Wide variety of tier 1 and tier 2 decks. Looks great!
The thing is if there are 5 or more tier one decks, then actually none of them is tier 1.
A tier 1 deck is suppose to crush most opponents except mirrors and 1-2 counters max. We live in a world were pretty much every good deck is a tier 2 deck, most of the rest are tier 3 with a few memes and f2p strategies as tier 4.
I for one find this extremely frustrating to play in, since the match ups you face become a bigger factor in the win rate of a (good) player than actual skill of playing your decks well.
Sure, deck decisions should matter, but not like : I play deck A and you play deck B, therefore I instant win/lose.Deck decisions should matter in the sense that you should be able to include a few cards that boost your winrate against some specific strategies and not simply have to switch to another deck that hard counters them.
Like for example when pirates were everywhere having 2 golakka in your deck made a huge difference in your win rate against those classes without completely sacrificing your game plan for another.
PS: You can say whatever you want about Shamanstone or Druidstone but playing such mirrors was extremely rewarding for people who actually played better than their opponents and had the right techs in their decks.
Wide variety of tier 1 and tier 2 decks. Looks great!
The thing is if there are 5 or more tier one decks, then actually none of them is tier 1.
A tier 1 deck is suppose to crush most opponents except mirrors and 1-2 counters max. We live in a world were pretty much every good deck is a tier 2 deck, most of the rest are tier 3 with a few memes and f2p strategies as tier 4.
I for one find this extremely frustrating to play in, since the match ups you face become a bigger factor in the win rate of a (good) player than actual skill of playing your decks well.
Sure, deck decisions should matter, but not like : I play deck A and you play deck B, therefore I instant win/lose.Deck decisions should matter in the sense that you should be able to include a few cards that boost your winrate against some specific strategies and not simply have to switch to another deck that hard counters them.
Like for example when pirates were everywhere having 2 golakka in your deck made a huge difference in your win rate against those classes without completely sacrificing your game plan for another.
PS: You can say whatever you want about Shamanstone or Druidstone but playing such mirrors was extremely rewarding for people who actually played better than their opponents and had the right techs in their decks.
Wait. Your complaint is that the balance between decks and classes is too good? Is this the real life?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Anger is the punishment we give ourselves for someone else's mistake.
I don't understand why people are complaining about a diverse but polarized meta, I guess people just want anything to complain about. Maybe the state of the game is "unhealthy" but the classes are mostly healthy instead of shamanstone or razastone.
Other reasons for this meta is that they reduced a lot of the RNG components which people have been asking for.
The only thing I will actually acknowledge is that the reason for the current state is that the game requires more counter cards, like you cannot play around quests or DK cards at all and their powerlevel is insane.
Wide variety of tier 1 and tier 2 decks. Looks great!
The thing is if there are 5 or more tier one decks, then actually none of them is tier 1.
A tier 1 deck is suppose to crush most opponents except mirrors and 1-2 counters max. We live in a world were pretty much every good deck is a tier 2 deck, most of the rest are tier 3 with a few memes and f2p strategies as tier 4.
I for one find this extremely frustrating to play in, since the match ups you face become a bigger factor in the win rate of a (good) player than actual skill of playing your decks well.
Sure, deck decisions should matter, but not like : I play deck A and you play deck B, therefore I instant win/lose.Deck decisions should matter in the sense that you should be able to include a few cards that boost your winrate against some specific strategies and not simply have to switch to another deck that hard counters them.
Like for example when pirates were everywhere having 2 golakka in your deck made a huge difference in your win rate against those classes without completely sacrificing your game plan for another.
PS: You can say whatever you want about Shamanstone or Druidstone but playing such mirrors was extremely rewarding for people who actually played better than their opponents and had the right techs in their decks.
Wait. Your complaint is that the balance between decks and classes is too good? Is this the real life?
Believe it or not some people do not like rock paper scissors !
I get it that is more fun for some people, but I'd rather play with 1 or 2 good decks and master them, without needing to swap decks every now and then because the pocket becomes unbeatable with current deck.
Like for example, last season I went to legend with quest rogue. I had days where I would go 8 wins in a row and then 5 losses in a row. Why ? Simply because the meta changed from control to aggro in a few dozen minutes. And no matter how well I played there was nothing to do against zoolock, aggro mage and the such.
Overall though quest rogue it still gave me the highest win rate of about 60 percent. I tried some other decks as well, but most of them seemed either polarized or straight up bad.
I don't have the greatest collection though so maybe that played a part in it too.
When youre not adding interactivity, youre wrecking the game. Bring back dirty rats.
The thing is there is still interactivity. Just because you're not able to instantly win against combo decks with one card doesn't mean there isn't interaction that decides games, even against combo players.
For example with Shudderwok players you can force the delay of the combo if they haven't gotten enough in their pool by playing wide and/or tall and overloading the shaman so you get more turns for pressure. That's interactivity.
Oozing Twig to reduce the damage & swing turns from Maly Druid and/or forcing the druid to have to have their game plan extended by having to draw Florist or something else. That's interactivity.
Pressuring Shudderwok into a position where they need to decide to Volcano & Healing rain, or to drop Grumble and making their turn awkward. That's interactivity.
Here's an example from the HCT this weekend, against Deathrattle Hunter you can apply enough of a board presence/value game with big Taunt Druid walls and force the hunter to make more tempo plays with smaller cube plays instead of going greedy with cubes on big minions. That's interactivity.
Aggro vs Quest Rogue, forcing the opponent to spend heals/chargers/Sonya early just to survive. And while we're on the topic of Quest Rogue here's another HCT example, not playing a minion that Sonya get slam chargers into so that Quest Rogue gets an awkward turn where they can't do another or progress their quest. That's interactivity.
That is what I don't like about how the community nowadays interprets "interactivity". Too many players that think "I can't instantly cause my opponent to lose & cause me to win therefore the game is not interactive." I think the above illustrates just a small portion of how even matches with lower interactivity still has it.
That's exactly what I did. I took last and this month to play wild, and boy am I having alot of fun! I forgot how many decks and outcomes there are. So many things to play around I almost cant remember all of them. There are still combo decks but w.e.! My most hated and only downside about wild is that dam murloc, coldlight oracle!!! Still very fun. Started this month at rank 20, now I'm rank 9. Going to try to get legend this or next month! Forget standard, all it is is combo, odd or even... boring!!!
The game feels very bad to me right now. It's much, much more frustrating / soul destroying than it has been before. Many matchups do feel hopeless.
And whether or not players like Zalae who spend 6 hours a day playing game think it's silly to compain is not the point. The point is whether or not your average, reasonable player feels the game is fair and enjoyable.
On that score, Hearthstone is in big trouble. There is a real feeling out there that something is wrong. As the game is about to face some serious competition from MTG and Artifact this is just a bad sign.
I have played this game for over 2 years. I have never felt more demoralized by half the matchups I face than I do currently. And I've made legend the last 7 months. I am by no means a great player, but I know I have at least enough skill to get that far. But I am really losing interest.
The nerfs will help, I hope. But if the next expansion doesn't change things up significantly I am at a point where I wonder if I want to keep shelling out $100+ an expansion to be constantly frustrated.
Quote from FanOfValeera>>1-) Quests are made to beat control decks, because they generate super high value, nothing can fight them in long term. We had rogue, mage and warrior; then some druid and warrior; and now we have warrior occasionally, and of course rogue. You can say that Blizzard will create new cards to punish greedy control players, because thats what they did with Jade Idol as well. Well, I prefer not. Greedy control decks are punished by aggro players enough. So, you either go full greed, and lose to aggro, or go anti-aggro, and lose to control.
Same quests, however, lose to aggro decks. Apparently, we can't expect a deck to be strong against everything at the same time. But if a deck loses to a playstyle while hunting down another playstyle, that's where polarization happens. Game already had a balance between midrange, aggro and control. Blizzard added elements in between (Jade cards, and now quests), and they fucked it up.
Well, not Nothing can fight ‘em in the long term.
I beat priest, warrior quest decks with my dmh warrior.
Of course, rogue quest simply has to much charge face damage in the long run, can’t compete with that.
Damn, I love that mech-double dmh-warrior to death. It truly is that much fun people ;) .
Even when the 1 mana omega get 3 mech card gets Geisted, I run Geosculptor Yip as a back-up plan. I mean, for the super late game, u do need some beef to hold especially rexxar/ jaina at bay. I run warpath x2, blood razor x2 and a brawl for clears; Aop x2, battle rage, slam and the Harrison/Weapons project combo for draw; 1 shield block and a 2 mana 2/2 dude that gives armor for lifegain; wargear x2, tar creep, saronite, stonehill just to get stuff out of my hand. Clearly 2 executes for biggies.
Biggest part of the fun of the deck is, when u get to the stage of dmh’ing. What do u want to shuffle into your deck? Do u really need to shuffle for example Brawl? If u do, expect to get it back. If u can’t use it, u may have to dmh again, and as a result shuffle 2 brawls in there. This really clogs up your hand. Hand management with this deck is so cool and challenging. Love it.
(Goes without saying the deck loses to all Mechathun/ resurrect priest stuff. OTK/ super high damage bursts, the deck cannot sustain. U do have a chance against maly drood though, cause of the dr boom hp (if u are lucky that is) and the shuffling of the shield block.)
Playing since Tgt, I have never seen a meta this bad. I thought that midrange shaman and raza priest was bad. This is truly the worst state that I have ever seen the game in. Every matchup is either an auto win, which is super boring and you don't even have to think about your plays as you win no matter what, or an auto lose, where no amount of thinking you do will win the game. Both scenarios are just not fun in any way. The way that this game should be is: Oh, its a hunter, I can do this to try and win. Instead of: Oh, its a hunter. I lose no matter what because of infinite value from rexxar. Might as well concede.
And I'm not blaming one deck, I'm blaming quite a few of them. I don't think I'm biased at all because I play a few of these decks, but Odd warrior, Quest rogue, any hunter deck with rexxar, zoolock, shudderwock shaman, odd rogue, basically any druid deck, and kingsbane rogue. What do all of these decks have in common? They're polarizing. Even if some aren't that powerful, it doesn't mean that it isn't polarizing. Look at hunter. Not the most powerful class by any means at all, but is such a pain in the ass to face for some decks. Look at warrior, and quest rogue, or any of the decks I mentioned above. All the same. No new decks can emerge because one deck can destroy anything.
But they can't nerf all of these decks, and they probably won't nerf most of them. So there will be polarizing decks at least until the next rotation. Blizzard claims that their stats don't show that the meta is more polarizing than ever, but then why is the game as boring as ever? And how come when I queue into half of my games wanting to instantly concede?
Literally almost every deck is so polarizing that I'm not even having fun playing my favorite decks. They just aren't fun to play because almost any good deck is pretty polarized with the exception of a few, and decks that aren't polarizing typically just aren't good. To get legend I feel like you just need to get a bit of luck with not facing your counter for a few games, and thats it.
Does anyone else agree me? Or is this game somehow still fun for people?
EDIT: I understand that there's a lot of these types of threads, but I just want to see what people think.
Oh joy! It's the latest "This meta is the worst ever" thread. Not seen one of those in like, days! Sigh....
The funny part is people talking about the meta being polarising, like it's a bad thing....
If Rock-Paper-Scissors is the perfectly balanced metagame everyone looks for, then why is it that no one is streaming that game 6-8 hours a day? Because it's boring as hell!
So if we assume that the designers got HS "right" in having a meta where rock-paper-scissors outcomes are more common than before (with some form of control deck thrashing aggro decks but losing to combo, while combo loses to aggro), then it's pretty obvious people are going to get bored quickly regardless of whether aggro can beat control some marginal percentage more often when played by better players.
The Vicious Syndicate report reveals one thing that has been glossed over by the so-called 'better' players in their quest to piss further than those of us who are bored with HS - the amount of interaction between players has decreased steadily over the past two years. There are fewer skill-based 'hard' answers to the opponent's strategy - most "answers" are just Skulking Geist-type silver bullets that have the effect of nerfing certain matchups, rather than said Geist being particularly skill-intensive to play or include in a deck. In other words - the answers to a lack of interaction is to make more cards that don't interact!
What most people appear to want is not so much a meta where they can play the best deck and win comfortably with it (though that has a certain allure for some), they want a meta where their actions are meaningful each and every game, even if these actions cause their own downfall. I kept notes: at one point 10 consecutive Hunter opponents played Rexxar on turn 5 or 6. I mulligan hard for Rexxar when I play Hunter, but I never get it on curve with such consistency. Whether that even counts as a gripe is for debate, but assuming I'm playing a deck that struggles to beat Rexxar played properly, how satisfied can I be that I essentially auto-lose to a popular hero just because of one card in the deck? Especially when the deck I play has similar efficiency against other, just as popular deck archetypes like Odd Rogue? Who do I choose to nerf with my deck choice, and how can I control which opponents I get so that I don't have sessions where I face twice as many Hunters and go backwards?
The truth is that Blizzard's design team breaks game balance in every expansion with so many cards that balance itself has become a myth. People might see every archetype having positive win rates as a good indicator of balance, but at what cost has this balance come? The cost is the loss of interest among people who would prefer that the majority of their games do not come down to which random class they have drawn as an opponent. "Actual" balance is when any class has a 50% win rate against any other specific class, in matches where skill weighs more than card power or RNG - but this is not a reality in HS. And people somehow still think the problem is how many decks use Basic cards!
While there are some great and skillful decks to play like Even Lock, Token Druid, Odd Rogue, Even Shaman, all Hunters (fck Rexxar tho!) there is equivalent number of hate decks, mostly combo decks unfortunately. I love playing shudderwarock, yet i know its so unhealthy to the game, SO GAME LIMITING coming into next expansions. All the druid shenenigans, every time u see Keleseth, every time u get to lose to MechaThun, the moment when I see THAT GODDAMN Druid Flowerist girl on board........quest rogue.........
Never before have we seen so many viable tier 2 decks. And never before have we seen so many hateful cards and archetypes. We used to have a solution for most of that - Dirty Rat. I m not saying Id like to see such card again, but other than that they would have to print strong 2 drops again.
For anyone feeling a bit disappointed with the current state of hs, try Magic the Gathering Arena. It's refreshing to play after hs and much more rewarding in terms of quests. You also get a new deck each day!
The Vicious Syndicate report reveals one thing that has been glossed over by the so-called 'better' players in their quest to piss further than those of us who are bored with HS - the amount of interaction between players has decreased steadily over the past two years. There are fewer skill-based 'hard' answers to the opponent's strategy - most "answers" are just Skulking Geist-type silver bullets that have the effect of nerfing certain matchups, rather than said Geist being particularly skill-intensive to play or include in a deck. In other words - the answers to a lack of interaction is to make more cards that don't interact!
I agree that specific counters add to the polarization: they're good when you queue into the deck they're targeting and bad if you don't.
I think nerfing Jade Idol to two mana would have been a fine solution: it would make it more awkard to play in the early game, since on turn 2 it competes with Wild Growth and the hero power, while it would also have made the Gadgetzan Auctioneer turns a lot less crazy. Going infinite was not the problem: currently Warrior, Warlock and Rogue have the ability to go infinite, but that has zero impact on the meta. The rate at which Jade Druid could draw their entire deck and pump out Golems was the real issue.
What most people appear to want is not so much a meta where they can play the best deck and win comfortably with it (though that has a certain allure for some), they want a meta where their actions are meaningful each and every game, even if these actions cause their own downfall. I kept notes: at one point 10 consecutive Hunter opponents played Rexxar on turn 5 or 6. I mulligan hard for Rexxar when I play Hunter, but I never get it on curve with such consistency. Whether that even counts as a gripe is for debate, but assuming I'm playing a deck that struggles to beat Rexxar played properly, how satisfied can I be that I essentially auto-lose to a popular hero just because of one card in the deck? Especially when the deck I play has similar efficiency against other, just as popular deck archetypes like Odd Rogue? Who do I choose to nerf with my deck choice, and how can I control which opponents I get so that I don't have sessions where I face twice as many Hunters and go backwards?
With a hard mulligan and Tracking, it is possible to find Rexxar fairly consistently, but still 10 consecutive opponents is really bad luck on your part. I'm assuming you're playing Odd Warrior? Rexxar is what Hunter needs to have any chance at all against Odd Warrior and even if they get it early, it's still not an auto-win. Also building the best beasts is a skill and choosing when and how to use your removal is also a skill, so it's not a pure luck matchup: your decisions and your opponent's do influence the chances of winning, even if those chances aren't 50/50.
Besides, Odd Warrior is the deck with the most polarized matchups according to Vicious Syndicate, so if you don't enjoy polarization, you can avoid it by playing a less polarized deck yourself.
The truth is that Blizzard's design team breaks game balance in every expansion with so many cards that balance itself has become a myth. People might see every archetype having positive win rates as a good indicator of balance, but at what cost has this balance come? The cost is the loss of interest among people who would prefer that the majority of their games do not come down to which random class they have drawn as an opponent. "Actual" balance is when any class has a 50% win rate against any other specific class, in matches where skill weighs more than card power or RNG - but this is not a reality in HS.
It is mathematically impossible for every archetype to have a >50% win rate, because for every game won there is also a game lost.
I don't think zero polarization should be the goal, because that will inevitably go at the expense of something else: I don't think it's possible to get perfect balance without making every matchup essentially a mirror-match: either everyone will be playing the same deck or every deck uses cards that are small variations of the same thing. I do think we should have less polarization than we currently have, but not zero.
StarCraft manages to balance 3 very different races, but I don't think StarCraft could be balanced with 9 races. Also in StarCraft you select the units you build during the game, with information about what your opponent is playing. If you had to queue up with a fixed build order, the matchups would be a lot more polarized.
And people somehow still think the problem is how many decks use Basic cards!
This is an entirely different problem: if decks rely heavily on Basic and Classic cards, then the same cards and the same archetypes are going to be played again and again each season. When that happens, new sets don't feel fresh and people get bored of the game, even if the game would be perfectly balanced.
The thing is if there are 5 or more tier one decks, then actually none of them is tier 1.
A tier 1 deck is suppose to crush most opponents except mirrors and 1-2 counters max. We live in a world were pretty much every good deck is a tier 2 deck, most of the rest are tier 3 with a few memes and f2p strategies as tier 4.
I for one find this extremely frustrating to play in, since the match ups you face become a bigger factor in the win rate of a (good) player than actual skill of playing your decks well.
Sure, deck decisions should matter, but not like : I play deck A and you play deck B, therefore I instant win/lose.Deck decisions should matter in the sense that you should be able to include a few cards that boost your winrate against some specific strategies and not simply have to switch to another deck that hard counters them.
Like for example when pirates were everywhere having 2 golakka in your deck made a huge difference in your win rate against those classes without completely sacrificing your game plan for another.
PS: You can say whatever you want about Shamanstone or Druidstone but playing such mirrors was extremely rewarding for people who actually played better than their opponents and had the right techs in their decks.
Wait. Your complaint is that the balance between decks and classes is too good? Is this the real life?
Anger is the punishment we give ourselves for someone else's mistake.
this made me giggle, just ignore billie_lurk the guy is a complete clown, it's just one of his typical comments. lol
Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.
I don't understand why people are complaining about a diverse but polarized meta, I guess people just want anything to complain about. Maybe the state of the game is "unhealthy" but the classes are mostly healthy instead of shamanstone or razastone.
Other reasons for this meta is that they reduced a lot of the RNG components which people have been asking for.
The only thing I will actually acknowledge is that the reason for the current state is that the game requires more counter cards, like you cannot play around quests or DK cards at all and their powerlevel is insane.
Believe it or not some people do not like rock paper scissors !
I get it that is more fun for some people, but I'd rather play with 1 or 2 good decks and master them, without needing to swap decks every now and then because the pocket becomes unbeatable with current deck.
Like for example, last season I went to legend with quest rogue. I had days where I would go 8 wins in a row and then 5 losses in a row. Why ? Simply because the meta changed from control to aggro in a few dozen minutes. And no matter how well I played there was nothing to do against zoolock, aggro mage and the such.
Overall though quest rogue it still gave me the highest win rate of about 60 percent. I tried some other decks as well, but most of them seemed either polarized or straight up bad.
I don't have the greatest collection though so maybe that played a part in it too.
For my money, the worst metagame ever was KoFT pre-nerfs. Gotta love it when druid is so dominant that it's only real counter is itself.
for me, this is the most balanced meta we got now.
except alligner druid.
The thing is there is still interactivity. Just because you're not able to instantly win against combo decks with one card doesn't mean there isn't interaction that decides games, even against combo players.
For example with Shudderwok players you can force the delay of the combo if they haven't gotten enough in their pool by playing wide and/or tall and overloading the shaman so you get more turns for pressure. That's interactivity.
Oozing Twig to reduce the damage & swing turns from Maly Druid and/or forcing the druid to have to have their game plan extended by having to draw Florist or something else. That's interactivity.
Pressuring Shudderwok into a position where they need to decide to Volcano & Healing rain, or to drop Grumble and making their turn awkward. That's interactivity.
Here's an example from the HCT this weekend, against Deathrattle Hunter you can apply enough of a board presence/value game with big Taunt Druid walls and force the hunter to make more tempo plays with smaller cube plays instead of going greedy with cubes on big minions. That's interactivity.
Aggro vs Quest Rogue, forcing the opponent to spend heals/chargers/Sonya early just to survive. And while we're on the topic of Quest Rogue here's another HCT example, not playing a minion that Sonya get slam chargers into so that Quest Rogue gets an awkward turn where they can't do another or progress their quest. That's interactivity.
That is what I don't like about how the community nowadays interprets "interactivity". Too many players that think "I can't instantly cause my opponent to lose & cause me to win therefore the game is not interactive." I think the above illustrates just a small portion of how even matches with lower interactivity still has it.
Still the most polaraizing meta ever though. Diversity is good but at what cost?
Worst meta ever...lol
Do you remember the pirate warrior - Reno meat, or when Shaman was god...those were terrible metas
That's exactly what I did. I took last and this month to play wild, and boy am I having alot of fun! I forgot how many decks and outcomes there are. So many things to play around I almost cant remember all of them. There are still combo decks but w.e.! My most hated and only downside about wild is that dam murloc, coldlight oracle!!! Still very fun. Started this month at rank 20, now I'm rank 9. Going to try to get legend this or next month! Forget standard, all it is is combo, odd or even... boring!!!
The game feels very bad to me right now. It's much, much more frustrating / soul destroying than it has been before. Many matchups do feel hopeless.
And whether or not players like Zalae who spend 6 hours a day playing game think it's silly to compain is not the point. The point is whether or not your average, reasonable player feels the game is fair and enjoyable.
On that score, Hearthstone is in big trouble. There is a real feeling out there that something is wrong. As the game is about to face some serious competition from MTG and Artifact this is just a bad sign.
I have played this game for over 2 years. I have never felt more demoralized by half the matchups I face than I do currently. And I've made legend the last 7 months. I am by no means a great player, but I know I have at least enough skill to get that far. But I am really losing interest.
The nerfs will help, I hope. But if the next expansion doesn't change things up significantly I am at a point where I wonder if I want to keep shelling out $100+ an expansion to be constantly frustrated.
Well, not Nothing can fight ‘em in the long term.
I beat priest, warrior quest decks with my dmh warrior.
Of course, rogue quest simply has to much charge face damage in the long run, can’t compete with that.
Damn, I love that mech-double dmh-warrior to death. It truly is that much fun people ;) .
Even when the 1 mana omega get 3 mech card gets Geisted, I run Geosculptor Yip as a back-up plan. I mean, for the super late game, u do need some beef to hold especially rexxar/ jaina at bay. I run warpath x2, blood razor x2 and a brawl for clears; Aop x2, battle rage, slam and the Harrison/Weapons project combo for draw; 1 shield block and a 2 mana 2/2 dude that gives armor for lifegain; wargear x2, tar creep, saronite, stonehill just to get stuff out of my hand. Clearly 2 executes for biggies.
Biggest part of the fun of the deck is, when u get to the stage of dmh’ing. What do u want to shuffle into your deck? Do u really need to shuffle for example Brawl? If u do, expect to get it back. If u can’t use it, u may have to dmh again, and as a result shuffle 2 brawls in there. This really clogs up your hand. Hand management with this deck is so cool and challenging. Love it.
(Goes without saying the deck loses to all Mechathun/ resurrect priest stuff. OTK/ super high damage bursts, the deck cannot sustain. U do have a chance against maly drood though, cause of the dr boom hp (if u are lucky that is) and the shuffling of the shield block.)
Oh joy! It's the latest "This meta is the worst ever" thread.
Not seen one of those in like, days!
Sigh....
The funny part is people talking about the meta being polarising, like it's a bad thing....
If Rock-Paper-Scissors is the perfectly balanced metagame everyone looks for, then why is it that no one is streaming that game 6-8 hours a day? Because it's boring as hell!
So if we assume that the designers got HS "right" in having a meta where rock-paper-scissors outcomes are more common than before (with some form of control deck thrashing aggro decks but losing to combo, while combo loses to aggro), then it's pretty obvious people are going to get bored quickly regardless of whether aggro can beat control some marginal percentage more often when played by better players.
The Vicious Syndicate report reveals one thing that has been glossed over by the so-called 'better' players in their quest to piss further than those of us who are bored with HS - the amount of interaction between players has decreased steadily over the past two years. There are fewer skill-based 'hard' answers to the opponent's strategy - most "answers" are just Skulking Geist-type silver bullets that have the effect of nerfing certain matchups, rather than said Geist being particularly skill-intensive to play or include in a deck. In other words - the answers to a lack of interaction is to make more cards that don't interact!
What most people appear to want is not so much a meta where they can play the best deck and win comfortably with it (though that has a certain allure for some), they want a meta where their actions are meaningful each and every game, even if these actions cause their own downfall. I kept notes: at one point 10 consecutive Hunter opponents played Rexxar on turn 5 or 6. I mulligan hard for Rexxar when I play Hunter, but I never get it on curve with such consistency. Whether that even counts as a gripe is for debate, but assuming I'm playing a deck that struggles to beat Rexxar played properly, how satisfied can I be that I essentially auto-lose to a popular hero just because of one card in the deck? Especially when the deck I play has similar efficiency against other, just as popular deck archetypes like Odd Rogue? Who do I choose to nerf with my deck choice, and how can I control which opponents I get so that I don't have sessions where I face twice as many Hunters and go backwards?
The truth is that Blizzard's design team breaks game balance in every expansion with so many cards that balance itself has become a myth. People might see every archetype having positive win rates as a good indicator of balance, but at what cost has this balance come? The cost is the loss of interest among people who would prefer that the majority of their games do not come down to which random class they have drawn as an opponent. "Actual" balance is when any class has a 50% win rate against any other specific class, in matches where skill weighs more than card power or RNG - but this is not a reality in HS. And people somehow still think the problem is how many decks use Basic cards!
While there are some great and skillful decks to play like Even Lock, Token Druid, Odd Rogue, Even Shaman, all Hunters (fck Rexxar tho!) there is equivalent number of hate decks, mostly combo decks unfortunately. I love playing shudderwarock, yet i know its so unhealthy to the game, SO GAME LIMITING coming into next expansions. All the druid shenenigans, every time u see Keleseth, every time u get to lose to MechaThun, the moment when I see THAT GODDAMN Druid Flowerist girl on board........quest rogue.........
Never before have we seen so many viable tier 2 decks. And never before have we seen so many hateful cards and archetypes. We used to have a solution for most of that - Dirty Rat. I m not saying Id like to see such card again, but other than that they would have to print strong 2 drops again.
For anyone feeling a bit disappointed with the current state of hs, try Magic the Gathering Arena. It's refreshing to play after hs and much more rewarding in terms of quests. You also get a new deck each day!
It's not rng if you call - Amaz
You are so right! I see so many people conceding on the first glance they could lose, it is insane! Most of the time i wasn't even at a winning point
I agree that specific counters add to the polarization: they're good when you queue into the deck they're targeting and bad if you don't.
I think nerfing Jade Idol to two mana would have been a fine solution: it would make it more awkard to play in the early game, since on turn 2 it competes with Wild Growth and the hero power, while it would also have made the Gadgetzan Auctioneer turns a lot less crazy. Going infinite was not the problem: currently Warrior, Warlock and Rogue have the ability to go infinite, but that has zero impact on the meta. The rate at which Jade Druid could draw their entire deck and pump out Golems was the real issue.
With a hard mulligan and Tracking, it is possible to find Rexxar fairly consistently, but still 10 consecutive opponents is really bad luck on your part. I'm assuming you're playing Odd Warrior? Rexxar is what Hunter needs to have any chance at all against Odd Warrior and even if they get it early, it's still not an auto-win. Also building the best beasts is a skill and choosing when and how to use your removal is also a skill, so it's not a pure luck matchup: your decisions and your opponent's do influence the chances of winning, even if those chances aren't 50/50.
Besides, Odd Warrior is the deck with the most polarized matchups according to Vicious Syndicate, so if you don't enjoy polarization, you can avoid it by playing a less polarized deck yourself.
It is mathematically impossible for every archetype to have a >50% win rate, because for every game won there is also a game lost.
I don't think zero polarization should be the goal, because that will inevitably go at the expense of something else: I don't think it's possible to get perfect balance without making every matchup essentially a mirror-match: either everyone will be playing the same deck or every deck uses cards that are small variations of the same thing. I do think we should have less polarization than we currently have, but not zero.
StarCraft manages to balance 3 very different races, but I don't think StarCraft could be balanced with 9 races. Also in StarCraft you select the units you build during the game, with information about what your opponent is playing. If you had to queue up with a fixed build order, the matchups would be a lot more polarized.
This is an entirely different problem: if decks rely heavily on Basic and Classic cards, then the same cards and the same archetypes are going to be played again and again each season. When that happens, new sets don't feel fresh and people get bored of the game, even if the game would be perfectly balanced.
Someone literally says this every single month, every single meta, every single time.