Hearthstone 22: Evening the Odds

[Psyren]

Ugh. Well, on the one hand, that seems be one of if not the rarest Mecha'thun deck out there, so presumably it's one of the weakest and I can maybe hope it will remain a fringe deck forever.

Give it time, the Quests and Stonehills and DMH won't be in Standard much longer.

Personally, I've basically fallen out of hearthstone since Magic Arena picked up. In my experience though there's always been a late-game deck in hearthstone that once it's wrested control of the game and reached it's endgame you literally just can't win anymore even if it takes them 20 more turns to kill you.

That's the beauty of combo, it doesn't really care if you've taken control of the game, it just wins.

As for me, I've always loved alternate win-cons; Magic is full of them. (Haven't tried Arena yet though.)

[Rynjin]

I think a delicate balance has to be struck for alternate win conditions, and Hearthstone has been pretty bad about implementing them.

Mostly because Druid's sustain and ramping ability was so insane for so long, and still is, minus the ramping. Combo decks shouldn't generate 3-4x as much HP as they started with over the course of a game like that.

Many of Hearthstone's recent combo decks have had a feeling of inevitability to them. You know what's coming from turn 3 at the latest. you know how to stop it. But many decks are too slow to do anything about it, so they just lose with no hope. It's disheartening and sucks the fun out of the game to lose to decks like that.

Pally OTKs at least only go off at turn 20+ most times, so there's plenty of time to stop it. But when a combo deck can pop off by turn 8, WTF are a lot of decks supposed to do?

[Lord Raziere]

hm, I used to like magic the gathering at one point, before I learned there was no roleplaying rules for it even though I'd LOVE to play a red-blue mage IC.....magic arena is sounding pretty interesting, hope I can get interested in it again for the mechanics....

my experience in hearthstone is the opposite: I've been hit with aggro decks a lot. even when I win, its often before I get my combo off.....unfortunately....I eve have a classic mage deck set up to try and pull off mage exodia combo at LEAST once. I just want to fireball my opponent to death at least once with antonidas....

[Joran]

My focus for right now though is unlocking Arthas while I still can (2 classes to go.)

The single player adventure will still be available once rotation hits, since you already have it open.

New players will have to acquire a Frozen Throne pack (only available for real money) once the rotation hits for the single player content.

Edit: Got my 6th golden portrait for 500 ranked wins, in order: Warlock, Hunter, Warrior, Mage, Druid, Paladin.

Only Priest (I use both Dragon Control with Mind Blast finisher and Zalae Priest), Shaman (just put together an Even Shaman deck, used to play Shudderwock), and Rogue (Odd and Miracle Rogue) left to go. Unfortunately, none of those decks really capture my imagination, but at least I have a viable deck for each class.

[Hamste]

Just a head's up Disguised toast recently released a mechathun warlock that doesn't actually run mechathun, playing 2 better cards instead of that and cataclysm but still with two galvanizer and bloodbloom. He then relies on people just conceding when mechathun would win thinking he is bming or that he is getting too close to winning. So some people will sometimes be playing a deck with literally no win condition now.

[Zevox]

Give it time, the Quests and Stonehills and DMH won't be in Standard much longer.

Stonehills I quite like and will miss - they're great for value-oriented decks. Quests, eh, won't miss most of them, though the Warrior one a little, but the only one that has ever bothered me much is Rogue (and I guess Priest losing theirs might be nice since it's partially helping enable their current combo decks). It's things like Deathstalker Rexxar, Uther of the Ebon Blade, Shadow Visions, Ultimate Infestation, and Carnivorous Cube that I'm looking forward to seeing gone.

And I'm not actually sure what "DMH" stands for.

Many of Hearthstone's recent combo decks have had a feeling of inevitability to them. You know what's coming from turn 3 at the latest. you know how to stop it. But many decks are too slow to do anything about it, so they just lose with no hope. It's disheartening and sucks the fun out of the game to lose to decks like that.

Yeah, that. When you know that a matchup is one you have something like a 10% or less chance to win as soon as you figure out what your opponent is playing, it just kills the fun then and there. Because either you're going to spend the next ten minutes playing a likely futile game that isn't fun and is almost sure to end in defeat, or you have to just concede without even trying, which is possibly even less fun. Especially when such matchups are a not insubstantial amount of the meta.

Edit: Got my 6th golden portrait for 500 ranked wins, in order: Warlock, Hunter, Warrior, Mage, Druid, Paladin.

Only Priest (I use both Dragon Control with Mind Blast finisher and Zalae Priest), Shaman (just put together an Even Shaman deck, used to play Shudderwock), and Rogue (Odd and Miracle Rogue) left to go. Unfortunately, none of those decks really capture my imagination, but at least I have a viable deck for each class.

Rather revealing of how casually I've played for most of my time with the game, I still don't have even a single golden hero despite having been playing since before golden heroes were a thing. Currently closest to it with Warlock at 422 wins, followed by Mage at 376, Warrior at 329, and Paladin at 319. The other four aren't even halfway there, all in the 180-230 range.

Just a head's up Disguised toast recently released a mechathun warlock that doesn't actually run mechathun, playing 2 better cards instead of that and cataclysm but still with two galvanizer and bloodbloom. He then relies on people just conceding when mechathun would win thinking he is bming or that he is getting too close to winning. So some people will sometimes be playing a deck with literally no win condition now.

Huh. Weird. Good thing I'm not in the habit of conceding unless I see lethal on the board that I can't do anything about on my turn I guess.

[Rynjin]

And I'm not actually sure what "DMH" stands for.

Dead Man's Hand

[Zevox]

Dead Man's Hand

Oh. We haven't seen that thing actually used in ages, and honestly I've never really had any issues with it. There was the one Coldlight combo deck it enabled, but that was never good enough to see much play, so it never really bothered me.

[Spore]

Just a head's up Disguised toast recently released a mechathun warlock that doesn't actually run mechathun, playing 2 better cards instead of that and cataclysm but still with two galvanizer and bloodbloom. He then relies on people just conceding when mechathun would win thinking he is bming or that he is getting too close to winning. So some people will sometimes be playing a deck with literally no win condition now.

All joking about DGs viable troll decks aside, this convinces me he is just a toxic personality. I used to like his content for being fresh.

Honestly I like Savijz or how it is pronounced better now. Wholesome dude.

[Joran]

All joking about DGs viable troll decks aside, this convinces me he is just a toxic personality. I used to like his content for being fresh.

Honestly I like Savijz or how it is pronounced better now. Wholesome dude.

I liked Disguised Toast back when he first revealed his face; I haven't watch him in awhile, since he seemed salty the last time I watched his stream; he had lost some of his playful nature from before.

I liked Savjz back when he streamed Hearthstone, but he's quit for sometime. I like Zalae because he spends a lot of time explaining his moves and doesn't get very salty about bad results.

P.S.: This is also why I don't concede unless the game is clearly lost (I lose board control with no way to wrest it back and not enough burn, etc). I thought I had lost against a Mechathun Druid with Shudderwock, but then realized that he had no way to kill a minion on his side of the board and won when he had to play his Mechathun and I hexed it.

Similarly, I saw a great play against Mechathun Druid by a priest player. They waited until the last moment before the Druid was about to go off on the Mechathun play and Psychic Screamed a Tar Creaper into his deck. Druid had no way to kill the Tar Creeper and had to drop the Mechathun, but got it stolen.

[Joran]

BTW, nice post from Iksar, who explains the design team's rationale and thinking the clearest, since Brode left.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone..._nerfs_render/

Ideally the basic and classic set show off the kinds of mechanics each class is about without having too many cards that show up in all possible class archetypes. Basic is important to us because it serves as a set of cards players can use to learn about the game before they choose whether or not to make an investment of their time or money. Classic is important to us because it serves as the secondary jump-off point where you learn the baseline for what each of the individual classes is about along with some of our core mechanics like Battlecry or Deathrattle. From a gameplay perspective, having these sets around forever usually only leads to negativity when the cards are so powerful they show up in every deck in every expansion, making the strategies players use feel more stale than they would otherwise. We've been trying to change some of these power outliers over time, but only when making that change might also be positive for the live game environment. Wild Growth and Nourish were good examples of cards we had thought about changing for some time, so when we arrived in a meta where Druid had been very powerful and popular for a long time, it felt like a good time for those changes. We'd like to continue making these types of changes, as we believe the game will be in a better position to meet the player expectation that the game is new and fresh from expansion to expansion.

​

We nerf basic/classic cards that are too powerful instead of rotating them when they hit on class fantasy but at too high of a power level. Ramping mana is a strong identifier for what Druid should be about, so it made more sense to us to have some of the simplest forms of mana ramp exist in the base set to teach players what Druids can be about. It also makes more sense to have those cards be medium power level because if we identify mana ramp as an identity for Druids, it would be nice to be able to make some mana ramp cards from time to time without having to create cards even more powerful than two of the (arguably) most powerful cards in the game. Of course, this doesn't mean all basic and classic cards have to be weak. Generally the cards we target for change are ones that exist in every archetype. Cards like Al'Akir, Frothing, Fireball, or Tirion are probably safe. They are powerful and do an awesome job at selling the class fantasy for the class they represent. They also have some weaknesses and you can imagine an archetype within their class that might not play them. This is a pretty good place to be in.

[Psyren]

Combo is prevalent in HS because the devs have been pretty loathe to print disruption that fits their paradigm. But it actually wouldn't be difficult. A neutral creature with text like "after each player's first draw in a turn, their max hand size is 7 that turn" or something. It shuts down all the combo player's extra card draw and tutoring until they get rid of it (since they need to keep their combo pieces in hand), without completely locking them out of the game because they still get the starting draw. That would slow down combo decks massively or force them to run more removal, giving midrange decks a chance to compete. It would hurt control a bit too, but against most combo decks control doesn't mind wasting/milling removal it ultimately won't need.

Stonehills I quite like and will miss - they're great for value-oriented decks. Quests, eh, won't miss most of them, though the Warrior one a little, but the only one that has ever bothered me much is Rogue (and I guess Priest losing theirs might be nice since it's partially helping enable their current combo decks). It's things like Deathstalker Rexxar, Uther of the Ebon Blade, Shadow Visions, Ultimate Infestation, and Carnivorous Cube that I'm looking forward to seeing gone.

And I'm not actually sure what "DMH" stands for.

I was talking about Warrior staples specifically, especially Control/Odd warrior. I expect Mecha'thun Warrior to pick up in popularity once some of those staples are gone.

(DMH = Dead Man's Hand)

All joking about DGs viable troll decks aside, this convinces me he is just a toxic personality. I used to like his content for being fresh.

Honestly I like Savijz or how it is pronounced better now. Wholesome dude.

"Toxic," really? It seems pretty harmless to me If people aren't willing to hang in there for the win when there's no signs that they are about to lose, they deserve the L.

Of course, I primarily play on mobile, so there's usually something else for me to look at if someone starts taking a long turn or appearing to BM. And Toast is just one among the many streamers whose videos I watch.

BTW, nice post from Iksar, who explains the design team's rationale and thinking the clearest, since Brode left.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone..._nerfs_render/

I like that reasoning. And I agree, almost all their ramp cards have been worse than the ones in Basic/Classic. (Does anyone even run Greedy Sprite? I guess they do now.)

[Zevox]

BTW, nice post from Iksar, who explains the design team's rationale and thinking the clearest, since Brode left.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone..._nerfs_render/

Blech. I'll spare you guys another rant, but a couple of things I do want to comment on in there:

We nerf basic/classic cards that are too powerful instead of rotating them when they hit on class fantasy but at too high of a power level. [...] Generally the cards we target for change are ones that exist in every archetype. Cards like Al'Akir, Frothing, Fireball, or Tirion are probably safe. They are powerful and do an awesome job at selling the class fantasy for the class they represent. They also have some weaknesses and you can imagine an archetype within their class that might not play them. This is a pretty good place to be in.

Calling total BS on this one - if they truly went by that logic, most of the nerfs they've done to the Classic set would not have happened. Aside from maybe the early Druid nerfs from when standard was first implemented, the only card they've nerfed that was truly so ubiquitous that you couldn't imagine archetypes of the class without it is Firey War Axe. Everything else has been more specific - Mana Wyrm only went in more aggressive Mages, Rockbiter only went in Shamans running Doomhammer, Hex doesn't go in aggro, etc. Even for the most recent ones, Wild Growth didn't go in the most aggressive versions of Druid over the years (which were admittedly far less common than the more Control-oriented or recent combo archetypes that did want Wild Growth, but still existed nonetheless), and Nourish didn't become a standard of the class until Ultimate Infestation came along.

(Incidentally, even if I found this rationale believable, I'd disagree with it - I still disliked the Firey War Axe nerf even though that card legitimately did go in every Warrior deck period. But I think it's also pretty transparently untrue.)

We'd like to continue making these types of changes, as we believe the game will be in a better position to meet the player expectation that the game is new and fresh from expansion to expansion.

And there's confirmation of what I've been saying/worried about all along: expect balance changes (and Hall of Faming, I'd assume) to the classic set to continue indefinitely, until no good cards are left. Goddamn it.

I was talking about Warrior staples specifically, especially Control/Odd warrior. I expect Mecha'thun Warrior to pick up in popularity once some of those staples are gone.

(DMH = Dead Man's Hand)

The only card that you mentioned that I'd call a Warrior staple is Stonehill Defender - which is really just a midrange/control staple in general. Dead Man's Hand hasn't been seriously used in a long time, and while the Quest is an option, it hasn't even been the main Warrior deck type for a while. I mean, just looking at my current Odd Warrior, the list of cards that it will lose with rotation is:

- Gluttonous Ooze, a one-of tech card.
- Stonehill Defender. As mentioned above, yeah, this one will hurt, but it's hardly the cornerstone of the deck.
- Reckless Flurry. Will also hurt in some matchups, though it can also be awkward in others since it costs all your armor, which you may not want to spend. Hopefully we'll get a decent new odd AoE to replace it, or the meta will be such that Brawl will be sufficient for that on its own.
- Direhorn Hatchling, which is currently a one-of that's replaceable.

Honestly, Odd Warrior currently runs mostly a mix of Boomsday and Rhastakhan cards, plus a few Classics and, of course, Baku from Witchwood. It'll certainly still be around post-rotation in a form very similar to what it is now.

"Toxic," really? It seems pretty harmless to me If people aren't willing to hang in there for the win when there's no signs that they are about to lose, they deserve the L.

While I have no strong opinion on the guy myself, I can see where Sporeegg is coming from on that. The only point of such behavior is to troll - to get people to quit on-stream/in a video so they look stupid for assuming that they've lost when in reality he can't win, even though such an assumption is perfectly reasonable based on the deck he appears to be playing. Can't say that's exactly behavior I find endearing, at the least.

[Rynjin]

My 2cp on the fake Mechathun: the idea is funny, and I don't think it's toxic. Not all trolling is malicious or hurtful; most of the people he's playing against will never even know they HAVE been trolled, so it's a pretty victimless "crime".

But Toast as a whole is pretty toxic and egotistical IMO. I only started getting into HS players this year, floating around between a few, but Trump and Firebat are the only ones that have really held my interest for various reasons. Toast is just so damn smug all the time it hurts.

[Thrantar]

Well, might as well add me to the list (Thrantar#1416, North America).
I've got both the play a friend and watch a friend quests pending, and there's only one thing I lack.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The weird thing to me about that article is that, for sake of example, somehow Fireball is considered to be a card with specific strengths and weaknesses, but Wild Growth isn't.

Which is hilariously wrong. Fireball is so good that it only doesn't get run in decks that have cards which specifically disincentivize you from running it (aka Book of Spectres or Dragon's Wrath). Meanwhile, like Zevox said, Wild Growth didn't get run in a few Druid decks not because of other cards, but because of its natural weakness of giving up early-game tempo and card advantage.

[Psyren]

The only card that you mentioned that I'd call a Warrior staple is Stonehill Defender - which is really just a midrange/control staple in general. Dead Man's Hand hasn't been seriously used in a long time, and while the Quest is an option, it hasn't even been the main Warrior deck type for a while.

*rolls eyes*

Fine, swap whatever rotating cards you feel fit better. Or don't. My point is that Mecha'thun isn't going anywhere for a whole year, so it's better to just figure out ways to deal with it like everyone else is doing. (Or don't.)

While I have no strong opinion on the guy myself, I can see where Sporeegg is coming from on that. The only point of such behavior is to troll - to get people to quit on-stream/in a video so they look stupid for assuming that they've lost when in reality he can't win, even though such an assumption is perfectly reasonable based on the deck he appears to be playing. Can't say that's exactly behavior I find endearing, at the least.

Not ragequitting just because they think a loss is likely is a valuable lesson to learn. Especially if they're playing a control deck (the most likely to lose to combo) and were expecting the game to run long anyway. It's a card game, surely they don't have appointments that urgent.

The weird thing to me about that article is that, for sake of example, somehow Fireball is considered to be a card with specific strengths and weaknesses, but Wild Growth isn't.

Which is hilariously wrong. Fireball is so good that it only doesn't get run in decks that have cards which specifically disincentivize you from running it (aka Book of Spectres or Dragon's Wrath). Meanwhile, like Zevox said, Wild Growth didn't get run in a few Druid decks not because of other cards, but because of its natural weakness of giving up early-game tempo and card advantage.

But that's the whole point - there's lots of Mage decks that don't run fireball, despite how good it is. The mere fact that they could disincentivize its use despite it being so good is what makes it fine. Wild Growth was in literally every Druid deck.

[Zevox]

Well, might as well add me to the list (Thrantar#1416, North America).
I've got both the play a friend and watch a friend quests pending, and there's only one thing I lack.

Sure. BTW guys, I'm thinking I should do something about how bloated that list has become. Probably not until tomorrow, but I'd like to set the current list in a separate spoiler block and have another list that only contains currently-active players, if we can manage that.

The weird thing to me about that article is that, for sake of example, somehow Fireball is considered to be a card with specific strengths and weaknesses, but Wild Growth isn't.

Which is hilariously wrong. Fireball is so good that it only doesn't get run in decks that have cards which specifically disincentivize you from running it (aka Book of Spectres or Dragon's Wrath). Meanwhile, like Zevox said, Wild Growth didn't get run in a few Druid decks not because of other cards, but because of its natural weakness of giving up early-game tempo and card advantage.

Hm, I can mostly agree with your overall thrust there, but I think you're off about Fireball. It's not an example of a card that only doesn't get run due to other cards requiring you to build around them and leave it out. More Control-oriented Mages have long left Fireball out of their decks because Polymorph is better for single-target removal of big things, and they don't value the option to go face with Fireball so much. Back in the early days they ran both, but as we've gotten more cards, there's generally been better things for them to do with the deck space than run an extra set of mid-cost removal.

A better example of what you mean would be Frostbolt. That thing is a staple removal card that gets run in all Mages by default, from Aggro to Control and Combo alike, except when there's build-around conditions that preclude it but provide a big enough benefit to be worth cutting it. Which, for the moment, happens to be the case, with Big Spell Mage not wanting a spell that cheap and Odd Mage not being able to use it because it's even. But for most of Hearthstone's history it's been in every single Mage deck. And you can point to other removal cards in other classes that are in a similar situation, like Swipe, Kill Command, Consecration, or Eviscerate. Wrath is another one that I'd have included in the past, but they actually outdid that one with the Druid Spellstone to the point where everyone has run that instead for a while - I'd expect it to be back post-rotation though (if Druid is at all played post-rotation).

*rolls eyes*

Fine, swap whatever rotating cards you feel fit better. Or don't. My point is that Mecha'thun isn't going anywhere for a whole year, so it's better to just figure out ways to deal with it like everyone else is doing. (Or don't.)

The problem is that for some decks there presently isn't a way to deal with it without completely changing the type of deck that you're playing. Mojomaster Zihi is the only thing like neutral combo disruption that exists in standard at this point in time, and for a Control deck buying just a few turns often won't be enough to change the outcome. If you're trying to play a value deck, basically you're either playing Warlock and running Demonic Project, or you're screwed against Mecha'thun decks.

Also, I literally pointed out right after that line that current Odd Warrior is losing fairly little in the rotation, so "swap whatever rotating cards you feel fit better" is a bit disingenuous when, if you read what I wrote, you know that there are hardly any to speak of. Hopefully that's enough to keep it overshadowing Mecha'thun Warrior - but that will depend in no small part on the next set's cards, too.

Not ragequitting just because they think a loss is likely is a valuable lesson to learn. Especially if they're playing a control deck (the most likely to lose to combo) and were expecting the game to run long anyway. It's a card game, surely they don't have appointments that urgent.

First, that's not a "lesson" that this will teach them, since they won't know that it happened. It just gives the troll and his viewers something to sneer at. Nothing likable or positive there. Second, even if they did learn about it due to running across the video at some point, that doesn't change that it's trollish behavior on his part.

Also, conceding when you're sure you've lost isn't a rage-quit. Rage-quitting is pulling the plug on a game outside of any options the game provides you in an attempt to null the game's effect on your rank - which I'm pretty sure doesn't work in Hearthstone anyway, quitting mid-match in any way hands the win to your opponent.

But that's the whole point - there's lots of Mage decks that don't run fireball, despite how good it is. The mere fact that they could disincentivize its use despite it being so good is what makes it fine. Wild Growth was in literally every Druid deck.

I just pointed out a few posts ago that it was not - extremely aggressive Token Druids that didn't run it very much have existed in the past. It's been common, since more often than not Druid decks have been Control ones, or in recent times Combo ones, but not completely ubiquitous. There are deck archetypes that wouldn't want it, Druid just doesn't support them very often.

[The Glyphstone]

Does anyone run Void Contract as a combo disruptor? Or is it too self-destructive to be worth it?

[Zevox]

Does anyone run Void Contract as a combo disruptor? Or is it too self-destructive to be worth it?

It's just worse than Demonic Project for that purpose, basically. Costs far more mana, useless if the opponent has drawn their combo pieces already (or have most of them and just get lucky that the last doesn't get snapped), utterly useless in non-combo matchups, it's a card you really don't want to run two of but is important to cast as early as possible if you want to get the best chance of it disrupting your opponent's combo... there's just a lot of problems with it.

Edit: So, separate note, I went and started new player lists for the first post, to try and make them have just current, active players, at least for a while. If you posted in the last five or so pages of the thread and were on the old lists I moved your name to the new ones; if you weren't on the old list or just haven't posted recently but still want to be on the list, please let me know either here or via PM.

[Psyren]

A better example of what you mean would be Frostbolt. That thing is a staple removal card that gets run in all Mages by default, from Aggro to Control and Combo alike, except when there's build-around conditions that preclude it but provide a big enough benefit to be worth cutting it. Which, for the moment, happens to be the case, with Big Spell Mage not wanting a spell that cheap and Odd Mage not being able to use it because it's even. But for most of Hearthstone's history it's been in every single Mage deck. And you can point to other removal cards in other classes that are in a similar situation, like Swipe, Kill Command, Consecration, or Eviscerate. Wrath is another one that I'd have included in the past, but they actually outdid that one with the Druid Spellstone to the point where everyone has run that instead for a while - I'd expect it to be back post-rotation though (if Druid is at all played post-rotation).

I see no problem with Frostbolt; yeah it's run all the time because it's good, but I don't think its presence offers the kind of consistency that Wild Growth's ramp did, even if only a few decks left it out. Put another way, getting a frostbolt early or even mid-game might be good or bad depending on who you were up against, while getting a WG early or mid-game at 2 mana was always good and almost always contributed to your win. That was a sign it truly might have been undercosted.

The problem is that for some decks there presently isn't a way to deal with it without completely changing the type of deck that you're playing. Mojomaster Zihi is the only thing like neutral combo disruption that exists in standard at this point in time, and for a Control deck buying just a few turns often won't be enough to change the outcome. If you're trying to play a value deck, basically you're either playing Warlock and running Demonic Project, or you're screwed against Mecha'thun decks.

You're thinking a bit small when it comes to combo disruption. Remember that Mecha'thun's combo specifically requires an empty hand and library in addition to the board being wiped (their side of it anyway.) You usually can't stop them from wiping their own board (most of the activators involve dealing 10+ damage to their side to kill the 'thun) but there are still multiple ways to disrupt the first two - Griftah for instance will keep them from going off until they can get rid of whatever you gave them, and stuff like Psychic Scream and Hakkar puts junk in their library. If MT decks grow in popularity I expect to see more unorthodox counter-strategies like these grow as well.

First, that's not a "lesson" that this will teach them, since they won't know that it happened. It just gives the troll and his viewers something to sneer at. Nothing likable or positive there. Second, even if they did learn about it due to running across the video at some point, that doesn't change that it's trollish behavior on his part.

And yet, we've all managed to learn about this deck despite never once having run into it ourselves. So I continue to disagree.

I just pointed out a few posts ago that it was not - extremely aggressive Token Druids that didn't run it very much have existed in the past. It's been common, since more often than not Druid decks have been Control ones, or in recent times Combo ones, but not completely ubiquitous. There are deck archetypes that wouldn't want it, Druid just doesn't support them very often.

All the top Token lists I've seen run WG; hell, some are even still running it post-nerf. I don't think Blizzard was wrong on this one.

Nourish might have been a bit much though.

[Zevox]

Throwing this in here since people may have missed the edit on my last post: I went and started new player lists for the first post, to try and make them have just current, active players, at least for a while. If you posted in the last five or so pages of the thread and were on the old lists I moved your name to the new ones; if you weren't on the old list or just haven't posted recently but still want to be on the list, please let me know either here or via PM.

I see no problem with Frostbolt;

Nor do I. The point was that if a card being ubiquitously used (i.e., per the dev's statement, the card not having any particular weaknesses and there not being "an archetype within their class that might not play them") is somehow the criteria for this, that's a prime example of it, as are other staple removal cards. Which makes their rationale seem rather strange indeed considering that those aren't what they're nerfing.

You're thinking a bit small when it comes to combo disruption. Remember that Mecha'thun's combo specifically requires an empty hand and library in addition to the board being wiped (their side of it anyway.) You usually can't stop them from wiping their own board (most of the activators involve dealing 10+ damage to their side to kill the 'thun) but there are still multiple ways to disrupt the first two - Griftah for instance will keep them from going off until they can get rid of whatever you gave them, and stuff like Psychic Scream and Hakkar puts junk in their library. If MT decks grow in popularity I expect to see more unorthodox counter-strategies like these grow as well.

Such cards are too bad against other decks to run just to counter Mecha'thun unless it becomes a major part of the meta all by itself - and aside from Hakkar, they're also likely to only buy you a few turns (probably not even as many as Mojomaster Zihi in most cases) as the opponent ditches whatever cards you gave them. And Hakkar in particular is especially bad against most other matchups, so you really don't want to run him if you don't have to.

And yet, we've all managed to learn about this deck despite never once having run into it ourselves. So I continue to disagree.

You do realize there's certainly a sizable number of players out there who don't chat about these sorts of things regularly online or watch streamers/youtubers, right?

And again, whether they learn about it or not doesn't change anything. The behavior is still trollish, aimed at making people look stupid for doing something that in context is entirely reasonable. Seems like it should be pretty easy to understand why Sporeegg would call that "toxic."

All the top Token lists I've seen run WG; hell, some are even still running it post-nerf. I don't think Blizzard was wrong on this one.

Current ones, perhaps, but current decks are not the only ones that have ever existed. Judging the card that's been around since the beginning based only on how it's used currently is a very poor way to judge its balance.

[Geno9999]

Throwing this in here since people may have missed the edit on my last post: I went and started new player lists for the first post, to try and make them have just current, active players, at least for a while. If you posted in the last five or so pages of the thread and were on the old lists I moved your name to the new ones; if you weren't on the old list or just haven't posted recently but still want to be on the list, please let me know either here or via PM.

I'm active casually, usually good for a friendly game whenever I'm online. Battletag is Geno9999#1674

[Zevox]

I'm active casually, usually good for a friendly game whenever I'm online. Battletag is Geno9999#1674

NA or EU server?

[Geno9999]

NA or EU server?

Oh right, NA server.

[Lord Raziere]

My battletag is Trizap#1729 NA server. up for a casual friendly game as well.

[Zevox]

Both added. Also, went and sent out quite a few friend requests myself - guess it's been a while since I did that, since I actually didn't have many of our currently-active players on my friends list.

[Psyren]

You do realize there's certainly a sizable number of players out there who don't chat about these sorts of things regularly online or watch streamers/youtubers, right?

The ones who don't care to learn about the meta are susceptible to far more egregious losses than this. Nobody can or should be blamed for that but themselves.

Current ones, perhaps, but current decks are not the only ones that have ever existed. Judging the card that's been around since the beginning based only on how it's used currently is a very poor way to judge its balance.

First off, where did I say I only looked at current decks?

Second, that's nonsense; a card still being used post-nerf is absolutely a good indication of what it's balance/power was beforehand. Namely, that it was too good.

[Zevox]

The ones who don't care to learn about the meta are susceptible to far more egregious losses than this. Nobody can or should be blamed for that but themselves.

You're either fundamentally misunderstanding or ignoring the point there if you think that it's about the loss. It's about the player's trollish behavior.

First off, where did I say I only looked at current decks?

Second, that's nonsense; a card still being used post-nerf is absolutely a good indication of what it's balance/power was beforehand. Namely, that it was too good.

Or it's an indication that they don't have any better alternatives to fill in the gap, or are currently so heavily rewarded for ramping by certain other cards that even weaker ramp is worth it to them.

And again, completely missing the point, which is that there have absolutely been aggro Druid decks in the past that did not use Wild Growth, and thus the argument that it should be nerfed because no Druid deck would ever not run it is wrong.

[Psyren]

You're either fundamentally misunderstanding or ignoring the point there if you think that it's about the loss. It's about the player's trollish behavior.


Or it's an indication that they don't have any better alternatives to fill in the gap, or are currently so heavily rewarded for ramping by certain other cards that even weaker ramp is worth it to them.

And again, completely missing the point, which is that there have absolutely been aggro Druid decks in the past that did not use Wild Growth, and thus the argument that it should be nerfed because no Druid deck would ever not run it is wrong.

Looks like we have a fundamental disagreement on the definition of "trolling." Among several other things. So I'll leave it there.