G'day friends, it's BlisticEye and this is episode 1340 of Walk to Work and Mobile Hearthstone podcast and today's August the 1st, which means it's a new season, but not quite. So how first are the topics? Oh, we're walking home, the Whizzbangs Heroes, the Whizzbangs Heroes Twist format for both July and June. Which I guess means shout outs to John McIntyre? No, I mean, I assume he listens to some episodes, but this would be the one where he's like, "Oh, he's talking about twisting him. I better listen." So, hey John, hey John, hope everything's all right. Anyway, yes, I'm getting sidetracked, as I always do. So I'm a little thrown off my groove this morning, so usually my setup is this recording device, it's my hand, it used to be an old phone and now it's a nice Zoom H1N, better sound quality. Last episode, somehow the sound was recorded hotter than usual, I don't know whether the mic wasn't plugged in properly, I think if the mic wasn't plugged in properly I would have heard other differences when the recorder went back into the holster, but it was just way hotter, which meant that by the time we got to the end of the episode it was distorting a lot more. I can't figure out why it was doing that. When it's done that in the past, the sensitivity dial has been bumped way up, like I just bumped it or something. But when I looked at it, it was still sitting on seven where I want it and like, it's just here under seven now, like I don't know what's changed, I'm hoping that it's fine, I was hoping to test it yesterday, it didn't, in mind. Ermell said Discord didn't really notice a difference, but I could tell while editing that I really had to crank it down towards the end there, because it was just peaking and disorting, so don't get it. So the other thing that's throwing me off is I've forgotten my headphones. I have an old set of Apple headphones that I can't actually plug into anything, but I do put them in my ears and then stuff the cord down my shirt. So when I'm walking along, talking to you all, it looks like I'm actually talking into the earbuds, right? And people will see you and they're, oh yep, he's on a call with someone, fair enough. Whereas right now I've got nothing in my ears because I forgot to bring them, I've got a microphone clip to my shirt, but it's black, I'm wearing a black jumper. People aren't going to say, jump a pullover, I think US people call it a pullover, wool acrylic blend thing, it's quite nice, quite comfy, with winter it's kind of important to have it on. Anyway, people probably can't see the microphone, they're like, well that's just a crazy person, which, to be fair, I should probably earn that, I am, but anyway, look, twist. Back story of twist, new format we've had for a wee while now, probably close to a year, actually I think. That comes back periodically, goes away periodically, some people have said, should it be here all the time, maybe just with repeat formats, I feel like if we're here all the time and I assume Blizzard thinks the same thing, that people would be less inclined to engage with it, like I think making it scarce available only some of the time is what helps make people engage with it. Overall, I think people don't engage with twist enough as it is, I do find that the queue times can be a little arduous, like I'm generally looking at one to two minute queue times and I think my MMR is falling low enough that it should, it should usually be better than that. Like if I'm queuing standard with a similar MMR, I get opponents almost immediately. So the number of people who engage with twist is lower than I would like in general. The twist format we had for both June and July, which is unusual to get two months of it, was Wizbang's Heroes and this was, I talked about this a couple of months ago, about how I thought it was one of the better format ideas we've had in a very long time, because you don't have to build a deck, you just come in and if you own a particular legendary, you can just pick it and you're playing that deck based on that legendary. You don't modify the deck, you don't have to do anything, and it's such a refreshing way to approach the game, like the whole thing with Hearthstone is that you're building your own deck. You collect cards, you build the collection, you're quite proud of your little dragon horde collection there, a little smile over there going, "Oh, little of these little shiny cards, where?" That's how it goes, I think so. I sound just like Benedict Cumberbatch, not going to lie, I don't know. This is a stream of consciousness, I had no intention of actually saying the words I've just said, but somehow I went there anyway. Anyway, you build your collection, you use the collection to build decks, people post their decks online, you copy them, you modify them, you build your own decks, all that kind of stuff. That is a big foundational aspect of card games in general and Hearthstone, and this twist format said, "All right, but what if we didn't do that?" And I know a lot of people are like, "Well, I don't like that idea, I like having a collection, I like building my collection and building the decks, and even if I'm just copying other people's decks, I like all that." So yeah, but you know what, it creates this barrier to play, it creates a sense of, it's like a chore thing you have to do to go through before you can actually hit play. Before you can hit play, you're going to make sure you've got the cards, you've got to make sure you've built the deck, you can do all of those things. Gosh, the road works sounding awfully noisy this morning, gosh, you can do all of that stuff before you can play, which is fine, that's what people sign up for with card games. But this twist format was like, "Okay, I just go to the play screen, pick the hero I want, push play and I'm playing." And I thought that was an excellent idea because since the advent of card games 20 or 30 years ago, and online card games 20 years ago or whatever, or even the advent of Hearthstone 10 years ago, like the game space has changed, and of course, people's attention spans have changed, where they just don't have the time or attention to want to do something like Hearthstone anymore. Oh, this is really loud as they get close to their squash. Maybe it's just louder than I expect because I don't have my headphones in. I don't think they're very sound particularly. We're now walking away from it, that was the peak of it, that was the worst of it that should be, not as bad now. I hate to think how that's going to turn up a post. We will see. Anyway, people's attention spans thanks to social media, mobile phones, all that stuff, it's shorter now. People don't have the same time and attention to spend, it's like, like, the example I give is obviously I was very heavily involved with Magic, we're gathering for the longest time, I enjoyed it a lot. When I tried Magic Arena again, a while ago now, actually. I know that Mongoose was old enough. Hello, puppy. Mongoose was old enough that I felt like I had the mental space to be able to do it, and Gert hadn't been born yet, and I tried Magic Arena and I found that I could play, like, two, three games at most in an evening, whether it be draft or constructed, and it was done. Like the evening was over, I was out of time, I was like, "Oh, gosh, that's a lot of time investment for this." And I used to remember, obviously, I used to like that, but I don't feel like I have time for it anymore. And then I was like, I can see now why I prefer Hearthstone, it isn't that it's a better game, it's just that I don't really have the time for games like Magic the way I used to, and that's fine. And a lot of people do that and find that and have that, that's how their life is situated. God, whatever that noise is now, it's terrible, but I'm waiting for someone to back into a driveway the week. All right, we're getting away from the noise. Good, good, good. Anyway, Hearthstone fits my life better, and I get to play that, but then, of course, things have sped up even more for a lot of people, and so now they play things like League of Legends and even just Hearthstone Battlegrounds, because you push play and go. For me, Battlegrounds, it takes a lot of time to play a Battleground, so I don't have a lot of time for it, so I kind of fall out of habit with it, and so I don't know what's going on with it as much, which is a shame, because I liked it. But gaining patterns have gotten condensed to the point where the burden of having to manage a collection and build a deck before you play has been a lot, and Twist was really good in offering this Waspanks Hero for June and July, Waspanks Hero, heroes, there were multiple as an option, and when I played it to Legend and June, I was like, "Wow, this is really refreshing." I had a week where I was playing that in a barely touching Hearthstone letter for Standard and Wild, which meant a week of just not looking at decklists on websites to see what was good, and I was like, "Wow, that felt so good, I was just, I was freed from this burden, I hadn't realized I'd been shouldering for so long," and of course, since then, I've been doing it more because it's fine, I'm used to that, I don't really mind, but it just felt like a holiday where I was playing this Twist format, and I was like, "This is amazing, if Hearthstone were made today, it should be made like this." Obviously, it wasn't made today, so it's not being made like this, but I was really impressed by just how frictionless it felt to do that. So why haven't I made Legend and Twist in July? Well, there were 19 heroes in June, I remember I played Illidan in the end, but I had been playing something else, I don't even remember what, it's so long ago, I'm sure if I went back and listened to the Legend story time for Twist in June, I would be like, "Oh, right, of course I played that, haha," but it was fun and I enjoyed it and I felt like there were edges to be gained and I picked a deck well and I used it to get to Legend and it felt pretty easy and it was good, I felt rewarded. In July, they added some more heroes. Now, I don't want to blame these additional heroes, but something went wrong for me. I made it to Diamond 5 relatively early in the month, I think, and things went well, but then once I got to Diamond 5, I've been at Diamond 5 since then, I'm still there now and it's like, "Oh, did you stop playing?" No, no, not at all, in fact I kept playing a lot and clearly, my win rate was averaged around 50%, which is, I think, technically what's supposed to happen, right? And the thing that differentiates us from a 50% win rate is that sometimes you find an edge and then you get to capitalize on that edge and then you make it to the next milestone that you're after, which traditionally for me is Legend. Now I got Legend and Standard Wild, so this isn't like a failure of a month here, but I think it's really interesting that somehow I was able to find an edge in June and not able to find an edge in July and I guess the difference is there are new heroes. There might also be differences with, you know, my focus on playing at the time. There's a new hustle and expansion that obviously that's drawing a lot of attention away from things for me, I think maybe that was it, but I do kind of feel like maybe it was these new heroes. Now, the new heroes in question at the start of the month were clearly Marin, the manager and Thoram Stormlord. Now Thoram Stormlord was basically even shaman with a +2 buff on totems, so a very strong aggressive deck. So strong, in fact, it kind of bugged out, made it even stronger than I had to take it out for a while. It's still quite strong now, but it's also a bit boring to play, but I did play it a fair amount and that accounted for a lot of the climbing. The other one I did play a lot was Marin. Marin is like some kind of miracle rogue style thing. The hero power is literally shuffle three coins into your deck and I don't get it, but the passive is whenever you play your rightmost card or card. So what happens is just end up doing these huge turns, we're just playing a million cards and making giant lirois or bite, weed imps or whatever they are, like it's a lot of fun to play, not necessarily as much fun to face. So between that and Thoram, there's like really super aggro or really high rolly Edwini stuff. There are a few other things as well, there's Queen Ashara, which is basically Spikelash Siren Mage, the Naga Spell, Naga Spell thing. So it does that. Basically every time you play a Naga or a spell, it switches to the other one and then you refresh your mana crystal. So you can spam a lot of stuff onto the board and generate a lot of stuff. It's also a lot of fun and I played that a lot. Those are the three new heroes I think that were quite impactful this month. I think Calthas was actually in last month as well, but people played that a lot more now. I think we've got to point where people realize it's fun or they think it's good, but all of these strategies just seem to be incredibly swingy. They're not... I want to say there's not a lot of decision points, but there is a lot, especially with Calthas and Queen Ashara and even Marin, the manager, like maybe not so much with Thoram, but like there's just a lot of really big swingy things and while you get a lot of fun and agency and things that are happening, it still feels like the result of the game was out of your control. Ah, they made a 30-30 Edwini, they didn't have anything to stop it. Well, all right then. Oh, they just spammed a whole bunch of totems and then buff them all and I just couldn't stop them. Oh, okay. Oh, that's a bunch of Naga. They hire all of you. So the hero power for Queen Ashara is, if it's set to Naga, you pay one minus, use your hero power. It adds a random Naga to your hand. And then when it switches to spell, it refreshes and you can pay one minor again to add a random spell to your hand. And then you play Naga and switch it. So you don't always have to be using it because that's spending money and you'd rather put things in play. But it won't randomly generate splatlash siren for you, but there are some things that you discover in Naga and you can discover a splatlash siren and I had a game where I had splatlash sirens, like, you could not spend your minor. Like, you just run out of board space and it's like, oh, this is absurd. Anyway, look, it just kind of felt like there were a lot of high rolls, which are fun, but also nowhere that you could gain an edge, and it often felt like the result of the game was out of your control. And I met Peace with that. I met Peace with the fact that I'm going to play enough games, but sometimes I just, I wasn't meant to win that game. My opponent was going to win it. Good for them. They enjoyed that. As the month went on, again, I'm not sure if it was that I was not paying enough attention to how the format went, or whether it was just so swingy that it was just really difficult to find edges. Maybe if this format went on for 12 months, I would eventually get legend and I don't know. I was enjoying it. I really, really, really enjoy the frictionless way in which you can just pick up and play with that. It's really good. Like, you have a quest, Hunter or Warrior? I don't know. I'll pick one of the Hunter or Warrior characters and go play that. Like, the characters that I've named so far are not the only ones that are good. Like, I've played ETC a bit, which generates a lot of taunts and buffs taunts in your hand. I've played Brand Bronzebeard, which doubles a lot of battle priors and makes a lot of beasts and things. I've even played King Crusher, played Nuzaf. I've even played Rifam. I have not played every hero, but there's a lot of them, but I've played so many different heroes. I mean, if I had an autobiography after posthumously autobiography, it would be like, my opponent beat me with the thing and then I wanted to try it, would be the title, because like, "Oh, that Nuzaf just crushed me. I want to try that." And it feels like each hero has some number of cards that if they get those, they're unbeatable. And that's just how that is. And look, it's fine and it's fun, and I think the end result is I should be training to 50-50% win rate there, but I don't know. It did not feel very good to not get legend there, despite having played a lot of games a twist. But that's the only thing I can say is wrong with this twist format, is maybe the additional heroes that were added weren't great, maybe the swinginess of those heroes was just a little bit too much. But overall, the concept is amazing, and I'm looking forward to when it comes back probably with different heroes, I'm guessing, but maybe not. Maybe it would be similar cards. I mean, it would feel weird for it to come back, and the card pulls that they're all playing with outside random generation, or like, a year old or whatever. But look, overall, I really, really, really think this twist format was amazing. It's a shame that people didn't engage with as much. I do understand. Like, people aren't just sitting around going, "I'm waiting for a format here." They play what they play. They only have time to play what they play. Like, I play standard, play a bit of wild, play a bit of battlegrounds. "Hey, you should try this twist format." Well, I've already got this other thing that I'm doing. Like, you want me to stop that and do something new? There's always going to be a little less engagement with something like twist. But this twist format was, I think, probably the best one of all, notwithstanding the fact that I could not find an edge in the end, and that, you know, may just be a me thing. I don't know. But it was great. I really, really thought it was good. I mean, maybe two months was too many. I don't know. I do think if they took it away after one month, people would just be going, "That was a mistake. You should bring it back. This should be an evergreen thing." And two months is enough for us to go, "Okay, maybe not evergreen. I don't know." But I do think maybe even there's a different game here, a different structure for a game instead of a collectible card game where it is just this kind of thing. I don't show how you monetize that. You monetize the characters, you monetize cosmetics. I don't know. But like, the ability to pick up and play a card game the way Wispeng's Heroes wasn't twist. I cannot overstate how smooth and good that was and how good it was to be able to just complete Quest by going, "Well, look, yeah, I know one of those heroes. Well, let's go play that." And it's just so good, so easy, it's just made things so much easier. Because the more difficult you make things, the more difficult it is for you, I've logged into that. I've got to play Warlock Death for a Quest. I don't have a Warlock Death. I've got to go look up a Warlock Death. Let's build a Warlock Death. Let's go. Maybe I draft Warlock and Arena. Maybe if I'm off it, I don't know. There's just a lot of hoops and the more hoops you help for someone to jump through, the more likely at some point they have to go, "Oh, I think I'm just done. I don't think I have time for this anymore." And it's an exit point and they leave. And that's a shame, but it is how that goes, right? That's how everything goes. People come and go from games, and naturally it's usually just because I just don't fit that anymore. I've found something else I prefer. And that's normal and fine. And game designers understand this, and they know that the richest pool of new players is returning players. They're like, "Hey, maybe I'll go time to play that again. That sounds cool. I want to try that." Like, it's no mistake that games will try and play on nostalgia from their players, and sometimes it's to try and lure people back. I think Wisbang's heroes would be an excellent way for someone to come back and play, because they'd say, "Ah, yeah, I've got some of those old legendary cards. I can just play so this sounds cool. I'm going to do that." Anyway, it's probably time for me to play some Hearthstone. I'm paranoid. I can have a lot of things, I guess. Paranoid the recording devices. Peeking. Let's have a look at now that I've got my role. I'm speaking. Is it peeking too much? No, it doesn't seem too bad. It seems fine. I don't know why I did it last episode. I don't get it. At least the microphone coming out wasn't catastrophic. I thought it would be. I think I mentioned this last episode. When recording with a phone, whoops, somebody's going to try and run me out of it. No, they're not. When recording with a phone like I used to, if the headphone cable came out, or the microphone cable came out, the recording would just pause and just stop, which is obviously not ideal. I think I could plug it back in and push recording in and it would just pick it up. Let's just keep going, because it has its own onboard mic, and it's like, "Cool, bro, let's just keep going." You can only hear a slight difference as I drop the recording thing on the floor. Clearly. I want to say disregard for the property in which I used to record this podcast. I'm recording it while walking. There's going to be dangers where sometimes I drop things. Anyway, we were all unlocking the phone and we're playing so hard. I think there are lots of great things that I could try and stand in and thought I would try, but also, if I'm talking about Twist today, I should say goodbye to Twist by playing a Twist Hero. I'm going to play Twist Hero that I've not played a lot of. I've played a little bit of. I even played a game with it last night, and that's Dr. Boom. Dr. Boom has a Hero Power, which is two minutes, someone at Boombot, you know, a little one-one that explodes for a one-to-four damage randomly on something, and the passive is whenever a minion dies, gain one armour and shuffle a bomb into your opponent's deck. Welcome to my head. Hey, how are you doing? I've lost to this. I've beaten this. I don't think it's a particularly, incredibly good hero. I just felt like playing it, so we're playing Dr. Boom today in Twist. See how it goes. This will hopefully give you an idea of how the games play. They're all over the place. They're swinging. It's fun. But I'm not entirely sure it's an avenue for competition, that perhaps I'm usually striving for more than I realize. I think I've always been a little bit competitive. Not greatly competitive, more creative than competitive, but I do like a bit of competition. I'm not sure. I do like I do enjoy a little bit of playing around and clowning around, but a lot. All right, through the Heroes, where are we? Dr. Boom should be on this page. Here it is, Dr. Boom, I'm diamond five and one star, business-high as diamond three in this format. Almost got to diamond two, I believe, and then just lost some. It probably lost a lot if I fell to the rank five floor again and again and again. These things happen. Like you swing up and you swing down. Old school listeners will understand those references. New school, maybe not so much. Maybe one day I'll have time to talk about that swinging up and down. So the back button's gone. We found an opponent. I guess time of day makes that a little easier, which is good. Interesting, it did not say the names of the Heroes, which I thought it did, but maybe I don't play Twisted to Sound on really often. It looks like the opponent is Kel'thelas, and we're Dr. Boom. Kel'thelas is the mage one, where at the start of the turn they get a random temporary spell that they can afford to play this turn, so they can generate a lot of stuff. And also anything that didn't start in their deck costs one less. Very strong. We haven't only handled with a replicating menace, a ferocious how, a shield to them. I don't feel like we need any of that stuff. We can't just spend mana on a hero power quite happily. That deck over there is going to generate a lot of value. Some of that value will be used to remove our minions, so let's not think that we're going to get a lot of value there. What we're going to do is generate a lot of bombs and hopefully they'll block the opponent. The downside, of course, is that Kel'thelas has a lot of trouble with hand size, and they may just overdraw the bombs. Is what it is. All right, so we got some cards back. We didn't get anything. We can play and turn one. What did we get? Attack controller, it's a three-man or two-one battlecry, summon two-one-one microbots. Okay, lots of minions. We've shuffled bombs in there. We've got a snipe ball, three-man or one-two mech. You're the mix of possible attack battlecry summon two microbot copters. We've got a blast master boom, shuffle summon two one-one boombots for each bomb in your opponent's deck. There'll be a few birds hoping to do that. And a reckless flurry, spend all your armor, deal that much damage to opposing minions. Our opponent has played on turn one, a naga centaur. Where'd that come from? Guard the city. So the spell that they generated, this turn is a one-man or spell that summons, there's a two-man or spell that summons a two-three taunt against them some armor. What do we draw? We draw a drone deconstructure. Let's just run that out. Oh, it's a turn two, that's right. Magnetic poisonous. Sure, we'll put that on there. Maybe I should use my hero power this turn? I don't know. They have a two-three taunt. I have a two-three poisonous. Next turn, we can play Skyclaw or we can play Microtech controller. They're not particularly strong players, but they are spamming a lot of little minions on the board which will shuffle a lot of bombs and gain us some armor. Keltha, let's start with 35 health. We start with 35. They're playing. Looks like the spell they have in the deck. I think it's the warlock spell. Can't remember what it's called. We'll know in a moment. We should discover two warlock cards, therefore they will cost one less. So that's pretty good. They've discovered the first card now, they're discovering the second, and then it'll appear in the history and I'll remember what it's called. Then I guess their two-three taunt will attack past my poisonous minion. It's called Twisted Knowledge. There's the coin. I didn't realize that when you mouse over things in the history bar it dampens the sound. There's a coin Firefly. The flame elemental from the Firefly has got a zero mana so they play that as well. Take a couple of one-twos and a two-three taunt. We'll draw in a code-light Oracle. Code-light Oracle is cute. It's going to draw some cards. It'll help over-draw our opponent, but we don't want them to have a full hand. So, Skyclaw or Micro-Tick controller, I think Micro-Tick controller is better here. It doesn't pair up with the stuff well, but the Skyclaw will just get value traded down by the two firethings and that doesn't seem like we're getting as much value out of it. So let's just Micro-Tick controller. Our poison into the taunt. All right, so they've got a couple of one-twos. We've got a couple of two-twos, one of which has poisonous, a couple of one-twos. I guess they'll value trade down the one-twos maybe, I don't know. We should see. We'll use that hero power. There's Astra Rift. It's a two-month mage spell. Add a couple of random mage minions to your hand. They will, of course, one less thanks to Cuffless. Suspicious Usher. That was created by Astra Rift. They're discovering a one-cost spell, I think it is, and if I guess it, I get a copy as well. So we'll see what it is. So it's worth checking to see whether they play at this turn, but obviously they want to try not to, so not to give it away. Looks like they are indeed value trading down the one-twos. Oh, no, no. One of the one-twos, and then trading the flame elemental into the poisonous minion maybe? Yep. More bombs shuffled into their deck. There's a frequency oscillator. Someone just tried to run me over in a pedestrian crossing. That's a bit cheeky. Unstable. Fellbolt took out one of the minions of mine, one of theirs. Was it created by? No. So I've got a two-one. They've got a two-one and three-one. Okay. So suspicious Usher discovered a legendary Minnos, the priest one. So either Belinda Stoneharth, Malagos, or Magidoma Excutus, those are all pretty bad. I don't know that I actually want any copies of any of those. Let's assume it's Malagos. It is Malagos, because they don't want Belinda Stoneharth. It'll draw them bombs. All right, so they have a two-one and a one-three and I've got a two-one, so we can trade. We've got four mana. We don't have a good play that involves hero paring and something else. We can trade. We've got three armour, so we could reckless fire to kill their minions. It doesn't seem worth it either. I think we're just going to play Skyclaw. Trade our two-one into their two-one. So we've got a couple of two-one micro-bots and a one-two that's buffing my mechs. They've got a one-three, so they have to find something to take out the Skyclaw if they want to. But not a terrific use of the mana. Dr. Boom, last master boom, doesn't tell us how many bombs are in the opponent's deck, but there are a few. Unstable portal is a two-man of mage spell that adds a random minion to the hand that costs three less. It'll cost four less. There's a prismatic elemental from hand, because I'm guessing the random minion they got from Unstable portal is not playable. Prismatic elemental discovers a spell from another class, makes it cost one less, and it'll cost two less. But overall, low and pecturn from them. I mean, the thing is, is they will continue to generate a lot of value as the game passes, and at some point, they'll just outvalue us. So we're hoping that they don't generate so much value that they're never drawing card unique and they're just over drawing cards. Oh, there we go, there's a Zero Mana auctioneer beardo, that'll be what came from the Unstable portal. They traded into one of the bots. They're discarding cards that were generated by the hero power thing. They can come back later, by the way. They have Cho Gar, which is a legendary eight mana, seven, seven, return all cards you hand that you discarded this game, and they cost health instead of mana. So that's pretty nasty. Anyway, they have a three-four, a one-one, and a one-three, we've got a one-two, and a two-one. You've got five mana suits, oh, look, dynametic. This is a mech, this is a deal. If I damage randomly split to my all minions except mechs, I have mechs. So let's see, if I trade this mech into that thing there, and then value trade down the suspicious up, actually the dynametic will kill everything else, good, good, good. Their stuff dies. Might as well not. So I have a one-one Skycopter, is that what it's called? Yeah, Skyclaw, sorry, and now a four-four dynametic, we've got nothing. Again, I've lost kind of how many bombs in the deck, but by the time I get to turn seven and play Bassmaster Boom, it's going to summon six Boombots, which seems good. Ooh, they line manipulator, this is a four-minute far four-five, they reduced the cost of cards in your hand that didn't start in your deck by two, which is very strong. They're playing a bog beam on my dynametic. How do they get plus-most-veiled image? Oh, they also play they go with the flow, giving their minion plus-most-veiled image. That's fine. All right, what have we got here? Six mana explode nader. Battlecry, summon two, zero-two, goblin bombs. Only downside to playing that this turn in hero-powering is I'm adding like four minions to the board. Next turn I want to clear board on my side so I can summon a whole bunch of blastmaster Boombots, but also I'm effectively almost doing that this turn anyway, so we might as well. We're creating extra boards. We got a face with our Skyclaw, they'll probably value trade it down because all these mechs up, summon just got plus mana tech because of it, and you know, they'll probably want to try and clear all the bombs. Hey, they've drawn a proper bomb, they're pushing down 32, oh, a second bomb, loving it, pushing down 27, and then a regular card. So currently they have seven cards in hand, so they're not close to having a full hand where like one's maker, that's four of the six mana, it's going to random one cost spell, the amazed spell, and of course that costs one less. At some point we want a cold light oracle to make them draw two cards, we don't want their hand to be so close to full that it causes them to over-draw anything because then they'll over-draw bombs instead of actually drawing bombs. So when their hand gets low, then we cold light oracle them and hope we hit a couple of bombs. Anyway, there's a arcane worm, because of an arcane bolt, we're on like 33 and 6 armor, so 39, that's pretty good. So we're feeling okay so far, there's a raven call, this is a three mana two one, adds two random one drops of hand, they'll cost one less. So it looks like we'll be able to trade a lot of our minions in the next turn, maybe not, like these golden bombs won't be able to trade because they won't have a attack by then because yeah, they're value trading down the sky claw now, another bomb into the deck, they've got no mana left but I'm sure they've got a couple of one drops they can still play. So they have a four-four, lay-line manipulate, I guess we trade our three two into that and then the goblin bomb. Oh emerald reaver, that's a two-one, that was one damage to each opponent, and then the sky's on the end turn okay. We're drawing a bash. So we played blast master boom this turn, we're going to miss out on a couple of boom blasts because we'll still have two goblin bombs and play that aren't dead. But that's alright, we've still got other things we can play like, we can hear a player, actually we can reckless flurry. This isn't even a board that I'd want a reckless flurry, it just takes away my six armour and does six damage to all minions including ours, it'll destroy some things and they'll go face. But then I'll have two mana left, two hero power and another two mana left to maybe bash face or something, I don't know, I don't think we need to bash face. But I think that sets up to play a big blast master boom next turn, maybe we can wait until next turn to do that. So let's instead ferocious hell, ooh, from the scrap heap get three magnetic spark bots with random bonus abilities. Now I've got four mana left and I want a hero power a little bit, but also let's just see what's in front of the scrap heap first, life steal, rush, win fury, I mean these things will help get rid of the goblin bombs so maybe we do play one of them, two of them this turn, life steal on the three two so that trades with the big one, this trades into one of those. I'm doing a poor job of communicating what I'm doing here, magnetics too slow, too many animations, my rope burnt out, I just put another, I put a win fury microbot on one of my zero two bombs and they couldn't attack with it because there was bomb animations shuffling into my deck, they still have a one two and a two one, I've got a zero two bomb, a goblin bomb, when those explode they did two damage to the enemy hero and a one three win fury goblin bomb, I assume that'll die, but next turn I'll have eight mana, I've got a rush microbot left in hand, so if they leave up the zero two goblin bomb, I can equip the rush microbot to it, hopefully trade it into something, then I'll have nothing left on the board, they're playing army of the dead, that'll do it, that summoned five, two two risen ghouls with rush, they're taking out all my minions, shuffling bombs into the deck, I'll have nothing left, but then my board will be fearless turn, I can play blast master boom, which is something a whole lot of boombots, and not only that, I'll be able to strap a rush microbot to one of them, and have it rush in, which is nice, okay so they've got a full board, my transit card out while I'm struggling with this, I usually have it handy, alright blast master boom, here we go, it should be six boombots, it is, one of them has rush, so I guess that trades into one of their two twos, and a ten, alright, get at the explosion go, another bomb in their deck, took out another two two, that's what we want to see, so they've got a three two ones, a two two, and a one two, they've drawn another bomb, putting them to seventeen, we still have five boombots in play, warning those things do explode, we also have a seven seven, they're playing an axe with it, that's a three out of three two death rattle, and two arcane bot to the hand, now I'm pretty sure they still have an arcane bot in hand, we need to be careful in fact that they can do a lot of damage, but rush on looks like forty nine, so it looks like they're trading into boombots, explosions are taking out two twos and things, this is getting dicey for them, they've got eight cards in hand, we could almost be getting to the bot where we caught that oracle of them to see if we can hit some more bombs, but I feel like that will just not happen, we'll get the bombs otherwise, they're continuing to trade into boombots, more bombs have been shuffled into their deck, the deck currently has forty nine cards, I don't know how many of them are bombs, but I'm guessing we're in double figures by now, there's a cascading disaster corrupted destroy three enemy minions, that destroys the rest of my minions, three more bombs going into the deck, their axe litter is gone, from the explosions, their last prison ghoul is gone, and oh they've been left with a one one arcane weapon in the end of turn, oh the spell that they're here apparently given them was announced, this one, I'm on reveal cards, so they've got a one one in play, they're on fourteen health, that's not much, we've got a bash in play, we've got a malagos, a malagos got nine, so it's not like we can go a malagos bash, but we're gonna make a rune, we're clearly here, I think we are clearly playing cold light oracle, now they have eight cards in hand, so we're gonna make them draw two cards, they won't get a free card from the Harry Pan accident and they will over draw a card, but we also don't have a lot to play right now, so we might as well just do it to draw cards for ourselves, so cold light oracle, what have you got for us, oh Voltron, and general Visex, they didn't draw any bombs, and their hand is at ten cards, so if they draw any bombs next turn they're overdrawn, which shame, but could be worse, we've got six malagos, I guess we used this, shield block, and then to boom, have we had any big mechs, I don't know, but we have a Voltron in hand which can play, we can probably do Voltron this soon I guess, but Harry power, I think we just bash paced, that puts them to eleven, there's no point bashing the one one, ah they overdrew a bomb, could be worse, but there's a ton of bombs in there, like they do have the opportunity to keep their hand full from now on, by not playing very much stuff every turn, each turn it'll generate a random spell into their hand, so they can only play one thing at turn if they do that, oop boom bot explosion went to the face rate, they've played malagos for six mana, created by suspicious alchemist, lab, ooh lab partner, plus spell damage, soul barrage, dealing twelve damage divided by all enemies, they've got one mana left, arcane missiles dealing nine damage amongst all enemies, this is zero mana as well, oh and they've got three arcane bolts, I don't know that this is lethal, but they're going for it, they're on eight, lots of arcane missiles, there's an arcane bolt doing nine, well they should have two more of those, that puts me to thirty five, two more will put me down to like seventeen, they haven't got very many cards, another arcane bolt puts me to seventeen, they still have a four twelve malagos and a one three lab partner of course, oh and an eight eight mana join, that's pretty good, synthesise is adding three elementals to their hand, one two and three, minus they'll be able to play one of those, it's a task line, maybe I should have saved my shield block so I can uh, flow away this turn, there's a bomb toss, let's see, they've got twelve thirteen, thirteen attack with the minions and play and I'm on seventeen, so that's not great, exactly, but also I don't think it's the end of the world, how can we gain some armour that's turned to, to reckless lorry, we can't bomb toss, two damage, so I'm going to zero to a golden bomb, that's not great, Voltron, I think we just use Voltron here, they'll have to attack it down, Voltron, here we go, we've got a micro bot, now we're going to use the Voltron ability, which is gain plus two plus one, deal four damage to a random enemy, it'll do that twice because we have a micro bot to do it on, so it hits their lab partner and their face, nice, so they still have a twelve attack in plan one seventeen, bomb toss isn't doing much useful, this is put on their face, but there's two, so now they're on two, we have a goblin bomb and play, which it dies, they die, unless they gain some health, now they've got five cards of hands, they didn't draw a bomb, it's fair enough, can we die this turn, they've got an eight eight and a four twelve, there's a marsh bone, Velcro if you cast a spell last turn, discover a spell, they're looking for lethal, they need five damage I guess, and if they don't find it they need to start value trading my stuff down, there's a heat wave doing seven damage to all my stuff and me, oh that kills me, but no it doesn't because the goblin bomb dies and kills them, alright neat, that's good, goblin bomb, oh no it only did one, oh no it's the boom bot did one, and now the goblin bomb puts them to negative one, ha ha ha ha ha ha, nasty, so I just, I don't know heat wave for seven because they have a melodice and play, that's too strong, but I forgot that they were on four last turn, I did two of them, put a goblin bomb in play saying that if the goblin bomb dies they die, ah we got there, anyway as you can see, an absurd amount of generation and high rolliness and all over the place, and it is fun, but also it's not necessarily an area where I can go, alright well my brain says I can do this that and the other to gain an edge, and that's how I'm going to, you know, make my way to legend, that just doesn't seem to happen, so I don't know, I really liked it though, I really did enjoy twist, I'm not upset that I didn't get legend, but I am like puzzled by not getting legend and it's maybe sitting there and going, how come I didn't get legend, am I not taking it seriously, probably not, I'm switching heroes all the time, but then maybe that's just the right way to play a game like this, I really know, I'm not sure, but overall I really really really think this twist format, Wisping's here, is the best twist format they've ever done, and the best addition to Hearthstone they've done in a long game, it's a sleeper incredibly good move, I think a lot of people are sleeping on it, and for good reason too, probably like their lives are full, they don't have room for something new, but I think this is a really encouraging way forward, did the devs accidentally stumble onto something good, or did they know exactly what they're doing, I don't know, but I am personally encouraged that even if they didn't know what they're doing, that they have recognised what they've done, and they're like, this is good, this is a good approach to take, anyway, time for me to sign off, although I trained to just go, right, like I'm playing a fire there, these things happen, apparently another, level 51 on the rewards track, I've got my golden marron, I'm getting closer to my golden Zormu, feeling good about that, good times really, enjoying latering a lot, so look, we're on the train platform, I got here all the way without my headphones on, whether people thought I was crazy or not, that's a different story, I didn't do a patron thank you, did I? I did get distracted, here we go, apparently I went totally out of order, last time I did some thank you, so I had to mark it, but anyway, today we're thanking Anthony as a patron, and while we're at it, we might as well thank Jeremy Warner as well, so thank you to them and also all other patrons who support the work we do here, we, I mean it is mostly me, even though that sometimes you'll see my daughter in here as well, she contributes a little bit, but not a lot, but I guess know that if you're a contributing patron, it goes a long way to supporting us as a family, it allows me to do this work and allows her to engage with it as well, which is fun, there's another train coming out again on that, so anyway, follow me on Twitch, Twitter and YouTube, Atlas the Guy, follow the podcast, walk to work at you on Twitter and come hang out and Discord, Discord.me/blistaguy, and if you can't afford to support, and only if you can afford it, patreon.com/blistaguy, otherwise tell a friend, leave a review, hang out, it all helps, all out of breath, it's raining a little bit, but not enough to have the umbrella, it's the awkwardest weather, anyway look, it's always a pleasure to have you join me for my walk to work, good luck everyone, and everything you do, because you're all absolute bloody legends, even if you don't make legend in Twitch, you're still a legend, and I love you all, I do, even if you don't make legend in Hearthstone, you're still a legend, like in the sense that you're a bloody legend in the sense, you're a legend mate, that kind of thing, you're a legend Harry, you know, that's not Harry Goes, a different thing, well I don't think we're supposed to engage with that property very much anymore, although I separated it out from the Atlas or something, oh this station is built into the port, so you can see it, it's a great place to go, it's a great place to go, it's a great place to go,
