I just want to call myself out on some incorrect predictions (at least currently) and also share some general thoughts I've had after these first few days with Scholomance.
Things I Was Wrong About
Glide - I thought this would be wildly OP, but it's been fairly innocuous so far. I've played a number of games as DH, and the draw is definitely nice, but more often than not, I've found the Outcast effect to be something I don't want to happen. So often my opponent had less than 4 cards in hand, so I was helping him/her by playing Glide. Obviously, this card would be much better if we had a control meta, but this doesn't seem to be the case.
Lorekeeper Polkelt - I thought this card would be devastatingly powerful in both Aggro and Control, but I haven't seen it even once on ladder (currently in Diamond ranks). I guess since it's a one-of, you can't really rely on it consistently. I thought it would be a Day 1 craft for me, but I still haven't crafted it yet.
Mindrender Illucia - I thought the hand disruption would be insane, but (at least in Standard) it's been...fine. Each time it has been played against me, I topdecked a good card off of the opponent's deck and I didn't feel too sad about it. Granted, my sample size is crazy small (like...2), but it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would to have my hand ganked.
General State of the Meta
Seems really good! There are fun and at least semi-viable decks with every class, and the new cards are really enjoyable to play with. Most decks also FEEL beatable, even in a "bad" matchup, so I haven't found myself rolling my eyes as soon as I queue into X class.
Druid
This gets its own section because the class seems quite prominent now. Before SA released, River Druid (or whatever you want to call the archetype that played Exotic Mountseller and tons of zero-cost spells was one of the most prominent decks in the meta. Now with the Guardian Animals package, the deck seems very strong. Especially since they can easily have 7 mana by turn 3 or 4 thanks to Lightning Bloom. Kael's ability to play Survival of the Fittest for zero mana is often bonkers. I would say that the turns where druid is playing 8+ cards in a turn do not feel fun. HOWEVER, I've found this deck to be very beatable, as long as you're playing a pretty fast aggressive deck like DH or Zoolock.
Nerfs?
Everyone loves to talk about and predict nerfs, so I'd be remiss to not mention it here. I thought that we'd end up seeing a day 2 nerf of certain cards like Glide but that wasn't necessary (thankfully!). At this point, Druid is the only class with cards that feel like Blizzard might be (as they love to say) "watching it." I'm not calling for or really saying I think these will happen, but just throwing out some possibilities:
Kael'thas Sunstrider - given the recent changes to DQA and Rogue's Galakrond, it doesn't feel like a stretch to give Kael the same nerf so that the third spell costs 1. I've even seen it suggested over on the HS reddit that Blizz just do this to any card that gives a blanket reduction to zero. (Cards like Wondrous Wand...not cards like Skull of Gul'dan that CAN reduce to zero, but don't always).
Lightning Bloom - I don't know how they would nerf it, but it's pretty much as strong as we all thought it would be. (Though I must admit, it hasn't really annoyed me to play against that much.)
Nozdormu - come on, Blizz! 9-mana 8/8 do nothing?????? OP.
Thanks for reading. Hope you all are enjoying the SA meta as much as I am. Your thoughts are welcome!
Lightning Bloom isn't honestly that broken. It's more the existence of Overflow and the synergy with stuff like Exotic Mountseller and other effects that makes it a problem. Also Animal Guardians is just a bonkers strong card in druid with what they get access to. It's also that being able to get so much tempo and board impact in a class that is balanced around not having board impact is so powerful. And the fact that Innervate is still a card too. Meaning you can make 7 mana plays without having to even invest much.
I sort of wish there was a way for Kael to be more balanced across the board. I don't think the 1 mana change would be too bad. It might make him completely unplayable, though outside of degenerate combos, and he was a gift card so we don't even get compensated for the nerf. "Come back and play AoO! Get this free card we keep making worse!"
I think the combination of nature studies and overgrowth and wild growth is a bit extreme. But Animal Guardians is almost like a 7 mana Ultimate Infestation. Often you draw 2, you get a ton of stats on the board, you often deal a lot of damage to the enemy.
I think you could honestly take out the rush aspect of the card completely.
I mostly play slow decks and i only played against two DH with Glide. The meta isn't favorable for the card but it's awful if you are trying to keep resources in hand. They vomit everything on their hand and then they play this and refill their hand while discarding yours. It may not be as op as i thought but it's as anti-fun as i thought.
I got Lorekeeper Polkelt from the bundle and i've been testing him mostly in highlander decks. It's an interesting card that has its uses but it can be a liability as well. You can play him one turn before you get to your big cards and you are guaranteed to draw them on the next turn. I have used it to have Dinotamer Brann consistently in my hand by turn 7 but if you don't draw Polkelt in time then he just becomes useless. Also, he's bad for specific card combinations. I've been testing Professor Slate in the deck as well and it's not good to have both him and/or Rapid Fire at the bottom of your deck. Polkelt is a little tricky to use properly and not as much of a meta breaker as people thought.
Speaking of Professor Slate, that's a card i haven't seen at all. Not in ladder, not in videos, absolutely nothing. I decided to test the card and it's quite good. Hunter doesn't lack hard removal. In fact, they have a lot of it right now with both Slate and Krolusk Barkstripper joining his arsenal alongside Deadly Shot and Rotnest Drake. The key difference is that Slate isn't random. You can choose your destruction target and that's relevant against wider boards. The problem is the lack of good spells to use with the card. Rapid Fire is good with Slate and... pretty much nothing else. Well, there's Vereesa Windrunner but nobody uses her so... Yeah. Besides that, we have Explosive Shot and Multi-Shot. These are not good enough. There will be people making the atrocious mistake of running into an Explosive Trap before removing Slate but i can't really count secrets as those are very easy to play around. In the end, the card lacks proper support but he can easily become great with a decent and cheap Multi-hit/AoE spell (like Grievous Bite in Wild).
Mindrender Illucia is another card that's really hard to utilize properly. She is mostly good for disrupting combos but those are extremely rare because the ladder is full of aggro decks. In my experience, she isn't great in control or midrange games because even if you waste your opponent's resources they can do the same to you. You don't want to play her with your big cards in hand and if you wait too much then there won't be much left to disrupt. In aggro games you can actually use her more effectively because your opponent is mostly holding low cost cards and you are holding high cost cards. If you play her early you can screw them and they won't be able to do much with your hand. Overall, she is another card that's really tricky to play with and she gives me the tech card vibe.
The meta isn't great on my end as i'm facing Druid all the time. There are a lot of Face Rogues (ugh...) and all sorts of Hunter decks as well. I rarely see Paladins and Warriors and not much else. Druids tend to fall apart pretty quickly against any aggression. However, it's undeniable that Lightning Bloom is a liability and it's just going to cause problems for the remainder of the year and the next one. Secret Passage is also pretty ridiculous. Voracious Reader is only good in extreme hyper aggressive decks that vomit their hands very quickly but the card isn't very good in any deck with cards that costs 4 or more. I think it will be fine if Face DH and Face Rogue fall from the meta.
Just as i expected, Mozaki, Master Duelist is extremely difficult to utilize as she is a combo card and the ladder is infested with aggression. Combo decks just fall apart very easily because of that. So far, she seems like a big meme that's going to see play just because combo lovers will never give up on making cards like that work. Ras Frostwhisper is much better and can be slotted into Highlander Mage without any other support cards. I don't play Shaman so i don't know how he's doing in that class. Btw, Ras is the only dual class legendary i've got so far. Really unlucky.
Finally, there's Sphere of Sapience. The card is very good in specific decks. I utilize it in my Wild OTK Miracle Priest. The deck always ran into the problem of drawing my big key minions before i could play Zerek's Cloning Gallery and the weapon prevents that which greatly increased its consistency. The weapon is good in Big Warrior and Duel Paladin as well because you really want to keep the big minions in the deck so you cheat them out. Sphere is pretty good, especially in decks that want to keep certain cards inside the deck.
So far, the expansion just feels okay. There's some big mana cheat shenanigans happening (mostly because of Lightning Bloom but High Abbess Alura also contributes to the issue), lots of aggro decks, combo decks dying to aggro decks (as always) and Control decks seem to be AFK (at least, i haven't seen a lot of them). Let's see what's going to happen next week.
Glide - I thought this would be wildly OP, but it's been fairly innocuous so far. I've played a number of games as DH, and the draw is definitely nice, but more often than not, I've found the Outcast effect to be something I don't want to happen. So often my opponent had less than 4 cards in hand, so I was helping him/her by playing Glide. Obviously, this card would be much better if we had a control meta, but this doesn't seem to be the case.
Mindrender Illucia - I thought the hand disruption would be insane, but (at least in Standard) it's been...fine. Each time it has been played against me, I topdecked a good card off of the opponent's deck and I didn't feel too sad about it. Granted, my sample size is crazy small (like...2), but it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would to have my hand ganked.
Cards like Glide and Mindrender Illucia single-handedly make me, as a Wild Control or OTK player, auto-concede against any and every DH and Priest. It's just terrible design that disables opponent from playing the game. It makes for impossible, anti-fun and infuriating gameplay.
Glide - I thought this would be wildly OP, but it's been fairly innocuous so far. I've played a number of games as DH, and the draw is definitely nice, but more often than not, I've found the Outcast effect to be something I don't want to happen. So often my opponent had less than 4 cards in hand, so I was helping him/her by playing Glide. Obviously, this card would be much better if we had a control meta, but this doesn't seem to be the case.
Mindrender Illucia - I thought the hand disruption would be insane, but (at least in Standard) it's been...fine. Each time it has been played against me, I topdecked a good card off of the opponent's deck and I didn't feel too sad about it. Granted, my sample size is crazy small (like...2), but it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would to have my hand ganked.
Cards like Glide and Mindrender Illucia single-handedly make me, as a Wild Control or OTK player, auto-concede against any and every DH and Priest. It's just terrible design that disables opponent from playing the game. It makes for impossible, anti-fun and infuriating gameplay.
I don't really play Wild, but I can definitely see how these cards would be pretty messed up in wild. I know wild is supposed to be the mode where you can do "really crazy stuff," but at some point, ultra-powerful decks just get too many tools and it becomes pointless. I actually think the solution is a third ladder where you get to use old cards (which is also kind of the point of Wild), but it is more limited. I've always thought a "Time Capsule" mode would be cool where you could only play with cards from certain points in time (ex: for the month of X, Time Capsule mode would be the Whispers of the Old Gods era).
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I just want to call myself out on some incorrect predictions (at least currently) and also share some general thoughts I've had after these first few days with Scholomance.
Things I Was Wrong About
Glide - I thought this would be wildly OP, but it's been fairly innocuous so far. I've played a number of games as DH, and the draw is definitely nice, but more often than not, I've found the Outcast effect to be something I don't want to happen. So often my opponent had less than 4 cards in hand, so I was helping him/her by playing Glide. Obviously, this card would be much better if we had a control meta, but this doesn't seem to be the case.
Lorekeeper Polkelt - I thought this card would be devastatingly powerful in both Aggro and Control, but I haven't seen it even once on ladder (currently in Diamond ranks). I guess since it's a one-of, you can't really rely on it consistently. I thought it would be a Day 1 craft for me, but I still haven't crafted it yet.
Mindrender Illucia - I thought the hand disruption would be insane, but (at least in Standard) it's been...fine. Each time it has been played against me, I topdecked a good card off of the opponent's deck and I didn't feel too sad about it. Granted, my sample size is crazy small (like...2), but it didn't feel as bad as I thought it would to have my hand ganked.
General State of the Meta
Seems really good! There are fun and at least semi-viable decks with every class, and the new cards are really enjoyable to play with. Most decks also FEEL beatable, even in a "bad" matchup, so I haven't found myself rolling my eyes as soon as I queue into X class.
Druid
This gets its own section because the class seems quite prominent now. Before SA released, River Druid (or whatever you want to call the archetype that played Exotic Mountseller and tons of zero-cost spells was one of the most prominent decks in the meta. Now with the Guardian Animals package, the deck seems very strong. Especially since they can easily have 7 mana by turn 3 or 4 thanks to Lightning Bloom. Kael's ability to play Survival of the Fittest for zero mana is often bonkers. I would say that the turns where druid is playing 8+ cards in a turn do not feel fun. HOWEVER, I've found this deck to be very beatable, as long as you're playing a pretty fast aggressive deck like DH or Zoolock.
Nerfs?
Everyone loves to talk about and predict nerfs, so I'd be remiss to not mention it here. I thought that we'd end up seeing a day 2 nerf of certain cards like Glide but that wasn't necessary (thankfully!). At this point, Druid is the only class with cards that feel like Blizzard might be (as they love to say) "watching it." I'm not calling for or really saying I think these will happen, but just throwing out some possibilities:
Kael'thas Sunstrider - given the recent changes to DQA and Rogue's Galakrond, it doesn't feel like a stretch to give Kael the same nerf so that the third spell costs 1. I've even seen it suggested over on the HS reddit that Blizz just do this to any card that gives a blanket reduction to zero. (Cards like Wondrous Wand...not cards like Skull of Gul'dan that CAN reduce to zero, but don't always).
Lightning Bloom - I don't know how they would nerf it, but it's pretty much as strong as we all thought it would be. (Though I must admit, it hasn't really annoyed me to play against that much.)
Nozdormu - come on, Blizz! 9-mana 8/8 do nothing?????? OP.
Thanks for reading. Hope you all are enjoying the SA meta as much as I am. Your thoughts are welcome!
Lightning Bloom isn't honestly that broken. It's more the existence of Overflow and the synergy with stuff like Exotic Mountseller and other effects that makes it a problem. Also Animal Guardians is just a bonkers strong card in druid with what they get access to. It's also that being able to get so much tempo and board impact in a class that is balanced around not having board impact is so powerful. And the fact that Innervate is still a card too. Meaning you can make 7 mana plays without having to even invest much.
I sort of wish there was a way for Kael to be more balanced across the board. I don't think the 1 mana change would be too bad. It might make him completely unplayable, though outside of degenerate combos, and he was a gift card so we don't even get compensated for the nerf. "Come back and play AoO! Get this free card we keep making worse!"
That’s a good point re: Animal Guardians. Whenever I play Druid and they have 7 mana, I just clinch up and pray.
I think the combination of nature studies and overgrowth and wild growth is a bit extreme. But Animal Guardians is almost like a 7 mana Ultimate Infestation. Often you draw 2, you get a ton of stats on the board, you often deal a lot of damage to the enemy.
I think you could honestly take out the rush aspect of the card completely.
I mostly play slow decks and i only played against two DH with Glide. The meta isn't favorable for the card but it's awful if you are trying to keep resources in hand. They vomit everything on their hand and then they play this and refill their hand while discarding yours. It may not be as op as i thought but it's as anti-fun as i thought.
I got Lorekeeper Polkelt from the bundle and i've been testing him mostly in highlander decks. It's an interesting card that has its uses but it can be a liability as well. You can play him one turn before you get to your big cards and you are guaranteed to draw them on the next turn. I have used it to have Dinotamer Brann consistently in my hand by turn 7 but if you don't draw Polkelt in time then he just becomes useless. Also, he's bad for specific card combinations. I've been testing Professor Slate in the deck as well and it's not good to have both him and/or Rapid Fire at the bottom of your deck. Polkelt is a little tricky to use properly and not as much of a meta breaker as people thought.
Speaking of Professor Slate, that's a card i haven't seen at all. Not in ladder, not in videos, absolutely nothing. I decided to test the card and it's quite good. Hunter doesn't lack hard removal. In fact, they have a lot of it right now with both Slate and Krolusk Barkstripper joining his arsenal alongside Deadly Shot and Rotnest Drake. The key difference is that Slate isn't random. You can choose your destruction target and that's relevant against wider boards. The problem is the lack of good spells to use with the card. Rapid Fire is good with Slate and... pretty much nothing else. Well, there's Vereesa Windrunner but nobody uses her so... Yeah. Besides that, we have Explosive Shot and Multi-Shot. These are not good enough. There will be people making the atrocious mistake of running into an Explosive Trap before removing Slate but i can't really count secrets as those are very easy to play around. In the end, the card lacks proper support but he can easily become great with a decent and cheap Multi-hit/AoE spell (like Grievous Bite in Wild).
Mindrender Illucia is another card that's really hard to utilize properly. She is mostly good for disrupting combos but those are extremely rare because the ladder is full of aggro decks. In my experience, she isn't great in control or midrange games because even if you waste your opponent's resources they can do the same to you. You don't want to play her with your big cards in hand and if you wait too much then there won't be much left to disrupt. In aggro games you can actually use her more effectively because your opponent is mostly holding low cost cards and you are holding high cost cards. If you play her early you can screw them and they won't be able to do much with your hand. Overall, she is another card that's really tricky to play with and she gives me the tech card vibe.
The meta isn't great on my end as i'm facing Druid all the time. There are a lot of Face Rogues (ugh...) and all sorts of Hunter decks as well. I rarely see Paladins and Warriors and not much else. Druids tend to fall apart pretty quickly against any aggression. However, it's undeniable that Lightning Bloom is a liability and it's just going to cause problems for the remainder of the year and the next one. Secret Passage is also pretty ridiculous. Voracious Reader is only good in extreme hyper aggressive decks that vomit their hands very quickly but the card isn't very good in any deck with cards that costs 4 or more. I think it will be fine if Face DH and Face Rogue fall from the meta.
Just as i expected, Mozaki, Master Duelist is extremely difficult to utilize as she is a combo card and the ladder is infested with aggression. Combo decks just fall apart very easily because of that. So far, she seems like a big meme that's going to see play just because combo lovers will never give up on making cards like that work. Ras Frostwhisper is much better and can be slotted into Highlander Mage without any other support cards. I don't play Shaman so i don't know how he's doing in that class. Btw, Ras is the only dual class legendary i've got so far. Really unlucky.
Finally, there's Sphere of Sapience. The card is very good in specific decks. I utilize it in my Wild OTK Miracle Priest. The deck always ran into the problem of drawing my big key minions before i could play Zerek's Cloning Gallery and the weapon prevents that which greatly increased its consistency. The weapon is good in Big Warrior and Duel Paladin as well because you really want to keep the big minions in the deck so you cheat them out. Sphere is pretty good, especially in decks that want to keep certain cards inside the deck.
So far, the expansion just feels okay. There's some big mana cheat shenanigans happening (mostly because of Lightning Bloom but High Abbess Alura also contributes to the issue), lots of aggro decks, combo decks dying to aggro decks (as always) and Control decks seem to be AFK (at least, i haven't seen a lot of them). Let's see what's going to happen next week.
Corrosive Breath, Vereesa Windrunner, Marked Shot and Arcane Shot are all great with Slate, and a dragon deck that runs that as a package isn't tier 1, but it's pretty playable.
Cards like Glide and Mindrender Illucia single-handedly make me, as a Wild Control or OTK player, auto-concede against any and every DH and Priest. It's just terrible design that disables opponent from playing the game. It makes for impossible, anti-fun and infuriating gameplay.
I don't really play Wild, but I can definitely see how these cards would be pretty messed up in wild. I know wild is supposed to be the mode where you can do "really crazy stuff," but at some point, ultra-powerful decks just get too many tools and it becomes pointless. I actually think the solution is a third ladder where you get to use old cards (which is also kind of the point of Wild), but it is more limited. I've always thought a "Time Capsule" mode would be cool where you could only play with cards from certain points in time (ex: for the month of X, Time Capsule mode would be the Whispers of the Old Gods era).