In your opinion, what is the worst designed card ever, and why?
In my opinion, its Prince Keleseth - This card needs absolutely no skill to play / build deck around it, and it easily wins you a game. Its simple - You got Keleseth in opening hand, you win. You did not, you still have chance to get it / win w/o it.
I disagree I think Keleseth is masterfully designed concept wise and leads to intricate deck design, but the payoff is far to high. Noone thought keleseth would be any good and with enough experimentation became dominant. My opinion is likely anduin for likely self explanatory reasons where some powerful cards, like patches, are strong the difference anduin is a frustrating insta-win card which cant really be countered
Jade Idol. An anti-fatigue mechanic shouldn't be stapled to a 1 mana 8/8. Pretty much everyone can agree that on the whole MSOG was the pinnacle of poor design choices from Small Time Buckaneer, to Patches to the entirety of the Jade Mechanic (Oppressive in one class, ok in another and garbage in a third), the way it killed off midrange and tempo until Reno rotated, the utter failure to launch that was Hand Buff. Unforeseen future brokeness with Raza, Pirates Again because seriously why? Not even remotely addressing the already existing issue of Shamanstone at the time (similar to KOTFT with Druids but that issue resolved itself thanks to timely nerfs), basically the entirety of the post-Mean Streets meta was the most unplayable one that I have personally ever put up with (with the obvious and constant exception of UT Hunter) since early BETA. The fact that whoever ran lead on MSOG was not banned from set design will forever confuse me.
Barnes. Pretty simple and not very interesting mechanic, enables a ton of extremely powerful and broken shenanigans. Play it on turn 4 in big priest and you immediately win the game 80% of the time. May be even higher than that, idk.
The core behind keleseth and renojackson is both really really good card design.
High cost (no 2 drops/1 of each card) but high reward.
I think the reason they are frustrated is that perhaps they are slightly overtuned (okay maybe keleseth is a bit more than "slightly overtuned") and also playing them and knowing when to play them takes 0 skill. I think what makes a great designed card is that the deck should be built around it (or with the card in mind as a key element) and it takes skill knowing when to play/use it in game. In addition to make a card well designed, the opponent should be able to counter it when making a deck, and also play around it to some extent in game.
A prime example of this woud be Kazakus or the curator. Both require prior thought and deck adjustment to make the card playable. And in game it takes some thought to know when to play them as both lose tempo when played. For curator you also want to play it before you draw its "activators", but in some cases you can't play it because then you will overdraw so it takes a few turns of preparing by trying to dump your hand.
With this in mind I think the worst designed cards are those you can just throw into any deck, that have basic text, and you can play whenever/in one normal situation that lack counterplay. A prime example of this was fierywar axe (prenerf).
If you need to ask why, then you do not understand what bad DESIGN is. Everyone else is just complaining about overpowered cards, but those cards function as intended -- All of them fill the purpose that they were explicitly designed to fill. If it was a mistake to create them because they were too powerful, that's entirely different.
Toxic arrow, in the kind of game Hearthstone is, given to the kind of class Hunter is, literally has no function and does not work as designed.
Patches is actually pretty well designed, the payoff is you can get an extra 1/1 in the early game, and the risk is that you draw it. If you draw it, more than likely you've lost the game.
Tunnel Trogg and Flamewreathed Faceless are actual poorly designed cards. Tunnel Trogg is just wayyyyy too overtuned, and Flamewreath just has abominably high stats with a potential upside effect.
In your opinion, what is the worst designed card ever, and why?
In my opinion, its Prince Keleseth - This card needs absolutely no skill to play / build deck around it, and it easily wins you a game.
Its simple - You got Keleseth in opening hand, you win. You did not, you still have chance to get it / win w/o it.
Share ur opinions!
reno jackson
Yogg
Reno Jackson.
Check out my entry for this week's Card Design Competition. Vote for it if you like it.
Ice Block is up there, in my opinion.
#AddingPoll
Maybe not, lol
I disagree I think Keleseth is masterfully designed concept wise and leads to intricate deck design, but the payoff is far to high. Noone thought keleseth would be any good and with enough experimentation became dominant. My opinion is likely anduin for likely self explanatory reasons where some powerful cards, like patches, are strong the difference anduin is a frustrating insta-win card which cant really be countered
Jade Idol. An anti-fatigue mechanic shouldn't be stapled to a 1 mana 8/8. Pretty much everyone can agree that on the whole MSOG was the pinnacle of poor design choices from Small Time Buckaneer, to Patches to the entirety of the Jade Mechanic (Oppressive in one class, ok in another and garbage in a third), the way it killed off midrange and tempo until Reno rotated, the utter failure to launch that was Hand Buff. Unforeseen future brokeness with Raza, Pirates Again because seriously why? Not even remotely addressing the already existing issue of Shamanstone at the time (similar to KOTFT with Druids but that issue resolved itself thanks to timely nerfs), basically the entirety of the post-Mean Streets meta was the most unplayable one that I have personally ever put up with (with the obvious and constant exception of UT Hunter) since early BETA. The fact that whoever ran lead on MSOG was not banned from set design will forever confuse me.
Kill Command. Art design is atrocious.
Anger is the punishment we give ourselves for someone else's mistake.
Tight race between Ultimate Infestation and Psychic Scream.
Anyone who says anything other than Patches is wrong.
Never forget. Never forgive.
I stream dumb things! http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/streams-and-videos/186621-yet-another-new-stream
Also, check out the BalanceStone project at https://discord.gg/yNexH9A
Primordial Glyph
Jade Idol and Patches.
The true cancer of this game.
Barnes. Pretty simple and not very interesting mechanic, enables a ton of extremely powerful and broken shenanigans. Play it on turn 4 in big priest and you immediately win the game 80% of the time. May be even higher than that, idk.
The core behind keleseth and renojackson is both really really good card design.
High cost (no 2 drops/1 of each card) but high reward.
I think the reason they are frustrated is that perhaps they are slightly overtuned (okay maybe keleseth is a bit more than "slightly overtuned") and also playing them and knowing when to play them takes 0 skill. I think what makes a great designed card is that the deck should be built around it (or with the card in mind as a key element) and it takes skill knowing when to play/use it in game. In addition to make a card well designed, the opponent should be able to counter it when making a deck, and also play around it to some extent in game.
A prime example of this woud be Kazakus or the curator. Both require prior thought and deck adjustment to make the card playable. And in game it takes some thought to know when to play them as both lose tempo when played. For curator you also want to play it before you draw its "activators", but in some cases you can't play it because then you will overdraw so it takes a few turns of preparing by trying to dump your hand.
With this in mind I think the worst designed cards are those you can just throw into any deck, that have basic text, and you can play whenever/in one normal situation that lack counterplay. A prime example of this was fierywar axe (prenerf).
Don't mind me, just the UK National Champion.
Jade Idol. Whoever thought that thing was ok was clearly not sober.
Primordial Glyph, the amount of people who use it on turn 2 and just pick it for being greedy not for the card's effect, IS TOOO DAAAMMNN HIGHHH
Toxic Arrow.
If you need to ask why, then you do not understand what bad DESIGN is. Everyone else is just complaining about overpowered cards, but those cards function as intended -- All of them fill the purpose that they were explicitly designed to fill. If it was a mistake to create them because they were too powerful, that's entirely different.
Toxic arrow, in the kind of game Hearthstone is, given to the kind of class Hunter is, literally has no function and does not work as designed.
Patches is actually pretty well designed, the payoff is you can get an extra 1/1 in the early game, and the risk is that you draw it. If you draw it, more than likely you've lost the game.
Tunnel Trogg and Flamewreathed Faceless are actual poorly designed cards. Tunnel Trogg is just wayyyyy too overtuned, and Flamewreath just has abominably high stats with a potential upside effect.
Of course there a some.
Prinnz Kelesth is horrible. It gets your win percentage to 75% when you play it turn 2. and Rogue often casts it twice.
Patches was extraordinary by itself but Kele boosted him so much.
Primordial Glyph should be adapted to 1 mana reduction and so on.
Seems like Blizz doesn´t like balancing between cards. I disagree that card games need power creep, they have to explore space and give possibilities.