This is a problem I think that doesn't have a clear solution, but Cubelock is stopping deck innovation. Between the Skull and the Lackeys it has some very effective ways to cheat out a large taunt wall. Much of the time it can pull the Voidlord, cube, and sack the cube on turn 6.
I have no problem with powerful decks. It's not even 100% the best deck out there right now, but it is extremely prominent on almost any game mode. The problem is it just chokes out everything except the quickest aggro deck (Paladin being the only one that can outpace it). Tempo and midrange are just dead.
Anyone else feeling like this deck is really holding back a lot of others from being good?
as of right now, i think the issue is that the meta has been "solved". cubelock isn't strangling deck innovation any more than aggro paladin or dragon priest are.
Thats a good observation, still there are decks that can overcome that, like Big Spell mage, but there are other classes that simply cant compete with the value and tempo of cubelock/ controll lock, like warrior or shaman.
There are three ways beeing used to cheat mana, warlock weapon/ kabal lackey, spitfull summoner and resurrect effects, and they kind of hurt a bit on other controll decks.
But spitfull decks, ressurect priest and big spell mage can beat warlock (cube or controll verson).
And still, some aggro decks like dudeadin, murloc pala and aggro druid can beat him too.
The problem isn't the carnivorous cube, it is dark pact.
It's only one Mana, it kills the cube, AND gives you back 8 health. If this card didn't exist, the cube would be a huge loss of tempo, could be silenced or traded into at your opponents discretion, etc. The same card also makes the lackeys much more powerful.
The cards right now that we're poorly thought out are dark pact and the warlock spellstone. Part of warlock is taking damage, and having to manage your health. If you can gain a quarter of your health from doing something you would be doing anyway, that's bad. Everyone used to run damage cards, now they just run the spellstone.
On the flip side the only other class that can cube and kill in one turn for one extra Mana is druid, and naturalize will not only not heal you, it gives your opponent two cards. And also, druid does not have as obnoxious of minions as warlock.
The cube is a cool card, and cubelocking is a cool deck. It's the absurd levels of incidental healing warlock has that make it a pain.
Personally, I think Warlock and Priest are the big dogs of the meta right now; I hate playing against both of them for different reasons. I do agree that Cubelock and other similar Warlock variants are warping the meta, but there are currently checks and balances that reduce its impact. The new expansion is going to give lock players some great tools based on what we've seen so far, and I think if no other class is given some very broken cards, Warlock has the ability to become downright oppressive in the proper environment.
Overall, as much as I dislike Warlock, I think there's enough ingenuity in the community and potential in the standard cards to brew something that can finally send it packing. We'll have to watch for what the new set brings and see how the chips fall.
I don't think it suffocates the meta, it sets the bar for power level in Standard. If you're not doing something faster or more powerful or that can reliably answer every threat then what you're doing isn't good enough for constructed. Cubelock's core cards were pretty much delivered as a package from Team 5, they knew it would be strong, same as they knew CtA and Spiteful Summoner would be strong. I like that my epics and legendaries are strong and can be played in Standard and Wild and would rather spend my dust on overpowered cards than fair cards.
Probably there are countless threads about this topic, but anyway.
The problem is that it essentially is a control deck without really suffering the disadvantages of a traditional control deck, having so much heal and a way to cheat out huge taunts super early. Traditionally, hearthstone was kinda like rock-paper-scissors (control-midrange-aggro), but this has changed around the time they introduced playable heroes. At this time the game was opened up for incredibly strong combos that literally destryoed any deck that was a traditional build without any broken combos, or super aggressive that it didn't care. While I'm at it, at this time you could play pretty much every deck, since usually no epic / legendary card really -- and I mean, REALLY - was absolutely required. You could just substitute something in and the deck still played the same way, just a little weaker. The only few exceptions I can think of were Freeze Mage and Handlock. This changed with cards like Reno (at least he was from an adventure) and N'Zoth, and peaked at the introduction of playable heroes.
Guess which archetype disappeared. Indeed, midrange. A playstyle focused on building a solid board with solid tempo always lost to hyperaggressive decks, but used to outpace control decks with value cards that were expensive to neutralize. This brings us to why Cubelock is broken. It has tons of removals, with Defile being broken on its own, easily controlling the board against aggressive decks until they can Dark Pact their Lackey to summon a freakin Voidlord. Ez.
Well fine, as a control deck it is supposed to win against aggro, I get it. Midrange is pretty much non-existent due to control combos competing in another league.
Now Cubelock vs control, and here is the issue. There is basically no way a Cubelock loses a control war against any other deck. Cube, N'Zoth and most importantly Bloodreaver Gul'dan provide sooooo much more value than any other deck. And even if that wasn't enough, Cubed Doomguards can work as a OTK if the opponent isn't quite at full health anymore.
Long story short: Cubelock basically has no weakness, and that sucks. Only competitors are classes with similar broken combos, such as spiteful priest. If you play a different type of deck that does not aim to rush them down, playing against such combos just feels unfair and there is nothing you could do to catch up again
I don't think it suffocates the meta, it sets the bar for power level in Standard. If you're not doing something faster or more powerful or that can reliably answer every threat then what you're doing isn't good enough for constructed. Cubelock's core cards were pretty much delivered as a package from Team 5, they knew it would be strong, same as they knew CtA and Spiteful Summoner would be strong. I like that my epics and legendaries are strong and can be played in Standard and Wild and would rather spend my dust on overpowered cards than fair cards.
Lol, what a dumbass. “I want overpowered cards, fair cards are stupid!” This is the mindset of the player base unfortunately
The problem isn't the carnivorous cube, it is dark pact.
It's only one Mana, it kills the cube, AND gives you back 8 health. If this card didn't exist, the cube would be a huge loss of tempo, could be silenced or traded into at your opponents discretion, etc. The same card also makes the lackeys much more powerful.
The cards right now that we're poorly thought out are dark pact and the warlock spellstone. Part of warlock is taking damage, and having to manage your health. If you can gain a quarter of your health from doing something you would be doing anyway, that's bad. Everyone used to run damage cards, now they just run the spellstone.
On the flip side the only other class that can cube and kill in one turn for one extra Mana is druid, and naturalize will not only not heal you, it gives your opponent two cards. And also, druid does not have as obnoxious of minions as warlock.
The cube is a cool card, and cubelocking is a cool deck. It's the absurd levels of incidental healing warlock has that make it a pain.
They have a 1 mana 1/1 minion which kills a friendly minion and becomes a 3/3, if there was no dark pact people would just use that
Cube itself should produce cube copies of the minion not the creature type. That's the best solve I've seen. Then again Guldan is still going to be a big part of the problem.
Probably there are countless threads about this topic, but anyway.
The problem is that it essentially is a control deck without really suffering the disadvantages of a traditional control deck, having so much heal and a way to cheat out huge taunts super early. Traditionally, hearthstone was kinda like rock-paper-scissors (control-midrange-aggro), but this has changed around the time they introduced playable heroes. At this time the game was opened up for incredibly strong combos that literally destryoed any deck that was a traditional build without any broken combos, or super aggressive that it didn't care. While I'm at it, at this time you could play pretty much every deck, since usually no epic / legendary card really -- and I mean, REALLY - was absolutely required. You could just substitute something in and the deck still played the same way, just a little weaker. The only few exceptions I can think of were Freeze Mage and Handlock. This changed with cards like Reno (at least he was from an adventure) and N'Zoth, and peaked at the introduction of playable heroes.
Guess which archetype disappeared. Indeed, midrange. A playstyle focused on building a solid board with solid tempo always lost to hyperaggressive decks, but used to outpace control decks with value cards that were expensive to neutralize. This brings us to why Cubelock is broken. It has tons of removals, with Defile being broken on its own, easily controlling the board against aggressive decks until they can Dark Pact their Lackey to summon a freakin Voidlord. Ez.
Well fine, as a control deck it is supposed to win against aggro, I get it. Midrange is pretty much non-existent due to control combos competing in another league.
Now Cubelock vs control, and here is the issue. There is basically no way a Cubelock loses a control war against any other deck. Cube, N'Zoth and most importantly Bloodreaver Gul'dan provide sooooo much more value than any other deck. And even if that wasn't enough, Cubed Doomguards can work as a OTK if the opponent isn't quite at full health anymore.
Long story short: Cubelock basically has no weakness, and that sucks. Only competitors are classes with similar broken combos, such as spiteful priest. If you play a different type of deck that does not aim to rush them down, playing against such combos just feels unfair and there is nothing you could do to catch up again
TLDR: Yes.
Cubelock has weaknesses. It's not great against control lock in my experience, and you're definitely not favored against any kind of priest.
Not even cubelock but control warlock does, thats why we only see paladin/priest/warlock meta. People who say it's fine are playing the classes I mentioned and living in their own world.
it sets the bar for power level in Standard. If you're not doing something faster or more powerful or that can reliably answer every threat then what you're doing isn't good enough for constructed.
That is the exact definition of a suffocating deck. Back before the nerf, Quest Rogue was exactly the same way. You were either built to either rush it down before it did anything or answer its board repeatedly, or you could not play constructed. You would just lose no matter what you did. No outplays possible, no lucky shenanigans, the game is just over. Quest Rogue, by the way, was worse that Cubelock currently is and it still got nerfed because playing against it was absolutely miserable. To Aeris, I would contend that it just plain is not a control deck. A control deck in the traditional sense aims to grind its opponent out with value. Removal and board clears in this case are both a means of stalling to the deck's big turns, and another avenue for grinding out a favorable board. However, stalling tools alone do not make a deck a control deck, just as people would not call Quest Rogue or Freeze Mage control decks.
When you actually look at the way Cubelock plays, it actually has the most similarities to Quest Rogue. Get a certain combo of cards in your hand (Lackey+Dark Pact, maybe the Cube if you're feeling feisty), and then win by cheating out some garbage that only the most dedicated of counter decks can deal with. Basically, if you fail to kill the Cubelock fast enough, or otherwise run something like 6 polymorphs somehow, you just are not going to win. Sound familiar? Frankly, the sooner Blizzard sends Cubelock into the effing dirt, the better.
In wild, I find that paladin is suffocating it even more. I've had to alter a huge portion of my deck to make it so that I can get anywhere on ladder. Cubelock can be handled by just playing more of a value game in my experience depending on the deck.
Cubelock has weaknesses. It's not great against control lock in my experience, and you're definitely not favored against any kind of priest.
Priest can be cheap (thinking spiteful variety) and their thieving shenanigans really can throw lock for a loop. However I don't think they are a meta problem. Frankly I think the only reason priest is so high tier right now is because it's one of the few decks that hang with Cubes. Right now the top decks are as follows: 1. Cubelock 2. Paladins that can outrush cubelock. 3. Priests that can use stealing and silences to beat cubelock.
It's just my opinion that if every top tier deck is either one particular deck or the counters to said deck it's not good for fun and innovation. I would love to see more shift in the meta month to month based on trends instead of stagnating in the way it's been doing.
It wasn't true at first because a lot of people were extremely bad at running the deck.
But now that more people are able to pilot it reasonably well, it's a problem. And I have to agree that Dark Pact is the main culprit.
Sadly, I also know exactly how Team 5 is going to deal with it. Right now, they are thinking, "Sure, it's absolutely dominating the meta, but let's just wait and see how it does without N'Zoth."
Then, after Raven Year's Day, when the deck has traded N'Zoth for Lord Godfrey and is as obnoxious as ever, they'll say, "Sure, it's still dominating, but let's wait a few weeks until the meta settles before we decide what to do."
Then, two months later (i.e., halfway through the life span of the Witchwood expansion), they'll increase the mana cost of Dark Pact from 1 to 2, and we'll have to live with that version of the deck until all the horrible things finally go away in 2019.
This is a problem I think that doesn't have a clear solution, but Cubelock is stopping deck innovation. Between the Skull and the Lackeys it has some very effective ways to cheat out a large taunt wall. Much of the time it can pull the Voidlord, cube, and sack the cube on turn 6.
I have no problem with powerful decks. It's not even 100% the best deck out there right now, but it is extremely prominent on almost any game mode. The problem is it just chokes out everything except the quickest aggro deck (Paladin being the only one that can outpace it). Tempo and midrange are just dead.
Anyone else feeling like this deck is really holding back a lot of others from being good?
as of right now, i think the issue is that the meta has been "solved". cubelock isn't strangling deck innovation any more than aggro paladin or dragon priest are.
Thats a good observation, still there are decks that can overcome that, like Big Spell mage, but there are other classes that simply cant compete with the value and tempo of cubelock/ controll lock, like warrior or shaman.
There are three ways beeing used to cheat mana, warlock weapon/ kabal lackey, spitfull summoner and resurrect effects, and they kind of hurt a bit on other controll decks.
But spitfull decks, ressurect priest and big spell mage can beat warlock (cube or controll verson).
And still, some aggro decks like dudeadin, murloc pala and aggro druid can beat him too.
Stuff's here.
The problem isn't the carnivorous cube, it is dark pact.
It's only one Mana, it kills the cube, AND gives you back 8 health. If this card didn't exist, the cube would be a huge loss of tempo, could be silenced or traded into at your opponents discretion, etc. The same card also makes the lackeys much more powerful.
The cards right now that we're poorly thought out are dark pact and the warlock spellstone. Part of warlock is taking damage, and having to manage your health. If you can gain a quarter of your health from doing something you would be doing anyway, that's bad. Everyone used to run damage cards, now they just run the spellstone.
On the flip side the only other class that can cube and kill in one turn for one extra Mana is druid, and naturalize will not only not heal you, it gives your opponent two cards. And also, druid does not have as obnoxious of minions as warlock.
The cube is a cool card, and cubelocking is a cool deck. It's the absurd levels of incidental healing warlock has that make it a pain.
Personally, I think Warlock and Priest are the big dogs of the meta right now; I hate playing against both of them for different reasons. I do agree that Cubelock and other similar Warlock variants are warping the meta, but there are currently checks and balances that reduce its impact. The new expansion is going to give lock players some great tools based on what we've seen so far, and I think if no other class is given some very broken cards, Warlock has the ability to become downright oppressive in the proper environment.
Overall, as much as I dislike Warlock, I think there's enough ingenuity in the community and potential in the standard cards to brew something that can finally send it packing. We'll have to watch for what the new set brings and see how the chips fall.
I don't think it suffocates the meta, it sets the bar for power level in Standard. If you're not doing something faster or more powerful or that can reliably answer every threat then what you're doing isn't good enough for constructed. Cubelock's core cards were pretty much delivered as a package from Team 5, they knew it would be strong, same as they knew CtA and Spiteful Summoner would be strong. I like that my epics and legendaries are strong and can be played in Standard and Wild and would rather spend my dust on overpowered cards than fair cards.
Probably there are countless threads about this topic, but anyway.
The problem is that it essentially is a control deck without really suffering the disadvantages of a traditional control deck, having so much heal and a way to cheat out huge taunts super early. Traditionally, hearthstone was kinda like rock-paper-scissors (control-midrange-aggro), but this has changed around the time they introduced playable heroes. At this time the game was opened up for incredibly strong combos that literally destryoed any deck that was a traditional build without any broken combos, or super aggressive that it didn't care. While I'm at it, at this time you could play pretty much every deck, since usually no epic / legendary card really -- and I mean, REALLY - was absolutely required. You could just substitute something in and the deck still played the same way, just a little weaker. The only few exceptions I can think of were Freeze Mage and Handlock. This changed with cards like Reno (at least he was from an adventure) and N'Zoth, and peaked at the introduction of playable heroes.
Guess which archetype disappeared. Indeed, midrange. A playstyle focused on building a solid board with solid tempo always lost to hyperaggressive decks, but used to outpace control decks with value cards that were expensive to neutralize. This brings us to why Cubelock is broken. It has tons of removals, with Defile being broken on its own, easily controlling the board against aggressive decks until they can Dark Pact their Lackey to summon a freakin Voidlord. Ez.
Well fine, as a control deck it is supposed to win against aggro, I get it. Midrange is pretty much non-existent due to control combos competing in another league.
Now Cubelock vs control, and here is the issue. There is basically no way a Cubelock loses a control war against any other deck. Cube, N'Zoth and most importantly Bloodreaver Gul'dan provide sooooo much more value than any other deck. And even if that wasn't enough, Cubed Doomguards can work as a OTK if the opponent isn't quite at full health anymore.
Long story short: Cubelock basically has no weakness, and that sucks. Only competitors are classes with similar broken combos, such as spiteful priest. If you play a different type of deck that does not aim to rush them down, playing against such combos just feels unfair and there is nothing you could do to catch up again
TLDR: Yes.
Arena Leaderboard EU - September 2018: #47 (@7.77 Wins Average)
I don't think Cubelock is OP... it's just really, really boring to play against.
Cube itself should produce cube copies of the minion not the creature type. That's the best solve I've seen. Then again Guldan is still going to be a big part of the problem.
Not even cubelock but control warlock does, thats why we only see paladin/priest/warlock meta. People who say it's fine are playing the classes I mentioned and living in their own world.
That is the exact definition of a suffocating deck. Back before the nerf, Quest Rogue was exactly the same way. You were either built to either rush it down before it did anything or answer its board repeatedly, or you could not play constructed. You would just lose no matter what you did. No outplays possible, no lucky shenanigans, the game is just over. Quest Rogue, by the way, was worse that Cubelock currently is and it still got nerfed because playing against it was absolutely miserable. To Aeris, I would contend that it just plain is not a control deck. A control deck in the traditional sense aims to grind its opponent out with value. Removal and board clears in this case are both a means of stalling to the deck's big turns, and another avenue for grinding out a favorable board. However, stalling tools alone do not make a deck a control deck, just as people would not call Quest Rogue or Freeze Mage control decks.
When you actually look at the way Cubelock plays, it actually has the most similarities to Quest Rogue. Get a certain combo of cards in your hand (Lackey+Dark Pact, maybe the Cube if you're feeling feisty), and then win by cheating out some garbage that only the most dedicated of counter decks can deal with. Basically, if you fail to kill the Cubelock fast enough, or otherwise run something like 6 polymorphs somehow, you just are not going to win. Sound familiar? Frankly, the sooner Blizzard sends Cubelock into the effing dirt, the better.
In wild, I find that paladin is suffocating it even more. I've had to alter a huge portion of my deck to make it so that I can get anywhere on ladder. Cubelock can be handled by just playing more of a value game in my experience depending on the deck.
No, that's not the exact definition of a suffocating deck. I stopped paying attention after I read that.
I have to say yes - for BOTH formats.
When theorycrafting Witchwood decks, the first question I ask is "can it beat Cubelock?". If no, delete deck.
1. Cubelock
2. Paladins that can outrush cubelock.
3. Priests that can use stealing and silences to beat cubelock.
It's just my opinion that if every top tier deck is either one particular deck or the counters to said deck it's not good for fun and innovation. I would love to see more shift in the meta month to month based on trends instead of stagnating in the way it's been doing.
It wasn't true at first because a lot of people were extremely bad at running the deck.
But now that more people are able to pilot it reasonably well, it's a problem. And I have to agree that Dark Pact is the main culprit.
Sadly, I also know exactly how Team 5 is going to deal with it. Right now, they are thinking, "Sure, it's absolutely dominating the meta, but let's just wait and see how it does without N'Zoth."
Then, after Raven Year's Day, when the deck has traded N'Zoth for Lord Godfrey and is as obnoxious as ever, they'll say, "Sure, it's still dominating, but let's wait a few weeks until the meta settles before we decide what to do."
Then, two months later (i.e., halfway through the life span of the Witchwood expansion), they'll increase the mana cost of Dark Pact from 1 to 2, and we'll have to live with that version of the deck until all the horrible things finally go away in 2019.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Yes, cubelock is stifling the meta.
However, it currently does not need a nerf (due to several hard counters) although it might after rotation.
And frankly, without cubelock aggro pally and maybe jade druid would rule the meta.