I'm pretty sure that these two cards were a massive miscalculation by the design team. The deck construction restrictions are no big deal, especially in wild, and this shit will only get worse.
There are other decks that I hate running into in matchmaking even more than these (get fucked, Kingsbane and mill players), but I expect that odd and even will have a massive negative effect on class and deck diversity. Boring, lazy, garbage design...
Any ray of light on the horizon? Will Blizzard print hero power or odd/even hate?
I saw a funny idea to add a card that gives a benefit for decks with both odd and even cards (but that's probably problematic too, would be run in every non odd/even deck).
The entire notion of cards that provide a benefit based on deck construction limitations is a terrible idea and should be scrapped. It started with the Reno Jackson cash grab and only intensified with 18 months of machine gun Anduin, followed by the current Dr 2 and Odd decks. Can't remember the idiot's name, one of the devs, but he went on record saying that they 'added' 18 decks to the meta with their shit for brains gimmick. In reality, few classes utilize all 3 variants (even, odd, neither) and instead gravitate toward the most advantageous. I mean, is there such a thing as even warrior, odd shaman?
the same was said about Reno for every class, yet the only Reno decks that remain viable are the kabal classes, and tht's stretching it cuz reno mage is no longer cutting it, eventually sinergy will trump over most of those because some effects or tribes will start hittin real critical mass with added utility (see current Wild kingsbane)
edit @ Xynot, Even mage and Even Warrior are playable in wild, in fact there's an argument about Wild Even Mage being stronger than its Wild odd counterpart
The entire notion of cards that provide a benefit based on deck construction limitations is a terrible idea and should be scrapped. It started with the Reno Jackson cash grab and only intensified with 18 months of machine gun Anduin, followed by the current Dr 2 and Odd decks. Can't remember the idiot's name, one of the devs, but he went on record saying that they 'added' 18 decks to the meta with their shit for brains gimmick. In reality, few classes utilize all 3 variants (even, odd, neither) and instead gravitate toward the most advantageous. I mean, is there such a thing as even warrior, odd shaman?
Yeah... certain classes don't benefit enough from a reduced cost / upgraded hero power.
I think out of thousands of games since the release of baku/genn I've faced an even warrior 2 times, and an odd shaman just 1 time. All 3 opponents lost pretty miserably.
So let me get this straight. Since deck limitation themes don't produce crippled meme/lower tier decks that only work sometimes means Genn & Baku are problems since they have other ways of making the archtypes work? Are you serious?
Even with Reno decks they still had the weakness of only having a single copy of a particular card. Sure, Reno Mage or Reno lock could have more than one removal, but sometimes you needed that one specific piece of removal for a situation that wouldn't be satisfied with a different removal you drew (e.g. Blast Crystal vs Shadowbolt).
Genn & Baku aren't problems because you still have to play around removal (such as the case of having to play around Collider in Odd Warrior). I mean, you get to not have to deal with Execute am I correct? You could be facing a control warrior with both Execute & Collider after all.
I'm already wondering if this is just another 'I lost to or dislike this archtype so I think it is a problem' thread as opposed to an actual logical 'This archtype is bad for the game and here are my points about why' type of thread.
Define a deck "boring"? Pretty subjective, not an argument.
They are top tier decks because of their consistency, but ultimately their powerlevel is bound to synergy with the hero power: if that does not rise beyond insanity, those decks are kept in check.
Ultimately, all they need to do to fix the matter is finally fixing cards that were obviously broken even before Genn and Baku, such as Thing from Below, Quartermaster, Defile, etc.
But Wild has many more urgent problems right now...
The only problem I see with Baku and Genn is that they reward players for making a deck as opposed to playing well all the time, so a lot of people can basically spend 1600 dust for a higher winrate if they netdeck some high-tier odd/even stuff. I'm not saying that this effect is limited to these 2 cards alone, but you shouldn't get rewarded from the beginning all of your games just for building the deck around whatever limitation they require. I feel like the Reno mechanic represents this to a lesser extent, because you actually have to draw them to gain something. Clever deckbuilding is the point of the game but these direct rewards are killing it rather than improving it. Good deckbuilding should mean utilizing synergies and not incuding x and excluding y to gain a guaranteed benefit at the start of a match.
I'm already wondering if this is just another 'I lost to or dislike this archtype so I think it is a problem' thread as opposed to an actual logical 'This archtype is bad for the game and here are my points about why' type of thread.
If that's all it was, I'd have gone to bitch in the salt thread. Perfectly willing to have a discussion.
So let me get this straight. Since deck limitation themes don't produce crippled meme/lower tier decks that only work sometimes means Genn & Baku are problems since they have other ways of making the archtypes work? Are you serious?
Even with Reno decks they still had the weakness of only having a single copy of a particular card. Sure, Reno Mage or Reno lock could have more than one removal, but sometimes you needed that one specific piece of removal for a situation that wouldn't be satisfied with a different removal you drew (e.g. Blast Crystal vs Shadowbolt).
Genn & Baku aren't problems because you still have to play around removal (such as the case of having to play around Collider in Odd Warrior). I mean, you get to not have to deal with Execute am I correct? You could be facing a control warrior with both Execute & Collider after all.
"Deck limitation themes" are theoretically fine. In practice, the more reliable the gimmick, the less variety you see in the decks. Genn and Baku have a guaranteed gimmick, with the only real downside being that you need to include an under-statted minion in the deck. (Odd/even is not much of a sacrifice, especially in wild.) How many odd or even decks have surprised you with an unexpected card lately? They were novel for about five minutes and are now a big snooze.
Reno decks have/had a much greater degree of variety, though we now only see warlocks. Games were usually interesting except the Raza crap.
I have no idea what you are trying to say in your last point (or perhaps just why it's significant). You always have to play around removal. Yes, G&B tell you what you won't need to face. Great. Wild has planty of alternatives to choose from.
These two suggest the emergence of permanent, high-power archetypes that damage variety. (Even shaman appears to be the main culprit for wild, at the moment.) Hopefully they will become irrelevant or people will tire of them, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Start of Game: If your deck has only odd-Cost cards, disable all hero powers for the duration of the game.
This should be changed to ....
no mana - 1/1
Start of Game: If your deck has either: All odd-Cost cards or All even-Cost cards, then disable all hero powers for the duration of the game. This card has no cost and counts as Odd and Even for mana purposes.
Battlecry: Lose all remaining mana and Gain +1/+1 for each mana lost.
Edit: This means on turn 10, if you play no other cards, this would be an 11/11. And this card would be legendary of course.
I also think that something like this could be done to offer a card to both Even and Odd decks and have the card have 'no' cost in general, getting better the more mana that is lost.
If anything they promote creativity and get you to include cards that normally would never see play.
I mean Raid Leader is in a tier 1 deck. RAID LEADER!
They are also fairly easy to balance around since one mana cost shift removes the card from the pool. Hell, even in Paladin it's not really problem. So many people said that nerfing CtA to 5-mana would only improve Odd Paladin (it didn't).
If everything fails you can always nerf the upgraded Hero power in odd decks (that is assuming they are a problem in the first place)
I honestly fail to see how Odd/Even are actually bad for the game? It's not like regular decks will stop existing. It's just like Prince Keleseth: if you want people not to use them just print better cards in the same mana slot. That's why Keleseth is still so popular, because there aren't that many good 2-drops that classes want to run (an example for this would be midrange Hunter which values Razormaw much more than Keleseth)
Do I also need to mention that 6/7 even/odd decks are only as strong as they are because of cards from the last year? Only Odd Mage COULD be considered "busted" based on newly added snergy, and even that deck will be much weaker without Frostlich.
Personally, my problem with baku and genn is that they makes the decks they are in too consistent in their play. When a deck always makes the same play turn two (baku) or turn one (genn), or both (evenlock), it makes things feel very samey. Their early plan is always the same, whether it's hench, mountain giant, or level up. I gets boring to play against every game. Did I draw a clear by 5 against odd pally? Guess I lost. Do I have an answer to the turn 3-4 mountain giant? Guess I lost. It deviates very little.
Genn and Baku don't "limit" decks. They are cards you build a deck around. The crucial problem with these cards is that Blizzard made their effect universal. You don't really benefit from a 1 mana 1/1 dagger in Rogue. Especially when there are a lot of ridiculous Rogue cards that are Odd.
They had to make the effects of Baku and Genn unique to each class. Something like in Rogue 2/2 dagger with Baku and for Genn 1 mana give a minion poisonous (this is just rambling, I realize this is OP, but you get the point). Or in Warrior 4 armor Baku and 2 targeted armor with Genn. This way every class could make great use of each HP and be at least somewhat viable.
However another problem is that Standard has too few cards to make this work, and Wild is just a dumpster fire.
While I'm really enjoying playing Odd Mage right now, I definitely see your point! Eventually some sort of nerf to them is likely going to be needed in Wild. If you look at Avaina she's a pretty good case in point. She wasn't too crazy, then Kun came out. But not long after, Aviana rotated out so it was only an issue in Wild. Because that combo was no longer available in Standard it was no longer considered in card design. So eventually they printed more cards that really improve the power level of the Aviana+Kun combo, eventually leading to her nerf.
Right now the team is thinking about odd/even in their card designs (example: War Master Voone was supposed to be a 5 mana 4/4, but got a late change to a 4 mana 4/3 to keep it out of Odd Warrior), but starting with the April 2020 set that's likely to change given the WW will rotate. So when they stop limiting their designs because of how those cards may interact with Genn/Baku, the Odd/Even archetypes are likely to become more and more powerful in Wild over time. They may eventually reach the same point Aviana did where the decks are too strong, and require a nerf. I'm not sure what that would be but I could see them doing something like "Your hero power is upgrade/discounted if you didn't use it the turn before." So we all start with the original hero power, and you have the original power if you used your hero power the turn prior, but if you choose not to use it on a particular turn, next turn it upgrades until you use it, which returns it to the original state until you pass a turn without using it again.
Again, no idea what will be done (if anything), and my proposed idea may be a little too harsh, but I can see a time maybe a year or two after they rotate where the team will be forced to step in and make some sort of change to Baku and Genn because of new cards making odd/even archetypes way too strong.
If anything they promote creativity and get you to include cards that normally would never see play.
I mean Raid Leader is in a tier 1 deck. RAID LEADER!
I'll admit that's maybe the best argument for it. Stormwind Champion, Raid Leader, Windfury Harpy, and others would never have see play without genn or baku. That's cool, but I don't think it compensates for the problems. As for the promote creativity, that's doubtful. Sure, the first people who put Raid Leader in odd pally were being creative, but 90% of the playerbase either bases or copies their decks off others from the internet. Creativity only applies to the small percent that are innovators. The rest of the people running odd pally are just copying.
Define a deck "boring"? Pretty subjective, not an argument.
They are top tier decks because of their consistency, but ultimately their powerlevel is bound to synergy with the hero power: if that does not rise beyond insanity, those decks are kept in check.
Ultimately, all they need to do to fix the matter is finally fixing cards that were obviously broken even before Genn and Baku, such as Thing from Below, Quartermaster, Defile, etc.
But Wild has many more urgent problems right now...
A deck is boring when every game feels the same. It's perfectly subjective. I don't see why that should matter.
My original post stated that the design is boring and lazy. "Here! Mash that hero power button more!"
The restriction of only even cards is very small but the benefit is not that great (except for warlock).
The restriction of only odd is much more serious, many classes have crucial even cards, to prove that, odd mage have to get a 7 manas Ragnaros + free 4/4 to be enough don't use card like Blizzard, Fireball and Poly.
Unless they rotate all classic set this don't will change in Standard and in Wild the benefit of odd/even mechanic is far from breaking the format.
It is ok cards and Baku decks have a bonus, they are cheaper and good, for begginners strugling to find a competitive deck is a godsend card.
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I'm pretty sure that these two cards were a massive miscalculation by the design team. The deck construction restrictions are no big deal, especially in wild, and this shit will only get worse.
There are other decks that I hate running into in matchmaking even more than these (get fucked, Kingsbane and mill players), but I expect that odd and even will have a massive negative effect on class and deck diversity. Boring, lazy, garbage design...
Any ray of light on the horizon? Will Blizzard print hero power or odd/even hate?
Wild is inherently degenerate.
/thread
I saw a funny idea to add a card that gives a benefit for decks with both odd and even cards (but that's probably problematic too, would be run in every non odd/even deck).
7 mana 5/6
Start of Game: If your deck has only odd-Cost cards, disable all hero powers for the duration of the game.
S39 Legend - Quest Rogue, S38 Legend - Murloc Paladin, S37 Legend - Miracle Rogue, S36 Top 200 Legend - Aggro Shaman, S35 - Finished Rank 51 Legend - Aggro Shaman, S34 Legend - Aggro Shaman
The entire notion of cards that provide a benefit based on deck construction limitations is a terrible idea and should be scrapped. It started with the Reno Jackson cash grab and only intensified with 18 months of machine gun Anduin, followed by the current Dr 2 and Odd decks. Can't remember the idiot's name, one of the devs, but he went on record saying that they 'added' 18 decks to the meta with their shit for brains gimmick. In reality, few classes utilize all 3 variants (even, odd, neither) and instead gravitate toward the most advantageous. I mean, is there such a thing as even warrior, odd shaman?
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
the same was said about Reno for every class, yet the only Reno decks that remain viable are the kabal classes, and tht's stretching it cuz reno mage is no longer cutting it, eventually sinergy will trump over most of those because some effects or tribes will start hittin real critical mass with added utility (see current Wild kingsbane)
edit @ Xynot, Even mage and Even Warrior are playable in wild, in fact there's an argument about Wild Even Mage being stronger than its Wild odd counterpart
Yeah... certain classes don't benefit enough from a reduced cost / upgraded hero power.
I think out of thousands of games since the release of baku/genn I've faced an even warrior 2 times, and an odd shaman just 1 time. All 3 opponents lost pretty miserably.
S39 Legend - Quest Rogue, S38 Legend - Murloc Paladin, S37 Legend - Miracle Rogue, S36 Top 200 Legend - Aggro Shaman, S35 - Finished Rank 51 Legend - Aggro Shaman, S34 Legend - Aggro Shaman
So let me get this straight. Since deck limitation themes don't produce crippled meme/lower tier decks that only work sometimes means Genn & Baku are problems since they have other ways of making the archtypes work? Are you serious?
Even with Reno decks they still had the weakness of only having a single copy of a particular card. Sure, Reno Mage or Reno lock could have more than one removal, but sometimes you needed that one specific piece of removal for a situation that wouldn't be satisfied with a different removal you drew (e.g. Blast Crystal vs Shadowbolt).
Genn & Baku aren't problems because you still have to play around removal (such as the case of having to play around Collider in Odd Warrior). I mean, you get to not have to deal with Execute am I correct? You could be facing a control warrior with both Execute & Collider after all.
I'm already wondering if this is just another 'I lost to or dislike this archtype so I think it is a problem' thread as opposed to an actual logical 'This archtype is bad for the game and here are my points about why' type of thread.
I don't really see the problem.
Define a deck "boring"? Pretty subjective, not an argument.
They are top tier decks because of their consistency, but ultimately their powerlevel is bound to synergy with the hero power: if that does not rise beyond insanity, those decks are kept in check.
Ultimately, all they need to do to fix the matter is finally fixing cards that were obviously broken even before Genn and Baku, such as Thing from Below, Quartermaster, Defile, etc.
But Wild has many more urgent problems right now...
The only problem I see with Baku and Genn is that they reward players for making a deck as opposed to playing well all the time, so a lot of people can basically spend 1600 dust for a higher winrate if they netdeck some high-tier odd/even stuff. I'm not saying that this effect is limited to these 2 cards alone, but you shouldn't get rewarded from the beginning all of your games just for building the deck around whatever limitation they require. I feel like the Reno mechanic represents this to a lesser extent, because you actually have to draw them to gain something. Clever deckbuilding is the point of the game but these direct rewards are killing it rather than improving it. Good deckbuilding should mean utilizing synergies and not incuding x and excluding y to gain a guaranteed benefit at the start of a match.
If that's all it was, I'd have gone to bitch in the salt thread. Perfectly willing to have a discussion.
"Deck limitation themes" are theoretically fine. In practice, the more reliable the gimmick, the less variety you see in the decks. Genn and Baku have a guaranteed gimmick, with the only real downside being that you need to include an under-statted minion in the deck. (Odd/even is not much of a sacrifice, especially in wild.) How many odd or even decks have surprised you with an unexpected card lately? They were novel for about five minutes and are now a big snooze.
Reno decks have/had a much greater degree of variety, though we now only see warlocks. Games were usually interesting except the Raza crap.
I have no idea what you are trying to say in your last point (or perhaps just why it's significant). You always have to play around removal. Yes, G&B tell you what you won't need to face. Great. Wild has planty of alternatives to choose from.
These two suggest the emergence of permanent, high-power archetypes that damage variety. (Even shaman appears to be the main culprit for wild, at the moment.) Hopefully they will become irrelevant or people will tire of them, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
This should be changed to ....
no mana - 1/1
Start of Game: If your deck has either: All odd-Cost cards or All even-Cost cards, then disable all hero powers for the duration of the game. This card has no cost and counts as Odd and Even for mana purposes.
Battlecry: Lose all remaining mana and Gain +1/+1 for each mana lost.
Edit: This means on turn 10, if you play no other cards, this would be an 11/11. And this card would be legendary of course.
I also think that something like this could be done to offer a card to both Even and Odd decks and have the card have 'no' cost in general, getting better the more mana that is lost.
idk what people'S problem is with these decks?
If anything they promote creativity and get you to include cards that normally would never see play.
I mean Raid Leader is in a tier 1 deck. RAID LEADER!
They are also fairly easy to balance around since one mana cost shift removes the card from the pool. Hell, even in Paladin it's not really problem. So many people said that nerfing CtA to 5-mana would only improve Odd Paladin (it didn't).
If everything fails you can always nerf the upgraded Hero power in odd decks (that is assuming they are a problem in the first place)
I honestly fail to see how Odd/Even are actually bad for the game? It's not like regular decks will stop existing. It's just like Prince Keleseth: if you want people not to use them just print better cards in the same mana slot. That's why Keleseth is still so popular, because there aren't that many good 2-drops that classes want to run (an example for this would be midrange Hunter which values Razormaw much more than Keleseth)
Do I also need to mention that 6/7 even/odd decks are only as strong as they are because of cards from the last year? Only Odd Mage COULD be considered "busted" based on newly added snergy, and even that deck will be much weaker without Frostlich.
I tried having fun once. It was awful.
Personally, my problem with baku and genn is that they makes the decks they are in too consistent in their play. When a deck always makes the same play turn two (baku) or turn one (genn), or both (evenlock), it makes things feel very samey. Their early plan is always the same, whether it's hench, mountain giant, or level up. I gets boring to play against every game. Did I draw a clear by 5 against odd pally? Guess I lost. Do I have an answer to the turn 3-4 mountain giant? Guess I lost. It deviates very little.
Genn and Baku don't "limit" decks. They are cards you build a deck around. The crucial problem with these cards is that Blizzard made their effect universal. You don't really benefit from a 1 mana 1/1 dagger in Rogue. Especially when there are a lot of ridiculous Rogue cards that are Odd.
They had to make the effects of Baku and Genn unique to each class. Something like in Rogue 2/2 dagger with Baku and for Genn 1 mana give a minion poisonous (this is just rambling, I realize this is OP, but you get the point). Or in Warrior 4 armor Baku and 2 targeted armor with Genn. This way every class could make great use of each HP and be at least somewhat viable.
However another problem is that Standard has too few cards to make this work, and Wild is just a dumpster fire.
While I'm really enjoying playing Odd Mage right now, I definitely see your point! Eventually some sort of nerf to them is likely going to be needed in Wild. If you look at Avaina she's a pretty good case in point. She wasn't too crazy, then Kun came out. But not long after, Aviana rotated out so it was only an issue in Wild. Because that combo was no longer available in Standard it was no longer considered in card design. So eventually they printed more cards that really improve the power level of the Aviana+Kun combo, eventually leading to her nerf.
Right now the team is thinking about odd/even in their card designs (example: War Master Voone was supposed to be a 5 mana 4/4, but got a late change to a 4 mana 4/3 to keep it out of Odd Warrior), but starting with the April 2020 set that's likely to change given the WW will rotate. So when they stop limiting their designs because of how those cards may interact with Genn/Baku, the Odd/Even archetypes are likely to become more and more powerful in Wild over time. They may eventually reach the same point Aviana did where the decks are too strong, and require a nerf. I'm not sure what that would be but I could see them doing something like "Your hero power is upgrade/discounted if you didn't use it the turn before." So we all start with the original hero power, and you have the original power if you used your hero power the turn prior, but if you choose not to use it on a particular turn, next turn it upgrades until you use it, which returns it to the original state until you pass a turn without using it again.
Again, no idea what will be done (if anything), and my proposed idea may be a little too harsh, but I can see a time maybe a year or two after they rotate where the team will be forced to step in and make some sort of change to Baku and Genn because of new cards making odd/even archetypes way too strong.
I'll admit that's maybe the best argument for it. Stormwind Champion, Raid Leader, Windfury Harpy, and others would never have see play without genn or baku. That's cool, but I don't think it compensates for the problems. As for the promote creativity, that's doubtful. Sure, the first people who put Raid Leader in odd pally were being creative, but 90% of the playerbase either bases or copies their decks off others from the internet. Creativity only applies to the small percent that are innovators. The rest of the people running odd pally are just copying.
A deck is boring when every game feels the same. It's perfectly subjective. I don't see why that should matter.
My original post stated that the design is boring and lazy. "Here! Mash that hero power button more!"
The restriction of only even cards is very small but the benefit is not that great (except for warlock).
The restriction of only odd is much more serious, many classes have crucial even cards, to prove that, odd mage have to get a 7 manas Ragnaros + free 4/4 to be enough don't use card like Blizzard, Fireball and Poly.
Unless they rotate all classic set this don't will change in Standard and in Wild the benefit of odd/even mechanic is far from breaking the format.
It is ok cards and Baku decks have a bonus, they are cheaper and good, for begginners strugling to find a competitive deck is a godsend card.