I dont have anything against OTK decks as a concept (indeed there's an arugment that they should exist to counter the heavy control decks). That said, it should be possible to counter OTK decks, and by counter I don't mean that you should only be able to "kill them before they get the pieces of the combo". Imo the C'Thun, the Shattered is a good implementation of an OTK style deck - ways to play around it (wide board), not too quick to be assembled etc.
Hearthstone's playstyle is such that interacting the with opponent on their turn is not possible. Consequently, OTK decks which are viable feel extremely un-fun and unfair to play againt. Even if they aren't OP (In the sense they win too often relative to other decks) it's a very unsatisfactory experience. The current "tech cards" available to most classes is pretty much Mutanus. I actually think he's a decent card but not because of his OTK/quest disruption potential (because if you hope to rely on him for that you'll have a bad time).
The bigger problem as I see it is how quickly the current OTK decks gather their win condition. Warlocks can currently draw (and discount) their whole deck by turn's 8 - 10, which makes the consistency of the OTK very high. Blizzard has lost sight of the value of card draw (indeed this has been a problem (imo) for all the recent meta decks - quest pirate, quest mage, quest warlock, garrote rogue - even face hunter). They all have cheap draw, often with minimal tempo loss.
If I was a designer at Blizz this is the area I would focus on rather than printing other OP cards to counteract the problems from the past.
It's like playing against bots. The game feels like running in auto-pilot and there are no tools offered to counter their win condition. It makes me wonder why did they bother giving control decks so many tools this expansion? As a Warrior, I can be at full health with 60+ armor and still lose.
game is dead man. blizzard is paying children and adults with no job to promote the game nowadays, just quit and live a better life
People run Mutanus, Savory Delight and Parley in Rogue as a way to try and counter. I've managed to eat an Owl with Mutanus so it can work. I don't think that a sure fire way to counter should exist, then everybody would do it and then the deck would disappear and do we want those kinds of decks to disappear? I think the answer is no (as much as I dislike this particular one - both to face and to play).
I think these kinds of decks shouldn't ever be able to pull off an OTK on turn 6. That's the situation with OwlTK and OTK Demon Hunter, which imo means something needs to be changed.
Maybe I'm out of touch with what constitutes "fun" in a game, but does watching your opponent do a bazzillion things while minimally interacting with the board and drawing a stupendous number of cards seem like fun? If you want to play solitiare there are plenty single player games out there.
Once again we have the emergence of a meta where the deck you pick and get matched against pretty much decides the outcome. It's not fun and it's not good for the game.
I would be genuinely curious to see how a ban of 1 class would affect the ladder...
I hate Owllock. And I don't wanna go through ANOTHER goddamned meta of fucking combo decks that punish the hell out of anything board based.
They *AT LEAST* have to nerff Warlock's survival tools A LOT so they can't sit there with 28 health while developing their damn combo.
As to whether we want this deck to disappear? Yes absolutely. I had enough during the Stormwind meta. Time for combo to be a thing of the past for a while.
People run Mutanus, Savory Delight and Parley in Rogue as a way to try and counter. I've managed to eat an Owl with Mutanus so it can work. I don't think that a sure fire way to counter should exist, then everybody would do it and then the deck would disappear and do we want those kinds of decks to disappear? I think the answer is no (as much as I dislike this particular one - both to face and to play).
Speaking as a combo player (playing a shammy OTK currently in STD, which is slower than owl seems to be) - Mutanus is annoying design due to the randomness. You can mitigate it, but that reduces the rate to, say, 50%. That can't be good on either side. Give me something like Loatheb, the kind of disruption that you can sometimes play around, sometimes you have to play into, and similar - but it's not random, it's based on reading the opp and interrupting (Oh My Yogg is a good example of a similar card in STD - it existing means that one pally secret and you have to delay or play around in a combo turn). But at the end of the day if you're not pressuring you can't handle combo. This makes combo balancing tough due to swinging between 'there's too much pressure' and 'there's not enough pressure, this is too reliable'. More Yoggs please.
They *AT LEAST* have to nerff Warlock's survival tools A LOT
Only someone who has no idea about the game can say something like that.
Every deck in the history of HS has been driven by one principle - do your best not to die. And what can you do to survive? There are basically 2 options: 1. Offensive (pressure) 2. Defensive (removals, heals, taunts, stale tools).
The rule here is simple, the more offensive you have, the less defensive you need. That's why aggro decks like Face Hunter or Elemental Shaman can perform well with no defensive at all, high pressure is simply all they need.
Now look at Warlock, at this point this class has THE LOWEST PRESSURE IN THE ENTIRE GAME (in standard). No direct damage (battlecries, spells), no weapons, no fast and strong minions. Only exception is Flesh Giant, but that card only works with The Demon Seed and without it, it's too slow (Warlock has never played it without quest, not even for 8 mana, before the nerfs). Other archetypes have literally nothing to pressure the opponent and that's why Warlock simply has to have the best heals and removals in the game. And even then, these are not even that strong, because they are damage-based (hard removals like Siphon Soul and Twisting Nether are overcosted these days). Any minion with 4+ health is actually problematic for Warlock, as well as divine shields or spell immunity and that can be easily exploited to beat him.
The way to counter it is to run double rustrot vipers and mutanus. Don’t let them discount cards, makes it so they have to play the owl and kill it on turn 8, which gives you a chance to eat it with mutanus. I’m not saying this is foolproof, but with cariel and owltk running rampant, weapon removal is necessary in every deck and beating owltk starts with denying discounts from rod. Turns out discounting your whole hand 4 times is pretty strong.
I second this. In a meta where it's so easy to duplicate and abuse Deathrattles, no single Deathrattle should be able to deal 8 damage to face.
Thirded.
I've been saying similar things about Flamewaker long ago. Both cards should hit random minions ONLY instead of being able to go face. So many otk decks would go bye-bye and minion based combat can happen again.
Easy nerfs to fix but they refuse to do anything about Flamewaker in wild so my guess nerfs for the Owl are extremely unlikely unless they hit its mana cost as per usual which will accomplish nothing for the card.
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I dont have anything against OTK decks as a concept (indeed there's an arugment that they should exist to counter the heavy control decks). That said, it should be possible to counter OTK decks, and by counter I don't mean that you should only be able to "kill them before they get the pieces of the combo". Imo the C'Thun, the Shattered is a good implementation of an OTK style deck - ways to play around it (wide board), not too quick to be assembled etc.
Hearthstone's playstyle is such that interacting the with opponent on their turn is not possible. Consequently, OTK decks which are viable feel extremely un-fun and unfair to play againt. Even if they aren't OP (In the sense they win too often relative to other decks) it's a very unsatisfactory experience. The current "tech cards" available to most classes is pretty much Mutanus. I actually think he's a decent card but not because of his OTK/quest disruption potential (because if you hope to rely on him for that you'll have a bad time).
The bigger problem as I see it is how quickly the current OTK decks gather their win condition. Warlocks can currently draw (and discount) their whole deck by turn's 8 - 10, which makes the consistency of the OTK very high. Blizzard has lost sight of the value of card draw (indeed this has been a problem (imo) for all the recent meta decks - quest pirate, quest mage, quest warlock, garrote rogue - even face hunter). They all have cheap draw, often with minimal tempo loss.
If I was a designer at Blizz this is the area I would focus on rather than printing other OP cards to counteract the problems from the past.
game is dead man. blizzard is paying children and adults with no job to promote the game nowadays, just quit and live a better life
People run Mutanus, Savory Delight and Parley in Rogue as a way to try and counter. I've managed to eat an Owl with Mutanus so it can work. I don't think that a sure fire way to counter should exist, then everybody would do it and then the deck would disappear and do we want those kinds of decks to disappear? I think the answer is no (as much as I dislike this particular one - both to face and to play).
I think these kinds of decks shouldn't ever be able to pull off an OTK on turn 6. That's the situation with OwlTK and OTK Demon Hunter, which imo means something needs to be changed.
Maybe I'm out of touch with what constitutes "fun" in a game, but does watching your opponent do a bazzillion things while minimally interacting with the board and drawing a stupendous number of cards seem like fun? If you want to play solitiare there are plenty single player games out there.
Once again we have the emergence of a meta where the deck you pick and get matched against pretty much decides the outcome. It's not fun and it's not good for the game.
I would be genuinely curious to see how a ban of 1 class would affect the ladder...
I hate Owllock. And I don't wanna go through ANOTHER goddamned meta of fucking combo decks that punish the hell out of anything board based.
They *AT LEAST* have to nerff Warlock's survival tools A LOT so they can't sit there with 28 health while developing their damn combo.
As to whether we want this deck to disappear? Yes absolutely. I had enough during the Stormwind meta. Time for combo to be a thing of the past for a while.
Speaking as a combo player (playing a shammy OTK currently in STD, which is slower than owl seems to be) - Mutanus is annoying design due to the randomness. You can mitigate it, but that reduces the rate to, say, 50%. That can't be good on either side. Give me something like Loatheb, the kind of disruption that you can sometimes play around, sometimes you have to play into, and similar - but it's not random, it's based on reading the opp and interrupting (Oh My Yogg is a good example of a similar card in STD - it existing means that one pally secret and you have to delay or play around in a combo turn). But at the end of the day if you're not pressuring you can't handle combo. This makes combo balancing tough due to swinging between 'there's too much pressure' and 'there's not enough pressure, this is too reliable'. More Yoggs please.
so 60+ armour and the maximum owl lock can do is 8x7 ( 56 damage) and you still lose? .
Only someone who has no idea about the game can say something like that.
Every deck in the history of HS has been driven by one principle - do your best not to die. And what can you do to survive? There are basically 2 options:
1. Offensive (pressure)
2. Defensive (removals, heals, taunts, stale tools).
The rule here is simple, the more offensive you have, the less defensive you need. That's why aggro decks like Face Hunter or Elemental Shaman can perform well with no defensive at all, high pressure is simply all they need.
Now look at Warlock, at this point this class has THE LOWEST PRESSURE IN THE ENTIRE GAME (in standard). No direct damage (battlecries, spells), no weapons, no fast and strong minions. Only exception is Flesh Giant, but that card only works with The Demon Seed and without it, it's too slow (Warlock has never played it without quest, not even for 8 mana, before the nerfs). Other archetypes have literally nothing to pressure the opponent and that's why Warlock simply has to have the best heals and removals in the game. And even then, these are not even that strong, because they are damage-based (hard removals like Siphon Soul and Twisting Nether are overcosted these days). Any minion with 4+ health is actually problematic for Warlock, as well as divine shields or spell immunity and that can be easily exploited to beat him.
Mo'arg is the real problem. Remove or nerf it and everyone will be happy
Hoping to be paired with bad players isn't a viable strategy.
Maximum damage is actually 112.
The way to counter it is to run double rustrot vipers and mutanus. Don’t let them discount cards, makes it so they have to play the owl and kill it on turn 8, which gives you a chance to eat it with mutanus. I’m not saying this is foolproof, but with cariel and owltk running rampant, weapon removal is necessary in every deck and beating owltk starts with denying discounts from rod. Turns out discounting your whole hand 4 times is pretty strong.
I think that they should nerf the 3 cost Tamsin:
I think they should get a copy of the shadow spell but that it should cost the regular amount.
It probably won't fix the problem but it'd be a step in the right direction.
There's always something, huh?
We can never escape.
Sleep.
Just make the Owl deathrattle hit minions only.
Problem solved.
So then the tier s deck will be quest warlock thas has literaly the same list as owl one.
How can people understand that the problem is mitril rod, without that card the deck does nothing compare to now, it will die before playing the owl
Thanks god someone is realistic, mo'ard and the rod that discounts
I second this. In a meta where it's so easy to duplicate and abuse Deathrattles, no single Deathrattle should be able to deal 8 damage to face.
"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
They can use Tamsin to cast the spell twice and double the damage.
Thirded.
I've been saying similar things about Flamewaker long ago. Both cards should hit random minions ONLY instead of being able to go face. So many otk decks would go bye-bye and minion based combat can happen again.
Easy nerfs to fix but they refuse to do anything about Flamewaker in wild so my guess nerfs for the Owl are extremely unlikely unless they hit its mana cost as per usual which will accomplish nothing for the card.