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There is plenty to respond to here, so I'll start with the question that I am most curious about:
What is the deck (or decks) that you wish you could be playing, but you are not able to because of Jade Druid? I'm sincerely interested to know.
This question is specifically directed at @Grimlokus and @Criptfeind, but I'd be curious to hear from anyone else who cares to respond. For @BestHearthstoneGamer (the person who started this thread), it appears to be Pirate Warrior.
Sorry, this space reserved for an accidental double post :)
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
Where we may disagree is how and when to respond to perceived imbalances. My preferred approach is a combination of patience, following innovative players, and trying to innovate myself when i can. I believe that the meta becomes balanced over time as a result of 70 million players trying to counter each other.
Another approach is to blame the developers and call on them to urgently nerf one card or another. In my observation, this either: (A) does very little (ie: Small-time Buccaneer and Pirate Warrior) or, (B) only creates new imbalances that then must be settled over time until the next expansion (Crystal Core and the re-emergence of Jade Druid).
As powerful as Blizzard may seem, the meta is ultimately shaped by Hearthstone’s 70 million players much more than the developers - and this often happens in unpredictable ways.
Since I’ve not been playing long enough to really know what I’m talking about, and you admitted that it may be too early to tell - there probably isn’t anything more to say at this point, and we should wait and see what happens in the weeks and months to come.
But because I am really bored and clearly have no life, I took the time to look back at the Vicious Syndicate reports from the final days of Karkazhan until now, and I learned much.
Here are some highlights, and if anyone is still reading this blather: I thank you! (Note: the #’s refer to Vicious Syndicate Data Reaper reports, which I assume are a trusted source).
The number of Tier 1 and Tier 2 archetypes decreased during the course of Un’goro, more so than during the transition to Frozen Throne: At the start of Un’goro there were indeed 12 decks in the top two tiers (ie: with win rates higher than 50%). This reflected a nice, healthy balance at the top levels. I was surprised to see that this number actually decreased to 7 by the end of that period. Since the introduction of KFT, it has further been reduced to 6.
Winrate differential at the start of the last two expansions was actually higher than it is now: If you calculate the difference between the highest and lowest win rates at the start of both MSoG (17.9) and Un’goro (18.8), the spread was actually slightly more narrow than it was at the start of KFT (17.09).
As expected, the gap between the best and least performing decks in Tiers 1-4 decreased significantly between the beginning and the end of each expansion. In both cases, the imbalance that could be observed at the beginning of the meta was reduced towards the end. I seen no reason to not expect this trend will continue for KFT.*
Jade Druid is NOT responsible for the success of Pirate Warrior and Murloc Paladin. Vicious Syndicate issued 15 data reaper reports during the Un’goro Meta. Pirate Warrior was listed as Tier 1 in all but one of these. Murloc and/or Midrange Paladin were rated Tier 1 in EVERY single report during this period. Jade Druid does not appear even as Tier 2 in any of these reports.
*(PS - I recognize that these numbers do not tell the whole story of meta diversity, but they do serve as an indication and I’m trying to keep things relatively simple. You’ll just have to trust me that they are a reflection of the variety at large, and/or look at the reports yourself.)
https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/tag/data-reaper-report/?utm_source=main-nav&utm_medium=linkeh. I dont enjoy playing against druid, but I win most of the time. I play n'zoth warrior (with hemet) and if I draw hemet on curve I can easily stabilize and start pounding them with tempo from scourgelord garrosh, big direhorns and TLK. I actually perfer UI in druid than auctioneer; in ungoro I would be crushed by druid because they would play auctioneer and go from 4/4 jade to 10/10 in one turn. I dont run brawl (for more tempo cards and ooze) so that was always game over for me. That being said, I think that druid IS too strong right now.
I was much more happy loosing to quest rogue T5/6 than jade druid T11/12. When blizzard nerfed quest they should have also changed jade idol.
To sum it up, although my winrate is fine VS jade druid, I dislike how it has polarized the meta and pushed out all other control decks. This adversely effects the midrange decks I play, and means that other fun decks that I would like to play more (such as DK warlock) are not viable.
@booganzoth
I agree with a lot of what you said, but I also wanted to add that I think this will often be the case with the 2nd expansion of each cycle. To elaborate, I don't expect the 2nd expansions of each cycle to be as impactful as the 1st and 3rd ones. Typically the 1st expansion will be introduced at times when the power level of the decks drops the most overall and so its much more likely for new archetypes to find a place in the meta and be competitive. If the 2nd expansion is designed to be on a similar power level than I think its less likely to impact the meta as much, because a good chunk of already competitively viable archetypes are in the mix and if any cards in the 2nd expansion of a cycle aid those decks they will only become stronger (due to both the decks already having been strong and also because people are more experienced in piloting pre-existing decks) and let's not forget that its much cheaper to upgrade a list than to craft an entirely new one. On the 3rd expansion I think they choose to take more risks introducing some very powerful cards, since those will anyway remain in rotation for the smallest period of time (~ 16 months) as we saw with MSG, which means that 3rd expansions of a cycle are more likely to have an impact on the state of the game than the 2nd.
@Grimlokus: I enjoyed reading about your favorite decks - I always get a kick out of learning what people are having fun with, so thanks for answering that part of my query.
Most of the rest of your comments I covered in my response to Criptfied, which you may or may not be interested in reading (above).
But I did want to respond directly to your point about Pirate Warrior, Murloc Paladin and Aggro Druid.
You wrote "Have you considered these decks have such a high win rate BECAUSE Jade Druid is widespread rather than DESPITE it? " and "You're not thinking about WHY they're doing better." On the contrary, I am indeed very much thinking about the overall context, and I do understand the point you are trying to make - I just don't agree.
Pirate Warrior, Murloc Paladin and Aggro Druid are not "doing better" because of of Jade Druid - they have been consistently leading for months now. Yes the diversity of archetypes has decreased for the moment, but these three have collectively made up at least a full quarter if not more of the top T1-T2 decks throughout Un'goro - even as others have rotated in and out.
Since you cited TempoStorm, I also took a look at each of their six different reports issued during the Un’goro meta.
Pirate Warrior and Aggro Druid are rated as Tier 1 decks in every single one of the reports during this period from April through August. Midrange and/or Murloc Pally rank as top tier in all but 1. All of this was - by your own admission - well before the recent re-emergence of Jade Druid.
So please explain to me how Jade Druid is to blame for the persistent predominance of Pirate Warrior, Aggro Druid and Murloc Paladin? They have not been less than top tier throughout the entire Un'goro meta regardless of what Jade Druid was doing.
There is no question that there is less diversity at the moment than there was during the hey day of Un'goro, and this is unfortunate. But to claim that Jade Druid is solely responsible for this is a stretch.
I think a lot more of it has to do with the start of a new meta, and people at first latching on to whatever is working best with the least amount of effort. We've seen this before.
My prediction is that - as innovative players find new ways to win - much of that diversity will return before too long, without intervention from the developers. Only time will tell.
tl;dr - Clearly I have too much time on my hands, and I need to get a life.
I do agree with this, I think it's too early to nerf stuff. I just wanted to somewhat challenge some of the ideas (that I perceived) being put forth that just because things worked out in the past that they are guaranteed to in the future and that the current situation isn't worrying. But I just wanted to put out at the start of this post I think I agree with you overall in what needs to be done, I just have a pessimistic view of the future instead of an optimistic one. So, that out of the way, I hope you don't mind if I challenge a few more of your statements, for the sake of conversation if nothing else.
I think this is a little bit misleading when trying to get across the idea of how diverse things are in comparison between Un'goro and now. Exspecally when you muddy the waters by throwing in the bottom T4 decks into the mix (which are almost irrelevant for this comparison) VS hard break points on tier lists are set up for the metas that they started their reports in, and aren't super accurate ways to compare across broad swaths of metas. Especially healthy metas like un'goro (or unhealthy metas like I belive that kotft is currently in) don't work perfectly within the lines, something they themselves note in one of the un'goro reports.
What I specifically want to point out to you is the difference between the top deck/decks and the runner up ones. Even at the end of Un'goro the top deck was within four or five percentage points of ten other decks. Whereas now the top deck is that far away from three decks. That's a huge difference. And the important one. Directly saying "well, both t2 and t1 are populated" ignores that now the T1 decks are as far away from t2 decks as the t1 decks in un'goro were from the mid t3 decks. The same spread that the big 4 have in this meta encompassed more then double their number in the previous meta, that's the true narrowing of diversity. And that lack of diversity in the win rates holds out, except for priest, which is the only class not in the big 4 with a positive win rate, all the other classes drop in play rate as druid skyrockets.
I think this is arguable. They are clearly quite powerful decks on their own. But they've not become more powerful with the release of kotft. Their win rate has skyrocketed though. Once again it's a bit of an issue with comparing tier listings directly with each other without paying attention to win rate. Pirate warrior has gained enough win rate that it would have climbed two tiers if it wasn't already tier one. If you look at the match up spread it's easy to see, these are the three decks that have a good win rate against jade druid, which is the most popular deck in the game currently. Certainly they are strong on their own, but it's jade druid taking over the meta that's allowed them to flourish this much. In the idea situation they'd become a big enough force in the meta to force jade druid out in favor of more anti aggro decks. But the question there is going to be if there's actually other decks that are so much better then jade druid at being anti aggro and still have a good match up against other decks that they are worth running over just running jade druid, which isn't awful against these decks anyway.
Jade druid isn't supposed to be a tempo deck
Easy change
All jade cards now summon the new Jade Golem
Jade Golem
1 Mana 1/1
Deathrattle : The for the rest of the game, your Jade Golems will have +1/+1
Removes insane temp swings from Jades 3-6 when you spam multiple out in the same turn
Druid got way too many op cards in frozen throne
I'm not usually one to complain but this time gotta say Druid is killing my fun. Not playing much anymore.
90% of my games are now Murloc Paladin, Jade Druid, or Pirate Warrior.
It's demoralizing and boring.
I refuse to play one of these decks. Whenever I beat one, I hope an angel gets its wings.
Mr tough guy? Then you are in for a big surprise in the real work my friend lol
Mr tough guy? Then you are in for a big surprise in the real world my friend lol