This is a general discussion, i am not here to be salty, give petty arguments or to cause drama. i have some valid points why i think wild is overdue for a long balancing patch this year.
Yes wild is meant to be WILD. You should be able to play with every card, try crazy combos and do thing you cant do in standard HOWEVER it should have some form of balancing. Like players are able to create 8/10 minions on turn 3, swing for lethal on turn 5 or 6 and take 2 extra turns without even drawing their entire decks. that does not feel Wild, that does feel frustrating and may put people of wild. Thats why i made a few points why i feel like Wild has become unbalanced to see peoples opinions:
1: is it healthy having decks which can make 8/10 minions on turn 3?
2; Is it healthy having decks that cheat out 4 MASSIVE minions on turn 5?
3: Is it healthy having some classes with amazing cards with abusive combos with many archetypes and others being forced to play the same deck over and over again as their other decks are much weaker?
4: Is it fair having uninteractive combos which are easy to pull off?
the answer in my opinion is that its difficult to balance wild, however i feel recently its become even harder to play the gamemode unless you literally only play a tier 1 deck and get extremely LUCKY! With more card you expect a greater variance of decks and classes, however that is not the case. I can prob list the top decks being Mech Paladin, Raza priest, Timewarp and secret Mage, even shaman and darkest hour warlock. the issue is not with the decks, but with the matchups all being balanced on "Can i draw the SHITS?" which seems really unhealthy design. you should have a game plan, but 100% basing if you win is if you can pull Raza on turn 5, make a massive mech board and smorc by turn 4 or play darkest hour on turn 5 with the coin seems Really mental in design.
To recap: Im not having a go at the cards or decks, my argument is the design philosophy for wild. i love wild and most of my cards are from wild as i dont have many standard cards. playing a gamemode should be fun, however i do feel like the philosophy of "Can i draw X by turn 1-5 means i win" seems really unfair.
The ability to do crazy things in Hearthstone has always been there as much in Standard as in Wild I don't think that's the problem, the issue is when the crazy things are easy to pull off and there are next to no counterplays available . That's where wild can have issues because as more cards are dumped into the pool the once difficult game winning plays because too simple and happen too fast as in the case of Quest Mage currently or darkest hour warlock where if pulled off successfully early enough the only counterplay in the whole game I can think off is a ramped druid that has enough mana to poison seeds with the unravelers on board but even that ain't great. So to answer your question I think tweeking the odd card every so often especially to weaken the top two or three decks would at least make things not feel stale and dying to the same combo of cards over and over.
Doing crazy shit in Wild is fine as long as we have counters to play. Unfortunately, it seems many of the classes aren't able to keep up with some of the Mage and Priest decks. It's a real shame too, since Wild used to be the much more balanced mode between the two. So yes, everything should be balanced.
1-2: This is pretty much the same question. And no, especially not with an almost total lack of counters. Drop a Bloodbloom/Darkest Hour on turn 4-5 and you just win, even without a Nerubian Unraveler, because nothing on curve can hope to match that. Hearthstone has a very bad tendency to make almost all of the answers cost more than almost all of the threats, leading to runaway board positions and the overdominance of aggro throughout the history of the game. Other than some broken combo metas, aggro has always dominated the meta, or at least it has since season 4; I can't speak to before that. (I started 1st week of Naxx)
3) I do agree that abusive combos need nerfing/counters, and I would agree with your second point that classes shouldn't be forced into one archetype, but I don't think that classes are forced into single archetype/decks. Most people go to sites like this one to get their decklists, and have never built an original deck in their lives, so they aren't open to the possibility that other decks exist. I've told players that I make my own decks, and they literally don't understand the concept; they're just like 'but where did you get it from? what site?' I reply that I MADE IT MYSELF, and the concept just goes over their head.
4) Definitely not. More counter style cards need to exist. It is hard to design them so that they are both balanced and fair against the combo, not useless when not facing the kind of deck you're teching against, and not overpowered either. Dirty Rat is one that's often (and rightly so) hailed as an excellent design example of this. It's fairly costed, it's a strong card, it's not overpowered, and it takes a lot of skill to know when to play it to have the best chances of success.
If blizzard just print more tech cards there would be less need to balance continually as players would have the tools to figure a solution for themselves. I played Jade druid to legend and I didn't see a single Skulking geist because the deck isn't the dominant deck but if it was the tech is there.
This is a general discussion, i am not here to be salty, give petty arguments or to cause drama. i have some valid points why i think wild is overdue for a long balancing patch this year.
Yes wild is meant to be WILD. You should be able to play with every card, try crazy combos and do thing you cant do in standard HOWEVER it should have some form of balancing. Like players are able to create 8/10 minions on turn 3, swing for lethal on turn 5 or 6 and take 2 extra turns without even drawing their entire decks. that does not feel Wild, that does feel frustrating and may put people of wild. Thats why i made a few points why i feel like Wild has become unbalanced to see peoples opinions:
1: is it healthy having decks which can make 8/10 minions on turn 3?
2; Is it healthy having decks that cheat out 4 MASSIVE minions on turn 5?
3: Is it healthy having some classes with amazing cards with abusive combos with many archetypes and others being forced to play the same deck over and over again as their other decks are much weaker?
4: Is it fair having uninteractive combos which are easy to pull off?
the answer in my opinion is that its difficult to balance wild, however i feel recently its become even harder to play the gamemode unless you literally only play a tier 1 deck and get extremely LUCKY! With more card you expect a greater variance of decks and classes, however that is not the case. I can prob list the top decks being Mech Paladin, Raza priest, Timewarp and secret Mage, even shaman and darkest hour warlock. the issue is not with the decks, but with the matchups all being balanced on "Can i draw the SHITS?" which seems really unhealthy design. you should have a game plan, but 100% basing if you win is if you can pull Raza on turn 5, make a massive mech board and smorc by turn 4 or play darkest hour on turn 5 with the coin seems Really mental in design.
To recap: Im not having a go at the cards or decks, my argument is the design philosophy for wild. i love wild and most of my cards are from wild as i dont have many standard cards. playing a gamemode should be fun, however i do feel like the philosophy of "Can i draw X by turn 1-5 means i win" seems really unfair.
When it comes to balance the answer will always be yes.
This old saying is not a joke:
"Balanced as all things should be."
The ability to do crazy things in Hearthstone has always been there as much in Standard as in Wild I don't think that's the problem, the issue is when the crazy things are easy to pull off and there are next to no counterplays available . That's where wild can have issues because as more cards are dumped into the pool the once difficult game winning plays because too simple and happen too fast as in the case of Quest Mage currently or darkest hour warlock where if pulled off successfully early enough the only counterplay in the whole game I can think off is a ramped druid that has enough mana to poison seeds with the unravelers on board but even that ain't great. So to answer your question I think tweeking the odd card every so often especially to weaken the top two or three decks would at least make things not feel stale and dying to the same combo of cards over and over.
It is funny, because the one who said that was an overpowered as f..k villain! XD
Doing crazy shit in Wild is fine as long as we have counters to play. Unfortunately, it seems many of the classes aren't able to keep up with some of the Mage and Priest decks. It's a real shame too, since Wild used to be the much more balanced mode between the two. So yes, everything should be balanced.
1-2: This is pretty much the same question. And no, especially not with an almost total lack of counters. Drop a Bloodbloom/Darkest Hour on turn 4-5 and you just win, even without a Nerubian Unraveler, because nothing on curve can hope to match that. Hearthstone has a very bad tendency to make almost all of the answers cost more than almost all of the threats, leading to runaway board positions and the overdominance of aggro throughout the history of the game. Other than some broken combo metas, aggro has always dominated the meta, or at least it has since season 4; I can't speak to before that. (I started 1st week of Naxx)
3) I do agree that abusive combos need nerfing/counters, and I would agree with your second point that classes shouldn't be forced into one archetype, but I don't think that classes are forced into single archetype/decks. Most people go to sites like this one to get their decklists, and have never built an original deck in their lives, so they aren't open to the possibility that other decks exist. I've told players that I make my own decks, and they literally don't understand the concept; they're just like 'but where did you get it from? what site?' I reply that I MADE IT MYSELF, and the concept just goes over their head.
4) Definitely not. More counter style cards need to exist. It is hard to design them so that they are both balanced and fair against the combo, not useless when not facing the kind of deck you're teching against, and not overpowered either. Dirty Rat is one that's often (and rightly so) hailed as an excellent design example of this. It's fairly costed, it's a strong card, it's not overpowered, and it takes a lot of skill to know when to play it to have the best chances of success.
If blizzard just print more tech cards there would be less need to balance continually as players would have the tools to figure a solution for themselves. I played Jade druid to legend and I didn't see a single Skulking geist because the deck isn't the dominant deck but if it was the tech is there.
Well all the decks u said depend on mana cheating. Do they care ? Nope
https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1333477-xskarmalock