Hearthpwn

Ok people please you convinced me and I changed the title. Not really trying to make that the point of discussion anyways.

Quote from ShadowOfFate >>

Quote from Daily17 >>

Quote from Sherman1986 >>

Nice misleading thread title man... I entered here expecting some kind of information (oficial or not) about the next expansion/adventure and I founded this... sigh...

 I don't see how it's misleading. I didn't put 'Leak' or 'Spoilers' or anything. It's just my gut prediction.

In his defense, you did put it in a rather matter of fact way. I can see how it could be misleading. Perhaps you could have done something like...

Prediction: Next expansion will focus  on strong removal spells

Or maybe at least add a question mark to the end?

Quote from twitchy >>

Guys from Blizzard have stated many times that battles between minions and contesting board presence is what makes Hearthstone fun. They also said that there probably won't be coming any more silence cards in the near future (except for that silence a demon dude which nobody uses). 

It's just not fun to overload the game with strong removal. That way they would kinda force players to expect every minion they play not to survive a single turn. And that is already kinda the case, which is probably the biggest reason why you rarely see a fancy multi-turn-setup-inspire-combo-deck.

And to take for examle Hex: It's not necessarily a bad or un-fun card, but I don't think they would make it now if it wouldn't exist yet. Because let's be honest: It's not very interactive to just point-click-remove a minion, and even bypassing any text / deathratles.

Peace 

Quote from Sherman1986 >>

Nice misleading thread title man... I entered here expecting some kind of information (oficial or not) about the next expansion/adventure and I founded this... sigh...

I was recently reflecting on the changes that Hearthstone has made over the last 1.5 years. Anyone will be able to tell you what classes have changed/improved/weakened, but I found it interesting to see in what ways the game has changed. A quick browse through the expansion card listings made those changes very apparent:

Minion quality has improved dramatically more than removal quality.

As minions get stickier and achieve their value up-front or as a deathrattle, removal cards just do not provide enough tempo or value to compete. When this happens, players no longer need to worry about which minion to play in a situation because they will very rarely be punished. Back during release, Fiery War Axe was a guaranteed 2 for 1 which put you very far ahead in the early game. Truesilver Champion was a crazy midgame tempo swing that was only slowed down by a turn 4 Taz Dingo or Yeti. Lightning Bolt and Rockbiter weapon were run 2x of both because of the guaranteed tempo they would provide by killing 2 drops or sometimes 3 drops. Divine shields, Deathrattles, and multiple summons greatly diminish the ability for these once-efficient cards to perform their jobs. That interaction alone can describe why Shaman has fallen so far. Its signature cards were removal options based around gaining tempo through efficiently costed 1 for 1 removal spells. Now those removal spells do not 1 for 1 and they are left with a pile of sadness.

This trend can be identified by looking at the cards provided in Naxx, GvG, BRM, and TGT. Very few if any removal-based cards were printed that were good enough to make it into constructed lists. Here's a list of those removal cards that we see today (and I'm being somewhat generous here): Death's Bite, Glaivezooka, Flamecannon, Coghammer, Lightbomb, Powermace, Darkbomb, Implosion, Quickshot, Revenge, Arcane Blast, Bash.

That's it. The full list of removal cards added in all expansions (316 cards) that are seen in today's metagame. Looking at this list it becomes a no-brainer to see why Hearthstone has become so curve-oriented and tempo driven. Classes just do not have the answers available to them to combat an out-of-control curve, so they end up building a curve for themselves.Minions have become so efficient that they are supplanting removal cards because they do the job better.

(This is where I state that I am not attributing this to power creep. I do not see it as an issue, as without strong cards we would have no reason to play anything except the base set. I'm not in the camp of "Nerf this and that card" because that will just peel back 1 layer and reveal the next problem. Also certain classes were a complete joke before they got some love in the expansions, Paladin in particular)

I believe this can be remedied if Blizzard decides to introduce high value/tempo removal options and comeback mechanics for every class in the next expansion. This will likely require more than just 1 set of cards, but it needs to get rolling. We need more options for punishment. People need to become afraid to play cards again. I think Blizzard could cater to the masses while also increasing the integrity of the game by doing this.

You should try to play ~50 games in a day like these streamers do and then see if you are able to maintain a balanced mental state.

Also this made me laugh:

my friend is playing Midrange Druid, not cancer.

The explanation for changing Mistcaller is mind numbing. He said Mistcaller was changed from the 7/7 + Ice Block because it caused the games to require too many difficult decisions/mindgames and it slowed games down. I guess we know where their priorities are now

Yes TGT failed from a competitive standpoint, but the more I think about it, the more it appears to me that Blizzard isn't aiming for that. Using myself as an example, I've been playing for 1.5 years since right upon the release and I've been up to date with the decks and meta for most of the time. I bought packs back then, and bought a few for GvG, but I had no reason to buy any packs for TGT. I had a lot of dust and a decent amount of gold that I could just craft the few cards I wanted. Even if more than 15% of TGT was playable I would have had enough dust to get what I wanted.

That's when it hit me that I am obviously not the customer that Blizzard was aiming for with TGT. If I had to take an educated guess, I'd say a large portion of Hearthstone's revenue comes from newer players that are getting into the game. Blizzard will try everything to attract those new players and hold onto them for a while without them being overwhelmed by a mountain of cards. Since almost all of the cards in TGT are trash, the newer players don't have to worry too much about it. They can buy their Classic packs and when they feel satisfied with their deck staples they will branch out to GvG and TGT. Blizzard loves it when a new player can look at a recent tournament and see the decks being played and say "Hey, I can build that!"

So I could easily see this trend continuing. Next expansions could being extremely underwhelming from a competitive perspective and I wouldn't be surprised at all. This all is just my opinion, fwiw.

Naxx by far. Over a year later and we still see widespread play from 50% of the Naxx cards.

Compare that with the other sets and it isn't even close. By looking at the cards used in the top 21 constructed decks from the most recent Liquid Hearth's Power Rankings, we see a total of:

GvG: 34 cards, which makes up 28% of the set.

BRM: 9 cards, 29% of the set.

TGT: 19 cards, 14% of the set.

Gonna vent some more about how awful TGT has been. I just ran through Liquid Heart's Power Rankings which lists the top 21 decks in the metagame. In all of those decks, only 19 TGT cards make an appearance and only 15 if we don't count the two Shaman decks, both of which were ranked dead last. And I can't stand hearing "give the meta more time to develop." It's been a full month, and this meta has been stable for the last 3 weeks.

Darnassus Aspirant, Mysterious Challenger, Competitive Spirit, Twilight Guardian, Wyrmrest Agent, Argent Horserider are the must haves. Everything else is replaceable by a non-TGT alternative. Shaman needs Thunder Bluff Valiant now, but the deck isn't anything special.

Figured I'd use this thread as a goodbye therapy. HS just isn't fun for me anymore. I realize now that it hasn't been for a while, before BRM even, but I had hopes that TGT would bring enough excitement to get me going again. It did, for like 2 days. I wasn't unrealistic in expecting TGT to change any meta, there were only a handful of cards I was excited for, but even those cards didn't change the things I dislike about HS. Hearthstone was so fun at the beginning while building my collection and learning all the mechanics and matchups. Grinding to legend was fun and rewarding. But after I had played as and against each class enough, I began to notice that every game is basically the same. Mulligan, curve out, trade, remove, combo, pray for draws/RNG. I can no longer focus on the game when I'm only making a real decision on 1/3 of my turns. Obviously there is still stuff I can improve on, but the marginal benefit of that for the effort required just does not appeal to me.

Expansions add new cards, new mechanics, and new decks, but it doesn't change the fundamentals the go on in each game. TGT adds 2 new cards to druid which changes its place in the metagame. Well it is still druid and I play against it the exact same way, except now I just prepare to contest a 2/3 on turn 2. Shaman gets cool totem stuff, but it still has crippling overload and infuriating RNG on important cards and the hero power. Dragon decks got cards but they are still just the same style of "play big dudes on curve" and that gets old really fast. Paladin gets a new secret deck (tangent time: I hate the idea of secrets because they are all bad without crazy overpowered mechanics that eliminate any possibility of mindgames, instead they are just vomited out of your deck) and some token cards. I really liked the token cards but even though that deck is new to me it took 2 days before I became bored, mostly because every deck that I faced still followed a similar script. And these were the decks that gained the most from TGT. As the dust settled it became apparent to me that I would not be able to enjoy HS as I did before.

OK well that's my rant. This is for no one's benefit but my own, just wanted to write my thoughts down.

The reset for NA was bugged. Legend is supposed to send to you rank 16, but it sent me back to 24 and that happened to a lot of other people as well. Blizzard said they were gonna fix it but I doubt they will bump people up the ranks again when they do fix it.

Set yourself a goal for each season. I ran into your problem a while ago and just got really burned out from grinding every month. For now I'd say pick a fun, underused card and try to build a deck around that for your laddering.

Rogue is a really good choice to take down the very popular Paladin decks right now, even if they got zero help from TGT. Shaman is still the Shaman. Its resurgence was way overstated.