Hearthpwn

I'm of the opinion the card gets added before the new card is drawn based on the animation (which is likely going to result in clips of tradable cards redrawing themselves), but I'm also pretty sure that even if the card draw happens before the tradable card gets added to the deck that you could not infinitely loop it because the fatigue damage counts as a card drawn. Either the card gets added before the draw and you just draw the tradable card. Or it gets added after the draw in which case you take fatigue damage, which counts as the drawn card, and the newly added card stays in the deck. Edit: which means that even if you had a whole hand of tradable cards it wouldn't matter because your deck is no longer empty so the second tradable card would just cause you to draw the first with no fatigue damage.

Quote from JJSawry >>

Warrior is definitely not the class losing the most. From classic/basic which has always been solid for warrior they lose shield block.

For example hunter is left post rotation with a gutted core set, and 3 year of the phoenix expansions that are all over the place, completely unfocused.

Strong disagree on hunter. Beast focused buffs with beasts that have abilities that scale off buffs has actually been a fairly consistent theme through the entire year of the Phoenix for hunter, but went unplayed because it was too slow to compete with Aggro DH and Rogue. With the rotation slowing things down a bit, Dire Frenzy for more copies of key beasts, three different tutor cards, and confirmation that Handbuff is something they're trying to support. I feel that hunter is actually in a fairly good place even without seeing the new set. If any class has a gutted core set with a very scatter-focused year of the phoenix it's mage.

Quote from atbillings >>

My first reaction was how weird is it that they're getting rid of spell damage totem when they've spent all year trying to make spell damage shaman a thing--and revealed new core cards (IIRC?) that support it too?  It seems so foreign to imagine that they were printing so much spell damage support that they thought little wrath of air totem would push it into OP territory

I think what they're aiming to do is limit the amount of generic + Spell Damage to add more spell damage school specific cards like the +3 Nature Spell Damage legendary to promote board clears with stuff like lightning storm, while simultaneously discouraging using that same spell power to go face by classifying it as a different school like fire in the case of Lava Burst (assuming it's still in). At least that's my first thought, and would probably be more important for classes like Priest or Mage that might have a bigger appreciation for the differences between their magic schools.

Kind of surprised that the 'zappy boi' nod is a common though.

Probably not relevant to this discussion, but has it ever been mentioned if the new/revamped versions of cards in the core set will be permanently obtainable for the collection so that if they do rotate out next year we can still play with them in wild?

Quote from Popeye123 >>

You literally restated my point of view with the slight alteration of your view on “balance isn’t the problem.” Which I can somewhat agree with but it also has its issues. You say the scrub will always complain no matter what but that’s like me saying I’ll complain when I lose to a meme deck just as much if I were to lose to an aggro DH. This view is incorrect because one obviously is more “overpowered” than the other which is a definite problem, but not according to you. You say scrubs will complain no matter what which is somewhat what the article was saying but I took it differently. I took It as saying they will complain at “cheap” tactics. I can understand how you say the scrub sees any tactic used against them as “cheap” and will always complain but that (I hope) is a very small portion of the population that can complain about losing to a shitty meme deck as much as when they lose to DH. If you think playing to win has nothing to do with balance you are sorely mistaken my friend. Playing to win literally means to implement tactics that give you the best shot at winning, which is to use the so called “best” tactics in the game which scrubs will see as “overpowered” but that’s because they usually are. There’s a reason nobody respects people that play DH or rez priest.

I might’ve had a slight different takeaway from the article but that doesn’t mean my argument is invalid. And anyhow, my response was also a partial response to the author’s point a view which I found flawed as well, so why would I aim to summarize an argument I didn’t agree with? No I gave my takeaway and stated my opinion. Believe it or not, alternative opinions are possible to have 

 

Okay two different topics.

Yes, balance is completely subjective, and yes I was agreeing that you were right so some overlap is expected. Like I said, the article isn't about the inherent balance in a situation, so bringing it up in a balance conversation just derails the topic. The article is also painting the issue in very broad strokes in order to illustrate the problem. It's not meant to be seen in terms of absolutes, but people treat it like it is. Everyone is going to have their own personal biases and nothing can be done about that. How you let those biases dictate your behavior is another matter but is neither here nor there when talking about balance. So yes, your point is valid. My entire point is that your point, the OPs point, and a lot of other points are valid because the article isn't about balance and quoting it like it is some authority on the subject is not helpful when discussing balance because that is not what the article is about. Complain about whatever balance problem you want, that is not what makes a person a 'scrub.'

Playing to win is not about making the 'best' plays. It's about recognizing that there is a goal and that the trip there is from A to B and not A to 3 to B. If I were to play an OTK deck, playing to win means that I recognize there are instances where its better to ignore the combo and win in other ways then trying to assemble the OTK my deck is built around. Likewise if your priority is to have fun. You shouldn't make winning a pre-requisite to have fun.

Quote from Popeye123 >>

I did read the article mate, although it wasn’t necessarily his main argument I was commenting on (more about his use of the term scrub which I found to be a weird usage of the term), but now I guess I will. His argument was that people who complain about cheap tactics and refuse to implement them because (for lack of a better phrase) they are “morally above” using said “cheap” tactic are “scrubs” and should hop on the bandwagon of repetitive, boring tactics. Which is.... not a valid argument. It is in fact a terrible one. For example, people like me who hit legend once and now only play home brews for fun, play games such as hs to have FUN. The only goal I have while playing any game is to have fun, and obviously that involves winning and completing stuff, but it also doesn’t have to. I’ve lost plenty games of hs where I still had fun. I’ve also run around COD quick scoping averaging a .65 k/d ratio (mw3 days) which is terrible, but boy did I have fun. The argument the article gave made it seem like the sole point of playing games is to win, no matter what boring, overplayed, bs tactics you have to employ to do so. As long as you win. And that the loser is in the wrong because you used lame, repetitive tactics while they tried to interact and have fun in the game. That is a very poor perspective to have towards games in my opinion. I can agree with your implementation of this type of argument to real life in school, careers, etc. but games are for fun. People who sacrifice having fun and interacting with opponents  for playing brain dead aggro DH just for their W/L ratios are the real scrubs. Fooling themselves thinking dragging face to opposite face over and over again is as fun as the game can get, because they get to hear a triumphant jingle at the end of the game. If the deck ain’t fun, idc if it has a 100% win rate, you wouldn’t catch me playing it. And of course, fun is subjective, but I cant imagine it being as subjective as dragging a cursor and clicking on a picture for 5 turns, yet I am proved wrong everyday I run into DHs and wild Odd Pallys. The people that seriously implement this “art of winning” into something as arbitrary as video games like hs really need to get a grip and let loose a little. Have a beer or something. No one here is going to world championships.

and it’s not like aggro style is the epitome of boredom because it’s not. I have a zoolock deck I made with renounce darkness and lore walker cho that is a blast and still upholds a 59% win rate currently and has gotten me to legend once before the new expansion and gets me comfortably to d5 each season I’ve played it, but at least it has some sort of interactivity and “fun” ability. I build boards, strengthen boards, steal opponents spells (people quake in the presence of cho, have even gotten insta concedes on priests and mages), and even have the option to go full random for max fun (winning off renounce darkness is the best feeling). But People who netdeck DH have no creativity or ability to understand anything other than winning. It’s sad really, I pity those people.

 . . . . .

You know, I still don't know how people can miss the point so badly and still be right.

First off, I'm not a big fan of people bringing up the Sirlin article. While it's a good read. It's often used as a thinly veiled ad hominen attack.

The whole point of the Scrub article is to outline a type of mentality that exists where players are too caught up in themselves and what they're doing to pay attention to their opponent and adapt to what their opponent is doing. The actual balance that the 'scrub' is complaining about is a non-issue. It doesn't matter if it's balanced, overpowered, or underpowered. The scrub will complain about it regardless because it requires them to change what they are doing. The mentality of playing to win has nothing to do with balance.

Sirlin is actually a huge advocate of opponent interaction, specifically reading opponents lines of play, and would probably consider the non-interactive face aggro poor design. Sirlin actually went on a tangent in one of his articles about optimal play not being about the best play available, but the less likely to be exploited. Things like repetitive tactics would create openings through predictable play patterns. The fact that it doesn't usually result in that in Hearthstone could be argued as a problem. You either have the answer or you die. Anyway, Sirlin wrote another article titled Love of the Game: Not Playing to Win which is part of the same set of essays that the scrub article came from. It outlines that playing to win all the time is not how you get better at a game. Experimenting, exploring, and avoiding developing habits from doing the same thing all the time are all important to improvement and sometimes you will have to lose to get there. The difference is that a scrub sees a loss as a loss and a good player sees a loss as a learning experience.

So yeah, completely wrong take away from the article, but pretty much on the right page despite all that.

 Edit: and i apologize if my rambling is somewhat incoherent. This originally started as a response to KingOfKings post, but then I found yours so much more interesting.

Eh . . . Mass resurrect is not a priest exclusive mechanic, and has been used to better effect in both Paladin (anyfin goes / Kangor Mech) and Druid (Hadronox Taunt) and were generally considered balanced or under powered despite having a similar non-interactive passive early game plan as current resurrect priest, and having much more controllable consistent results on their resurrects. I am not entirely sure what exactly is the main issue with quest res priest. It might be the high value deathrattles, Khartut providing easy quest completion, or just people already triggered by big priest, but I think that there are plenty of significantly unhealthy mechanics in standard that are more of an issue then Resurrect priest.

It was around before the nerfs. It probably picked up popularity recently because a variant was played at a tournament in China.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/edkwy9/three_of_the_chinas_gold_series_top4_finalists/

Quote from Legend_Entomber >>

They wont touch Shudderwock or any card that is rotating within 3-4 months from now for sure

 Yeah, because they totally didn't gut Patches and Raza three months before they rotated to wild.

The last thing I want is a 'solid' 1 mana dragon in the Alexstrasza pool. I'd write a long very frustrated rant if it ended up in the neutral discover pool. Worrying about a 2 mana 3/2 is bad enough. Unless it's going to be outright broken I want nothing to do with it.

Quote from CatalystCrypt >>

 Alright, so i'm guessing that "start of game" is even before you mulligan or even get cards. I'm not sure if this is a mistake or intended

Working as intended.

Archived quote from Mike Donais (last quote in article): https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/4442-all-the-witchwood-expansion-and-card

Edit: Malchazar adds cards after the start of game check so that's why he works with baku.

I'm not sure how the analysis is even relevant.

I mean yes. They're looking at the % of decks that have used cards that were nerfed, and go further by comparing it to how relevant the class was (not sure why they bothered given that deck diversity in a class has nothing to do with how popular a class is). but given that they're also using data from VS, Icy Veins, and Metabomb. I doubt their numbers go more in depth then is there a deck or not in this given month with or without the card. That isn't really a helpful number as that doesn't tell me anything about how popular a deck with or without the problem card were. Are the numbers they gave still a reasonable estimate if the three most popular archtypes used the nerfed cards and there were a dozen or so other niche decks that did not? There are plenty of decks that get listed on those sites because they're for tourney play and generally not as good on ladder, Decks used for memes, Decks for experiments and so on. HSReplay does track % of decks with certain cards, but that most likely includes all decks in every class because of neutral cards. So that still doesn't really give me a good idea of the actual % of decks in a class using a certain class card. Although Hunter's mark reaching 20% in all decks in january is kind of concerning.

Eh, so why play this with all the other ridiculous things Druid can do at 10 mana? I mean, yes, OTK possibility with the right board and floop's glorious gloop, but at that point double savage roar + branching paths would probably have won the game against most classes. Aviana/Kun Shenanigans in wild are still popular. Hakkar OTKs is in Standard. Maly Druid is still a thing, and will probably continue to be a thing. Short of specific scenarios, there isn't a lot of need for a flat out win the game card when druid can play any one of those combos. So why play this at all? The memes? It's probably underpowered if anything considering Uther dk accomplishes something similar without crippling your ability to play the game.

Quote from lMarcusl >>

Oh good god is this an awful card. Wording is key here. It says if you hero power did 8 damage this game. Not 8 damage or more. EXACTLY 8 damage. You ping one damage over 8, this shit does nothing. So you draw this late after taking some high value pings and you get a glorious 7 mana 4/4. This isn't Spiteful Summoner. This is Star Aligner. Except you can't break this in Wild either. You trigger this on curve, sure, it's awesome. But anything beyond that is just straight up unplayable, cause you'd have to withhold pings hoping this isn't in your bottom 10 cards and you actually get to use it. In other words, you have to play poorly to make this turd of a card work.

 Uh. . . I am not really sure why nobody had pointed this out, but when it was used on stream, they did at least 12 damage with hero power before the first Jan'ali was played. The first from a Spirit empowered ping that did 3. The second was another spirit empowered ping + Flame breather that did 9. So, no, it doesn't work like that.

Also, Star Aligner works like all the other counting cards like quests. It is counting a number of minions on your side of the field. The HP thing means that the counter is only incremented by 7 hp minions. If you have more then 3 minion with 7 hp the effect still triggers.

Eh. . .

considering there are going to be 9 cards with 0 atk in the new expansion with stealth that makes them difficult to remove when they pop out of the wagon. I actually expect to see more wagon experimentation in the future.

That said, I think the OP is actually making a comment about the extremely obvious deck building issues with the recruit mechanic rather then meat wagon potentially pulling out op 0 atk minions. As Magnetic like Battlecry cards are something you'd rather play from hand rather then straight from deck.