Uh oh... It's that time of the year again, someone wrote properly and negatively about a mistake of a card. Quick! Protect your archetypes!
Lol the main argument in this thread is that it's not fun to play against, good shit. Please remove mill decks and Shudderwock, I hate playing decks that counter those and I don't find them fun :(
I'm serious, go give big Priest a try, you will see that Barnes is not the problem and that you will almost always rely on removal and Shadow Essence (it's probably even better without Barnes as he messes up Shadow Essence). Nerfing Barnes would mess up the other big archetype decks such as Rogue and Shaman, not Priest.
I played against Big Rogue and I don't have issues with it and how it works, as it can be managed with silence effects. Kel'Thuzad being double summoned with Reincarnation on t4 is something WRONG. Close to Naga Sea Witch level of wrong. As Big Druid working as Big Priest would be wrong. Balanced mana cheating strategies must require more complicated strategies than just playing a card on t4. The Druid class showcases plenty of good examples:
-Aviana and Kun require you to reach 10 mana and having them in your hand plus the other cards in order to execute the gameplan. That can be disrupted from heavy aggro, secrets, Dirty Rat (Neutral epic card) and milling. I play the Togwaggle deck once in a while, and it has plenty of healthy counterplay against it. -Astral Communion Discards your hand and puts you in topdeck mode -Jungle Giants requires you to do the quest -Twig of the World Tree requires you to break the weapon.
Mana cheating to be balanced requires a Drawback that currently the Barnes highroll win condition does not have. Take a look at 8/8 minions that can be played out faster than usual. Giants have all special requirements with a high starting mana costs (And guess what, NSW was nerfed because it nullified that requirement) Bittertide Hydra gets your hp at risk for playing it. Fel Reaver discards your top 3 cards for every card played. Flamewreathed Faceless has 2 Overload
Big Rogue would be close to unaffected from a fix to Barnes like that as its goal is to generate value. In some cases it would be even better (Situations where you might want to kill a resurrected Sneed spawn to get a legendary) And would still get raped by aggro, as it doesn't manage to resummon Obsidian Statues.
Spiteful Summoner received a nerf for the very same reason. Quest Rogue was nerfed TWO times for the same reason. Corridor Creeper was nerfed for the same reason. Possessed Lackey was nerfed for the same reason. Why the Barnes copy should be any different?
Shadow Essence is a mana cheat card which is ok because it's 6 mana and puts 5/5 stats on the board, and most decks have more time to through their gameplan (Aggro decks might have already killed you), draw into defensive options to deal with it (Control decks have mana and more draw for hard removals).
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Remember playing Control Shaman with Reincarnate shenanigans? No? It was fun, here's a refresher!
Uh oh... It's that time of the year again, someone wrote properly and negatively about a mistake of a card. Quick! Protect your archetypes!
Lol the main argument in this thread is that it's not fun to play against, good shit. Please remove mill decks and Shudderwock, I hate playing decks that counter those and I don't find them fun :(
I'm serious, go give big Priest a try, you will see that Barnes is not the problem and that you will almost always rely on removal and Shadow Essence (it's probably even better without Barnes as he messes up Shadow Essence). Nerfing Barnes would mess up the other big archetype decks such as Rogue and Shaman, not Priest.
Funny and sort of makes sense? I don't really know why you are replying to my comment with this, though. I found at least one post per page declaring salt instead of actually arguing, and those are the ones that seem to go under the radar around here, thus I insulted those.
Secondly, I did not even state my stance on the matter. Obviously, I despise Big Priests, and a quick check through my history will let you find an actually salty post on the matter in the Salt Thread, but all I did here was criticize the salt shields. Unless you are addressing the fact that I called Barnes a mistake, which still has little to do with Big Priest alone.
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Start of Year: Provoke the failure of 3 expansions, force nerfs on otherwise balanced cards, bring deckbuilding to an all-time low and get rotated one year earlier for being such a threat to the game's health. - Genn and Baku's historical entry on the White Book of Shit Design, shortly before retiring unpunished
If you're arguing for Big Priest and think Barnes doesn't need nerfed, you probably suck at this game and rely upon auto-winning by drawing him by turn 3/4. It's cancerous. You're cancerous if you play it. I haven't even run into more than one in Wild in the past few weeks but dear GOD it has no place in this game, just like cheating out Voidlords. Guess what? Obsidian Statues are pretty friggin' OP too when they're cheated out. The problem is cheating out big minions too early without any ability to respond..... -----> BARNES
With that said, the OP has a nice idea for a nerf. Barnes would remain a fine card in decks that run deathrattles or have end of turn effects..... and guess what? You could still highroll a Y'Sharaaj and pwn people with Big Priest from time to time.
I played against Big Rogue and I don't have issues with it and how it works, as it can be managed with silence effects. Kel'Thuzad being double summoned with Reincarnation on t4 is something WRONG. Close to Naga Sea Witch level of wrong. As Big Druid working as Big Priest would be wrong. Balanced mana cheating strategies must require more complicated strategies than just playing a card on t4. The Druid class showcases plenty of good examples:
-Aviana and Kun require you to reach 10 mana and having them in your hand plus the other cards in order to execute the gameplan. That can be disrupted from heavy aggro, secrets, Dirty Rat (Neutral epic card) and milling. I play the Togwaggle deck once in a while, and it has plenty of healthy counterplay against it. -Astral Communion Discards your hand and puts you in topdeck mode -Jungle Giants requires you to do the quest -Twig of the World Tree requires you to break the weapon.
Mana cheating to be balanced requires a Drawback that currently the Barnes highroll win condition does not have. Take a look at 8/8 minions that can be played out faster than usual. Giants have all special requirements with a high starting mana costs (And guess what, NSW was nerfed because it nullified that requirement) Bittertide Hydra gets your hp at risk for playing it. Fel Reaver discards your top 3 cards for every card played. Flamewreathed Faceless has 2 Overload
Big Rogue would be close to unaffected from a fix to Barnes like that as its goal is to generate value. In some cases it would be even better (Situations where you might want to kill a resurrected Sneed spawn to get a legendary) And would still get raped by aggro, as it doesn't manage to resummon Obsidian Statues.
Spiteful Summoner received a nerf for the very same reason. Quest Rogue was nerfed TWO times for the same reason. Corridor Creeper was nerfed for the same reason. Possessed Lackey was nerfed for the same reason. Why the Barnes copy should be any different?
Shadow Essence is a mana cheat card which is ok because it's 6 mana and puts 5/5 stats on the board, and most decks have more time to through their gameplan (Aggro decks might have already killed you), draw into defensive options to deal with it (Control decks have mana and more draw for hard removals).
I would like to warn you that you are stepping on a really thin ice there. Because I'm not buying what are you trying to sell me with your post. Applying that clarification of a mana cheating Big Priest deserves that turn 4 Barnes more than anyone else. Just think of how many things Big Priest had to get rid off to deserve it? Basically any early game is gone, you can't run Duskbreakers, Doomsayers, Explosive Sheeps beause they would make your Ressurect options shitty, heck even spell like Potion of Madness can't be played. First serious AOE clears are coming only at 5 mana. Carddraw is absolutely missing. You are praying to draw your cards and to Yshaarj pulling out the minion that you need. Adding spells like Power Word;Shield is really akward and no one does that. And when you don't have Barnes on 4. Then it is another target for a Shadow Essence which really sucks. So I'm asking, apllying the points that you have said: Doesn't Big Priest deserve to have such a powerfull Barnes on turn 4? (because he is crippling his otherwise Control deck so much)
Hell I would even consider Spitefful and Lackey far stronger because they require far less set up to be powerfull. Spitefull was strong in Standart because there were minions with:Spell-like effects and Lackey just need any good Demon.
And I know that Rogue is somehow "balanced" because it's a bottom of tier 2 due to not having a powerfull heal. But it is a still good example because while having even lower chances of surviving against Aggro, Big Rogue is stronger against Control and such because she is harder to exhaust. Like the only thing that keeps her at lower Tier 2 is not having heal outside of Death Coil.
Basically any early game is gone, you can't run Duskbreakers, Doomsayers, Explosive Sheeps beause they would make your Ressurect options shitty, heck even spell like Potion of Madness can't be played. First serious AOE clears are coming only at 5 mana. Carddraw is absolutely missing. You are praying to draw your cards and to Yshaarj pulling out the minion that you need. Adding spells like Power Word;Shield is really akward and no one does that. And when you don't have Barnes on 4. Then it is another target for a Shadow Essence which really sucks. So I'm asking, apllying the points that you have said: Doesn't Big Priest deserve to have such a powerfull Barnes on turn 4? (because he is crippling his otherwise Control deck so much)
That's exactly why it's unfun to play against. Big Priest has some deliberate weaknesses for the chance to highroll free win in other games. And the highroll can be so hard, even having the best counter in Polymorph or Hex doesn't help against something like Barnes 2x Yshraaj.
Yes, you will find a theoretical chance to even beat even the biggest highroll there is, but looking at the stats, you'll see it's just not going to happen. Same as with your previous claim against me, that Naga Giants deck was fine because the highroll can be countered with Renodecks running Frostnova + Doomsayer, Bloodbloom + Twisting Nether, or Sylvanas + Play Dead.
Basically any early game is gone, you can't run Duskbreakers, Doomsayers, Explosive Sheeps beause they would make your Ressurect options shitty, heck even spell like Potion of Madness can't be played. First serious AOE clears are coming only at 5 mana. Carddraw is absolutely missing. You are praying to draw your cards and to Yshaarj pulling out the minion that you need. Adding spells like Power Word;Shield is really akward and no one does that. And when you don't have Barnes on 4. Then it is another target for a Shadow Essence which really sucks. So I'm asking, apllying the points that you have said: Doesn't Big Priest deserve to have such a powerfull Barnes on turn 4? (because he is crippling his otherwise Control deck so much)
That's exactly why it's unfun to play against. Big Priest has some deliberate weaknesses for the chance to highroll free win in other games. And the highroll can be so hard, even having the best counter in Polymorph or Hex doesn't help against something like Barnes 2x Yshraaj.
Yes, you will find a theoretical chance to even beat even the biggest highroll there is, but looking at the stats, you'll see it's just not going to happen. Same as with your previous claim against me, that Naga Giants deck was fine because the highroll can be countered with Renodecks running Frostnova + Doomsayer, Bloodbloom + Twisting Nether, or Sylvanas + Play Dead.
I thought that we cut out the: ,,It's unfun to play against fact". It is too narrow-minded and any Tier 1 or 2 deck can be called unfun to play against because it's doing powerfull/broken stuff. A lot of decks are crippling themselves against some matchups to gain advantage in other matchups. What is even the point that you are trying to make? As Aluneth Mage I will most likely loose to Druids because my deck is crippled against them. On the other hand I will gain advantage in other matchups like Cubelock or Reno decks where they don't always have Reno on turn 6. Miracle Rogue is crippling itself by playing a shitton of cards but at the end she gets a big ass Endwin which can win games alone(and again, it can happen earlier than trun 3 or 4).Big Priest is crippling himself against Aggro and Tempo matchups to gain advantage against Control and Combo ones by cheating out big stuff(And some combo decks like Mill archetype or Kinsbane are still don't care a lot). Priest highroll is not even that powerfull against Aggro because the strongest Aggro highrolls that are possible in Wild are coming online on turn 1 or 2 with coin. And if you like to bring out consistency of these plays, they are far more likely to happen because they are made by Common and Rare cards which you can run. Mana Wyrm into Coin into Lackey into Secret is snowballing and disgusitng no matter if it's on turn 1 or 2. Coin into Nerubian Egg followed by Sanguiner and Corsair on next turn together with Patches is a really disgusting combo from Zoolock. And guess what? Comboes like this can't be answered by almighty broken Big Priest in one turn at first few turns because he gave up his early game.
Let's not bring that out again. You were clearly telling me that Reno decks can't answer the early board of Giants and I've said you that from turn 5 Mage and Warlock can answer them followed by trun 6 from Priest and then non-Kabal classes can get lucky with shennanigans and stuff. Of course there were more hard counters to Giants like Druids,Kinsbane decks,Aluneth decks and after WW Even Shamans but Reno decks could put up a fight against Giant decks. We even discussed the consistency and you couldn't accept that Reno decks are consistent enough to draw these combinations early enough to answer the board. We were talking about earliest highroll for Giants and earliest answer from Reno decks and earlies answer of Renolock and Reno Mage exists.
Just a note on the performance comments. It is not about the win rate, consistency or drawbacks really. Yes, they put a spotlight on the deck because we see it often and it tends to win enough to become popular, but these are not the reasons why Barnes is badly designed / unhealthy.
Imagine you had a card that says: (X mana) roll RNG; 1% chance you win; 99% chance you lose. You can also add to it a drawback like "if your deck has no cards costing less than Y".
There are no values for X and Y that make this card a healthy card, ever. It doesn't matter that the win rate would be in the gutter. It doesn't matter what the sacrifice is or that you always die to aggro. The problem is that it decides the game in a way that completely removes player agency and has no place in a game that even attempts to be competitive. Might as well call it gambling at that point and just go roll some dices.
This is essentially what a T3/T4 Barnes does, in a great number of matchups (should be none), and with a much better success rate, and very little drawback. It's basically a "If this is in your deck, roll RNG for 20% chance to win the game. Otherwise, dilute your resurrection pool".
Just a note on the performance comments. It is not about the win rate, consistency or drawbacks really. Yes, they put a spotlight on the deck because we see it often and it tends to win enough to become popular, but these are not the reasons why Barnes is badly designed / unhealthy.
Imagine you had a card that says: (X mana) roll RNG; 1% chance you win; 99% chance you lose. You can also add to it a drawback like "if your deck has no cards costing less than Y".
There are no values for X and Y that make this card a healthy card, ever. It doesn't matter that the win rate would be in the gutter. It doesn't matter what the sacrifice is or that you always die to aggro. The problem is that it decides the game in a way that completely removes player agency and has no place in a game that even attempts to be competitive. Might as well call it gambling at that point and just go roll some dices.
This is essentially what a T3/T4 Barnes does, in a great number of matchups (should be none), and with a much better success rate, and very little drawback. It's basically a "If this is in your deck, roll RNG for 20% chance to win the game. Otherwise, dilute your resurrection pool".
The problem is this example is not true because 1.This can be applied not for Barnes only (Hello Kingsbane,Jades,Aluneth and such) 2. Card that you described just simply doesnt exist. ANYTHING can be countered if you are desperate enough. Kingsbane kills Big Priest and is getting killed by Aggro. Jade Druid is shiity Armor deck after Skulking Geist is played. There are counters to anything. 3. What you are descrbinig are polarised matchups which will always be especially in Wild meta with a ton of viable and meme deks.
Maybe even shaman that runs that frog... and that's if barnes doesn't do Yshaarj ....
Having played a lot of even shaman variants over the 2 last seasons, I know I have less than 25% chance of winning the game, even if I can put a lot of early pressure. I have to draw perfectly and the priest poorly.
I personally liked that idea above of Barnes summoning a 1/1 token with text of a minion from deck. It means you would resurrect a token (without text) and dilute a bit the resurrect pool.
The problem is this example is not true because 1.This can be applied not for Barnes only (Hello Kingsbane,Jades,Aluneth and such) 2. Card that you described just simply doesnt exist. ANYTHING can be countered if you are desperate enough. Kingsbane kills Big Priest and is getting killed by Aggro. Jade Druid is shiity Armor deck after Skulking Geist is played. There are counters to anything. 3. What you are descrbinig are polarised matchups which will always be especially in Wild meta with a ton of viable and meme deks.
1. Kingsbane, Jades, Aluneth & co. don't nearly affect the game as much just by the virtue of a single card being drawn or not in the opening hand. Kingsbane and Jades work as packages, Aluneth is the only stand alone one of those and it still doesn't win the game by itself, only converts some losses into wins if the game was in the middle (it will virtually never win you the game if the first few turns went badly for you). We could/should check the data actually, but it seems to me that Barnes has by far the biggest swing effect (win/loss % difference) in regard to being in the starting hand or not.
My point is just that no singlelow mana card should have so much swing potential, and any card that has a lot of swing potential should have its effect counterable by the time it can be played (e.g. Guldan, N'Zoth). Hell, turns 10+ are where we enter uncounterable OTK combo territory (which in itself is unhealthy if there are no cards like Dirty Rat in the game, but that's another topic). Turn 3-4 is NOT the place things like that should be happening.
2. Hence the word "imagine"? :) Yes, counters to everything currently in HS exist, if you talk about taking a different class/deck and having the perfect draw. That doesn't mean they exist for all classes, that they are reliable, or that they work often enough to be justified.
3. No, I am not talking of a "polarized meta". That is a completely different issue. Polarized meta happens because we have too many hard counters, and they are often class specific. A healthier (or, more fun?) meta could be born in a world with more soft counters and less hard ones, but that's not the current state of HS.
What you're basically saying is that Barnes is a hard counter to half the decks out there and that that's ok. It is not.
Barnes is the only card that needs nerf in wild so we can have a balanced meta.
The meta is always then balances when the deck i play is the strongest.
Sorry, but is there ANY argument other than: "it's unfun to play against", "i lost against big priest, NERF" and "i hate it"? Because i didn't see any reasonable argument other than from control-players that a deck that is heavily geared against control as big priest is favoured against it.
Big priest is NOT AS POLARIZING AS NAGA! Naga simply deleted an entire archetype: midrange. Priest does defeat control, but is also countered by some decks heavily: The winrate is not overwhelming as cubelock was.
And now for the FACTS: FACT IS: Priest in general is in Standard at the bottom and in wild not really good. FACT IS that the only viable archetype right now is BIG PRIEST. FACT IS that it is favoured because there are so many shamans around. FACT IS that it gets heavily countered by some decks as Rogue in general (try to win against any rogue-deck: for mill rogue it's the best deck to fight against) and Combo Druid (Malygos or Togwaggle). FACT IS that you can see the Winrates in wild: First there's Odd Rogue, then there's Even Shaman, then Jade Druid and then LOOOOOOOOOOONG nothing else. In General, the winrate of priest is at rank 7 of 9 in wild.
In the end: the only thing here bottling up is wining because you lost against barnes, not facts, but the same crap we had with nerfing Mind control from 8 to 10 mana: NOT BALANCE BECAUSE OF FACTS BUT BECAUSE OF EMOTIONS.
Instead of nerfing barnes, how about more counters to it: for example a card that fills the enemy board with crap-minions:
Frog Choir: (Beast) 2 mana 1/6: Summon 3 different Frogs with taunt on your opponents board:
Tokens: Do - 1 mana 0/1 Taunt (Beast) Re - 1 mana 0/1 Taunt (Beast) Mi - 1 mana 0/1 Taunt (Beast)
This fills the Graveyard with crap and makes resurrect pretty bad and also a chance for eternal servitude to be a flop.
Instead of nerfing barnes, give us more counter-cards.
is there ANY argument other than: "it's unfun to play against",
There are many already stated in the thread, but fun should always be #1 reasoning in HS since its competitive aspect is very low atm.
A fun card game is one that encourages the two players to interact with cards and counter/predict each other moves/lines.
The design aspects that go against this rule and create a boring game are:
1) Cards like Barnes and board clear cards which stimulate building decks without low cost minions
2) Mana cheat cards which favor ramping instead of playing minions
3) Cards and secrets which make the player invulnerable for certain amount of turns
Decks including one or more of the above 3 aspects are unfun to play against since one may perfectly well know their curve and still have no way to punish the opponent with large number of decks.
TLDR: Fun is KING in an rng-heavy low competitive game like HS. Barnes is NOT fun.
Barnes is the only card that needs nerf in wild so we can have a balanced meta.
Sorry, but is there ANY argument other than: "it's unfun to play against", "i lost against big priest, NERF" and "i hate it"? Because i didn't see any reasonable argument other than from control-players that a deck that is heavily geared against control as big priest is favoured against it.
...
Instead of nerfing barnes, give us more counter-cards.
Glad to oblige (it's actually worse than I expected btw):
Overall winrate 61.4% Top WR affecting card in Mulligan:Barnes with WR ▲79.9% (increase of 18.5% in WR compared to not drawing him in opening hand!) Next card is Shadow Word pain with ▲65.6% (4.2% difference)
#1 deck (Odd Rogue) WR = 69.8% Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Buccaneer - Mulligan WR ▲73.2% (3.4% increase)
#2 deck (Even Shaman) WR = 68.6% Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Primalfin Totem ▲71.2% (2.6% increase)
Other interesting decks containing strong single cards: Renolock WR = 59.3% Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Voidlord ▲68.7% (9.4% increase) Reno Jackson comes second with ▲66.0% (6.7% increase)
Evenlock WR = 59.0% Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Mountain Giant ▲67.6% (8.6% increase)
Secret Mage WR = 65.9% Aluneth is a bit tricky cause it comes later but: Mulligan WR ▲73.5% (+7.6%) Drawn WR: ▲69.6% Played WR: ▲70.8%
So, there's some actual data. Of the few that I checked that seemed interesting, Barnes is by far the most influential single card that can be drawn in the opening hand. The Win Rate difference between drawing him or not is 18.5%. He alone hands you over 1 in 5 games if you draw him. No single card should be that impactfull, and if anything, that WR difference is a clear indicator of where to look for nerfs.
And yes, I agree with you that soft nerfs are better than hard ones. Giving more counterplay is just as good or even better than striking at a card. The point is, somethingshould be done about Barnes.
1. Kingsbane, Jades, Aluneth & co. don't nearly affect the game as much just by the virtue of a single card being drawn or not in the opening hand. Kingsbane and Jades work as packages, Aluneth is the only stand alone one of those and it still doesn't win the game by itself, only converts some losses into wins if the game was in the middle (it will virtually never win you the game if the first few turns went badly for you). We could/should check the data actually, but it seems to me that Barnes has by far the biggest swing effect (win/loss % difference) in regard to being in the starting hand or not.
My point is just that no singlelow mana card should have so much swing potential, and any card that has a lot of swing potential should have its effect counterable by the time it can be played (e.g. Guldan, N'Zoth). Hell, turns 10+ are where we enter uncounterable OTK combo territory (which in itself is unhealthy if there are no cards like Dirty Rat in the game, but that's another topic). Turn 3-4 is NOT the place things like that should be happening.
2. Hence the word "imagine"? :) Yes, counters to everything currently in HS exist, if you talk about taking a different class/deck and having the perfect draw. That doesn't mean they exist for all classes, that they are reliable, or that they work often enough to be justified.
3. No, I am not talking of a "polarized meta". That is a completely different issue. Polarized meta happens because we have too many hard counters, and they are often class specific. A healthier (or, more fun?) meta could be born in a world with more soft counters and less hard ones, but that's not the current state of HS.
What you're basically saying is that Barnes is a hard counter to half the decks out there and that that's ok. It is not.
1. Yes Barnes have the bigges swing effect if it's drawn on curve. I agree with that. But I also know that Aggro decks have way more swingy/highroll turn earlier that is almost impossible to clear (Aluneth Mage and Zoolock especially) Yet no one complains about them. So what is the problem with the Barnes? Again. Why is not Big Rogue a problem? This deck is literally even more powerfull against Control and the :,,I don't mind it because it looses to Aggro and Kinsgbane point" doesn't count because same can be said about Big Priest.
2. But the thing is it is not possible to have answer to everything with one class. It will happen after a few years in Wild format if Billzard prints specific cards, but right now it is unrealistic task to complete. Let's not act like it only applies for Big Priest only.It applies to all meta and we can also see some examples in the past: Back in the LoE days Control Priest could be beaten by Handlock and good aggro decks only(Control Warrior sucked against it because Entomb exists). Freeze Mage was always autoconcede against Control Warrior etc.
3. Well. as you have said, this point applies to whole Hearthstone meta in general. Nerfing Barnes (and weakening other decks outside Big Priest btw) will just bring another annoying highrolly decks (Big Rogue and Even Shaman are saying Hello) to the top. And again, right now Big Priest is clearly not on the top of Wild meta. It has 60% winrate according to HS.Replay and it is underwhelming compared to Dude Paladins and such.
Just to be clear. I'm not a Big Priest main. I play mostly Control and Combo decks that I've built myself. I just don't really like the points that some of you are trying to make as an excuse for a Barnes or Big Priest nerf. I like to have a good talk about this topic.)
I thought that we cut out the: ,,It's unfun to play against fact".
But this is the entire issue of the threat. It's unfun to play against a deck with a single card that adds increases the chance of winning greatly if played on curve in the first four turns.
The rest of your post is also full of false statements. Not going to get into the ones that are offtopic, but I wanted to address your statement on Big Priest against aggro. This matchup is not as bad as you make it, especially if you tech two Greater Healing Potions. Big Priest doesn't need to highroll against aggro to win, just clearing their board repeatedly and healing up is enough. And for all the combos listed, same issue as in all your other posts, Hearthstone is not a magical Christmas land where you start with all those combos in your hand.
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Lol the main argument in this thread is that it's not fun to play against, good shit. Please remove mill decks and Shudderwock, I hate playing decks that counter those and I don't find them fun :(
I'm serious, go give big Priest a try, you will see that Barnes is not the problem and that you will almost always rely on removal and Shadow Essence (it's probably even better without Barnes as he messes up Shadow Essence). Nerfing Barnes would mess up the other big archetype decks such as Rogue and Shaman, not Priest.
I played against Big Rogue and I don't have issues with it and how it works, as it can be managed with silence effects.
Kel'Thuzad being double summoned with Reincarnation on t4 is something WRONG. Close to Naga Sea Witch level of wrong.
As Big Druid working as Big Priest would be wrong.
Balanced mana cheating strategies must require more complicated strategies than just playing a card on t4.
The Druid class showcases plenty of good examples:
-Aviana and Kun require you to reach 10 mana and having them in your hand plus the other cards in order to execute the gameplan.
That can be disrupted from heavy aggro, secrets, Dirty Rat (Neutral epic card) and milling.
I play the Togwaggle deck once in a while, and it has plenty of healthy counterplay against it.
-Astral Communion Discards your hand and puts you in topdeck mode
-Jungle Giants requires you to do the quest
-Twig of the World Tree requires you to break the weapon.
Mana cheating to be balanced requires a Drawback that currently the Barnes highroll win condition does not have.
Take a look at 8/8 minions that can be played out faster than usual.
Giants have all special requirements with a high starting mana costs (And guess what, NSW was nerfed because it nullified that requirement)
Bittertide Hydra gets your hp at risk for playing it.
Fel Reaver discards your top 3 cards for every card played.
Flamewreathed Faceless has 2 Overload
Big Rogue would be close to unaffected from a fix to Barnes like that as its goal is to generate value. In some cases it would be even better (Situations where you might want to kill a resurrected Sneed spawn to get a legendary)
And would still get raped by aggro, as it doesn't manage to resummon Obsidian Statues.
Spiteful Summoner received a nerf for the very same reason.
Quest Rogue was nerfed TWO times for the same reason.
Corridor Creeper was nerfed for the same reason.
Possessed Lackey was nerfed for the same reason.
Why the Barnes copy should be any different?
Shadow Essence is a mana cheat card which is ok because it's 6 mana and puts 5/5 stats on the board, and most decks have more time to through their gameplan (Aggro decks might have already killed you), draw into defensive options to deal with it (Control decks have mana and more draw for hard removals).
Remember playing Control Shaman with Reincarnate shenanigans? No? It was fun, here's a refresher!
Funny and sort of makes sense? I don't really know why you are replying to my comment with this, though. I found at least one post per page declaring salt instead of actually arguing, and those are the ones that seem to go under the radar around here, thus I insulted those.
Secondly, I did not even state my stance on the matter. Obviously, I despise Big Priests, and a quick check through my history will let you find an actually salty post on the matter in the Salt Thread, but all I did here was criticize the salt shields. Unless you are addressing the fact that I called Barnes a mistake, which still has little to do with Big Priest alone.
Start of Year: Provoke the failure of 3 expansions, force nerfs on otherwise balanced cards, bring deckbuilding to an all-time low and get rotated one year earlier for being such a threat to the game's health.
- Genn and Baku's historical entry on the White Book of Shit Design, shortly before retiring unpunished
If you're arguing for Big Priest and think Barnes doesn't need nerfed, you probably suck at this game and rely upon auto-winning by drawing him by turn 3/4. It's cancerous. You're cancerous if you play it. I haven't even run into more than one in Wild in the past few weeks but dear GOD it has no place in this game, just like cheating out Voidlords. Guess what? Obsidian Statues are pretty friggin' OP too when they're cheated out. The problem is cheating out big minions too early without any ability to respond..... -----> BARNES
With that said, the OP has a nice idea for a nerf. Barnes would remain a fine card in decks that run deathrattles or have end of turn effects..... and guess what? You could still highroll a Y'Sharaaj and pwn people with Big Priest from time to time.
I would like to warn you that you are stepping on a really thin ice there. Because I'm not buying what are you trying to sell me with your post. Applying that clarification of a mana cheating Big Priest deserves that turn 4 Barnes more than anyone else. Just think of how many things Big Priest had to get rid off to deserve it? Basically any early game is gone, you can't run Duskbreakers, Doomsayers, Explosive Sheeps beause they would make your Ressurect options shitty, heck even spell like Potion of Madness can't be played. First serious AOE clears are coming only at 5 mana. Carddraw is absolutely missing. You are praying to draw your cards and to Yshaarj pulling out the minion that you need. Adding spells like Power Word;Shield is really akward and no one does that. And when you don't have Barnes on 4. Then it is another target for a Shadow Essence which really sucks. So I'm asking, apllying the points that you have said: Doesn't Big Priest deserve to have such a powerfull Barnes on turn 4? (because he is crippling his otherwise Control deck so much)
Hell I would even consider Spitefful and Lackey far stronger because they require far less set up to be powerfull. Spitefull was strong in Standart because there were minions with:Spell-like effects and Lackey just need any good Demon.
And I know that Rogue is somehow "balanced" because it's a bottom of tier 2 due to not having a powerfull heal. But it is a still good example because while having even lower chances of surviving against Aggro, Big Rogue is stronger against Control and such because she is harder to exhaust. Like the only thing that keeps her at lower Tier 2 is not having heal outside of Death Coil.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
That's exactly why it's unfun to play against. Big Priest has some deliberate weaknesses for the chance to highroll free win in other games. And the highroll can be so hard, even having the best counter in Polymorph or Hex doesn't help against something like Barnes 2x Yshraaj.
Yes, you will find a theoretical chance to even beat even the biggest highroll there is, but looking at the stats, you'll see it's just not going to happen. Same as with your previous claim against me, that Naga Giants deck was fine because the highroll can be countered with Renodecks running Frostnova + Doomsayer, Bloodbloom + Twisting Nether, or Sylvanas + Play Dead.
A deck that ALWAYS skips the first 3 turns in the game should NOT exist AT ALL. This is BAD DESIGN at its best.
That said I don't expect Barnes to get changed soon, simply because the wild format is not their main priority.
But I DO expect DRASTIC changes in the future, because the population in this game shrinked like a devolved 4 mana 7/7.
I do agree that the decks that skip first 3 turns are quite boring to play against, but then you have to kill the opponent by turn 5 then.
The goal of all life is death.
I thought that we cut out the: ,,It's unfun to play against fact". It is too narrow-minded and any Tier 1 or 2 deck can be called unfun to play against because it's doing powerfull/broken stuff. A lot of decks are crippling themselves against some matchups to gain advantage in other matchups. What is even the point that you are trying to make? As Aluneth Mage I will most likely loose to Druids because my deck is crippled against them. On the other hand I will gain advantage in other matchups like Cubelock or Reno decks where they don't always have Reno on turn 6. Miracle Rogue is crippling itself by playing a shitton of cards but at the end she gets a big ass Endwin which can win games alone(and again, it can happen earlier than trun 3 or 4).Big Priest is crippling himself against Aggro and Tempo matchups to gain advantage against Control and Combo ones by cheating out big stuff(And some combo decks like Mill archetype or Kinsbane are still don't care a lot). Priest highroll is not even that powerfull against Aggro because the strongest Aggro highrolls that are possible in Wild are coming online on turn 1 or 2 with coin. And if you like to bring out consistency of these plays, they are far more likely to happen because they are made by Common and Rare cards which you can run. Mana Wyrm into Coin into Lackey into Secret is snowballing and disgusitng no matter if it's on turn 1 or 2. Coin into Nerubian Egg followed by Sanguiner and Corsair on next turn together with Patches is a really disgusting combo from Zoolock. And guess what? Comboes like this can't be answered by almighty broken Big Priest in one turn at first few turns because he gave up his early game.
Let's not bring that out again. You were clearly telling me that Reno decks can't answer the early board of Giants and I've said you that from turn 5 Mage and Warlock can answer them followed by trun 6 from Priest and then non-Kabal classes can get lucky with shennanigans and stuff. Of course there were more hard counters to Giants like Druids,Kinsbane decks,Aluneth decks and after WW Even Shamans but Reno decks could put up a fight against Giant decks. We even discussed the consistency and you couldn't accept that Reno decks are consistent enough to draw these combinations early enough to answer the board. We were talking about earliest highroll for Giants and earliest answer from Reno decks and earlies answer of Renolock and Reno Mage exists.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
Just a note on the performance comments. It is not about the win rate, consistency or drawbacks really. Yes, they put a spotlight on the deck because we see it often and it tends to win enough to become popular, but these are not the reasons why Barnes is badly designed / unhealthy.
Imagine you had a card that says: (X mana) roll RNG; 1% chance you win; 99% chance you lose.
You can also add to it a drawback like "if your deck has no cards costing less than Y".
There are no values for X and Y that make this card a healthy card, ever.
It doesn't matter that the win rate would be in the gutter. It doesn't matter what the sacrifice is or that you always die to aggro.
The problem is that it decides the game in a way that completely removes player agency and has no place in a game that even attempts to be competitive. Might as well call it gambling at that point and just go roll some dices.
This is essentially what a T3/T4 Barnes does, in a great number of matchups (should be none), and with a much better success rate, and very little drawback.
It's basically a "If this is in your deck, roll RNG for 20% chance to win the game. Otherwise, dilute your resurrection pool".
The problem is this example is not true because 1.This can be applied not for Barnes only (Hello Kingsbane,Jades,Aluneth and such) 2. Card that you described just simply doesnt exist. ANYTHING can be countered if you are desperate enough. Kingsbane kills Big Priest and is getting killed by Aggro. Jade Druid is shiity Armor deck after Skulking Geist is played. There are counters to anything. 3. What you are descrbinig are polarised matchups which will always be especially in Wild meta with a ton of viable and meme deks.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
Barnes is the only card that needs nerf in wild so we can have a balanced meta.
Maybe even shaman that runs that frog... and that's if barnes doesn't do Yshaarj ....
Having played a lot of even shaman variants over the 2 last seasons, I know I have less than 25% chance of winning the game, even if I can put a lot of early pressure. I have to draw perfectly and the priest poorly.
I personally liked that idea above of Barnes summoning a 1/1 token with text of a minion from deck. It means you would resurrect a token (without text) and dilute a bit the resurrect pool.
1. Kingsbane, Jades, Aluneth & co. don't nearly affect the game as much just by the virtue of a single card being drawn or not in the opening hand. Kingsbane and Jades work as packages, Aluneth is the only stand alone one of those and it still doesn't win the game by itself, only converts some losses into wins if the game was in the middle (it will virtually never win you the game if the first few turns went badly for you).
We could/should check the data actually, but it seems to me that Barnes has by far the biggest swing effect (win/loss % difference) in regard to being in the starting hand or not.
My point is just that no single low mana card should have so much swing potential, and any card that has a lot of swing potential should have its effect counterable by the time it can be played (e.g. Guldan, N'Zoth).
Hell, turns 10+ are where we enter uncounterable OTK combo territory (which in itself is unhealthy if there are no cards like Dirty Rat in the game, but that's another topic).
Turn 3-4 is NOT the place things like that should be happening.
2. Hence the word "imagine"? :)
Yes, counters to everything currently in HS exist, if you talk about taking a different class/deck and having the perfect draw.
That doesn't mean they exist for all classes, that they are reliable, or that they work often enough to be justified.
3. No, I am not talking of a "polarized meta". That is a completely different issue.
Polarized meta happens because we have too many hard counters, and they are often class specific.
A healthier (or, more fun?) meta could be born in a world with more soft counters and less hard ones, but that's not the current state of HS.
What you're basically saying is that Barnes is a hard counter to half the decks out there and that that's ok. It is not.
The meta is always then balances when the deck i play is the strongest.
Sorry, but is there ANY argument other than: "it's unfun to play against", "i lost against big priest, NERF" and "i hate it"? Because i didn't see any reasonable argument other than from control-players that a deck that is heavily geared against control as big priest is favoured against it.
Big priest is NOT AS POLARIZING AS NAGA! Naga simply deleted an entire archetype: midrange. Priest does defeat control, but is also countered by some decks heavily: The winrate is not overwhelming as cubelock was.
And now for the FACTS: FACT IS: Priest in general is in Standard at the bottom and in wild not really good. FACT IS that the only viable archetype right now is BIG PRIEST. FACT IS that it is favoured because there are so many shamans around. FACT IS that it gets heavily countered by some decks as Rogue in general (try to win against any rogue-deck: for mill rogue it's the best deck to fight against) and Combo Druid (Malygos or Togwaggle). FACT IS that you can see the Winrates in wild: First there's Odd Rogue, then there's Even Shaman, then Jade Druid and then LOOOOOOOOOOONG nothing else. In General, the winrate of priest is at rank 7 of 9 in wild.
In the end: the only thing here bottling up is wining because you lost against barnes, not facts, but the same crap we had with nerfing Mind control from 8 to 10 mana: NOT BALANCE BECAUSE OF FACTS BUT BECAUSE OF EMOTIONS.
Instead of nerfing barnes, how about more counters to it: for example a card that fills the enemy board with crap-minions:
Frog Choir: (Beast) 2 mana 1/6: Summon 3 different Frogs with taunt on your opponents board:
Tokens:
Do - 1 mana 0/1 Taunt (Beast)
Re - 1 mana 0/1 Taunt (Beast)
Mi - 1 mana 0/1 Taunt (Beast)
This fills the Graveyard with crap and makes resurrect pretty bad and also a chance for eternal servitude to be a flop.
Instead of nerfing barnes, give us more counter-cards.
Kingsbane, Aluneth, Jades etc are all powerful cards that can determine games thanks to their synergies, as much or more than Barnes.
The difference is that Barnes is a (4) card, and his shenanigans in Big Priest can start as soon as turn 3 (with coin).
Kingsbane costs (1) but its value starts to kick in only many turns and cards later than turn 1. Typically later than turn 6-7.
Aluneth is bound to turn 6+.
There are many already stated in the thread, but fun should always be #1 reasoning in HS since its competitive aspect is very low atm.
A fun card game is one that encourages the two players to interact with cards and counter/predict each other moves/lines.
The design aspects that go against this rule and create a boring game are:
1) Cards like Barnes and board clear cards which stimulate building decks without low cost minions
2) Mana cheat cards which favor ramping instead of playing minions
3) Cards and secrets which make the player invulnerable for certain amount of turns
Decks including one or more of the above 3 aspects are unfun to play against since one may perfectly well know their curve and still have no way to punish the opponent with large number of decks.
TLDR: Fun is KING in an rng-heavy low competitive game like HS. Barnes is NOT fun.
Glad to oblige (it's actually worse than I expected btw):
Top Big Priest deck from HSReplay
Overall winrate 61.4%
Top WR affecting card in Mulligan:Barnes with WR ▲79.9% (increase of 18.5% in WR compared to not drawing him in opening hand!)
Next card is Shadow Word pain with ▲65.6% (4.2% difference)
#1 deck (Odd Rogue)
WR = 69.8%
Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Buccaneer - Mulligan WR ▲73.2% (3.4% increase)
#2 deck (Even Shaman)
WR = 68.6%
Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Primalfin Totem ▲71.2% (2.6% increase)
Other interesting decks containing strong single cards:
Renolock
WR = 59.3%
Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Voidlord ▲68.7% (9.4% increase)
Reno Jackson comes second with ▲66.0% (6.7% increase)
Evenlock
WR = 59.0%
Top WR affecting card in Mulligan: Mountain Giant ▲67.6% (8.6% increase)
Secret Mage
WR = 65.9%
Aluneth is a bit tricky cause it comes later but:
Mulligan WR ▲73.5% (+7.6%)
Drawn WR: ▲69.6%
Played WR: ▲70.8%
So, there's some actual data. Of the few that I checked that seemed interesting, Barnes is by far the most influential single card that can be drawn in the opening hand. The Win Rate difference between drawing him or not is 18.5%. He alone hands you over 1 in 5 games if you draw him.
No single card should be that impactfull, and if anything, that WR difference is a clear indicator of where to look for nerfs.
And yes, I agree with you that soft nerfs are better than hard ones. Giving more counterplay is just as good or even better than striking at a card. The point is, something should be done about Barnes.
1. Yes Barnes have the bigges swing effect if it's drawn on curve. I agree with that. But I also know that Aggro decks have way more swingy/highroll turn earlier that is almost impossible to clear (Aluneth Mage and Zoolock especially) Yet no one complains about them. So what is the problem with the Barnes? Again. Why is not Big Rogue a problem? This deck is literally even more powerfull against Control and the :,,I don't mind it because it looses to Aggro and Kinsgbane point" doesn't count because same can be said about Big Priest.
2. But the thing is it is not possible to have answer to everything with one class. It will happen after a few years in Wild format if Billzard prints specific cards, but right now it is unrealistic task to complete. Let's not act like it only applies for Big Priest only.It applies to all meta and we can also see some examples in the past: Back in the LoE days Control Priest could be beaten by Handlock and good aggro decks only(Control Warrior sucked against it because Entomb exists). Freeze Mage was always autoconcede against Control Warrior etc.
3. Well. as you have said, this point applies to whole Hearthstone meta in general. Nerfing Barnes (and weakening other decks outside Big Priest btw) will just bring another annoying highrolly decks (Big Rogue and Even Shaman are saying Hello) to the top. And again, right now Big Priest is clearly not on the top of Wild meta. It has 60% winrate according to HS.Replay and it is underwhelming compared to Dude Paladins and such.
Just to be clear. I'm not a Big Priest main. I play mostly Control and Combo decks that I've built myself. I just don't really like the points that some of you are trying to make as an excuse for a Barnes or Big Priest nerf. I like to have a good talk about this topic.)
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
But this is the entire issue of the threat. It's unfun to play against a deck with a single card that adds increases the chance of winning greatly if played on curve in the first four turns.
The rest of your post is also full of false statements. Not going to get into the ones that are offtopic, but I wanted to address your statement on Big Priest against aggro. This matchup is not as bad as you make it, especially if you tech two Greater Healing Potions. Big Priest doesn't need to highroll against aggro to win, just clearing their board repeatedly and healing up is enough. And for all the combos listed, same issue as in all your other posts, Hearthstone is not a magical Christmas land where you start with all those combos in your hand.