OTK (one turn kill) combo decks create an unfun single player experience where if you wait too long, you just lose without any way to interact with them. The main way to counter such decks is to play aggro, and while aggro decks are a good and healthy part of the meta, you can't have aggro be the only counter to otk decks. The reason being if the only counter to playing an otk deck is aggro, then viable control, midrange, or value decks have to have such a high winrate against aggro for them to be a part of the meta that it creates a rock paper scissors meta. Where otk beats control which beats aggro, which beats otk.
The other way to counter otk decks is to use disruption cards like Dirty Rat or Tickatus which are notoriously unfun and only have a random chance to actually destroy their combo pieces. And even when that happens, there isn't a way for the person playing otk to prevent or interact with the disruption. So you have a sort of catch 22 where otk decks are uninteractive, so they need counterplay, but the counterplay is also, by its very nature of disrupting your hand or deck, uninteractive.
What's the solution then? In my opinion otk combo decks shouldn't exist, rather combo decks should be about burst damage that is less than 30 like the og freeze mage or force of nature -> Savage roar. Combo decks like freeze mage, while still not as interactive as most decks, allow you to win as a control deck by having enough healing and creates a dynamic where combo decks have to consider how much burn, sustain, and deck thinning they want to run. And it allows the design team to make better sustain cards that make those combo decks more resilient to aggro decks, since if a combo deck runs too much sustain, then it can't run as much burn, making it worse against control.
It also creates a similar dynamic for control decks where they have to consider how much healing (to counter aggro and combo), tempo (to counter tempo decks, and value (to counter other control decks) to run. And this dynamic for control, and combo decks allows the meta to be somewhat self correcting. If there's an aggro meta, control decks will get less greedy and combo decks will run more sustain. If there's a control meta, control decks will get more greedy (which will give aggro more of a chance) and combo decks will run more burn. Finally, if there's too much combo, control decks will run more healing.
So with all that being said, what should get nerfed/changed?
TL;DR. It's part of a CCG. I you don't like OTK or Mill or Combo or Aggro or Whatever, play chess.
Unlike many other CCGs, in hearthstone you can't play cards on your opponents turns, so i don't think it's really comparable. And chess is certainly not comparable
Oh come on?! Are you serious? Its healthy for the game to have different ways of playing.. The OTK decks are easy to deal with.. .. never really had a problem with em’ 😁
Variety is the healthiest thing in Hearthstone. I have seen countless posts complaining about OTK/Aggro/Combo/Control etc. I myself too have many decks or archetypes wich I dislike playing against, but imagine what would happen, if there were only fair midrange decks available. I at least know one thing for sure - Hearthstone wouldn't last more than a year.
The problem is, that many people like combo decks and they are in every single card game. People will always try to build such kind of decks, since it‘s in my opinion the hardest deck type to build if you want a good one. Also it‘s very satisfying to pull it off (at least if it‘s your own invention). I loved building combo decks in magic.
But as you also said, their nature is that they are not fun to play against.
Also the game would become very boring for a lot of people, since the deck types get more limited. There would probably just be Hyper Aggro which only wins by high rolling against the only other deck type. Hyper control.
There's an important three-way balance in Hearthstone between the three major types of decks. This gets brought up whenever anybody says that a certain deck genre is bad for the game - control players typically complain about aggro and combo. Combo players typically complain about aggro. And aggro players typically complain about taunt and healing (taunt is cheating so that seems fair to complain about).
However if any single archetype gets removed, it offsets the balance of the game very very badly. Aggro is excellent against combo > combo is excellent against control > control is excellent against aggro
Making the game go from a win-percentage that's close to rock-paper-scissors (that's not a good analogy for win percentages) to basically a coin flip (which in a game with 2 deck types is actually kind of accurate) in terms of how a deck will perform on ladder.
The nature of all games is that they're fun to play. Watching your opponent pop off and play for like 2 minutes uninterrupted is dull, not fun, and feels bad when they kill you during that time. Unfortunately that's only fun for the person playing the combo, and not the person on the other end. This is true in MTG and YuGiOh, both of which have decks that do that very thing. That's just a part of card games - although in other card games like the ones I mentioned, you can interact with your opponent on their turn. It's yet to be a true issue in Hearthstone that hasn't been able to be solved with nerfs or combo-killer cards like Dirty Rat, Tickatus, or Hecklebot.
There's an important three-way balance in Hearthstone between the three major types of decks. This gets brought up whenever anybody says that a certain deck genre is bad for the game - control players typically complain about aggro and combo. Combo players typically complain about aggro. And aggro players typically complain about taunt and healing (taunt is cheating so that seems fair to complain about).
However if any single archetype gets removed, it offsets the balance of the game very very badly. Aggro is excellent against combo > combo is excellent against control > control is excellent against aggro
Making the game go from a win-percentage that's close to rock-paper-scissors (that's not a good analogy for win percentages) to basically a coin flip (which in a game with 2 deck types is actually kind of accurate) in terms of how a deck will perform on ladder.
The nature of all games is that they're fun to play. Watching your opponent pop off and play for like 2 minutes uninterrupted is dull, not fun, and feels bad when they kill you during that time. Unfortunately that's only fun for the person playing the combo, and not the person on the other end. This is true in MTG and YuGiOh, both of which have decks that do that very thing. That's just a part of card games - although in other card games like the ones I mentioned, you can interact with your opponent on their turn. It's yet to be a true issue in Hearthstone that hasn't been able to be solved with nerfs or combo-killer cards like Dirty Rat, Tickatus, or Hecklebot.
I think you misunderstand me, i'm not against combo decks, i even specifically supported freeze mage in my post, i'm against otk combo decks. Since you can't interact with opponent's on their turn, there's no healthy way to counter them. Otk combo decks can only be countered in hearthstone by aggro (which is fine, but having it as the only counter to otk makes a rock paper scissors meta), or by disruption, which only has a random chance to remove the combo piece. Literally leaving the outcome of the game based on the chance that you played the disruption card on the right turn is not a healthy way to balance the game.
Anti combo cards are not really working really good... it is random and other times it stings to pull wrong minion and lose anyway because luck. Make Dirty Rat discover three minions from opponents hand and you pick one, then we can talk.
And no... Combo, control, aggro isn't the threeway, you threw midrange completely out of the window. Midrange was supposed to counter control with harder removable minions, some value, draw and keeping constant pressure. Aggro decks were supposed to jump on midrange.
HS has turned into hyper aggro and then combo decks (big priest is kinda combo deck too). Some solid board stuff doesn't happen that much, I remember my first days at HS playing 2/3 that summons that 1/1 beast and Savannah Lion and having fun doing chess with board.
As OP says, HS is in the end turn based game. Sometimes it really hurts that it doesn't have any instant reaction cards. Deathrattle decks counter control decks pretty good too. No need for combo decks, unless it is so complicated that you complete it once in 20 games or so.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Minion to minion the basic of all combats, only a fool trusts his win to an OTK"
I frankly don't give a toss if my otk deck is unfun for you or anyone else, to put it bluntly, I sure as hell have a blast playing it.
If you're in wild, tech in a dirty rat (like all reno decks do), a loatheb in your control deck or play any tier 1-2 aggro deck which has 60+ wr% against all combo decks and realise that if blizzard had any actual interest in making otk decks a thing of the past, mozaki and il'gynoth wouldn't exist.
Because, honestly, your solution is nuking otk decks out of the game which means that the only things left in wild (standard has no viable otk deck other than lifesteal dh, all-powerful tier 4 meme that it is) will be hyper aggro and control, with nothing else left. I also would like to hear what would you do about reno priest (which technically is an otk since they kill you from 30+hp in a single turn unless, guess what, you rat their spawn of shadows/raza out beforehand) or something like shudderwock (which, by all intents and purposes, is an otk in the sense that after you play the first one, the opponent is dead no matter what).
Made me lol when reading mecha'thun tho, I'll give you that, haven't seen that played in almost a year, the poor lad.
I frankly don't give a toss if my otk deck is unfun for you or anyone else, to put it bluntly, I sure as hell have a blast playing it.
If you're in wild, tech in a dirty rat (like all reno decks do), a loatheb in your control deck or play any tier 1-2 aggro deck which has 60+ wr% against all combo decks and realise that if blizzard had any actual interest in making otk decks a thing of the past, mozaki and il'gynoth wouldn't exist.
Because, honestly, your solution is nuking otk decks out of the game which means that the only things left in wild (standard has no viable otk deck other than lifesteal dh, all-powerful tier 4 meme that it is) will be hyper aggro and control, with nothing else left. I also would like to hear what would you do about reno priest (which technically is an otk since they kill you from 30+hp in a single turn unless, guess what, you rat their spawn of shadows/raza out beforehand) or something like shudderwock (which, by all intents and purposes, is an otk in the sense that after you play the first one, the opponent is dead no matter what).
Made me lol when reading mecha'thun tho, I'll give you that, haven't seen that played in almost a year, the poor lad.
I've said this already in this thread, but i'm not against combo decks, just otk combo decks. Decks like the og freeze mage are fine and should get support from blizz.
I don't think removing otk would just lead to aggro and control, there would also be midrange, and hopefully combo too. Plus there can be a lot of variation within those catagories.
Reno priest is majorly overtuned imo. I think unnerfing Raza the Chained was a big mistake. They should re-nerf it to make the hero power cost 1. I think reno style decks will continue to be a problem in the future as more cards that serve the same purpose will lessen the downside of only having 1 ofs. So other highlander cards may need to get adjusted as well
Shudderwock is also a problem card, i forgot about him in the original post. I'd make him repeat the 3 highest cost battlecries.
It doesn't matter that Mecha'thun isn't viable, otk decks shouldn't exist
All players : "Bouhoooouuuhouuuuu , shudderwock, otk druid and others are too strong. Let's just play odd paladin, secret mage and aggro decks so we don't lose to them"
You actually understand the meta pretty badly. If control decks aren't prevalent it's not because otk decks are too strong, it's because their cards are weak. Minions, board swarm cards and card draw engines are getting powercreeped from years to years while brawl is still the best board clear in warrior. You got some very powerfull board clear sometimes like psychic scream and defile but they are exceptionnal.
Imagine talking about nerfing shudderwock. You're actually a clown.
It's not about it being a currently meta card, it's about being uninteractive and bad for the game. And the reason it doesn't see play is because there are better otk decks out there.
I frankly don't give a toss if my otk deck is unfun for you or anyone else, to put it bluntly, I sure as hell have a blast playing it.
If you're in wild, tech in a dirty rat (like all reno decks do), a loatheb in your control deck or play any tier 1-2 aggro deck which has 60+ wr% against all combo decks and realise that if blizzard had any actual interest in making otk decks a thing of the past, mozaki and il'gynoth wouldn't exist.
Because, honestly, your solution is nuking otk decks out of the game which means that the only things left in wild (standard has no viable otk deck other than lifesteal dh, all-powerful tier 4 meme that it is) will be hyper aggro and control, with nothing else left. I also would like to hear what would you do about reno priest (which technically is an otk since they kill you from 30+hp in a single turn unless, guess what, you rat their spawn of shadows/raza out beforehand) or something like shudderwock (which, by all intents and purposes, is an otk in the sense that after you play the first one, the opponent is dead no matter what).
Made me lol when reading mecha'thun tho, I'll give you that, haven't seen that played in almost a year, the poor lad.
I've said this already in this thread, but i'm not against combo decks, just otk combo decks. Decks like the og freeze mage are fine and should get support from blizz.
I don't think removing otk would just lead to aggro and control, there would also be midrange, and hopefully combo too. Plus there can be a lot of variation within those catagories.
Reno priest is majorly overtuned imo. I think unnerfing Raza the Chained was a big mistake. They should re-nerf it to make the hero power cost 1. I think reno style decks will continue to be a problem in the future as more cards that serve the same purpose will lessen the downside of only having 1 ofs. So other highlander cards may need to get adjusted as well
Shudderwock is also a problem card, i forgot about him in the original post. I'd make him repeat the 3 highest cost battlecries.
It doesn't matter that Mecha'thun isn't viable, otk decks shouldn't exist
OTK decks existing isn't a problem. The affect they have on the game and meta isn't bad for the game either. I'll agree that some have been a problem over Hearthstone's history ( Shudderwock ), but just like other overpowered cards/decks they were nerfed.
I also agree that there is a lot of variation in deck categories. Just because all 'Control decks' are likely to have AOE board clears and card draw doesn't mean they are anything like one another. All decks have their own strengths and weaknesses. You could nerf all OTK decks and w/e combo decks remained would likely still have matchups that they are overwhelmingly favored in.
Cards like like Dirty Rat and other tech choices are more than enough to fight back too. They aren't 100% effective and they shouldn't be either. They also have the draw back of making your deck weaker against most other decks. If you want to do better against a certain combo deck, but are unwilling to switch to a deck with a much better matchup, then you should have to make sacrifices. Same goes for every deck type. The tools exist to improve certain matchups, but they come at a cost.
I frankly don't give a toss if my otk deck is unfun for you or anyone else, to put it bluntly, I sure as hell have a blast playing it.
If you're in wild, tech in a dirty rat (like all reno decks do), a loatheb in your control deck or play any tier 1-2 aggro deck which has 60+ wr% against all combo decks and realise that if blizzard had any actual interest in making otk decks a thing of the past, mozaki and il'gynoth wouldn't exist.
Because, honestly, your solution is nuking otk decks out of the game which means that the only things left in wild (standard has no viable otk deck other than lifesteal dh, all-powerful tier 4 meme that it is) will be hyper aggro and control, with nothing else left. I also would like to hear what would you do about reno priest (which technically is an otk since they kill you from 30+hp in a single turn unless, guess what, you rat their spawn of shadows/raza out beforehand) or something like shudderwock (which, by all intents and purposes, is an otk in the sense that after you play the first one, the opponent is dead no matter what).
Made me lol when reading mecha'thun tho, I'll give you that, haven't seen that played in almost a year, the poor lad.
I've said this already in this thread, but i'm not against combo decks, just otk combo decks. Decks like the og freeze mage are fine and should get support from blizz.
I don't think removing otk would just lead to aggro and control, there would also be midrange, and hopefully combo too. Plus there can be a lot of variation within those catagories.
Reno priest is majorly overtuned imo. I think unnerfing Raza the Chained was a big mistake. They should re-nerf it to make the hero power cost 1. I think reno style decks will continue to be a problem in the future as more cards that serve the same purpose will lessen the downside of only having 1 ofs. So other highlander cards may need to get adjusted as well
Shudderwock is also a problem card, i forgot about him in the original post. I'd make him repeat the 3 highest cost battlecries.
It doesn't matter that Mecha'thun isn't viable, otk decks shouldn't exist
OTK decks existing isn't a problem. The affect they have on the game and meta isn't bad for the game either. I'll agree that some have been a problem over Hearthstone's history ( Shudderwock ), but just like other overpowered cards/decks they were nerfed.
I also agree that there is a lot of variation in deck categories. Just because all 'Control decks' are likely to have AOE board clears and card draw doesn't mean they are anything like one another. All decks have their own strengths and weaknesses. You could nerf all OTK decks and w/e combo decks remained would likely still have matchups that they are overwhelmingly favored in.
Cards like like Dirty Rat and other tech choices are more than enough to fight back too. They aren't 100% effective and they shouldn't be either. They also have the draw back of making your deck weaker against most other decks. If you want to do better against a certain combo deck, but are unwilling to switch to a deck with a much better matchup, then you should have to make sacrifices. Same goes for every deck type. The tools exist to improve certain matchups, but they come at a cost.
The problem with the tech cards against otk combo decks is that by there very nature they are disruptive and unfun to play against, which is why cards like Dirty Rat and Tickatus are so hated by many even though they aren't all that powerful. Even if you're not playing a combo deck, disruption can be unfun, losing a N'zoth or some other big lategame win condition that you build your entire deck around sucks. And the worst part about it is that it's totally random, the entire outcome of a control vs otk deck is based on whether your opponent drew their combo piece in the wrong order and it got Tickatus, or whether Dirty Rat pulled out a crucial combo piece or a card that cycles. Explain to me how that's healthy for the game
It seems far more constructive to suggest potential nerfs to problematic decks than to simply post an opinion piece that "OTK decks shouldn't exist." Of course they should - millions of folks only play CCGs because they enjoy winning the game by doing convoluted deck manipulation and card sequencing that results in a big, sudden, gaming winning combo. "No they shouldn't - they should enjoy the game differently," isn't exactly a helpful attitude.
It's also worthwhile recognising that there are dozens of OTK decks "out there" in Tier 4 Wild - it isn't obvious that you understand how much nerfing is actually going to be necessary in your crusade. I'd suggest watching some Wild streamers, or Hysteria, in order to get some idea of the scope of the issue. You might as well start with Spectral Pillager - it might be the most popular OTK deck that you seem unaware of.
Here's a link to a Hysteria video, Top 10 OTK combos - you'll have to nerf cards like Lightning Bolt, Da Undertaker, Emperor Thaurissan, Mayor Noggenfogger, and dozens of others not in this particular video . . .
OTK (one turn kill) combo decks create an unfun single player experience where if you wait too long, you just lose without any way to interact with them. The main way to counter such decks is to play aggro, and while aggro decks are a good and healthy part of the meta, you can't have aggro be the only counter to otk decks. The reason being if the only counter to playing an otk deck is aggro, then viable control, midrange, or value decks have to have such a high winrate against aggro for them to be a part of the meta that it creates a rock paper scissors meta. Where otk beats control which beats aggro, which beats otk.
The other way to counter otk decks is to use disruption cards like Dirty Rat or Tickatus which are notoriously unfun and only have a random chance to actually destroy their combo pieces. And even when that happens, there isn't a way for the person playing otk to prevent or interact with the disruption. So you have a sort of catch 22 where otk decks are uninteractive, so they need counterplay, but the counterplay is also, by its very nature of disrupting your hand or deck, uninteractive.
What's the solution then? In my opinion otk combo decks shouldn't exist, rather combo decks should be about burst damage that is less than 30 like the og freeze mage or force of nature -> Savage roar. Combo decks like freeze mage, while still not as interactive as most decks, allow you to win as a control deck by having enough healing and creates a dynamic where combo decks have to consider how much burn, sustain, and deck thinning they want to run. And it allows the design team to make better sustain cards that make those combo decks more resilient to aggro decks, since if a combo deck runs too much sustain, then it can't run as much burn, making it worse against control.
It also creates a similar dynamic for control decks where they have to consider how much healing (to counter aggro and combo), tempo (to counter tempo decks, and value (to counter other control decks) to run. And this dynamic for control, and combo decks allows the meta to be somewhat self correcting. If there's an aggro meta, control decks will get less greedy and combo decks will run more sustain. If there's a control meta, control decks will get more greedy (which will give aggro more of a chance) and combo decks will run more burn. Finally, if there's too much combo, control decks will run more healing.
So with all that being said, what should get nerfed/changed?
Sorcerer's Apprentice - make it have "spell cost 1 less, but not less than 1"
Malygos - make it 7 mana and have "the first spell you play each turn has spell damage +7"
Mecha'thun - make it deal 25 damage instead of destroy the enemy hero
Il'gynoth - make it only affect minions with lifesteal, maybe make it a 3/6 to compensate
Idk if a missed any cards, but i think this is long enough, thanks for reading
TL;DR. It's part of a CCG. I you don't like OTK or Mill or Combo or Aggro or Whatever, play chess.
Take a walk on the wild side...
Unlike many other CCGs, in hearthstone you can't play cards on your opponents turns, so i don't think it's really comparable. And chess is certainly not comparable
Oh come on?! Are you serious? Its healthy for the game to have different ways of playing.. The OTK decks are easy to deal with.. .. never really had a problem with em’ 😁
As long as it's not a deck with infinite board controls and heals, it's ok.
Variety is the healthiest thing in Hearthstone. I have seen countless posts complaining about OTK/Aggro/Combo/Control etc. I myself too have many decks or archetypes wich I dislike playing against, but imagine what would happen, if there were only fair midrange decks available. I at least know one thing for sure - Hearthstone wouldn't last more than a year.
The problem is, that many people like combo decks and they are in every single card game. People will always try to build such kind of decks, since it‘s in my opinion the hardest deck type to build if you want a good one. Also it‘s very satisfying to pull it off (at least if it‘s your own invention). I loved building combo decks in magic.
But as you also said, their nature is that they are not fun to play against.
Also the game would become very boring for a lot of people, since the deck types get more limited. There would probably just be Hyper Aggro which only wins by high rolling against the only other deck type. Hyper control.
There's an important three-way balance in Hearthstone between the three major types of decks. This gets brought up whenever anybody says that a certain deck genre is bad for the game - control players typically complain about aggro and combo. Combo players typically complain about aggro. And aggro players typically complain about taunt and healing (taunt is cheating so that seems fair to complain about).
However if any single archetype gets removed, it offsets the balance of the game very very badly.
Aggro is excellent against combo > combo is excellent against control > control is excellent against aggro
Making the game go from a win-percentage that's close to rock-paper-scissors (that's not a good analogy for win percentages) to basically a coin flip (which in a game with 2 deck types is actually kind of accurate) in terms of how a deck will perform on ladder.
The nature of all games is that they're fun to play. Watching your opponent pop off and play for like 2 minutes uninterrupted is dull, not fun, and feels bad when they kill you during that time. Unfortunately that's only fun for the person playing the combo, and not the person on the other end. This is true in MTG and YuGiOh, both of which have decks that do that very thing. That's just a part of card games - although in other card games like the ones I mentioned, you can interact with your opponent on their turn. It's yet to be a true issue in Hearthstone that hasn't been able to be solved with nerfs or combo-killer cards like Dirty Rat, Tickatus, or Hecklebot.
please don't bully my son
I think you misunderstand me, i'm not against combo decks, i even specifically supported freeze mage in my post, i'm against otk combo decks. Since you can't interact with opponent's on their turn, there's no healthy way to counter them. Otk combo decks can only be countered in hearthstone by aggro (which is fine, but having it as the only counter to otk makes a rock paper scissors meta), or by disruption, which only has a random chance to remove the combo piece. Literally leaving the outcome of the game based on the chance that you played the disruption card on the right turn is not a healthy way to balance the game.
Anti combo cards are not really working really good... it is random and other times it stings to pull wrong minion and lose anyway because luck. Make Dirty Rat discover three minions from opponents hand and you pick one, then we can talk.
And no... Combo, control, aggro isn't the threeway, you threw midrange completely out of the window. Midrange was supposed to counter control with harder removable minions, some value, draw and keeping constant pressure. Aggro decks were supposed to jump on midrange.
HS has turned into hyper aggro and then combo decks (big priest is kinda combo deck too). Some solid board stuff doesn't happen that much, I remember my first days at HS playing 2/3 that summons that 1/1 beast and Savannah Lion and having fun doing chess with board.
As OP says, HS is in the end turn based game. Sometimes it really hurts that it doesn't have any instant reaction cards. Deathrattle decks counter control decks pretty good too. No need for combo decks, unless it is so complicated that you complete it once in 20 games or so.
"Minion to minion the basic of all combats, only a fool trusts his win to an OTK"
What is actually bad for this game are threads that explain to us what is bad for this game.
You face Jaraxxus, Eredar lord of the... sacrificial pact
I frankly don't give a toss if my otk deck is unfun for you or anyone else, to put it bluntly, I sure as hell have a blast playing it.
If you're in wild, tech in a dirty rat (like all reno decks do), a loatheb in your control deck or play any tier 1-2 aggro deck which has 60+ wr% against all combo decks and realise that if blizzard had any actual interest in making otk decks a thing of the past, mozaki and il'gynoth wouldn't exist.
Because, honestly, your solution is nuking otk decks out of the game which means that the only things left in wild (standard has no viable otk deck other than lifesteal dh, all-powerful tier 4 meme that it is) will be hyper aggro and control, with nothing else left. I also would like to hear what would you do about reno priest (which technically is an otk since they kill you from 30+hp in a single turn unless, guess what, you rat their spawn of shadows/raza out beforehand) or something like shudderwock (which, by all intents and purposes, is an otk in the sense that after you play the first one, the opponent is dead no matter what).
Made me lol when reading mecha'thun tho, I'll give you that, haven't seen that played in almost a year, the poor lad.
Yeah remove high dmg otk decks from the meta so we can go back to a fatigue control warrior meta with double elysianna and shit
I've said this already in this thread, but i'm not against combo decks, just otk combo decks. Decks like the og freeze mage are fine and should get support from blizz.
I don't think removing otk would just lead to aggro and control, there would also be midrange, and hopefully combo too. Plus there can be a lot of variation within those catagories.
Reno priest is majorly overtuned imo. I think unnerfing Raza the Chained was a big mistake. They should re-nerf it to make the hero power cost 1. I think reno style decks will continue to be a problem in the future as more cards that serve the same purpose will lessen the downside of only having 1 ofs. So other highlander cards may need to get adjusted as well
Shudderwock is also a problem card, i forgot about him in the original post. I'd make him repeat the 3 highest cost battlecries.
It doesn't matter that Mecha'thun isn't viable, otk decks shouldn't exist
Imagine talking about nerfing shudderwock. You're actually a clown.
In your mind the world works like that
All players : "Bouhoooouuuhouuuuu , shudderwock, otk druid and others are too strong. Let's just play odd paladin, secret mage and aggro decks so we don't lose to them"
You actually understand the meta pretty badly. If control decks aren't prevalent it's not because otk decks are too strong, it's because their cards are weak. Minions, board swarm cards and card draw engines are getting powercreeped from years to years while brawl is still the best board clear in warrior. You got some very powerfull board clear sometimes like psychic scream and defile but they are exceptionnal.
It's not about it being a currently meta card, it's about being uninteractive and bad for the game. And the reason it doesn't see play is because there are better otk decks out there.
OTK decks existing isn't a problem. The affect they have on the game and meta isn't bad for the game either. I'll agree that some have been a problem over Hearthstone's history ( Shudderwock ), but just like other overpowered cards/decks they were nerfed.
I also agree that there is a lot of variation in deck categories. Just because all 'Control decks' are likely to have AOE board clears and card draw doesn't mean they are anything like one another. All decks have their own strengths and weaknesses. You could nerf all OTK decks and w/e combo decks remained would likely still have matchups that they are overwhelmingly favored in.
Cards like like Dirty Rat and other tech choices are more than enough to fight back too. They aren't 100% effective and they shouldn't be either. They also have the draw back of making your deck weaker against most other decks. If you want to do better against a certain combo deck, but are unwilling to switch to a deck with a much better matchup, then you should have to make sacrifices. Same goes for every deck type. The tools exist to improve certain matchups, but they come at a cost.
The problem with the tech cards against otk combo decks is that by there very nature they are disruptive and unfun to play against, which is why cards like Dirty Rat and Tickatus are so hated by many even though they aren't all that powerful. Even if you're not playing a combo deck, disruption can be unfun, losing a N'zoth or some other big lategame win condition that you build your entire deck around sucks. And the worst part about it is that it's totally random, the entire outcome of a control vs otk deck is based on whether your opponent drew their combo piece in the wrong order and it got Tickatus, or whether Dirty Rat pulled out a crucial combo piece or a card that cycles. Explain to me how that's healthy for the game
It seems far more constructive to suggest potential nerfs to problematic decks than to simply post an opinion piece that "OTK decks shouldn't exist." Of course they should - millions of folks only play CCGs because they enjoy winning the game by doing convoluted deck manipulation and card sequencing that results in a big, sudden, gaming winning combo. "No they shouldn't - they should enjoy the game differently," isn't exactly a helpful attitude.
It's also worthwhile recognising that there are dozens of OTK decks "out there" in Tier 4 Wild - it isn't obvious that you understand how much nerfing is actually going to be necessary in your crusade. I'd suggest watching some Wild streamers, or Hysteria, in order to get some idea of the scope of the issue. You might as well start with Spectral Pillager - it might be the most popular OTK deck that you seem unaware of.
Here's a link to a Hysteria video, Top 10 OTK combos - you'll have to nerf cards like Lightning Bolt, Da Undertaker, Emperor Thaurissan, Mayor Noggenfogger, and dozens of others not in this particular video . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhBnqoF8BUQ
GLHF.