Like me and many others have said many times, the issue with Tickatus is that he prevents proper control matchups from ever leaving the ground, they’re usually over before the interesting part even begins*. In a way Warlock does the job of a Midrange deck while playing as a Control deck.
A Midrange deck would usually look to kill Control by turn 7-10 by playing efficient minions on curve if possible and dancing around AOE and removal. Midrange is usually effective agai st Control. Warlock essentially does the same but instead of playing minions to apply pressure they spam removal or pass until Tick hopefully wins the game. The late game Control mirror (which many Control players enjoy) is largely irrelevant.
If the card was restricted to a specific combo/mill archetype then it would be fine, but for the next year any meta Warlock deck outside of Zoo is going to run the card which means proper control decks are going to find it rough.
* The usual response to this is “Fatigue games are too long and boring” but anybody who thinks this doesn’t need to play decks designed to go long. Midrange exists and is usually designed to beat that.
No need to cry, Control Warlock is currently ufavored against pretty much every single "real" meta deck out there (Paladins, Mages, Rogues), and most of "off-meta" decks (Aggro Shaman, Soul DH, Deathrattle DH, Lifesteal DH, Face Hunter, Primordial Hunter, Beast Hunter, Clown Druid), so people will just stop playing Warlock very soon (until nerf of Mor'shan Watch Post which should make Zoo Lock viable again).
Out of my last 20 games 18 were against Mages and Paladins, one was against Deathrattle DH and another one was against Murloc Shaman (that means only 1 favored matchup out of 20). I simply see no point in playing Control Warlock anymore (I'm on EU server).
But Twisted . . . I thought Spell Mage had to put C'thun together to have any chance of winning????
The Tickatus haters told me so right here in this thread.
In all seriousness, looks like the control vs control matchups are actually going to be dominated by mage, Lord Jaraxxus nonwithstanding. We'll see if something else emerges, but for the moment, I'm not seeing the Warlock oppression.
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Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
People are biased and tend to exaggerate. When I play against No Minion Mages, most of them somehow manage to have Deck of Lunacy on turn 2 or 3. I myself, after playing about 15-20 games with this deck, managed to throw DoL on turn 2-3 literally ONCE!
The same is true for a Tickatus. People think it's simple to play and very effective (some even call it "no brainer" or "autopilot"), because they haven't played the deck themselves and they have no idea what the reality is. Deck is slow, inconsistent and the Tickatus itself can be played rather rarely (in my case, maybe 30-40% of all games). But this is how bias works, mixed with ignorance and self-righteousness...
As for the "not used to playing against it" . . . that's the game. When you play a game of chess and you're staring at a mate in 1, if you miss the mate and subsequently lose, saying "I just haven't seen that board state enough times" will get you laughed out of the game.
I would use a different chess analogy here, and then I'll explain why I did. In 2003, Kasparov ended up in a lost situation against Radjabov in the prestigious Linares tournament, but instead of resigning as it is custom, or even playing the game out (which is rather unusual in high-level play, but why not), he just stormed out of the room, forcing Radjabov to wait for Kasparov's time to run out. Imagine having to sit there for 40 or so minutes, knowing that you've won, sure, but most of your - well-earned - fun is ruined by awkwardness or second-hand embarrassment needlessly piled upon you. What Kasparov did was completely within the rules, and he didn't even win by it.
No, Tickatus is not all that strong, certainly not game-breaking. Y'Shaarj is stronger, Jaraxxus is definitely stronger, hell, even Cascading Disaster is stronger. (A fairly good indicator of a certain card's power level is 'Would I pick this in Arena?' And I certainly wouldn't pick Tickatus, even if I did have a fair chance of corrupting him.)
But. Here's how a game of Hearthstone normally works. You put together a deck of 30 cards, and your opponent does the same. Then you are matched up against one another. You both have 30 cards, and 30 health. If you play control, then your main concern is this: if I manage to not die, and use my cards more efficiently than the opponent, then I simply outvalue them and win (either through fatigue, or by overwhelming them by steadily gaining card advantage). If you play aggro, then your game plan is: can I kill the opponent before I run out of resources? In other words, the way I see it, aggro players aren't really playing against the opponent's cards per se, rather against the clock.
All this considered, Tickatus really sucks against aggro, not only because it's low tempo, but because an aggro deck doesn't really care which cards they draw or burn, and they *have* to win by the time they would fatigue against even a miraculous triple Tickatus (i.e. turn 15). Control, on the other hand, does care about the cards in their deck. Still, you can beat Tickatus with other control decks, but then again, that's hardly the point. The point is this: it's painful to see your cards burned even if you weren't going to use them in the first place. Moreover, they are burned regardless of what you do. You can maybe make some plays to ensure your best stuff isn't burned, but still, not the point.
It's important to note that while Tickatus is definitely the worst of the bunch, he's not the first offender by a long shot. Gnomeferatu, Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Demonic Project, Unseen Saboteur and even Shenanigans or Skulking Geist mess with your deck and/or hand. Does that mean that these cards are broken? Not at all. Does that mean that these cards annoy the hell out of you if they pull/transform/destroy something from your deck or hand you've been working towards playing the whole game? Yup. And (at least to players like me, who play just for fun, and not for ranking) it's really, really not about winning. I would much rather lose a 50-turn fatigue warrior mirror and have great fun doing so than have my opponent concede because their Dirty Rat pulled my Mecha'thun out on turn 2.
Tl;dr: Tickatus is not broken, but it's extremely annoying to play against with a value/control mindset. Interacting with the board is fair game (that's mostly the point of the game, really), messing with your own hand and deck is perfectly fine, but don't mess with my hand and deck, please. It's not cheating (of course not, Blizzard printed these cards), but it sure feels like it. And obviously I won't stop playing because of stuff like this, nor do I feel burning hatred or anything, but it kind of destroys the point to take the fun out of a game I play, you know, for fun.
No, the problem is that the payoff is ridiculous considering how easy it is to setup. But you got a mage player on its own game (working on the win condition without really interacting with the opponent stuff until the time comes), I'll give you that.
No, the problem is that the payoff is ridiculous considering how easy it is to setup. But you got a mage player on its own game (working on the win condition without really interacting with the opponent stuff until the time comes), I'll give you that.
what payoff?
The one printed on the card? Was this a trick question?
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"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
Fear of your cards being burned is just something players really should get used to. It’s just an extra wincon and the more varied wincons are the better and more varied the game is.
The problem with Tickatus is that there’s just no interaction beyond playing a deck which can out tempo him.
People can argue about ‘how bad’ the card is all day long but it will never change the fact that many players (especially meme players and middling players at diamond and below) are feeling forced to play decks which they just don’t find fun.
Fear of your cards being burned is just something players really should get used to. It’s just an extra wincon and the more varied wincons are the better and more varied the game is.
Good point. I guess this is a matter of taste, and it's just my preference is that the win conditions should still be contained within a reasonable framework. With this burning win condition the little 1 mana 1/1 chicken comes to mind that they had scrapped way back in alpha, the one that would deal one damage to whoever moused over it (Auto-Pecker, I think). While it wouldn't have been too strong, it was just way out of the framework they wanted to go with. There was also an effect that flipped the board upside down; also scrapped in alpha.
To go with the chess metaphor, chess arguably doesn't get better if you add off the board win conditions; although chessboxing does exist, and Bobby Fischer himself said (he was pretty old and completely mental at this point, mind you) that regular chess is a boring game and that he'd much rather play the Fischer Random variation, so, you know, it does all come down to different tastes.
Iksar tweeted they would consider a nerf if control warlock was ever around 10-15% of the overall meta, which was certainly the case before the last set of balance changes (14%). Those were his words, not mine. As of right now, it’s around 9% of ladder across all ranks, which still places it as the 2nd most played deck in the game behind Spell Mage. Whether that number goes up or down, remains to be seen. But, the deck has already hit the exact criteria that the devs stated as being problematic in their minds & has remained untouched.
I find this interesting, because for him to even make that statement at all, means that the PLAY RATE of the deck is more or equally as important than the WIN RATE, in their eyes at least. Make of that what you will.
Iksar tweeted they would consider a nerf if control warlock was ever around 10-15% of the overall meta, which was certainly the case before the last set of balance changes (14%). Those were his words, not mine. As of right now, it’s around 9% of ladder across all ranks, which still places it as the 2nd most played deck in the game behind Spell Mage. Whether that number goes up or down, remains to be seen. But, the deck has already hit the exact criteria that the devs stated as being problematic in their minds & has remained untouched.
I find this interesting, because for him to even make that statement at all, means that the PLAY RATE of the deck is more or equally as important than the WIN RATE, in their eyes at least. Make of that what you will.
No idea why or how Tickatus dodged two nerfs so far. But sad to say, warlock is the only viable control deck outside legend where theres a few priests as well. Either they nerf Tickatus in a future balance patch or control is dead for the rest of the year 2021.
Instead of trying to understand the point OP makes you are trying to ridicule it.
Questions you ask are not important, details doesn't matter because the situation is mentioned as a source of inspiration and not a prove for anything.
As far as I understand of course, the OP claims that among people who complain about tickatus are those who simpky don't adjust their playstyle to the matchup and then complain. Is such statement really so wrong that it doesn't deserve to be discussed in a civil manner?
I agree with you, yesterday I faced an APM priest, a full aggro paladin and a no minion mage, and It felt like they were playing a solo game mode, just throwing cards without thinking of the punish every decision could make. The problem is it pays off, I mean, if they play like that and win games they'll still doing it.
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Like me and many others have said many times, the issue with Tickatus is that he prevents proper control matchups from ever leaving the ground, they’re usually over before the interesting part even begins*. In a way Warlock does the job of a Midrange deck while playing as a Control deck.
A Midrange deck would usually look to kill Control by turn 7-10 by playing efficient minions on curve if possible and dancing around AOE and removal. Midrange is usually effective agai st Control. Warlock essentially does the same but instead of playing minions to apply pressure they spam removal or pass until Tick hopefully wins the game. The late game Control mirror (which many Control players enjoy) is largely irrelevant.
If the card was restricted to a specific combo/mill archetype then it would be fine, but for the next year any meta Warlock deck outside of Zoo is going to run the card which means proper control decks are going to find it rough.
* The usual response to this is “Fatigue games are too long and boring” but anybody who thinks this doesn’t need to play decks designed to go long. Midrange exists and is usually designed to beat that.
No need to cry, Control Warlock is currently ufavored against pretty much every single "real" meta deck out there (Paladins, Mages, Rogues), and most of "off-meta" decks (Aggro Shaman, Soul DH, Deathrattle DH, Lifesteal DH, Face Hunter, Primordial Hunter, Beast Hunter, Clown Druid), so people will just stop playing Warlock very soon (until nerf of Mor'shan Watch Post which should make Zoo Lock viable again).
Out of my last 20 games 18 were against Mages and Paladins, one was against Deathrattle DH and another one was against Murloc Shaman (that means only 1 favored matchup out of 20). I simply see no point in playing Control Warlock anymore (I'm on EU server).
But Twisted . . . I thought Spell Mage had to put C'thun together to have any chance of winning????
The Tickatus haters told me so right here in this thread.
In all seriousness, looks like the control vs control matchups are actually going to be dominated by mage, Lord Jaraxxus nonwithstanding. We'll see if something else emerges, but for the moment, I'm not seeing the Warlock oppression.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
People are biased and tend to exaggerate. When I play against No Minion Mages, most of them somehow manage to have Deck of Lunacy on turn 2 or 3. I myself, after playing about 15-20 games with this deck, managed to throw DoL on turn 2-3 literally ONCE!
The same is true for a Tickatus. People think it's simple to play and very effective (some even call it "no brainer" or "autopilot"), because they haven't played the deck themselves and they have no idea what the reality is. Deck is slow, inconsistent and the Tickatus itself can be played rather rarely (in my case, maybe 30-40% of all games). But this is how bias works, mixed with ignorance and self-righteousness...
Lol mage draws 4 cards and refreshes the turn with 4 mana 🤡
As a control warrior player i cant beat control warlocks. But thats fine, theyre barely a t2 deck by now so dont see too many of them
Also since when does no minion mage actually put cthun together?
I would use a different chess analogy here, and then I'll explain why I did. In 2003, Kasparov ended up in a lost situation against Radjabov in the prestigious Linares tournament, but instead of resigning as it is custom, or even playing the game out (which is rather unusual in high-level play, but why not), he just stormed out of the room, forcing Radjabov to wait for Kasparov's time to run out. Imagine having to sit there for 40 or so minutes, knowing that you've won, sure, but most of your - well-earned - fun is ruined by awkwardness or second-hand embarrassment needlessly piled upon you. What Kasparov did was completely within the rules, and he didn't even win by it.
No, Tickatus is not all that strong, certainly not game-breaking. Y'Shaarj is stronger, Jaraxxus is definitely stronger, hell, even Cascading Disaster is stronger. (A fairly good indicator of a certain card's power level is 'Would I pick this in Arena?' And I certainly wouldn't pick Tickatus, even if I did have a fair chance of corrupting him.)
But. Here's how a game of Hearthstone normally works. You put together a deck of 30 cards, and your opponent does the same. Then you are matched up against one another. You both have 30 cards, and 30 health. If you play control, then your main concern is this: if I manage to not die, and use my cards more efficiently than the opponent, then I simply outvalue them and win (either through fatigue, or by overwhelming them by steadily gaining card advantage). If you play aggro, then your game plan is: can I kill the opponent before I run out of resources? In other words, the way I see it, aggro players aren't really playing against the opponent's cards per se, rather against the clock.
All this considered, Tickatus really sucks against aggro, not only because it's low tempo, but because an aggro deck doesn't really care which cards they draw or burn, and they *have* to win by the time they would fatigue against even a miraculous triple Tickatus (i.e. turn 15). Control, on the other hand, does care about the cards in their deck. Still, you can beat Tickatus with other control decks, but then again, that's hardly the point. The point is this: it's painful to see your cards burned even if you weren't going to use them in the first place. Moreover, they are burned regardless of what you do. You can maybe make some plays to ensure your best stuff isn't burned, but still, not the point.
It's important to note that while Tickatus is definitely the worst of the bunch, he's not the first offender by a long shot. Gnomeferatu, Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Demonic Project, Unseen Saboteur and even Shenanigans or Skulking Geist mess with your deck and/or hand. Does that mean that these cards are broken? Not at all. Does that mean that these cards annoy the hell out of you if they pull/transform/destroy something from your deck or hand you've been working towards playing the whole game? Yup. And (at least to players like me, who play just for fun, and not for ranking) it's really, really not about winning. I would much rather lose a 50-turn fatigue warrior mirror and have great fun doing so than have my opponent concede because their Dirty Rat pulled my Mecha'thun out on turn 2.
Tl;dr: Tickatus is not broken, but it's extremely annoying to play against with a value/control mindset. Interacting with the board is fair game (that's mostly the point of the game, really), messing with your own hand and deck is perfectly fine, but don't mess with my hand and deck, please. It's not cheating (of course not, Blizzard printed these cards), but it sure feels like it. And obviously I won't stop playing because of stuff like this, nor do I feel burning hatred or anything, but it kind of destroys the point to take the fun out of a game I play, you know, for fun.
Tickatus is a win condition you can play again for zero in a deck that never dies
STRATEMGY
I do not dislike the card...but the fact that it shuts off other control decks is to be a thing to be bothered abt.
Even if I was milled/killed thanks to Ticky Boi I do not hate him.
But I definitely hope Flamewaker/NoMinion Mages will be queued to Ticklock in more than 90 % of the time.
EU 11/2015+ , f2p 03/2021+: DK 63 / DH 205 /Dr 277 / Hu 733 / Ma 6666 / Pa 1072 / Pr 1165 / Ro 1791 / Sh 1303 / Wl 707 / Wr 664
what payoff?
The one printed on the card? Was this a trick question?
"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
Fear of your cards being burned is just something players really should get used to. It’s just an extra wincon and the more varied wincons are the better and more varied the game is.
The problem with Tickatus is that there’s just no interaction beyond playing a deck which can out tempo him.
People can argue about ‘how bad’ the card is all day long but it will never change the fact that many players (especially meme players and middling players at diamond and below) are feeling forced to play decks which they just don’t find fun.
Good point. I guess this is a matter of taste, and it's just my preference is that the win conditions should still be contained within a reasonable framework. With this burning win condition the little 1 mana 1/1 chicken comes to mind that they had scrapped way back in alpha, the one that would deal one damage to whoever moused over it (Auto-Pecker, I think). While it wouldn't have been too strong, it was just way out of the framework they wanted to go with. There was also an effect that flipped the board upside down; also scrapped in alpha.
To go with the chess metaphor, chess arguably doesn't get better if you add off the board win conditions; although chessboxing does exist, and Bobby Fischer himself said (he was pretty old and completely mental at this point, mind you) that regular chess is a boring game and that he'd much rather play the Fischer Random variation, so, you know, it does all come down to different tastes.
Iksar tweeted they would consider a nerf if control warlock was ever around 10-15% of the overall meta, which was certainly the case before the last set of balance changes (14%). Those were his words, not mine. As of right now, it’s around 9% of ladder across all ranks, which still places it as the 2nd most played deck in the game behind Spell Mage. Whether that number goes up or down, remains to be seen. But, the deck has already hit the exact criteria that the devs stated as being problematic in their minds & has remained untouched.
I find this interesting, because for him to even make that statement at all, means that the PLAY RATE of the deck is more or equally as important than the WIN RATE, in their eyes at least. Make of that what you will.
No idea why or how Tickatus dodged two nerfs so far. But sad to say, warlock is the only viable control deck outside legend where theres a few priests as well. Either they nerf Tickatus in a future balance patch or control is dead for the rest of the year 2021.
Instead of trying to understand the point OP makes you are trying to ridicule it.
Questions you ask are not important, details doesn't matter because the situation is mentioned as a source of inspiration and not a prove for anything.
As far as I understand of course, the OP claims that among people who complain about tickatus are those who simpky don't adjust their playstyle to the matchup and then complain. Is such statement really so wrong that it doesn't deserve to be discussed in a civil manner?
I agree with you, yesterday I faced an APM priest, a full aggro paladin and a no minion mage, and It felt like they were playing a solo game mode, just throwing cards without thinking of the punish every decision could make. The problem is it pays off, I mean, if they play like that and win games they'll still doing it.