#79 - The Angry Chicken: “Title”

• Garrett • Jocelyn • Dills

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• Doghouse Systems.com

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Intro:  Welcome to The Angry Chicken!

Thanks to everyone for continuing to support us on Patreon. Go to Patreon.com/TAC.

Opening Talk: BRM Week 4 - Blackwing Lair

• Flamewaker seems to be just as amazing as we all thought.
• Dark Iron Skulker is money in arena at least
• Anyone played the Shaman card? My attempt at overload Shaman fizzled but it’s early
• Real quick, Rend has been getting fairly decent reviews from people playing dragon decks

Dills and Garrett both have new articles up over Hearthhead.com!

Blackrock Mountain Fallout #2: Ranked Hearthstone after BRM Week 2 & 3:

http://www.hearthhead.com/news=247278/blackrock-mountain-fallout-2-ranked-hearthstone-after-brm-week-2-3

The Return of the Freeze Mage: The Emperor Strikes Back:

http://www.hearthhead.com/news=247297/the-return-of-the-freeze-mage-the-emperor-strikes-back

News

You can submit stories and vote on the TAC subreddit at TACpodcast.reddit.com.

Polygon’s Interview w/ Ben Brode on BRM Boss Design

Hearthstone designer Ben Brode was interviewed by Polygon about the creation of the bosses in the Blackrock Mountain Adventure. Here's some of the highlights:

• The team wanted to do Molten Core initially, but there weren't enough bosses.

• They settled on the surrounding area, Blackrock Mountain.
• "What if we mixed it up and did a greatest hits?"

• First part of the design was to go do dungeons in World of Warcraft.

• They wanted to find out what was most memorable and cool about each fight.
• The art team took screenshots of the raids to figure out what to do for the game board.

• The Razorgore fight was the hardest to design.

• An initial version replaced your hero power with one which controlled Razorgore, so you'd fill his side with eggs and win as Razorgore.
• Another version involved playing as both your hero and Razorgore.

• Ben looks at fights from two different ways:

• Top-down Design - Replicate a boss to feel just like the WoW fight.
• Bottom-up Design - Start from scratch with a boss because the WoW version isn't interesting (Drakkisath).
• The best case of design is when you get a top-down fight that feels like bottom-up.

• Vaelastrasz: "You just felt like you were super powerful."

• It is quite similar to the WoW fight, just instead of regaining main/energy you get cards.

• Ben wanted to do something with cards that triggered when they were in your hand. This fit Chromaggus.

• This design isn't present in Hearthstone, having to choose between spending your mana to "dispel" yourself, or play your own cards.
• The design team is watching community feedback on Chromaggus - should they do it again.
• One version of Chromaggus used cards which gave you debuffs instead of giving him buffs.
• Another version of the fight gave the player the Mutation (http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/14556-mutation) Hero Power.

• The Nefarian fight had a unique aspect where you might not want to play with a certain class because they had too good of spells.
• Fights in adventures don't have to be 100% exact to WoW lore.

Links

• Full interview: http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/23/8477465/hearthstone-heroes-of-warcraft-blizzard-blackrock-mountain-blackwing-lair-bosses

Players Banned from Hearthstone WC

CM Aratil posted a list of high level players that are expressly banned from competing in the Hearthstone World Championships. This follows the individual account band last week, and the list also gives a simple explanation of the reason for the ban.

• XzaM -- Wintrading
• Alchemixt -- Wintrading
• Naiman -- Wintrading
• Damnery -- Wintrading

Note: the post does say that these players are banned from the 2015 Championship, thus leaving open the prospect of redemption for a future year. [emphasis added]

Links

• http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/17084779287

PGL Spring Tavern Tales (hosted by Dreamhack Bucharest)

This weekend saw Dreamhack Bucharest hosting a Hearthstone tournament with a $10,000 prize pool and a chunk of WC points up for grabs. After the Romanian tournament concluded, Lothar and Powder took 3rd/4th place, last weekend's winner Firebat took 2nd, and StanCifka took home $4000 and 50 WC points.

Finals

• Really enjoyed watching stancifka eat an apple during the finals...
• Game 1: Mech Mage (stancifka) VS Fel-Reaver Mech Shaman (Firebat)

• Rough draws for Firebat

• Game 2: Fast Druid (stancifka) VS Fel-Reaver Mech Shaman (Firebat)

• stancifka got a Turn-3 Dr. Boom with double Innervate.

• Game 3: Handlock (stancifka) VS Fel-Reaver Mech Shaman (Firebat)

• stancifka tapped down to 20 Health on his Turn 3. Double Rockbiter on his Whirling Zap-O-Matic finally gave Firebat a win (on his Turn 3).

• Game 4: Handlock (stancifka) VS Mech Mage (Firebat)

• stancifka couldn’t find healing but Firebat couldn’t find a Fireball. stancifka eventually stabilized behind a taunted-up Dr. Boom and took the win.

Links

• Brackets: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/hearthstone/DreamHack_2015/Bucharest

Strategy

Deck building

Inspired by an email from Scott King

Word up G-Funks!

FYI that last crazy game story email from me was a joke.

So for the real question…

I don’t net-deck. Not because I have anything against it, but because the thing I enjoy the most is making a new deck from scratch and spending a few weeks refining and tweaking it. The hardest problem I have with this is knowing when a deck sucks. So that’s the question I’m proposing is... How do you know when a deck sucks or you just had a bad matchup or you just had unlucky card draw.

Topics to touch on:

• Deck building for Ranked

• how does it win?
• how does it answer the meta?
• what do you want in your opening hand?
• how do you get to your win condition?

• Deck building for bosses
• 2-of or 1-of?

• if it would suck to have two in your hand then probably 1-of
• is the card top tier? then 2-of
• is the card situational? 1-of
• try to avoid a deck with more than 4-5 1-ofs to keep the deck consistent

• always mind the hero power!
• put in Dr. Boom kappa

• kinda joking but if you are making a midrange or control deck these days you can start with Boom, Sylvanas, Loatheb and Emperor and fill in the rest and do fine

• Is the deck good?

• only way to know is to test and keep track of your record against specific decks
• pay attention to the frequency with which you face certain decks
• even if you have a terrible matchup or two you just want to be good against most  of the decks you face
• tweek based on the meta you are seeing. add in late game or early game, missing mechanics (taunt, draw, etc.) based on the weakness you perceive

• know when to quit

• a deck may just suck and you will have to make the decision to dump it. after 10 games you should have a good idea but if you lose a few games and it feels bad feel free to cut the cord

Crazy Game Stories

You can send your Crazy Game Stories to TACpodcast@gmail.com.

Ryan

Good Evening Semi-Flightless yet Fully-Vexed Farm Foul!

I have a truly wonderful game moment for you. I was playing some ladder last night and had my midrange Mage deck facing against a Demonlock. Nothing bizarre happening at the start of the game, typical trading and sparring, until my opponent kills my mad scientist, giving me Mirror Entity.

Thinking nothing of it, he gives me a fairly "meh" card for a Mage to have, Voidcaller. I keep going as usual until I remember -- my deck runs Illidan Stormrage. Sure enough, my very next draw is Illidan, a demon!

I say "Thank You", trying to contain my excitement, finish my turn, then he kills my Voidcaller on his turn, dropping Illidan Stormrage on the board. My opponent pauses for a solid 15 seconds or so then starts spamming "Well Played" before continuing the game. I'm sure they must have had the same reaction I did. It's the first time I've ever seen this interaction happen, and it was glorious. I did end up winning the match, somewhat in thanks to Illidan.

Thank you all for taking the time out of your weeks to host this fantastic show! I've been hooked for several months now and am always looking forward to new podcasts on Tuesday mornings during my morning drive. Keep it going, cluckers!

Emails

You can send your emails to TACpodcast@gmail.com.

Benjamin

Cheers and Compliments Choleric Capons!!

I always enjoy listening to your podcast every week so thank you for such a wonderful show.

This year I promised myself that I would go to BlizzCon and I was fortunate to snag a ticket to the event. However, this puts me in a pickle. I've never been to BlizzCon (or any convention for that matter) and as such, I don't know what I'm getting into.

I've heard while listening to your episodes that there are tournaments to watch, booths to visit, and general craziness that goes on at BlizzCon. What do I need to know about BlizzCon to enjoy myself fully? What should I expect to bring into the convention center each day?

I was also wondering if any of you had any suggestions on learning the lore of Warcraft/Diablo/Starcraft. I know mostly only what I've experienced briefly when I had an active WoW subscription and what I learn in Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm; I've also played through Diablo 3 but it was a power leveling to play with friends and I didn't retain much. I think I'd enjoy the convention more if I had a deeper understanding of the games that Blizzard puts out, instead of the casual understanding of them I currently have.

Thanks for your time! I hope to stop by your booth if you guys have one at BlizzCon.

Keep cross and cluck on!

Aaron

Greetings Cluck-a-roonies,

Long time listener, first time writing in. Just gave you your first 5-star review on the Japan I-Tunes.

I’d like to ask your opinion about different regions not being able to play against each other and how this inhibits competitions or playing with friends.  My main account is on the America server, however since I live in Japan I think most of the people here are playing on the Asia server.  I’d really like to compete with some people locally but since you cannot play across servers, this is very troublesome!  Are there any ways around this other than leveling up on all three servers?  Do you think Blizzard will find a way to fix this issue?  Thoughts please.

While I am at it, please ask Blizzard to localize Hearthstone in Japanese.  Everybody here is constantly playing games on their phone, and it would be a great market for them.  All of my friends see me playing and get interested but are scared away by the fact that it is in English.

Anyways, always look forward to listening to you guys every week.  So please….

Keeeep on Cluckin’

Brandon

Well Met Ferocious Fowls!

I am a teacher at West Michigan Aviation Academy in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  I am also a Hearthstone player and an avid listener of TAC.  Recently, I was lucky enough to be allowed to start a Hearthstone club at the high school I teach at!  We only have 550 students and when the club was announced, I was shocked to see how many students showed up!  We currently have 28 members in the club.  Granted, not all of them show up to every meeting, we typically have 8-15 for each meeting.  Hopefully the club will continue to grow and I'm working on getting them to be listeners as well!  I just wanted to let you all know!

Outro

Patreon Thanks

TAC is supported by our epic Patrons. You can become a TAC Patron by going to Patreon.com/tac. Becoming a TAC patron gives you access to the TAC Skype account for the Patron Call-in episodes as well as the aftershow video.

Thanks to the patrons we do one extra episode a month where patrons can call in and ask questions live on the show. The next  Patron Call-In episode will be Tuesday, January 27th at 9pm Eastern.

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• Tyler V

iTunes Thanks

• Gradditoberg: “I give it three boots”
• coolbreeze42
• arnieisnumerouno
• T2themofuginj
• Golfalicious

The Angry Chicken is a production of Amove.tv and the Frogpants Studios. Past live shows and other videos can be found on Youtube.com/starcastshow. Get The Angry Chicken tshirt over on SlashLoot.com.

Follow the show on Twitter @TACpodcast.

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

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

Personal Stuff

Dills where else can everyone find you?

Follow Dills @WillieDills

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

Joce where can you be found?

Follow Jocelyn @GISgamer

The Gamers’ Inn

Follow Garrett @GarrettArt

NOMOONart.com for Garrett’s stream designs.

Into the Nexus: The Heroes of the Storm Podcast!

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