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.
Shame, ding ding ding
Shame, ding ding ding
Shame, ding ding ding
V1
Just fucking remove or change innervate already holy shit its not that hard blizzard youve done it before and its the obvious offender right now for all the broken things happening with druid. Also make Geist a 5 mana 5/5 so it doesnt completely fuck your tempo and can still be played as a tech card against druid.
innervate must be 1 mana. 2 cards for 2 extra mana. now is 2 cards for 4 more mana, almost the half of the total mana you can earn. it is too much.
geist must be a 4 mana 4/6 without gain stats or 4 mana 3/4, with +1/+1 for every 1 mana cost spell that is destroyed
Either, reduce swipe to 3 damage and 1 to all other enemies or reduce innervate to gain only 1 mana crystal. ez simple.
Innervate, Swipe, Wild Growth
What about Animal Companion, Kill Command,Frostbolt,Arcane Intellect,Fireball,Polymorph,Consecration,Truesilver Champion,Northshire Cleric,Power Word: Shield,Shadow Word: Pain,Shadow Word: Death,Backstab,Sap,Fan of Knives,Hex,Voidwalker,Mortal Coil,Fiery War Axe, and Execute?
These cards can be argued as auto-included cards as much as Innervate, Swipe, or Wild Growth.
Every Druid List currently runs 2 Innervate, Swipe, and Wild Growth. The only exception is Aggro Druid which cuts Wild Growth and sometimes Swipe. Most Druid decks aren't aggro though. Most of the cards you named aren't vital for every form of the deck. There is literally no Druid deck that doesn't run 2 innervate and almost literally no druid deck that doesn't have 2 swipe. Quest Mage is really popular and only runs arcane intellect from your list, and sometimes frostbolt. Paladin doesn't even run Truesilver anymore. Priest almost literally never runs Cleric and sometimes even cuts shield. Sap and Fan of Knives aren't generally included in decks like Quest Rogue when it was Viable. Hex wasn't run in Aggro Shaman. Voidwalker is only really run in Zoo, not control and Mortal Coil is only really run in Control, not Zoo. Execute isn't really run in any kind of Aggro/tempo warrior. The point being no class relies so heavily on Basic cards as much as Druid does.
Isnt the same. Druid only have two type of building decks, swarm decks and ramp decks, in both case innervate and swipe type cards are full necessary. That isnt a problem of this cards but developerts. A stricly better swipe not exist neither a stricly worse innervate, not even cards that made something similar in the same curve of mana. You need to put innervate and swipe in the deck cause you dont have other options.
Who the fuck runs swipe and wild growth in aggro druid? the only auto include cards in the game are animal companion, fiery war axe and innervate
Those cards aren't being used by classes that are causing a problem at the moment, and all those cards have reasonable counters give or take. Ramping is something that is hard to, if at all possible to play around.
As for swipe, i think it's only an auto include because druid's only other aoe is starfall which is way too pricey.
When they say "Auto-include cards isn't their design goal", they mean that they don't want a card to be run in ANY archetype of a class.
So from your list, the only cards I see as auto-include are Arcane Intellect, Truesilver and War Axe. Other than that, for EVERY card you mentioned there are viable deck archetypes which do not run them (yes, maybe partially in a lower tier).
At least Innervate is run in EVERY Druid deck because it is nearly always good. Aggro decks can play their bombs like Fledgling and Hydra faster, Jades can play their Jade stuff and Primordial Drake faster, Ramp decks can play Infestation, Y'Shaarj and so on faster.
Personally, I would not touch Wild Growth or Swipe. WG is, seen by itself, not OP and Swipe is a good removal tool, but also not OP because you can often play around it.
For me, a nerf of Jade Idol would be much, much more important. It is so frustrating to play against a deck that can go infinite. And as some others said already, the existence of Jade Idol makes Ultimate Infestation much better.
Blizzard's policy: Let's monitor the meta until next expansion comes!
Goodjob Blizz. Keep up with monitoring.
I straight up do not believe that Ultimate Infestation is not responsible for the win rate. Druid was the first thing I tried in Frozen Throne. I quickly stopped because it was boring. Why was it boring? Because if I drew a little ramp and Ult Infest I I'd win nearly every time.
No, the problem are not classic cards like Innervate or Wild Growth, the problem clearly are cards like Spreading Plague, Strongshell Scavenger and Ultimate Infestation...
More insincere defensive bullshit from Blizzard. They refuse to have a PTR function so the cards can actually be tested (versus whatever the hell Blizzard does that they call "testing") and then they refuse to claim responsibility when the meta is whacked out.
First, this isn't a competition with Undertaker Hunter. Who gives a flying shit whether Jade Druid is more popular that Undertaker Hunter was or not? That whole line of query is completely irrelevant. That Dean started off with this point shows how defensive Blizzard is about accepting their fuck ups.
Second, don't give us this "this early on in the meta" BS. Blizzard has done this time and again - they screw things up and then make us suffer through months of their fuck ups so that they can make some tepid change and then rely on the next expansion to really fix things (even though this time they managed to actually make Jade Druid worse with this expansion).
Third, Ultimate Infestation is broke as fuck on its own - but when coupled with the Jade Druid model that already existed it's complete lunacy that Blizzard even made this card. If anyone had posted that as a player created card they would have been laughed off the boards.
Blizzard - admit you screwed this up and fix it now. Don't make us suffer because you don't know WTF you are doing. AND create a play test function so that cards can actually be sensibly tested.
"Second, don't give us this "this early on in the meta" BS. Blizzard has done this time and again - they screw things up and then make us suffer through months of their fuck ups so that they can make some tepid change and then rely on the next expansion to really fix things (even though this time they managed to actually make Jade Druid worse with this expansion)." This is so true. Ive lost count of how many times ive said these words myself. I agree completely with everything you said
Funny before this post I didnt get much druids, now the last games all druid -.-
Why are they looking at Swipe? It is their base board clear. I'm not sure how healthy it is to be looking at a class' board clear and saying "You know, this board clear is being auto included in druid and since we don't like auto includes we are considering changing it." Isn't the purpose of most board clears for any class meant to be an auto include, unless you're aggro? Where is the line between good auto includes for class identity and auto includes that are meant to get nerfed?