The Angry Chicken #59: The One with Brian Kibler

Hearthstone Posted 2014/12/24 at 11:22 AM by Jerek

Mech MageGvG Priest cards

On The Angry Chicken this week, Brian Kibler of BMKgaming.com guest hosts with Garrett and Dills. Brian talked about his experience so far with Goblins vs Gnomes, his games against Darkwonyx in the ESL Legendary Series, Fel Reavers, Mech Mage, and more! All of the GvG Priest cards were also reviewed this week, spoiler alert: everyone loves Vol'jin. There were also many emails concerning the Good Gaming Tournament that turned out to be one of the biggest messes in tournament management the Hearthstone world has seen in awhile.

Vote for the next GvG class-cards to be reviewed on episode 60 here: tinyurl.com/tac60

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The Angry Chicken is podcast about all things Hearthstone. Garrett, Dills, and Jocelyn cover news, strategies, crazy game stories, and take your emails every week. Jobs done!

Comment by 1343837Great show guys! Hope Brian Kibler joins another time (maybe with Ben Brode). I think almost all of the analyses for the cards were spot on for constructed. However, I do have to disagree with your rankings of both Shrinkmeister and Velen's Chosen in arena, as in my opinion, the grades should be switched.

Arena has taken a rather interesting turn since GvG, and I feel that evaluating the cards by standards prior to GvG release is incorrect to say the least. 3/2s are not the most dominant statline of a 2-drop anymore (2/3s are), and there is also an increase in 1-drops this time around. I'm surprised you mentioned that "Velen's Chosen does nothing when you're behind", while failing to mention that Shrinkmeister's effect only works if you are slightly better than even in board state (excluding rare combos).

One also should note that Priest is a value class in arena (as opposed to a tempo class), and has the goal of out-trading the opponent. This is significantly easier to do with high health minions, as opposed to "zoo-ing", for lack of a better term, your opponent down. Velen's Chosen also offers a much better comeback mechanic, should you be both behind in cards and board, as the effect of giving your next played minion +2/+4 is many times better than playing a "vanilla" 3/2. Lowering the grade to B because "It isn't Dark Cultist" is not a valid argument. Neither is Shrinkmeister! Velen's Chosen has a low manacost for increasing a minion's health, part of the reason why PW:S is a near autopick.

As a comparison for how effective the value gain can be, think of it as getting Millhouse Manastorm from your Piloted Shredder. In my humble opinion, Priest should have never received a minion stat buff card, just for how potent the effect is when combined with the hero ability. The spell damage is pure gravy on top of the enormous health buff. And this doesn't even take into account some nightmare scenarios of coining this out on a 1-drop; 3/7 Northshire Cleric anyone?

I feel this is a great example of how two very good cards are able to be stars of their own format. Shrinkmeister is clearly fit for constructed, where the reliability of combos makes this card downright unfair at times. Velen's Chosen can't provide enough tempo to hold significance in constructed, but rivals Dark Cultist for the best Priest common card.

Just because of these two cards, I feel priest has become the 2nd best Arena class (after Mage, before Paladin), but in a draft of the three priest neutral commons: Dark Cultist, Shrinkmeister, Velen's Chosen; what would you pick? I, and I'm sure many others would agree, would have the preference of Cultist>Velen's>Shrink as the first choice of an arena draft.Comment by mantose262I always have a problem with buff cards. Its so easy to lose card advantage in this game. Too many classes can use one card to cripple or remove your buffed minion.

Most of the time, instead of 1 buffed minion I would rather have 2 normal minions on board for better control.Comment by hamberglarThis is exactly why Aura cards in Magic (Brian's native language) are so loathed. They're too easily 2-for1'd. It's pretty much worse in Hearthstone since you can attack creatures directly, unlike Magic.Comment by 1387348I agree that buff cards are weak conceptually but I disagree that they are worse in Hearthstone. The card advantage you lose if it does get 2-for-1'd is not as detrimental in a game where you are drawing playable cards every turn. Card advantage becomes much more important in Magic because so many of your cards are devoted to resources. Also, being able to attack creatures directly makes buff cards better in my opinion. Being able to use these stats to your advantage by attacking into your opponents creatures to make favorable trades makes them much more proactive than buff cards in Magic. Overall you still have to have reservations about buff cards but I think Velen's Chosen is a very solid card and I'm happy that Blizzard is trying to make buff cards good enough to be playable.

Agree with Kibler on Shrinkmeister. I was so excited about this card upon release but in practice this card is somewhat limited.