Hearthpwn

these nerfs come at such a bizarre and shitty pace. what about Power Overwhelming? how about the fact that something like Worgen OTK doesn't work in Wild because you actually have decent taunts in there? what about Rogue losing the AOE it had (aside from the weird Vanish) because "we wanted to add better weapons" and ends up with a 6 mana 3/2 fork? what about Molten Giants being destroyed, and now we have Arcane Giants which fit into way more decks than Molten ever did? what about Dr.Boom, Mysterious Challenger, Shredder? 

freaking garbage team I tell you. 

Quote from breach_deciphern >>

Kingsbane Rogue is a tough one, but I'm liking OTK Kun-Aviana Druid against the rest of the field. it's very expensive sadly but a ton of fun to play.

If Blizzard can smooth the gameplay around Shudder's animations, that would be great.  But please, Blizzard, don't nerf or ban ANYTHING aimed at hurting this deck.  I've never asked you for anything before, just give me this . . . please.

Both statistically and anecdotally, Shudderwock is not a broken deck.  It does not represent an unacceptable amount of the Standard deck pool.  It does not require a balls-to-the-wall aggro approach to beat.  Over the past few days, I've played tempo rogue, elemental mage, spiteful priest and druid, and cube lock.  None of those decks have any problem dealing 30 damage well before turn 10.  Obviously the Wock deck has countermeasures, but barring a miracle Farsight on Wock combined with a basically perfect draw, the combo can't go off before turn 11 (playing the first Wock on 10 is not the completion of the combo).  All of the above decks are able to kill the deck through its countermeasures before turn 11 quite often.  In addition, I imagine the stats will bear me out when I say that the odds of the deck actually being able to put it all together by turn 11 are fairly low, meaning that often you will have more time to break through.

The closest thing to an argument I've seen in support of nerfs or bans is framed to explain why we need to take action against a deck that is nowhere near 50% winrate.  Wock is apparently starving the meta by necessitating hardcore aggro decks to beat it.  First of all, the idea that it takes a combo deck to create an aggro-prevalent meta is belied by . . . well, every meta ever.  Second, I've already named 5 decks spanning 5 classes that aren't hard aggro and have no problem competing with Wock.  It is probably true that hunters and perhaps paladins will have to go the face route to have a chance, but class balance and class symmetry are not the same thing.

It is to be expected that a certain percentage of folks will complain regardless of design decisions.  So far, however, two things are objectively true:  The rotation has introduced quite a few new deck types, some of which will probably be refined to truly competitive caliber, AND Wock is by no means certain to be one of them.

Blizzard, you made an interesting card.  Let it marinate for a bit. 

After replies edit:

I forgot about the interactivity complaint.  This is a subjective issue, but interactivity is very rarely judged by one card.  Coldlight Oracle was interactive, in my opinion, because one has to adjust his handsize management based on the possibility of it being in opp's deck.  Likewise, the Coldlight player has to weigh giving opp more cards vs having more themselves (unless opponent is holding 9 or ten, which is his failure to interact).

On the other hand, Ice Block arguably destroys interactivity because it is license to ignore lethal damage. 

The Shudderwock deck has to interact because it will NEVER put the combo together before it dies unless it significantly disrupts opponent offense.  If it was a turn 3 combo, we'd have something to talk about, but it will lose against everything without significant defensive interaction.

Intro:

As a veteran from before the public release, I believe that every deck can be playable, winnable, viable. Personally I believe no card is specifically bad seeing there is no card in this game that cannot help you win a game even by a little. Magma Rager may suck (right now), especially against mage but regardless of its horrible stats, it can kill an opponent and one day be "viable" or "meta fit" based on future cards released. Now don't get me wrong, I am not a anti net deck pleb; I have all the cards in the game on several accounts and have nothing against avoiding recreating the wheel. My problem is newer players in this game tend to lean towards decks straight from tempostorm ... from the original face hunter lists pre buzzard nerf to the first zoo lists it has always happened. My problem with using a list online as a new player is you get used to the "normal meta"... except here is the problem, there is no normal meta... In my opinion if you started 2 weeks earlier, disenchant EVERYTHING to make pirate warrior then you start running into people that play a deck specifically tech'd to beat your "aggressive" kind of deck... you get pissed at the original deck creator, comment on HearthPwn "this deck sucks" and disenchant the crap you just enchanted after two weeks of grinding to make another deck that will only continue your cycle of [Enchant-Disenchant so on].

Now if you don't mind dumping a load of money to reach legend a couple times, go ahead... but Do not complain to people who spend next to nothing, have a lot more cards and can "tech the meta" without halving to disenchant half their stuff because they took the time to be patient, not start out copying and pasting lists, not b*tching to others about deck concepts and such... the best hearthstone players aren't legend 5000 or rank 5. they usually start out reaching ranks of 17-10 at the end of the season, losing with their own decks or experiments and when they start learning what makes a good archtype counter, they reach top legend levels with Consistent effective decks that have "Techs" in them to win(not a copied list).

Point/Response to topic:

Unfortunately the evolution of hearthstone has completely transformed paladin. It isn't necessarily good or bad but its surely different. From the original midrange(pre nax) to shockadin to tempo paladin(secret) to anyfin etc... the whole game has gone from Yeti to Shredder to Mortal Strike or Reno.

Paladins main Aoe's have been Equality + Pyro, Equality + consecrate, truesilver, and effective health the regain board while tanking damage.

With decks faster than ever or decks with more tools to control the "old" paladin is just not effective enough to consistently dominate.

Is paladin still viable? can it win games? can it beat Reno/ pirate? Absolutely.

But when doing so, it loses consistency because the tools paladin has to utilize right now make it hard to be overall effective to more than just pirate or reno. 

With the lack of removal on sticky minions or decks that have burst and no board as their win condition paladin is very hard to use.

With the lack of Tempo minions other than challenger and tirion, Paladin vs Renolock is uneven. 

and not to mention the healing is usually not "universal" enough to handle different decks(yes 2 forbidden healing can easily beat an aggro deck, considering you queue into pirate warrior, draw them, and have the health by turn 5 to use it for 10 health)

also burst is low compared to paladin archtypes.

Conclusion/ Future of Paladin:

There is no 100% way to be certain; these are estimated assumptions.

With the reality paladin is facing right now, it will continue to change and possibly a widely used class again. I expect to see token paladin in the future even after justicar and keeper rotates, probably a midrange list or a combo list but it will return. warlock in general used to struggle vs decks that flooded them with minions, minions and more minions and thats exactly what will return when reno rotates. 

and when flood decks return (bloodlust shaman, token druid gets used more, flood paladin) decks that had trouble dealing with sticky minions or tempo minions, midrange druid, midrange paladin, egg druid, will return with FULL strength. thats my prediction. but until that paladin is in a state where the mainstream decks right now make every consistent paladin archtype right now not effectively usable.