On March 17 2016 20:05 MrMike wrote: So is the entire new meta going to just be C'Thun decks trying to buff them for 9 turns, hoping to kill you with a 30-hit attack? Sounds *really fun*. ??????
I think its a bit early to assume C'thun decks are good enough or even viable to be the new meta, but i share your concern.
So far, C'thun cards are decent but have no much synergy among themselves other then buff C'thun. All decks in the history of Hearthstone had great synergy between cards to be top tier decks. Second, it will be though to survive when C'thun is in the low end of the deck. Going through the entire deck to play him its worse then, lets say, a Malygos deck. Elise decks also perform better and should be more consistent in this case. Third, C'thun has a powerful effect but it ins't a guarantee win.
IMHO i think C'thun needs more cards like Ancient Shieldbearer or it won't be strong enough to see competitive play.
On March 15 2016 22:36 itchiko wrote: And while Mid-range do play some RNG heavy cards like Shredder/Knife Juggler. It is not because RNG is fun (spoiler: it is not)
RNG is fun! Why else would so many play RNG games, hearthstone included, and not chess or go or something that has no RNG?
I think that RNG is fun when it's in my favour, and not fun when it's not.
On March 17 2016 20:05 MrMike wrote: So is the entire new meta going to just be C'Thun decks trying to buff them for 9 turns, hoping to kill you with a 30-hit attack? Sounds *really fun*. ??????
No?
There are existing decks that people can and will play. Also, ya know, over 120 new cards that have not been seen yet.
What would make you think that these few cards that have been shown are enough to predict the new meta?
I get that - It just seems there is a lot of hype around CThun. Just hoping we dont get pigeon-holed into running him because we HAVE to. Like Dr. Boom or Shredder
Cthun is basically the replacement for mech decks which was hearthstone's starter deck
Ya I saw that thread on reddit too. It's an interesting approach, here's a tribal you can easily build around. In fact here's some pieces of it for free! (C'Thun and 2 Beckoners).
It's a good move from Blizzard. Historically the difficulty of getting good aggro cards vs. good control cards has been lopsided, the big game-winning threats are always legendaries or epics.They made North Sea Kraken to balance that out a bit, for people on a budget, but C'Thun is going even further. I was wondering whether this set was going to be more like TGT or LoE in terms of card design, and it looks to be a bit more like LoE, in terms of power level and general clever design. So far, so good, I say.
I am wondering with so many comments about C'thun, does anyone know how Youthful Brewmaster, or Shadowstep work with it? would you get it back as 6/6? Trump in his video stated that you'd get the buffed version, or I didn't understand him?
On March 18 2016 01:59 Madars wrote: I am wondering with so many comments about C'thun, does anyone know how Youthful Brewmaster, or Shadowstep work with it? would you get it back as 6/6? Trump in his video stated that you'd get the buffed version, or I didn't understand him?
You will probably get the full buff minion. That would be consistent with what we already know about stealing a C'thun (with a entomb) -> it would go back to a 6/6 because the C'thun buff are personal and not linked top the card itself.
If you have several C'thun in your deck will also probably all receive all of the buffs. basically those are buff of your hero itself (very similar to the Mistcaller buff).
On March 18 2016 01:59 Madars wrote: I am wondering with so many comments about C'thun, does anyone know how Youthful Brewmaster, or Shadowstep work with it? would you get it back as 6/6? Trump in his video stated that you'd get the buffed version, or I didn't understand him?
I forget where, exactly, but Blizzard confirmed that if you got C'thun back into your hand, he would have the same stats that he would have had if he'd just remained in your hand all along. That is to say, all the damage he's taken cancels out, as well as effects like Humility, but so do buffs from spells like Blessing of Kings. If your cultists got him to 10/10, he'd return as a 10/10. It's somewhere earlier in this thread, if you want to go digging.
On March 17 2016 20:05 MrMike wrote: So is the entire new meta going to just be C'Thun decks trying to buff them for 9 turns, hoping to kill you with a 30-hit attack? Sounds *really fun*. ??????
No?
There are existing decks that people can and will play. Also, ya know, over 120 new cards that have not been seen yet.
What would make you think that these few cards that have been shown are enough to predict the new meta?
I get that - It just seems there is a lot of hype around CThun. Just hoping we dont get pigeon-holed into running him because we HAVE to. Like Dr. Boom or Shredder
Cthun is basically the replacement for mech decks which was hearthstone's starter deck
Ya I saw that thread on reddit too. It's an interesting approach, here's a tribal you can easily build around. In fact here's some pieces of it for free! (C'Thun and 2 Beckoners).
It's a good move from Blizzard. Historically the difficulty of getting good aggro cards vs. good control cards has been lopsided, the big game-winning threats are always legendaries or epics.They made North Sea Kraken to balance that out a bit, for people on a budget, but C'Thun is going even further. I was wondering whether this set was going to be more like TGT or LoE in terms of card design, and it looks to be a bit more like LoE, in terms of power level and general clever design. So far, so good, I say.
I agree. I'm definitely getting the sense that Blizzard has learned a lot about design in the past couple of years, as evidenced by things like the shift away from the kind of "add a random X" we saw with Webspinner and Unstable Portal towards the utter brilliance of the Discover mechanic. What I'm seeing going on right now is a choice to make a kind of lategame, big-picture deck available at all levels of play, and to give enough wiggle room with it that people can explore it through different avenues. I mean, just look at this thread: some people are talking about bulky minion-based Druid decks, some people are talking about grindy Warrior builds, and some people are talking about Rogue Shadowstep cheese. That's a healthy amount of variety in how the game's actually going to be played, and that's excluding the fact that the gameplans we see from more traditional decks aren't going away. Hopefully C'thun decks will be exactly strong enough to be good but not overpowering, and we'll see a meta that ends up being meaningfully diverse and pleasant to play in.
On March 18 2016 01:59 Madars wrote: I am wondering with so many comments about C'thun, does anyone know how Youthful Brewmaster, or Shadowstep work with it? would you get it back as 6/6? Trump in his video stated that you'd get the buffed version, or I didn't understand him?
It doesn't make any sense for it to get back to 6/6 since it says nothing anywhere about counters beeing reseted when he is played. Otherwise, playing C'thun early would be an extremely bad move because it denies further synergy from other C'thun cards.
On March 17 2016 20:05 MrMike wrote: So is the entire new meta going to just be C'Thun decks trying to buff them for 9 turns, hoping to kill you with a 30-hit attack? Sounds *really fun*. ??????
No?
There are existing decks that people can and will play. Also, ya know, over 120 new cards that have not been seen yet.
What would make you think that these few cards that have been shown are enough to predict the new meta?
I get that - It just seems there is a lot of hype around CThun. Just hoping we dont get pigeon-holed into running him because we HAVE to. Like Dr. Boom or Shredder
Cthun is basically the replacement for mech decks which was hearthstone's starter deck
Ya I saw that thread on reddit too. It's an interesting approach, here's a tribal you can easily build around. In fact here's some pieces of it for free! (C'Thun and 2 Beckoners).
It's a good move from Blizzard. Historically the difficulty of getting good aggro cards vs. good control cards has been lopsided, the big game-winning threats are always legendaries or epics.They made North Sea Kraken to balance that out a bit, for people on a budget, but C'Thun is going even further. I was wondering whether this set was going to be more like TGT or LoE in terms of card design, and it looks to be a bit more like LoE, in terms of power level and general clever design. So far, so good, I say.
I agree. I'm definitely getting the sense that Blizzard has learned a lot about design in the past couple of years, as evidenced by things like the shift away from the kind of "add a random X" we saw with Webspinner and Unstable Portal towards the utter brilliance of the Discover mechanic.
Even though Forbidden Shaping is random, those two cards are pretty interesting. They're the first card with an X mana cost, with power that scales throughout the game. It won't be as bad as Unstable Portal either, because you can control it to an extent. Kinda hard to be salty about them getting Tirion when they held it until turn 8. It's gonna be pretty scary seeing that card dropped on turns 8, 9, and beyond. Might suck to get C'Thun off 10 mana though.
I'm pretty excited for Forbidden Shaping, but I'm not crazy about Forbidden Flame. Having another burn card is nice, but since it can't go face it feels a lot less tempting compared to the basic spells they already have.
I really like both of those cards but i feel like while very close in Design they serves completely different purposes.
Let start with Forbidden Shaping: The way I see it this cards is mostly a curve smoother: Whatever mana cost you are missing in your curve you will be able to play this spell instead. So in my opinion that is nearly an auto keep in your mulligan phase: that way whatrever card you are missing 2/3/4 drops). It can replace it and keep you into the game. And if you draw it late game or hit the perfect curve anyway no worries, its value will continue to go higher and higher and you will always be happy to play whatever the turn). Now for the corresponding price range you will not get any Battlecry or Choose effect which means that you will get a slightly lower value (as a mean) that what you will have if you played a minion from the same costs from your hand). I know hat sometime you can get lucky and hit a minion where the battecry is a negative effect and then you will be over the value (thanks stupid Milhouse Manastorm) but that should be pretty limited. So the rule remained that the expected value will be slightly lower than the actual costs. (A fair compensation for the scaling of value + the smoothing of the curve imho)
And finally it can also be played as a complement of any other cards. So for example if you have 10 mana and you want to populate the board with 2 creature (for whatever reason) it does not matter what the other creature you wnat to play is (Reno for 6, Auchenai for 4, Auchenai + hero power for 6, Sludge Belcher for 5) you will always be able to use all of the remaining mana in a meaningful way with this card.
Overall for me the first really awesome card I see from that extension. so well played on this blizzard, I am loving it. (even if I still hate the RNG part of it and I would rather had a X/X instead of a random cost X minion but whatever)
Now Forbidden Flame is a completely different story: This is one a removal spell which means that it is by essence reactive. The amount you want to spend does not depend on how much mana you have but the health of the creature you want to remove (kind of will be back to that later). So essentially the natural variable cost of the card start to become a draw back instead of a boost. Yo9u do not know in advance what you will wnat to remove so you cannot really build your deck in order to have good chance of having the exact card you want in hand to dump the rest of the mana first. Also you have to play whatevr you wnat to play otherwise first and then this card: this force you in a specific sequence that may not be optimal (what if you are trying to remove Sylvanas for example?). Does that means that this card suck then? not at all it's versatility is not in its price but in its target: You can choose depending on the matchup what you want: playing agains an aggro deck? maybe a 2 mana spell that get rid of the knife juggler turn 2 seems pretty good now. Playing against a Druid Ramp? Why not keeping it for the Turn 7+ to help getting through that giant 5/10 taunt. At all mana cost this spell is till below what we can hope for this price range but it can still be adapted to the tempo of the opponent deck so that it has an high chance of still being always relevant. And then it can also be used as a very very cheap spell. That is especially if it can be used at 0 mana to do 0 damage something that the text of the card itself does not tell us. It can be a very cheap activator of spell synergy if needed: think Flamewaker, think Antonidas, think Auctioneer. And once again what strike me with this cards is its flexibility and power of adaption.
I think that both of those spells are really interesting and have good potential to see play. And for the first time, I am really hyped for this expansion.
I love the all-around side of the Forbidden Shaping. Fantastic card, I would only play it early if I have to though, even if I have no minion and this on turn2, if the matchup is safe it's better to greed with it, you can still play it the next turn anyway if things go south.
The above argument that you will get below average value is true for the lower cost cards, but for 7+ mana you will always get a big threat. And I would assume this card will replace some early minion cards to make the decks more greedy while still having an early drop if needed. It's a super safe way to cut 2 small drops and get 2 more lategame threats without much drawback.
I don't think it will be used after casting something else just to be "mana efficient", if the meta doesn't drastically change you don't really want to flood the board anyway.
And lastly, since all 4 gods cost 10 mana and there are not that many 10 mana cards. On turn 10 it would often be one of the gods I guess, which would also mean the possibility of a 6/6 C'thun that does nothing for 10 mana, which sucks. So depending on the quality of the other old gods, it might be better to cast hero power before this on turn 10
Anyway, this gets me really hyped to play priest again, and to play again lol
On March 17 2016 20:05 MrMike wrote: So is the entire new meta going to just be C'Thun decks trying to buff them for 9 turns, hoping to kill you with a 30-hit attack? Sounds *really fun*. ??????
No?
There are existing decks that people can and will play. Also, ya know, over 120 new cards that have not been seen yet.
What would make you think that these few cards that have been shown are enough to predict the new meta?
I get that - It just seems there is a lot of hype around CThun. Just hoping we dont get pigeon-holed into running him because we HAVE to. Like Dr. Boom or Shredder
Cthun is basically the replacement for mech decks which was hearthstone's starter deck
Ya I saw that thread on reddit too. It's an interesting approach, here's a tribal you can easily build around. In fact here's some pieces of it for free! (C'Thun and 2 Beckoners).
It's a good move from Blizzard. Historically the difficulty of getting good aggro cards vs. good control cards has been lopsided, the big game-winning threats are always legendaries or epics.They made North Sea Kraken to balance that out a bit, for people on a budget, but C'Thun is going even further. I was wondering whether this set was going to be more like TGT or LoE in terms of card design, and it looks to be a bit more like LoE, in terms of power level and general clever design. So far, so good, I say.
I agree. I'm definitely getting the sense that Blizzard has learned a lot about design in the past couple of years, as evidenced by things like the shift away from the kind of "add a random X" we saw with Webspinner and Unstable Portal towards the utter brilliance of the Discover mechanic.
You had to say it
I'm sorryyyyyyyyyy I didn't mean to jinx it
I think Forbidden Flame might have seen some good play if it could go face. But as a removal spell, let's be honest: we have all the target removal at any level needed that we could ever hope for in Mage. Polymorph will do for 4 (or 6 for total clear) what this card might need to wait until 10 to do, and more besides. Frostbolt does more for 2 than this will for 3. There's simply no comparison.
Forbidden Shaping, on the other hand... I think it's either really bad or really good. Basically, what it does is ensure that you're always going to curve out properly. If you're missing a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or even higher, Forbidden Shaping will always come into play to fix things for you. The problem is, I'm not certain Priest wants to curve out like that. I think it wants to use cards off-curve but with such efficiency that it gains a huge advantage. If this were, say, a Hunter card or a Paladin card, I think it would be excellent. But as a Priest card... well, if it does end up being popular, it's going to be by virtue of a whole new Priest archetype coming into being. In that sense, I think the card is either going to be terrible (unplayable) or incredible (creates a whole new archetype by itself).
Brief note about saving/greeding with Shaping: if you're going to wait X turns to play it, why not just run a big minion instead? I'm not sure the ability to play it early means so much here. If you're playing the kind of deck where you want to save resources, then you should be running the kinds of cards that are well-suited to being saved. With Shaping especially, it's very important that the card be played preemptively. If you're waiting until your opponent has some kind of board you need to answer, then Shaping will take one turn to come into effect and will statistically be ineffective compared to their board. That's not good. So, if it's going to generate any sort of advantage (tempo or card) for you, you need to play it aggressively. That means not saving it, but playing it as part of a curve. The only time the much higher costs are going to come into play are if you draw it late.
I guess there's a general question about the card: can you construct Dragon Priest to be "curvy" enough to let you run this? Like, can you create a version that completely or almost completely lacks the lategame dragons in favor of a really sick curve, like Twilight Whelp/Zombie Chow into Are You Mocking Me/Museum Curator into Blackwing Technician/Dark Cultist into Twilight Guardian/Piloted Shredder into Azure Drake/Blackwing Corruptor into Cabal Shadow Priest? If such a deck could be made to work, then Forbidden Shaping would fit right in as a way to ensure that every turn goes perfectly.
On March 18 2016 03:38 RevenantSC2 wrote: I'm sad Forbidden Shaping is a Priest card. That would have been a really fun card to have as the game's first neutral spell.
I'm actually more sad Forbidden Flame is a Mage card, yet more burn for them. But I guess minion-only and Flame Cannon is getting rotated out.
Like everyone else I really like the concept of the Forbidden cards. I hope the Warrior one isn't gaining armor (that does seem too logical but boring) though.
Warrior one might be equipping a weapon. That would be neat. Like, maybe an X/2 weapon? Except that would start out useless and rapidly grow into being obscenely strong. Like, seriously, 10 mana for 20 damage is not acceptable ever.
The thing about these cards is that the effect is slightly less powerful than you might expect at any given mana cost, but look at Druid cards. Except for Living Roots, their Choose One effects are always below par for the cost. So why do they still see play? Their flexibility. The fact that you can hold them for any kind of situation and have them still be relevant transcends the inefficiency those effects might have. Remember the very fundamental aspect of a card game: why is card draw good? Because you get more options. Why are more options good? Because you're more likely to have an option that's pertinent to the situation at hand. That's what makes these forbidden cards so good, they can always be relevant, at any mana cost and in any situation.
EPT
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