Synergy Picks in the Arena are Being Removed
Mike Donais briefly mentioned the removal of synergy picks over on reddit. This will occur in an upcoming Hearthstone patch, but not alongside the incoming balance update.
Quote from Mike DonaisThis won't be removed in the Balance patch as that was added as a quick bonus patch.
It will be removed in a patch after that though. (Source)Hey Mike thanks for the quick response! Could you please clarify, what exactly is being changed? Are you removing all the synergy picks? Changing the list of synergy cards offered? Trying a new system?
The first 2 picks will be the same as all the other picks. It is being removed. (Source)
if i lose another arena game because of a hero card or ultimate infestation, i swear to god...
We still have to wait. It won't be this next update, but the following one.
It says "a" patch, not the following patch. So don't get your hopes up.
Kinda glad to see them remove synergy picks, but I do hope they revisit the idea. I think if they put the synergy picks at the end of the draft it would be much better. Having combos and synergy in arena can help make it a little bit less curvestone-y, or at the very least can raise the floor of the deck rating so that there is less of a gap between the best and worst deck.
step 1: make a change people hate
step 2: wait till people forget about it
step 3: remove the change so people are happy it's gone.
DOWNVOTE ME
no problem :D
great now i can stop facing frost bitches every single game
It was really cool idea. They just needed to arrange it better. Balance it through the classes.
Finally, synergy picks was a nice idea, but it isn't working as intended.
Nice, I've gotten a little sick of literally always seeing Book Wyrm in the first pick and Netherspite Historian in the second
They should remove the hero cards as well, there are broken in Arena and are insta-wins i you play them.
Statistically speaking no, there are stronger cards than the DK's.
Yes, but how many times have you won against someone holding a DK and couldnt play it? You unknowingly won against someone with a DK
This is great news for balance in arena. Time to wait for the expansion for them to finally remove Death Knight heroes from arena as well.
Tbh I feel like arena has been going downhill ever since it moved to standard.
I understand why make it standard since wild will have too many cards.
But for one, I disagree with limiting card pool so they can use it to teach players about the cards in standard. Like... It's a paid game mode, not a tutorial. Teach people the cards and how to play on a mode that you don't pay to play and is gambling for rewards.
Also trying to make it focus on synergy and special card combos takes out what made arena fun and rewarding. It's not about playing standard combo broken cards, it's about knowing the basics of tempo, card quality and value. Adding legendaries and spells also made some classes way too powerful while others became definitely weaker.
Having arena have a strong focus on neutral cards was great because then classes were more similarly powerful. Decks didn't deviate so much in strength, so the better player could make win more consistently.
Arena was never supposed to be a high-roll mode, but now you can just grab no legendary but have your opponent have a Broken OP DK as their first pick.
Imo what they should do is stop trying to balance stuff with percentages and probability and focus com cardpool. If you get Vicious Fledgeling 50% less still means that that card will be breaking games, only 50% less.
You are right about arena going downhill since it was moved to standard, sadly the fanboys at Hearthpwn will downvote anything that challenges their strong belief system. There are still classes that have almost no shot and overpowered classes. The only "good" thing it did was lower the power level of mage slightly, though tell that to opponents of DK Jaina.