I know I'm entirely barking up the wrong tree here, because folks here are convinced that DK cards are perfectly balanced and nothing at all needs to be done about them, but I'm going to lay out - in real, logical terms - why a card like GM is stupidly broken for it's cost/effect.
*EDIT* And as the replies show, I was absolutely correct about folks blind devotion and lack of any basic critical thinking skills... everyone is perfectly content with a common-tier card that routinely resets the hero's health to full without even the same drawback that Reno carries (singleton deck)... and can do it TWICE, since it's not a Legendary.
But yes, by all means... keep pointing out the cards I used for comparison are simple, basic cards - the fact that they're not used anymore is completely irrelevant to the insanely overpowered status of GM... but keep making yourselves all feel better in masturbatory glory.*END EDIT*
First off, let's start off with the obvious - cost versus stats. 6 for a 5/6 COMPLETELY VANILLA would be a "normal" card in the common tier.
Take Chillwind Yeti for example. 4 for a 4/5, plain vanilla card. Almost always a 2 for 1 early minion trade on this guy.
Even moving up slightly, Stranglethorn Tiger gets you a 5/5 with Stealth for 5, presumably getting at least one free hit off, or Stormwatcher, a 4/8 with Windfury for 7 - assuming it survives to your next turn, it'll probably take at least 1, probably 2 midrange enemies out with it.
Hell, let's move up to Rare - compare GM to Enhanced Dreadlord - EIGHT mana for a 5/7 Taunt, that summons a 5/5 Lifesteal WHEN IT DIES. How can ANYONE with 2 brain cells that make occasional contact justify GM being a fairly and properly cost/effect card?
Let's look again at GM - a 5/6 body to begin with at 6 mana is RIGHT. No argument there. HOWEVER, the BASELINE that's been established since the game's inception has been for common cards in this range to have no more than ONE additional ability paired with an on-curve set of stats... this guy not only has THREE, but they're 3 that make him a nearly Reno-esque card - AS A COMMON.
First off, unless you're playing Mage (or a very lucky Rogue) and have Explosive Runes or Objection! in place, there's very little to stop a 6 body from coming into play. Second, the non-keyword text GUARANTEES that this minion will heal the opposing hero for 5 life at least once (barring the rare instance of the lowest health minion on the board being bubbled).
Simply by that ability alone, you're getting a near-perfect 5 point heal combined with a 5/6 body for 6 mana - if it was JUST ONCE (like a Battlecry effect), you could MAYBE make the argument that it's still on balance with other 6 mana commons. BUT WAIT, there's more! (cue zombie Billy Mays).
That heal? It's keyworded to Lifesteal - meaning EVERY hit landed by this minion will heal for 5. Oh, and just because we wouldn't want this thing to get away without landing SEVERAL hits, it's ALSO Taunt - meaning everything has to punch through it, healing the DK over and over again until its 6 health is depleted.
"Just use a spell to remove it" - Take a look through the meta right now. How many decks even HAVE a hard removal that can one-shot a 6 health enemy? Rogue concoction, if it gets lucky... a well-primed Arcane Hunter deck... a Priest with Lightbomb or The Light It Burns (assuming the GM hit a minion and took damage)... does any Mage ever run straight Fireball anymore?
For the ridiculous value that GM brings, it should easily be a 8 or 9 mana card, ESPECIALLY as a common, in a hero/build that already stupidly excels at gaining ridiculous amounts of life. Assuming you left its on-card abilities unchanged. I would personally go with 9 as fair.
If you want to keep it at 6 mana - not that Blizz would ever listen to a rational discussion on how broken this card is - but my fix would be to remove Taunt, and change the auto-hit mechanic to the HIGHEST health minion (removing the ability to auto-hit face).
Card rarity doesn't matter in modern hearthstone, all cards are now pack fillers and their power is not linked with gem color in the middle of the card.
6 mana would be at least 6/7-> boulderfist stats for vanilla. And chillwind yeti doesn’t go 2 for 1 it goes 0,1 for 1 because it’s unplayable since years.in fact, none of the cards you mentioned as examples are playable - outside of dreadlord, but only because it’s cheatable.
This makes your whole evaluation of fair mana value wrong.
I agree that Gnome Muncher is a strong card, but your calculations are wrong from the start. I have no clue what is your point with 6 Mana 5/6 being "normal", since the launch, there existed a 6 Mana 6/7 with no abilities, so it would be considered 'normal'. You could make an argument that a card with abilities should have lower stats, but then I have no idea why you brought Yeti as an example of 'normal' stats for 4 Mana. And both Yeti and Ogre have not seen play in years. I have no idea who would play Gnome Muncher at 8 Mana, if you would do a Mana nerf, I don't see it costing more than 7. At 8 it would be probably worse than card like Walking Fountain, which is not realy great.
First off, let's start off with the obvious - cost versus stats. 6 for a 5/6 COMPLETELY VANILLA would be a "normal" card in the common tier.
Take Chillwind Yeti for example. 4 for a 4/5, plain vanilla card. Almost always a 2 for 1 early minion trade on this guy.
Even moving up slightly, Stranglethorn Tiger gets you a 5/5 with Stealth for 5, presumably getting at least one free hit off [...]
[...]
Let's look again at GM - a 5/6 body to begin with at 6 mana is RIGHT. No argument there. HOWEVER, the BASELINE that's been established since the game's inception has been for common cards in this range to have no more than ONE additional ability paired with an on-curve set of stats... this guy not only has THREE, but they're 3 that make him a nearly Reno-esque card - AS A COMMON.
Uhhh no.
There is an argument here because you already contradicted yourself based on your own premise.
For starters, the baseline for a common, neutral, vanilla 6 mana card is a 6/7. That's why Boulderfist Ogre was a card. So you've already tripped at that first hurdle - the card you would actually be looking for is Pit Fighter, which is a 5 mana neutral vanilla 5/6
For two: you seem to have missed the part where this is a *class card* and not a neutral one, which means it has a higher power budget.
So let's look at 6 mana common taunt cards in each of the classes:
Dark Arakkoa is a 6 mana 5/7 with taunt that gives another minion +3/+3 (wherever it is)
Ornery Direhorn is a 6 mana 5/5 with taunt that you get to decide what it's extra ability is - need stealth? Windfury? Poisonous? An extra +3 health? Take the one best suited to your current situation.
Silverfury Stalwart is a 6 mana 4/8 with taunt, rush, and cannot be targetted by spells or hero powers.
Death Beetle is a 6 mana 6/6 with taunt that gets +4/+4 and charge under specific conditions.
A 6 mana 5/6 with lifesteal, taunt, and pseudo-charge is *fine*. It's powerful, for sure, but it's not that far outside of the expected results of a 6 mana, class specific taunt these days
Holy crap please stop comparing cards to yeti and stranglethorn tiger. These are 10 year old cards which hold no sway in the power level of today's cards.
Gnome Muncher is a good card, but it's not breaking the game or anything. In fact I'd claim it's already been powercrept since its release. Screaming Banshee is a way, way more oppressive card and single handedly shuts down aggro decks far more than muncher does, and at 5 mana.
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I know I'm entirely barking up the wrong tree here, because folks here are convinced that DK cards are perfectly balanced and nothing at all needs to be done about them, but I'm going to lay out - in real, logical terms - why a card like GM is stupidly broken for it's cost/effect.
*EDIT* And as the replies show, I was absolutely correct about folks blind devotion and lack of any basic critical thinking skills... everyone is perfectly content with a common-tier card that routinely resets the hero's health to full without even the same drawback that Reno carries (singleton deck)... and can do it TWICE, since it's not a Legendary.
But yes, by all means... keep pointing out the cards I used for comparison are simple, basic cards - the fact that they're not used anymore is completely irrelevant to the insanely overpowered status of GM... but keep making yourselves all feel better in masturbatory glory.*END EDIT*
First off, let's start off with the obvious - cost versus stats. 6 for a 5/6 COMPLETELY VANILLA would be a "normal" card in the common tier.
Take Chillwind Yeti for example. 4 for a 4/5, plain vanilla card. Almost always a 2 for 1 early minion trade on this guy.
Even moving up slightly, Stranglethorn Tiger gets you a 5/5 with Stealth for 5, presumably getting at least one free hit off, or Stormwatcher, a 4/8 with Windfury for 7 - assuming it survives to your next turn, it'll probably take at least 1, probably 2 midrange enemies out with it.
Hell, let's move up to Rare - compare GM to Enhanced Dreadlord - EIGHT mana for a 5/7 Taunt, that summons a 5/5 Lifesteal WHEN IT DIES. How can ANYONE with 2 brain cells that make occasional contact justify GM being a fairly and properly cost/effect card?
Let's look again at GM - a 5/6 body to begin with at 6 mana is RIGHT. No argument there. HOWEVER, the BASELINE that's been established since the game's inception has been for common cards in this range to have no more than ONE additional ability paired with an on-curve set of stats... this guy not only has THREE, but they're 3 that make him a nearly Reno-esque card - AS A COMMON.
First off, unless you're playing Mage (or a very lucky Rogue) and have Explosive Runes or Objection! in place, there's very little to stop a 6 body from coming into play. Second, the non-keyword text GUARANTEES that this minion will heal the opposing hero for 5 life at least once (barring the rare instance of the lowest health minion on the board being bubbled).
Simply by that ability alone, you're getting a near-perfect 5 point heal combined with a 5/6 body for 6 mana - if it was JUST ONCE (like a Battlecry effect), you could MAYBE make the argument that it's still on balance with other 6 mana commons. BUT WAIT, there's more! (cue zombie Billy Mays).
That heal? It's keyworded to Lifesteal - meaning EVERY hit landed by this minion will heal for 5. Oh, and just because we wouldn't want this thing to get away without landing SEVERAL hits, it's ALSO Taunt - meaning everything has to punch through it, healing the DK over and over again until its 6 health is depleted.
"Just use a spell to remove it" - Take a look through the meta right now. How many decks even HAVE a hard removal that can one-shot a 6 health enemy? Rogue concoction, if it gets lucky... a well-primed Arcane Hunter deck... a Priest with Lightbomb or The Light It Burns (assuming the GM hit a minion and took damage)... does any Mage ever run straight Fireball anymore?
For the ridiculous value that GM brings, it should easily be a 8 or 9 mana card, ESPECIALLY as a common, in a hero/build that already stupidly excels at gaining ridiculous amounts of life. Assuming you left its on-card abilities unchanged. I would personally go with 9 as fair.
If you want to keep it at 6 mana - not that Blizz would ever listen to a rational discussion on how broken this card is - but my fix would be to remove Taunt, and change the auto-hit mechanic to the HIGHEST health minion (removing the ability to auto-hit face).
Card rarity doesn't matter in modern hearthstone, all cards are now pack fillers and their power is not linked with gem color in the middle of the card.
6 mana would be at least 6/7-> boulderfist stats for vanilla. And chillwind yeti doesn’t go 2 for 1 it goes 0,1 for 1 because it’s unplayable since years.in fact, none of the cards you mentioned as examples are playable - outside of dreadlord, but only because it’s cheatable.
This makes your whole evaluation of fair mana value wrong.
You are delusional
I agree that Gnome Muncher is a strong card, but your calculations are wrong from the start. I have no clue what is your point with 6 Mana 5/6 being "normal", since the launch, there existed a 6 Mana 6/7 with no abilities, so it would be considered 'normal'. You could make an argument that a card with abilities should have lower stats, but then I have no idea why you brought Yeti as an example of 'normal' stats for 4 Mana. And both Yeti and Ogre have not seen play in years. I have no idea who would play Gnome Muncher at 8 Mana, if you would do a Mana nerf, I don't see it costing more than 7. At 8 it would be probably worse than card like Walking Fountain, which is not realy great.
The games evolve. Do you want to stick to the old cards? Who use those cards nowadays?
Uhhh no.
There is an argument here because you already contradicted yourself based on your own premise.
For starters, the baseline for a common, neutral, vanilla 6 mana card is a 6/7. That's why Boulderfist Ogre was a card. So you've already tripped at that first hurdle - the card you would actually be looking for is Pit Fighter, which is a 5 mana neutral vanilla 5/6
For two: you seem to have missed the part where this is a *class card* and not a neutral one, which means it has a higher power budget.
So let's look at 6 mana common taunt cards in each of the classes:
Dark Arakkoa is a 6 mana 5/7 with taunt that gives another minion +3/+3 (wherever it is)
Ornery Direhorn is a 6 mana 5/5 with taunt that you get to decide what it's extra ability is - need stealth? Windfury? Poisonous? An extra +3 health? Take the one best suited to your current situation.
Silverfury Stalwart is a 6 mana 4/8 with taunt, rush, and cannot be targetted by spells or hero powers.
Death Beetle is a 6 mana 6/6 with taunt that gets +4/+4 and charge under specific conditions.
A 6 mana 5/6 with lifesteal, taunt, and pseudo-charge is *fine*. It's powerful, for sure, but it's not that far outside of the expected results of a 6 mana, class specific taunt these days
I absolutely love when someone who has no idea about logic starts their reasoning with informing everyone that it will be "logical"
Holy crap please stop comparing cards to yeti and stranglethorn tiger. These are 10 year old cards which hold no sway in the power level of today's cards.
Gnome Muncher is a good card, but it's not breaking the game or anything. In fact I'd claim it's already been powercrept since its release. Screaming Banshee is a way, way more oppressive card and single handedly shuts down aggro decks far more than muncher does, and at 5 mana.