There is also the distribution of stats for a vanilla minion.
Lower cost vanilla minions need to have higher health to actually be usable (see 1 mana 1/3s).
Higher cost vanilla minions as i said are just bad,they don't affect board or anything so it pretty much it comes to the 1-5 mana range pool.
And overstated low cost vanilla minions aren't dangerous if they are just vanilla (no effect),Mana Wyrm is one example where the card is just dangerous and an example of how to NOT do 1 drops (remembering Undertaker too).
A vanilla 2 mana 2/4 Beast would definitely see play, a powercreeped River Crock is not off the radar in the long run.
1 mana 1/3 Dire Mole Beast already sees enough play and is a good 1 drop,like really good combined with turn 2 Crackling Razormaw.
We had a 3 mana 2/5 Beast but it wasn't good enough especially when Druid had a more flexible card at 3 mana 5/2 or 2/5 beast from Blackrock expansion.
For 3 mana slot a vanilla 2/6 Beast would see play for sure curving into 4 mana Houndmaster nicely.
For 4 mana probably a 3/7 Beast as vanilla, 5 mana we already have Nesting Roc which is 4/7 Beast with an added bonus so for 5 mana a 4/8 Beast with no bonus would see play.
For 6 mana we have Highmane hehe,overall from 6+ mana card pool vanilla cards arent that great because spending a lot of mana for just stats is not productive enough you will want some good effects.
You are mixing neutral and class beast cards. Savannah Highmane and Druid beasts are overstated because they are class minions.
We had more 1 mana 4stats+ minions in the past that were not class related Zombie Chow or Mistress of Mixtures are some examples of it.
Guess what they both saw play,i mean yeah Zombie Chow had a drawback but Mistress arguably had a simetrical effect which was not an actual downside.
Dire Mole is like the best example of a vanilla card, 1 mana 1/3s that are class related mostly have some effects as well.
I would argue Enchanted Raven was actually understated but not by much,should'a been like a 1/4 Beast or a 2/2 with Crypt Lord effect because it was a class card,but now we are comparing class cards with neutral cards and well some classes have some really bad class cards that the class bonus attached to it seems like is not there.
But because of the powercreep ,is really hard to know the best stats for a vanilla minion, see Chillwind Yeti andLost Tallstrider one has a beast tag while other does not so it is safe to assume that neutral vanilla minions will be +1 stats powercreeped in future and will have a tribe tag.
I agree with what you said. My point in using Dr. 7 and Grumble as an example was purely for illustration on how overstatted a minion would need to be to be played, since that's what the op was asking. Let's "pretend" Dr. 7 was a vanilla minion. Dr. 7 is then a 7 mana 9/9 with additional 2-8 attack randomly distributed. That's no longer good enough. Grumble, in "vanilla form" is when played on an empty board on curve, and is a 6 mana 7/7. That's also overstatted. However, it feels bad to do that, since people would much rather play Grumble to bounce back a minion for some benefit, because that provides more value in the long run. My point is that both of these are not good enough for most decks now.
Oh yeah. I was basically in agreement with you on what's going on now. My own point is that the cards that are bad now really weren't any better back then. In FACT, I'd argue that the required stats have gone DOWN from before. Mage is playing Sindragosa, an 8/8 for 8 mana that drops two 0/1s which give you two random cards you then have to play afterwards. 8/10 that does nothing the turn you play it, and very little the turn AFTER you play it (at least Dr. 7 did a lot of damage via the bombs and the bombs themselves can kill a 1/1). They can do it because Mage can now do effectively nothing turn 8, ping their own minions for the next two turns, and play the legendaries ALL WITHOUT DYING. And without Ice Block.
No #($)#$() THAT! We have that same mage playing, effectively, a Water Elemental and Iron Hide and passing. 5 mana worth of 'effect'. And we deem this one of the most powerful cards in the Knights set. Go ahead, go back to 2015 and ask anyone what they would think of paying 9 mana for 5 armor and a water elemental.
Back on point. A 6 mana 7/7 class card isn't overstated: it's slightly understated. Bolderfist ogre is 6 mana 6/7. Meanwhile 'Class Only' is considered a nerf that allows for +1/+1. Thus a Shaman Neutral vanilla would be 7/8 for 6 mana. Again, that's the "don't play this" vanilla card. It then combines a nerf (Vanishing JUST your minions) with a buff (a permanent Aviana effect on those cards).
I would argue that the 'playable with just stats' point of 6 mana would be 12/12. Spiteful helped demonstrate that. When it pulled an Old God, it was 'bad' (5/7 + 4/4 or 9/11 of stats) while Giants were considered acceptable (12/12). I would also argue that this was ALWAYS the case and that the fact that no card could do such a thing back then was a big reason why we all sang "Face is the Place" back then.
I BEST if Spiteful only pulled 12/12s it would be ok as a 7 drop. Thus 16/16 MAYBE can do it if the deck was designed to handle such a thing.
8 drop and above, I doubt ANY pure stat card would work, less because the stats aren't 'enough' and more because you are literally passing your turn and will need SOMETHING to recover the tempo (i.e. an insane hero power that makes water elemental that heal you when you ping off 0/1s)
Well that's mostly because we have OP overstated taunts now see Tar Creeper and Applebaum(effect) and is not even a good thing to have. Some classes are more focused to aggro by nature and having really good strong taunts make some classes unplayable.
The reason mage survives now without Ice block is the fact that now the deck revolves around NOT having ice block in the deck.
1 mana 2/2 beast tag is decent as a class card, 1 mana 2/2 neutral vanilla with any tag will see play in a lot of agressive builds like the 1/3 beast does, 3/3 or 2/4 for 2 manas will see a lot of play too, for 3 manas or more the story chances a lot, you need to do more than just build a board from here, you need value, healing, taunt, charge/rush or a very big pump in stats to see play, a 8/8 vanilla for 6 manas don't see much play.
It really depends on the popularity of the class - Druid or Mage then 2/2 for 1 at least but 3/2 or 2/3 is better. Hunter or Warrior 1/1 is good enough. Even Dire Mole was made available to other classes to screw hunter out of a premium card.
There is also the distribution of stats for a vanilla minion.
Lower cost vanilla minions need to have higher health to actually be usable (see 1 mana 1/3s).
Higher cost vanilla minions as i said are just bad,they don't affect board or anything so it pretty much it comes to the 1-5 mana range pool.
And overstated low cost vanilla minions aren't dangerous if they are just vanilla (no effect),Mana Wyrm is one example where the card is just dangerous and an example of how to NOT do 1 drops (remembering Undertaker too).
You are mixing neutral and class beast cards. Savannah Highmane and Druid beasts are overstated because they are class minions.
Regarding Dire Mole, it is a neutral overstated beast. Correct me if I am wrong, but 4 stats points for 1 mana cost used to be class minions only (Mana Wyrm, Northshire Cleric, Enchanted Raven, etc).
Greetings, traveler.
Let's make Hunter great.
We had more 1 mana 4stats+ minions in the past that were not class related Zombie Chow or Mistress of Mixtures are some examples of it.
Guess what they both saw play,i mean yeah Zombie Chow had a drawback but Mistress arguably had a simetrical effect which was not an actual downside.
Dire Mole is like the best example of a vanilla card, 1 mana 1/3s that are class related mostly have some effects as well.
I would argue Enchanted Raven was actually understated but not by much,should'a been like a 1/4 Beast or a 2/2 with Crypt Lord effect because it was a class card,but now we are comparing class cards with neutral cards and well some classes have some really bad class cards that the class bonus attached to it seems like is not there.
But because of the powercreep ,is really hard to know the best stats for a vanilla minion, see Chillwind Yeti andLost Tallstrider one has a beast tag while other does not so it is safe to assume that neutral vanilla minions will be +1 stats powercreeped in future and will have a tribe tag.
Oh yeah. I was basically in agreement with you on what's going on now. My own point is that the cards that are bad now really weren't any better back then. In FACT, I'd argue that the required stats have gone DOWN from before. Mage is playing Sindragosa, an 8/8 for 8 mana that drops two 0/1s which give you two random cards you then have to play afterwards. 8/10 that does nothing the turn you play it, and very little the turn AFTER you play it (at least Dr. 7 did a lot of damage via the bombs and the bombs themselves can kill a 1/1). They can do it because Mage can now do effectively nothing turn 8, ping their own minions for the next two turns, and play the legendaries ALL WITHOUT DYING. And without Ice Block.
No #($)#$() THAT! We have that same mage playing, effectively, a Water Elemental and Iron Hide and passing. 5 mana worth of 'effect'. And we deem this one of the most powerful cards in the Knights set. Go ahead, go back to 2015 and ask anyone what they would think of paying 9 mana for 5 armor and a water elemental.
Back on point. A 6 mana 7/7 class card isn't overstated: it's slightly understated. Bolderfist ogre is 6 mana 6/7. Meanwhile 'Class Only' is considered a nerf that allows for +1/+1. Thus a Shaman Neutral vanilla would be 7/8 for 6 mana. Again, that's the "don't play this" vanilla card. It then combines a nerf (Vanishing JUST your minions) with a buff (a permanent Aviana effect on those cards).
I would argue that the 'playable with just stats' point of 6 mana would be 12/12. Spiteful helped demonstrate that. When it pulled an Old God, it was 'bad' (5/7 + 4/4 or 9/11 of stats) while Giants were considered acceptable (12/12). I would also argue that this was ALWAYS the case and that the fact that no card could do such a thing back then was a big reason why we all sang "Face is the Place" back then.
I BEST if Spiteful only pulled 12/12s it would be ok as a 7 drop. Thus 16/16 MAYBE can do it if the deck was designed to handle such a thing.
8 drop and above, I doubt ANY pure stat card would work, less because the stats aren't 'enough' and more because you are literally passing your turn and will need SOMETHING to recover the tempo (i.e. an insane hero power that makes water elemental that heal you when you ping off 0/1s)
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
1 mana: 1/3 and 2/2 (Dire Mole, Mistress of Mixtures)
2 mana: 2/4 and 3/3
3 mana: 3/5 and 4/4 (3/4 is just barely not making the cut as a pure vanilla)
4 mana: 4/6 and 5/5 (Kabal Crystal Runner was great at 4 mana)
5 mana: 5/7 and 6/6 (Nesting Roc was a thing at 4/7, so 5/7 should work for vanillas, not entirely sure about 6/6 though)
6 mana: 6/8 (at least, but here we are probably reaching casting cost ranges which are no longer viable for vanilla creatures)
Well that's mostly because we have OP overstated taunts now see Tar Creeper and Applebaum(effect) and is not even a good thing to have. Some classes are more focused to aggro by nature and having really good strong taunts make some classes unplayable.
The reason mage survives now without Ice block is the fact that now the deck revolves around NOT having ice block in the deck.
1 mana 2/2 beast tag is decent as a class card, 1 mana 2/2 neutral vanilla with any tag will see play in a lot of agressive builds like the 1/3 beast does, 3/3 or 2/4 for 2 manas will see a lot of play too, for 3 manas or more the story chances a lot, you need to do more than just build a board from here, you need value, healing, taunt, charge/rush or a very big pump in stats to see play, a 8/8 vanilla for 6 manas don't see much play.
It really depends on the popularity of the class - Druid or Mage then 2/2 for 1 at least but 3/2 or 2/3 is better. Hunter or Warrior 1/1 is good enough. Even Dire Mole was made available to other classes to screw hunter out of a premium card.
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
FOUR MANA SEVEN SEVEN!!!!!!!!