If I may be honest, I am not quite in love with spell schools, because spells for years were designed without such factor in mind. What I mean, is that may be hard to implement new interactions without breaking some cards. When they introduced Elementals it was not a big deal, because that was only one minion type, so there was not so many cards affected, but handful of types introduced at once may lead to overlooking something, as well as they may be hard to have own design. For example, many existing spells from both Nature and Fire schools seem to be just damaging spells, so they are not realy unique, and there may be more similarities between different schools.
However, I still hope they will implement it in a good way.
If I may be honest, I am not quite in love with spell schools, because spells for years were designed without such factor in mind. What I mean, is that may be hard to implement new interactions without breaking some cards. When they introduced Elementals it was not a big deal, because that was only one minion type, so there was not so many cards affected, but handful of types introduced at once may lead to overlooking something, as well as they may be hard to have own design. For example, many existing spells from both Nature and Fire schools seem to be just damaging spells, so they are not realy unique, and there may be more similarities between different schools.
However, I still hope they will implement it in a good way.
Well, there's a lot of druid spells for sure (like Nourish) that'll be nature spells. I think literally it's just going to come down to on-spellcast and spell damage effects, but most of the existing ones mostly won't be effected.
If I may be honest, I am not quite in love with spell schools, because spells for years were designed without such factor in mind. What I mean, is that may be hard to implement new interactions without breaking some cards. When they introduced Elementals it was not a big deal, because that was only one minion type, so there was not so many cards affected, but handful of types introduced at once may lead to overlooking something, as well as they may be hard to have own design. For example, many existing spells from both Nature and Fire schools seem to be just damaging spells, so they are not realy unique, and there may be more similarities between different schools.
However, I still hope they will implement it in a good way.
I don't think that the design and implementation of spell schools is going to be anything like minion tribes. Minion tribes in Hearthstone serve a purpose of offering a direction and theme of deckbuilding and play. Dragons want to be in-hand to trigger their effects. Elementals want you to have played an Elemental last turn. Murlocs are swarmy and often buff each other. Pirates notice when other Pirates show up. Beasts are probably the least cohesive tribe, but even they have a lot of cards that care if they're Beasts, whether it's a buff or a tutor effect.
Spell schools don't need to do that. Categorizing spell schools just gives the devs tools to organize effects on other cards. "Discover a Frost spell" means they know exactly what outcomes are possible from that pool of cards, which is different from "Discover a Fire spell" or just "Discover a spell." If you're a Mage, discovering a Frost spell probably means you're going to find something that freezes or protects you. You might get some damage out of it, but that's less likely. If you discover Fire, you're almost certainly getting damage. This means that a Frost Damage +3 minion is way less powerful than a Fire Damage +3 minion.
We also have to keep in mind that the Basic and Classic sets are rotating, which opens up new design space. This gives the devs the opportunity to give each school within each class an overall theme, without strictly sticking to a pattern. Holy spells in Priest are not going to behave the same way as Holy spells in Paladin, and Priest-Shadow spells are going to be WAY different from Warlock-Shadow. And since there aren't neutral spells, they can give the schools as much personality as they want within a given class, even if another class uses that school completely differently. Mage-Arcane is likely to be mostly stuff like Arcane Intellect & Mana Biscuit (utility spells), whereas Druid-Arcane is likely to be more damage/AoE, because those classes function differently.
One thing people are overlooking is that spell tribal synergies are probably only half the reason this mechanic is being introduced. The other half of the reason is so Blizzard can print cards that say "add a random Fire/Frost/Nature spell to your hand", fulfilling their stated goal of designing random generation cards to draw from narrower pools than they did in times past.
I still think it's just so they can print stronger cards
I like the idea but if they intend to fragment spells in this way, you will need a lot more of them in a given school to make deckbuilding fun/viable. Just a handful of spells is not going to be enough. I think this will come into its own later in the year when more expansions release and be pretty simple to begin with.
I like the idea but if they intend to fragment spells in this way, you will need a lot more of them in a given school to make deckbuilding fun/viable. Just a handful of spells is not going to be enough. I think this will come into its own later in the year when more expansions release and be pretty simple to begin with.
Why not? We're currently just grabbing a handful of spells, and they work fine without any intentional school synergy. Certainly, the build-around cards will need a more deliberate approach, but not every deck is going to be structured that way.
I think you're right that the concept will come into its own as time goes on, but in the meantime, I don't think it'll be bad or anything. At worst, it'll be no different than now, where you just put spells into your deck if they work for the deck you're trying to build.
Perhaps diverging from the original topic a bit, but I wonder if they would ever consider creating new hero cards that allow the player to choose a "specialization". Each spec could allow different passive abilities for the rest of the game and some of them could interact with spell schools.
I really like the idea of new hero cards, like the death knights from before, but maybe with a little extra customization, it could allow some unique directions for every class to take. I guess each spec would kind of "force" archetypes, but Blizzard already does this with the cards they release each expansion.
Anyway, just sort of thinking out loud here. With the discussion of spell schools, it just got me thinking what else they could potentially do with them.
Frankly, I'm afraid this might be a way to push even more costly cards in the typical strong / cool deck.
Like: oh, so you want to play <favorite school> <favorite class>? Sure, just get this dozen legendaries plus another umpteen epics and you're all set!
Not really an issue for whales, but for the rest of us... hmm :/
I guess that's possible, but if the number of cards in each expansion doesn't change, it's not likely. If done right, it could increase the number of decent, playable decks in the meta, meaning that even f2p can play some competitive deck.
Now, on the flip side, if you as an f2p have your heart set on some specific school/ class build ("I gotta play this Arcane Mage deck"), then yes you could end up having to craft the key legendary/ epic it requires. But that's true now: if you didn't open C'Thun and can't craft him, you're not playing a C'Thun deck.
Frankly, I'm afraid this might be a way to push even more costly cards in the typical strong / cool deck.
Like: oh, so you want to play <favorite school> <favorite class>? Sure, just get this dozen legendaries plus another umpteen epics and you're all set!
Not really an issue for whales, but for the rest of us... hmm :/
I guess that's possible, but if the number of cards in each expansion doesn't change, it's not likely. If done right, it could increase the number of decent, playable decks in the meta, meaning that even f2p can play some competitive deck.
Now, on the flip side, if you as an f2p have your heart set on some specific school/ class build ("I gotta play this Arcane Mage deck"), then yes you could end up having to craft the key legendary/ epic it requires. But that's true now: if you didn't open C'Thun and can't craft him, you're not playing a C'Thun deck.
The second half of your argument is quite straightforward, not much to be questioned there. About the first half... guess "If done right" is the operative phrase, here. We'll begin to see how things go when Barrens hits, ofc, and we'll see better throughout the rest of the year.
But I remain a tad pessimistic. Why? Because of this gut feeling (no scientific research or anything, sorry) that, on average, the cost of a good deck has only increased over the years. Often in a not immediately apparent way, because some synergy or another emerged over time, requiring several high-end cards to be fully leveraged. People proficient in HS history, please correct me if this is wrong.
Anyway, schools may be fun and all, thematically and for the sake of variety, sure. But it's not just the complexity of creative deck-building that increases, it's also the number of constraints, of requirements that will probably go up. And with those, the pressure to have a complete or almost-complete collection.
So not only f2ps but also casuals (meaning, people who spend something here and there but not 300+ $ per expansion) might be faced with tough choices, even more than today. At least, tougher than crafting a single legendary ;)
Frankly, I'm afraid this might be a way to push even more costly cards in the typical strong / cool deck.
Like: oh, so you want to play <favorite school> <favorite class>? Sure, just get this dozen legendaries plus another umpteen epics and you're all set!
Not really an issue for whales, but for the rest of us... hmm :/
I guess that's possible, but if the number of cards in each expansion doesn't change, it's not likely. If done right, it could increase the number of decent, playable decks in the meta, meaning that even f2p can play some competitive deck.
Now, on the flip side, if you as an f2p have your heart set on some specific school/ class build ("I gotta play this Arcane Mage deck"), then yes you could end up having to craft the key legendary/ epic it requires. But that's true now: if you didn't open C'Thun and can't craft him, you're not playing a C'Thun deck.
The second half of your argument is quite straightforward, not much to be questioned there. About the first half... guess "If done right" is the operative phrase, here. We'll begin to see how things go when Barrens hits, ofc, and we'll see better throughout the rest of the year.
But I remain a tad pessimistic. Why? Because of this gut feeling (no scientific research or anything, sorry) that, on average, the cost of a good deck has only increased over the years. Often in a not immediately apparent way, because some synergy or another emerged over time, requiring several high-end cards to be fully leveraged. People proficient in HS history, please correct me if this is wrong.
Anyway, schools may be fun and all, thematically and for the sake of variety, sure. But it's not just the complexity of creative deck-building that increases, it's also the number of constraints, of requirements that will probably go up. And with those, the pressure to have a complete or almost-complete collection.
So not only f2ps but also casuals (meaning, people who spend something here and there but not 300+ $ per expansion) might be faced with tough choices, even more than today. At least, tougher than crafting a single legendary ;)
Sorry, but I don't think I agree. If the number of cards per expansion remains the same, and the number of playable decks increases, then by necessity there must be either: a) a high number of overlapping cards (i.e. cards that work in many different playable decks); or b) relatively few "key" cards for a given deck. In either case, f2p and "casuals" should come out ahead.
Of the two, my suspicion is that the latter is more likely, as option a) would seem to run counter to the point of specialized spells. I could see, though, something like a card that says "when you cast a spell, discover a spell from the same school" (or "gain a random spell from the same school"). In fact, I'd bet some card like that will be printed.
Sorry, but I don't think I agree. If the number of cards per expansion remains the same, and the number of playable decks increases, then by necessity there must be either: a) a high number of overlapping cards (i.e. cards that work in many different playable decks); or b) relatively few "key" cards for a given deck. In either case, f2p and "casuals" should come out ahead.
Of the two, my suspicion is that the latter is more likely, as option a) would seem to run counter to the point of specialized spells. I could see, though, something like a card that says "when you cast a spell, discover a spell from the same school" (or "gain a random spell from the same school"). In fact, I'd bet some card like that will be printed.
It's hard to be precise about the development of deck costs, because there are few sources that let you actually analyze this stuff. VS has archived Data Reapers, but they only started around 2016, and you usually can't see old deck lists anymore. Hearthpwn has so many decks for so many things that it's hard to track down specifc deck lists that were popular at a given time. Tempostorm has also an archive, but it's really terrible to navigate. Nobody really felt like poperly documenting the history of Hearthstone's metagame.
But anyway, I think it could be proven to a certain extent that deck costs have gone up over time. From my own experience, decks used to cost like maybe 4k, 5k, rarely more, while few modern decks stay under 6k, with many going to 8, 10 and some even beyond. I think the so called "Wallet Warrior" was about the only deck that actually went over 10k for a long time. In this meta alone, we have at least 3 decks easily crossing that line (Ramp Paladin, Highlander Priest, Quest Warlock) and you can add a few more.
And I think the biggest contributing factor was 2 class legendaries per expansion, starting in Un'goro. If you go through some old metas (as far as possible), you'll notice that the number of key legendaries was usually rather small. A lot of the legendaries in older expansions were straight up bad, including the class ones (with few expansions). The good ones were oftentimes neutral, more like "generally good", and didn't change often, like Bloodmage Thalnos, Ragnaros the Firelord, Leeroy Jenkins, Dr. Boom, Patches the Pirate etc. They were usually good to have, but rarely the driving force of a deck, or impossible to replace.
Since 2017, legendaries are frequently essential to decks. Not only, because they are both much more impactful on their own, and virtually impossible to replace, such as Sunkeeper Tarim, Jandice Barov, Lord Barov, Soulciologist Malicia, Ysera, Unleashed, Dragonbane, and half of the Deathknigh hero cards. They are also more commonly the sole reason to play a deck, either being a single win condition, or the one card that turns everything around. Quests and Highlander cards are obvious examples, but we've seen something similar recently with Nozdormu the Timeless and High Abbess Alura.
Sorry, but I don't think I agree. If the number of cards per expansion remains the same, and the number of playable decks increases, then by necessity there must be either: a) a high number of overlapping cards (i.e. cards that work in many different playable decks); or b) relatively few "key" cards for a given deck. In either case, f2p and "casuals" should come out ahead.
Of the two, my suspicion is that the latter is more likely, as option a) would seem to run counter to the point of specialized spells. I could see, though, something like a card that says "when you cast a spell, discover a spell from the same school" (or "gain a random spell from the same school"). In fact, I'd bet some card like that will be printed.
It's hard to be precise about the development of deck costs, because there are few sources that let you actually analyze this stuff. VS has archived Data Reapers, but they only started around 2016, and you usually can't see old deck lists anymore. Hearthpwn has so many decks for so many things that it's hard to track down specifc deck lists that were popular at a given time. Tempostorm has also an archive, but it's really terrible to navigate. Nobody really felt like poperly documenting the history of Hearthstone's metagame.
But anyway, I think it could be proven to a certain extent that deck costs have gone up over time. From my own experience, decks used to cost like maybe 4k, 5k, rarely more, while few modern decks stay under 6k, with many going to 8, 10 and some even beyond. I think the so called "Wallet Warrior" was about the only deck that actually went over 10k for a long time. In this meta alone, we have at least 3 decks easily crossing that line (Ramp Paladin, Highlander Priest, Quest Warlock) and you can add a few more.
And I think the biggest contributing factor was 2 class legendaries per expansion, starting in Un'goro. If you go through some old metas (as far as possible), you'll notice that the number of key legendaries was usually rather small. A lot of the legendaries in older expansions were straight up bad, including the class ones (with few expansions). The good ones were oftentimes neutral, more like "generally good", and didn't change often, like Bloodmage Thalnos, Ragnaros the Firelord, Leeroy Jenkins, Dr. Boom, Patches the Pirate etc. They were usually good to have, but rarely the driving force of a deck, or impossible to replace.
Since 2017, legendaries are frequently essential to decks. Not only, because they are both much more impactful on their own, and virtually impossible to replace, such as Sunkeeper Tarim, Jandice Barov, Lord Barov, Soulciologist Malicia, Ysera, Unleashed, Dragonbane, and half of the Deathknigh hero cards. They are also more commonly the sole reason to play a deck, either being a single win condition, or the one card that turns everything around. Quests and Highlander cards are obvious examples, but we've seen something similar recently with Nozdormu the Timeless and High Abbess Alura.
I'm not quite sure why you are quoting me in this post, as I deliberately was NOT answering Kla_guy's question about the change of deck costs over time. I was (at least in my own mind) specifically only answering his question about whether the creation of spell schools will increase the cost of decks, which (for the reasons I explain above) I doubt.
I've got no definite view of whether "real" deck costs have gone up over time or not: I suspect they have. By "real" costs, I mean something other than simply dust cost. By that measure, costs have certainly increased. But the right way to measure cost is by answering the question "how much gold do I need to to play a given deck?" Since cards come from dust, dust from packs and packs from gold, the real cost of decks is gold. So to assess the real cost, you have to calculate how much dust you get from packs. But (and here's where it get really complicated) the extension of duplicate protection to all rarities makes comparing dust values now to dust values pre-protection very hard. Prior to dupe protection, if there was an epic you absolutely needed for a deck, your odds of getting it never changed, regardless of how many packs you opened. Now, with every epic you open, your odds of getting the one you want go up. Thus the "real" dust value of the pack goes up, since you will be less likely to need to spend dust to get it. So the rise in nominal dust costs is, at least partially, offset by the increased value of packs and, thus, the gold you buy the packs with.
BTW, even if it has increased, that's almost a necessary evil if you want a diverse meta. Improving class legendaries and epics is the only real way to give each class a distinct identity and viable deck. For all the complaints about the meta, IMHO there's a greater diversity of decks being played now than I can remember from back in the old days.
I did not want to open another thread, but what do you think about secrets having schools? If you play them while having a minion which interact with them on board, wouldn't your opponent know what secret you have?
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If I may be honest, I am not quite in love with spell schools, because spells for years were designed without such factor in mind. What I mean, is that may be hard to implement new interactions without breaking some cards. When they introduced Elementals it was not a big deal, because that was only one minion type, so there was not so many cards affected, but handful of types introduced at once may lead to overlooking something, as well as they may be hard to have own design. For example, many existing spells from both Nature and Fire schools seem to be just damaging spells, so they are not realy unique, and there may be more similarities between different schools.
However, I still hope they will implement it in a good way.
Well, there's a lot of druid spells for sure (like Nourish) that'll be nature spells. I think literally it's just going to come down to on-spellcast and spell damage effects, but most of the existing ones mostly won't be effected.
I don't think that the design and implementation of spell schools is going to be anything like minion tribes. Minion tribes in Hearthstone serve a purpose of offering a direction and theme of deckbuilding and play. Dragons want to be in-hand to trigger their effects. Elementals want you to have played an Elemental last turn. Murlocs are swarmy and often buff each other. Pirates notice when other Pirates show up. Beasts are probably the least cohesive tribe, but even they have a lot of cards that care if they're Beasts, whether it's a buff or a tutor effect.
Spell schools don't need to do that. Categorizing spell schools just gives the devs tools to organize effects on other cards. "Discover a Frost spell" means they know exactly what outcomes are possible from that pool of cards, which is different from "Discover a Fire spell" or just "Discover a spell." If you're a Mage, discovering a Frost spell probably means you're going to find something that freezes or protects you. You might get some damage out of it, but that's less likely. If you discover Fire, you're almost certainly getting damage. This means that a Frost Damage +3 minion is way less powerful than a Fire Damage +3 minion.
We also have to keep in mind that the Basic and Classic sets are rotating, which opens up new design space. This gives the devs the opportunity to give each school within each class an overall theme, without strictly sticking to a pattern. Holy spells in Priest are not going to behave the same way as Holy spells in Paladin, and Priest-Shadow spells are going to be WAY different from Warlock-Shadow. And since there aren't neutral spells, they can give the schools as much personality as they want within a given class, even if another class uses that school completely differently. Mage-Arcane is likely to be mostly stuff like Arcane Intellect & Mana Biscuit (utility spells), whereas Druid-Arcane is likely to be more damage/AoE, because those classes function differently.
Personally, I'm excited for it!
I still think it's just so they can print stronger cards
I like the idea but if they intend to fragment spells in this way, you will need a lot more of them in a given school to make deckbuilding fun/viable. Just a handful of spells is not going to be enough. I think this will come into its own later in the year when more expansions release and be pretty simple to begin with.
Why not? We're currently just grabbing a handful of spells, and they work fine without any intentional school synergy. Certainly, the build-around cards will need a more deliberate approach, but not every deck is going to be structured that way.
I think you're right that the concept will come into its own as time goes on, but in the meantime, I don't think it'll be bad or anything. At worst, it'll be no different than now, where you just put spells into your deck if they work for the deck you're trying to build.
Frankly, I'm afraid this might be a way to push even more costly cards in the typical strong / cool deck.
Like: oh, so you want to play <favorite school> <favorite class>? Sure, just get this dozen legendaries plus another umpteen epics and you're all set!
Not really an issue for whales, but for the rest of us... hmm :/
Perhaps diverging from the original topic a bit, but I wonder if they would ever consider creating new hero cards that allow the player to choose a "specialization". Each spec could allow different passive abilities for the rest of the game and some of them could interact with spell schools.
I really like the idea of new hero cards, like the death knights from before, but maybe with a little extra customization, it could allow some unique directions for every class to take. I guess each spec would kind of "force" archetypes, but Blizzard already does this with the cards they release each expansion.
Anyway, just sort of thinking out loud here. With the discussion of spell schools, it just got me thinking what else they could potentially do with them.
I guess that's possible, but if the number of cards in each expansion doesn't change, it's not likely. If done right, it could increase the number of decent, playable decks in the meta, meaning that even f2p can play some competitive deck.
Now, on the flip side, if you as an f2p have your heart set on some specific school/ class build ("I gotta play this Arcane Mage deck"), then yes you could end up having to craft the key legendary/ epic it requires. But that's true now: if you didn't open C'Thun and can't craft him, you're not playing a C'Thun deck.
The second half of your argument is quite straightforward, not much to be questioned there. About the first half... guess "If done right" is the operative phrase, here. We'll begin to see how things go when Barrens hits, ofc, and we'll see better throughout the rest of the year.
But I remain a tad pessimistic. Why? Because of this gut feeling (no scientific research or anything, sorry) that, on average, the cost of a good deck has only increased over the years. Often in a not immediately apparent way, because some synergy or another emerged over time, requiring several high-end cards to be fully leveraged. People proficient in HS history, please correct me if this is wrong.
Anyway, schools may be fun and all, thematically and for the sake of variety, sure. But it's not just the complexity of creative deck-building that increases, it's also the number of constraints, of requirements that will probably go up. And with those, the pressure to have a complete or almost-complete collection.
So not only f2ps but also casuals (meaning, people who spend something here and there but not 300+ $ per expansion) might be faced with tough choices, even more than today. At least, tougher than crafting a single legendary ;)
Sorry, but I don't think I agree. If the number of cards per expansion remains the same, and the number of playable decks increases, then by necessity there must be either: a) a high number of overlapping cards (i.e. cards that work in many different playable decks); or b) relatively few "key" cards for a given deck. In either case, f2p and "casuals" should come out ahead.
Of the two, my suspicion is that the latter is more likely, as option a) would seem to run counter to the point of specialized spells. I could see, though, something like a card that says "when you cast a spell, discover a spell from the same school" (or "gain a random spell from the same school"). In fact, I'd bet some card like that will be printed.
It's hard to be precise about the development of deck costs, because there are few sources that let you actually analyze this stuff. VS has archived Data Reapers, but they only started around 2016, and you usually can't see old deck lists anymore. Hearthpwn has so many decks for so many things that it's hard to track down specifc deck lists that were popular at a given time. Tempostorm has also an archive, but it's really terrible to navigate. Nobody really felt like poperly documenting the history of Hearthstone's metagame.
But anyway, I think it could be proven to a certain extent that deck costs have gone up over time. From my own experience, decks used to cost like maybe 4k, 5k, rarely more, while few modern decks stay under 6k, with many going to 8, 10 and some even beyond. I think the so called "Wallet Warrior" was about the only deck that actually went over 10k for a long time. In this meta alone, we have at least 3 decks easily crossing that line (Ramp Paladin, Highlander Priest, Quest Warlock) and you can add a few more.
And I think the biggest contributing factor was 2 class legendaries per expansion, starting in Un'goro. If you go through some old metas (as far as possible), you'll notice that the number of key legendaries was usually rather small. A lot of the legendaries in older expansions were straight up bad, including the class ones (with few expansions). The good ones were oftentimes neutral, more like "generally good", and didn't change often, like Bloodmage Thalnos, Ragnaros the Firelord, Leeroy Jenkins, Dr. Boom, Patches the Pirate etc. They were usually good to have, but rarely the driving force of a deck, or impossible to replace.
Since 2017, legendaries are frequently essential to decks. Not only, because they are both much more impactful on their own, and virtually impossible to replace, such as Sunkeeper Tarim, Jandice Barov, Lord Barov, Soulciologist Malicia, Ysera, Unleashed, Dragonbane, and half of the Deathknigh hero cards. They are also more commonly the sole reason to play a deck, either being a single win condition, or the one card that turns everything around. Quests and Highlander cards are obvious examples, but we've seen something similar recently with Nozdormu the Timeless and High Abbess Alura.
Also, more frequently in modern HS, legendaries come with with strong synergies with epics or other legendaries. Obvious cases are Highlander decks again, Galakrond decks (making Kronx Dragonhoof mandatory), but there's also examples like Sayge, Seer of Darkmoon coming with Rigged Faire Game and Occult Conjurer. Other examples are Khadgar and Power of Creation, Blastmaster Boom and Wrenchcalibur (and strongly supported by Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, Omega Devastator and Zilliax), or Tickatus with Cascading Disaster and Y'Shaarj, the Defiler. Due to high rarity cards being more impactful, class specifc and oftentimes playing very specific and important roles, it's not uncommon anymore to see them in "packages" where it's pointless to have one without the other.
I'm not quite sure why you are quoting me in this post, as I deliberately was NOT answering Kla_guy's question about the change of deck costs over time. I was (at least in my own mind) specifically only answering his question about whether the creation of spell schools will increase the cost of decks, which (for the reasons I explain above) I doubt.
I've got no definite view of whether "real" deck costs have gone up over time or not: I suspect they have. By "real" costs, I mean something other than simply dust cost. By that measure, costs have certainly increased. But the right way to measure cost is by answering the question "how much gold do I need to to play a given deck?" Since cards come from dust, dust from packs and packs from gold, the real cost of decks is gold. So to assess the real cost, you have to calculate how much dust you get from packs. But (and here's where it get really complicated) the extension of duplicate protection to all rarities makes comparing dust values now to dust values pre-protection very hard. Prior to dupe protection, if there was an epic you absolutely needed for a deck, your odds of getting it never changed, regardless of how many packs you opened. Now, with every epic you open, your odds of getting the one you want go up. Thus the "real" dust value of the pack goes up, since you will be less likely to need to spend dust to get it. So the rise in nominal dust costs is, at least partially, offset by the increased value of packs and, thus, the gold you buy the packs with.
BTW, even if it has increased, that's almost a necessary evil if you want a diverse meta. Improving class legendaries and epics is the only real way to give each class a distinct identity and viable deck. For all the complaints about the meta, IMHO there's a greater diversity of decks being played now than I can remember from back in the old days.
I did not want to open another thread, but what do you think about secrets having schools? If you play them while having a minion which interact with them on board, wouldn't your opponent know what secret you have?