Dean Ayala on Shudderwock: Revisiting the Topic Early Next Week
Dean Ayala tweeted this evening that the team is going to be looking into Shudderwock feedback early next week.
How do you feel about Shudderwock? I can definitely agree with the animations being a bit on the long side and would definitely at least appreciate a less excruciating death.
Quote from Dean AyalaWe’ll be reading more feedback over the weekend and will revisit the Shudderwock topic early next week. Checking out both animation timings and feedback on the deck playstyle itself. Let us know what you think and enjoy Witchwood!
Quest rogue didn't have 60% win ratio, yet it was nerfed as well. Because it was unfun to play against it. Shudderwock is also unfun to play against because of that 10minutes turns.
If it's not a strong deck then there's no reason to nerf the power level of the associated cards. The reason to nerf cards that are essential to certain decks are either because they dominate the meta (ie: are included in every deck no matter what it is) or because the deck is so insanely broken that it dominates the meta. But if the only problem is it's unfun when matched against it then that's a horrible reason to nerf it. I think control decks are completely unfun to play against but I don't think they need to be nerfed, because I understand different people enjoy different playstyles.
So Ben Brode, about that quote you made a few days ago.
Ben Brode: "If you knew how good a card is by looking at it, we wouldn't need a balance team"
Advice: what if it should work only in odd decks ("if your deck has only odd-Cost cards")?
This would kill Shudderwock as a card. Nearly all of the good battlecries to copy with shudderwock are on even cost cards.
The playtesting team needs to get their shit together. How did this even get past testing this way.
Ben Brode: "If you knew how good a card is by looking at it, we wouldn't need a balance team"
In the last round of nerfs, Raza the Chained paid for an unhealthy interaction with Shadowreaper Anduin.
There's nothing wrong when Shudderwock is played the first time, the problem is that it generates a discounted copy of itself from Grumble, Worldshaker's battlecry. Sadly, I think Grumble needs to be nerfed. If the minions returned to your hand cost 2 less and no less than (1), instead of (1), this deck would be much less oppressive.
Grumble should work with Elementals only.
Or make his effect Deathrattle so it does not synergize with Shudderwock. His Battlecry bullshit wouldn't be infinite/otk anymore.
Your suggestion for nerfing Grumble makes sense, so does a few others below. Costs 2 less or Elementals returned to your hand cost 1, or make him a deathrattle instead of a battlecry. I think any of these would be enough of a tweak to make Shudderwock a bit less one and done.
That would still limit the design space for Elementals in the future.
I don't understand everyone's issue with Shudderwock, I have been playing aggro warrior and elemental mage and have barely lost to a shaman. My warrior deck is 14-1 and mage is 11-2 against them. There are more issues than this. I think that the power lvl of palidin needs to be addressed first. Animation time needs a fix but that's my opinion.
i haven't lost to it once. i even lost to quest rogue with pirate warrior a couple of times when that was popular. this is crazy how much hate this is getting. makes zero sense. like hello cubelock is a thing right now. i just got crushed by 5 cubelocks in a row
the main issue isnt about how strong the card is, it is how long it takes to play one of them.
since the card plays every battlecry that you've played so far, and with the ability to double it (which in turn allows to apply that to the next Shudderwock that gets played) it is uncommon for it to play over 20 battlecrys per Shudderwock that gets played.
for reference, just think if someone played Yogg-Saron, Hope's End multiple times and you were guaranteed that it would play all of the spells. it would take forever to get through and could potentially break things. or run someone's timer out skipping their turn.