While I'm not suggesting some of these points are easy to fix, the main issues with standard as I see it are:
1) Card draw needs to have a tempo cost, and all classes should have access to card draw. Absolutely not the case at the moment and most succesful decks have excellent card draw. Note that I'm not saying all classes should have access to the same amount of draw, or that the tempo cost should be the same.
2) All classes should be viable - part of this comes down to card draw, as card draw = consistency/flexibilty
3) Cards can ruin a meta without being OP as a global metric (i.e. % win when card played) - Tickatus (and maybe now Jaraxus) has locked out control decks until the he rotates.
4) Un-fun and uninteractive cards can ruin a game even if the stats say it's not OP. (Librams/pen flinger fall into this category for me, as does Tickatus)
5) Mana cheating is over used and feels very un-fun.
6) Blizz should not overly push deck design. Think of zoo - it was an imaginitive warlock deck with initially no intrinsic support beyond the hero power. Now Warlock is the "Zoo" class and half their cards support that deck design. It's lazy and counter to inovative deck design, as many of the designed synergies are just too powerful to overlook.
7) RNG in the form of random cards/minions is still out of control. An entire tier 1 mage deck is based on "random" cards. A lucky Jandice can lose you the game on turn 5 - much skill. The only semi-viable priest deck i've found basically generates all of it's cards assuming you can draw the minion. It's just a bad design philosophy made worse when the pool of cards from which the "discovers" are made from shrinks.
If there's some data on the subject of number of complaint threads I'm certainly not aware of that and would be happy to stand corrected, but pick any time frame and I'll be happy to supply . . . what? Six threads? 8 threads? What's a fair number of threads completely lambasting a healthy meta?
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Tickatus isn’t a problem imo. It’s still a slow card that gets countered by aggression. (Which doesn’t only exist in aggro decks)
It isn’t because it has counterplay, unlike lunacy mage.
Penflinger is generally also okay it’s only far too strong with the Paladin libram package.
I think lunacy, refreshing spring water and something in the secret/libram package should be nerfed. Paladin has been tier 1 since Outland and it’s beyond time they get nerfed.
Either that or they bring the other classes more up to their level. Since there are some classes like hunter, shaman, priest and warrior which are basically dead. Especially shaman..
There have definitely been times where people complained LESS about the meta than now. Of course, people will always complain, that’s the nature of people. But when every class is playable and win rates are closer to 50-55% for everyone, people are generally happier. Right now there are several classes which have no deck at 50%+ and one of the best decks, lunacy mage, is completely rng dependent. Sure, some amount of rng is great for the game. I love discover effects and of course draw related rng is part of the game, but the main reason lunacy mage is so awful to play against is because there are over 100 cards which could possibly be in the mages’ decks after playing lunacy, and it’s impossible to play around them all, so you often end up either over-committing and getting your board wiped or not committing enough and getting out-pressured. It’s totally different than playing against secret Paladin or control warlock because you know all or at least most of the cards in their deck and can adapt your plays accordingly. With lunacy mage, you can’t play around anything and the game is basically already decided based on when they draw deck of lunacy and what cards they get from it, nothing else matters. Games where decisions matter are much more fun and losing is less frustrating if you feel you either got outplayed or it’s simply an unfavored match up.
I've been playing DoL because I had the entire deck anyway and I highly suggest you watch the DoL video of HS player Viper. He isn't the best at explaining things, but he basically says that people overestimate the amount of randomness that DoL currently creates and he is absolutely right.
Your biggest spells come from a very small range of cards (there even is only 1 9-mana spell in standard right now). This is obviously a big strength of the deck, but it's also one of its biggest weaknesses because as an opponent, you can rather easily predict the big spells based on when your opoonent played Incanter's Flow. If anything, the 3 or lower cost spells are where the RNG sets in and there aren't that many board clears among these. If in doubt, I would rather overcommit than underpressure, unless your opponent was so smart to play both Flows before DoL. The RNG aspect of the deck is frustrating for opponents, but it's definitely not the problem of this deck.
The actual problem is the cost reduction. Nobody would care if Libram of Hope still costs 9. Nobody would care if Nagrand Slam still costs 10. Nobody would care about a 6 mana Skull of Guldan that draws into a 3 mana Hand of Guldan. But the tempo gain and massive card draw in a single turn are problematic.
That being said, I agree that the current winrates of Paladin and Mage in standard create a frustrating experience, especially since 60-80% of your matches are against these two classes. Hearthstone has gone waaaaaaay too far with cost reduction and their ways of countering this (Cult Neophyte, 2-mana Watch Post) create annoying experiences for everyone who isn't attempting to play 10 cards on turn 5.
Yes I understand there is a reduced card pool so it helps with the consistency of the person playing the deck, but you still can’t really play around much as the opponent. Yes you might be able to play around a few of the highest cost cards, but if you are playing around something that never comes, you just end up holding cards, making them effectively dead or a wasted opportunity to create pressure. Yes, I tend to just over-commit and hope they don’t have random board clears, but often they do, and it just feels bad because DoL decided to give them the answer that time, when it wouldn’t have other times. It would be better either if it was less consistent for the person playing the deck by having a worse spell pool or was more expensive. As you said, there’s too much cost reduction and the ability to manipulate your deck to create high frequencies of card draw and cost reduction just feels unreasonable. It should either be more random to make it more memey, or less cost reduction/higher initial mana commitment.
Yeah, that's why I suggested that DoL should say "spells that cost 2 more" and Refreshing Spring Water should say "refresh 1 mana crystal per spell drawn". Imagine you draw a Skull of Guldan after t2 DoL. You get a whooping "up to 12 mana discount" for 2 mana immediately on turn 3! And Spring Water was a completely dumb idea anyway. Over-committing is the better option because DoL sometimes fails to provide the removal tools needed. No pressure is no solution in the matchup.
If there's some data on the subject of number of complaint threads I'm certainly not aware of that and would be happy to stand corrected, but pick any time frame and I'll be happy to supply . . . what? Six threads? 8 threads? What's a fair number of threads completely lambasting a healthy meta?
If you allow me the full 4 months of the meta, 42 is not unreasonable.
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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.
Well why would we be happy if we already see aggro does not have any problem dealing with mage so after nerfs we come back to hunters and demon hunters everywhere.
Seriously dude? Just quoted you post partly, so hopefully you can understand why. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I give you A+ in sucking at communication skills.
I have no idea what your point is. Are you saying Priest is cancer right now? Are you saying Token Druid is still an archetype.
And get your post right this time so people can understand what your disagreement with my observations are.
It's pretty obvious to everyone that he's referring to the use of the word "cancer"... I know it's used in hearthstone since beta, but calling decks after a deadly disease still shows a bad taste
Seriously dude? Just quoted you post partly, so hopefully you can understand why. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I give you A+ in sucking at communication skills.
I have no idea what your point is. Are you saying Priest is cancer right now? Are you saying Token Druid is still an archetype.
And get your post right this time so people can understand what your disagreement with my observations are.
It's pretty obvious to everyone that he's referring to the use of the word "cancer"... I know it's used in hearthstone since beta, but calling decks after a deadly disease still shows a bad taste
This.
@Toribasher: your reply just shows your lack of maturity, bashing me lacking communication skills. I sincerely wish you best of luck in your life, may it be cancer free.
...that they could nerf Libram of Hope to 10 mana. Wouldn't that be somewhat helpful to target Paladin and Mage at the same time? Having no 9-cost spells in standard should surely help target DoL, no?
Certainly not everything I would nerf at this point, but could be one part of the puzzle.
I’m going to be pessimistic. In the eyes of the community, “no” it won’t be.
Kibler hit the nail on the head on his stream today. So many people in this community are just never happy. The meta is always “the worse it’s ever been.” People love love love to complain and blame the game for their losses. This happens every single time.
A couple of classes are top of the meta game. People whine and complain.
They roll out a balance patch, something else becomes the top of the meta game. People will whine and complain about that.
They could literally roll out a balance patch a week about whatever the community is witch hunting that particular week, and then people would just move onto complaining about the next thing.
If it is a flaw in people that some will never be satisfied with the state of the game, then it also a massive floor in those who damage control for Blizzard at times like this, to lump everyone who is complaining in together. They are not all the same, sorry.
Those of us who have played hearthstone from the start have a good frame of reference. We know when a meta is good or bad relative to previous metas. Some people are smarter than others, and their thought processes on hearthstone are more reasoned. Not all complaints are equal, though they might be equally angry, and complaining about the same things.
By lumping all complainers in together and dismissing them as a whole group you are doing an injustice to some, who have a reasoned logical opinion on the current state of the same. Newsflash - the current state is not particularly good. Penflingers, Librams, Deck of Lunacy...these problems are not imaginary.
...that they could nerf Libram of Hope to 10 mana. Wouldn't that be somewhat helpful to target Paladin and Mage at the same time? Having no 9-cost spells in standard should surely help target DoL, no?
Certainly not everything I would nerf at this point, but could be one part of the puzzle.
No, spell mage doesn't run any 6 drop spells because the only 6 drop Mage spell in standard rn is Blizzard. Having no 9 cost spells wouldn't change anything.
Incanter's Flow changes Flamestrike and C'Thun's Mask to 6 mana and in some matchups, you want to do that to get the 9-mana Librams because healing and big divine shield taunts are helpful to stabilise. It would take away the option to play 1 Flow before DoL.
I saw the problems with standard for this expansion a mile away, it doesn't make me special because everyone could see Secret Paladin was going to be stupidly busted. And Deck of Lunacy is a serious problem.
So I have played no games of standard.
But I have watched a lot of streams and it sure looks like Hearthstone has fixed a ton of problems with various classes and also fixed the "too much card generation problem".
I suspect that after the nerfs I might play Standard again.
Priest looks less like a cancerous class and more like a late game class. Hunter is a bit less face oriented and a bit more minion oriented. Rogue with the loss of sap and eviserate looks to be a little more fair. Demon Hunter actually looks fairly "normal" with the loss of Twin Slice and doesn't look like unfair cancer. Shaman doesn't seem to quite have what the other classes have, but Menancing Nimbus in Core is on of the best 2 drops Shaman ever had. And Druid losing Savage Roar means no more token cancer.
If the nerfs manage to properly address current issues without somehow making some other class God Tier, I think they might have Standard in a "good place" for the first time in quite a while.
/One opinion
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While I'm not suggesting some of these points are easy to fix, the main issues with standard as I see it are:
1) Card draw needs to have a tempo cost, and all classes should have access to card draw. Absolutely not the case at the moment and most succesful decks have excellent card draw. Note that I'm not saying all classes should have access to the same amount of draw, or that the tempo cost should be the same.
2) All classes should be viable - part of this comes down to card draw, as card draw = consistency/flexibilty
3) Cards can ruin a meta without being OP as a global metric (i.e. % win when card played) - Tickatus (and maybe now Jaraxus) has locked out control decks until the he rotates.
4) Un-fun and uninteractive cards can ruin a game even if the stats say it's not OP. (Librams/pen flinger fall into this category for me, as does Tickatus)
5) Mana cheating is over used and feels very un-fun.
6) Blizz should not overly push deck design. Think of zoo - it was an imaginitive warlock deck with initially no intrinsic support beyond the hero power. Now Warlock is the "Zoo" class and half their cards support that deck design. It's lazy and counter to inovative deck design, as many of the designed synergies are just too powerful to overlook.
7) RNG in the form of random cards/minions is still out of control. An entire tier 1 mage deck is based on "random" cards. A lucky Jandice can lose you the game on turn 5 - much skill. The only semi-viable priest deck i've found basically generates all of it's cards assuming you can draw the minion. It's just a bad design philosophy made worse when the pool of cards from which the "discovers" are made from shrinks.
If there's some data on the subject of number of complaint threads I'm certainly not aware of that and would be happy to stand corrected, but pick any time frame and I'll be happy to supply . . . what? Six threads? 8 threads? What's a fair number of threads completely lambasting a healthy meta?
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.
Tickatus isn’t a problem imo. It’s still a slow card that gets countered by aggression. (Which doesn’t only exist in aggro decks)
It isn’t because it has counterplay, unlike lunacy mage.
Penflinger is generally also okay it’s only far too strong with the Paladin libram package.
I think lunacy, refreshing spring water and something in the secret/libram package should be nerfed. Paladin has been tier 1 since Outland and it’s beyond time they get nerfed.
Either that or they bring the other classes more up to their level. Since there are some classes like hunter, shaman, priest and warrior which are basically dead. Especially shaman..
Yeah, that's why I suggested that DoL should say "spells that cost 2 more" and Refreshing Spring Water should say "refresh 1 mana crystal per spell drawn". Imagine you draw a Skull of Guldan after t2 DoL. You get a whooping "up to 12 mana discount" for 2 mana immediately on turn 3! And Spring Water was a completely dumb idea anyway. Over-committing is the better option because DoL sometimes fails to provide the removal tools needed. No pressure is no solution in the matchup.
The answer to this has to be 42. Right?
If you allow me the full 4 months of the meta, 42 is not unreasonable.
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.
Well why would we be happy if we already see aggro does not have any problem dealing with mage so after nerfs we come back to hunters and demon hunters everywhere.
Seriously dude? Just quoted you post partly, so hopefully you can understand why. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Just make deck of lunacy turn a random number of your spells into bananas and call it a day
I give you A+ in sucking at communication skills.
I have no idea what your point is. Are you saying Priest is cancer right now? Are you saying Token Druid is still an archetype.
And get your post right this time so people can understand what your disagreement with my observations are.
How about play the game before giving your opinions?
It's pretty obvious to everyone that he's referring to the use of the word "cancer"... I know it's used in hearthstone since beta, but calling decks after a deadly disease still shows a bad taste
This.
@Toribasher: your reply just shows your lack of maturity, bashing me lacking communication skills. I sincerely wish you best of luck in your life, may it be cancer free.
Don't know about others but I won't complain about the meta if there is a viable Priest deck.
I just realised...
...that they could nerf Libram of Hope to 10 mana. Wouldn't that be somewhat helpful to target Paladin and Mage at the same time? Having no 9-cost spells in standard should surely help target DoL, no?
Certainly not everything I would nerf at this point, but could be one part of the puzzle.
If it is a flaw in people that some will never be satisfied with the state of the game, then it also a massive floor in those who damage control for Blizzard at times like this, to lump everyone who is complaining in together. They are not all the same, sorry.
Those of us who have played hearthstone from the start have a good frame of reference. We know when a meta is good or bad relative to previous metas. Some people are smarter than others, and their thought processes on hearthstone are more reasoned. Not all complaints are equal, though they might be equally angry, and complaining about the same things.
By lumping all complainers in together and dismissing them as a whole group you are doing an injustice to some, who have a reasoned logical opinion on the current state of the same. Newsflash - the current state is not particularly good. Penflingers, Librams, Deck of Lunacy...these problems are not imaginary.
No, spell mage doesn't run any 6 drop spells because the only 6 drop Mage spell in standard rn is Blizzard. Having no 9 cost spells wouldn't change anything.
Incanter's Flow changes Flamestrike and C'Thun's Mask to 6 mana and in some matchups, you want to do that to get the 9-mana Librams because healing and big divine shield taunts are helpful to stabilise. It would take away the option to play 1 Flow before DoL.
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