Hearthpwn

Try reading what I actually wrote before attempting to attack me. I have spent over 15 years as a game designer and playtester so feel free to tell me what an idiot I am. The cards themselves are not OP, which is what everyone is focusing on. The stats though are purely mathematical and they are power creep. Look at the stats of all of the existing cards and you will see a very large number of 1, 2, 3, 5 attacks. You will see a lot of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 defenses. Now look at the TGT reveals and you will see a lot of 5, 6, 7. That is power creep. It is subtle how it is being done but from a mathematical standpoint is exactly what I am saying. 

When you look at the TGT cards on one page the only thing you see is straight power creep with very little innovation or creativity. You see a lot of 5's 6's and 7's in the health slots and a lot of odd numbers in the various powers and abilities, this is all power creep. It feels slightly balanced in the way it is handled but I don't believe it will be when things actually hit play. I still am not seeing anything that addresses the big issue we all know exists with pure aggro however and instead they seem to be going the same ineffective direction as BRM where by simply introducing more control and slower cards they think it will shift the meta. That will never happen unless there are limited formats or new mechanics that address it directly. To me TGT feels like on-rails, lazy, design. I'd love to be wrong, but we will see soon enough.

I think a lot of people want to believe that this will shake things up and be the silver bullet fix, but I am not seeing it personally. There are some inherent game design flaws and instead of attempting to get out from under them they seem content to just keep kicking the can down the road. I'm sure the money is still coming in so they don't have any great need to do more until it slows. This set is the start of power creep and not in a good way. It clearly is meant to make Shaman viable but so far does little else except put some more focus on hero powers and secrets. Since there is no way to interact on the opponent's turn meaningfully aside from secrets that seems to be about as much as can be done. One mechanic for a whole large set is underwhelming, I hope there are more but I am not holding my breath. HS is not in a real great place for any long time players, I guess the influx of new players may offset it but I find it hard to believe new players do not see the massive barrier to entry right now. I'm not sure who they are trying to please, and I'm not sure they are either which is pretty worrying. 

I went Murloc Warlock and my pack had a Mana Wraith, so I'm going to go with Brawl packs are the same RNG as normal. :)

I remember those angsty hormonal teenage years too, so I don't take offense from the ones that can't help themselves :) There have been a lot of valid responses and I think ultimately we all want the best game possible. I played MtG from Unlimited through Urzas and it was fun but I didn't care for where that game headed either. I still love the design and concept and will play old school MtG any time. HS has potential and while there are a number of "viable" decks we all know we don't come across some great even distribution of 15+ decks as we climb ladder, more like 4. 4-5 is fine but they all basically exploit the non-interactivity of HS right now, especially interaction on the opposite turn. If they simply boosted the number of secrets and mana costs it would shift the meta pretty instantly and make more decks viable. I would love to see new mechanics instead to accomplish that, but I'd take what I could get right now.

If you are happy with the state of HS right now, that is perfectly fine. I'm OK with people having other opinions.

This is not a flame out/QQ I quit type post, but I did want to try to have some sort of constructive discussion. I plan on coming back to HS as soon as things get a bit better sorted out overall, but I think there are some pretty serious flaws and cracks that have appeared over the past few seasons and it just seems the direction things are heading is not where the majority were hoping it would... myself included. I've been playing since beta and only in the past 3 seasons has the game felt stale and treadmill-ish. The proliferation of so few viable decks has really made the ladder feel more like a chore than any sense of fun which it always had at least a little bit even in some of the darker days. I didn't have a lot of hope that Tavern Brawl was going to be the savior that we all wanted but what we got managed to underwhelm already low expectations. 

Things just feel a bit directionless at the moment. We need a cool tournament mode, even if it requires gold to enter. We need Tavern Brawl to be like Challengestone. We need new mechanics that are not RNG-based and that, if possible, add more interaction for both players. Ultimately some more interaction on the opponent's turn like secrets is key. Things feel broken right now, I'm hoping they right the ship with the next expansion.

Quote from Paly_Noob jump

What I don't like about the game is the un-balanced team-pairing system and that once you get behind in the game it's virtually impossible to come back and win. Unlike HS, where you can play a single card to turn the game around (e.g. AOE or T-1 legend), in HotS if the opposing team gets a few ranks ahead of yours it's "GG" - and to make matters worse, you can't concede (if you leave the game you get "leaver" status until you play a "leaver" game all the way through) - so basically you just have to sit there for 5-10 minutes getting one-shotted and @$$-raped.

Bad design.

 Not at all actually. When I first started I thought as you do, but now that I have hit a high rank and play pretty competitively this is not the truth. Basically if you are far behind on xp it is your own fault or your team's fault. Even when it does happen legitimately, your team needs to not be braindead and go soak and grab some camps and equalize. It is actually easy. However if your team insists on team fighting when 2-3 levels down then it is gg and it should be and you should lose. 

The game is all about team composition. If you are playing straight pugs then yeah it is a crapshoot (as any pug is) find 2-3 other players of your same skill and be sure to pick complementary heroes (and know how to play them) and then it almost doesn't matter who you get matched with for the other 2-3 players. I have played just about every MOBA out there and HotS is a great casual one with elements of greater complexity and strategy (sort of like HS is in comparison to other TCGs). 

The instant I began seriously learning each hero and the builds and how to play more efficiently (watching Twitch and YT guides, again just like HS) the instant I improved drastically and what I had thought was good play before I then knew wasn't. It takes some effort and skill but the game is balanced overall, just a few heroes are not top tier and comps matter a whole lot.

No it is about right although I would say that it is more like rank 8 - Legend is about the same rather than 15. After 8 you hit more players that tend to play close to perfectly the rest of the way up. I have never noticed much of a difference between 8, 4, or the lower ranks of legend. It is a grind and a win % of 54-60 is about what you can hope for at the best at those levels which means you don't just keep climbing steadily it is a lot of back and forth with some short runs of wins. 52-55% I would consider a pretty solid average win percentage.

Quote from Cardstone jump

basically this:

 lulz. That says it all.

duplicate post

This is beyond a letdown. I had low expectations an this managed to even fail to meet them. Even though it is free it feels insultingly bad.

I'm taking a break aside from hitting rank 20 each season until the meta changes. I have no problem climbing to rank 1 and even legend each season, but it just feels like too much of a treadmill lately. The past two seasons I just don't care and everything is basically the same game after game. I've tried to make my own fun but unless you want to invest a lot of time to get the same wins you can with an aggro deck there aren't any real options right now.

Absolutely it will be. However, I think it will be more to test specific mechanics and interactions in the wild rather than specific cards.

Has anyone else noticed that a whole new set of cards has been added to the card section here for Tavern Brawl? http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards?filter-set=18

Most seem like rehashes of previous adventure content but there are some new cards and mechanics as well. It is funny that a lot of cards an ideas from fan creations seem to have made it in. I'm assuming they will use TB to test out new ideas and cards where they can be contained and effectively play tested in the wild for free.

I don't think most people believe GP itself is OP, however in conjunction with Frothing it is. It enables too large of a number of damageable minions without any interaction from opponent. Same as buzzard nerf or miracle. Buzzard itself wasn't OP but in combo with UTH it was. Personally I believe the smart move would be to nerf Frothing or Warsong, but we shall see.