Ozzie Mejia of Shacknews had a chance to sit down with Mike Donais to discuss the Hall of Fame and why certain cards weren't included.
- The two primary factors for cards being sent to the Hall of Fame are card power level and class identity.
- Really powerful cards that consistently show up and have a large impact on the meta are good candidates.
- Doomguard was replaced because of its powerful impact and they can re place with with another card in the future.
- Druids are more about mana creation, not removal. That's why Naturalize was sent to pasture.
- They talk about Malygos moving every year but decided against it again because of the decks he creates.
- Mind Blast's One Turn Kill (OTK) potentially is reduced thanks to the rotation of Shadow Visions. The card remains on the short list.
Want to learn more about the Year of the Dragon and the cards that are rotating to the Hall of Fame? Check out the Year of the Dragon announcement.
Mike Donais on Malygos and Mind Blast
Quote from Mike DonaisDonais: There's lots of other candidates. We talked about cards like Malygos, which we talk about every year. We decided not to go with Malygos again, because of all the new decks that he creates. An important thing in card games is to have different types of decks. Not every type of deck should be medium-sized minions fighting. There needs to be small minions, big minions, and there needs to be some Malygos decks and other tricky decks that have different game plans. That's what makes card games interesting.
Donais: I think the Mind Blast problem will be temporarily improved because of Shadow Visions leaving, but I don't think that's a hard solve. Mind Blast is also on our list, both because it doesn't match Priest class identity. They're not supposed to be the face damage class. And it's also pretty powerful in the right decks. It has had a big design impact on us with the resurrection decks especially. You're seeing people resurrect and do Mind Blast.
I am confused. I hope they don't destroy my beautiful Warlock haha.
I fell in love with Renodecks after it rotated and it's my favorite class ever since, no matter what deck archetype. I even enjoy Discard Lock^^.
Bring it on, Team 5, I am interested.
because the bulk of the money I spent was pre-year of the mammoth and since then, every decent card is epic or legendary and most of the really good combo decks are expensive and contain a lot of "new" cards. The "2 legendaries per class" really screwed a lot of people imo. Kobolds and catacombs was such a ridiculously powerful expac and I opened 106 packs and got 4 legendaries and 10 epics, 6 of which were 3 copies of psychic scream and deck of wonders. The game got less and less fun for me every expansion after old gods, so I spent less and less money on it since.
so dust everything and play cards that are worth playing.
When I first saw the title of this thread I was immediately like "Oh sweet, they actually did get rid of malygos and mind blast!!!" Maybe this game has hope after how utterly dissapointed and fed up with blizzard after they announced the removal of genn and baku. But, nope, they didn't actually HoF malygos.... Even though almost everyone I know was almost certain they were going to get rid of one of the least fun, and most commonly used cards in the game. But guys, malygos creates a lot of COOL decks!
Screw this dying company man! Holy shit, the last 2 years of HS have been a disgrace compared to how amazing HS used to be. It's like every month they make the game worse and worse. I actually loved odd and even decks (and no I didn't play odd paladin, I played odd priest, druid, and even hunter/rogue) because I was like wow, this is the first time they've actually created a really cool idea in years, and it was really fun to experiment with all of the crazy decks you could make and it made a ton of never played old cards usable. On the other hand, you go against combo decks every other game now, which are by far the most toxic decks in hearthstone. I can't play them because they're expensive and once you actually do play a combo deck, all it takes is to get the combo off like 5x and then you've experienced all the fun you will ever get out of the deck. Every game plays out exactly the same... You survive, draw cards, and then win or lose the game turn 12-18. Once you know the matchups, it takes 0 brain power and adaptability to play the same combo over and over and over again. This style of play continues to get rewarded though because people on the forums just whine about people playing tier 2 aggressive decks, and the devs now listen to them. The idiots that whine about mechanics of a fantasy card game (aggro decks punishing greedy decks, and tanky control decks punishing aggro decks) killed this game. I also blame people like Kripp who whined about how "big minions aren't strong enough!" for the full year of cheating out a 9 mana taunt on turn 5 and winning we had to go through from Frozen throne to boomsday project. Oh yeah and hiring a freaking spike player who netdecked every game (Chakki) as part of the balance team was clearly one of the dumbest moves by blizzard.
If I could, I'd sell my account because It would've been worth something (was high ranked in SC2 at one point, own diablo, spent ~800$ on HS, had a decent amount of time/achievements spent in WoW, and had every hero + a lot of skins in HotS), but the company's a dead joke now. HS sucks and no one streams it anymore, they upped the graphic requirements for WoW for absolutely no reason, so me and my friends literally cannot play it anymore. There's not even an option to put it on low graphics, or play it with lag. Literally won't even let me access the log in screen now. No one plays HotS or SC2 anymore, and we all know what happened to diablo....
I can't see how someone could spend 800 and not afford to play combo decks.
I still play sc2 and hots. So do others on my friends list. You forgot to mention Overwatch. Great game. And also how Blizzard absolutely dominates E Sports.
Malygos is a key Dragon and those dragons make up a good base for the classic set so I don't see any of them changing or going anywhere.
I think anyone starting new in Hearthstone wouldn't care about nerds or hof. They barely even know the game. I would believe they are glad the dev's actually care about balance.
As for combo decks, getting combo pieces and staying alive takes skill, just like aggro. There is no difference in playing a control deck where you are dropping a board clear every few turns. All three are part of a rock paper scissor meta including mid range.
We'll see you in April.
Curiosity here, is the issue for you specifically Malygos being a neutral minion giving many classes the ability to use/abuse him or is it the +5 spell damage?
I ask for clarification considering if its the aspect of being a neutral minion then there needs to be a look at many many more damage cards that can be used with him to create an OTK.
If it's the +5 Spell damage then it only needs to be lowered however there needs to be compensation, decrease cost, +1dmg, +2hp just something for compensation if the spell damage is nerfed.
Both of these points can be done without HoFing him.
On that note as well, I find it interesting that Mind Blast has such a large voice against it and no other spell damage card is brought up.
I get that for some people the cost vs damage output is problematic, however, if you compare the niche that it fills it falls short in comparison to every other spell damage card out there that can fill the same roll.
If its due to the ability to copy the spell and have multiples for burn, lets talk about rogues who can do it as well, many many more times than priest. Or mage that has more options to get copies of their spells than priest does.
The arguments with Malygos and Mind Blast are very polarized. Either its "I got cheated by gimmick priest OTK HoF them" or it's "without gimmick priest OTK it's not a problem don't HoF them". I am writing this while collecting more info for a lengthier post that will try to highlight and compare the situation for good or bad.
At this point however the developers have chosen to not HoF them, I would suggest that if you have a valid and data driven point for or against these cards, start making your case now. I intend to show how there are more cards out there that should be looked at due to interactions with Malygos that seem to be overlooked, These cards can equal or exceed Mind Blast with this interaction.
Once that information is gathered, perhaps then the community can show the developer team how much work needs to be done in order to balance the game from the ground up.
Basic and Classic should not be disappearing due to HoF they should instead be the basis of the game allowing old and new players alike to have multiple creative opportunities because they are multi-purpose and specified to a class identity. If done properly then they will constantly compliment each new release and season.
The logic behind Mind Blast is quite silly. The moment they add a card it interacts with, it immediately becomes a problem again... the lack of foresight coming out of Blizzard is astounding, especially when they have prior knowledge of future expansions.
so my problems with this...
"Doomguard was replaced because of its powerful impact and they can re place with with another card in the future" like as part of a set? because sets rotate!
"Mind Blast is also on our list, both because it doesn't match Priest class identity. They're not supposed to be the face damage class. "
hearthstone is a game that is designed that you need race / reach, it has been redesigned purposely to move away from the minion trade, this stance only says "we want priest to be garbage" if they keep moving the direction they are moving with things such as spell hunter and otk
Control priest without a mind blast package is a deck that's not garbage while also having no burst damage. It's not either/or.
Before this expansion doomguard was ok for the malus to discard 2 cards, so almost used as finisher. Now discard a card is a positive mechanics for certain deck, so the card aquired value and power for certain deck.
I think the decision comes from there.
Malygos Fixed:
8 mana
BATTLECRY: +5 Spell damage. (of course until it is on the board)
You fix all those otk decks that don't play Malygos, they cheat the summon somehow.
This is a card designed 5 years ago. Barnes, resurrection, 1/1 copy, bla bla bla, they came later. This card as it was thought is not healthy anymore for the game today.
I understand what you are saying. However, it's not as if the design team didn't know Malygos existed when they made the later cards. When they allow Priest to have a deck that resurrects minions multiple times and lets them make multiple copies of them, they have to realize there are expensive cards that cost a lot because they make a big and immediate impact on the board. Prophet Velen and Malygos are 2 examples of that. Making it cheap and easy to bring multiple copies of any expensive minion from the bottom of your deck onto the board is the problem, not Malygos itself.
More like Malygos deleted.
Well i am playing since the beginning, and this is how Malygos was designed to work and worked for the first 3 expansions.
1/1 copies mechanic and cheat summon is the real problem here. You fix it giving Battlecries to expensive cards with op effect (not all of them of course).
Yes... i would do that for Velen too. Velen was in every priest deck during standard and GvsG, played as it was, no discount, just to shoot a 10 damage for 2 mana and die next turn.
There is a clear pattern here of HoFing all the useful cards from basic and classic.
These sets serve as a foot hold for new players coming into the game. So making them useless, is also making the game more inaccessible to newcomers.
Also, why all the hate for combo decks? That is where counter cards are for
I have to agree with the second sentence here.
With basic and classic cards being the "intro" cards for new players and the core of each season. When the developers take these sets and start eliminating the cards via HoF they are attempting to "balance" the game and "promote creativity". On the flip side of that it reduces the card pool and "identity" of the classes for new players.
By reducing the card pool and not establishing a base "identity" from the beginning this will inevitably create a gap with new players that generally makes them less interested.
Aside from already having to play catch up by purchasing/crafting cards now they also end up getting LESS cards for those starter sets thus making the time to catch up longer and costlier.
So to link this to my previous post - rather than HOF'ing cards for the sake of 'class identity' and 'balance' establish a clear identity for each class, adjust (not nerf) the basic and classic sets to match those identities. Once that is complete it will make it so new sets can be created in a balanced fashion since there will be a clear theme for each class that you can work with/around. Playing off the strengths and weaknesses.
Preperaton limits the design of ceap rogue spells.
On the contrary, it limits the design of expensive and mid-cost Rogue spells.
Cheap spells are not impacted very much by a 3 mana discount...
Did I even play druid ? No.
Did I enjoy when it was T1 ? No.
Do I enjoy hard-nerfs? No.
Fucking good game design ? No.
"Class identity" is such a convenient explanation to justify bias towards certain mechanics.
"Cycle of life" was always a strong idea behind the druid class, the idea that you could replace something without destroying it. Cards like naturalize fits with cards like poison seeds and mulch, the idea that you could remove something, but something would take its place, or that it would come back with recycle.
But it's much easier to remove the theme from " class identity" instead of expanding on the idea to offer more " removals with drawbacks" . It s really disappointing.