No, obviously, if I wanted to answer quickly and in one word, but the complexity of the topic and all the problems related need a more detailed explanation.
Hello everyone, sorry for my english ahead. I've been playing this game (on EU) more or less since the release of GvG, currently with 4300 play mode and 2700 arena wins (so we can safely assume a total amount of over 10000 games at this point). The only thing I've invested in was LoE, everything else (including card packs) was unlocked and earned by playing -> dust and gold. After the release of BRM, I've been legend almost every season except the last 3 months. Those who visit the salt thread regularly, might know that one thing I blame most for that is my insane amount of unluck. Regarding this, it's really easy to exaggerate (especially when you are salty like me), that's why I kept track of all my games for weeks, including all the heavy RNG elements (and whom it favors). I'm the type of guy that regularly hit the pity timer with opening legendaries (most of the useful ones I had to craft - you can imagine how joyful is to watch Amaz on stream opening 3 legendaries - including a golden - and several epics within 10 packs), so the results of my "analyzis" did not really surprise me: Not counting my misplays - which obviously happen, I'm not the greatest player of all time - I was indeed way unluckier than I statistically should have been. And it's not just about losing 50-50s, or the opponents always having the perfect curve/answers. I'm not going more into the details, those can be found scattered in the salt thread, let's just say this game almost made be believe in bad karma or some higher powers that we can't see.
But let's put this away, because so far I could have posted this in the mentioned salt thread as well. The point of my tantrum and those results is to mark the 2 main game factors: luck and the composition of the meta. Luck is inevitable. Even if none of the cards had RNG elements, the drawing itself heavily influences the result (like in all card games), so let's just focus on the metagame.
The deck variety was already really bad at the secret paladin era (one could argue that it was always bad), but I think this is the time where it reached the lowest point thus far. Although with a smaller sample size, I repeated the data collection 1-2 weeks ago, after I hit legend this season (being stuck at rank 5-6, I switched to zoo and streamrolled through the rest within an afternoon - a troublesome sign already). The results were disappointing, no wonder the internet is full of memes:
53% of the decks were either dragon warrior, zoolock or face shaman, almost all with the same exact decklists, and all LEGEND rankings. I repeat, more than half of my games were against this exact 3 decks. It doesn't incluse hunters, tempo mages, c'thun decks - which are kind of auto-pilot as well -, midrange shamans, etc. If this is the meta at legend, how horrible is the way to legend? The point where I decided to write this topic came yesterday, when I played 16 games in a row against these 3 decks, lost 15 of them, and the one I won only gave me 5 points at around rank 1500. Rewarding, isn't it. Just look at the setups from the summer preliminaries: warrior, warlock, shaman, and the only class that can compete with them, druid, if it can ramp efficiently. This is even more sad in tournament format, which should be a place where variety is more rewarding. Not anymore, as it seems, which means the mentioned decks have no proper counter even in a 1v1 situation.
A famous opinion is that "aggro decks or netdecking are to blame" for the current state of the meta. No, they are not.
Netdecking is just like RNG, there's nothing we can do about it. Even if hearthpwn or tempostorm snapshot didn't exist, people would find a way to share and use the most efficient decks. The reasoning is simple, not everyone is a good deckbuilder or have the time to screw around until they find the optimal setup. We all like to win, and even those few who likes to have fun wants to have at least a little success. In this meta, as much as I want it, it's impossible to do so with meme decks. Or who knows, maybe some enjoy getting destroyed on turn 5 every game. I surely don't. Aggro decks (I could say cancer decks, but the community defines every good deck as cancer), while being annoying, are neccessary part of the game. They are cheap, fast, really good for beginners, and not time consuming. A healthy game needs fast decks, and I'm saying this as someone who hates and barely plays them.
Problem is, the meta is nothing but powerful fast decks at this point. With Naxx/GvG rotating out, we basically lost every decent defensive tools we had. I've heard arguments that a control meta would be even worse, and I have to agree for several obvious reasons. But adding a few anti-aggro tools wouldn't hurt anyone, and definitely wouldn't make the decks which are not considered fast overpowered. Control is unplayable now if you want to have a decent winrate agaisnt these decks, but so can be said for any deck trying to have a different approach other than auto-piloting your entire deck to the opponent's face. And I'm sorry to those thinking that value trading makes some aggro decks "different". No, it doesn't, it's simple math and logic, a basic "skill" that every decent player should do really well in order to succeed.
The worst thing playing against these decks is that you feel helpless. Not because they are easy to play, not because they always curve perfectly, but because no matter how many misplays they make, the sheer power of the deck carries them to victory. You simply cannot punish them for the mistakes. I'm talking about things like tapping last, trading bad, thus missing damage, having less HP or losing minions, playing minions in the wrong order, or bad positioning. All these little things that should (in theory) lower the player's overal winrate by a few percent, but it is simply not significant enough in a single game that you could punish it. There is no worse thing than watching your misplaying opponent carried by his deck, just because we don't have the cards that could balance these cases a little bit for the other player's favor. Cards like Naxx/GvG had, for example.
Blizzard had the chance to fix this. A little bit more balancing with useful cards, there are literally hundreds of awesome ideas just on this forum which are not overpowered. And what did we get? More cards supporting auto-pilot tempo decks and there is... purify. Brode seems to be a decent guy with good intentions, I refure to believe that the entire developer team don't see these problems and this is the most they can offer.. freakin purify. Of course, there will be some testing for new decks, but it's clear that the meta won't change in the long run, or have to be based on RNG like it is with Yogg, or will be with Barnes. I watched his designer insights video, talking about "fun" cards and such, which mentality is already ridiculous, but what I found strange is that he said: "the dream is that every class has multiple archetypes at a 50% winrate". It is a good dream, and not even impossible, but what's the point if no one plays those archetypes? You can have a 50% winrate between dragon paladin and handlock, if the community only plays face shaman and dragon warrior. Having different winrates is not a bad thing, the meta is always adapting, but where are at the point where is no place to adapt. What can you play that efficiently counters these current "skill"-decks?
You can't play this game for "fun", there is simply no place for it, unless the only people you play with are your friends. Casual (according to the community) is supposed to be a place for trying out new and fun decks, but anyone who has ever played there a little knows that it's almost the same as ranked ladder. I'm sure causal would be a way better place if it didn't count for quests or give gold. But overal the better solution would be to either weaken fast decks a little, so the so called "fun" decks could at least survive until turn 6, or give us more tools to stop them. It's not about winrates, it's about even having a chance at enjoying the game. There are so many good cards and concept ideas already in the game, yet we can't exploit them because all we face are agro and tempo decks, giving no opportunity to do so at all.
I know I might get a lot of hate from people half my age about my "whining" (that's how this community generally works), but everyone is welcome to describe their opinion if they think the meta is healthy. I want to state that I like this game, and I wouldn't have written this long topic if I didn't care. But having to play "cancer" decks yourself just to rank up or have a little feeling of success is really disappointing.
Thank you for reading, and feel free the post further ideas, suggestions or observations.
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Anyone would have already quit this game with my unluck.
well meta is healthy man..didnt u ever think that maybe problem is in u?..because if i managed to hit rank 5 with control warrior with all these shamans,and dragon warriors throwing treat after treat..why couldnt u do it?..anyone of us could do it,if you are good enough player ofcourse
I wrote that I hit legend several times, including this month. Also, I reached top 20 with Token Druid and Control Warrior, if that makes you feel happier. My unluck strike hit after, but that's a different topic, and not related to the post or the meta. Reaching rank 5 should be possible with any half-decent deck for a better player.
TLDR? Nope I read it all and your English is fine.
EVERY - SINGLE - SEASON there are decks that are more frequently run due to them having a fast win rate e.g. old Face Hunter or current Zoo. When Zoo first came out from Reynad I felt like punching his smug little face. I still don't like it or him. The worst of all of the aggro decks before any expansion had even been released - basic zoo with basic cards was still really strong and beat most other decks easily. Then along came combo druid, handlock, freeze mage, control warrior, leeroy rogue and on the list goes. They were all popular, they all worked and everyone hated them. Then along came Undertaker...
The current decks that are popular do indeed plague the ladder as have all the popular decks before them - Secret Paladin being a good recent example of something that has fallen out of favour or mech mage before the standard rotation. If you are playing against the same decks and losing 14 out of 15 games then odds are that your current deck doesn't work against these types. If banging your head against a wall hasn't been effective then don't keep on banging your head against that wall.
The ladder has never been this glittering palace of fun that people want to harp back to. It has always been a grind, always with a few main deck archetypes and the occasional one that is new. Some of the new ones work, some don't. Then it changes again with a different deck type to counter aggro, change the meta etc etc.
You have so much resource to be able to draw from, you have an entire community of x000 members who post their ideas, decks, potential combos and on top of that you have Blizzard who show you the full up and coming content in time for you to build something around the new release - e.g. Reno Jackson.
There are problems, you claim dun decks are not playable, my C'thun mill Rogue seems to have a pretty even 50 percent win rate in the current meta and actually it increased after the first wing of karazhan because people are doing a little experimentation. I am pretty sure things will change with karazhan because bolster does pretty well against dragon and zoo, and Murdock paly seems to breaking a comeback somehow, and yogg priest seems at the very least better than whatever priest was running before. I personally play the game for fun, and while maybe going for legend is toxic right now (I wouldn't know I get too bored playing decks with decent win rates all the time) but Things change and they are, it will take more than kara to make every deck varied but it will happen.
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Just fill your deck with one drops, that is creative deck design, right?
do you really have statistics about the RNG? yesterday I reached the point when I was like, OK, I should start making notes, because I was soooo unlucky in the last few weeks/months(/years?) or maybe I should just uninstall the game... Its really upsetting when you just watching the game and "misplay, misplay, oh, this guy is lucky, misplay, misplay again, oh, he is really lucky, misplay, oh, I`m dead". :)
Solution #1: Just play for fun and not worry about your rank. That's what I do.
Solution #2: Play Wild if you don't like 50+% Aggro Shaman/Zoolock/Dragon Warrior. That's what I do.
I tend to hang around ranks 10-5 or so these days with about a 50% win rate (I don't really keep track), and I only play maybe 5-10 games a day. You can still play off the wall decks and be successful, just don't expect a 1-2 day grind to Legend. I agree with you that control or otherwise slower decks should be more competitive, but that doesn't convince me to play face decks right now. I still play slower decks because they're more FUN, not because they're competitive and good for ladder climbing. If rank really is that important to you then disregard, but imo that really takes a lot of the fun out of deck building and matches alike. If I get face-rushed by turn 5, I just start a new one like I would after any other match. My point is, if you're looking to have fun with the game again then that's on you. Play the decks you like to play and don't worry about your rank; that will bring the fun back into the game, trust me.
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Nature is the Day. Man is the Sun. Woman is the Moon. The Stone is the Sky. The Art is the Way.
I definitely agree. Love the game, hate the lack of deck variety right now. I refuse to play aggro, so I guess that is part of my problem, but it just seems so mindless and uninteresting. Just as OP said, there are a ton of great cards with great mechanics, but they usually don't see the light of day considering your dead by turn 5 unless you draw your rare aggro removal. While I don't believe aggro needs to be shut out, we do need to have a few more options to deal with it. The meta is stale. I am going to try and be optimistic that Blizzard has some good stuff in store for us with the next expansion. Hearthstone is a great game overall, I just don't want to see the strategy and critical thinking aspect of it to become completely non-existent.
I'm a newer player (2 months) so I'm not really hanging out above Rank 10, but I see what's going on, and I guess I'm just at a loss in a card game where aggro is so powerful that it beats not only Control, but also Midrange. The balance of this TCG trifecta is what makes card games work via a Rock/Paper/Scissors effect, where even if your deck is really powerful there is still at least one deck that can effectively counter it. One area where Magic is still very superior to HS, but it seems like there's definitely room for HS to get there.
Mostly I'm just glad you found a way to rag onPurify again. What a terrible card.
if you have the important cards from naxx and gvg just go and play on wild, there are much less filthy peasants that play aggro decks and you can really enjoy playing n'zoth priest/control warrior/freeze mage/etc.
I rarely post to HearthPwn, but felt compelled to respond here to the OP. I've been playing Hearthstone intermittently since pre-Naxx, and I can say with certainty that people have been complaining about the aggressive metagame, almost without interruption, for years now.
The classes change, and the cards change, but really, the meta doesn't change. The meta varies between "slightly aggressive" and "seriously aggressive", and that's just the way it is. Lots of people have threatened to quit playing, and some probably follow through on those threats....but there are simply more new players joining in than leaving, and the ones that do leave often return. Blizzard knows that a fast-paced, easy-to-pilot style of game is broadly attractive to more consumers than a complex, patient style of game. This is just the way it is.
While I'm sure that Blizzard wants your feedback, remember that they are probably never going to introduce cards that favor a control-heavy meta-game. That wouldn't fit their business model or their design philosophy. It wouldn't attract new players at the level Blizzard wants/needs.
Hearthstone is a tempo and damage driven game, at least in the Standard mode. This is not meant to sound rude or condescending: if you enjoy being a heavy underdog and you get satisfaction from "beating the system", then go ahead and play control decks. They exist. If your goals are to "make legend every month" (which really isn't important or worthwhile, to most players), then you have to get aboard the aggro train and ride.
I play regularly at high legend and I can tell you that this game is nothing but highroll right now.
Token Druid is highroll because its built to highroll and when it does there is very little you can do about it.
Dragon Warrior is highroll because it takes about 0 skill to play and if it gets everything on curve it usually runs you over and theres nothing fun about it.
Face Shaman is the lesser evil imo because it actually takes some skill to play but the power level is too high obviously because it keeps taking rank #1 everywhere. It needs a nerf.
Let me add at once that it depresses me to play aggro decks and I am not a big fan of gambling either. I think HS is finally becoming a true children's card game. If I was a pro player I'd feel very sad about my life choices right now.
No one will be solving anything, dont excpect any nerfs or buffs, this will not happen. Blizz now has a policy of not touching any cards, even if card is clearly op like 4 mana 7/7 they will let it be till it rotates out. And they dont care about wild at all. Also they created this game to be "game for losers" ie even if you play very badly, even if you have weak card collection you can always fall back to cheap zoo that you can netdeck. This way "loser" is not discouraged from this game and remains active after getting some free wins with face shaman or zoo lock. Otherwise player base would be reduced to 10% of the existing one after all the "losers" would quite after being tired of their butts being kicked non stop by a better players.
And they do it on purpose believe me. Which sane dev team can pack best 1 mana minion, best 2 mana minion, best removal, best 4 mana minion, best weapon, cheap aoe, best direct dmg spells into one class and hope that it will not dominate the ladder and meta. They did it on purpose, today its shaman, yesterday was paladin tomorrow will be someone else. Because "losers" cant get bored playing the same op class all the time or they will quit out of boredome.
Exactly this.
Blizzard's priority is to increase earnings. Established players can typically buy adventures and expansion packs with gold. Blizzard's goal is create an environment where new players with fresh cash can win. Yogg, C'Thun, and aggro gives new players regardless of skill level a decent shot to win.
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No, obviously, if I wanted to answer quickly and in one word, but the complexity of the topic and all the problems related need a more detailed explanation.
Hello everyone, sorry for my english ahead. I've been playing this game (on EU) more or less since the release of GvG, currently with 4300 play mode and 2700 arena wins (so we can safely assume a total amount of over 10000 games at this point). The only thing I've invested in was LoE, everything else (including card packs) was unlocked and earned by playing -> dust and gold. After the release of BRM, I've been legend almost every season except the last 3 months. Those who visit the salt thread regularly, might know that one thing I blame most for that is my insane amount of unluck. Regarding this, it's really easy to exaggerate (especially when you are salty like me), that's why I kept track of all my games for weeks, including all the heavy RNG elements (and whom it favors).
I'm the type of guy that regularly hit the pity timer with opening legendaries (most of the useful ones I had to craft - you can imagine how joyful is to watch Amaz on stream opening 3 legendaries - including a golden - and several epics within 10 packs), so the results of my "analyzis" did not really surprise me: Not counting my misplays - which obviously happen, I'm not the greatest player of all time - I was indeed way unluckier than I statistically should have been. And it's not just about losing 50-50s, or the opponents always having the perfect curve/answers. I'm not going more into the details, those can be found scattered in the salt thread, let's just say this game almost made be believe in bad karma or some higher powers that we can't see.
But let's put this away, because so far I could have posted this in the mentioned salt thread as well. The point of my tantrum and those results is to mark the 2 main game factors: luck and the composition of the meta.
Luck is inevitable. Even if none of the cards had RNG elements, the drawing itself heavily influences the result (like in all card games), so let's just focus on the metagame.
The deck variety was already really bad at the secret paladin era (one could argue that it was always bad), but I think this is the time where it reached the lowest point thus far. Although with a smaller sample size, I repeated the data collection 1-2 weeks ago, after I hit legend this season (being stuck at rank 5-6, I switched to zoo and streamrolled through the rest within an afternoon - a troublesome sign already). The results were disappointing, no wonder the internet is full of memes:
53% of the decks were either dragon warrior, zoolock or face shaman, almost all with the same exact decklists, and all LEGEND rankings. I repeat, more than half of my games were against this exact 3 decks. It doesn't incluse hunters, tempo mages, c'thun decks - which are kind of auto-pilot as well -, midrange shamans, etc. If this is the meta at legend, how horrible is the way to legend?
The point where I decided to write this topic came yesterday, when I played 16 games in a row against these 3 decks, lost 15 of them, and the one I won only gave me 5 points at around rank 1500. Rewarding, isn't it.
Just look at the setups from the summer preliminaries: warrior, warlock, shaman, and the only class that can compete with them, druid, if it can ramp efficiently. This is even more sad in tournament format, which should be a place where variety is more rewarding. Not anymore, as it seems, which means the mentioned decks have no proper counter even in a 1v1 situation.
A famous opinion is that "aggro decks or netdecking are to blame" for the current state of the meta.
No, they are not.
Netdecking is just like RNG, there's nothing we can do about it. Even if hearthpwn or tempostorm snapshot didn't exist, people would find a way to share and use the most efficient decks. The reasoning is simple, not everyone is a good deckbuilder or have the time to screw around until they find the optimal setup. We all like to win, and even those few who likes to have fun wants to have at least a little success. In this meta, as much as I want it, it's impossible to do so with meme decks. Or who knows, maybe some enjoy getting destroyed on turn 5 every game. I surely don't.
Aggro decks (I could say cancer decks, but the community defines every good deck as cancer), while being annoying, are neccessary part of the game. They are cheap, fast, really good for beginners, and not time consuming. A healthy game needs fast decks, and I'm saying this as someone who hates and barely plays them.
Problem is, the meta is nothing but powerful fast decks at this point. With Naxx/GvG rotating out, we basically lost every decent defensive tools we had. I've heard arguments that a control meta would be even worse, and I have to agree for several obvious reasons. But adding a few anti-aggro tools wouldn't hurt anyone, and definitely wouldn't make the decks which are not considered fast overpowered. Control is unplayable now if you want to have a decent winrate agaisnt these decks, but so can be said for any deck trying to have a different approach other than auto-piloting your entire deck to the opponent's face. And I'm sorry to those thinking that value trading makes some aggro decks "different". No, it doesn't, it's simple math and logic, a basic "skill" that every decent player should do really well in order to succeed.
The worst thing playing against these decks is that you feel helpless. Not because they are easy to play, not because they always curve perfectly, but because no matter how many misplays they make, the sheer power of the deck carries them to victory.
You simply cannot punish them for the mistakes. I'm talking about things like tapping last, trading bad, thus missing damage, having less HP or losing minions, playing minions in the wrong order, or bad positioning.
All these little things that should (in theory) lower the player's overal winrate by a few percent, but it is simply not significant enough in a single game that you could punish it.
There is no worse thing than watching your misplaying opponent carried by his deck, just because we don't have the cards that could balance these cases a little bit for the other player's favor. Cards like Naxx/GvG had, for example.
Blizzard had the chance to fix this. A little bit more balancing with useful cards, there are literally hundreds of awesome ideas just on this forum which are not overpowered. And what did we get? More cards supporting auto-pilot tempo decks and there is... purify.
Brode seems to be a decent guy with good intentions, I refure to believe that the entire developer team don't see these problems and this is the most they can offer.. freakin purify. Of course, there will be some testing for new decks, but it's clear that the meta won't change in the long run, or have to be based on RNG like it is with Yogg, or will be with Barnes.
I watched his designer insights video, talking about "fun" cards and such, which mentality is already ridiculous, but what I found strange is that he said: "the dream is that every class has multiple archetypes at a 50% winrate". It is a good dream, and not even impossible, but what's the point if no one plays those archetypes? You can have a 50% winrate between dragon paladin and handlock, if the community only plays face shaman and dragon warrior. Having different winrates is not a bad thing, the meta is always adapting, but where are at the point where is no place to adapt. What can you play that efficiently counters these current "skill"-decks?
You can't play this game for "fun", there is simply no place for it, unless the only people you play with are your friends. Casual (according to the community) is supposed to be a place for trying out new and fun decks, but anyone who has ever played there a little knows that it's almost the same as ranked ladder. I'm sure causal would be a way better place if it didn't count for quests or give gold.
But overal the better solution would be to either weaken fast decks a little, so the so called "fun" decks could at least survive until turn 6, or give us more tools to stop them. It's not about winrates, it's about even having a chance at enjoying the game. There are so many good cards and concept ideas already in the game, yet we can't exploit them because all we face are agro and tempo decks, giving no opportunity to do so at all.
I know I might get a lot of hate from people half my age about my "whining" (that's how this community generally works), but everyone is welcome to describe their opinion if they think the meta is healthy. I want to state that I like this game, and I wouldn't have written this long topic if I didn't care. But having to play "cancer" decks yourself just to rank up or have a little feeling of success is really disappointing.
Thank you for reading, and feel free the post further ideas, suggestions or observations.
Anyone would have already quit this game with my unluck.
Tbh I thought it was beyond saving back in the days of TGT. It'll get better. It just takes time.
Don't drink another drop of water until you see this!!
Anyone would have already quit this game with my unluck.
Brain dead aggro decks are just too strong. Unless control decks like Priest receive some MAJOR buffs to combat Aggro, we will never escape this meta.
Yup, it is. You should delete the game immediately and stop opening these rubbish threads.
Bye
Missing lethal since June 2015.
Anyone would have already quit this game with my unluck.
TLDR? Nope I read it all and your English is fine.
EVERY - SINGLE - SEASON there are decks that are more frequently run due to them having a fast win rate e.g. old Face Hunter or current Zoo. When Zoo first came out from Reynad I felt like punching his smug little face. I still don't like it or him. The worst of all of the aggro decks before any expansion had even been released - basic zoo with basic cards was still really strong and beat most other decks easily. Then along came combo druid, handlock, freeze mage, control warrior, leeroy rogue and on the list goes. They were all popular, they all worked and everyone hated them. Then along came Undertaker...
The current decks that are popular do indeed plague the ladder as have all the popular decks before them - Secret Paladin being a good recent example of something that has fallen out of favour or mech mage before the standard rotation. If you are playing against the same decks and losing 14 out of 15 games then odds are that your current deck doesn't work against these types. If banging your head against a wall hasn't been effective then don't keep on banging your head against that wall.
The ladder has never been this glittering palace of fun that people want to harp back to. It has always been a grind, always with a few main deck archetypes and the occasional one that is new. Some of the new ones work, some don't. Then it changes again with a different deck type to counter aggro, change the meta etc etc.
You have so much resource to be able to draw from, you have an entire community of x000 members who post their ideas, decks, potential combos and on top of that you have Blizzard who show you the full up and coming content in time for you to build something around the new release - e.g. Reno Jackson.
What else do you want from this game?
There are problems, you claim dun decks are not playable, my C'thun mill Rogue seems to have a pretty even 50 percent win rate in the current meta and actually it increased after the first wing of karazhan because people are doing a little experimentation. I am pretty sure things will change with karazhan because bolster does pretty well against dragon and zoo, and Murdock paly seems to breaking a comeback somehow, and yogg priest seems at the very least better than whatever priest was running before. I personally play the game for fun, and while maybe going for legend is toxic right now (I wouldn't know I get too bored playing decks with decent win rates all the time) but Things change and they are, it will take more than kara to make every deck varied but it will happen.
Just fill your deck with one drops, that is creative deck design, right?
do you really have statistics about the RNG? yesterday I reached the point when I was like, OK, I should start making notes, because I was soooo unlucky in the last few weeks/months(/years?) or maybe I should just uninstall the game... Its really upsetting when you just watching the game and "misplay, misplay, oh, this guy is lucky, misplay, misplay again, oh, he is really lucky, misplay, oh, I`m dead". :)
Solution #1: Just play for fun and not worry about your rank. That's what I do.
Solution #2: Play Wild if you don't like 50+% Aggro Shaman/Zoolock/Dragon Warrior. That's what I do.
I tend to hang around ranks 10-5 or so these days with about a 50% win rate (I don't really keep track), and I only play maybe 5-10 games a day. You can still play off the wall decks and be successful, just don't expect a 1-2 day grind to Legend. I agree with you that control or otherwise slower decks should be more competitive, but that doesn't convince me to play face decks right now. I still play slower decks because they're more FUN, not because they're competitive and good for ladder climbing. If rank really is that important to you then disregard, but imo that really takes a lot of the fun out of deck building and matches alike. If I get face-rushed by turn 5, I just start a new one like I would after any other match. My point is, if you're looking to have fun with the game again then that's on you. Play the decks you like to play and don't worry about your rank; that will bring the fun back into the game, trust me.
Nature is the Day.
Man is the Sun.
Woman is the Moon.
The Stone is the Sky.
The Art is the Way.
I definitely agree. Love the game, hate the lack of deck variety right now. I refuse to play aggro, so I guess that is part of my problem, but it just seems so mindless and uninteresting. Just as OP said, there are a ton of great cards with great mechanics, but they usually don't see the light of day considering your dead by turn 5 unless you draw your rare aggro removal. While I don't believe aggro needs to be shut out, we do need to have a few more options to deal with it. The meta is stale. I am going to try and be optimistic that Blizzard has some good stuff in store for us with the next expansion. Hearthstone is a great game overall, I just don't want to see the strategy and critical thinking aspect of it to become completely non-existent.
I'm a newer player (2 months) so I'm not really hanging out above Rank 10, but I see what's going on, and I guess I'm just at a loss in a card game where aggro is so powerful that it beats not only Control, but also Midrange. The balance of this TCG trifecta is what makes card games work via a Rock/Paper/Scissors effect, where even if your deck is really powerful there is still at least one deck that can effectively counter it. One area where Magic is still very superior to HS, but it seems like there's definitely room for HS to get there.
Mostly I'm just glad you found a way to rag onPurify again. What a terrible card.
if you have the important cards from naxx and gvg just go and play on wild, there are much less filthy peasants that play aggro decks and you can really enjoy playing n'zoth priest/control warrior/freeze mage/etc.
I rarely post to HearthPwn, but felt compelled to respond here to the OP. I've been playing Hearthstone intermittently since pre-Naxx, and I can say with certainty that people have been complaining about the aggressive metagame, almost without interruption, for years now.
The classes change, and the cards change, but really, the meta doesn't change. The meta varies between "slightly aggressive" and "seriously aggressive", and that's just the way it is. Lots of people have threatened to quit playing, and some probably follow through on those threats....but there are simply more new players joining in than leaving, and the ones that do leave often return. Blizzard knows that a fast-paced, easy-to-pilot style of game is broadly attractive to more consumers than a complex, patient style of game. This is just the way it is.
While I'm sure that Blizzard wants your feedback, remember that they are probably never going to introduce cards that favor a control-heavy meta-game. That wouldn't fit their business model or their design philosophy. It wouldn't attract new players at the level Blizzard wants/needs.
Hearthstone is a tempo and damage driven game, at least in the Standard mode. This is not meant to sound rude or condescending: if you enjoy being a heavy underdog and you get satisfaction from "beating the system", then go ahead and play control decks. They exist. If your goals are to "make legend every month" (which really isn't important or worthwhile, to most players), then you have to get aboard the aggro train and ride.
Then play wild it's much more fun. Each game you're playing against different deck.
I play regularly at high legend and I can tell you that this game is nothing but highroll right now.
Token Druid is highroll because its built to highroll and when it does there is very little you can do about it.
Dragon Warrior is highroll because it takes about 0 skill to play and if it gets everything on curve it usually runs you over and theres nothing fun about it.
Face Shaman is the lesser evil imo because it actually takes some skill to play but the power level is too high obviously because it keeps taking rank #1 everywhere. It needs a nerf.
Let me add at once that it depresses me to play aggro decks and I am not a big fan of gambling either. I think HS is finally becoming a true children's card game. If I was a pro player I'd feel very sad about my life choices right now.