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    posted a message on Anyone NOT looking forward to elemental decks?

    While I don't really agree with the tone of the OP, I don't think his core concern is a bad one.  On-curve synergy decks in which you simply play the biggest and best of the type and hope to overpower your opponent are not terribly interesting.  I didn't think it was interesting in midrange Hunter with beasts or in (midrange) Priest with Dragons.  The decks feel mostly pre-built by Blizzard, with only a few flex spots.

    I have very high hopes that elementals may not feel quite the same way due to the way their requirement works.  If your opponent plays an elemental you have an idea of what (s)he may be planning.  For instance, let's take the case of Fire Elemental on turn 6.  You know that your opponent will likely want to follow up with Stone Sentinel.  This is an invitation for you to immediately play a must-remove threat, such as Emperor Thaurissan (yes, I know he's rotating; just an example).  Now the elemental player has to make a choice: do they remove it and potentially ruin their elemental "chain" or just push with their minions and hope for the best?  I think this is an interesting dynamic that has more potential than standard on-curve play.  It is also key that arguably the strongest elemental card shown so far (Tol'vir Stoneshaper) is not an elemental itself, and so breaks the "perfect" curve chain.  I hope that a similar treatment is given to other on-curve power plays.

    That said, my biggest fear is that elemental decks will simply run such a high density of elementals that such choices are meaningless.  But that remains to be seen, and I will be optimistic.

    Posted in: General Discussion
  • 2

    posted a message on Paladin Quest Prediction

    "Target X of your own minions with spells."

    Blizzard has periodically tried to support this playstyle, mostly with no success.  But a quest that awards something that compensates you for your efforts could be interesting.

    Posted in: Card Discussion
  • 1

    posted a message on New Neutral Minion - Tol'vir Stoneshaper
    Quote from FortyDust >>
     There will always be aggro decks. There will always be midrange (curve) decks. There will always be control decks.
    And there will always be people hating and complaining about every part of the spectrum.
    But it's only really a problem when one part of the system oversteps its boundaries and pushes other parts into the dusty, faraway corners of the meta. (Of course, the bigger problem is, that seems to happen a LOT and takes forever to get fixed.)
     Well, my hope is that Blizzard makes midrange a bit less auto-curving.  Midrange Hunter, the classic example of this, is a playstyle that I find very dull.  Dropping powerful minions on curve and hoping that eventually your opponent doesn't have the answer is really not engaging for me.  If you get out tempo'd and lose the board, you might as well give up.  As much as I am irritated at times by Shaman's incredibly robust toolkit, I do respect that Midrange Shaman decks have a bit more give and take to them by incorporating removal and board clears.
    In a sense this reflects my admiration of how Blizzard has moved "control" away from "remove everything they have until they give up" to "focus on spells rather than minions for your early game, but still have a win condition."  It softens the boundaries between archetypes, so that it's less "midrange > control > aggro > midrange" and more about the perks of your particular class and deck composition.
    So it's my hope that "midrange" is not always synonymous with having to curve out.  We shall obviously see.
    Posted in: Card Discussion
  • 1

    posted a message on Your Questions for Hearthstone Game Designer Dean Ayala!

    Not to detract from your question, but my own personal suspicion is that Blizzard wants the game to be fast-paced and proactive in nature.  They want counters to exist, but ultimately would prefer that the game is defined by decks which actively pursue victory rather than those which simply seek to counter the opponent.

    Posted in: News
  • 14

    posted a message on Your Questions for Hearthstone Game Designer Dean Ayala!

    As Hearthstone and the development team have "matured," it seems that we are seeing a greater number of cards which feel "pre-designed", with the synergies already planned out and understood.  While this limits the possibility of unanticipated abuses, it also seems to put classes at greater risk because when their pre-planned designs fail, the class as a whole fails.  

    For example, when the Goons mechanic was unsuccessful in MSoG the Hunter and Paladin classes languished because they had received so many cards dedicated to it.  By comparison if the class happened to have an effective theme (Kazakus, Pirates, etc.) then it worked out.  Next expansion, I fear that the singular success of the legendary quests will dictate which classes will be played.

    I was wondering if this concern has ever been discussed among the team.  And if it has, how is it addressed?  Or is it not considered a concern?

    Posted in: News
  • 2

    posted a message on Will Paladin be the Ultimate Meta Killer?

    I think this card is quite good, but not as good as the OP thinks it is.

    Essentially it continues what Equality always threatened: no matter how small the minions on the Paladin's board are, they are potentially a threat to enemy minions.  It is fundamentally different from Eadric the Pure.  Eadric is purely a defensive card that allows you to neutralize large attackers, but is completely useless when facing minions you need to actually kill (such as Emperor Thaurissan).

    What makes this potentially better in many situations is its Quartermaster-like effect on your 1/1's.  If you're running a more midrange Paladin deck (those did exist once upon a time), this is the card a card that lets you buff up your board rather than simply being a reactive tool like Equality or Eadric the Pure.

    Posted in: Paladin
  • 1

    posted a message on Dirty Goons

    Well, I don't know if it's any good yet but first game against Water Rogue I Dirty Rat/Mind Control Tech'd into his Leeroy Jenkins and stole it.  That was rather pleasing.

    Posted in: Paladin
  • 1

    posted a message on New Card - Golakka Crawler
    Quote from SockMonkeyJr >>
     To answer your question, it was added in the expansion pretty late. Yesterday during the live stream Day9 asked if it was there since the beginning. The guy from blizzard (I'm not good with names :P, sorry) said it was added in pretty late. I think it was post gadgetzan.
     Okay, thank you then.  I didn't have time to watch the stream itself.  That's a little upsetting then, because this is a really clunky patch job (no pun intended).  
    Posted in: Card Discussion
  • 1

    posted a message on New Card - Golakka Crawler

    The one question I am most curious about is whether this card was designed 6 months ago or 1 month ago.

    Everybody seems to be assuming that Blizzard saw pirates as a problem, panicked, and put a counter-pirate card into the next set.  And maybe that's what they did, I don't know.  But it has been explained that Blizzard is 1-2 expansions ahead of us in development.  They aren't working on Post-Un'Goro Expansion right now.  They're working on Post-Post-Un'goro Expansion.  So it makes sense that maybe at this point Blizzard is just naturally anticipating the powerful archetypes and putting counters into the next set: give them one expansion to shine, then bring the other shoe down to keep things fresh.

    But again, the simple problem is nobody knows on these forums ("A friend of mine said..." doesn't convince me as a source).

    Posted in: Card Discussion
  • 1

    posted a message on I'm liking where Un'Goro is going...
    Quote from thazud8D >>

    My biggest problem is that control decks are still screwed against Jades and I honestly can't see how they are going to turn this around. 

     Well, I kind of agree with Palpitoad93 above, that the suppression of (traditional) control is a good thing, but with different reasoning.
    I feel that control-fatigue is a degenerate playstyle.  Yes, it takes a lot of knowledge to mete out your removal evenly and judiciously so that you can survive an entire opposing deck.  Yes, it takes practice to know how far you can push things before board clearing.  Yes, there is an element of skill here that I would argue is greater than face decks.  BUT I think it is also the most tremendously boring and unfun thing to go against this game, including aggro.  You don't even feel like they're trying to win: it's more like just trying to keep you from winning.
    Forcing control decks to have actual win conditions other than, "run my opponent out of cards" is a good thing in my view.  Renomage and Renolock are much better for the game than the old Control Warrior or Control Priest was.  So I feel that what Blizzard has to do to make control successful in the era of Jades is not to make them better at killing everything, but instead offer greater variety of cards that allow them to actively pursue victory.
    Posted in: General Discussion
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