Hi there, I'm Sixpips. I've made legend pretty consistently the last year, both with aggressive and control decks; and I come from a background of 15 years of Magic The Gathering. I enjoy playing Hearthstone and I have noticed a few things that make this game different from other TCGs and I wanted to have a polite discourse on why I believe Hearthstone's engine inherently prevents a control deck from emerging as a top deck in the format.
Many TCGs have interactions on the opponents turn, allowing a person to respond to a potentially devastating play before it gets out of hand. It is understandable that this isn't possible in Hearthstone. Having priority pass between the players and giving a player an opportunity to respond on an opponents turn is unreasonable with the current 90 second clock for turns. This would be detrimental to the fact that one of the upsides of this game is that you can jam a game on your phone during a 15 minute break at work ( one of the little joys I currently do regularly). Adding the ability to respond to an opponent's spells and creatures on their turn is unreasonable as the game stands, and I don't believe that a retooling of the entire game is reasonable for this mechanic alone. That being said, there are ways that this game punishes players attempting to play a control deck that I believe Hearthstone could fix.
The first way that hearthstone punishes a player for playing control is the nature of the game. Hearthstone is inherently a game about garnering tempo and value from each card in order to implement your own strategy and force your opponent into being reactive. This is important to note as the way a deck begins to "lose" a game is by having to react to an opponent rather than being proactive. This makes control decks, which are reactive in nature, start on their back foot inherently. If I'm starting a game as a warrior and I queue against a paladin, I automatically go into the mindset of "What can I do to survive the first 7 turns of the game?" This is before my opponent has played a single card, and I'm already re-actively motivated. This reactive mindset plays into minimizing tempo loss rather than seizing tempo gain, and causing a player to feel behind from the first turn of the game. The next punishing thing of the game is the inherent value of spells vs minions.
Let's say my opponent is on turn 2 and plays a haunted creeper. I have a darkbomb in my hand. Both of these cards cost 2 mana. In a vacuum, a 2 mana card should be of nearly equivalent value to another 2 mana card. However, what we find is that if I spend my dark bomb on my opponent's haunted creeper, a couple things happen. Firstly, I played a spell card that I will not get back in my hand. I've spent 2 mana for an effect that I am hoping will have an impact on the board. Secondly, my opponent's creature dies. That would be a meaningful impact on the board, except that minions in hearthstone are grossly over valued compared to spells. We both have used a card from hand; I have no value after my card, and my opponent has now 2 minions on the board after I utilized my spell.
Deathrattle effects in hearthstone inherently punish reactive play. Your opponent commits a resource, and it is irrelevant if you spend a spell to eliminate that resource, because that 1 for 1 trade is going to leave your opponent ahead once his deathrattle effect triggers. "Sticky" minions such as creeper, mounted raptor, piloted shredder, sludge belcher, etc. all have this inherent advantage that costs a reactive player more resources than the proactive player who played the minion. The other ability that a few minions in this game have that is punishing to reactive players is Charge.
Charge is a mechanic that I believe Blizzard is recognizing the negative impact of...albeit slowly. Blizzard has already stated they want games to be battles for board position, and don't want a player to be able to just kill from his/her hand. That was one of the reasons for the Warsong Commander nerf (RIP). In a game where you cannot react on an opponent's turn, a minion with Charge is basically a spell from the hand that has an upside of sticking around after it hits the opponents face. This is the reason the newer midrange patron decks are beginning to play Kor'kron Elite. This is the reason that 99% of warrior decks since beta have found slots for Grommash and some sort of enabler. This is the reason that when you queue against a druid, you have to kill every single creature they play. Instead of trying to steal the tempo of the game by having the bigger board presence, you are forced to fight over the most irrelevant minions because they can just force of nature, and savage roar you out of the game from an extremely high life total. Charge is a non-interactive ability that removes feasible decks from the game. The last point I wanted to approach in regards to punishing reactive play is the game's severe lack of board clears.
In Magic The Gathering, there are board clears from every mana cost from 2, on up to 10. This is also a card game that does not cap the amount of mana you have. The thing is, these board clears are only played in a narrow margin of decks. Ask anyone, they'll tell you they are healthy for the game and are not breaking in any way. There are many conditional board clears in the game as well, however there is a 4 mana board clear that has been printed in core sets for the better part of 20 years called Wrath of God. Boom, done, no more creatures. And yet there have been formats it was in that it wasn't even a staple. Now in Hearthstone, we do not have the reactive cards that allow us to control an opponent such as a game like Magic The Gathering. We do not have the ability to respond to opponents on their turns. We also don't have the ability to generate insanely large amounts of mana so that we can clear the board with 1 card, then drop multiple threats in the same turn. Yet we find in Hearthstone that the board clearing effects are in fact, much weaker than in magic. This prevents a player from stabilizing as a control deck, and switching gears to begin closing a game out in their favor. You can't play a Reno-lock deck and struggle to survive at 4 life only to wipe the paladin deck's board with a Twisting Nether and then play an Antique Healbot to ensure you don't die to a Truesilver Champion swing. Twisting Nether is the most complete board clear in Hearthstone, and it's nigh unplayable because of the expensive mana cost of the spell. Then we look at board clears other classes have. Brawl has bit me in the rear end more times than I can count. Forcing me to spend 5 mana and a card, plus whatever board presence I have, to hopefully get rid of an opponent's big threat and his smaller minions, only to look at my now empty board and my face that just took 8 from boom bots while staring at my opponents completely healthy Dr. Boom is not a value play. Thanks Brawl, much obliged. Then we come to Flamestrike. Dubbed "winstrike" in arena, it's a potent card in that format due to the inconsistency of a drafted deck, that doesn't have a sticky effect on every minion and is midrange enough that games aren't decided before turn 7 every time. In constructed we find that Flamestrike is rarely played, and if it is played it is usually a singleton in a deck such as freeze mage. Freeze mage is a control deck that has been popular since the inception of Hearthstone, and I wanted to discuss what is different about the deck that sets it apart from other control decks.
Freeze mage has a number of inherent advantages over other control decks that allow it to be successful in even the most aggressive format. The big thing about freeze mage is the combination of stall effects while not really being interested in fighting for the board. Freeze mage doesn't have to fight for board control like every other control deck in hearthstone. They have access to the only 2 card 5 cost board clear in the game (doomsayer frost nova), and even then their board clear isn't what causes the deck to be successful. The deck has the ability to ignore the relevance of it's own life total courtesy of ice block, and assemble enough burn in hand to kill the opponent. That's what a successful control deck is in hearthstone right now; it is a deck that can ignore it's own life-total, ignore the inherent disadvantage control has fighting for the board with spells, and kill the opponent in a non-interactive fashion. Everyone has had that freeze mage sitting at 2 life with a secret up and he plays alexstrasza and targets YOU with it instead of himself. Then the next turn he tosses a couple burn spells at your face after being made immune with his secret and wins the game. That isn't the kind of non-interactive Hearthstone I want to be forced to play if I want a control deck, any more than I want to be forced to play an aggro deck.
In conclusion I believe that Deathrattle Effects, Charge, and from the hand kills are a detriment to not only the ability to play a control deck in hearthstone, but also the spirit of the game. I am not presenting solutions, as anything I present would be irrelevant to the community (I don't work for Blizzard...unfortunately) and am more interested in seeing if anyone else has drawn the same corollary from their experiences in the game, and what unhealthy mechanics the game has in it. It may be that Hearthstone is a game that shouldn't have a control deck in it in the first place, although I certainly hope this is not the case. Everyone has their favorite play style, I simply hope that in the future Blizzard allows those of us who prefer control over smorking to enjoy the play style we prefer as well. I look forward to a well formulated discourse with any who took the time to read this! (Or a troll war, that works too.)
I'd also like to point out that Blizzard thought Freeze Mage was too good at control at one point early in the game and nerfed a number of their spells. So, it seems that, not only do they not want Aggro dominating, they also don't want Control dominating either.
I do agree, though, that Blizzard has been slowly reacting to how good Charge is. They nerfed Warsong Commander twice, after all. They will probably revisit some of the Charge cards in Classic during the rebalancing, so they don't have to design around these every expansion, as too many charge cards is bad for the game, as you say.
The problem with control is all the QQing players it seems to attract. Most of the winning is from greedy players who refuse to tech and adjust to whatever they are facing.
This is not really aimed at OP who at least provides reasoning why certain mechanics function to beat control.
Imo deathrattle that summons a new minion has been under costed, especially in naxx/gvg. Future expansions which incorporate this should make sure to adjust mana cost.
As far as charge beating control, that is not really a design flaw so much as the fact that charge is usually the lynch pin of combo decks, which are control's natural predator. why should the game be designed to eliminate the counter to the greedy and dust heavy decks? Bc the loudest QQs come from the people who have sunk the time and money into crafting greedy control decks?
Well many control decks use charge as there wincondition. Else they would go to fatigue every game. This is okay sometimes but not very efficient for latter.
Control decks are to a certain extent quite viable, but with the current ranking system only an idiot would use one to rank up. That's really why they aren't that viable, they win games, but at too greater cost, a sort of Pyrrhic victory.
Control games take too long, and are often predictable and boring for both players. When using another deck, if I can play 5 games to your 1 then there's an inherent disadvantage there which I think is a bigger issue than not having board clears to fit a specific play-style. If I play against a control deck there's another 4 games I could of played in that time against other decks.
I think you have to look at the Ranking system first, before you even begin to think of making control decks viable.
An interesting post. The thing is that Blizzard has made several mistakes. Many cheap minions are so extremely cost-efficcient, that you need to use the likes of them to combat aggro. Plus cards like Dr.6,7,8 are so powerful, you can put a couple of those into your aggro deck to boost your staying power immensely just for a few cards.
Hi there, I'm Sixpips. I've made legend pretty consistently the last year, both with aggressive and control decks; and I come from a background of 15 years of Magic The Gathering. I enjoy playing Hearthstone and I have noticed a few things that make this game different from other TCGs and I wanted to have a polite discourse on why I believe Hearthstone's engine inherently prevents a control deck from emerging as a top deck in the format.
Many TCGs have interactions on the opponents turn, allowing a person to respond to a potentially devastating play before it gets out of hand. It is understandable that this isn't possible in Hearthstone. Having priority pass between the players and giving a player an opportunity to respond on an opponents turn is unreasonable with the current 90 second clock for turns. This would be detrimental to the fact that one of the upsides of this game is that you can jam a game on your phone during a 15 minute break at work ( one of the little joys I currently do regularly). Adding the ability to respond to an opponent's spells and creatures on their turn is unreasonable as the game stands, and I don't believe that a retooling of the entire game is reasonable for this mechanic alone. That being said, there are ways that this game punishes players attempting to play a control deck that I believe Hearthstone could fix.
The first way that hearthstone punishes a player for playing control is the nature of the game. Hearthstone is inherently a game about garnering tempo and value from each card in order to implement your own strategy and force your opponent into being reactive. This is important to note as the way a deck begins to "lose" a game is by having to react to an opponent rather than being proactive. This makes control decks, which are reactive in nature, start on their back foot inherently. If I'm starting a game as a warrior and I queue against a paladin, I automatically go into the mindset of "What can I do to survive the first 7 turns of the game?" This is before my opponent has played a single card, and I'm already re-actively motivated. This reactive mindset plays into minimizing tempo loss rather than seizing tempo gain, and causing a player to feel behind from the first turn of the game. The next punishing thing of the game is the inherent value of spells vs minions.
Let's say my opponent is on turn 2 and plays a haunted creeper. I have a darkbomb in my hand. Both of these cards cost 2 mana. In a vacuum, a 2 mana card should be of nearly equivalent value to another 2 mana card. However, what we find is that if I spend my dark bomb on my opponent's haunted creeper, a couple things happen. Firstly, I played a spell card that I will not get back in my hand. I've spent 2 mana for an effect that I am hoping will have an impact on the board. Secondly, my opponent's creature dies. That would be a meaningful impact on the board, except that minions in hearthstone are grossly over valued compared to spells. We both have used a card from hand; I have no value after my card, and my opponent has now 2 minions on the board after I utilized my spell.
Deathrattle effects in hearthstone inherently punish reactive play. Your opponent commits a resource, and it is irrelevant if you spend a spell to eliminate that resource, because that 1 for 1 trade is going to leave your opponent ahead once his deathrattle effect triggers. "Sticky" minions such as creeper, mounted raptor, piloted shredder, sludge belcher, etc. all have this inherent advantage that costs a reactive player more resources than the proactive player who played the minion. The other ability that a few minions in this game have that is punishing to reactive players is Charge.
Charge is a mechanic that I believe Blizzard is recognizing the negative impact of...albeit slowly. Blizzard has already stated they want games to be battles for board position, and don't want a player to be able to just kill from his/her hand. That was one of the reasons for the Warsong Commander nerf (RIP). In a game where you cannot react on an opponent's turn, a minion with Charge is basically a spell from the hand that has an upside of sticking around after it hits the opponents face. This is the reason the newer midrange patron decks are beginning to play Kor'kron Elite. This is the reason that 99% of warrior decks since beta have found slots for Grommash and some sort of enabler. This is the reason that when you queue against a druid, you have to kill every single creature they play. Instead of trying to steal the tempo of the game by having the bigger board presence, you are forced to fight over the most irrelevant minions because they can just force of nature, and savage roar you out of the game from an extremely high life total. Charge is a non-interactive ability that removes feasible decks from the game. The last point I wanted to approach in regards to punishing reactive play is the game's severe lack of board clears.
In Magic The Gathering, there are board clears from every mana cost from 2, on up to 10. This is also a card game that does not cap the amount of mana you have. The thing is, these board clears are only played in a narrow margin of decks. Ask anyone, they'll tell you they are healthy for the game and are not breaking in any way. There are many conditional board clears in the game as well, however there is a 4 mana board clear that has been printed in core sets for the better part of 20 years called Wrath of God. Boom, done, no more creatures. And yet there have been formats it was in that it wasn't even a staple. Now in Hearthstone, we do not have the reactive cards that allow us to control an opponent such as a game like Magic The Gathering. We do not have the ability to respond to opponents on their turns. We also don't have the ability to generate insanely large amounts of mana so that we can clear the board with 1 card, then drop multiple threats in the same turn. Yet we find in Hearthstone that the board clearing effects are in fact, much weaker than in magic. This prevents a player from stabilizing as a control deck, and switching gears to begin closing a game out in their favor. You can't play a Reno-lock deck and struggle to survive at 4 life only to wipe the paladin deck's board with a Twisting Nether and then play an Antique Healbot to ensure you don't die to a Truesilver Champion swing. Twisting Nether is the most complete board clear in Hearthstone, and it's nigh unplayable because of the expensive mana cost of the spell. Then we look at board clears other classes have. Brawl has bit me in the rear end more times than I can count. Forcing me to spend 5 mana and a card, plus whatever board presence I have, to hopefully get rid of an opponent's big threat and his smaller minions, only to look at my now empty board and my face that just took 8 from boom bots while staring at my opponents completely healthy Dr. Boom is not a value play. Thanks Brawl, much obliged. Then we come to Flamestrike. Dubbed "winstrike" in arena, it's a potent card in that format due to the inconsistency of a drafted deck, that doesn't have a sticky effect on every minion and is midrange enough that games aren't decided before turn 7 every time. In constructed we find that Flamestrike is rarely played, and if it is played it is usually a singleton in a deck such as freeze mage. Freeze mage is a control deck that has been popular since the inception of Hearthstone, and I wanted to discuss what is different about the deck that sets it apart from other control decks.
Freeze mage has a number of inherent advantages over other control decks that allow it to be successful in even the most aggressive format. The big thing about freeze mage is the combination of stall effects while not really being interested in fighting for the board. Freeze mage doesn't have to fight for board control like every other control deck in hearthstone. They have access to the only 2 card 5 cost board clear in the game (doomsayer frost nova), and even then their board clear isn't what causes the deck to be successful. The deck has the ability to ignore the relevance of it's own life total courtesy of ice block, and assemble enough burn in hand to kill the opponent. That's what a successful control deck is in hearthstone right now; it is a deck that can ignore it's own life-total, ignore the inherent disadvantage control has fighting for the board with spells, and kill the opponent in a non-interactive fashion. Everyone has had that freeze mage sitting at 2 life with a secret up and he plays alexstrasza and targets YOU with it instead of himself. Then the next turn he tosses a couple burn spells at your face after being made immune with his secret and wins the game. That isn't the kind of non-interactive Hearthstone I want to be forced to play if I want a control deck, any more than I want to be forced to play an aggro deck.
In conclusion I believe that Deathrattle Effects, Charge, and from the hand kills are a detriment to not only the ability to play a control deck in hearthstone, but also the spirit of the game. I am not presenting solutions, as anything I present would be irrelevant to the community (I don't work for Blizzard...unfortunately) and am more interested in seeing if anyone else has drawn the same corollary from their experiences in the game, and what unhealthy mechanics the game has in it. It may be that Hearthstone is a game that shouldn't have a control deck in it in the first place, although I certainly hope this is not the case. Everyone has their favorite play style, I simply hope that in the future Blizzard allows those of us who prefer control over smorking to enjoy the play style we prefer as well. I look forward to a well formulated discourse with any who took the time to read this! (Or a troll war, that works too.)
Coming from mtg as well I must say thanks for an intelligent post, just one thing: Control is more viable as you are painting it and it will be even more so in standard one the sticky deathrattle minions you rightfully adress rotate out ...
I think there is one bias in you analysis and I am subject to this bias as well: "Control" decks function pretty differently in HS than in MTG and I also had a hard time "accepting" that decks that are "control" still pretty much have to play a minion in the early turns of the game and can not just sit back as you usually did in MTG (with your wrath in hand) ...
Descriptivists are more interested in how language works in the wild. They don't care if it's correct, they care if people can understand it. If people understand it, it goes.
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When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
To me the real problem is hero powers. In MTG aggro can draw lands few times in a row and lose because archetype usually have little to none draws while control can manipulate the deck in every possible way. In hearthstone there is no manaflood or manascrew, there is always a 2 to the dome or lose 2 hp and get an additional card, abilities that made Face Hunter and Zoo a viable strategy.
Also MTG have proved that cards that come from outside of the game table like Wishes to fetch cards from sideboard or mechanics that put cards from graveyard back into play are broken even if there are ways to prevent it. In Hearthstone deathrattle is a natural counter to any board clear and the only counter is silence that comes with a problem of being overvalued, cards with silence are so much worse than their usual counteparts (Owl is 2/1 for 2 mana and 4/3 for 4 mana guy is even worse. Keeper of the Grove is a class card, has insane value and is an auto include in any druid deck which says a lot). Entomb is broken as is because it removes the card without triggering the deathrattle, so no more Ashbringers and hyenas for you. On the other hand there is 8 mana class aoe clear that in fact is unable to clear.
For God's sake, a few months ago Hearthpwn had a design a spell competition and you know what kind a spell won? 2 mana removal that does 2 damage and silences the creature. Like literally, this would solve so many problems.
Though control decks are viable (as they should be), my problem with this CCG is that not all classes can play the control game. Hopefully this will change with the new formats...
READ IT!
For Charge I believe that they have realised this since they gave Icehowl the ability (awesome imo) to charge without targeting face. Taking it further you can silence that but this requires the use of a combo and even then you cant bypass taunts (makes you wonder why there isn't an Icehowl in silence decks yet). Hopefully we'll see more of this (e.g. I wouldn't mind making Kor'kron Elite a 4/4 with that ability)
For Deathrattle, (I'm not sure when you started playing) they should have realised the OPness of the ability ever since we started complaining about Undertaker. Ofc it is only now (where they found the solution of formats) that they admitted their mistake and that they didn't expect for people to go face so much.
Another issue for me though, would be that the classes are not balanced among them. I dont know how the HS dev teams create cards for each class, but they "got to get their shit together man." I mean you can't give Entomb to priest and Recycle to druid or Fireball to mage and Mortal Strike to warrior and hope for everyone to enjoy the game with the class they want (on that note I believe that a 5 dmg Fireball is perfectly balanced if they make it).
I played a lot of Monoblack control in Magic. If Warlock had access to cheap board clears (beyond Hellfire), Warlock could create the analogue to Monoblack control, and be seriously OP. Just keep tapping to get removal, then drop bombs. No need to waste deck slots on low cost minions.
Also, a 4 mana clear is not the same between the games. In Hearthstone, you are guaranteed to get to 4 mana on turn 4; in Magic, you need to bloat up your deck with lands to have high odds of reaching 4 mana.
Making the removal more powerful would probably create a more "unfun" experience for casual players. Note how the Magic Duels game has completely nerfed removal (5 mana single minion removal is about all you get). Even Magic Standard has been moving away from 4 mana unconditional sweepers.
Deathrattle is a real problem, that's why it's a good thing Naxxramas and GvG are going out of the game. I think Blizzard understood it and will not make the same mistakes again.
yeah thats why they put in LoE Unearthed Raptor , to give another useless card to rogue
If meta will be slower without ridiculous combos then it's ok to run Unearthed Raptor with non-naxx/gvg cards like Sylvanna, Cairne, Anubisath. Damn, even Anubarak.
Blizzard has stated Hearthstone's gameplay should be players using minions to fight for board control. Control vs Control matches are the most satisfying matches for me because it really is a chess match between the players. Aggro decks and "gimmick" decks (e.g., Freeze Mage, Mill decks) are basically elaborate solitaire matches that aren't about board control. I'm not saying people shouldn't play those types of decks. But Control is the most gratifying play style for me and for me to face FWIW.
I played a lot of Monoblack control in Magic. If Warlock had access to cheap board clears (beyond Hellfire), Warlock could create the analogue to Monoblack control, and be seriously OP. Just keep tapping to get removal, then drop bombs. No need to waste deck slots on low cost minions.
Also, a 4 mana clear is not the same between the games. In Hearthstone, you are guaranteed to get to 4 mana on turn 4; in Magic, you need to bloat up your deck with lands to have high odds of reaching 4 mana.
Making the removal more powerful would probably create a more "unfun" experience for casual players. Note how the Magic Duels game has completely nerfed removal (5 mana single minion removal is about all you get). Even Magic Standard has been moving away from 4 mana unconditional sweepers.
Goodness, do not give Warlocks MtG Black removals or drawing abilities, lol. I am a mono-black player as well and all my decks have:
Control decks are not viable atm.Actually there is no high skill cap deck that is viable atm either.
Here is thing, having a good win ratio with a deck doesn't mean that is viable,when you can achieve the same results with a no brainer deck.For example:Is there any reason to play handlock or a miracle/oil rouge when you can achieve the same or better results with a secret paladin or midrange druid while fapping to youporn?Yeah that's right the only reason is the personal preference.Other than that playing stupid decks awards you the same win ratio with faster games and less effort.
Why is that you may ask?Is blizzard stupid?Not my friend they are not.The majority of people are lazy assholes that want always more than they deserve.So this is good for their business model.If the game becomes ballanced around skill cap then all the combo druids,zoolocks,secradins will have less than 40% win ratio.Telling your 70% of playerbase that you suck at game and you have to actually plan your gameplay from now on ,is not very profitable.
Deathrattle is a real problem, that's why it's a good thing Naxxramas and GvG are going out of the game. I think Blizzard understood it and will not make the same mistakes again.
yeah thats why they put in LoE Unearthed Raptor , to give another useless card to rogue
If meta will be slower without ridiculous combos then it's ok to run Unearthed Raptor with non-naxx/gvg cards like Sylvanna, Cairne, Anubisath. Damn, even Anubarak.
I hope you're right, we'll see. However, I do hope that they'll give rogue some stealth synergy, since it defines the class.
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'There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact'
Hi there, I'm Sixpips. I've made legend pretty consistently the last year, both with aggressive and control decks; and I come from a background of 15 years of Magic The Gathering. I enjoy playing Hearthstone and I have noticed a few things that make this game different from other TCGs and I wanted to have a polite discourse on why I believe Hearthstone's engine inherently prevents a control deck from emerging as a top deck in the format.
Many TCGs have interactions on the opponents turn, allowing a person to respond to a potentially devastating play before it gets out of hand. It is understandable that this isn't possible in Hearthstone. Having priority pass between the players and giving a player an opportunity to respond on an opponents turn is unreasonable with the current 90 second clock for turns. This would be detrimental to the fact that one of the upsides of this game is that you can jam a game on your phone during a 15 minute break at work ( one of the little joys I currently do regularly). Adding the ability to respond to an opponent's spells and creatures on their turn is unreasonable as the game stands, and I don't believe that a retooling of the entire game is reasonable for this mechanic alone. That being said, there are ways that this game punishes players attempting to play a control deck that I believe Hearthstone could fix.
The first way that hearthstone punishes a player for playing control is the nature of the game. Hearthstone is inherently a game about garnering tempo and value from each card in order to implement your own strategy and force your opponent into being reactive. This is important to note as the way a deck begins to "lose" a game is by having to react to an opponent rather than being proactive. This makes control decks, which are reactive in nature, start on their back foot inherently. If I'm starting a game as a warrior and I queue against a paladin, I automatically go into the mindset of "What can I do to survive the first 7 turns of the game?" This is before my opponent has played a single card, and I'm already re-actively motivated. This reactive mindset plays into minimizing tempo loss rather than seizing tempo gain, and causing a player to feel behind from the first turn of the game. The next punishing thing of the game is the inherent value of spells vs minions.
Let's say my opponent is on turn 2 and plays a haunted creeper. I have a darkbomb in my hand. Both of these cards cost 2 mana. In a vacuum, a 2 mana card should be of nearly equivalent value to another 2 mana card. However, what we find is that if I spend my dark bomb on my opponent's haunted creeper, a couple things happen. Firstly, I played a spell card that I will not get back in my hand. I've spent 2 mana for an effect that I am hoping will have an impact on the board. Secondly, my opponent's creature dies. That would be a meaningful impact on the board, except that minions in hearthstone are grossly over valued compared to spells. We both have used a card from hand; I have no value after my card, and my opponent has now 2 minions on the board after I utilized my spell.
Deathrattle effects in hearthstone inherently punish reactive play. Your opponent commits a resource, and it is irrelevant if you spend a spell to eliminate that resource, because that 1 for 1 trade is going to leave your opponent ahead once his deathrattle effect triggers. "Sticky" minions such as creeper, mounted raptor, piloted shredder, sludge belcher, etc. all have this inherent advantage that costs a reactive player more resources than the proactive player who played the minion. The other ability that a few minions in this game have that is punishing to reactive players is Charge.
Charge is a mechanic that I believe Blizzard is recognizing the negative impact of...albeit slowly. Blizzard has already stated they want games to be battles for board position, and don't want a player to be able to just kill from his/her hand. That was one of the reasons for the Warsong Commander nerf (RIP). In a game where you cannot react on an opponent's turn, a minion with Charge is basically a spell from the hand that has an upside of sticking around after it hits the opponents face. This is the reason the newer midrange patron decks are beginning to play Kor'kron Elite. This is the reason that 99% of warrior decks since beta have found slots for Grommash and some sort of enabler. This is the reason that when you queue against a druid, you have to kill every single creature they play. Instead of trying to steal the tempo of the game by having the bigger board presence, you are forced to fight over the most irrelevant minions because they can just force of nature, and savage roar you out of the game from an extremely high life total. Charge is a non-interactive ability that removes feasible decks from the game. The last point I wanted to approach in regards to punishing reactive play is the game's severe lack of board clears.
In Magic The Gathering, there are board clears from every mana cost from 2, on up to 10. This is also a card game that does not cap the amount of mana you have. The thing is, these board clears are only played in a narrow margin of decks. Ask anyone, they'll tell you they are healthy for the game and are not breaking in any way. There are many conditional board clears in the game as well, however there is a 4 mana board clear that has been printed in core sets for the better part of 20 years called Wrath of God. Boom, done, no more creatures. And yet there have been formats it was in that it wasn't even a staple. Now in Hearthstone, we do not have the reactive cards that allow us to control an opponent such as a game like Magic The Gathering. We do not have the ability to respond to opponents on their turns. We also don't have the ability to generate insanely large amounts of mana so that we can clear the board with 1 card, then drop multiple threats in the same turn. Yet we find in Hearthstone that the board clearing effects are in fact, much weaker than in magic. This prevents a player from stabilizing as a control deck, and switching gears to begin closing a game out in their favor. You can't play a Reno-lock deck and struggle to survive at 4 life only to wipe the paladin deck's board with a Twisting Nether and then play an Antique Healbot to ensure you don't die to a Truesilver Champion swing. Twisting Nether is the most complete board clear in Hearthstone, and it's nigh unplayable because of the expensive mana cost of the spell. Then we look at board clears other classes have. Brawl has bit me in the rear end more times than I can count. Forcing me to spend 5 mana and a card, plus whatever board presence I have, to hopefully get rid of an opponent's big threat and his smaller minions, only to look at my now empty board and my face that just took 8 from boom bots while staring at my opponents completely healthy Dr. Boom is not a value play. Thanks Brawl, much obliged. Then we come to Flamestrike. Dubbed "winstrike" in arena, it's a potent card in that format due to the inconsistency of a drafted deck, that doesn't have a sticky effect on every minion and is midrange enough that games aren't decided before turn 7 every time. In constructed we find that Flamestrike is rarely played, and if it is played it is usually a singleton in a deck such as freeze mage. Freeze mage is a control deck that has been popular since the inception of Hearthstone, and I wanted to discuss what is different about the deck that sets it apart from other control decks.
Freeze mage has a number of inherent advantages over other control decks that allow it to be successful in even the most aggressive format. The big thing about freeze mage is the combination of stall effects while not really being interested in fighting for the board. Freeze mage doesn't have to fight for board control like every other control deck in hearthstone. They have access to the only 2 card 5 cost board clear in the game (doomsayer frost nova), and even then their board clear isn't what causes the deck to be successful. The deck has the ability to ignore the relevance of it's own life total courtesy of ice block, and assemble enough burn in hand to kill the opponent. That's what a successful control deck is in hearthstone right now; it is a deck that can ignore it's own life-total, ignore the inherent disadvantage control has fighting for the board with spells, and kill the opponent in a non-interactive fashion. Everyone has had that freeze mage sitting at 2 life with a secret up and he plays alexstrasza and targets YOU with it instead of himself. Then the next turn he tosses a couple burn spells at your face after being made immune with his secret and wins the game. That isn't the kind of non-interactive Hearthstone I want to be forced to play if I want a control deck, any more than I want to be forced to play an aggro deck.
In conclusion I believe that Deathrattle Effects, Charge, and from the hand kills are a detriment to not only the ability to play a control deck in hearthstone, but also the spirit of the game. I am not presenting solutions, as anything I present would be irrelevant to the community (I don't work for Blizzard...unfortunately) and am more interested in seeing if anyone else has drawn the same corollary from their experiences in the game, and what unhealthy mechanics the game has in it. It may be that Hearthstone is a game that shouldn't have a control deck in it in the first place, although I certainly hope this is not the case. Everyone has their favorite play style, I simply hope that in the future Blizzard allows those of us who prefer control over smorking to enjoy the play style we prefer as well. I look forward to a well formulated discourse with any who took the time to read this! (Or a troll war, that works too.)
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The problem with control is all the QQing players it seems to attract. Most of the winning is from greedy players who refuse to tech and adjust to whatever they are facing.
This is not really aimed at OP who at least provides reasoning why certain mechanics function to beat control.
Imo deathrattle that summons a new minion has been under costed, especially in naxx/gvg. Future expansions which incorporate this should make sure to adjust mana cost.
As far as charge beating control, that is not really a design flaw so much as the fact that charge is usually the lynch pin of combo decks, which are control's natural predator. why should the game be designed to eliminate the counter to the greedy and dust heavy decks? Bc the loudest QQs come from the people who have sunk the time and money into crafting greedy control decks?
Well many control decks use charge as there wincondition. Else they would go to fatigue every game. This is okay sometimes but not very efficient for latter.
Control player cries about Ice Block being "bad" card? What the hell is happening???
Little offtopic about Magic: first uncoditional board swipes are very uninteractive, second WotC regulary nerfs uncoditional board swipes.
But this isn't MTG, nor should it be.
Control decks are to a certain extent quite viable, but with the current ranking system only an idiot would use one to rank up. That's really why they aren't that viable, they win games, but at too greater cost, a sort of Pyrrhic victory.
Control games take too long, and are often predictable and boring for both players. When using another deck, if I can play 5 games to your 1 then there's an inherent disadvantage there which I think is a bigger issue than not having board clears to fit a specific play-style. If I play against a control deck there's another 4 games I could of played in that time against other decks.
I think you have to look at the Ranking system first, before you even begin to think of making control decks viable.
The solution becomes quite muddy.
When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
An interesting post. The thing is that Blizzard has made several mistakes. Many cheap minions are so extremely cost-efficcient, that you need to use the likes of them to combat aggro. Plus cards like Dr.6,7,8 are so powerful, you can put a couple of those into your aggro deck to boost your staying power immensely just for a few cards.
When I looked up "Ninjas" in Thesaurus.com, it said "Ninja's can't be found" Well played Ninjas, well played.
To me the real problem is hero powers. In MTG aggro can draw lands few times in a row and lose because archetype usually have little to none draws while control can manipulate the deck in every possible way. In hearthstone there is no manaflood or manascrew, there is always a 2 to the dome or lose 2 hp and get an additional card, abilities that made Face Hunter and Zoo a viable strategy.
Also MTG have proved that cards that come from outside of the game table like Wishes to fetch cards from sideboard or mechanics that put cards from graveyard back into play are broken even if there are ways to prevent it. In Hearthstone deathrattle is a natural counter to any board clear and the only counter is silence that comes with a problem of being overvalued, cards with silence are so much worse than their usual counteparts (Owl is 2/1 for 2 mana and 4/3 for 4 mana guy is even worse. Keeper of the Grove is a class card, has insane value and is an auto include in any druid deck which says a lot). Entomb is broken as is because it removes the card without triggering the deathrattle, so no more Ashbringers and hyenas for you. On the other hand there is 8 mana class aoe clear that in fact is unable to clear.
For God's sake, a few months ago Hearthpwn had a design a spell competition and you know what kind a spell won? 2 mana removal that does 2 damage and silences the creature. Like literally, this would solve so many problems.
(Srry man, I didn't read the whole post.)Though control decks are viable (as they should be), my problem with this CCG is that not all classes can play the control game. Hopefully this will change with the new formats...
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For Charge I believe that they have realised this since they gave Icehowl the ability (awesome imo) to charge without targeting face. Taking it further you can silence that but this requires the use of a combo and even then you cant bypass taunts (makes you wonder why there isn't an Icehowl in silence decks yet). Hopefully we'll see more of this (e.g. I wouldn't mind making Kor'kron Elite a 4/4 with that ability)
For Deathrattle, (I'm not sure when you started playing) they should have realised the OPness of the ability ever since we started complaining about Undertaker. Ofc it is only now (where they found the solution of formats) that they admitted their mistake and that they didn't expect for people to go face so much.
Another issue for me though, would be that the classes are not balanced among them. I dont know how the HS dev teams create cards for each class, but they "got to get their shit together man." I mean you can't give Entomb to priest and Recycle to druid or Fireball to mage and Mortal Strike to warrior and hope for everyone to enjoy the game with the class they want (on that note I believe that a 5 dmg Fireball is perfectly balanced if they make it).
'There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact'
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I played a lot of Monoblack control in Magic. If Warlock had access to cheap board clears (beyond Hellfire), Warlock could create the analogue to Monoblack control, and be seriously OP. Just keep tapping to get removal, then drop bombs. No need to waste deck slots on low cost minions.
Also, a 4 mana clear is not the same between the games. In Hearthstone, you are guaranteed to get to 4 mana on turn 4; in Magic, you need to bloat up your deck with lands to have high odds of reaching 4 mana.
Making the removal more powerful would probably create a more "unfun" experience for casual players. Note how the Magic Duels game has completely nerfed removal (5 mana single minion removal is about all you get). Even Magic Standard has been moving away from 4 mana unconditional sweepers.
Blizzard has stated Hearthstone's gameplay should be players using minions to fight for board control. Control vs Control matches are the most satisfying matches for me because it really is a chess match between the players. Aggro decks and "gimmick" decks (e.g., Freeze Mage, Mill decks) are basically elaborate solitaire matches that aren't about board control. I'm not saying people shouldn't play those types of decks. But Control is the most gratifying play style for me and for me to face FWIW.
Great art can never be created without great suffering.
Control decks are not viable atm.Actually there is no high skill cap deck that is viable atm either.
Here is thing, having a good win ratio with a deck doesn't mean that is viable,when you can achieve the same results with a no brainer deck.For example:Is there any reason to play handlock or a miracle/oil rouge when you can achieve the same or better results with a secret paladin or midrange druid while fapping to youporn?Yeah that's right the only reason is the personal preference.Other than that playing stupid decks awards you the same win ratio with faster games and less effort.
Why is that you may ask?Is blizzard stupid?Not my friend they are not.The majority of people are lazy assholes that want always more than they deserve.So this is good for their business model.If the game becomes ballanced around skill cap then all the combo druids,zoolocks,secradins will have less than 40% win ratio.Telling your 70% of playerbase that you suck at game and you have to actually plan your gameplay from now on ,is not very profitable.
'There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact'
Sherlock Holmes
control decks in my opinion are viable and should be and voted for that obviously.
the problem from my point of view lies in that its much easier to make viable aggro or midrange decks in hearthstone than control decks.
I wont go into hearthstone mechanics, just pointing out design issues on the cards.
Do we count freeze mage as control?...I wouldn't. It's a combo deck.
To me me control means decks essentially packed with legendaries to bludgeon the late game, with lots of removal or taunts to get there.