I wanted to make a thread about the neutral legendaries that have come out in recent expansions (notably Murder at Castle Nathria and March of the Lich King) because I feel like they've been becoming more of an auto-include win condition.
Let's go back as far as the Whispers of the Old Gods to see how neutral legendaries were done pretty well in my opinion.
1) C'Thun: The main star of the expansion and the originator of the C'Thun decks that aimed to slowly buff up C'Thun and then play him for a satisfying finisher. He is a 10 mana 6/6 minion that deals damage split among enemies equal to its attack. Like I've mentioned before, the gameplan is to play minions that buff C'Thun to make him and his battlecry effect stronger. If the enemy were to survive the battlecry effect then they would have to deal with a huge C'Thun on board. Of course, a dozen cards were printed to encourage buffing C'Thun like Twilight Elder and some even award you for it like Twin Emperor Vek'lor. Basically C'Thun was a neutral win condition that required a lot of setup and support built into the deck.
2) Yogg-Saron, Hope's End: A 10 mana 7/5 minion that casts a random spell for each spell that you've cast this game. An interesting card that "rewards" you for making a spell-heavy deck and playing as many spells as possible (perhaps even forfeiting minions in the deck). I'll admit that the battlecry effect was pretty strong at the time that they had to nerf him to only being able to cast spells while he is still on the board. The ability of the random spells being cast can alter the course of the game. But the caveat is that the same randomness that can save also can cost you games as well. Yogg could clear the board or perhaps Pyroblast yourself in the face, you'll have to pray and let Yogg take the wheel.
3) N'Zoth, the Corruptor: A 10 mana 5/7 minion that resummons all friendly deathrattle minions that died. Not exactly a finisher like the previous Old Gods, but N'Zoth was a solid card for deathrattle minions and swinging the board back in your favor. A powerful battlecry effect that prompts you to build your deck with deathrattle minions while also requiring them to die as you play the game. I loved playing N'Zoth Paladin and bringing back Tirion Fordring. Once again, N'Zoth was not as game-ending as the other two but he felt fair and powerful for his effect that encouraged you to mix and match deathrattle minions that could help close out games.
4) Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound: A 10 mana 10/10 minion that summons a minion from your deck. Now this is the one Old God that I really don't remember being played as much than in the Barnes Priest decks. But still, he basically encouraged you to build your deck around having certain minions that you'd want to cheat out from your deck. Like you'd want to put more higher cost minions in your deck if you want. Or you could take the Barnes approach and make your deck extremely high roll and put a small pool of minions like Y'Shaarj which can pull another minion for free. He might not be as flavorful as the previous Old Gods but he still requires you to be more considerate of what you put in your deck.
Okay, now let's have a look at two recent neutral legendaries that I think have become problematic.
1) Sire Denathrius: A 10 mana 10/10 lifesteal minion whose battlecry deals at least 5 damage amongst enemies. This effect can be improved by having friendly minions die while this card is in your hand. Some may argue that he is just as interactive as playing against Yogg since both really just care about what YOU do AKA casting spells for Yogg and friendly minions dying for Denathrius. I'd say that at least Yogg has a glaring caveat which is his randomness of spells that can ultimately backfire on you for playing such a gamble and you'd need to build your deck with mostly spells. But Denathrius on the other hand, you can pretty much use anything so long as you can spawn tokens or play minions. There is also no downside to playing/including Denathrius since he is essentially C'Thun and Reno Jackson in one card that offers no deck restriction.
2) Astalor Bloodsworn: A 2 mana 2/2 minion whose battlecry effect adds Astalor, the Protector which adds Astalor, the Flamebringer to your hand. The manathirst effects are deal 2 damage, gain 5 armor, and deal 8 more damage split among enemies respectively. This most recent legendary is somehow much more flexible and usable than Sire Denathrius. You can play this card on curve and even if you do not then the manathrist effect makes it better to use for other tempo plays. I should also mention that there is also no downside to playing Astalor as well as no deck limitations for including this card as a win condition in your deck.
So what is the issue here with the recent neutral legendaries?
The problem with these cards is that they have become an easy-to-include win condition to put into your deck.
The examples from the Whispers of the Old Gods are all solid neutral legendary win conditions but they have a nuance in how they are used. You would have needed to build your entire deck specifically for that card.
Now, you can just put Sire Denathrius and Astalor Bloodsworn into your deck without much worry since they can be simply played throughout the course of the game via board trading or just playing on curve. You don't need to be considerate about what you put in your deck as much as before when you use these cards which gives players more of a "Get Out of Jail Free" card when their actual win condition gets disrupted/fails to kill you.
These are just my thoughts on the "powercreep" of neutral legendaries becoming auto-include win conditions. Feel free to disagree and I'd like to know what you guys think about it.
I feel the meta is wrong since Denathrius, now replaced by Astalor, and I've never felt anything like that before. Astalor is OP, sure, but the real problem I have is that it's in every deck (including mines, sadly). You can put the card everywhere, it's just a 2 drop, it gives you a ton of value and there is no drawback for including it. As the original poster stated, this is not how such a card should be designed.
No card should be able to deal 16 for "free" from hand, just nerf the last stage to 6 and 12 and we'll be fine. The card is gonna be really weak after Brann and shadowstep rotation.
100% Agree. I would also going to include Mr. Smite. These neutral legendaries are flat out ruining the game. They give every class a win condition that should not belong to them. If i get burned down by an opponents class cards I'm coming away from that game going I need to tech against or counter this minion. But for two expansions straight these cards were fun for like a week and now they're honestly boring af but they're necessary auto includes in so many decks because if you don't run it then you don't really have a competitive deck. That is not how standard HS should be played and that's not just my opinion that type of logic is the same thing Team 5 developers have stated that cards like these create unfun win conditions. For a long time the biggest exploits were neutral charge cards or infinite OTKs. They went away, they came back and were still a problem, go figure. Now we have cards that build damage in hand so you're now punished for clearing the board countless times or making smart trades.
I think bringing back rotated cards to the core set was a fantastic decision. However, some of the cards that were approved to go back in to standard do not mesh with modern HS. On top of that the ideology of just letting certain cards stay unbalanced because they will rotate soon isn't an effective strategy and seemingly not an effective business decision because you push players already frustrated by the game even further away.
N zoth was pretty unfair against lots of decks .... you say fair but only becouse you played it that much.
mr. Smite made me delete the game. Devs are a joke. „Charge and leeroy are problematic, we wont ever again make such a card“ .1 week later and mr. Smite announced xDDDDDDDDD
N zoth was pretty unfair against lots of decks .... you say fair but only becouse you played it that much.
mr. Smite made me delete the game. Devs are a joke. „Charge and leeroy are problematic, we wont ever again make such a card“ .1 week later and mr. Smite announced xDDDDDDDDD
A card like N'Zoth is never really too unfair though. It took ages to get going and could only be played on turn 10 (and arguably it would often not be played on turn 10 as you needed to have been fairly lucky with your minions played on the way there). You had a good idea which things were going to be resurrected so you could (in theory) hold removal for it. It was the latest of late game cards and it always gave you a turn to respond. The player running him had to design the deck in such a way as to maximise his effect and then actually play those cards as the game progressed. The perfect 10 mana type card imo. I don't even recall there being any meaningful mana cheat back then either.
Don't get me wrong - it was often the nail in the coffin for aggro decks (seeing a board of deathrattle taunts getting resummoned), but I still think it was a fairly well designed card in the big scheme of things and not always a game winning play.
Mr Smite and Astalor are terrible designs for cards (imo) and they're almost ironic in their design, because they both mimic cards which the designers have previously said weren't fun and then nerfed (Leeroy and Denathrius) only to then reprint the same effect in a slightly different form (which is arguably buffed from the previous version). Of the two I think Mr Smite is almost a reasonable card (pirates do tend to be weak stat wise), but his interaction and high-roll potential with the warrior quest and colossal (before nerf) made it massively overpowered (on top of a quest which was also overpowered). He is still quite strong in paladin as well.
It's pretty clear that Team 5 has changed over the years for better or worse, so I find it hard to hold the present Team 5 accountable for what old Team 5 stated. Regardless, Team 5 is shooting themselves in the foot as they're really limiting the design space for themselves.
With each new expansion, they need to give a reason why players should spend money on the new sets. This is done by creating cards with powerful effects, unique & fun effects, or both. To sequentially do this would only make designing cards more difficult since you'd need to find a way to make the newer cards stand out from the already established cards. You would need to keep making more powerful cards which would have happened eventually but at least put a drawback to using that card.
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Was friends with Paladin, now Death Knights are my homies.
What you are describing here is natural "power creep" that happens in all games of this sort. You can't compare the power strength of cards that came out 2-3 years ago with those currently, because the game has moved on hugely in power and variation since then, so cards like that would be different if created now, then they were back then.
Secondly, you are comparing only 2 of the many neutral legendary cards that came out with a few from back then. This is problematic because you are cherry picking non-similar (except for possibly C'THun) cards which have no bearing on the ones from current standard. What about Neptulon, The Jailer, Lor'themar, Mutanus, etc? These are all super-strong neutral Legendaries that also have huge impact on the game, and are all stronger than most of the legendaries from 2-3 years ago. Again, this is really normal.
What you are describing here is natural "power creep" that happens in all games of this sort. You can't compare the power strength of cards that came out 2-3 years ago with those currently, because the game has moved on hugely in power and variation since then, so cards like that would be different if created now, then they were back then.
Secondly, you are comparing only 2 of the many neutral legendary cards that came out with a few from back then. This is problematic because you are cherry picking non-similar (except for possibly C'THun) cards which have no bearing on the ones from current standard. What about Neptulon, The Jailer, Lor'themar, Mutanus, etc? These are all super-strong neutral Legendaries that also have huge impact on the game, and are all stronger than most of the legendaries from 2-3 years ago. Again, this is really normal.
No, it isn’t normal. The OP is dead on.
A power creep is all cards getting gradually more powerful. This is pretty normal, but at the poster has mentioned, it’s a problem when finishing cards are neutral because it essentially makes all decks have the same win condition, which in turn makes gameplay stale.
You mentioning the Jailer is a perfect example. The only reason The Jailer isn’t a problem is because Astalor is better. There’s no point in putting a weaker card (Jailer) in a deck when there’s a more powerful option (Astalor), which is why The Jailer sees far, far less play. If these cards could only be used in certain classes, then both could see play and the meta would be more diverse.
I'll admit that your response made me more considerate about the other neutral legendaries, but the cards you mentioned are not on the same league as the ones I pointed out. Still a good response that prompts discussion.
Yes I'm aware of the nature of power creep that has happened in the past few years. Some cards will just be better than old cards as time goes on in the game's life cycle. My issue is that these newer cards such as the neutral legendaries are having less of a cost to add in your deck for basically functioning the same as older cards that required more conscious deck building. There is barely any risk to put cards like Astalor Bloodsworn in your deck that can be used as a finisher/secondary win condition.
As for the other neutral legendaries, they are strong for sure but they are not as flexible as the two neutral legendaries that I've mentioned nor do they kill your opponent as efficiently and immediately. Those legendaries that you've mentioned either require you to still consider what to put in your deck to try to synergize with the neutral legendary, have a drawback to playing/putting it in your deck, and/or just don't outright kill the opponent (giving the opponent a turn to respond).
Neptulon the Tidehunter: He's a 10 mana rush windfury minion that spawns with two hands that hit for him. He is pretty much removal unless you plan on playing Big Priest / Res Priest that still can be answered since he can't hit face yet.
The Jailer: He's a 10 mana 10/10 that makes your board immune for the rest of the game. He has some glaring drawbacks: he destroys your deck, he makes it easy to board-lock yourself, taunts are now useless. I should also mention how your minions are still vulnerable to hard AoE removal like Shadow Word: Ruin, or rather playing the Jailer still gives the enemy a turn to react to it. Even then, you would still need to consider what minions to put in your deck to take advantage of that immunity.
Lor'themar Theron: A 7 mana 7/7 minion that doubles the stats of all your minions in your deck. You still need to be considerate of how you build your deck to take advantage of this card. You'd want to put minions with premium stats or good keywords such as Mr. Smite in your deck and doubling stats does not necessarily win you the game. Those buffed minions still need to attack the face in a game where classes can have hard removal or can flat out kill you faster than you playing a 7 mana minion with barely any board presence.
Mutanus the Devourer: A 7 mana 4/4 minion that destroys a random minion in your opponent's hand and gains their stats. I really would not consider Mutanus to be a win condition because he's a disruption tool like Tickatus, Blademaster Okani, Theotar, the Mad Duke. Yes he can win you games if he manages to hit important cards, but he also can severely whiff. Dropping Mutanus for 7 mana is already a risky play because you can hit something else that's weak or even nothing. Unless your deck's goal is to disrupt your opponent's cards as much as possible, Mutanus isn't really a win condition. At that point, you're really just playing to deny your opponent's win condition.
I chose to compare the current neutral legendary "win conditions" to the Old Gods because they were also neutral legendary "win conditions" BUT they had an inherent cost to putting them in your deck. What's the cost to putting Astalor Bloodsworn in your deck? There's barely any because he's excellent at playing curve or tempo thanks to the Manathirst effect which eventually leads into an 8 mana 8/8 that does 16 damage which can act as a finisher / win condition.
I know power creep has been occurring in the game but there needs to be a balance to it. I don't mind that Astalor is a better C'Thun in terms of flexibility. What I do mind is how easy it is to put him in your deck as a back-up win condition.
In hindsight, I should have also mentioned the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Old God legendaries which are a bit more recent but still required you to be conscious of your deckbuilding or had a cost / drawback to them.
I think perhaps my overall point was missed, in that what I was pointing out is that comparing neutral legendary cards in today's game state to those 2-3 years ago is somewhat inconsequential, because of the nature of normal power creep. (And yes, it IS normal, I'm afraid - that's how games evolve). And that's not to imply that anyone here doesn't know what power creep is of course. Just to posit the reason for why neutral legendary cards are now more powerful than they used to be. In fact, Denathrius is really just a slightly upgraded C'thun when you stop to think about it.
The list of other legendaries I provided were not intended as "Look, these are stronger than those two!", because obviously they aren't (except for decks built around them for a specific purpose). Instead, this thread was stating the "Problem with the most recent Neutral Legendaries", and then only went on to mention two that people have complained about unendingly for the last couple of months. I wanted to point out the fact that there are many other neutral legendaries available than just these two, so worth considering and discussing if there is a problem with them all. However, if it's simply another "Denathrius / Astalor is broken because X..." then let's acknowledge that. (And not try to dress it as a discussion about something else?)
By the logic that Astalor is perfectly fine because power creep, what would be the FINAL form of such cards after decades of said power creep? Would "0 mana : destroy your opponent" be okay? If not, where do you draw the line?
The OP only mentioned those two cards, because the other ones are not as problematic - they are not auto-includes.
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Developers' inability to balance is one thing; players choosing to abuse it is another.
There's no need to dismiss it. I understand that there were salt posts about Sire Denathrius and Astalor Bloodsworn but it does not mean that there is not a problem with them. We can not just ignore it as simply natural powercreep because even developers can acknowledge their own mistakes. The mistake being that the meta could become possibly stale and dominant with players using the same cards or win conditions.
There was a reason why Team 5 nerfed Prince Renathal as they wrote it themselves, "He’s the most played card in the game and the meta has warped around him for a long time, so we are making this change to open the meta back up ". Prince Renathal wasn't exactly game-ending in his effect but he was so dominant and used so much in the meta that they wanted to free up room for other cards to be played.
I'll even throw in a really old example which was when the Hall of Fame system was first introduced. They had to move Ragnaros the Firelord and Sylvanas Windrunner into it from Classic because they were used so much in decks without much thought since they were strong and versatile. I could even mention how Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane were HoF early since they led to a rather stale meta of fighting Odd/Even decks which were busted in their own rights that would have overshadowed anything new coming to Standard.
Now we have Astalor Bloodsworn which serves as a neutral Legendary win condition for all the classes. Like Jay119 said, this leads to stale gameplay in which everyone now uses him as an easy-to-include finisher / win condition. Yes, there are other powerful neutral legendaries but they're harder to use to actually kill your opponent immediately in comparison to Sire Denathrius and Astalor Bloodsworn.
I'm talking about the problem with the most recent neutral legendaries because some of them have become auto-includes just like Ragnaros and Sylvanas; Baku and Genn; Prince Renathal. EXCEPT that they actually serve as a flexible win condition (that can kill you opponent with their battlecry effect AKA have immediate impact on the game) that has barely no downside to playing and including it in your deck.
Like you've said, my title seems to be very misleading in comparison to what I've been saying. I really should have said that there were problems with having neutral legendary win conditions becoming auto-included in decks. Yes, the cards I've mentioned are inconsequential to the current Hearthstone meta so it's not a 1:1 comparison that I can definitively state. But there needs to be a limit on how easily attainable your win condition should be if it were to be a neutral legendary as well as how strong the effect is. The people behind Team 5 might not be the same people five or six years ago but they still share some sentiments towards cards such as the overuse of them.
What's the point of being excited for the next set of legendary cards if I can still use Astalor Bloodsworn as my back-up win condition? Team 5 would need to design a card with a more insane / usable effect so that Astalor wouldn't overshadow the next expansion which is the same problem they had with Genn / Baku. This leads to a trend of steep powercreep throughout each expansion that would heavily limit design space for the developers unless they deal with it promptly because they need to give you a reason for getting the next expansion.
By the logic that Astalor is perfectly fine because power creep, what would be the FINAL form of such cards after decades of said power creep? Would "0 mana : destroy your opponent" be okay? If not, where do you draw the line?
The OP only mentioned those two cards, because the other ones are not as problematic - they are not auto-includes.
Something being "normal" doesn't translate to it being "fine". How did you manage to come to that conclusion exactly?
I think Astalor and Denathrius are both meant to be meta dominating while their expansion is out and then be a decent option once people had their taste. WotOG was a great expansion! I agree, and I believe it was the best release relative to its time. Mind if I mention another expansion? GvG. First one to come and it had Dr Boom who made Astalor look like an avantgarde option when deck building. AFTER wotog we had Patches, Lich king, Baku and Xilliax. Where I'd argue that last three were extra powerful for the sake of flavor. New expansion = new meta. That's why we get a broken neutral that we end up hating. There seemed to be a break after Ben Brode left thou. Dragon Queen is the only one coming to mind atm.
I don't mean to dismiss OP thou. Both Old god expansions had a well balanced selection of neutral legs (maybe except Y'shaarj v. 2) that both had good flavor and impact. I think Astalor will be nerfed eventually, just like Denathrius and Renathal "had their time" (some dev stated). I get the skepticism towards this "future nerf super card" policy, but I also think that there are much worse design strategies, like that of TgT and Rastakhans rumble.
I am not comparing the metas because it makes no sense (game has changed a lot) and I am not arguing for or against either arguments. I would just like to point out that the game has a completely different problem and that is the limited design space. When you design new cards and you want to make them attractive enough so that you sell packs, you basically have the option to power creep existing stuff or create new kinds of interactions, win cons or explore new mechanics (take things like Soul Shards, bombs, heros, quests, or these colossal cards as an example). The problem with HS is that it is so old that almost all design spaces have been explored and almost the only thing remaining is power creep.
The only other option that could exist, and I am sad they haven't really done that even though the option once existed, is using the huge amount of card options of the core set to gradually reduce the power level of core and thus new sets. But this takes time because you can't have one year of garbage cards and one year of broken stuff in the same standard meta. I guess the devs are also scared that this will reduce the playerbase because the game might get a lot more boring.
On top of that, people tend to forget some of the broken cards from the past quite easily and look back at sets or metas that they wish to come back. Gods was a good meta indeed, but do people really want that back? Do people want quests from Ungoro back? Lackeys? Frozen Throne? Most of this stuff wasn't really balanced
Someone give this guy a bunch of bucks, he's already thinking harder about this game than Team 5 when they printed Astalor and Denathrius.
The problem is they made universal easy to use win conditions that won't limit your decks at all (Astalor is by far the biggest offender here, since Denathrius at least required minions and would rather use some sort of selective draw). That means the playable card pool is harmed because there is no point in running "X" if those legends are way better and require no synergy (and if you say something about rogue, remember they also use Shadowstep unironically to bounce concoction related cards for bigger tempo, so it's not a card designed to fit Astalor per se). And future expansions will have trouble being memorable because "Astalor is still better". Remember how well did people regard Rastakhan's Rumble with its "not powerful enough" package?
Yea I didn't consider how old Hearthstone was which could be the reason why Team 5 has upped the ante in designing newer cards to be more flavorful and powerful. I'm not saying power creep is a bad thing but the way Team 5 is doing it is pretty wrong.
Power creep is fine when you're reprinting "buffed" versions of cards that were deemed nearly unplayable because the cards themselves weren't game-breaking. It gives developers more wiggle room while giving those lesser played cards a chance to be "played" in the meta in a better form. I can think of a few examples like Stonehill Defender vs Silverback Patriarch or Righteous Protector vs Argent Squire. This is fine.
What is not fine is the card designers reprinting and buffing already "powerful cards" like old win conditions. It's not fine for them to reprint Sire Denathrius in a more flexible form AKA Astalor Bloodsworn. There was no need to give us another neutral legendary win condition right after the previous one caused issues. What I hate most about Astalor is that he is as flexible as Bloodmage Thalnos to put in your deck but he also can win you games without any drawback to playing him.
I get that the meta changed a lot but I have to compare neutral legendaries from somewhere. I know that the game has gotten faster but I hate that decks are becoming more cookie cutter stuff. Also to answer your last question, we're already reliving the metas in a more efficient form. We have questlines that reward you just for progressing them unlike the old quests as well as giving you rewards that last for the rest of the game. We even have hero cards again from Fractured in Alterac Valley. I think we had more game-breaking issues like how Blightborn Tamsin completely negated fatigue for Warlock in the recent metas.
I wanted to make a thread about the neutral legendaries that have come out in recent expansions (notably Murder at Castle Nathria and March of the Lich King) because I feel like they've been becoming more of an auto-include win condition.
Let's go back as far as the Whispers of the Old Gods to see how neutral legendaries were done pretty well in my opinion.
1) C'Thun: The main star of the expansion and the originator of the C'Thun decks that aimed to slowly buff up C'Thun and then play him for a satisfying finisher. He is a 10 mana 6/6 minion that deals damage split among enemies equal to its attack. Like I've mentioned before, the gameplan is to play minions that buff C'Thun to make him and his battlecry effect stronger. If the enemy were to survive the battlecry effect then they would have to deal with a huge C'Thun on board. Of course, a dozen cards were printed to encourage buffing C'Thun like Twilight Elder and some even award you for it like Twin Emperor Vek'lor. Basically C'Thun was a neutral win condition that required a lot of setup and support built into the deck.
2) Yogg-Saron, Hope's End: A 10 mana 7/5 minion that casts a random spell for each spell that you've cast this game. An interesting card that "rewards" you for making a spell-heavy deck and playing as many spells as possible (perhaps even forfeiting minions in the deck). I'll admit that the battlecry effect was pretty strong at the time that they had to nerf him to only being able to cast spells while he is still on the board. The ability of the random spells being cast can alter the course of the game. But the caveat is that the same randomness that can save also can cost you games as well. Yogg could clear the board or perhaps Pyroblast yourself in the face, you'll have to pray and let Yogg take the wheel.
3) N'Zoth, the Corruptor: A 10 mana 5/7 minion that resummons all friendly deathrattle minions that died. Not exactly a finisher like the previous Old Gods, but N'Zoth was a solid card for deathrattle minions and swinging the board back in your favor. A powerful battlecry effect that prompts you to build your deck with deathrattle minions while also requiring them to die as you play the game. I loved playing N'Zoth Paladin and bringing back Tirion Fordring. Once again, N'Zoth was not as game-ending as the other two but he felt fair and powerful for his effect that encouraged you to mix and match deathrattle minions that could help close out games.
4) Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound: A 10 mana 10/10 minion that summons a minion from your deck. Now this is the one Old God that I really don't remember being played as much than in the Barnes Priest decks. But still, he basically encouraged you to build your deck around having certain minions that you'd want to cheat out from your deck. Like you'd want to put more higher cost minions in your deck if you want. Or you could take the Barnes approach and make your deck extremely high roll and put a small pool of minions like Y'Shaarj which can pull another minion for free. He might not be as flavorful as the previous Old Gods but he still requires you to be more considerate of what you put in your deck.
Okay, now let's have a look at two recent neutral legendaries that I think have become problematic.
1) Sire Denathrius: A 10 mana 10/10 lifesteal minion whose battlecry deals at least 5 damage amongst enemies. This effect can be improved by having friendly minions die while this card is in your hand. Some may argue that he is just as interactive as playing against Yogg since both really just care about what YOU do AKA casting spells for Yogg and friendly minions dying for Denathrius. I'd say that at least Yogg has a glaring caveat which is his randomness of spells that can ultimately backfire on you for playing such a gamble and you'd need to build your deck with mostly spells. But Denathrius on the other hand, you can pretty much use anything so long as you can spawn tokens or play minions. There is also no downside to playing/including Denathrius since he is essentially C'Thun and Reno Jackson in one card that offers no deck restriction.
2) Astalor Bloodsworn: A 2 mana 2/2 minion whose battlecry effect adds Astalor, the Protector which adds Astalor, the Flamebringer to your hand. The manathirst effects are deal 2 damage, gain 5 armor, and deal 8 more damage split among enemies respectively. This most recent legendary is somehow much more flexible and usable than Sire Denathrius. You can play this card on curve and even if you do not then the manathrist effect makes it better to use for other tempo plays. I should also mention that there is also no downside to playing Astalor as well as no deck limitations for including this card as a win condition in your deck.
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So what is the issue here with the recent neutral legendaries?
The problem with these cards is that they have become an easy-to-include win condition to put into your deck.
The examples from the Whispers of the Old Gods are all solid neutral legendary win conditions but they have a nuance in how they are used. You would have needed to build your entire deck specifically for that card.
Now, you can just put Sire Denathrius and Astalor Bloodsworn into your deck without much worry since they can be simply played throughout the course of the game via board trading or just playing on curve. You don't need to be considerate about what you put in your deck as much as before when you use these cards which gives players more of a "Get Out of Jail Free" card when their actual win condition gets disrupted/fails to kill you.
These are just my thoughts on the "powercreep" of neutral legendaries becoming auto-include win conditions. Feel free to disagree and I'd like to know what you guys think about it.
Was friends with Paladin, now Death Knights are my homies.
Agree 100%
Also agree 100%
I feel the meta is wrong since Denathrius, now replaced by Astalor, and I've never felt anything like that before. Astalor is OP, sure, but the real problem I have is that it's in every deck (including mines, sadly). You can put the card everywhere, it's just a 2 drop, it gives you a ton of value and there is no drawback for including it. As the original poster stated, this is not how such a card should be designed.
Astalor would be easily fixed. Just make it shuffle to your deck instead of hand.
No card should be able to deal 16 for "free" from hand, just nerf the last stage to 6 and 12 and we'll be fine. The card is gonna be really weak after Brann and shadowstep rotation.
100% Agree. I would also going to include Mr. Smite. These neutral legendaries are flat out ruining the game. They give every class a win condition that should not belong to them. If i get burned down by an opponents class cards I'm coming away from that game going I need to tech against or counter this minion. But for two expansions straight these cards were fun for like a week and now they're honestly boring af but they're necessary auto includes in so many decks because if you don't run it then you don't really have a competitive deck. That is not how standard HS should be played and that's not just my opinion that type of logic is the same thing Team 5 developers have stated that cards like these create unfun win conditions. For a long time the biggest exploits were neutral charge cards or infinite OTKs. They went away, they came back and were still a problem, go figure. Now we have cards that build damage in hand so you're now punished for clearing the board countless times or making smart trades.
I think bringing back rotated cards to the core set was a fantastic decision. However, some of the cards that were approved to go back in to standard do not mesh with modern HS. On top of that the ideology of just letting certain cards stay unbalanced because they will rotate soon isn't an effective strategy and seemingly not an effective business decision because you push players already frustrated by the game even further away.
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N zoth was pretty unfair against lots of decks .... you say fair but only becouse you played it that much.
mr. Smite made me delete the game. Devs are a joke. „Charge and leeroy are problematic, we wont ever again make such a card“ .1 week later and mr. Smite announced xDDDDDDDDD
A card like N'Zoth is never really too unfair though. It took ages to get going and could only be played on turn 10 (and arguably it would often not be played on turn 10 as you needed to have been fairly lucky with your minions played on the way there). You had a good idea which things were going to be resurrected so you could (in theory) hold removal for it. It was the latest of late game cards and it always gave you a turn to respond. The player running him had to design the deck in such a way as to maximise his effect and then actually play those cards as the game progressed. The perfect 10 mana type card imo. I don't even recall there being any meaningful mana cheat back then either.
Don't get me wrong - it was often the nail in the coffin for aggro decks (seeing a board of deathrattle taunts getting resummoned), but I still think it was a fairly well designed card in the big scheme of things and not always a game winning play.
Mr Smite and Astalor are terrible designs for cards (imo) and they're almost ironic in their design, because they both mimic cards which the designers have previously said weren't fun and then nerfed (Leeroy and Denathrius) only to then reprint the same effect in a slightly different form (which is arguably buffed from the previous version). Of the two I think Mr Smite is almost a reasonable card (pirates do tend to be weak stat wise), but his interaction and high-roll potential with the warrior quest and colossal (before nerf) made it massively overpowered (on top of a quest which was also overpowered). He is still quite strong in paladin as well.
OMG I completely forgot about Mr. Smite.
I am honestly surprised at how that card was first released when he was a blatantly better Leeroy Jenkins.
Better stats; better keyword (charge affects friendly pirates); no inherent weakness.
It's pretty clear that Team 5 has changed over the years for better or worse, so I find it hard to hold the present Team 5 accountable for what old Team 5 stated. Regardless, Team 5 is shooting themselves in the foot as they're really limiting the design space for themselves.
With each new expansion, they need to give a reason why players should spend money on the new sets. This is done by creating cards with powerful effects, unique & fun effects, or both. To sequentially do this would only make designing cards more difficult since you'd need to find a way to make the newer cards stand out from the already established cards. You would need to keep making more powerful cards which would have happened eventually but at least put a drawback to using that card.
Was friends with Paladin, now Death Knights are my homies.
Couple of things.
What you are describing here is natural "power creep" that happens in all games of this sort. You can't compare the power strength of cards that came out 2-3 years ago with those currently, because the game has moved on hugely in power and variation since then, so cards like that would be different if created now, then they were back then.
Secondly, you are comparing only 2 of the many neutral legendary cards that came out with a few from back then. This is problematic because you are cherry picking non-similar (except for possibly C'THun) cards which have no bearing on the ones from current standard.
What about Neptulon, The Jailer, Lor'themar, Mutanus, etc? These are all super-strong neutral Legendaries that also have huge impact on the game, and are all stronger than most of the legendaries from 2-3 years ago.
Again, this is really normal.
No, it isn’t normal. The OP is dead on.
A power creep is all cards getting gradually more powerful. This is pretty normal, but at the poster has mentioned, it’s a problem when finishing cards are neutral because it essentially makes all decks have the same win condition, which in turn makes gameplay stale.
You mentioning the Jailer is a perfect example. The only reason The Jailer isn’t a problem is because Astalor is better. There’s no point in putting a weaker card (Jailer) in a deck when there’s a more powerful option (Astalor), which is why The Jailer sees far, far less play. If these cards could only be used in certain classes, then both could see play and the meta would be more diverse.
I'll admit that your response made me more considerate about the other neutral legendaries, but the cards you mentioned are not on the same league as the ones I pointed out. Still a good response that prompts discussion.
Yes I'm aware of the nature of power creep that has happened in the past few years. Some cards will just be better than old cards as time goes on in the game's life cycle. My issue is that these newer cards such as the neutral legendaries are having less of a cost to add in your deck for basically functioning the same as older cards that required more conscious deck building. There is barely any risk to put cards like Astalor Bloodsworn in your deck that can be used as a finisher/secondary win condition.
As for the other neutral legendaries, they are strong for sure but they are not as flexible as the two neutral legendaries that I've mentioned nor do they kill your opponent as efficiently and immediately. Those legendaries that you've mentioned either require you to still consider what to put in your deck to try to synergize with the neutral legendary, have a drawback to playing/putting it in your deck, and/or just don't outright kill the opponent (giving the opponent a turn to respond).
Neptulon the Tidehunter: He's a 10 mana rush windfury minion that spawns with two hands that hit for him. He is pretty much removal unless you plan on playing Big Priest / Res Priest that still can be answered since he can't hit face yet.
The Jailer: He's a 10 mana 10/10 that makes your board immune for the rest of the game. He has some glaring drawbacks: he destroys your deck, he makes it easy to board-lock yourself, taunts are now useless. I should also mention how your minions are still vulnerable to hard AoE removal like Shadow Word: Ruin, or rather playing the Jailer still gives the enemy a turn to react to it. Even then, you would still need to consider what minions to put in your deck to take advantage of that immunity.
Lor'themar Theron: A 7 mana 7/7 minion that doubles the stats of all your minions in your deck. You still need to be considerate of how you build your deck to take advantage of this card. You'd want to put minions with premium stats or good keywords such as Mr. Smite in your deck and doubling stats does not necessarily win you the game. Those buffed minions still need to attack the face in a game where classes can have hard removal or can flat out kill you faster than you playing a 7 mana minion with barely any board presence.
Mutanus the Devourer: A 7 mana 4/4 minion that destroys a random minion in your opponent's hand and gains their stats. I really would not consider Mutanus to be a win condition because he's a disruption tool like Tickatus, Blademaster Okani, Theotar, the Mad Duke. Yes he can win you games if he manages to hit important cards, but he also can severely whiff. Dropping Mutanus for 7 mana is already a risky play because you can hit something else that's weak or even nothing. Unless your deck's goal is to disrupt your opponent's cards as much as possible, Mutanus isn't really a win condition. At that point, you're really just playing to deny your opponent's win condition.
I chose to compare the current neutral legendary "win conditions" to the Old Gods because they were also neutral legendary "win conditions" BUT they had an inherent cost to putting them in your deck. What's the cost to putting Astalor Bloodsworn in your deck? There's barely any because he's excellent at playing curve or tempo thanks to the Manathirst effect which eventually leads into an 8 mana 8/8 that does 16 damage which can act as a finisher / win condition.
I know power creep has been occurring in the game but there needs to be a balance to it. I don't mind that Astalor is a better C'Thun in terms of flexibility. What I do mind is how easy it is to put him in your deck as a back-up win condition.
In hindsight, I should have also mentioned the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Old God legendaries which are a bit more recent but still required you to be conscious of your deckbuilding or had a cost / drawback to them.
Was friends with Paladin, now Death Knights are my homies.
I think perhaps my overall point was missed, in that what I was pointing out is that comparing neutral legendary cards in today's game state to those 2-3 years ago is somewhat inconsequential, because of the nature of normal power creep. (And yes, it IS normal, I'm afraid - that's how games evolve).
And that's not to imply that anyone here doesn't know what power creep is of course. Just to posit the reason for why neutral legendary cards are now more powerful than they used to be.
In fact, Denathrius is really just a slightly upgraded C'thun when you stop to think about it.
The list of other legendaries I provided were not intended as "Look, these are stronger than those two!", because obviously they aren't (except for decks built around them for a specific purpose).
Instead, this thread was stating the "Problem with the most recent Neutral Legendaries", and then only went on to mention two that people have complained about unendingly for the last couple of months. I wanted to point out the fact that there are many other neutral legendaries available than just these two, so worth considering and discussing if there is a problem with them all.
However, if it's simply another "Denathrius / Astalor is broken because X..." then let's acknowledge that. (And not try to dress it as a discussion about something else?)
...is all I am saying. :-)
By the logic that Astalor is perfectly fine because power creep, what would be the FINAL form of such cards after decades of said power creep? Would "0 mana : destroy your opponent" be okay? If not, where do you draw the line?
The OP only mentioned those two cards, because the other ones are not as problematic - they are not auto-includes.
Developers' inability to balance is one thing; players choosing to abuse it is another.
There's no need to dismiss it. I understand that there were salt posts about Sire Denathrius and Astalor Bloodsworn but it does not mean that there is not a problem with them. We can not just ignore it as simply natural powercreep because even developers can acknowledge their own mistakes. The mistake being that the meta could become possibly stale and dominant with players using the same cards or win conditions.
There was a reason why Team 5 nerfed Prince Renathal as they wrote it themselves, "He’s the most played card in the game and the meta has warped around him for a long time, so we are making this change to open the meta back up ". Prince Renathal wasn't exactly game-ending in his effect but he was so dominant and used so much in the meta that they wanted to free up room for other cards to be played.
I'll even throw in a really old example which was when the Hall of Fame system was first introduced. They had to move Ragnaros the Firelord and Sylvanas Windrunner into it from Classic because they were used so much in decks without much thought since they were strong and versatile. I could even mention how Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane were HoF early since they led to a rather stale meta of fighting Odd/Even decks which were busted in their own rights that would have overshadowed anything new coming to Standard.
Now we have Astalor Bloodsworn which serves as a neutral Legendary win condition for all the classes. Like Jay119 said, this leads to stale gameplay in which everyone now uses him as an easy-to-include finisher / win condition. Yes, there are other powerful neutral legendaries but they're harder to use to actually kill your opponent immediately in comparison to Sire Denathrius and Astalor Bloodsworn.
I'm talking about the problem with the most recent neutral legendaries because some of them have become auto-includes just like Ragnaros and Sylvanas; Baku and Genn; Prince Renathal. EXCEPT that they actually serve as a flexible win condition (that can kill you opponent with their battlecry effect AKA have immediate impact on the game) that has barely no downside to playing and including it in your deck.
Like you've said, my title seems to be very misleading in comparison to what I've been saying. I really should have said that there were problems with having neutral legendary win conditions becoming auto-included in decks. Yes, the cards I've mentioned are inconsequential to the current Hearthstone meta so it's not a 1:1 comparison that I can definitively state. But there needs to be a limit on how easily attainable your win condition should be if it were to be a neutral legendary as well as how strong the effect is. The people behind Team 5 might not be the same people five or six years ago but they still share some sentiments towards cards such as the overuse of them.
What's the point of being excited for the next set of legendary cards if I can still use Astalor Bloodsworn as my back-up win condition? Team 5 would need to design a card with a more insane / usable effect so that Astalor wouldn't overshadow the next expansion which is the same problem they had with Genn / Baku. This leads to a trend of steep powercreep throughout each expansion that would heavily limit design space for the developers unless they deal with it promptly because they need to give you a reason for getting the next expansion.
Was friends with Paladin, now Death Knights are my homies.
Something being "normal" doesn't translate to it being "fine". How did you manage to come to that conclusion exactly?
I think Astalor and Denathrius are both meant to be meta dominating while their expansion is out and then be a decent option once people had their taste. WotOG was a great expansion! I agree, and I believe it was the best release relative to its time. Mind if I mention another expansion? GvG. First one to come and it had Dr Boom who made Astalor look like an avantgarde option when deck building. AFTER wotog we had Patches, Lich king, Baku and Xilliax. Where I'd argue that last three were extra powerful for the sake of flavor. New expansion = new meta. That's why we get a broken neutral that we end up hating. There seemed to be a break after Ben Brode left thou. Dragon Queen is the only one coming to mind atm.
I don't mean to dismiss OP thou. Both Old god expansions had a well balanced selection of neutral legs (maybe except Y'shaarj v. 2) that both had good flavor and impact. I think Astalor will be nerfed eventually, just like Denathrius and Renathal "had their time" (some dev stated). I get the skepticism towards this "future nerf super card" policy, but I also think that there are much worse design strategies, like that of TgT and Rastakhans rumble.
I am not comparing the metas because it makes no sense (game has changed a lot) and I am not arguing for or against either arguments. I would just like to point out that the game has a completely different problem and that is the limited design space. When you design new cards and you want to make them attractive enough so that you sell packs, you basically have the option to power creep existing stuff or create new kinds of interactions, win cons or explore new mechanics (take things like Soul Shards, bombs, heros, quests, or these colossal cards as an example). The problem with HS is that it is so old that almost all design spaces have been explored and almost the only thing remaining is power creep.
The only other option that could exist, and I am sad they haven't really done that even though the option once existed, is using the huge amount of card options of the core set to gradually reduce the power level of core and thus new sets. But this takes time because you can't have one year of garbage cards and one year of broken stuff in the same standard meta. I guess the devs are also scared that this will reduce the playerbase because the game might get a lot more boring.
On top of that, people tend to forget some of the broken cards from the past quite easily and look back at sets or metas that they wish to come back. Gods was a good meta indeed, but do people really want that back? Do people want quests from Ungoro back? Lackeys? Frozen Throne? Most of this stuff wasn't really balanced
Someone give this guy a bunch of bucks, he's already thinking harder about this game than Team 5 when they printed Astalor and Denathrius.
The problem is they made universal easy to use win conditions that won't limit your decks at all (Astalor is by far the biggest offender here, since Denathrius at least required minions and would rather use some sort of selective draw). That means the playable card pool is harmed because there is no point in running "X" if those legends are way better and require no synergy (and if you say something about rogue, remember they also use Shadowstep unironically to bounce concoction related cards for bigger tempo, so it's not a card designed to fit Astalor per se). And future expansions will have trouble being memorable because "Astalor is still better". Remember how well did people regard Rastakhan's Rumble with its "not powerful enough" package?
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Yea I didn't consider how old Hearthstone was which could be the reason why Team 5 has upped the ante in designing newer cards to be more flavorful and powerful. I'm not saying power creep is a bad thing but the way Team 5 is doing it is pretty wrong.
Power creep is fine when you're reprinting "buffed" versions of cards that were deemed nearly unplayable because the cards themselves weren't game-breaking. It gives developers more wiggle room while giving those lesser played cards a chance to be "played" in the meta in a better form. I can think of a few examples like Stonehill Defender vs Silverback Patriarch or Righteous Protector vs Argent Squire. This is fine.
What is not fine is the card designers reprinting and buffing already "powerful cards" like old win conditions. It's not fine for them to reprint Sire Denathrius in a more flexible form AKA Astalor Bloodsworn. There was no need to give us another neutral legendary win condition right after the previous one caused issues. What I hate most about Astalor is that he is as flexible as Bloodmage Thalnos to put in your deck but he also can win you games without any drawback to playing him.
I get that the meta changed a lot but I have to compare neutral legendaries from somewhere. I know that the game has gotten faster but I hate that decks are becoming more cookie cutter stuff. Also to answer your last question, we're already reliving the metas in a more efficient form. We have questlines that reward you just for progressing them unlike the old quests as well as giving you rewards that last for the rest of the game. We even have hero cards again from Fractured in Alterac Valley. I think we had more game-breaking issues like how Blightborn Tamsin completely negated fatigue for Warlock in the recent metas.
Was friends with Paladin, now Death Knights are my homies.