This is going to be a weird post, because I'm going to defend one of the most hated decks in Hearthstone and use it as a prime example of how a deck of that type should be.
I'm guessing almost everyone knows the deck. A short recap is it that it is an extremely aggressive hunter deck with a curve that usually does not extend beyond 3-cost (except sometimes running Leeroy). It can do an incredible amount of damage in a short while, actually far higher than a deck like face shaman or tempo mage. In it's prime it was extremely popular and a very good and competitive deck.
So, why is this deck a good example of how a deck like this should be?
a) Almost all the minions are relatively weak in terms of health, any early game or high health minion can effectively grind it to a halt and any early game AoE will very often shut it down. Almost any class can therefore tech for it.
b) It can't afford cycle. It is reliant on such a fragile curve that adding cycle will risk grinding the deck to a halt. At the same time, cheap cycle minions can effectively clear most of the minions of the deck.
c) It has very low overall value and can therefore easily be outvalued. It therefore has plenty of very effective counters. Rock / paper / scissors.
d) It was cheap and easy to play, and therefore offered an easy and very attainable introduction to HS as a game.
Now, as I stated in the introduction I realize this was a hated deck. It was largely seen as mindless and a "cancer", which to some extent is understandable because it _was_ a boring deck to lose to. But I hold that the deck of this type is actually quite healthy for a meta. It punishes greed, but itself got easily punished because of its lack of value. As long as this is true, the rock / paper / scissors principle so important for a healthy metagame is actually upheld.
Compare it to the aggressive decks we see today in standard. These decks are not as fast, but they are largely immune to any early game AoE. They can value-trade against almost any early game minion. They can have cycle. They can hold enough value back to repopulate after answers.
I don't think the "hatred" against cheap, effective and aggressive decks can ever be cured. Some people just don't like that kind of playstyle. I do, however, think that a deck like face-hunter has important niches to fill in a meta; slugfests where the greediest decks always wins is not very fun either. The minute decks like these also hold high value, however, I think they become detrimental to a healthy meta... and I think that is where HS has moved to as a game.
Definitely not an idiot. You're exactly right. Decks like face hunter that were very strong but actually very susceptible to counterplay are what we need. The "stickiness" (value) of aggressive and fast midrange decks is responsible for so much of the negative party experiences people have now. Low cost minions have continued to gain value while heal and board clears have continued to be priced at a premium. Hence, the essential death of control in the standard meta.
Definitely not an idiot. You're exactly right. Decks like face hunter that were very strong but actually very susceptible to counterplay are what we need. The "stickiness" (value) of aggressive and fast midrange decks is responsible for so much of the negative party experiences people have now. Low cost minions have continued to gain value while heal and board clears have continued to be priced at a premium. Hence, the essential death of control in the standard meta.
Thanks for that. It's good to know I'm not the only one thinking like this, and writing an OP defending one of the most complained about decks in HS is... well... could easily go into a flamewar, so nice to see a collected post.
You're not wrong in any way, the aggressive decks that we have today are far to strong - Even the ''old'' Facer Hunter (it actually still exist in wild) required more skill than for example Aggro Shaman to play. :)
I know because i play pretty much all archtypes, and I've played both Face Shaman and Face Hunter recently and the Hunter takes a bit more to play perfectly (only a bit though) - also it get's destroyed by Patron Warrior :D
I actually think that the ''old'' Face Hunter is the best aggro deck that we've ever had for the game. (not saying i don't hate losing to it) Back in Undertaker days it was too op though - it was just as dumb as Shaman is now...
You're not wrong in any way, the aggressive decks that we have today are far to strong - Even the ''old'' Facer Hunter (it actually still exist in wild) required more skill than for example Aggro Shaman to play. :)
I know because i play pretty much all archtypes, and I've played both Face Shaman and Face Hunter recently and the Hunter takes a bit more to play perfectly (only a bit though) - also it get's destroyed by Patron Warrior :D
I actually think that the ''old'' Face Hunter is the best aggro deck that we've ever had for the game. (not saying i don't hate losing to it) Back in Undertaker days it was too op though - it was just as dumb as Shaman is now...
Yeah, that is a good point. I didn't play HS during the undertaker period and was referring to the period after that, to clarify. I understand that it was a very broken thing.
You're not wrong in any way, the aggressive decks that we have today are far to strong - Even the ''old'' Facer Hunter (it actually still exist in wild) required more skill than for example Aggro Shaman to play. :)
I know because i play pretty much all archtypes, and I've played both Face Shaman and Face Hunter recently and the Hunter takes a bit more to play perfectly (only a bit though) - also it get's destroyed by Patron Warrior :D
I actually think that the ''old'' Face Hunter is the best aggro deck that we've ever had for the game. (not saying i don't hate losing to it) Back in Undertaker days it was too op though - it was just as dumb as Shaman is now...
Yeah, that is a good point. I didn't play HS during the undertaker period and was referring to the period after that, to clarify. I understand that it was a very broken thing.
It's probably the most broken aggressive deck in the history of hs. Their opener sometimes gave them a 3/4 Undertaker and two 2/1 Leper Gnomes on turn 2, at that point you knew you were about to get destroyed... (going first) - Even more broken than the Secret Paladin opener with Secretkeeper and 2 secret's... :P
Rock, paper, scissors is difficult to attain in HS because there is no counterplay. You can't interact on the opponent's turn. In most card games, you'll have aggro decks that are able to rush control decks down, but they don't play any/sufficient disruption so they get defeated by combo decks who are usually one or two turns faster than the aggressive decks. The control decks would regularly beat combo decks though, because they play hand disruption (combo decks need to combine cards together to win and having your hand picked apart ruins your plans) as well as counter cards that stop the combo chain. Then, by the time the combo player re-assembles his combo cards he gets beaten down by a gigantic monster because the control player successfully disrupted the combo player and bought himself time to win.
Hearthstone is different. Control decks should be able to beat aggro decks because of their AoE and powerful spot removal. Combo decks should beat control decks because they get plenty of time to assemble their pieces and just go off because the opponent can't interact once they have the cards and mana. Aggro decks should roll combo decks because they lack the removal control decks have. But in Hearthstone there's too much overlap.
I think aggro fails to keep tempo/midrange in check. The decks that just dont care about the midrange trading game, and hammer face, threatening lethal from turn 5. Midrange usually dont run heals, so they die before they stabilize. The lack of need for anti-aggro tech then maked the midrange/tempo even stronger against control-> control is just about out of the meta.
I recently played mirange hunter against face warrior some times in wild, and it was VERY tough. You have to clear everything he puts down, but he will not care about your minions unless they have taunt...
Aggro-shaman is in fact harder to play than both uth/buzzard and undertaker hunter IMO because you need to manage your overload.
Face Hunter wasn't the easiest deck to play, but it was made harder to play against by the fact that the deck offered no counter-play outside of tech cards. If it was still valid in standard, I suspect it would be one of the dominant decks.
Well, to clarify I am not suggesting it should be re-introduced or anything like that. Cards like mad scientist and haunted creeper would offer far too much value in the standard format, and we lack a lot of the counter cards we originally had.
I'm more offering an opinion on how an aggressive deck should look in terms of strengths and weaknesses.
Decks are balanced if they are at 50% winrate. 60% or higher is just too much (shamans as an example). 50-55% is what I call is the perfect percentage as it shows you need to think further than anything else. Face hunter right now seems totally fine (as long as it is face hunter and not the hunter with deathrattle minions to the roots including the perfect curve into call of the plebs). 40% is already too weak. 45-50% shows that it is almost great but you need to handle it better. So the best win percentage is somewhere between 45-55% ideally to be balanced. Of course there are high counters and highly lost opponents but this is included into the percentage given. Aggro is a way to play like control is one. I guess actually noone complained about aggro hunter or zoolocks lately. Even tempo mage and druid would be totally fine (if Yogg wasn't there whitch improves the win percentage by really 10!%)
There are wins and losses for sure and you have to deal with it, but if you manage to rebalance the game and your opponent topdecks the second call of the wild or yogg saron when you would have won the next turn or 2, it is like cheating the win. This is what people are actually complaining about, I include myself here too. Unless blizz changes the mana cost of call of the wild to make it less "curvy" or Yogg to maybe cust a maximum amount of 5-10 spells (chosen randomly as blizz did with imp-losion) there is always a way to cheat the win and improve the win percentage. Otherwise I am actually totally fine with aggro as the most important cards got nerfed to a way healthier place without losing their spot that much.
Completely agree. A deck should be strong at one (maybe two) things, but have a huge weakness in the other area(s). Face Hunter was weak to control. Tempo trades board advantage for card advantage (if you've played tempo mage, you know the late game pain of hoping to topdeck your last fireball for lethal). Control sacrifices life and board advantage for card advantage. etc etc.
This is reason Shaman is completely out of control. It sacrifices nothing but is strong in everything. Cheap, efficient minions? Check. Strong curve? Check. Effective AoE? Check. 10+ damage burst from nowhere? Check. Ability to flood the board but retain card advantage? Check. Class card synergy? Check. Best Inspire synergy in the entire game? Check. What does it lose to gain all of this? Absolutely nothing.
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Definitely not an idiot. You're exactly right. Decks like face hunter that were very strong but actually very susceptible to counterplay are what we need. The "stickiness" (value) of aggressive and fast midrange decks is responsible for so much of the negative party experiences people have now. Low cost minions have continued to gain value while heal and board clears have continued to be priced at a premium. Hence, the essential death of control in the standard meta.
This
Face huntr, while boring pushed for a healthy metgame by punishing greed and making tradeoffs. Modern aggro shaman, not so much.
I think the biggest problem of standard was that it totally broke the virtuous circle of control decks. Before Old Golds when face hunter started to become rampant Control Warrior would come in and keep them in check. Then Handlock would appear to control Warriors, So we would see Midrange Hunters, Priest and then Freeze mage to counter all this, and back to face hunter etc.... Wog broke most of this decks. Freeze mage, priest, handlocks are basically dead. Besides all this shaman basically became overpowered and doesn't really have any counter. So now instead of having a meta where people try to counter what they're seing most, we just see basic aggro decks like zoolock, deathrattle hunters and shaman with the occasional tempo mage and on another side control warrior and hybrid token druid. This resulted in a mostly very boring meta for most veteran players. Sorry for bad english it's not my main tongue :)
This is going to be a weird post, because I'm going to defend one of the most hated decks in Hearthstone and use it as a prime example of how a deck of that type should be.
I'm guessing almost everyone knows the deck. A short recap is it that it is an extremely aggressive hunter deck with a curve that usually does not extend beyond 3-cost (except sometimes running Leeroy). It can do an incredible amount of damage in a short while, actually far higher than a deck like face shaman or tempo mage. In it's prime it was extremely popular and a very good and competitive deck.
So, why is this deck a good example of how a deck like this should be?
a) Almost all the minions are relatively weak in terms of health, any early game or high health minion can effectively grind it to a halt and any early game AoE will very often shut it down. Almost any class can therefore tech for it.
b) It can't afford cycle. It is reliant on such a fragile curve that adding cycle will risk grinding the deck to a halt. At the same time, cheap cycle minions can effectively clear most of the minions of the deck.
c) It has very low overall value and can therefore easily be outvalued. It therefore has plenty of very effective counters. Rock / paper / scissors.
d) It was cheap and easy to play, and therefore offered an easy and very attainable introduction to HS as a game.
Now, as I stated in the introduction I realize this was a hated deck. It was largely seen as mindless and a "cancer", which to some extent is understandable because it _was_ a boring deck to lose to. But I hold that the deck of this type is actually quite healthy for a meta. It punishes greed, but itself got easily punished because of its lack of value. As long as this is true, the rock / paper / scissors principle so important for a healthy metagame is actually upheld.
Compare it to the aggressive decks we see today in standard. These decks are not as fast, but they are largely immune to any early game AoE. They can value-trade against almost any early game minion. They can have cycle. They can hold enough value back to repopulate after answers.
I don't think the "hatred" against cheap, effective and aggressive decks can ever be cured. Some people just don't like that kind of playstyle. I do, however, think that a deck like face-hunter has important niches to fill in a meta; slugfests where the greediest decks always wins is not very fun either. The minute decks like these also hold high value, however, I think they become detrimental to a healthy meta... and I think that is where HS has moved to as a game.
TL;DR: Defends facehunter. Might be an idiot.
Definitely not an idiot. You're exactly right. Decks like face hunter that were very strong but actually very susceptible to counterplay are what we need. The "stickiness" (value) of aggressive and fast midrange decks is responsible for so much of the negative party experiences people have now. Low cost minions have continued to gain value while heal and board clears have continued to be priced at a premium. Hence, the essential death of control in the standard meta.
You're not wrong in any way, the aggressive decks that we have today are far to strong - Even the ''old'' Facer Hunter (it actually still exist in wild) required more skill than for example Aggro Shaman to play. :)
I know because i play pretty much all archtypes, and I've played both Face Shaman and Face Hunter recently and the Hunter takes a bit more to play perfectly (only a bit though) - also it get's destroyed by Patron Warrior :D
I actually think that the ''old'' Face Hunter is the best aggro deck that we've ever had for the game. (not saying i don't hate losing to it)
Back in Undertaker days it was too op though - it was just as dumb as Shaman is now...
Their opener sometimes gave them a 3/4 Undertaker and two 2/1 Leper Gnomes on turn 2, at that point you knew you were about to get destroyed... (going first) - Even more broken than the Secret Paladin opener with Secretkeeper and 2 secret's... :P
Rock, paper, scissors is difficult to attain in HS because there is no counterplay. You can't interact on the opponent's turn. In most card games, you'll have aggro decks that are able to rush control decks down, but they don't play any/sufficient disruption so they get defeated by combo decks who are usually one or two turns faster than the aggressive decks. The control decks would regularly beat combo decks though, because they play hand disruption (combo decks need to combine cards together to win and having your hand picked apart ruins your plans) as well as counter cards that stop the combo chain. Then, by the time the combo player re-assembles his combo cards he gets beaten down by a gigantic monster because the control player successfully disrupted the combo player and bought himself time to win.
Hearthstone is different. Control decks should be able to beat aggro decks because of their AoE and powerful spot removal. Combo decks should beat control decks because they get plenty of time to assemble their pieces and just go off because the opponent can't interact once they have the cards and mana. Aggro decks should roll combo decks because they lack the removal control decks have. But in Hearthstone there's too much overlap.
I think aggro fails to keep tempo/midrange in check. The decks that just dont care about the midrange trading game, and hammer face, threatening lethal from turn 5. Midrange usually dont run heals, so they die before they stabilize. The lack of need for anti-aggro tech then maked the midrange/tempo even stronger against control-> control is just about out of the meta.
I recently played mirange hunter against face warrior some times in wild, and it was VERY tough. You have to clear everything he puts down, but he will not care about your minions unless they have taunt...
Aggro-shaman is in fact harder to play than both uth/buzzard and undertaker hunter IMO because you need to manage your overload.
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Decks are balanced if they are at 50% winrate. 60% or higher is just too much (shamans as an example). 50-55% is what I call is the perfect percentage as it shows you need to think further than anything else. Face hunter right now seems totally fine (as long as it is face hunter and not the hunter with deathrattle minions to the roots including the perfect curve into call of the plebs). 40% is already too weak. 45-50% shows that it is almost great but you need to handle it better. So the best win percentage is somewhere between 45-55% ideally to be balanced. Of course there are high counters and highly lost opponents but this is included into the percentage given. Aggro is a way to play like control is one. I guess actually noone complained about aggro hunter or zoolocks lately. Even tempo mage and druid would be totally fine (if Yogg wasn't there whitch improves the win percentage by really 10!%)
There are wins and losses for sure and you have to deal with it, but if you manage to rebalance the game and your opponent topdecks the second call of the wild or yogg saron when you would have won the next turn or 2, it is like cheating the win. This is what people are actually complaining about, I include myself here too. Unless blizz changes the mana cost of call of the wild to make it less "curvy" or Yogg to maybe cust a maximum amount of 5-10 spells (chosen randomly as blizz did with imp-losion) there is always a way to cheat the win and improve the win percentage. Otherwise I am actually totally fine with aggro as the most important cards got nerfed to a way healthier place without losing their spot that much.
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Completely agree. A deck should be strong at one (maybe two) things, but have a huge weakness in the other area(s). Face Hunter was weak to control. Tempo trades board advantage for card advantage (if you've played tempo mage, you know the late game pain of hoping to topdeck your last fireball for lethal). Control sacrifices life and board advantage for card advantage. etc etc.
This is reason Shaman is completely out of control. It sacrifices nothing but is strong in everything. Cheap, efficient minions? Check. Strong curve? Check. Effective AoE? Check. 10+ damage burst from nowhere? Check. Ability to flood the board but retain card advantage? Check. Class card synergy? Check. Best Inspire synergy in the entire game? Check. What does it lose to gain all of this? Absolutely nothing.
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I think the biggest problem of standard was that it totally broke the virtuous circle of control decks. Before Old Golds when face hunter started to become rampant Control Warrior would come in and keep them in check. Then Handlock would appear to control Warriors, So we would see Midrange Hunters, Priest and then Freeze mage to counter all this, and back to face hunter etc.... Wog broke most of this decks. Freeze mage, priest, handlocks are basically dead. Besides all this shaman basically became overpowered and doesn't really have any counter. So now instead of having a meta where people try to counter what they're seing most, we just see basic aggro decks like zoolock, deathrattle hunters and shaman with the occasional tempo mage and on another side control warrior and hybrid token druid. This resulted in a mostly very boring meta for most veteran players. Sorry for bad english it's not my main tongue :)