While its true that it can be genuinely difficult to predict which cards end up being strong, that's often a consquence of whether you know in advance the deck they end up in and the meta that that deck is expected to perform in. A 10 mana "you win" card never see's play if games don't go past 6 mana, and an amazing overpowered warrior legendary wont currently see play because warrior is terrible right now (it would have to singlehandedly win games).
In this case we had a deck which was already performing resonably well (cetainly tier 1/2) and Blizz printed a more reliable evolve card (eliminating the chance of low-roll evolves) AND a much better minion to evolve gnoll into - a minion which also snowballs through mana cheating if left alive. Even just having the option of two more 1-mana evolve cards increases the viability of the deck by incresing consistency of the mulligan/early draw.
This was obvious before the cards were officially released and now we're back to a deck vs counter-deck meta (which is not fun).
What frustrates me the most is that these things are often easily predictable in advance of the cards being released. People theorycraft broken stuff literally minutes after the cards are released, and yet Blizz seam unable or cynically unwilling (more sales) to forecast these problems.
When demon hunter was released everyone could see that the cards were completely broken. And lo and behold - DH was broken. The same is true for shaman. As soon as Thaddius, Monstrosity and Blazing Transmutation were revealed people were saying it would be broken, and as sure as shit, it's broken.
I'm prepared to give Blizz the benefit of the doubt when an unexpected overpowered deck emerges using old un-played cards. But when a tier 1 deck gets a new card which is obviously overpowered and a new mana cheating minion is released benefiting the same deck, you have to assume it's incompetance.
Personally I think the cleanest way to resolve this is to fix mana costs (and spell costs) to the value that they cost when played. i.e a gnoll played for 4 mana becomes a 5 mana minion when evolved (or it's cost on board remains "live" based on hand size). A mage spell discounted below 5 mana wont get replayed with Grey Sage Parrot.) I actually think there's potential for a whole new genre of spells that effect minions based on mana cost that could be exploited with "live" mana costs, but that's an aside...
I know these get posted all the time, but this is turn 4. I've also played Bru'kan in addition to the two 10 mana minions. So we have ~ 32 mana worth of stuff on the board at turn 4. All this without schooling being played. He should have have played around it suppose....
I'm not really sure how anyone can defend the current state of shaman, and the notion that dirsuption effects are going to do the job is very misguided. Most disruption effects come online by turn 6 or 7 - you're dead by then against shaman. Freeze and chip damage just delay the problem till next turn, and a 10/10 is still a big problem. Even if you can remove it you've used up a bunch of turns and resources and the shaman just does it again the next turn.
The only class that can reasonably counter turn 2/3, 10 mana minions is priest, and priest has a whole lot of other problems to make it a class not worth playing.
There isn't a "game" if they allow these things to exist. Right now the design essentially means there's 2 people playing their own deck trying to win first. Interaction with the opponent is pretty minimal. I'm sure some people must find it fun, but personally I dont, and I can't understand the logic behind these design decisions.
I'm all for spectacular turns (to a point) but these should be at 10 mana (or require a bit of set up). Take the priest Hero. In theory her battle cry could be extremely powerful, but it requires multiple turns of setting things up before it does anything good. That's the type of big turns the game should be looking to encourage, not some high-roll turn 2 nonsense. We've endured a year of bullshit with the latest sets. Denathrius, Astalor, Guff, DH OTK, Big Spell Mage, Brann, Theif Rogue, Deathrattle rogue - all contributed to an extremely un-fun game (imo). Now they've printed more and we can expect more shit for the next year.
It's almost like Blizz decides which class will be OP for the next cycle and prints hugely synergistic cards for that class. Look at imp-lock. A deck which was already doing OK and can do some stupidly powerful stuff early doors to end games fast. It can already build massive boards quickly, draw cards cheaply, buff single minions, curse the opponent (if you go down that line), mini bloodlust effect/buff. Now it can have a sticky board for 2 mana. "But there are drawbacks to these cards - they limit you to imps!" I hear you say. Such a drawback in a deck built around imp synergy.
I have zero hope for the game now. They keep printing mana cheating cards which result in stupidly early, game winning plays. This expac. has created an OTK deck using Thadius that can kill on turn 6 and shaman decks that can reliably get a good 10 mana minion on turn 2 - 4. Even a relatively "fair" paladin deck can dump a colossal amount of stats on turn 6/7 then follow up with (you guessed it) more mana cheat to steal games in the late game.
We're back to an OTK-aggro counter meta which is just shit and basically represents the battle of "who drew the best". So much fun!
I firmly believe the devs have zero idea what they're doing at this stage (or are cynically just milking the player base for every last cent before it dies).
I think there's a reason why content creators are moving away from HS to other games - they're just not having fun, and if you're playing 5 days a week there has to be some enjoyment.
p.s. "Discover" as a key-word needs to die. It's an over used, un-fun mechanic which, like other keywords, should have stayed with the expac it was created in.
I for once like mana cheat if it’s not too early, and random / discover cards are the prime reason why hs is still fun, and the big difference to real life card games
Mana cheat and discover can be fun and do add variance to most games - I agree.
The problem is that right now mana cheat is so aggressive and is happening on early game turns when there's very little you can do about it.
OTK's just shouldn't be able to pop off on turn 6. You shouldnt be able to get 10 mana minions down on turn 2. These plays are often game winning on their own. No skill, no thought, just flat out luck and/or overpowered and badly designed cards.
The designers love affair with discounting mana has taken this game in a terrible direction imo. Pretty much every problem interaction/combo can be traced back to mana discounts in some way (or having > 10 mana). Often these are completely broken, other times they're just really unfun and unfair to play against if you're playing one of the negelcted classes which cant cheat. I don't want to watch my opponent destroy my board, play a bunch of minions, draw some cards and still have mana left over at the end. I also don't want to watch the 4th Rune of the Archmage being played before the mage is even at 9 mana.
As for discover - I loved it as a mechanic when it first came out. Now it's been overused, particularly in Death Knight where it's become another tiresome mechanic. "Oh look - I need to play around a 7 mana "The Scourge" against a blood DK. Look how I was outplayed". Great - he got a Brann -> School Teacher - > Antimagic shell (x2) for a mini bloodlust board buff. Should have played around that too. Wow - 3 Mograines...
You get the picture.
I've said it before in other threads, but Blizz needs to go back to basics about how cards games are meant to work. There are "rules" that need to be followed otherwise things break.
Mana = power. Things should cost mana. Similar mana cost cards should have similar power.
Card draw = cost. Cards are resources - they should cost mana and tempo. You give up tempo now for more options later.
Resources are finite = you shouldn't be able to just dump your hand over and over and created endless boards of stuff. Aggro should run out of resources eventualy.
There are lots of issues with the game right now. You just don't get to see them now because Thadius has killed you on turn 2....
I have zero hope for the game now. They keep printing mana cheating cards which result in stupidly early, game winning plays. This expac. has created an OTK deck using Thadius that can kill on turn 6 and shaman decks that can reliably get a good 10 mana minion on turn 2 - 4. Even a relatively "fair" paladin deck can dump a colossal amount of stats on turn 6/7 then follow up with (you guessed it) more mana cheat to steal games in the late game.
We're back to an OTK-aggro counter meta which is just shit and basically represents the battle of "who drew the best". So much fun!
I firmly believe the devs have zero idea what they're doing at this stage (or are cynically just milking the player base for every last cent before it dies).
I think there's a reason why content creators are moving away from HS to other games - they're just not having fun, and if you're playing 5 days a week there has to be some enjoyment.
p.s. "Discover" as a key-word needs to die. It's an over used, un-fun mechanic which, like other keywords, should have stayed with the expac it was created in.
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I think Goldshire Gnoll is gone though which will kill the deck in it's current form
While its true that it can be genuinely difficult to predict which cards end up being strong, that's often a consquence of whether you know in advance the deck they end up in and the meta that that deck is expected to perform in. A 10 mana "you win" card never see's play if games don't go past 6 mana, and an amazing overpowered warrior legendary wont currently see play because warrior is terrible right now (it would have to singlehandedly win games).
In this case we had a deck which was already performing resonably well (cetainly tier 1/2) and Blizz printed a more reliable evolve card (eliminating the chance of low-roll evolves) AND a much better minion to evolve gnoll into - a minion which also snowballs through mana cheating if left alive. Even just having the option of two more 1-mana evolve cards increases the viability of the deck by incresing consistency of the mulligan/early draw.
This was obvious before the cards were officially released and now we're back to a deck vs counter-deck meta (which is not fun).
What frustrates me the most is that these things are often easily predictable in advance of the cards being released. People theorycraft broken stuff literally minutes after the cards are released, and yet Blizz seam unable or cynically unwilling (more sales) to forecast these problems.
When demon hunter was released everyone could see that the cards were completely broken. And lo and behold - DH was broken. The same is true for shaman. As soon as Thaddius, Monstrosity and Blazing Transmutation were revealed people were saying it would be broken, and as sure as shit, it's broken.
I'm prepared to give Blizz the benefit of the doubt when an unexpected overpowered deck emerges using old un-played cards. But when a tier 1 deck gets a new card which is obviously overpowered and a new mana cheating minion is released benefiting the same deck, you have to assume it's incompetance.
Personally I think the cleanest way to resolve this is to fix mana costs (and spell costs) to the value that they cost when played. i.e a gnoll played for 4 mana becomes a 5 mana minion when evolved (or it's cost on board remains "live" based on hand size). A mage spell discounted below 5 mana wont get replayed with Grey Sage Parrot.) I actually think there's potential for a whole new genre of spells that effect minions based on mana cost that could be exploited with "live" mana costs, but that's an aside...
I know these get posted all the time, but this is turn 4. I've also played Bru'kan in addition to the two 10 mana minions. So we have ~ 32 mana worth of stuff on the board at turn 4. All this without schooling being played. He should have have played around it suppose....
I'm not really sure how anyone can defend the current state of shaman, and the notion that dirsuption effects are going to do the job is very misguided. Most disruption effects come online by turn 6 or 7 - you're dead by then against shaman. Freeze and chip damage just delay the problem till next turn, and a 10/10 is still a big problem. Even if you can remove it you've used up a bunch of turns and resources and the shaman just does it again the next turn.
The only class that can reasonably counter turn 2/3, 10 mana minions is priest, and priest has a whole lot of other problems to make it a class not worth playing.
There isn't a "game" if they allow these things to exist. Right now the design essentially means there's 2 people playing their own deck trying to win first. Interaction with the opponent is pretty minimal. I'm sure some people must find it fun, but personally I dont, and I can't understand the logic behind these design decisions.
I'm all for spectacular turns (to a point) but these should be at 10 mana (or require a bit of set up). Take the priest Hero. In theory her battle cry could be extremely powerful, but it requires multiple turns of setting things up before it does anything good. That's the type of big turns the game should be looking to encourage, not some high-roll turn 2 nonsense. We've endured a year of bullshit with the latest sets. Denathrius, Astalor, Guff, DH OTK, Big Spell Mage, Brann, Theif Rogue, Deathrattle rogue - all contributed to an extremely un-fun game (imo). Now they've printed more and we can expect more shit for the next year.
It's almost like Blizz decides which class will be OP for the next cycle and prints hugely synergistic cards for that class. Look at imp-lock. A deck which was already doing OK and can do some stupidly powerful stuff early doors to end games fast. It can already build massive boards quickly, draw cards cheaply, buff single minions, curse the opponent (if you go down that line), mini bloodlust effect/buff. Now it can have a sticky board for 2 mana. "But there are drawbacks to these cards - they limit you to imps!" I hear you say. Such a drawback in a deck built around imp synergy.
Mana cheat and discover can be fun and do add variance to most games - I agree.
The problem is that right now mana cheat is so aggressive and is happening on early game turns when there's very little you can do about it.
OTK's just shouldn't be able to pop off on turn 6. You shouldnt be able to get 10 mana minions down on turn 2. These plays are often game winning on their own. No skill, no thought, just flat out luck and/or overpowered and badly designed cards.
The designers love affair with discounting mana has taken this game in a terrible direction imo. Pretty much every problem interaction/combo can be traced back to mana discounts in some way (or having > 10 mana). Often these are completely broken, other times they're just really unfun and unfair to play against if you're playing one of the negelcted classes which cant cheat. I don't want to watch my opponent destroy my board, play a bunch of minions, draw some cards and still have mana left over at the end. I also don't want to watch the 4th Rune of the Archmage being played before the mage is even at 9 mana.
As for discover - I loved it as a mechanic when it first came out. Now it's been overused, particularly in Death Knight where it's become another tiresome mechanic. "Oh look - I need to play around a 7 mana "The Scourge" against a blood DK. Look how I was outplayed". Great - he got a Brann -> School Teacher - > Antimagic shell (x2) for a mini bloodlust board buff. Should have played around that too. Wow - 3 Mograines...
You get the picture.
I've said it before in other threads, but Blizz needs to go back to basics about how cards games are meant to work. There are "rules" that need to be followed otherwise things break.
Mana = power. Things should cost mana. Similar mana cost cards should have similar power.
Card draw = cost. Cards are resources - they should cost mana and tempo. You give up tempo now for more options later.
Resources are finite = you shouldn't be able to just dump your hand over and over and created endless boards of stuff. Aggro should run out of resources eventualy.
There are lots of issues with the game right now. You just don't get to see them now because Thadius has killed you on turn 2....
I have zero hope for the game now. They keep printing mana cheating cards which result in stupidly early, game winning plays. This expac. has created an OTK deck using Thadius that can kill on turn 6 and shaman decks that can reliably get a good 10 mana minion on turn 2 - 4. Even a relatively "fair" paladin deck can dump a colossal amount of stats on turn 6/7 then follow up with (you guessed it) more mana cheat to steal games in the late game.
We're back to an OTK-aggro counter meta which is just shit and basically represents the battle of "who drew the best". So much fun!
I firmly believe the devs have zero idea what they're doing at this stage (or are cynically just milking the player base for every last cent before it dies).
I think there's a reason why content creators are moving away from HS to other games - they're just not having fun, and if you're playing 5 days a week there has to be some enjoyment.
p.s. "Discover" as a key-word needs to die. It's an over used, un-fun mechanic which, like other keywords, should have stayed with the expac it was created in.