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.
See, what he didn't say was, "Druids are kind of recovering a bit from getting absolutely trashed by the last set of nerfs, so we figured we needed to REALLY make sure they stay down this time."
Not to be offensive but there are a lot of big mistakes for such a short post.
"and they can re place with with another card" - what?
"Naturalize was sent to pasture" - not sure on that one, but if google translate is correct, pasture is not the right word here.
"Mind Blast's One Turn Kill (OTK) potentially is reduced" - you mean OTK potential?
I usually don't point this stuff out, but this is almost half the post. You guys should really double check.
Being sent to pasture is an old saying, it basically means retired or in some situations it can mean a death.
Thanks, Xivir didn't know about that.
Look at all these downvotes haha, children not wanting their moderators to get offended by a little bit. I didn't say anything about their work at hearthpwn in general, nor did i in any way attack them or something like that. I just pointed out what was, for me, big mistakes that could be fixed easily. I saw a whole lot of little mistakes during the last few posts, but i decided to keep it shut because it didn't bother me so much, but with this post it just got a little extreme. Thats not to downvalue anyones work, i just wanted to point it out.
it's called "Constructive Critizism". Also, if I'm actually wrong in terms of the grammar, like i very well could be, (not a native speaker, im german) i'd like to get corrected instead of just downvoted like Xivir did and im thankful for that. Learn from your mistakes guys, and don't downvote poeple who try to make others do that.
wata hell
No mention of actual problem cards like Leeroy Jenkins or Gadgetzan Auctioneer :(
Both of those cards have already been nerfed in the past.
Leeroy Jenkins is a "problem card" how exactly?
So what if they have been both nerfed already they are both still outrageous game winning cards
Leeroy Jenkins is not a problem card how exactly?
"Druids are about mana creation" so that's why we nerfed all their mana generating cards so most aren't worth playing anymore. I couldn't help but giggle at that.
"Druids are more about mana creation"
After the last nerfs druids are just jade garbage now
Yeah, Mally combos should be a lot harder to achieve because it's terrible to lose to OTK in turn 9 or 10. If we had fewer overpowered OTK decks, maybe people would stop playing so much aggro (I know they wont, but i can dream). Also, would love to see Alexa set life to 20, making it weaker as an OTK piece but more powerful as a defensive tool.
Yea, it feels terrible to lose to a turn 9-10 turn combo deck that's based off multiple cards and RNG. It feels so much better to be hit in the face till death by turn 5-6 from aggro decks.
I Do Not want Mind Blast to be HOF because Mind Blast is absolutely part of a Shadow Priest’s identity! Priests in general have offensive as well as healing identity so taking Mind Blast away would be not good, besides the golden card art is one of best in the game. Who’s with me here?
I agree that shadow magic used offensively is one part of Priest's identity, but it's slightly BS that they can just dish out a 4 mana Pyroblast alongside their res effects. I have no qualms about losing to a player playing his deck to it's strengths and identifying the weaknesses in my deck, but against res Priest, unless you're playing Shaman or Mage there is almost no counterplay to res effects. If you kill the Malygos, he can just resummon it for 4 mana. If you keep it alive, you just left a Malygos on the board.
That is true, I wish there was a way to counter that without losing Minsblast.
Tinkmaster what’s his name!
While mind blast is part of the priest identity it doesn't fit a shadow priest identity, using the void comes with drawbacks which mind blast does not have. Take mass hysteria - it is clearly a shadow priest inspired card that has a clear drawback being tied to the state of the board and the random outcomes of the attack phase of the spell.
Being that class identity is being mentioned A LOT I'm going to anticipate that the new xpac is going to lean heavily on that approach so I don't doubt we will see a mind blast replacement which has a clear downside before mind blast gets HoF'd. In order for that however there would need to be a set of cards which support direct damage from hand with a entire subset of side effects. I'm going to guess that MB at least gets it's mana cost increased if they do release a priest desk that relies on direct damage from hand as an archetype.
those cards were all broken so idk why you're complaining
Unpopular opinion: I think Alexstrasza is also very problematic in the right deck(s).
Poof! You suddenly lose 15 HP and now there's also an 8/8 body on board that needs to be answered or else you're dead in 1-2 turns...