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Hello everyone. I've been thinking about something for some time now and I'd like to share my opinion with the community and see what other people think.
Hearthstone in my opinion, even though there are multiple decks/classes available for competitive play at the moment, is slowly but surely becoming more and more tempo oriented. Every competitive deck, and almost every card being included in decks, HAS to be very fast.
There are multiple ways for a card to be considered FAST. 1) It costs very little mana (0-5 at most), 2) It has a battlecry, 3) The deathrattle generates tempo instead of being a slowplay etc.etc.
At the moment, there's no class or deck that can consistently win against the field by trying to play the long game, maybe win through the total value of the cards or win a long game that goes all the way to fatigue. The only exception is Control Warrior, but we'll come back to that later.
The reason for that, is that every single deck out there floods the board, through a combo (Patron Warrior), or by just playing multiple minions really quickly (Zoo,Hunter, Mech Shaman, Mech Mage etc.etc). Competitive decks that don't flood the board, win by executing a single combo to kill you in a single turn (Patron Warrior, any Malygos deck, FoN/Savage Roar, Oil Rogue etc.etc). The end result, is either 1) Kill your opponent really fast or 2) Kill your opponent is a single turn.
The whole game has shifted to these 2 deck archetypes, and there are multiple reasons why this has happened. 1) Cards that generate massive tempo are too strong for their cost (Mad Scientist, Sorc Apprentice, Voidcaller, Mech Warper etc, 2) Cards with drawbacks (especially the "random" drawback) are again too strong in most scenarios (Flamewaker, Knife Juggler, Ragnaros, Mad Scientist, Voidcaller, Sylvanas, Piloted Shredder etc).
I'm gonna explain really quickly why I think these cards are too powerful for their cost, and what the problem is in my opinion at the moment with Hearthstone. "Random" is supposed to be in a lot of these cards THE ONLY reason why they're not considered overpowered. However in a lot of these cards the "randomness" is most of the times non-existant or not enough of a reason to make the card "average" in most situations. For example, playing 2 secrets in a deck gives the Mad Scientist a 100% chance that you'll get the desired secret. When you only have 1 Demon in your hand, Voidcaller brings the desired demon into play. Knife Juggler + Implosion (average 3 damage) is a 2 card 6 mana combo that gives you a huge board with a huge threat (the Knife Juggler) all the while dealing 6 damage semi-randomly spread to your opponent. Flamewalker + Coin + Arcane Missiles is a 2 card combo that does 4 damage randomly spread and a 2-4 on board playable on turn 3. (I'm not mentioning insane combos, all of the above or similar ones are fairly common)
Now all these "combos" have one thing in common. They are "random". But how random are they really? And is the fact that they have a random effect really such a bad thing for these cards compared to their effect? The answer is they're not really random and the random effect is most of the times in your favor.
All these cards and the decks that run them, Emperor Thaurissan, the Big Game Hunter etc. they've all made expensive, powerful cards, that are powerful cause of the value they generate long term, pretty much unplayable because they're too slow, you'll be long dead before you play them or generate any value out of them. Also board clears have become pretty much worthless, because most minions nowdays are either extremely resilient to board clears or their deathrattle is often much stronger and scarier than the actual minion.
The only class at the moment that can get away with playing control is Warrior, and in my opinion the 2 reasons why warrior can get away with that is because they can overcome the 30max hp barrier, making combo decks much worse against it and because warrior has some extremely powerful and tempo oriented removal spells compared to other classes that often need a lot of mana and time to remove certain minions.
All of the above have made the control deck archetype and a lot of cool powerful expensive cards totally unplayable, at least in a competitive sense.
I don't mind powerful combos, decks that flood the board, really strong tempo oriented minions. I do however believe that expensive powerful cards in Hearthstone are too weak for their cost (not even arguing BGH). Board clears are too weak and come too late for most classes.
Do you believe Blizzard should reconsider the cost on a lot of cards? Shouldn't expensive cards do a lot more (and a lot faster) than they already do? Is it OK for Hearthstone to allow decks to execute a single combo (from hand) in a single turn that kills you from 20-30hp? Shouldn't there be more Silence options for all classes with so many deathrattle minions in the game? (only Priest has mass silence and it's massively overcosted) Shouldn't Blizzard make sure that "random" is most of the times random in a lot of cards, so that they're not too powerful in most scenarios? Shouldn't a lot of cards be reworked due to the fact that other cards have been released? (cards become better/worse when other cards are released)
What do you think?
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I think its the same in most of the cards game: with the time there are more and more quicker way of killing the opponent, and the quicker it is the safer is it:
for exemple in magic: vintage is so quick, legacy very quick too, modern a little slower, and type 2 idem.
And i don't think it will change a lot.
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I find myself wondering if the game would balance out of this aggro spiral if heroes had 50 hp instead of 30...
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I mean, I agree that the meta is as fast and brainless as it has ever been and that it's awful- it's been a while since I the last time I actually enjoyed playing Hearthstone, and I may just stop playing altogether at this rate.
At the same time, complaining about it feels kind of pointless, as the Hearthstone devs are very secretive about their plans for the game, they are the only ones who can fix this mess, and there's no way of knowing if they even want to slow the game down or not.
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Deathrattle is terrible design. At my time in magic there was a regeneration ability but it wasn't free of charge most of the time. If not creature was just dead. I think nothing has changed since than.
We got tons of abilities in MTG but no deathrattle so to show us something diffrent we got tons of strong deathrattle minions which Shredder and Belcher are jus extreme. And we have no taunt on almost all minions in HS compared to MTG.
At first we got only 2 slow deathrattle minions Harvest Golem and Cairn. Who remember those guys and still have Cairn instead of 400 dust ? Those cards got some merit and they were playable a lot. But now they are replaced by far stronger and faster deathrattles. So you got creature that stay on board after death and it has nice stats like 2 shredders, Belchers or creepers.
So one tempo play or synergy executed can often snowball the game in a way you can just ignore you opponent board in the crucial turn and go face for 10 - 20. Hell one day I killed warrior with 34 HP with druid having only 3/3 Shade and 3/2 Fearie Dragon on board. You proly know how I did that.
There was a time after a Sludge Belcher introduced when meta really slowed down to the point that if you banned hunter ( ofc not on ladder ) we have a lof of control matches, priest vs priest resident sleeper type of thing. Now that wasn't that good either 
But than GVG came out with oil and robots for women. To fight people reinvinted face hunter.
But maybe this is the Blizzard way ? I have never played dota2 or LOL but people say that HOTS is way faster than those 2. Maybe with HS they want the same thinking poeple have no time to play other type of decks.
TBH if you play something like grinder mage some matchups almost always end in fatigue and one game takes like 15 minutes. Imagine if you have an hour to play a day. you would play like 4 games, it is hard to even do a quest sometimes like that.
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It's a little annoying that you usually can't play slower decks, yes. I don't know about nerfing the cards that have been mentioned though. In addition to creating absolute chaos and possibly much worse imbalances, it would completely neuter a lot of decks that people enjoy playing. Targeted nerfs to a single deck (miracle rogue for example) that's stomping everything is fine, but nerfing everything that encourages tempo - and there are a LOT of cards that fit that description - sounds unreasonable to me. I'd like to see them add a few more good cards that increase survivability. When I'm playing against a slow deck and I lose to it, for example, the loss usually involved a Healbot being played somewhere in the game. Slower decks can still outlast you. I guess it's just not statistically quite likely enough to see lots of it on ladder. I suspect several slow decks are just one or two cards away from being "reliable".
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On May 16 2015 05:59 Solmyr wrote:
But than GVG came out with oil and robots for women.
lmao that was beautiful, thank you for that :D
i agree with the premise of this thread. i love the slower cards in Hearthstone and i would love to be able to use them again. i fondly remember my pre-Naxx Ramp Druid that had Faceless, Cairne, Nourish, Ysera, all that goodness, and was actually good enough to get to legend with.
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I doubt Blizzard would make such sweeping changes but nice article anyway.
There was a lot I disagreed with though. Just one point: There are quite a few classes/decks that consistently win in the slow game:
- Control Warrior (you mentioned this)
- Freeze Mage
- Hand Lock
- Ramp Druid
And there are a slew of control decks that pop in and out depending on the meta such as:
- Fatigue Mage
- Mill Rogue
- Pain Mistress Style Demonlock
- Mill Druid
- Control Priest
- Giants Mage
- Dragon deck archetypes (still unexplored but stuff like Malygos Warlock seems to work)
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On May 16 2015 05:59 Solmyr wrote:
Deathrattle is terrible design.
That's a little harsh, I'd say; it's not that deathrattle is inherently bad design, but rather that it's often undercosted for no good reason.
Take Sylvanas: I find the deathrattle mechanic works really well for her. If the mind control effect on her was a Battlecry, she'd be crazy overpowered and you'd have Rogues playing her over and over with Shadowstep. Instead, the fact that her ability is a deathrattle means that if you want it right away, you need to combo her with something like Shield Slam or Shadow Word: Death (and then you lose the 5/5 body), and instead what normally happens is that your opponent gets one turn to react to her. You can argue that her deathrattle-triggered ability is too strong (or not), but the deathrattle mechanic works really well on her.
The same is true for Loot Hoarder and Bloodmage Thalnos; they'd be stronger if their card draws were battlecries rather than deathrattles, and the fact that they're deathrattles can give your opponent more meaningful ways to interact with them (depending on what cards they have). Nerubian Egg would be crazy overpowered and insta-include in every single deck if its ability was a battlecry instead of a deathrattle, and Tirion would be pretty insane as well if you could swing Ashbringer the same turn you play him.
In those examples, I find that deathrattle is a cool mechanic which gives strong effects at discounted costs because your opponent can prevent those effects from triggering (or at least delay them). The problem is that on many other minions, their abilities aren't necessarily worse as deathrattles than as battlecries: I'm talking about Haunted Creeper, Harvest Golem, Piloted Shredder, Sludge Belcher, Sneed's. Having their abilities as Deathrattles opens the door to some counterplay and gives less immediate power- but at the same time, it makes your board more resilient to AoE and if you play a bunch of them, how's your opponent going to have 10 silence effects to deal with your deathrattle aggro board? These are minions whose abilities should NOT be discounted simply because they trigger as deathrattles.
Alas, Blizzard discounted them anyway, so you're left with these massive value minions, who happen to be very resilient to board clears, dominating the ladder because they provide better value than most non-deathrattle minions and you can't deal with them efficiently with spells. As such, I wouldn't say that deathrattle is a badly _designed_ ability; rather, it's often a badly _balanced_ ability. Piloted Shredder wouldn't be especially overpowered if it cost 5 mana- which is about what it would cost if its ability was a battlecry, kind of like Silver Hand Knight. If Haunted Creeper's ability was a battlecry, the card would cost 3 mana (it'd be like a weaker, neutral version of Muster for Battle), yet I think that its ability is overall stronger as a deathrattle than it would be as a battlecry. And then in order to contain the power of deathrattle minions, the Hearthstone dev team gave us... Scarlet Purifier and Lil' Exorcist. Yuck.
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EPT
