Game Designer Max McCall Talks About Shamans
Max McCall, a Game Designer on the Hearthstone team had some things to say about the current state of Shamans in the game.
To summarize:
- There are three different types of Shaman decks currently popular, but they are not different enough to feel like that when playing against them.
- Dragon decks like Priest and Warrior as well as Reno decks are good against them. If you want to win versus a Shaman, play Reno Warlock.
- In general, about 1 in 4 of your opponents is a Shaman, which is kind of boring and they are not fine with it.
- The problem with Shaman is not that they are winning too often.
- Shamans are more popular than they like, and if it continues to be this way they might do something about it.
Read his full thoughts below:
Quote from Max McCallWe are keeping an eye on Shaman decks and we’ll see how they develop. We say that a lot. Here is what it means:Okay, so: there are a few different kinds of Shaman decks:
- There are aggressive Shaman decks that play a Pirate package and no Jade cards
- There are slightly slower Shaman decks that play Pirates and Jade cards
- And there are even slower Shaman decks that play the Jade cards but no Pirates
All of those decks are strong, but they are all weak against Dragon decks (like Priest and Warrior) and Reno decks. If you’re tired of losing to Shamans, play Reno Warlock. In some ways, that is fine: Shamans are popular, but there are strategies that are good against them.
In other ways, it is less fine. Collectively, Shamans are popular; you play against a Shaman about one game in four. Now, the reason that a ‘balanced’ metagame is desirable isn’t because ‘balanced’ metagames don’t have dominant strategies. They are desirable because you play against different classes more frequently, which means you have a wider variety in the types of Hearthstone games that you play. Playing Shaman isn’t a dominant strategy – again, they lose to plenty of decks – but it is still boring to play against the same class over and over again.
And even though the Shaman decks have distinct differences, those differences are small. If you played against Warlocks one game in four, but half of your Warlock opponents were playing slow Reno control decks and the other half were playing aggressive minion decks, those games would feel very different from one another. On the other hand, when you lose to Tunnel Trogg, Totem Golem, Feral Spirit three times in a row, it doesn’t matter if some of those Shamans had a Pirate package or if one of them had Jade cards. Your games still felt very homogenous and weren’t that fun especially the third time around.
The point I am trying to make is ‘classes can be problematic even though they do not win too often.’ Shamans don’t win too often. Right now, they are more popular than we’d like. If they are too popular for too long, we will do something about it, as we did when we nerfed them a couple of months ago. However, it takes time to assess whether or not a class will cause the game to feel too homogenous for too long. On release, Mech Mage and recently Pirate Warrior were more popular than Shamans have ever been – but only for a few weeks, then people discovered alternative strategies and the decks became less popular. Because we know that Shamans have weaknesses, we hope that those strategies will become more popular and drive down Shaman popularity a bit so that you play against more classes more often.
We are going to keep evaluating Shaman popularity in the near future, and if we don’t like what we see, we will change something about the metagame. Perhaps we will change a card. Perhaps we will see Shaman popularity fall and not have to step in at all. Perhaps we will wait to introduce a new set and see if that creates the metagame change we want. Either way, it is a thing we are actively concerned about and paying attention to.
The same time when Tunnel Trogg and Totem Golem leave.
there was this interview where someone said that jade and highlander decks will probably not get any more cards so i'ts probably true that "reno" decks are dead after the rotation, other than reno priest maybe? but with the amount of cards in standard going down because 2 adventures and 1 expansion leaving while only 1 new expansion will come in, it will be harder to create a highlander deck in standard with powerful cards.
"Shamans are popular, but there are strategies that are good against them"
This
You are supposed to play counters to deck you are "always losing too" instead of whining on the forums that your standard mech priest isn't beating tier one decks.
allthough shamans have been tier one for too long so I will be happy when the rotation hits them
Shaman has consistently been at or close to #1 for about a year now. How much longer do you need?
They nerf them, then they give them the most efficient weapon in the history of the game (that cost 1 Mana) and Maelstrom portal that synergises to become the most used portal card.
Then they give them the pirates and the enabler: jade claws, yet another OP cheap weapon.
This isn't happening by accident; blizzard keeps giving some of the strongest cards to the strongest class and then saying that too many ppl are playing it, seemingly surprised.
If you have a problem with his statement, I honestly don't know what to tell you. It's measured and thoughtful, like most of the developers' statements have been lately. I really appreciate that they're discussing the difference between making changes based on hard statistics and making changes based on how the metagame feels. Both are important perspectives.
Measured and thoughtful in no way = accurate and responsive
In terms of accurate: it is my assertion that the "problem" lies with the fact that Team5 keep giving many of the strongest cards to the strongest class. (Read my post above where I list some of these examples). It is inaccurate to suggest that the problem should somehow be solved by sending out a post encouraging people to play the counters.
A lot of these problems will go away once the rotation happens. Then shaman loses a lot of its aggressive tools and will be put into a bit of a weird position as it tries to figure out a new strategy for itself.
Its about time you print a legendary totem.
There are SO many things I disagree with in his posting, but at least they say something...better than no communication at all, right?
For Doomhammer! SMOrc