Third, tickatus is nowhere near mindrender illucia’s power level. Tickatus is much much MUCH slower and the player has to be ahead on board or at least not behind to play tickatus. Illucia is 3 mana and can pretty much steal a win if a good player knows the matchup and when to play her.
1) Mindrender Illucia requires good timing and the Priest player runs the risk of his opponent making good use of the Priest's own cards, including the topdeck on the next turn. While it can steal a win against ETC warrior or Il'Gynoth DH, it can also miss if you've mistimed the play. It's a card that rewards skill in certain matchups and punishes misplays. Tickatus, on the other hand, just rewards the player for putting it in his deck and the only punishment is that it's usually a dead card against aggro. It almost doesn't even matter what is burned against most control matchups, because pushing your opponent 10 cards towards fatigue and destroying their resources is so powerful. Illucia is immensely more skill testing and immensely more fair.
2) As for Tickatus being anti control/combo tech, isn't that what people are complaining about? It's a card that simply wins certain matchups and requires no skill to play. The card is good at what it does, but what it does shouldn't exist.
This is simply not true. OTK decks kill you before turn 8 nowadays, if you play mozaki mage and don't kill your opponent by that turn you either draw poorly or play badly. Tickatus stands no chance against those decks while that "skillful" mindrender illucia can disrupt combos in more ways than you expect. You don't hit mozaki? Just play their apprentices and all the burn cards. You don't hit illgynoth? Play their mo'args and life steal spells. No ETC? No problem, play mercenary, inner rage/penflinger and broom. It's so easy to beat otk decks with illucia, people started playing priest with her as the only minion, c'thun for mirror matchup and galakrond for value, everything else being removal. Her effect is just brain dead, 0 skill involved. Just don't play her on turn 3, that's all you need to do.
Mindrender Illucia isn't even in every Priest deck, whereas Tickatus is in every warlock deck besides Zoo. Every one! That's because there is no downside to playing Tickatus beyond queuing into a bad matchup, whereas poor Illucia play can punish a Priest player as much as the opponent. Stats on mindrender are hard to come by, but the most popular HL Priest deck at legend gives her a 40.5% played WR, compared to a 51% deck WR (Tickatus has >60% played WR). And that's at legend! That should raise some eyebrows when we talk about skill testing.
Mindrender requires you to recognize the deck you're facing, what the wincon is, when they're likely to have key combo pieces in their hand and can only be played when you yourself aren't holding anything your opponent can use. Tickatus requires you to play Galakrond or Twisting Nether while it's in your hand and then you're taking your opponent to fatigue and then he comes down as soon as it's safe, which is a reasonably easy condition to create with all the removal at Warlock's disposal.
The reward/punishment framework is a useful one when comparing cards like this. What is the punishment for playing Tickatus poorly? You don't burn the "right" cards? Probably doesn't necessarily matter, you've still put your opponent 5 cards closer to fatigue and have deprived him of 5 resources he was counting on while building the deck, while giving him an 8/8 he has to deal with immediately. Compare to Illucia, where opponents have the opportunity to utilize your own cards for their benefit, including potentially ruining your C'Thun, playing your Galakrond, etc. If you highroll and steal their ETC, Il'Gynoth or Mozaki, then yeah, you've just highrolled and stolen a game against specific combo opponent. Grats. If you don't, then you've wasted a turn, given your opponent potentially valuable resources and generated almost nothing for yourself.
We can construct hypothetical examples for when either card wins games or when they don't, but the statistics seem to suggest that Tickatus is an "I win" card in the matchups where he's playable (i.e. everything except aggro), while Illucia is a dead card against most opponents that you're potentially better off not playing in all but the most specific cases.
Mindrender Illucia isn't even in every Priest deck, whereas Tickatus is in every warlock deck besides Zoo. Every one! That's because there is no downside to playing Tickatus beyond queuing into a bad matchup, whereas poor Illucia play can punish a Priest player as much as the opponent. Stats on mindrender are hard to come by, but the most popular HL Priest deck at legend gives her a 40.5% played WR, compared to a 51% deck WR (Tickatus has >60% played WR). And that's at legend! That should raise some eyebrows when we talk about skill testing.
Mindrender requires you to recognize the deck you're facing, what the wincon is, when they're likely to have key combo pieces in their hand and can only be played when you yourself aren't holding anything your opponent can use. Tickatus requires you to play Galakrond or Twisting Nether while it's in your hand and then you're taking your opponent to fatigue and then he comes down as soon as it's safe, which is a reasonably easy condition to create with all the removal at Warlock's disposal.
The reward/punishment framework is a useful one when comparing cards like this. What is the punishment for playing Tickatus poorly? You don't burn the "right" cards? Probably doesn't necessarily matter, you've still put your opponent 5 cards closer to fatigue and have deprived him of 5 resources he was counting on while building the deck, while giving him an 8/8 he has to deal with immediately. Compare to Illucia, where opponents have the opportunity to utilize your own cards for their benefit, including potentially ruining your C'Thun, playing your Galakrond, etc. If you highroll and steal their ETC, Il'Gynoth or Mozaki, then yeah, you've just highrolled and stolen a game against specific combo opponent. Grats. If you don't, then you've wasted a turn, given your opponent potentially valuable resources and generated almost nothing for yourself.
We can construct hypothetical examples for when either card wins games or when they don't, but the statistics seem to suggest that Tickatus is an "I win" card in the matchups where he's playable (i.e. everything except aggro), while Illucia is a dead card against most opponents that you're potentially better off not playing in all but the most specific cases.
If we are gonna talk about this let's not be biassed towards the decks we play, alright? I don't know where you get your stats from, but there is not a single tickatus deck that has over 50% winrate, so it's in the same spot as priest (highlander or control). But unlike tickatus warlock, control priest actually sees a lot of play in high legend ranks after some pro player hit top 10 with it. Why is that deck better than tickatus? Because of Illucia obviously and yes, she is in every viable priest deck right now.
Tickatus equals "I win" against any archetype except aggro? Well, if I look on hsreplay for some stats you most likely don't care about I see tickatus having the next winrates: 27% against life steal DH, 43% against mozaki mage, 40% against ETC warrior. And now priest: 49% against life steal DH, 52% against mozaki mage, 47% against ETC warrior. Now keep in mind that these stats are from low ranked games, as you go higher in the ranks you can be sure priest will have better winrates while warlock's will be worse (the only reason tickatus warlock has decent winrate against some otk decks is because of the players that can't play the specific otk decks properly).
Now, is tickatus insta win against control? No. If you play a greedy control deck, with literally no win condition which is a bad idea in this meta, then you deserve to be punished by tickatus. You forget that warlocks draw at least 6-7 cards per game with their hero power? And that's on top of free admission or veiled worshipper. Tickatus only balances the fatigue in control match ups, what about you add hecklebots and c'thun (for the extra 4 cards) and try to see if you lose fatigue? I know it's easier to complain when nobody comes to tell you "look my child, this is now you are supposed to play control vs tickatus, it's not really that hard" but I understand that in game where everyone netdecks the best meta decks and play whatever they find.
I think you don't understand what "played winrate" means for a card. If I face 15 aggro decks as tickatus warlock and lose all of them before being able to play tick and as you said that's just right, you can't do that in an aggro meta, but then I face a control deck, play tick and win then wow, tickatus has 100% played winrate. That's insane right? As priest you can even try to tempo play illucia, what do you give to your opponent, board clears? I bet they would like to blast their own board. Illucia doesn't have a drawback like tempo tickatus. So priests can play her anytime and still lose, that's why her played winrate isn't that high.
"Mindrender requires you to recognize the deck you're facing" you are saying this like we are in a meta with 100 viable decks. Yeah you definitely don't know what deck your opponent is playing if you are new to hearthstone. One more thing, you don't have control over what cards you discard with tickatus which is a big factor in "insta winning games", while illucia on the other hand... I mean, just think a bit about what you want to waste from your opponent's hand.
And again, someone with the old "you can't pressure warlock with all their removals" and again, I look at their winrates and I clearly don't see 70+ as you make it look like.
Do me a favor, go back and read again what I said before, you don't need to play the key cards after you swap hands (mozaki, illgynoth, etc). A combo deck doesn't relly on 1 card, there are multiple ways to break their combos.
Now I can see you are a priest player, do you know what else I see? Tickatus warlock beating the **** out of priests, no matter the archetype so I understand your frustration but you already beat aggro with your 27 aoe cards deck and insta win against otk with 1 single card. And as everyone know, you can't win everytime my friend. So after you lose to a tickatus go out, take your time, remember that those guys will lose to 70% of the meta, come back and lose to some more tickatus warlocks then complain on this forum, just let it out.
I broke D5 this month by winning against a Tick Lock with OTK Quest Shaman. I kept Quest, Y'shaarj, Jepetto in opening hand.
I want to thank this thread for inspiring me to try and see if that opening hand would win that game.
And yes, I realize he could have been zoo and I would have died, but after all these endless Tickatus threads, I figured it was meant to be.
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enoX - don't super care for your tone. I responded to you respectfully, would ask you to do the same. I'm not really a priest player - this season I've been playing HL Mage, Zoo and Control Shaman. It is true that the Tickatus played WR reflects the fact that he's almost never tempo'd out, even against aggro, and therefore only played in favorable matchups, but his inflated WR shows that in those matchups, he almost certainly wins the game. Control Warlock should not be so favored against other control decks and needs a card that burns 10 cards in order to win. It's a bullshit interaction with essentially no possible counterplay. There's no risk involved, like there is with Illucia (whose own played WR suggests that tempoing her out is almost always a bad idea). There are no considerations for timing, beyond needing to corrupt it first, it can be tutored by Sense Demons and you can play a second free copy on turn 10! It's a "win the game" card against control that doesn't require any thinking - why is that good for the game?
The reasons given by the design team for taking Coldlight Oracle out of rotation fall flat when you see something like Tickatus. It’s annoying to play against but not very good against fast decks. Basically a bad card design all around.
(1) "his inflated WR shows that in those matchups, he almost certainly wins the game"
(2) "Control Warlock should not be so favored against other control decks"
(3) "there's no risk involved like there is with Illucia"
(4) "It's a "win the game" card against control that (5) doesn't require any thinking"
1. Over the last 7 days, there is one deck that managed to break 53% win rate with Tickatus in Diamond-Legend. Fairly small game sample, but whatever, we'll go with it. Played win rate of the card is 73%. Given that drawing, corrupting, and playing the card represents 3/4 of the entire game plan of the deck, and noting that the Y'shaarj played win rate is only a few percentage higher, what is the appropriate played win rate in your mind for this card? In answering the question, please keep in mind what ramifications the argument has for the card Mecha'thun, which achieved the highest played win rate in the history of the game at one point.
2. Disregarding a couple of samples of <20 games (and if you aren't willing to do that, none of the numbers matter to you), the highest win rate against priest under the same conditions as (1) is 68%. In other words, a deck chock full of removal and able to accelerate the fatigue game by ten cards can't break 70% against the slowest, lowest threat count deck out there (notice, didn't say anything about small threats, said lowest number OF threats). What is the appropriate win rate such that this would not be a problem in your mind?
3. Please elaborate the risk involved in Illucia, in particular, if the "risk" you speak of is whether or not the cards you need to disrupt are currently in opponent's hand, how that differs from the "risk" of important threats or combo pieces not being in the top 5 cards of opponent's deck.
4. See 1 and 2 regarding winning the game by playing the card.
5. Most importantly, please give an example of a card that requires thinking, preferably without reusing Illucia since that seems to be a note of disagreement. In particular, did/does Mecha'thun require thinking as part of the various combo decks that made/make use of it?
I quoted goodlake at the start of this post, but would greatly appreciate any earnest responses.
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Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
So much in this post screams ‘I dont understand this game’.
Third, tickatus is nowhere near mindrender illucia’s power level. Tickatus is much much MUCH slower and the player has to be ahead on board or at least not behind to play tickatus. Illucia is 3 mana and can pretty much steal a win if a good player knows the matchup and when to play her. Tickatus is literally a tech/counter card for grindy control matchups which is what it is perfect for honestly, giving you card advantage and giving your opponent a disadvantage if you burn something important. And it puts them closer to fatigue. It’s a control tech card, and it performs its role perfectly.
What's remarkable is the show off of pseudo-intellectualism in a know-it-all predicament aiming to let those having a problem with Tickatus know how stupid they are. Really?
By itself more than a little fishy. Why the relentless effort to let everybody know Tickatus meta wise is not a problem. Being paid? It's a control suppressor part of the all-time politics of card design to let aggro have its dominant way; ranked to remain for 7 years low skilled aggressive.
Those who want to play a control styled skill oriented gameplay are the 'African Americans' in the United States of Hearthstone. Maybe a Control Gameplay Matters movement is in order. Has it ever occurred to you that devs are the problem, not those who are seen as second class citizens?
But comparing Tickatus to Illusia really proofs how good the postman understands the game. Quod non.
You love to bring out the term pseudo-intellectual, and you really, really, really shouldn't.
Ask first if someone has a problem. Try to understand, look behind the obvious. Judge then. But assuming someone doesn't understand, is just being 'emotional', is not 'reasonable', should 'get gud', while only relying on 'stats' by which Blizzard defends unbalanced, archetype killing card design.... that is peudo-intellectualism.
There is another word for this: fellow travellers. Make you feel good if you find yourself on the bandwagon of Blizzard, part of their target audience, doesn't it?
I apoligize if this is already too intellectual.
Someone quoting hard facts and statistics about the state of the meta is one thing. Someone inferring motives of a design team and then drawing bizarre comparisons to political issues seems the definition of pretending to know more than they do. Do you truly believe Tickatus is destroying hard control, and is the main issue hard control faces? Do you feel it's acceptable to lose as a control deck to a combo deck, but not to Tickatus? Or do you feel that combo decks should not exist either? If you also feel that combo decks should not exist, then perhaps this isn't the game for you, and you should stop getting upset about it and do something else. Because if there was a strong combo deck out there, it would also be dunking on control, and losing to aggro most of the time. Which is precisely what is happening to Ticklock in standard. The only difference is Tickatus does not automatically win the game like say, Mechathun.
How mentally challenged have you got to be to think that slowtaccus ia game-breaking. We already had warlock card that destroyed your whole deck in slower meta and still it was mediocre.
In an age where T5 you are dead from tip/alura paladin, combo/arbor druid and weapon/stealth rogue that card is dead like burned wood.
It NEVER will be oppressive as combo/aggro are dominant way harder then before. As for high legends and cyber sports we can have some complaints, but still the card won't be nearly as good as claimed here.
Man, guess u're in really low ladder xD I don't see this shit deck do nothing in high ladder. Some stuff here and there but nothing real against aggro and good constructed decks (even weapon rogue) . Only greed and slow stupid decks lost against this, and sorry, if u want meme just play casual, ,ranked is for the strongest!
How mentally challenged have you got to be to think that slowtaccus ia game-breaking. We already had warlock card that destroyed your whole deck in slower meta and still it was mediocre.
In an age where T5 you are dead from tip/alura paladin, combo/arbor druid and weapon/stealth rogue that card is dead like burned wood.
It NEVER will be oppressive as combo/aggro are dominant way harder then before. As for high legends and cyber sports we can have some complaints, but still the card won't be nearly as good as claimed here.
Yeah, but Dekkster champz is making the kids build this even if it's a bad deck...I don't understand the logic of the newbies.
What's remarkable is the show off of pseudo-intellectualism in a know-it-all predicament aiming to let those having a problem with Tickatus know how stupid they are. Really?
By itself more than a little fishy. Why the relentless effort to let everybody know Tickatus meta wise is not a problem. Being paid? It's a control suppressor part of the all-time politics of card design to let aggro have its dominant way; ranked to remain for 7 years low skilled aggressive.
Those who want to play a control styled skill oriented gameplay are the 'African Americans' in the United States of Hearthstone. Maybe a Control Gameplay Matters movement is in order. Has it ever occurred to you that devs are the problem, not those who are seen as second class citizens?
But comparing Tickatus to Illusia really proofs how good the postman understands the game. Quod non.
You love to bring out the term pseudo-intellectual, and you really, really, really shouldn't.
Ask first if someone has a problem. Try to understand, look behind the obvious. Judge then. But assuming someone doesn't understand, is just being 'emotional', is not 'reasonable', should 'get gud', while only relying on 'stats' by which Blizzard defends unbalanced, archetype killing card design.... that is peudo-intellectualism.
There is another word for this: fellow travellers. Make you feel good if you find yourself on the bandwagon of Blizzard, part of their target audience, doesn't it?
I apoligize if this is already too intellectual.
Someone quoting hard facts and statistics about the state of the meta is one thing. Someone inferring motives of a design team and then drawing bizarre comparisons to political issues seems the definition of pretending to know more than they do. Do you truly believe Tickatus is destroying hard control, and is the main issue hard control faces? Do you feel it's acceptable to lose as a control deck to a combo deck, but not to Tickatus? Or do you feel that combo decks should not exist either? If you also feel that combo decks should not exist, then perhaps this isn't the game for you, and you should stop getting upset about it and do something else. Because if there was a strong combo deck out there, it would also be dunking on control, and losing to aggro most of the time. Which is precisely what is happening to Ticklock in standard. The only difference is Tickatus does not automatically win the game like say, Mechathun.
?? well your respons isn't the point, is it?
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Youre allowed to have 40-40 stats on board every turn with rez mechanichs or to pull perfect answers generated by rng? Hm yes, ticktacus should stay the same.
Everyone can see that 6 cost card with 8/8 stats that burns off half of opponents deck is ridiculously OP. It gets even more ridiculously OP when you compare the card to other classes legendary card choices: they have nothing even remotely similar. But I guess you own the damn card and thus are eagerly defending it.
If it's OP, why the fuck aren't decks that it's in Tier 1 decks? Or even Tier 2? It has a 48% winrate.
Tickatus lock decks barely make it in the bottom of tier 3. It's not a good card. It's not consistent, it doesn't have enough impact, and it's a dead draw in 20-30% of games since the deck it's in only runs 3-4 enablers.
The problem with Tickatus isn't that it's strong, it just feels bad to play against it.
The low win rate of Tickatus warlock is due to the face hunter meta. If the meta were to change to a control foccused one (which it probably should according to the rock, paper, scissors mentality) the winrate of Tickatus warclock would increase because as far as I can see control decks cant win with 1/3 of their deck in the bin.
Imagine a card which was "10 mana in 5 turns you win the game". This card would generally suck because most decks aim to win well before turn 15. It would, however, kill most control decks which often aim to stall the game till the high mana, high impact (in theory) cards come out.
Tickatus is just a wierd card in a game where you (broadly) cant interact with your opponents cards. He's extremely OP against some decks and useless against others. A very polarising card (in terms of match outcomes) which shouldn't have been printed in this game.
In many regards he combines all things that are bad in Hearthstone - high variability in terms of winrate (rubbish against aggro, great against control), feels un-fair (and un-fun) to play against and highly random in terms of which cards he burns. He's not consitent with anything Blizzard has said about the game in the past.
Youre allowed to have 40-40 stats on board every turn with rez mechanichs or to pull perfect answers generated by rng? Hm yes, ticktacus should stay the same.
Everyone can see that 6 cost card with 8/8 stats that burns off half of opponents deck is ridiculously OP. It gets even more ridiculously OP when you compare the card to other classes legendary card choices: they have nothing even remotely similar. But I guess you own the damn card and thus are eagerly defending it.
If it's OP, why the fuck aren't decks that it's in Tier 1 decks? Or even Tier 2? It has a 48% winrate.
Tickatus lock decks barely make it in the bottom of tier 3. It's not a good card. It's not consistent, it doesn't have enough impact, and it's a dead draw in 20-30% of games since the deck it's in only runs 3-4 enablers.
The problem with Tickatus isn't that it's strong, it just feels bad to play against it.
The low win rate of Tickatus warlock is due to the face hunter meta. If the meta were to change to a control foccused one (which it probably should according to the rock, paper, scissors mentality) the winrate of Tickatus warclock would increase because as far as I can see control decks cant win with 1/3 of their deck in the bin.
Imagine a card which was "10 mana in 5 turns you win the game". This card would generally suck because most decks aim to win well before turn 15. It would, however, kill most control decks which often aim to stall the game till the high mana, high impact (in theory) cards come out.
Tickatus is just a wierd card in a game where you (broadly) cant interact with your opponents cards. He's extremely OP against some decks and useless against others. A very polarising card (in terms of match outcomes) which shouldn't have been printed in this game.
In many regards he combines all things that are bad in Hearthstone - high variability in terms of winrate (rubbish against aggro, great against control), feels un-fair (and un-fun) to play against and highly random in terms of which cards he burns. He's not consitent with anything Blizzard has said about the game in the past.
He's not consistent overall. He's not a good card.
Warlock is doing better now, but that's because of Jaraxxus. It's not because of Tickatus.
What I have a problem with isn't card burn, it's the fact that Warlock has between 6 and 8 board clears in addition to a total of 35 heals in the deck. Tickatus is only a problem because Warlock can sit there and lol until they draw it with zero consequences.
Imo the card is oppressive to certain decks but overall other decks in this meta are way worse (play vs token druid for example). Just wrecked some druid. 6 tickatus by turn 11 (although this is an extreme example but this guy would have lost 20 cards on turn 11 had he not conceded). Standard
He's not consistent overall. He's not a good card.
Warlock is doing better now, but that's because of Jaraxxus. It's not because of Tickatus.
What I have a problem with isn't card burn, it's the fact that Warlock has between 6 and 8 board clears in addition to a total of 35 heals in the deck. Tickatus is only a problem because Warlock can sit there and lol until they draw it with zero consequences.
What do you mean by not consistent? He consistently burns 10 cards against control decks. If you mean the deck doesn't consistently win, then of course it doesn't. Otherwise it would definitely get nerfed.
While I agree that nothing exists in a isolation and it's also true that Warlocks have a stupendous amount of removal and healing (and now Jaraxus which will also kill a lot of control decks), I hink it the combination of card draw and removal which facilitates tickatus. The fact is though that Tickatus is a single card win condition against all control decks and there's almost nothing you can do about it.
The only semi reliable card is probably Mindrender Illucia and she's still a one-off gamble for the class that probably has the worst win rate against warlock. Good luck having her in hand when you need her though because card draw doesn't belong to the identity of the priest class....
Whether or not Tickatus is good, he's just a badly designed card (imo), and no single card should be able to warp the meta as much as he can. Lets say they printed a board clear called "Exorcism" that that said destroy all Demons. It would be a pretty rubbish card...except against warlock/Demon Hunter where it would (potentially) excel. If the card became a staple those classes would disappear from the meta and the winrate associated with the card would plummet - suddenly the card is statistically not OP. Tickatus does this to control decks.
He's not consistent overall. He's not a good card.
Warlock is doing better now, but that's because of Jaraxxus. It's not because of Tickatus.
What I have a problem with isn't card burn, it's the fact that Warlock has between 6 and 8 board clears in addition to a total of 35 heals in the deck. Tickatus is only a problem because Warlock can sit there and lol until they draw it with zero consequences.
What do you mean by not consistent? He consistently burns 10 cards against control decks. If you mean the deck doesn't consistently win, then of course it doesn't. Otherwise it would definitely get nerfed.
While I agree that nothing exists in a isolation and it's also true that Warlocks have a stupendous amount of removal and healing (and now Jaraxus which will also kill a lot of control decks), I hink it the combination of card draw and removal which facilitates tickatus. The fact is though that Tickatus is a single card win condition against all control decks and there's almost nothing you can do about it.
The only semi reliable card is probably Mindrender Illucia and she's still a one-off gamble for the class that probably has the worst win rate against warlock. Good luck having her in hand when you need her though because card draw doesn't belong to the identity of the priest class....
Whether or not Tickatus is good, he's just a badly designed card (imo), and no single card should be able to warp the meta as much as he can. Lets say they printed a board clear called "Exorcism" that that said destroy all Demons. It would be a pretty rubbish card...except against warlock/Demon Hunter where it would (potentially) excel. If the card became a staple those classes would disappear from the meta and the winrate associated with the card would plummet - suddenly the card is statistically not OP. Tickatus does this to control decks.
He does not "consistently burn 10 cards". I play mainly control/value decks, and I've only been double Tickatused by Warlock in about 30-40% of the games I've had, and of those, about a third burned less than 10 cards because I'd already drawn the rest. My win rate against lock is about 65%.
The issue is that you're not changing your playstyle to account for the warlock package. You have to be more aggressive and get things out early, and burn resources that you wouldn't normally burn in order to kill them before they snowball, or at the very least force them to use theirs early. I win games against them because if the only things they get off Yshaarj are a single corrupted Cascading, a Luckysoul, and Tickatus, that's much easier to beat.
If you actually look at matchups, you can clearly see that the issue is their removal and not Tickatus; because it isn't just control decks that Warrior beats, it's midrange and even Pally aggro, because Pally aggro needs things on the field. What they lose against is generally decks that don't need to keep things on the field or that put out too much for Lock to deal with, that's why they consistently lose against Mage in basically all forms.
I agree that Tickatus feels bad to lose against so I think it should be hit due to that, maybe to burn 3, but it isn't what is making Warlock as a class oppressive right now.
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Mindrender Illucia isn't even in every Priest deck, whereas Tickatus is in every warlock deck besides Zoo. Every one! That's because there is no downside to playing Tickatus beyond queuing into a bad matchup, whereas poor Illucia play can punish a Priest player as much as the opponent. Stats on mindrender are hard to come by, but the most popular HL Priest deck at legend gives her a 40.5% played WR, compared to a 51% deck WR (Tickatus has >60% played WR). And that's at legend! That should raise some eyebrows when we talk about skill testing.
Mindrender requires you to recognize the deck you're facing, what the wincon is, when they're likely to have key combo pieces in their hand and can only be played when you yourself aren't holding anything your opponent can use. Tickatus requires you to play Galakrond or Twisting Nether while it's in your hand and then you're taking your opponent to fatigue and then he comes down as soon as it's safe, which is a reasonably easy condition to create with all the removal at Warlock's disposal.
The reward/punishment framework is a useful one when comparing cards like this. What is the punishment for playing Tickatus poorly? You don't burn the "right" cards? Probably doesn't necessarily matter, you've still put your opponent 5 cards closer to fatigue and have deprived him of 5 resources he was counting on while building the deck, while giving him an 8/8 he has to deal with immediately. Compare to Illucia, where opponents have the opportunity to utilize your own cards for their benefit, including potentially ruining your C'Thun, playing your Galakrond, etc. If you highroll and steal their ETC, Il'Gynoth or Mozaki, then yeah, you've just highrolled and stolen a game against specific combo opponent. Grats. If you don't, then you've wasted a turn, given your opponent potentially valuable resources and generated almost nothing for yourself.
We can construct hypothetical examples for when either card wins games or when they don't, but the statistics seem to suggest that Tickatus is an "I win" card in the matchups where he's playable (i.e. everything except aggro), while Illucia is a dead card against most opponents that you're potentially better off not playing in all but the most specific cases.
If we are gonna talk about this let's not be biassed towards the decks we play, alright? I don't know where you get your stats from, but there is not a single tickatus deck that has over 50% winrate, so it's in the same spot as priest (highlander or control). But unlike tickatus warlock, control priest actually sees a lot of play in high legend ranks after some pro player hit top 10 with it. Why is that deck better than tickatus? Because of Illucia obviously and yes, she is in every viable priest deck right now.
Tickatus equals "I win" against any archetype except aggro? Well, if I look on hsreplay for some stats you most likely don't care about I see tickatus having the next winrates: 27% against life steal DH, 43% against mozaki mage, 40% against ETC warrior. And now priest: 49% against life steal DH, 52% against mozaki mage, 47% against ETC warrior. Now keep in mind that these stats are from low ranked games, as you go higher in the ranks you can be sure priest will have better winrates while warlock's will be worse (the only reason tickatus warlock has decent winrate against some otk decks is because of the players that can't play the specific otk decks properly).
Now, is tickatus insta win against control? No. If you play a greedy control deck, with literally no win condition which is a bad idea in this meta, then you deserve to be punished by tickatus. You forget that warlocks draw at least 6-7 cards per game with their hero power? And that's on top of free admission or veiled worshipper. Tickatus only balances the fatigue in control match ups, what about you add hecklebots and c'thun (for the extra 4 cards) and try to see if you lose fatigue? I know it's easier to complain when nobody comes to tell you "look my child, this is now you are supposed to play control vs tickatus, it's not really that hard" but I understand that in game where everyone netdecks the best meta decks and play whatever they find.
I think you don't understand what "played winrate" means for a card. If I face 15 aggro decks as tickatus warlock and lose all of them before being able to play tick and as you said that's just right, you can't do that in an aggro meta, but then I face a control deck, play tick and win then wow, tickatus has 100% played winrate. That's insane right? As priest you can even try to tempo play illucia, what do you give to your opponent, board clears? I bet they would like to blast their own board. Illucia doesn't have a drawback like tempo tickatus. So priests can play her anytime and still lose, that's why her played winrate isn't that high.
"Mindrender requires you to recognize the deck you're facing" you are saying this like we are in a meta with 100 viable decks. Yeah you definitely don't know what deck your opponent is playing if you are new to hearthstone. One more thing, you don't have control over what cards you discard with tickatus which is a big factor in "insta winning games", while illucia on the other hand... I mean, just think a bit about what you want to waste from your opponent's hand.
And again, someone with the old "you can't pressure warlock with all their removals" and again, I look at their winrates and I clearly don't see 70+ as you make it look like.
Do me a favor, go back and read again what I said before, you don't need to play the key cards after you swap hands (mozaki, illgynoth, etc). A combo deck doesn't relly on 1 card, there are multiple ways to break their combos.
Now I can see you are a priest player, do you know what else I see? Tickatus warlock beating the **** out of priests, no matter the archetype so I understand your frustration but you already beat aggro with your 27 aoe cards deck and insta win against otk with 1 single card. And as everyone know, you can't win everytime my friend. So after you lose to a tickatus go out, take your time, remember that those guys will lose to 70% of the meta, come back and lose to some more tickatus warlocks then complain on this forum, just let it out.
Lol, how timely.
I broke D5 this month by winning against a Tick Lock with OTK Quest Shaman. I kept Quest, Y'shaarj, Jepetto in opening hand.
I want to thank this thread for inspiring me to try and see if that opening hand would win that game.
And yes, I realize he could have been zoo and I would have died, but after all these endless Tickatus threads, I figured it was meant to be.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
enoX - don't super care for your tone. I responded to you respectfully, would ask you to do the same. I'm not really a priest player - this season I've been playing HL Mage, Zoo and Control Shaman. It is true that the Tickatus played WR reflects the fact that he's almost never tempo'd out, even against aggro, and therefore only played in favorable matchups, but his inflated WR shows that in those matchups, he almost certainly wins the game. Control Warlock should not be so favored against other control decks and needs a card that burns 10 cards in order to win. It's a bullshit interaction with essentially no possible counterplay. There's no risk involved, like there is with Illucia (whose own played WR suggests that tempoing her out is almost always a bad idea). There are no considerations for timing, beyond needing to corrupt it first, it can be tutored by Sense Demons and you can play a second free copy on turn 10! It's a "win the game" card against control that doesn't require any thinking - why is that good for the game?
The reasons given by the design team for taking Coldlight Oracle out of rotation fall flat when you see something like Tickatus. It’s annoying to play against but not very good against fast decks. Basically a bad card design all around.
(1) "his inflated WR shows that in those matchups, he almost certainly wins the game"
(2) "Control Warlock should not be so favored against other control decks"
(3) "there's no risk involved like there is with Illucia"
(4) "It's a "win the game" card against control that (5) doesn't require any thinking"
1. Over the last 7 days, there is one deck that managed to break 53% win rate with Tickatus in Diamond-Legend. Fairly small game sample, but whatever, we'll go with it. Played win rate of the card is 73%. Given that drawing, corrupting, and playing the card represents 3/4 of the entire game plan of the deck, and noting that the Y'shaarj played win rate is only a few percentage higher, what is the appropriate played win rate in your mind for this card? In answering the question, please keep in mind what ramifications the argument has for the card Mecha'thun, which achieved the highest played win rate in the history of the game at one point.
2. Disregarding a couple of samples of <20 games (and if you aren't willing to do that, none of the numbers matter to you), the highest win rate against priest under the same conditions as (1) is 68%. In other words, a deck chock full of removal and able to accelerate the fatigue game by ten cards can't break 70% against the slowest, lowest threat count deck out there (notice, didn't say anything about small threats, said lowest number OF threats). What is the appropriate win rate such that this would not be a problem in your mind?
3. Please elaborate the risk involved in Illucia, in particular, if the "risk" you speak of is whether or not the cards you need to disrupt are currently in opponent's hand, how that differs from the "risk" of important threats or combo pieces not being in the top 5 cards of opponent's deck.
4. See 1 and 2 regarding winning the game by playing the card.
5. Most importantly, please give an example of a card that requires thinking, preferably without reusing Illucia since that seems to be a note of disagreement. In particular, did/does Mecha'thun require thinking as part of the various combo decks that made/make use of it?
I quoted goodlake at the start of this post, but would greatly appreciate any earnest responses.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Someone quoting hard facts and statistics about the state of the meta is one thing. Someone inferring motives of a design team and then drawing bizarre comparisons to political issues seems the definition of pretending to know more than they do. Do you truly believe Tickatus is destroying hard control, and is the main issue hard control faces? Do you feel it's acceptable to lose as a control deck to a combo deck, but not to Tickatus? Or do you feel that combo decks should not exist either? If you also feel that combo decks should not exist, then perhaps this isn't the game for you, and you should stop getting upset about it and do something else. Because if there was a strong combo deck out there, it would also be dunking on control, and losing to aggro most of the time. Which is precisely what is happening to Ticklock in standard. The only difference is Tickatus does not automatically win the game like say, Mechathun.
How mentally challenged have you got to be to think that slowtaccus ia game-breaking. We already had warlock card that destroyed your whole deck in slower meta and still it was mediocre.
In an age where T5 you are dead from tip/alura paladin, combo/arbor druid and weapon/stealth rogue that card is dead like burned wood.
It NEVER will be oppressive as combo/aggro are dominant way harder then before. As for high legends and cyber sports we can have some complaints, but still the card won't be nearly as good as claimed here.
This guys STILL not done creating smurf accounts to complain about Tickatus? What a life
Man, guess u're in really low ladder xD
I don't see this shit deck do nothing in high ladder. Some stuff here and there but nothing real against aggro and good constructed decks (even weapon rogue) .
Only greed and slow stupid decks lost against this, and sorry, if u want meme just play casual, ,ranked is for the strongest!
Yeah, but Dekkster champz is making the kids build this even if it's a bad deck...I don't understand the logic of the newbies.
?? well your respons isn't the point, is it?
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According to HSReplay, Warlock’s win rate is 9th in standard and 4th in wild.
Its not fun to play against but evidently, its not a really good deck based on winrates.
this
The low win rate of Tickatus warlock is due to the face hunter meta. If the meta were to change to a control foccused one (which it probably should according to the rock, paper, scissors mentality) the winrate of Tickatus warclock would increase because as far as I can see control decks cant win with 1/3 of their deck in the bin.
Imagine a card which was "10 mana in 5 turns you win the game". This card would generally suck because most decks aim to win well before turn 15. It would, however, kill most control decks which often aim to stall the game till the high mana, high impact (in theory) cards come out.
Tickatus is just a wierd card in a game where you (broadly) cant interact with your opponents cards. He's extremely OP against some decks and useless against others. A very polarising card (in terms of match outcomes) which shouldn't have been printed in this game.
In many regards he combines all things that are bad in Hearthstone - high variability in terms of winrate (rubbish against aggro, great against control), feels un-fair (and un-fun) to play against and highly random in terms of which cards he burns. He's not consitent with anything Blizzard has said about the game in the past.
He's not consistent overall. He's not a good card.
Warlock is doing better now, but that's because of Jaraxxus. It's not because of Tickatus.
What I have a problem with isn't card burn, it's the fact that Warlock has between 6 and 8 board clears in addition to a total of 35 heals in the deck. Tickatus is only a problem because Warlock can sit there and lol until they draw it with zero consequences.
Imo the card is oppressive to certain decks but overall other decks in this meta are way worse (play vs token druid for example). Just wrecked some druid. 6 tickatus by turn 11 (although this is an extreme example but this guy would have lost 20 cards on turn 11 had he not conceded). Standard
https://ibb.co/z4pxQL5
https://ibb.co/nLDPWkb
What do you mean by not consistent? He consistently burns 10 cards against control decks. If you mean the deck doesn't consistently win, then of course it doesn't. Otherwise it would definitely get nerfed.
While I agree that nothing exists in a isolation and it's also true that Warlocks have a stupendous amount of removal and healing (and now Jaraxus which will also kill a lot of control decks), I hink it the combination of card draw and removal which facilitates tickatus. The fact is though that Tickatus is a single card win condition against all control decks and there's almost nothing you can do about it.
The only semi reliable card is probably Mindrender Illucia and she's still a one-off gamble for the class that probably has the worst win rate against warlock. Good luck having her in hand when you need her though because card draw doesn't belong to the identity of the priest class....
Whether or not Tickatus is good, he's just a badly designed card (imo), and no single card should be able to warp the meta as much as he can. Lets say they printed a board clear called "Exorcism" that that said destroy all Demons. It would be a pretty rubbish card...except against warlock/Demon Hunter where it would (potentially) excel. If the card became a staple those classes would disappear from the meta and the winrate associated with the card would plummet - suddenly the card is statistically not OP. Tickatus does this to control decks.
He does not "consistently burn 10 cards". I play mainly control/value decks, and I've only been double Tickatused by Warlock in about 30-40% of the games I've had, and of those, about a third burned less than 10 cards because I'd already drawn the rest. My win rate against lock is about 65%.
The issue is that you're not changing your playstyle to account for the warlock package. You have to be more aggressive and get things out early, and burn resources that you wouldn't normally burn in order to kill them before they snowball, or at the very least force them to use theirs early. I win games against them because if the only things they get off Yshaarj are a single corrupted Cascading, a Luckysoul, and Tickatus, that's much easier to beat.
If you actually look at matchups, you can clearly see that the issue is their removal and not Tickatus; because it isn't just control decks that Warrior beats, it's midrange and even Pally aggro, because Pally aggro needs things on the field. What they lose against is generally decks that don't need to keep things on the field or that put out too much for Lock to deal with, that's why they consistently lose against Mage in basically all forms.
I agree that Tickatus feels bad to lose against so I think it should be hit due to that, maybe to burn 3, but it isn't what is making Warlock as a class oppressive right now.