I feel like the current state of the game, and the near future as decipted by the Karazhan adventure, is moving Hearthstone into an unenjoyable spot. The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks. Nowdays it's so fast you can't afford any tempo loss, or if you start second/don't play on curve you're so much less likely to win.
This is why people resort to net-decking so much. If you don't have the perfect combination of cards, you will constantly lose - you have ZERO space for mistakes. Is Hearthstone really fun this way? Is this the way the devs intend us to play?
I believe they're falling into the pit of releasing ever stronger cards. They want to give us a reason to buy new packs or adventures, so they have to release cards that compete on the current level of cards - and become stronger. But in doing so you end up having cards that either do 10 damage to your face or heal you up for 10 (Think the style of Call of the Wild, Ancient Shieldbearer).
Down the line it's going to be, whoever draws the perfect super strong card wins. Back in GvG it was especialy so with Dr Boom. Now there are even more cards like this... They either heal or do damage for too much. The result of the match can depend solely on whether you draw it on time, much more than other cards.
I just think the devs really have to tone down the power of cards in future expansions. Otherwise the game will end up being both not casual or fun...
I feel like the current state of the game, and the near future as decipted by the Karazhan adventure, is moving Hearthstone into an unenjoyable spot. The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks. Nowdays it's so fast you can't afford any tempo loss, or if you start second/don't play on curve you're so much less likely to win.
Everything you said is the effect of people wanting the game to be more competitive, and the dev team acceding to that situation, I'm for slow, clumsy, silly games, but apparently more and more people wants HS to be a competitive game, wich brings a necesity to make the game more cut-throat that it used to be.
This is why people resort to net-decking so much. If you don't have the perfect combination of cards, you will constantly lose - you have ZERO space for mistakes. Is Hearthstone really fun this way? Is this the way the devs intend us to play?
People resort to net-necking because they don't want to spend time tinkering their own ideas against the stablished archetypes that the dev team promoted. Archetypes don't appear randomly, those are made by the dev team to give players a standing point from where they can make the decks, so, is not connected to competitiveness but towards the fact that the decks ideas exist but needs to be discovered, so people either start searching for themselves or just look for the ones who discovered (and refined them) first.
I believe they're falling into the pit of releasing ever stronger cards. They want to give us a reason to buy new packs or adventures, so they have to release cards that compete on the current level of cards - and become stronger. But in doing so you end up having cards that either do 10 damage to your face or heal you up for 10 (Think the style of Call of the Wild, Shieldbearer).
WotoG is an example of an "main set" designed to bring specific meta strategies into the game to work around them, so yes, those cards are strong because they were designed to be built around, welcome to card games. But in no way there is a powercreep, the Kara set shows there is not, is just something that all good card games do, swinging from slow-weak metas to fast-strong metas, to keep the game interesting for all.
Down the line it's going to be, whoever draws the perfect super strong card wins. Back in GvG it was especialy so with Dr Boom. Now there are even more cards like this... They either heal or do damage for too much. The result of the match can depend solely on whether you draw it on time, much more than other cards.
This is not only a matter of power, it already happens in many situations, mostly because the probability draw is horrible in hearthstone, I would say half the time I have to "make it with what I got" instead of having the cards I need when I need them (a basic concept to be competitive in card games) and many many matches are decided in my favor and against me because that one card never appeared or appeared just when I needed, again, wecolme to card games xD.
I just think the devs really have to tone down the power of cards in future expansions. Otherwise the game will end up being both not casual or fun...
Read my first answer and you will see why you feel the game is becoming less casual. I don't like it, but the people that puts the money tend to be the leading force in any industry, in this case, the ones that want less random and more strong design so they can have a competitive game are more vocal about it than the people that want to play a casual and "nice guy" game.
The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks
When? In Alpha, maybe. From Open Beta on, people have been saying exactly the same thing. Back then they complained about Zoo and Face Hunter. That complaint has been the same for the entire life of the game, the only thing that changes is the name of the current fast decks.
People want to win. If you can't deal with that, perhaps games in general are not for you...
The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks
When? In Alpha, maybe. From Open Beta on, people have been saying exactly the same thing. Back then they complained about Zoo and Face Hunter. That complaint has been the same for the entire life of the game, the only thing that changes is the name of the current fast decks.
People want to win. If you can't deal with that, perhaps games in general are not for you...
/clap. This.
Just commenting because you wanted to mention Ancient Shieldbearer but instead it came off a 0/4 that actually would not be a good example of overpowered cards. Rofl
The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks
When? In Alpha, maybe. From Open Beta on, people have been saying exactly the same thing. Back then they complained about Zoo and Face Hunter. That complaint has been the same for the entire life of the game, the only thing that changes is the name of the current fast decks.
People want to win. If you can't deal with that, perhaps games in general are not for you...
/clap. This.
Just commenting because you wanted to mention Ancient Shieldbearer but instead it came off a 0/4 that actually would not be a good example of overpowered cards. Rofl
I feel like the current state of the game, and the near future as decipted by the Karazhan adventure, is moving Hearthstone into an unenjoyable spot. The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks. Nowdays it's so fast you can't afford any tempo loss, or if you start second/don't play on curve you're so much less likely to win.
Everything you said is the effect of people wanting the game to be more competitive, and the dev team acceding to that situation, I'm for slow, clumsy, silly games, but apparently more and more people wants HS to be a competitive game, wich brings a necesity to make the game more cut-throat that it used to be.
This is why people resort to net-decking so much. If you don't have the perfect combination of cards, you will constantly lose - you have ZERO space for mistakes. Is Hearthstone really fun this way? Is this the way the devs intend us to play?
People resort to net-necking because they don't want to spend time tinkering their own ideas against the stablished archetypes that the dev team promoted. Archetypes don't appear randomly, those are made by the dev team to give players a standing point from where they can make the decks, so, is not connected to competitiveness but towards the fact that the decks ideas exist but needs to be discovered, so people either start searching for themselves or just look for the ones who discovered (and refined them) first.
I believe they're falling into the pit of releasing ever stronger cards. They want to give us a reason to buy new packs or adventures, so they have to release cards that compete on the current level of cards - and become stronger. But in doing so you end up having cards that either do 10 damage to your face or heal you up for 10 (Think the style of Call of the Wild, Shieldbearer).
WotoG is an example of an "main set" designed to bring specific meta strategies into the game to work around them, so yes, those cards are strong because they were designed to be built around, welcome to card games. But in no way there is a powercreep, the Kara set shows there is not, is just something that all good card games do, swinging from slow-weak metas to fast-strong metas, to keep the game interesting for all.
Down the line it's going to be, whoever draws the perfect super strong card wins. Back in GvG it was especialy so with Dr Boom. Now there are even more cards like this... They either heal or do damage for too much. The result of the match can depend solely on whether you draw it on time, much more than other cards.
This is not only a matter of power, it already happens in many situations, mostly because the probability draw is horrible in hearthstone, I would say half the time I have to "make it with what I got" instead of having the cards I need when I need them (a basic concept to be competitive in card games) and many many matches are decided in my favor and against me because that one card never appeared or appeared just when I needed, again, wecolme to card games xD.
I just think the devs really have to tone down the power of cards in future expansions. Otherwise the game will end up being both not casual or fun...
Read my first answer and you will see why you feel the game is becoming less casual. I don't like it, but the people that puts the money tend to be the leading force in any industry, in this case, the ones that want less random and more strong design so they can have a competitive game are more vocal about it than the people that want to play a casual and "nice guy" game.
I see your point. Hearthstone is being pushed to be mostly competitive, with real deck-building creativity being pushed aside (Not by the devs, but by the players).
I enjoy winning on ladder and learning to battle the meta. However if you try to play anything not perfect (Deck-wise), you will drop down fast. You either stick to the decks of the meta or lose (Simply because they are the best decks... Of course you can still win with any deck).
I think what pushed the creative decks out (Unless you're around rank 20 or Legend), are the rewards given for ranking. Before TGT people would reach Legend once and would be satasfied. I don't argue against the rewards though, which I think are great.
Perhaps Blizzard should some incentive for players to play creatively. I don't have a solution on my mind, but it's worth checking into.
Hearthstone is being pushed to be mostly competitive, with real deck-building creativity being pushed aside
This is a logical fallacy. Competitive decks needs to be creatively built before they can be played. At the highest levels, creative deck building is the key to being competitive. At all levels, if you want to crack the metagame you need to be create a deck builds that beats the most popular decks. Just because that creativity takes places in a competitive context doesn't make it any less creative. It just makes it less 'silly'. Too many complainers seem to think that creativity means silliness, which is not true.
Competitive metagames are adaptive processes, exactly like evolution. You can't have evolution without variation. In Hearthstone, that means creative experimentation in deck building.
Creativity, to me, means being able to hold a decent record, as a decent player, with the cards they gave me to play. To me, creativity in hearthstone comes from playing with strategies and combos that only make sense as a whole deck. Basically the kinds of plays the meta has found to be too slow. I want my almost powerful enough cards to WORK when I apply my creative skills to the deck they are in. I don't want a stratified, insistent, highly aggressive metagame to constantly bounce my "good, but still not fast enough" ideas off of, praying for the draws that will let me maintain at least a semblance of competitive edge.
Creative doesn't mean silly, unless it does, but the silly should work like it's supposed to, and not fail simply because it isn't the exact right variable to plug in to the exact game state equation created in the first three turns. The luck factor, that ole dog RNG, exponentially increases in Hearthstone when you don't play a minion, that they then have to play their minion into AND play another minion, in order to not lose the board when you play 2 minions the next turn, whether your board was cleared or not. This strategy is NOT creative, and NOT COMPETITIVE. It just flips the coin earlier, and more consistently in the favor of Minion Stat based Board Tempo roulette players. Trade or face, it's such a coined term, two sided and as disappointing to acknowledge as Republicrat/Democan, to me, at least. I'm obviously pretty disappointed.
The point is, Hearthstone Is a minion based game, with spell and weapon support. Classes that can't win board early, are in no way competitive after a very short shake-up following a set release. The Creative and inspiring options are called silly and unplayable, because they lose board in favor of utility. You can't tell me it's not awesome these days when Rogue can't get a minion to stick, even if they can kill your board every turn. THEY GAIN NO TEMPO and LOSE because the cumulative effect of being forced to remove board and not build your own is a loss to any aggro deck that knows what is going on.
Today, there are exaggerated heals and insanely statted minions, which ironically, only make the aggro game of those classes with access to them BETTER. Tomorrow, this doesn't change, and the "silly" archetypes that see play will inexorably shake back down to the bottom, while aggro remains the highest played "competitive" strategy, again. This will be true until the core of the game's mechanics is addressed by a firm negotiator and a design team willing to change what is really broken in Hearthstone, and that's Paladin. ;)
If anything the OP must startputting aside "creativity" and "casual mellowness" wich are completely different things. I am of the kind that support hearthstone being an entirely casual game, because if I want to go competitive I would play really competitive card games, like magic, wich has a level of complexity 3 or 4 times higher than hearthstone's hardest to pilot deck.
The initial premise when hearthstone was launched was to give room for all kind of players, and I felt satisfied with that ideology because after 8 hours of work wen I get home from my work and get into hearthstone for my 5 or 6 matches of the day (I've to be really good if I want to clim any ranks lol) the last thing I want to see is an asshole player in the other side of my pc BMing me and playing overly competitive decks, I have all the cards I need to play a competitive standard, but that's the point, if I haven't this game would be uninstalled, I don't have the time nor the patience to tolerate the flaming community that has been growing in this game over the months, competitiveness is a sickness for casual games (like hearthstone is suppose to be).
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There is nothing left if you can not has the right to bear your arms - werebear 2016-eternity campaign
you have a point with Hearthstone turning into whoever draws the strongest drop for its respective mana slot wins the game game, but that's not thanks to power creep, that's thanks to blizzard nerfing every single interesting win condition out there, Molten Giant, Force of Nature, Warsong Commander (twice, although the first time was probably deserved), Blade Flurry. Edwin VanCleef and after that they even considered Alexstrasza for a nerf?. it's sad that Hs attracted a lot of total noobs to card games that hate win conditions but for some reason don't mind the game turning into play the strongest 1/2/3/4/5/6(0) drops /attack/ pass, and even worse that they cater to them.
I'm not sure that it really "became" unforgiving. It is a fast, tempo-oriented game, and has been for a long time (if it ever wasn't, it was before I started playing a long while ago). The comparatively-high power level of low cost cards makes that crystal clear; and yes, now they do have to powercreep every new set just to make some of the cards relevant.
If Blizzard wanted a slower game, the 4-stat, 1 mana minions would go away and healing, taunts, and low damage AOE would be cheap. Instead, we have Trogg and Mana wyrm (and the new Raven card), premium stat 2 drops with significant power, etc., so that even control decks (with the exception of Warrior, which gets all of the nice things) have to play on-curve minions in the early game to avoid being snowballed.
In an ideal world, all 1-drops have 3 stats (and one with strong battlecries have 2), and any 2-drop with a meaningful effect would be nerfed to 4 stats. That will never happen; but it would actually give people who don't want to just play spells and minions on-curve a fighting chance.
you have a point with Hearthstone turning into whoever draws the strongest drop for its respective mana slot wins the game game, but that's not thanks to power creep, that's thanks to blizzard nerfing every single interesting win condition out there, Molten Giant, Force of Nature, Warsong Commander (twice, although the first time was probably deserved), Blade Flurry. Edwin VanCleef and after that they even considered Alexstrasza for a nerf?. it's sad that Hs attracted a lot of total noobs to card games that hate win conditions but for some reason don't mind the game turning into play the strongest 1/2/3/4/5/6(0) drops /attack/ pass, and even worse that they cater to them.
You are not complaining about the Force of Nature Nerf, do you? I mean if anything desvered a nerf, than that.
Blade Furry was not needed, true, Molten Giant had to be toned down, because Big Game Hunter got nerfed as well and Warsong Commander sure needed that nerf too or otherwise people would still play Combo Warrior all day long which was 2 times stronger than the new combo Warrior.
What I dislike aobut Blizz's nerfing philosophy is that once they tried to do soft nerf and people kept playing with the cards (wich is... I guess, what it was meant to be done, making them less powerful but still playable) is that they turned into complete obliteration of the cards, most of the nerfing they have done recently made the cards unplayable to the meta presented at the time, they are just to new at card games to know how to balance properly their new cards with the old ones, flamewreathed is a prime example of this, the card says:
We don't know how to fix the several problems shaman has, so we made an overly strong card so people can use it to steamroll the opponent instead of being steam rolled.
And that is just pathetic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
There is nothing left if you can not has the right to bear your arms - werebear 2016-eternity campaign
I think GiantDwarf0 has the right of it, a more consistent stat expectation for early minions. A 1 mana 2/3 is insane, and forgives drawbacks easily through early tempo. 1 mana 1/3 is very strong, and mostly auto included in the classes you find them (except Paladin).
Could it be that blizzard might want to rethink it's mana cost rules, and instead of nerfing early cards, bringing late cards closer in power level? If I pay 1 for 4 stats, and then pay 2 for 5, 3 for 7, I've lost value already. By the time I'm paying 6 for 12 or 13 stats, That minion isn't NEARLY as valuable as a 3 drop, when you consider it takes up a slot in your deck still, (i.e. is a card), and I could play 2 cards at 3 each and get 14 stats instead, WITH bonuses. This only referenced the average, not considering Shaman class cards that OPOPOFP with an easy to ignore and play around drawback mechanic. If 6 could get me 14 stats and a bonus on a minion I'd be much happier, but instead, Sea Reaver.
...most of the nerfing they have done recently made the cards unplayable to the meta presented at the time,..
Not only to the meta at the time, but unplayable, period. Blade Flurry and Arcane Golem are only two examples of this. If you're going to nerf, nerf if without destroying the card. Blade Flurry should have been nerfed to clear minions only, and it would have been fine. And Arcane Golem... why would the new version of the card even exist now? Wolfrider is 3/1, no downside, Golem should be 4/1 with a downside, that's it. Even if the downside was "destroy it after this turn", it would still be better than this garbage. 4 damage for 4 mana, can't bypass taunt is fair.
The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks
When? In Alpha, maybe. From Open Beta on, people have been saying exactly the same thing. Back then they complained about Zoo and Face Hunter. That complaint has been the same for the entire life of the game, the only thing that changes is the name of the current fast decks.
People want to win. If you can't deal with that, perhaps games in general are not for you...
The game has definitely had very slow periods post-alpha. Don't get hyperbolic please. Mods should be better than that.
Hearthstone is being pushed to be mostly competitive, with real deck-building creativity being pushed aside
This is a logical fallacy. Competitive decks needs to be creatively built before they can be played. At the highest levels, creative deck building is the key to being competitive. At all levels, if you want to crack the metagame you need to be create a deck builds that beats the most popular decks. Just because that creativity takes places in a competitive context doesn't make it any less creative. It just makes it less 'silly'. Too many complainers seem to think that creativity means silliness, which is not true.
Competitive metagames are adaptive processes, exactly like evolution. You can't have evolution without variation. In Hearthstone, that means creative experimentation in deck building.
Too many apologists seem to think that changing 2 cards to 2 other already considered popular and viable cards in a preexisting popular deck is 'creativity'.
The bias for fast decks is baked into the game's construction: attacker decides, no actions on your opponent's turn, reliable growth of the mana pool each turn.
It pays off in terms of the game being more accessible, but it also means you have far less room to play in terms of a deck's curve and win condition. "Creativity" in a good build may come down to being just two or three cards away from the deck everyone else is playing.
I still think the game succeeds by rewarding good builds of good decks played well. But I agree that even "fun" decks in HS are generally not good and even, really, not that much fun. I feel like the good Brawls are the best venue for that kind of experimentation.
Hey guys,
I feel like the current state of the game, and the near future as decipted by the Karazhan adventure, is moving Hearthstone into an unenjoyable spot. The game used to be a lot slower, and thus lets you tinker and play around with different decks. Nowdays it's so fast you can't afford any tempo loss, or if you start second/don't play on curve you're so much less likely to win.
This is why people resort to net-decking so much. If you don't have the perfect combination of cards, you will constantly lose - you have ZERO space for mistakes. Is Hearthstone really fun this way? Is this the way the devs intend us to play?
I believe they're falling into the pit of releasing ever stronger cards. They want to give us a reason to buy new packs or adventures, so they have to release cards that compete on the current level of cards - and become stronger. But in doing so you end up having cards that either do 10 damage to your face or heal you up for 10 (Think the style of Call of the Wild, Ancient Shieldbearer).
Down the line it's going to be, whoever draws the perfect super strong card wins. Back in GvG it was especialy so with Dr Boom. Now there are even more cards like this... They either heal or do damage for too much. The result of the match can depend solely on whether you draw it on time, much more than other cards.
I just think the devs really have to tone down the power of cards in future expansions. Otherwise the game will end up being both not casual or fun...
Truly yours,
Calus
People resort to net-necking because they don't want to spend time tinkering their own ideas against the stablished archetypes that the dev team promoted. Archetypes don't appear randomly, those are made by the dev team to give players a standing point from where they can make the decks, so, is not connected to competitiveness but towards the fact that the decks ideas exist but needs to be discovered, so people either start searching for themselves or just look for the ones who discovered (and refined them) first.
WotoG is an example of an "main set" designed to bring specific meta strategies into the game to work around them, so yes, those cards are strong because they were designed to be built around, welcome to card games. But in no way there is a powercreep, the Kara set shows there is not, is just something that all good card games do, swinging from slow-weak metas to fast-strong metas, to keep the game interesting for all.
This is not only a matter of power, it already happens in many situations, mostly because the probability draw is horrible in hearthstone, I would say half the time I have to "make it with what I got" instead of having the cards I need when I need them (a basic concept to be competitive in card games) and many many matches are decided in my favor and against me because that one card never appeared or appeared just when I needed, again, wecolme to card games xD.
Read my first answer and you will see why you feel the game is becoming less casual. I don't like it, but the people that puts the money tend to be the leading force in any industry, in this case, the ones that want less random and more strong design so they can have a competitive game are more vocal about it than the people that want to play a casual and "nice guy" game.
There is nothing left if you can not has the right to bear your arms - werebear 2016-eternity campaign
This.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Corvus oculum corvi non eruit.
Creativity, to me, means being able to hold a decent record, as a decent player, with the cards they gave me to play. To me, creativity in hearthstone comes from playing with strategies and combos that only make sense as a whole deck. Basically the kinds of plays the meta has found to be too slow. I want my almost powerful enough cards to WORK when I apply my creative skills to the deck they are in. I don't want a stratified, insistent, highly aggressive metagame to constantly bounce my "good, but still not fast enough" ideas off of, praying for the draws that will let me maintain at least a semblance of competitive edge.
Creative doesn't mean silly, unless it does, but the silly should work like it's supposed to, and not fail simply because it isn't the exact right variable to plug in to the exact game state equation created in the first three turns. The luck factor, that ole dog RNG, exponentially increases in Hearthstone when you don't play a minion, that they then have to play their minion into AND play another minion, in order to not lose the board when you play 2 minions the next turn, whether your board was cleared or not. This strategy is NOT creative, and NOT COMPETITIVE. It just flips the coin earlier, and more consistently in the favor of Minion Stat based Board Tempo roulette players. Trade or face, it's such a coined term, two sided and as disappointing to acknowledge as Republicrat/Democan, to me, at least. I'm obviously pretty disappointed.
The point is, Hearthstone Is a minion based game, with spell and weapon support. Classes that can't win board early, are in no way competitive after a very short shake-up following a set release. The Creative and inspiring options are called silly and unplayable, because they lose board in favor of utility. You can't tell me it's not awesome these days when Rogue can't get a minion to stick, even if they can kill your board every turn. THEY GAIN NO TEMPO and LOSE because the cumulative effect of being forced to remove board and not build your own is a loss to any aggro deck that knows what is going on.
Today, there are exaggerated heals and insanely statted minions, which ironically, only make the aggro game of those classes with access to them BETTER. Tomorrow, this doesn't change, and the "silly" archetypes that see play will inexorably shake back down to the bottom, while aggro remains the highest played "competitive" strategy, again. This will be true until the core of the game's mechanics is addressed by a firm negotiator and a design team willing to change what is really broken in Hearthstone, and that's Paladin. ;)
Puck yo Firates
If anything the OP must startputting aside "creativity" and "casual mellowness" wich are completely different things. I am of the kind that support hearthstone being an entirely casual game, because if I want to go competitive I would play really competitive card games, like magic, wich has a level of complexity 3 or 4 times higher than hearthstone's hardest to pilot deck.
The initial premise when hearthstone was launched was to give room for all kind of players, and I felt satisfied with that ideology because after 8 hours of work wen I get home from my work and get into hearthstone for my 5 or 6 matches of the day (I've to be really good if I want to clim any ranks lol) the last thing I want to see is an asshole player in the other side of my pc BMing me and playing overly competitive decks, I have all the cards I need to play a competitive standard, but that's the point, if I haven't this game would be uninstalled, I don't have the time nor the patience to tolerate the flaming community that has been growing in this game over the months, competitiveness is a sickness for casual games (like hearthstone is suppose to be).
There is nothing left if you can not has the right to bear your arms - werebear 2016-eternity campaign
http://www.vicioussyndicate.com/game-duration-top-cards-played-wotog/
the game is slower, so I guess the whole starting point of your argument is wrong. sorry. :(
When was the game slow(er)? HS is not meant to be a slow game, and I don't think it will ever happen.
you have a point with Hearthstone turning into whoever draws the strongest drop for its respective mana slot wins the game game, but that's not thanks to power creep, that's thanks to blizzard nerfing every single interesting win condition out there, Molten Giant, Force of Nature, Warsong Commander (twice, although the first time was probably deserved), Blade Flurry. Edwin VanCleef and after that they even considered Alexstrasza for a nerf?. it's sad that Hs attracted a lot of total noobs to card games that hate win conditions but for some reason don't mind the game turning into play the strongest 1/2/3/4/5/6(0) drops /attack/ pass, and even worse that they cater to them.
I'm not sure that it really "became" unforgiving. It is a fast, tempo-oriented game, and has been for a long time (if it ever wasn't, it was before I started playing a long while ago). The comparatively-high power level of low cost cards makes that crystal clear; and yes, now they do have to powercreep every new set just to make some of the cards relevant.
If Blizzard wanted a slower game, the 4-stat, 1 mana minions would go away and healing, taunts, and low damage AOE would be cheap. Instead, we have Trogg and Mana wyrm (and the new Raven card), premium stat 2 drops with significant power, etc., so that even control decks (with the exception of Warrior, which gets all of the nice things) have to play on-curve minions in the early game to avoid being snowballed.
In an ideal world, all 1-drops have 3 stats (and one with strong battlecries have 2), and any 2-drop with a meaningful effect would be nerfed to 4 stats. That will never happen; but it would actually give people who don't want to just play spells and minions on-curve a fighting chance.
We don't know how to fix the several problems shaman has, so we made an overly strong card so people can use it to steamroll the opponent instead of being steam rolled.
There is nothing left if you can not has the right to bear your arms - werebear 2016-eternity campaign
I think GiantDwarf0 has the right of it, a more consistent stat expectation for early minions. A 1 mana 2/3 is insane, and forgives drawbacks easily through early tempo. 1 mana 1/3 is very strong, and mostly auto included in the classes you find them (except Paladin).
Could it be that blizzard might want to rethink it's mana cost rules, and instead of nerfing early cards, bringing late cards closer in power level? If I pay 1 for 4 stats, and then pay 2 for 5, 3 for 7, I've lost value already. By the time I'm paying 6 for 12 or 13 stats, That minion isn't NEARLY as valuable as a 3 drop, when you consider it takes up a slot in your deck still, (i.e. is a card), and I could play 2 cards at 3 each and get 14 stats instead, WITH bonuses. This only referenced the average, not considering Shaman class cards that OPOPOFP with an easy to ignore and play around drawback mechanic. If 6 could get me 14 stats and a bonus on a minion I'd be much happier, but instead, Sea Reaver.
Puck yo Firates
The bias for fast decks is baked into the game's construction: attacker decides, no actions on your opponent's turn, reliable growth of the mana pool each turn.
It pays off in terms of the game being more accessible, but it also means you have far less room to play in terms of a deck's curve and win condition. "Creativity" in a good build may come down to being just two or three cards away from the deck everyone else is playing.
I still think the game succeeds by rewarding good builds of good decks played well. But I agree that even "fun" decks in HS are generally not good and even, really, not that much fun. I feel like the good Brawls are the best venue for that kind of experimentation.
Another dupe thread that gets made basically after every new adventure/expansion. Nothing new here.
Regular NA Arena Leaderboard player.
Reached #1 in NA arena leaderboard in May 2018 with a 9.07 average!