Hearthstone 20: What is your Quest?

[Psyren]

Kripp confirmed today what I was saying on the last page - the Brawl is so heavily skewed to Rafaam that it's practically criminal. If they want to keep bringing this one back, they have some work to do.

[BRC]

Kripp confirmed today what I was saying on the last page - the Brawl is so heavily skewed to Rafaam that it's practically criminal. If they want to keep bringing this one back, they have some work to do.

I must suck at hearthstone. I got Rafaam like six times and handedly lost each time, only winning when I finally got KT.

[Kish]

Or maybe you're awesome at it, having won with Kel'Thuzad.

Or maybe you have a strange condition where the weaker your deck is compared to your opponent's, the better you do.

[Psyren]

I must suck at hearthstone. I got Rafaam like six times and handedly lost each time, only winning when I finally got KT.

Step 1: Upgrade staff
Step 2: Use staff

I'm only being a little facetious.

[BRC]

Step 1: Upgrade staff
Step 2: Use staff

I'm only being a little facetious.

I did that, sometimes getting it fully upgraded as early as turn 3 or 4, but KT was always able to build a board I couldn't handle.

[Seerow]

I did that, sometimes getting it fully upgraded as early as turn 3 or 4, but KT was always able to build a board I couldn't handle.

I lost my first game as kt despite having an upgraded staff on turn 2. (Turn 1 coin staff. Turn 2 staff). Even with that I got outvalued with a lot of bad legendary rng.

Second game I won mostly of a lucky Lyra train, still as rafaam. Never had a chance to play as kt.

[Psyren]

Raf's deck has a lot of board clear and removal in it before you even get to whatever the staff gives you. He has snipers, Sulfuras, both Shadow Words, Dark Bomb, Flaming Torch, Hakkari Goblet... with all that plus your 60 life cushion you should have no problem stabilizing. I'd be interested to see winrate stats between the two.

It's a control deck, except instead of a couple of win conditions it has... all of them. If you survive to endgame you win. About the hardest part is playing around KT's secrets, but the ones he gets are weak (Duplicate, Vaporize, and i think there's maybe an ice block in there?) Those are all easy to game. The strongest one is probably Effigy since he has so many high cost minions, but that one is easy to play around too. I would fix Kel by giving him the better ones like Mirror Entity and Potion of Polymorph, or at least ways to Discover more mage spells like Babbling Book.

[Gandariel]

I just went coin Staff upgrade, then spam hero power for a few turns, then final staff piece, spam hero power for a few turns, and whatever board advantage he had gained (he got me down to 35 or so), I easily reversed with free legends.

A good way to improve this brawl would be (IMO) to turn Kel Thuzad into an aggro deck

[Zevox]

I remember, back when they announced the standard rotation, of people arguing that they shouldn't just use basic + classic as the evergreen set, mostly because the power levels of these collections were all over the place (e.g. Druid being the worst offender, and Priest being unplayable). The best suggestion I heard, at the time, was to revise the standard set first, both to clarify each class identity, as well as to give some sort basic deck-skeleton people could always have at hand, varying in flavor at each rotation.
I still think it's the best suggestion for the game, moving foward, and although people are in their right to complain about the changes to the classic cards they are doing right now, these are, indeed, the very root of the problems with the current meta. Have they made the proper changes to the classic + basic set back then, changing busted cards like Fiery Win Axe and Innervate right of the bat, we wouldn't be in this situation once again (remember Shamanstone? Yeah, I liked it, but I was in love with midrange Shaman back then).

Remember what actually ended "Shamanstone?" It sure wasn't changes to any classic cards - although they did do that nerf to Rockbiter Weapon which looks increasingly needless in retrospect - it was the nerf to Spirit Claws hurting the aggro version, and then Tunnel Trog and Totem Golem rotating out ending the midrange version. Surprise surprise, the thing powering the deck was the newer cards whose introduction helped propel it to greatness, not classic cards that we've seen be fine in many metas since the beta.

I'd say they already did more than needed to be to the classic set in those original pre-Standard nerfs, for the most part. About the only thing in the set that I think a legitimate case could be made for doing anything about is Gadgetzan Auctioneer, who should probably get the Hall of Fame treatment, just because he does legitimately limit design space on cheap spells and keeps single-handedly enabling the same deck type (Miracle Rogue) over and over in practically every expansion. Other than him, I truly feel they shouldn't be making any further changes to Classic. We've had years to see all of these cards across various metas, and they have not been a problem, so it's more than safe to say that any future problems can be blamed on new cards, not the old.

[BRC]

Eh, it depends, class to class.

Shaman has a very weak basic+classic (BC) set, so it's power level is going to be reliant on what cards are in rotation.

Warrior on the other hand has a stronger BC list, with Fiery War Axe (The Best Two Mana In Hearthstone), being a key part of that.

[Anarion]

Eh, it depends, class to class.

Shaman has a very weak basic+classic (BC) set, so it's power level is going to be reliant on what cards are in rotation.

Warrior on the other hand has a stronger BC list, with Fiery War Axe (The Best Two Mana In Hearthstone), being a key part of that.

You mean the axe formerly known as Prince the best two mana in Hearthstone.

[Destro_Yersul]

I think that what they should really do is leave all the Basic cards in Standard forever, then release an 'expansion' that adds another ~250 cards to Classic, THEN start rotating through the newly Expanded 'Classic' set with every standard Rotation, picking ~200 cards from it that will be in Standard for a given year, while the rest get punted to Wild until next rotation.

Unfortunately, this may prove harder to do in terms of programming than it sounds. I don't THINK it'd be too hard, but I'm not a programmer.

[Psyren]

Remember what actually ended "Shamanstone?" It sure wasn't changes to any classic cards - although they did do that nerf to Rockbiter Weapon which looks increasingly needless in retrospect - it was the nerf to Spirit Claws hurting the aggro version, and then Tunnel Trog and Totem Golem rotating out ending the midrange version. Surprise surprise, the thing powering the deck was the newer cards whose introduction helped propel it to greatness, not classic cards that we've seen be fine in many metas since the beta.

I'd say they already did more than needed to be to the classic set in those original pre-Standard nerfs, for the most part. About the only thing in the set that I think a legitimate case could be made for doing anything about is Gadgetzan Auctioneer, who should probably get the Hall of Fame treatment, just because he does legitimately limit design space on cheap spells and keeps single-handedly enabling the same deck type (Miracle Rogue) over and over in practically every expansion. Other than him, I truly feel they shouldn't be making any further changes to Classic. We've had years to see all of these cards across various metas, and they have not been a problem, so it's more than safe to say that any future problems can be blamed on new cards, not the old.

Agree with Zevox again.

I just went coin Staff upgrade, then spam hero power for a few turns, then final staff piece, spam hero power for a few turns, and whatever board advantage he had gained (he got me down to 35 or so), I easily reversed with free legends.

A good way to improve this brawl would be (IMO) to turn Kel Thuzad into an aggro deck

I think aggro KT is an excellent idea. His hero power should just put the card into play if it costs 2 or less.

[Gandariel]

I'm fairly convinced Ice Block will also be removed from Standard next year.

Anyways, it's hard to say whether the standard rotation is the best way to go about this.
But, thing is, they went with it, so they have to keep going with it.

Plague and warleader nerfs were 100% good, and I want to believe nerfing War Axe frees up design space for the future.

I would have handled Innervate differently (either "refill" or straight up Hall of Fame), and this leaves only Hex as the one I really can't find any motivation for ("sucking is in your class identity").

In short, given that they chose to go with this Standard, I think the nerfs were OK. The only one that really makes no sense is Hex, because I really see zero reason for this nerf.

The only possible reason I can think of is "we were doing nerfs, might as well do this one too".
But, like, there's surely gonna be some other changes / nerfs at the start of next rotation, and Hex (or Shaman) are not such a problem that they can't wait 6ish months to get it done.

[Zevox]

Agree with Zevox again.

I'm glad someone does, at least. Was starting to feel like I was the only one.

I'm fairly convinced Ice Block will also be removed from Standard next year.

Given their remarks after these recent nerfs, I'm afraid that's probably true, even though there's absolutely no reason it should be. It's a good tool for slower, more control-oriented Mage decks, but it isn't and has never been a balance issue. It's also the only consistently good Mage secret, so removing it will hamper any efforts they make in the future to make cards that synergize with those.

Plague and warleader nerfs were 100% good,

Yeah, even as someone who hates Murlocs, I don't see any need for the Warleader nerf. Murlocs have often been crap. Now they're good, because they actually got some support and good new cards, but they're hardly running the meta or anything. And even if they were, the place to look for why would be the cards whose introduction improved them from crap to good, not the cards that have always been around and are part of what give them any baseline of potential to begin with.

[Mystic Muse]

I'm glad someone does, at least. Was starting to feel like I was the only one.

for whatever it's worth, I agree, this was a bad round of nerfs.

Yeah, even as someone who hates Murlocs, I don't see any need for the Warleader nerf. Murlocs have often been crap. Now they're good, because they actually got some support and good new cards, but they're hardly running the meta or anything. And even if they were, the place to look for why would be the cards whose introduction improved them from crap to good, not the cards that have always been around and are part of what give them any baseline of potential to begin with.

This sums up the way I feel.

The other thing about it that irks me, is that they aren't willing to just Hall of fame it, because they arbitrarily decided they're only doing that at the start of the year.

[Zevox]

The other thing about it that irks me, is that they aren't willing to just Hall of fame it, because they arbitrarily decided they're only doing that at the start of the year.

Yeah, there's a degree of that. Though personally I honestly have a hard time deciding whether I dislike nerfs like these more, or the Hall of Fame. Because while the nerfs at least leave the cards in Standard, which could perhaps be preferable if the nerfs don't turn out to neuter the cards beyond playability, at least moving to the Hall of Fame means that you can play the cards in their original form just by switching to Wild. But nerfs don't care about the mode you're in - and since they haven't buffed a card since the beta, they're presumably forever as well.

For something like Gadgetzan Auctioneer specifically I'd definitely prefer the Hall of Fame, but for cards that I wish they wouldn't be touching at all, it's tough to decide which feels worse, at least before knowing how hard the nerfs hit. Nerfs that leave the card playable > Hall of Fame > nerfs that leave the card unplayable, I guess is the hierarchy, but it's hard to tell which type of nerfs we're looking at until we've played with them...

[Seerow]

My one gripe is with Fiery War Axe. I know the argument is that people play the other 3 mana 3/2 weapons even without building around their synergies... but the fact that those synergies exist is important! Even though it wouldn't affect the power level in any meaningful way, I would have rather had Fiery War Axe be something like 3 Mana 3/2 Battlecry: Give +1/+1 to your taunt minions. Or 3 mana 3/2 Effect: When one of your minions dies on an opponent's turn, gain +1 durability. Something that gives a little touch of extra situational utility, just so you can feel like you're not getting stuck with a card that is strictly worse than what other classes have.

[Rodin]

Given their remarks after these recent nerfs, I'm afraid that's probably true, even though there's absolutely no reason it should be. It's a good tool for slower, more control-oriented Mage decks, but it isn't and has never been a balance issue. It's also the only consistently good Mage secret, so removing it will hamper any efforts they make in the future to make cards that synergize with those.

I was in favor of removing it before the most recent rotation, where Freeze Mage was never going to go away as a deck because all of the important cards were in Classic. However, Blizzard decided to address that a different way by moving Ice Lance to the Hall of Fame instead. I approve of that too - removing Ice Lance made it so that Mage could no longer take players down from 30, making Freeze Mage a very different deck that had to interact with the board. Ice Block has been pretty much fine since - the only reason I can see for its removal is Exodia Mage, and that's because Open the Waygate is a stupid, stupid card design.

Yeah, even as someone who hates Murlocs, I don't see any need for the Warleader nerf. Murlocs have often been crap. Now they're good, because they actually got some support and good new cards, but they're hardly running the meta or anything. And even if they were, the place to look for why would be the cards whose introduction improved them from crap to good, not the cards that have always been around and are part of what give them any baseline of potential to begin with.

The reason for this I think is design space. Warleader suddenly became a problem when they made good Murlocs. The power of the Finja package from Gadgetzan, followed by Murloc Paladin dominating much of the Un'goro meta. I don't think it has been OP - yet. But any new cards that would come down would have to keep the insane power of Warleader in mind. They made the change to let them make new Murlocs without risking crazy aggro blowouts.

Basically, if Murlocs start becoming strong you do look at the new cards...and realize that they're fine. At their base stats, all those cards are perfectly balanced. They start becoming threateningly strong when you apply Warleader to them. So do you nerf all new Murlocs in perpetuity, to take into account that they can get a +2/+1 buff at any point? Or do you deal with the Warleader?

[Zevox]

I was in favor of removing it before the most recent rotation, where Freeze Mage was never going to go away as a deck because all of the important cards were in Classic. However, Blizzard decided to address that a different way by moving Ice Lance to the Hall of Fame instead. I approve of that too - removing Ice Lance made it so that Mage could no longer take players down from 30, making Freeze Mage a very different deck that had to interact with the board. Ice Block has been pretty much fine since - the only reason I can see for its removal is Exodia Mage, and that's because Open the Waygate is a stupid, stupid card design.

The thing about Freeze Mage that makes me feel that even the Ice Lance removal was unnecessary is that, while it had always been around, it had not always been good. It went through periods of viability and periods where it just wasn't good enough for the meta, whether because there was too much Control Warrior, too much strong aggro, or whatever, and honestly it feels like the periods where it wasn't good enough were more common. That, I think, made it fine to have around. But that's a done deal at this point, so yeah, not a reason for doing anything with Ice Block.

The reason for this I think is design space. Warleader suddenly became a problem when they made good Murlocs. The power of the Finja package from Gadgetzan, followed by Murloc Paladin dominating much of the Un'goro meta. I don't think it has been OP - yet. But any new cards that would come down would have to keep the insane power of Warleader in mind. They made the change to let them make new Murlocs without risking crazy aggro blowouts.

Basically, if Murlocs start becoming strong you do look at the new cards...and realize that they're fine. At their base stats, all those cards are perfectly balanced. They start becoming threateningly strong when you apply Warleader to them. So do you nerf all new Murlocs in perpetuity, to take into account that they can get a +2/+1 buff at any point? Or do you deal with the Warleader?

Our difference here, I think, is that I don't think Warleader or Murloc decks have become a problem. Don't get me wrong, I hate them, but that's my general hate of aggro as a play style talking. Realistically, I don't think they're a balance issue, now, in Un'goro, or ever (much as I would have welcomed a nerf like this back in the pre-Naxx heyday of Murlock). And with them being good now, well, why make new Murlocs at this time? Just let the deck be good with what it's got and let those that like it enjoy having it.

[Rodin]

The thing about Freeze Mage that makes me feel that even the Ice Lance removal was unnecessary is that, while it had always been around, it had not always been good. It went through periods of viability and periods where it just wasn't good enough for the meta, whether because there was too much Control Warrior, too much strong aggro, or whatever, and honestly it feels like the periods where it wasn't good enough were more common. That, I think, made it fine to have around. But that's a done deal at this point, so yeah, not a reason for doing anything with Ice Block.


Our difference here, I think, is that I don't think Warleader or Murloc decks have become a problem. Don't get me wrong, I hate them, but that's my general hate of aggro as a play style talking. Realistically, I don't think they're a balance issue, now, in Un'goro, or ever (much as I would have welcomed a nerf like this back in the pre-Naxx heyday of Murlock). And with them being good now, well, why make new Murlocs at this time? Just let the deck be good with what it's got and let those that like it enjoy having it.

The bolded confuses me. Warleader is an evergreen card, so you're saying "Don't make new Murlocs ever?" Or wait an entire year between releasing any Murlocs so the currently existing ones rotate out before making any more?

This is what I meant by design space. They want to be releasing new Murlocs with each expansion to keep the Murloc decks mixed up. With Warleader as good as it is, that's very difficult to do without causing problems.

[Zevox]

The bolded confuses me. Warleader is an evergreen card, so you're saying "Don't make new Murlocs ever?" Or wait an entire year between releasing any Murlocs so the currently existing ones rotate out before making any more?

This is what I meant by design space. They want to be releasing new Murlocs with each expansion to keep the Murloc decks mixed up. With Warleader as good as it is, that's very difficult to do without causing problems.

No, I simply mean that with Murloc decks currently being good, there's not a compelling reason to make new ones. It's a deck, people are playing and presumably enjoying it, mission accomplished. Make something else instead. Or make Murlocs for the classes that don't currently have usable Murloc decks, like they've tried to do with Shaman (the freeze Murloc and draw card this expansion, the quest) and Warlock (the 4-drop from a couple expansions ago).

Point being, the Paladin deck's in a good place right now, so if they were worried about imbalancing it, the simple answer is just don't touch it for a bit. There's nothing forcing them to.

[Rodin]

No, I simply mean that with Murloc decks currently being good, there's not a compelling reason to make new ones. It's a deck, people are playing and presumably enjoying it, mission accomplished. Make something else instead. Or make Murlocs for the classes that don't currently have usable Murloc decks, like they've tried to do with Shaman (the freeze Murloc and draw card this expansion, the quest) and Warlock (the 4-drop from a couple expansions ago).

Point being, the Paladin deck's in a good place right now, so if they were worried about imbalancing it, the simple answer is just don't touch it for a bit. There's nothing forcing them to.

...which still reduces you to not being able to release new Murlocs until the next rotation. Which is why they're making the change now, so they don't have to wait.

Telling people that like to play Murlocs that "you can't have any for a year, because your deck is too good" is just as unsatisfying as nerfing Warleader.

[Zevox]

...which still reduces you to not being able to release new Murlocs until the next rotation. Which is why they're making the change now, so they don't have to wait.

Telling people that like to play Murlocs that "you can't have any for a year, because your deck is too good" is just as unsatisfying as nerfing Warleader.

The deck isn't too good, though, this is simply for the case that they're that paranoid about any additional cards causing a big imbalance. Which I don't think would be reasonable on their part, but you're the one speculating that it's the case.

And I don't believe that would be "just as unsatisfying" as having a key part of the deck nerfed. I know that, for instance, if in the heyday of Handlock they'd said that they were going to focus on helping other deck types in the next expansion or two, I'd have been a lot happier with that than I was/am with the Molten Giant nerf.

[Seerow]

So I wanted to try something a bit different, and after looking around, I decided to give Mill Warrior a shot.


It's honestly not a good deck. Or at least I am quite bad at it. But I have been futzing around in Casual because I had nothing better to do for a couple of hours. I had an honestly pretty spectacular game against a Deathrattle priest. Just a few of the highlights:

1) I cast Scourgelord Garrosh something like 6 times in the game.
2) The priest managed to nab two dead man's hand from his Oracle/Shifting Shade. So towards the end of the game, he managed to start cycling them as well.
3) On that note, he cast N'zoth three times. Thankfully the large number of crap deathrattles he played meant that I didn't get swarmed by the 4/8 Lifesteal minions.
4) Between me shuffling two copies of Bring it On, and the Priest stealing one of them, we both at some point had health totals over 50. And this was at close to the fatigue point.
5) Despite all of this, I had the opportunity to mill him at several points. I don't think he expected the Coldlight Oracles coming, so when I dropped 3 of them at once, I managed to push his fatigue up to 5 before he revealed he had stolen the dead man's hand (I think he was trying to wait until he had just N'zoth and a couple other high value cards to just keep cycling 2-4 good cards... and it bit him hard).

In the end I won with fatigue after he played his 3rd N'zoth rather than Dead Man's Handing for safety. He had left himself with only 1 card in the deck, I dropped 2 more oracles, burning my last few cards, but taking him from 36 to 0.

[Legoshrimp]

The deck isn't too good, though, this is simply for the case that they're that paranoid about any additional cards causing a big imbalance.

I don't think it is being paranoid that they might want to add more stronger murlocs.

Also I don't think hearthstone can get away with trying to balance the game only with new cards. That could easily lead to massive power creep, also terrible metagames for 6+ months.

[Joran]

So I wanted to try something a bit different, and after looking around, I decided to give Mill Warrior a shot.
It's honestly not a good deck. Or at least I am quite bad at it.

It's a really difficult deck to play; Dog piloted it to single digits Legend, but I'm unsure if it's because people don't know how to play against it or he surprises people expecting Pirate Warrior.

I'm glad that someone took the tools provided and made a cool and unique and high skillcap deck. I just hope it never becomes too popular because the mirror matches would be ATROCIOUS.

Also, fun fact, Dog's list doesn't include Fiery War Axe, so it's nerf proof!

[Zevox]

I don't think it is being paranoid that they might want to add more stronger murlocs.

Nerfing Warleader because of that is being paranoid, though. There's no evidence that adding than adding more Murlocs would result in Warleader being a balance issue, because he's never been one to date. It's also just plain backwards to assume that adding a new card would make an old one overpowered, rather than display the new one to be so, if there was any balance issue to be seen at all.

Pre-emptive nerfing is something I don't believe is a good idea, ever. If something proves too powerful and has to be nerfed after it's been tested, that's one thing, but an assumption that has no evidence to back it up is not a good reason for a nerf.

[Legoshrimp]

Nerfing Warleader because of that is being paranoid, though. There's no evidence that adding than adding more Murlocs would result in Warleader being a balance issue, because he's never been one to date. It's also just plain backwards to assume that adding a new card would make an old one overpowered, rather than display the new one to be so, if there was any balance issue to be seen at all.

Pre-emptive nerfing is something I don't believe is a good idea, ever. If something proves too powerful and has to be nerfed after it's been tested, that's one thing, but an assumption that has no evidence to back it up is not a good reason for a nerf.

I think you are ignoring that they have to think of card balance when making new cards, they can't make a bunch of good murlocs because with murloc warleader they will be too strong.

They are thinking of the power level of current cards when they are creating and balancing new cards.

[Zevox]

I think you are ignoring that they have to think of card balance when making new cards, they can't make a bunch of good murlocs because with murloc warleader they will be too strong.

They are thinking of the power level of current cards when they are creating and balancing new cards.

Yes, they need to think of card balance when making new cards. That doesn't make "they can't make a bunch of good murlocs because with murloc warleader they will be too strong" any less of a baseless assumption, though. Evidence and testing are necessary to support such things, and absolutely nothing that we've seen would give us that indication. They've made good Murlocs recently, and all it's done is make Murloc Paladin viable, not too strong.