, Undertaker, and so many more. It also had a great theme and the Deathrattle mechanic fit perfectly with it. What do you think of the ranking? Do you agree with it, or would you switch the order around?
Is Heroes of Warcraft Going Away?
As this story points out, Hearthstone has always had the Heroes of Warcraft underneath its title, but it looks like that part might be going away soon. Blizzard has sent a new logo to the Hearthstone subreddit with the Heroes part conspicuously absent, so everyone is wondering whether we’re moving away from the original title. The writer speculates that the World of Warcraft part isn’t as attractive now as it used to be, so Blizzard might be dumping it. No official news on this change, so we’ll see.
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As always, we have some good resources on the site for you in case you are new to the game or simply want to sharpen up your game. There’s never such a thing as too much help in Hearthstone, so check out our guides.
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