But if your argument for the coin to stay a spell is that 2p is at disadvantage (arguable)
I'm sorry but this simply isn't arguable. The statistics have been confirmed by members of the Hearthstone team periodically throughout the history of Hearthstone (e.g. see the tweets referenced on this page) - the player who goes second is at a disadvantage on average, because Hearthstone is a tempo-based game. The player "asking the questions" is usually the player that wins. There are certain archetypes that prefer to go second, but their preference is generally far smaller than the preference other archetypes have for going first.
Your argument is almost spot on. The majority of the decks which cannot abuse the coin (and even some which can!) are unfavoured when going second. A fallacy creeps into your reasoning when you say "this would be a severely flawed way to balance turns by designers". Balancing first-turn advantage is a large problem in turn-based games and is almost never done perfectly. One of the games which has come closest is probably Go, but this took many many years to arrive at, with the analysis of many games. If you stick by your statement, then my challenge to you would be to provide a method which yields a better balance of winrate than the Coin + bonus card, such that your method doesn't leave any deck "systematically unfavoured" i.e. every single deck has to have some amount of indifference to the coin flip on average across all matchups. Two extra cards is almost certainly too strong, and as the current data shows an extra card plus the coin with no spell tag is too weak. So how do you do it?
I have no competence to argue how to balance turns, but definitely 1p-2p balance cannot be used as argument in favour of The Coin as a spell (which is what i was trying to disprove).
Either 1p-2p is balanced: no need for abuse as spell.
Or it is not: abuse as spell does not help and stays unfair.
In both cases abuse as spell is an unfair advantage of some in half their matches, that does not contribute to overall 1p-2p balance.
As far as I read, the coin is pretty well balanced. However, even on high tournament level going first is slightly better. But on lower ranks, the advantage of going first increases.
And just because there are decks that can squeeze some additional benefit out of a spell doesn't make it unfair to keep the coin as a spell. Even if these decks would gain a 50%+ winrate (which I doubt), on average going firstsecond would still be worse than going first. On top of that, you'd need an new card type. There is simply no need at all to change anything.
But if your argument for the coin to stay a spell is that 2p is at disadvantage (arguable)
I'm sorry but this simply isn't arguable. The statistics have been confirmed by members of the Hearthstone team periodically throughout the history of Hearthstone (e.g. see the tweets referenced on this page) - the player who goes second is at a disadvantage on average, because Hearthstone is a tempo-based game. The player "asking the questions" is usually the player that wins. There are certain archetypes that prefer to go second, but their preference is generally far smaller than the preference other archetypes have for going first.
Your argument is almost spot on. The majority of the decks which cannot abuse the coin (and even some which can!) are unfavoured when going second. A fallacy creeps into your reasoning when you say "this would be a severely flawed way to balance turns by designers". Balancing first-turn advantage is a large problem in turn-based games and is almost never done perfectly. One of the games which has come closest is probably Go, but this took many many years to arrive at, with the analysis of many games. If you stick by your statement, then my challenge to you would be to provide a method which yields a better balance of winrate than the Coin + bonus card, such that your method doesn't leave any deck "systematically unfavoured" i.e. every single deck has to have some amount of indifference to the coin flip on average across all matchups. Two extra cards is almost certainly too strong, and as the current data shows an extra card plus the coin with no spell tag is too weak. So how do you do it?
I have no competence to argue how to balance turns, but definitely 1p-2p balance cannot be used as argument in favour of The Coin as a spell (which is what i was trying to disprove).
Either 1p-2p is balanced: no need for abuse as spell.
Or it is not: abuse as spell does not help and stays unfair.
In both cases abuse as spell is an unfair advantage of some in half their matches, that does not contribute to overall 1p-2p balance.
As far as I read, the coin is pretty well balanced. However, even on high tournament level going first is slightly better. But on lower ranks, the advantage of going first increases.
And just because there are decks that can squeeze some additional benefit out of a spell doesn't make it unfair to keep the coin as a spell. Even if these decks would gain a 50%+ winrate (which I doubt), on average going first would still be worse than going first. On top of that, you'd need an new card type. There is simply no need at all to change anything.
In my opinion, the coin shouldn t trigger the mage quest or secrets like counterspell. It should t count as a spell cause it s also a card draw with gadgedtsan auctioneer. It could become a button, for example, to press when u want to use the extra mana crystal. Or its card text should include (it doesn t count as a spell)
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"The flow of time is always cruel... its speed seems different for each person, but no one can change it... A thing that does not change with time is a memory of younger days..."
Comparin coined Miracled to coinless Miracle wr is, not an argument towards coin as spell. It is an argument towards how balanced 1p-2p is.
And that the effort to change things is not worth it, because it is not a major issue, is, again, not an argument towards fairyness.
I do agree that the issue is nothing major. And i may agree it is technically not worth it (i aknowledge this is the best and possibly only good argument).
But saying everything is optimal and fair just 'because big number stats' is short-sighted. Context matters.
Not sure the OP's concern is an "advantage," it's just bad, dumb design. For example, I play a decent amount of Exodia Paladin for fun, and that deck has like double the win rate when I go second because you need at least one coin to activate Auctionmaster Beardo. If you go first the combo is infinitely harder because you have to draw and play a Burgly Bully and hope your opponent is forced (or ignorant enough) to play a spell.
Point is, Blizzard designed an entire deck archetype that is literally dependent on a coin flip, and that's just stupid.
Going second is a disadvantage. Making the coin not count as a spell makes going second a bigger disadvantage. Therefore, it's a terrible idea and would mess up game balance further. Not sure why we're even discussing this.
Comparin coined Miracled to coinless Miracle wr is, not an argument towards coin as spell. It is an argument towards how balanced 1p-2p is.
And that the effort to change things is not worth it, because it is not a major issue, is, again, not an argument towards fairyness.
I do agree that the issue is nothing major. And i may agree it is technically not worth it (i aknowledge this is the best and possibly only good argument).
But saying everything is optimal and fair just 'because big number stats' is short-sighted. Context matters.
And the context is that despite having a spell that is called The Coin that is given to the one that goes second on top of a card, going second is still worse than going first. Why should you further cripple the second?
And why on earth should some anecdotal issues someone had with quest mage count more than "big number stats". That seems much more short sighted. Concerning fairness, there is simply no argument for changing the coin.
In constructed the disadvantage of having the coin is offset by certain decks that can take advantage of the extra free spell. Generally though, going second is bad and in arena the disadvantage is huge.
Since getting The Coin is random, decks that are constructed to benefit from it being a spell will find themselves at a disadvantage when going first and so things even out. If you are going to cry foul when someone capitalizes on the coin, are you also going to express remorse when they don't have it and you benefit? Not likely.
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Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
Man I had an amazing hand as murloc paladin but I went second and the warlock had his one drops into the defiles and hellfire. if i went first I could have won by turn 5 most likely
Why there should be seconds considerably less crippled than others?
Anyway, i am either not explaining myself, or you are deaf to my points.
Nevermind.
You're explaining yourself perfectly well, but you seem to want an unachievable goal. Even if the second player was given no compensation at all, some decks will be considerably better off going second than others are (for example, aggressive decks would have a nightmare going second because they need to be asking the "questions", whereas to control decks it won't matter quite as much because they want to answer the "questions" asked by the opponent). No matter what type of compensation you give, if it is to be given to all players going second regardless of their deck choice, it will always be more beneficial to some decks than to others. Depending on the properties you give the compensation, the decks that benefit most from it may change, but it's just the nature of the game and the many varied archetypes that no such mechanic can affect every deck equally.
Rogue really don't suffer going second because the coin helps a lot your combo cards, any other class always better start the game.
This is also true for aggro/tempo mage decks, especially if they draw mana wyrm or some broken combo with apprentice, like turn 2 apprentice coin frostbolt or glyph(which will give you double discount on the spell if the apprentice lives.
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firstsecond would still be worse than going first. On top of that, you'd need an new card type. There is simply no need at all to change anything.In my opinion, the coin shouldn t trigger the mage quest or secrets like counterspell. It should t count as a spell cause it s also a card draw with gadgedtsan auctioneer. It could become a button, for example, to press when u want to use the extra mana crystal. Or its card text should include (it doesn t count as a spell)
"The flow of time is always cruel... its speed seems different for each person, but no one can change it... A thing that does not change with time is a memory of younger days..."
Comparin coined Miracled to coinless Miracle wr is, not an argument towards coin as spell. It is an argument towards how balanced 1p-2p is.
And that the effort to change things is not worth it, because it is not a major issue, is, again, not an argument towards fairyness.
I do agree that the issue is nothing major. And i may agree it is technically not worth it (i aknowledge this is the best and possibly only good argument).
But saying everything is optimal and fair just 'because big number stats' is short-sighted. Context matters.
Not sure the OP's concern is an "advantage," it's just bad, dumb design. For example, I play a decent amount of Exodia Paladin for fun, and that deck has like double the win rate when I go second because you need at least one coin to activate Auctionmaster Beardo. If you go first the combo is infinitely harder because you have to draw and play a Burgly Bully and hope your opponent is forced (or ignorant enough) to play a spell.
Point is, Blizzard designed an entire deck archetype that is literally dependent on a coin flip, and that's just stupid.
Going second is a disadvantage. Making the coin not count as a spell makes going second a bigger disadvantage. Therefore, it's a terrible idea and would mess up game balance further. Not sure why we're even discussing this.
Why there should be seconds considerably less crippled than others?
Anyway, i am either not explaining myself, or you are deaf to my points.
Nevermind.
In constructed the disadvantage of having the coin is offset by certain decks that can take advantage of the extra free spell. Generally though, going second is bad and in arena the disadvantage is huge.
Since getting The Coin is random, decks that are constructed to benefit from it being a spell will find themselves at a disadvantage when going first and so things even out. If you are going to cry foul when someone capitalizes on the coin, are you also going to express remorse when they don't have it and you benefit? Not likely.
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
Instead of helping the players that go 2nd the OP wants to hurt them even more. It's like trying to trip a cripple.
Top deck is cheat
Man I had an amazing hand as murloc paladin but I went second and the warlock had his one drops into the defiles and hellfire. if i went first I could have won by turn 5 most likely
So in other words we're nerfing the coin in order to nerf Quest Mage, am I correct? Hardly worth the change imo.
Going first is almost always better, if anything, the Coin needs a buff to even it out.
Rogue really don't suffer going second because the coin helps a lot your combo cards, any other class always better start the game.