Doesn’t sound too bad though.
Track record of Mengsk VS the Swarm prior to Heart :
Sc1 : Swarm pwns them on Char.
BW : Swarm does not sweat against them, actually during the Omega briefing Kerrigan stops being worried about the invaders the second Mengsk reveals himself as the agressor.
WoL : If it wasn’t for Raynor, the battle of Char would have been a resounding failure. And they needed Xel’Naga Macguffin to pull their win. This on top of Kerrigan’s invasion of the sector, which the Dominion could not stop and only ended when Kerrigan got bored.
Conclusion : Mengsk is not credible as a main villain for a Zerg campaign. Maybe if his army was reinforced by Hybrids he would have been a viable threat, but they were only present during the Skygeirr missions when we were coming to kill them anyway. It would have been better if Hybrids were more prevalent in the campaign, like for instance you see one of them in the Phaeton mission, a couple on Char and on the Moros, many more in the evolution missions, make them more present on Skygeirr and finally have one at every corner on Korhal. This would make Mengsk an actually formidable force on top of properly setting up Amon as an even bigger threat and creating a connection with the upcoming LotV. Heck, if you set up Hybrids labs on industrial worlds it would give a better incentive for Kerrigan to attack them.
But instead the Hybrids are almost filler in HotS and Mengsk is an overblown villain.
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TL;DR
The stakes are purely emotional.
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Even that is pretty forced. Kerrigan took revenge on him in BW and it was an excellent one : Mengsk wanted to rule Humanity ? He gets that, too bad humanity lost all its importance in the greater game of the sector dominance and Kerrigan now rules the actual faction that matter.
It’s like Azula getting her desired position of Fire Lord in TLA, only for Ozai to make that title irrelevant by creating an even more important position of power : both she and Mengsk made important sacrifices for something that at the end was made useless when they achieved it, which is more humiliating than simply not achieving that goal. For someone like Mengsk it is a huge blow to their ego, and Azula started going insane as a result.
Plus, Mengsk harmed Kerrigan by abusing her trust in him before betraying her, the best emotional way to get even is by backstabbing him, combined with what I said above, it makes Kerrigan superior to Mengsk in every way, she’s better at Mengsk’s game than he could ever be.
In HotS ? Kerrigan actually regressed on that part, when he announced him dead she believes him, then when he tells her he’s alive she also believes him on the spot, on Korhal she walks right into his trap without suspecting a foul play despite noticing Mengsk not trying to escape, and without Raynor’s intervention she would be dead.
It simply shows Kerrigan hasn’t learnt from her past experience with Mengsk, she’s still vulnerable to his manipulations and only won because unlike on Tarsonis Raynor got there in time. That’s not a good emotional payoff.
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Her priorities change after the artifact de-infests her. Her power base is broken and she has priorities other than sitting around brooding and using the Dominion like an ant farm. She’d rather just settle up with him and not have to keep one eye locked on him at all times going forward.
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Even a broken Swarm is barely threatened by the Dominion, once she’s on the Leviathan the Dominion (sans Hybrid) stops being an existential threat and they’re beaten at every turn, they lose Char the instant Kerrigan take over the planet’s Brood while still deinfested, the evolution missions is all about her roflstomping the Dominion at every corner, the Hybrids on Skygeirr may be a threat to her and the Swarm, but they were a non-entity in the campaign until Skygeirr where they are killed right before they could be unleashed making them a stillborn threat, and on Korhal the only threat was the Keystone in Mengsk’s office, which is only a threat if Kerrigan enters the office without backup.
Simply put, once you throw the Zergs in the equation Kerrigan isn’t threatened by Mengsk anymore. If it was a strictly Terran matter Mengsk would clearly be a danger that has to be killed, but the Swarm removes any tension Mengsk could create without throwing Hybrids into the mix. Heck, judging by all the Hybrids labs still functioning at the end of HotS, one could argue Kerrigan could have skipped Skygeirr’s destruction and it wouldn’t have impacted the battle of Korhal.
His ability to kill her is rather beside the point. At the start of HotS, he’s a legitimately dangerous threat due to her weakened state and lack of unity in the Swarm. By the end, he’s a distraction and potential tool of Amon that she’s already invested significant resources in taking down. If she leaves him alive, that just allows him the opportunity to blindside her later in some way when she cant afford to split her attention and resources.
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He’s only a threat in the Umoja Arc when she wasn’t in the Swarm, once she’s in charge of a Brood the Dominion can’t harm her nor the Swarm, Warfield’s defeat is a straight example : he could only stay on the planet because Zagara was a piss poor commander, once Kerrigan takes control of Char’s Brood not even nuking her forces could repel her.
He can’t blindside her without external help like the Raiders or Narud, that’s the whole point, especially by the time she realized Amon was a threat when the Dominion’s industrial capacity was crippled. The only thing he has against her are the Hybrid labs, which she was going to destroy anyway. Leaving Mengsk alive would pose no additional problem at all worth considering.
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Alternatively, she could not intentionally ask for trouble and just kill him since its within her power, and then she actually knows that for a fact.
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Rationally, I don’t think she should waste too much time on Mengsk. There isn’t much direct gain to be have. At least, not personally. It does benefit her ‘friend’ greatly, though.
However, emotionally, Kerrigan was pissed at herself or something about her current situation and the betrayal. Mengsk is a fine scapegoat for that. Additionally, I think she just need focus; something to pass the time and justify her murdering spree. I mean if not going after Mengsk what’s else?
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Considering how many pods she wasted in the invasion, one may argue she would have more ressources at her disposal against Amon by not killing Mengsk, and the only trouble Mengsk gave her was when she tried to kill him, an even better reason to not kill him at the moment.
Remind me to never allow Spirit’s infestation.
Anywaya’ ever since you introduced me to the assassination argument, I can’t unsee it.
Don’t worry. I need to hunt down Gradius first, then you!
I am easy to spot. I am probably 30 centimetres taller than you at least.
You remind me of DJ Karl SMORC song.
Which was funny until Demon Hunter rolled in. Don’t tell me you like Illidan 
@Brother Bifrost
I’m about 160 cm tall, though.
@Brother Marsaro
I don’t really get that reference. I have a so so feeling toward Illidan. It’s Maiev that I like.
Please remember that I don’t play WoW.
Make it 35 then.
…
Ilidan was added to Hearthstone and it’s all just straight up aggression.
Wow, you’re very tall.
Anyway, I stop playing HearthStone for so long now. I was about to go back, but then Blitzchung happens…
Now, I’m playing exclusively Faeria when it comes to card game. Seriously, though, you should try it. It pay to play, but the price is reasonable.
P.S. it’s actually more than 35 cm. I just feel like I have put a lot of personal information on the Internet lately, sorry.
As Bifrost said, Illidan and the DH class was added to HS last week, and they are so obnoxious they were nerfed 2 days after release and will get nerfed not long after.
The song I was mentioning is an old memetic 2015 song which was about Face Hunter being a retard deck only going face.
Most famous line was “If the face plays taunt, me still go face” which back then was a reference to the deck being braindead.
It was funny back in the days, especially in the last years when direct damage was not printed making a face deck resurgence more unlikely, and cards like Leeroy Jenkins getting HoF.
Then DH had a legendary which not only had Charge, but also had the effect of nullifying the opponent’s taunt minions. What was once a joke became real, and it’s not funny.
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As a side effect, it made Warlock use 2 Sacrificial Pact, as a result Galakrond Warlock (the only deck that can spawn garbage demons regularly to make use of Sac Pact efficiently even against non-DH decks) is Tier 1 right now.
And the devs have stated that Sac Pac will get nerfed soon. That’s right, DH made a previously garbage card so OP it had to be nerfed. That’s how busted DH is.
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