Hearthpwn

Quote from pumpkinescobar2 >>

nah fuck that. priest needs to be deleted from the game. All they do is rope and discover.

I know this has become something of a trope on these forums, I'm willing to wager that most decks on the ladder rejoice at the near free-win playing against a priest delivers.  As a majority priest player myself, there are so many decks that are basically instant-loss to play against.

While true that priest can discover a lot, they're nowhere near as oppresive with discover as rogue and mage, and both usually gets to play the discovered stuff at a discount.  Priest has 2 (maybe 3) cards are played which can discover a new card that didn't start in their deck (Identity Theft and Aman'Thul with Benevolent Banker sometimes being played but mostly just discovering from within their own deck.  If they play Sister Svalna then of course they can discover a lot, but she's mostly a bit shit in a meta where you pay 6 mana to do nothing and then have to pay three mana to discover the spell.  Obviously there's Creation Protocol as well but again that's only from within their own deck.  Is playing against a 5th Aman'Thul frustrating?  It sure is.  But so is being 1-shot from 30 health with absolutely nothing outside or Rat or Theotar that you could do about it.

At this point the Dev's have basically forced priest to be a control deck and given there is no win condition, it basically has to be an attrition deck.  Control decks are slow - that's just how it is. 

p.s. do priests really rope more than anyone else?  I've never noticed that pattern in my playing.  In fact I rarely play against ropers and when I do face them a couple of turns of counter-roping seems to do the trick.

It's not just Brann.  There are plenty of OTK's from other classes, so you know if you're playing a bog standard control priest that you will almost certainly lose, as there's no way to consistently gain enough armour.

I think the main issue with control priest is that it doesn't consistently do well against aggro, it consistently loses against tempo decks (like Excavate Rogue), it get's out controlled by most control decks and it can do very little against combo decks ("kill them before..." isn't viable for control priest decks most of the time).  Also consider that many OTK decks are now basically tempo decks with an OTK as backup and you can see why priest struggles.

People hate on Aman'thul and I get it - he's a frustrating card which generates huge value and can interrupt some board based win conditions by poofing the minions (and you usally face multiple copies of him). In all honesty though he often doesn't really do a great deal or he gets instantly stolen/copied.  At least he costs mana to play though (as everything does for priest).

At this point it feels like every other class can do what priest does except they can usually do it better.  Priest can win games, but I would say nearly every victory feels hard fought and you're always waiting for your opponent to shaft you.

That's what they want you to do - then you'll get the counter to your counter! /s

I don't really buy that the Dev's dont know in advance that the mechanics they create will be problematic.  They've literally had Bran - Astalor (or Denathrius) as a combo already.  It wasn't fun.  Yet they've just done it again.  It will be just as anoying now as it was back then if the deck it was attached to wasn't a bit shit in the current meta. 

It's also not like the card combo's are tough to come up with.  They're often two card combo's.  If the devs can't see they'll be OP, they shouldn't be working on Hearthstone.  We literally have a deck with a 3 mana - "gain 20 armour and draw a card" combo.  The second they released Pendant of Earth someone posted a deck with naga giants in it. 

The cynical side of me thinks it's just bait to make people buy the OP deck, then they'll print a counter card at the next expac. (or nerf an ancillary card which kills the deck but doesn't refund a ton of dust).  Everyone was super excited about how OP Sargeras, the Destroyer was going to be.  It created an un-counterable, end of game effect which was going to outvalue all control decks.  Control warlock was back (sorta). Then we get Reno - the first card to remove "portals" and Sargeras, the Destroyer is suddenly shit in half your match-ups.

Even if druid does get nerfed - it's been a shitshow since the miniset launched.  Most of the new cards never see play because they're not remotely viable against the OP stuff (or even if they are they're in a class which isn't favoured).  Dual class cards just rub salt in the wounds as they're usually only prolematic in one of the classes.  If they nerf Pendant of Earth priest will probably just get even worse.  It won't make as much differnece to Druid because they don't need to bother about mana anyway.

In all honesty this mini-set feels like the beginning of the end of Hearthstone to me.  The Devs have run out of ideas and are trying to milk the user base before the game gets version 2.

I personally feel it just isn't fun anymore.  I don't mean that I no longer like the concept of the game, but everything about it just seems broken.

It's hyper aggro against broken decks, and mana seems to be optional these days.  I mean who doesn't love playing against a druid that plays 20 + mana of stuff on turn 6?  Left a 1/1 alive - here's 20+ damage to face.

For me the single biggest issue in Hearthstone is mana cheat.  Mana is meant to be the resource that all cards are balanced around - better cards = more mana.  It's a tried and tested formula, and it works.

What doesn't work insisting that some classes have to follow those rules while others don't.   I get that Blizz try to be creative with cards like Thadeus, and to be honest if he was always a 10 mana play I think he would be fine.  But he isn't, and you know why?  Mana cheat.  Except in this case it's mana cheat into more mana cheat.  Cards that have conditional mana reductions (e.g. Chained Guardian, The Garden's Grace ) are great in principle, but in practice they're too easy to discount playing cards that you're always going to be playing anyway.  Similarly, cards that have a downside to justify their reduced cost are just overpowered cards when the downside becomes an upside - looking at you warlock.  Sure - they limit deck design, but Blizz's design philosophy basically creates the decks for you these days anyway with "packages" (e.g. plagues, excavate etc.).

Which classes are dominating right now?  Rogue, Druid , Warlock and Paladin (with some DK and DH in there for good measure).  All of these classes have mana cheat in abundance.  I know Velarok Windblade didn't really see much play when he required 3 cards to activate, but only requiring 1 card is broken.  A 3/6 charge "Discover a spell with some mana cheat" that can be bounced for more mana cheat! 

Imo they need to re-invent the game but i don't see how they do that without a complete refresh.

p.s. I view overpowered, unbalanced cards as a mana cheat as well.  It's not the worst form of mana cheat in Hearthstone, but it amounts to the same thing in practice.  You're getting something more powerful than you should for the cost.

p.p.s I'm not against all forms of mana cheat - it can add an intersting dimension.  What I don't agree with is the current prevalence in the game and the uneven distribution between the classes

p.p.p.s the game is also far more polarised than it ever was imo, with match-ups that are literally unwinable with some classes.  Playing control and you match against mill druid - might as well just concede because barring some massive misplay you're not going to win.

According to HS replay, highlander warrior has a 60% winrate from diamond 5 to legend.  I don't have HS replay premium so I can't interogate the data myself, but here's a link to a screenshot - what more evidence do you need!!!

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/19ccyii/best_performing_decks_hsreplaynet_jan_21/

Who knows whether it's trully OP or not.  It's definitely not fun to play against though (unless you're playing a high tempo deck or DK!)

As it stands there is basically zero chance you'll be seeing priest of any sort.  Aggro priest doens't have the burst or legs to defeat druid and control priest doesn't have much of anything to defeat anyone...

Shame really as I reckon control priest is probably one of the few classes that could probably create a deck to sort out the paladins (but it loses to everything else)

Whether it's the best deck out there or not slightly misses the point.  A deck can be hard countered by another deck and the whole meta is those two decks.  Neither is the best deck, the winrates are 50% - but neither deck is particularly balanced and this is not a healthy state for the game to be in.

The problem with warrior decks (and OTK deck's in general) is that there's such a limited counterplay (other than kill them before they OTK) that any other control/slow decks have no space to compete because they will inevitably lose to the OTK.  Mill druid actually falls into this category as well imo - it's not an OTK deck, but it might as well be from the perspective of the non-driud.

If Blizz was consistent they should nerf Brann.  I don't have the stats, but I would wager he has a higher "played winrate" than the frogman did and he obviously got nerfed even though the deck wasn't particularly strong (and even when there was a universal tech card that isn't shit).

This meta would definitely have more warrior if it wasn't for the degenerate aggro decks that are also rampant.  But that's a problem as well. 

If aggro gets a non-shit hand the game is over well before turn 6.

Honestly, at that this stage the whole game feels like a shit show.  I just got hit for 20 charge damage on turn 6 by a druid who had gained 20 million armour and had 11 mana.  He also played the 0 mana 8/8 in there for a spicy 28 to face.  My poor little shaman had some 2/3's on board and the limitations of only having six mana with cards which actually cost mana...

If only I had played aggro....

 p.s. Bran-astalor is also extremely un-fun to play against (but we've  known that ever since we had to endure Bran-Astalor...)

I was playing a paladin who had 2 divine shield minions out - Jitterbug and Righteous Protector.  I don't know for sure the order they were played, but based on the events that followed I assume the 1/1 was played first.

I cast Shard of the Naaru and the silence effect seemed to treat the minions in the order they were played (i.e the 1/1 lost divine shield and Jitterbug drew a card then got silenced) rather than simultaneously.

This seems wrong - any thoughts?  To my knowledge no other simultaneous effect resolves midway through but I could be wrong (i.e. a board of Val'kyr Champion don't start to buff when hit with a holy nova).

I hate everything about the design of the card. 

A) it's super highrolly - get it on 6 - win. Don't lose.

B) it's going to encourage DK and plagues as the counter deck.  This game should not be paper scissor stone...(or if it does it should be between dech archetypes)

C) Didnt we already establish that multiple Astalor battlecry's was extremely un-fun?

It does feel a little like they don't playtest anything...

p.s. druid also seems busted

The shaman excavate reward is very limiting in a way that no others are.  You will really struggle to play more than one per game, because any minion based excavates or bounce effects will change when you play it.

I think it will be fun but probably not very good

I'm really glad they've addressed the issues in paladin to try and give them a viable deck.  Now they have sticky minions and burst!  Leave a minion alive without a taunt for a cool 20 damage as a minimum with 2 x The Garden's Grace and the new windfury card.

It's going to be so much fun..../s

This game needs less burst imo, but here we are.

He has an interesting (and rather sad) anti-synergy with Boomboss Tho'grun.  They should work great together, but if you happen to play the Boss before Brann - no Bran for you (probably).

Bit of a shame really as I like Boomboss Tho'grun

Who are you kidding - Titans always die the next turn! :)

I think these cards will shine more in druid that priest but only because I think druid has the more viable decks in this meta. 

These cards might help priest get to the end game and certainly add more value (if that was something priest lacked), but they don't give priest a win condition and don't massively help against OTK (sure you can stack up to 20 armour if you're lucky, but I don't think that will do enough).

I'm not saying that they are bad cards, but I just don't think they will matter in what has become a very tempo/OTK oriented game.

I do think Glowstone Gyreworm will really shut down aggro though.  Potential to remove a minion, heal a bunch and leave a 4/4 which heals a bunch more. 

The priest mirror is also going to be very time consuming....