Preface: I made a forum post about the Giggling nerfs. You can see it here. This is written for someone who knows little about Hearthstone, but it is directed at everyone. Lastly, I will be referencing statistics from HSReplay. Links are posted on the stat. Let me know if I got something wrong.
In the poll on the original post, the most controversial nerf was for Mana Wyrm. 57.8% liked it (as of 2:50p 10/18/18) leaving it as the most disliked nerf according to the respondents. This was by no means a proper scientific experiment, it was my curiosity. I will be talking about the original Mana Wyrm, the nerf, the future of the card, and alternate nerfs for the card.
The Original Mana Wyrm was a mage card, 1 mana, 0 attack, 3 health, common rarity and it has the text "Whenever you cast a spell, gain +1 attack". It was buffed up to 1 attack (no other changes) with the 1.0.0.3388 patch, which was released on June 22nd, 2013. It has remained as such since. It is a cornerstone in Tempo mage but generally, it is not in any other mainstream decks. Tempo mage has a 55.9% win rate (as of 7:05p 10/18/18, HSReplay.net) . The only other deck that I found was a deck called "Murloc Mage" on HSreplay. It has a mere 750 plays, so I omitted the deck.
In the explanation from Blizzard, they stated 2 main reasons for the nerf. The first reason was that games were often decided as soon as the mage played mana wyrm turn 1. I don't subscribe to HSreplay, so if someone could let me know the turn details for Mana Wyrm, that'd be great. Not going to draw any conclusions until that happens. The other reason was that it steered the card designers from making strong, low-cost spells. This leads me to believe that Blizzard wants to make low-cost mage spells. Foreshadowing for the next expansion? But I can't make any mathematical conclusions without the aforementioned HSreplay data.
The future of Mana Wyrm is uncertain at best. I think that the usual start of Mana Wyrm into Coin into Arcane Missiles is going to end. I consider that one of the strongest turn 1's in the game, only topped by Zoolock's turn 1 11/9 (Coin, Flame Imp, Voodoo Doctor, 2x Happy Ghoul). *Cue in the conspiracy theory confirmed music* Going from what Blizzard said in their nerf statement: "Mana Wyrm has also steered us away from making powerful low-cost Mage spells." First, I just want to point out that I think that Blizzard is directly saying that they want to make those powerful low-cost mage spells. This leads me to believe that Team 5 isn't nerfing Mana Wyrm because it's too powerful, they are nerfing it because they are going to release powerful, low-cost mage spells in an upcoming expansion; and when in combination with Mana Wyrm, it would be too OP. This points to a meta that will have Tempo Mage as OP as Machine gun priest (Pre-Raza nerf)
For starters, I know that however many people read and agree with this, Blizzard isn't going to change the card. I don't expect them to. Moving on, if you pay any attention to the community regarding these nerfs, you've probably seen all the community nerf suggestions. The ones that I have seen change the card to 2 health or change it to 0 attack. I have also seen a few people recommend that it go into Hall of Fame, with no nerfs. Putting it in HoF will just make it an unsolved problem in wild. 0 attack will change it to a turn 1 2/3 instead of 3/3. 2 health makes sense in the current meta but under the assumption that Blizzard is going to make high tempo mage spells, it is just too good.
Let me know what you guys think of the nerf
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I'm Nate and I enjoy writing. I got kicked off of my school newspaper so I figured I'd bring my passion to my favorite game.
Mana Wyrm was the Keleseth of 1-drops. If the stats changed, you still have "not that good of a deck when its not played on 1, insane snowball curvestone when you do" type games. Often, it would trade for something as high a 4 or 5-drop if you didn't have a removal spell in your opening hand, which is not something you should ever say about a 1-drop.
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Personal I believe 1/2 nerf would have been the most balanced and fair. However, this isn't about what's best for the one card, it's about future and even current design space.
This nerf says: wyrm is currently one of if not the best 1 drop in the game. How can the devs print new 1 drops for mage or with mage synergy that'll see play unless they are beyond ridiculously overpowered. The truth is, you can't. Mage has alot of good 2 drops already, this change does 2 things:
1. Opens up design space for future 1 drops
2. Create more choice in the 2mana minion slot for mage
Is it perfect? No. Is it healthy for the future of the game? I believe yes, and look forward to future playable 1 drops for mage.
Way overdue nerf. Realistically, mana change was the only viable option, as health or attack wouldn’t have made a huge difference in most cases.
I’m happy with it, seeing it played on turn 1 for the last 4-5 years is one of the most frustrating starts to go against. Not sure why they don’t give other snowball 1 drops the same treatment.
I've been playing standard ladder bouncing between rank 10 and 9. I'm yet to lose to a tempo mage. But with the nerf just going live last night/this morning, I've only played against 2 tempo mages. I'm trying to get more data right now.
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I'm Nate and I enjoy writing. I got kicked off of my school newspaper so I figured I'd bring my passion to my favorite game.
Is it probably good for the future of the game? Can't tell; we don't have any expansion news (yet) to base that part of the Blizzard Card Design argument on. The answer is Yes if we get announcements for the last expansion this year that point towards strong Mage openers. The answer is No until the next rotation in every case I can think of otherwise- at the very least.
Is a 1 drop that "decides" the game problematic? Yes, however the data necessary to determine that, I'm to assume, belongs to Blizzard and Blizzard's eyes only. We will never see their game design standpoint data, that is different to websites like HSReplay, that they use to determine these types of calls (the entire adjustment process for them historically for that matter). But if we are arguing the strength of turn specific power then lets peak at Wild Growth: 58% played win rate, and a whopping 64.2% mulligan win rate. This is the hardest area to argue, but I'd personally say Mage got the short end of the stick here. At the very least I can agree the Mage was being CARRIED by one card...but that's not to say it DECIDED matches.
I made a thread called: The "Nuke It From Orbit" Approach to Game Design that pretty much tackled the last point of your post. I argued that T5 crashes down on cards hard, specifically Mana Wyrm in this case. Plenty of people vouch that it is "still being played and killing them", but how often is that player skill/draw RNG? Regardless, I'm not claiming to be a nerf guru. I'm just trying to make the point that cards in the game deserve more justice than a one-time adjustment that either destroys or overshadows representation. This can easily be remedied if Blizzard, as large as they are, takes better care of their ground-breaking, forefront, online collectible card game by adjusting cards and discussing the meta more often than 3-4 times a year.
TL;DR:
Mana Wyrm deserved a better adjustment (Personally I agree with popular vote: 1 mana 1/2)
Mage got nuked out of the meta (I for one welcome our Druid Overlords- sarcasm sarcasm)
Blizzard needs to more actively take part in shaping the game (More frequent and driven nerfs)
PLENTY OF OTHER CARDS AND COMBOS WERE MORE OF A PROBLEM (Too many to even list regardless if you include Wild)
To all the people who think that 1/2 would be a better nerf: look at Undertaker. It saw absolutely no play after its nerf because it's much easier to remove a minion with 2 health than a minion with 3 health.
As for the nerf itself, well... there was no point in nerfing Mana Wyrm now but they are probably either going to release a bunch of 0-cost spells or a new increadibly epic 1-cost minion for Mage.
To all the people who think that 1/2 would be a better nerf: look at Undertaker. It saw absolutely no play after its nerf because it's much easier to remove a minion with 2 health than a minion with 3 health.
As for the nerf itself, well... there was no point in nerfing Mana Wyrm now but they are probably either going to release a bunch of 0-cost spells or a new increadibly epic 1-cost minion for Mage.
Not fully sure Undertaker is a good comparison. To build that up you need to play deathrattle cards which aren't as tempo gaining. The deck was strong because those slow deathrattle cards created a massively powerful undertaker.
In contrast, Mana Wyrm grows by casting spells. Thus it was common to drop a Wyrm then follow it up with nuking the opponent's board with spells while the thing keeps growing, making minion based strategies fall out the window. The only way to kill it is to either have a spell of your own, which not all decks will do reliably, or if the mage doesn't have a spell follow up that protects the Wyrm.
Right now the Wyrm is soft because mages don't have many strong low cost spells they want to rely on. Instead, they've been relying on minion tempo at turn 2-3, making the Wyrm less likely to snowball.
The way the description of the nerf went out, it sounds like Blizzard wanted to give mage more early game spells, then realized they would be changing mage from playing early game minions to playing Wrym+early game spells. Which means everyone will again need a spell removal, a 1 drop that doesn't die the following turn, or a lot of luck.
Thus the reason why Wyrm isn't a problem is because the designers have been holding back on mage for a while to keep it from being a problem. Thus they either hamstring themselves into forcing mage to rely on early game minions and late game spells forever, unleash the plans they do have and be forced to nerf wyrm down, or nerf him now.
And if the decision is based on ideas and cards we haven't seen yet, saying that 1/2 is better than 2 mana might be a little too early a call.
The nerf on Mana Wyrm is needed. It is just the timing of it was that so wrong. Mage isn't in a good spot in the meta right now and that nerf hurts them a lot. If the nerf happened next year at the time of rotations, that would of been a great time to nerf it or HoF it (which Blizzard's argument would hold water). Making it a 1/2 would probably be a better nerf in general but I am not quite sure if it would be a big nerf (as Tempo Mages spam cheap spells to take out early threats and protect their Mana Wrym). To be honest, the better nerf would be to just HoF it.
To all the people who think that 1/2 would be a better nerf: look at Undertaker. It saw absolutely no play after its nerf because it's much easier to remove a minion with 2 health than a minion with 3 health.
Undertaker saw no play after the nerf because its health stopped growing, not because its health was 2 vs 3. That's a completely different situation.
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Preface: I made a forum post about the Giggling nerfs. You can see it here.
This is written for someone who knows little about Hearthstone, but it is directed at everyone.
Lastly, I will be referencing statistics from HSReplay. Links are posted on the stat. Let me know if I got something wrong.
In the poll on the original post, the most controversial nerf was for Mana Wyrm. 57.8% liked it (as of 2:50p 10/18/18) leaving it as the most disliked nerf according to the respondents. This was by no means a proper scientific experiment, it was my curiosity. I will be talking about the original Mana Wyrm, the nerf, the future of the card, and alternate nerfs for the card.
The Original Mana Wyrm was a mage card, 1 mana, 0 attack, 3 health, common rarity and it has the text "Whenever you cast a spell, gain +1 attack". It was buffed up to 1 attack (no other changes) with the 1.0.0.3388 patch, which was released on June 22nd, 2013. It has remained as such since. It is a cornerstone in Tempo mage but generally, it is not in any other mainstream decks. Tempo mage has a 55.9% win rate (as of 7:05p 10/18/18, HSReplay.net) . The only other deck that I found was a deck called "Murloc Mage" on HSreplay. It has a mere 750 plays, so I omitted the deck.
In the explanation from Blizzard, they stated 2 main reasons for the nerf. The first reason was that games were often decided as soon as the mage played mana wyrm turn 1. I don't subscribe to HSreplay, so if someone could let me know the turn details for Mana Wyrm, that'd be great. Not going to draw any conclusions until that happens. The other reason was that it steered the card designers from making strong, low-cost spells. This leads me to believe that Blizzard wants to make low-cost mage spells. Foreshadowing for the next expansion? But I can't make any mathematical conclusions without the aforementioned HSreplay data.
The future of Mana Wyrm is uncertain at best. I think that the usual start of Mana Wyrm into Coin into Arcane Missiles is going to end. I consider that one of the strongest turn 1's in the game, only topped by Zoolock's turn 1 11/9 (Coin, Flame Imp, Voodoo Doctor, 2x Happy Ghoul). *Cue in the conspiracy theory confirmed music* Going from what Blizzard said in their nerf statement: "Mana Wyrm has also steered us away from making powerful low-cost Mage spells." First, I just want to point out that I think that Blizzard is directly saying that they want to make those powerful low-cost mage spells. This leads me to believe that Team 5 isn't nerfing Mana Wyrm because it's too powerful, they are nerfing it because they are going to release powerful, low-cost mage spells in an upcoming expansion; and when in combination with Mana Wyrm, it would be too OP. This points to a meta that will have Tempo Mage as OP as Machine gun priest (Pre-Raza nerf)
For starters, I know that however many people read and agree with this, Blizzard isn't going to change the card. I don't expect them to. Moving on, if you pay any attention to the community regarding these nerfs, you've probably seen all the community nerf suggestions. The ones that I have seen change the card to 2 health or change it to 0 attack. I have also seen a few people recommend that it go into Hall of Fame, with no nerfs. Putting it in HoF will just make it an unsolved problem in wild. 0 attack will change it to a turn 1 2/3 instead of 3/3. 2 health makes sense in the current meta but under the assumption that Blizzard is going to make high tempo mage spells, it is just too good.
Let me know what you guys think of the nerf
I'm Nate and I enjoy writing. I got kicked off of my school newspaper so I figured I'd bring my passion to my favorite game.
I got killed last night by a 2-cost Mana Wyrm. It's still going to see play.
Mana Wyrm was the Keleseth of 1-drops. If the stats changed, you still have "not that good of a deck when its not played on 1, insane snowball curvestone when you do" type games. Often, it would trade for something as high a 4 or 5-drop if you didn't have a removal spell in your opening hand, which is not something you should ever say about a 1-drop.
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got blasted away anyway with aggro mage. i think nerf is fine. lots of "posterboy class card" got nerfed also so..yeah
Personal I believe 1/2 nerf would have been the most balanced and fair. However, this isn't about what's best for the one card, it's about future and even current design space.
This nerf says: wyrm is currently one of if not the best 1 drop in the game. How can the devs print new 1 drops for mage or with mage synergy that'll see play unless they are beyond ridiculously overpowered. The truth is, you can't. Mage has alot of good 2 drops already, this change does 2 things:
1. Opens up design space for future 1 drops
2. Create more choice in the 2mana minion slot for mage
Is it perfect? No. Is it healthy for the future of the game? I believe yes, and look forward to future playable 1 drops for mage.
You have too much time on your hands if you can type a thesis on a nerf.
Way overdue nerf. Realistically, mana change was the only viable option, as health or attack wouldn’t have made a huge difference in most cases.
I’m happy with it, seeing it played on turn 1 for the last 4-5 years is one of the most frustrating starts to go against. Not sure why they don’t give other snowball 1 drops the same treatment.
Dibbity don't touch that!
Maybe he just cares about the game? I would never do this research off my own back, so I appreciate the people who do.
Dibbity don't touch that!
I've been playing standard ladder bouncing between rank 10 and 9. I'm yet to lose to a tempo mage. But with the nerf just going live last night/this morning, I've only played against 2 tempo mages. I'm trying to get more data right now.
I'm Nate and I enjoy writing. I got kicked off of my school newspaper so I figured I'd bring my passion to my favorite game.
Is it probably good for the future of the game? Can't tell; we don't have any expansion news (yet) to base that part of the Blizzard Card Design argument on. The answer is Yes if we get announcements for the last expansion this year that point towards strong Mage openers. The answer is No until the next rotation in every case I can think of otherwise- at the very least.
Is a 1 drop that "decides" the game problematic? Yes, however the data necessary to determine that, I'm to assume, belongs to Blizzard and Blizzard's eyes only. We will never see their game design standpoint data, that is different to websites like HSReplay, that they use to determine these types of calls (the entire adjustment process for them historically for that matter). But if we are arguing the strength of turn specific power then lets peak at Wild Growth: 58% played win rate, and a whopping 64.2% mulligan win rate. This is the hardest area to argue, but I'd personally say Mage got the short end of the stick here. At the very least I can agree the Mage was being CARRIED by one card...but that's not to say it DECIDED matches.
I made a thread called: The "Nuke It From Orbit" Approach to Game Design that pretty much tackled the last point of your post. I argued that T5 crashes down on cards hard, specifically Mana Wyrm in this case. Plenty of people vouch that it is "still being played and killing them", but how often is that player skill/draw RNG? Regardless, I'm not claiming to be a nerf guru. I'm just trying to make the point that cards in the game deserve more justice than a one-time adjustment that either destroys or overshadows representation. This can easily be remedied if Blizzard, as large as they are, takes better care of their ground-breaking, forefront, online collectible card game by adjusting cards and discussing the meta more often than 3-4 times a year.
TL;DR:
just cause u got killed by it doesnt mean anything, youre not special lol
To all the people who think that 1/2 would be a better nerf: look at Undertaker. It saw absolutely no play after its nerf because it's much easier to remove a minion with 2 health than a minion with 3 health.
As for the nerf itself, well... there was no point in nerfing Mana Wyrm now but they are probably either going to release a bunch of 0-cost spells or a new increadibly epic 1-cost minion for Mage.
Not fully sure Undertaker is a good comparison. To build that up you need to play deathrattle cards which aren't as tempo gaining. The deck was strong because those slow deathrattle cards created a massively powerful undertaker.
In contrast, Mana Wyrm grows by casting spells. Thus it was common to drop a Wyrm then follow it up with nuking the opponent's board with spells while the thing keeps growing, making minion based strategies fall out the window. The only way to kill it is to either have a spell of your own, which not all decks will do reliably, or if the mage doesn't have a spell follow up that protects the Wyrm.
Right now the Wyrm is soft because mages don't have many strong low cost spells they want to rely on. Instead, they've been relying on minion tempo at turn 2-3, making the Wyrm less likely to snowball.
The way the description of the nerf went out, it sounds like Blizzard wanted to give mage more early game spells, then realized they would be changing mage from playing early game minions to playing Wrym+early game spells. Which means everyone will again need a spell removal, a 1 drop that doesn't die the following turn, or a lot of luck.
Thus the reason why Wyrm isn't a problem is because the designers have been holding back on mage for a while to keep it from being a problem. Thus they either hamstring themselves into forcing mage to rely on early game minions and late game spells forever, unleash the plans they do have and be forced to nerf wyrm down, or nerf him now.
And if the decision is based on ideas and cards we haven't seen yet, saying that 1/2 is better than 2 mana might be a little too early a call.
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I'm Nate and I enjoy writing. I got kicked off of my school newspaper so I figured I'd bring my passion to my favorite game.
The nerf on Mana Wyrm is needed. It is just the timing of it was that so wrong. Mage isn't in a good spot in the meta right now and that nerf hurts them a lot. If the nerf happened next year at the time of rotations, that would of been a great time to nerf it or HoF it (which Blizzard's argument would hold water). Making it a 1/2 would probably be a better nerf in general but I am not quite sure if it would be a big nerf (as Tempo Mages spam cheap spells to take out early threats and protect their Mana Wrym). To be honest, the better nerf would be to just HoF it.
Undertaker saw no play after the nerf because its health stopped growing, not because its health was 2 vs 3. That's a completely different situation.