I think most people can agree that disruption cards are unfun to play against, which is why there's an outsized outcry when disruption cards are good. However, with the way some combo decks are designed, disruptive cards are necessary in order to counter them other than just killing your opponent faster. So, i think combo decks should be designed in such a way that they can be countered without just killing them faster or disruption cards.
Some examples of this would be classic mode warrior Raging Worgen otk, which can be countered with taunts, Blackrock mountain era Grim Patron Warrior, which also could be countered with taunts, classic freeze mage, which could be countered by healing after Alexstrasza, and APM mage with Flamewaker, which can be countered by having enough minions on board (though it might be a bit overtuned rn).
So, why not just let aggro be the counter to combo, and combo be the counter to control? Well, it's perfectly fine for a deck to counter another deck, but it's not ideal for a matchup to be 90%+ favored for one side because then the outcome of the match is pretty much just determined by who you match into rather than how your play, which is boring to play when you're favored, and annoying to play when you're not. The combo decks that completely ignore whatever you have on board tend to have extremely lopsided matchups because of the nature of their combos, and will either completely push out value control decks out of the meta, or the control deck has to have extremely lopsided matchups against the rest of the meta to compensate; causing a rock paper scissors meta where it doesn't matter how you play, it only matters who you play.
designing combo decks this way also frees up design space, allowing them to make better anti-aggro cards for combo classes without fear that it will completely take over the meta. It also means that you won't need disruption cards which are unfun to play against.
I've said this before but in short disruption and mill are not problems in of themselves. The problem is that there is no counterplay to them. Obviously since combo is the most dependent on having all their cards to work it feels like it targets them in particular, but in truth it sprays wide. Combo has to have a way to regain lost pieces fairly reliably. But regaining what you had does not boost your ultimate goal, on the contrary it is an expensive fix. This way disruption weakens combo without killing it outright. As is if Antonidas or Ill'gynoth get milled it is a virtual insta-loss.
I've said this before but in short disruption and mill are not problems in of themselves. The problem is that there is no counterplay to them. Obviously since combo is the most dependent on having all their cards to work it feels like it targets them in particular, but in truth it sprays wide. Combo has to have a way to regain lost pieces fairly reliably. But regaining what you had does not boost your ultimate goal, on the contrary it is an expensive fix. This way disruption weakens combo without killing it outright. As is if Antonidas or Ill'gynoth get milled it is a virtual insta-loss.
Tell me, how is there supposed to be counterplay to them? Even if there was, then you'd go back to rock paper scissors meta with combo beating control since they can beat disruption, control beating aggro, and aggro beating combo. If combo decks are uninteractable and don't care whatsoever what's on the board, the only way to stop them is with disruption. As you alluded to, disruption is also uninteractable, which makes it unfun to play against, but if combo could circumvent it, there would be no point to it
I've said this before but in short disruption and mill are not problems in of themselves. The problem is that there is no counterplay to them. Obviously since combo is the most dependent on having all their cards to work it feels like it targets them in particular, but in truth it sprays wide. Combo has to have a way to regain lost pieces fairly reliably. But regaining what you had does not boost your ultimate goal, on the contrary it is an expensive fix. This way disruption weakens combo without killing it outright. As is if Antonidas or Ill'gynoth get milled it is a virtual insta-loss.
Tell me, how is there supposed to be counterplay to them? Even if there was, then you'd go back to rock paper scissors meta with combo beating control since they can beat disruption, control beating aggro, and aggro beating combo. If combo decks are uninteractable and don't care whatsoever what's on the board, the only way to stop them is with disruption. As you alluded to, disruption is also uninteractable, which makes it unfun to play against, but if combo could circumvent it, there would be no point to it
Because getting back what you already had does not further your win condition, it just fixes damage. If you were sure you won't face disruption you'd never run those graveyard recovery cards would you? You would streamline your deck further to have more removal, survival, draw or redundancy to boost the odds of the combo happening. So including disruption becomes a tech choice to combat combo, and they respond with anti-disruption measures. The disruption cards help raise the winrate against combo but weaken it against other matchups, meanwhile the recovery cards combo starts to run dilute their deck and lower their overall winrate but prevent auto-loss situations. Through trial and error the two sides will find an acceptable middleground between adding more tech to boost that matchup and cutting tech to boost overall matchups. It is a push and pull. Kind of like how slower decks run taunt, which they don't want, to counter face decks. Who in turn run cards like Hunter's Mark, which they don't want, since they know they will run into taunt and other big things that must die before smorc. Make sense?
combo decks don't have 90% winrate even against their best matchup. Il'gynoth otk is not that good, and the counterplay to it is to develop aggressive boards which force them to sacrifice combo pieces.
combo decks don't have 90% winrate even against their best matchup. Il'gynoth otk is not that good, and the counterplay to it is to develop aggressive boards which force them to sacrifice combo pieces.
There are two big reasons why it's not that good, 1; all the best decks are aggro or midrange atm. 2: it relies on Skull of Gul'dan for its cost reduction, meaning you'll either have to sacrifice combo pieces or skip the cost reduction. To do the combo without Skull of Gul'dan is quite difficult and requires at least 5 cards the turn you play it and a preplayed Raging Felscreamer
tldr, it's because outcast is a bad mechanic for anything non-aggresive
Developing aggresive boards doesn't matter if they have their combo already, so i'd hardly call it counterplay, and thinking that way when it comes to card design means that decks that are unable to develop aggressive boards fast enough, like control decks will just lose. It limits card design because if you gave the deck a good way of dealing with aggresive decks, it would dominate the meta.
while lifesteal demon hunter suffers from inconsistency from draw order because of outcast, one thing it definitely does have is unwinnable matchups like secret paladin which it has a 20% winrate against which isn't fun or interesting for either person playing.
OTK Demon Hunter is not a bad deck. It performs poorly overall because it's a very hard deck to pilot and those who play it do tons of misplays. From basic ones like missing lethal by failing to correctly count how much damage you have and for how much mana, casually playing 'the green card' which often is Double Jump or Illidari Studies on t1 without having a plan in case you draw or discover a Skull (tip: don't do this unless you can easily dump your other 3 cards on the left within the next 3-4 turns) or more 'advanced' ones like knowing when it is worth using your combo pieces to survive and clear the board and switching to an alternative win condition (check e.g. how NoHandsGamer beat the Rush Warrior today in the GMs after developing a board full of 3/5 Mo'Args, and used his last lifesteal spell to clear the enemy board).
Paladins (primarily Libram though) are not the best matchup for this deck, but it is nowhere near 20% (more like 40-45%). The only other true counter this deck has is Priest with Illucia. But again many decks outside of high legend don't run Illucia and those who do often don't know how/when to play it
OTK Demon Hunter is not a bad deck. It performs poorly overall because it's a very hard deck to pilot and those who play it do tons of misplays. From basic ones like missing lethal by failing to correctly count how much damage you have and for how much mana, casually playing 'the green card' which often is Double Jump or Illidari Studies on t1 without having a plan in case you draw or discover a Skull (tip: don't do this unless you can easily dump your other 3 cards on the left within the next 3-4 turns) or more 'advanced' ones like knowing when it is worth using your combo pieces to survive and clear the board and switching to an alternative win condition (check e.g. how NoHandsGamer beat the Rush Warrior today in the GMs after developing a board full of 3/5 Mo'Args, and used his last lifesteal spell to clear the enemy board).
Paladins (primarily Libram though) are not the best matchup for this deck, but it is nowhere near 20% (more like 40-45%). The only other true counter this deck has is Priest with Illucia. But again many decks outside of high legend don't run Illucia and those who do often don't know how/when to play it
i got the 20% from hs replay, but yeah, it's also very hard to pilot like many combo decks
OTK DH may be one of the best decks of the meta among with Miracle Rogue, but the skill required for actually having success with it is high legend minimum.
I've said this before but in short disruption and mill are not problems in of themselves. The problem is that there is no counterplay to them. Obviously since combo is the most dependent on having all their cards to work it feels like it targets them in particular, but in truth it sprays wide. Combo has to have a way to regain lost pieces fairly reliably. But regaining what you had does not boost your ultimate goal, on the contrary it is an expensive fix. This way disruption weakens combo without killing it outright. As is if Antonidas or Ill'gynoth get milled it is a virtual insta-loss.
Tell me, how is there supposed to be counterplay to them? Even if there was, then you'd go back to rock paper scissors meta with combo beating control since they can beat disruption, control beating aggro, and aggro beating combo. If combo decks are uninteractable and don't care whatsoever what's on the board, the only way to stop them is with disruption. As you alluded to, disruption is also uninteractable, which makes it unfun to play against, but if combo could circumvent it, there would be no point to it
Because getting back what you already had does not further your win condition, it just fixes damage. If you were sure you won't face disruption you'd never run those graveyard recovery cards would you? You would streamline your deck further to have more removal, survival, draw or redundancy to boost the odds of the combo happening. So including disruption becomes a tech choice to combat combo, and they respond with anti-disruption measures. The disruption cards help raise the winrate against combo but weaken it against other matchups, meanwhile the recovery cards combo starts to run dilute their deck and lower their overall winrate but prevent auto-loss situations. Through trial and error the two sides will find an acceptable middleground between adding more tech to boost that matchup and cutting tech to boost overall matchups. It is a push and pull. Kind of like how slower decks run taunt, which they don't want, to counter face decks. Who in turn run cards like Hunter's Mark, which they don't want, since they know they will run into taunt and other big things that must die before smorc. Make sense?
it does make sense, but that kind of counterplay doesn't sound fun at all, as the control player you'd have to run even more disruption to have a chance against a combo deck that can recover combo pieces. This is not what you should want, disruption is inherently unfun, being forced to run it to not automatically lose matchups is also not fun. It would be far better design to make combo decks' combos be preventable by the board state than going through all these hoops of disruption and counter-disruption. Having counterplay to combo decks be disruption makes that matchup a diceroll on whether you disrupt the right card or not rather than the push and pull of the control deck trying to prevent getting comboed by having enough minions or whatnot and the combo deck having to manage resources so they can still combo while dealing with what your opponent is doing.
I think most people can agree that disruption cards are unfun to play against, which is why there's an outsized outcry when disruption cards are good. However, with the way some combo decks are designed, disruptive cards are necessary in order to counter them other than just killing your opponent faster. So, i think combo decks should be designed in such a way that they can be countered without just killing them faster or disruption cards.
Some examples of this would be classic mode warrior Raging Worgen otk, which can be countered with taunts, Blackrock mountain era Grim Patron Warrior, which also could be countered with taunts, classic freeze mage, which could be countered by healing after Alexstrasza, and APM mage with Flamewaker, which can be countered by having enough minions on board (though it might be a bit overtuned rn).
Some combo decks that are counterexamples would be Il'gynoth otk, any Malygos otk, Mozaki, Master Duelist otk, and Archmage Antonidas Sorcerer's Apprentice infinite
So, why not just let aggro be the counter to combo, and combo be the counter to control? Well, it's perfectly fine for a deck to counter another deck, but it's not ideal for a matchup to be 90%+ favored for one side because then the outcome of the match is pretty much just determined by who you match into rather than how your play, which is boring to play when you're favored, and annoying to play when you're not. The combo decks that completely ignore whatever you have on board tend to have extremely lopsided matchups because of the nature of their combos, and will either completely push out value control decks out of the meta, or the control deck has to have extremely lopsided matchups against the rest of the meta to compensate; causing a rock paper scissors meta where it doesn't matter how you play, it only matters who you play.
designing combo decks this way also frees up design space, allowing them to make better anti-aggro cards for combo classes without fear that it will completely take over the meta. It also means that you won't need disruption cards which are unfun to play against.
I think sustain is a huge factor. OTK should be a gamble, if it has sustain it's less of a gamble.
If you know whats coming you try to pressure them but if they just refuse to drop low it feels like there isnt much you could do.
Though imho the number of OTK in standard is not high enough to be a serious Problem.
I've said this before but in short disruption and mill are not problems in of themselves. The problem is that there is no counterplay to them. Obviously since combo is the most dependent on having all their cards to work it feels like it targets them in particular, but in truth it sprays wide. Combo has to have a way to regain lost pieces fairly reliably. But regaining what you had does not boost your ultimate goal, on the contrary it is an expensive fix. This way disruption weakens combo without killing it outright. As is if Antonidas or Ill'gynoth get milled it is a virtual insta-loss.
Tell me, how is there supposed to be counterplay to them? Even if there was, then you'd go back to rock paper scissors meta with combo beating control since they can beat disruption, control beating aggro, and aggro beating combo. If combo decks are uninteractable and don't care whatsoever what's on the board, the only way to stop them is with disruption. As you alluded to, disruption is also uninteractable, which makes it unfun to play against, but if combo could circumvent it, there would be no point to it
Because getting back what you already had does not further your win condition, it just fixes damage. If you were sure you won't face disruption you'd never run those graveyard recovery cards would you? You would streamline your deck further to have more removal, survival, draw or redundancy to boost the odds of the combo happening. So including disruption becomes a tech choice to combat combo, and they respond with anti-disruption measures. The disruption cards help raise the winrate against combo but weaken it against other matchups, meanwhile the recovery cards combo starts to run dilute their deck and lower their overall winrate but prevent auto-loss situations. Through trial and error the two sides will find an acceptable middleground between adding more tech to boost that matchup and cutting tech to boost overall matchups. It is a push and pull. Kind of like how slower decks run taunt, which they don't want, to counter face decks. Who in turn run cards like Hunter's Mark, which they don't want, since they know they will run into taunt and other big things that must die before smorc. Make sense?
combo decks don't have 90% winrate even against their best matchup. Il'gynoth otk is not that good, and the counterplay to it is to develop aggressive boards which force them to sacrifice combo pieces.
There are two big reasons why it's not that good, 1; all the best decks are aggro or midrange atm. 2: it relies on Skull of Gul'dan for its cost reduction, meaning you'll either have to sacrifice combo pieces or skip the cost reduction. To do the combo without Skull of Gul'dan is quite difficult and requires at least 5 cards the turn you play it and a preplayed Raging Felscreamer
tldr, it's because outcast is a bad mechanic for anything non-aggresive
Developing aggresive boards doesn't matter if they have their combo already, so i'd hardly call it counterplay, and thinking that way when it comes to card design means that decks that are unable to develop aggressive boards fast enough, like control decks will just lose. It limits card design because if you gave the deck a good way of dealing with aggresive decks, it would dominate the meta.
while lifesteal demon hunter suffers from inconsistency from draw order because of outcast, one thing it definitely does have is unwinnable matchups like secret paladin which it has a 20% winrate against which isn't fun or interesting for either person playing.
OTK Demon Hunter is not a bad deck. It performs poorly overall because it's a very hard deck to pilot and those who play it do tons of misplays. From basic ones like missing lethal by failing to correctly count how much damage you have and for how much mana, casually playing 'the green card' which often is Double Jump or Illidari Studies on t1 without having a plan in case you draw or discover a Skull (tip: don't do this unless you can easily dump your other 3 cards on the left within the next 3-4 turns) or more 'advanced' ones like knowing when it is worth using your combo pieces to survive and clear the board and switching to an alternative win condition (check e.g. how NoHandsGamer beat the Rush Warrior today in the GMs after developing a board full of 3/5 Mo'Args, and used his last lifesteal spell to clear the enemy board).
Paladins (primarily Libram though) are not the best matchup for this deck, but it is nowhere near 20% (more like 40-45%). The only other true counter this deck has is Priest with Illucia. But again many decks outside of high legend don't run Illucia and those who do often don't know how/when to play it
i got the 20% from hs replay, but yeah, it's also very hard to pilot like many combo decks
OTK DH may be one of the best decks of the meta among with Miracle Rogue, but the skill required for actually having success with it is high legend minimum.
it does make sense, but that kind of counterplay doesn't sound fun at all, as the control player you'd have to run even more disruption to have a chance against a combo deck that can recover combo pieces. This is not what you should want, disruption is inherently unfun, being forced to run it to not automatically lose matchups is also not fun. It would be far better design to make combo decks' combos be preventable by the board state than going through all these hoops of disruption and counter-disruption. Having counterplay to combo decks be disruption makes that matchup a diceroll on whether you disrupt the right card or not rather than the push and pull of the control deck trying to prevent getting comboed by having enough minions or whatnot and the combo deck having to manage resources so they can still combo while dealing with what your opponent is doing.
Voljin is an underrated card that can break combo decks, but nobody use it.
That's not the point of this thread