I may be incorrect, but I believe the original intent of Bad Luck Albatross ("BLA") was to be a useful, neutral counter against highlander decks based on the timing of when the card was released. The card has okay stats, so you are not sacrificing a ton to include it in your deck, and while obviously it is more useful as a counter card the deathrattle is effective against almost any deck (i.e. even if you are playing against an aggro or midrange deck, them topdecking a 1/1 is useful for you).
Since they have released BLA, Blizzard has pushed for new archetypes with deck-building restrictions like spell-only mage, pure-paladin, spell-druid (BLA has a lesser effect on this), etc. Because BLA is prevalent enough in the meta (galakrond warlock, a lot of highlander decks, etc), it is effectively countering these new archtypes as well and not incentivizing players to try them. This is especially true since the deck building restrictions required for these new decks mean they lack the card cycle required to remove the albatrosses from their decks quickly enough.
Do you believe this was intentionally done by Blizzard to have BLA be a counter for all of these decks, or do you think it was an unintended consequence of trying to give players a counter to highlander decks? Do you think BLA maybe should have been stated as a counter card (i.e. your Ironbeak Owl) so it is truly a tech choice? Let me know your thoughts!
I don't believe a lot of what Blizzard does has any notion of future releases in that sense (otherwise there's no way some cards would see the light of day). That said, I don't think it's a terrible outcome that we have tech cards against these (or indeed any) type of decks. I'm of the opinion that creates frustration in this game is the feeling that there's nothing you could have done a situation (e.g. the old Freeze mage before secrect removal was a thing).
The tricky part for Blizzard is to make sure these cards aren't completely dead against the decks they work against, have enough of a downside that you wouldn't just auto include them regardless and (most importantly) they don't completely kill the deck they tech against.
Using these metrics I would say BLA is a decent card - maybe a bit to close to a vanilla 3 drop with no downside (maybe should be a 3/3) but otherwise fine. The decks impacted can still do their thing, but only once they've drawn the ducks!
I'd say it's fine. For some decks BLA is pretty much the only hope in otherwise terrible matchup, but unlike e.g Skulking Geist in Jade Druid matchup, it's not like draw it to win the game. BLA can weaken highlander, pure and spell decks, but it's temporal and eventually you'll get rid of both birds. Overall it's well designed tech card, which might be useless in some matchups, but it never feels like dead weight in your deck, due to decent vanilla stats.
I'd say it's fine. For some decks BLA is pretty much the only hope in otherwise terrible matchup, but unlike e.g Skulking Geist in Jade Druid matchup, it's not like draw it to win the game. BLA can weaken highlander, pure and spell decks, but it's temporal and eventually you'll get rid of both birds. Overall it's well designed tech card, which might be useless in some matchups, but it never feels like dead weight in your deck, due to decent vanilla stats.
Also don't forget, diluting your opponent's deck with 2 fairly useless bird is always worth it
Albatros is a huge problem right now not because it prevents the highlanders. it consumes your 2 card draws that makes it problem literally for every deck out there.
I suggest that they should add battle cry draw a card to to tokens or it should automatically draw a card when you draw it.
I'd say it's fine. For some decks BLA is pretty much the only hope in otherwise terrible matchup, but unlike e.g Skulking Geist in Jade Druid matchup, it's not like draw it to win the game. BLA can weaken highlander, pure and spell decks, but it's temporal and eventually you'll get rid of both birds. Overall it's well designed tech card, which might be useless in some matchups, but it never feels like dead weight in your deck, due to decent vanilla stats.
Also don't forget, diluting your opponent's deck with 2 fairly useless bird is always worth it
Ye, but Galakrond Warlock doesn't mind it, since birds are free fuel for his Plague of Flames (this deck is not running 1 drops at all and sometimes it's hard to match the board size of your enemy) :D. Obviously quite often it's just a dead draw and you're busted, but well, that's Hearthstone :).
I appreciate everyone's responses as it is nice to get different perspectives, and read about some things I didn't really think about myself. I do agree with everyone above who says a card like this should exist because almost nothing in hearthstone is more frustrating than feeling like you can't do anything to interact with your opponents strategy.
I guess my surprise has just been how much BLA is also countering new archetypes being introduced by Team 5 that are not nearly as strong as highlander decks, and was curious if Team 5 had thought about this when initially releasing the card. In my opinion it is taking some of the fun out of trying to play some of the new archetypes competitively. Overall though I am having an awesome time playing hearthstone and believe Team 5 is doing a great job!
I personally play a lot of wild, and love playing both pure paladin and reno paladin/reno mage. It really messes with your deck. I don't like it, of course, but on the other hand, being absolutely powerless against reno decks is not fun.
It does come up quite often, mostly because the statline is just too reasonable.
There is a certain balance to strike between the power of your opponent to counter what your plan is, and you being able to play the deck you selected. Whether you feel like BLA is balanced in that regard, or you believe it takes too much control away from the player playing their own deck, is something for you to decide.
I mostly fall on the end of "it messes too much with my deck", mostly because it counters all of my favourite decks and the statline seems too good. Maybe I should run Skulking Geist in all my decks.
I was excited to play pure libram paladin, I even crafted som epics for it but in the end on the ladder this card killed me. That deck has to get value out of the 7/7 and it was out of action constantly as many decks are playing albatross.
It is needed to combat highlander but damn that was a shame as paladin needs every help it can get at the moment not a hinderance.
What if they add to the Albatros shuffled in the deck an effect similar to "cast when drawn: draw a card"? That way, while they are in the deck, they still make your highlander/pure pally/spell only cards useless. But at least you don't waste your draw, which I think is the worst part about BLA. Loosing two turns to draw useless 1/1.
I don't like the idea that a single card can counter a whole deck design strategy. If they didn't want that deck design strategy in their game, they shouldn't have made cards that encourage it to have become a strategy. Printing a card that totally breaks what they have explicitly encouraged by their own card design is just bad, and looks bad on the competence of the developers.
Maybe if they hadn't created such OP cards that require highlander decks, this wouldn't be an issue.
The card is almost op. 3 43, good stats, deathrattle : ruin highlander deck - spells only deck - 2 draw. 1 card. Another problem is Queen Alex, 2 dragon for 0 mana is op as well. Zep give aoe/heal to all class, op.
Highlander decks play OP cards like Zephrys and Alex which gives extremaly high value. This decks need hard counter. For me Albatross is ok and does not deserve nerf.
I don't believe a lot of what Blizzard does has any notion of future releases in that sense (otherwise there's no way some cards would see the light of day). That said, I don't think it's a terrible outcome that we have tech cards against these (or indeed any) type of decks. I'm of the opinion that creates frustration in this game is the feeling that there's nothing you could have done a situation (e.g. the old Freeze mage before secrect removal was a thing).
The tricky part for Blizzard is to make sure these cards aren't completely dead against the decks they work against, have enough of a downside that you wouldn't just auto include them regardless and (most importantly) they don't completely kill the deck they tech against.
Using these metrics I would say BLA is a decent card - maybe a bit to close to a vanilla 3 drop with no downside (maybe should be a 3/3) but otherwise fine. The decks impacted can still do their thing, but only once they've drawn the ducks!
They work on 1-2 expansions into the future so this isn't really correct. I think it't just a matter of not having an accurate way to predict a card's popularity within the meta.
Highlander decks play OP cards like Zephrys and Alex which gives extremaly high value. This decks need hard counter. For me Albatross is ok and does not deserve nerf.
They get these cards by sacrificing consistency. That alone is a big handicap, they don't need one card shutting down a whole archtype. Tech cards should be something to help your win rate against certain decks, not be like "Include this and auto win the game."
Highlander decks play OP cards like Zephrys and Alex which gives extremaly high value. This decks need hard counter. For me Albatross is ok and does not deserve nerf.
If those cards are the problem, than nerf them too. Albatross is too much value, he might be 4 mana soon.
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I may be incorrect, but I believe the original intent of Bad Luck Albatross ("BLA") was to be a useful, neutral counter against highlander decks based on the timing of when the card was released. The card has okay stats, so you are not sacrificing a ton to include it in your deck, and while obviously it is more useful as a counter card the deathrattle is effective against almost any deck (i.e. even if you are playing against an aggro or midrange deck, them topdecking a 1/1 is useful for you).
Since they have released BLA, Blizzard has pushed for new archetypes with deck-building restrictions like spell-only mage, pure-paladin, spell-druid (BLA has a lesser effect on this), etc. Because BLA is prevalent enough in the meta (galakrond warlock, a lot of highlander decks, etc), it is effectively countering these new archtypes as well and not incentivizing players to try them. This is especially true since the deck building restrictions required for these new decks mean they lack the card cycle required to remove the albatrosses from their decks quickly enough.
Do you believe this was intentionally done by Blizzard to have BLA be a counter for all of these decks, or do you think it was an unintended consequence of trying to give players a counter to highlander decks? Do you think BLA maybe should have been stated as a counter card (i.e. your Ironbeak Owl) so it is truly a tech choice? Let me know your thoughts!
I don't believe a lot of what Blizzard does has any notion of future releases in that sense (otherwise there's no way some cards would see the light of day). That said, I don't think it's a terrible outcome that we have tech cards against these (or indeed any) type of decks. I'm of the opinion that creates frustration in this game is the feeling that there's nothing you could have done a situation (e.g. the old Freeze mage before secrect removal was a thing).
The tricky part for Blizzard is to make sure these cards aren't completely dead against the decks they work against, have enough of a downside that you wouldn't just auto include them regardless and (most importantly) they don't completely kill the deck they tech against.
Using these metrics I would say BLA is a decent card - maybe a bit to close to a vanilla 3 drop with no downside (maybe should be a 3/3) but otherwise fine. The decks impacted can still do their thing, but only once they've drawn the ducks!
I love watching my opponent drop Reno in wild and then instantly concede.
I think the meta would be even worse if not for this card.
spell only exists since spell hunter
I'd say it's fine. For some decks BLA is pretty much the only hope in otherwise terrible matchup, but unlike e.g Skulking Geist in Jade Druid matchup, it's not like draw it to win the game. BLA can weaken highlander, pure and spell decks, but it's temporal and eventually you'll get rid of both birds. Overall it's well designed tech card, which might be useless in some matchups, but it never feels like dead weight in your deck, due to decent vanilla stats.
Also don't forget, diluting your opponent's deck with 2 fairly useless bird is always worth it
Albatros is a huge problem right now not because it prevents the highlanders. it consumes your 2 card draws that makes it problem literally for every deck out there.
I suggest that they should add battle cry draw a card to to tokens or it should automatically draw a card when you draw it.
Ye, but Galakrond Warlock doesn't mind it, since birds are free fuel for his Plague of Flames (this deck is not running 1 drops at all and sometimes it's hard to match the board size of your enemy) :D. Obviously quite often it's just a dead draw and you're busted, but well, that's Hearthstone :).
I appreciate everyone's responses as it is nice to get different perspectives, and read about some things I didn't really think about myself. I do agree with everyone above who says a card like this should exist because almost nothing in hearthstone is more frustrating than feeling like you can't do anything to interact with your opponents strategy.
I guess my surprise has just been how much BLA is also countering new archetypes being introduced by Team 5 that are not nearly as strong as highlander decks, and was curious if Team 5 had thought about this when initially releasing the card. In my opinion it is taking some of the fun out of trying to play some of the new archetypes competitively. Overall though I am having an awesome time playing hearthstone and believe Team 5 is doing a great job!
Oddly enough I’ve had situations where multiple BLA has helped me avoid fatigue... which helped me win the game.
I personally play a lot of wild, and love playing both pure paladin and reno paladin/reno mage. It really messes with your deck. I don't like it, of course, but on the other hand, being absolutely powerless against reno decks is not fun.
It does come up quite often, mostly because the statline is just too reasonable.
There is a certain balance to strike between the power of your opponent to counter what your plan is, and you being able to play the deck you selected. Whether you feel like BLA is balanced in that regard, or you believe it takes too much control away from the player playing their own deck, is something for you to decide.
I mostly fall on the end of "it messes too much with my deck", mostly because it counters all of my favourite decks and the statline seems too good. Maybe I should run Skulking Geist in all my decks.
I was excited to play pure libram paladin, I even crafted som epics for it but in the end on the ladder this card killed me. That deck has to get value out of the 7/7 and it was out of action constantly as many decks are playing albatross.
It is needed to combat highlander but damn that was a shame as paladin needs every help it can get at the moment not a hinderance.
What if they add to the Albatros shuffled in the deck an effect similar to "cast when drawn: draw a card"? That way, while they are in the deck, they still make your highlander/pure pally/spell only cards useless. But at least you don't waste your draw, which I think is the worst part about BLA. Loosing two turns to draw useless 1/1.
Im not too hopeful on this tho.
I don't like it on principle, tbh.
I don't like the idea that a single card can counter a whole deck design strategy. If they didn't want that deck design strategy in their game, they shouldn't have made cards that encourage it to have become a strategy. Printing a card that totally breaks what they have explicitly encouraged by their own card design is just bad, and looks bad on the competence of the developers.
Maybe if they hadn't created such OP cards that require highlander decks, this wouldn't be an issue.
The card is almost op. 3 43, good stats, deathrattle : ruin highlander deck - spells only deck - 2 draw. 1 card.
Another problem is Queen Alex, 2 dragon for 0 mana is op as well. Zep give aoe/heal to all class, op.
What do you want?
Highlander decks play OP cards like Zephrys and Alex which gives extremaly high value. This decks need hard counter. For me Albatross is ok and does not deserve nerf.
They work on 1-2 expansions into the future so this isn't really correct. I think it't just a matter of not having an accurate way to predict a card's popularity within the meta.
They get these cards by sacrificing consistency. That alone is a big handicap, they don't need one card shutting down a whole archtype. Tech cards should be something to help your win rate against certain decks, not be like "Include this and auto win the game."
Truly a cancerous individual who is exemplifying everything wrong with the game. Sad
If those cards are the problem, than nerf them too. Albatross is too much value, he might be 4 mana soon.