times. Only one of them came back to pitch the next day. That was Oakland swing man Andrew Triggs, who threw 53 pitches out of t

As expected, Blizzard announced its next expansion for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft at this past weekends BlizzCon. The Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, Hearthstones fourth full-scale expansion, is set to be released in early December and will consist of 132 cards.The biggest change shown thus far is a series of tri-class cards, a departure from the past in which cards have all either been playable by one specific class or by all classes. This addition goes along with the general theme of the expansion set of three warring factions in the city of Gadgetzan, a neutral desert trading outpost found in World of Warcraft. The expansion draws heavily on the gangster film segment of film noir, with a generally lighter tone than the previous full expansion, Whispers of the Old Gods, that had tentacled monsters consuming souls rather than brightly covered gangsters in fedoras and pinstriped suits. MSG will also be the last set of new cards until next years rotation that will shuffle Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers out of the Standard format.Well be discussing the card set and how the cards are likely to affect competitive play in the coming weeks, but today, were focusing on ESPNs card reveal, the Grimestreet Pawnbroker.How does this card fit in competitive play and how likely will it have a key part in the upcoming meta? While there are many cards still to be released, the Grimestreet Pawnbroker does use variants of mechanics with a long history in Hearthstone.Lets start with the basics. Its at three mana, 3/3 card at its core, a common stat configuration in Hearthstone. 3/3s match up poorly with the three mana 3/4 cards, of which there are many, so the playability of a 3/3 depends on it having a valuable effect.Looking at class cards, there have been ten 3/3 cards, of which about half have seen significant play at some point: Aldor Peacekeeper and Steward of Darkshire in Paladin, SI:7 Agent in Rogue, Silverware Golem and Void Terror in Warlock, and Ravaging Ghoul in Warrior. All of these cards have a significant effect to go along with them, one with the potential to be abused, whether its SI:7s ability to do damage and affect the board immediately, Silverware Golems ability to be played for free, or the Whirlwind which attaches to Ravaging Ghoul, which triggers other Warrior effects.The Pawnbrokers effect is a Battlecry, giving a random weapon in your hand +1/+1, these days, most likely a Fiery War Axe, Fools Bane, or Gorehowl. Weapon effects are common in Warrior, but we havent seen an effect quite like this, with the usual effect being to either give the player a weapon (NZoths First Mate, Arathi Weaponsmith, Malkorok) or enhancing a weapon already in play. This card instead applies its effect to the weapon cards themselves, making a Fiery War Axe a 4/3 weapon, Fools Bane into a 4/5, and Gorehowl into an 8/2 (which allows a face damage turn without destroying the weapon).But is this card good enough to see play in the likely Warrior builds? Thats a bit trickier. Affecting the card itself is a bit slow - a Warrior wants to be playing the Fiery War Axe on Turn 2 or Turn 1 with coin against decks with an aggressive early game, not waiting until Turn 4 to play a 4/3 weapon instead. A 4/5 Fools Bane can remove more cleanly cards like Azure Drake and Tomb Pillager (more often than not, the Warrior will have already had to deal with one or both Totem Golems).The best way to think of a card is a Shattered Sun Cleric (three-mana 3/2 that gives +1/+1 to a minion) for weapons instead of an on-board minion. The Cleric is a playable card, but its just not good enough to find a spot in highly-refined decks. Its certainly better than Ogrimmar Aspirant, a three-mana 3/3 that gives +1 attack to an equipped weapon with Inspire -- not enough of an effect considering you need to use five mana for it not to be vanilla -- but Aspirant wasnt even close to making any tournament decks. The effect is also less useful to an aggressive Pirate build as the Pawnbroker cannot buff the Rusty Hook equipped from NZoths first mate, while Bloodsail Cultist, a 3/4 for the same mana cost, can.Warrior has a lot of competition for the three mana slot and its hard to see this card fitting right now in most decks. Among class cards, Bash, Fierce Monkey, Frothing Berserker, Ravaging Ghoul, and Shield Block all vie for spots in decks and a Warrior can run only so many three-drops. And Im not sure that Pawnbroker fits Warriors goals better than any of these cards. If Pawnbroker makes it into competitive Warrior decks, I think it would have to be after the rotation, when Bash and Fierce Monkey leave.In Arena, this card is more likely to see play simply because a three-mana 3/3 is more playable. Deaths Bite remains in Arena and getting from four attack to five attack for turn four on-curve is the best scenario for Pawnbroker, allowing Warrior to more easily deal with a wide array of five-health four drops (the Yetis, Senjin Shieldmasta, Violet Teacher, etc.) without the fear of Harrison Jones, a card that is less available in Arena.In summary, its a neat card with a new spin on weapon enhancement. It might not fit in existing Warrior decks, but if theres a midrange or an aggressive Warrior deck out that can still get enough armor to make use of an enhanced Fools Bane and maybe an Arcanite Reaper, this could be a powerful card.But really, whats the fun of a card unveiling if its just accompanied by one persons opinion? To get a wider view of where this card fits into the world of Hearthstone, I requested input from other members of the community.The first place I turned to for a second opinion was Brian Kibler, a veteran card pro -- hes in the Magic: The Gathering Hall of Fame -- and also a designer involved in a number of trading card games, such as the original World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.It seems like a potentially powerful effect that helps hit certain health flashpoints with mid-game weapons (could be great with a Deaths Bite-type weapon to follow it up, for instance) or to let heavy-hitting late-game weapons do more damage. It pairs very well with Gorehowl, for instance, which can hit for 15 total across two attacks if you can butt if with the Pawnbroker.Kacem Noxious Khilaji, an analyst, streamer, and broadcaster noted for his deck experimentation shared a more optimistic view of the Pawnbroker than I did. This card is awesome. It will either make Bloodsail Cultist better because of the redundancy or given how straight forward it is, make it obsolete, said Noxious in a short interview. You play Fiery War Axe on Turn 2 and this on Turn 3 and you can probably get a good Arcanite Reaper on Turn 5. This might be the basis for an alternate win condition in some Warrior builds.Chris ChanmanV Chan, the host and developer of Value Town also believes that the Pawnbroker could lead to a different type of deck, one that could be a Face Warriors dream.Its different than Upgrade since you cant upgrade the weapon activated. Thats the kicker with this card, but even one 6/3 Arcanite Reaper is well worth it. When you do hit, its ridiculous in a deck like Face Warrior. 3/3 isnt that bad of a body and even if you whiff, its not terrible. If this card became prevalent, you can guarantee that Acidic Swamp Ooze and Harrison Jones will be played even more than they already are.For the Arena side of Hearthstone, I consulted with Mike SimCopter1 Bender, who specializes in this part of Hearthstone.This is a decent minion that provides potential upside while sacrificing few stats (one stat point in this case, since true three-drops have a baseline of seven stat point). This card fits multiple playstyles: It can help midrange decks get the extra weapon value they need to keep the board, it can help face-oriented decks generate enough burn to win a match they might otherwise have lost. With that being said, I think Grimestreet Pawnbroker is best used as a midrange value generator that lets your weapons clear pressure from enemy minions.On the downside, if the Battlecry doesnt hit or isnt relevant, its going to be lackluster. A three mana 3/3 is below-average in an arena meta where high state minion on-curve in games. Luckily Warrior has quite a few weapons these days, but it would be a lot better if it interacted with Arathi Weaponsmith, Upgrade!, NZoths First Mate, or Malkorok. Adidas Evgeni Malkin Jersey . Its sharpness matched my mind. This was no night to go to sleep. Cheap Adidas NHL Jerseys . The recently retired Stern was elected Friday to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and will be enshrined with the class of 2014 on Aug. http://www.adidaspenguinsjerseys.com/ . After slipping from the summit during the week, the Gunners overcame struggling Crystal Palace 2-0 on Sunday thanks to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlains second-half brace. Cheap Penguins Jerseys China . Spiller left Week 3s 27-20 loss to the New York Jets with a thigh injury, but fully practiced with the team all week and expects to be ready to go on Sunday. Adidas Nick Bonino Jersey . -- Charline Labonte couldnt have asked for a better homecoming. CLEVELAND -- The bionic reliever, Andrew Miller, threw 46 pitches Tuesday night for those Cleveland Indians in Game 1 of the World Series. Afterward, he said he couldnt wait to get right back out there in Game 2, because, well, of course he did.But we know what youre thinking: Who the heck does that? Hey, excellent question.Allow us to fill you in on exactly how rare that is. But before we give you all the numbers, we could sum up our findings in two words: Insanely rare! Now here are the amazing details:??Over the past three regular seasons, according to baseball-reference.com, there were 848 times that a manager asked a relief pitcher to throw at least 46 pitches. So that happens. But only three of those 848 came back to pitch again the next day, the Elias Sports Bureau reports. That comes down to less than four-tenths of 1 percent, which is math-ese for almost never. Got that? Great. Now lets break it down further.? In 2016, as the multi-inning reliever became more of a thing around the sport, a reliever threw 46-plus pitches in a game a whopping 325 times. Only one of them came back to pitch the next day. That was Oakland swing man Andrew Triggs, who threw 53 pitches out of the pen on June 30, then fired up 15 more the next day. For the record, he threw a scoreless inning that day, with a walk and a strikeout.? In 2015, 266 relievers threw 46 pitches or more at some point. Again, just one of them showed up in the box score the next day. That was Pirates middle reliever Radhames Liz, who had a 48-pitch outing on May 14 and followed with 19 messy pitches the next day. He crammed two hits and two walks into one-third of an inning on the back end.? Finally, in 2014, there were 257 instances of a pitcher piling up that many pitches in relief. The only one in the group who cranked it back up the next day was Braves reliever Pedro Beato, who got called up from the minors, threw 47 pitches one day (June 17), fireed 13 more the next day and then headed back to the minor leagues.dddddddddddd Even a shutout inning in that second outing didnt save him from that fate.So you get the idea. If Miller were to come back and pitch again after burning that many pitches the night before, he would be doing something that, a) pitchers of his stature basically never do anymore, and b) pitchers of even lesser stature do only in an emergency, because the rules say somebody has to pitch every inning of every game. But maybe youre thinking that the postseason is a different animal. Well, you would be correct if youre thinking that. But you would be incorrect if youre thinking that this has been a more regular occurrence in the postseason in recent years.According to Elias, no reliever has made a 46-pitch outing in any postseason game and then pitched again the next day since Keith Foulke did it for the 2004 Red Sox in Games 4 and 5 of the unforgettable ALCS against the Yankees. He threw 50 in Game 4, another 22 in Game 5 and then, incredibly, had 28 more in him the next day in Game 6. Coincidence alert: His manager was ... Terry Francona.But between Foulkes outings and Millers outing in Game 1, there were 55 instances in which a pitcher threw 46 pitches or more in relief in a postseason game. Not one of them was back in action the next day. We repeat: Not. One.It happened more frequently once upon a time, though. In fact, Foulke also had a 51/20 back-to-backer for Oakland in the 2003 ALDS. And in 2002, Francisco Rodriguez went 46/16 in Games 6 and 7 of the World Series for the Angels.Thats getting to be a long, long time ago now. But then again, we keep theorizing that Andrew Miller is redefining how the modern reliever is used -- in all sorts of ways. And who knows. He just might be ready to do that again. ' ' '