I remember pondering this question years back, but couldn't find a suitable justification for it. As we are all no doubt aware, Priests have this rather uncanny aversion to any minion that happens to sit in the ATK Value "Troll-Zone" - namely 4 ATK. With this value, Priests have to sit there and feel miserable that they can't effectively deal with the minion in the way they can with any other ATK valued one (that isn't immune to Spells / Hero Power, etc)
I would love to know from a design persepective what the basis behind tis decision was. It's not a terrible thing of course, but now we are starting to see cards like Obsidian Statue and their ilk appearing, we know that Priests are going to start having a hard time of it. And we are also seeing minion-buffing coming into play a lot more than in previous expansions, so all those pesky 3-ATK minions that are your usual Shadow Word: Pain fodder, suddenly become very troublesome to deal with.
Now, you might think there's no problem here, move on - that's fine; you're entitled to think that. But I do believe that Priests get quite a bad rap here and have not had much luck with finding work arounds. Don't forget also that Priests have to load 2 different removal cards to cover both low attack and high attack minions already. Sure, they are slightly cheaper than your bog standard removals, but card space in Hearthstone is one of the most valuable resources to have to sacrifice in a deck to remain viable.
There are presumably a number of ways that players can suggest to remove awkward 4-ATK minions, for sure - though I have not come across many that are particularly efficient or value trades. But sure, there are some. But it still begs the question: what was the purpose of this odd mechanic in the first place? Why did Priests get told they would forever have to fear the 4-ATK minion of doom? And is it time Shadow Word: Death was given license to remove them as well? Personally, I don't see the harm - but I'm sure you have your own opinion! ;-)
Because all shadow words are broken and u need to balance them. Priest is a class for fat greedy american personalities and it shows here with a priest player asking for a tier 1 class to get their overpowered class cards to be more overpowered also using a fallacy saying that those cards take deck space as if card generation was a weakness in this meta or in priest at all, and my politically correct buddy u should know that not everything is a matter of opinion reality exists wether u want everything to be an opinion or not Also u know why designers gave such a hard minion as obsidian statue to get rid off for priest exactly to priest? It's because everybody hates when u don't do anything proactive and play like a reactive bitch all match and then start stealing cards, so in this way u get a taste of your own medicine when another priest eternal servitudes a 4/8 on turn 4 against u.
U know control players be like tunnel trogg is op cuz it's a 1/3 on 1 and that's like a 4/12 yeti but no1 minds a 1/3 on mage that grows with no punishment to the user while u have to overload and play bad unlocking crystals cards
If Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Death could remove anything, priest would have the most broken removal out there. Most classes have removal that deals damage or instant removal. The instant removal spells usually warrant combos and procs like Execute and Shatter, are costed really high like Siphon Soul, RNG based like Deadly Shot or give the opponent extreme advantages like Naturalize. The shadow words are instant removals that are really cheap, therefore an allowance, or troll zone, is needed to ensure that there are minions that they cannot instantly kill with one cheap card.
BTW, there is already a way to remove 4 attack minions and that is with the help of Pint-Size Potion.
Priest have really cheap removal with pain and death. On the same turn they play a removal like death, they have seven mana left to play minions. To balance that cheap removal, they need to have some weakness and team 5 decided 4 health minions was the answer.
Power Words: Pain and :Death are two very powerful and low-cost removal spells. The dead space between them at 4ATK is a constraint for the purpose of balance, and a reasonable one IMHO.
Priest is the class which can deal with (early played) high attack minions the cheapest (1 card, 3 mana). Priest is the class which can deal with low attack minions the cheapest (1 card, 2 mana). It would be way too powerful to give priest the tools to deal with any minion that can be targeted by spells for max 3 mana,1 card.
If priests wanna deal with 4 attack minions without trading, they have to buff/debuff the minion, which is fine since there are priest cards which can do such shenanigans.
Obsidian Statue is a bad example btw since it's a priest card and you might as well play it in your deck to fuck up your opponent as much as he fucks up you.
Priest used to have Entomb, which from a Control vs Control matchup produced very miserable games. Aside from that it had attack manipulating cards like the Shrinkmeister and the Pint-Size Potion, tech-ins for Cabal Shadow Priest plays. In some olden times you could see a play like Abusive Sargeant to activate a Shadow Word Death. Couple that with some new other cards (like the 6 mana Corruption, as I call it) and the king of all, Mind Control, I don't really feel it is fair to say Priest is THAT weak to 4 attack. it just has to get creative, and in times of Ysera and Malygos, it did.
So I would like to say, no, Priest was never that weak to 4 attack if you deckbuilded in a way around it, and in old days you would do that if needed. Aside from that Priest has like this very polarized card style, where it punishes too weak minions and too strong minions ; but is sorta weak to 'balanced' ones. Above that it had the super expensive Mind Control as like the true form of unconditional Priest power, and all this other little trickery like the Power Words and Madnesses are low cost - but also somewhat low yield too, susceptible to weakness. For example, Shadow Word Pain can easily be considered a bad card, it's just that you have to run it in most Priest decks to survive.
So from a flavor perspective, I believe Priest thrives on destroying 'unbalanced' cards, excels at manipulating the weak (and the weakened) and treats the 'power' of a creature as more of a mental/spiritual than physical thing. I'd go and say cards like Inner Fire / Divine Spirit give some way to this philosophy too, the power of the soul is equal to the actual power. The Priest also has the answer to anything in the form of Mind Control, but it takes the full sum of Priest's power to actually take over a minion in this way.
Anyway this was all a bunch of BS that I like to imagine, it's probably how like in Magic the Gathering you think of your library as your mind ; when the library runs out, you (generally) die. A sort of creative thinking like this is lightly applicable to Hearthstone.
Maybe that decision was made to make sure priest wouldn't be too strong removal-wise? That's definitely the reason I love this ''hiatus''.
Priest is already incredibly annoying to face with all their removal: Pain, death, auchenai circle, dragonfire, DK, the -2 and shadow word horror etc. I think it's only fair they have atleast one weakness.
To be fair, Entomb was a perfect replacement card for the removal that Priest was missing, so losing that to the rotation really sucked and hurt the class considerably. The new removal / steal spell is "ok" at best, but really easy to work around most of the time and is horribly anti-tempo.
Mages have amazing removal options (which Priests don't have), so it certainly wouldn't outbalance a priest to be able to reach the 4-Atk creatures. Warlock has insane removal (not to mention side benefits of healing etc too) as well :-)
An increase to the mana cost for the Shadow Word: Death card to encompass 4-Atks certainly wouldnt unbalance it and would keep it very much on par with most other removal. Considering the Hunter card removes everything with an easily countered "downside", as does the immensely powerful Execute. You can't really genuinely say either of those would be considered worse. 2-mana instant removal of any minion? It's not like almost every other card in the Warrior's repertoire couldn't put a single damage onto the minion first.
The Shadow Word cards were perhaps very powerful in the original classic set, as there weren't many other options for removal and I can sort of see why they had them back then. But now it's just laziness not to bring them up to speed with the rest of the classes.
It certainly doesn't matter whether I happen to be a "Priest Player" or not... - actually yes it does.. it means I know what I'm talking about at least. Heh! ^_^
Have often wondered that myself. I don't really see a need for it. If Death worked on 4-attack and up, they'd still have to conserve their resources.
That said, they have of course been balanced around this backdraw in terms of what cards they get (and what attack value other minions get from the neutral set or other class sets)... so it's not necessarily as simple as "remove it".
I think my main beef with it is that it just feels arbitrary and artificial, like an invisible wall in an open doorway in an action game.
To be fair, Entomb was a perfect replacement card for the removal that Priest was missing, so losing that to the rotation really sucked and hurt the class considerably. The new removal / steal spell is "ok" at best, but really easy to work around most of the time and is horribly anti-tempo.
Mages have amazing removal options (which Priests don't have), so it certainly wouldn't outbalance a priest to be able to reach the 4-Atk creatures. Warlock has insane removal (not to mention side benefits of healing etc too) as well :-)
An increase to the mana cost for the Shadow Word: Death card to encompass 4-Atks certainly wouldnt unbalance it and would keep it very much on par with most other removal. Considering the Hunter card removes everything with an easily countered "downside", as does the immensely powerful Execute. You can't really genuinely say either of those would be considered worse. 2-mana instant removal of any minion? It's not like almost every other card in the Warrior's repertoire couldn't put a single damage onto the minion first.
The Shadow Word cards were perhaps very powerful in the original classic set, as there weren't many other options for removal and I can sort of see why they had them back then. But now it's just laziness not to bring them up to speed with the rest of the classes.
It certainly doesn't matter whether I happen to be a "Priest Player" or not... - actually yes it does.. it means I know what I'm talking about at least. Heh! ^_^
you're still pretending that Priest can't affect 4 attack minions. you have good tools in Wild and Standard alike if you're indeed losing to 4 attack minions. otherwise, understand it's a class specific weakness for the opponent to play on. we don't need another Shamanstone meta to happen where one class does everything better than anyone else.
Entomb was harmful for the game entirely, a single card without limitations that forced other classes to play ridiculous moves just to avoid this nonsense of a card. Shield Slamming your own C'thun, blowing up your own Tirions and Sylvannas just so Priest wouldn't take them, and you'd still be losing in fatigue after that. may Entomb never be remade.
Priest is not Mage or Warrior, a class by class comparison like this is useless. The tools are thematic and consider balancing between classes, with classes excelling at one and being weak in the other. you can't just take one aspect of a class that is strong and attempt to give it another without consequence, that's how we get Shamanstone and Warriorstone. even your example of Execute is entirely wrong ; it's most often a 2 card combo to remove something from the game, and as a Priest with 2 card combos you can achieve a lot better results. Abusive + Shadow Word, Pint Size + Cabal, Crazed Alchemist + Shadow Word... also, this is like the first time I've heard someone consider Deadly Shot a 'good' card. the legit best removal in the game is Hex, and Deadly Shot looks like a joke next to it especially in the pitiful class card selection of poor Hunter. Deadly Shot is not a good card.
the shadow words, even 'weak' to 4 attack, are still cards that are included in basically every version of Priest, and I would be worried that some day they as well get the Druid Classic treatment instead of wanting them buffed. it's clear to me you don't want to know the consequences of a Priest that can use its Classic set to deal with everything equally from expansion to expansion. You know how limited the design space would be? it's already questionable what Priest has in his Classic set even now.
if Priest gets good card draw someday, people will be begging for its classic set to be reworked. A Priest with card draw (for example, after a Cleric Pyro Shield Circle combo) is simply unfair and frustrating to play against.
I suppose a key consideration is that a "standard removal spell" for removing any minion can be compared to Assassinate. So, it's 5-mana to remove any minion without restrictions.
SWD has a restriction of minions being over 4-ATK. Hence the slightly cheaper cost. If it was lowered to include 4-ATK, then 4 mana is probably more than it should be, but an acceptable cost.
SWP in comparison, has a huge detriment - capping removal at 3-ATK. It is also a big tempo loss for the early game. Hence the cheap 2-mana cost of the spell. It's versatility is probably the only thing keeping it from being a 1-mana spell really.
you're still pretending that Priest can't affect 4 attack minions. you have good tools in Wild and Standard alike if you're indeed losing to 4 attack minions. otherwise, understand it's a class specific weakness for the opponent to play on. we don't need another Shamanstone meta to happen where one class does everything better than anyone else.
Entomb was harmful for the game entirely, a single card without limitations that forced other classes to play ridiculous moves just to avoid this nonsense of a card. Shield Slamming your own C'thun, blowing up your own Tirions and Sylvannas just so Priest wouldn't take them, and you'd still be losing in fatigue after that. may Entomb never be remade.
Priest is not Mage or Warrior, a class by class comparison like this is useless. The tools are thematic and consider balancing between classes, with classes excelling at one and being weak in the other. you can't just take one aspect of a class that is strong and attempt to give it another without consequence, that's how we get Shamanstone and Warriorstone. even your example of Execute is entirely wrong ; it's most often a 2 card combo to remove something from the game, and as a Priest with 2 card combos you can achieve a lot better results. Abusive + Shadow Word, Pint Size + Cabal, Crazed Alchemist + Shadow Word... also, this is like the first time I've heard someone consider Deadly Shot a 'good' card. the legit best removal in the game is Hex, and Deadly Shot looks like a joke next to it especially in the pitiful class card selection of poor Hunter. Deadly Shot is not a good card.
the shadow words, even 'weak' to 4 attack, are still cards that are included in basically every version of Priest, and I would be worried that some day they as well get the Druid Classic treatment instead of wanting them buffed. it's clear to me you don't want to know the consequences of a Priest that can use its Classic set to deal with everything equally from expansion to expansion. You know how limited the design space would be? it's already questionable what Priest has in his Classic set even now.
There's an awful lot of heavy opinion-based points in there tbh. The whole point of previous poster's comments were based on comparing it to other classes. That's the point. Simply saying "you can't compare different classes" is pointless and has literally no validity in this discussion. We can't do anything BUT compare classes.
I won't even mention the fact you've obviously never played Deadly Shot in Arena before. It's one of the most OP removal spells from the classic set in Arena. But you think it's "Not good"... *chuckle!* Thanks for that :-)
"The legit best removal..." did you seriously just try to use "legit" in this way? o.O Pssst - Hex is a Shaman card. Not a Priest card. Thought you ought to know, since we're not supposed to be comparing classes, etc... *whistles*
if Priest gets good card draw someday, people will be begging for its classic set to be reworked. A Priest with card draw (for example, after a Cleric Pyro Shield Circle combo) is simply unfair and frustrating to play against.
Wait-... what? You don't think Priests (with some of the biggest card draw capabilities in the game with the card-drawing cleric insanity and the ping-magnet has "good card draw"...?
Entomb was harmful for the game entirely, a single card without limitations that forced other classes to play ridiculous moves just to avoid this nonsense of a card. Shield Slamming your own C'thun, blowing up your own Tirions and Sylvannas just so Priest wouldn't take them, and you'd still be losing in fatigue after that. may Entomb never be remade.
Just had a quick re-read. This paragraph actually tells me everything I need to know. If you were actually (Rly?!) doing any of the things you just listed in this, you were doing it wrong. Entomb was incrediblyeasy to play around in most match ups.
Breach was absolutely right. Shield slamming your own C'thun was the best way to win as C'thun warrior against entomb (and sylvanas) That maneuver basically made the match up (both against priest and normal control warrior). Paladins weren't so lucky, having no common and good way to kill their Tirion. Back in the era of mind control you used to want to play your tirion as early as possible and then kill him before they mind controlled him. Luckily you had two turns to kill off your own Tirion, and in quite a few decks mind control wasn't even run. In the era of entomb you couldn't even do that, every deck had 2 copies of it and the actual way to win the match... The play around as you say, was to simply never play your Tirion. Ever.
Also yeah. Deadly shot is a pretty good arena card. It's not at all a good card outside of it. That shouldn't be a controversial statement to make. Hunter doesn't make a good control class.
Anyway, just use pint sized potion if 4 attack minions are that ruinous to you. Or accept that your removals have at least one weakness to make up for being so cheap.
I highy doubt that letting shadow word death killing of a 4 attack minion or more would make the shadow words death extremly op.
Sheep and hex can deal with anything and also disable any death rattle on the minion its casted at.
I think a lot of people would prefer to get there 4 mana minion removed for 1 card then there chuncky 8-10 mana minion with the cards.
I find the weakspot strange, some classes dont have so many restrictions and have way more flexible options with there cards.
I find that you lose a lot of matchups because the opponent has the change to drop a 4 attack minion on a empty board or force the priest to trade the board into a losing position.
I find prymordial drake or a early twilight drake and in the past azure drake a huge huge problem for priest to deal with, the 4 attack is already bad but being a dragon makes its even impossible to deal with for many turns.
So priest is weak gainst 4 attack and there aoe is bad against dragons, And the best 4 attack minions are dragons.
As other have mentioned, this setup was obviously intentional. The classic set had a lot of *really* powerful, high mana, effect-driven cards that had exactly 4 attack - Ysera, Malygos, Twilight Drake, Auctioneer, Sunwalker, and Cairne all immediately come to mind. These are (minus maybe cairne) all expensive cards that would cripple the opponent if removed cheaply. As a result, most powerful effect driven cards are given 4 attack.
Whether you think that blind spot for Priests is warranted is another matter entirely. Frankly, I do, as it encourages interesting plays - for example, against Priest I'll often have to make a decision whether to make a 4/4 Edwin for tempo or make a huge Edwin to force him to waste a death, allowing something more important to stick to the board later.
you're still pretending that Priest can't affect 4 attack minions. you have good tools in Wild and Standard alike if you're indeed losing to 4 attack minions. otherwise, understand it's a class specific weakness for the opponent to play on. we don't need another Shamanstone meta to happen where one class does everything better than anyone else.
Entomb was harmful for the game entirely, a single card without limitations that forced other classes to play ridiculous moves just to avoid this nonsense of a card. Shield Slamming your own C'thun, blowing up your own Tirions and Sylvannas just so Priest wouldn't take them, and you'd still be losing in fatigue after that. may Entomb never be remade.
Priest is not Mage or Warrior, a class by class comparison like this is useless. The tools are thematic and consider balancing between classes, with classes excelling at one and being weak in the other. you can't just take one aspect of a class that is strong and attempt to give it another without consequence, that's how we get Shamanstone and Warriorstone. even your example of Execute is entirely wrong ; it's most often a 2 card combo to remove something from the game, and as a Priest with 2 card combos you can achieve a lot better results. Abusive + Shadow Word, Pint Size + Cabal, Crazed Alchemist + Shadow Word... also, this is like the first time I've heard someone consider Deadly Shot a 'good' card. the legit best removal in the game is Hex, and Deadly Shot looks like a joke next to it especially in the pitiful class card selection of poor Hunter. Deadly Shot is not a good card.
the shadow words, even 'weak' to 4 attack, are still cards that are included in basically every version of Priest, and I would be worried that some day they as well get the Druid Classic treatment instead of wanting them buffed. it's clear to me you don't want to know the consequences of a Priest that can use its Classic set to deal with everything equally from expansion to expansion. You know how limited the design space would be? it's already questionable what Priest has in his Classic set even now.
There's an awful lot of heavy opinion-based points in there tbh. The whole point of previous poster's comments were based on comparing it to other classes. That's the point. Simply saying "you can't compare different classes" is pointless and has literally no validity in this discussion. We can't do anything BUT compare classes.
I won't even mention the fact you've obviously never played Deadly Shot in Arena before. It's one of the most OP removal spells from the classic set in Arena. But you think it's "Not good"... *chuckle!* Thanks for that :-)
"The legit best removal..." did you seriously just try to use "legit" in this way? o.O Pssst - Hex is a Shaman card. Not a Priest card. Thought you ought to know, since we're not supposed to be comparing classes, etc... *whistles*
if Priest gets good card draw someday, people will be begging for its classic set to be reworked. A Priest with card draw (for example, after a Cleric Pyro Shield Circle combo) is simply unfair and frustrating to play against.
Wait-... what? You don't think Priests (with some of the biggest card draw capabilities in the game with the card-drawing cleric insanity and the ping-magnet has "good card draw"...?
#speechless
Deadly Shot is sub-optimal. If you want to talk about better removal, then Hunter's Mark and Kill Command (with beast synergy) are the only decent cards. being 'good' in Arena is laughable.
you can't compare classes the way you did it, is what you skipped over. if you're going to reply to a message, reply to the whole thing. And no, just because Mage or Warrior have this spell or that minion does not mean Priest should have it too.
the use of 'legit' was from some other sentence I was writing, a simple mistake. it is pitiful you draw so much attention to it, with your little roleplay *chuckles* and what not, immaturity on display. I'm sure you'll make this all personal too.
I mentioned Hex the same way I mentioned Deadly Shot. Hex is the best removal, Deadly Shot is sub-optimal. I did not do as you did and go over other classes, demanding as you did, like in this quote, ''Mages have amazing removal options (which Priests don't have), so it certainly wouldn't outbalance a priest to be able to reach the 4-Atk creatures. Warlock has insane removal (not to mention side benefits of healing etc too) as well :-)'' like, do you understand that these classes are different, there's a reason they do things as they do and have these options that are for a reason better than their competition? do you understand even a bit of balance and design going behind the scene? do you also understand that Siphon Soul is basically pretty bad, but Warlock uses it because it more or less has no better choice (Blastcrystal is too dangerous to use midgame) and it's one of the rare healings for Warlock? do you really think 6 cost destroy a target and get 3 life is actually good, or even closely good as a Shadow Word Death? even now when you play it, most of the time it takes up almost your entire turn, and against a lot of targets it's hardly worth the mana cost, let alone if you hit something like a Savannah Highmane.
Priest's card draw is weak, limited and vulnerable. aside from the best cycling card in the game, PW Shield, it has unreliable card draw capability. if you don't understand this, you need to play more HS.
Entomb was harmful for the game entirely, a single card without limitations that forced other classes to play ridiculous moves just to avoid this nonsense of a card. Shield Slamming your own C'thun, blowing up your own Tirions and Sylvannas just so Priest wouldn't take them, and you'd still be losing in fatigue after that. may Entomb never be remade.
Just had a quick re-read. This paragraph actually tells me everything I need to know. If you were actually (Rly?!) doing any of the things you just listed in this, you were doing it wrong. Entomb was incrediblyeasy to play around in most match ups.
We can only hope they bring it back some day XD
''This paragraph actually tells me everything I need to know.''
very fitting, you lack experience and you show it. were you even playing in those times? I guess you missed the entire meta back then when this was the standard play. if you read the comments from other people, you'll see that I was right. Entomb was very harmful for the game, causing such warped gameplay where you didn't want to play your legendaries out unless you could immediately benefit from them, or suicide them for N'zoth or whatever. Emperor discounts on Shield Slam into a C'thun Shield Slam turn were the reality against Priest. again, I don't think you understand what you wish for, Priest's removal is just fine as it is. it needs no buffing, especially since more and new removal will arrive with expansions.
get some more years under the belt of Priest. it was the first class I've got golden ever since Naxx and it's my favorite class, and to me you are making no sense with your comments, especially regarding Entomb and how it affected gameplay. that's such a blatant mistake.
Because all shadow words are broken and u need to balance them. Priest is a class for fat greedy american personalities and it shows here with a priest player asking for a tier 1 class to get their overpowered class cards to be more overpowered also using a fallacy saying that those cards take deck space as if card generation was a weakness in this meta or in priest at all, and my politically correct buddy u should know that not everything is a matter of opinion reality exists wether u want everything to be an opinion or not Also u know why designers gave such a hard minion as obsidian statue to get rid off for priest exactly to priest? It's because everybody hates when u don't do anything proactive and play like a reactive bitch all match and then start stealing cards, so in this way u get a taste of your own medicine when another priest eternal servitudes a 4/8 on turn 4 against u.
"priest is a class for fat greedy american personalities" bro youre reaching too hard there lol.
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I remember pondering this question years back, but couldn't find a suitable justification for it.
As we are all no doubt aware, Priests have this rather uncanny aversion to any minion that happens to sit in the ATK Value "Troll-Zone" - namely 4 ATK.
With this value, Priests have to sit there and feel miserable that they can't effectively deal with the minion in the way they can with any other ATK valued one (that isn't immune to Spells / Hero Power, etc)
I would love to know from a design persepective what the basis behind tis decision was. It's not a terrible thing of course, but now we are starting to see cards like Obsidian Statue and their ilk appearing, we know that Priests are going to start having a hard time of it.
And we are also seeing minion-buffing coming into play a lot more than in previous expansions, so all those pesky 3-ATK minions that are your usual Shadow Word: Pain fodder, suddenly become very troublesome to deal with.
Now, you might think there's no problem here, move on - that's fine; you're entitled to think that. But I do believe that Priests get quite a bad rap here and have not had much luck with finding work arounds.
Don't forget also that Priests have to load 2 different removal cards to cover both low attack and high attack minions already. Sure, they are slightly cheaper than your bog standard removals, but card space in Hearthstone is one of the most valuable resources to have to sacrifice in a deck to remain viable.
There are presumably a number of ways that players can suggest to remove awkward 4-ATK minions, for sure - though I have not come across many that are particularly efficient or value trades. But sure, there are some.
But it still begs the question: what was the purpose of this odd mechanic in the first place? Why did Priests get told they would forever have to fear the 4-ATK minion of doom?
And is it time Shadow Word: Death was given license to remove them as well? Personally, I don't see the harm - but I'm sure you have your own opinion! ;-)
Because all shadow words are broken and u need to balance them. Priest is a class for fat greedy american personalities and it shows here with a priest player asking for a tier 1 class to get their overpowered class cards to be more overpowered also using a fallacy saying that those cards take deck space as if card generation was a weakness in this meta or in priest at all, and my politically correct buddy u should know that not everything is a matter of opinion reality exists wether u want everything to be an opinion or not
Also u know why designers gave such a hard minion as obsidian statue to get rid off for priest exactly to priest? It's because everybody hates when u don't do anything proactive and play like a reactive bitch all match and then start stealing cards, so in this way u get a taste of your own medicine when another priest eternal servitudes a 4/8 on turn 4 against u.
U know control players be like tunnel trogg is op cuz it's a 1/3 on 1 and that's like a 4/12 yeti but no1 minds a 1/3 on mage that grows with no punishment to the user while u have to overload and play bad unlocking crystals cards
If Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Death could remove anything, priest would have the most broken removal out there. Most classes have removal that deals damage or instant removal. The instant removal spells usually warrant combos and procs like Execute and Shatter, are costed really high like Siphon Soul, RNG based like Deadly Shot or give the opponent extreme advantages like Naturalize. The shadow words are instant removals that are really cheap, therefore an allowance, or troll zone, is needed to ensure that there are minions that they cannot instantly kill with one cheap card.
BTW, there is already a way to remove 4 attack minions and that is with the help of Pint-Size Potion.
Priest have really cheap removal with pain and death. On the same turn they play a removal like death, they have seven mana left to play minions. To balance that cheap removal, they need to have some weakness and team 5 decided 4 health minions was the answer.
Power Words: Pain and :Death are two very powerful and low-cost removal spells. The dead space between them at 4ATK is a constraint for the purpose of balance, and a reasonable one IMHO.
Priest is the class which can deal with (early played) high attack minions the cheapest (1 card, 3 mana). Priest is the class which can deal with low attack minions the cheapest (1 card, 2 mana). It would be way too powerful to give priest the tools to deal with any minion that can be targeted by spells for max 3 mana,1 card.
If priests wanna deal with 4 attack minions without trading, they have to buff/debuff the minion, which is fine since there are priest cards which can do such shenanigans.
Obsidian Statue is a bad example btw since it's a priest card and you might as well play it in your deck to fuck up your opponent as much as he fucks up you.
Priest used to have Entomb, which from a Control vs Control matchup produced very miserable games. Aside from that it had attack manipulating cards like the Shrinkmeister and the Pint-Size Potion, tech-ins for Cabal Shadow Priest plays. In some olden times you could see a play like Abusive Sargeant to activate a Shadow Word Death. Couple that with some new other cards (like the 6 mana Corruption, as I call it) and the king of all, Mind Control, I don't really feel it is fair to say Priest is THAT weak to 4 attack. it just has to get creative, and in times of Ysera and Malygos, it did.
So I would like to say, no, Priest was never that weak to 4 attack if you deckbuilded in a way around it, and in old days you would do that if needed. Aside from that Priest has like this very polarized card style, where it punishes too weak minions and too strong minions ; but is sorta weak to 'balanced' ones. Above that it had the super expensive Mind Control as like the true form of unconditional Priest power, and all this other little trickery like the Power Words and Madnesses are low cost - but also somewhat low yield too, susceptible to weakness. For example, Shadow Word Pain can easily be considered a bad card, it's just that you have to run it in most Priest decks to survive.
So from a flavor perspective, I believe Priest thrives on destroying 'unbalanced' cards, excels at manipulating the weak (and the weakened) and treats the 'power' of a creature as more of a mental/spiritual than physical thing. I'd go and say cards like Inner Fire / Divine Spirit give some way to this philosophy too, the power of the soul is equal to the actual power. The Priest also has the answer to anything in the form of Mind Control, but it takes the full sum of Priest's power to actually take over a minion in this way.
Anyway this was all a bunch of BS that I like to imagine, it's probably how like in Magic the Gathering you think of your library as your mind ; when the library runs out, you (generally) die. A sort of creative thinking like this is lightly applicable to Hearthstone.
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
Maybe that decision was made to make sure priest wouldn't be too strong removal-wise? That's definitely the reason I love this ''hiatus''.
Priest is already incredibly annoying to face with all their removal: Pain, death, auchenai circle, dragonfire, DK, the -2 and shadow word horror etc. I think it's only fair they have atleast one weakness.
Fuck cubelock
To be fair, Entomb was a perfect replacement card for the removal that Priest was missing, so losing that to the rotation really sucked and hurt the class considerably. The new removal / steal spell is "ok" at best, but really easy to work around most of the time and is horribly anti-tempo.
Mages have amazing removal options (which Priests don't have), so it certainly wouldn't outbalance a priest to be able to reach the 4-Atk creatures. Warlock has insane removal (not to mention side benefits of healing etc too) as well :-)
An increase to the mana cost for the Shadow Word: Death card to encompass 4-Atks certainly wouldnt unbalance it and would keep it very much on par with most other removal.
Considering the Hunter card removes everything with an easily countered "downside", as does the immensely powerful Execute. You can't really genuinely say either of those would be considered worse. 2-mana instant removal of any minion? It's not like almost every other card in the Warrior's repertoire couldn't put a single damage onto the minion first.
The Shadow Word cards were perhaps very powerful in the original classic set, as there weren't many other options for removal and I can sort of see why they had them back then. But now it's just laziness not to bring them up to speed with the rest of the classes.
It certainly doesn't matter whether I happen to be a "Priest Player" or not... - actually yes it does.. it means I know what I'm talking about at least. Heh! ^_^
Have often wondered that myself. I don't really see a need for it. If Death worked on 4-attack and up, they'd still have to conserve their resources.
That said, they have of course been balanced around this backdraw in terms of what cards they get (and what attack value other minions get from the neutral set or other class sets)... so it's not necessarily as simple as "remove it".
I think my main beef with it is that it just feels arbitrary and artificial, like an invisible wall in an open doorway in an action game.
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~
I suppose a key consideration is that a "standard removal spell" for removing any minion can be compared to Assassinate.
So, it's 5-mana to remove any minion without restrictions.
SWD has a restriction of minions being over 4-ATK. Hence the slightly cheaper cost. If it was lowered to include 4-ATK, then 4 mana is probably more than it should be, but an acceptable cost.
SWP in comparison, has a huge detriment - capping removal at 3-ATK. It is also a big tempo loss for the early game. Hence the cheap 2-mana cost of the spell.
It's versatility is probably the only thing keeping it from being a 1-mana spell really.
Pssst - Hex is a Shaman card. Not a Priest card. Thought you ought to know, since we're not supposed to be comparing classes, etc... *whistles*
If you were actually (Rly?!) doing any of the things you just listed in this, you were doing it wrong. Entomb was incrediblyeasy to play around in most match ups.
Breach was absolutely right. Shield slamming your own C'thun was the best way to win as C'thun warrior against entomb (and sylvanas) That maneuver basically made the match up (both against priest and normal control warrior). Paladins weren't so lucky, having no common and good way to kill their Tirion. Back in the era of mind control you used to want to play your tirion as early as possible and then kill him before they mind controlled him. Luckily you had two turns to kill off your own Tirion, and in quite a few decks mind control wasn't even run. In the era of entomb you couldn't even do that, every deck had 2 copies of it and the actual way to win the match... The play around as you say, was to simply never play your Tirion. Ever.
Also yeah. Deadly shot is a pretty good arena card. It's not at all a good card outside of it. That shouldn't be a controversial statement to make. Hunter doesn't make a good control class.
Anyway, just use pint sized potion if 4 attack minions are that ruinous to you. Or accept that your removals have at least one weakness to make up for being so cheap.
I highy doubt that letting shadow word death killing of a 4 attack minion or more would make the shadow words death extremly op.
Sheep and hex can deal with anything and also disable any death rattle on the minion its casted at.
I think a lot of people would prefer to get there 4 mana minion removed for 1 card then there chuncky 8-10 mana minion with the cards.
I find the weakspot strange, some classes dont have so many restrictions and have way more flexible options with there cards.
I find that you lose a lot of matchups because the opponent has the change to drop a 4 attack minion on a empty board or force the priest to trade the board into a losing position.
I find prymordial drake or a early twilight drake and in the past azure drake a huge huge problem for priest to deal with, the 4 attack is already bad but being a dragon makes its even impossible to deal with for many turns.
So priest is weak gainst 4 attack and there aoe is bad against dragons, And the best 4 attack minions are dragons.
As other have mentioned, this setup was obviously intentional. The classic set had a lot of *really* powerful, high mana, effect-driven cards that had exactly 4 attack - Ysera, Malygos, Twilight Drake, Auctioneer, Sunwalker, and Cairne all immediately come to mind. These are (minus maybe cairne) all expensive cards that would cripple the opponent if removed cheaply. As a result, most powerful effect driven cards are given 4 attack.
Whether you think that blind spot for Priests is warranted is another matter entirely. Frankly, I do, as it encourages interesting plays - for example, against Priest I'll often have to make a decision whether to make a 4/4 Edwin for tempo or make a huge Edwin to force him to waste a death, allowing something more important to stick to the board later.
''He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand.''
(.o.))~ ~(('o') (.o.))~