 Happy Holidays, THL, and welcome to Ragnaros League Season 8! In case you missed it here, the team rosters were revealed, divisions were rolled randomly, and conferences have been established. The official Season schedule is up and the New Year will mark the beginning of an intense new Season. We find ourselves with an exciting balance of brand new teams mixed in with long established league franchises, and boy are we in for some interesting storylines. In this article, League veterans Markshire and Nade will walk you through their preseason reactions, predictions, and biased opinions.
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 Welcome, once more, to another edition of THL Top 8s. The festive season has come upon us once more, bringing with it none other than a whole new season of THL action! The new seasons for both Ragnaros and Sylvanas Leagues begin in earnest on the 1st of January, so what better way to while away the last few idle days than to join our panel of Ericokey, rebobson and Sage as they take you through their picks of the top 8 players to watch out for? Of course, we want to keep things fresh, so we are restricting things to those players you might not be aware of; no Markshires or Slimschi in here, we don’t want to tell you what you already know. Whether these are players you definitely want to catch on stream, or just players you need to keep an eye out for if you are matched up against them, we predict great things in the season ahead for these guys. Tune in over the coming weeks to see if our predictions are correct, or if we have made a huge, glaring mistake!
List is in alphabetical order: Team Hearth Legends’s Legacy Series (or THL in previous iterations) has been in operation for ten seasons, spanning three years; 316 players have registered and played matches over the course of that time. Many have come and gone, some have come and never gone, but ten individuals have come and stood tall over all others: this is the THL Hall of Fame.
 With Ragnaros League Season 8 right around the corner, we have just enough time for one very special look back at the season past: to look at the season's top performers, and to award those we see fit with bountiful praise and adoration. HockeyBoyz3 and RidiculousHat take us through the Ragnaros League Season 7 Awards, the first of which at this point needs no introduction:
Season 7 Champions: Texas Stubbies Runner up: Dirty Mike and the Boys  Asuna & JetLaw Welcome, one and all, to another new series we aim to be bringing you regularly, THL in the Outside World. In this series, we will be following the experiences of THL players in their competitive exploits outside of THL; their successes, failures, trials and tribulations, and above all, what they have learned in the process. In this special first edition of THLOW, our very own Skritch interviewed JetLaw, 1 Seed of Prep Coin Concede, about his experiences winning the EvoGaming LAN tournament which took place in New York a mere 2 days after the Kobolds and Catacombs expansion launched. What’s more, he encountered fellow THL member Asuna in the final!
Welcome, one and all, to the first ever THL Top 8s! This is a new series where we will be bringing you our picks of what we believe to be the top 8 in any given subject (usually Hearthstone related, but who knows?). Naturally, Kobolds and Catacombs hit exactly one week ago today, so what better way to start this series off than by evaluating our picks for the top cards of the expansion one week in? THL members Ericokey, FollowDurden, RidiculousHat, rebobson, and Sage have each selected their own individual top 8 cards which they believe to have shaped the KnC metagame the most in the first week; with the obvious exception of Corridor Creeper. That card is so far ahead of everything else, what’s the point of even writing about it? Each individual list was compiled and averaged into the top 8 you see in front of you, which is probably the closest to science THL has ever come. Thus, I think we can safely say this list is 100% accurate, without a shadow of a doubt.* Read on to find out what the team thought and see whether you agree!
*definitely not 100% accurate.  Val'anyr: 3/5 The Paladin Legendary weapon Val’anyr is stacked with value. My first question is whether Control Paladin is a good enough deck to make use of that value. In theory you could never go a turn without having this weapon to swing (play 6, use up 7, play buffed minion 7, dies on 8, play weapon again...). But is this a win condition or are you slowly killing yourself a swing at a time? So it depends on having ample healing and threats in the deck, as well as not being way behind on turn 6. I am sceptical about Control Paladin having the tools it needs to compete. The next thought is, would this fit as a finisher in aggro paladin? Maybe, since aggro decks have consistent pressure and ample card draw (especially with the addition of Call to Arms). This weapon could be the perfect late game fuel in a deck that often fizzles due to a collection of weak minions. You can use the last swing at the beginning of the turn to see where the buff falls, before playing any cards. Now, a sudden +4/+2 is quite a boost for that 1 mana card you just top decked, and 4-8 extra damage per turn could be enough to finish the job.  Lynessa Sunsorrow: 2/5
Lynessa Sunsorrow could be enough to make buff paladin viable, but if the meta remains full of silences it may be limited to memes. One thought is, if you pack your deck with enough buff targets that demand a silence, maybe your opponent will not have an answer when you apply all the same buff cards to this card on turn 7. The other thought is to simply include Lynessa in another deck that already runs Blessing of Kings and Spikeridged Steed, which provide enough value for this card to make some noise. Again, you have to hope your opponent is out of answers or all you have left is a 1/1 ping target. But if they are, this card could win some games.  Twig of the World Tree: 1/5 The best case scenario is to follow this up with Medivh, the Guardian and Ultimate Infestation in the same turn, but that’s far from a good enough reason to run this two Legendary card combo in a deck that has infinite value. Against weapon removal, your opponent isn’t going to play it until you already have 10 mana or 1 durability left, effectively removing the Deathrattle. Of a set of bad weapons, this is one of the worst.  Ixlid, Fungal Lord: 1/5
If I see you playing this card, I will personally hunt you down with Spell Hunter. Please don’t make me play Hunter.  Woecleaver: 1/5 Woecleaver is not a card that will see play in every warrior deck nor will it see play in most warrior decks. The only archetype that might want this is some form of big warrior and I'm not even sure if that is a viable archetype or even if it is that it would want this card. There is no good way to accelerate this card out so it's not coming down until turn 8 and at that point you could prolly just play whatever Big creature you are hoping to pull with this.  Geosculptor Yip: 2/5
Geosculptor Yip is basically just rotface 2 except it's probably easier to trigger which is a plus in my opinion even if you can't trigger this twice in the same turn like rotface. That being said the only decks that would want this is a recruit warrior deck or a control warrior deck and even there it's far from the best threat in each. That being said warrior doesn't have too many big value creatures so this card would probably make the cut if that archetype ends up being good but this card will not make that archetype good.  Skull of the Man'ari: 1/5 Now this card is quite interesting. Skull of the Man’ari, at a glance, seems strong. The ability to cheat mana is always powerful, and most demons that would be run in a control deck with this card are inherently strong. However, when put into context, this card is somewhat trash. On turn 5, the loss of tempo is insane, and will most likely get you killed. The dealbreaker is the fact that this card says “at the beginning of your turn”, not “at the end”. If it was at the end, summoning sickness would be a non-factor, and it would get immediate value and tempo when cheating out big demons such as Voidlord. Instead, you lose tempo, gain no immediate value, and probably get killed by a Cobalt.Scalebane.  Rin, the First Disciple: 1/5
This card isn’t even worth really discussing in depth. It’s 41 mana’s worth of understatted minions with bad effects that doesn't even win the game every time you pull it off. Warlock just doesn’t have the ability to cheat out this much mana without just dying, and the demons you create are far too small for far too much mana. Rin will see lots of experimental and meme play, but everyone will eventually come to realize that losing every game is not a fun meme to play. |
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