The king: Divine Favor Somehow dodged every hammer even though it's been hated for a long time.
Yeah, I've been very confused about that one too honestly. The card heavily punishes slow play, and even if you try to dump your hand by playing some of your cards less efficiently the pally often still can draw 4+ cards with the spell.
I understand that part of what is needed for the aggro playstyle is the ability to do some reloading to get back into the game after a board clear and/or large heal, but having a spell that is the same cost as Arcane Intellect, but that is vastly superior to it outside of aggro mirrors is blatant card design imbalance right there.
Imo, I'd change Divine Favor to work something like this instead; "If your opponent has more cards than you draw 3 cards." or "Draw 2 cards. If your opponent has more cards in hand then when casting this spell draw 3 cards instead." The reload mechanic would be preserved, but no more would you get really dumb value by drawing 4, 5, or 6 cards for only 3 mana.
Most badly designed cards of all time have been overpowered 1 drops. Mana wyrm, pre nerf small time buccaneer, pre nerf undertaker, tunnel trogg and patches the pirate.
It's been nerfed twice now, and it's still not enough. It's one of the only match-ups that you just auto-conede against if you are playing an unfavored deck (the only other one being Freeze Mage vs Control Warrior).
With that being said... the mechanic Charge has been the reason (either directly, or indirectly) for many nerfs. You can tell that Team 5 has been trying to move away from the Charge mechanic entirely, and it wouldn't surprise me if they only print minions with Rush from now on.
Yogg-Saron, Hope's End is really high in my list. It simply felt terrible when you have spent 20 minutes of your game completely exhausting Mage with 4 or 5Cabalist's Tomes which were generated trough random effects and then getting shitted on by RNG with Yogg. Im not even talking about the fact that the randomly generated spells were deciding who will be the winner of a match on a hearthstone comptetitive scene. Shudderwock and Tess on the other hand are perfectly balanced and fair since you need to build a deck around them and don't just throw a bunch of spells into your deck.
1 mana cards are generally very hard to balance and there are a couple of cards that were poorly designed. From snowballing minions to 1 mana spells like Jade idol.
I hate the design of explosive runes. With kabal lackey in wild mages get it out by turn 1 or 3 with kirin tor mage, and its good no matter when its played, not to mention it's discoverable. If its early, my hero will take a good amount of damage, if its late game, my lich king or other high healthed minion has maybe 3 health left because of explosive runes, a 3 mana card. There is NO mage deck out there that is not running the card, that's how good it is. It's literally the Kobold Librarian of mage class imo, it will always be in every mage deck even after rotation(unless it gets nerfed, of course)Let's not forget that if you put a divine shield minion, your hero still takes damage from the card. It is just honestly a bullshit card and makes face/aggro mage as strong as it is and just a terrible experience to play against for me.
It's the one mage secret that's actually decent and doesn't require a crap ton of setup to be good. The other mage secrets are really variable with the situation in the game and can either be completely op or up, while explosive runes is consistently good mid/late game and pretty much worthless late game. Think, the opponent plays lich king, you deal 6 dmg to it and you have to spend another card to kill it and continue to go face. Worthless. The opponent clears your board with primordial drake and you deal 6 dmg to it. Now the opponent has a 2/2 taunt, you have no minions and you have to kill the 2/2 to continue going face. Worthless. The list goes on and on.
Now, i don't think the card is useless. In fact, i think it's quite good because it complements tempo mage's playstyle, but it's useless beyond that, and that's why i quite like it. It has it's counters, like reading, testing secrets(Hell you can just use the secret destroyers if needed); aside from keeping your tempo, it pressures the opponent by dealing direct face damage; it's useless late game(when tempo mage loses power)
All in all, it's a quite well designed card, some may just not like the archetype, i guess, but that doesnt mean it should stop existing since it's not broken beyond imagination.
I especially despise Spreading Plague. While it certainly works as intended as an anti-aggro tool, its stall potential is much too strong.
Spreading Plague was bad because it was the one tool Jade Druid needed to combat its only weakness (aggro) at the time. It took a deck that was already dominating the meta AND completely eradicating an entire archetype (control), and gave it the card it needed to combat its only weakness. I remember being utterly flabbergasted when I saw that card reveal.
The design of the card is... probably fine. It was a bad card because it was the exact last card that class should have had printed at that time.
Spreading plague punishes the opponent for playing minions while creating inverse situations making the user the aggressor. How many games were decided by a spreading plague braching paths combo lol. For me, a collection of cards should be used to counter aggression, not just one "draw this and win the matchup" card. This truly defines bad design.
While not the worst, I think the odd/even legendaries are very poorly designed for the most part- giving the justicar benefit at the start of game is too skewed toward aggro. Giving paladin to spam the board from the start of the game was especially dumb.
To me, paladin's ability to flood the board isn't concerning since it's one of the class' specialties. What is worrying about paladin is the ability to control the board with devastating effects like Unidentified Maul or Sunkeeper Tarim and easily refill the board with Vine cleaver, what makes AoE more needed than it was before printing these cards. So, basicaly, what paladin suffers is a lot of OP cards being printed.
I'm going to take a different stance on bad design and say that many of the removal cards (I was specifically thinking of Twisting Nether), that is flat out removal with no limitations placed on what it can remove, is bad design. Twisting Nether is akin to Yu-Gi-Oh's Black Hole spell card, and that was one of the first cards to get banned in their banned format.
There is a reason card games like Yu-Gi-Oh banned and/or limited flat out hard removal that required no conditions to fulfill the card's removal other than 'just playing it'.
Well Damnation and Wrath of God effects (destroy all creatures) have been around in Magic forever and they've never been a problem, just something to play around. Same with unconditional creature removal like Murder or slightly restricted removal like Doomblade or Go for the Throat. I don't think having flexible removal is bad design, it's interactive and forces both players to consider how and when to use their resources.
Apart from that the quests (which are a good idea in general but - unfortunately - badly implemented - quests should involve some kind of interactivity), Barnes and Imp-losion.
Patches the Pirate wins for me. Nothing said utterly stupid to me like a meta that demanded you run a completely unrelated card to your deck + 2 Southsea Captains or Southsea Deckhands for tempo, or fall behind.
Special runner up goes to Dirty Rat, because hey, why WOULDN'T we print a card that fucks over every combo deck ever?
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A never-Legend Dad who keeps making rank 2 or 1, but then sliding.
Rumbling around Gurubashi Arena. Shirvallah is the best loa. Go Tigers!
Arcane Intellect for sure. It's two cards in one card, that's just too good. It pushes my deck that can only make 1 for 1 trades out of the format. It'd be much more fair and elegant if it said "Draw 2 cards, your opponent draws 1 card." Much more skill intensive when you don't pull ahead of your opponent on resources.
Also any minion 3 cost or lower that requires an answer. I should be able to spend my turns durdling and playing understatted value minions without worrying about my opponent killing me.
Arcane Intellect for sure. It's two cards in one card, that's just too good. It pushes my deck that can only make 1 for 1 trades out of the format. It'd be much more fair and elegant if it said "Draw 2 cards, your opponent draws 1 card." Much more skill intensive when you don't pull ahead of your opponent on resources.
Also any minion 3 cost or lower that requires an answer. I should be able to spend my turns durdling and playing understatted value minions without worrying about my opponent killing me.
To me, the worst card design ever has to be either Patches the Pirate or Prince Keleseth. The original Patches was a ridiculous mistake in his own right, but together, they introduced insane value so early in the match that there was basically no other viable play, you either played them or you lost.
Barnes is a runner-up, but for some reason I always kind of liked him and put the blame on the other cards that he supported more than on him.
I also severely dislike the design of Illidan Stormrage, because he is one of the most awesome characters in Warcraft lore, but his card is just bad, and that makes me sad.
I'm going to take a different stance on bad design and say that many of the removal cards (I was specifically thinking of Twisting Nether), that is flat out removal with no limitations placed on what it can remove, is bad design. Twisting Nether is akin to Yu-Gi-Oh's Black Hole spell card, and that was one of the first cards to get banned in their banned format.
There is a reason card games like Yu-Gi-Oh banned and/or limited flat out hard removal that required no conditions to fulfill the card's removal other than 'just playing it'.
Well Damnation and Wrath of God effects (destroy all creatures) have been around in Magic forever and they've never been a problem, just something to play around. Same with unconditional creature removal like Murder or slightly restricted removal like Doomblade or Go for the Throat. I don't think having flexible removal is bad design, it's interactive and forces both players to consider how and when to use their resources.
That is true, but at the same time it both bad gameplay to a degree in that sense that it potentially allows a bad losing player to get back on the top with an easy board clear/answer is easy to use since it has no condition of using it (Although, admittedly these bad cards do also serve the purpose of teaching players to be good by not overextending, though something like Twisting Nether or Flamestrike are not required to teach that same lesson).
This was what I often found to be the case for cards like Raigeki in Yu-Gi-Oh. If you had to apply pressure because you were low on cards then the opponent who might have had even fewer cards get punish that player's board for no cost with a dumb easy answer that provided -2 or more in card advantage for the opponent.
While I think defile was still somewhat of a dumb card that didn't need to kill a wild card to come into existence the spell is actually a poster child for interactive play. Both you and the warlock know that defile is very likely to be drawn at any time and both players can manipulate the health of minions on the board to varying degrees to improve or lower the likelihood of a big defile clear.
This topic has been derailed so badly. The topic is "worst designed cards" not most overpowered cards.
OT: I think Anomalus is probably one of the worst designed cards. I am not a big fan of symmetrical effects in hearthstone personally and have always found symmetrical effects to make a card much much worse. Also, this card should have taunt at the very least if it's going to be symmetrical.
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The king: Divine Favor Somehow dodged every hammer even though it's been hated for a long time.
Other Mentions: Jade Idol Spiteful Summoner Shudderwock
Also not a fan of the quest cards. It makes the game even less interactive.
Yeah, I've been very confused about that one too honestly. The card heavily punishes slow play, and even if you try to dump your hand by playing some of your cards less efficiently the pally often still can draw 4+ cards with the spell.
I understand that part of what is needed for the aggro playstyle is the ability to do some reloading to get back into the game after a board clear and/or large heal, but having a spell that is the same cost as Arcane Intellect, but that is vastly superior to it outside of aggro mirrors is blatant card design imbalance right there.
Imo, I'd change Divine Favor to work something like this instead; "If your opponent has more cards than you draw 3 cards." or "Draw 2 cards. If your opponent has more cards in hand then when casting this spell draw 3 cards instead." The reload mechanic would be preserved, but no more would you get really dumb value by drawing 4, 5, or 6 cards for only 3 mana.
Most badly designed cards of all time have been overpowered 1 drops. Mana wyrm, pre nerf small time buccaneer, pre nerf undertaker, tunnel trogg and patches the pirate.
The Caverns Below
It's been nerfed twice now, and it's still not enough. It's one of the only match-ups that you just auto-conede against if you are playing an unfavored deck (the only other one being Freeze Mage vs Control Warrior).
With that being said... the mechanic Charge has been the reason (either directly, or indirectly) for many nerfs. You can tell that Team 5 has been trying to move away from the Charge mechanic entirely, and it wouldn't surprise me if they only print minions with Rush from now on.
Yogg-Saron, Hope's End is really high in my list. It simply felt terrible when you have spent 20 minutes of your game completely exhausting Mage with 4 or 5Cabalist's Tomes which were generated trough random effects and then getting shitted on by RNG with Yogg. Im not even talking about the fact that the randomly generated spells were deciding who will be the winner of a match on a hearthstone comptetitive scene. Shudderwock and Tess on the other hand are perfectly balanced and fair since you need to build a deck around them and don't just throw a bunch of spells into your deck.
1 mana cards are generally very hard to balance and there are a couple of cards that were poorly designed. From snowballing minions to 1 mana spells like Jade idol.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
I would say Adapt is also a poorly designed concept,the RNG amount of that effect is off the charts just like Imp-losion
Defile. 2 Mana Twisting Nether.
FUN
AND
INTERACTIVE.
My Recruit url for those who want dem packs! https://battle.net/recruit/CDF2JMK6CQ?blzcmp=raf-hs&s=HS&m=pc
For me poorly designed card, is one which sets a stupid gameplan or is needed to be drawn early. Examples:
The Caverns Below - it sets uninteractiv gameplay
Prince Keleseth - if you play it on turn two your win chance goes up by a lot and the same goes for Wild Growth
Spiteful Summoner - you bild your whole deck around having powerfull turn 7, thats it. The rest of the deck sucks...
It's the one mage secret that's actually decent and doesn't require a crap ton of setup to be good. The other mage secrets are really variable with the situation in the game and can either be completely op or up, while explosive runes is consistently good mid/late game and pretty much worthless late game. Think, the opponent plays lich king, you deal 6 dmg to it and you have to spend another card to kill it and continue to go face. Worthless. The opponent clears your board with primordial drake and you deal 6 dmg to it. Now the opponent has a 2/2 taunt, you have no minions and you have to kill the 2/2 to continue going face. Worthless. The list goes on and on.
Now, i don't think the card is useless. In fact, i think it's quite good because it complements tempo mage's playstyle, but it's useless beyond that, and that's why i quite like it. It has it's counters, like reading, testing secrets(Hell you can just use the secret destroyers if needed); aside from keeping your tempo, it pressures the opponent by dealing direct face damage; it's useless late game(when tempo mage loses power)
All in all, it's a quite well designed card, some may just not like the archetype, i guess, but that doesnt mean it should stop existing since it's not broken beyond imagination.
Spreading plague punishes the opponent for playing minions while creating inverse situations making the user the aggressor. How many games were decided by a spreading plague braching paths combo lol. For me, a collection of cards should be used to counter aggression, not just one "draw this and win the matchup" card. This truly defines bad design.
To me, paladin's ability to flood the board isn't concerning since it's one of the class' specialties. What is worrying about paladin is the ability to control the board with devastating effects like Unidentified Maul or Sunkeeper Tarim and easily refill the board with Vine cleaver, what makes AoE more needed than it was before printing these cards. So, basicaly, what paladin suffers is a lot of OP cards being printed.
Well Damnation and Wrath of God effects (destroy all creatures) have been around in Magic forever and they've never been a problem, just something to play around. Same with unconditional creature removal like Murder or slightly restricted removal like Doomblade or Go for the Throat. I don't think having flexible removal is bad design, it's interactive and forces both players to consider how and when to use their resources.
Shudderwock - most retarded card ever printed.
Apart from that the quests (which are a good idea in general but - unfortunately - badly implemented - quests should involve some kind of interactivity), Barnes and Imp-losion.
it's yogg. rng fiesta for a card game
Patches the Pirate wins for me. Nothing said utterly stupid to me like a meta that demanded you run a completely unrelated card to your deck + 2 Southsea Captains or Southsea Deckhands for tempo, or fall behind.
Special runner up goes to Dirty Rat, because hey, why WOULDN'T we print a card that fucks over every combo deck ever?
A never-Legend Dad who keeps making rank 2 or 1, but then sliding.
Rumbling around Gurubashi Arena. Shirvallah is the best loa. Go Tigers!
Arcane Intellect for sure. It's two cards in one card, that's just too good. It pushes my deck that can only make 1 for 1 trades out of the format. It'd be much more fair and elegant if it said "Draw 2 cards, your opponent draws 1 card." Much more skill intensive when you don't pull ahead of your opponent on resources.
Also any minion 3 cost or lower that requires an answer. I should be able to spend my turns durdling and playing understatted value minions without worrying about my opponent killing me.
Man, Divine Favor and Ultimate Infestation must really piss you off then.
A never-Legend Dad who keeps making rank 2 or 1, but then sliding.
Rumbling around Gurubashi Arena. Shirvallah is the best loa. Go Tigers!
To me, the worst card design ever has to be either Patches the Pirate or Prince Keleseth. The original Patches was a ridiculous mistake in his own right, but together, they introduced insane value so early in the match that there was basically no other viable play, you either played them or you lost.
Barnes is a runner-up, but for some reason I always kind of liked him and put the blame on the other cards that he supported more than on him.
I also severely dislike the design of Illidan Stormrage, because he is one of the most awesome characters in Warcraft lore, but his card is just bad, and that makes me sad.
That is true, but at the same time it both bad gameplay to a degree in that sense that it potentially allows a bad losing player to get back on the top with an easy board clear/answer is easy to use since it has no condition of using it (Although, admittedly these bad cards do also serve the purpose of teaching players to be good by not overextending, though something like Twisting Nether or Flamestrike are not required to teach that same lesson).
This was what I often found to be the case for cards like Raigeki in Yu-Gi-Oh. If you had to apply pressure because you were low on cards then the opponent who might have had even fewer cards get punish that player's board for no cost with a dumb easy answer that provided -2 or more in card advantage for the opponent.
While I think defile was still somewhat of a dumb card that didn't need to kill a wild card to come into existence the spell is actually a poster child for interactive play. Both you and the warlock know that defile is very likely to be drawn at any time and both players can manipulate the health of minions on the board to varying degrees to improve or lower the likelihood of a big defile clear.
So yes, Defile is interactive! :D
This topic has been derailed so badly. The topic is "worst designed cards" not most overpowered cards.
OT: I think Anomalus is probably one of the worst designed cards. I am not a big fan of symmetrical effects in hearthstone personally and have always found symmetrical effects to make a card much much worse. Also, this card should have taunt at the very least if it's going to be symmetrical.