What's the current status of Hearthstone?

[Man_Over_Game]

I used to play Hearthstone a bunch, but I got frustrated and stopped playing when the meta got stale around the time that legendary weapons came out. In particular, the Warlock weapon seemed unstoppable without weapon removal, and it was enough to take an "extended break".

In particular, I enjoy things when there's interactivity between both sides rather than powerful effects that are difficult to interact with or stop. Quests, for example, were something I enjoyed, because they were generally something most opponents could expect and play around. You weren't going to "surprise" anyone by popping out Amara to reset your HP after completing long quest from a Priest deck. Taunt = Good, Battlecry = Bad.

I get that it's not necessarily a problem for everyone, but it's a problem for me.

So how has Hearthstone changed in that regard over the last year or so (since Kobolds and Catacombs)? Has that "problem" gotten better or worse?

[Winthur]

In particular, the Warlock weapon seemed unstoppable without weapon removal, and it was enough to take an "extended break".

I mean, Acidic Swamp Ooze is a basic card that fits into most decks as a tech even if you don't have a Harrison or one of the more expensive non-legendaries tailored towards it like Gluttonous Ooze. I don't think it's necessarily a "stale game" if a weapon-heavy meta asks you to roll with weapon removal.

So how has Hearthstone changed in that regard over the last year or so (since Kobolds and Catacombs)? Has that "problem" gotten better or worse?

Hunter has been a tier 1 class for the past few expansions which means tons of face damage and strong aggro-midrange, Zul'jin gives Hunters a powerful Shudderwock-style Battlecry effect of the sort that you seem to hate, tons of decks run Zilliax as a catch-all defensive / tempo option just to keep up, and if you missed a few expansions, Blizzard just nerfed and hall of famed cards from the Classic set with barely any compensation, so you might have a hard time keeping up.

You can still probably climb up with something like Murloc Shaman or Midrange Hunter, as always, though.

New Dungeon Run is really fun, though. But it's behind a paywall and I lost interest in HS, so I just watch Trump play it.

Not sure why you couldn't ask that question in the Hearthstone general below.

[Man_Over_Game]

I mean, Acidic Swamp Ooze is a basic card that fits into most decks as a tech even if you don't have a Harrison or one of the more expensive non-legendaries tailored towards it like Gluttonous Ooze. I don't think it's necessarily a "stale game" if a weapon-heavy meta asks you to roll with weapon removal.

I guess my concern about something like weapon removal is that the cards that mess around with your opponent's weapon don't usually fit with any kind of deck in particular, and there's sometimes no way of dealing with weapon-type decks without the necessary type of cards.

It's the equivalent of dealing with Menace in MtG. Either you can deal with it, or you can't, there's not much in between, and adding that emergency solution might be expensive. It gives off a vibe that the game is decided before the cards are drawn, and at that point, you're playing fancy rock-paper-scissors with a lot of extra steps and pictures.

From the other stuff you mentioned, it seems like Hearthstone still isn't my cup of tea. Oh well, maybe one day I'll jump back in.

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As for why I made a thread instead of an additional post, it comes down to awareness. After two posts, if I posted on the main thread, my question would have been lost and wouldn't receive any more information. On a separate thread, if two people posted something, it'd actually get MORE attention, and with it, more information.

That, and it's unlikely that people would respond if I had a negative opinion of the game, on the "(Mostly Positive) Hearthstone Opinions Thread!", but it'd be hard to get the information I'm looking for without explaining why I left Hearthstone in the first place.

[Rynjin]

I mean...that's any card game. If your opponent has built their deck around a strategy and you have no counter to it, then you're going to struggle. It'll be the same for you playing Hearthstone, MtG, Shadowverse, Yu Gi Oh, or whatever other fourth rate card game you might play (like Artifact).

As-is the current meta for Hearthstone is pretty good. Most classes have a viable deck or two, with the exception of Priest, Paladin, and Warlock which are kinda struggling right now, but will probably get some love in Saviors of Uldum. Combo decks are pretty much out of the game ATM with a heavy emphasis on the Control v Aggro/Tempo matchups. Control Warrior is the deck to beat which makes pure aggro decks worse, but Tempo, long term Value, and Midrange decks better.

[Man_Over_Game]

I mean...that's any card game. If your opponent has built their deck around a strategy and you have no counter to it, then you're going to struggle. It'll be the same for you playing Hearthstone, MtG, Shadowverse, Yu Gi Oh, or whatever other fourth rate card game you might play (like Artifact).

As-is the current meta for Hearthstone is pretty good. Most classes have a viable deck or two, with the exception of Priest, Paladin, and Warlock which are kinda struggling right now, but will probably get some love in Saviors of Uldum. Combo decks are pretty much out of the game ATM with a heavy emphasis on the Control v Aggro/Tempo matchups. Control Warrior is the deck to beat which makes pure aggro decks worse, but Tempo, long term Value, and Midrange decks better.

What's funny is I've played all those same card games (except Artifact), and stopped due to them all having the same problem. So far, ESL is the game I've found with the least of that concern, but its last couple sets have been slowly progressing in the same direction as other games' trend of "less chess, more solitaire".

You have piqued my interest though, with the information that combos are mostly out. Maybe I'll pick up the game again as your Control Warrior mention. My taunt-quest warrior was a lot of fun and one of my favorites, but definitely not relevant now that Ungoro is out of rotation.

[Winthur]

I guess my concern about something like weapon removal is that the cards that mess around with your opponent's weapon don't usually fit with any kind of deck in particular

A 2 mana 3/2 is one of the most efficient stat spreads you can get for 2 mana and plays on tempo with most aggro/mid-range decks. If your opponent plays a non-weapon deck (some Priest or whatever), you could do much, much worse than just playing a 2 mana 3/2 on curve. It can be used at least as a curve / board presence option for some slower decks even if not most optimal, but I always found that slower, more controlly decks are usually more expensive in Hearthstone, and if you're going to put money into the game, you might as well look towards the evergreen Harrison Jones with a decent statline (5 mana 5/4, slightly lowered stat value compared to a more vanilla 5 mana card like Cobalt Scalebane), a good effect, and who will pretty much always be good every time there's a weapon meta.

That's not to say the Skull of the Man'ari wasn't pretty damn bonkers, as just one turn of it being in play often led into unwanted Voidlord shenanigans, but I don't think the game was downright unplayable back then or something, especially since Deathstalker Rexxar Hunter, Odd/Even decks or Keleseth Tempo were pretty solid at climbing rank back then, and cheap to boot.

[Man_Over_Game]

A 2 mana 3/2 is one of the most efficient stat spreads you can get for 2 mana and plays on tempo with most aggro/mid-range decks. If your opponent plays a non-weapon deck (some Priest or whatever), you could do much, much worse than just playing a 2 mana 3/2 on curve. It can be used at least as a curve / board presence option for some slower decks even if not most optimal, but I always found that slower, more controlly decks are usually more expensive in Hearthstone, and if you're going to put money into the game, you might as well look towards the evergreen Harrison Jones with a decent statline (5 mana 5/4, slightly lowered stat value compared to a more vanilla 5 mana card like Cobalt Scalebane), a good effect, and who will pretty much always be good every time there's a weapon meta.

That's not to say the Skull of the Man'ari wasn't pretty damn bonkers, as just one turn of it being in play often led into unwanted Voidlord shenanigans, but I don't think the game was downright unplayable back then or something, especially since Deathstalker Rexxar Hunter, Odd/Even decks or Keleseth Tempo were pretty solid at climbing rank back then, and cheap to boot.

Yeah, I guess it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. It didn't seem fun to me to make 10% of my deck about teching 1 possible deck that you regularly encounter in Ranked. By that logic, if there were only 5 types of decks you'd encounter, you're limited to 50% or 15 cards to play with as your "main deck". Just didn't seem fun. And against something like Manari, you had the answer, or you generally lost, and it gave me a pretty nihilistic view of the game.

[Zevox]

I used to play Hearthstone a bunch, but I got frustrated and stopped playing when the meta got stale around the time that legendary weapons came out. In particular, the Warlock weapon seemed unstoppable without weapon removal, and it was enough to take an "extended break".

In particular, I enjoy things when there's interactivity between both sides rather than powerful effects that are difficult to interact with or stop. Quests, for example, were something I enjoyed, because they were generally something most opponents could expect and play around. You weren't going to "surprise" anyone by popping out Amara to reset your HP after completing long quest from a Priest deck. Taunt = Good, Battlecry = Bad.

I get that it's not necessarily a problem for everyone, but it's a problem for me.

So how has Hearthstone changed in that regard over the last year or so (since Kobolds and Catacombs)? Has that "problem" gotten better or worse?

It's very hard for me to gauge your metrics there if you thought that the Warlock legendary weapon was non-interactive. I can say though that you'd probably have hated the metas of most of last year then, since they were often dominated by combo decks like Malygos Druid that genuinely had no ways to interact with their game plan - you just had to kill them before their OTK went off, full stop.

Fortunately, that's largely gone since the rotation. Popular decks now are ones like Tempo Rogue, Control and Bomb Warrior, Cyclone Mage, and Mech Hunter. Tempo Rogue is much as you might expect if you've seen decks by that name in the past, but with an emphasis on the new Lackey cards - 1 mana 1/1s with very powerful battlecry effects that are generated by certain under-statted cards (such as EVIL Miscreant, a 3 mana 1/4 with combo: put 2 lackeys in your hand, which is one of the best cards in Rogue right now).

Control and Bomb Warrior usually have a similar chassis (though some more aggressive variants of the latter exist), but the former tries to win through the traditional grindy value game, while the latter tries to win by playing cards that put bombs in their opponent's deck, which each deal 5 damage to the enemy hero when they draw them. They also both use what is probably the most complained about card in the current meta, Doctor Boom, Mad Genius, but he's only that complained about because he's the most powerful and commonly-played hero card left after the Death Knights rotated out, he's only maybe as strong as the more middling of those. If anything the actual currently most powerful card in the game is a legendary that they recently just gave everyone for free, SN1P-SN4P. A 3 mana 2/3 mech with echo, magnetic, and deathrattle: summon two 1/1 microbots (which are of course mechs). It's crazy flexible and just great stats for the cost and goes in almost every deck automatically right now.

Cyclone Mage is based around two Mage cards from the most recent expansion: Mana Cyclone and Conjurer's Calling. The former is a 2 mana 2/2 with battlecry: put a random spell into your hand for each spell you've cast this turn (so you play him with a lot of cheap spells to get a lot of value), and the latter is a 3 mana twinspell (which means it puts an extra copy of itself into your hand when cast, but minus the twinspell effect) that destroys a minion and summons two random minions of the same cost. You play that one mostly with Giants, either Mountain or Sea. Goes especially great with Mountain Giant since the only 12 mana minions in standard right now are Mountain Giant and Grave Horror (a 7/8 taunt).

Mech Hunter can be either a more aggressive or more value oriented deck depending on how it's made, though the former is much more common/popular. The more aggressive version runs cards that create Goblin Bombs, which are 0/2 mechs with deathrattle: deal 2 to the enemy hero, plus a bunch of magnetic cards (which means you can play them as either minions or buff spells that specifically work on mechs). That version of the deck generally tries to quickly set up sticky boards and snowball damage. The more value-oriented version is pretty rare, but can exist, abusing a card called Nine Lives (3 mana to discover a deathrattle minion that died already, add it to your hand, and trigger its deathrattle) with a mech called Mechanical Whelp (6 mana 2/2, deathrattle: summon a 7/7 mech). That one is often too slow against most decks that aren't Warrior though, so you don't see it often.

There's also Murloc and Control Shaman, which are less common but around. Druid basically only exists in Token Druid form, which is okay but doesn't seem to fully compete with the top end decks. Hunter can do midrange Beast-oriented decks as well, though most seem to prefer the aggressive mech deck instead. Zoolock is still a thing, but isn't great, and other than that Warlock is pretty weak at the moment. The rarer and more fringe decks include things like Pogo-Hopper Rogue, which is like a slower and generally a lot weaker version of old Jade decks. Priest has a Resurrect deck that aims to get resurrect high-health minions and then do Divine Spirit + Inner Fire, or a deck based around Chef Nomi, who fills your board with 6/6s if your deck is empty. OTK Paladin exists but is very fringe, as is Mecha'Thun Warrior - combo decks are in bad shape right now since not only can a lot of decks just kill them first, even Control Warrior can tech in (or even discover in some cases) certain newer cards that can disrupt their combos.

Oh, and we're only about a month off from the next expansion, Saviors of Uldum. Here's the trailer for it, which is probably the best trailer in the game's history, and here's the cards that have been revealed so far. Good news since you said you liked quests, there's new ones! This time they all seem to change your hero power when completed though, not give you some high-powered 5 mana card.

[Tvtyrant]

They are slowly rotating all of the classic cards out of standard, so if you want back in you should do it sooner instead of later. The entry barrier is increasing.

[Man_Over_Game]

Weird. Mage using Warlock-esc mechanics for summoning, and deathrattle hunter is finally getting enough support to, well, exist.

Bomb Warrior seems weirdly fun. Risky, unpredictable, and relatively slow. Unfortunately, I don't recall anything that'd do well against preventing something like that, besides keeping your HP up and hoping for the best.

Hurts to hear that noobies have it bad. That was a problem when I left, and it seems like it's just continues to get worse.

[Winthur]

Yeah, I guess it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. It didn't seem fun to me to make 10% of my deck about teching 1 possible deck that you regularly encounter in Ranked.

10%? You tech one, maybe two cards out of thirty to counter a specific trend in ranked play that happens to be a decently strong card in its own right that you can play on curve if need be... that's like 3-6%, tops.

Not to mention that Cubelocks of old were all just as likely to not draw the Man'ari, the Possessed Lackey, or have Dark Pacts for healing on curve, too.

Also there were plenty of decks you wanted weapon removal against at the time, so you weren't only playing it against Cubelock, but also against Secret or Spell Hunter (for Eaglehorn or Rhok'delar), Odd Paladin (Unidentified Maul, maybe even Vinecleaver), Kingsbane Rogue (with... Kingsbane, duh), Aluneth (Tempo Mage), maybe a Big (who potentially could run Woecleaver or Scourgelord Garrosh) or Taunt Warrior (with Sulfuras), some Druid variants (ones that ran Twig of the World Tree; killing it for them often ruined their combo). And some face decks that aimed to win before turn 5-6 likely didn't even need weapon removal at all, because their win condition didn't really have a whole lot of counterplay to a stabilized control deck in the first place!

I admit I lost interest in playing Hearthstone myself (it was too consuming to make F2P decks for me, and I was getting addicted and tilted, plus the F2P unfriendly changes, while understandable from a business standpoint, didn't sit that well with me), but I think it's fairly dubious that you think a weapon meta calling for teching in counters to weapons on a very small scale is the reason to quit.

[Zevox]

Bomb Warrior seems weirdly fun. Risky, unpredictable, and relatively slow. Unfortunately, I don't recall anything that'd do well against preventing something like that, besides keeping your HP up and hoping for the best.

Kill them before the bombs get you (the game plan of most decks against Warrior, with varying degrees of effectiveness - Cyclone Mage and Mech Hunter do better at it than the rest, generally) or heal/armor enough that they don't kill you (Warrior and Control Shaman, and sometimes Paladin, can do this, though Control Shaman is usually left in bad enough shape that they lose anyway) are the most common. There's also Archivist Elysiana, a legendary from the most recent set with battlecry: discover 5 cards and replace your deck with 2 copies of each. It's generally only played by Warrior, and sometimes Control Shaman, and is mostly used to basically add ten cards to your deck once you draw your last one, but can also be used to get rid of a deck full of bombs.

Hurts to hear that noobies have it bad. That was a problem when I left, and it seems like it's just continues to get worse.

Very much so. They have seriously accelerated how much they're nerfing and Hall of Faming classic cards in the past year or so. The current state of Druid and Paladin can in part be blamed on that: Druid had Wild Growth and Nourish nerfed by 1 mana and Naturalize Hall-of-Famed, Paladin had Equality nerfed by 2 mana and Divine Favor Hall-of-Famed. So slower Druid decks took a serious hit, and both aggro and control Paladin lost very important tools, and what they got in the year's first expansion did not make up for it by a long shot. And there's more, such as the recent nerf to Preparation (now only reduces mana cost by 2) and Hall of Faming of Vanish, just to name two fresh ones. They're definitely favoring making changes that the most hardcore players want while caring little that they make things harder on more casual players by doing so. It's my personal biggest beef with the game at this point by far.

[Rodin]

Zoolock is still a thing, but isn't great, and other than that Warlock is pretty weak at the moment.

Plot Twist Warlock is actually quite good. It's not top tier, but it owns both Warrior and Rogue* while having a very decent shot at dealing with Cyclone Mage. I haven't met many Hunters with it so far. It loses hardest to hyper-aggro decks like Token Druid and Murloc Shaman. I've had pretty good success with the deck so far, and that's with me playing the deck terribly a lot of the time.


*although not Scheme Rogue, but I've only seen that in Grandmasters so you're not likely to run into it

[Spore]

I stopped with Hearthstone when I finally found out I hated rng mechanics in a tactics based environment.

For the last three months now, various Wallet Warriors (Bomb and Fatigue) are Tier 1, as well as Rogue (prenerf, apparently they nerf cards every 2 months now) and for me, the nerf patches are ticking me off. They are unable to balance the game properly (due to the static class system) so they swing the ban hammer at whatever is most powerful, only to watch decks that got pushed down by the top tier decks creep up and take new quasi unbeatable tier 1 decks.

The OTK decks are largely gone and the current meta is stable enough but I don't put enough trust into the HS dev team to develop a balanced game that I pour money into it (after whaling for 5 years). I play it, I enjoy the games but it's largely a pastime that I quit when I am annoyed. And my card basin (along with disenchantable useless stuff) should at least give me 3-4 expansions worth of netdecks before I really run out of ressources to craft.

Hurts to hear that noobies have it bad. That was a problem when I left, and it seems like it's just continues to get worse.

Oh definitely. Plus asinine changes as to desexualize certain cards to appeal to the censor-happy Chinese market just put fuel on the fire of players that claim that it feels like Blizz changes cards every other week. Which is imprecise but I can share the sentiment of being annoyed that the game is being tinkered with every so often, taking away from the player creativity.

Because the dev team just had a mecha-whatever update that is meant to push the meta in the mech direction. Which just feels odd.

Part of me is of the opinion that Hearthstone is taking itself too serious (it is seriously just an eSport because people are interested in it, not because it is such a well balanced or good game), part of me would wish that the game would stop being so rng focussed (because while statistically insignificant, having wins snatched away by top decks i.e. drawn bombs is irritating).