I mean, what is there not to enjoy in playing against OTK decks? It's amazing fun to watch opponent cycle for 10 turns while playing the occasional removal and then a few turns of Time Out and then play the combo. IMO it's boring to play against decks that play against you and not their decks.
I only find it frustrating when I'm playing OTK Pala and I meet some Mecha'thun deck. Even with time-out up, I die. I know that's intended but my hero is supposedly immune so, kinda makes me want to rage quit at that point. If immunity doesn't counter Mecha'thun, what does.
Immunity only stops damage, not destruction of the minion.
There are different types of OTK decks. Decks like Topsy Priest, Shirvallah OTK, Mecha'thun decks and Hakkar Druid are "stall and draw" combo decks, all they do is draw their combo and win. You can't do much against these decks other than switching to a aggro deck. Needless to say I don't like these types of OTK decks.
The other type of OTK decks like DK Paladin and Clone Priest. DK Paladin is inconsistent, so if you can pressure enough there is a decent chance to win. Against Clone Priest, you can out armor them as Odd Warrior or use Polymorph as Mage. The matchup is still hugely favourable for Paladin and Priest but at least you can do something to have a chance at winning.
We just need a universal anti-combo card that would at least give control a chance against combo. I'm talking Dirty Rat kind of card. It's not fun to lose a game after a fight, it's not fun to lose a game at the very start of it.
The problem is that you don't get "a chance", you get an Auto-Win guaranteed.
It is not fun to lose a game from the very start, but the least fun loss in the entire game, is actually losing an entire game you played correctly because the opponent has a single card in the entire deck which alone disables your strategy. Which you actually cannot do anything against.
Combo is meant to beat Control, for Control to beat Combo, you should effectively be required to outplay your opponent considerably, or in some way be ridiculously lucky.
Instead, Dirty Rat provides an Instant I Win card against counter matchups. It's extremely dangerous for this to exist.
Control decks are naturally advantaged against Aggro, if they can also completely offset the disadvantage they have against Combo by including a simply I Win card, which is extremely easy considering Control is the most flexible kind of strategy (to Tech in cards), you essentially create a power imbalance. Control suddenly because too powerful and extremely hard to counter even by it's natural weaknesses, removing it's weaknesses.
I think the only problem with it is that early in the game when you know it's an OTK deck the game's pretty much over. To me it's the same feeling when you saw rogue pop the quest up on turn 1. I don't mind combo decks being advantaged against control but there is an issue when it's a guaranteed kill given how much damage those decks can put out.
Somebody already mentioned it earlier in the post that combos were capable of doing up to 20ish damage leaving some room for counterplay in taunts/healing. I think that was probably the best way to have the combo decks being designed. I don't know how they would find that sweet spot between having control/combo/aggro/midrange having an upperhand on one another over a polarizing matchup.
We just need a universal anti-combo card that would at least give control a chance against combo. I'm talking Dirty Rat kind of card. It's not fun to lose a game after a fight, it's not fun to lose a game at the very start of it.
The problem is that you don't get "a chance", you get an Auto-Win guaranteed.
It is not fun to lose a game from the very start, but the least fun loss in the entire game, is actually losing an entire game you played correctly because the opponent has a single card in the entire deck which alone disables your strategy. Which you actually cannot do anything against.
Combo is meant to beat Control, for Control to beat Combo, you should effectively be required to outplay your opponent considerably, or in some way be ridiculously lucky.
Instead, Dirty Rat provides an Instant I Win card against counter matchups. It's extremely dangerous for this to exist.
Control decks are naturally advantaged against Aggro, if they can also completely offset the disadvantage they have against Combo by including a simply I Win card, which is extremely easy considering Control is the most flexible kind of strategy (to Tech in cards), you essentially create a power imbalance. Control suddenly because too powerful and extremely hard to counter even by it's natural weaknesses, removing it's weaknesses.
I think the only problem with it is that early in the game when you know it's an OTK deck the game's pretty much over. To me it's the same feeling when you saw rogue pop the quest up on turn 1. I don't mind combo decks being advantaged against control but there is an issue when it's a guaranteed kill given how much damage those decks can put out.
Somebody already mentioned it earlier in the post that combos were capable of doing up to 20ish damage leaving some room for counterplay in taunts/healing. I think that was probably the best way to have the combo decks being designed. I don't know how they would find that sweet spot between having control/combo/aggro/midrange having an upperhand on one another over a polarizing matchup.
Once upon a time, when Aviana was 9-mana, Innervate granted two mana crystals, and Kun the Forgotten King didn't even exist, Druid could do 66 damage from an empty board (and NO Emperor Ticks needed). It was a 10-card combo (Aviania, Malgyos, Innervate, x2, Faceless, x2, Roots x2, Moonfire x2), so it wasn't so easy to pull off. But it didn't have "counterplay". Only one class could armor up at that time to gain more than 66 life. So there was "no counterplay".
However this particular OTK Druid didn't really exist outside of memes. It wasn't a competitive deck.
The presence or lack thereof of "counterplay" is irrelevant to whether a OTK is oppressive or not. What matters is play rate and win rate.
Looking at the play/win rates of various OTK decks, any reasonable person can conclude that there are NO oppressive OTK decks right now. The only people complaining about them are the Control Cry Babies.
We just need a universal anti-combo card that would at least give control a chance against combo. I'm talking Dirty Rat kind of card. It's not fun to lose a game after a fight, it's not fun to lose a game at the very start of it.
You would still get control players complaining when the tech would sometimes fail to hit something (this is exactly what happens when control players miss a combo piece in wild with Rat). Too many players want an instant, or near instant, tech card against OTKs that simply requires them to brainless lay a card down and win.
Control decks would have more of a chance against OTK if they did both of the following two things:
Run a win condition. I'm sorry, but the old pure fatigue strat of "kill all the things" mostly stopped being a legitimate win condition when people stopped playing the old Justicar Tank-up Control Warrior. Players should never wonder why a deck that only wins by gradual board advantage will in fact always lose to decks that don't care about board advantage (other than simply not dying).
Bad control players when vs OTK decks play slow, very slowly. They just cannot shift their mindset for other match-ups and think that when facing an OTK or combo deck that squeezing every last ounce of value from their cards actually improves their win rate. The reality is that you need to play many of your cards value-inefficiently in trade for tempo plays (as much tempo as a slow control deck can muster of course). Tempo creates pressure and chip damage. Playing slowly just means that the OTK player doesn't feel threatened and can hold onto removal resources longer.
I agree. But it depends on what you want with this game. I personally like just to play the game but others might only care about winning. If you disrupt their combo it's game over. If you survive the onslaught of aggro it's game over. Only control vs. control or just mirror or similar matchups are really interesting to me. Or of course if people would play more for fun and not focus so much on winning. As I always say, playing with your friends is still the best game mode in Hearthstone.
Every deck type is necessary for a healthy game. Me personally I can't stand aggro or the entire degenerate "Me Hunter me go face" class but without those obnoxious decks things like my Shirvallah/Deathknight OTK deck would just casually sit back and decide which win condition to use. Without OTK decks control decks would just run rampant, and without control aggo goes to town on everyone. It's just the nature of card games.
Ignoring the state of the board and win is always bad, OTK are bads because there is a sense of your opponent playing a solitaire instead of a game vs you. OTK lacks counters (unless you build meme decks just to counter them), the best thing is that all current ones will be hit by rotation.
We just need a universal anti-combo card that would at least give control a chance against combo. I'm talking Dirty Rat kind of card. It's not fun to lose a game after a fight, it's not fun to lose a game at the very start of it.
You would still get control players complaining when the tech would sometimes fail to hit something (this is exactly what happens when control players miss a combo piece in wild with Rat). Too many players want an instant, or near instant, tech card against OTKs that simply requires them to brainless lay a card down and win.
Control decks would have more of a chance against OTK if they did both of the following two things:
Run a win condition. I'm sorry, but the old pure fatigue strat of "kill all the things" mostly stopped being a legitimate win condition when people stopped playing the old Justicar Tank-up Control Warrior. Players should never wonder why a deck that only wins by gradual board advantage will in fact always lose to decks that don't care about board advantage (other than simply not dying).
Bad control players when vs OTK decks play slow, very slowly. They just cannot shift their mindset for other match-ups and think that when facing an OTK or combo deck that squeezing every last ounce of value from their cards actually improves their win rate. The reality is that you need to play many of your cards value-inefficiently in trade for tempo plays (as much tempo as a slow control deck can muster of course). Tempo creates pressure and chip damage. Playing slowly just means that the OTK player doesn't feel threatened and can hold onto removal resources longer.
We just need a universal anti-combo card that would at least give control a chance against combo. I'm talking Dirty Rat kind of card. It's not fun to lose a game after a fight, it's not fun to lose a game at the very start of it.
You would still get control players complaining when the tech would sometimes fail to hit something (this is exactly what happens when control players miss a combo piece in wild with Rat). Too many players want an instant, or near instant, tech card against OTKs that simply requires them to brainless lay a card down and win.
Control decks would have more of a chance against OTK if they did both of the following two things:
Run a win condition. I'm sorry, but the old pure fatigue strat of "kill all the things" mostly stopped being a legitimate win condition when people stopped playing the old Justicar Tank-up Control Warrior. Players should never wonder why a deck that only wins by gradual board advantage will in fact always lose to decks that don't care about board advantage (other than simply not dying).
Bad control players when vs OTK decks play slow, very slowly. They just cannot shift their mindset for other match-ups and think that when facing an OTK or combo deck that squeezing every last ounce of value from their cards actually improves their win rate. The reality is that you need to play many of your cards value-inefficiently in trade for tempo plays (as much tempo as a slow control deck can muster of course). Tempo creates pressure and chip damage. Playing slowly just means that the OTK player doesn't feel threatened and can hold onto removal resources longer.
This, this and a thousand times this. Especially the latter one is astonishing to me, the biggest mistake bad control players make it not realising what role they have in a match up. You are never going to out control someone who"s win condition isn't connected to board presence. You can't snuff out someones tempo when they don't have any to begin with! You need to find another way to win. You most likely have to be the agressor.
We just need a universal anti-combo card that would at least give control a chance against combo. I'm talking Dirty Rat kind of card. It's not fun to lose a game after a fight, it's not fun to lose a game at the very start of it.
You would still get control players complaining when the tech would sometimes fail to hit something (this is exactly what happens when control players miss a combo piece in wild with Rat). Too many players want an instant, or near instant, tech card against OTKs that simply requires them to brainless lay a card down and win.
...
That's a very sub-par argument. "Why do we need soap if you'll get dirty at the end of the day?" (basically)
Card games are all about odds. With no neutral anti-combo card it's almost impossible to win control vs combo mu. What's wrong about adding a card to standard which will increase the odds of winning to control players (and not only control players, btw). No one's asking for an insta-win card.
We just need a universal anti-combo card that would at least give control a chance against combo. I'm talking Dirty Rat kind of card. It's not fun to lose a game after a fight, it's not fun to lose a game at the very start of it.
You would still get control players complaining when the tech would sometimes fail to hit something (this is exactly what happens when control players miss a combo piece in wild with Rat). Too many players want an instant, or near instant, tech card against OTKs that simply requires them to brainless lay a card down and win.
Control decks would have more of a chance against OTK if they did both of the following two things:
Run a win condition. I'm sorry, but the old pure fatigue strat of "kill all the things" mostly stopped being a legitimate win condition when people stopped playing the old Justicar Tank-up Control Warrior. Players should never wonder why a deck that only wins by gradual board advantage will in fact always lose to decks that don't care about board advantage (other than simply not dying).
Bad control players when vs OTK decks play slow, very slowly. They just cannot shift their mindset for other match-ups and think that when facing an OTK or combo deck that squeezing every last ounce of value from their cards actually improves their win rate. The reality is that you need to play many of your cards value-inefficiently in trade for tempo plays (as much tempo as a slow control deck can muster of course). Tempo creates pressure and chip damage. Playing slowly just means that the OTK player doesn't feel threatened and can hold onto removal resources longer.
Best comment in this thread. I play Control decks myself mostly, and I'm very surprised by the amount of people that think their Control decks should beat OTK decks without changing strats or tech cards.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Dad, husband, gamer, fueled by coffee.
Currently playing Dragon Galakrond Priest, Dragon Galakrond Warrior and Highlander Dragon Hunter.
I feel like the number of viable OTK decks is perhaps not bad for balance, but creates lifeless matchups.
The number of card draw options has led to the rise of this play-style. A tempo/control vs OTK matchup feel like two players in separate rooms playing out their strategy to see who can arrive at the end first. The goal of the OTK play is basically to draw as quickly as possible with nearly no care or interaction with the opponent. The opponent knows whats coming and does what he can, but is not always successful. In the end there is balance against full on control decks, but the experience flat out sucks. Its boring!
As others have said - the biggest problem regarding OTK decks is the lack of ability to interact with them and ruin the combo in any meaningful way. Only Warlock really has the tools to disrupt the opponents deck (outside of mill scenarios, which imo should have remained a strategy with coldlight oracle). Mojomaster Zihi is a one-of which you can't guarantee drawing and really only useful for delaying the combo. If anything it polarises the aggro-OTK match-up even further. It's fine that we have a rock-paper-stone type arrangement with a bias towards certain matchups however what's not fine is the absolute and polarised nature of these matchups in the game currently.
I realise there's an element of "play to the meta" in choosing your deck (i.e. seeing lots of OTK - play aggro), but it's pretty crappy to lose a game before a card is drawn because you play control and they play OTK. Furthermore if you only play a handful of games a day it's difficult to assess the current meta on your rank.
In an ideal world there should be some tech options outside of Warlock that give you a chance against OTK decks but it seems Blizz disagrees. Maybe a sideboard option would be interesting but that would almost certainly create a whole set of new problems to balance around.
As others have said - the biggest problem regarding OTK decks is the lack of ability to interact with them and ruin the combo in any meaningful way. Only Warlock really has the tools to disrupt the opponents deck (outside of mill scenarios, which imo should have remained a strategy with coldlight oracle). Mojomaster Zihi is a one-of which you can't guarantee drawing and really only useful for delaying the combo. If anything it polarises the aggro-OTK match-up even further. It's fine that we have a rock-paper-stone type arrangement with a bias towards certain matchups however what's not fine is the absolute and polarised nature of these matchups in the game currently.
I realise there's an element of "play to the meta" in choosing your deck (i.e. seeing lots of OTK - play aggro), but it's pretty crappy to lose a game before a card is drawn because you play control and they play OTK. Furthermore if you only play a handful of games a day it's difficult to assess the current meta on your rank.
In an ideal world there should be some tech options outside of Warlock that give you a chance against OTK decks but it seems Blizz disagrees. Maybe a sideboard option would be interesting but that would almost certainly create a whole set of new problems to balance around.
Mojomaster is actually a much better anti OTK tech than what you're giving credit for. Against all variants of Mecha'Thun decks, for example, forces the player to stay in an almost inescapable corner that they painted themselves into (due to needing to be at the door of fatigue before winning). What exactly is Mecha'Thun Priest or Druid going to do to not die once set to 5 mana with only their combo in hand? This can happen to Mecha'Thun lock as well depending on what exactly they still have in their hand. Mojomaster will also royally screw over an OTK pally who got unlucky and had Uther in the last 5ish cards of their deck because they will naturally have been pressured into committing more of their removal resources to stay alive when cycling for Uther. And at that point in the late game they can either spend 5-7 mana bouncing one combo piece to hand or remove your threats with dwindling resources to stay alive (See Thijs' last Mojomaster vs OTK pally youtube highlight for an example).
Theres nothing wrong with otk but yes, disruption cards like dirty rat actually gave some decks a chance against them. A legendary is not the answer
I mean, what is there not to enjoy in playing against OTK decks? It's amazing fun to watch opponent cycle for 10 turns while playing the occasional removal and then a few turns of Time Out and then play the combo. IMO it's boring to play against decks that play against you and not their decks.
Immunity only stops damage, not destruction of the minion.
There are different types of OTK decks. Decks like Topsy Priest, Shirvallah OTK, Mecha'thun decks and Hakkar Druid are "stall and draw" combo decks, all they do is draw their combo and win. You can't do much against these decks other than switching to a aggro deck. Needless to say I don't like these types of OTK decks.
The other type of OTK decks like DK Paladin and Clone Priest. DK Paladin is inconsistent, so if you can pressure enough there is a decent chance to win. Against Clone Priest, you can out armor them as Odd Warrior or use Polymorph as Mage. The matchup is still hugely favourable for Paladin and Priest but at least you can do something to have a chance at winning.
Inspired by all the salt here i pickt the deck i postet. OTK warlock, spellhunter, evenlock ... three more on the victim liste hehe ....
I think the only problem with it is that early in the game when you know it's an OTK deck the game's pretty much over. To me it's the same feeling when you saw rogue pop the quest up on turn 1. I don't mind combo decks being advantaged against control but there is an issue when it's a guaranteed kill given how much damage those decks can put out.
Somebody already mentioned it earlier in the post that combos were capable of doing up to 20ish damage leaving some room for counterplay in taunts/healing. I think that was probably the best way to have the combo decks being designed. I don't know how they would find that sweet spot between having control/combo/aggro/midrange having an upperhand on one another over a polarizing matchup.
Once upon a time, when Aviana was 9-mana, Innervate granted two mana crystals, and Kun the Forgotten King didn't even exist, Druid could do 66 damage from an empty board (and NO Emperor Ticks needed). It was a 10-card combo (Aviania, Malgyos, Innervate, x2, Faceless, x2, Roots x2, Moonfire x2), so it wasn't so easy to pull off. But it didn't have "counterplay". Only one class could armor up at that time to gain more than 66 life. So there was "no counterplay".
However this particular OTK Druid didn't really exist outside of memes. It wasn't a competitive deck.
The presence or lack thereof of "counterplay" is irrelevant to whether a OTK is oppressive or not. What matters is play rate and win rate.
Looking at the play/win rates of various OTK decks, any reasonable person can conclude that there are NO oppressive OTK decks right now. The only people complaining about them are the Control Cry Babies.
You would still get control players complaining when the tech would sometimes fail to hit something (this is exactly what happens when control players miss a combo piece in wild with Rat). Too many players want an instant, or near instant, tech card against OTKs that simply requires them to brainless lay a card down and win.
Control decks would have more of a chance against OTK if they did both of the following two things:
I agree. But it depends on what you want with this game. I personally like just to play the game but others might only care about winning. If you disrupt their combo it's game over. If you survive the onslaught of aggro it's game over. Only control vs. control or just mirror or similar matchups are really interesting to me. Or of course if people would play more for fun and not focus so much on winning. As I always say, playing with your friends is still the best game mode in Hearthstone.
Hi there. I play almost only OTK decks. Why? Because its fun for me, i dont have any joy playing aggro, midrange or control
Every deck type is necessary for a healthy game. Me personally I can't stand aggro or the entire degenerate "Me Hunter me go face" class but without those obnoxious decks things like my Shirvallah/Deathknight OTK deck would just casually sit back and decide which win condition to use. Without OTK decks control decks would just run rampant, and without control aggo goes to town on everyone. It's just the nature of card games.
Ignoring the state of the board and win is always bad, OTK are bads because there is a sense of your opponent playing a solitaire instead of a game vs you. OTK lacks counters (unless you build meme decks just to counter them), the best thing is that all current ones will be hit by rotation.
Ex-fucking-Actly
This, this and a thousand times this. Especially the latter one is astonishing to me, the biggest mistake bad control players make it not realising what role they have in a match up. You are never going to out control someone who"s win condition isn't connected to board presence. You can't snuff out someones tempo when they don't have any to begin with! You need to find another way to win. You most likely have to be the agressor.
That's a very sub-par argument. "Why do we need soap if you'll get dirty at the end of the day?" (basically)
Card games are all about odds. With no neutral anti-combo card it's almost impossible to win control vs combo mu. What's wrong about adding a card to standard which will increase the odds of winning to control players (and not only control players, btw). No one's asking for an insta-win card.
Best comment in this thread. I play Control decks myself mostly, and I'm very surprised by the amount of people that think their Control decks should beat OTK decks without changing strats or tech cards.
Dad, husband, gamer, fueled by coffee.
Currently playing Dragon Galakrond Priest, Dragon Galakrond Warrior and Highlander Dragon Hunter.
I feel like the number of viable OTK decks is perhaps not bad for balance, but creates lifeless matchups.
The number of card draw options has led to the rise of this play-style. A tempo/control vs OTK matchup feel like two players in separate rooms playing out their strategy to see who can arrive at the end first. The goal of the OTK play is basically to draw as quickly as possible with nearly no care or interaction with the opponent. The opponent knows whats coming and does what he can, but is not always successful. In the end there is balance against full on control decks, but the experience flat out sucks. Its boring!
Conlusion: Play a deck that punishes card draw :-).
As others have said - the biggest problem regarding OTK decks is the lack of ability to interact with them and ruin the combo in any meaningful way. Only Warlock really has the tools to disrupt the opponents deck (outside of mill scenarios, which imo should have remained a strategy with coldlight oracle). Mojomaster Zihi is a one-of which you can't guarantee drawing and really only useful for delaying the combo. If anything it polarises the aggro-OTK match-up even further. It's fine that we have a rock-paper-stone type arrangement with a bias towards certain matchups however what's not fine is the absolute and polarised nature of these matchups in the game currently.
I realise there's an element of "play to the meta" in choosing your deck (i.e. seeing lots of OTK - play aggro), but it's pretty crappy to lose a game before a card is drawn because you play control and they play OTK. Furthermore if you only play a handful of games a day it's difficult to assess the current meta on your rank.
In an ideal world there should be some tech options outside of Warlock that give you a chance against OTK decks but it seems Blizz disagrees. Maybe a sideboard option would be interesting but that would almost certainly create a whole set of new problems to balance around.
Mojomaster is actually a much better anti OTK tech than what you're giving credit for. Against all variants of Mecha'Thun decks, for example, forces the player to stay in an almost inescapable corner that they painted themselves into (due to needing to be at the door of fatigue before winning). What exactly is Mecha'Thun Priest or Druid going to do to not die once set to 5 mana with only their combo in hand? This can happen to Mecha'Thun lock as well depending on what exactly they still have in their hand. Mojomaster will also royally screw over an OTK pally who got unlucky and had Uther in the last 5ish cards of their deck because they will naturally have been pressured into committing more of their removal resources to stay alive when cycling for Uther. And at that point in the late game they can either spend 5-7 mana bouncing one combo piece to hand or remove your threats with dwindling resources to stay alive (See Thijs' last Mojomaster vs OTK pally youtube highlight for an example).