I'd do more than revamp the evergreen cards. I'd completely redesign a class or two. I hope those are the "big changes" Blizz has hinted at for next year.
That's more or less what I meant, though. A lot of the RNG effects are in basic & classic too.
For example, here's some concepts for I wrote up for the druid class. (I've done a whole document with almost every class and most of the tribal cards, but I'm not sure how to safely share it).
For one thing, like modern sets, the classic set should probably have two legendaries (likely for two different styles of decks).
Yeah, Priest is in a really bad spot right now. It's not completely hopeless but I feel like the only deck that has any real chance is just a variation of the combo priest we've already been playing for months.
Priest'll be quite a bit better after the rotation. Assuming they don't add a bunch of awful priest minions the power of the pool for Galakrond Priest will go up considerably.
And I can stop getting Test Subjects, Lady in White, Zelek and Auchenai Phantasms every time I invoke.
Nah priest galakrond is bad
Priest Galakrond is completely dependent on it's minion pool. Right now the pool has a ton of situational cards.
Just like Deathstalker Rexxar, when they improved the beast pool, Rexxar got a lot better.
NO Just live the classic set alone! It has been nerfed to dust lately! Let me f*ing finish the classic set already after all these years, and stop adding new crap to it! i want that 100 gold achievement for the god's sake!!!
...okay, but beyond wanting an achievement, do you LIKE the design of the classic & basic set? And while Blizzard has been nerfing the cards from classic but they don't have to do it that way. I mean I'm specifically suggesting they make some pretty sweeping changes.
Though I think the classic set should be easier to collect than the annual sets. Probably half the dust/gold/money cost. (But half the return on disenchanting and such) This gives newer players a sense of accomplishment from collecting, while helping with the cost of buying 3 sets a year.
I would tweak it tbh. Its important classic/basic is reasonably balanced so that the devs have adequate design space to bring in impactful and fun expansion cards. Priest and Rogue have suffered for Classic-set-restriction-itus in Divine Spirit / Inner Fire / Prep respectively and there are problems elsewhere. We recently saw Prep nerfed and it seems to have given devs more space to create balanced rogue spells. I don't think changes should be massive however.
I just think there are a lot of design issues. Divine Spirit is definitely a problem; Inner Fire in of itself isn't that big an issue, just Priest's ability to raise a mid-health minion to be a 20+ health minion in a single turn thanks to Divine Spirit.
Shaman, Warlock and Priest's basic/classic set is just so, so weak. And they keep basically nerfing it when they add new cards.
So at this point the game has been out for about half a decade, there have been 17 expansions (adventures & sets) released, and we currently have 8 sets that are viable in the standard gameplay format.
But at this point, there are a number of factors which I think make the basic and classic set have a number of issues.
1) The Legendary Pool. There are a lot of cards and effects that rely on the power of the legendary pool, and there are a lot of really out of date, very weak legendaries from the classic set. In addition, the balance between class legendaries is very skewed. Antonidas, Tirion, Van Cleef, all have generally strong, general purpose power in a wide variety of decks. While Al'akir, Cenarius and King Krush are far more situational.
2) Lack of newer "evergreen" mechanics. Rush in particular is a good mechanic that would help to bring a lot of cards into balance.
3) The lack of balance between the basic & classic sets of the classes. Mage has a really generally very powerful core set, where the cards are reasonably balanced and fit into a number of different decks. While the priest set... is trash.
4) Snowball cards are kind of a problem. Snowball cards are fine in the sets that rotate, but I think the classic & basic set should mostly be composed of "fair cards".
5) A lot of the core archetypes (healing, discard in warlock, overload) don't really work. They're undertuned, weak, and sometimes just detrimental. I think it's possible to bring in some of the newer cards and fix these issues in a big way.
Blizzard has slowly been trying to fix this over time, mostly by sending certain problem cards to the hall of fame and replacing them with absolute garbage. But I think with the upcoming end of the year rotation they have an opportunity to make larger, more sweeping changes all at once. So to fix these issues I think there's a few easy solutions.
A) Graduate a lot of the cards from the basic and classic set to the Hall of Fame, and begin selling "Hall of Fame" packs.
B) Introduce a new series of cards, combining cards from sets that have rotated, new cards and retaining working cards from the existing classic & basic set.
Now, I'm not sure about how players would be compensated for this type of rotation. If players would just get dust for all of the rotated cards, or if there would maybe just be a flat amount of dust granted to players for the rotation in general.
I've made an (unfinished) list of cards that I think would be interesting, and if people are interested I'll share it!
The battlecry on the Galakrond just fills your board with demons, which is generally what you want for the rest of your deck. The mid-level power you want is like Felstalker/Voidwalker. That's pretty much a 'fair' result, maybe a little below average. Giant Imp, Jaraxxus, Siegebreaker, those are all like super high rolls technically for the cost of the card.
The main thing is the Shaman hero power is bonkers crazy powerful. The random demon summoning is honestly about on par with Shaman, Warrior and Priest's.
Generally you don't care too much about invoking and upgrading it, because the MAIN thing you want is the hero power for swarming the board anyway.
But the battlecry will get significantly better after rotation. Most of the outrageous low roll stuff is going to rotate out.
I had a lot of fun playing the deck yesterday, I climbed from rank 15 to I think rank 11? And it felt really, really solid. I was even running a kind of goofy handbuff version with Hi'reek I kinda liked. But today I had a string of really bad luck. I don't know if I was just getting triggered, or my head wasn't in the right spot (I did play against like 12 Galakrond Shaman) but I lost a fair bit.
Yeah, Priest is in a really bad spot right now. It's not completely hopeless but I feel like the only deck that has any real chance is just a variation of the combo priest we've already been playing for months.
Priest'll be quite a bit better after the rotation. Assuming they don't add a bunch of awful priest minions the power of the pool for Galakrond Priest will go up considerably.
And I can stop getting Test Subjects, Lady in White, Zelek and Auchenai Phantasms every time I invoke.
I don't think they're going to hit Shudderwock at this point, when it's rotating next expansion and actually isn't all that big a problem. My guess is the quest will get hit, Galakrond the Tempest, and/or some of the cards related to Galakrond the Tempest.
Honestly if it was harder to invoke, Galakrond the Tempest wouldn't be that big a deal.
I’d wager a guess the hero classes are getting hero cards in the adventure
That's possible, but I doubt it. They've given the hero classes a lot of unique mechanics over the year (Twinspell, Highlander exclusives, now sidequests).
I can't believe how aggravating this expansion is. The sheer volume of high roll nonsense is ridiculous. It's worse than Kobolds and Catacombs. A lot of it's rotating out next year, but holy jeez is it aggravating for now.
The ability to play 4 8/8s in a single turn just shouldn't exist, it's bad for the game.
There are ways to change it while keeping Galakrond and Shaman relevant and good.
You could literally just have the Shaman hero power only apply to minions, not really adversely effect the game, and remove that interaction completely.
I guess in wild, Jade Claws would be affected, and all those super common Hero Power into Hagatha and Splitting Axe plays that are so fun and ubiquitous would be brought to an end.
Changes I'd probably make for the health of the overall game:
Quest reward applies to your next minion battlecry only. Not every battlecry played this turn. I'd say maybe reduce the requirement slightly to compensate, but it's already pretty low.
Corrupt Elementalist could be a 4/5 that invokes once. That's still pretty strong. You can fully invoke Galakrond with the quest & Corrupt Elementalist and I just think that's silly. Every other class has to work so hard to upgrade their Galakrond (and their battlecries are much weaker).
I think that keeps shaman strong but reduces the high roll power of a lot of what they have.
I think Faceless Corruptor could probably do with a nerf too tbh.
This is the 2nd time I feel this way, been playing since beta. There are by far too many legendaries and epics required to get a decent deck in order to be able to keep up with the meta.
How do you feel about it ?
What does it mean to "keep up with the meta"?
Play with the cards you have collected, and do your best. Sometimes that will mean you'll struggle against people at the top (or middle) of the ladder.
If that struggle doesn't suit you, you can play in Casual, where you will be matched against opponents more your speed.
If, however, your complaint is that a free player doesn't have enough cards to build all of the best decks on ladder, I would think the answer to that is self-evident. The game is free to play, not "free to have all the cards."
The number of top-tier decks that absolutely destroy other decks, that have a HUGE number of legendaries is kind of ridiculous this expansion. Galakrond is a card you get for free, but to run Galakrond you need a separate neutral legendary and probably two epics per class. To say nothing of all the other cards you need.
I had enough cards (and full disclosure I preordered... I think 3 of the past 6 expansions?) to build a cool Warlock Galakrond deck. And then I could build a fun little priest deck I wanted, but if I want to make ANY changes to that priest deck to improve it, I am totally out of luck because I can,t afford a lot of the strong tech and optional cards I wanna try out.
I am not even close to having "all the cards" of one class, never mind all of them. Ever since they changed it so they're releasing 3 sets a year, there is SO much catching up to do. And sometimes it's not even worth it because I'm going "Well, I could craft this year of the Raven card that I want, but it's going to cycle out in three months" and that's just a bad feeling.
How did a deck that can summon 4 8/8s in one turn get past play testing? The interaction between all the Galakrond stuff and the stupid shaman quest is honestly just ridiculous.
So having actually used the card now, I think it's pretty good. The invoke cards are both really strong for zoo style decks, the hero power is great, the biggest problem is honestly the battlecry. The variance on it is nuts. Sometimes you get nothing but imps, other times you get a reasonable board for how much time you have to invest in upgrading it, and even then without Voidlord and Doomguard, there's no really amazing high roll or anything.
The odds on it will get significantly better next year after the rotation (most of the garbage demons are in Witchwood and especially Boomsday).
0
That's more or less what I meant, though. A lot of the RNG effects are in basic & classic too.
For example, here's some concepts for I wrote up for the druid class. (I've done a whole document with almost every class and most of the tribal cards, but I'm not sure how to safely share it).
For one thing, like modern sets, the classic set should probably have two legendaries (likely for two different styles of decks).
0
Priest Galakrond is completely dependent on it's minion pool. Right now the pool has a ton of situational cards.
Just like Deathstalker Rexxar, when they improved the beast pool, Rexxar got a lot better.
1
...okay, but beyond wanting an achievement, do you LIKE the design of the classic & basic set? And while Blizzard has been nerfing the cards from classic but they don't have to do it that way. I mean I'm specifically suggesting they make some pretty sweeping changes.
Though I think the classic set should be easier to collect than the annual sets. Probably half the dust/gold/money cost. (But half the return on disenchanting and such) This gives newer players a sense of accomplishment from collecting, while helping with the cost of buying 3 sets a year.
I just think there are a lot of design issues. Divine Spirit is definitely a problem; Inner Fire in of itself isn't that big an issue, just Priest's ability to raise a mid-health minion to be a 20+ health minion in a single turn thanks to Divine Spirit.
Shaman, Warlock and Priest's basic/classic set is just so, so weak. And they keep basically nerfing it when they add new cards.
1
So at this point the game has been out for about half a decade, there have been 17 expansions (adventures & sets) released, and we currently have 8 sets that are viable in the standard gameplay format.
But at this point, there are a number of factors which I think make the basic and classic set have a number of issues.
1) The Legendary Pool. There are a lot of cards and effects that rely on the power of the legendary pool, and there are a lot of really out of date, very weak legendaries from the classic set. In addition, the balance between class legendaries is very skewed. Antonidas, Tirion, Van Cleef, all have generally strong, general purpose power in a wide variety of decks. While Al'akir, Cenarius and King Krush are far more situational.
2) Lack of newer "evergreen" mechanics. Rush in particular is a good mechanic that would help to bring a lot of cards into balance.
3) The lack of balance between the basic & classic sets of the classes. Mage has a really generally very powerful core set, where the cards are reasonably balanced and fit into a number of different decks. While the priest set... is trash.
4) Snowball cards are kind of a problem. Snowball cards are fine in the sets that rotate, but I think the classic & basic set should mostly be composed of "fair cards".
5) A lot of the core archetypes (healing, discard in warlock, overload) don't really work. They're undertuned, weak, and sometimes just detrimental. I think it's possible to bring in some of the newer cards and fix these issues in a big way.
Blizzard has slowly been trying to fix this over time, mostly by sending certain problem cards to the hall of fame and replacing them with absolute garbage. But I think with the upcoming end of the year rotation they have an opportunity to make larger, more sweeping changes all at once. So to fix these issues I think there's a few easy solutions.
A) Graduate a lot of the cards from the basic and classic set to the Hall of Fame, and begin selling "Hall of Fame" packs.
B) Introduce a new series of cards, combining cards from sets that have rotated, new cards and retaining working cards from the existing classic & basic set.
Now, I'm not sure about how players would be compensated for this type of rotation. If players would just get dust for all of the rotated cards, or if there would maybe just be a flat amount of dust granted to players for the rotation in general.
I've made an (unfinished) list of cards that I think would be interesting, and if people are interested I'll share it!
0
The battlecry on the Galakrond just fills your board with demons, which is generally what you want for the rest of your deck. The mid-level power you want is like Felstalker/Voidwalker. That's pretty much a 'fair' result, maybe a little below average. Giant Imp, Jaraxxus, Siegebreaker, those are all like super high rolls technically for the cost of the card.
The main thing is the Shaman hero power is bonkers crazy powerful. The random demon summoning is honestly about on par with Shaman, Warrior and Priest's.
Generally you don't care too much about invoking and upgrading it, because the MAIN thing you want is the hero power for swarming the board anyway.
But the battlecry will get significantly better after rotation. Most of the outrageous low roll stuff is going to rotate out.
I had a lot of fun playing the deck yesterday, I climbed from rank 15 to I think rank 11? And it felt really, really solid. I was even running a kind of goofy handbuff version with Hi'reek I kinda liked. But today I had a string of really bad luck. I don't know if I was just getting triggered, or my head wasn't in the right spot (I did play against like 12 Galakrond Shaman) but I lost a fair bit.
0
Priest'll be quite a bit better after the rotation. Assuming they don't add a bunch of awful priest minions the power of the pool for Galakrond Priest will go up considerably.
And I can stop getting Test Subjects, Lady in White, Zelek and Auchenai Phantasms every time I invoke.
0
I don't think they're going to hit Shudderwock at this point, when it's rotating next expansion and actually isn't all that big a problem. My guess is the quest will get hit, Galakrond the Tempest, and/or some of the cards related to Galakrond the Tempest.
Honestly if it was harder to invoke, Galakrond the Tempest wouldn't be that big a deal.
0
That's possible, but I doubt it. They've given the hero classes a lot of unique mechanics over the year (Twinspell, Highlander exclusives, now sidequests).
0
I can't believe how aggravating this expansion is. The sheer volume of high roll nonsense is ridiculous. It's worse than Kobolds and Catacombs. A lot of it's rotating out next year, but holy jeez is it aggravating for now.
0
The ability to play 4 8/8s in a single turn just shouldn't exist, it's bad for the game.
There are ways to change it while keeping Galakrond and Shaman relevant and good.
You could literally just have the Shaman hero power only apply to minions, not really adversely effect the game, and remove that interaction completely.
I guess in wild, Jade Claws would be affected, and all those super common Hero Power into Hagatha and Splitting Axe plays that are so fun and ubiquitous would be brought to an end.
0
Changes I'd probably make for the health of the overall game:
Quest reward applies to your next minion battlecry only. Not every battlecry played this turn. I'd say maybe reduce the requirement slightly to compensate, but it's already pretty low.
Corrupt Elementalist could be a 4/5 that invokes once. That's still pretty strong. You can fully invoke Galakrond with the quest & Corrupt Elementalist and I just think that's silly. Every other class has to work so hard to upgrade their Galakrond (and their battlecries are much weaker).
I think that keeps shaman strong but reduces the high roll power of a lot of what they have.
I think Faceless Corruptor could probably do with a nerf too tbh.
0
The number of top-tier decks that absolutely destroy other decks, that have a HUGE number of legendaries is kind of ridiculous this expansion. Galakrond is a card you get for free, but to run Galakrond you need a separate neutral legendary and probably two epics per class. To say nothing of all the other cards you need.
I had enough cards (and full disclosure I preordered... I think 3 of the past 6 expansions?) to build a cool Warlock Galakrond deck. And then I could build a fun little priest deck I wanted, but if I want to make ANY changes to that priest deck to improve it, I am totally out of luck because I can,t afford a lot of the strong tech and optional cards I wanna try out.
I am not even close to having "all the cards" of one class, never mind all of them. Ever since they changed it so they're releasing 3 sets a year, there is SO much catching up to do. And sometimes it's not even worth it because I'm going "Well, I could craft this year of the Raven card that I want, but it's going to cycle out in three months" and that's just a bad feeling.
3
How did a deck that can summon 4 8/8s in one turn get past play testing? The interaction between all the Galakrond stuff and the stupid shaman quest is honestly just ridiculous.
0
So having actually used the card now, I think it's pretty good. The invoke cards are both really strong for zoo style decks, the hero power is great, the biggest problem is honestly the battlecry. The variance on it is nuts. Sometimes you get nothing but imps, other times you get a reasonable board for how much time you have to invest in upgrading it, and even then without Voidlord and Doomguard, there's no really amazing high roll or anything.
The odds on it will get significantly better next year after the rotation (most of the garbage demons are in Witchwood and especially Boomsday).
0
You're pretty much limited to a few classes that you want to play, but I think if you play regularly it's doable.