Hearthpwn

Pretty much reflect the majority of the group here myself. Eater is a tech card, designed to be glorious in extremely specific situations.

What you tried to design and miserably fail in was a tech card that was vengefully OP out of spite. Making something unbalanced just because you don't like a specific play style is simply wrong. 

You by now should have a general idea of what Mage Secrets are. Play around them, it's that simple. Just like Secret Paladin back in the day. 

Don't forget summoning two 1/1 boom bots.

Quote from AnxiousQuo >>

Don't forget summoning two 1/1 boom bots.

Quote from AnxiousQuo >>

Pretty much reflect the majority of the group here myself. Eater is a tech card, designed to be glorious in extremely specific situations.

What you tried to design and miserably fail in was a tech card that was vengefully OP out of spite. Making something unbalanced just because you don't like a specific play style is simply wrong. 

You by now should have a general idea of what Mage Secrets are. Play around them, it's that simple. Just like Secret Paladin back in the day. 

 

 

1. It's clear that Eater was designed as an anti-secret paladin card, so it's not wonder that it is clunky as an anti-mage card. The stat gain isn't really that relevant, as the secret you really want to hit is iceblock, ideally on the turn you have lethal. Honestly I wish this card were something like 4 mana 3/5, battlecry: destroy all secrets.

2. It is sort of stupid that the anti-mage tech card is only playable in mage. Imagine the uproar if Golakka only saw play in pirate warrior, or Tar Creeper only saw play in aggro druid. If this were the case, the community would consider them failed tech cards, and rightfully so. 

3. On the whole, it is a good thing for the game that Ice block exists. It keeps the metagame from being one-dimensional, so that there's a way to counter pure curvestone decks. But I would like to see more counterplay available, especially 'soft' counterplay. For example, I would like to see more effects that damage your opponent on their turn (a la hydrologist-> eye for an eye). Or effects like Loatheb, though Loatheb himself was way overstatted as a 5 mana 5/5. Ultimately these would be tech cards that wouldn't be auto-includes but would derive some value beyond just the body in a wide range of matchups. 

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from scout1515 >>

 

 Actually what I proposed is pretty much exactly what hungry crab is.

1 mana 1/2, OP effect against a specific set of cards, basically useless in other matchups.

 What you designed is and incredibly overpowered card for it's mana cost. You are only focused on your hate towards Secrets, and you don't even think for a second to see how unbalanced it is. There has to be a balance. The card you propose has the same downside of the hungry crab, which is not terribly bad, but it has an insane upside. When that happens, the Tech Cards are badly designed, they are not balanced. If you want a Tech Card with such a powerful upside, you need to balance it with an equally powerful downside, and you didn't, not even remotely close.

Quote from fit_of_pique >>

1. It's clear that Eater was designed as an anti-secret paladin card, so it's not wonder that it is clunky as an anti-mage card. The stat gain isn't really that relevant, as the secret you really want to hit is iceblock, ideally on the turn you have lethal. Honestly I wish this card were something like 4 mana 3/5, battlecry: destroy all secrets.

2. It is sort of stupid that the anti-mage tech card is only playable in mage. Imagine the uproar if Golakka only saw play in pirate warrior, or Tar Creeper only saw play in aggro druid. If this were the case, the community would consider them failed tech cards, and rightfully so. 

3. On the whole, it is a good thing for the game that Ice block exists. It keeps the metagame from being one-dimensional, so that there's a way to counter pure curvestone decks. But I would like to see more counterplay available, especially 'soft' counterplay. For example, I would like to see more effects that damage your opponent on their turn (a la hydrologist-> eye for an eye). Or effects like Loatheb, though Loatheb himself was way overstatted as a 5 mana 5/5. Ultimately these would be tech cards that wouldn't be auto-includes but would derive some value beyond just the body in a wide range of matchups. 

 1. No, it was designed to counter any deck with Secrets, the more secrets, the better, since your upside is bigger. When Eater of Secrets was being designed, Secret Paladins were prevalent, Freeze Mage aswell, and Mad Scientist was still available, so Tempo Mages and Hunters with Secrets were all very much alive. With that in mind, they created the best tech card possible. A terrible card against neutral matchups, with an insane and scalable upside against secrets. It doesn't get any better that this, when it comes to TECH CARD design.

2. I'm sorry, WHAT? You should report that bug to Blizzard. In my account, I can use Eater of Secrets in every single class. You need to get your account fixed as soon as possible.--- Just because you don't want to use a Tech Card doesn't mean you can't use it.

3. I'm absolutely in favour of cards like Eye for An Eye, Explosive Trap, Curse of Rafaam, even though I personally hate them as they ruin my games, but they are fair.

Loatheb was badly designed, it was a Tech Card designed much like old Big Game Hunter. Basically no downside but really powerful upside, really unbalanced card, and therefore, it saw play in an insane amount of decks, just like Big Game Hunter did.

As for that last sentence. No, Jesus, is no one reading? TECH CARD, by definition it is meant to be a bad card in neutral matchups to compensate for the fact that you are getting an unfair advantage against specific matchups. When Tech Cards don't have downsides to compensate their upside, there is no risk to running the card, it becomes used in nearly every deck, and the strategies they counter are unviable. And excuse me but all strategies should be viable, not just CurveStone. I myself don't like CurveStone and prefer to play Freeze Mage where I can actually outplay my opponents. So I shouldn't be able to play the game and the strategy I want because someone doesn't want to Tech in Eater of Secrets to make their deck favoured against me?

What I proposed is exactly in line with what already exists. You keep saying eater is the best designed card but the fact is it's weaker than other tech cards, and it was designed to counter paladin secrets. How the hell is a 4 mana 2/4 that becomes a 3/5 when it activates a well designed card? 3/5 is lower than vanilla stats for a minion.

All I want is an anti-secret card that's as OP as hungry crab and golakka crawler so there's a better way to beat mage than counter queuing pirate warrior. Something that's not put into random decks, but can be put into a counter-queue deck.

Eater of secrets is a fucking FOUR DROP. How are you going to play it after you living mana with aggro druid, or to play it with bloodlust as aggro shaman on turn 6, or play it in quest rogue period?

Look at the decks out there, nobody runs eater except for mage, since they can drag out the game and then eater + fireball for lethal.

Secret paladin no longer exists because mysterious challenger no longer exists, so that point is moot. A 1 mana 0/1 would be a better tech card in the current meta than the garbage that is eater of secrets. (which is GREAT against secret paladin, a deck that doesn't exist anymore, so that makes the card garbage)

Eater's so shitty that I'd rather just counter-queue pirate warrior against a mage (which happens to be favored against both secret mage, since the breakpoint for their minions is 3 health, and burn mage, since their board clears don't work against weapons) than to try to fuck around with such a shitty tech card.

The point of having it be 1 mana is so that you can play it with minimal negative effect on the rest of your turn. Getting lethal against mage earlier is very significant since they have tons of board clears, and can alex themself on turn 9 to heal.

A tech card should be a "I WIN!" card vs a certain matchup, and a dead card in other matchups, which is exactly what a 1 mana 1/2 is. It's exactly what hungry crab is. I've literally won games on turn 1 by hungry crabbing whatever 1 drop murloc a murlocdin played. Many of them just concede when it happens. So an anti-secret tech should operate the same way. It should destroy secrets in a manner that's stupidly OP so the other player has no chance.

If you think a minion being a vanilla 1/2 isn't a huge downside, let's see you play a deck with a goldshire footman in it and see how that goes.

This to me is the way to design an anti secret card. 

Not going to bother hosting via imgur and this is probably poorly balanced as I took all of 5 minutes to make it, but the point of making this card is to show how I'd prefer tech cards to be made.  I don't like the overly swingy nature of current tech cards.  While I think that secrets are fine as is, you do have a point in that all secret tech cards are really bad against decks that don't have secrets whereas golaka crawler is usable in matchups that don't include pirates. 

What this card does is give you a good card in non secret matchups and doesn't completely swing a matchup in your favor against secret decks.  It still does a good job of diffusing secrets like ice block or counterspell when needed, but you don't get additional benefits or swings past that.  It even forces the player to consider if they would prefer to diffuse a secret or draw a card in a matchup like paladin. 

Like I said earlier, this card isn't balanced as a 4/5 that draws with a potential added benefit, but tech cards like this should be the aim for hearthstone since sidedecking isn't a thing.  This goes for pirate and murloc tech cards as well.  A 1 mana 3/4 against murlocs and a dead card in some matchups isn't great design and creates swingy and honestly unfun games of rock paper scissors (hence the way the meta plays now).

You cant really compare anti murloc card to anti secret card and use that to justify your argument.  Apples to oranges

I miss Kezan Mystic much better than Eater of Secrets

How about indirect tech counters?  Like how Big Time Racketeer counters Mirror Entity and Polymorph Potion.

A vanilla minion that doesn't counter secrets in general but can line up against Ice Block, for example. 

4 mana 4/5: "at the start of each turn, deal 1 damage to that player."

Kezan Mystic was a fantastic tech card versus secrets; the problem was Mysterious Challenger  made her nearly useless and everyone complained there needed to be a neutral way to deal with multiple secrets. We ended up with Eater of Secrets. The problem is MC almost immediately became bad in Standard as both Avenge and Kezan Mystic rotated making Eater almost obsolete immediately.  Now with Hydrologist and Mage Secret meta back Mezan would be a perfect tech card but she's rotated. 

Paradoxically, Eater of Secrets was NOT that good against Secret Paladin.  That is a large reason it was such trash.  It was a "win more" card against Secret Paladin.  If you'd controlled the board and had removal in hand when they played MC on turn six, you didn't need Eater anyway.  If Secret Paladin had controlled the board (likelier scenario), playing Eater against his full Christmas tree probably wouldn't save you.  Eater was only good if you could use it to gain tempo on turn 4. 

It *killed* against Secret Hunter because Secret Hunter was slower than Secret Paladin and was much more invested in its secrets.  It was sometimes good against Mage, *if* you could draw it at the right time. 

It just isn't a good card.  Make it cost 3 and we'll talk. 

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from Ehronatha >>

Paradoxically, Eater of Secrets was NOT that good against Secret Paladin.  That is a large reason it was such trash.  It was a "win more" card against Secret Paladin.  If you'd controlled the board and had removal in hand when they played MC on turn six, you didn't need Eater anyway.  If Secret Paladin had controlled the board (likelier scenario), playing Eater against his full Christmas tree probably wouldn't save you.  Eater was only good if you could use it to gain tempo on turn 4. 

It *killed* against Secret Hunter because Secret Hunter was slower than Secret Paladin and was much more invested in its secrets.  It was sometimes good against Mage, *if* you could draw it at the right time. 

It just isn't a good card.  Make it cost 3 and we'll talk. 

 Paradoxically, Eater of Secrets released with Old Gods, which rotated out Avenge, Mini-bot and Muster For Battle, which killed Secret Paladin. It wasn't trash, it simply never even had the chance to be played against Secret Paladin, so it's funny you seem to forget that.

It's not a good standalone card, of course not, it's a freaking Tech Card, it's meant to be a great card against Secrets and a bad card against non-Secrets. It's fine and well designed as it is, you just don't know how Tech Cards work, differently from neutral, standalone cards.

This conversation is really based on how much you hate secrets and how you want to have a better card than Eater of Secrets which makes it pointless.  The reason it is 4 mana is because mage secrets cost 3 mana, and playing this card on turn 4 is a big swing.  Against paladin you have the same chances since Hydrologist is turn 2 making the 1 mana secret mostly played on turn 3.  So that justifies the cost of the card, as for the stats being a 2/4.  Even if you don't get a secret you can still play this on turn 4 and survive FWA, frostbolt, or flametongue totem minion.  You won't keep this in your starting hand if you're not facing a secret class.  As for Hunter secrets, you might just get 2 since they can play 1 on turn 2, and then another on turn 3.  Again, you get a decent minion on turn 4, and a chance to out value and really screw your opponent if they are playing secrets.  Right now you have plenty of decks running secrets, so it's not a bad tech choice.  You want a better card that costs less?  Pick any other card that has synergy with your deck and learn how to play around secrets.  No different than any other situational type card.  

The only reason this conversation comes up is because of Secret Mage.  It's hard to play against and is flooding the meta.  Secret Paladin was bad when it was plaguing the game, but people soon discovered how to play around it.  Any deck tracker program can show you which secret is still possibly in play.  Eater of secrets really does well against Ice Block, I don't see anything broken here.  Against a mage you don't need to remove the secret and do some kind of enormous amount of damage in 1 turn.  Usually you just need 1-2 damage for lethal that turn, which 4 mana fits well inside that margin.  The argument about Hungry Crab or Golakka Crawler is different since these are targeting aggro style decks.  There is no aggro secret deck.  All of these cards are well designed, and your argument is hastily designed without much thought.   

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from notsoclutch >>

This to me is the way to design an anti secret card. 

Not going to bother hosting via imgur and this is probably poorly balanced as I took all of 5 minutes to make it, but the point of making this card is to show how I'd prefer tech cards to be made.  I don't like the overly swingy nature of current tech cards.  While I think that secrets are fine as is, you do have a point in that all secret tech cards are really bad against decks that don't have secrets whereas golaka crawler is usable in matchups that don't include pirates. 

What this card does is give you a good card in non secret matchups and doesn't completely swing a matchup in your favor against secret decks.  It still does a good job of diffusing secrets like ice block or counterspell when needed, but you don't get additional benefits or swings past that.  It even forces the player to consider if they would prefer to diffuse a secret or draw a card in a matchup like paladin. 

Like I said earlier, this card isn't balanced as a 4/5 that draws with a potential added benefit, but tech cards like this should be the aim for hearthstone since sidedecking isn't a thing.  This goes for pirate and murloc tech cards as well.  A 1 mana 3/4 against murlocs and a dead card in some matchups isn't great design and creates swingy and honestly unfun games. 

 No, they are great designs for Tech Cards. You just seem to not understand the purpose of a Tech Card. You want independantly good cards that can also counter certain strategies, which means those strategies become unviable since there is no risk to use those cards in your deck. That is HORRIBLE design for Tech Cards. Look at how Big Game Hunter prevented 7+ Attack minions from being played for 2 years because it was independantly good and risk free to include in any deck. You played Dr.Boom for the Boom Bots, which were better than Dr Boom himself, and you played Alexstraza as Freeze Mage to use her Battlecry. Nothing else saw play, simply because a terribly designed Tech Card existed called Big Game Hunter. You don't want that kind of Tech Card to be printed again, it prevents the Target strategy from being playable.

The thing that is actually unfun is having cards and strategies be unplayable in the game because of badly designed tech cards.

Edit: By the way, the card you posted is actually almost well designed. You just have to remove the second part of the text. It if only reads "Battlecry: Destroy a random enemy secret." with those stats and no actual benefit for using it againt Neutral decks, it would be a fine card. It wouldn't be anything special as design, just pretty bland, but it would be a balanced Tech Card. When you add the draw a card effect for neutral matchups, you remove any downside of the card being a tech card, so it's really unbalanced. There needs to be a downside on neutral matchups, not an upside. It could potencially be acceptable though, and only for a specific reason. You made it a class exclusive card, where card are generally more unbalanced. It would still be bad design, but I can see it happening if it is class exclusive. Once you make that card neutral, it stops being acceptable in any way. (Even though I would personally hate Priests with that card, but at least it's somewhat acceptable.)