Hearthpwn

For the first time right after a HS expansion I am not excited to play the game. I mean, HS comes and goes - but this is the first time I've felt this way right after an expansion, which is off.

I can't put my finger on a specific thing, but I think six issues feel like the key ones for me:

1. Three full expansions per year as opposed to adventures. That is a lot of grinding, even if you buy pre-purchase packs (like I usually do). I don't mind spending money on HS (I don't have time to play more than a few games per day and I like to play several decks), but I have a certain treshold which seems like it's a lot less than what Blizz wants.

2. Heavy weighting of legendary and epic cards as staples make the grind even more noticable.

3. Class balance has been in shambles ever since standard was introduced as a format. Adjustments to class balance always target (at least in part) cards from the core sets, while new more unbalanced cards are introduced to collect.

4. Games have gotten very similar, A lot of classes have very similar decks as their most competitive archetype and the standard card-pool is too limited to stray far from the powerhouse combos and still stay competitive.

5. Almost all non-curvy decks rely on big "SMACK!" rounds or repeated chances of highrolling. I'm not saying non-random is always good. Pirate warrior was probably the least random deck we've ever seen in HS, and it felt rather dreary to face 6 of them in a row on rank 5.

6. Wild format feels uncompetitive and like a casual mode with stars. With less than stellar support for blizzard it is also noticable that the playerbase plays less well (doesn't necessarily apply to you specifically, dear wild-gamer, so don't take offense) there.

I understand that this is a simple game at heart, made for big shiny clashes and wacky moments. Problem is that the wackiness is now almost all that is left. It's either T5 twig->medivih->infestation, highroll a tirions on evolve, keleseth round 2, barnes round 4, raza OTK or a 20 attack board of murlocs on T6 or bust. There is a lot of fun entertainment, but it often feels like you're not playing a game as much as rolling a dice.

Anyone else with the expansion blues, or is it just me?

Murloc pally isn't bad, it's one of the best decks in the game.

Sure, pretty much nobody plays it - but that's another issue entirely.

More cards will almost always make decks worse. Think of it this way, when you add cards you are effectively making cycling harder, and cycling is the most powerful thing you can do in HS.

And of course, some will think "but I can have these powerful cards in my deck and it will have more strength". But that's the wrong way of thinking about it. If your decks needs more cards to gain enough power to be competitive, then its efficiency is too low. You already know this intuitively from 30-card decks... if you consistently do not draw the cards you need, then its efficiency is spread to thin. 

Even in MTG, where you lose the game when you run out of cards, you'll very rarely see decks go over the minimum.

Quote from PileOfCheese >>

>much in here is opinion based, if I am wrong in any aspect, please tell me.

I've seen so many people say blizzard sucks at balancing, nerfing cards, etc. etc. I too feel that way sometimes but let me just say this; Balancing cards is incredibly difficult. You can compare it to predicting the meta when a set isn't even released. lets look at some examples from the past; people tought Dr. Boom was a meh card, in WotOG ive heard people speculate Cho'gall to be the busted AF, when  blizzard said they might have made lyra the sunshard to strong people laughed at their faces, noone tought shadowreaper anduin or prince keleseth would be busted, we were all looking at uther of the ebon blade, rotface and valeera the hollow. 

Of course it sucks that there has never been perfect balance, but there is a reason this happened; because balancing cards with a sample size of an office building and only a handful of people is more difficult than speaking in hindsight after millions of people have played with the cards and thousands of minds are speculating, thinking of combinations and making decks. 

Warrior, control.

Have about 800 wins with that. Even well into the latest expansions before nerf, as it was exceptional against aggro still.

Sadly they made warrior into an aggro shit-fest and then nerfed war-axe to get rid of the aggro shit-fest, so in the end it was a pretty bitter experience.

And allow these cards to enter the meta without good counters?

That would be a horrible idea.

No, not yet. I'm pondering to stop playing HS. It has gotten notably more expensive. No, it won't put you on the street or anything, but it's looking like about 100 euros per expansion will be the price to stay competitive with the amount of decks I like to have vs how much I have time to play, and at that point I have to start asking if it really delivers that much enjoyment... especially considering that a lot of the aspects I loved the most about the game have diminished (very few tactical decisions left).

Met Tirion 4 games in a row. None of the opponents were paladins.

It's not a complaint about "my bad luck", I even won 3 of those games because the BS was fairly equally distributed.

But I do feel that it takes away from the unique feel of class legendaries when they're just strewn about in random summons / discovers / evolves. A lot of games also just feel like they were interesting, then a broken combo of a legendary from outside your class makes you  unable to lose the game even if you tried or vice versa.

I feel like random effects should exclude class cards from (outside your class) appearing, unless the theme is specifically about nabbing them (burgle).

Disagree / agree?

Quote from Fanderay87 >>

Actually, I don't understand the point of the topic. Wild is still a competitive format as Standard is and that's the reason why is full of meta decks. Quite obvious, isn't it?

But there are two huge differences between Standard and Wild: first of all, in Wild there are more meta decks than in Standard, and that's a good thing. Secondly, but far more important, Wild is fantastic for all the people, like me, that don't like to copy/paste and play with the same meta deck for an entire month but prefer to have fun with their collection and try new ideas.

In the end, I think that the real fun in every CCG is build your deck and try to improve it. I will always prefer win 1 game out of 10 with my own deck than win 9 games out of 10 with a meta deck. And this is why I will always recommend Wild.

Quote from Virshuam >>

Quote from hillandder >>

Shieldmaiden is a lot better than Alley, in Wild have too much priests, you get your minion stolen or destroyed without giving you any armor.

That said Wild have better options than this two, Justicar for example.

Against priest you do not really care about armor, so not a big deal.. 

Jade druid players fool no one with post like these!! There have been a few cropping up recently. Nourish was never consistently used as ramp before. It's pretty regular to be facing a druid these days and have them 4 mana ahead of you. How exactly do you learn to play against someone who hits 10 mana when you are on 6. Sometimes it's worse, I've been UI'd on 4 mana before...6 fucking mana ahead. L2P? Bwahahahaha

Quote from Boethion >>

Wait, so you complain about that you always have to keep the Druid matchup in mind when making a deck, but thats exactly how the game works. Unless everything sucks and has a 50% Winrate (Un'Goro) a few decks come out on top and set the entry bar for everyone else. We had that with the Unholy trinity of Secret Paladin, Patron Warrior and Combo Druid pre-standard for example. We actually have it very easy because most of the top decks are the same class, so they have the same weaknesses for the most part, so when you make a deck that is good against Druid in general, you covered a large amount of your matchups.

When you look at the average winrate of Druid decks, they have a ~ 55% winrate, so only 5% above being viable. There have been far worse offenders before where we didn't alread have all the tools to counter it and as mentioned in another comment, people still play overly creedy lists and decks that are just bad against Druid, so naturally they get some free wins here and there that can easily make up those 5%. If Druid as a class had a 60+ % winrate or we had no tools to counter them, then I would call that oppressive, but 55% with many free wins and counters in place ready to be used is more the fault of the playerbase, then the game being balanced.

Edit: Because some poeple always jump to the conclusion that, if you don't whine like a little bitch about a deck, you surely play it yourself, here is my current deck that works quite well against the field:

KFT non-Demon Handlock Handlock Deck by user-26292476 - Aug 24, 2017 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (18) 1x The Black Knight 2x Doomsayer 2x Mountain Giant 1x Skulking Geist 2x Defender of Argus 2x Second-Rate Bruiser 2x Twilight Drake 2x Bonemare 2x Nerubian Prophet 2x Tainted Zealot	Ability (11) 2x Defile 2x Shadowflame 2x Siphon Soul 2x Drain Soul 1x Hellfire 2x Shadow Bolt	Playable Hero (1) 1x Lord Jaraxxus
Loading Collection

Quote from Boethion >>

Quote from PsyyKik >>

Quote from Boethion >>

Wait, so you complain about that you always have to keep the Druid matchup in mind when making a deck, but thats exactly how the game works. Unless everything sucks and has a 50% Winrate (Un'Goro) a few decks come out on top and set the entry bar for everyone else. We had that with the Unholy trinity of Secret Paladin, Patron Warrior and Combo Druid pre-standard for example. We actually have it very easy because most of the top decks are the same class, so they have the same weaknesses for the most part, so when you make a deck that is good against Druid in general, you covered a large amount of your matchups.

When you look at the average winrate of Druid decks, they have a ~ 55% winrate, so only 5% above being viable. There have been far worse offenders before where we didn't alread have all the tools to counter it and as mentioned in another comment, people still play overly creedy lists and decks that are just bad against Druid, so naturally they get some free wins here and there that can easily make up those 5%. If Druid as a class had a 60+ % winrate or we had no tools to counter them, then I would call that oppressive, but 55% with many free wins and counters in place ready to be used is more the fault of the playerbase, then the game being balanced.

Edit: Because some poeple always jump to the conclusion that, if you don't whine like a little bitch about a deck, you surely play it yourself, here is my current deck that works quite well against the field:

KFT non-Demon Handlock Handlock Deck by user-26292476 - Aug 24, 2017 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (18) 1x The Black Knight 2x Doomsayer 2x Mountain Giant 1x Skulking Geist 2x Defender of Argus 2x Second-Rate Bruiser 2x Twilight Drake 2x Bonemare 2x Nerubian Prophet 2x Tainted Zealot	Ability (11) 2x Defile 2x Shadowflame 2x Siphon Soul 2x Drain Soul 1x Hellfire 2x Shadow Bolt	Playable Hero (1) 1x Lord Jaraxxus
Loading Collection

 Yeah right... you are not fooling anyone. A few games at rank 5/legend dumpster with a bad handlock deck doesn't count when you laddered all the way up with jades.

 So do you have anything useful to add to the discussion or are you just complaining like a sheep? "He doesn't follow the circlejerk, therefor he must be a Druid Player" is that really your best argument?

Quote from Boethion >>

Quote from PsyyKik >>

Quote from Boethion >>

Quote from PsyyKik >>

Quote from Boethion >>

Wait, so you complain about that you always have to keep the Druid matchup in mind when making a deck, but thats exactly how the game works. Unless everything sucks and has a 50% Winrate (Un'Goro) a few decks come out on top and set the entry bar for everyone else. We had that with the Unholy trinity of Secret Paladin, Patron Warrior and Combo Druid pre-standard for example. We actually have it very easy because most of the top decks are the same class, so they have the same weaknesses for the most part, so when you make a deck that is good against Druid in general, you covered a large amount of your matchups.

When you look at the average winrate of Druid decks, they have a ~ 55% winrate, so only 5% above being viable. There have been far worse offenders before where we didn't alread have all the tools to counter it and as mentioned in another comment, people still play overly creedy lists and decks that are just bad against Druid, so naturally they get some free wins here and there that can easily make up those 5%. If Druid as a class had a 60+ % winrate or we had no tools to counter them, then I would call that oppressive, but 55% with many free wins and counters in place ready to be used is more the fault of the playerbase, then the game being balanced.

Edit: Because some poeple always jump to the conclusion that, if you don't whine like a little bitch about a deck, you surely play it yourself, here is my current deck that works quite well against the field:

KFT non-Demon Handlock Handlock Deck by user-26292476 - Aug 24, 2017 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (18) 1x The Black Knight 2x Doomsayer 2x Mountain Giant 1x Skulking Geist 2x Defender of Argus 2x Second-Rate Bruiser 2x Twilight Drake 2x Bonemare 2x Nerubian Prophet 2x Tainted Zealot	Ability (11) 2x Defile 2x Shadowflame 2x Siphon Soul 2x Drain Soul 1x Hellfire 2x Shadow Bolt	Playable Hero (1) 1x Lord Jaraxxus
Loading Collection

 Yeah right... you are not fooling anyone. A few games at rank 5/legend dumpster with a bad handlock deck doesn't count when you laddered all the way up with jades.

 So do you have anything useful to add to the discussion or are you just complaining like a sheep? "He doesn't follow the circlejerk, therefor he must be a Druid Player" is that really your best argument?

 You are damage controlling for a currently obviously broken class, in particular, for jade druid, which is the worst offender for suppressing the rest of the ladder. It's not a big leap in logic bro, and you don't do a very good job of denying it. My useful addition to the discussion is that your OP is largely bunk. I don't need to produce stats for you as there are plenty out there and you have no doubt seen them. I gave an example above of how it's impossible to 'learn to play' (your words) against an opponent that is on 10 mana when you are on 5, with a full hand. You ignored it because there is no answer, it's just blatantly unfair, if you have any understanding of hearthstone mechanics. Stating the obvious in unison with others is not a fucking circlejerk - We care about the state of the game.

 I ignored it, because a best case scenario is not a good samplesize or argument. You should look at the average case instead. So I take your answer to my question as a clear no.

Quote from byzants >>

 I have to admit I'm sort of bothered by priest because I've mained control warrior for a long time, and they've a lot of very strong value cards over many expansions... while we've gotten breadcrumbs and had a small amount of time in the sun when fatigue warrior was a thing with justicar, before lists got refined a few weeks later. I don't think CW should be as good on value as them (as it has always been better against aggro, though now it will be a lot worse of course... with the FWA nerf), but I've often felt the difference got way out hand a long time ago.

The matchup charts from the vS link pretty much show that token Druid has at worst an even matchup (I would have expected that warlock is crushing token Druid).  Jade Druid is unfavoured only against Murloc Paladin and.... surprise ... the quicker Druid decks. One non-Druid deck is favoured against Jade Druid, and pirate warrior is even.

The stats indicate that Druid is the strongest class. And most people use it (including me, though not exclusively)

Edit: And just to be clear: a 55% winrate is really high. The tier 1 decks from July where something in between 52% and 53.2%.

Quote from Ludeus >>

Hilariously forced joke.

Quote from YJHS2000 >>

Could seriously mess with exodia mage... not sure how useful otherwise

Quote from OldKeith >>

Neither deck takes much skill to pilot, but big takes less.

The last time I played against an all reactive Reno Priest deck, I played Lost in the Jungle, then did nothing but hero power until I was ready to kill him with Quartermasters. Won the game on turn 7 having only played 3 cards. Decks that run nothing but removal are really easy to manipulate, especially as a Paladin, who can replenish the board over and over without having to commit a single resource from hand.