Iksar Looks Back on the Balance and Design of the Curse of Naxxramas Adventure
Just over 4 years ago (Jan 27, 2015), Blizzard announced a nerf for Undertaker who had been tearing up the meta since August 2014 when the Construct Quarter wing was released. This was brought up over on reddit and Hearthstone's Dean "Iksar" Ayala took this as an opportunity to revisit Naxxramas, the first set he worked on.
- Undertaker was a miss. Dean play tested a lot with Warlock. The team was much smaller back then.
- Deathlord was originally a 2/6.
- Mad Scientist was known to be very strong. Helped players experiment more with secrets.
- Sludge Belcher was designed to be better than Druid of the Claw, "the gold standard for premium taunt minions".
- Voidcaller is not a card they would make in present day Hearthstone.
What were some of your favourite memories from the Curse of Naxxramas adventure? Face Hunter was so beautiful, my one true love.
Quote from IksarUndertaker still makes me laugh. Naxxramas was an interesting small set to balance. Personally, Naxx was the first set I ever worked on so I look back on it fondly. Some design anecdotes....
Undertaker: Was just a miss in terms of balance. I remember doing most of the playtesting with Undertaker in Warlock because that was traditionally where snowballing board control decks were most successful. It was still extremely powerful in that deck but Undertaker in combination with Scientist in Hunter made it way over the top. We did play that version but just not enough to realize. The whole content design team was four people back then, so we had a lot less time to playtest due to the fact we also were responsible for designing the next set and building the Naxxramas single player. Today, our whole content design team is much bigger.
Deathlord: Was originally weaker because we hadn't done anything with an effect like this before. Was 2/6, then eventually up to 2/8. As a balance person, this is one of the cards I was most happy with. It's difficult to get weird effects like this to a level that ends up being played, but not in a way that people just put in all their decks. Ended up being both a moderate disruption card and an option in aggro heavy metas, but faded out when neither of those things were very relevant.
Mad Scientist: Definitely one of the strongest cards we ever made, but that was something we knew going in. It drove a few new decks and got players to think about putting interesting secrets in their deck like Spellbender or Snake Trap when those cards hadn't really seen much play. I don't think Scientist is a good example of a classic or basic card, but as an adventure card that eventually leaves standard I think it did a great job.
Sludge Belcher: Aggressive decks were very powerful in both pre and post-naxx playtesting, so we knew we wanted some solid options to combat that. Druid of the Claw was kind off the gold standard for premium taunt minions back in those days, so we made something that was just a little bit better than that. We liked the gameplay of having a powerful neutral Taunt option so much we went on to create many more like it. Some cards that can thank Sludge Belcher's example for their power level: Annoy-o-Tron, Stonehill Defender, Tar Creeper, Corpsetaker, Twilight Guardian, Saronite Chain Gang, Rotten Applebaum, Witchwood Grizzly, Zilliax, Bog Creeper, Chillmaw, Primordial Drake, and uh.... Giggling Inventor! Some of those were less powerful than we had planned, some more :).
Voidcaller: A good example of a card I'm glad exists, wouldn't change, but not a card we would make in present day Hearthstone. I love the bluffing situations it creates where your opponent has to assess the risk of what might be behind the Deathrattle vs the potential reward of destroying the minion before you have a chance to summon your demon. Also love that it drove a more big-demon centric deck. The part of the card that makes it something we probably wouldn't do today is the huge early-game swings it created and the the ridiculous upside potential of something like Voidcaller -> Voidcaller -> Mal'Ganis. Even though the average outcome was ok, the range of outcomes is just so wide that playing against the best outcomes can feel unfair.
Bring out your ded LUL
Not only Mad Scientist, but also Haunted Creeper and Webspinner from this adventure made Undertaker Hunter so powerful.
Coffin Crasher costs two more Mana. The cost is the most important part.
Wait, what? They will not make more cards like Voidcaller. What about Coffin Crasher?
Reading about undertakers fired up my PTSD.
Correct and back in the day we had unnerfed Ironbeak Owl.
Quite frankly, I think unnerfed Undertaker would be much less problematic in the current Wild environment.
Best would be if they keep his text the way it is now, but change it's base statline to 1/3 or 2/2.
Because I think Deathrattle Aggro would be a cool addition to the game, as current aggro is all about Pirates.
More Diversity = better game.
I totally agree with " The part of the card that makes it something we probably wouldn't do today is the huge early-game swings it created".
Oh, wait, he's talking about Voidcaller, not Barnes. Forget I said anything.
While Knights of the Frozen Throne is probably one of the most influential and meta-defining expansions in HS history, Curse of Naxxramas is definitely the most impactful among all the adventures.
Small indie company, huh.
Honestly I think so too tbh. I played A LOT of Undertaker Hunter back in the day and looking back at the deck now I can say that 2/1 one mana leper gnomes really helped to carry the snowball effect of Undertaker while really pushing the hyper aggresiveness of the deck. Plus, we have a lot more answers to snowball minions than what we had back then (Devolve, immediate tank-up hero power, Defile, cheesed out Voidlords, the attack swapping dragon priest card, Zilliax, Vilespine, Branching Paths, etc). A pre-nerf Undertaker would be strong, but it would not be as strong as it was back during Naxx.
Wait so Voidcaller is a nono but Skull of Manari and Lackey are perfectly fine? That seems a weird distinction to me. It's not like you have a wide variety of options at 5 or 6 mana to remove a big stonkin demon that you wouldn't be able to play on 4. Seems odd that Voidcaller would be where they draw the line, when they were fine with Naga Sea Witch stinking up Wild for like half a year.
Voidcaller was weak to silence, which when compared to Skull being weak to weapon destruction, has generally seen comparatively less play in as many metas than weapon destruction has. This makes it so that Voidcaller is much more likely to go off than Skull is. Plus Skull is a complete tempo killer while Voidcaller can at least offer some board presence. Skull being destroyed right after being played feels infinitely worse than Voidcaller being silence right after because you essentially skipped your turn and did nothing.
Skull and lackey are both more expensive. Playing on 4 into pulling a demon on 5 is very different from playing on 5 and pulling a demon on 6.
Turn 3 coin Voidcaller sac pac him and get malganis or now with voidlord seems nothing like skull
Yeaaah well... It's kind of nostalgic, being the first expansion. But I can't say that I've got very fond memories of losing to 1 mana 5/6 undertakers. On turn 5. For half a year.
I'm pretty sure that Undertaker Hunter must have had the highest playrate of any deck EVER.
I would rather give that to Raza Priest. That deck was DISGUSTING. I know, I was using it the one time I reached legend :)
Star Alligner Druid in wild the month it was being was pretty nasty as well. Turn 5 lethals as a combo deck when you draw well is pretty insane.
Turn 5 lethals when drawing the exact right cards is still better than turn 5 lethals just for drawing Undertaker on turn 1 haha
wat
I just bought Naxx today and now there's a post about it? Are you watching me?