Ok this is how broken the meta is now for both wild and standard. And it's just few hours from patch. I just CAN'T imagine how bad you playtest things if you ever even do....
If i was a suprerior for team 5, i fired them all immediately. HS has seen a lot of over the top things but situation now is just absurd.
Agreed. When I saw the nerfs posted the other day, that was my immediate gut feeling: This didn't address the issue (standard or wild) at its root. Look, I'm fine losing a game, often times with that old "If I would have had just one more turn..." feeling that you were almost there. Nope: This degenerate Warlock deck is just a tilt-ingly bad experience to play against.
A replay from just a little bit ago, where I died from a Stealer of Souls into a Hand of Gul'dan BEFORE the cards from that draw were even played. The issue is that games like this feel like two player games up until this turn and then you are just watching someone play solitaire while you click through animations to speed things along. And afterwards it's just ".... What the fuck, why bother." And as these forums have suggested there are MYRIAD ways to nudge the quest into something that's tolerable for any deck or any format.
I don't think we necessarily need a meta where games go past turn 10, except when both players whiff on their combos. But some cool win conditions are basically unplayable before turn 10, like Cthun or Priest Quest. And the non-viability of those saddens me.
So which is it? Why even let players get to 10 mana crystals? Why even print 10-Cost cards?
If they changed maximum mana to 7 crystals, how long before people start saying a 7-turn game is way too long?
Quests should be free, not take up a card slot and both players should start with 3 crystals, like battlegrounds. Nobody wants games to last more than four turns.
Speak for yourself. I love games that go on past turn 10 and have a constant back and forth power struggle.
I believe the will have to rework the Warlock quest entirely, even if the support cards are weak the quest itself is very deranged, you don't need to make any compromise for the powerful effect, as every single card double as quest progress and wincon, so does your hero power. Unlike the other quests(yes, even the mage one) where you had to cram your deck with cards that advances the quest progress and your actual wincon cards to use with the quest rewards.
So the nerfs were fucking useless. Most quests are really stupid and retardedly designed.
They purposedly pushed the meta for games to last 6 turns. This clearly was a top down decision. Probably the game was not growing in the number of players so the abusive, stupid, women harrassing bosses decided that the game should be more like a mobile game and the matches should last at most 5 minutes.
Warlock and mage quests are fundamentaly imbecile: they remove fatigue from the game.. Aside from that, most quests are unbeleavably easy to complete by turn 5 or 6.. and the rewards are ridiculously broken (hunter wtf).. What made old quests fun is that they were hard to complete, you took some time and risks to get interesting and balanced rewards.
Whats more, these broken quests made other decks unplayable. You either play the overpowered quests or some broken ass aggro deck that kills your opponent at turn 5 so they cant kill you at turn 6... Most cards are useless now.. and for the upcoming expansions as well. Unless they actually nerf the quests, for the next year and a half the meta will be like this.
Fuck Blizzard, fuck Acrivision, fuck the CEOs and their stupid decisions.
I, for one, welcome our Paladin overlords. It wasn’t fun and interactive to lose to combo decks so now it’s fun to lose to Paladin as a combo deck buffing minions all game and then sticking 1-2 minions to deal 20+.
I think time will show they were worse than useless for Standard balance. They nerfed the Paladin Windfury Conviction combo harder than they nerfed the combo decks that Windfury Conviction was holding back. Good Guy Paladin was one of the keys keeping the format from being even more degenerate, and they nerfed that harder than anything else.
I agree with others in that Warlock quest should be reworked. At least fatigue damage shouldn't be affected by the reward. Stealer of Souls is a huge problem cars that should've never been printed. I hope it will be heavily nerfed, reworked or removed from the game. That, and a proper nerf for Flesh Giant (bump up to 10 mana). There will for sure be a balance patch in 2 weeks but I think an emergency patch should take place before that. I don't think that's likely though.
Other than Warlock I'm pretty satisfied with current meta. Quest Mage is still a bit irritating to face but Incanter's Flow nerf had a psychological effect on players and seems that many do not like to play it anymore. The same goes for Il'gynoth and OTK Demon Hunter, a deck that should've never existed.
Ok this is how broken the meta is now for both wild and standard. And it's just few hours from patch. I just CAN'T imagine how bad you playtest things if you ever even do....
If i was a suprerior for team 5, i fired them all immediately. HS has seen a lot of over the top things but situation now is just absurd.
Agreed. When I saw the nerfs posted the other day, that was my immediate gut feeling: This didn't address the issue (standard or wild) at its root. Look, I'm fine losing a game, often times with that old "If I would have had just one more turn..." feeling that you were almost there. Nope: This degenerate Warlock deck is just a tilt-ingly bad experience to play against.
A replay from just a little bit ago, where I died from a Stealer of Souls into a Hand of Gul'dan BEFORE the cards from that draw were even played. The issue is that games like this feel like two player games up until this turn and then you are just watching someone play solitaire while you click through animations to speed things along. And afterwards it's just ".... What the fuck, why bother." And as these forums have suggested there are MYRIAD ways to nudge the quest into something that's tolerable for any deck or any format.
So the nerfs were fucking useless. Most quests are really stupid and retardedly designed.
They purposedly pushed the meta for games to last 6 turns. This clearly was a top down decision. Probably the game was not growing in the number of players so the abusive, stupid, women harrassing bosses decided that the game should be more like a mobile game and the matches should last at most 5 minutes.
Warlock and mage quests are fundamentaly imbecile: they remove fatigue from the game.. Aside from that, most quests are unbeleavably easy to complete by turn 5 or 6.. and the rewards are ridiculously broken (hunter wtf).. What made old quests fun is that they were hard to complete, you took some time and risks to get interesting and balanced rewards.
Whats more, these broken quests made other decks unplayable. You either play the overpowered quests or some broken ass aggro deck that kills your opponent at turn 5 so they cant kill you at turn 6... Most cards are useless now.. and for the upcoming expansions as well. Unless they actually nerf the quests, for the next year and a half the meta will be like this.
Fuck Blizzard, fuck Acrivision, fuck the CEOs and their stupid decisions.
I think time will show they were worse than useless for Standard balance. They nerfed the Paladin Windfury Conviction combo harder than they nerfed the combo decks that Windfury Conviction was holding back. Good Guy Paladin was one of the keys keeping the format from being even more degenerate, and they nerfed that harder than anything else.
Good guy pala murders control. Nerfs are great. Stealer is no problem at the moment, will be changed eventually. Solitaire meta does not exist, and neither warlock or mage are a reason not to play control. There are always good and bad matchups
Ok this is how broken the meta is now for both wild and standard. And it's just few hours from patch. I just CAN'T imagine how bad you playtest things if you ever even do....
If i was a suprerior for team 5, i fired them all immediately. HS has seen a lot of over the top things but situation now is just absurd.
I can't agree more.
They nerf many cards but Mage and Warlock are stronger than before.
10 games at rank diamond 4 to diamond 3 in Standard --> 7 Shamans, 2 Druids, 1 Hunter!!! If this is called balance... then I don't know what to say.
Elemental shaman wasn't affected by the change in Granite Forgeborn. Atm Shaman has too many direct damage, retained polymorph effect with 5 mana and 5/6 stats, weapons for more face dmg, tempo swing cards and the elemental pack provides board presence in low cost.. what else can you ask for?
I understand Blizzard's need to acquire more players, but totally eliminating all control decks isn't in hearthstone's initial philosophy!
I read a lot of complaints about Warlock's questline... I believe that those who complain haven't tried it in order to see the thin line between win and loss!
Again Priests are lower tier decks (I can't remember when Priests were top tier - since topsy turvy).
Warriors and Priests vanished. Roques struggle to find their place in the new meta, Mages, either they all became legend or they shifted to Shamans, Warlocks and Druids have a place in current meta, DH vanished (blizzard hates OTKs, but they introduced Battleground Battlemaster to the game!!!)
Playing HS since day 1, expansion after expansion we move to aggro/tempo matchups with games ending by round 7-9... and coin flip for the winner.
I obviously don't speak for anyone but myself, but if the meta no longer allows control decks to be viable, then I think I'm done with the game and I think the game will be less good overall as a result.
A game like Hearthstone fundamentally needs the classic archetypes for the decks to be balanced. A lack of control and the success of quest decks (I don't really consider them combo in the traditional sense) focres the meta towards extreme aggro. It then becomes entirely about who draws the best mulligan and who picked the right class before they started. There's so little opportunity for skill to play a part it becomes a coinflip, not a game.
THIS.
I have no particular attachment to control, but I do like to see a variety of archetypes represented. The reason I bounced off of Shadowverse so quickly was because (at that time) it was a 100% aggro-combo meta. It was so frustrating to see all the other possibilities being stomped into dust by the ridiculously fast combos.
If that's how Hearthstone is destined to be, it's not the game I used to enjoy.
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"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I am very close to uninstalling this game right now. Been a F2P player for nearly 4 years, so have a very decent amount of good cards, but the current meta is so boring. Today for example, played 12 games since coming home from work. 9 against quest warlock and the 3 others against quest mage.
I like trying to play around with different decks, like I thought I would give quest Priest a go last night...ha. Pointless, was dead most games before turn 6/7. Same when I was tried out quest rouge. Had some luck with quest druid and shamen, but mainly due to luck of the draw.
For me, I use to like going on for a hour or so each day after work and having some fun, playing against the same two decks 90% of time is just boring and very frustrating. I really enjoy the pirate control quest deck with warrior but to many times, like other decks, you are pretty much dead before you even finished the quest.
The nerfs have done very little, if anything to stop the same two decks winning their games before turn 7.
Stealer of Souls is still the problem with Warlock. They can play 10 cards in one turn that use health instead of mana, and STILL be at full health when its over.
My takes (I mostly ignore stat changes on minions): - Incanter's Flow for Mage to 3 mana - big thumbs up. Round 3 to do nothing and then another for another nothing. It's a huge deal. - Darkglare in Warlock to 3 Mana - again, good change - Flesh Giant to 9 Mana - not sure if this will matter that much but it does mean that you won't be able to drop them as consistently as before so should slow down games without killing the card - Battleground Battlemaster to 6 Mana - the best change but it's still strong at 6 - Conviction (Rank 1) to 2 Mana for Paladin - fantastic change, it was a long time coming. For what this card does it was undervalued - Kolkar Pack Runner to 3 mana for Hunter but stickier at 4 health- another great change, will this slow Hunters down? YES! - Granite Forgeborn health down to 4 from 5 - totally irrelevant change, to show that they're doing something about Elem Shaman without actually doing it. This deck will pop even more due to other nerfs - Il'gynoth from 4 to 6 mana to hit DH - the true solitaire deck of this expansion, hopefully dead an buried. With all the quest discounts I am not so sure but thinking it through it would rely on drawing Il'gynoth early for the discounts to apply to it and all combo pieces to come together in any reasonable time. I hope this will become a meme fringe deck at best. I will dust it and craft something I like.
Notable absentees: - The Demon Seed - oops! We thought that moaning has started, leaving this alone will cause an uproar. People forget that the pure Quest version isn't THAT strong and the Zoolock variant just got hit so I think we should wait and see what happens - Stealer of Souls - it's not nice to lose against it but in Standard it is really not that much of a problem at the moment. Now, because meta should (will?) slow down it might become a problem but again, we have to wait and see.
What are your thoughts?
Reacting to your takes by each dash:
-Incantor’s really just made Mage viable against face and competitive against Warlock. Not sure why everyone is jumping for joy. Would call it an overall average nerf that I guess did what it was supposed to do: make Warlock better.
-Darkglare to 3 mana 3/4: TERRIBLE change. 3 for 3/3 was the reasonable edit and now it’s out of range for early damage. Nerf a card by mana but make it more survivable?
-Flesh Giant change was mostly insignificant. Less turn 3s is a plus but when draw nuts it nuts.
-I agree with you on battlemaster.
-Conviction got a shadow nerf in the Paladin quest deck and I think that’s way more interactive than buff and slap. Kind of good and kind of bad for a nerf. More good than bad.
-Kolkar: Another great change. Will this slow down Hunter? NO. Who fucking trades when playing face Hunter? Once more, nerf mana + buff health = pretty much the same card.
-I agree with you on Granite. Waste of a nerf.
-Il’gynoth: I personally enjoyed the old OTK DH and liked that it improved slightly with Quest. I feel like Rogue shouldn’t get away with keeping its combo unchanged and the most expensive card in the DH combo goes +2? Seems like overkill.
Final Thought: Blizzard really managed to fuck this one up royally and I’ve been playing since Old Gods and haven’t said that yet.
I can’t help but agree that the nerfs haven’t done enough. They really can’t paper over the core design flaw in the quest cards with a few narrow nerfs. The entire premise of most of the quests is to cheat mana, life and draw, so that you run through your whole deck without concern for conserving resources or the state of the board. This design cuts against core principles of Hearthstone , and, more to the point, IT’S NOT EVEN ANY FUN, not for the player, nor for the opponent. Two player solitaire is a fucking dumb game.
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Agreed. When I saw the nerfs posted the other day, that was my immediate gut feeling: This didn't address the issue (standard or wild) at its root. Look, I'm fine losing a game, often times with that old "If I would have had just one more turn..." feeling that you were almost there. Nope: This degenerate Warlock deck is just a tilt-ingly bad experience to play against.
A replay from just a little bit ago, where I died from a Stealer of Souls into a Hand of Gul'dan BEFORE the cards from that draw were even played. The issue is that games like this feel like two player games up until this turn and then you are just watching someone play solitaire while you click through animations to speed things along. And afterwards it's just ".... What the fuck, why bother." And as these forums have suggested there are MYRIAD ways to nudge the quest into something that's tolerable for any deck or any format.
https://hsreplay.net/replay/ZYYGBj3g9JvGnGp2DijKEe
Speak for yourself. I love games that go on past turn 10 and have a constant back and forth power struggle.
I believe the will have to rework the Warlock quest entirely, even if the support cards are weak the quest itself is very deranged, you don't need to make any compromise for the powerful effect, as every single card double as quest progress and wincon, so does your hero power. Unlike the other quests(yes, even the mage one) where you had to cram your deck with cards that advances the quest progress and your actual wincon cards to use with the quest rewards.
So the nerfs were fucking useless. Most quests are really stupid and retardedly designed.
They purposedly pushed the meta for games to last 6 turns. This clearly was a top down decision. Probably the game was not growing in the number of players so the abusive, stupid, women harrassing bosses decided that the game should be more like a mobile game and the matches should last at most 5 minutes.
Warlock and mage quests are fundamentaly imbecile: they remove fatigue from the game.. Aside from that, most quests are unbeleavably easy to complete by turn 5 or 6.. and the rewards are ridiculously broken (hunter wtf).. What made old quests fun is that they were hard to complete, you took some time and risks to get interesting and balanced rewards.
Whats more, these broken quests made other decks unplayable. You either play the overpowered quests or some broken ass aggro deck that kills your opponent at turn 5 so they cant kill you at turn 6... Most cards are useless now.. and for the upcoming expansions as well. Unless they actually nerf the quests, for the next year and a half the meta will be like this.
Fuck Blizzard, fuck Acrivision, fuck the CEOs and their stupid decisions.
I, for one, welcome our Paladin overlords. It wasn’t fun and interactive to lose to combo decks so now it’s fun to lose to Paladin as a combo deck buffing minions all game and then sticking 1-2 minions to deal 20+.
I think time will show they were worse than useless for Standard balance. They nerfed the Paladin Windfury Conviction combo harder than they nerfed the combo decks that Windfury Conviction was holding back. Good Guy Paladin was one of the keys keeping the format from being even more degenerate, and they nerfed that harder than anything else.
I'm actually quite glad with these nerfs, because they absolutely missed the mark! :D
I'll be seeing nerfs in another 2 weeks probably. If not, I guess I'll come back when the meta isn't solitaire? So a year and a half?
I agree with others in that Warlock quest should be reworked. At least fatigue damage shouldn't be affected by the reward. Stealer of Souls is a huge problem cars that should've never been printed. I hope it will be heavily nerfed, reworked or removed from the game. That, and a proper nerf for Flesh Giant (bump up to 10 mana). There will for sure be a balance patch in 2 weeks but I think an emergency patch should take place before that. I don't think that's likely though.
Other than Warlock I'm pretty satisfied with current meta. Quest Mage is still a bit irritating to face but Incanter's Flow nerf had a psychological effect on players and seems that many do not like to play it anymore. The same goes for Il'gynoth and OTK Demon Hunter, a deck that should've never existed.
Ive been saying this for over a year, specially Iksar the dude just plain sucks man. He needs to be fired
I agree!! 100% the game down the drain!
Good guy pala murders control. Nerfs are great. Stealer is no problem at the moment, will be changed eventually. Solitaire meta does not exist, and neither warlock or mage are a reason not to play control. There are always good and bad matchups
I can't agree more.
They nerf many cards but Mage and Warlock are stronger than before.
They have no clue about what they are doing.
Blizzard shifts players to Shaman.
10 games at rank diamond 4 to diamond 3 in Standard --> 7 Shamans, 2 Druids, 1 Hunter!!! If this is called balance... then I don't know what to say.
Elemental shaman wasn't affected by the change in Granite Forgeborn. Atm Shaman has too many direct damage, retained polymorph effect with 5 mana and 5/6 stats, weapons for more face dmg, tempo swing cards and the elemental pack provides board presence in low cost.. what else can you ask for?
I understand Blizzard's need to acquire more players, but totally eliminating all control decks isn't in hearthstone's initial philosophy!
I read a lot of complaints about Warlock's questline... I believe that those who complain haven't tried it in order to see the thin line between win and loss!
Again Priests are lower tier decks (I can't remember when Priests were top tier - since topsy turvy).
Warriors and Priests vanished. Roques struggle to find their place in the new meta, Mages, either they all became legend or they shifted to Shamans, Warlocks and Druids have a place in current meta, DH vanished (blizzard hates OTKs, but they introduced Battleground Battlemaster to the game!!!)
Playing HS since day 1, expansion after expansion we move to aggro/tempo matchups with games ending by round 7-9... and coin flip for the winner.
Thx for reading my post.
THIS.
I have no particular attachment to control, but I do like to see a variety of archetypes represented. The reason I bounced off of Shadowverse so quickly was because (at that time) it was a 100% aggro-combo meta. It was so frustrating to see all the other possibilities being stomped into dust by the ridiculously fast combos.
If that's how Hearthstone is destined to be, it's not the game I used to enjoy.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I am very close to uninstalling this game right now. Been a F2P player for nearly 4 years, so have a very decent amount of good cards, but the current meta is so boring. Today for example, played 12 games since coming home from work. 9 against quest warlock and the 3 others against quest mage.
I like trying to play around with different decks, like I thought I would give quest Priest a go last night...ha. Pointless, was dead most games before turn 6/7. Same when I was tried out quest rouge. Had some luck with quest druid and shamen, but mainly due to luck of the draw.
For me, I use to like going on for a hour or so each day after work and having some fun, playing against the same two decks 90% of time is just boring and very frustrating. I really enjoy the pirate control quest deck with warrior but to many times, like other decks, you are pretty much dead before you even finished the quest.
The nerfs have done very little, if anything to stop the same two decks winning their games before turn 7.
Stealer of Souls is still the problem with Warlock. They can play 10 cards in one turn that use health instead of mana, and STILL be at full health when its over.
I still meet a lot of mages and locks, they are not really a problem for me but it's kinda boring
Do we know if they plan to make another round of nerfs?
Constructed is trash, but I'm an arena player, so I will continue playing Hearthstone regardless of that. :P
Reacting to your takes by each dash:
-Incantor’s really just made Mage viable against face and competitive against Warlock. Not sure why everyone is jumping for joy. Would call it an overall average nerf that I guess did what it was supposed to do: make Warlock better.
-Darkglare to 3 mana 3/4: TERRIBLE change. 3 for 3/3 was the reasonable edit and now it’s out of range for early damage. Nerf a card by mana but make it more survivable?
-Flesh Giant change was mostly insignificant. Less turn 3s is a plus but when draw nuts it nuts.
-I agree with you on battlemaster.
-Conviction got a shadow nerf in the Paladin quest deck and I think that’s way more interactive than buff and slap. Kind of good and kind of bad for a nerf. More good than bad.
-Kolkar: Another great change. Will this slow down Hunter? NO. Who fucking trades when playing face Hunter? Once more, nerf mana + buff health = pretty much the same card.
-I agree with you on Granite. Waste of a nerf.
-Il’gynoth: I personally enjoyed the old OTK DH and liked that it improved slightly with Quest. I feel like Rogue shouldn’t get away with keeping its combo unchanged and the most expensive card in the DH combo goes +2? Seems like overkill.
Final Thought: Blizzard really managed to fuck this one up royally and I’ve been playing since Old Gods and haven’t said that yet.
I can’t help but agree that the nerfs haven’t done enough. They really can’t paper over the core design flaw in the quest cards with a few narrow nerfs. The entire premise of most of the quests is to cheat mana, life and draw, so that you run through your whole deck without concern for conserving resources or the state of the board. This design cuts against core principles of Hearthstone , and, more to the point, IT’S NOT EVEN ANY FUN, not for the player, nor for the opponent. Two player solitaire is a fucking dumb game.