Besides this point however, there's another problem. With 6 expansions of 135 cards each + the Classic set of ~250 cards + the Basic set of ~120 cards, there has never been that much card in standard. There are currently more cards in Standard than there are Wild-only cards. This is an obvious issue in the sense that later expansions had less chance to compete with a bigger and bigger pool of cards.
I suppose Blizzard thought that more cards = more incentives for players to spend money on the game, but VS recently measured a drop in their number of recorded games which, I assume, reflects a growing lack of interest from the player base. This means that, over the long term, player's problems are also Blizzard's problem.
I see two solutions for Blizzard (and us).
1) Overhaul the Core set
The unbalanced Core set (Basic+Classic) is the source of many problems. Some classes have super good Core sets (Mage, Rogue) while others (Paladin, Priest*) have core sets that suck and force Blizzard to constantly print cards to compensate their weaknesses (I mean seriously, give Priest a fucking Core set AOE, it's the slowest class in the game, it can't be viable without one). Other classes used to have Core sets so good they had to be nuked to oblivion and now they suck (hi Warrior and Druid).
There are also many cards with no strategical interest whatsoever, even for new players. These are mostly cards that were nerfed into oblivion (Arcane Golem, etc...). Rotating them might make room for other cards.
Blizzard will have to overhaul the Core at some point. I think the best Core set should follow at least these 5 principles:
Can be built upon by future expansions BUT should also be consistent on their own;
Must clearly define each class' themes, strenghs, and weaknesses;
Having eternal auto-includes in the Core set (Fireball, Northshire Cleric, ...) is a lesser evil that a Core set that's completely unplayable for any class;
Avoid "extreme" cards like DKs which completely ruin design space.
Must contain counter cards (e.g. Secret counters)
2) Smaller expansions
Blizzard used to do adventures which contained much less cards, yet they didn't feel like they made the meta stale. Besides, a lot of cards from expansions are obviously unplayable fillers. They should focus on quality over quantity. I think it would be a good idea if expansions only get bigger over the course of the year, like this for instance.
1st expansion of the Year: 45 cards. The rotation already creates an artificial shakeup of the meta, so not much is needed to make this one feel new, hence why it's smaller. Blizzard could focus on creating cards they know will be useful later in the year (e.g. good Dragon if they know they'll release a lot of Dragons), lightly nudging the meta in a direction or another.
2nd expansion: 90 cards. At this point they can start releasing "flashy" buildaround cards to create new archetypes, but they should remain careful about them not being too OP. They can also expand upon underplayed archetypes from last year.
3rd expansion: 135 cards. Here they can go completely nuts and intentionnaly print broken cards (eg Drakonid Operative), though those cards should only be "broken" in conjunction with cards that will rotate next expansion, otherwise this set might ruin the next year.
Moreover, Blizzard has updated their approach this year with a clear power curve starting from a lower-power-level Witchwood. All that’s needed is to let the DK/Leg-Weapon expansions rotate.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Shudderwock means driving a clown car in circles around your opponent while he swings his sword at you. Half the time he chops you and your car to pieces. The other half you park on his legs and 40 clowns come out one by one, trampling him to death.
don't worry in 3 months we lose 2 expansion (3 really but one comes in so we only lose 2 for effective purposes) and also the 3 absolute kings of standard go away, the meta is gonna look way healthier without frozen throne and kobolds specially, stop whinning so much :)
So, I just started playing like a week ago so I don't know too much about the issues with the core cards. Honestly, their are a bunch that I run in my decks, but that's basically because I'm WAY behind on cards from any of the expansions. I would assume cores could be overhauled every other year, though that would be a lot of work on Blizz's part.
I can't put my finger on it, but I think I heard somebody say the next expansion rotates through in 4 months or so. :D
There will be less 270 cards. Its just 4 monts away... ;)
270? How did you come up with this number? Did you fail 1st grade arithmetic?
That would be 3*(-135) + 135.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Shudderwock means driving a clown car in circles around your opponent while he swings his sword at you. Half the time he chops you and your car to pieces. The other half you park on his legs and 40 clowns come out one by one, trampling him to death.
So, I just started playing like a week ago so I don't know too much about the issues with the core cards. Honestly, their are a bunch that I run in my decks, but that's basically because I'm WAY behind on cards from any of the expansions. I would assume cores could be overhauled every other year, though that would be a lot of work on Blizz's part.
I can't put my finger on it, but I think I heard somebody say the next expansion rotates through in 4 months or so. :D
The expansions from 2017 will rotate to wild. Journey to Un'Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs. As a new player you likely should not be buying packs from these sets or crafting cards from them. If you do in April 2019 you wont be able to use them in standard format. Since you dont have enough cards to play wild they will be useless to you.
Please take a look at the post in my signature, it may help avoid a few headaches.
The issue with RR is not the cards, but the abstinence of meaningful cards. So when you create 90% pack filler, you should not expect a lot of impact on the meta. Still you are right that 3 expansions every year; the 6th one inside the rotation will have only small impact.
And here's the thing: before they wanted to milk more money with 3 expansion every year, we actually had adventures. If they would have simply stayed with adventures, make them more interresting and more impactful than Karazhan (Purify), then it might actually improve the game. If all adventure-cards were useable as it was in Naxx, then we probably would have now a much diverse meta. And Adventure filled in a gap for many players who weren't lucky with cards: Buy the adventure and buy all the cards at once. This actually had a big impact, because people could EXPERIMENT WITH CARDS FROM AN ADVENTURE: you don't want to experiment with cards from packs omost of the time.
So no: i don't think that the amount of cards make meta stale in standard. Issue is: no adventure and not a comlete set, completely buyable.
So, I just started playing like a week ago so I don't know too much about the issues with the core cards. Honestly, their are a bunch that I run in my decks, but that's basically because I'm WAY behind on cards from any of the expansions. I would assume cores could be overhauled every other year, though that would be a lot of work on Blizz's part.
I can't put my finger on it, but I think I heard somebody say the next expansion rotates through in 4 months or so. :D
The expansions from 2017 will rotate to wild. Journey to Un'Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs. As a new player you likely should not be buying packs from these sets or crafting cards from them. If you do in April 2019 you wont be able to use them in standard format. Since you dont have enough cards to play wild they will be useless to you.
Please take a look at the post in my signature, it may help avoid a few headaches.
Oh I'm not bnuying anything from those sets, just saying that even having cards from those sets I'm way behind on, being that I only started recently. Hence why the majority of my decks rely heavily on the core set cards. That said, I appreciate the advice and I'll check out that link for starters like me right now!
I don't really think that this is such a big problem, but as for your solutions, the second option of smaller expansions will just never happen. Creating fewer cards means players having to get fewer packs to collect them all which means less money for Blizzard. Future problems or whatever be damned, they simply won't do it. As for the first, I wouldn't mind seeing the entire Classic set rotated or revised every year like Magic's Core set. It would certainly keep things fresh and interesting while allowing them to rebalance the set based on whatever upcoming expansions they have planned for the year. It would really be an elegant solution to just the problem of Classic being evergreen and stagnating deck building overall. I hope they consider it.
I think that during every new expansion the latest should be rotated. That's will make the meta more variable. And the you keep cards from each expansion for two years, considering that at mom the 3rd expansion has a shorter life.
It's no secret that the meta has become boring despite being (previously) balanced. The culprit being cards from last year, and from KFT in particular, being too good (see https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/were-the-lackluster-cards-from-year-of-the-raven-a-necessity/).
Besides this point however, there's another problem. With 6 expansions of 135 cards each + the Classic set of ~250 cards + the Basic set of ~120 cards, there has never been that much card in standard. There are currently more cards in Standard than there are Wild-only cards. This is an obvious issue in the sense that later expansions had less chance to compete with a bigger and bigger pool of cards.
I suppose Blizzard thought that more cards = more incentives for players to spend money on the game, but VS recently measured a drop in their number of recorded games which, I assume, reflects a growing lack of interest from the player base. This means that, over the long term, player's problems are also Blizzard's problem.
I see two solutions for Blizzard (and us).
1) Overhaul the Core set
The unbalanced Core set (Basic+Classic) is the source of many problems. Some classes have super good Core sets (Mage, Rogue) while others (Paladin, Priest*) have core sets that suck and force Blizzard to constantly print cards to compensate their weaknesses (I mean seriously, give Priest a fucking Core set AOE, it's the slowest class in the game, it can't be viable without one). Other classes used to have Core sets so good they had to be nuked to oblivion and now they suck (hi Warrior and Druid).
There are also many cards with no strategical interest whatsoever, even for new players. These are mostly cards that were nerfed into oblivion (Arcane Golem, etc...). Rotating them might make room for other cards.
Blizzard will have to overhaul the Core at some point. I think the best Core set should follow at least these 5 principles:
2) Smaller expansions
Blizzard used to do adventures which contained much less cards, yet they didn't feel like they made the meta stale. Besides, a lot of cards from expansions are obviously unplayable fillers. They should focus on quality over quantity. I think it would be a good idea if expansions only get bigger over the course of the year, like this for instance.
What do you think?
Custom cards :
CLASSES : Alchemist (CCC#5 | Phase V) | Chef (CCC#4)
EXPANSIONS : Year of the Scorpion (Year Comp)
I am absolutely fine with current state.
EU 11/2015+ , f2p 03/2021+: DK 63 / DH 205 /Dr 277 / Hu 733 / Ma 6666 / Pa 1072 / Pr 1165 / Ro 1791 / Sh 1303 / Wl 707 / Wr 664
I think when a new expansion launches, the earliest set of standard should rotate out. I hate this state of the quantity of standard cards right now.
In April 2019 the foloowing expansions will rotate out of standard:
There will be less 270 cards. Its just 4 monts away... ;)
I don’t see that you’ve proven your case.
Moreover, Blizzard has updated their approach this year with a clear power curve starting from a lower-power-level Witchwood. All that’s needed is to let the DK/Leg-Weapon expansions rotate.
Shudderwock means driving a clown car in circles around your opponent while he swings his sword at you. Half the time he chops you and your car to pieces. The other half you park on his legs and 40 clowns come out one by one, trampling him to death.
Whizbang Strategy Reference -- update complete for Rastakhan's Rumble!
don't worry in 3 months we lose 2 expansion (3 really but one comes in so we only lose 2 for effective purposes) and also the 3 absolute kings of standard go away, the meta is gonna look way healthier without frozen throne and kobolds specially, stop whinning so much :)
yeah, dude in 4 months everything will change, like forever, believe in fairy tails ^^
So, I just started playing like a week ago so I don't know too much about the issues with the core cards. Honestly, their are a bunch that I run in my decks, but that's basically because I'm WAY behind on cards from any of the expansions. I would assume cores could be overhauled every other year, though that would be a lot of work on Blizz's part.
I can't put my finger on it, but I think I heard somebody say the next expansion rotates through in 4 months or so. :D
270? How did you come up with this number? Did you fail 1st grade arithmetic?
135 cards per expansion, 3 rotate out, 1 new comes in, there you go.
That would be 3*(-135) + 135.
Shudderwock means driving a clown car in circles around your opponent while he swings his sword at you. Half the time he chops you and your car to pieces. The other half you park on his legs and 40 clowns come out one by one, trampling him to death.
Whizbang Strategy Reference -- update complete for Rastakhan's Rumble!
The expansions from 2017 will rotate to wild. Journey to Un'Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs. As a new player you likely should not be buying packs from these sets or crafting cards from them. If you do in April 2019 you wont be able to use them in standard format. Since you dont have enough cards to play wild they will be useless to you.
Please take a look at the post in my signature, it may help avoid a few headaches.
If you are in your first year of playing please read this post.
Dust does not burn a hole in the jar. Be careful what you craft, especially before and right after a rotation.
The issue with RR is not the cards, but the abstinence of meaningful cards. So when you create 90% pack filler, you should not expect a lot of impact on the meta. Still you are right that 3 expansions every year; the 6th one inside the rotation will have only small impact.
And here's the thing: before they wanted to milk more money with 3 expansion every year, we actually had adventures. If they would have simply stayed with adventures, make them more interresting and more impactful than Karazhan (Purify), then it might actually improve the game. If all adventure-cards were useable as it was in Naxx, then we probably would have now a much diverse meta. And Adventure filled in a gap for many players who weren't lucky with cards: Buy the adventure and buy all the cards at once. This actually had a big impact, because people could EXPERIMENT WITH CARDS FROM AN ADVENTURE: you don't want to experiment with cards from packs omost of the time.
So no: i don't think that the amount of cards make meta stale in standard. Issue is: no adventure and not a comlete set, completely buyable.
Oh I'm not bnuying anything from those sets, just saying that even having cards from those sets I'm way behind on, being that I only started recently. Hence why the majority of my decks rely heavily on the core set cards. That said, I appreciate the advice and I'll check out that link for starters like me right now!
How many cards are too many???
Dead but dreaming
There is no such thing as "Too many cards".
All cards are balanced, but some cards are more balanced than others.
Considering the fact that the next rotation happens in less than 4 months, this thread is pointless.
From that point, there will never be more standard cards than wild cards and the difference will increase even more every rotation.
I don't really think that this is such a big problem, but as for your solutions, the second option of smaller expansions will just never happen. Creating fewer cards means players having to get fewer packs to collect them all which means less money for Blizzard. Future problems or whatever be damned, they simply won't do it. As for the first, I wouldn't mind seeing the entire Classic set rotated or revised every year like Magic's Core set. It would certainly keep things fresh and interesting while allowing them to rebalance the set based on whatever upcoming expansions they have planned for the year. It would really be an elegant solution to just the problem of Classic being evergreen and stagnating deck building overall. I hope they consider it.
Ready for action!
I think that during every new expansion the latest should be rotated. That's will make the meta more variable. And the you keep cards from each expansion for two years, considering that at mom the 3rd expansion has a shorter life.
Id up the level cap and add an old expansion the basic set maybe goblins vs gnomes. Balancing ti all might be an issue