Hearthpwn

Quote from CasmX »

I can definitely relate to the OP's frustration but I also don't feel it will be nerfed any time soon.

The thing with Unstable Portal is there are far more decent draws than bad. Hell, there's more extremely good/broken draws than bad. You have to have pretty bad luck to get a bad draw with it. Of course, most people that play it enough will see a bad card every once in a while. Hell, I've seen a bad card a few times and I barely play mage. However, you're much more likely to see decent or good cards.

The list of bad draws, (IMO):

• Any 0 or 1 cost minion
• Captain's Parrot
• Alarm-o-Bot*
• Starving Buzzard

That's pretty much it. Captain's Parrot is just terrible but in arena, it can still be useful. Alarm-o-bot is equally terrible but given perfect conditions can be good. Lastly Starving Buzzard is terrible but even then, it just makes it a vanilla 2 mana 3/2 and in arenas, it's still possibly to gain card draw. So, even these completely terrible cards still aren't even that bad, they're just not going to be as useful as just about any other draw.

So, these cards along with the 0-1 cost minions make up about 15% of the minion pool, meaning that every time you cast Unstable Portal, there's approx an 85% chance that you'll get something that isn't atrocious. Now I'm not suggesting that every other card is going to be amazing, but every other card with the discounted cost is going to end up being pretty decent and many of the times, will be outright overpowered.

Actually, most two-drops are bad too. Rationally speaking, your Unstable Portal must draw you a two-drop that you would have included in your deck if Unstable Portal didn't exist as a card (and you needed to replace it). If it draws you any other two-drop, you would have lost value from Unstable Portal, since you are paying 2 mana for a two-drop that you would not have included in your deck.

Quote from Chrallez »

Edit: After trying it out i got three legendaries in a row, some of the good ones... I still dont think its going to be nerfed but its a really good card.

The legendary drop rate does seem much higher than it should be. I seem to get a legendary about 20-30% of the time, which is higher than the proportion of legendaries in the game. Someone should run a test to see whether the card draw is truly random.

Quote from MSW112 »

Ranked: I don't play ranked for any competitive reasons. Conceding pretty fast here, just doing my dailies, I don't waste time playing vs. decks with a high chance of winning against me. If it weren't for crappy MMRs in unranked and cardbacks, I wouldn't even play ranked.

Arena: I never concede, not even during BM.

Please, I want to get queued into players like you more often. Nothing I like more than a turn 1 concede from a player who can't be arsed to even try to put up a fight.

It seems to me that your draft was too skewed towards cheap minions. I counted only 4 minions of 5-mana and above. This renders you vulnerable to the omnipresent Flamestrike by the Queen of Arena (aka Mage), and you would run out of cards quickly too.

That said, I don't think it was a bad draft by any means (I don't see any obvious points where I would have chosen differently). 5 wins is already above average (unless you usually have a better win rate), so you should be happy with it.

Quote from Chrallez »

Mech warper.

People before GvG thought that it was good, but i dont really think people knew HOW good it would be, as there are people that are calling for a nerf. Similar to Undertaker, exept maybe the warper may not be as good as the Undertaker. :)

I disagree on that. Even before GvG dropped, people were predicting it to be the first card to be nerfed. I think Mech Warper has lived up to expectations.

So, we have had GvG for almost a month. I think now is a good time to reflect on which cards that were greeted with a "meh" have turned out to be surprisingly good, and conversely which cards have failed to live up to their hype.

I'll start. I think the new Hunter cards have largely not lived up to expectations. Cards like Gahz'rilla, Feign Death and Steamwheedle Sniper were all greeted with much excitement (especially Feign Death, which many people thought would be OP), but decks incorporating these cards have turned out to be underwhelming and inferior to vanilla face Hunter decks. Very disappointing. A lot more work needs to be done to make control Hunter viable.

I think Unstable Portal has wildly exceeded expectations. It was seen as a gimmicky trash card when first announced (proof), but now it is a staple in every Mage deck, with some people calling for it to be nerfed. 

Shieldmaiden is another card that was underrated before release, but there is a whole thread for that so I won't go into it.

What do you guys think?

I think the new meta will be more mid-rangey. We are already seeing a tension between going full-out aggro, and incorporating some cool new combos which require a more mid-range style of play. Examples of this include Feign Death/Sylvanas/Highmane combo for Hunter, Antonidas/Spare Parts combo for Mage, Quartermaster/Silver Hand Recruit combo for Paladin, etc. 

It's not going to be nerfed. Class cards are supposed to be slightly OP and Unstable Portal is not excessively so. Yes, you most likely will get a discounted card from it, but this is counterbalanced by the fact that the card is random and might not synergise well with the deck you have. 

Also, contrary to what you say, it is a super fun card. Even when it is being used on me, I am always curious to see what card my opponent got from it. If he gets some lame card like a Wisp or Captain's Parrot, I feel happy.

Eh, the Druid example you mentioned is pretty simple. Shaman is way harder than Druid because apart from minion buffs, you also have to keep track of overload, windfury effects and weapon damage/durability. On top of that there are spell damage buffs and RNG to consider - what is the probability of my Crackle doing at least 4 damage, what is the probability of my Lightning Storm wiping the board, etc.

Rogue - at least the Miracle and Mill variants - also requires large amounts of math and mental gymnastics. You have to keep track of not just minion damage, but also mana cost, sequencing of cards (to trigger combos), weapon damage and durability, etc. Spells like Shadowstep and Preparation which change the mana cost of cards only complicate the picture further.

Quote from catlion »

10/10 would play in every deck-

-Makes warrior mirrors much shorter

-last resort coin flip against hunters when I'm at 2 health

-makes any deck have consistent 50% win rate

Consistent 50% win rate? Really? Only if you draw it before you die and then only if you manage to survive till turn 10 to play it, and assuming people don't start running Nerub'ar Weblord to counter it.

Oh and P/S: Any Hunter worth their salt won't even let the game reach Turn 10.

Seriously? No. It is a terrible card to run. Takes up a slot, clogs your hand for 9 turns, and even when you play it you still have a 50% chance of losing. Even if it were in the game I predict that few players would run it, and those who do so will probably lose before they get a chance to play it.

Edit: By no I meant I wouldn't quit.

There is a reason why Mages still dominate the higher rungs of Arena. Their common spells are stupidly good - Frostbolt/Flamecannon/Fireballs for individual threats, Flamestrike for complete board wipe - while "Chugga Chugga" and Frost Elemental totally own Paladin and Rogues (two other strong Arena classes). The card dilution brought about by GvG barely hurt them since they have just so many good common cards to choose from.

Paladin, Priest and Rogue are decent too, but only Mage can consistently get me to 7+ wins most of the time.

Oh, I forgot to mention this game which was pretty sweet too:

Playing against noobs early in the season is fun. They are too pre-occupied with setting up cool combos that they forget that they lose if their health is reduced to zero, regardless of how many Ragnaroses they have on board.

My most satisfying wins are those where I won against all odds, rather than those where I got lucky and had a perfect opening hand.

My all time favourite was when I somehow managed to fatigue a Priest to death with a vanilla aggro Hunter deck (half of the game was spent in the post 10-mana stage, where both of us were just top-decking and playing whatever cards we drew). The game came down to very strategic placement of traps, and there was literally a one health difference between the two of us when I won (he lost because he triggered an explosive trap before he could deal lethal).

I often find that people who complain about a card/deck being OP usually have never played it themselves. All they can see is the one time Antonidas works out and kills them, not the 9 other times he was a dead card sitting in hand because the right conditions to play him never came.

Antonidas is not OP at all. He was a crap legendary before (because of the high cost of mage spells) and spare parts have simply made him viable. He still requires a lot of stars to align before you can get full value out of him - you need to draw him, you need a spell to set him off, you need to keep him alive till you can use said spell, you need to have enough mana to use the Fireballs you get from him, etc. Plus, Loatheb counters him hard, so if he does become more prevalent people will just save Loatheb till he appears.