Barnes is an highroll card: if it's played on curve may alone win you the match, on the other side turning it out with Shadow Essence or with a Resurrect may also cost you the entire game.
It may not be an healthy mechanics but it's not so broken, just based on luck like many other things in HS (does anyone remember pre-nerf Yogg-Saron, Hope's End?). Some times ago Big Priest was pretty strong but actually there are many decks that can counter it pretty well so not so oppressive like NSW-decks.
Barnes is an highroll card: if it's played on curve may alone win you the match, on the other side turning it out with Shadow Essence or with a Resurrect may also cost you the entire game.
It may not be an healthy mechanics but it's not so broken, just based on luck like many other things in HS (does anyone remember pre-nerf Yogg-Saron, Hope's End?). Some times ago Big Priest was pretty strong but actually there are many decks that can counter it pretty well so not so oppressive like NSW-decks.
i don't know why anyone would be defending big priest. it's a high roll deck that's both boring to play and annoying to play against. yes there are counters. there are counters for quest rogue, too, and it was nerfed (twice!). there were counters for nagalock and it was nerfed into oblivion. big priest is the kind of deck that should never have >50% wr, let alone be tier 1.
Decks and cards should never be nerfed based on how somebody feels about them because not every player feels the way you do.
Why should one deck or card get nerfed because one part of the entire playerbase feels any particular way about while another deck is left alone? All you end up doing when you approach game design that way is that you end up having some of the same minority groups in said game trying to dictate everything based on what they feel the game should be.
Also, how do you even objectively weigh if a deck is boring to play against? Is it boring to play games that force end match-ups in 5 mins? Is it boring to play games that go into fatigue? Is it boring to lose against a combination of unique cards that make fewer minion trades? Is it boring to lose against decks that are high tempo decks that play on curve and kill you around turn 8-10? Is it boring to be milled? Is it boring to play a control mirror where the class you're facing has been favored with better and more plentiful value and removal tools than your control deck/class?
^ For all of the above reasons you should never nerf something based on how it feels to play against because the chances are very high that many other players don't feel the way you do about the deck. Power level of something is the closest objective way we can try to balance things, and even that has subjective shades to it.
So big priest is broken but guess what decks is as broken as that right now in standard we have turn 4 8 drop for warlock we have Taunt Druid. No that’s not broken right (sarcasm) I mean show me deck than can clear that many times. I sit here and wait. Also there is shaman
4. Reno decks are highly favoured against Big Priest
I've played whole june season with a Renolock, Big Priest is my worst matchup. 'd be glad to here your secret tech to counter this. And if your answer is Bran + Kazakus + double Sheep Potion... well that's unlikely - and that's an understatement.
Thanks for your answer, I'm very curious about it.
4. Reno decks are highly favoured against Big Priest
I've played whole june season with a Renolock, Big Priest is my worst matchup. 'd be glad to here your secret tech to counter this. And if your answer is Bran + Kazakus + double Sheep Potion... well that's unlikely - and that's an understatement.
Thanks for your answer, I'm very curious about it.
Unlikely? I often pull off more than 2 Kazakus potions when laddering with Reno Mage, and I don't even have the extra cycling from Life Tap.
A friendly tip? Doomsayer & Treachery are your friend. Acts a 5 mana Nether against spellstone boards. Causes the chance for ressurrection to fail AND wipe their board if they can't immediately silence or remove it. Dilutes Eternal Servitudes if Doomsayer comes up as an option. And causes entire spellstone boards to fail and be immediately wiped if they can't remove or silence it that turn. The combo tech even serves the purpose of clearing enemy Gul'Dan, N'Zoth, Haddronox, and even Tess boards. There really isn't a reason not to run it.
Just another example of mana cheating. If resurrect was used to resummon a 10 Mana minion after they already payed full cost for it then itd be fine. The problem is they are resummoning a 10 Mana minion that they only paid 4 Mana for.
It can be countered by many decks. Cool. But that is not the point.
Big Priest is t2+. Cool. But that again is not the point.
The point is how highroll is made consistent in Barnes within Big Priest. How entire matchups that would otherwise be fair are bound to Barnes. Is it clear enough?
To the defenders of Barnes, i'd like to ask if they would un-nerf Naga Sea Witch as well. If your answer is 'no', please explain how Barnes is different. If the answer is 'yes', then clearly this discussion is not for you.
2.) Is Barnes as problematic as Naga Sea Witch? Nope.
3.) It's Wild. Not that big of an issue. All kinds of crazy decks and combos exist there.
Not defending Barnes, it was broken in standard when Big Priest was there. I'm sure it's worse in wild. But alas wild has answers, slap in a Deathlord and naturalize that y'shaarj or something.
It can be countered by many decks. Cool. But that is not the point.
Big Priest is t2+. Cool. But that again is not the point.
The point is how highroll is made consistent in Barnes within Big Priest. How entire matchups that would otherwise be fair are bound to Barnes. Is it clear enough?
To the defenders of Barnes, i'd like to ask if they would un-nerf Naga Sea Witch as well. If your answer is 'no', please explain how Barnes is different. If the answer is 'yes', then clearly this discussion is not for you.
Going by the tired highroll logic we should then nerf Mountain Giant too since the card drastically increases the winrate of Even Lock if they hit the giant to play on turn 3. Highroll logic would also say that we nerf ANY glass cannon 1 mana minion due to aggro highrolling allowing 1 & and even 2 mana minions doing a third of an opponent's health if unanswered for a couple of turns. Oh, and I guess while we're at we might as well nerf N'Zoth and Gul'Dan for both of their battlecries highrolling for much better deathrattles (for decks with more than 6 deathrattle minions) and Gul'Dan fetching more Voidlords than Voidwalkers. Oh and don't forget RNG highrolling. Going by highroll logic we also need to then nerf Stonehill Defender so we can prevent arena players and constructed aggro players from fetching Tarim or Tyrion half of the time.
^ I could go on and include further highrolling in the game that would need to follow highroll logic if we nerfed Big Priest for that reason (e.g. shaman board clear highrolling or tempo rogue curvestone and draw rng highrolling early on), but I think you get the point. It would make little sense to focus solely one one deck when major highrolling is already prevalent in the game.
On to Naga Sea Witch. While I personally think a 3 mana increase on NSW was an over-the-top pendulum nerf, NSW and Big Priest are very different.
Let's compare the worst possible highroll for each deck at the earliest point shall we?
Big Priest - Coin, Barnes, Y'Sharjj, Rag. That's 16 damage over 2 turns, plus you often answer the 1/1 & maybe even answer the big minion with a transform effect/sap?
Giant Hunter/Giant Lock - NSW on turn 5, followed by 4-5 8/8s. That's 32-40 damage to face next turn. Some classes would technically lack any aoe answers that early to do anything and instantly lose (e.g. Rogue, Warlock, and Priest).
You can't honestly be trying to compare a potential turn 5 OTK to a couple of 8-10 mana minions that does half that damage or less are you?
You remind me of people that ask for all OTKs to be nerfed and broken (even when they aren't tier 1 simply because they hate them and have a bias for only minion-to-minion attrition games. In the end you have a multitude of options to destroy Big Priest. How about you be an intelligent gamer and break the meta instead of taking the lazy way out and asking for anything you don't agree with to be nerfed?
oh, how could it be? with so many awesome counters someone mention above Big Priest has bad WR only against rogue? holy jesus, logic is not working anymore...
oh, how could it be? with so many awesome counters someone mention above Big Priest has bad WR only against rogue? holy jesus, logic is not working anymore...
Unless you provide data about which specific deck types you faced that is mostly meaningless because there are no games to look over to see what games belonged to a specific deck that did or did not counter Big Priest.
For example, if you mainly faced Jade Druids during your games (a deck that does worse than Egg Druid) than that will skew what your data is showing us. Same goes for something like mage, if you faced more Big Spell Mage than Burn Mage or Reno Mage than that will also change what your win/loss percentages are showing.
You can't just show a general class win ratio and say that Big Priest is OP and that the counters don't do their jobs, when for all we know you didn't face many of the counters. People have to also use the counters to beat Big Priest. If you have someone that is dead set on using Big Spell Mage because they hate the playstyle of Burn Mage or they find Reno Jackson to be a disgusting card to use then that just means Big Priest faces fewer counters on ladder. The same principle goes with any of the classes. You can post all of the counters you want, but if players aren't going to use those counters and just play whatever they want (even if that deck sucks against Big Priest) then that is when you get all of those copy pasta threads demanding for it to be nerfed.
People can't seem to grasp that you are supposed to counter play decks with other specific decks and/or archtypes, not be able to maintain a 50% ish winrate against everything regardless of what you're using.
oh, how could it be? with so many awesome counters someone mention above Big Priest has bad WR only against rogue? holy jesus, logic is not working anymore...
Unless you provide data about which specific deck types you faced that is mostly meaningless because there are no games to look over to see what games belonged to a specific deck that did or did not counter Big Priest.
For example, if you mainly faced Jade Druids during your games (a deck that does worse than Egg Druid) than that will skew what your data is showing us. Same goes for something like mage, if you faced more Big Spell Mage than Burn Mage or Reno Mage than that will also change what your win/loss percentages are showing.
You can't just show a general class win ratio and say that Big Priest is OP and that the counters don't do their jobs, when for all we know you didn't face many of the counters. People have to also use the counters to beat Big Priest. If you have someone that is dead set on using Big Spell Mage because they hate the playstyle of Burn Mage or they find Reno Jackson to be a disgusting card to use then that just means Big Priest faces fewer counters on ladder. The same principle goes with any of the classes. You can post all of the counters you want, but if players aren't going to use those counters and just play whatever they want (even if that deck sucks against Big Priest) then that is when you get all of those copy pasta threads demanding for it to be nerfed.
People can't seem to grasp that you are supposed to counter play decks with other specific decks and/or archtypes, not be able to maintain a 50% ish winrate against everything regardless of what you're using.
You can't really argue against data. Numbers are numbers. It's a data sample of around 16,000 games in the last 30 days. I'm sure counter decks from each class make up at the very least a few thousand games of that 16,000 data sample.
You're not supposed to counter one specific deck for another one specific deck. Unless you're heading into a tournament and build for specific decks that are more played in that tournament. But, since it's ladder, you build for consistency and attempt to maintain over 50% W/R collectively. And collectively, Big Priest in wild from what's shown in that link, is pretty dominating.
oh, how could it be? with so many awesome counters someone mention above Big Priest has bad WR only against rogue? holy jesus, logic is not working anymore...
Unless you provide data about which specific deck types you faced that is mostly meaningless because there are no games to look over to see what games belonged to a specific deck that did or did not counter Big Priest.
For example, if you mainly faced Jade Druids during your games (a deck that does worse than Egg Druid) than that will skew what your data is showing us. Same goes for something like mage, if you faced more Big Spell Mage than Burn Mage or Reno Mage than that will also change what your win/loss percentages are showing.
You can't just show a general class win ratio and say that Big Priest is OP and that the counters don't do their jobs, when for all we know you didn't face many of the counters. People have to also use the counters to beat Big Priest. If you have someone that is dead set on using Big Spell Mage because they hate the playstyle of Burn Mage or they find Reno Jackson to be a disgusting card to use then that just means Big Priest faces fewer counters on ladder. The same principle goes with any of the classes. You can post all of the counters you want, but if players aren't going to use those counters and just play whatever they want (even if that deck sucks against Big Priest) then that is when you get all of those copy pasta threads demanding for it to be nerfed.
People can't seem to grasp that you are supposed to counter play decks with other specific decks and/or archtypes, not be able to maintain a 50% ish winrate against everything regardless of what you're using.
You can't really argue against data. Numbers are numbers. It's a data sample of around 16,000 games in the last 30 days. I'm sure counter decks from each class make up at the very least a few thousand games of that 16,000 data sample.
You're not supposed to counter one specific deck for another one specific deck. Unless you're heading into a tournament and build for specific decks that are more played in that tournament. But, since it's ladder, you build for consistency and attempt to maintain over 50% W/R collectively. And collectively, Big Priest in wild from what's shown in that link, is pretty dominating.
You most certainly can argue against data, especially when it isn't targeting what you're intending it to, or if important variables are being excluded.
I'm not sure how serious I am supposed to take that remark about completing spit balling a guess that counter decks maybe made up a few thousand. Where do you even get that number from?
You also have to take into consideration that we don't know the quality of plays those players made during those games either (See quantitative vs qualitative data). It is easier to make a mistake playing Aggro Shaman, Odd Pally, or Kingsbane Rogue vs Big Priest and still win than it is when playing something like Control Warlock or Reno Mage. It would mean more about the deck and match-up if good Control Warlock and Reno Mage players were consistently losing to Big Priest than results that showed mediocre or bad players piloting those decks and losing.
Yeah if many of the dozen or so decks I mentioned only countered Big Priest then you'd have a point, but most of those decks also counter other decks (some of those currently on the top tier lists right now).
Dominating doesn't mean overpowered or broken. Most metas have had 2-4 "dominating" decks, that always happens every single meta, but in the past that has also been chalked up to the meta being in the right situation for those decks to take over the place of the old decks before them (See Razakus Priest and Tempo Rogue immediately following the nerf of Jade Druid or Control Warrior and Control Priest immediately following the nerf of Undertaker Hunter). Any deck that is the most consistent in its own meta will be dominating. Should we always nerf every deck that is on top of every meta then (Big Priest isn't even in this situation in wild since there are tons of more consistent decks)?
Barnes is a completely fair card because it’s a minion, which leads to bad shadow essences twice as much as the Barnes play on turn 4, bad draws in the late game, and bad for the resurrect pool - all of which lose you as many games as Barnes on turn 4 wins.
honestly I wonder whether it’s worth it for the small amount of cases that Barnes actually works, but all you guys ever post about is when your salty that it did
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oh, how could it be? with so many awesome counters someone mention above Big Priest has bad WR only against rogue? holy jesus, logic is not working anymore...
Unless you provide data about which specific deck types you faced that is mostly meaningless because there are no games to look over to see what games belonged to a specific deck that did or did not counter Big Priest.
For example, if you mainly faced Jade Druids during your games (a deck that does worse than Egg Druid) than that will skew what your data is showing us. Same goes for something like mage, if you faced more Big Spell Mage than Burn Mage or Reno Mage than that will also change what your win/loss percentages are showing.
You can't just show a general class win ratio and say that Big Priest is OP and that the counters don't do their jobs, when for all we know you didn't face many of the counters. People have to also use the counters to beat Big Priest. If you have someone that is dead set on using Big Spell Mage because they hate the playstyle of Burn Mage or they find Reno Jackson to be a disgusting card to use then that just means Big Priest faces fewer counters on ladder. The same principle goes with any of the classes. You can post all of the counters you want, but if players aren't going to use those counters and just play whatever they want (even if that deck sucks against Big Priest) then that is when you get all of those copy pasta threads demanding for it to be nerfed.
People can't seem to grasp that you are supposed to counter play decks with other specific decks and/or archtypes, not be able to maintain a 50% ish winrate against everything regardless of what you're using.
You can't really argue against data. Numbers are numbers. It's a data sample of around 16,000 games in the last 30 days. I'm sure counter decks from each class make up at the very least a few thousand games of that 16,000 data sample.
You're not supposed to counter one specific deck for another one specific deck. Unless you're heading into a tournament and build for specific decks that are more played in that tournament. But, since it's ladder, you build for consistency and attempt to maintain over 50% W/R collectively. And collectively, Big Priest in wild from what's shown in that link, is pretty dominating.
You most certainly can argue against data, especially when it isn't targeting what you're intending it to, or if important variables are being excluded.
I'm not sure how serious I am supposed to take that remark about completing spit balling a guess that counter decks maybe made up a few thousand. Where do you even get that number from?
You also have to take into consideration that we don't know the quality of plays those players made during those games either (See quantitative vs qualitative data). It is easier to make a mistake playing Aggro Shaman, Odd Pally, or Kingsbane Rogue vs Big Priest and still win than it is when playing something like Control Warlock or Reno Mage. It would mean more about the deck and match-up if good Control Warlock and Reno Mage players were consistently losing to Big Priest than results that showed mediocre or bad players piloting those decks and losing.
Yeah if many of the dozen or so decks I mentioned only countered Big Priest then you'd have a point, but most of those decks also counter other decks (some of those currently on the top tier lists right now).
Dominating doesn't mean overpowered or broken. Most metas have had 2-4 "dominating" decks, that always happens every single meta, but in the past that has also been chalked up to the meta being in the right situation for those decks to take over the place of the old decks before them (See Razakus Priest and Tempo Rogue immediately following the nerf of Jade Druid or Control Warrior and Control Priest immediately following the nerf of Undertaker Hunter). Any deck that is the most consistent in its own meta will be dominating. Should we always nerf every deck that is on top of every meta then (Big Priest isn't even in this situation in wild since there are tons of more consistent decks)?
So you mean to tell me, you're going to argue against around 16,000 games worth of data, as shown, all because it doesn't exclusively target a counter demographic? All because we can't tell if they were good or bad pilots? Ooooooooooookay then.
It's a guesstimate if you will, considering 16,000 games, I was generalizing.
How is dominating not synonymous with broken or OP? I guess Jade Druid before Plague/Innervate nerf in standard wasn't broken either with that mentality.
You answered your own rhetorical question, "should we always nerf every deck that is on top of the meta". Razakus Priest got nerfed (Raza). Tempo Rogue got nerfed (creeper/bonemare/patches). Jade Druid (plague/innervate). Each deck, on top of it's meta, nerfed.
Now, i'm not arguing for Barnes to be nerfed. Currently as it is, if it's not posing as big of a problem as NSW was, then leave it. It's wild. Doesn't affect standard.
And on the notion of Naga Sea Witch, it being hard nerfed as it was, just goes to show how much consideration really goes into anything wild.
oh, how could it be? with so many awesome counters someone mention above Big Priest has bad WR only against rogue? holy jesus, logic is not working anymore...
Unless you provide data about which specific deck types you faced that is mostly meaningless because there are no games to look over to see what games belonged to a specific deck that did or did not counter Big Priest.
For example, if you mainly faced Jade Druids during your games (a deck that does worse than Egg Druid) than that will skew what your data is showing us. Same goes for something like mage, if you faced more Big Spell Mage than Burn Mage or Reno Mage than that will also change what your win/loss percentages are showing.
You can't just show a general class win ratio and say that Big Priest is OP and that the counters don't do their jobs, when for all we know you didn't face many of the counters. People have to also use the counters to beat Big Priest. If you have someone that is dead set on using Big Spell Mage because they hate the playstyle of Burn Mage or they find Reno Jackson to be a disgusting card to use then that just means Big Priest faces fewer counters on ladder. The same principle goes with any of the classes. You can post all of the counters you want, but if players aren't going to use those counters and just play whatever they want (even if that deck sucks against Big Priest) then that is when you get all of those copy pasta threads demanding for it to be nerfed.
People can't seem to grasp that you are supposed to counter play decks with other specific decks and/or archtypes, not be able to maintain a 50% ish winrate against everything regardless of what you're using.
You can't really argue against data. Numbers are numbers. It's a data sample of around 16,000 games in the last 30 days. I'm sure counter decks from each class make up at the very least a few thousand games of that 16,000 data sample.
You're not supposed to counter one specific deck for another one specific deck. Unless you're heading into a tournament and build for specific decks that are more played in that tournament. But, since it's ladder, you build for consistency and attempt to maintain over 50% W/R collectively. And collectively, Big Priest in wild from what's shown in that link, is pretty dominating.
You most certainly can argue against data, especially when it isn't targeting what you're intending it to, or if important variables are being excluded.
I'm not sure how serious I am supposed to take that remark about completing spit balling a guess that counter decks maybe made up a few thousand. Where do you even get that number from?
You also have to take into consideration that we don't know the quality of plays those players made during those games either (See quantitative vs qualitative data). It is easier to make a mistake playing Aggro Shaman, Odd Pally, or Kingsbane Rogue vs Big Priest and still win than it is when playing something like Control Warlock or Reno Mage. It would mean more about the deck and match-up if good Control Warlock and Reno Mage players were consistently losing to Big Priest than results that showed mediocre or bad players piloting those decks and losing.
Yeah if many of the dozen or so decks I mentioned only countered Big Priest then you'd have a point, but most of those decks also counter other decks (some of those currently on the top tier lists right now).
Dominating doesn't mean overpowered or broken. Most metas have had 2-4 "dominating" decks, that always happens every single meta, but in the past that has also been chalked up to the meta being in the right situation for those decks to take over the place of the old decks before them (See Razakus Priest and Tempo Rogue immediately following the nerf of Jade Druid or Control Warrior and Control Priest immediately following the nerf of Undertaker Hunter). Any deck that is the most consistent in its own meta will be dominating. Should we always nerf every deck that is on top of every meta then (Big Priest isn't even in this situation in wild since there are tons of more consistent decks)?
So you mean to tell me, you're going to argue against around 16,000 games worth of data, as shown, all because it doesn't exclusively target a counter demographic? All because we can't tell if they were good or bad pilots? Ooooooooooookay then.
It's a guesstimate if you will, considering 16,000 games, I was generalizing.
How is dominating not synonymous with broken or OP? I guess Jade Druid before Plague/Innervate nerf in standard wasn't broken either with that mentality.
You answered your own rhetorical question, "should we always nerf every deck that is on top of the meta". Razakus Priest got nerfed (Raza). Tempo Rogue got nerfed (creeper/bonemare/patches). Jade Druid (plague/innervate). Each deck, on top of it's meta, nerfed.
Now, i'm not arguing for Barnes to be nerfed. Currently as it is, if it's not posing as big of a problem as NSW was, then leave it. It's wild. Doesn't affect standard.
And on the notion of Naga Sea Witch, it being hard nerfed as it was, just goes to show how much consideration really goes into anything wild.
The problem with that data is that it is very generalized and unreliable if you're looking for very specific information between decks that are not simply the most analyzed tier one decks. As I mentioned already you can't determine what the decks were that the opponents were playing. That is a pretty big flaw in the game tracking tool considering that wild is even more technically diverse than standard, which means people aren't just going to be playing one deck per class.
If you're actually going to put some serious study in to how a non-tier one deck does against other decks it isn't going to happen from a tool that lumps every single deck together for each class. For all we know 60% of the warlock games could've been against Cubelock, or 75%, or 53%, or maybe the majority of ranked wild players got bored of Cubelock and went 66% Control and the other 34% Zoo. We have absolutely no idea and no way of verifying any of that data for anything specific, which makes the posting of it for the purpose of Big Priest being countered by any specific decks without any merit.
Think of this from another perspective. Say that you took data from people reporting that random [Insert Deck Here] was legend viable, and that they had to have won at least one game at some point between rank 1 & legend before getting to legend. Would you rather want data that allowed you to see for yourself if said players actually played those decks well to prove that is was legend viable by piloting the deck well, as opposed to the data collection tool deciding that something was legend viable because it got a win and may have just gotten lucky with the deck. Compare that to Hearthstone Replay collecting completely generalized data and then having to take multiple stabs in the deck to guess if it encountered many counters, and if so how many and against what. Not the perfect comparison by any means but there you go.
A stream for a few days or week straight during the month would be more reliable for data purposes because you could actually know what was played against what, as well as if the Big Priest player and counter deck players actually piloted their respective decks fairly accurately. Afterall, we're not in the business of changing or nerfing cards based on how well a deck did or did not perform in the hands of somebody that didn't use it according to its accurate power level.
Decks at the top haven't always been nerfed though. The example I provided pre and post Jade Druid nerf was actually for a very peculiar time when players complained about every single deck that they got after being spoonfed constant nerfs, to no avail to cease their whining. Other decks that were at top at various points weren't nerfed, such as the Naxx era Control Warrior, Naxx Control Priest, LoE Reno Lock, Mech Mage, multiple past meta variations of Tempo Mage, Quest Mage and Kinbsbane Rogue (I don't count the standard format HoFing since in the wider scheme of the game the entire versions of the decks remained in at least one format completely unchanged), Inner Fire Dragon Priest, etc.
Anyway, I digress. The point of the matter as it currently stands with T5 is that right now Barnes is not viewed as enough of a problem because, and I'll paraphrase here since I don't have the blue post up, that enough decks counter it right now to the point that they don't view it as a big enough problem to nerf it.
How about you be an intelligent gamer and break the meta instead of taking the lazy way out and asking for anything you don't agree with to be nerfed?
Intelligent gamers that actually try to break the meta actually do play Big Priest. It's so much better against board centric aggro which make up a large part of the meta compared to other greedy late game decks. The only meta deck to beat Big Priest consistently is Kingsbane Rogue, which is far worse against aggro.
Some of the more popular decks of your list of counters are actually good MU for Big Priest, like aggro pala and even shaman. Some are depending on carddraw and how much Big Priest highrolls e.g. Slow Druid decks and Renlock. They're favored against Barnes into Statue, and fail to beat Barnes into one of the other minions + Res.
I haven't seen most of your decks in ranks 4 to Legend since the nerf, so I guess most of them are good on paper against Big Priest, but can't stand up in a meta filled with Combo Druids, Renolocks, Even Shaman and Aggro Pala.
It can be countered by many decks. Cool. But that is not the point.
Big Priest is t2+. Cool. But that again is not the point.
The point is how highroll is made consistent in Barnes within Big Priest. How entire matchups that would otherwise be fair are bound to Barnes. Is it clear enough?
To the defenders of Barnes, i'd like to ask if they would un-nerf Naga Sea Witch as well. If your answer is 'no', please explain how Barnes is different. If the answer is 'yes', then clearly this discussion is not for you.
Going by the tired highroll logic we should then nerf Mountain Giant too since the card drastically increases the winrate of Even Lock if they hit the giant to play on turn 3. Highroll logic would also say that we nerf ANY glass cannon 1 mana minion due to aggro highrolling allowing 1 & and even 2 mana minions doing a third of an opponent's health if unanswered for a couple of turns. Oh, and I guess while we're at we might as well nerf N'Zoth and Gul'Dan for both of their battlecries highrolling for much better deathrattles (for decks with more than 6 deathrattle minions) and Gul'Dan fetching more Voidlords than Voidwalkers. Oh and don't forget RNG highrolling. Going by highroll logic we also need to then nerf Stonehill Defender so we can prevent arena players and constructed aggro players from fetching Tarim or Tyrion half of the time.
^ I could go on and include further highrolling in the game that would need to follow highroll logic if we nerfed Big Priest for that reason (e.g. shaman board clear highrolling or tempo rogue curvestone and draw rng highrolling early on), but I think you get the point. It would make little sense to focus solely one one deck when major highrolling is already prevalent in the game.
On to Naga Sea Witch. While I personally think a 3 mana increase on NSW was an over-the-top pendulum nerf, NSW and Big Priest are very different.
Let's compare the worst possible highroll for each deck at the earliest point shall we?
Big Priest - Coin, Barnes, Y'Sharjj, Rag. That's 16 damage over 2 turns, plus you often answer the 1/1 & maybe even answer the big minion with a transform effect/sap?
Giant Hunter/Giant Lock - NSW on turn 5, followed by 4-5 8/8s. That's 32-40 damage to face next turn. Some classes would technically lack any aoe answers that early to do anything and instantly lose (e.g. Rogue, Warlock, and Priest).
You can't honestly be trying to compare a potential turn 5 OTK to a couple of 8-10 mana minions that does half that damage or less are you?
You remind me of people that ask for all OTKs to be nerfed and broken (even when they aren't tier 1 simply because they hate them and have a bias for only minion-to-minion attrition games. In the end you have a multitude of options to destroy Big Priest. How about you be an intelligent gamer and break the meta instead of taking the lazy way out and asking for anything you don't agree with to be nerfed?
First off, tone down your arrogance. I am an intelligent gamer as much as you are, get down of your privileged seat if you want to discuss. Thank you.
On topic, Barnes is not identical to NSW in the same way Giant is not identical to Barnes. Barnes has huge synergies after it, Giant does not.
But Barnes is identical to NSW in the fact that it was always meant as a highroll card, yes, but it was indeed, highroll. Until resurrection became consistent. It simply got out of hand, in a way that no other Wild card has (yet), but exactly as NSW did.
This discussion is based on powerlevel, not on taste.
Also, whydoes Shadow Essence play the same effect, with only one more stat total, but costs (6)? Not legendary, but class card. Simple, because it was designed with Eternal Servitude already in mind, while Barnes was not.
Wild is Wild is also not an argument, because this was a thing already when Big Priest was in Standard. It just silently slipped off.
Im currently rank 5 and all im facing is big priest and odd rogue if you are not one of them it's almost impossible to win a game. I wish a creature like barnes was never created
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i play cubelock and lose 5 games in a row then i play odd paladin and get my stars back wash rinse repeat
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Barnes is an highroll card: if it's played on curve may alone win you the match, on the other side turning it out with Shadow Essence or with a Resurrect may also cost you the entire game.
It may not be an healthy mechanics but it's not so broken, just based on luck like many other things in HS (does anyone remember pre-nerf Yogg-Saron, Hope's End?). Some times ago Big Priest was pretty strong but actually there are many decks that can counter it pretty well so not so oppressive like NSW-decks.
For what profit is it to a man, if he gains the world and loses his own soul?
Decks and cards should never be nerfed based on how somebody feels about them because not every player feels the way you do.
Why should one deck or card get nerfed because one part of the entire playerbase feels any particular way about while another deck is left alone? All you end up doing when you approach game design that way is that you end up having some of the same minority groups in said game trying to dictate everything based on what they feel the game should be.
Also, how do you even objectively weigh if a deck is boring to play against? Is it boring to play games that force end match-ups in 5 mins? Is it boring to play games that go into fatigue? Is it boring to lose against a combination of unique cards that make fewer minion trades? Is it boring to lose against decks that are high tempo decks that play on curve and kill you around turn 8-10? Is it boring to be milled? Is it boring to play a control mirror where the class you're facing has been favored with better and more plentiful value and removal tools than your control deck/class?
^ For all of the above reasons you should never nerf something based on how it feels to play against because the chances are very high that many other players don't feel the way you do about the deck. Power level of something is the closest objective way we can try to balance things, and even that has subjective shades to it.
So big priest is broken but guess what decks is as broken as that right now in standard we have turn 4 8 drop for warlock we have Taunt Druid. No that’s not broken right (sarcasm) I mean show me deck than can clear that many times. I sit here and wait. Also there is shaman
I've played whole june season with a Renolock, Big Priest is my worst matchup. 'd be glad to here your secret tech to counter this. And if your answer is Bran + Kazakus + double Sheep Potion... well that's unlikely - and that's an understatement.
Thanks for your answer, I'm very curious about it.
Unlikely? I often pull off more than 2 Kazakus potions when laddering with Reno Mage, and I don't even have the extra cycling from Life Tap.
A friendly tip? Doomsayer & Treachery are your friend. Acts a 5 mana Nether against spellstone boards. Causes the chance for ressurrection to fail AND wipe their board if they can't immediately silence or remove it. Dilutes Eternal Servitudes if Doomsayer comes up as an option. And causes entire spellstone boards to fail and be immediately wiped if they can't remove or silence it that turn. The combo tech even serves the purpose of clearing enemy Gul'Dan, N'Zoth, Haddronox, and even Tess boards. There really isn't a reason not to run it.
Just another example of mana cheating. If resurrect was used to resummon a 10 Mana minion after they already payed full cost for it then itd be fine. The problem is they are resummoning a 10 Mana minion that they only paid 4 Mana for.
I like the OP's idea.
Barnes powerlevel in Big Priest is insane.
It can be countered by many decks. Cool. But that is not the point.
Big Priest is t2+. Cool. But that again is not the point.
The point is how highroll is made consistent in Barnes within Big Priest. How entire matchups that would otherwise be fair are bound to Barnes. Is it clear enough?
To the defenders of Barnes, i'd like to ask if they would un-nerf Naga Sea Witch as well. If your answer is 'no', please explain how Barnes is different. If the answer is 'yes', then clearly this discussion is not for you.
I look at it like this,
1.) Is this wild? Yes.
2.) Is Barnes as problematic as Naga Sea Witch? Nope.
3.) It's Wild. Not that big of an issue. All kinds of crazy decks and combos exist there.
Not defending Barnes, it was broken in standard when Big Priest was there. I'm sure it's worse in wild. But alas wild has answers, slap in a Deathlord and naturalize that y'shaarj or something.
Going by the tired highroll logic we should then nerf Mountain Giant too since the card drastically increases the winrate of Even Lock if they hit the giant to play on turn 3. Highroll logic would also say that we nerf ANY glass cannon 1 mana minion due to aggro highrolling allowing 1 & and even 2 mana minions doing a third of an opponent's health if unanswered for a couple of turns. Oh, and I guess while we're at we might as well nerf N'Zoth and Gul'Dan for both of their battlecries highrolling for much better deathrattles (for decks with more than 6 deathrattle minions) and Gul'Dan fetching more Voidlords than Voidwalkers. Oh and don't forget RNG highrolling. Going by highroll logic we also need to then nerf Stonehill Defender so we can prevent arena players and constructed aggro players from fetching Tarim or Tyrion half of the time.
^ I could go on and include further highrolling in the game that would need to follow highroll logic if we nerfed Big Priest for that reason (e.g. shaman board clear highrolling or tempo rogue curvestone and draw rng highrolling early on), but I think you get the point. It would make little sense to focus solely one one deck when major highrolling is already prevalent in the game.
On to Naga Sea Witch. While I personally think a 3 mana increase on NSW was an over-the-top pendulum nerf, NSW and Big Priest are very different.
Let's compare the worst possible highroll for each deck at the earliest point shall we?
Big Priest - Coin, Barnes, Y'Sharjj, Rag. That's 16 damage over 2 turns, plus you often answer the 1/1 & maybe even answer the big minion with a transform effect/sap?
Giant Hunter/Giant Lock - NSW on turn 5, followed by 4-5 8/8s. That's 32-40 damage to face next turn. Some classes would technically lack any aoe answers that early to do anything and instantly lose (e.g. Rogue, Warlock, and Priest).
You can't honestly be trying to compare a potential turn 5 OTK to a couple of 8-10 mana minions that does half that damage or less are you?
You remind me of people that ask for all OTKs to be nerfed and broken (even when they aren't tier 1 simply because they hate them and have a bias for only minion-to-minion attrition games. In the end you have a multitude of options to destroy Big Priest. How about you be an intelligent gamer and break the meta instead of taking the lazy way out and asking for anything you don't agree with to be nerfed?
https://hsreplay.net/decks/VEFq4jLsJMnyY3MIQb1y3c/#gameType=RANKED_WILD&tab=overview
oh, how could it be? with so many awesome counters someone mention above Big Priest has bad WR only against rogue? holy jesus, logic is not working anymore...
Unless you provide data about which specific deck types you faced that is mostly meaningless because there are no games to look over to see what games belonged to a specific deck that did or did not counter Big Priest.
For example, if you mainly faced Jade Druids during your games (a deck that does worse than Egg Druid) than that will skew what your data is showing us. Same goes for something like mage, if you faced more Big Spell Mage than Burn Mage or Reno Mage than that will also change what your win/loss percentages are showing.
You can't just show a general class win ratio and say that Big Priest is OP and that the counters don't do their jobs, when for all we know you didn't face many of the counters. People have to also use the counters to beat Big Priest. If you have someone that is dead set on using Big Spell Mage because they hate the playstyle of Burn Mage or they find Reno Jackson to be a disgusting card to use then that just means Big Priest faces fewer counters on ladder. The same principle goes with any of the classes. You can post all of the counters you want, but if players aren't going to use those counters and just play whatever they want (even if that deck sucks against Big Priest) then that is when you get all of those copy pasta threads demanding for it to be nerfed.
People can't seem to grasp that you are supposed to counter play decks with other specific decks and/or archtypes, not be able to maintain a 50% ish winrate against everything regardless of what you're using.
You can't really argue against data. Numbers are numbers. It's a data sample of around 16,000 games in the last 30 days. I'm sure counter decks from each class make up at the very least a few thousand games of that 16,000 data sample.
You're not supposed to counter one specific deck for another one specific deck. Unless you're heading into a tournament and build for specific decks that are more played in that tournament. But, since it's ladder, you build for consistency and attempt to maintain over 50% W/R collectively. And collectively, Big Priest in wild from what's shown in that link, is pretty dominating.
You most certainly can argue against data, especially when it isn't targeting what you're intending it to, or if important variables are being excluded.
I'm not sure how serious I am supposed to take that remark about completing spit balling a guess that counter decks maybe made up a few thousand. Where do you even get that number from?
You also have to take into consideration that we don't know the quality of plays those players made during those games either (See quantitative vs qualitative data). It is easier to make a mistake playing Aggro Shaman, Odd Pally, or Kingsbane Rogue vs Big Priest and still win than it is when playing something like Control Warlock or Reno Mage. It would mean more about the deck and match-up if good Control Warlock and Reno Mage players were consistently losing to Big Priest than results that showed mediocre or bad players piloting those decks and losing.
Yeah if many of the dozen or so decks I mentioned only countered Big Priest then you'd have a point, but most of those decks also counter other decks (some of those currently on the top tier lists right now).
Dominating doesn't mean overpowered or broken. Most metas have had 2-4 "dominating" decks, that always happens every single meta, but in the past that has also been chalked up to the meta being in the right situation for those decks to take over the place of the old decks before them (See Razakus Priest and Tempo Rogue immediately following the nerf of Jade Druid or Control Warrior and Control Priest immediately following the nerf of Undertaker Hunter). Any deck that is the most consistent in its own meta will be dominating. Should we always nerf every deck that is on top of every meta then (Big Priest isn't even in this situation in wild since there are tons of more consistent decks)?
Barnes is a completely fair card because it’s a minion, which leads to bad shadow essences twice as much as the Barnes play on turn 4, bad draws in the late game, and bad for the resurrect pool - all of which lose you as many games as Barnes on turn 4 wins.
honestly I wonder whether it’s worth it for the small amount of cases that Barnes actually works, but all you guys ever post about is when your salty that it did
Check out my Earth, Wind, and Fire - Elemental Shaman deck!
So you mean to tell me, you're going to argue against around 16,000 games worth of data, as shown, all because it doesn't exclusively target a counter demographic? All because we can't tell if they were good or bad pilots? Ooooooooooookay then.
It's a guesstimate if you will, considering 16,000 games, I was generalizing.
How is dominating not synonymous with broken or OP? I guess Jade Druid before Plague/Innervate nerf in standard wasn't broken either with that mentality.
You answered your own rhetorical question, "should we always nerf every deck that is on top of the meta". Razakus Priest got nerfed (Raza). Tempo Rogue got nerfed (creeper/bonemare/patches). Jade Druid (plague/innervate). Each deck, on top of it's meta, nerfed.
Now, i'm not arguing for Barnes to be nerfed. Currently as it is, if it's not posing as big of a problem as NSW was, then leave it. It's wild. Doesn't affect standard.
And on the notion of Naga Sea Witch, it being hard nerfed as it was, just goes to show how much consideration really goes into anything wild.
The problem with that data is that it is very generalized and unreliable if you're looking for very specific information between decks that are not simply the most analyzed tier one decks. As I mentioned already you can't determine what the decks were that the opponents were playing. That is a pretty big flaw in the game tracking tool considering that wild is even more technically diverse than standard, which means people aren't just going to be playing one deck per class.
If you're actually going to put some serious study in to how a non-tier one deck does against other decks it isn't going to happen from a tool that lumps every single deck together for each class. For all we know 60% of the warlock games could've been against Cubelock, or 75%, or 53%, or maybe the majority of ranked wild players got bored of Cubelock and went 66% Control and the other 34% Zoo. We have absolutely no idea and no way of verifying any of that data for anything specific, which makes the posting of it for the purpose of Big Priest being countered by any specific decks without any merit.
Think of this from another perspective. Say that you took data from people reporting that random [Insert Deck Here] was legend viable, and that they had to have won at least one game at some point between rank 1 & legend before getting to legend. Would you rather want data that allowed you to see for yourself if said players actually played those decks well to prove that is was legend viable by piloting the deck well, as opposed to the data collection tool deciding that something was legend viable because it got a win and may have just gotten lucky with the deck. Compare that to Hearthstone Replay collecting completely generalized data and then having to take multiple stabs in the deck to guess if it encountered many counters, and if so how many and against what. Not the perfect comparison by any means but there you go.
A stream for a few days or week straight during the month would be more reliable for data purposes because you could actually know what was played against what, as well as if the Big Priest player and counter deck players actually piloted their respective decks fairly accurately. Afterall, we're not in the business of changing or nerfing cards based on how well a deck did or did not perform in the hands of somebody that didn't use it according to its accurate power level.
Decks at the top haven't always been nerfed though. The example I provided pre and post Jade Druid nerf was actually for a very peculiar time when players complained about every single deck that they got after being spoonfed constant nerfs, to no avail to cease their whining. Other decks that were at top at various points weren't nerfed, such as the Naxx era Control Warrior, Naxx Control Priest, LoE Reno Lock, Mech Mage, multiple past meta variations of Tempo Mage, Quest Mage and Kinbsbane Rogue (I don't count the standard format HoFing since in the wider scheme of the game the entire versions of the decks remained in at least one format completely unchanged), Inner Fire Dragon Priest, etc.
Anyway, I digress. The point of the matter as it currently stands with T5 is that right now Barnes is not viewed as enough of a problem because, and I'll paraphrase here since I don't have the blue post up, that enough decks counter it right now to the point that they don't view it as a big enough problem to nerf it.
Intelligent gamers that actually try to break the meta actually do play Big Priest. It's so much better against board centric aggro which make up a large part of the meta compared to other greedy late game decks. The only meta deck to beat Big Priest consistently is Kingsbane Rogue, which is far worse against aggro.
Some of the more popular decks of your list of counters are actually good MU for Big Priest, like aggro pala and even shaman. Some are depending on carddraw and how much Big Priest highrolls e.g. Slow Druid decks and Renlock. They're favored against Barnes into Statue, and fail to beat Barnes into one of the other minions + Res.
I haven't seen most of your decks in ranks 4 to Legend since the nerf, so I guess most of them are good on paper against Big Priest, but can't stand up in a meta filled with Combo Druids, Renolocks, Even Shaman and Aggro Pala.
First off, tone down your arrogance. I am an intelligent gamer as much as you are, get down of your privileged seat if you want to discuss. Thank you.
On topic, Barnes is not identical to NSW in the same way Giant is not identical to Barnes. Barnes has huge synergies after it, Giant does not.
But Barnes is identical to NSW in the fact that it was always meant as a highroll card, yes, but it was indeed, highroll. Until resurrection became consistent. It simply got out of hand, in a way that no other Wild card has (yet), but exactly as NSW did.
This discussion is based on powerlevel, not on taste.
Also, whydoes Shadow Essence play the same effect, with only one more stat total, but costs (6)? Not legendary, but class card. Simple, because it was designed with Eternal Servitude already in mind, while Barnes was not.
Wild is Wild is also not an argument, because this was a thing already when Big Priest was in Standard. It just silently slipped off.
Im currently rank 5 and all im facing is big priest and odd rogue if you are not one of them it's almost impossible to win a game. I wish a creature like barnes was never created
i play cubelock and lose 5 games in a row then i play odd paladin and get my stars back wash rinse repeat