There's gotta be more people out there like me. Barring a few matchups (mostly quest rogue vs control), every matchup feels winnable. Two seasons ago, I made legend with a mix of Deathrattle hunter and odd rogue (before Boomsday). Last season I made it almost exclusively with Deathrattle hunter. And this month I made it almost exclusively with tempo mage. There were no matches at all that were completely unwinnable from the start in my climb. I even somehow managed a 50% win rate against odd warrior with my mage. I know that I was lucky here, but still.
Why do people hate everything so much? I know there's a few people here who want to do unspeakable things to Artifact when it comes out, but I could not care less about that game. I don't even face that many druids, and people continue to go crazy about how powerful they are (maybe I'm a bit lucky here, although I'm not all that scared of them). Do people just want a meta where they know from the start that they won the game? Do they want a meta where there's lots of viable decks? If yes to question 1, play quest rogue I guess. If yes to question 2, play literally almost anything else. Yes, there are strong decks and weak decks. But guess what. That's how card games work - there will always be some cookie-cutter decks that are a step above the rest. Adapt and beat them, or stay behind and cry I guess.
I just don't understand the mini-outrage from the people who hate that Blizzard said they are "happy with the meta". I'm only talking about the meta here, I don't care about the new cards (which are terrible, yes, but so what). I don't care about the new skin which obviously ruins f2p players' experience (kappa). I'm just wondering why people are so upset about where the game is right now.
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Twitch name: Anatak15 NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
I think that’s exactly why a lot of people are so upset. Everything seems balanced. There are a ton of decks. So then a lot of people are asking themselves, then why am I not having fun? Me included. On paper this should be a really good meta, but the gameplay can feel repetitive. It’s frustrating when something is wrong with the game. It’s more frustrating when nothing seems wrong and I can’t seem to enjoy the game.
Maybe I can come in your help, but before that, I want to point out that I'm not one of that average HS players that complain about everything that doesn't flow in their favor.
The meta right now is indeed balanced: every class has at least one pretty decent deck, there is variety and there isn't an archetype that asphyxiates the game (if we think about just one year ago... "Surrender your will to the cabal"...). But maybe, what people are complaining about is fun: decks are competitive, but most of the matches consists in two players that pretty much play their stuff regardless of what their opponent do. No interaction whatsoever. Decks like OTK Druid and Quest Rogue are perfect example of what I'm saying (I'm NOT saying they need any kind of nerfs, I'm just pointing out the most common examples): players just witness what will happen, having little or zero chances to reverse the situation, which is kinda frustrating (and anti-OTK is even less funnier than OTK in my opinion).
Personally, and maybe this is an off topic but please put up with it, I'd also really like to have an expansion full of big minions like Old Gods was (the pleasure of playing cards like Yogg was remarkable, even if I didn't always get the results I wanted), but maybe it's just a matter of time since the year of the Raven still misses its third expansion.
Hello! Personally I don't like to complain about meta either. I mean, the meta is there to be played around, you can always try to figure it out and play to your outs or just switch decks.
About your point actually I don't see why you say that OTK Druid and Quest Rogue are non-interactive. I mean, sure, their basic goal in a game is not to interact with you for board but let's look at Quest Rogue for a second. There are a tons of plays you can make starting from turn 2 onwards: do you try to keep the board? do you plan to vanish to swing it back and finish the quest? do you just go on and do it as fast as you can? Decisions matter in those decks more than in other "fair" decks. Sometimes knowing the match-up and for example just bounce Giggling back can be a great decision even if it slows your quest completion (general goal of the deck). Playing the match from the side of the opponent of those decks is also challenging. I mean, sometimes you just have to kill their Elven Minstrel or sometimes you can gain an advantage by leaving some of their minions on the board and go face. Also Maly Druid or Togg Druid can win in a lot of different ways. I even won sometimes playing only Azalina and grinding the opponent out with attrition. Anyway I think I get your point since losing to some stupid Sonya + Shadowstep + Boar draws is not really funny and it feels kind of helpless.
About the meta, I personally think it was pretty fun to play from 4 to legend this season. Now at approximately R500 legend I only face Druids, Control Warlocks and Quest Rogues. That's why I'm playing way less these days. Overall the meta is ok mostly because I think it is by no mean solved yet. Look at 2-3 weeks ago: nobody was playing Evenlock and Zoo was everywhere, now is kind of the opposite. The best fun imo is when the meta is always slowly evolving and leaving space to experiment some new lines of play or new decks
I'm glad the OP is having fun. I personally dislike the current meta and Boomsday is likely the last expansion I will pay for.
I can't remember a time when there were more Rock, Paper, Scissor match-ups. Boomsday and Witchwood were back-to-back dull expansions - I pre-ordered both and both times was deeply disappointed at how quickly things got boring. Today, HS feels stale just one month post-expansion.
On top of that, certain archetypes are clearly OP but, with patching ruled out, nothing will change for the foreseeable future. In the past, I would have just switched to Wild, but I can't even do that - Wild is a complete cluster f***, with Blizzard openly saying they don't know what to do with it.
Overall, HS may have been in a worse state in the past (such as at the height of Cube Lock). But it has never, in my opinion, been in a worse state AND simultaneously had the devs declare it fit for purpose.
If they just moved Dirty Rat or a Dirty Rat 2.0 into standard then I think a few of the issues would be cleared up. Being able to break up a combo with only 1 class is a bit irritating really. It would discourage most of the non interactive gameplay.
TBH I play Bloodlust Shaman deck and I'm having a blast! There's so many decks I play against even at rank 15-10, I may be a lower rank but when I stopped tryharding and started playing decks that I want, not because of the meta, I started enjoying the game a whole lot more! <3 :D
I'm glad the OP is having fun. I personally dislike the current meta and Boomsday is likely the last expansion I will pay for.
I can't remember a time when there were more Rock, Paper, Scissor match-ups. Boomsday and Witchwood were back-to-back dull expansions - I pre-ordered both and both times was deeply disappointed at how quickly things got boring. Today, HS feels stale just one month post-expansion.
On top of that, certain archetypes are clearly OP but, with patching ruled out, nothing will change for the foreseeable future. In the past, I would have just switched to Wild, but I can't even do that - Wild is a complete cluster f***, with Blizzard openly saying they don't know what to do with it.
Overall, HS may have been in a worse state in the past (such as at the height of Cube Lock). But it has never, in my opinion, been in a worse state AND simultaneously had the devs declare it fit for purpose.
This is pretty much how I feel also and i'm sure you and others have also noticed how streamers and top level players are starting to become incredibly frustrated with how things are right now with many of them tweeting about their frustrations and in all honestly I agree with them, we are only 1 month into boomsday and things are like this. lol, I mean just today Fr0zen announced that he's taking a break from competing in tournaments and competitive etc until rotation because he also hates how things are right now. lol
What's also really annoying is that all the decks being played right now are decks we've seen before, boomsday changed nothing......well actually it did, giggling inventor became the new corridor creeper and giggling inventor is literally the reason why quest rogue is back too. xD
Blizzard just don't seem to listen to the community and honestly never have, we've been wanting tournament mode for years now and they've let us down yet again and rather than adding these things and making changes to wild (juicy psychmelon) which are clearly a HUGE problem right now, they'd rather keep adding things to grab money no one really cares about (the twitch bits thing, another paladin hero etc).
Hello! Personally I don't like to complain about meta either. I mean, the meta is there to be played around, you can always try to figure it out and play to your outs or just switch decks.
About your point actually I don't see why you say that OTK Druid and Quest Rogue are non-interactive. I mean, sure, their basic goal in a game is not to interact with you for board but let's look at Quest Rogue for a second. There are a tons of plays you can make starting from turn 2 onwards: do you try to keep the board? do you plan to vanish to swing it back and finish the quest? do you just go on and do it as fast as you can? Decisions matter in those decks more than in other "fair" decks. Sometimes knowing the match-up and for example just bounce Giggling back can be a great decision even if it slows your quest completion (general goal of the deck). Playing the match from the side of the opponent of those decks is also challenging. I mean, sometimes you just have to kill their Elven Minstrel or sometimes you can gain an advantage by leaving some of their minions on the board and go face. Also Maly Druid or Togg Druid can win in a lot of different ways. I even won sometimes playing only Azalina and grinding the opponent out with attrition. Anyway I think I get your point since losing to some stupid Sonya + Shadowstep + Boar draws is not really funny and it feels kind of helpless.
About the meta, I personally think it was pretty fun to play from 4 to legend this season. Now at approximately R500 legend I only face Druids, Control Warlocks and Quest Rogues. That's why I'm playing way less these days. Overall the meta is ok mostly because I think it is by no mean solved yet. Look at 2-3 weeks ago: nobody was playing Evenlock and Zoo was everywhere, now is kind of the opposite. The best fun imo is when the meta is always slowly evolving and leaving space to experiment some new lines of play or new decks
You also have a point.
My examples weren't brought by frustration due to certain match-ups: mainly I'm talking about the raw concept of trading, and in particular trading minions. It's true, in OTK Druid you have to trade (maybe some big minion or some Poisonous threat) but what has changed is the goal. People trade not to clear the board and go face, but only to have enough time to draw all their deck. That's a game style, and I have nothing to complain about it (Personally I love Kingsbane Rogue, despite all its downsides and all), but it can become a problem when in the entire meta there aren't 2-3 relevant decks that follow this concept, but a more consistent quantity. We are gradually losing that feeling of satisfaction that comes from dominating your opponent with force and not with strict math, and maybe this is what makes people uncomfortable, even if they aren't able to express it clearly.
P.S.: My feelings bring my to think (and not to hope) that the next big minion to be taken to HoF will be Malygos
This is the most stale meta ever in the game, you know? The gameplay of 9/10 decks i the same every single game. There is no suprise anymore. Half of the decks are playing hello hello hello little annoying fuckers....I mean, seriously?
The Boomsday meta is 20x more diverse than anything we saw in Year of the Mammoth. I'm having a blast with stuff like Lady in White Priest, Deathrattle Hunter, and Even Shaman.
If you're complaining that the meta is stale now, I think its more that you're just bored of the game in general rather than the specific meta. There are no game-breaking decks right now
I stayed away from HS 2 months (since July), came back a month after Boomsday (having pre-ordered and everything but couldn't find the time to play), and what's my surprise to see the most played decks? The same ones before the expansion: Even Warlock, Zoo Warlock, Aluneth Mage, Quest Rogue, Odd Rogue, Odd Paladin, Token, Malygos and Toggwaggle Druid, Even and Shudderwock Shaman, etc. Just some updated cards.
Now, it's perfectly fine that decks don't disappear or become obsolete just because of a new expansion, but two months into the expansion and the most played decks out there and that you'll find when playing against other people are the same ones with just a few new cards?
That looked really surprising and a little extreme.
It's cool if you play lightly, if you play a lot it gets very stale. There are too many extremely polarized matchups and too many decks that have a strict pattern to how the match goes.
Stuck in WW ? Nobody plays combo Shudderwock these days.
that is the main problem, yes, we are stuck in witchwood and got one new card to play with (giggling inventor) - btw shudder is a really good deck against all these druids ;)
Most of the people complaining are more than likely burned out, but they pin their unhappiness with the game on the meta. Like you said, the meta is pretty good. All classes are playable, all archetypes are playable, and most matchups are winnable. When people are unhappy with a meta like this, they're looking for something new, and the Boomsday, while I like it, did not shake things up much, which "burns out" people who have invested a lot of time and money in the game. These are the same type of people that frequent forums, so we get a very skewed outlook on community "consensus" on the state of the game. My tip to those people is simply take a break. If they're so unhappy with the meta, playing more HS is not going to make things any better.
I myself have climbed to legend in wild with secret hunter, fatigue warrior, and even shaman, while climbing to rank 1 in standard with midrange shaman, mech inner fire priest, mecha'thun warrior and even shaman. None are the "oppressive" decks people complain about, nor are they the "brain dead" decks people complain about, yet I did just fine and had a lot of fun getting there. It's mostly a mentality thing.
However, I 100% agree with the grievance of combo vs control matchups. There needs to be neutral disruption. The game is a matchup coin flipping simulator for control deck enthusiasts, and that's not fair for an entire archetype.
There's gotta be more people out there like me. Barring a few matchups (mostly quest rogue vs control), every matchup feels winnable. Two seasons ago, I made legend with a mix of Deathrattle hunter and odd rogue (before Boomsday). Last season I made it almost exclusively with Deathrattle hunter. And this month I made it almost exclusively with tempo mage. There were no matches at all that were completely unwinnable from the start in my climb. I even somehow managed a 50% win rate against odd warrior with my mage. I know that I was lucky here, but still.
Why do people hate everything so much? I know there's a few people here who want to do unspeakable things to Artifact when it comes out, but I could not care less about that game. I don't even face that many druids, and people continue to go crazy about how powerful they are (maybe I'm a bit lucky here, although I'm not all that scared of them). Do people just want a meta where they know from the start that they won the game? Do they want a meta where there's lots of viable decks? If yes to question 1, play quest rogue I guess. If yes to question 2, play literally almost anything else. Yes, there are strong decks and weak decks. But guess what. That's how card games work - there will always be some cookie-cutter decks that are a step above the rest. Adapt and beat them, or stay behind and cry I guess.
I just don't understand the mini-outrage from the people who hate that Blizzard said they are "happy with the meta". I'm only talking about the meta here, I don't care about the new cards (which are terrible, yes, but so what). I don't care about the new skin which obviously ruins f2p players' experience (kappa). I'm just wondering why people are so upset about where the game is right now.
Twitch name: Anatak15
NA Legend Season 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 74
I think that’s exactly why a lot of people are so upset. Everything seems balanced. There are a ton of decks. So then a lot of people are asking themselves, then why am I not having fun? Me included. On paper this should be a really good meta, but the gameplay can feel repetitive. It’s frustrating when something is wrong with the game. It’s more frustrating when nothing seems wrong and I can’t seem to enjoy the game.
I do too, honestly. It brings back memories of GVG, my first expansion.
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Maybe I can come in your help, but before that, I want to point out that I'm not one of that average HS players that complain about everything that doesn't flow in their favor.
The meta right now is indeed balanced: every class has at least one pretty decent deck, there is variety and there isn't an archetype that asphyxiates the game (if we think about just one year ago... "Surrender your will to the cabal"...). But maybe, what people are complaining about is fun: decks are competitive, but most of the matches consists in two players that pretty much play their stuff regardless of what their opponent do. No interaction whatsoever. Decks like OTK Druid and Quest Rogue are perfect example of what I'm saying (I'm NOT saying they need any kind of nerfs, I'm just pointing out the most common examples): players just witness what will happen, having little or zero chances to reverse the situation, which is kinda frustrating (and anti-OTK is even less funnier than OTK in my opinion).
Personally, and maybe this is an off topic but please put up with it, I'd also really like to have an expansion full of big minions like Old Gods was (the pleasure of playing cards like Yogg was remarkable, even if I didn't always get the results I wanted), but maybe it's just a matter of time since the year of the Raven still misses its third expansion.
Hello! Personally I don't like to complain about meta either. I mean, the meta is there to be played around, you can always try to figure it out and play to your outs or just switch decks.
About your point actually I don't see why you say that OTK Druid and Quest Rogue are non-interactive. I mean, sure, their basic goal in a game is not to interact with you for board but let's look at Quest Rogue for a second. There are a tons of plays you can make starting from turn 2 onwards: do you try to keep the board? do you plan to vanish to swing it back and finish the quest? do you just go on and do it as fast as you can? Decisions matter in those decks more than in other "fair" decks. Sometimes knowing the match-up and for example just bounce Giggling back can be a great decision even if it slows your quest completion (general goal of the deck). Playing the match from the side of the opponent of those decks is also challenging. I mean, sometimes you just have to kill their Elven Minstrel or sometimes you can gain an advantage by leaving some of their minions on the board and go face. Also Maly Druid or Togg Druid can win in a lot of different ways. I even won sometimes playing only Azalina and grinding the opponent out with attrition. Anyway I think I get your point since losing to some stupid Sonya + Shadowstep + Boar draws is not really funny and it feels kind of helpless.
About the meta, I personally think it was pretty fun to play from 4 to legend this season. Now at approximately R500 legend I only face Druids, Control Warlocks and Quest Rogues. That's why I'm playing way less these days. Overall the meta is ok mostly because I think it is by no mean solved yet. Look at 2-3 weeks ago: nobody was playing Evenlock and Zoo was everywhere, now is kind of the opposite. The best fun imo is when the meta is always slowly evolving and leaving space to experiment some new lines of play or new decks
I'm glad the OP is having fun. I personally dislike the current meta and Boomsday is likely the last expansion I will pay for.
I can't remember a time when there were more Rock, Paper, Scissor match-ups. Boomsday and Witchwood were back-to-back dull expansions - I pre-ordered both and both times was deeply disappointed at how quickly things got boring. Today, HS feels stale just one month post-expansion.
On top of that, certain archetypes are clearly OP but, with patching ruled out, nothing will change for the foreseeable future. In the past, I would have just switched to Wild, but I can't even do that - Wild is a complete cluster f***, with Blizzard openly saying they don't know what to do with it.
Overall, HS may have been in a worse state in the past (such as at the height of Cube Lock). But it has never, in my opinion, been in a worse state AND simultaneously had the devs declare it fit for purpose.
If they just moved Dirty Rat or a Dirty Rat 2.0 into standard then I think a few of the issues would be cleared up. Being able to break up a combo with only 1 class is a bit irritating really. It would discourage most of the non interactive gameplay.
TBH I play Bloodlust Shaman deck and I'm having a blast! There's so many decks I play against even at rank 15-10, I may be a lower rank but when I stopped tryharding and started playing decks that I want, not because of the meta, I started enjoying the game a whole lot more! <3 :D
This is pretty much how I feel also and i'm sure you and others have also noticed how streamers and top level players are starting to become incredibly frustrated with how things are right now with many of them tweeting about their frustrations and in all honestly I agree with them, we are only 1 month into boomsday and things are like this. lol, I mean just today Fr0zen announced that he's taking a break from competing in tournaments and competitive etc until rotation because he also hates how things are right now. lol
What's also really annoying is that all the decks being played right now are decks we've seen before, boomsday changed nothing......well actually it did, giggling inventor became the new corridor creeper and giggling inventor is literally the reason why quest rogue is back too. xD
Blizzard just don't seem to listen to the community and honestly never have, we've been wanting tournament mode for years now and they've let us down yet again and rather than adding these things and making changes to wild (juicy psychmelon) which are clearly a HUGE problem right now, they'd rather keep adding things to grab money no one really cares about (the twitch bits thing, another paladin hero etc).
Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.
I enjoy it too.
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You also have a point.
My examples weren't brought by frustration due to certain match-ups: mainly I'm talking about the raw concept of trading, and in particular trading minions. It's true, in OTK Druid you have to trade (maybe some big minion or some Poisonous threat) but what has changed is the goal. People trade not to clear the board and go face, but only to have enough time to draw all their deck. That's a game style, and I have nothing to complain about it (Personally I love Kingsbane Rogue, despite all its downsides and all), but it can become a problem when in the entire meta there aren't 2-3 relevant decks that follow this concept, but a more consistent quantity. We are gradually losing that feeling of satisfaction that comes from dominating your opponent with force and not with strict math, and maybe this is what makes people uncomfortable, even if they aren't able to express it clearly.
P.S.: My feelings bring my to think (and not to hope) that the next big minion to be taken to HoF will be Malygos
This is the most stale meta ever in the game, you know? The gameplay of 9/10 decks i the same every single game. There is no suprise anymore. Half of the decks are playing hello hello hello little annoying fuckers....I mean, seriously?
Stuck in WW ? Nobody plays combo Shudderwock these days.
They do, run into a fair few of them myself recently, incredibly annoying.
Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.
The Boomsday meta is 20x more diverse than anything we saw in Year of the Mammoth. I'm having a blast with stuff like Lady in White Priest, Deathrattle Hunter, and Even Shaman.
If you're complaining that the meta is stale now, I think its more that you're just bored of the game in general rather than the specific meta. There are no game-breaking decks right now
Unpopular opinion: Rogue is OP
I stayed away from HS 2 months (since July), came back a month after Boomsday (having pre-ordered and everything but couldn't find the time to play), and what's my surprise to see the most played decks? The same ones before the expansion: Even Warlock, Zoo Warlock, Aluneth Mage, Quest Rogue, Odd Rogue, Odd Paladin, Token, Malygos and Toggwaggle Druid, Even and Shudderwock Shaman, etc. Just some updated cards.
Now, it's perfectly fine that decks don't disappear or become obsolete just because of a new expansion, but two months into the expansion and the most played decks out there and that you'll find when playing against other people are the same ones with just a few new cards?
That looked really surprising and a little extreme.
Of course few who have put all their dust in it will play it but it's by far the least played deck from top decks in WW.
It's cool if you play lightly, if you play a lot it gets very stale. There are too many extremely polarized matchups and too many decks that have a strict pattern to how the match goes.
that is the main problem, yes, we are stuck in witchwood and got one new card to play with (giggling inventor) - btw shudder is a really good deck against all these druids ;)
Most of the people complaining are more than likely burned out, but they pin their unhappiness with the game on the meta. Like you said, the meta is pretty good. All classes are playable, all archetypes are playable, and most matchups are winnable. When people are unhappy with a meta like this, they're looking for something new, and the Boomsday, while I like it, did not shake things up much, which "burns out" people who have invested a lot of time and money in the game. These are the same type of people that frequent forums, so we get a very skewed outlook on community "consensus" on the state of the game. My tip to those people is simply take a break. If they're so unhappy with the meta, playing more HS is not going to make things any better.
I myself have climbed to legend in wild with secret hunter, fatigue warrior, and even shaman, while climbing to rank 1 in standard with midrange shaman, mech inner fire priest, mecha'thun warrior and even shaman. None are the "oppressive" decks people complain about, nor are they the "brain dead" decks people complain about, yet I did just fine and had a lot of fun getting there. It's mostly a mentality thing.
However, I 100% agree with the grievance of combo vs control matchups. There needs to be neutral disruption. The game is a matchup coin flipping simulator for control deck enthusiasts, and that's not fair for an entire archetype.