I know this is a pretty pessimistic view on things, but after 4 years it's been shown that Blizzard can not learn even the most simple lessons about the meta. For every nerf they make there's going to be another stupid broken card in the next expansion... it happens every single time.
Also Kripp made a video recently talking about how short games are the bane of hearthstone, which I'm sure most people agree with. And sure when the next expansion comes out and the nerfs roll out, Shaman and Warrior may not be as strong anymore; but won't that just leave room for Zoo, Ebola paladin and face hunter again?
The problem we have with the meta currently is the fact that some decks can dish out large amounts of damage very quickly, but as far as I can see the incoming nerfs do nothing to counter the age old problem of board spam.
When pirates aren't running everyone over, the vast majority of low skilled players will go back to the strategy they've almost always relied on; which is spamming the board with sticky low cost minions, or token generators and praying for no AOE. This creates exactly the same problem Krip spoke about in his video, which is that the entire game is almost always decided by the RNG of the slower players opening hand.
Sure Shaman and Warrior aren't fun to play against, but are Zoo, Hunter and aggro paladin any better? Either way you're getting run over by turn 6-7 if you don't draw the answers, which in my opinion is just as boring and rage inducing as the current meta.
For the most part, I agree with you. Blizzard has made it fairly clear that for every "fix" they're determined to bring another six issues to the table within a few more weeks or months.
The only thing I'd add is this: The fundamental problem at hand is actually not Blizzard's poor design choices. Those poor design choices simply make it easier for people to do what they apparently can't resist: Find the simplest, most efficient way to secure the endorphin rush they receive from locking down a win. And this is coming from a 10+ year PvP gamer. I've seen it in strategy games, CCGs, first-person shooters, fighting games--everything. HUMANS ARE ADDICTED TO WINNING. And while that may seem like a ridiculously obvious statement, the fact that humans will do ANYTHING to win is the real issue at hand. Playing broken combos, using brain-dead/surefire strategies, straight up blatant cheating--for way too many gamers, the feel of vanquishing an opponent trumps fair play or putting in a little effort or using any imagination. And that's why even if Blizzard had designed the most balanced and fair game to ever hit the market, gamers would rabidly seek out the most broken and unfair setup in that balanced and fair game and they'd spam the living shit out of it. Whether it's simply cultural or some instinctual drive of humans to see themselves one-up all competition in the most disgusting way possible, until that changes, there will ALWAYS be one or two broken decks in the meta. The *degree* of brokenness might be better or worse than now, but humans WILL ALWAYS find a way to better secure their precious rush of win-endorphins.
Zoo was initially successful, post-Whispers. The rise of Dragon Warrior kept the deck in check, and the introduction of Maelstrom Portal killed it. Spamming the board doesn't work when the two most popular decks can clear the 1/1 spam for free. The discard mechanic proved too inconsistent, and played counter to the central strength of the deck. I'm not sure how "spam the board" strategies can be expected to work on a post-nerf ladder which will remain dominated by free clears. FWIW - Face Hunter hasn't been a top-tier deck since BRM, and Aggro Paladin has never really been particularly viable. The VS numbers suggest that Mid-Range decks will dominate after the nerf.
Sure Shaman and Warrior aren't fun to play against, but are Zoo, Hunter and aggro paladin any better? Either way you're getting run over by turn 6-7 if you don't draw the answers, which in my opinion is just as boring and rage inducing as the current meta.
THANK YOU. I thought I was the only one that thought about this. But I was so confused why everyone completely ignored that the old aggro deck will still be valid once the pirates go away. It maybe because I play Casual more than Ranked where Hunter is still heavily played there.
I honestly prefer pirates to Hunter and Zoo, even they are stronger.
Agreed. Blizzard promotes insane tempo as aggro for low-skill players, but if they slow that down (big if - Blizzard has sped up the Meta with every release) we know there will be a Rogue, Shaman, and Druid Jade armada to contend with so control will run out of answers. They need to add cards that extend the health pool above 30 and basically power creep them into stat-line minions.
well at least Pirate decks will be weaker, small time buccaneer nerfs means they won't get that much damage against 1 damage Hp classes and FInley rotating out means they won't be able to get the hunter Hero power to put even more of a clock on people
The next expansion needs strong comeback mechanic cards like Reno, or basically any high-cost cards that don't force you to waste your turn, then your opponent just ignores your card and goes face. The developers love the idea of Hearthstone being interactive, but the most popular decks don't interact at all except with your face. Here is to hoping that in almost 130 cards, at least a handful make the game playable for long-term games.
Honestly this Team has some massive levels of hipocrisy going. They pontificate about how "problematic" combo decks are OTKing you by turn 15+ "which is just not fun" but refuse to use the same stance for decks that do the same by turn 4. When questioned about it, they ignore the question. They keep talking about minion-based combat and players interacting but refuse to acknowledge that Pirate ignores all that except for face. They stated that "we don't want healing neutrals accessible to everyone" but then refuse to print valid comeback tools specific to the classes. Try playing Rogue vs Pirate, try healing some of that damage. Impossible. Honestly the problem isn't the game, not even the cards, it's the development team. If Kripp is biased against aggro decks, Team5 goes the absolute opposite way.
Sure they "pretend" to have balance changes and fixes to address said problems.... but pay attention, said fixes always come very late near the end of the current life cycle and always very close to the next expansion which invariably adds more broken aggro cards and 1mana minions.
First of all... Kripp is unbelivably biased against aggressive decks. Period. He does not disclaim nor even attempt to provide any substantial, realistic or even feasible corrections in this regard.
He'll always be a man who's a god at arena and a meme-spouting blabbermouth. If one is there for the memes and arena sure he's the go-to man... but he doesn't disclaim this fact of the matter whenever he tries to make a discussion piece.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with SHORTER games, something which Kripp does not disclose - there's a difference between being dead at turn 4 and turn 8. However in Kripp's discussion piece he treated these both as the same thing. So in this regard as much as Kripp might have had a valid point originally, he missed the barn with the gun whilst standing inside of it.
Secondly something which folks have to realize is this: Hearthstone is VERY heavily minion based and in order to change that you would basically have to redesign all of Hearthstone. The complexity in the game is hugely limited due to the fact that there no phases which allows for counterplay and the strength of spells having to be on par with minions as a direct result. A good example is this: I have been laughed at repeatedly when I compared Fireball and Twilight Guardian. They both deal the same amount of damage very easily and they both resolves around turn 4 as their time when they are the most powerful.
This simply means that Hearthstone is about minions first and foremost. There aren't any neutral spells with effects that would be considered neutral. Look to MTG and you will find any number of different combinations of cards that have the effect "Draw 2 cards"; in Blue mana its usually a spell costing 3 mana (look at Arcane Intellect) or for an example black got Sign in Blood which is a 2 mana lost 2 health, draw 2 cards. Which is very similar to Life Tap... however, both of these examples are tied to classes. This means that I can't 'become a warlock for a turn in order to take advantage of Life Tap'; you just have to PLAY as the Warlock to get that effect.
You can even look to other games like Duelyst, Gwent and hell even to a certain degree you could find this argument prevelent in cardgames like Pokémon. All of 'em have additional options for their own factions/classes/energy-types.
Hearthstone lacks this which means that each and every class will on average have ONE style of play during an expansion which is genuinely fine because you have 9 classes. Of course sometimes some of 'em will be stronger than others and yadda-yadda - you get the general idea. But you'll have roughly 9 options every expansion to play what is at the very least a semi-competitive deck and if you venture further into this realm you'll find a lot of diversity that is just forgotten to the minds of Hearthpwn users due to it being a Blizzard game.
BUT... everything comes back to there being roughly 9 options but all of 'em are minion based. Speed has very little to do with it as a direct result because it will ALWAYS be about doing the most efficent thing possible during your turn. Otherwise... where does all of the "Priest can only pass where as Warriors can use their hero power"-line of comments come from when you tradtionally compare those two hero powers?
Hearthstone is a minion based game. If you print powerful spells then you'll have to manage them or the tools that makes them more powerful. Look to all the nerfs that have been made in Hearthstone to date and you'll find one thing in common: all of 'em comes from spell heavy decks or decks that consists of spell-effect-heavy decks (drawing cards, does something when it dies, etc.).
And finally there's a third thing to consider... as much hate as folks are giving aggro and midrange players, I have played midrange shaman since the classic days of Hearthstone. I like when you have the option to play for a slightly longer game but tries to finish it off earlier with more powerful minions. During Karazhan I recieved tons of abuse because folks were complaining that I somehow did something wrong because I enjoyed the game.
The same thing is happening here. Games will end if you don't do SOMETHING and in Hearthstone that something will ALWAYS be tied into the notion of minions. May it be spells affecting or being relevant to minions but there will not be an era as long as the game is balanced where spell-heavy decks reign supreme. Freeze mage has been nerfed, Miracle Rogue has been nerfed, Grim Patron has been nerfed, Yogg-Druid has been nerfed and there's plenty more decks that have been nerfed in the past. Of course not all of 'em were centred around spells but once again, effects that are traditionally very powerful and not minion-based such as increasing attack values or dealing direct damage without combat... those have been the primary cards that have been nerfed to date.
And how will this affect control decks then? Because Kripp had a point in that 'folks couldn't play with their big stompy things because the game didn't go on for that long'... no, it doesn't. Nor should it. Since the introduction of Justicar Trueheart... litterally up until this expansion, EVERYONE brought at least ONE control warrior or a control warrior counter to tournaments. Games have been going on for a very long time far longer than people think they have due to primarily Armor Up! and Tank Up!. And instead of printing another card that just boosts your armour instantaniously... they gave us Alley Armorsmith; a card that functions VERY similarly to Justicar Trueheart but is far more designed to be interactive and be more of a card that you play... as opposed to a card you automatically include because ... control decks.
I know I am in the verbal minority of players when I say this but ... the meta is not 'bad' as it is. It will get better sure, it definitely will. I like shorter games but this is perhaps bit too ridiculous mind you I still don't see it as bad but... yah', it will get better because there'll be change. And change promotes different approaches to a problem in which the problem you are facing isn't pirates... but how to beat your opponent.
Hearthstone's strong suit is minions, not complex decks that function like that of an Esper Control Deck from MTG. It functions best when players design their decks to actually play the game as opposed to sit passively and wait until they have the keycards in hands. Which is the part that goes full circle as Kripp completely missed the ball on this one... Hearthstone IS minion centric; you don't build decks and expect them to work on ladder with 'big stompy fun stuff' - you fill them out to play something on curve. 'Curvestone' is not a synonym for a midrange deck, it is a synonym for an intelligent deck that actually plays the game... And this will push decks to be faster than an Esper Control Deck - game length is not the problem if there is a problem in this regard at all.
tl;dr the game isn't broken the game was just meant to be played on curve and you just need to adapt your control decks to be more curvy
counter point: hearth stone gives you big benefits for playing of curve, like 3 minions above 7/7 in jade, or justicar tank up for warrior so no they don't want to kill of curve play they just haven't struck a balance they like yet.
Yeah, you're right. People can try to deflect for their shitty aggro decks here and make excuses, but the fact is that aggressive decks are a problem for a large part of the community. It doesn't feel good playing against a freeze mage ignoring your board, hiding behind iceblock and killing you in one turn.
Likewise it doesn't feel good playing against a stupid aggro deck that generally ignores your board and killing you in 4-6 turns. The only difference is that instead of trying to pop mages block, you are trying to survive.
Hearthstone is at it's best when both players are challenged in a multitude of ways. Saving resources, trading blows, and fighting for the board. Hearthstone is at its worst when one player is playing solitaire or a racing game, while the other is stuck trying to actually play Hearthstone.
Also, I want to ask. How is it fair that there is no downside to aggressive/flood based decks? Why is it control and midrange have to tech heavily to fight aggro, but aggro never techs anything? Not since ironbeak owl has an aggro deck ever ran a "tech" card. We make our decks worse for certain matchups but agressive decks don't give a fuck and maintain peak performance. It is bullshit. Aggro needs to exist but it needs a heavy downside. Every aggressive decks should play similar to the murloc variant. Where your minions are weak, your resources run dry fast and a single board clear puts you out of the game. That is how I want to see aggro moving forward.
Your comments are another example in al long row of posts that questions the continuous aggressive low skill meta that has been the hallmark of Hearthstone since beta. I know the feeling.
There are 2 major groups here on this forum. One defending developers time and again. I call them the fans. Developers can do nothing wrong and yes, everything they come up with is fine. The others (they are often put away as whiners and salty) ask questions about the pace of the game and other aggressive low skill design choices. These people crave for a slower creative skillful meta and they are not getting it. The question is why?
Current developers print the cards. So the fans are right. By all means those who have the power are always right. Right?.......Wrong!
Fans are easily picked out. They make long posts defending low skill gaming and fish for thumbs up from the equally face is the place lovers. At length they'll argue that there's nothing wrong with aggro. Right there's indeed nothing wrong, except the sheer dominance of low cost aggressiveness, be it by spells, weapons or simply cancerous low cost minions might be. But hey who cares about that and other balance issues. After all they are just here to defend their beloved developers who give them happy feet and the rush to face in the fastest possible way. Ok you have control, but these are the necessary background for the speedgame to excel.
Sigh....nuance, looking things from different angles and having the desire to improve things, isn't given to everyone. Celebrating the status quo and settle for less is an art of being. Not mine, and certainly not Kripps.
tl;dr for my post at end.
this is the classic case of some one attacking the arguer and not the argument, which just makes there arguments less valid. by attacking the "fans" as he put it instead of making his own argument and points he just lost credibility for his own side, but to avoid falling into the trap of "some one attacking the arguer and not the argument" I will now respond to all of his points and see what he got wrong.
1, there are many groups on the forms but none of them think that the meta doesn't leave something to be desired by puting every one into one of two boxes and saying your box is better you are effectively trying to diss-prove every one else by saying they are lesser when there not
1.5, every on is asking the same question and just coming to different answers, I think that yours is control is the best and should be the most viable I could be wrong tho, mines is that blizz is still learning and the meta is constantly getting more skilled and were just going threw a growth pain
2, this just makes no sense and I feel your just ranting now
3, I haven't seen any un-ironically defend face decks, and no one here is fishing for likes, getting a post liked only tells the person who posted the post they made a good argument
3.5, agro can be a good health archetype for a game, not face please clarify what your talking about it is really confusing
4, I think your saying that we don't get your point that the only meta deck should be control and nothing else, I counter by saying yo don't see are point of view that all decks can and some day will be both viable and skilled.
tl;dr for my post, @hooghout insulted people and was proven wrong.
Just came back to this thread after watching another Kripp video highlighting some games from Blizzcon 2013. I honestly don't understand how people can argue that any meta post Naxx is better than those days.
What messed up this game was broken 1 drops, low cost token generating minions and to a lesser extent, too much RNG. All 3 of these things create early game board states that effectively decide the outcome of the game; which personally I think is unacceptable.
As I said in the original post; you can nerf pirates all you like, but the community will just move on to the next stickiest / op / broken rng card / class. Blizzard fundamentally have to change how they design expansions to avoid these cards, or else we will be still ranting about the meta in another 3 years.
its not about creating an aggro free meta; it's about making it so that mindless board spam and 100% smorc aren't viable strategies.
Just came back to this thread after watching another Kripp video highlighting some games from Blizzcon 2013. I honestly don't understand how people can argue that any meta post Naxx is better than those days.
What messed up this game was broken 1 drops, low cost token generating minions and to a lesser extent, too much RNG. All 3 of these things create early game board states that effectively decide the outcome of the game; which personally I think is unacceptable.
As I said in the original post; you can nerf pirates all you like, but the community will just move on to the next stickiest / op / broken rng card / class. Blizzard fundamentally have to change how they design expansions to avoid these cards, or else we will be still ranting about the meta in another 3 years.
its not about creating an aggro free meta; it's about making it so that mindless board spam and 100% smorc aren't viable strategies.
I personally feel aggro could be the most skilled and funnest deck type to pilot and play verse, and that the next year will bring us ever closer to this dream, also face control is next mark my words (no really write them down).
I know this is a pretty pessimistic view on things, but after 4 years it's been shown that Blizzard can not learn even the most simple lessons about the meta. For every nerf they make there's going to be another stupid broken card in the next expansion... it happens every single time.
Also Kripp made a video recently talking about how short games are the bane of hearthstone, which I'm sure most people agree with. And sure when the next expansion comes out and the nerfs roll out, Shaman and Warrior may not be as strong anymore; but won't that just leave room for Zoo, Ebola paladin and face hunter again?
The problem we have with the meta currently is the fact that some decks can dish out large amounts of damage very quickly, but as far as I can see the incoming nerfs do nothing to counter the age old problem of board spam.
When pirates aren't running everyone over, the vast majority of low skilled players will go back to the strategy they've almost always relied on; which is spamming the board with sticky low cost minions, or token generators and praying for no AOE. This creates exactly the same problem Krip spoke about in his video, which is that the entire game is almost always decided by the RNG of the slower players opening hand.
Sure Shaman and Warrior aren't fun to play against, but are Zoo, Hunter and aggro paladin any better? Either way you're getting run over by turn 6-7 if you don't draw the answers, which in my opinion is just as boring and rage inducing as the current meta.
For the most part, I agree with you. Blizzard has made it fairly clear that for every "fix" they're determined to bring another six issues to the table within a few more weeks or months.
The only thing I'd add is this: The fundamental problem at hand is actually not Blizzard's poor design choices. Those poor design choices simply make it easier for people to do what they apparently can't resist: Find the simplest, most efficient way to secure the endorphin rush they receive from locking down a win. And this is coming from a 10+ year PvP gamer. I've seen it in strategy games, CCGs, first-person shooters, fighting games--everything. HUMANS ARE ADDICTED TO WINNING. And while that may seem like a ridiculously obvious statement, the fact that humans will do ANYTHING to win is the real issue at hand. Playing broken combos, using brain-dead/surefire strategies, straight up blatant cheating--for way too many gamers, the feel of vanquishing an opponent trumps fair play or putting in a little effort or using any imagination. And that's why even if Blizzard had designed the most balanced and fair game to ever hit the market, gamers would rabidly seek out the most broken and unfair setup in that balanced and fair game and they'd spam the living shit out of it. Whether it's simply cultural or some instinctual drive of humans to see themselves one-up all competition in the most disgusting way possible, until that changes, there will ALWAYS be one or two broken decks in the meta. The *degree* of brokenness might be better or worse than now, but humans WILL ALWAYS find a way to better secure their precious rush of win-endorphins.
Zoo differs IMO... It has more controlish aspects than PW or Shamana-Banana
Zoo was initially successful, post-Whispers. The rise of Dragon Warrior kept the deck in check, and the introduction of Maelstrom Portal killed it. Spamming the board doesn't work when the two most popular decks can clear the 1/1 spam for free. The discard mechanic proved too inconsistent, and played counter to the central strength of the deck. I'm not sure how "spam the board" strategies can be expected to work on a post-nerf ladder which will remain dominated by free clears. FWIW - Face Hunter hasn't been a top-tier deck since BRM, and Aggro Paladin has never really been particularly viable. The VS numbers suggest that Mid-Range decks will dominate after the nerf.
If you really don't like playing against 5/9 classes ... it might be time to find another game.
Agreed. Blizzard promotes insane tempo as aggro for low-skill players, but if they slow that down (big if - Blizzard has sped up the Meta with every release) we know there will be a Rogue, Shaman, and Druid Jade armada to contend with so control will run out of answers. They need to add cards that extend the health pool above 30 and basically power creep them into stat-line minions.
well at least Pirate decks will be weaker, small time buccaneer nerfs means they won't get that much damage against 1 damage Hp classes and FInley rotating out means they won't be able to get the hunter Hero power to put even more of a clock on people
/downvote_the_thread
Every deck that doesn't go to turn 10 is aggro BabyRage
The next expansion needs strong comeback mechanic cards like Reno, or basically any high-cost cards that don't force you to waste your turn, then your opponent just ignores your card and goes face. The developers love the idea of Hearthstone being interactive, but the most popular decks don't interact at all except with your face. Here is to hoping that in almost 130 cards, at least a handful make the game playable for long-term games.
Honestly this Team has some massive levels of hipocrisy going. They pontificate about how "problematic" combo decks are OTKing you by turn 15+ "which is just not fun" but refuse to use the same stance for decks that do the same by turn 4. When questioned about it, they ignore the question.
They keep talking about minion-based combat and players interacting but refuse to acknowledge that Pirate ignores all that except for face.
They stated that "we don't want healing neutrals accessible to everyone" but then refuse to print valid comeback tools specific to the classes. Try playing Rogue vs Pirate, try healing some of that damage. Impossible.
Honestly the problem isn't the game, not even the cards, it's the development team. If Kripp is biased against aggro decks, Team5 goes the absolute opposite way.
Sure they "pretend" to have balance changes and fixes to address said problems.... but pay attention, said fixes always come very late near the end of the current life cycle and always very close to the next expansion which invariably adds more broken aggro cards and 1mana minions.
playing wild
~nomad
Yeah, you're right. People can try to deflect for their shitty aggro decks here and make excuses, but the fact is that aggressive decks are a problem for a large part of the community. It doesn't feel good playing against a freeze mage ignoring your board, hiding behind iceblock and killing you in one turn.
Likewise it doesn't feel good playing against a stupid aggro deck that generally ignores your board and killing you in 4-6 turns. The only difference is that instead of trying to pop mages block, you are trying to survive.
Hearthstone is at it's best when both players are challenged in a multitude of ways. Saving resources, trading blows, and fighting for the board. Hearthstone is at its worst when one player is playing solitaire or a racing game, while the other is stuck trying to actually play Hearthstone.
Also, I want to ask. How is it fair that there is no downside to aggressive/flood based decks? Why is it control and midrange have to tech heavily to fight aggro, but aggro never techs anything? Not since ironbeak owl has an aggro deck ever ran a "tech" card. We make our decks worse for certain matchups but agressive decks don't give a fuck and maintain peak performance. It is bullshit. Aggro needs to exist but it needs a heavy downside. Every aggressive decks should play similar to the murloc variant. Where your minions are weak, your resources run dry fast and a single board clear puts you out of the game. That is how I want to see aggro moving forward.
Pushing aggro out while the Jade mechanic is around is dangerous.
playing wild
~nomad
Just came back to this thread after watching another Kripp video highlighting some games from Blizzcon 2013. I honestly don't understand how people can argue that any meta post Naxx is better than those days.
What messed up this game was broken 1 drops, low cost token generating minions and to a lesser extent, too much RNG. All 3 of these things create early game board states that effectively decide the outcome of the game; which personally I think is unacceptable.
As I said in the original post; you can nerf pirates all you like, but the community will just move on to the next stickiest / op / broken rng card / class. Blizzard fundamentally have to change how they design expansions to avoid these cards, or else we will be still ranting about the meta in another 3 years.
its not about creating an aggro free meta; it's about making it so that mindless board spam and 100% smorc aren't viable strategies.
playing wild
~nomad
Well said. People will always find a way to exploit the loopholes to success. That's what makes us incredible creatures.
Golden Heroes: Rogue, Paladin, Mage, Warlock. A two time Legend player.Favorite card: Reno Jackson