"Ben Brode on how long until Pirates walk the plank"
Tim Clark from PC Gamer had a chance to sit down with Ben Brode to talk about the recent Q&A, his philosophy about nerfing/buffing cards, the next Standard rotation, what they were thinking when Spirit Claws was printed and more!
Quote from Tim Clark and Ben Brode
- They don't want to announce a nerf too far out from it actually happening. If they would, people would feel bad losing against a card they know is going to get nerfed.
- Ben Brode agrees that Small-Time Buccaneer is the problematic card in the Pirate package, not Patches the Pirate. If they decide to change something, it would be Small-Time Buccaneer.
- They intentionally nerfed Molten Giant really hard because they didn't want people to play that card anymore as it was hurting the ability for Standard to change.
- Hypothetically, if they would ever decide to move Classic cards to Wild it would probably be cards like Ragnaros the Firelord because they limit the design space for their mana cost a lot and limit the ability for Standard feel more fresh.
- Ben is not sure if he agrees with Brian Kibler that cheap weapons are a problem in general or if it's only a problem with a few specific weapons.
- The team was a bit disappointed that Shaman got even more popular after Karazhan, as that was not their intention.
- For example, Spirit Claws was intended for a new type of Shaman deck, and not for the current Shaman decks at the time.
- Ben worries about a big expansion concept / theme failing to land.
- C'Thun was one of the most risky things they have ever done and it turned out perfect from a balance perspective.
- Ben thinks the Grimy Goons mechanic will be used more in the future, once the meta slows down a bit.
- They try to have a good balance in 'obvious' mechanics like Jade where you just put as much of them in your deck as you can, and cards that require a bit more deck building skill to utilize.
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)I don't understand, why people give Jade Idol all this hate. I don't think the card has little impact on the current meta at all and definitely did not kill control. First off, Jade Idol does only exceptionally well against control decks without any real win condition besides outlasting the opponent like Fatigue Mage/Warrior and second it's still only available to one class. Druids make up about 10% of the meta and not every Druid even plays Jade cards. There were times where Freeze Mage and Control Warrior were played in the same meta even so queueing as Freeze Mage into Warrior was an autoloss. If there were control decks, that only lose to Jade Idol, they would be played regardless of the one bad matchup.
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)It is a 1 mana card that can provide infinite value and that one card hard counters an entire archetype, namely grinder/fatigue control decks. If that is not obvious to you why people hate on that card so much then I suggest you try playing some non-renolock control; report back when you get hopelessly destroyed by that 1 card when you come across druid.
Further, the only thing that is keeping infinite value druids in check is the pirates that everybody is complaining about. Remove/nerf those pirates and we are all going to be get overrun by jade druids.
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)-
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)-
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)Imagine if Rogue could invalidate a deck's winning strategy with a single copy of one card.
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Posted Jan 24, 2017 (Gadgetzan)-
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)The Goons decks (especially Paladin) wreck the Jade decks, but have a tough time with the Reno decks. The Reno decks have a tough time with Jade, but whoop the Goons decks. It was designed to be a rock-paper-scissors system, but the super aggressive Pirate decks basically invalidated the Goons decks (as they now have a bad match-up against a large portion of the meta) so the system fell apart. If Pirate decks were a smaller percentage of the meta I think the game would be in a really healthy place.
I do think the Goons will have their day in the sun though. They just need the aggressive decks to be less potent/consistent.
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)Seems like a really dumb design idea though.
"Oh I'm versing Druid, I win"
"Oh I'm versing Mage, I lose"
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)@ bletzkharne The idea isn't dumb, the rock-paper-scissors style meta has been around in card games for decades. Aggro-Control-Combo is the usual meta where one is advantaged against the other. That doesn't mean the outcomes are a sure thing though. There is still skill and luck involved in every match, so even if though percentages may not be in your favor, you can still win since the percentage is not 100%.
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)-
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)-
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)Dislike this comment
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)I'm going to like this comment and you're gonna love it!
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Posted Jan 23, 2017 (Gadgetzan)Thank you for vanquishing my soul
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)they just need to rework overall power levels for cheap cards imo. if you look at it from a power to cost ratio, 1-3 cost cards are the most powerful in the game. as long as there is the ability to have lethal by turn 4 or 5 the meta will always be focused around aggro, whether you're playing it or targeting it
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)As much as I'd love to keep faith that their future design is going to be good, it doesn't give them an excuse to deal with problems so poorly. Besides, as a company with a very large player base they have to also think about the present and not only the future. I'd love to see more new content, but what state is the game going to be in now until next Expansion hits?
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)"if they would ever decide to move Classic cards to Wild it would probably be cards like Ragnaros the Firelord"
Did I craft him for nothing?
WHY WOULD YOU REMOVE ONE OF THE MOST BALANCED, UNIQUE, AND AWESOME CARDS TO WILD BECAUSE "they limit the design space for their mana cost a lot and limit the ability for Standard feel more fresh"
WHAT IS LOGICS
Are you beginning to play f2p smorc gud Ben ?
Oh wait, probably. -__-
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)Dammit, if only they put this on the top I would have saved 2 minutes of my life reading almost all of this bs...
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)Hearthstone team - "Wait a second? You mean all the shaman decks are running a 1 mana situational Fiery waraxe!? I thought for sure giving it 3 charges and making it synergystic with 2 of the most used cards in the game, Thalnos and Azure Drake; while also benefitting from their hero power, would be enough to deter them!"
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Posted Jan 22, 2017 (Gadgetzan)They Intentionally nerfed Molten Giant really hard...
I almost quit after they nerfed it.