The only thing as certain as the rising sun is complaints on hearthpwn about the good ol' state of the meta. Endless spewing of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. And while there are threads that span the landscape on this topic, there are rarely ever any constructive solutions mentioned. So that's what I am here to inquire about. The "perfect" fix for the game that allll of these complainers seem to think exists? What is a meta that you would be happy with that wouldn't cause endless complaining.
Aggro is top: Oh boy always complaints. Brain dead, too linear, skilless. Aggro metas certainly seem to be the least favorite so we can't have that one.
Control is top: Lonnnnng boring games. No interaction. Too many board clears. Too much value. Control metas definitely get complained about a ton as well. Even if there are multiple viable control decks, people definitely hate this one as well.
Combo is king: Perhaps the only meta state that causes more aggrevation than aggro metas, but definitely a rarer meta. Lack of interaction is the biggest complaint here. Combo and control often share a hat because the playstyle is relatively the same except for the end game. Control tries to survive and outvalue, while combo tries to survive and otk. Another hated meta by many of you because of long, grindy, uninteractive games.
Midrange is king: This is the grayest area because midrange is a deck type that is somewhat flexible in definition. Generally when we think of midrange we think of the 4-7 mana slot. Galakrond shaman is more midrange than anything else, and we know how much people loved that. So also, completely unhappy with the "trash" meta.
So that leaves a final meta. And one which I think is as good as it can get in any card game. That meta is where all of these archetypes had competitive decks available. But this goes by a different name around here. The rock, paper, scissor meta. This meta has happened in the past a few times and the forums here were filled with complaints, just like any other day. How it's terrible for the game if X can beat Y but often loses to Z.
So my question to all of you that endlessly complain about the meta is, what is YOUR ideal state of the game? In which state does the meta need to be for you to consider the game to be healthy again? I am actually generally interested because I feel that over the history of the game every possible meta has existed, yet there were always endless complaints.
This sums it up pretty perfectly. As a matter of personal preference, I like control metas the most; the bigger and more impactful hearthstone cards like Nzoth or the Lich King are fun to play for me, and the other meta types usually don’t allow that kind of card to see play.
I think a rock paper scissor meta which is less polarised and can be more easily influenced by deck-teching is preffered for me - so more like wet rock (sometimes beats paper), plastic coated paper (sometimes beats scissors) and diamond tipped scissors (sometime beats rock).
Thinking back to vanilla there was only one deck pairing I can think of which was auto concede for one player - Freeze mage vs. Control warrior (and possibly priest vs miracle rogue at a stretch). All the other pairings generally had prospect of a win and could be tech'ed if you faced one deck more frequently than another.
The current state of the game (which I think is pretty polarised) see's a lot of match-up's that you might as well just cut your losses early doors and save some time, or alternatively you know you've pretty much got it in the bag from the off.
A polarised meta also undermines the heart of what a game is all about - a competition. Deck design is largely a moot point as most people seem to copy-paste net decks. That only leaves in-game decision making as the differentiator between players. If a deck plays itself (face hunter) and still wins there's been a bit of a design cock-up imo. Now - making the deck styles more even would probably reduce win rates for each deck overall, but I would imagine it might also allow the player to be a more decisive factor in the outcome of the game.
All that said I think it's probably pretty difficult to create interesting cards that result in a balanced meta without one deck or style becoming dominant. It's the nature of the min-max culture and the power of the internet. Make too many good heals - aggro dies out. Print some powerful early game minions - it's aggro all the way.
meta where descent of dragons actually uses dragons
Dunno what meta you’re talking about. Looking at HS replay there’s a number of T2 decks that use them.
the only annoyance in the meta for me right now is the high roll deathrattle rogue deck (not the highlander variant). Every time I face this deck they get stupid lucky and have like 2x boar and 2x corrupter in hand and my silence/polymorph is nowhere to be found -.-
I think the current meta is acceptable. There's a lot of decks flying around which is my number 1 worry. There's face hunters that wreck greedy decks but get killed by heal. There's combo stuff that works and isnt too impossible to shutdown if you tech against it (deathrattle rogue e.g.) Also there's more nutty decks like embiggen druid or the highlander dragons running around than past metas. Overall it's pretty good imo. You don't queue into the same decks over and over too often.
But to actually comment on the topic, the ideal state is when there are strong aggro, combo and control decks. As soon as there are strong decks from opne category online, the game will shift toward that direction. Like it did now to aggro.
General problem with aggro meta: annoying, not interactive and cheap so easy to craft for everyone.
General problem with control meta: 30 minute long games.
General problem with combo meta: most games resemble Solitaire. but at least these decks are more expensive.
I believe in a healthy meta people can enjoy the game with a variety of decks.
Ideally for me it would be a rock paper scissors meta that is not entirely polarized.
So that if you were to choose deck X that beats Y, deck Y wouldnt have 20% chance of winning, but rather something like 40%.
Tech cards are an excellent way of doing this. A bunch of genuine good tech cards coming out could do wonders, there wouldve been less complaints about pirate warriors if we still had golakka Crawler. Against galakrond shaman some kind of battlecry counter card, against rattle rogue something to mess with their necrium stuff (which there are actually). Something to disrupt rez priest's ressurections, things to punish face hunter's aggro. So on, and so on.
I think the game would be much healthier if we still had access to important tech cards such as golakka. This way when we feel that a deck is too disruptive vs what we're playing, we can have that option on the ready.
The meta as it is currently feels fairly ok to me, with galakrond shaman nerfed, a lot more decks have risen up, and with face hunter and rattle rogues being common, some specific counters such as silence and hyper healing have made it so some decks are now viable that before wouldnt have been even considered.
i think if you just look at stats following hs replays the meta is in a good spot now you have 3 tier 1 decks that each counters eachother (rock paper scissors) And a lot of viable tier 2 decks including a lot of dragons
I would add just two things: In addition to the dominant archetype or polarization, people are (rightfully) annoyed by high roll mechanics. Kelessth on 2, Barnes on 4, and the new addition: Necrium Apothecary on 4/5. Regardless of how balanced and fair these decks actually are, they leave a bad taste.
My second point is the existence of power spike cards that are so good that drawing them basically means winning. Think of the control warrior meta where playing Boom was so good. Or the KFT meta where the first frost lich Jaina wins. Or cube lock and their DK. And before the nerfs, Galakrond shaman and both their Shudderwock AND Galakrond. These are not combo decks that aim to draw a win condition. These are midrange or control decks that happen to have a single card that out tempos or out values everything else in the game. Creates games where there is a sense of "please don't have that card, please don't have that card" the entire game.
So my ideal meta is a "rock-paper-scizzors" meta that isn't too polarized (meaning although aggro>combo>control, each three stand a chance), where highroll cards don't exist, and extreme powerspike cards don't exist. The current meta would be really good in my opinion if just Necrium Apothecary and Shudderwock were tinkered with.
I would add just two things: In addition to the dominant archetype or polarization, people are (rightfully) annoyed by high roll mechanics. Kelessth on 2, Barnes on 4, and the new addition: Necrium Apothecary on 4/5. Regardless of how balanced and fair these decks actually are, they leave a bad taste.
My second point is the existence of power spike cards that are so good that drawing them basically means winning. Think of the control warrior meta where playing Boom was so good. Or the KFT meta where the first frost lich Jaina wins. Or cube lock and their DK. And before the nerfs, Galakrond shaman and both their Shudderwock AND Galakrond. These are not combo decks that aim to draw a win condition. These are midrange or control decks that happen to have a single card that out tempos or out values everything else in the game. Creates games where there is a sense of "please don't have that card, please don't have that card" the entire game.
So my ideal meta is a "rock-paper-scizzors" meta that isn't too polarized (meaning although aggro>combo>control, each three stand a chance), where highroll cards don't exist, and extreme powerspike cards don't exist. The current meta would be really good in my opinion if just Necrium Apothecary and Shudderwock were tinkered with.
I agree with the high roll part, it sucks getting highrolled by the new DR rogue, though I’d say this is worse than Big priest of old which had a game plan outside of the high roll, whereas this rogue deck either high rolls or falls flat on its face. I disagree on the power spike cards though. Players have wanted powerful cards for a long time and now they got them so they best be happy or stfu. If you build your deck right you can plan for your opponent’s swing cards for the most part. Then it just comes down to draws which is just card games in general. Polarized matchups are going to be inevitable for the most part. It’s the nature of archetypes and game design in general and you can’t get around it.
I'm perfectly happy to admit that I underestimated the effect the Shaman nerf would have.
I generally only complain when the meta consists of one or two decks that are way too strong.
At the moment, there are plenty of viable options, and the only people complaining are the ones who don't want to change decks to adapt to the new environment.
More than that, though, I think more blame should be placed on the players, not the game. The Shaman meta arose because a cult arose -- even before launch -- about how strong it was going to be. Free players and budget players bought into the hype and built a fairly expensive deck that did turn out to be powerful.
The thing is, it wasn't as unbeatable as everyone was saying. I cruised swiftly up the ladder on a Hunter deck that nearly always beat most Shaman builds. But the free and budget players had locked themselves into this expensive deck, so they had little choice but to continue to play it. It wasn't until the dust rebate that some of them got the wiggle room (and the motivation) to pivot to a different deck.
Of course, most of them chose Aggro Hunter because it is the cheapest, so the cycle continued. Luckily, this time around, there were enough people willing to try various ways to counter aggro that we ended up in a reasonably diverse place.
This is all just a theory, mind you, but I think it's a reasonable one that explains a lot about what just happened.
tl;dr: Blame the playa, not the game.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
The meta is ok-ish at the mo. Agree about that high roll Rogue deck, too many of my opponents curve into the deathrattle copying minion while playing no draw cards.
Obviously OP knows this, but there is no “perfect” meta. You got the complainers who hate everything always and the people who just enjoy the game or don’t voice their frustration. Just how it is.
a good meta is one where you can change your deck so that you have better odds against a certain deck. So lets say you play deck A and you want to be better against deck B. The answer should be to tech in specific cards - the answer should not be: go play deck C. If teh answer is go play dekc C, the game is not really enjoyable for folks who don't own a ton of cards. You can craft card, but you can rarely craft a new deck.
in short: polarisation should be 70-30 maximum and there should be a lot of tech cards. I don't care too much about archetypes. Agro mirrors are often very decision-heavy for example. It's fun as well!
Cards like shudderwock are fine in the game as long as there are cards like dirty rat, that you can use to try and beat them. Loatheb is also an amazing card - these kind of cards contribute a lot to the health of a meta.
That beeing said - i feel like the game is fun pretty much 80%of the time (right now its cool). Shaman metas tend to be less enjoyable because shaman is by design good at everything which makes it harder to target them. Same used to be true for druid at one point...
I dont mind losing, what I mind is when a game is decided by one op card on turn 3 or 4. Other than that, theres always going to be aggro and decks i dont like but the expansion is still pretty fun right now for me
Sorry if this is off topic, but is Bomb Warrior good to ladder with right now? I don't have most of the cards, so I'm wanting to get some information before crafting:
Sorry if this is off topic, but is Bomb Warrior good to ladder with right now? I don't have most of the cards, so I'm wanting to get some information before crafting:
I wouldn't say good but it's probably not terrible if you're playing against more control oriented decks. The problem is pure aggro decks will kill you faster than they die unless you higher than highroll. Midrange decks do better midrange things than bomb does right now as well. That being said, if you're corner of the meta has a decent amount of hand locks and mages, it absolutely destroys them. Like, just deletes them. Bomb warrior is good when slower, draw heavy decks are prelevant. It does disrupt Reno, but probably not good enough against the fast paced meta at higher ranks.
I like 30 minute games. So, you'll never see me complaining about a control meta. They just don't happen often.
For me probably the most toxic was the midrange shaman meta. You just couldn't build a deck to beat it. Well, maybe YOU could. But, when that Tuskarr totemic dropped a 3/4 on turn 2/3 it was usually game over, and that felt really, really bad to me.
The only thing as certain as the rising sun is complaints on hearthpwn about the good ol' state of the meta. Endless spewing of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. And while there are threads that span the landscape on this topic, there are rarely ever any constructive solutions mentioned. So that's what I am here to inquire about. The "perfect" fix for the game that allll of these complainers seem to think exists? What is a meta that you would be happy with that wouldn't cause endless complaining.
Aggro is top: Oh boy always complaints. Brain dead, too linear, skilless. Aggro metas certainly seem to be the least favorite so we can't have that one.
Control is top: Lonnnnng boring games. No interaction. Too many board clears. Too much value. Control metas definitely get complained about a ton as well. Even if there are multiple viable control decks, people definitely hate this one as well.
Combo is king: Perhaps the only meta state that causes more aggrevation than aggro metas, but definitely a rarer meta. Lack of interaction is the biggest complaint here. Combo and control often share a hat because the playstyle is relatively the same except for the end game. Control tries to survive and outvalue, while combo tries to survive and otk. Another hated meta by many of you because of long, grindy, uninteractive games.
Midrange is king: This is the grayest area because midrange is a deck type that is somewhat flexible in definition. Generally when we think of midrange we think of the 4-7 mana slot. Galakrond shaman is more midrange than anything else, and we know how much people loved that. So also, completely unhappy with the "trash" meta.
So that leaves a final meta. And one which I think is as good as it can get in any card game. That meta is where all of these archetypes had competitive decks available. But this goes by a different name around here. The rock, paper, scissor meta. This meta has happened in the past a few times and the forums here were filled with complaints, just like any other day. How it's terrible for the game if X can beat Y but often loses to Z.
So my question to all of you that endlessly complain about the meta is, what is YOUR ideal state of the game? In which state does the meta need to be for you to consider the game to be healthy again? I am actually generally interested because I feel that over the history of the game every possible meta has existed, yet there were always endless complaints.
meta where descent of dragons actually uses dragons
This sums it up pretty perfectly. As a matter of personal preference, I like control metas the most; the bigger and more impactful hearthstone cards like Nzoth or the Lich King are fun to play for me, and the other meta types usually don’t allow that kind of card to see play.
I think a rock paper scissor meta which is less polarised and can be more easily influenced by deck-teching is preffered for me - so more like wet rock (sometimes beats paper), plastic coated paper (sometimes beats scissors) and diamond tipped scissors (sometime beats rock).
Thinking back to vanilla there was only one deck pairing I can think of which was auto concede for one player - Freeze mage vs. Control warrior (and possibly priest vs miracle rogue at a stretch). All the other pairings generally had prospect of a win and could be tech'ed if you faced one deck more frequently than another.
The current state of the game (which I think is pretty polarised) see's a lot of match-up's that you might as well just cut your losses early doors and save some time, or alternatively you know you've pretty much got it in the bag from the off.
A polarised meta also undermines the heart of what a game is all about - a competition. Deck design is largely a moot point as most people seem to copy-paste net decks. That only leaves in-game decision making as the differentiator between players. If a deck plays itself (face hunter) and still wins there's been a bit of a design cock-up imo. Now - making the deck styles more even would probably reduce win rates for each deck overall, but I would imagine it might also allow the player to be a more decisive factor in the outcome of the game.
All that said I think it's probably pretty difficult to create interesting cards that result in a balanced meta without one deck or style becoming dominant. It's the nature of the min-max culture and the power of the internet. Make too many good heals - aggro dies out. Print some powerful early game minions - it's aggro all the way.
Dunno what meta you’re talking about. Looking at HS replay there’s a number of T2 decks that use them.
the only annoyance in the meta for me right now is the high roll deathrattle rogue deck (not the highlander variant). Every time I face this deck they get stupid lucky and have like 2x boar and 2x corrupter in hand and my silence/polymorph is nowhere to be found -.-
I think the current meta is acceptable. There's a lot of decks flying around which is my number 1 worry. There's face hunters that wreck greedy decks but get killed by heal. There's combo stuff that works and isnt too impossible to shutdown if you tech against it (deathrattle rogue e.g.) Also there's more nutty decks like embiggen druid or the highlander dragons running around than past metas. Overall it's pretty good imo. You don't queue into the same decks over and over too often.
2 types of decks like always, aggro and decks that counter aggro.
Solution: Battlegrounds.
But to actually comment on the topic, the ideal state is when there are strong aggro, combo and control decks. As soon as there are strong decks from opne category online, the game will shift toward that direction. Like it did now to aggro.
General problem with aggro meta: annoying, not interactive and cheap so easy to craft for everyone.
General problem with control meta: 30 minute long games.
General problem with combo meta: most games resemble Solitaire. but at least these decks are more expensive.
I believe in a healthy meta people can enjoy the game with a variety of decks.
Ideally for me it would be a rock paper scissors meta that is not entirely polarized.
So that if you were to choose deck X that beats Y, deck Y wouldnt have 20% chance of winning, but rather something like 40%.
Tech cards are an excellent way of doing this. A bunch of genuine good tech cards coming out could do wonders, there wouldve been less complaints about pirate warriors if we still had golakka Crawler. Against galakrond shaman some kind of battlecry counter card, against rattle rogue something to mess with their necrium stuff (which there are actually). Something to disrupt rez priest's ressurections, things to punish face hunter's aggro. So on, and so on.
I think the game would be much healthier if we still had access to important tech cards such as golakka. This way when we feel that a deck is too disruptive vs what we're playing, we can have that option on the ready.
The meta as it is currently feels fairly ok to me, with galakrond shaman nerfed, a lot more decks have risen up, and with face hunter and rattle rogues being common, some specific counters such as silence and hyper healing have made it so some decks are now viable that before wouldnt have been even considered.
Why u hav to be mad? is only card gaem.
i think if you just look at stats following hs replays the meta is in a good spot now
you have 3 tier 1 decks that each counters eachother (rock paper scissors)
And a lot of viable tier 2 decks including a lot of dragons
Well said.
I would add just two things: In addition to the dominant archetype or polarization, people are (rightfully) annoyed by high roll mechanics. Kelessth on 2, Barnes on 4, and the new addition: Necrium Apothecary on 4/5. Regardless of how balanced and fair these decks actually are, they leave a bad taste.
My second point is the existence of power spike cards that are so good that drawing them basically means winning. Think of the control warrior meta where playing Boom was so good. Or the KFT meta where the first frost lich Jaina wins. Or cube lock and their DK. And before the nerfs, Galakrond shaman and both their Shudderwock AND Galakrond. These are not combo decks that aim to draw a win condition. These are midrange or control decks that happen to have a single card that out tempos or out values everything else in the game. Creates games where there is a sense of "please don't have that card, please don't have that card" the entire game.
So my ideal meta is a "rock-paper-scizzors" meta that isn't too polarized (meaning although aggro>combo>control, each three stand a chance), where highroll cards don't exist, and extreme powerspike cards don't exist. The current meta would be really good in my opinion if just Necrium Apothecary and Shudderwock were tinkered with.
I agree with the high roll part, it sucks getting highrolled by the new DR rogue, though I’d say this is worse than Big priest of old which had a game plan outside of the high roll, whereas this rogue deck either high rolls or falls flat on its face. I disagree on the power spike cards though. Players have wanted powerful cards for a long time and now they got them so they best be happy or stfu. If you build your deck right you can plan for your opponent’s swing cards for the most part. Then it just comes down to draws which is just card games in general. Polarized matchups are going to be inevitable for the most part. It’s the nature of archetypes and game design in general and you can’t get around it.
I'm perfectly happy to admit that I underestimated the effect the Shaman nerf would have.
I generally only complain when the meta consists of one or two decks that are way too strong.
At the moment, there are plenty of viable options, and the only people complaining are the ones who don't want to change decks to adapt to the new environment.
More than that, though, I think more blame should be placed on the players, not the game. The Shaman meta arose because a cult arose -- even before launch -- about how strong it was going to be. Free players and budget players bought into the hype and built a fairly expensive deck that did turn out to be powerful.
The thing is, it wasn't as unbeatable as everyone was saying. I cruised swiftly up the ladder on a Hunter deck that nearly always beat most Shaman builds. But the free and budget players had locked themselves into this expensive deck, so they had little choice but to continue to play it. It wasn't until the dust rebate that some of them got the wiggle room (and the motivation) to pivot to a different deck.
Of course, most of them chose Aggro Hunter because it is the cheapest, so the cycle continued. Luckily, this time around, there were enough people willing to try various ways to counter aggro that we ended up in a reasonably diverse place.
This is all just a theory, mind you, but I think it's a reasonable one that explains a lot about what just happened.
tl;dr: Blame the playa, not the game.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
The meta is ok-ish at the mo. Agree about that high roll Rogue deck, too many of my opponents curve into the deathrattle copying minion while playing no draw cards.
Obviously OP knows this, but there is no “perfect” meta. You got the complainers who hate everything always and the people who just enjoy the game or don’t voice their frustration. Just how it is.
a good meta is one where you can change your deck so that you have better odds against a certain deck. So lets say you play deck A and you want to be better against deck B. The answer should be to tech in specific cards - the answer should not be: go play deck C. If teh answer is go play dekc C, the game is not really enjoyable for folks who don't own a ton of cards. You can craft card, but you can rarely craft a new deck.
in short: polarisation should be 70-30 maximum and there should be a lot of tech cards. I don't care too much about archetypes. Agro mirrors are often very decision-heavy for example. It's fun as well!
Cards like shudderwock are fine in the game as long as there are cards like dirty rat, that you can use to try and beat them. Loatheb is also an amazing card - these kind of cards contribute a lot to the health of a meta.
That beeing said - i feel like the game is fun pretty much 80%of the time (right now its cool).
Shaman metas tend to be less enjoyable because shaman is by design good at everything which makes it harder to target them. Same used to be true for druid at one point...
I dont mind losing, what I mind is when a game is decided by one op card on turn 3 or 4. Other than that, theres always going to be aggro and decks i dont like but the expansion is still pretty fun right now for me
Sorry if this is off topic, but is Bomb Warrior good to ladder with right now? I don't have most of the cards, so I'm wanting to get some information before crafting:
I found my remedy at last, and now my guiding star is shining; and when my present becomes my past, I realise, that every cloud has a silver lining!
I wouldn't say good but it's probably not terrible if you're playing against more control oriented decks. The problem is pure aggro decks will kill you faster than they die unless you higher than highroll. Midrange decks do better midrange things than bomb does right now as well. That being said, if you're corner of the meta has a decent amount of hand locks and mages, it absolutely destroys them. Like, just deletes them. Bomb warrior is good when slower, draw heavy decks are prelevant. It does disrupt Reno, but probably not good enough against the fast paced meta at higher ranks.
I like 30 minute games. So, you'll never see me complaining about a control meta. They just don't happen often.
For me probably the most toxic was the midrange shaman meta. You just couldn't build a deck to beat it. Well, maybe YOU could. But, when that Tuskarr totemic dropped a 3/4 on turn 2/3 it was usually game over, and that felt really, really bad to me.
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