Dean Ayala on Shudderwock: Revisiting the Topic Early Next Week
Dean Ayala tweeted this evening that the team is going to be looking into Shudderwock feedback early next week.
How do you feel about Shudderwock? I can definitely agree with the animations being a bit on the long side and would definitely at least appreciate a less excruciating death.
Quote from Dean AyalaWe’ll be reading more feedback over the weekend and will revisit the Shudderwock topic early next week. Checking out both animation timings and feedback on the deck playstyle itself. Let us know what you think and enjoy Witchwood!
Really I'm 3-0 against it as control lock.
it's really annoying to play against this deck:
1. The animation is soooo long
2. It's a combo deck. that doesn't feel like it's hard to pilot. I am okay to lose agains Quest mage. or Malygos Shaman. but not to this.
Quest mage is not quite hard to pilot. Just get all your cards, freeze the enemy once and again, use ice block and win. It has problems if he doesn't get all its cards in time, that's all.
While I agree with others that the deck itself isn't "too strong" by itself, I would still say it is a bit on a different level than Freeze Mage or even Razakus from a playing experience.
Your opponent isn't just drawing and removing your board every turn, he also plays combo pieces along the way. Instead of hoping he would not have drawn specific combo pieces yet, you see him assemble his actual combo along the way as he is playing out the battlecries that go into Shudderwocks pool. That way, Shaman is sometimes more busy preparing his final turn instead of stalling and drawing. The difference is, you feel like you are having very little time actually beating it. From the viewpoint of playing against it, most if not all OTK decks were frustrating, but against Shaman, I feel even more like there is no point in fighting. It's also a rather strange coincidence that most of their combo pieces also help them with surviving. In that way, it feels like as if Ice Lance would have gotten stronger for every minion that was frozen throughout the game. You see Saronite Chain Gang, and you know the Shaman is one step closer, while you also have to deal with the taunts.
Also, the final punch is a slightly different experience. It really is just one card that is played over and over again. The only real "warning" card, that tells you "this game is about to end" is Grumble, Worldshaker, but it's not the same to me as were Alexstrasza or Emperor Thaurissan. With those cards, the opponent still needed a bunch of specific cards on their hand to have the final combo go off, and sometimes they would not have all of them. In Shaman, he just needs to draw and play Shudderwock and the madness begins. In that way, I feel like he is a slight bit more powerful than other OTK decks were before, although with Shamans other weaknesses, the difference might be neglectible in the end.
So, yeah, the real issue is the outright atrocious animation length, but playing against it also feels very unfair, depending on your deck. In that way, the deck can feel very problematic. I understand why people are upset about it.
If they fix the animation thing, it would be fine though. I think, over time the popularity of OTK Shaman won't be any higher than of Freeze Mage at any given time, as the deck is even worse in winning without the combo. Right now, it is popular because it is new, but it is not way too strong by itself.
Also, Shudderwock itself is an interesting card, since there are plenty of other interesting things you can do with battlecries. I don't want to see that concept ruined again. Maybe weaken it in it's endless replayablity somehow (no idea how), but more than anything, address the animation.
Shudderwock is one of the only fun things with this meta, tho the animation time is a bit slow the card is not broken right now. Aggro decks is all over the meta and there is no fun in playing against that. Plz only nerf Shudderwock if you nerf aggro decks like paladin and hunter too. And plz don't make it unplayable, I love shaman and I don't want it to go back to unplayable again.
So you would rather have a degenerate deck that kills control going around than aggro that can be controlled by control decks?
Yeah it's not like shaman gets any other playable cards right? There is just no other shaman deck to netdeck yet so for sure they don't exist for like 95 % of all hs player. I am a shaman main player and would be happy to see this card nerfed because I don't give a shit about this unfun to play against deck. I just hope that aggro will crush it to death so I can counter aggro with my shaman deck and farming my way up the ladder.
you realize that part of the reason aggro decks are good right now is because Shudderwock is mainly weak to aggro. This is early un'goro with quest rogue again. I personally am fine with that, but if you don't want aggro decks to be this common, nerfing Shudderwock is the quickest way.
WPeople lets look at the situation here - maybe, just maybe, if you can:
Maybe its ok if this deck wins after completing all of the above. As stated above, its winrate is LOW, not high.
What does need fixing is the incredibly slow and annoying animation - THAT is what I think people are really salty about.
We have always had combo and OTK decks and I think they should be part of the game as long as they can be countered, and this deck can easily be countered.
OTK quest mage was much easier to pull off, with much better draw and stall tools and this level of outrage never happened.
Think most people are just pissed over the animation time and not the deck itself.
While you're at it could you also fix the balance of Paladin?? ty
yeah next on list :)
REALLY PEOPLE THAT SAYS THAT ITS OP ARE NOT uNDERSTANDING THE GAME
finnaly they made shamaan viable again and people cry for its op no its realy not OP
The only thing that i understand fro the community is that the annimation is killing (i love it but understand that this is a problem)
BUT THIS CARD NO NEED FOR NERF INSTEAD OF THAT NERF CUBE LOCK
The problem in this deck (imo) lies in the fact that the Shaman player can dump the OTK combo cards as soon as they land in their hand (finisher excluded).
Forcing a specific sequence would make Shamans have to stagger plays , risk overdrawing etc etc.
I really don't like the "Aggro beats it" argument. Why is it okay if 1 deck invalidates 2-3 deck types completely (Mid-range, Control and other possibly "more fair" OTK)?
That's called counter decks.
Last I checked, Cubelock wrecked aggro and Mid decks, yet no one nerfed it.
Having a meta in which every deck is beaten by another one makes it healthy.
you stupid? You remember raza priest? it shutted down all other control decks.
Good competitive/ fun card games work that way. A rock paper scissors method of who wins and who loses. Aggro beats Combo which beats Control which beats Aggro. Simple concept.
I agree with SClone. If such a deck exists in the meta you have so many games that end as soon as you see who your opponent is. That's stupid. And Cubelock doesn't ,,wreck,, aggro , it has like 60% winrate against it so It only wrecks mid range and there's been loads of decks in the past that wreck a specific archetype. Control Warlock wrecks aggro. Big Priest wrecks control...etc
But its NOT ok if a deck wrecks pretty much anything that's not aggro. This is mainly the reason that I don't like playing against OTK decks...I don't like playing aggro ( and even if I did, it's not SO fun getting free wins from OTK decks ) so it's pretty much hopeless. And that's where Dirty Rat came in...giving you hope in such match ups...but now that it rotated, OTK decks like this Shudderwock one are just unfair and I hope it ends up too inconsistent to be higher than tier 3 . If it ends up being better than that I hope it gets nerfed.
Maybe you remember an interview with Ben Brode who said “there's a Shaman card coming which players will "lose their minds about"“
So they made this combo on purpose. It’s just plain stupid from Blizzard to do that.
The problem is that playing against it is just unfun. Removals and crappy cards, games takes forever, if they do not draw Shudderwock they loose. Thats a bad design.
inetrview is here https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/5426-new-details-on-the-witchwoods-monster-hunt