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.
Spreading Plague - The current meta shows a lot of swarm-style decks which is likely why we're seeing it played so much.
Of course it has, because it is the only deck style that can, with a lot of luck, beat the druid.
They are SPECIALLY BUILT not HAPPEN to beat Druids
The fundamental problems are I see it are
1: Ultimate Infestation allows a mega-ramping style of play that was impossible before. In the past, if you had too much ramp in your deck, you'd often run out of cards and wind up flooded with mana you could not use and an empty board to boot. Not anymore, and now you see people playing up to EIGHT ramp cards - Innervate, Wild Growth, Mire Keeper and Jade Blossom, all x2.
2: Spreading Plague is just too good, giving either one too many bodies for 5 mana, or costing one mana too little, depending on which way you want to nerf it. For consistency's sake, it is hard to change the 1/5 bodies.
3: Jade Idol. Infinite value AND the ability to prevent over-draw from UI, thus allowing Druids to run two copies. In ramp-style decks without Jade Idol, running UIx2 can often leave you in a position where you cannot play the second one either because your hand is full or you'd be getting too close to fatigue.
The most annoying thing about UI, apart from being played constantly on turn 5 like its normal, is the fact that it promotes 0 resource management. Previously druid players had to decide constantly if they wanted to nourish for cards or crystals on turn 5. Now its being used solely as more ramp to get to UI as fast as possible. Jade idol is the same in the same aspect, the druid player can go nuts most of the time and dont care about resource management since its infinite.
Can't wait for when another class essentially gets half a dozen cards basically removed from the playable pool by a wise nerf from Blizzard.
Rogue lost their only meaningful AOE and consequently could only be played as degenerate face/combo decks, now it's time for druid to get on the chopping block.
Ancient of lore... like anyone would run that card in its original form, when ultimate infestation is out.. 7 mana draw 2 cards with a 5/5 minion vs 10 mana deal five damage, draw 5 get a 5/5 minion and gain five armor... the 3 mana difference in power level are insane. AOL got nerfed... even keeper in its original form might not be an include today.. perhaps as a one of... its time to un nerf cards.. start with blade flurry, aol, and bhg
Just make DK Druid 8 or 9 mana. At 8 and maybe even at 9 it would be still playeble but not that strong and anoying.
it is seems a fair trade for a ramp class, like it
Jade druid will die anyway after rotation. And ramp druid not often play blossom. Yes, mire keeper will not be a choice but they can print new ramp cards. Actually they have to print new ramp cards after rotation because druid will have only wg and nourish. So I think changing cost of DK is a good thing anyway.
Yeah.... I'm slowly getting back into hearthstone and I feel like I'm playing 50% Jade Druids. Worst part is I usually play slower decks so I can play them until their deck is only Jade idols buut build a beast just can't compare with a 13/13 every turn. ):
Druid didn't gain any ramp cards, though. What they gained was a way to reload after they blow their hand ramping.
Powerfull they say ?
I saw one , and he litterally crushed me with a malygos turn 6
i dont even see any malygos deck in the ladder in all the month, not even in standard casual. How can be a tier "S" deck? Also ramp Druid isnt that good even now withouth Jades.
This ranking is a troll because there are like 3 of them at least that are tier S so they decided to put 5 decks
This is only memes by tempostorm, don't you ever read :#
"It was a joke, but now it's actually serious."
Yeah, I can read, what of it? Vicious Syndicate's meta report is also out and it shows that besides AggroPally and Pirate Warrior, Druid is the top ranked deck that is currently forcing the meta to shape around it.
https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-59/
There needs to be a good look on a lot of other cards as well, yeah druid cards have the spotlight right now because its the strongest class, but nerfing 1 or 2 druid cards will only move the problem away from druids to other decks.
I feel in a lot of classes there are some auto includes that are maybe to strong and even game breaking in some aspects that needs a revamp.