Go Figure, Druid is Popular! Dean Ayala Talks About Monitoring the Meta & Potential for Changes
Druid has been a very popular class recently thanks to some new additions handed to them during Frozen Throne. Unfortunately though when one class succeeds too well, the community won't stop asking questions and thankfully this time around, we've reeled in a response from Dean Ayala.
Below you'll find our recap of the important points and the full quote from Dean.
- It is not abnormal to see one archetype get popular early on; people latch onto powerful decks.
- Using short term statistics to say things like "more popular than Undertaker Hunter" isn't a good comparison. The two use different sets of data (biased publicly gathered vs all players via internal stats)
- Blizzard is always watching the meta.
- TL;DR: They are discussing possible Druid changes internally, but it's too early to say if anything will be changed.
Dean talked about some the cards being used by Druids and what they've been talking about internally.
Innervate, Swipe, Wild Growth
- Class defining cards are good, but auto-include cards into decks isn't their design goal.
- Internal discussions are weighing pros and cons about each card staying with Druid for eternity.
Ultimate Infestation
- They think changing it would only impact player sentiment and not play or win rate stats.
- It doesn't appear to be statistically responsible for Druid power or popularity.
- Player sentiment and the card's draw power not being a part of their class identity leave the card up for balance discussion.
Spreading Plague
- Druids have a vulnerability to swarms of minions. They liked this method to help them with that as it fit the flavor of the class.
- They'd like to only see it used during heavy swarm minion metas and not general inclusion in all Druid decks.
- The current meta shows a lot of swarm-style decks which is likely why we're seeing it played so much. Their eyes remain on this card.
Blue Post
Quote from Dean AyalaDruid surpasses in popularity the historic Undertaker Hunter
We cite internal statistics from time to time, but I tend to be cautious of that myself because it's very difficult to find any statistic that represents everyone. Given enough time and enough access I find that it's not difficult to display data to support almost any opinion about the metagame. At the end of the Un'Goro cycle, Hunter was actually the highest win rate class among all Hearthstone players. In fact, Hunter held the highest win rate for the a large portion of the expansion. Of course, I wouldn't say that in retrospect of Un'Goro that Hunter should have been less powerful, but that is what the data might suggest. With that in mind, here are some thoughts on some of the comments I've read in this thread.
- Druid surpasses in popularity the historic Undertaker Hunter.
The statistics being used for this post are for one rank over one day. The statistics we cite about Undertaker Hunter reference all Hearthstone players at all ranks over a time range of a week to a month. Druid is popular right now, but these statistics aren't comparable. If I had to guess what the most popular class within one rank of all time is, I would probably guess Mage at Rank 25 on an average day or Warrior at Legend during the Warsong Commander / Molten Giant era.
- Blizzard disappeared after the expansion.
As with every early metagame, we are monitoring play rates, win rates, and player sentiment on a daily basis. We hop in threads like this one fairly regularly to say exactly that, but people tend to want to know exactly whether we are or are not going to change something. We are discussing what potential changes we could make if Druid increases in popularity over time, but ~5 days of popularity is not enough to make that call at this time.
- The people want to know the status of a druid nerf.
We are looking at a number of Druid cards, but for a deck or archetype to reach this level of popularity this early on in an expansion is not abnormal. The population usually finds something powerful, latches onto it, then other decks that are powerful vs that archetype come onto the scene until one of them emerges as the new popular deck before the cycle continues. It's certainly possible that Druid is in fact so powerful that it prevents the normal metagame cycle from happening, but it's too early to tell. Here are some thoughts on current Druid cards. Keep in mind that these are some of the discussions we have internally, not a list of changes.
Innervate, Swipe, Wild Growth: When we changed Keeper of the Grove and Ancient of Lore, the goal was for Druids to have more interesting decisions to make when deckbuilding rather than a large group of cards to be automatically included. Even though those cards changed, there are still some other offenders of this such as Innervate or Swipe...and Wild Growth to a lesser degree. Having some powerful cards that help define what makes a class different can be good, but those cards in particular have spawned a number of internal conversations where we have been weighing the upside and downside to having each as a part of Druid for Hearthstone eternity.
Ultimate Infestation: Changing a card like Ultimate Infestation we think would have a bigger impact on player sentiment than actual play rate or win rate statistics. It's a big, flashy, cool design but it hasn't appeared to be statistically responsible for Druid power or popularity. Power level aside, having such a powerful card draw effect in Druid is something we are wary of in Druid because we wouldn't consider it part of their identity as a class. Partially for that reason and for sentiment reasons it is still part of discussions in terms of what to do with Druid should population and power level continue to rise.
Spreading Plague: Part of what keeps Druid vulnerable is their weakness to minion swarms due to a lack of powerful AoE. While we think plague is a soft version of AoE that fits the Druid flavor kit, it might shore up one of points of vulnerability more than we would have originally intended. Ideally Spreading Plague is used in heavy minion swarm metas and less so as a general inclusion in any Druid deck. Token Druid, Token Shaman, and Murloc Paladin are all showing high population in the current metagame so it's possible the meta for plague just happens to be now, but it's a card we're continuing to keep a close eye on going forward.
Dudu problem is not ramp cards. Every classes have signature moves and styles. Ramp to win is playstyle with drawbacks like lack of board control and sacrificing of turns. Problem of druid is he got perfect covers for his weakneses. Malfurion the Pestilent gives ton of armor and board control. Ultimate Infestation just gives everything. Spreading Plague perfect answer versus aggro and some of midrange. So Dudu now have strong late game and perfect covers for early and mid game.I think solution for all the situation - add huge drawbacks for 'answers'.
Ultimate Infestation is insane. With this card, Druid has a good cover for ramp. More importantly, his card draw is even better than Warlock, I lose to Druid once with Handlock, he is already fitage, but I still have 6 cards in my deck.
So now the question is whether is it good to listen the majority and nerf a card or wait till they 'gather data' to take action. In Heroes of Skyrim at the first month they nerfed two cards by both data and sentiment of players. However, pros agreed that one nerf was unnecessary.
Still, I think Blizz should take action more often, not just small talks to please the vulgus. Anyway, I'm surprised about the hunter data. Keep the low profile for the glory my fellow hunter companions.
There will always be one class stronger than another, in fact in HS it was always like that, Aggro Hunter, Warrior Control, Token Chaman, Picaro Quest, Warrior Pirates, and all classes have their counter.
We can not ask for a nerf to a control class, when we were crying for an aggro meta 6 months, we always ask for what we do not have.
Much aggro crying around here
As a Druid main for 2 years I feel Innervate is fine considering Druids don't have good board clear no weapons or secrets but I can see how it's annoying. When Druids ramp they are sacrificing board control and most of the time in this meta it's a risk vs a lot of decks. There are many cards people are complaining about but other classes have more toxic classic cards, ice block, fireballs, frost bolt or equity + consecration.
How to fix innervate but don't blizzard nerf it. You turn it into a preparation so you can only play 1 per turn if you play both the second one doesn't activate and like prep you lose it. That's if you prep, prep.
Ultimate Infestation nerf: 10 mana draw 4 cards get a 5/5 Ghoul but you gain no armor. I think this would nerf it but warrant still playing it. This keeps it inline with Kazaka's 10 mana potions 1 extra card than nourish and 5/5 like tiger drop which also costs 5 mana.
Jade Idle is the problem in Jade druid 100% either push it into wild, apologies and delete it or make it silence-able. You place a board or 1 mana brokebacks and mass dispel makes them all 1/1's. Resets that jade idle.
As for the spreading plague card this is fine, literally helps druid survive vs bloodlust and pirate warrior. This card is not a auto include in all druid decks.
You post is balanced and well-thought, though I disagree with you
I agree on ramp being a tradeoff (you loose cards, turns, but gain speed). Ultimate Infestation ridicules this tradeoff as it allows you to recover the handsize you sacrificed ramping --> IMHO UI should have a drawback, such as destroying five of yoru mana crystals
For Jade Idol, I support making cost scale with golem size. This way the card could still provide value "in hand", but no 1 mana 8/8 monsters anymore. Not to mention that you would need tricks such as the coin or innervate to invoke golems above 10/10, a net positive IMHO
Spreading Plague is imho too strong, the scarabs should be 0/5 taunts (so that plague gives you time, but not attirtion against the ennemy board). By the way druid has powerfull ramp, he needs to be punished if he goes over-greedy and concedes a huge board to an opponent.
Please stop embarrassing yourself.
The reason Swipe is always run is because Druid has so little midrange removal. Instead of sending it to wild, just print a decent 3- or 4- or 5-mana direct damage card.
They up'ed it's mana cost a while ago and it's not in every Rogue deck. But neither are Wild Growth or Swipe, aggro Druid runs neither.
but it's too early to say if anything will be changed
Wait until new expansion LUL
Some people already pointed this out. But Ultimate Infestation is not OP. I would even say in a vacuum Spreading Plague is stronger. First let me tell you that I played more than 100 Jade druid games and are always around top500 legend EU. Its the complete package that does make Jade Druid strong. And the main problem is Innervate. Also because its in every aggro, mid and control druid deck. But ramping up and innervating Ultimate Infestation turn 6,7,8 is devastating. For 10 mana its suppose to do alot. And its a class card. It is very decent, but only because of ramp effects and Innervate It looks like a problem. Because you can see the swing turn clearly.
Most people also seem to have forgotten that Jade druid was already tier1 BEFORE the Frozen Throne Expansion. Especially, after quest rogue got nerfed. Now it basicly got 5 new cards, this might not look much. But it has a huge impact on the deck succes rate. It made it overall even stronger. We're talking about 2xSpreading Plague, 2xUltimate Infestation and Malfurion the Pestilent. Before the expansion druid was forced to use Gadgetzan Auctioneer which was actually far from ideal. It even needed cards like Tar Creeper to stop aggro. Again, far from ideal.
Now it gets even better. 1st month of new expansion release people experiment more. You tend to see less aggro and more mid/control decks. Jade Druid loves this. This is why its winrate is so high. You can already start to see more and more aggro, specifically pirate warrior coming back. This means Jade Druid winrate will go down a little. But still Jade Druids worsed matchups are like 45% winrate matchups. Almost a coinflip. It has almost 40% play rate at legend and 45% play rate at rank 1 and 2. This is ofcourse also aggro druid. But druid does keep down alot of more interesting decks.
TLDR: Change/Nerf Innervate
Innervate is absolutely the biggest problem. They should have known this from the beginning, as anybody familiar with the history of Magic the Gathering knows that cheating out mana breaks decks. They should make it only refill used mana crystals so it can't cheat out the curve.
That said, I still think Ultimate Infestation is OP, along with Spreading Plague due to Druid's extreme mana ramping power. Ramping lets you speed up the curve at the cost of losing cards. Being able to easily refill your hand with UI or protect yourself with SP removes the weakness of ramping.
It would be much easier to tell which one of us is right about UI and SP if they nerfed Innervate as I said above. Perhaps they could nerf it in a test realm and see how much it changes? Another good change to test would be getting rid of the card draw from Wild Growth at 10 mana. Perhaps let it give you a nerfed innervate?
My Innervate nerf idea: The next minion you play this turn has it's cost reduced by (2). It'll ramp out minions, but not spells or hero powers. It keeps the core flavor, but is significantly weaker, since so many of the most powerful Druid cards are spells.
Also, Hall of Fame Nourish.
All of the Druid cards are fine. The main problem is that they allowed them to exist at the same time in Standard and that they can be thrown into the same deck making Druid overpowered. Considering they can't just revoke a card and release it at a later time I'm going to guess that Spreading Plague will be nerfed to the dumpster so that Druid will be weak to aggro again or that Innervate will be nerfed to refresh mana crystals instead.
innervate should be "refresh 2 mana crystals" or even 2 mana "get 4 mana crystals this turn".
ui should be the same card just with 4 everything instead of 5.