Scholomance Academy | Animated Observations

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

Feels like its been a while since I have talked about one of my favorite games of all time, probably because it has been. Not without good reason, obviously, as it has been an insane and frankly, still very depressing year. Still its worth remembering everything that happened.

The game got a whole new class in the form of Demon Hunter that ended up terrorizing the meta for quite a while. After all, when you give a class whose identity is built around attacking the opponent in large bursts the ability to also clear boards and also draw a bunch of cards, that’s usually a recipe for being broken.

On top of that, there was a return to old mechanics in the form of Dormant minions from “Ashes of Outland,” and the introduction of Dual class cards in “Scholomance Academy.” In the list of new mechanics we also got a contender for one of the worst in the games history: Corrupt, which requires you to play a card of a higher cost first in order to get the corrupted effect.

More recently though, the meta seems to have settled down, and, outside of the recent rein of Evolve Shaman and the currently dominating Ramp Paladin, it feels pretty open. It is not often that I get to say something like that considering the game’s extremely long history of broken mechanics, but with a lot of cards in “Madness at the Darkmoon Faire” feeling a bit underwhelming, and the “Darkmoon Races” mini set only brining a few more relevant cards to the table, there are plenty of decks siting in tier two that can succeed.

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Which is a good thing, right? Well, yes. Oftentimes I see people complaining about stale metas, and while yes fighting the same decks over and over again certainly is not the most fun, it does come with some benefits. When there are only a few decks that are considered top tier, as the case currently in the wild meta, it makes the predicted matchup spread significantly smaller. This, in turn, means that there is smaller pool of decks against which one needs to reasonably come up with counter-play. Thus, less competitive decks ostensibly makes “figuring out the meta,” and by extension winning, much easier.

However, people are people, and as much as competitors want to be good at something, they also want it to be fun. Cards games like Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering implement rotating formats for that reason, so that if a particular strategy becomes dominant, or the game just becomes to stagnant, there is a built in way of changing the game at some point.

Now, as previously mentioned, there are times when the game needs to change much more rapidly than that, as certain strategies becomes so dominant as to feel nearly unbeatable. This is why having a card game be online is convenient because it allows the developers to make adjustments to cards that become too powerful.

What was this post about? I don’t remember. While the last year of Hearthstone, much like the year in general, was tumultuous, there is reason to believe that it will get better.

How do you folks feels about Hearthstone these days? Let me know in the comments below.

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Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

With all of the cards from the newest Hearthstone set Scholomance Academy finally revealed, It is safe to say that this set is going to have a lot of influence on the direction of the game going forward. Certainly not as much as Ashes of Outland did with Demon Hunter, but enough to be more significant than a normal new expansion, especially with the introduction of dual class cards and the new mechanic spellburst. Today, I want to talk about how Scholomance will affect the meta, and list what I think will be the five most influential cards of the set.

Lorekeeper Polkelt

While its current decklist is surprisingly tight, it is very likely that Lorekeeper Polkelt will find his way into the current iteration of Quest Warlock. His ability to reorder one’s deck with the highest cost cards on top will make it much easier to find win conditions in the form of Dragon Queen Alexstrasza, Malygos, and base Alexstrasza. It is also likely that Polkelt will find his way into a number of tempo and control decks as a way of improving one’s curve in the late game. It might even its way into an aggro deck as a finishing tool that will let them draw into their high end cards. Polkelt’s influence resides in his wide range on utility across classes and deck types. He is certainly not a card to be underestimated.

Vectus

While not having an obvious home in any of the current competitive archetypes, Vectus is another card who’s versatility will likely give him a spot in many decks, even those for which deathrattle is not the main focus. For one, 6/6 worth of stats on turn five is pretty impressive by itself, especially split across three bodies. On top of that however, depending on the copied deathrattles, Vectus can also generate a large amount of value, which can set up for the following turn. All of this will make him a threat to watch out for.

Soulciologist Malicia

Malicia, along with the rest of the Soul Fragment package, is likely going to be a strong option for both Demon Hunter and Warlock for the foreseeable future. Not only do the fragments themselves provide healing to classes that have historically benefited greatly from it, the payoff cards for adding in fragments for classes can be quite potent. On top of that, because the fragments are cast when drawn affects, there is zero risk in clogging your deck. Malicia, arguably being the best, will likely be the bane of many people’s existence.

Sphere of Sapience

Scholomance has also introduced, along with many other mechanics, the first neutral weapon. While it may just be 1 mana make 4 of your draws slightly better, those slightly better draws could be the difference between winning and losing in a lot of cases. Though it will probably not see much play in aggro style decks, tempo and control decks will likely experiment a lot with this card. If watching Yugioh has taught me anything its that believing in the heart of the cards can often be the answer.

Secret Passage

Though Legendary cards often do have the biggest, flashiest affects, they certainly are not the end all be all of the game. Often times games are one with smaller, more consistently present affects, like with Secret Passage. To say the card is good would be a huge understatement. While Rogue currently has a lot of value generation already in the form of Galakrond and secrets, after the rotation of last years sets, this card will likely be the bread and butter of most decks for the class. Though its impact will not be immediate, it certainly will be felt.

There have been a number of sets in Hearthstone’s life span that have defined competitive metas. Witchwood introduced the even and odd deck restriction in the form of Gen and Baku, and Ashes of Outland introduced the horrifically unbalanced at launch Demon Hunter. All though at first glance Scholomance Academy lacks any meta defining cards, the ones listed here do have the potential to do so. Only time will tell now.

What are your favorite cards from Scholomance Academy? Let me know in the comments.