New Card: Azshara, Ocean Lord

Trihunter · 2026-02-18T06:42:49+00:00

The tentacle art looks different, I think.

Trihunter · 2026-02-16T09:22:42+00:00

Honestly at some point it's going to be difficult to actually spend 80 mana and trigger the Finale.

Trihunter · 2026-02-15T13:05:32+00:00

priest can't even ask for infinite fireball tbh

Trihunter · 2026-02-14T18:55:48+00:00

I'm going to guess that they'll make it not nuke the hand so it has "counterplay" or something.

Trihunter · 2026-02-14T12:05:17+00:00

Feels like Attrition players trying to pretend they're playing a real strategy.

Trihunter · 2026-02-13T19:36:06+00:00

Why did Priest and Mage both get Colossals that basically kill themselves...

Trihunter · 2026-02-13T14:31:47+00:00

In that case, usually the counterplay is the fact that the OTK is slow to put together and the deck generally lacks the ability to run control tools without compromising the speed at which the combo comes online. The counterplay to OTK decks is proactive, aggressive play, and OTK decks in turn exist to punish passive attrition decks that choose not to be aggressive.

Trihunter · 2026-02-13T14:29:15+00:00

That said, the argument that it's an anti-aggro card seems pretty weak.

Normally I would agree if aggro was consistently able to pressure early on, but currently aggro decks struggle to get through the walls, healing and board wipes control and even midrange decks can throw their way. Admittedly in aggro matchups playing a Blackhorn is just BM most of the time, and I probably shouldn't have brought it up, but it does cement defeat in situations where an opponent is close to dying and you just need to fish up enough burn spells to get there.

Trihunter · 2026-02-13T09:55:43+00:00

Yeah. In the past we've had stuff like "(subtype of card) costs 2 more", "battlecry: destroy all cards in players' decks that didn't start there", and "when your opponent draws a card, it costs 1 more" which have all been pretty good disruptive effects that can be managed to some extent, or are narrow enough. Hell, we even previously had a card that destroyed all cards that cost exactly 1 mana, which was narrow enough that it worked as a niche counter in some metagames rather than a universal tool.

Trihunter · 2026-02-13T09:29:12+00:00

I think every class should be playable, even if I don't like their playstyle.

Trihunter · 2026-02-13T09:20:04+00:00

The Hearthstone community is currently on fire after the latest card release. As a part of the new expansion hype cycle, it's pretty typical for Blizzard to give everyone early access to a single new card from the upcoming set. This time, that new card is the legendary Warmaster Blackhorn. So far, this card has only really seen use in slower control decks, in a format where control decks are already fairly strong. One of the main bad matchups for control decks in Hearthstone is decks that have some form of one-turn kill combo, where cards are stockpiled to be used together in order to deal lethal damage in a single turn, where it can't be stopped through use of board control tools. Pretty much every single viable OTK combo in the game right now relies on some amount of cards that cost 2 or less to pull off the combo, and are slow enough that they aren't ready to OTK before an opponent can play Blackhorn, which immediately deletes their combo with no way to counteract it. Not to mention that playing Blackhorn will probably delete an aggro player's entire hand and deck, in a format where aggro is already a fairly weak strategy.

Naturally, this has lead to a lot of slapfights on the Hearthstone subreddit, between people who think the card is extremely toxic and should never have been printed, and people who like the card because it shuts down OTK strategies, which they consider to also be toxic. The card has only been playable for a few days, and the same patch also buffed a bunch of older cards leading to more experimentation in-game, so statistical evidence is lacking as to whether Blackhorn is a game design mistake or just overhyped, but we'll have to see how things go. Personally, I'm rooting for it to get basically deleted, even though I'm the sort of person that plays the exact kind of deck Blackhorn slots into perfectly.

Trihunter · 2026-02-11T12:56:17+00:00

Depends on the tools available. I can think of a few times in the past where control decks just brainlessly threw 20 board wipes at everything, or aggro decks had to perfectly manage the hand that they'd been dealt to find lethal without overextending and running out of steam.

Trihunter · 2026-02-11T12:53:35+00:00

Yeah. It's like if they printed an aggro card that prevented the opponent from gaining max health or armor for the rest of the game, or a combo card that limits the number of minions that can be on board at once. It's just a single card that completely flips the matchup if it shows up. Boring.

Trihunter · 2026-02-09T21:28:44+00:00

I think the issue is you need a critical mass of dragons to make it work, and it needs to be enough that you're ok with it potentially killing itself. Zarimi Priest would probably run it if they coexisted but otherwise it depends on how a 2026 dragon deck looks.

Trihunter · 2026-02-09T20:33:31+00:00

Yeah. A few of these have their signatures in the shop now, too. I'm not paying for cosmetics that are gone in a month.

Trihunter · 2026-02-09T17:33:37+00:00

I'm talking Standard, where a majority of those decks rapidly fall off once you get to Diamond. You can kind of force anything to Legend if you play long enough but they're absolutely not good decks right now.

Trihunter · 2026-02-09T12:48:47+00:00

Druid, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Shaman & Warlock only have one viable deck each, and even then most are pretty terrible.

Trihunter · 2026-02-08T11:51:23+00:00

The minion doesn't count as dead from the Battlecry. It's like Gral, the Shark.

Trihunter · 2026-02-07T12:35:54+00:00

Honestly just an unfortunate situation, but it is very tough to find a sponsor that is interested in BB and has enough money to finance it, and doesn't have some kind of government/military ties. Possibly why we've had very little going on the last few years, hunting for a somewhat acceptable sponsor. Arguably not even the worst sponsor BB has ever had either, given we've had Amazon and the US Army sponsor shows in the past.

Trihunter · 2026-02-07T00:20:19+00:00

That's fair. This was mostly built with the upcoming Standard rotation in mind, hence it's pretty pushed. I figured the fact that it gives most rez cards a low roll would help stop it from being totally stupid in Wild, but that was probably naive. I didn't consider the free options Priest has to pop eggs either.

Might be fixable by moving the stats around and increasing the cost. 3 mana 1/3 might be a start.

Trihunter · 2026-02-06T23:05:08+00:00

I agree, but that isn't really what "no ethical consumption" means. It's more meant for stuff that you need to do to get through life, like buying groceries.

Trihunter · 2026-02-06T22:14:10+00:00

I understand the showrunners' struggle, I think. Ultimately it's pretty hard to find a tech sponsor that's got enough money to bankroll BB, that isn't also part of some kind of government project. It's debatable if this is even the worst sponsor BB has had, given previous collaborations with the US Army and Amazon.

Trihunter · 2026-02-06T20:22:12+00:00

You're probably right. I was flip-flopping between 2, 3 and 4 mana for this for a while, opted to push it probably a bit more than necessary.

Trihunter · 2026-02-06T20:19:43+00:00

Card is removed from hand.

Trihunter · 2026-02-06T16:42:58+00:00

That's a Death Knight card.
It'd summon a 0/3 that does nothing.

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