there's a few problems with trying to expand on discard as a design
the first is that discard cards vary very strongly in power - the difference between succubus and soulfire is comical, to say nothing of the elephant in the room that is doomguard
the second is that discard has inherently been designed with a "cheat" mechanic. you don't need to pay the extra cost if you just don't have cards in hand.
so you have two things to solve: 1. make more discard outlets that don't feel bad to play. 2. encourage the cost to actually be played by making it desirable to discard
the latter has had a few cards to try and work with it - fist of jaraxxus, silverware golem, dinomancer, clutchmother, and warlock quest. one of the issues here is that they've balanced this through only one metric: making something feel good because you got it for "free", and making it feel bad if you have to pay vanilla rate for it. oh boy, a 3 mana 3/3. oh boy, a 6 mana 5/5. this high variance is part of the reason that discard has sucked
what i would do is make basically every warlock card in an expansion that wasn't a discard card (or even them) have a rider on it: "if this is discarded, do (small thing)" or if you want to really be a bit spicier "if this is discarded, do (bigger thing than the card does normally)". so you make cards more like, say:
example demon man
6
4/8
battlecry: something useful
if this is discarded, summon a 1/1 extra imp or two or something
add more incremental value to these sorts of things to smooth out the reliability of the deck. imagine if fist of jaraxxus was Darkbomb, except if you discarded it it did the 4 damage but you lost control of the target. oh hey, suddenly that's an interesting question! do you do something reliably or do you try to spin for a more meaningful effect. introduce more choices and more reliability to the discard archetype
+6
BeastehTHAT WOULD NOTKILL DRACULARegistered Userregular
Succubus was terrible even in vanilla because dropping a 2 mana 4/3 doesn't mean shit when your opponent just played their 2 mana 3/2 (also see: gets eaten by flame imp)
i mean i don't know if that would be good, but it would at least be an attempt to expand the pool of what you can do with discard, which is desperately needed
like one of the things that's shit about the warlock quest is that "discard" isn't a theme, it's a cost. trying to make a "discard" deck is like trying to make a deck that "spends mana"
if you're making a taunt deck for warrior, okay there's a mechanic with taunt, there's a thematic concept to start figuring out. you're inherently designing a deck that is focused on defense and preserving either your health total or that of non-taunt minions. deathrattle for priest, okay, you're focusing on value after a minion dies, that inherently makes you towards more of a midrangey value game. the only thing discard pushes you towards is card disadvantage.
it's a similar problem as the hunter quest and the paladin quest, two other quests that are bad. "buffs" isn't really a mechanic, except for the two drop that returns them and the one drop that draws a card with big enough attack. and i guess the valk twins in wild? like again you're not pushed towards anything except card disadvantage. 1drops barely have an aggressive theme so hunter has a bit of direction, but there's not much of a unity there.
0
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
I agree with everything you've said INANTP, but I think you did miss one thing, which is that part of why Hunter, Paladin, and Warlock quest core mechanics don't work is because the quest rewards suck fucking balls and/or don't mesh with the deck.
A Hunter deck playing a bajillion 1 drops does not really want the game to be going past turn 5 or 6, because your minions become so much less impactful. Whoo, you played a bunch of 3/2, oops it's board clear/board clear/Primordial Drake time! Queen Carnassa's battlecry doesn't fit into a deck that wants to run 14 1 drops.
Similarly, Paladin playing a buff style is going for tempo midrange. You want to use the tempo from playing a buff on an existing creature to keep the board rolling. Playing a big pile of stats for 5 mana does fuck all for you in that deck.
And then again, Warlock. Discard inherently involves card inefficiency, which means you're playing for tempo/aggro and drawing lots of cards (which is also why I hated whichever the heck card was the felhound that's a big taunt with discards, it doesn't fit into that style). The reward is a 5 mana slow-roll value card. It doesn't really fit into the style of deck you're trying to play at all.
I definitely agree that as "mechanics" these are all clunky and badly implemented, but I think it's made much worse by the fact that the quest rewards are bad and don't really gel with the "mechanic" so you end up with a deck trying to go in two different mediocre directions and doing nothing well as a result.
Oh I definitely don't mean to say that those are the only reasons those quests are bad. There's commonality between them in those specific regards.
It's different than for example Shaman, which has a quest with a logical deck construction and a reward that shores up a weakness of that kind of deck, and the deck just isn't good enough.
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Twice today, I've seen Leeroy come down to put me at low health, and twice I've had Bloodlust in hand to not worry about how close to having lethal I am.
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Oh god, the Un'goro packs. They get so stupid in Dragon Priest. "I'd love to use this, except I can't get my hand size under 9 cards, because I have eight removal cards and a SECRET AGENT."
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My latest friend requests have actually been friendly. Last guy wanted to know what Dragon Priest list I was running (@3clipses) and after I pointed him to it we stayed on each others friends lists
My ele shaman deck hit a rough patch at rank 6, and I ended up hitting rank 5 with at a lower than I had expected 60%:
I'm confident I could hit legend again with it this season, but it would be a real grind as it's definitely not as well positioned in the meta anymore for two simple reasons: all rogues are now crystal rogues and jade druid is back. These two are terrible matchups, and I don't see a way to adjust the deck to improve them. Last season half of the rogues were miracle and there were more pirate warriors, which are both favorable matchups.
I got a pair of turn 3 and turn 4 Twilight Drakes up against a fellow Priest before they were able to establish a board. I kind of felt bad, the drakes survived the entire rest of the game just pounding at his face and whatever minions he tried to get down
I kind of hate that every time I queue Jade Rogue, my opponent is Quest Rogue and it's a stomp. And then I switch to my Hunter deck, and my opponents magically become Quest Warrior (instead of Pirate Warrior) and it's a slog. Just, like, be consistent, matchmaking! Grrrr.
Just random musing: if they nerf quest rogue in any way, it won't be the quest, it will be changing the charge keyword to work like the new 7/7 devilsaur, as in "can't attack heroes the turn this is played"
Just random musing: if they nerf quest rogue in any way, it won't be the quest, it will be changing the charge keyword to work like the new 7/7 devilsaur, as in "can't attack heroes the turn this is played"
That would smash quite a lot of decks, though. It would weaken aggro, which would tip the balance heavily towards control decks. It's a pretty good balance overall right now.
Any change to Quest Rogue would have to hit Rogue cards, maybe Shadowstep? Maybe raising the cost of Crystal Core?
Posts
the first is that discard cards vary very strongly in power - the difference between succubus and soulfire is comical, to say nothing of the elephant in the room that is doomguard
the second is that discard has inherently been designed with a "cheat" mechanic. you don't need to pay the extra cost if you just don't have cards in hand.
so you have two things to solve: 1. make more discard outlets that don't feel bad to play. 2. encourage the cost to actually be played by making it desirable to discard
the latter has had a few cards to try and work with it - fist of jaraxxus, silverware golem, dinomancer, clutchmother, and warlock quest. one of the issues here is that they've balanced this through only one metric: making something feel good because you got it for "free", and making it feel bad if you have to pay vanilla rate for it. oh boy, a 3 mana 3/3. oh boy, a 6 mana 5/5. this high variance is part of the reason that discard has sucked
what i would do is make basically every warlock card in an expansion that wasn't a discard card (or even them) have a rider on it: "if this is discarded, do (small thing)" or if you want to really be a bit spicier "if this is discarded, do (bigger thing than the card does normally)". so you make cards more like, say:
example demon man
6
4/8
battlecry: something useful
if this is discarded, summon a 1/1 extra imp or two or something
add more incremental value to these sorts of things to smooth out the reliability of the deck. imagine if fist of jaraxxus was Darkbomb, except if you discarded it it did the 4 damage but you lost control of the target. oh hey, suddenly that's an interesting question! do you do something reliably or do you try to spin for a more meaningful effect. introduce more choices and more reliability to the discard archetype
That might lead to a strategy of what to drop when if you need heals or not.
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wra
like one of the things that's shit about the warlock quest is that "discard" isn't a theme, it's a cost. trying to make a "discard" deck is like trying to make a deck that "spends mana"
if you're making a taunt deck for warrior, okay there's a mechanic with taunt, there's a thematic concept to start figuring out. you're inherently designing a deck that is focused on defense and preserving either your health total or that of non-taunt minions. deathrattle for priest, okay, you're focusing on value after a minion dies, that inherently makes you towards more of a midrangey value game. the only thing discard pushes you towards is card disadvantage.
it's a similar problem as the hunter quest and the paladin quest, two other quests that are bad. "buffs" isn't really a mechanic, except for the two drop that returns them and the one drop that draws a card with big enough attack. and i guess the valk twins in wild? like again you're not pushed towards anything except card disadvantage. 1drops barely have an aggressive theme so hunter has a bit of direction, but there's not much of a unity there.
A Hunter deck playing a bajillion 1 drops does not really want the game to be going past turn 5 or 6, because your minions become so much less impactful. Whoo, you played a bunch of 3/2, oops it's board clear/board clear/Primordial Drake time! Queen Carnassa's battlecry doesn't fit into a deck that wants to run 14 1 drops.
Similarly, Paladin playing a buff style is going for tempo midrange. You want to use the tempo from playing a buff on an existing creature to keep the board rolling. Playing a big pile of stats for 5 mana does fuck all for you in that deck.
And then again, Warlock. Discard inherently involves card inefficiency, which means you're playing for tempo/aggro and drawing lots of cards (which is also why I hated whichever the heck card was the felhound that's a big taunt with discards, it doesn't fit into that style). The reward is a 5 mana slow-roll value card. It doesn't really fit into the style of deck you're trying to play at all.
I definitely agree that as "mechanics" these are all clunky and badly implemented, but I think it's made much worse by the fact that the quest rewards are bad and don't really gel with the "mechanic" so you end up with a deck trying to go in two different mediocre directions and doing nothing well as a result.
It's different than for example Shaman, which has a quest with a logical deck construction and a reward that shores up a weakness of that kind of deck, and the deck just isn't good enough.
edit: it's way too strong. probably change that value to (1)
edit edit: i'd love to give it "cannot be targeted by spells or hero powers," but without a keyword there's no way
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had a 25 minute mirror priest match
total: 7 secret agents, 5 primordial drakes, 4 ungoro packs, 3 ysera's
Discard a random murloc from your hand to give this minion +1/1
Oh god, the Un'goro packs. They get so stupid in Dragon Priest. "I'd love to use this, except I can't get my hand size under 9 cards, because I have eight removal cards and a SECRET AGENT."
MOVE ASIDE
I'll be sure to report him and hopefully he goes a way for a long long while. I can't believe that people can get so worked up over a game.
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My latest friend requests have actually been friendly. Last guy wanted to know what Dragon Priest list I was running (@3clipses) and after I pointed him to it we stayed on each others friends lists
(He thought your list was awesome btw)
I find it hard to believe that this lovely gentleman wasn't playing a net-deck of his own.
Standard Murloc Paladin against my Quest Warrior. I had the play 50 Warrior cards quest so I queued that one up.
I'm confident I could hit legend again with it this season, but it would be a real grind as it's definitely not as well positioned in the meta anymore for two simple reasons: all rogues are now crystal rogues and jade druid is back. These two are terrible matchups, and I don't see a way to adjust the deck to improve them. Last season half of the rogues were miracle and there were more pirate warriors, which are both favorable matchups.
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Got there with pirate warrior, my first golden portrait
just unlucky, I got a lot of 50g and 60g quests on all servers.
I just re-rolled "Win 3 games as Hunter" and got "Play 50 Hunter cards; oh Hearthstone you rascal.
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That would smash quite a lot of decks, though. It would weaken aggro, which would tip the balance heavily towards control decks. It's a pretty good balance overall right now.
Any change to Quest Rogue would have to hit Rogue cards, maybe Shadowstep? Maybe raising the cost of Crystal Core?
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