Well it does require *some* setup but it clearly doesn't require a lot of it. I think wheel is a good OTK because it doesn't trigger instantly in one round and has a major drawback (no more cards and being vulnerable). That kind of OTK is ok (although the card is now dead since the Reno nerf). It also doesn't happen before turn 8 (or rarely does anyway).
If OTK were unlikely before turn 10, 11, I'd be fine with it. Otherwise I think it goes against one of their core design pillar: fun. It's not a fun mechanic for a card game when it triggers early since skill of the player hardly come into play. It just *happens*. There's barely any strategy that goes into it. Hearthstone is a strategy game, let's play strategically please. Kibler has said 'Sea Breeze Chalice' was the card he disliked the most from this expansion and he actually quit the game for a week before the last patch because of it and Lamp Lighter. He's a good card player, one of the best but he was getting trounced by players who just OTK him on T5 with minimal setup.
Reaching legend should only be for the best of the best but watching streams, you see bronze-skill players reaching legend who made it there by spamming Chalice or Lamp Lighters. Now the patch has been released, they struggle for dear life and are getting curb stomped like they should've been in the first place.
'Charge' is a bullshit mechanic and I hope it does soon as it also a bad idea for the game. What is fun about the game is the back and forth between the players. This is why when they designed the game, minions are inactive on their first turn. It was a good idea, charge shits all over their own design, its incoherent with their core design. Give the opponent a round to react goddammit.
Legend has always been reasonably easy though - just spam a busted deck. I did it in Wild with broken Resurrect priest a while back and in Standard a few months back with broken Death Knight Plagues when that was still dope. Just garbage legend, mind you but it still counts. Im an average player, maybe slightly above average but the best decks do "drive" themselves. That being said, these "from hand damage" decks suck to play against. I cant stand it.
OTKs decks must be more skill intensive and take longer, period. The game in generally has lost a LOT of skill as they've added far too much discovery, healing, bail out cards, massive swing turns and card draw. Its just so lopsided all the time. I either blow out my opponent or I conceded by turn 2/3 since I know its over before it even starts. I hate this meta and the direction of the game now. :(
I just play BGs exclusively. Ladder for quests and thats it. I have no interest in standard gameplay. I haven't been this unexcited to queue for a match in awhile. I've always been an anti-aggro player so you know im living my worst nightmare personally haha.
I exclusively play deck I think of with mostly terrible results and I’ve reached diamond 7 (with regret). I wish we could choose not to progress in the ladder. Deck variety becomes more and more limited the closer to legend as people become desperate and will only play busted decks and obsess over it. I’d be happy at silver/gold but can’t be bothered to auto concede a bunch of time to go back down. I’d rather play meme decks than reach legend with busted decks but I like to challenge myself in general. I remember pre-nerf azurite snake and playing a couple of games and just stopping on my own thinking: « This is too busted, it’s not fun for me or my opponent ». I don’t feel reaching legend is an achievement but it should be.
I feel like face damage should really incur a major penalty on cost or damage output. To bypass taunts and minions and deal damage on the same turn has a risk of messing up the game, I wish the dev would keep a close eye on this. I sometimes feel it’s not even on their radar.
I don’t think the current meta is that bad, we’ve certainly seen worse before but it’s often the case post-patch. New releases will usually have some outlandish design flaw which get somewhat fixed 2-3 weeks in. Mini-set will be the same.
« There's a good number of viable decks that have a spectrum of aesthetics and playstyles. »
I think this is disingenuous. Good number of viable decks? Guess what you mean by « good number ».
Hunter: never meet any.
Paladin: almost exclusively handbuff.
Warlock: exclusively Fatigue Warlock
Warrior: highlander and taunt. So that’s about 2.
DH: exclusively pirate cliffdiver thing.
Mage: big mage or elemental
Druid: Chalice Druid or highlander.
Priest: Zarimi and??
This is from the top of my head so I could be wrong or misremembering but I was never under the impression of « a good number of viable decks ». Unless two decks is considered good deck variety. I mean it’s always the same with HS but this meta is really no different, one or two viable decks for each class. How often do you see highlander DH or Warlock? Once every 100 games? Less? It happens so rarely that I’m shocked when I meet an opponent who is actually trying something off-meta.
I honestly don't really like this meta. The game seems to be more and more oppressing. spit out a ton of minions turn after turn early game or walk into warlock and have lost within 4 turns. They don't even need to try to damage you. All they need to do is heal or put a ton on taunt minions to block you from damaging them and it's game over. very un-interactive.
Then there is the ridiculous elemental card which can do 10+ face damage for just 3 mana. Sure, you have to play elementals each turn but that's nothing of a challenge to do at all.
Kibler has said 'Sea Breeze Chalice' was the card he disliked the most from this expansion and he actually quit the game for a week before the last patch because of it and Lamp Lighter. He's a good card player, one of the best but he was getting trounced by players who just OTK him on T5 with minimal setup.
Kibler has a history in card games but I think it's a mistake to call anyone a "good card player" at HS because the game is so powercrept your decisions do not matter anymore as much as your luck of the draw (wow decks with amazing card draw are really good). He also only plays one archetype of the game: control. Whenever I have seen his videos it's always some reno deck with 15 golden/diamond whale legendaries crying that he lost to aggro because he just didn't draw any good plays by turn 6 when he died. Yeah, everyone has their own favored playstyles but this bias can push opinions to like "omg aggro is toxic" "OTK should never be in the game" which is in itself not a healthy opinion. If he played aggro himself, he would also understand how frustrating it is to lose to control decks who play one card to win the whole game.
Don’t you think you’re being unfair towards him? He’s the most level headed streamer I’ve seen, never seen him « cry » over anything. Most of his balance videos are applied word for word by Blizzard, it’s uncanny. It’s safe say he knows what he’s talking about. The Reno decks part is just untrue, check out his Twitch, he’s got tons of archived videos which prove otherwise. He also makes his own unique decks which are fun to watch (who enjoys watching aggro anyway?). He could play net decks or the meta but he never does and I think we need more players like him, a lot more. I’ve reached D3 with my own Sludge Warlock. It’s possible but people don’t want to experiment.
By design, aggro is easier to pull off since the idea is to end the game before the game gets strategic, end it before it really starts in other words. That’s fine, I’d rather aggro decks than OTK ones, at least you can mulligan in some board clears and watch them crumble afterwards.
I disagree that decisions don’t matter anymore, although I imagine you’re being hyperbolic here. It’s definitely possible to make mistakes.
Anyway, an opinion is an opinion, whether it’s « healthy » or not is in the eye of the beholder. As I’ve said, if an OTK player were to tell me they find being OTK’d fun, I wouldn’t believe them. C’thun OTK was fun because you could see it coming and prepare, which is leagues different than what we have right now.
I more like aggro/tempo/midrange And i mostly enjoyed decks which interacted with my already existing board And which did need thinking about when And where to place such minions. (Ex. Zoolock, egg druid, etc.) So in past you did need to think with aggro decks, like: IT Is druid, push all on board Now, He Will have hard time clear IT. Now you push all on board regardless As IT Is more dangerous to lose tempo than value.
As a control (not OTK) player I'm not really interested in playing at the moment. It feels nearly impossible to survive while playing defensively. Blizzard keeps nerfing AoE and late game comeback mechanics patch after patch while barely touching aggressive and burst decks.
For a long time Warrior has been the only viable control deck, which I found really monotonous but at least it was something. Now it too has been nerfed to the ground, leaving nothing left.
I kinda disagree I think its good that heavy control is abit harder, its one of the most toxic gameplans to face and I'm saying this as someone that plays mainly control myself. Of course just playing Handbuff Paladin is easier than climb with for example my Highlander Paladin but the Highlander version is way more fun to me.
And I feel like alot of more controlish decks are totally viable, a control deck sitting at 65-70% is just toxic, same goes for OTK decks the meta is usally more varied when that doesnt happen.
As a control (not OTK) player I'm not really interested in playing at the moment. It feels nearly impossible to survive while playing defensively. Blizzard keeps nerfing AoE and late game comeback mechanics patch after patch while barely touching aggressive and burst decks.
For a long time Warrior has been the only viable control deck, which I found really monotonous but at least it was something. Now it too has been nerfed to the ground, leaving nothing left.
what the F even is this reply
there are way way way too many board clears in the game, various different decks that can do that in so many ways sometimes you can simply get board wiped 3 times by turn 5, how on earth can you say something like this with a straight face
Try playing a control deck against Wheel Warlock. Good luck.
wheel warlock isn't even tier B tho, maybe C tier, why would you care to build your deck around it? it would be a terrible idea, its a deck you'll find in ladder 1 every 100-200 games, IF that.
Coincidently I reached legend yesterday by playing my own Warlock deck with wheel. I personally never face wheel anymore so I thought it wouldn’t be viable but turns out it was. You never end up playing wheel against a lot of decks (probably most) but it sure is nice against HL warrior. I included the sludge package so that burning my deck would deal damage (I actually won a game by doing 16 dmg to a mage that way). You keep clearing the board with domino, defile, tablet flip, hellfire until you reach late game with Sargeras, Reno, twisted nether, Yogg, lifesteal back to deck Zilliax and symphony so you never get fatigue damage. Synchronise is a sure helpful card to deal with big minions and other titans. Dirty rat to hopefully hit something important like Brann. Tide pool to copy movement of greed and burn 12 cards of your opponent. Health drink and Pop to heal.
Most players don’t expect anything but Insanity Warlock and are ill equipped to deal with the unknown. The opposite is true, you can keep track of your opponent’s deck because most players don’t even bother changing a single card from a pre-made deck. You can then plan ahead as you can be almost 100% sure what remains to come. It’s funny to play elemental mage and keep your board clear on hand for when they inevitably fill their board with 3/2 elementals or keep rat to the end to rat their lamplighter and watch them concede. Way too predictable.
Third, if you are talking Standard, it doesn’t matter what card you are referring to. Rogue is the worst class in Standard right now so they won’t be touching anything. If anything Rogue will see more buffs in Standard.
When was the last time Mage was played so much do you think? Doesn't seem unplayable to me. It's the latest broken thing and people are abusing it as much as possible before it gets nerfed. What a community.
It's played because it is the only "new" thing we have. Obviously not really new, but arguably it has the most new tools. It is very dependant on high rolls, but it's mostly successful because people try to experiment with bad decks and bad builds. Good, refined decks are most of the times too fast for mage - either they kill faster or they get to late game soon enough that they survive mage burst turns. Sure, it can steal some wins, it polarizes the meta, but it's not among the best ones. It's also quite boring to play.
I don't think that it's only a novelty thing. Mage is currently first in the winrate on HSReplay at 54.1% WR for all class. It's also has the highest WR at the moment at 61.83% followed by flood paladin (again according to HSReplay).
It was interesting to watch different streamers from China, Korea, Germany and USA all pester against big spell mage.
Either way, I think we can agree that mage certainly isn't unplayable, not by a long shot. Not according to the stats anyway.
Well, we can partially agree. Look at top 1k legend meta - it's number 15 (last 3 days) or 10 (last 1 day) with less than 51% winrate.
So Big Spell Mage is barely top 10, it's already being countered by the best players. It punishes bad decks, bad builds and yes, bad and mediocre players with their fun decks cannot beat it. It's annoying.
In truth there are more annoying classes that have free wins in some match-ups - Warlock, Druid, Warrior are much more polarizing, but we are quite used to them so we do not complain about them so much.
Legend has always been reasonably easy though - just spam a busted deck. I did it in Wild with broken Resurrect priest a while back and in Standard a few months back with broken Death Knight Plagues when that was still dope. Just garbage legend, mind you but it still counts. Im an average player, maybe slightly above average but the best decks do "drive" themselves. That being said, these "from hand damage" decks suck to play against. I cant stand it.
OTKs decks must be more skill intensive and take longer, period. The game in generally has lost a LOT of skill as they've added far too much discovery, healing, bail out cards, massive swing turns and card draw. Its just so lopsided all the time. I either blow out my opponent or I conceded by turn 2/3 since I know its over before it even starts. I hate this meta and the direction of the game now. :(
I just play BGs exclusively. Ladder for quests and thats it. I have no interest in standard gameplay. I haven't been this unexcited to queue for a match in awhile. I've always been an anti-aggro player so you know im living my worst nightmare personally haha.
I exclusively play deck I think of with mostly terrible results and I’ve reached diamond 7 (with regret). I wish we could choose not to progress in the ladder. Deck variety becomes more and more limited the closer to legend as people become desperate and will only play busted decks and obsess over it. I’d be happy at silver/gold but can’t be bothered to auto concede a bunch of time to go back down. I’d rather play meme decks than reach legend with busted decks but I like to challenge myself in general. I remember pre-nerf azurite snake and playing a couple of games and just stopping on my own thinking: « This is too busted, it’s not fun for me or my opponent ». I don’t feel reaching legend is an achievement but it should be.
I feel like face damage should really incur a major penalty on cost or damage output. To bypass taunts and minions and deal damage on the same turn has a risk of messing up the game, I wish the dev would keep a close eye on this. I sometimes feel it’s not even on their radar.
I don’t think the current meta is that bad, we’ve certainly seen worse before but it’s often the case post-patch. New releases will usually have some outlandish design flaw which get somewhat fixed 2-3 weeks in. Mini-set will be the same.
« There's a good number of viable decks that have a spectrum of aesthetics and playstyles. »
I think this is disingenuous. Good number of viable decks? Guess what you mean by « good number ».
Hunter: never meet any.
Paladin: almost exclusively handbuff.
Warlock: exclusively Fatigue Warlock
Warrior: highlander and taunt. So that’s about 2.
DH: exclusively pirate cliffdiver thing.
Mage: big mage or elemental
Druid: Chalice Druid or highlander.
Priest: Zarimi and??
This is from the top of my head so I could be wrong or misremembering but I was never under the impression of « a good number of viable decks ». Unless two decks is considered good deck variety. I mean it’s always the same with HS but this meta is really no different, one or two viable decks for each class. How often do you see highlander DH or Warlock? Once every 100 games? Less? It happens so rarely that I’m shocked when I meet an opponent who is actually trying something off-meta.
I honestly don't really like this meta. The game seems to be more and more oppressing.
spit out a ton of minions turn after turn early game or walk into warlock and have lost within 4 turns.
They don't even need to try to damage you. All they need to do is heal or put a ton on taunt minions to block you from damaging them and it's game over. very un-interactive.
Then there is the ridiculous elemental card which can do 10+ face damage for just 3 mana. Sure, you have to play elementals each turn but that's nothing of a challenge to do at all.
That's basically the recap of my experience.
Kibler has a history in card games but I think it's a mistake to call anyone a "good card player" at HS because the game is so powercrept your decisions do not matter anymore as much as your luck of the draw (wow decks with amazing card draw are really good). He also only plays one archetype of the game: control. Whenever I have seen his videos it's always some reno deck with 15 golden/diamond whale legendaries crying that he lost to aggro because he just didn't draw any good plays by turn 6 when he died. Yeah, everyone has their own favored playstyles but this bias can push opinions to like "omg aggro is toxic" "OTK should never be in the game" which is in itself not a healthy opinion. If he played aggro himself, he would also understand how frustrating it is to lose to control decks who play one card to win the whole game.
Don’t you think you’re being unfair towards him? He’s the most level headed streamer I’ve seen, never seen him « cry » over anything. Most of his balance videos are applied word for word by Blizzard, it’s uncanny. It’s safe say he knows what he’s talking about. The Reno decks part is just untrue, check out his Twitch, he’s got tons of archived videos which prove otherwise. He also makes his own unique decks which are fun to watch (who enjoys watching aggro anyway?). He could play net decks or the meta but he never does and I think we need more players like him, a lot more. I’ve reached D3 with my own Sludge Warlock. It’s possible but people don’t want to experiment.
By design, aggro is easier to pull off since the idea is to end the game before the game gets strategic, end it before it really starts in other words. That’s fine, I’d rather aggro decks than OTK ones, at least you can mulligan in some board clears and watch them crumble afterwards.
I disagree that decisions don’t matter anymore, although I imagine you’re being hyperbolic here. It’s definitely possible to make mistakes.
Anyway, an opinion is an opinion, whether it’s « healthy » or not is in the eye of the beholder. As I’ve said, if an OTK player were to tell me they find being OTK’d fun, I wouldn’t believe them. C’thun OTK was fun because you could see it coming and prepare, which is leagues different than what we have right now.
I more like aggro/tempo/midrange And i mostly enjoyed decks which interacted with my already existing board And which did need thinking about when And where to place such minions. (Ex. Zoolock, egg druid, etc.) So in past you did need to think with aggro decks, like: IT Is druid, push all on board Now, He Will have hard time clear IT. Now you push all on board regardless As IT Is more dangerous to lose tempo than value.
I kinda disagree I think its good that heavy control is abit harder, its one of the most toxic gameplans to face and I'm saying this as someone that plays mainly control myself. Of course just playing Handbuff Paladin is easier than climb with for example my Highlander Paladin but the Highlander version is way more fun to me.
And I feel like alot of more controlish decks are totally viable, a control deck sitting at 65-70% is just toxic, same goes for OTK decks the meta is usally more varied when that doesnt happen.
Try playing a control deck against Wheel Warlock. Good luck.
what the F even is this reply
there are way way way too many board clears in the game, various different decks that can do that in so many ways sometimes you can simply get board wiped 3 times by turn 5, how on earth can you say something like this with a straight face
You're just mad warrior isn't S tier
wheel warlock isn't even tier B tho, maybe C tier, why would you care to build your deck around it? it would be a terrible idea, its a deck you'll find in ladder 1 every 100-200 games, IF that.
Coincidently I reached legend yesterday by playing my own Warlock deck with wheel. I personally never face wheel anymore so I thought it wouldn’t be viable but turns out it was. You never end up playing wheel against a lot of decks (probably most) but it sure is nice against HL warrior. I included the sludge package so that burning my deck would deal damage (I actually won a game by doing 16 dmg to a mage that way). You keep clearing the board with domino, defile, tablet flip, hellfire until you reach late game with Sargeras, Reno, twisted nether, Yogg, lifesteal back to deck Zilliax and symphony so you never get fatigue damage. Synchronise is a sure helpful card to deal with big minions and other titans. Dirty rat to hopefully hit something important like Brann. Tide pool to copy movement of greed and burn 12 cards of your opponent. Health drink and Pop to heal.
Most players don’t expect anything but Insanity Warlock and are ill equipped to deal with the unknown. The opposite is true, you can keep track of your opponent’s deck because most players don’t even bother changing a single card from a pre-made deck. You can then plan ahead as you can be almost 100% sure what remains to come. It’s funny to play elemental mage and keep your board clear on hand for when they inevitably fill their board with 3/2 elementals or keep rat to the end to rat their lamplighter and watch them concede. Way too predictable.
Why hasnt that god damned Rogue 3/3 card that gives you a 1 cost spell been nerfed yet? How does Rogue always escape nerfs?
First of all, wrong thread. Salt has a dedicated thread.
Second, what 3/3?! Sonya Waterdancer? Velarok Windblade? Please be more specific or provide the name.
Third, if you are talking Standard, it doesn’t matter what card you are referring to. Rogue is the worst class in Standard right now so they won’t be touching anything. If anything Rogue will see more buffs in Standard.
Only class which changed with the miniset is Mage, everything else remained the same.
Mage is unplayable anyway.
When was the last time Mage was played so much do you think? Doesn't seem unplayable to me. It's the latest broken thing and people are abusing it as much as possible before it gets nerfed. What a community.
It's played because it is the only "new" thing we have. Obviously not really new, but arguably it has the most new tools. It is very dependant on high rolls, but it's mostly successful because people try to experiment with bad decks and bad builds. Good, refined decks are most of the times too fast for mage - either they kill faster or they get to late game soon enough that they survive mage burst turns. Sure, it can steal some wins, it polarizes the meta, but it's not among the best ones. It's also quite boring to play.
I don't think that it's only a novelty thing. Mage is currently first in the winrate on HSReplay at 54.1% WR for all class. It's also has the highest WR at the moment at 61.83% followed by flood paladin (again according to HSReplay).
It was interesting to watch different streamers from China, Korea, Germany and USA all pester against big spell mage.
Either way, I think we can agree that mage certainly isn't unplayable, not by a long shot. Not according to the stats anyway.
Well, we can partially agree. Look at top 1k legend meta - it's number 15 (last 3 days) or 10 (last 1 day) with less than 51% winrate.
So Big Spell Mage is barely top 10, it's already being countered by the best players. It punishes bad decks, bad builds and yes, bad and mediocre players with their fun decks cannot beat it. It's annoying.
In truth there are more annoying classes that have free wins in some match-ups - Warlock, Druid, Warrior are much more polarizing, but we are quite used to them so we do not complain about them so much.