I feel like too much consistency is the biggest problem in Hearthstone right now, and is a big part of why the meta feels so stale. Draw order will never be completely eliminated as a randomness factor, and it's essentially the only common major random factor in the current meta. Consider the top decks:
Odd Paladin has no random effects. Token Druid has one random effect (Oaken Summons bringing either an Ironwood Golem or a Violet Teacher). Odd Rogue has Blink Fox and Vicious Fledgling, and some versions of the deck are cutting those for cards like Worgan Infiltrator, Void Ripper, and King Mukla, removing random factors. Even Warlock has the Lich King. Miracle Rogue has no random effects.
The top decks that have notable random effects are Shudderwock Shaman (Shudderwock, Far Sight, Healing Rain, Lightning Storm, Mind Control Tech, Volcano, Hagatha), Even Shaman (hero power, Hagatha, The Lich King, Knife Juggler, Earthen Might), Recruit Hunter (Stitched Tracker, Deathstalker Rexxar, Seeping Oozeling, Silver Vanguard, The Lich King, Kathrena Winterwisp), and Big Spell Mage (Raven Familiar, Stonehill Defender, Arcane Keysmith, Witchwood Piper, Dragon's Fury, and Sindragosa). And although those decks have random effects, the randomness is greatly mitigated by deck design. For example, yes, Even Shaman's hero power is random in that it's any one of four totems, but it's still good consistency because it effectively guarantees that the Shaman will hit its mana curve. Raven Familiar and Dragon's Fury are technically random, but very likely to work out in a consistent manner due to how the deck is built. Shudderwock decks are built around minimizing the downsides of the RNG effects.
What it boils down to is that I feel like every significant meta deck right now is able to consistently put its game plan into effect. There are minimal "will they hit the random roll they need to hit" moments beyond draw order. This leads to two major problems. Firstly, since decks are more consistent, match-ups become more polarized. For example, Odd Paladin will beat Odd Rogue and Recruit Hunter and Shudderwock Shaman about 2/3 of the time. Recruit Hunter loses to Even Shaman, Even Warlock loses to Miracle Rogue, Big Spell Mage loses to Shudderwock Shaman, etc. There are a lot of 66/33 and 60/40 matchups in this meta.
The second problem is a bit more of a philosophical problem, and won't be seen as a problem to everyone. But. in essence: random effects keep things fresh. If you play Odd Paladin vs. Shudderwock Shaman, no one is going to see anything that they haven't seen before. There is decision making and skill, sure. But there's nothing that will happen in that game to differentiate it from the other fifty Odd Paladin vs. Shudderwock Shaman games you've seen in the current meta. At some level, yes, we don't want to play out clown fiestas where pre-nerf Yogg decides everything by chucking random Pyroblasts everywhere every game. But sometimes Toki into Paletress into Ragnaros is pretty damn awesome, and even when you're on the losing end of it, it's something different and exciting. It’s one thing to lose a 66/33 matchup, but losing it in the exact same way over and over again is really unfun.
If you look at the history of Hearthstone, the most hated decks have tended to be the most consistent. Aggro Shaman. Pirate Warrior. Jade Druid as it was immediately after KFT was released. Even Paladin, and to a lesser extent Cube Warlock. Decks that are able to consistently hit their curve and game plan every single game are boring to play against. As things stand currently, we have a lot of decks with lower power levels than those top meta decks of seasons past, but with similar degrees of consistency. The result is that very little appears broken or in need of a nerf, but the meta itself feels stale and boring.
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
I feel more like its a problem where T1 = make a deck your that oppressively shuts down your opponent so hard that it dosent even matter what deck they are playing because they wont be able to react to what youre doing properly.
So you have hadronox and frost lich jaina and shudderwock where your whole deck is tuned to abusing this one big card or effect so that whoever gets their engine up and running first basically wins, and it dosent matter what their opponent tries to do after that.
+2
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Have we actually come full circle and are complaining that Hearthstone doesn't have enough RNG? Nobody tell @kime!
I think we need to stop having random effects that depend on the contents of your deck to work.
Recruit a 4 cost minion! This will be totally raaaaandom, and people definitely won't have 2 copies of a broken piece of shit and no other 4 cost cards!
Recruit a 1, 2, and 3 attack minion! Well this will be really cool and totally won't summon 5 minions to the board with 20+/20+ worth of stats every time at all!
Oh hey check this out, it's a minion that repeats all your battlecries! So it will do all sorts of zany stuff and definitely not a specific recipe of uninterruptible effects that ensure your victory every time you manage to click on the card and successfully push it out onto the board!
I feel like too much consistency is the biggest problem in Hearthstone right now, and is a big part of why the meta feels so stale. Draw order will never be completely eliminated as a randomness factor, and it's essentially the only common major random factor in the current meta. Consider the top decks:
Odd Paladin has no random effects.
I don't know if I'm being overly nitpicky or if we're going with different definitions of random, but plenty of Odd Paladins run Maul and Stonehill, which definitely add some random to the proceedings.
I feel like too much consistency is the biggest problem in Hearthstone right now, and is a big part of why the meta feels so stale. Draw order will never be completely eliminated as a randomness factor, and it's essentially the only common major random factor in the current meta. Consider the top decks:
Odd Paladin has no random effects.
I don't know if I'm being overly nitpicky or if we're going with different definitions of random, but plenty of Odd Paladins run Maul and Stonehill, which definitely add some random to the proceedings.
No but I think those are good examples of where random is just fine. Discover and the Unidentified cards are some of my favorite effects.
I think we need to stop having random effects that depend on the contents of your deck to work.
Recruit a 4 cost minion! This will be totally raaaaandom, and people definitely won't have 2 copies of a broken piece of shit and no other 4 cost cards!
Recruit a 1, 2, and 3 attack minion! Well this will be really cool and totally won't summon 5 minions to the board with 20+/20+ worth of stats every time at all!
Oh hey check this out, it's a minion that repeats all your battlecries! So it will do all sorts of zany stuff and definitely not a specific recipe of uninterruptible effects that ensure your victory every time you manage to click on the card and successfully push it out onto the board!
I'm convinced when Blizzard designed Lackey, they were thinking about how awesome it would be to pull out a Succubus or Pit Lord without those battlecry penalties.
I think we need to stop having random effects that depend on the contents of your deck to work.
Recruit a 4 cost minion! This will be totally raaaaandom, and people definitely won't have 2 copies of a broken piece of shit and no other 4 cost cards!
Recruit a 1, 2, and 3 attack minion! Well this will be really cool and totally won't summon 5 minions to the board with 20+/20+ worth of stats every time at all!
Oh hey check this out, it's a minion that repeats all your battlecries! So it will do all sorts of zany stuff and definitely not a specific recipe of uninterruptible effects that ensure your victory every time you manage to click on the card and successfully push it out onto the board!
I'm convinced when Blizzard designed Lackey, they were thinking about how awesome it would be to pull out a Succubus or Pit Lord without those battlecry penalties.
For 5 mana I'm actually pretty confident that they had Doomguard in mind. They just thought that was the end of that combo chain.
I just think they imagined a deck with a lot of demons, making lackey a value play but a risky one. They weren’t thinking about a warlock deck that only had four (or even two) high-value demons
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
+2
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
I just think they imagined a deck with a lot of demons, making lackey a value play but a risky one. They weren’t thinking about a warlock deck that only had four (or even two) high-value demons
My theory is they did think of the few-demons strategy, but probably thought running less demons was a downside.
Well, to be fair Spiteful's clause actually is a downside. It's just powerful enough to outweigh it, alongside a high number of quality utility minions.
True, but considering it was on Dover's turn, and he had only played one card and had 7 mana remaining still, it seems likely to me that it was almost instant.
answers to some a couple specific tech choices you might be interested in, phrased in a Q&A format:
1. why no Ultimate Infestation? over 1/3 of your deck costs more than 5 mana; UI is just an invitation to hand size issues when you don't have things like arcane tyrants in the list to help you drop your hand quickly. nourish, wild growth, and branching paths all provide plenty of draw to get to your big bois
2. why only one Tar Creeper as a 1-attack minion? if oakheart doesn't pull a 1 attack minion, it's whatever. the other 29 cards in the deck are better than a second tar creeper
how to play deck:
mulligan hard for ramp
oakheart
I went from rank 15 to rank 10 tonight using your OP deck. Thanks!
True, but considering it was on Dover's turn, and he had only played one card and had 7 mana remaining still, it seems likely to me that it was almost instant.
It was instant as fuck. Didn’t even get a screenshot.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Resource cheating power creep is a genie that card game historically have a very hard time putting back in the bottle, and Hearthstone only plays with fire by making a game designed to have zero interaction on your opponent's turn. I don't think we're turning this ship around.
Resource cheating power creep is a genie that card game historically have a very hard time putting back in the bottle, and Hearthstone only plays with fire by making a game designed to have zero interaction on your opponent's turn. I don't think we're turning this ship around.
It's even harder to turn around when you've slammed your foot on the gas.
Resource cheating power creep is a genie that card game historically have a very hard time putting back in the bottle, and Hearthstone only plays with fire by making a game designed to have zero interaction on your opponent's turn. I don't think we're turning this ship around.
so far each standard year has operated on the following terms:
expac 1 - wowee lookit that rotation! also hey, some new cards! they're gonna be of varying quality but there's some good ones in there, including good neutrals. shit's fresh af y'all
(i think old gods was like this at first but the nerfs made it worse? un'goro was like this basically day 1. WW only hit this after the nerfs, otherwise it was simply Mammoth Expac 3 Redux at first. it's still suffering from KNC tbh though)
expac 2 - here's some powercreep! some powerful cards, nothing too crazy but some Good Shit
(in the case of karazhan, there were a few really good cards but otherwise everything remained exxxactly the same and only served to strengthen already good decks. KFT put in a LOT of new good cards, DKs were probably too powerful.)
expac 3 - FUCK IT. FUCK EVERYTHING. Y'ALL WANT SOME POWERCREEP? HAVE SUM FUCKIN' POWERCREEP. WE'RE FLYING OFF THE HANDLES. GOING OFF THE RAILS. OVER HERE AT TEAM 5 WE'RE LOOSE CANNONS. WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK. WE'RE GONNA FUCK SHIT UP. WE'RE GONNA FUCK YOU UP. YOU'RE GONNA HATE THIS SHIT.
(MSoG and KNC. no explanation needed.)
i really really hope they learn their lesson and Break The Cycle
I don't think I've ever disliked a meta enough to not play. My two favorites archetypes are hyper aggro and combo though, it's hard not to have one end of that spectrum be viable.
KoopahTroopahThe koopas, the troopas.Philadelphia, PARegistered Userregular
Can we just have this event all the time? These rewards are stellar in comparison. They don't have to be high yield numbers, just give us dust as well as gold for every other quest all the time.
Posts
FUCK
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
But I feel like that might be kinda shitty given I picked a player who's probably feeling way worse than I do about it.
Later you can come join us for this bridge we're going to jump off of.
Odd Paladin has no random effects. Token Druid has one random effect (Oaken Summons bringing either an Ironwood Golem or a Violet Teacher). Odd Rogue has Blink Fox and Vicious Fledgling, and some versions of the deck are cutting those for cards like Worgan Infiltrator, Void Ripper, and King Mukla, removing random factors. Even Warlock has the Lich King. Miracle Rogue has no random effects.
The top decks that have notable random effects are Shudderwock Shaman (Shudderwock, Far Sight, Healing Rain, Lightning Storm, Mind Control Tech, Volcano, Hagatha), Even Shaman (hero power, Hagatha, The Lich King, Knife Juggler, Earthen Might), Recruit Hunter (Stitched Tracker, Deathstalker Rexxar, Seeping Oozeling, Silver Vanguard, The Lich King, Kathrena Winterwisp), and Big Spell Mage (Raven Familiar, Stonehill Defender, Arcane Keysmith, Witchwood Piper, Dragon's Fury, and Sindragosa). And although those decks have random effects, the randomness is greatly mitigated by deck design. For example, yes, Even Shaman's hero power is random in that it's any one of four totems, but it's still good consistency because it effectively guarantees that the Shaman will hit its mana curve. Raven Familiar and Dragon's Fury are technically random, but very likely to work out in a consistent manner due to how the deck is built. Shudderwock decks are built around minimizing the downsides of the RNG effects.
What it boils down to is that I feel like every significant meta deck right now is able to consistently put its game plan into effect. There are minimal "will they hit the random roll they need to hit" moments beyond draw order. This leads to two major problems. Firstly, since decks are more consistent, match-ups become more polarized. For example, Odd Paladin will beat Odd Rogue and Recruit Hunter and Shudderwock Shaman about 2/3 of the time. Recruit Hunter loses to Even Shaman, Even Warlock loses to Miracle Rogue, Big Spell Mage loses to Shudderwock Shaman, etc. There are a lot of 66/33 and 60/40 matchups in this meta.
The second problem is a bit more of a philosophical problem, and won't be seen as a problem to everyone. But. in essence: random effects keep things fresh. If you play Odd Paladin vs. Shudderwock Shaman, no one is going to see anything that they haven't seen before. There is decision making and skill, sure. But there's nothing that will happen in that game to differentiate it from the other fifty Odd Paladin vs. Shudderwock Shaman games you've seen in the current meta. At some level, yes, we don't want to play out clown fiestas where pre-nerf Yogg decides everything by chucking random Pyroblasts everywhere every game. But sometimes Toki into Paletress into Ragnaros is pretty damn awesome, and even when you're on the losing end of it, it's something different and exciting. It’s one thing to lose a 66/33 matchup, but losing it in the exact same way over and over again is really unfun.
If you look at the history of Hearthstone, the most hated decks have tended to be the most consistent. Aggro Shaman. Pirate Warrior. Jade Druid as it was immediately after KFT was released. Even Paladin, and to a lesser extent Cube Warlock. Decks that are able to consistently hit their curve and game plan every single game are boring to play against. As things stand currently, we have a lot of decks with lower power levels than those top meta decks of seasons past, but with similar degrees of consistency. The result is that very little appears broken or in need of a nerf, but the meta itself feels stale and boring.
So you have hadronox and frost lich jaina and shudderwock where your whole deck is tuned to abusing this one big card or effect so that whoever gets their engine up and running first basically wins, and it dosent matter what their opponent tries to do after that.
we need dirty rat-san
I wonder how my pick is doing...
Recruit a 4 cost minion! This will be totally raaaaandom, and people definitely won't have 2 copies of a broken piece of shit and no other 4 cost cards!
Recruit a 1, 2, and 3 attack minion! Well this will be really cool and totally won't summon 5 minions to the board with 20+/20+ worth of stats every time at all!
Oh hey check this out, it's a minion that repeats all your battlecries! So it will do all sorts of zany stuff and definitely not a specific recipe of uninterruptible effects that ensure your victory every time you manage to click on the card and successfully push it out onto the board!
No but I think those are good examples of where random is just fine. Discover and the Unidentified cards are some of my favorite effects.
For 5 mana I'm actually pretty confident that they had Doomguard in mind. They just thought that was the end of that combo chain.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
My theory is they did think of the few-demons strategy, but probably thought running less demons was a downside.
Well, to be fair Spiteful's clause actually is a downside. It's just powerful enough to outweigh it, alongside a high number of quality utility minions.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
The fastest fucking snap concede ever rofl holy shit
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
There does not seem to be much rng in the top decks right now and the game is boring as shit.
But these aren't necessarily related!
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True, but considering it was on Dover's turn, and he had only played one card and had 7 mana remaining still, it seems likely to me that it was almost instant.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
What you top deck doesn't really matter when your whole deck is super greedy which is where the current state of the game is
I went from rank 15 to rank 10 tonight using your OP deck. Thanks!
It was instant as fuck. Didn’t even get a screenshot.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
It's even harder to turn around when you've slammed your foot on the gas.
Wait, how do these metaphors work again?
So you play your meta 4.
so far each standard year has operated on the following terms:
expac 1 - wowee lookit that rotation! also hey, some new cards! they're gonna be of varying quality but there's some good ones in there, including good neutrals. shit's fresh af y'all
(i think old gods was like this at first but the nerfs made it worse? un'goro was like this basically day 1. WW only hit this after the nerfs, otherwise it was simply Mammoth Expac 3 Redux at first. it's still suffering from KNC tbh though)
expac 2 - here's some powercreep! some powerful cards, nothing too crazy but some Good Shit
(in the case of karazhan, there were a few really good cards but otherwise everything remained exxxactly the same and only served to strengthen already good decks. KFT put in a LOT of new good cards, DKs were probably too powerful.)
expac 3 - FUCK IT. FUCK EVERYTHING. Y'ALL WANT SOME POWERCREEP? HAVE SUM FUCKIN' POWERCREEP. WE'RE FLYING OFF THE HANDLES. GOING OFF THE RAILS. OVER HERE AT TEAM 5 WE'RE LOOSE CANNONS. WE DON'T GIVE A FUCK. WE'RE GONNA FUCK SHIT UP. WE'RE GONNA FUCK YOU UP. YOU'RE GONNA HATE THIS SHIT.
(MSoG and KNC. no explanation needed.)
i really really hope they learn their lesson and Break The Cycle
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah