Hearthpwn

you know what would be a funny tavern brawl? Hearthstone go fish. Both of you start with the same premade deck, and your goal is to play the a second copy of a minion on the board. You do and maybe you get a golden copy in your hand or something. First to 3 wins. I don’t know how to balance that, but it would be neat.

 Also this brawl is ok.

Let’s bring back Amalgam, but as a hero!

Hero power would cost 2-3 and say something like “give a friendly minion a random new tribe”

Dr. Stone expansion

Just add second shadow step

Quote from Roadie >>

 Yeah we are.  You cant be playing the same game.  It is almost silly at this stage when you factor in that you have NO idea whats in your opponents hand at any given time and this applies to almost every class too.  Cards like Zephyrs are just terrible.  A Tirion Fordring for Mage?  A Flamestrike for Hunter?  A Mass Dispel for Druid?  No effing way thats right.  The whole idea behind strategy and planning out things is that you know against certain classes or decks that you arent going to have to deal with xxxxxxx card or spell.  It snt even just Zephyrs - thats the tip of the iceberg.  Its the endless discovery, the numerous copies of busted cards like 4-5 Shadowsteps or 4-5 legendaries from whatever class.  Its getting stupid now guys.  C'mon.  How the !@#$ do you even play this game and actually feel as if you have any control over the outcome?  Its quite simple that you dont.  None.  Zero.

Hey, if this is what the majorty wants then so be it.  But realize that when you win its nothing you did at all.  Just like losses are 99.99999995% not your fault either.  Guess Im right, Its a casino.  Too bad we cant bet on the decks or hands?  That'd be fun at least. ;)

 Sure, you can keep the mentality of "99,9% of my losses aren't my fault" while everyone plays and improves with a better mentality. But it's easier to whine.

Sure, Rogue and Mage have a lot of Discovery, RNG and cheat, and combined they barely have 16% of the total population at the most popular ranks. Mage has the winrate of a Tier 3 deck. Rogue is not even the highest winrate deck out there, by far. At Legend it's barely keeping a 50% winrate.

If all these RNG and cheating were so broken, they would both be Tier S and everyone would be playing them and getting easy Legend. Including you. But that's not happening, is it?

I don't know what game you have been playing these past years where you could "strategy and not face xxx card" in these past metas of full clown fiesta with 3 mana ConJ Mage, Hare Evolve Shaman, Deathstalker Rexxar and Dr.Boom infinite generation? Barnes + Y'sharraj on 3? Ragnaros shots hero power? How did you feel you had "control over the outcome" then?

Zeph is far from being problematic, and if Hunter is wasting Zeph on a Flamestrike they are seriously doing it wrong... and besides, just because they don't have a specific card like Flamestrike, doesn't mean classes can't do similar effects in different ways. I mean, Veranus + Unleash accomplishes even better, as it isn't restricted by 4 health minions, uses the same amount of mana and leaves a 7/6 on board, for example.

Even if there was absolute 0 discover/rng/cheating, you probably would still be crying about luck of the draw and losing top deck wars as the "lack of control over the outcome" and "losing wasn't my fault".

Quote from Sevasmios >>

Quote from vNihilism >>

If OP could stop using his alt accounts to praise himself and call his detractors clowns that'd be great

 I won't call you a clown, but I still think OP isn't entirely wrong. The degree to which RNG can impact the game at this stage is unprecedented. I don't think anyone is saying that HS just became a game where luck is a significant factor, nor do I see anyone suggesting that there is a "collective conspiracy" like Tyrantum said. It's fascinating to me how violently opposed some people are to OP's particular line of reasoning, but I suppose he did go a little far when he said that HS is now a "100% randomized casino". 

With that said, Lanko was the only person that provided a rational counterargument to the original post; everyone else that doesn't like it is either misrepresenting those who agree with it or making ad hominem attacks. To Lanko, I appreciate the effort you went to to demonstrate that random effects and RNG do not dominate the meta, but you failed to take into account the rate at which decks are played as opposed to how many decks make little use of discover effects. I'm not sure what rank you're playing at, and I can't speak to lower ranks, but in my experience from rank 5 to legend practically half of my opponents are gala rogue for the last several months. A disproportionate portion of the meta is represented by hunter variants and rogue, which makes extremely heavy use of discover effects. It's also worth stating that every highlander deck that exists utilizes extremely powerful discover effects (read: zephyrus and alex), so while the cards in question that provide these effects may make up a relatively small part of said highlander decks, they have the capability to single handedly swing a game in one's favor. So making a purely quantitative argument on the basis of how many decks do not use or make little use of discover effects is a bit narrow-minded: there are other factors that need to be considered (i.e. which decks are being played the most, what is the power level of the discover cards that these decks employ). 

I'll disagree again with the "unprecedent level of RNG meta".

We had metas where Ragnaros and Sylvanas were in almost all decks, so much that they had to be Hall of Famed.

We had a meta where the best win condition in the game was nothing less than Yogg-Saron, Hope's End, even in tournaments.

Mana cheating? Dragonqueen pales in comparison to what decks could do with N'zoth.

We had Cube Warlock with Skull, Possessed Lackeys, Cubes, Gul'dan and N'zoth. We had a period of a meta that was full Control, with tournament lineups being N'zoth Mage, N'zoth Paladin, Cube/Control Warlock and one more.

We had a meta with Cube/Control Lock at the same time with Spiteful Summoner Priest/Druid summoning Deathwing on turns 5/6 and 4 mana Call to Arms Paladin. And even around/later a meta with Spell Hunter that was pretty much Barnes Hunter, with the known interaction with Y'sharrj (however is spelled). Now THAT was a RNG and mana cheating meta. All those ended up nerfed.

We had a meta with Shudderwock Shaman where the Shaman winning depended purely on the order which battlecries happened first, Odd Taunt Warrior having Ragnaros hero power as a win condition and Deathrattle Hunter abusing Cubes with extremely cheap activators to cheat stuff, Kathrena Winterwisp and infinite with the ultimate RNG/Discover card in Deathstalker Rexxar.

Then we had a meta tyrannized by the near infinite RNG/Discover of 7 mana Dr.Boom, Mad Genius for months to the point in non-official tournaments Elysiana was banned and every tournament Specialist format was 95% mirror matches.

Then we had the extreme clown fiesta meta with 3 mana Conjurer's Calling and 5 mana Luna's Pocket Galaxy, a true meta and matches/mirrors where people were rolling dices to win.

And how can we forget the latest event, with Hare Evolve Shaman? Paired with Quest and Lackey generators, it was the ultimate RNG/Discover fiesta.

So no, the current meta is nowhere near those levels.

As for Zephrys and Dragonqueen, you pointed the frequency. By "every highlander deck out there" you mean Highlander Hunter and Mage, with a very small splash of Warrior. Lock uses it in Galakrond Control, but they are the clunkiest cards in the deck, by far, sometimes costing matches, but recently they are less than 2%. HL Hunter and Mage and Warrior combined barely make 12% of the meta, according to stats. Highlander Rogue is almost non-existant and inferior to Galakrond Rogue. So in other ~88% of matches, you are not seeing Zeph or Dragonqueen at all.

Dragon and Face Hunter together account for 20%, Galakrond Rogue for another ~12%, Ress Priest for 7%, Embiggen for 8%, Gala Warrior for ~8%, etc.

Except for Rogue, the RNG, Discover and cheating in the other matchups is very low.

You also pointed out which decks are being played the most and the amount of Discover. Again, the most popular decks (from 5-1) are Dragon Hunter (by far, with almost 16%), Galakrond Rogue (11%) , Embiggen Druid (8%), Mech Paladin (7%), Ress Priest (7%), Highlander Hunter (6%), Highlander Mage (6%), Galakrond Warrior (6%). Gala Rogue gets 11%, HL Mage barely makes 6%, as HL Hunter. The others combined have nowhere the amount of RNG and neither Zeph/Dragonqueen and make almost 50%.

As for my rank, I'm a multiple time Legend. This month I finished Rank 2 as I only played ladder for ~4 days. Sure, Galakrond Rogue frequency is ridiculous, specially at Legend, where it's almost mirrors all day, and while I can see that having one, two decks more reliant on random value generation might be a necessity for the meta or for certain groups of players, I can relate that perhaps it should have a lower power level.

Then again, you have Hunter and Druid doing very well against it, and Paladin and Warrior aren't bad either. Mage is a race for who cheats mana and swings first. Control Warlock is favoured. It's not a polarizing deck, as it isn't heavily favoured or heavily unfavoured, and the amount of Discover allows it the chance to find outs for every match up, which is a good attractive quality for many players.

Quote from JJSawry >>

Calling quest druid Mana cheating 'tame'. Hilarious, every 'choose one' card played after quest IS Mana cheating, sir.

 Well, that's true, but there are also 2 other things to consider:

First is that you play the first 4 turns extremely sub-optimally, which is near suicidal against a lot of decks. There is a reason Quest Druid bounces between near Tier 1 in one meta and in another meta is near Tier 4.

The second is the extreme build around of the deck, far more heavy than Highlander. You have to put lots of Choose One cards to make it worth, and like I said, the variance from being near T1 in some metas and near T4 in others shows it isn't consistent, so when it is, it should feel very powerful, for all the restrictions of the deck building.