Well no, proving the card is balanced is on you considering I’ve put my case forward and you are telling me I’m wrong. You then are meant to explain why. That’s how these things work. You cannot just say “you are wrong” and then claim the burden of proof is on me to prove that I’m not without giving a counter argument. Why on Earth do you think thay would work?
This isn’t innocent until proven guilty and I’d highly suggest you don’t take courtroom debate tactics into the real world because they don’t fit.
@Scorpyon
One thing to add, as it’s hard to agree on these things when our views of what is balanced are different. I believe you, (and I assume Shadowrisen) are looking are looking at different perimeters when it comes to card balance. I assume more concern is shown to cards that are just flat out abusable.
A card could be “Casts when Drawn: Summon a 1/1” and it could technically be balanced in a similar way RSW is. All it would do is slightly increase the winrate of a deck it was placed in while have zero downsides (outside of edge scenarios). A lot of the same arguments for RSW could be used there too, as it doesn’t technically do anything really powerful, it just makes your deck more consistent.
And to reiterate, my issue is with Blizzard printing extremely overpowered cards in order to push deck archetypes instead of printing balanced cards and allowing us to figure out what to do with them. These kind of huge swing cards were originally restricted to Highlander decks but now they’re everywhere.
. . . don't sit here and tell me it represents an overpowered effect.
I mean, it kinda is dude, it got most things that are considered broken in card games: virtually costs 0, consistently thins your deck and still draws you cards. I don't think it's the most broken card in the deck, I don't even think it should be the one to get nerfed eventually, but the power level is absurd.
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I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
I understand the thinking proccess of some posters here in this thread. The game has progressed to such a bullshit level that people are actually okay with a "0 mana draw 2, your deck has 28 cards now".
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I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
Meh. After rising with APM Mage through Platinum that included a 12 game win streak, I have stalled out in Diamond 9-7. I am getting beat pretty regularly by a large variety of other aggro decks. Not sure if that's because the pool is better up here or has adapted to be aggro enough to compete or if I am being punished for my streak. So I am not really seeing a problem with the deck or any card in it.
I absolutely can say "you are wrong" and not offer an argument when there wasn't an argument offered in the first place OR in the case of the post that got me involved in this thread, when the feeble argument had been taken apart in a subsequent post and said subsequent post is ignored. Mind you, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about 3nnui
But looking at Darksider's post #63 illustrates why I'm not up for going into step by step balance discussion on every reply. We've moved to the point in this thread where we're just taking for granted that RSW is "free" and draws two cards. It certainly draws two cards, but it's only free if you remove all minions, weapons, and hero cards (for the wild fans) from your deck. There is certainly a deck that does this, so for that one deck it is free, but that is a relevant consideration when discussing balance
In standard, most of the use I'm seeing lately (since the Lunacy nerf) involves creatures in the deck, so sometimes it's free, sometimes it's 2 mana, sometimes it's 4 (at which point not only is it NOT OP, it's a direct nerf from Arcane Int). A real balance discussion would have to get into the probabilities of each and agree on general builds for popular decks etc etc etc. You didn't go into this detail. Neither did anyone else.
Btw, now that I think of it, didn't you KNOWINGLY post that the card cost no mana, when in reality that's only true in a certain percentage of use of the card? Was that another mistake, or was that one a lie?
If you're noticing a pattern, the above is not meant to suggest that every time someone posts they are obligated to go into all of the above considerations. But if you aren't going into them and shorthanding your point with inaccuracies built into it, then don't tell me I'm obligated to go thru it all.
By the way, there's no difference between courtroom arguments and real-world arguments except people's tolerance for what gets left unsaid. The real world would benefit greatly from an influx of detail and specificity in arguments.
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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.
And to reiterate, my issue is with Blizzard printing extremely overpowered cards in order to push deck archetypes instead of printing balanced cards and allowing us to figure out what to do with them. These kind of huge swing cards were originally restricted to Highlander decks but now they’re everywhere.
Given my stance on Highlander I'm not sure whether or not I'd prefer more Highlander cards be printed. I don't think there's a need, frankly, since "one copy of each card" is barely a limitation at all now. It's a tease - a trick to convince people there's a valid reason those cards are as insane as they are.
Also, since we're talking about deck building stipulations warranting power in card design; Refreshing Spring Water does that. In order to be "free" (which it will almost never be since it requires a minimum investment of mana) you need to draw only spells with it, which effects the way you build your deck in a similar way to Highlander. You want the maximum value from RSW? You've gotta lean heavily on spells in deckbuilding or it won't consistently work.
I won't argue it's not a very strong card, mind you. It's certainly strong. I also wouldn't call it a "swing card" per se, since it doesn't really effect the board or your opponent directly, and (generally) you still need to invest mana into whatever it is you're drawing (again, not always the case). I can't really compare it to Skull of Gul'dan or Y'Shaarj, the Defiler - cards that generate resources while also directly allowing those resources to effect the game in a way that's built in.
Maybe what I'm saying is dumb though, I dunno. I'm like half present in this thread, mentally.
It’s a swing card because it gives you an extra card in hand and pushes you 2 cards deeper into your deck for no mana. Combine it with other mana cheating cards and it can get silly.
Card advantage, health, board state, mana, and probably a few things I’ve missed all contribute to being ahead in a game. And if a card does something to affect those things well enough it can often swing the game in your favour. Secret Passage is an extreme example of how drawing cards alone can swing a game.
As for the rest, I’m not sure what you’re directing it at, but deck building themes/archetypes should be rewarded, Blizzard go so far over the top though. RSW would be a great card if it refreshed 1 mana per spell, it would be a 2-mana Arcane Intellect in Spell Mage, but maybe that wouldn’t have been strong enough to push the archetype so lets just make it a draw 2 for 0-mana to make sure.
@shadow
Another wall of text and still no argument. I’ve mentioned that the card isn’t free until turn 4, so I’m not sure how I’m lying there, or mistaken, or whatever else. As I’ve said, I’m trying to give a layman's explanation for how the card works in Spell Mage decks and that’s an easy way for people to conceptualise it. You’ll also notice that I have barely mentioned the broken combination it has with Enchanters Flow? I’m not just listing strengths and ignoring weaknesses here, just trying to distill the effect of the card into something that is easy to understand without getting into every nuance.
This all could have been hashed out and explained had you just posted your reasons why you thought I was wrong and you were right, you could have pointed out the 4-mana cost and I could have explained clearer, you could have asked me why I neglected to repeat the broken EF interaction, I would have told you. Instead we’re about 5 posts in and no further forwards. You do write well, but if you could just cut to the chase and layout the reasons why you consider the card balanced then that would be grand.
But looking at Darksider's post #63 illustrates why I'm not up for going into step by step balance discussion on every reply. We've moved to the point in this thread where we're just taking for granted that RSW is "free" and draws two cards. It certainly draws two cards, but it's only free if you remove all minions, weapons, and hero cards (for the wild fans) from your deck. There is certainly a deck that does this, so for that one deck it is free, but that is a relevant consideration when discussing balance
I don't play Standard, so granted that I probably only have "half" the needed knowledge, but I know that when discussing a card you have to take into consideration how often its effect actually works out and how much it impacts the game, and deck restrictions don't nullify this. It's somewhat comparable to Raza the Chained and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, not on power level but on the whole condition thing, these cards required a specific deckbuilding mindset to work as intended, meaning that only a few certain decks could utilize them, which still didn't prevent them from becoming over the top.
And even if we look at things from a Wild perspective, where Refreshing Spring Water is much stronger, we have Darkglare, and I know that it requires no special conditions to work, but given particular circumstances it absolutely needed to be changed, just because of ONE particular deck that could utilize it well.
What I'm saying here is that if a deck can abuse a card to the point where it suddenly becomes meta shortly after the printing of said card, it's worth taking a look and considering changes, even if because of just that one deck.
Anyway, I don't look forward for RSW to be nerfed, nor do I think it will be, if there's one card that needs to be changed since forever it's Sorcerer's Apprentice, but it seems like they prefer to change cards that works with it instead of just going for the main problem right away.
If you mean Incanter's Flow, that's obviously a part of spell mage, as well as the rest of the combos others have mentioned in wild.
My argument is I'm not the one responsible for making an argument. Anyone who has thrown out reasons for why the card is allegedly over powered has riddled their own posts with inaccuracies and downright fabrications or mistakes (doesn't really matter which).
You mention the card not being free as if the point was you had to wait till turn 4 to play it. I realize it's daunting making it 5 sentences into my wall of text, but if you had, you'd know that wasn't the point at all. The point is the card IS NOT FREE except in cases where the deck is only made of spells.
Honestly though, in one post you lament walls of text and ask for an argument. Pick one. I'm not going to handicap myself to a character count.
Better yet, just forget it. You're clearly convinced it's a broken card despite the deck you're insisting on discussing falling way out of favor. I've played hundreds of games since the Lunacy nerf and have run into single digit numbers of pure Spell Mage. I still see RSW in decks, because it's obviously a good card, but there are creatures in those decks, so insisting on calling it a free card is pointless to argue against.
But I posted all this in the "wall" so I don't know what good it's going to do here.
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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.
Well if we're confining the discussion to wild, I've never seen a deck with no minions used in that format. So yes, the way a single deck uses the card can be dispositive to balance if that deck is causing issues in the meta, BUT you'd have to get into the probabilities of what cost the card actually plays out to have based on how many minions usually appear in the deck.
I'm not sure whether it was this thread or one of the other MANY threads on this topic where I brought this up, but honestly, I think there's a much more substantial discussion to be had about Sorcerer's Apprentice than RSW when it comes to Wild balance. Having said that, there is another huge problem about confining a balance discussion to Wild.
That being, Wild requires a much larger issue than Standard does for the dev team to take action. I remember how long Naga Sea Witch was allowed to basically erase Wild as a viable format, and the idea that RSW is going to get a nerf based on Wild makes me giggle.
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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.
If you mean Incanter's Flow, that's obviously a part of spell mage, as well as the rest of the combos others have mentioned in wild.
My argument is I'm not the one responsible for making an argument. Anyone who has thrown out reasons for why the card is allegedly over powered has riddled their own posts with inaccuracies and downright fabrications or mistakes (doesn't really matter which).
You mention the card not being free as if the point was you had to wait till turn 4 to play it. I realize it's daunting making it 5 sentences into my wall of text, but if you had, you'd know that wasn't the point at all. The point is the card IS NOT FREE except in cases where the deck is only made of spells.
Honestly though, in one post you lament walls of text and ask for an argument. Pick one. I'm not going to handicap myself to a character count.
Better yet, just forget it. You're clearly convinced it's a broken card despite the deck you're insisting on discussing falling way out of favor. I've played hundreds of games since the Lunacy nerf and have run into single digit numbers of pure Spell Mage. I still see RSW in decks, because it's obviously a good card, but there are creatures in those decks, so insisting on calling it a free card is pointless to argue against.
But I posted all this in the "wall" so I don't know what good it's going to do here.
I don’t find it daunting making it 5 sentences into a wall of text. I find it daunting reading posts which only serve as self-fellation.
If you’d posted a wall of text that got to the point, instead of a heap of words trying to infer I’m a liar, or that my posts are ‘riddled with inaccuracies’, or whatever, then I would probably have enjoyed reading your insight. Alas that wasn’t the case. You have added absolutely nothing to the discussion.
This is pointless though. For anyone else reading however I’ll try and further explain my issues with balance in Hearthstone and in turn cards like RSW:
There are many ways to balance a game. One of Blizzard’s favourite ways of balancing Standard is to funnel us down narrow paths. The narrower the path, the easier it is to keep things in check. One way of achieving this is to choose an archetype (in this case No Minion Mage) and give it broken tools.
Think of it like a fighting game where we have 20 characters, but only 5 are viable. The other 15 don’t have access to frame rate glitching super punches or some shit, something the developers implemented to ensure their workload was reduced and they could focus their resources fully on fewer characters. When they believe it’s time to shake things up, they give another character a few super punches.
Now some people love this, “stop complaining, just pick X character and farm easy wins”. Meanwhile me and the rest of the low IQ peasants long for a game where all 20 characters are viable, we want the super punches removed and more effort put into balancing a character’s toolset across the board, this is no small indie company after all. We would call the 5 competitive characters and their super punches OP.
This is where Hearthstone is at, Shadow Priest isn’t viable because Blizzard haven’t given them their super punches yet, but they likely will in the future (one of the devs has hinted as much). They will likely give it a card or two that I would consider to be overpowered, the win rate of the deck however could still be fair.
There’s many reasons why I dislike this way of balancing things, but my main issues are that it stifles deck creativity and increases the amount of games where 1 card just wins the matchup.
Well, in keeping with that incredibly problematic analogy, as far as I'm aware no fighting game has ever managed to make 100% . . . or 50% . . . or even 30% at the higher levels of play . . . of the characters viable for competition.
Given that, perhaps it's up to the low IQ peasant (your words, not mine) to come up with a way to do so, rather than the folks who aren't complaining.
Any response relating back to Hearthstone will surely start pointing out the myriad of problems with this analogy to fighting games, but I didn't come up with it to start with.
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.
Anyway, I don't look forward for RSW to be nerfed, nor do I think it will be, if there's one card that needs to be changed since forever it's Sorcerer's Apprentice, but it seems like they prefer to change cards that works with it instead of just going for the main problem right away.
Apprentice has been a very toxic card for a while now, letting aggro mage empty their whole hand on turn 3 or, in the current meta, drawing their entire deck for free. I really think it should be (1) less, but not less than (1), but at the same time this completely kills off Antonidas exodia decks which are a fun meme deck so it'd be nice to preserve that combo somehow.
Nerfing apprentice also brings a lot of other implications with it. Radiant Elemental can do equally as disgusting things, it's just a matter of time until priest gets "free card draw" for APM priest to start terrorizing wild (it currently has to use auctioneer to get a 0 mana deck so it comes onlne much later).
On a completely unrelated note, if anyone else finds themselves fighting a losing battle with equal parts alcohol and opiates on the far side of midnight, take a listen to this. It's a clean link from the most beautiful and talented person I have the privilege of calling an ex.
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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.
In Scholomance I made this card. It was for Shaman and Mage. It doesn't exactly solve the OTK kill but if Mage is forced to use Apprentice sooner, he would be overloaded the next turn for the number of spells.
The solution would really be make it cost not lest then one. Mage has way too many cheaps spells, discover into discover that are becoming way too oppressive with Apprentice.
EDIT: Or make some Demon Apprentice that deals 1 damage to your hero when you cast spell, but it would be the same as todays apprentice but if you would be too low or opponent high at HP you die.
And spring water is free most of the time even if you run 4 minions (which waker mage does). Mana biscuit might be honestly even more problematic in the deck
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Well no, proving the card is balanced is on you considering I’ve put my case forward and you are telling me I’m wrong. You then are meant to explain why. That’s how these things work. You cannot just say “you are wrong” and then claim the burden of proof is on me to prove that I’m not without giving a counter argument. Why on Earth do you think thay would work?
This isn’t innocent until proven guilty and I’d highly suggest you don’t take courtroom debate tactics into the real world because they don’t fit.
@Scorpyon
One thing to add, as it’s hard to agree on these things when our views of what is balanced are different. I believe you, (and I assume Shadowrisen) are looking are looking at different perimeters when it comes to card balance. I assume more concern is shown to cards that are just flat out abusable.
A card could be “Casts when Drawn: Summon a 1/1” and it could technically be balanced in a similar way RSW is. All it would do is slightly increase the winrate of a deck it was placed in while have zero downsides (outside of edge scenarios). A lot of the same arguments for RSW could be used there too, as it doesn’t technically do anything really powerful, it just makes your deck more consistent.
And to reiterate, my issue is with Blizzard printing extremely overpowered cards in order to push deck archetypes instead of printing balanced cards and allowing us to figure out what to do with them. These kind of huge swing cards were originally restricted to Highlander decks but now they’re everywhere.
I mean, it kinda is dude, it got most things that are considered broken in card games: virtually costs 0, consistently thins your deck and still draws you cards. I don't think it's the most broken card in the deck, I don't even think it should be the one to get nerfed eventually, but the power level is absurd.
I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
I understand the thinking proccess of some posters here in this thread. The game has progressed to such a bullshit level that people are actually okay with a "0 mana draw 2, your deck has 28 cards now".
I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
Meh. After rising with APM Mage through Platinum that included a 12 game win streak, I have stalled out in Diamond 9-7. I am getting beat pretty regularly by a large variety of other aggro decks. Not sure if that's because the pool is better up here or has adapted to be aggro enough to compete or if I am being punished for my streak. So I am not really seeing a problem with the deck or any card in it.
Retarded Devs made the game "created by" instead of building a proper deck to play with, maybe to keep unskilled players interested into the game.
@Kinky
I absolutely can say "you are wrong" and not offer an argument when there wasn't an argument offered in the first place OR in the case of the post that got me involved in this thread, when the feeble argument had been taken apart in a subsequent post and said subsequent post is ignored. Mind you, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about 3nnui
But looking at Darksider's post #63 illustrates why I'm not up for going into step by step balance discussion on every reply. We've moved to the point in this thread where we're just taking for granted that RSW is "free" and draws two cards. It certainly draws two cards, but it's only free if you remove all minions, weapons, and hero cards (for the wild fans) from your deck. There is certainly a deck that does this, so for that one deck it is free, but that is a relevant consideration when discussing balance
In standard, most of the use I'm seeing lately (since the Lunacy nerf) involves creatures in the deck, so sometimes it's free, sometimes it's 2 mana, sometimes it's 4 (at which point not only is it NOT OP, it's a direct nerf from Arcane Int). A real balance discussion would have to get into the probabilities of each and agree on general builds for popular decks etc etc etc. You didn't go into this detail. Neither did anyone else.
Btw, now that I think of it, didn't you KNOWINGLY post that the card cost no mana, when in reality that's only true in a certain percentage of use of the card? Was that another mistake, or was that one a lie?
If you're noticing a pattern, the above is not meant to suggest that every time someone posts they are obligated to go into all of the above considerations. But if you aren't going into them and shorthanding your point with inaccuracies built into it, then don't tell me I'm obligated to go thru it all.
By the way, there's no difference between courtroom arguments and real-world arguments except people's tolerance for what gets left unsaid. The real world would benefit greatly from an influx of detail and specificity in arguments.
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.
Well it's a good thing this isn't the real world; it's an online forum about a digital card game. This is pretty disconnected from the real world.
Given my stance on Highlander I'm not sure whether or not I'd prefer more Highlander cards be printed. I don't think there's a need, frankly, since "one copy of each card" is barely a limitation at all now. It's a tease - a trick to convince people there's a valid reason those cards are as insane as they are.
Also, since we're talking about deck building stipulations warranting power in card design;
Refreshing Spring Water does that. In order to be "free" (which it will almost never be since it requires a minimum investment of mana) you need to draw only spells with it, which effects the way you build your deck in a similar way to Highlander. You want the maximum value from RSW? You've gotta lean heavily on spells in deckbuilding or it won't consistently work.
I won't argue it's not a very strong card, mind you. It's certainly strong. I also wouldn't call it a "swing card" per se, since it doesn't really effect the board or your opponent directly, and (generally) you still need to invest mana into whatever it is you're drawing (again, not always the case). I can't really compare it to Skull of Gul'dan or Y'Shaarj, the Defiler - cards that generate resources while also directly allowing those resources to effect the game in a way that's built in.
Maybe what I'm saying is dumb though, I dunno. I'm like half present in this thread, mentally.
please don't bully my son
It’s a swing card because it gives you an extra card in hand and pushes you 2 cards deeper into your deck for no mana. Combine it with other mana cheating cards and it can get silly.
Card advantage, health, board state, mana, and probably a few things I’ve missed all contribute to being ahead in a game. And if a card does something to affect those things well enough it can often swing the game in your favour. Secret Passage is an extreme example of how drawing cards alone can swing a game.
As for the rest, I’m not sure what you’re directing it at, but deck building themes/archetypes should be rewarded, Blizzard go so far over the top though. RSW would be a great card if it refreshed 1 mana per spell, it would be a 2-mana Arcane Intellect in Spell Mage, but maybe that wouldn’t have been strong enough to push the archetype so lets just make it a draw 2 for 0-mana to make sure.
@shadow
Another wall of text and still no argument. I’ve mentioned that the card isn’t free until turn 4, so I’m not sure how I’m lying there, or mistaken, or whatever else. As I’ve said, I’m trying to give a layman's explanation for how the card works in Spell Mage decks and that’s an easy way for people to conceptualise it. You’ll also notice that I have barely mentioned the broken combination it has with Enchanters Flow? I’m not just listing strengths and ignoring weaknesses here, just trying to distill the effect of the card into something that is easy to understand without getting into every nuance.
This all could have been hashed out and explained had you just posted your reasons why you thought I was wrong and you were right, you could have pointed out the 4-mana cost and I could have explained clearer, you could have asked me why I neglected to repeat the broken EF interaction, I would have told you. Instead we’re about 5 posts in and no further forwards. You do write well, but if you could just cut to the chase and layout the reasons why you consider the card balanced then that would be grand.
I don't play Standard, so granted that I probably only have "half" the needed knowledge, but I know that when discussing a card you have to take into consideration how often its effect actually works out and how much it impacts the game, and deck restrictions don't nullify this. It's somewhat comparable to Raza the Chained and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, not on power level but on the whole condition thing, these cards required a specific deckbuilding mindset to work as intended, meaning that only a few certain decks could utilize them, which still didn't prevent them from becoming over the top.
And even if we look at things from a Wild perspective, where Refreshing Spring Water is much stronger, we have Darkglare, and I know that it requires no special conditions to work, but given particular circumstances it absolutely needed to be changed, just because of ONE particular deck that could utilize it well.
What I'm saying here is that if a deck can abuse a card to the point where it suddenly becomes meta shortly after the printing of said card, it's worth taking a look and considering changes, even if because of just that one deck.
Anyway, I don't look forward for RSW to be nerfed, nor do I think it will be, if there's one card that needs to be changed since forever it's Sorcerer's Apprentice, but it seems like they prefer to change cards that works with it instead of just going for the main problem right away.
I love you Dreadsteed, I will never disenchant you!
If you mean Incanter's Flow, that's obviously a part of spell mage, as well as the rest of the combos others have mentioned in wild.
My argument is I'm not the one responsible for making an argument. Anyone who has thrown out reasons for why the card is allegedly over powered has riddled their own posts with inaccuracies and downright fabrications or mistakes (doesn't really matter which).
You mention the card not being free as if the point was you had to wait till turn 4 to play it. I realize it's daunting making it 5 sentences into my wall of text, but if you had, you'd know that wasn't the point at all. The point is the card IS NOT FREE except in cases where the deck is only made of spells.
Honestly though, in one post you lament walls of text and ask for an argument. Pick one. I'm not going to handicap myself to a character count.
Better yet, just forget it. You're clearly convinced it's a broken card despite the deck you're insisting on discussing falling way out of favor. I've played hundreds of games since the Lunacy nerf and have run into single digit numbers of pure Spell Mage. I still see RSW in decks, because it's obviously a good card, but there are creatures in those decks, so insisting on calling it a free card is pointless to argue against.
But I posted all this in the "wall" so I don't know what good it's going to do here.
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.
@Darksider
Well if we're confining the discussion to wild, I've never seen a deck with no minions used in that format. So yes, the way a single deck uses the card can be dispositive to balance if that deck is causing issues in the meta, BUT you'd have to get into the probabilities of what cost the card actually plays out to have based on how many minions usually appear in the deck.
I'm not sure whether it was this thread or one of the other MANY threads on this topic where I brought this up, but honestly, I think there's a much more substantial discussion to be had about Sorcerer's Apprentice than RSW when it comes to Wild balance. Having said that, there is another huge problem about confining a balance discussion to Wild.
That being, Wild requires a much larger issue than Standard does for the dev team to take action. I remember how long Naga Sea Witch was allowed to basically erase Wild as a viable format, and the idea that RSW is going to get a nerf based on Wild makes me giggle.
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.
I don’t find it daunting making it 5 sentences into a wall of text. I find it daunting reading posts which only serve as self-fellation.
If you’d posted a wall of text that got to the point, instead of a heap of words trying to infer I’m a liar, or that my posts are ‘riddled with inaccuracies’, or whatever, then I would probably have enjoyed reading your insight. Alas that wasn’t the case. You have added absolutely nothing to the discussion.
This is pointless though. For anyone else reading however I’ll try and further explain my issues with balance in Hearthstone and in turn cards like RSW:
There are many ways to balance a game. One of Blizzard’s favourite ways of balancing Standard is to funnel us down narrow paths. The narrower the path, the easier it is to keep things in check. One way of achieving this is to choose an archetype (in this case No Minion Mage) and give it broken tools.
Think of it like a fighting game where we have 20 characters, but only 5 are viable. The other 15 don’t have access to frame rate glitching super punches or some shit, something the developers implemented to ensure their workload was reduced and they could focus their resources fully on fewer characters. When they believe it’s time to shake things up, they give another character a few super punches.
Now some people love this, “stop complaining, just pick X character and farm easy wins”. Meanwhile me and the rest of the low IQ peasants long for a game where all 20 characters are viable, we want the super punches removed and more effort put into balancing a character’s toolset across the board, this is no small indie company after all. We would call the 5 competitive characters and their super punches OP.
This is where Hearthstone is at, Shadow Priest isn’t viable because Blizzard haven’t given them their super punches yet, but they likely will in the future (one of the devs has hinted as much). They will likely give it a card or two that I would consider to be overpowered, the win rate of the deck however could still be fair.
There’s many reasons why I dislike this way of balancing things, but my main issues are that it stifles deck creativity and increases the amount of games where 1 card just wins the matchup.
Well, in keeping with that incredibly problematic analogy, as far as I'm aware no fighting game has ever managed to make 100% . . . or 50% . . . or even 30% at the higher levels of play . . . of the characters viable for competition.
Given that, perhaps it's up to the low IQ peasant (your words, not mine) to come up with a way to do so, rather than the folks who aren't complaining.
Any response relating back to Hearthstone will surely start pointing out the myriad of problems with this analogy to fighting games, but I didn't come up with it to start with.
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Apprentice has been a very toxic card for a while now, letting aggro mage empty their whole hand on turn 3 or, in the current meta, drawing their entire deck for free. I really think it should be (1) less, but not less than (1), but at the same time this completely kills off Antonidas exodia decks which are a fun meme deck so it'd be nice to preserve that combo somehow.
Nerfing apprentice also brings a lot of other implications with it. Radiant Elemental can do equally as disgusting things, it's just a matter of time until priest gets "free card draw" for APM priest to start terrorizing wild (it currently has to use auctioneer to get a 0 mana deck so it comes onlne much later).
Even if Mage is still the only class can play in Hearthstone
I still play this game.
Mage is more RNG and more RNG is more fun
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On a completely unrelated note, if anyone else finds themselves fighting a losing battle with equal parts alcohol and opiates on the far side of midnight, take a listen to this. It's a clean link from the most beautiful and talented person I have the privilege of calling an ex.
The Pretty Reckless - 25 (unplugged)
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.
In Scholomance I made this card. It was for Shaman and Mage. It doesn't exactly solve the OTK kill but if Mage is forced to use Apprentice sooner, he would be overloaded the next turn for the number of spells.
The solution would really be make it cost not lest then one. Mage has way too many cheaps spells, discover into discover that are becoming way too oppressive with Apprentice.
EDIT: Or make some Demon Apprentice that deals 1 damage to your hero when you cast spell, but it would be the same as todays apprentice but if you would be too low or opponent high at HP you die.
"Minion to minion the basic of all combats, only a fool trusts his win to an OTK"
Nice try there is no auctioneer in it
And spring water is free most of the time even if you run 4 minions (which waker mage does). Mana biscuit might be honestly even more problematic in the deck