Think about it. Almost all the oppressive, unfun* decks have either or both mana cheating and cheap draw, both of which break the fundamental "rules" of the game (with the rules as I see them being that power scales with mana cost, card draw should be a tempo loss and resources should be finite). Arguably having either one of these is not game breaking - spending mana just to draw cards is still a tempo loss. Spending mana jsut to reduce the cost of cards will mean you run out of resources if you over comit with the cheap cards. Both together = a problem.
Bearing in mind that mana cheating takes a couple of different forms:
1) It can be a direct reduction in mana cost
2) It can be an originally undercosted card with a negative where the negative is removed (or made into a positive) e.g. overload, self damage
3) It can be a synergistic card with a bonus when a condition is fullfilled (but if you make the synergy too easy to fullfill it just ends up a an under-costed card).
4) Conceivably it can also be considered to be hand-buffing of minions - they end up with a higher power level for the mana cost
Of the decks that exist right now (not saying these are OP or unbeatable but this is where the meta has forced things):
Mage - this meta and last - cheap draw, mana cheating (either through spell cost reduction or through overpowered synergy spells e.g Apexis Blast , Refreshing Spring Water)
Shaman - cheap targeted draw, mana cheating (either through quest based "ignore overload" and "double cast" or through overpowered synergy cards (the elemental package))
Demon Hunter - cheap draw, mana cheating (nothing fancy here - just plain old mana cheating)
Paladin - has some cheap draw which sometimesm also serves to increase the power of the cards in hand (Alliance Bannerman). Free secrets drawn and cast using the weapon.
Druid - mana cheating through reduction in mana cost and cheap (often free) card draw. Mana cheating through ramp (though I think this is generaly less problematic). For aggro druid - mana cheathing through cheap/free extra minions to build wide, sticky boards.
Hunter - maybe a little different - they don't really have great card draw or mana cheating (except Barak Kodobane and Warsong Wrangler) but their cards have an inevitability about the face damage and are often 2-for-1 tempo + face damage. Combined with the hero power every battle is against the clock and most decks really struggle to outdamage the hunter.
Rogue - cheap card draw and mana cheating. This has always been a rogue thing and it's always been right on the edge of being super un-fun to play against.
Decks not in the meta: Warrior and Priest. Warrior has decent (ish) card draw but no mana cheating that I can think of. Priest has limited card draw and limited mana cheating (Palm Reading and Insight are the only ones I can think of.
*I appreaciate the definition of fun is squarely in the eye of the beholder, and that what's fun to play isn't the same as what's fun to play against. I'm deeming a deck to be unfun if there is limited to zero interaction with the deck, or if it just feels really unfair to play against. Decks which draw all their cards and broadly ignore or stall the board fall into this category.
I agree a bit. Disagree a bit. I think card draw is fine. But, should be a tempo loss. Things like Refreshing Spring water that 'can' be tempo gains and draw together are bad. There are a fair number of cards that can be both draw and tempo together. I'd love to see those removed and let draw just be draw. Some cards get synergy to allow them to be both tempo and draw. I'd like to see this toned down. Some synergy is fine, but when the focus of the deck revolves around a draw plus tempo synergy that gets problematic. I guess it is ok for a combo deck that needs 10 mana and 5 cards in hand to go off. But, I'd love to see it more limited.
I also think mana cheat is fine. As long as it it balanced. And I think it really gets worse when draw is easy. Mana cheat should have a cost. One cost is often cards in hand, but if draw is abundant and cheap that cost is pretty small. So, I think mana cheat is better in classes with little draw. They cheat something out, if you manage to deal with it, you are then ahead in tempo or cards. But, if they cheat something out and you deal with it and remain behind, that isn't too fun. I think that's the problem with those giants and raise dead. You can maybe deal with that one giant being cheated out. Maybe even 2. But, when it becomes 4 you just run out of answers. Feels wrong. They are the one mana cheating, so they should be the one running out of threats. Not you. So, basically I don't mind an 8/8 on turn 4. That's scary, but often can be dealt with. What I mind is an 8/8 on 4, another on 5, 2 more on 6.... It's just too much. You need a downside to that early 8/8 to give the opponent a chance to respond and recover.
Is it still fun when the opponent draws the nutz and you dont, and you just get to sit and watch? For me any game involving more than one player should involve some degree of interaction between the players (i.e. meaningful choice), and a prerequisite of that is that both players are playing by the same rules. Is it fair that one player can draw 2 cards for 1 mana (or less) while the others cant? Are the priest minions ( for example) worth more than the the other classes minions to compensate for their lack of draw and mana cheat?
The current iteration of the game is nothing more than a coin flip in many of the games - not about who draws or plays best, but about which deck you chose and which deck the algorithm picked for you.
Either way, mana cheating and draw should always be limited and should always come at a tempo loss propotionate to the gain.
I agree a bit. Disagree a bit. I think card draw is fine. But, should be a tempo loss. Things like Refreshing Spring water that 'can' be tempo gains and draw together are bad. There are a fair number of cards that can be both draw and tempo together. I'd love to see those removed and let draw just be draw. Some cards get synergy to allow them to be both tempo and draw. I'd like to see this toned down. Some synergy is fine, but when the focus of the deck revolves around a draw plus tempo synergy that gets problematic. I guess it is ok for a combo deck that needs 10 mana and 5 cards in hand to go off. But, I'd love to see it more limited.
I also think mana cheat is fine. As long as it it balanced. And I think it really gets worse when draw is easy. Mana cheat should have a cost. One cost is often cards in hand, but if draw is abundant and cheap that cost is pretty small. So, I think mana cheat is better in classes with little draw. They cheat something out, if you manage to deal with it, you are then ahead in tempo or cards. But, if they cheat something out and you deal with it and remain behind, that isn't too fun. I think that's the problem with those giants and raise dead. You can maybe deal with that one giant being cheated out. Maybe even 2. But, when it becomes 4 you just run out of answers. Feels wrong. They are the one mana cheating, so they should be the one running out of threats. Not you. So, basically I don't mind an 8/8 on turn 4. That's scary, but often can be dealt with. What I mind is an 8/8 on 4, another on 5, 2 more on 6.... It's just too much. You need a downside to that early 8/8 to give the opponent a chance to respond and recover.
Agree. Personally I hated curvestone . Draw is good because it gives options and thinking. Actually love the current meta for that. A lot of make or break decisions with many decks. Your outline of the current problems related to draw and mana cheat are also on point
So I guess all of my opinions were always "to a point" (I don't want to see no card draw and no mana reduction). The current hearthstone has too many tempo-less card draws, too many "easy synergy" card boosts and too many cheap/free mana reductions. All of these things should be deck design decisions and should be in-play decisions. How much card draw do I include vs. I will include all the free card draw.
I agree curvestone doesn't encourage thinking (e.g. have 4 mana = play 4 mana card) , but I don't think cheap draw/mana cheating is the answer. Maybe if the starting hand was 1 card bigger that would make a difference? I also think the games end too quickly for choices to matter. If I only ever draw 1/3 of my deck how can this encourage decision making?
I suppose what I want from hearthstone is that each player actually has to think about which card to play and when to play it, and making the wrong (non-obvious) decision actually negatively impacts on game outcome. GIven the deck design is pretty much always decided by someone else, this seems like the least we can hope for in a game.
Maybe Hearthstone isn't a game that can deliver on this ideal for me.
Every deck interacts with the opponent to win: it has to kill him. That is interaction. Interaction is limited in this game per design because there is no counter play during your opponent’s turn.
Only busted thing going on are 0 Mana 8-8's , 1 Mana 8-6, 1 Mana 6-6 Taunts
Don't even think the Warlock Quest itself needs to be nerfed, but certainly all of the three before mentioned cards. Also 3rd nerf to Flesh Giants, which is just pathetic at this point. Just make them 15 Mana already.
Every deck interacts with the opponent to win: it has to kill him. That is interaction. Interaction is limited in this game per design because there is no counter play during your opponent’s turn.
Call me cynical - but I don't think that counts as interaction (and if it does it's absolutely the lowest level possible in the game). Health doesn't matter one bit until you're in lethal range. Being hit in the face doesn't really change anything right until it matters. That's why weapons have always been so effective and why warlocks rarely care about using their hero power.
While it's true that there is, and never has been, direct interation on the opponents turn, the game used to be much more about contesting minions, managing resources and deciding when to comit vs. hold back. Now that's gone and I think the game is much more shallow as a result.
Aggro decks have so much damge and minions are so much better than the equivalent mana board clears that there isn't really a big punish in this regard anymore so the correct option is nearly always "dump your hand". And in keeping with the theme of this thread, there's often so much draw that they never runs out of gas.
Mage could never have gone face with so many spells or they would have run out of gas and the enemy minions on board that they were (by necessity) ignoring would ultimately kill them. Now they can freeze for 0 mana, kill a minion for 2 and generate a new spell, do 5 damage (and generate a minion) etc.
All of these things reduce the impact of decision making - when everything is a race to the face, there's very little that needs decided upon.
I actually think it's quite interesting to see how people deal with cards like Ogremancer or Crossroads Watch Post. These cards do react on the opponents turn and lots of people seem incapable of working out how best to deal with them. It just shows the lack of thinking that is now possible in the game.
"Aggro decks have so much damge and minions are so much better than the equivalent mana board clears that there isn't really a big punish in this regard anymore so the correct option is nearly always "dump your hand". And in keeping with the theme of this thread, there's often so much draw that they never runs out of gas."
Very well said, and I think cuts right to the heart of many of Hearthstone's problems. But, it seems this 'problem' is a feature for Blizz. Why else nerf Hysteria??
I feel the deeper issue is power creep, if you keep putting more and more power into the cards for the same cost the game will inevitably get faster or at least more swingy. Probably both, and that is exactly what we see. Broken ass draws, mana cheats or minions are just the symptom, not the disease. In case it isn't clear to you, go play some Classic mode and compare the powerlevel of things there to Standard, or God forbid Wild. I am pretty sure if you put Dr. Boom in Core he would not see much play, and he was the OG WTF broken minion.
Power creep also has the effect of neutering your collection over time meaning you increasingly have less and less value in Wild and even from past expansions of Standard at this point. Makes any kind of long term satisfaction in this game feel like rolling a boulder up a hill. Or paying the boulder to go away. Which is why power creep is a tool, if I can even call it that, that they use. It makes them more money.
It is a big part of why I vowed never to pay money again until they sort this shit out, which they never will. It started with the Wild/Standard split which was basically them admitting that they can't make new cards that are both not OP but also interesting and playable without artificially chopping off a portion of your collection every year. It was a short stroll from there to abusing power creep. Add in some other questionable design choices and lies and this game is now in considerable shit.
You have some good points, the mana cheat is very prevalent at the moment and it's extremely annoying but you've categorized a bit too many things together.
Cheal draw: I wouldn't consider cheap draw to be mana cheat (except Refreshing Springwater but that's different) and the fact that 8/10 classes have access to cheap draw it kinda just makes it "draw" since it's evenly spread.
Using a downside as an upside: that isn't really mana cheat, it's more of a design problem/flaw, and at the moment the most glaring problem is with Warlock and cards like Backfire being too good with the Quest but it's not really mana cheat since you're just using the drawback positively
Handbuff: you shouldn't really consider this s mana chest since yeah you may be casting an 8/8 for 2 mana, but you spent some mana to make that minion and 8/8 to begin with, it kinda circles back around.
That said I do agree that the mana cheat is a little but too present in the meta and should probably be addressed
Yeah, that summarizes the issue this game has been going towards for quite some time now. All the decent meta decks either can cheat a lot of mana and draw at the same time or they are lighting fast aggro to the point where they don't need to cheat a lot of mana.
I feel the deeper issue is power creep, if you keep putting more and more power into the cards for the same cost the game will inevitably get faster or at least more swingy. Probably both, and that is exactly what we see. Broken ass draws, mana cheats or minions are just the symptom, not the disease. In case it isn't clear to you, go play some Classic mode and compare the powerlevel of things there to Standard, or God forbid Wild. I am pretty sure if you put Dr. Boom in Core he would not see much play, and he was the OG WTF broken minion.
Power creep also has the effect of neutering your collection over time meaning you increasingly have less and less value in Wild and even from past expansions of Standard at this point. Makes any kind of long term satisfaction in this game feel like rolling a boulder up a hill. Or paying the boulder to go away. Which is why power creep is a tool, if I can even call it that, that they use. It makes them more money.
It is a big part of why I vowed never to pay money again until they sort this shit out, which they never will. It started with the Wild/Standard split which was basically them admitting that they can't make new cards that are both not OP but also interesting and playable without artificially chopping off a portion of your collection every year. It was a short stroll from there to abusing power creep. Add in some other questionable design choices and lies and this game is now in considerable shit.
Completely agree. Too bad very few people realize this or care about it enough to stop giving them money for their stupid design decisions. I wish there were no more whales in the game such that it gets changed to a monthly subscription. Imagine the outcry then, for the shits they keep doing...
I've said it repeatedly - these designers need to go. Likely others from other games have fresh perspectives and are able to implement some easy fixes (e.g. cannot reduce any card cost below 1 mana, unless it started at 0).
There's a say: Don't change a strategy that works. That's what Blizz is doing. A great percentage of players like the mana cheating, the crazy draws, questlines and solitairestone. That is why Blizz has no valid reason to change this. Accept it or quit no other option I'm afraid.
Power creep keeps the game fresh. Otherwise we would still play yeti on 4. More powerful synergies and mana cheat open up new play patterns and combos and diversify the meta. There is one issue that needs to be adressed, and that is the speed of wild demon seeds warlock, by nerfing 1-3 support cards. The issue is not that it autowins against many control decks. It’s just a little too fast in doing so
Maybe players like mana cheating, crazy draws etc. And this was always the case, I agree. But power creep is insane. Insane draws before meant Rogue finishing obnoxious quest turn 5 and playing it. Insane draws now mean DH can make 3 Brutes turn 3. Before spells like Dragonfire Potion were quite reasonable, now 6 mana spells (and above) are almost all useless (save Nourish, Celestial Alignment and Skull of Guldan). Hell, there are few even 5 mana spells used, especially if you count out ones that can be played for cheaper cost or make you regain mana.
Yes, there is valid reason for Blizzard to change this.
Power creep keeps the game fresh. Otherwise we would still play yeti on 4.
Well this is the other problem, that people legit think incorrect nostalgia-driven thoughts like playing yeti on 4 being a good play even when they're shown with classic hs that it never was the case. The only class that plays yeti is druid and they most certainly don't do so to curve it out on turn 4, I'll tell you that for a fact.
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Think about it. Almost all the oppressive, unfun* decks have either or both mana cheating and cheap draw, both of which break the fundamental "rules" of the game (with the rules as I see them being that power scales with mana cost, card draw should be a tempo loss and resources should be finite). Arguably having either one of these is not game breaking - spending mana just to draw cards is still a tempo loss. Spending mana jsut to reduce the cost of cards will mean you run out of resources if you over comit with the cheap cards. Both together = a problem.
Bearing in mind that mana cheating takes a couple of different forms:
1) It can be a direct reduction in mana cost
2) It can be an originally undercosted card with a negative where the negative is removed (or made into a positive) e.g. overload, self damage
3) It can be a synergistic card with a bonus when a condition is fullfilled (but if you make the synergy too easy to fullfill it just ends up a an under-costed card).
4) Conceivably it can also be considered to be hand-buffing of minions - they end up with a higher power level for the mana cost
Of the decks that exist right now (not saying these are OP or unbeatable but this is where the meta has forced things):
Mage - this meta and last - cheap draw, mana cheating (either through spell cost reduction or through overpowered synergy spells e.g Apexis Blast , Refreshing Spring Water)
Lock - cheap draw, mana cheating (through overpowered "self damage" style cards e.g Backfire)
Shaman - cheap targeted draw, mana cheating (either through quest based "ignore overload" and "double cast" or through overpowered synergy cards (the elemental package))
Demon Hunter - cheap draw, mana cheating (nothing fancy here - just plain old mana cheating)
Paladin - has some cheap draw which sometimesm also serves to increase the power of the cards in hand (Alliance Bannerman). Free secrets drawn and cast using the weapon.
Druid - mana cheating through reduction in mana cost and cheap (often free) card draw. Mana cheating through ramp (though I think this is generaly less problematic). For aggro druid - mana cheathing through cheap/free extra minions to build wide, sticky boards.
Hunter - maybe a little different - they don't really have great card draw or mana cheating (except Barak Kodobane and Warsong Wrangler) but their cards have an inevitability about the face damage and are often 2-for-1 tempo + face damage. Combined with the hero power every battle is against the clock and most decks really struggle to outdamage the hunter.
Rogue - cheap card draw and mana cheating. This has always been a rogue thing and it's always been right on the edge of being super un-fun to play against.
Decks not in the meta: Warrior and Priest. Warrior has decent (ish) card draw but no mana cheating that I can think of. Priest has limited card draw and limited mana cheating (Palm Reading and Insight are the only ones I can think of.
*I appreaciate the definition of fun is squarely in the eye of the beholder, and that what's fun to play isn't the same as what's fun to play against. I'm deeming a deck to be unfun if there is limited to zero interaction with the deck, or if it just feels really unfair to play against. Decks which draw all their cards and broadly ignore or stall the board fall into this category.
Just no. Draw and mana cheat make the game fun in my opinion at least
facepalm
I agree a bit. Disagree a bit. I think card draw is fine. But, should be a tempo loss. Things like Refreshing Spring water that 'can' be tempo gains and draw together are bad. There are a fair number of cards that can be both draw and tempo together. I'd love to see those removed and let draw just be draw. Some cards get synergy to allow them to be both tempo and draw. I'd like to see this toned down. Some synergy is fine, but when the focus of the deck revolves around a draw plus tempo synergy that gets problematic. I guess it is ok for a combo deck that needs 10 mana and 5 cards in hand to go off. But, I'd love to see it more limited.
I also think mana cheat is fine. As long as it it balanced. And I think it really gets worse when draw is easy. Mana cheat should have a cost. One cost is often cards in hand, but if draw is abundant and cheap that cost is pretty small. So, I think mana cheat is better in classes with little draw. They cheat something out, if you manage to deal with it, you are then ahead in tempo or cards. But, if they cheat something out and you deal with it and remain behind, that isn't too fun. I think that's the problem with those giants and raise dead. You can maybe deal with that one giant being cheated out. Maybe even 2. But, when it becomes 4 you just run out of answers. Feels wrong. They are the one mana cheating, so they should be the one running out of threats. Not you. So, basically I don't mind an 8/8 on turn 4. That's scary, but often can be dealt with. What I mind is an 8/8 on 4, another on 5, 2 more on 6.... It's just too much. You need a downside to that early 8/8 to give the opponent a chance to respond and recover.
Galavant Animation
Is it still fun when the opponent draws the nutz and you dont, and you just get to sit and watch? For me any game involving more than one player should involve some degree of interaction between the players (i.e. meaningful choice), and a prerequisite of that is that both players are playing by the same rules. Is it fair that one player can draw 2 cards for 1 mana (or less) while the others cant? Are the priest minions ( for example) worth more than the the other classes minions to compensate for their lack of draw and mana cheat?
The current iteration of the game is nothing more than a coin flip in many of the games - not about who draws or plays best, but about which deck you chose and which deck the algorithm picked for you.
Either way, mana cheating and draw should always be limited and should always come at a tempo loss propotionate to the gain.
Agree. Personally I hated curvestone . Draw is good because it gives options and thinking. Actually love the current meta for that. A lot of make or break decisions with many decks. Your outline of the current problems related to draw and mana cheat are also on point
So I guess all of my opinions were always "to a point" (I don't want to see no card draw and no mana reduction). The current hearthstone has too many tempo-less card draws, too many "easy synergy" card boosts and too many cheap/free mana reductions. All of these things should be deck design decisions and should be in-play decisions. How much card draw do I include vs. I will include all the free card draw.
I agree curvestone doesn't encourage thinking (e.g. have 4 mana = play 4 mana card) , but I don't think cheap draw/mana cheating is the answer. Maybe if the starting hand was 1 card bigger that would make a difference? I also think the games end too quickly for choices to matter. If I only ever draw 1/3 of my deck how can this encourage decision making?
I suppose what I want from hearthstone is that each player actually has to think about which card to play and when to play it, and making the wrong (non-obvious) decision actually negatively impacts on game outcome. GIven the deck design is pretty much always decided by someone else, this seems like the least we can hope for in a game.
Maybe Hearthstone isn't a game that can deliver on this ideal for me.
Every deck interacts with the opponent to win: it has to kill him. That is interaction.
Interaction is limited in this game per design because there is no counter play during your opponent’s turn.
Only busted thing going on are 0 Mana 8-8's , 1 Mana 8-6, 1 Mana 6-6 Taunts
Don't even think the Warlock Quest itself needs to be nerfed, but certainly all of the three before mentioned cards. Also 3rd nerf to Flesh Giants, which is just pathetic at this point. Just make them 15 Mana already.
Call me cynical - but I don't think that counts as interaction (and if it does it's absolutely the lowest level possible in the game). Health doesn't matter one bit until you're in lethal range. Being hit in the face doesn't really change anything right until it matters. That's why weapons have always been so effective and why warlocks rarely care about using their hero power.
While it's true that there is, and never has been, direct interation on the opponents turn, the game used to be much more about contesting minions, managing resources and deciding when to comit vs. hold back. Now that's gone and I think the game is much more shallow as a result.
Aggro decks have so much damge and minions are so much better than the equivalent mana board clears that there isn't really a big punish in this regard anymore so the correct option is nearly always "dump your hand". And in keeping with the theme of this thread, there's often so much draw that they never runs out of gas.
Mage could never have gone face with so many spells or they would have run out of gas and the enemy minions on board that they were (by necessity) ignoring would ultimately kill them. Now they can freeze for 0 mana, kill a minion for 2 and generate a new spell, do 5 damage (and generate a minion) etc.
All of these things reduce the impact of decision making - when everything is a race to the face, there's very little that needs decided upon.
I actually think it's quite interesting to see how people deal with cards like Ogremancer or Crossroads Watch Post. These cards do react on the opponents turn and lots of people seem incapable of working out how best to deal with them. It just shows the lack of thinking that is now possible in the game.
"Aggro decks have so much damge and minions are so much better than the equivalent mana board clears that there isn't really a big punish in this regard anymore so the correct option is nearly always "dump your hand". And in keeping with the theme of this thread, there's often so much draw that they never runs out of gas."
Very well said, and I think cuts right to the heart of many of Hearthstone's problems. But, it seems this 'problem' is a feature for Blizz. Why else nerf Hysteria??
Galavant Animation
Sign.
Draw and Manacheat is the Problem, i said this as well in many discussions
I feel the deeper issue is power creep, if you keep putting more and more power into the cards for the same cost the game will inevitably get faster or at least more swingy. Probably both, and that is exactly what we see. Broken ass draws, mana cheats or minions are just the symptom, not the disease. In case it isn't clear to you, go play some Classic mode and compare the powerlevel of things there to Standard, or God forbid Wild. I am pretty sure if you put Dr. Boom in Core he would not see much play, and he was the OG WTF broken minion.
Power creep also has the effect of neutering your collection over time meaning you increasingly have less and less value in Wild and even from past expansions of Standard at this point. Makes any kind of long term satisfaction in this game feel like rolling a boulder up a hill. Or paying the boulder to go away. Which is why power creep is a tool, if I can even call it that, that they use. It makes them more money.
It is a big part of why I vowed never to pay money again until they sort this shit out, which they never will. It started with the Wild/Standard split which was basically them admitting that they can't make new cards that are both not OP but also interesting and playable without artificially chopping off a portion of your collection every year. It was a short stroll from there to abusing power creep. Add in some other questionable design choices and lies and this game is now in considerable shit.
You have some good points, the mana cheat is very prevalent at the moment and it's extremely annoying but you've categorized a bit too many things together.
Cheal draw: I wouldn't consider cheap draw to be mana cheat (except Refreshing Springwater but that's different) and the fact that 8/10 classes have access to cheap draw it kinda just makes it "draw" since it's evenly spread.
Using a downside as an upside: that isn't really mana cheat, it's more of a design problem/flaw, and at the moment the most glaring problem is with Warlock and cards like Backfire being too good with the Quest but it's not really mana cheat since you're just using the drawback positively
Handbuff: you shouldn't really consider this s mana chest since yeah you may be casting an 8/8 for 2 mana, but you spent some mana to make that minion and 8/8 to begin with, it kinda circles back around.
That said I do agree that the mana cheat is a little but too present in the meta and should probably be addressed
And i don’t even play Paladins
Yeah, that summarizes the issue this game has been going towards for quite some time now. All the decent meta decks either can cheat a lot of mana and draw at the same time or they are lighting fast aggro to the point where they don't need to cheat a lot of mana.
Completely agree. Too bad very few people realize this or care about it enough to stop giving them money for their stupid design decisions. I wish there were no more whales in the game such that it gets changed to a monthly subscription. Imagine the outcry then, for the shits they keep doing...
I've said it repeatedly - these designers need to go. Likely others from other games have fresh perspectives and are able to implement some easy fixes (e.g. cannot reduce any card cost below 1 mana, unless it started at 0).
There's a say: Don't change a strategy that works. That's what Blizz is doing. A great percentage of players like the mana cheating, the crazy draws, questlines and solitairestone. That is why Blizz has no valid reason to change this. Accept it or quit no other option I'm afraid.
Power creep keeps the game fresh. Otherwise we would still play yeti on 4. More powerful synergies and mana cheat open up new play patterns and combos and diversify the meta. There is one issue that needs to be adressed, and that is the speed of wild demon seeds warlock, by nerfing 1-3 support cards. The issue is not that it autowins against many control decks. It’s just a little too fast in doing so
Maybe players like mana cheating, crazy draws etc. And this was always the case, I agree. But power creep is insane. Insane draws before meant Rogue finishing obnoxious quest turn 5 and playing it. Insane draws now mean DH can make 3 Brutes turn 3. Before spells like Dragonfire Potion were quite reasonable, now 6 mana spells (and above) are almost all useless (save Nourish, Celestial Alignment and Skull of Guldan). Hell, there are few even 5 mana spells used, especially if you count out ones that can be played for cheaper cost or make you regain mana.
Yes, there is valid reason for Blizzard to change this.
Well this is the other problem, that people legit think incorrect nostalgia-driven thoughts like playing yeti on 4 being a good play even when they're shown with classic hs that it never was the case. The only class that plays yeti is druid and they most certainly don't do so to curve it out on turn 4, I'll tell you that for a fact.