Coin Concede - Episode 463
Edelweiss* WickedGood* Magesa* Guest*
Intro (~10 min)
Welcome to Episode 463 of Coin Concede, a Hearthstone podcast dedicated to making the competitive side of the game more accessible to you.
It is Thursday September 5th, 2024 in the evening!
Coming to you from Gnomeregan, Ohio, it's me, Edelweiss!
From Northrend, Massachusetts, we have WickedGood!
From Teldrassil, California we have Magesa!
And joining us from Onyxia’s Lair, we have Dragonrider!
And from all around the world we have you, dear listeners.
This week's episode is brought to you by our producers nmbrthry, Kresh, Beefsquatch, David P, Waalou, Jeremy T, bottlecaps, GrumpyMonk, TheBurgerClub, KercReagan, ChrizzleyBear, Tyleniphe, and SSJ5GOKU, and by our Patrons of the Week, MadK17 and Keith! You can go to patreon.com/coinconcede to get perks like a thank you at the top of the show, early access to new episodes, one on one coaching sessions, and help support the show in the process!
If you would like to support the show but cannot do so monetarily, please consider leaving us a five-star review on your podcast feed of choice – always helps other people find the show!
Guest intro/interview -
- Hi Dawn!
- For people who might not know you, give us a brief background of how you got into Hearthstone and what you do in the scene.
- Is there anything in particular you have going on right now that you want people to know about?
- Where can people find you on the internet?
- [anything else to ask]
How's life and ladder? -
Edelweiss -
Wickedgood -
Magesa -
Dawn -
News Highlights -
Miniset Announcement, The Traveling Travel Agency!
https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24136211
- Launches September 10th
- Consists of 38 new cards: 4 Legendary cards, 1 Epic card, 17 Rare cards, and 16 Common cards
- As usual, the cards can be found in Perils packs or are purchasable as a set in a normal version for $15 USD or 2,000 gold, and a golden version for $70 or 10,000 gold. The golden version includes a bonus diamond legendary (Dungar)
- Includes two new tourist cards! (Note: you can still only have one tourist in your deck.)
- Also includes “Brochure” cards that swap between two versions
- Revealed cards will be discussed in Decksplanations
Small BGs balance server-side patch out today, 30.2.3
- Hero pool: unbanned Jandice Barov in naga lobbies (still banned in elemental lobbies) and banned Mr. Bigglesworth in Duos
- Trinkets: removed several trinkets from the pool (Greater Dalaran Cheese Wheel for being too strong, others for low pick rates) and adjusted many more trinkets’ costs.
- A few BGs-specific bug fixes
- Arena: card offering rates for several cards have been adjusted and some cards have been removed (such as lower-power legendaries/core set cards). Patch notes have details.
Ragnaros Hero Skin and News Post
- https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24135705
- A new “mythic” Ragnaros dual-class Shaman/Warrior hero skin is coming in Patch 30.4 for $60 USD or 6000 runestones (skin + 3 warrior packs and 3 shaman packs). The skin is extremely emotive and pops out of frame
- Lyons-Smith says they know this is pricey. He says premium cosmetics “will let us deliver an awesome experience to players who want the ultimate flair” and also “help us invest more into the offerings and systems within Hearthstone.”
- He says the team remains committed to “removing barriers that would prevent players from joining us all in the Tavern, including cost barriers,” such as they’ve done with “catch-up packs, improved loaner decks, the recently revamped new- and returning-player experience, and so much more, going all the way back to changes like duplicate protection and our ladder revamps.”
- The team does plan to continue to provide lower cost and free cosmetics. And to keep Mythic skins and “ultra-premium” content “special,” there won’t be too many.
- Magesa and WickedGood would like to in absentia reiterate their plea for an accessibility feature that reduces the opponent’s hero animations
- Also coming in Patch 30.4:
- a free event that gives a card back, a cosmetic coin, and two different hero skins
- all Wild boards in rotation for Standard
- a “favorite boards” feature
- a “major Arena update for early next year”
- for Standard, some “fun updates” building up to the expansion, “including something we’ve never done before”
- there will be “more to share” on Pets in early 2025
Interview with Game Director Tyler Bielman
- https://www.thegamer.com/hearthstones-new-director-wants-to-be-fearless-not-careless/
- Bielman isn't taking a more visible role because “giving opportunities to developers that are earlier on in their career is more important to him than taking the spotlight for himself.”
- Bielman “describes the relationship between the community managers, the content creators, and the high-end players as ‘tightly knit’ and a constant source of input and direction for the game. … A lot of the current design team is made up of those streamers and high-end players who are ‘very in touch with the player point of view.’”
- The Hearthstone team’s current focus is on a) picking and choosing focus in order to “over-deliver” in the areas that are most important and b) using experiments like Twist to test out new ideas without the risk of a full new game mode.
- Bielman says abandoned game modes like Duels are necessary to avoid “spreading the team too thin.” He cites Battlegrounds Duos as a very successful new feature for an existing mode, saying, “That’s an example of a focused effort that we can only do with a lot of the team centered on that idea, and not other areas.”
- But “the team also needs to continue experimenting to find ‘the next big thing.’ … Twist is an event-based mode where the devs can try stuff without committing to an entire new game mode that may or may not be successful. ‘I don’t want to add another thing into your day-to-day play,’ Bielman says. ‘If we ask you to come look at this thing, it’s because we think it’s cool and probably, secretly, we’re looking to learn something.’”
Tournaments
Let’s just skip details for this week; we can do both weeks next week
CCLS - “All You Can Beat Buffet”
Lineups:
Results: (this is new info as of 9/5)
- Undefeated after week 4, Americas: DoctorBOMD and SSJ5GOKU
- There will be one more week and then a top 8 playoffs
Highlights:
Decksplanations
Miniset Cards Revealed so far!
You can see the card library or it’s probably easier to use the CC discord images channel.
- Clarification on Zephrys: you pick from 3 static buckets of classic cards and then it gives you two random cards out of that bucket. Unlike khadgar or original zephrys, it does not take the game state into account at all. Source: Hat.
- You can see the card pools in the card library through “related cards” but they’re all mixed up. Here’s one best guess at how they might be divided up (Hat hints that ice block goes with high mana because ‘an extra turn is like 10 extra mana’)
Outro (~5min) - Thanks and contact!
We have many folks we'd like to thank - check out our THANKS! section on the website at www.coinconcede.com, where you can also find our contact info, our show notes, and our Patreon information!
-You can monetarily support our show at www.patreon.com/CoinConcede
-Join us every week live, by following us on twitch at twitch.coinconcede.com
-Join our community chats in our Discord at discord.coinconcede.com
And write in to our email at coinconcede@gmail.com
-Follow us on Twitter @coinconcede
-If you would like some CC swag, head on over to our shop at shop.coinconcede.com
Coin Concedes (Shout Outs):
CHEERS -
RAIDS -
SUBS -
WickedGood -
Edelweiss -
Magesa -
Dawn -
Keep Calm and…
And if you see us on ladder…
“Coin Concede” WickedGood
“Coin Concede” Edelweiss
“Coin Concede” Magesa
“Coin Concede” Dawn