One thing that bothers me the most about the way Blizzard balances their game is how they fail to follow their own logic when nerfing certain cards and ignoring others. They take issue with certain cards, making it seem like they have a proper agenda for why they change things a certain way...and then ignore it altogether in following expansions.
One example is how Blizzard handled Raza the Chained. Prior to Shadowreaper Anduin, Raza was a highly niche card that was fun but never oppressive. Instead of nerfing the card that enabled dangerous combos (Shadowreaper's Hero Power), they completely murdered Raza the Chained to a point where it's no longer used in any format. They completely erased an entire deck from Standard, and butchered Raza over the belief that it "might enable broken, uninteractive combos in the future."
In that sense, I am completely baffled as to why Aviana + Kun has been kept the same, and not even talked about as nerf candidates at all. The existence of those two cards enable so much unbelievable bull!@#$ in Wild, that the current top five played cards in Wild are ALL DRUID CARDS. Add in the most broken tutoring card ever printed in any card game ever (Juicy Psychmelon), and you have a Wild meta that makes the Midrange Shaman era of old look balanced.
Why is Aviana + Kun okay, but Raza + Shadowreaper wasn't? Druid has such an obscene amount of ramp, draw, and stall that it just begs the question: why do certain cards get absolutely guttered, while other culprits of the same crime get completely ignored? I know it's difficult because it's Blizzard we're talking about, but is it that difficult to be consistent with your reasoning?
Because the Druid decks cost more dust. Players will spend dust on everything that is so overpowered. Those players are encouraged to buy more packs to get faster in collecting cards so that they can obtain all the Druid cards they need.
Raza was very similar to Keleseth. One early battlecry, and you are permanently at a disadvantage until the game ends. Aviana/Kun BS can be disrupted more easily because it comes later in the game and a Dirty Rat can ruin it in several ways.
Besides... With Jade Druid still existing and festering like a malign, unterminable tumor despite nerfs, there were clearly better contenders for nerfs by the time the rotation hit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Start of Year: Provoke the failure of 3 expansions, force nerfs on otherwise balanced cards, bring deckbuilding to an all-time low and get rotated one year earlier for being such a threat to the game's health. - Genn and Baku's historical entry on the White Book of Shit Design, shortly before retiring unpunished
One main thing is aggro decks can deal with stuff like Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King much easier than they could razakus for the simple fact of priest has a plethora more tools that could clear the board or completely shut down an aggro deck Ex. Spirit Lash (and i mean ffs they healed for 2 every turn for free if they got raza the unchained off and they had plenty of heals, combo stuff such as druid can really only do something late game and druid in particular has only one legitimate board clear in the whole game being Starfall and Poison Seeds which is a 9 mana combo along with they have much less good sustain than priest and mind you back when razakus got nerfed it was roughly at a 70% win rate and the meta basically was you played razakus priest or you tried to counter (it got better towards the end yes but i'm still making the point) where as kun and aviana has been a bit of a back seat deck of yes it's there and it's good but it doesn't do well enough against aggro to pick up a huge following unlike razakus and razakus did good against every archtype of deck, whether it be control, aggro , combo it didn't matter it's also part of the reason (probably the reason) The Darkness was printed in the first place along with raza got nerfed for the same reason Master of Disguise was nerfed as in it's current state it limited design space that card was never played however so it didn't receive much notice when it was nerfed unlike raza plus there would be much more backlash if Shadowreaper Anduin got nerfed as it just hit the rotation whereas raza was on the way out along with he was more universally usable so really raza was the lesser of two evils so to speak
This druid deck, for the first time, make me consider dusting my entire Wild collection.
All control/midrange decks become impossible to play, please, don't start reply bullshit like "play tech cards to disrupt the combo" because you don't have time to draw and play that, with the insane ramp and draw the druid always close the combo before you get your 7 or 8 manas or draw more than 7 cards, you have to be insanely luck with a isolated Dirty Rat to have a chance, if you put Aviana too soon without a way to kill her you only make the druid combo faster.
The only thing I can play in Wild and the only reason to keep the cards are tempo mage and discardlock because them are very fast and have a true chance to beat druid.
I prefer play vs pre-nerf Raza or Patches any day instead this abomination druid deck.
I still don't know why they didn't just nerf Raza the Chained so that it discounts your current hero power or something like that. It would mean that you'd need to play Shadowreaper Anduin first in order to get the discount, giving your opponent more time to either kill you or set up an answer.
It honestly feels like they just took the easy way out. I also honestly don't know how they nerf Raza so hard, but Jade druid is still the cancer of Wild. Damn Druid be the Cancer in both Wild and Standard, really feels like Blizzard should take a look at that.
I still don't know why they didn't just nerf Raza the Chained so that it discounts your current hero power or something like that. It would mean that you'd need to play Shadowreaper Anduin first in order to get the discount, giving your opponent more time to either kill you or set up an answer.
It honestly feels like they just took the easy way out. I also honestly don't know how they nerf Raza so hard, but Jade druid is still the cancer of Wild. Damn Druid be the Cancer in both Wild and Standard, really feels like Blizzard should take a look at that.
Agree completely. I think that would've been so much more of a fair nerf that addresses the actual problem: dealing damage for free. Being able to heal for 0 Mana wasn't strong at all, but Blizzard was just lazy and decided to gut the card completely. Anyone who thinks changing the cost from 0 - 1 was just a slight fair nerf has never tried playing Raza.
That makes no sense, Raza Priest was an expensive deck too. Required at minimum four legendaries: Raza, Kazakus, Prophet Velen, Shadowreaper. The most competitive builds also had Bloodmage Thalnos and Alexstrasza, so you're talking about a deck that usually costed well over 10000 dust. Nerfing Raza completely gutted both the card and the entire deck, so your point is moot.
The thing is, before Juicy Psychmelon, Aviana+Kun was not that much of a problem. There was one big weakness in that it required to basically draw your entire deck in order to assemble a combo (aviana+kun+togg+azalina, aviana+kun+malygos+faceless+damage spells, ...). Add the vulnerability to Dirty Rat/Deathlord, and the good chance that opponent draws them before you draw your entire deck, and it made the deck "fair".
But now, Juicy Psychmelon draw you the combo so much faster, that aggro barely has the time to kill you, and control goes through less than 1/2 his deck searching for dirty rats before it's too late.
Also, for Raza+Anduin vs Aviana+Kun, Raza and Anduin can both be played and grant you significant advantage even without the other, while Aviana and Kun will clog your hand and be useless until you draw your whole combo, making them "weaker" in some sense.
Just note that this is the same balance team that thinks that Barnes was (and still is) balanced in Wild and yet Big Priest still dominates and snowballs if you get that card. Raza was strong at the time that it was nerfed. Aviana/Kun was bad but not as bad it was now. They gained some tools in the past couple of expansions that made that combo stronger and it will continue to be stronger every new expansion, so I do think it is time for Aviana/Kun combo to be nerfed in some form.
And not only Raza. Dreadsteed with Defile is not broken at all. Unnerfed Shadowboxer and Zilliax are pathetic too compared to Druid Combo decks. Blizzard should either unnerf them so other classes will have their own powerfull midgame tools, or obliterate Juicy Psychmelon to 10 mana draw 1 card. Just to make sure that the card is completely death and will never see play.
The thing is, before Juicy Psychmelon, Aviana+Kun was not that much of a problem. There was one big weakness in that it required to basically draw your entire deck in order to assemble a combo (aviana+kun+togg+azalina, aviana+kun+malygos+faceless+damage spells, ...). Add the vulnerability to Dirty Rat/Deathlord, and the good chance that opponent draws them before you draw your entire deck, and it made the deck "fair".
But now, Juicy Psychmelon draw you the combo so much faster, that aggro barely has the time to kill you, and control goes through less than 1/2 his deck searching for dirty rats before it's too late.
Also, for Raza+Anduin vs Aviana+Kun, Raza and Anduin can both be played and grant you significant advantage even without the other, while Aviana and Kun will clog your hand and be useless until you draw your whole combo, making them "weaker" in some sense.
Yet you just save Dirty Rat until after Juicy Psychmelon has been played and their combo is disrupted 90% of the time.
I must admit that I really don’t get the cryout towards this combo, it is not that hard to play against. At least nerf the druid armor gain or card draw instead and remove spreading plague from the game.
The thing is, before Juicy Psychmelon, Aviana+Kun was not that much of a problem. There was one big weakness in that it required to basically draw your entire deck in order to assemble a combo (aviana+kun+togg+azalina, aviana+kun+malygos+faceless+damage spells, ...). Add the vulnerability to Dirty Rat/Deathlord, and the good chance that opponent draws them before you draw your entire deck, and it made the deck "fair".
But now, Juicy Psychmelon draw you the combo so much faster, that aggro barely has the time to kill you, and control goes through less than 1/2 his deck searching for dirty rats before it's too late.
Also, for Raza+Anduin vs Aviana+Kun, Raza and Anduin can both be played and grant you significant advantage even without the other, while Aviana and Kun will clog your hand and be useless until you draw your whole combo, making them "weaker" in some sense.
Yet you just save Dirty Rat until after Juicy Psychmelon has been played and their combo is disrupted 90% of the time.
I play big Shaman in wild and Ancestor's Call wrecks them every time
When Aviana and Kun, the Forgotten King were in Standard, the decks that used them were hardly Tier 1, and rarely seen. Obviously, the same cannot be said for the Priest cards.
Wild is all about making broken degenerate decks. It is not about “playing fair”. Nerfing one broken deck (like the Giants decks) doesn’t change anything since another one will step up and take its place.
The format is the problem - there are too many cards. That is why very few players play it.
Because Raza the Chained was allowing a solid Control deck to be also Combo (although not OTK) at the same time. Without the requirement of Combo decks of playing a specific set of cards together, in the same turn.
Aviana + Kun the Forgotten King don't need any nerf, because their most abusable usage is specifically in Combo decks.
What they need to nerf is the ramp/draw/armor package they have been giving to Druids, throughout the most recent sets (this would nerf for good also Jade Druid).
- and I am sure it will happen sometime soon.
Btw, the fact that the main Control decks have to hard tech against Combo, and can do so successfully, is a huge flaw in the Combo > Control > Aggro > Combo paradigm.
PS: I am talking from a Druid enthusiast point of view.
One thing that bothers me the most about the way Blizzard balances their game is how they fail to follow their own logic when nerfing certain cards and ignoring others. They take issue with certain cards, making it seem like they have a proper agenda for why they change things a certain way...and then ignore it altogether in following expansions.
One example is how Blizzard handled Raza the Chained. Prior to Shadowreaper Anduin, Raza was a highly niche card that was fun but never oppressive. Instead of nerfing the card that enabled dangerous combos (Shadowreaper's Hero Power), they completely murdered Raza the Chained to a point where it's no longer used in any format. They completely erased an entire deck from Standard, and butchered Raza over the belief that it "might enable broken, uninteractive combos in the future."
In that sense, I am completely baffled as to why Aviana + Kun has been kept the same, and not even talked about as nerf candidates at all. The existence of those two cards enable so much unbelievable bull!@#$ in Wild, that the current top five played cards in Wild are ALL DRUID CARDS. Add in the most broken tutoring card ever printed in any card game ever (Juicy Psychmelon), and you have a Wild meta that makes the Midrange Shaman era of old look balanced.
Why is Aviana + Kun okay, but Raza + Shadowreaper wasn't? Druid has such an obscene amount of ramp, draw, and stall that it just begs the question: why do certain cards get absolutely guttered, while other culprits of the same crime get completely ignored? I know it's difficult because it's Blizzard we're talking about, but is it that difficult to be consistent with your reasoning?
Because the Druid decks cost more dust. Players will spend dust on everything that is so overpowered. Those players are encouraged to buy more packs to get faster in collecting cards so that they can obtain all the Druid cards they need.
Raza was very similar to Keleseth. One early battlecry, and you are permanently at a disadvantage until the game ends. Aviana/Kun BS can be disrupted more easily because it comes later in the game and a Dirty Rat can ruin it in several ways.
Besides... With Jade Druid still existing and festering like a malign, unterminable tumor despite nerfs, there were clearly better contenders for nerfs by the time the rotation hit.
Start of Year: Provoke the failure of 3 expansions, force nerfs on otherwise balanced cards, bring deckbuilding to an all-time low and get rotated one year earlier for being such a threat to the game's health.
- Genn and Baku's historical entry on the White Book of Shit Design, shortly before retiring unpunished
Raza was nerfed while it was in Standard. Blizzard considers Wild to be a very low priority.
One main thing is aggro decks can deal with stuff like Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King much easier than they could razakus for the simple fact of priest has a plethora more tools that could clear the board or completely shut down an aggro deck Ex. Spirit Lash (and i mean ffs they healed for 2 every turn for free if they got raza the unchained off and they had plenty of heals, combo stuff such as druid can really only do something late game and druid in particular has only one legitimate board clear in the whole game being Starfall and Poison Seeds which is a 9 mana combo along with they have much less good sustain than priest and mind you back when razakus got nerfed it was roughly at a 70% win rate and the meta basically was you played razakus priest or you tried to counter (it got better towards the end yes but i'm still making the point) where as kun and aviana has been a bit of a back seat deck of yes it's there and it's good but it doesn't do well enough against aggro to pick up a huge following unlike razakus and razakus did good against every archtype of deck, whether it be control, aggro , combo it didn't matter it's also part of the reason (probably the reason) The Darkness was printed in the first place along with raza got nerfed for the same reason Master of Disguise was nerfed as in it's current state it limited design space that card was never played however so it didn't receive much notice when it was nerfed unlike raza plus there would be much more backlash if Shadowreaper Anduin got nerfed as it just hit the rotation whereas raza was on the way out along with he was more universally usable so really raza was the lesser of two evils so to speak
This druid deck, for the first time, make me consider dusting my entire Wild collection.
All control/midrange decks become impossible to play, please, don't start reply bullshit like "play tech cards to disrupt the combo" because you don't have time to draw and play that, with the insane ramp and draw the druid always close the combo before you get your 7 or 8 manas or draw more than 7 cards, you have to be insanely luck with a isolated Dirty Rat to have a chance, if you put Aviana too soon without a way to kill her you only make the druid combo faster.
The only thing I can play in Wild and the only reason to keep the cards are tempo mage and discardlock because them are very fast and have a true chance to beat druid.
I prefer play vs pre-nerf Raza or Patches any day instead this abomination druid deck.
I still don't know why they didn't just nerf Raza the Chained so that it discounts your current hero power or something like that. It would mean that you'd need to play Shadowreaper Anduin first in order to get the discount, giving your opponent more time to either kill you or set up an answer.
It honestly feels like they just took the easy way out. I also honestly don't know how they nerf Raza so hard, but Jade druid is still the cancer of Wild. Damn Druid be the Cancer in both Wild and Standard, really feels like Blizzard should take a look at that.
Agree completely. I think that would've been so much more of a fair nerf that addresses the actual problem: dealing damage for free. Being able to heal for 0 Mana wasn't strong at all, but Blizzard was just lazy and decided to gut the card completely. Anyone who thinks changing the cost from 0 - 1 was just a slight fair nerf has never tried playing Raza.
That makes no sense, Raza Priest was an expensive deck too. Required at minimum four legendaries: Raza, Kazakus, Prophet Velen, Shadowreaper. The most competitive builds also had Bloodmage Thalnos and Alexstrasza, so you're talking about a deck that usually costed well over 10000 dust. Nerfing Raza completely gutted both the card and the entire deck, so your point is moot.
The thing is, before Juicy Psychmelon, Aviana+Kun was not that much of a problem.
There was one big weakness in that it required to basically draw your entire deck in order to assemble a combo (aviana+kun+togg+azalina, aviana+kun+malygos+faceless+damage spells, ...). Add the vulnerability to Dirty Rat/Deathlord, and the good chance that opponent draws them before you draw your entire deck, and it made the deck "fair".
But now, Juicy Psychmelon draw you the combo so much faster, that aggro barely has the time to kill you, and control goes through less than 1/2 his deck searching for dirty rats before it's too late.
Also, for Raza+Anduin vs Aviana+Kun, Raza and Anduin can both be played and grant you significant advantage even without the other, while Aviana and Kun will clog your hand and be useless until you draw your whole combo, making them "weaker" in some sense.
They would probably nerf them in the next nerf cycle.
Just note that this is the same balance team that thinks that Barnes was (and still is) balanced in Wild and yet Big Priest still dominates and snowballs if you get that card. Raza was strong at the time that it was nerfed. Aviana/Kun was bad but not as bad it was now. They gained some tools in the past couple of expansions that made that combo stronger and it will continue to be stronger every new expansion, so I do think it is time for Aviana/Kun combo to be nerfed in some form.
Kun the Forgotten King and Aviana not a problem
the real problem is Spreading Plague and Juicy Psychmelon
And not only Raza. Dreadsteed with Defile is not broken at all. Unnerfed Shadowboxer and Zilliax are pathetic too compared to Druid Combo decks. Blizzard should either unnerf them so other classes will have their own powerfull midgame tools, or obliterate Juicy Psychmelon to 10 mana draw 1 card. Just to make sure that the card is completely death and will never see play.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
https://www.reddit.com/r/wildhearthstone/comments/9c7eah/raza_died_for_this/
^This guy summed it up prety much.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
After this expansion, I'm pretty sure most of the devs or at least the most important ones are Druid mains.
Yet you just save Dirty Rat until after Juicy Psychmelon has been played and their combo is disrupted 90% of the time.
I must admit that I really don’t get the cryout towards this combo, it is not that hard to play against. At least nerf the druid armor gain or card draw instead and remove spreading plague from the game.
I play big Shaman in wild and Ancestor's Call wrecks them every time
When Aviana and Kun, the Forgotten King were in Standard, the decks that used them were hardly Tier 1, and rarely seen. Obviously, the same cannot be said for the Priest cards.
Wild is all about making broken degenerate decks. It is not about “playing fair”. Nerfing one broken deck (like the Giants decks) doesn’t change anything since another one will step up and take its place.
The format is the problem - there are too many cards. That is why very few players play it.
Because Raza the Chained was allowing a solid Control deck to be also Combo (although not OTK) at the same time. Without the requirement of Combo decks of playing a specific set of cards together, in the same turn.
Aviana + Kun the Forgotten King don't need any nerf, because their most abusable usage is specifically in Combo decks.
What they need to nerf is the ramp/draw/armor package they have been giving to Druids, throughout the most recent sets (this would nerf for good also Jade Druid).
- and I am sure it will happen sometime soon.
Btw, the fact that the main Control decks have to hard tech against Combo, and can do so successfully, is a huge flaw in the Combo > Control > Aggro > Combo paradigm.
PS: I am talking from a Druid enthusiast point of view.