I can only speak for myself, but I feel that OTK decks are currently way too dominant and are crowding out other control strategies. I climbed from rank 16 to 5 in the last few days (76 games), and these were all of the decks I faced for each class, in other of popularity:
Druid - Malygos, Togwaggle, Mecha'thun
Hunter - Deathrattle, Spell
Mage - Big Spell, Tempo
Paladin - Odd
Priest - Mecha'thun, Topsy
Rogue - Burgle, Malygos
Shaman - Elemental, Shudderwock
Warlock - Mecha'thun, Control, Zoo
Warrior - Mech
That is 44% OTK, 22% Midrange, 17% Aggro, and 17% regular Control. Additionally, most of those regular Control decks were 1-of encounters, totaling only 6 out of 76 games (8%).
But the deck popularity is not really the reason I think the strategy is problematic, they may very well all turn out to be outclassed by aggressive strategies, my problem with it is the lack of counter options. Aside from Warlock (and in some cases Mage), no class has any way of disrupting these OTK strategies. The strategy against these OTK decks is almost always "kill them before they draw their entire deck", which is incredibly difficult for most Control decks to do.
This is completely different from every other strategy in Hearthstone, since they all have counters. AoE against swarm, healing against burn, silence against taunt and buffs, hard removal against big minions, etc. If you're struggling against most strategies, there are typically some cards you can include to greatly improve your matchup. Having a matchup that you literally can't improve your chances against is a terrible feeling that, at least to me, takes away a lot of the fun of both deckbuilding and gameplay.
Similarly there's actually a problem that exist for most OTK decks against Control decks that actually can counter them. Their strategies often have to be so fragile that if one of their combo pieces gets disrupted, their entire strategy falls apart and they automatically lose the game. This is again very different from how every other strategy works. You don't automatically win the game by healing against burn, or clearing the board against swarm, or even milling away the Death Knight against a Control deck. Countering these strategies gives you incremental advantages, brings you a bit closer to winning the game. On the other hand if you Demonic Project away the opponent's Mecha'thun, you just won the game right there on the spot.
So what I think Hearthstone really needs is basically two kinds of neutral cards. The first one is something akin to Dirty Rat to slow down OTK, and the second is a card to counter that first card, something such as "Discover a discarded card and shuffle it into your deck." in the case of Dirty Rat.
i'm honestly at a loss when people say "control deck" and then complain about decks having a big win condition, seriously can someon update me in wtf control means for this community?
i'm honestly at a loss when people say "control deck" and then complain about decks having a big win condition, seriously can someon update me in wtf control means for this community?
Control literally means winning through controlling your opponent. When a deck has a big end of game combo that relies only on pieces in the hand, it literally becomes impossible to control hence the reason control decks hate combo decks right now. Not sure what you are struggling with here.
i'm honestly at a loss when people say "control deck" and then complain about decks having a big win condition, seriously can someon update me in wtf control means for this community?
I am not a control player, but as far I think I understand how users use the term "control" at the moment, "control" means a defensive, reactive deck, which just try to outvalue (or even fatigue) the enemy. I allready heared the term "value deck" from some streamer, but I am not sure, if they mean the same like an "oldschool control deck".
For me personally every combo deck is just another control deck - just with another kind of wincondition than the "non-combo control decks".
Blizzard should make a special stream lessons or youtube videos in which they explain the the only way hs should be played is with supa dupa 1000 IQ control/combo homebrewed decks and 30 minutes long match is a minimum time period that proves you're not braindead blah blah something etc.
I feel like big, bursty combos have a place in the game, but at the same time, in the current meta, their place is a little too large. Bliz killed Freeze Mage with the Ice Lance rotation because the deck was too good and too classic-set. That was the right decision. Divine Spirit OTK priest is an old, old archetype, but it's usually been a lot worse than now. Mecha'thun seems perhaps a bit easier than intended. King Togwaggle, to me, is a kind of toxic card. I'd much rather just be killed by damage than have my deck stolen or deleted. Malygos burst combos keep getting easier.
There's an ecosystem to a card game. Aggro for fast games, to burn-out combo decks, and to punish bad draws. Control to outlast Aggro. Combo to punish control decks which won't proactively win the game. Midrange to be faster than Control against Combo decks and end games, but heavier than Aggro with enough threats to challenge control, and enough of a curve to try to compete against Aggro--a style of deck designed to lose less, but that doesn't necessarily beat anything. Midrange has seemed rather weak in Heathstone for a while. I'd probably have called Spiteful Summoner decks midrange, but that was the only example for a while, and it's kinda died post-nerf. Now, Combo decks have gotten easier, so control decks are kinda fading.
So it's OTK combos, and aggro for most of Heathstone. Just seems a bit out of balance.
Some of that might be fixed over time, as stuff like Shadow Visions makes Divine Spirit priests harder again, but the problem is that very dangerous word "double" on Divine Spirit. Without that, Shadow Visions would probably be fine to stay around. A tool to gain flexibility at the cost of tempo. I'd rather see Divine Spirit go away. However, a lot hasn't been getting fixed. Druid keeps getting more ramp, more card draw, more armor gain. Oh, and the card draw is also the ramp and the armor gain and it all keeps getting easier and easier. It won't matter when Branching Paths rotates, because Ferocious Howl is in this year's block of cards.
Again, Combo should be part of the game--it should just be a bit harder than it is now. I don't think the current state is where it needs to be, and things seem headed in the wrong direction.
Control literally means winning through controlling your opponent. When a deck has a big end of game combo that relies only on pieces in the hand, it literally becomes impossible to control hence the reason control decks hate combo decks right now. Not sure what you are struggling with here.
So then is a Recruit Warrior playing Boomship as a win condition a combo deck? It has a big end of game combo that relies on pieces in the hand.
Or what about Shudderwock? It only needs one piece in hand (shudderwock) instead of multiple pieces.
That's why I think Infirc's question has some validity. The definitions of what a control or combo deck is changes from CCG to CCG and within CCG's as that game evolves and different cards are released.
Control literally means winning through controlling your opponent. When a deck has a big end of game combo that relies only on pieces in the hand, it literally becomes impossible to control hence the reason control decks hate combo decks right now. Not sure what you are struggling with here.
So then is a Recruit Warrior playing Boomship as a win condition a combo deck? It has a big end of game combo that relies on pieces in the hand.
Or what about Shudderwock? It only needs one piece in hand (shudderwock) instead of multiple pieces.
That's why I think Infirc's question has some validity. The definitions of what a control or combo deck is changes from CCG to CCG and within CCG's as that game evolves and different cards are released.
Hey OP, I think you're right in the context of the current meta. But, ideally this game would be designed to fundamentally be more interactive and encourage more 'balanced' strategies. Cards like dirty rat being an essential tech card is probably the sign of an unhealthy meta.
By interactive, I mean core mechanics such as your ratio of taunt cards, spells, or healing would determine your ability to deal with different strategies. I'll give some examples:
-Worgen OTK: This combo deck has a couple ways of interacting with it as a control deck. 1-2 well timed taunts and having full hp/armor can negate the ability to OTK. This allows almost any control deck to have some kind of chance in the deck building phase without having something highly specific like dirty rat.
-Exodia Paladin: The OTK in this deck relies on getting at least 1 extra coin (in the burgly bully/auctionmaster days). This makes a more interesting interaction, in that the paladin has to create an oppressive board position in order to bait a spell from the opponent to trigger the burgly bully. The back up plan can also create a fun interaction in the same way, in that they have to get a hero power to stick in order to combo out the next turn.
By balanced, I'm not exactly talking about game balance - but how greedy a deck can be to be considered optimized in the current meta. An aggro deck that is tier 1 that wins on turn 4-5 is probably not a healthy meta, in the same way that a turn 9-10 OTK that runs nothing but draw would be unhealthy in tier 1. This would also apply to a tier 1 odd control warrior that aims to gain 100 armor and fatigue the opponent. It is certainly difficult for Blizzard to accurately predict all the different things players will discover, but the aim should be that each of the rock/paper/scissor archetypes have a more optimal play style in a less greedy decklist.
In conclusion, a combo deck that wins from hand regardless of board state or how much hp/armor is probably just a terrible design. If you need a very specific card like dirty rat to interact with a deck like this and have any chance, this probably shouldn't even be printed in the first place.
i'm honestly at a loss when people say "control deck" and then complain about decks having a big win condition, seriously can someon update me in wtf control means for this community?
A control deck is generally a deck whose goal is to out value the opponent and win in the late game once they have exhausted their opponent's resources. A combo deck is a deck that stalls until they can assemble a specific combo.
Control decks can have a big win condition (such as N'Zoth, Boomship, Guldan), but their focus is more on exhausting the opponent's resources than getting their combo pieces together.
Another easy way to tell the difference: If both players hit fatigue, the control deck generally wants more resources left than their opponent, while the combo deck doesn't care how many resources they have compared to their opponent. The combo deck just cares about their combo.
In conclusion, a combo deck that wins from hand regardless of board state or how much hp/armor is probably just a terrible design. If you need a very specific card like dirty rat to interact with a deck like this and have any chance, this probably shouldn't even be printed in the first place.
That is what 30% of most OTK decks do in most card games, not just Hearthstone. Hell, in some games, that is what 60% of the OTK decks do.
It is not terrible design, it is just different strategies given to players so they can win in different manner, it is what brings interest to card games, the ability to win games in so many different ways because of the insane number of combinations of cards players can use to build a deck...
Just because you don't like a strategy doesn't make it terrible design. What makes it terrible design is how it operates within the constraints of the game and it's mechanics. In Hearthstone, the OTK strategies are almost all perfectly fine, with what I would argue Shudderwock being the exception, simply because it is Random and therefore, avoids the failure margin most OTK deck have that is dedicated simply to pure fuck up from the Pilot.
You can just look at two OTK decks in current existence, Shudderwock and the Priest Topsy deck. Shudderwock operates in random order and therefore, doesn't matter what the player does, it decides on it's own if it works or not. You can play the deck correctly, have a clean board and space in hand when playing Shudderwock after maximizing the odds of it returning to hand, and RNG can still decide not to give it back, and it can do the opposite, you can fuck up the odds and the board and still get it back to hand at random.
On the other side, you have the Topsy deck, which if you attempt it, you will see that you can extremely easily fuck up the orders and get stuck with no way to win. Yet both can deal absurdly ridiculous amounts of damage, Topsy can deal even higher ones. The only difference is the player is not likely to be punished by their mistakes in one and will get fucked in the other.
I'm all for allowing different win conditions in the game, it makes it more fun. But when you give players a ridiculous win condition like Shudderwock, and don't give it room to punish player failure, I do have a problem. Yet I have no issue at all facing almost any other OTK deck in the game, I enjoy it even. Doesn't feel bad losing to someone playing correctly, it feels bad losing to someone playing badly and still winning.
'Most card games do it' doesn't mean it's a bible to follow. I listed two examples of OTK decks that have a more conditional yet were considered okay decks in their day. Interaction in a game makes it more enjoyable to intelligent players at the very least. Yes, you want lots of strategies, but not at the expense of in-game decision making. MTG was terrible about this for example.
Shudderwock and Topsy Priest are pretty good examples to talk about. Shudderwock is clearly an offender and I agree with your points. Priest has had a deck like Topsy priest for some time now (inner fire/divine spirit shenanigans). Topsy, in my opinion, is a bit too far - but is kept in check currently by its performance (to my knowledge anyway). A deck that can literally win through charging boars and clearing (theoretically) any amount of taunts from an empty board position is a dangerous design. The older priest decks have been somewhat strong and allowed more universal counter play. Skill vs luck is a fine discussion to have after you have considered all the interactions with a deck/strategy first.
You seem to show up a lot when I post... have to say, your logic isn't ever totally on point. But you have heart!
There has to be OTK decks to counter absolutely insane control decks that clear board 5, 6 times in a row of sticky, shielded and deathrattle minions. I'm playing a token druid agains a warlock and it's a joke really. He's been able to clear a full board 5 turns in a row.
There has to be OTK decks to counter absolutely insane control decks that clear board 5, 6 times in a row of sticky, shielded and deathrattle minions. I'm playing a token druid agains a warlock and it's a joke really. He's been able to clear a full board 5 turns in a row.
Definitely, this is how the ecosystem is kept in check. My points, for instance, deal with how interactive a strategy is. If the control deck has to create a less greedy deck to deal with combo more effectively (not 50-50, but say, 40-60), then the game is healthier and doesn't feel decided at the start unless you went full greed.
As Control Warrior, you have exactly 0% chance to win against Mecha'thun Priest. The few games you win are basically because the opponent messes up and overdraws his Mecha'thun, but this is an unforced mistake.
Such one sided match-ups shouldn't be in the game. Whalen is an asshole. Every class needs something to have at least 30-40% chance against anything.
I'm getting tired of these 90%-10% matchups, makes the game so frustrating.
As Control Warrior, you have exactly 0% chance to win against Mecha'thun Priest. The few games you win are basically because the opponent messes up and overdraws his Mecha'thun, but this is an unforced mistake.
Such one sided match-ups shouldn't be in the game. Whalen is an asshole. Every class needs something to have at least 30-40% chance against anything.
I'm getting tired of these 90%-10% matchups, makes the game so frustrating.
This is precisely the problem. An OTK deck that doesn't allow some kind of interactivity is bad for a game because certain classes (warrior in this case) are either shut out of the game, or forced to play these ridiculous matchups.
Ideally, it should be possible to build a deck with any class that doesn't get totally destroyed by another optimized list. Clearly, there will always be weird rogue decks that have asymmetrical win rates, but they shouldn't be top performing decks.
'Most card games do it' doesn't mean it's a bible to follow. I listed two examples of OTK decks that have a more conditional yet were considered okay decks in their day. Interaction in a game makes it more enjoyable to intelligent players at the very least. Yes, you want lots of strategies, but not at the expense of in-game decision making. MTG was terrible about this for example.
Shudderwock and Topsy Priest are pretty good examples to talk about. Shudderwock is clearly an offender and I agree with your points. Priest has had a deck like Topsy priest for some time now (inner fire/divine spirit shenanigans). Topsy, in my opinion, is a bit too far - but is kept in check currently by its performance (to my knowledge anyway). A deck that can literally win through charging boars and clearing (theoretically) any amount of taunts from an empty board position is a dangerous design. The older priest decks have been somewhat strong and allowed more universal counter play. Skill vs luck is a fine discussion to have after you have considered all the interactions with a deck/strategy first.
You seem to show up a lot when I post... have to say, your logic isn't ever totally on point. But you have heart!
Intelligent players know that interaction is not solely the ability to directly disrupt the opponent by the use of a single card. Interaction is any action you can take to affect something, in this case that something would be the strategy of your opponent.
A year ago, we were faced with an annoying issue in the game called Jade Idol. It allowed a very strong strategy which didn't have direct means of disruption until Skulking Geist was printed. That doesn't mean there were no interactions that intelligent players could take against it, it just meant there were no interactions the less experience players could take against it.
You could still play Control and beat Jade Idols, you just had to know how to heavily out tempo the Druid with the limited tempo tools you had as a Control deck. It was hard, very hard, but that is what the experienced players could do, that non experienced ones could not.
The first day of Witchwood, I faced a bunch of Shudderwock Shamans as an adapted Freeze Mage. I didn't have any single direct disruption tool like Dirty Rat available to me and because of Healing Rains, I simply couldn't just Burn down the Shamans. Still, I didn't lose those games. Now I ask you, how did I beat them? Can you guess how I disrupted their game plan without having Dirty Rats?
Well, the Priest InnerFire decks were Combo decks but not OTK decks. They required minions from the previous turn to survive to be able to attack. Regardless, it is perfectly fine to have a deck which can do what Topsy can. It requires the player to be very proficient from a Technical Play level to be able to execute the Combo turns effectively and win the game.
The Win Condition of a deck should only be as powerful as the amount of Technical Play required to pull of the winning Combo. That is why things like Patron were slightly overpowered but still fine. These decks are actually the best kind of decks, they are decks that perform REALLY badly in the hands of bad players, yet perform extremely well on the hands of great players. This is how the game should be as a whole.
The actual design flaw in Hearthstone is not the power of Combo decks, it's the power of other decks. It is terrible to see how high the winrates of decks like Odd Paladin are when you take into consideration the amount of Errors the players are allowed to do while piloting them and still get away with the win. Obviously, in an ideal scenario the game would punish every players for their technical fails, but the fact that there exist decks out there which are in such a high power level that they still perform so strongly even while piloted incorrectly, that is where they need to look at when it comes to design flaws.
So yes, Skill and Luck is a discussion for when you take interaction into consideration, the problem is, not all players actually know how interaction works and more importantly, most players don't know the interactions past the basic direct disruption mechanics, as in, use X card to disrupt strategy Y.
Oh and about posting a lot when you post, I'm sorry, I don't tend to memorise names and such all that much, I just post based on the text written in the post itself.
Absolutely, interaction has a lot of different successful applications - including tempo as you mention. As long as it exists as a viable counter strategy, I find that acceptable. This is almost always highly class limited in HS though, depending on the expansion.
I play w/e classes I find most interesting in an expansion, and would ideally consider all of them interesting. If a class feels extremely limited by these oppressive strategies (like Jade or Odd Pally), then it's a less interesting meta. I generally play at Legend or near Legend rank, so at this level I have to be playing highly optimized classes/lists. In some cases, you're lucky to have 1-2 more balanced strategies.
Greedy decks rarely if ever appeal to me, because their ability to adapt to a matchup is just so limited - so any meta that feels too slanted in this way I'll just sit out. Grinding out a greedy meta has to be the most mind-numbing experience to everyone right? This is why I can't imagine how you can refute my earlier points - skill/decision-making rarely comes into play if a deck has a ton of 10/90% 90/10% win matchups.
i'm honestly at a loss when people say "control deck" and then complain about decks having a big win condition, seriously can someon update me in wtf control means for this community?
Control literally means winning through controlling your opponent. When a deck has a big end of game combo that relies only on pieces in the hand, it literally becomes impossible to control hence the reason control decks hate combo decks right now. Not sure what you are struggling with here.
Impossible to do? Ever heard of tech cards or do control decks nowadays not want to run them cuz 'my winrate against everything'?
Ooze partially disrupts how easy it is for Maly Druid to OTK you smoothly.
Demonic Project instantly wins against both Mecha'Thun Priest AND Mecha'Thun Druid if you have half a brain cell and don't gamble with your spell but instead use it when the Druid has 3 cards in hand (Innervate, Naturalize, Mecha'Thun) or 5 cards in hand vs priest (Mecha'Thun, aboms, Coffin Crasher, & the new deathrattle minion). It also gives you a chance to potentially hit Maly or Mecha'Thun in the warlock version (not guaranteed but Dirty Rat was 100% either).
Mana Wraith instantly wins the match-ups for any class against Mecha'Priest if you wait til they only have their combo in hand (makes the combo cost 14 mana instead of 10) and can potentially win against Mecha'Thun Druid (Giving you 2 extra turns while they hero power down the wraith or forcing them to summon a naked Mecha'Thun if they blow their Naturalize on it).
Heck, if Control Mage hated Mecha'Priest they could even tech in one Explosive Runes to win the game at the very end.
There is no Dirty Rat in standard but honestly the card is not needed atm. I just listed multiple counters to combo decks. Some of those techs are available to all classes and some of them are a 100% winrate (unlike Dirty Rat when trying to rat out a combo piece that may have multiple minions in their hand like Maly Druid or Mecha'Thun Lock.
Control doesn't lose due to a lack of counters, they lose to not pressuring at all. Seriously, you can't expect a deck to win when it doesn't try to kill you when pit up against a deck whose purpose is to kill you. Control players really need to get out of this incremental advantage win condition when going against combo decks or those clowns will always scratch their heads wondering why they never win. Combo decks don't typically care about attrition-based win conditions and care much more about not dying. You'd think it would be obvious then that you don't play slow against combo and instead play as fast and on curve as you can to kill them instead of going for trademark Trump value-town plays.
Demonic Project instantly wins against both Mecha'Thun Priest AND Mecha'Thun Druid if you have half a brain cell and don't gamble with your spell but instead use it when the Druid has 3 cards in hand (Innervate, Naturalize, Mecha'Thun) or 5 cards in hand vs priest (Mecha'Thun, aboms, Coffin Crasher, & the new deathrattle minion). It also gives you a chance to potentially hit Maly or Mecha'Thun in the warlock version (not guaranteed but Dirty Rat was 100% either).
Heck, if Control Mage hated Mecha'Priest they could even tech in one Explosive Runes to win the game at the very end.
Actually, priest can kind of play around these things by hanging onto their cheap deathrattles then play them with the combo because Reckless Experimenter makes them cost 0. If the opponent hasn't seen this play before, they'll wait on playing their demonic project/runes because they see the priest still has cards and assume they can't combo the following turn. Then they die next turn instead. If they go off prematurely, then a plated beetle or loot hoarder has a chance to disarm the counterplay
Obviously Demonic project still has a high chance to win but I just wanted to point out that it's not 100%
I can only speak for myself, but I feel that OTK decks are currently way too dominant and are crowding out other control strategies. I climbed from rank 16 to 5 in the last few days (76 games), and these were all of the decks I faced for each class, in other of popularity:
That is 44% OTK, 22% Midrange, 17% Aggro, and 17% regular Control. Additionally, most of those regular Control decks were 1-of encounters, totaling only 6 out of 76 games (8%).
But the deck popularity is not really the reason I think the strategy is problematic, they may very well all turn out to be outclassed by aggressive strategies, my problem with it is the lack of counter options. Aside from Warlock (and in some cases Mage), no class has any way of disrupting these OTK strategies. The strategy against these OTK decks is almost always "kill them before they draw their entire deck", which is incredibly difficult for most Control decks to do.
This is completely different from every other strategy in Hearthstone, since they all have counters. AoE against swarm, healing against burn, silence against taunt and buffs, hard removal against big minions, etc. If you're struggling against most strategies, there are typically some cards you can include to greatly improve your matchup. Having a matchup that you literally can't improve your chances against is a terrible feeling that, at least to me, takes away a lot of the fun of both deckbuilding and gameplay.
Similarly there's actually a problem that exist for most OTK decks against Control decks that actually can counter them. Their strategies often have to be so fragile that if one of their combo pieces gets disrupted, their entire strategy falls apart and they automatically lose the game. This is again very different from how every other strategy works. You don't automatically win the game by healing against burn, or clearing the board against swarm, or even milling away the Death Knight against a Control deck. Countering these strategies gives you incremental advantages, brings you a bit closer to winning the game. On the other hand if you Demonic Project away the opponent's Mecha'thun, you just won the game right there on the spot.
So what I think Hearthstone really needs is basically two kinds of neutral cards. The first one is something akin to Dirty Rat to slow down OTK, and the second is a card to counter that first card, something such as "Discover a discarded card and shuffle it into your deck." in the case of Dirty Rat.
i'm honestly at a loss when people say "control deck" and then complain about decks having a big win condition, seriously can someon update me in wtf control means for this community?
ur control era has ended
Control literally means winning through controlling your opponent. When a deck has a big end of game combo that relies only on pieces in the hand, it literally becomes impossible to control hence the reason control decks hate combo decks right now. Not sure what you are struggling with here.
I am not a control player, but as far I think I understand how users use the term "control" at the moment, "control" means a defensive, reactive deck, which just try to outvalue (or even fatigue) the enemy. I allready heared the term "value deck" from some streamer, but I am not sure, if they mean the same like an "oldschool control deck".
For me personally every combo deck is just another control deck - just with another kind of wincondition than the "non-combo control decks".
Anyone who does not want to waste time looking for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cczIAkj6y0s
1:42:50
(Explanation for the "only warlock survives combo" from Peter Whalen)
I feel like big, bursty combos have a place in the game, but at the same time, in the current meta, their place is a little too large. Bliz killed Freeze Mage with the Ice Lance rotation because the deck was too good and too classic-set. That was the right decision. Divine Spirit OTK priest is an old, old archetype, but it's usually been a lot worse than now. Mecha'thun seems perhaps a bit easier than intended. King Togwaggle, to me, is a kind of toxic card. I'd much rather just be killed by damage than have my deck stolen or deleted. Malygos burst combos keep getting easier.
There's an ecosystem to a card game. Aggro for fast games, to burn-out combo decks, and to punish bad draws. Control to outlast Aggro. Combo to punish control decks which won't proactively win the game. Midrange to be faster than Control against Combo decks and end games, but heavier than Aggro with enough threats to challenge control, and enough of a curve to try to compete against Aggro--a style of deck designed to lose less, but that doesn't necessarily beat anything. Midrange has seemed rather weak in Heathstone for a while. I'd probably have called Spiteful Summoner decks midrange, but that was the only example for a while, and it's kinda died post-nerf. Now, Combo decks have gotten easier, so control decks are kinda fading.
So it's OTK combos, and aggro for most of Heathstone. Just seems a bit out of balance.
Some of that might be fixed over time, as stuff like Shadow Visions makes Divine Spirit priests harder again, but the problem is that very dangerous word "double" on Divine Spirit. Without that, Shadow Visions would probably be fine to stay around. A tool to gain flexibility at the cost of tempo. I'd rather see Divine Spirit go away. However, a lot hasn't been getting fixed. Druid keeps getting more ramp, more card draw, more armor gain. Oh, and the card draw is also the ramp and the armor gain and it all keeps getting easier and easier. It won't matter when Branching Paths rotates, because Ferocious Howl is in this year's block of cards.
Again, Combo should be part of the game--it should just be a bit harder than it is now. I don't think the current state is where it needs to be, and things seem headed in the wrong direction.
So then is a Recruit Warrior playing Boomship as a win condition a combo deck? It has a big end of game combo that relies on pieces in the hand.
Or what about Shudderwock? It only needs one piece in hand (shudderwock) instead of multiple pieces.
That's why I think Infirc's question has some validity. The definitions of what a control or combo deck is changes from CCG to CCG and within CCG's as that game evolves and different cards are released.
Hey OP, I think you're right in the context of the current meta. But, ideally this game would be designed to fundamentally be more interactive and encourage more 'balanced' strategies. Cards like dirty rat being an essential tech card is probably the sign of an unhealthy meta.
By interactive, I mean core mechanics such as your ratio of taunt cards, spells, or healing would determine your ability to deal with different strategies. I'll give some examples:
-Worgen OTK: This combo deck has a couple ways of interacting with it as a control deck. 1-2 well timed taunts and having full hp/armor can negate the ability to OTK. This allows almost any control deck to have some kind of chance in the deck building phase without having something highly specific like dirty rat.
-Exodia Paladin: The OTK in this deck relies on getting at least 1 extra coin (in the burgly bully/auctionmaster days). This makes a more interesting interaction, in that the paladin has to create an oppressive board position in order to bait a spell from the opponent to trigger the burgly bully. The back up plan can also create a fun interaction in the same way, in that they have to get a hero power to stick in order to combo out the next turn.
By balanced, I'm not exactly talking about game balance - but how greedy a deck can be to be considered optimized in the current meta. An aggro deck that is tier 1 that wins on turn 4-5 is probably not a healthy meta, in the same way that a turn 9-10 OTK that runs nothing but draw would be unhealthy in tier 1. This would also apply to a tier 1 odd control warrior that aims to gain 100 armor and fatigue the opponent. It is certainly difficult for Blizzard to accurately predict all the different things players will discover, but the aim should be that each of the rock/paper/scissor archetypes have a more optimal play style in a less greedy decklist.
In conclusion, a combo deck that wins from hand regardless of board state or how much hp/armor is probably just a terrible design. If you need a very specific card like dirty rat to interact with a deck like this and have any chance, this probably shouldn't even be printed in the first place.
It seems to me that Control is blending over with Combo.
Or better, Combo is given more and more efficient tools to stall the game, making their combo pieces overload increasingly bearable.
A control deck is generally a deck whose goal is to out value the opponent and win in the late game once they have exhausted their opponent's resources. A combo deck is a deck that stalls until they can assemble a specific combo.
Control decks can have a big win condition (such as N'Zoth, Boomship, Guldan), but their focus is more on exhausting the opponent's resources than getting their combo pieces together.
Another easy way to tell the difference: If both players hit fatigue, the control deck generally wants more resources left than their opponent, while the combo deck doesn't care how many resources they have compared to their opponent. The combo deck just cares about their combo.
'Most card games do it' doesn't mean it's a bible to follow. I listed two examples of OTK decks that have a more conditional yet were considered okay decks in their day. Interaction in a game makes it more enjoyable to intelligent players at the very least. Yes, you want lots of strategies, but not at the expense of in-game decision making. MTG was terrible about this for example.
Shudderwock and Topsy Priest are pretty good examples to talk about. Shudderwock is clearly an offender and I agree with your points. Priest has had a deck like Topsy priest for some time now (inner fire/divine spirit shenanigans). Topsy, in my opinion, is a bit too far - but is kept in check currently by its performance (to my knowledge anyway). A deck that can literally win through charging boars and clearing (theoretically) any amount of taunts from an empty board position is a dangerous design. The older priest decks have been somewhat strong and allowed more universal counter play. Skill vs luck is a fine discussion to have after you have considered all the interactions with a deck/strategy first.
You seem to show up a lot when I post... have to say, your logic isn't ever totally on point. But you have heart!
There has to be OTK decks to counter absolutely insane control decks that clear board 5, 6 times in a row of sticky, shielded and deathrattle minions. I'm playing a token druid agains a warlock and it's a joke really. He's been able to clear a full board 5 turns in a row.
Definitely, this is how the ecosystem is kept in check. My points, for instance, deal with how interactive a strategy is. If the control deck has to create a less greedy deck to deal with combo more effectively (not 50-50, but say, 40-60), then the game is healthier and doesn't feel decided at the start unless you went full greed.
As Control Warrior, you have exactly 0% chance to win against Mecha'thun Priest. The few games you win are basically because the opponent messes up and overdraws his Mecha'thun, but this is an unforced mistake.
Such one sided match-ups shouldn't be in the game. Whalen is an asshole. Every class needs something to have at least 30-40% chance against anything.
I'm getting tired of these 90%-10% matchups, makes the game so frustrating.
This is precisely the problem. An OTK deck that doesn't allow some kind of interactivity is bad for a game because certain classes (warrior in this case) are either shut out of the game, or forced to play these ridiculous matchups.
Ideally, it should be possible to build a deck with any class that doesn't get totally destroyed by another optimized list. Clearly, there will always be weird rogue decks that have asymmetrical win rates, but they shouldn't be top performing decks.
Absolutely, interaction has a lot of different successful applications - including tempo as you mention. As long as it exists as a viable counter strategy, I find that acceptable. This is almost always highly class limited in HS though, depending on the expansion.
I play w/e classes I find most interesting in an expansion, and would ideally consider all of them interesting. If a class feels extremely limited by these oppressive strategies (like Jade or Odd Pally), then it's a less interesting meta. I generally play at Legend or near Legend rank, so at this level I have to be playing highly optimized classes/lists. In some cases, you're lucky to have 1-2 more balanced strategies.
Greedy decks rarely if ever appeal to me, because their ability to adapt to a matchup is just so limited - so any meta that feels too slanted in this way I'll just sit out. Grinding out a greedy meta has to be the most mind-numbing experience to everyone right? This is why I can't imagine how you can refute my earlier points - skill/decision-making rarely comes into play if a deck has a ton of 10/90% 90/10% win matchups.
Impossible to do? Ever heard of tech cards or do control decks nowadays not want to run them cuz 'my winrate against everything'?
Ooze partially disrupts how easy it is for Maly Druid to OTK you smoothly.
Demonic Project instantly wins against both Mecha'Thun Priest AND Mecha'Thun Druid if you have half a brain cell and don't gamble with your spell but instead use it when the Druid has 3 cards in hand (Innervate, Naturalize, Mecha'Thun) or 5 cards in hand vs priest (Mecha'Thun, aboms, Coffin Crasher, & the new deathrattle minion). It also gives you a chance to potentially hit Maly or Mecha'Thun in the warlock version (not guaranteed but Dirty Rat was 100% either).
Mana Wraith instantly wins the match-ups for any class against Mecha'Priest if you wait til they only have their combo in hand (makes the combo cost 14 mana instead of 10) and can potentially win against Mecha'Thun Druid (Giving you 2 extra turns while they hero power down the wraith or forcing them to summon a naked Mecha'Thun if they blow their Naturalize on it).
Heck, if Control Mage hated Mecha'Priest they could even tech in one Explosive Runes to win the game at the very end.
There is no Dirty Rat in standard but honestly the card is not needed atm. I just listed multiple counters to combo decks. Some of those techs are available to all classes and some of them are a 100% winrate (unlike Dirty Rat when trying to rat out a combo piece that may have multiple minions in their hand like Maly Druid or Mecha'Thun Lock.
Control doesn't lose due to a lack of counters, they lose to not pressuring at all. Seriously, you can't expect a deck to win when it doesn't try to kill you when pit up against a deck whose purpose is to kill you. Control players really need to get out of this incremental advantage win condition when going against combo decks or those clowns will always scratch their heads wondering why they never win. Combo decks don't typically care about attrition-based win conditions and care much more about not dying. You'd think it would be obvious then that you don't play slow against combo and instead play as fast and on curve as you can to kill them instead of going for trademark Trump value-town plays.
Actually, priest can kind of play around these things by hanging onto their cheap deathrattles then play them with the combo because Reckless Experimenter makes them cost 0. If the opponent hasn't seen this play before, they'll wait on playing their demonic project/runes because they see the priest still has cards and assume they can't combo the following turn. Then they die next turn instead. If they go off prematurely, then a plated beetle or loot hoarder has a chance to disarm the counterplay
Obviously Demonic project still has a high chance to win but I just wanted to point out that it's not 100%
Legend with : S65 Freeze Mage, S57 Maly Gonk Druid, S57 "Okay" Shaman, S53 Boom-zooka Hunter, S53 Maly Tog Druid, S52 Wild Tog Druid ft.Blingtron, S50 Quest Rogue, S49 Dead Man's Warrior, S41 Wild Clown Fiesta Druid, S41 Hadronox Jade Druid, S40 Wild OTK Dragon Druid, S35 SMOrc Shaman, S33 Jade Druid, S22 Control Priest, S19 Control Priest