With the Goblins VS Gnomes expansion and Naxxramas adventure, a lot of cards were released that encouraged things such as summoning and playing cards, as well as keeping cheap board presence. Both of these were associated with a large increase in aggro decks. Control is still there, and aggro is prevalent in most CCGs, but there was a lot of aggro none the less. There were quite a few people who wanted a more control oriented meta.
Now with the new mechanic of holding a specific card in Blackrock Mountain, we have something that encourages that. The need to hold things instead of play them encourages large hand size, which is what control has. This also encourages the opponent to have possible answers to what they believe is in your hand. And here we have set up a Control vs. Control game.
I suppose the question now is: will Blizzards subtle encouragements work?
It doesn't take a genious to figure that out. Also, it'll take more than just the cards they've revealed so far to make control more appealing to play. Unless we get more cards like Dark Iron Skulker that prevents early aggression, this trend won't catch on.
In other words, we need more defensive minions like Unstable Ghoul that can be played earlier in the game.
Good point! I think that its a great opportunity to support the control style, since the BRM adventure will make the collection bigger and introduce the mechanic of "hold". A diversified meta can be much more entertaining. And Blizz already said that the intention of two new class cards is to shake the things up.
Lets see if the expasion of this year will follow this logic.
The only thing I would hold would be my horses since we have ONE card with the hold mechanic and that's not even a really good one to begin with since it's base stat line is frankly more on the "meh" side of 3 drops since it wont trade up to 4 drops like piloted shredder without being buffed. It's nice that it's a battlecry though but that it's a battle cry kinda makes the argument that holding will change the game kinda void.
Do you want to have Ysera on Turn 3 in your hand? Probably not. You want Fairy dragon or hungry dragon, having something you can drop nice and early and not some big late game control minion that sits in your hand from turn 3 up to turn 7+. Blackwing Tech and and Hungry Dragon sound much more like a ramp than anything controlish, bring over stated minions out quicker than you opponent. Does that slow the game down? I would argue not really it only changes the field from 3-4 low hp minions to 1-2 high hp minions with pretty much the same board effect.
Also we have cards like Axe Flinger and Lava Shock which both indicate not a control style but more of a new form of burst which can go hand in hand with control but more likely the route of combo decks. And probably wont see much play anyway.
Soooo. No. From what I have seen there is nothing that will slow the game down beside maybe Dark iron Skulker but that card is just too expensive for 2damage aoe, especially on a minion in rogue.
With the Goblins VS Gnomes expansion and Naxxramas adventure, a lot of cards were released that encouraged things such as summoning and playing cards, as well as keeping cheap board presence. Both of these were associated with a large increase in aggro decks. Control is still there, and aggro is prevalent in most CCGs, but there was a lot of aggro none the less. There were quite a few people who wanted a more control oriented meta.
Now with the new mechanic of holding a specific card in Blackrock Mountain, we have something that encourages that. The need to hold things instead of play them encourages large hand size, which is what control has. This also encourages the opponent to have possible answers to what they believe is in your hand. And here we have set up a Control vs. Control game.
I suppose the question now is: will Blizzards subtle encouragements work?
What do you think?
What is your point to make this assumption. The only card we've seen with such a mechanic in BRM so far is Blackwing Technician
I'm not a fan of calling this kind of statement with only one card showing this mechanic. And let's say they released 3-4 cards with a Dragon-holding mechanic buff/battlecry... would that be much of an annoyance or just a mechanic they implemented in the expansion. Asking the question is getting the answer in itself... Blizzard wants to pull out some kind of Dragon archetype, like they did with Deathrattle with Naxxramas (and thus, nerf to Undertaker) and Mech with GvG. So far, both have been viable and spawn a new deck type that shook the meta with a good amount of trouble to actually make it a viable one to ladder with until reaching Legend by pro players.
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Used to be a proud Handlock player.
Legend 17 times.
Still flirting with the ladder from times to times with Renolock.
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With the Goblins VS Gnomes expansion and Naxxramas adventure, a lot of cards were released that encouraged things such as summoning and playing cards, as well as keeping cheap board presence. Both of these were associated with a large increase in aggro decks. Control is still there, and aggro is prevalent in most CCGs, but there was a lot of aggro none the less. There were quite a few people who wanted a more control oriented meta.
Now with the new mechanic of holding a specific card in Blackrock Mountain, we have something that encourages that. The need to hold things instead of play them encourages large hand size, which is what control has. This also encourages the opponent to have possible answers to what they believe is in your hand. And here we have set up a Control vs. Control game.
I suppose the question now is: will Blizzards subtle encouragements work?
What do you think?
It doesn't take a genious to figure that out. Also, it'll take more than just the cards they've revealed so far to make control more appealing to play. Unless we get more cards like Dark Iron Skulker that prevents early aggression, this trend won't catch on.
In other words, we need more defensive minions like Unstable Ghoul that can be played earlier in the game.
Good point! I think that its a great opportunity to support the control style, since the BRM adventure will make the collection bigger and introduce the mechanic of "hold". A diversified meta can be much more entertaining. And Blizz already said that the intention of two new class cards is to shake the things up.
Lets see if the expasion of this year will follow this logic.
I hope that, if they continue the power creep they started with gvg, that we will see some new board clear
The only thing I would hold would be my horses since we have ONE card with the hold mechanic and that's not even a really good one to begin with since it's base stat line is frankly more on the "meh" side of 3 drops since it wont trade up to 4 drops like piloted shredder without being buffed. It's nice that it's a battlecry though but that it's a battle cry kinda makes the argument that holding will change the game kinda void.
Do you want to have Ysera on Turn 3 in your hand? Probably not. You want Fairy dragon or hungry dragon, having something you can drop nice and early and not some big late game control minion that sits in your hand from turn 3 up to turn 7+. Blackwing Tech and and Hungry Dragon sound much more like a ramp than anything controlish, bring over stated minions out quicker than you opponent. Does that slow the game down? I would argue not really it only changes the field from 3-4 low hp minions to 1-2 high hp minions with pretty much the same board effect.
Also we have cards like Axe Flinger and Lava Shock which both indicate not a control style but more of a new form of burst which can go hand in hand with control but more likely the route of combo decks. And probably wont see much play anyway.
Soooo. No. From what I have seen there is nothing that will slow the game down beside maybe Dark iron Skulker but that card is just too expensive for 2damage aoe, especially on a minion in rogue.
What is your point to make this assumption. The only card we've seen with such a mechanic in BRM so far is Blackwing Technician
I'm not a fan of calling this kind of statement with only one card showing this mechanic. And let's say they released 3-4 cards with a Dragon-holding mechanic buff/battlecry... would that be much of an annoyance or just a mechanic they implemented in the expansion. Asking the question is getting the answer in itself... Blizzard wants to pull out some kind of Dragon archetype, like they did with Deathrattle with Naxxramas (and thus, nerf to Undertaker) and Mech with GvG. So far, both have been viable and spawn a new deck type that shook the meta with a good amount of trouble to actually make it a viable one to ladder with until reaching Legend by pro players.
Used to be a proud Handlock player.
Legend 17 times.
Still flirting with the ladder from times to times with Renolock.