Max McCall Talks About Charge and Taunt - Concerns, Experimentation, and Execution
Our friendly neighborhood Game Designer, Max McCall, was out on the forums this afternoon responding to concerns regarding Charge and Taunt. He had this to say:
- Taunt allows players to defend themselves and add minion to minion combat.
- Charge can be problematic due to one-turn-kill combos, usually through cheap Charge minions.
- We'll see more charge in the future when they find safe ways to use the mechanic.
- Currently, experimentation is underway with more expensive minions that are harder to use in combos.
- The Hogriders in Gadgetzan are the first example of different ways to use the mechanic in a non-degenerate way.
What would you like to see out of the Charge Mechanic? Can you think of any cool cards that could work like Leatherclad Hogleader, Spiked Hogrider, or Tanaris Hogchopper?
Quote from Max McCallNeither taunt nor charge are inherently bad for Hearthstone.
Taunt is great. Taunt minions let players defend themselves and their other minions and add a lot of depth to direct minion combat.
Charge can be problematic, though. Minions’ ability to directly attack other minions means that a player who achieves control of the board early will tend to snowball their lead. When you control the board, you can arrange for minion trades that further cement your board control. Minions with charge are a useful tool for allowing players who have fallen behind on the board to catch up. Spells are a good way to catch people up as well, but cards like Stormwind Knight can kill a 3/2 and establish a board at the same time. Different ways to catch up when you’re behind gives the game more texture, and offers more strategic choices.
Charge becomes a problem for Hearthstone when you use it to kill your opponent out of nowhere in one turn. Playing Druid of the Claw as a 4/4 charge for 5 is good gameplay. Playing Bluegill Warrior, casting Power Overwhelming on it twice, then copying it with Faceless Manipulator to attack your opponent for 20 isn’t. In that example, charge is only a problem because of how efficient it makes converting minion buffs into direct damage. We could make more charge minions if we made minion buffs worse, but minion buffs have more design space than charge minions. Minion buffs are also fun and also enable you to catch up with weaker minions your opponent hasn’t gotten around to trading off yet.
Note that it’s specifically cheap charge minions that tend to cause problems, because they’re easier to combine with buffs and Faceless Manipulator. No one uses Reckless Rocketeer or King Krush for evil. We’re cautiously experimenting with more expensive charge minions that are harder to use in degenerate combos. The Hogriders in Mean Streets were the first example of this, and it’s reassuring to see that no one is using them to one-shot their opponents. We’ll do more charge stuff in the future as we figure out what’s safe.
Aaaand you're wrong. You're mistaking Rush with Storm. Rush can only attack minions the turn they're played, but storm can go face. You hace never faced a Roach OTK Forest or a Sword with Albert, Levin Saber have you?
Printing new, less combo-able Charge minions won't solve the problem of existing Charge minions defining the aggressive metagame. Take Leeroy Jenkins -- it was originally nerfed because you could play it with Faceless Manipulator in the same turn. But now, it can be reduced in cost by Emperor Thaurissan, bringing the original combo back. This problem will go away to some extent when Thaurissan rotates out of Standard, but that won't fix, say, Bluegill + 2x PO/CB + Faceless, nor will it fix Anyfin Can Happen.
The most obvious solution to this problem is to prevent Charge minions from attacking the enemy Hero on the turn they are put into play.
Anyfin is fine.
It's a combo piece that requires you to make quite a lot of setup OVER THE COURSE OF THE GAME.
It's not just hey, you drew this 5 cards in your hand and have 10 mana, you win.
There is a lot of counterplay on the Anyfin matchup you just need to understand it properly. There were many games that as Reno mage I used polymorth or some other way to just make the Warleaders useless and there it goes. All the Bluegills and Anyfins became dead cards and the Paly had no more win condition. On the other hand he could have wrecked me with Tirion.
This game NEEDS more combo decks like Anyfin. It's an interesting machup that you have to plan ahead for, count your removal tools and predict what is to come and then REACT properly to it. The issue in this game is not being able to React to combos. You played a minion? Well too bad, you just gave priest a target to make the Djinn combo and you die.
You didn't kill druid by turn 8? Well, too bad he has Aviana Kun combo in his hand and 10 mana already, you lose.
You haven't got Iceblock yet? Too bad, Leeroy PO Faceless just killed you.
These combos don't allow you to react to them. See them coming and then adjust your play to it.
All we have is like... Dirty Rat. Which can ruin combo-oriented plays.
It is never okay to get OTK'ed from hand at max life, regardless of what it takes to set that up. Aviana/Kun is also broken. They are effectively hard counters to reactive control decks, which need to be viable in Hearthstone.
"We'll see more charge in the future when they find safe ways to use the mechanic."
Icehowl? It wasn't played much, true, but it WAS a may to use the mechanic safely.
I just naturally appended Silence to Icehowl when I read that. Ooops. Silly me. ;)
Hey, I suppose being completely unplayable does make the hogs 'harder to use in degenerate combos', can't fault them on that.
While the 4-4 variant is pretty much unplayable, I claiming the other's as inherently bad/unplayable is an overreaction at best. None of these cards are nearly as bad as the cards that are ACTUALLY "completely unplayable," like Magma Rager, Warsong Commander, or Tree of Life. The fact that they don't see play right now is just largely because the meta is at a peak of aggressiveness. It wouldn't surprise me if Spiked Hogrider saw play in some decks, given the meta slows down even just a little bit. Leatherclad Hogleader is a bit harder to justify since a player having six cards is harder to predict than predicting that they'll have a taunt minion, But If the nerfs happen and miracle rogue. freeze mage, and other such control/combo decks come out it wouldn't be a terrible include.
The 5 mana is a nice arena minion though xD Oh boy sure want some more Icehowl type cards, extremely fun...
Yeahh... Because the hogriders are played everywhere... Great idea. Do they want to create bad cards? On the other hand, he is perfectly right, considering the issues with charge-minions.
The Hogriders in Mean Streets were the first example of this, and it’s reassuring to see that no one is using them. FULL STOP
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Speaking of taunt vs charge (and other offensive mechanics. The developers should watch this video.
This video is really good tbh
"Currently, experimentation is underway with more expensive minions that are harder to use in combos"
Like giant dinosaurs?
I would love to play a giant dinosaur with charge and taunt.
Indeed. The legends say that Hunter actually has a legendary class card in the classic set. But to this day he has never been seen, and his name shall not be spoken of.