As the title says, i think i've finally realized what the problem with Rogue is and why it seems nothing can go the classes way (regarding class cards). My best joke is that, every time Team 5 prints up a card for Rogue that seems a little too powerful, it's given to Shaman.
Joke aside, i think the biggest fundamental problem with Rogue is the combo system; along with having prep. What is always the one problem when it comes to why Rogue minions are considered unplayable? Because it always seems to be missing a point or two of stats. Why does it seem that virtually every spell after 2 mana is almost unplayable? Because it always feels like we're paying too much for them. But, if all the minions were stat'd correctly and all the spells were cost'd correctly, we'd be saying how utterly broken the class is. So to counter balance the minions low stats, they are given a reasonable combo or are allowed to be tempo'd accordingly (a turn before they're mana cost). And to counter balance the spells being so high cost'd, Team 5 likes to act as if we have 50 other Preparation cards in hand.
A look at the new Razorpetal token that was given in Un'Goro. As a 0 cost, it is literally broken because of Miracle/Malygos. But at 1 mana, it's borderline unplayable unless you really want costly combo activators or REALLY want to bring back Sherazin, Corpse Flower.
There has to come a point where Team 5 has to settle on where they want the class to be, because in it's current state, virtually every card in the class has a problem of being cost'd/stat'd badly but at the same time if it were cost'd/stat'd better, it'd be "bonkers insane" - Noxious. And i for one dream of a day where i can make an actual Rogue deck with actual Rogue cards and not 90% neutral minions. And before you say it, i don't care about the creatively dry aggro rogue.
while I don't think you are wrong when putting this in the [real world] setting of other classes not having this problem (at least not so consistently), I have often felt that Team 5 actually do know what they are doing with rogue and it is better viewed as other classes fluctuating too much in power level. Of course in practice rogue is left with a bunch of genuinely balanced cards that don't make the cut against the tier 1 decks.
As for the implicit expectation that we have prep in hand, it is probably true for some cards (e.g. Thistle Tea) but the actual cost vs power level is about right in most cases.
Regarding the razorpetal it looks like it should do 2 damage rather than 1 (as you noted 0 mana is broken), but equally none of us have done any play-testing with the cards and I doubt Team 5 looked at a 1 mana 1 damage spell and thought: "yeah that's good enough by itself". As a relevant aside, Xaril, Poisoned Mind has a 36% chance of giving you a Fadeleaf Toxin, which then make Malygos work again. So you can still build that in as an alternative win condition if Xaril gives you the option.
And I think there lies the point: the devs clearly want rogue to be quite dynamic and require thought rather than grinding out the exact same game plan each game. The quest is a case in point, since which minion you use is probably going to be different each game depending on how it pans out. And if you actually look at what rogue has and doesn't have (e.g. has: nearly every possible form of card 'draw' you could want; don't have: healing), the class has a much clearer sense of identity than most if not all other classes.
tl;dr: I think rogue is actually fair, interesting and not 'brainless', which is ideally where you want all of the classes. I accept 'fair' often doesn't cut it in constructed but that is mostly a problem with other classes.
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As the title says, i think i've finally realized what the problem with Rogue is and why it seems nothing can go the classes way (regarding class cards). My best joke is that, every time Team 5 prints up a card for Rogue that seems a little too powerful, it's given to Shaman.
Joke aside, i think the biggest fundamental problem with Rogue is the combo system; along with having prep. What is always the one problem when it comes to why Rogue minions are considered unplayable? Because it always seems to be missing a point or two of stats. Why does it seem that virtually every spell after 2 mana is almost unplayable? Because it always feels like we're paying too much for them. But, if all the minions were stat'd correctly and all the spells were cost'd correctly, we'd be saying how utterly broken the class is. So to counter balance the minions low stats, they are given a reasonable combo or are allowed to be tempo'd accordingly (a turn before they're mana cost). And to counter balance the spells being so high cost'd, Team 5 likes to act as if we have 50 other Preparation cards in hand.
A look at the new Razorpetal token that was given in Un'Goro. As a 0 cost, it is literally broken because of Miracle/Malygos. But at 1 mana, it's borderline unplayable unless you really want costly combo activators or REALLY want to bring back Sherazin, Corpse Flower.
There has to come a point where Team 5 has to settle on where they want the class to be, because in it's current state, virtually every card in the class has a problem of being cost'd/stat'd badly but at the same time if it were cost'd/stat'd better, it'd be "bonkers insane" - Noxious. And i for one dream of a day where i can make an actual Rogue deck with actual Rogue cards and not 90% neutral minions. And before you say it, i don't care about the creatively dry aggro rogue.
while I don't think you are wrong when putting this in the [real world] setting of other classes not having this problem (at least not so consistently), I have often felt that Team 5 actually do know what they are doing with rogue and it is better viewed as other classes fluctuating too much in power level. Of course in practice rogue is left with a bunch of genuinely balanced cards that don't make the cut against the tier 1 decks.
As for the implicit expectation that we have prep in hand, it is probably true for some cards (e.g. Thistle Tea) but the actual cost vs power level is about right in most cases.
Regarding the razorpetal it looks like it should do 2 damage rather than 1 (as you noted 0 mana is broken), but equally none of us have done any play-testing with the cards and I doubt Team 5 looked at a 1 mana 1 damage spell and thought: "yeah that's good enough by itself". As a relevant aside, Xaril, Poisoned Mind has a 36% chance of giving you a Fadeleaf Toxin, which then make Malygos work again. So you can still build that in as an alternative win condition if Xaril gives you the option.
And I think there lies the point: the devs clearly want rogue to be quite dynamic and require thought rather than grinding out the exact same game plan each game. The quest is a case in point, since which minion you use is probably going to be different each game depending on how it pans out. And if you actually look at what rogue has and doesn't have (e.g. has: nearly every possible form of card 'draw' you could want; don't have: healing), the class has a much clearer sense of identity than most if not all other classes.
tl;dr: I think rogue is actually fair, interesting and not 'brainless', which is ideally where you want all of the classes. I accept 'fair' often doesn't cut it in constructed but that is mostly a problem with other classes.