Mike Donais Slams Nonsense, Talks About Cubelock Power and Nerfs
Yesterday afternoon, Hearthstone's Principal Game Designer, Mike Donais, responded to a post on reddit which claimed they fought 17 Cubelock decks in a row and proved them wrong. Through internal statistics, Donais discovered that no one in all of Hearthstone fought that many Cubelock decks in a row that day and that there are indeed better decks than Cubelock.
Here's what Mike had to say about Cubelock's power level and nerfs in Hearthstone.
- Cubelock is currently ranked as the 12th best deck in their system.
- The deck will be stronger after the card nerfs arrive due to no cards within the deck being nerfed.
- Cubelock is challenging to play so it may improve more as players get better at it, though it may also get countered more if popularity increases.
- If Warlock is a big problem post-patch and players have had time to adjust to it, they'll evaluate it then.
- Win rate is not the only factor in deciding when cards get nerfed. How players feel about cards matters too.
Here are Mike's full posts which the above points were taken from.
Quote from Mike DonaisI just checked the data, and no one played 17 cubelocks in a row today.
If you are indeed having trouble with Cubelock there are several decks that beat it consistently right now. It is currently the 12th best deck.
I did enjoy the title of your post though. (Source)
A couple people asked why the stats I mentioned don't metch VS power ranking so I looked up VS 79 and across all rankings Control Warlock is the 10th best deck. I assume they mix control and cube warlock in their stats. We have decks broken out a bit more but 10th gives you the general idea.
Obviously after the nurfs it will be stronger since none of the cards in cubelock are being nurfed and that concerns me but it is a pretty challenging deck with a lot of opportunities to show off player skill. People will eventually get better at playing it, but people will also put in more weapon destruction or silence cards if it gets more popular.
I am excited to see what people figure out after the patch. If Warlock is a big problem after people have some time to adjust and tune the new decks then we will look into it. I have said many times before that win rate is not the most important factor in our nurf decisions. How people feel matters more, so we will listen to players and make decisions based on that, just like we did in the past with Quest Rogue and Patron Warrior. (Source)
Umm, Mike, were you watching the Worlds, my man? The one where Cubelock was either banned or reigned terror on people? You are basically saying Cubelock is ok because you might run into someone who can't play it, and those people lower the overall win rate, *just* like what was said with Patron Warrior. Hell, if you look at metastats, Highlander Priest has been "terrible" the past week, so maybe you messed up nerfing that.
9-8 stats at Global Finals. Cool reign of terror. No one ever claimed Patron Warrior was balanced because it had a fair win rate. Blizzard even acknowledged it by blog posts and later nerfing Warsong Commander into oblivion. Even with the "newbies" at Patron, it had almost 60% win rate across all ranks and legend. Cubelock is far away from that.
Took me 15 seconds to find your source - and it refers to tournament stats...
Maybe you should have kept searching then... you might also have found out that the only deck in Hearthstone history to have had a 60% WR was Huntertaker.
There are valid points to be made against the original Patron Warrior deck, like the OTK combo potential or the fact that it punished the opponent for playing not only too many minions, but any minion at all. A figure you just made up out of whole cloth is not one of them.
I said "almost 60%" which might be all between 57% and 59%. I admit, I have not found any source on the overall winrate. But I have played the deck quite a lot and I am sure there were numbers around 57%. You just as much make up your own numbers ;)
No need to be salty ;)
Cubelock will be retired by the 'new' decks not currently represented on any list. This is how a meta works since there is no 'you can't change your deck' rule.
*preparing for the epic butt fumbling twist of nerfing cubelock into the abyss coming to a patch near you*
I'm glad he pointed out that Cubelock isn't the best Warlock deck -- that's such a common misconception that people often assume you're talking about Cubelock even when you are trying to discuss Control Warlock generally.
But weapon destruction and silence are not enough to keep it in check. Weapon destruction has no effect on the ridiculous recruit nonsense, and silence does not stop doesn't keep demons from getting resurrected. Indeed, if you play silence on the first Voidlord, you've just strengthened the rez pool and guaranteed that Voidlord doesn't get crowded out by a bunch of Voidwalkers. If you silence the Lackey, you're just delaying the inevitable, but you're unlikely to get the chance because they often just kill it immediately.
The only thing that rains on the Voidlord parade is Mind Control, so unless they are planning to give a version of that spell to every class, it's going to feel just as bad to play against post-nerf as it does now.
Ooh, yes thanks -- I didn't think of Polymorph or Hex because we just haven't seen nearly as much of those in the meta lately.
Mind control tech and tinkmaster overspark also work!
But yea.. silence doesn't help much in the end.
I play a lot of mage, and you are right, it is effective, but seeing as it's 2/30 cards, and the warlock has the recruit minion, the odds of countering both is almost impossible.
It's also utterly irrelevant when they cube it. And even if you do catch both, you've now exhausted 2 turns on countering a single unit - leaving you wide open for the insane blast that is a 5/7 charge + cubes.
A fix, the same fix they should have applied to Patches, is a "Battlecry: Charge" correction.
Cubelock is one of those decks engineered to extract maximum tears.
WHEN it pulls off a glorious combo, it feels so completely unbeatable, that the frustration is maximized.
And this makes you forget all the 'locks you beat that DIDN'T pull off a glorious combo.
There are like 5 combos in cubelock. Additionally you need to dish out 74-80 dmg, to the face, before he manages to pull off any of the combos.
Cubelock needs a tiny adjustment, then it's fine. But the combination of "unlimited taunt" + "30-50 heal" + "unlimited of the second largest face-charge minions" is absurd.
Don't forget the insane draw engine the class has.