#14 - The Angry Chicken: “Solve It!”

• Garrett • Dills • Jocelyn

Sponsors:

• Doghouse Systems.com

The Angry Chicken is proudly sponsored by Doghouse Systems.com.  If you use the code TAC at checkout, you will get double memory on your next Doghouse System.

Intro:  Welcome to The Angry Chicken!

News

Season 2 begins!

Season 2 of ranked play began last Tuesday, and is planned to last for one month.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/12077576/hearthstone%E2%84%A2-test-season-2-begins-1-9-2014

Big News: Incoming Balance Update

Hearthstone Update: Upcoming Changes 1/13

“This should be our last big set of balance changes; once we go live, we plan to make very few card changes, and only if they are absolutely necessary.”

We will be making changes to the following cards: Unleash the Hounds, Sylvanas Windrunner, Blood Imp, Defender of Argus, Pyroblast, Dark Iron Dwarf, Abusive Sergeant, Warsong Commander, Charge and Novice Engineer.

• Unleash the Hounds’ mana cost is now 2 (down from 4)

• Unleash the Hounds was intended to give Hunters their own form of AoE and to have synergy with other beast cards, but its old cost was too prohibitive.
• http://www.hearthhead.com/card=1243/unleash-the-hounds

• Pyroblast’s mana cost is now 10 (up from 8)

• The 8-cost Pyroblast made for an un-interactive experience where the Mage only needed to do 10 damage during the course of a game and then double Pyroblast you for the win. We want Mages to be more interactive with the opponent to achieve victory, rather than delay the game until they can Pyroblast.
• http://www.hearthhead.com/card=1087/pyroblast

• Blood Imp is now a 0/1 and now reads: Stealth. At the end of your turn, give another random friendly minion +1 Health.

• The Warlock has three very strong 1-cost minions and that made the Warlock rush deck slightly stronger than we were comfortable with.
• http://www.hearthhead.com/card=469/blood-imp

• Warsong Commander has been reworked and now reads: Whenever you play a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge. http://www.hearthhead.com/card=1009/warsong-commander

• Charge (the spell, not the keyword) has been reworked and now costs 3 mana. The card’s new power reads: “Give a friendly minion +2 Attack and Charge”.

• Both of these cards were key components in “One Turn Kill” or “OTK” decks that kill your opponent in one turn without requiring any cards on the board. We want the game to be about playing minions and fighting for board control rather than just waiting until you can play your big combo and win in one turn with no interaction from your opponent.
• http://www.hearthhead.com/card=344/charge

• Abusive Sergeant now reads: Battlecry: Give a minion +2 Attack until end of turn.

• Abusive Sergeant was changed to make its power the same as the Dark Iron Dwarf and to give it additional versatility. http://www.hearthhead.com/card=242/abusive-sergeant

• Dark Iron Dwarf’s buff now only lasts until the end of the turn.

• This change was made to reduce the Dark Iron Dwarf’s overall power slightly. We also wanted to make the Battlecry effect the same as Abusive Sergeant‘s as to not force you to permanently buff one of your opponent’s creatures. http://www.hearthhead.com/card=348/dark-iron-dwarf

• Defender of Argus is now a 2/3 (down from 3/3)

• Defender of Argus was a card that found itself automatically included in many decks due to its power and stats. We want players to have an option of what cards they put in their decks, so cards that feel like they must be in all decks (especially Neutral ones) are not ideal. http://www.hearthhead.com/card=763/defender-of-argus

• Novice Engineer is now a 1/1 (down from 1/2)

• The Novice Engineer was played in most non-rush decks (and even some rush decks) due to its cost and power. Similar in reasoning to our Defender of Argus change, we want players to have an option of what cards they put in their decks.
• http://www.hearthhead.com/card=284/novice-engineer

• Sylvanas Windrunner’s mana cost is now 6 (up from 5)

• Sylvanas had power and stats that made it a bit too powerful compared to other 5-cost cards, which made it automatically included in many decks. We want players to have an option of what cards they put in their decks, so cards that feel like they must be in all decks (especially Neutral ones) are not ideal. http://www.hearthhead.com/card=1721/sylvanas-windrunner

“Expert cards that are being changed can be disenchanted for their full cost for a limited time when the patch goes live. We hope these changes will increase the variety of cards you will see at all levels of play, and make playing Hearthstone a more fun and interactive game for everyone.”

TAC Listeners react:

• Undead Goat: Do you think nerfing so many of the "obvious choice" minions will make the game harder for new players to learn?

• Dan: With the incoming changes to Sylvanas and the temporary ability to disenchant her for a full 1600 dust, I find myself wondering if I shouldn't take this opportunity to switch out Sylvanas for another legendary. At only one more mana, I'm sure Sylvanas will still be a powerful card, but are there other Legendaries that are MORE versatile, for whom the dust could be better spent?

I'm seeing a lot of top-tier decks running Tinkmaster and Bloodmage Thalnos, for instance, neither of which I have. Alexstraza and Ysera both look enticing. And then there's the class legendaries I'd love to have, like Tyrion. (I already have a Rag that's in almost every deck I build.)

So my question is, are there better, more versatile legendaries you'd pick over Sylvanas, especially now that it'll be undergoing a 1-mana nerf?

Links

• http://eu.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/9256676481

Final beta invites going out this week

Community Rep Aratil posted on Friday that all remaining accounts with beta opt-ins before the recent cut-off date (January 7th) are planned to be flagged for beta access some time this week.

"We are going to try to have the accounts flagged next week, unfortunately I don't have an exact date yet."

Then we said that the last day to opt in for the Hearthstone beta was Jan 7, 2014 and that we were going to automatically flag every Battle.net account that opted in by that date and not yet attached a key to their account to have access to the beta. We're not sending any keys for this, we're just marking the accounts internally to have the access to get and test the game.

Links

• http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/10343494247?page=330#6583
• http://www.hearthpwn.com/blue-tracker/topic/4360-im-really-getting-disappointed-with-this-waiting

ESGN Hearthstone "Fight Night" VODs

in chronological order:

http://youtu.be/sUGhwQvmo_U (Trump vs Gnimsh)

http://youtu.be/1EmT63eZ8Aw (Ek0p vs Monk)

http://youtu.be/KviNnwH0EE4 (Kripparrian vs Artosis)

http://youtu.be/LRw193yrjbE (StrifeCro vs Nyhx)

http://youtu.be/WUkVyBBKScA (StrifeCro vs Gnimsh)

Strategy

Hearthstone Rules of Thumb

From @Trenti:

• What to mulligan in a control v. aggro deck
• should you play taunts on open board or only after a minion hits...
• don't overplay minions just because you have mana
• should you trade cards versus go for draw
• direct damage or board control

I feel like there are unspoken rules of thumb high ranked players use that feel very opaque in trying to learn Hearthstone.

And while you cover some of these here and there, I still feel like it's hard to suss them out if you're not a TCG/CCG gamer.

Crazy Game Stories

No Crazy Game Stories this week. Need to make room to talk for the upcoming balance changes.

BUT I HAVE A REALLY GOOD ONE!!!! I’ll save it I guess… (Joce)

Emails

Paul the Programmer

Hello all,

I have been a listener of the A-Move shows for awhile.  After listening to this weeks The Angry Chicken, I decided to help out the Arena Roulette Initiative.  If you have any questions you can IM me on Skype.

I wrote a quick Windows application that gets the location of three sections on the screen then provides a random click in one of those 3 locations.  It is designed to be a lightweight as possible.

To start off you need to Setup the Screen Locations, so once Hearthstone is running, press F2.

Move your mouse on top of the first card and press F3, this will store the location of the first card.  Move over the second and press F3 again, and do the same for the third card.

Once this is done the application now knows the location of all 3 cards.  Pressing F4 will cycle through the 3 saved locations (not clicking on them, but just showing you where it is saved to).

Once the application has learned the locations, it will store them in a file on your computer so it doesn't need to be re-calibrated (you only need to change it if you change the resolution of your monitor or move Hearthstone to a different monitor).

Now to use the application you only need to worry about 4 more keys.

F7 - Randomly selects the one of the three cards.

F8 - Randomly selects from the first 2 cards.

F9 - Randomly selects from the first and last card.

F10 - Randomly selects from the last 2 cards.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/egit6fn55cavjza/Arena%20Roulette%20v1.zip?dl=1&token_hash=AAHNQxpj-opk4kHoRV67fYHtInfGFHftMR-ed7P_10pSIg

Thanks,

Paul the Programmer

Shane

Hi all

I'm not the best player out there, but I was just able to kill my opponent in three turns with a warrior. I've never come remotely close to this in the past.

Turn 1: Play coin and Amani Berserker. Use Charge & Inner Rage – attack for 7.

Turn 2: Use Rampage – attack for 10.

Turn 3: Use Rampage – attack for 13.

Obviously not the most likely hand to get, but crazy, nonetheless.

Thanks – love the show!

Sean

If each of you were a hearthstone card, what would your abilities be?  Either existing powers or made up ones.

Sean

Joce - Battle Cry: Charm. A musical giggle charms opponents and prevents attacks for one turn.

Outro

iTunes Thanks

• Anrix
• blkhawk
• Saltimbanque55 - Means Magician in French (I googled it to make sure I wasn’t swearing)

The Angry Chicken is a production of Amove.tv and the Frogpants Studios. You can see more about this and all the other A-move shows at Amove.tv. And make sure to check out all the other fine show over at Frogpants.com as well! You can also email the show at

Catch the live show Monday nights at 10pm Eastern on Twitch.tv/Amovetv. Mobile live stream provided by Alpha Geek Radio. Go to mobile.alphageekradio.com.

Follow the show on Twitter @TACpodcast

Follow Garrett on @GarrettArt

Follow Dills @WillieDills

Follow Jocelyn @GISgamer

Thanks to Brian Griffith, the musician responsible for our intro music. He can be found at briangriffithmusic.com or @briangriffith on twitter.

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

Dill’s where else can everyone find you?

The Instance - The World of Warcraft podcast so you don’t have to

TortureCast - A podcast by and for fans of the San Francisco Giants

MGA MedioCast - A podcast about the Mediocre Golf Association

And Joce where can you be found?

The Gamers’ Inn

DogHouse Network

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