I was trying to build a Warlock deck that could beat combo while still having some control elements. I put in Rin, 1x the spell that turns one minion in each hand into a demon, 2x the 2/3 that burns a card in opponent's library. Then I threw in 4 brewmasters to bounce the Gnomes.
I faced a res priest.
I turned Velen in their hand into a demon. I burned 4 cards in their library (Zillax, the 4 mana res spell, the spell that puts 1 mana copies of all minions in your deck into play, and ?)
I still lost. He got 2x Malygos into play and bursted me down.
It feels like an impossible mission to build a control deck that can beat combo. I think we definitely need some more tools to work with as I'd like to think if I teched in 7 cards to beat a certain deck I could beat that certain deck. Seems fair to me, right?
I think if Combo gives up 7 slots to deal with aggro they should be able to beat aggro as well. Or if aggro gives up 7 slots to beat control then they should be able to do so as well. No archetype should be gimped into an auto loss if built to combat that matchup IMHO. I'm not saying that it should result in an auto-win for the teched deck, but at least even footing if not slightly favored.
its because u still doesnt have any wincon yourself, the deck can beat u with minion damage aswell.
I was hoping to fatigue him with my gnomeferatus (and re-used ones) as my win condition. Disrupt his combo then win with fatigue.
How exactly would you determine what style a deck is without seeing the opponent's deck beforehand? (Which obviously would not be allowed due to unfairness. What about decks with multiple win conditions? You cant exactly do it by card (by claiming "This is an OTK card, this is a Control card", etc).
Well before start playing you get multiple options to choose from. For instance if you don't want a matchup against an OTK deck you can choose that option. Or you can do it per class. If you don't want to meet Hunters, you ban that class before the matchup.
What would that do to the meta...….
So... how does the game determine if you're playing an OTK deck? By asking the player who creates it? What's to stop them simply lying and saying it's an Aggro deck (to get around the ban)? You're essentially relying on the honesty of a player to say his deck falls into that category. And what if it falls across multiple categories>
All decklists BEFORE a tournament are made public. That is why they can ban combo (or Odd Rogue).
Two problems there then:
1. This is standard online play, not a tournament. While a separate tournament mode is fine, that's not feasible for this mode. Half the point of normal online play is that you're not supposed to know what is in the opponent's deck until it is played. That's part of the game. 2. That still doesn't solve the problem of what category a deck falls into. For example, a player decides to play Zoolock (an obvious aggro deck) but decides to throw in a couple of Voidlocks, A Gul'dan and a Rin. So is it still an aggro deck or a control deck now? It's both. So how does the system determine if it's banned or not?
The point is that it is simply unfeasible (and a little silly) to expect to be able to ban a certain style of deck, just because it counters your own favoured style.
Cool story: I started playing Gallery Priest after my failed experiment to build a Warlock deck that would beat Gallery Priest. I just finished a battle where my opponent played control lock built to beat Gallery Priest. He had Gnomeferatus and Demonic Project like I did, but he also ran the card that destroyed half of each players deck.
He burnt my Malygos with the card that destroys half the deck. He transformed my Velen with Demonic Project. But, I was able to win on the back of Liche King and Lyra anyway. Even though his strategy executed perfectly it still wasn't enough. I felt bad and tried to friend him, but denied. (I usually don't accept friend requests either so I understand)
Deck disruption is fun, but it just feels like it doesn't have the right tools just now. Not to mention that Priest is not an easy deck to disrupt as it has so many answers available to it.
How exactly would you determine what style a deck is without seeing the opponent's deck beforehand? (Which obviously would not be allowed due to unfairness. What about decks with multiple win conditions? You cant exactly do it by card (by claiming "This is an OTK card, this is a Control card", etc).
Well before start playing you get multiple options to choose from. For instance if you don't want a matchup against an OTK deck you can choose that option. Or you can do it per class. If you don't want to meet Hunters, you ban that class before the matchup.
What would that do to the meta...….
So... how does the game determine if you're playing an OTK deck? By asking the player who creates it? What's to stop them simply lying and saying it's an Aggro deck (to get around the ban)? You're essentially relying on the honesty of a player to say his deck falls into that category. And what if it falls across multiple categories>
All decklists BEFORE a tournament are made public. That is why they can ban combo (or Odd Rogue).
Two problems there then:
1. This is standard online play, not a tournament. While a separate tournament mode is fine, that's not feasible for this mode. Half the point of normal online play is that you're not supposed to know what is in the opponent's deck until it is played. That's part of the game. 2. That still doesn't solve the problem of what category a deck falls into. For example, a player decides to play Zoolock (an obvious aggro deck) but decides to throw in a couple of Voidlocks, A Gul'dan and a Rin. So is it still an aggro deck or a control deck now? It's both. So how does the system determine if it's banned or not?
The point is that it is simply unfeasible (and a little silly) to expect to be able to ban a certain style of deck, just because it counters your own favoured style.
Well you can keep posing problems but a simple dialogue box from which you can choose a class you don't want to face in a matchup and or an option in where Blizzard let you choose between archetypes. Even if people change cards, the fact the deck posesses keycards that identifies a certain achetype, keeps that signature. So if you have malygos in your deck, it signifies an OTK deck. If you have Profit Velen it means OTK. Those decks are then being excluded in the matchup if you don't want to meet them.
How exactly would you determine what style a deck is without seeing the opponent's deck beforehand? (Which obviously would not be allowed due to unfairness. What about decks with multiple win conditions? You cant exactly do it by card (by claiming "This is an OTK card, this is a Control card", etc).
Well before start playing you get multiple options to choose from. For instance if you don't want a matchup against an OTK deck you can choose that option. Or you can do it per class. If you don't want to meet Hunters, you ban that class before the matchup.
What would that do to the meta...….
So... how does the game determine if you're playing an OTK deck? By asking the player who creates it? What's to stop them simply lying and saying it's an Aggro deck (to get around the ban)? You're essentially relying on the honesty of a player to say his deck falls into that category. And what if it falls across multiple categories>
All decklists BEFORE a tournament are made public. That is why they can ban combo (or Odd Rogue).
Two problems there then:
1. This is standard online play, not a tournament. While a separate tournament mode is fine, that's not feasible for this mode. Half the point of normal online play is that you're not supposed to know what is in the opponent's deck until it is played. That's part of the game. 2. That still doesn't solve the problem of what category a deck falls into. For example, a player decides to play Zoolock (an obvious aggro deck) but decides to throw in a couple of Voidlocks, A Gul'dan and a Rin. So is it still an aggro deck or a control deck now? It's both. So how does the system determine if it's banned or not?
The point is that it is simply unfeasible (and a little silly) to expect to be able to ban a certain style of deck, just because it counters your own favoured style.
Well you can keep posing problems but a simple dialogue box from which you can choose a class you don't want to face in a matchup and or an option in where Blizzard let you choose between archetypes.
Let me first say that I have no problem with the concept of choosing a specific class and opting to "veto" it or similar. (Sure, this is more a sort of a tournament mode type of thing, but that's fine). And yes, that's doable. But the suggestion that I was specifically saying there was a problem with, was in selecting an archetype / deck type rather than a specific class. I don't believe this is feasible. For example: Paladin is a good example. You get aggro rush decks like Odd Pally, or OTK decks like DK Paladin, or Control decks like Even Paladin, etc. But you can't ban by one of those particular deck types. You can only ban Paladin as a whole. Does that make sense? That's the problem I was trying to point out.
Even if people change cards, the fact the deck posesses keycards that identifies a certain achetype, keeps that signature. So if you have malygos in your deck, it signifies an OTK deck. If you have Profit Velen it means OTK. Those decks are then being excluded in the matchup if you don't want to meet them.
This won't work, though. There are plenty of power cards that fit into multiple archetypes. For example: Call to Arms - is that an aggro or a control card? Or an OTK card? For a while it was the focal point of people who hated Aggro Paladin. Now it's used in OTK Pally to get through the deck quick. And even in control paladin too. Doomguard - is this an aggro card or a control card? It's used in Zoolock all the time. And also in Cubelock which is a classic control deck.
Do you see what I mean? There is no way to pinpoint a deck's archetype based on specific cards. You would also have plenty of people who would start throwing in certain cards to disguise their deck as a specific type to get around the rules.
i made a druid deck that actually works quite good against control. It´s still not guaranteed but fun and causes conceeds ... Feels weak to tempo so i am not shure if it´s competative in standard. I also made a paladin with Hakar and that hurts all OTK that draw their library quite hard.
Cool story: I started playing Gallery Priest after my failed experiment to build a Warlock deck that would beat Gallery Priest. I just finished a battle where my opponent played control lock built to beat Gallery Priest. He had Gnomeferatus and Demonic Project like I did, but he also ran the card that destroyed half of each players deck.
He burnt my Malygos with the card that destroys half the deck. He transformed my Velen with Demonic Project. But, I was able to win on the back of Liche King and Lyra anyway. Even though his strategy executed perfectly it still wasn't enough. I felt bad and tried to friend him, but denied. (I usually don't accept friend requests either so I understand)
what makes Cloning priest work is that it's not a one trick pony. It LOOKS like one at first but, in truth, it has a lot of secondary win conditions. Cloning-into-burn is just it's high roll insta-easy-win. It can work just fine similar to odd rogue. A late game version of one but still, same "scrap together 30 damage from somewhere" angle.
That's why the warlock deck fails. It's entire purpose is to nuke the 'key card' to destroy the deck, beyond perhaps nuking both mindblasts, that's probably not going to cut it especialyl if you can't handle the big minions in the deck along with it.
It's a pretty awesome deck all together, off the back of what was deemed one of the worst cards of Boomsday. Makes me wish I crafted Velens.. and really cared to run combo style decks (nothing against it, just never had much fun with those styles of decks)
Cool story: I started playing Gallery Priest after my failed experiment to build a Warlock deck that would beat Gallery Priest. I just finished a battle where my opponent played control lock built to beat Gallery Priest. He had Gnomeferatus and Demonic Project like I did, but he also ran the card that destroyed half of each players deck.
He burnt my Malygos with the card that destroys half the deck. He transformed my Velen with Demonic Project. But, I was able to win on the back of Liche King and Lyra anyway. Even though his strategy executed perfectly it still wasn't enough. I felt bad and tried to friend him, but denied. (I usually don't accept friend requests either so I understand)
what makes Cloning priest work is that it's not a one trick pony. It LOOKS like one at first but, in truth, it has a lot of secondary win conditions. Cloning-into-burn is just it's high roll insta-easy-win. It can work just fine similar to odd rogue. A late game version of one but still, same "scrap together 30 damage from somewhere" angle.
That's why the warlock deck fails. It's entire purpose is to nuke the 'key card' to destroy the deck, beyond perhaps nuking both mindblasts, that's probably not going to cut it especialyl if you can't handle the big minions in the deck along with it.
It's a pretty awesome deck all together, off the back of what was deemed one of the worst cards of Boomsday. Makes me wish I crafted Velens.. and really cared to run combo style decks (nothing against it, just never had much fun with those styles of decks)
Yeah, it's pretty strong. I've been playing it now for a couple days and climbing rather well. Crushes control, does decently well vs. Hunter, can go toe to toe with OTK decks. Rogue is a bad matchup. It's a little soft vs Aggro in general but I usually feel like I have a chance against most non-rogue decks.
True, but what I signal is the fact that on ladder this is now not possible. Either you don't allow bans in tournaments, or you organize it in a certain way on ladder too. That is a matter of fairness. So I guess you ban OTK- style or something else you don't want to meet upfront.
Bans play a role in tournaments because it takes skill to look at your opponent's lineup and decide which to ban based on your lineup, that would not be true for the ranked ladder where you would just simply ban the deck or class that you have the worst matchup against. There are many other reasons as well, but that one in particular shows why tournaments have bans and why ladder doesn't need them.
How exactly would you determine what style a deck is without seeing the opponent's deck beforehand? (Which obviously would not be allowed due to unfairness. What about decks with multiple win conditions? You cant exactly do it by card (by claiming "This is an OTK card, this is a Control card", etc).
Well before start playing you get multiple options to choose from. For instance if you don't want a matchup against an OTK deck you can choose that option. Or you can do it per class. If you don't want to meet Hunters, you ban that class before the matchup.
What would that do to the meta...….
So... how does the game determine if you're playing an OTK deck? By asking the player who creates it? What's to stop them simply lying and saying it's an Aggro deck (to get around the ban)? You're essentially relying on the honesty of a player to say his deck falls into that category. And what if it falls across multiple categories>
All decklists BEFORE a tournament are made public. That is why they can ban combo (or Odd Rogue).
Two problems there then:
1. This is standard online play, not a tournament. While a separate tournament mode is fine, that's not feasible for this mode. Half the point of normal online play is that you're not supposed to know what is in the opponent's deck until it is played. That's part of the game. 2. That still doesn't solve the problem of what category a deck falls into. For example, a player decides to play Zoolock (an obvious aggro deck) but decides to throw in a couple of Voidlocks, A Gul'dan and a Rin. So is it still an aggro deck or a control deck now? It's both. So how does the system determine if it's banned or not?
The point is that it is simply unfeasible (and a little silly) to expect to be able to ban a certain style of deck, just because it counters your own favoured style.
Well you can keep posing problems but a simple dialogue box from which you can choose a class you don't want to face in a matchup and or an option in where Blizzard let you choose between archetypes.
Let me first say that I have no problem with the concept of choosing a specific class and opting to "veto" it or similar. (Sure, this is more a sort of a tournament mode type of thing, but that's fine). And yes, that's doable. But the suggestion that I was specifically saying there was a problem with, was in selecting an archetype / deck type rather than a specific class. I don't believe this is feasible. For example: Paladin is a good example. You get aggro rush decks like Odd Pally, or OTK decks like DK Paladin, or Control decks like Even Paladin, etc. But you can't ban by one of those particular deck types. You can only ban Paladin as a whole. Does that make sense? That's the problem I was trying to point out.
Even if people change cards, the fact the deck posesses keycards that identifies a certain achetype, keeps that signature. So if you have malygos in your deck, it signifies an OTK deck. If you have Profit Velen it means OTK. Those decks are then being excluded in the matchup if you don't want to meet them.
This won't work, though. There are plenty of power cards that fit into multiple archetypes. For example: Call to Arms - is that an aggro or a control card? Or an OTK card? For a while it was the focal point of people who hated Aggro Paladin. Now it's used in OTK Pally to get through the deck quick. And even in control paladin too. Doomguard - is this an aggro card or a control card? It's used in Zoolock all the time. And also in Cubelock which is a classic control deck.
Do you see what I mean? There is no way to pinpoint a deck's archetype based on specific cards. You would also have plenty of people who would start throwing in certain cards to disguise their deck as a specific type to get around the rules.
Certainly, some cards are currently used in multiple archetypes.and don't fit into the idea. Hall of faming would help Banning a class though due to its popularity, overrepresentation as Hunters now would certainly make a more diverse meta possible.
But I don't think Blizzard will go along with the idea.They don't want to give the idea that what they implement is unbalanced from the start and that you can ' fix' it through exclusion. The tournament banning suppose to be a tournament feature. Introducing it to ladder is considered to be a defeat and a capitulation to the critique that the skill floor is too low, overrepresentation and polarization of the meta etc. As usual maintaining a straight face is better than admitting you design cards for a mindless aggressive/OTK target audience.
True, but what I signal is the fact that on ladder this is now not possible. Either you don't allow bans in tournaments, or you organize it in a certain way on ladder too. That is a matter of fairness. So I guess you ban OTK- style or something else you don't want to meet upfront.
Bans play a role in tournaments because it takes skill to look at your opponent's lineup and decide which to ban based on your lineup, that would not be true for the ranked ladder where you would just simply ban the deck or class that you have the worst matchup against. There are many other reasons as well, but that one in particular shows why tournaments have bans and why ladder doesn't need them.
There's also the fact that banning a deck doesn't change who you fight against. Banning my hunter still means you face against me: just that you're up against my other 3 decks instead. it's also not fully one sided. I can look setup my lineup to, say, have two anti-control decks so that banning one still means you're up against a deck that's bad aginst your control decks. Tournament players plan out their decks with the expectation of what ones will be banned and will seek to punish such opponents.
If you made ladder into something more like a touranment, say, where you bring 4 decks, one gets banned, and you choose from the remaining 3, then we might have something there. But that would be extremely new player unfriendly as it demands players have at least 2 good decks and would be disadvantaged till they have 4 good ones.
Next year, there are supposed to be a greater emphasis on online tournaments. Instead of trying to warp ladder into something it's not, why not just get down into the tournament scene instead where such systems naturally take place?
One of the problems of reasoning in general is the fact that the existing situation has the commanding presence in how to think and recognize what the problems are and what is solved. Some are tempted to choose the side of desicionmakers, in order to feel safe in fear to look like a fool. of course in the eye of the beholder.
So speaking of banning decks and or classes. What is the problem and why even want to ban? Why is there banning in tournament mode? Why would Blizzard even want that? I guess to prevent an oppressive archetype to be played all the time that can handle multiple other archetypes. So the more people ban the same archetype the more oppressive it is. Banning in tournaments depends on your own lineup. But what would happen if there was no banning?
Why is there banning in tournament mode? Why would Blizzard even want that? I guess to prevent an oppressive archetype to be played all the time that can handle multiple other archetypes. So the more people ban the same archetype the more oppressive it is. Banning in tournaments depends on your own lineup. But what would happen if there was no banning?
There's actually several reasons for bans, one of which you touched on one with oppressive decks. Another is that the top players on ladder will play 300+ games per season and that allows for the skill of better players to eventually prevail over random luck. In a tournament you only get a handful of games per round and more skillful decisions need to be added outside of games to try and cut down on the randomness. This also forces players to bring one more deck than if there was no ban, which means they need to be proficient with one extra deck which adds a little more skill in itself. They also allow for interesting strategy when building your lineup like iandakar mentioned where you can build your lineup around what you plan to ban or what you expect your opponent to ban. Without bans the top table would be even more random than they already are.
As for as what would happen if they remove bans would depend on the tournament format. If the format is Last Hero Standing then oppressive decks would have a chance to sweep so lineups might have to change drastically based on the fact that you couldn't ban an oppressive deck that your whole lineup would be weak too. In Conquest it lowers your opponent's lineup to one less deck, which means they may be less likely to have a deck in their lineup that would be weak specifically against your lineup. In both formats it also lowers your decision making when creating your lineup.
Bans add a very challenging element to the strategy of choosing a lineup than you would not have without bans, and in a game where randomness has a significant impact on a single game it is important to add as much skill outside of the gameplay as you can for tournaments.
So speaking of banning decks and or classes. What is the problem and why even want to ban? Why is there banning in tournament mode? Why would Blizzard even want that? I guess to prevent an oppressive archetype to be played all the time that can handle multiple other archetypes. So the more people ban the same archetype the more oppressive it is. Banning in tournaments depends on your own lineup. But what would happen if there was no banning?
We had that in 2015: Conquest without a ban. This was during the time of Patron Warrior.
As a result, the Summer session (the last session before the patron nerf) resulted in nearly the entire field bringing three specific decks:
Patron Warrior
Handlock
Combo Druid
At the time, Patron, at the highest played levels, could only be reliably matched with Control Warrior and beat by Handlock. Thus the first two choices. Combo Druid fell to Patron but could fight Handlock and occasionally highrolled a win against anyone, so it became the third. Others tried to bring alternative decks to beat Patron, and failed horribly.
This was the only year that banning wasn't available, and it was deemed that we should not repeat that.
Banning isn't just to remove the most oppressive deck. As you said, it depends on your lineup. It allows for more flexible deck choices. For example, you can bring a set of anti-control decks and ban the most aggressive deck, or bring an aggressive lineup and not become ruined because control warrior existed. In a way, the deck lists and bans are akin the MTG's sideboard system in letting the decision making extend past the board itself.
To note, banning, sideboarding, all of these suggestions tend to get scoffed at here not because of some image of balance: that has already failed with the nerf cycle that has become as regular as the rotation cycle. The problem is that people keep suggesting ideas that work well with a best-of-3 multi-deck format and incorporate it into a best-of-1 single elimination blind match. It's akin to seeing how well adults handle driving to work and suggest that children should drive to school. Banning suggestions have always incorporated a hidden suggestion that your effectively get to weed out certain opponents based on their chosen deck, which is as foolish in a ladder as it would if we added that into tournaments.
I CAN in theory see a idea of all of us incorporating multiple decks then allowing a ban and pick phase. It would allow for a LOT of diversity as not only can you ban the class you are vulernable against, or don't want to see, but can then pick your deck based on the remaining decks your opponent holds, thus encouraging holding multiple deck archetypes to avoid, say, someone seeing your even paladin and odd rogue and choosing control warrior. It also helps against that feeling people have or the system 'countering' their deck as you can SEE your opponent chosing based on what you brought.
The issue is that newer players would have to run 2-4 full decks to make that work. Not exactly helping the F2P concept. A separate ladder that has that would be wonderful though and could incorporate many of the functions people are asking for while allowing the regular ladder to remain more accessible (and perhaps easier as the old players and pros head to the other format).
Might be worth a craft. I guess. I'm a f2p player so I have to spend wisely. Not sure that it would fit into my deck with 2x voidlords and the 10 mana DK though. Maybe?
Right now my top craft want it Zilliax. Then maybe the undertaker. (that looks fun) But, maybe mojomaster should move up the list?
if you want to beat combo you can probably beat them at six mana before they can beat you and so with all your bounces you should be fine
I've formed the opinion that Demonic Project is useless since Druids and their limited minion decks have been relegated to trash tier, and aren't played but for a wary few that want to keep the Druid thing going.
I've been toying with a Howlfiend deck and that has been substantially better. Currently I'm running Thijs' list. Where I thought this kind of deck was pretty awful last expansion, this has been very solid so far given the crop of decks people seem to be playing these days. And really incredible against combo decks.
I've been toying with a Howlfiend deck and that has been substantially better. Currently I'm running Thijs' list. Where I thought this kind of deck was pretty awful last expansion, this has been very solid so far given the crop of decks people seem to be playing these days. And really incredible against combo decks.
I've been toying with a Howlfiend deck and that has been substantially better. Currently I'm running Thijs' list. Where I thought this kind of deck was pretty awful last expansion, this has been very solid so far given the crop of decks people seem to be playing these days. And really incredible against combo decks.
Why is there banning in tournament mode? Why would Blizzard even want that? I guess to prevent an oppressive archetype to be played all the time that can handle multiple other archetypes. So the more people ban the same archetype the more oppressive it is. Banning in tournaments depends on your own lineup. But what would happen if there was no banning?
There's actually several reasons for bans, one of which you touched on one with oppressive decks. Another is that the top players on ladder will play 300+ games per season and that allows for the skill of better players to eventually prevail over random luck. In a tournament you only get a handful of games per round and more skillful decisions need to be added outside of games to try and cut down on the randomness. This also forces players to bring one more deck than if there was no ban, which means they need to be proficient with one extra deck which adds a little more skill in itself. They also allow for interesting strategy when building your lineup like iandakar mentioned where you can build your lineup around what you plan to ban or what you expect your opponent to ban. Without bans the top table would be even more random than they already are.
As for as what would happen if they remove bans would depend on the tournament format. If the format is Last Hero Standing then oppressive decks would have a chance to sweep so lineups might have to change drastically based on the fact that you couldn't ban an oppressive deck that your whole lineup would be weak too. In Conquest it lowers your opponent's lineup to one less deck, which means they may be less likely to have a deck in their lineup that would be weak specifically against your lineup. In both formats it also lowers your decision making when creating your lineup.
Bans add a very challenging element to the strategy of choosing a lineup than you would not have without bans, and in a game where randomness has a significant impact on a single game it is important to add as much skill outside of the gameplay as you can for tournaments.
So banning in tournaments is partly due to reduction of randomness. The question is: does T5 care? If randomness is intricate to ladder, why suddenly a problem to behold in tournaments? Your argument: far fetched.
I see that bans in tournaments is proof the weakness of current non-bans on ladder.Bans add a very challenging element to the strategy of choosing a lineup than you would not have without bans,
So in tournaments suddenly skill counts....? So ladder is suppose to be a mindless cesspool? Right! That is precisely my critique on card designers: Ladder is for the mindless fanboy. Tournaments are for those who want to play a game of skill.
True, but what I signal is the fact that on ladder this is now not possible. Either you don't allow bans in tournaments, or you organize it in a certain way on ladder too. That is a matter of fairness. So I guess you ban OTK- style or something else you don't want to meet upfront.
Bans play a role in tournaments because it takes skill to look at your opponent's lineup and decide which to ban based on your lineup, that would not be true for the ranked ladder where you would just simply ban the deck or class that you have the worst matchup against. There are many other reasons as well, but that one in particular shows why tournaments have bans and why ladder doesn't need them.
There's also the fact that banning a deck doesn't change who you fight against. Banning my hunter still means you face against me: just that you're up against my other 3 decks instead. it's also not fully one sided. I can look setup my lineup to, say, have two anti-control decks so that banning one still means you're up against a deck that's bad aginst your control decks. Tournament players plan out their decks with the expectation of what ones will be banned and will seek to punish such opponents.
If you made ladder into something more like a touranment, say, where you bring 4 decks, one gets banned, and you choose from the remaining 3, then we might have something there. But that would be extremely new player unfriendly as it demands players have at least 2 good decks and would be disadvantaged till they have 4 good ones.
Next year, there are supposed to be a greater emphasis on online tournaments. Instead of trying to warp ladder into something it's not, why not just get down into the tournament scene instead where such systems naturally take place?
So mister Iandakar.
" One does not simply walk into Mordor, unless they want to be the best they can be."
Nice thought, but are you willing to be at your best and be a Legolas, Aragorn on my part to take on the Ork-in-chief Ayala (Saruman-Brode is already incapacitated). What can be done to raise the skill floor, diversify win conditions, avoid oppressive classes, more diversity in play styles, avoid a steep RPS, etc, etc. Problems the fanboy don't even realize exists as they a re successfully served the mindless winrush of easy winfix.
Banning classes would help raise the skill floor and diversify the meta. Suppress on-sided oppressiveness. Banning of archetypes means you can't have multiple decks anti decks available. If anti-control is banned your two decks are banned too.
I was hoping to fatigue him with my gnomeferatus (and re-used ones) as my win condition. Disrupt his combo then win with fatigue.
Galavant Animation
Two problems there then:
1. This is standard online play, not a tournament. While a separate tournament mode is fine, that's not feasible for this mode. Half the point of normal online play is that you're not supposed to know what is in the opponent's deck until it is played. That's part of the game.
2. That still doesn't solve the problem of what category a deck falls into. For example, a player decides to play Zoolock (an obvious aggro deck) but decides to throw in a couple of Voidlocks, A Gul'dan and a Rin. So is it still an aggro deck or a control deck now? It's both. So how does the system determine if it's banned or not?
The point is that it is simply unfeasible (and a little silly) to expect to be able to ban a certain style of deck, just because it counters your own favoured style.
Cool story: I started playing Gallery Priest after my failed experiment to build a Warlock deck that would beat Gallery Priest. I just finished a battle where my opponent played control lock built to beat Gallery Priest. He had Gnomeferatus and Demonic Project like I did, but he also ran the card that destroyed half of each players deck.
He burnt my Malygos with the card that destroys half the deck. He transformed my Velen with Demonic Project. But, I was able to win on the back of Liche King and Lyra anyway. Even though his strategy executed perfectly it still wasn't enough. I felt bad and tried to friend him, but denied. (I usually don't accept friend requests either so I understand)
Galavant Animation
Deck disruption is fun, but it just feels like it doesn't have the right tools just now.
Not to mention that Priest is not an easy deck to disrupt as it has so many answers available to it.
Well you can keep posing problems but a simple dialogue box from which you can choose a class you don't want to face in a matchup and or an option in where Blizzard let you choose between archetypes. Even if people change cards, the fact the deck posesses keycards that identifies a certain achetype, keeps that signature. So if you have malygos in your deck, it signifies an OTK deck. If you have Profit Velen it means OTK. Those decks are then being excluded in the matchup if you don't want to meet them.
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
Let me first say that I have no problem with the concept of choosing a specific class and opting to "veto" it or similar. (Sure, this is more a sort of a tournament mode type of thing, but that's fine). And yes, that's doable.
But the suggestion that I was specifically saying there was a problem with, was in selecting an archetype / deck type rather than a specific class. I don't believe this is feasible.
For example: Paladin is a good example. You get aggro rush decks like Odd Pally, or OTK decks like DK Paladin, or Control decks like Even Paladin, etc. But you can't ban by one of those particular deck types. You can only ban Paladin as a whole.
Does that make sense? That's the problem I was trying to point out.
This won't work, though. There are plenty of power cards that fit into multiple archetypes.
For example: Call to Arms - is that an aggro or a control card? Or an OTK card?
For a while it was the focal point of people who hated Aggro Paladin. Now it's used in OTK Pally to get through the deck quick. And even in control paladin too.
Doomguard - is this an aggro card or a control card? It's used in Zoolock all the time. And also in Cubelock which is a classic control deck.
Do you see what I mean? There is no way to pinpoint a deck's archetype based on specific cards.
You would also have plenty of people who would start throwing in certain cards to disguise their deck as a specific type to get around the rules.
i made a druid deck that actually works quite good against control. It´s still not guaranteed but fun and causes conceeds ... Feels weak to tempo so i am not shure if it´s competative in standard. I also made a paladin with Hakar and that hurts all OTK that draw their library quite hard.
what makes Cloning priest work is that it's not a one trick pony. It LOOKS like one at first but, in truth, it has a lot of secondary win conditions. Cloning-into-burn is just it's high roll insta-easy-win. It can work just fine similar to odd rogue. A late game version of one but still, same "scrap together 30 damage from somewhere" angle.
That's why the warlock deck fails. It's entire purpose is to nuke the 'key card' to destroy the deck, beyond perhaps nuking both mindblasts, that's probably not going to cut it especialyl if you can't handle the big minions in the deck along with it.
It's a pretty awesome deck all together, off the back of what was deemed one of the worst cards of Boomsday. Makes me wish I crafted Velens.. and really cared to run combo style decks (nothing against it, just never had much fun with those styles of decks)
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
Yeah, it's pretty strong. I've been playing it now for a couple days and climbing rather well. Crushes control, does decently well vs. Hunter, can go toe to toe with OTK decks. Rogue is a bad matchup. It's a little soft vs Aggro in general but I usually feel like I have a chance against most non-rogue decks.
Galavant Animation
Bans play a role in tournaments because it takes skill to look at your opponent's lineup and decide which to ban based on your lineup, that would not be true for the ranked ladder where you would just simply ban the deck or class that you have the worst matchup against. There are many other reasons as well, but that one in particular shows why tournaments have bans and why ladder doesn't need them.
Certainly, some cards are currently used in multiple archetypes.and don't fit into the idea. Hall of faming would help Banning a class though due to its popularity, overrepresentation as Hunters now would certainly make a more diverse meta possible.
But I don't think Blizzard will go along with the idea.They don't want to give the idea that what they implement is unbalanced from the start and that you can ' fix' it through exclusion. The tournament banning suppose to be a tournament feature. Introducing it to ladder is considered to be a defeat and a capitulation to the critique that the skill floor is too low, overrepresentation and polarization of the meta etc. As usual maintaining a straight face is better than admitting you design cards for a mindless aggressive/OTK target audience.
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
There's also the fact that banning a deck doesn't change who you fight against. Banning my hunter still means you face against me: just that you're up against my other 3 decks instead. it's also not fully one sided. I can look setup my lineup to, say, have two anti-control decks so that banning one still means you're up against a deck that's bad aginst your control decks. Tournament players plan out their decks with the expectation of what ones will be banned and will seek to punish such opponents.
If you made ladder into something more like a touranment, say, where you bring 4 decks, one gets banned, and you choose from the remaining 3, then we might have something there. But that would be extremely new player unfriendly as it demands players have at least 2 good decks and would be disadvantaged till they have 4 good ones.
Next year, there are supposed to be a greater emphasis on online tournaments. Instead of trying to warp ladder into something it's not, why not just get down into the tournament scene instead where such systems naturally take place?
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
One of the problems of reasoning in general is the fact that the existing situation has the commanding presence in how to think and recognize what the problems are and what is solved. Some are tempted to choose the side of desicionmakers, in order to feel safe in fear to look like a fool. of course in the eye of the beholder.
So speaking of banning decks and or classes. What is the problem and why even want to ban? Why is there banning in tournament mode? Why would Blizzard even want that? I guess to prevent an oppressive archetype to be played all the time that can handle multiple other archetypes. So the more people ban the same archetype the more oppressive it is. Banning in tournaments depends on your own lineup. But what would happen if there was no banning?
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.
There's actually several reasons for bans, one of which you touched on one with oppressive decks. Another is that the top players on ladder will play 300+ games per season and that allows for the skill of better players to eventually prevail over random luck. In a tournament you only get a handful of games per round and more skillful decisions need to be added outside of games to try and cut down on the randomness. This also forces players to bring one more deck than if there was no ban, which means they need to be proficient with one extra deck which adds a little more skill in itself. They also allow for interesting strategy when building your lineup like iandakar mentioned where you can build your lineup around what you plan to ban or what you expect your opponent to ban. Without bans the top table would be even more random than they already are.
As for as what would happen if they remove bans would depend on the tournament format. If the format is Last Hero Standing then oppressive decks would have a chance to sweep so lineups might have to change drastically based on the fact that you couldn't ban an oppressive deck that your whole lineup would be weak too. In Conquest it lowers your opponent's lineup to one less deck, which means they may be less likely to have a deck in their lineup that would be weak specifically against your lineup. In both formats it also lowers your decision making when creating your lineup.
Bans add a very challenging element to the strategy of choosing a lineup than you would not have without bans, and in a game where randomness has a significant impact on a single game it is important to add as much skill outside of the gameplay as you can for tournaments.
We had that in 2015: Conquest without a ban. This was during the time of Patron Warrior.
As a result, the Summer session (the last session before the patron nerf) resulted in nearly the entire field bringing three specific decks:
Patron Warrior
Handlock
Combo Druid
At the time, Patron, at the highest played levels, could only be reliably matched with Control Warrior and beat by Handlock. Thus the first two choices. Combo Druid fell to Patron but could fight Handlock and occasionally highrolled a win against anyone, so it became the third. Others tried to bring alternative decks to beat Patron, and failed horribly.
This was the only year that banning wasn't available, and it was deemed that we should not repeat that.
Banning isn't just to remove the most oppressive deck. As you said, it depends on your lineup. It allows for more flexible deck choices. For example, you can bring a set of anti-control decks and ban the most aggressive deck, or bring an aggressive lineup and not become ruined because control warrior existed. In a way, the deck lists and bans are akin the MTG's sideboard system in letting the decision making extend past the board itself.
To note, banning, sideboarding, all of these suggestions tend to get scoffed at here not because of some image of balance: that has already failed with the nerf cycle that has become as regular as the rotation cycle. The problem is that people keep suggesting ideas that work well with a best-of-3 multi-deck format and incorporate it into a best-of-1 single elimination blind match. It's akin to seeing how well adults handle driving to work and suggest that children should drive to school. Banning suggestions have always incorporated a hidden suggestion that your effectively get to weed out certain opponents based on their chosen deck, which is as foolish in a ladder as it would if we added that into tournaments.
I CAN in theory see a idea of all of us incorporating multiple decks then allowing a ban and pick phase. It would allow for a LOT of diversity as not only can you ban the class you are vulernable against, or don't want to see, but can then pick your deck based on the remaining decks your opponent holds, thus encouraging holding multiple deck archetypes to avoid, say, someone seeing your even paladin and odd rogue and choosing control warrior. It also helps against that feeling people have or the system 'countering' their deck as you can SEE your opponent chosing based on what you brought.
The issue is that newer players would have to run 2-4 full decks to make that work. Not exactly helping the F2P concept. A separate ladder that has that would be wonderful though and could incorporate many of the functions people are asking for while allowing the regular ladder to remain more accessible (and perhaps easier as the old players and pros head to the other format).
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
if you want to beat combo you can probably beat them at six mana before they can beat you and so with all your bounces you should be fine
I've formed the opinion that Demonic Project is useless since Druids and their limited minion decks have been relegated to trash tier, and aren't played but for a wary few that want to keep the Druid thing going.
I've been toying with a Howlfiend deck and that has been substantially better. Currently I'm running Thijs' list. Where I thought this kind of deck was pretty awful last expansion, this has been very solid so far given the crop of decks people seem to be playing these days. And really incredible against combo decks.
Is that his Void Contract deck?
No, the deck doesn't have void contract in it.
Here's the deck code:
AAECAf0GCtsGxAjMCJLNApfTAtvpAsPqApz4Avb9AqCAAwqKAbYHm8IC58sCxcwCrs0C980C8tACiNIC6OcCAA==
So banning in tournaments is partly due to reduction of randomness. The question is: does T5 care? If randomness is intricate to ladder, why suddenly a problem to behold in tournaments? Your argument: far fetched.
So in tournaments suddenly skill counts....? So ladder is suppose to be a mindless cesspool? Right! That is precisely my critique on card designers: Ladder is for the mindless fanboy. Tournaments are for those who want to play a game of skill.
So mister Iandakar.
" One does not simply walk into Mordor, unless they want to be the best they can be."
Nice thought, but are you willing to be at your best and be a Legolas, Aragorn on my part to take on the Ork-in-chief Ayala (Saruman-Brode is already incapacitated). What can be done to raise the skill floor, diversify win conditions, avoid oppressive classes, more diversity in play styles, avoid a steep RPS, etc, etc. Problems the fanboy don't even realize exists as they a re successfully served the mindless winrush of easy winfix.
Banning classes would help raise the skill floor and diversify the meta. Suppress on-sided oppressiveness. Banning of archetypes means you can't have multiple decks anti decks available. If anti-control is banned your two decks are banned too.
We make our world significant through the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.