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[BROseidon]

holyshitholyshitholyshit, I might cry a little

Go pro

[BROseidon]

I don't, but not because I'm against it.
In general when I want to get better at games I don't use pre-made stuff (e.g. in league I wouldn't use builds from guides, in toribash I wouldn't just learn moves by heart) but try to figure it out myself because I feel like that helps me much better in getting a good understanding of the game.

This is a terrible approach.

Copy until you understand why/how things are good, and then use that to make judgments.

[BROseidon]

I kind of want to get back into Hearthstone because I like TCGs, but then I get sad about piloted shredder's existence :/

[BROseidon]

There are a bunch of design decisions that Hearthstone made at its inception (most egregiously, no interaction during opponent's turns) that are starting to really take hold of the game and drag it down. They need to fix some of that now

This + being able to hit face unless they have a taunt dude in play makes charge completely fucking broken.

[BROseidon]

I've been watching Hearthstone's worlds and I'm really disappointed by how the game turned out.

A lot of the design decisions are just really bad, and they refuse to deal with individual cards that are blatantly OP (oh hai piloted fucking shredder and Dr. Boom)

[BROseidon]

welcome to hearthstone, please enjoy your on rails experience of t1 leper gnome, t2 shielded minibot, t3 muster, t4 truesilver, t5 quartermaster, t6 mysterious challenger, t7 dr boom, t8 tirion fordring!

Yup, basically this.

Blizzard has done a really bad job with balance >.>

[BROseidon]

Dr. Boom needs to stop existing holy shit.

[BROseidon]

Honestly, I don't think Dr. Boom by itself is so huge a problem. It's powerful, but lots of cards are powerful. The real problem is that it stands head and shoulders above any other available 7 drop, so any deck that runs a 7 drop has no better options. Or even anything close to its power level. So everybody runs it in every deck that lasts that long.

That literally means it's a problem.

"This card is objectively the best x-drop in the game" is not where you want a card to be. Piloted Shredder has a similar issue.

[BROseidon]

I mean, what other good 7 drops are even trying to compete though? Sprint? antonidas? They just need to raise the power in that slot across the board I think.

edit: chillmaw, ancient of lore

Druid has a lot of good 7s, no one else does though.

This is part of the issue. The other part is that Dr. Boom is always an amazing drop - unless you just aren't running 7-drops, he's always an amazing option.

[BROseidon]

Right. I'm not trying to say there isn't a problem with Doom being too powerful, I'm saying he's too powerful because all of the other neutral 7s suck. So if you play 7s, you never have a better option. Druid can maybe get away with playing their Ancients and avoiding running BGH targets, but nobody else can. Either Doom needs to be brought down to match the power level of 7s more closely, or he needs competition. Probably the first one is better, but who knows.

I think you're missing my point a bit.

I'm saying that, given where 7-drop power level should be, dr boom is still to strong. Making more cards as powerful as dr boom would just mean you have a lot of really broken shit on 7 instead of one broken thing on 7

[BROseidon]

Cards being circumstantially above the power curve are healthy and good. Cards being above the power curve in every deck on most plays (like dr boom, piloted shredder, etc) are bad

[BROseidon]

In some ways it's impressive that Dr. Boom is apparently STILL OP one year later or whatever. I haven't played very regularly in at least 6 months, and that was the meta at the time.

Literally ever deck that is a midrange or control deck runs Dr. Boom still. It's fucking ridiculous.

[BROseidon]

At least arena is still sorta fun.

[BROseidon]

The latter. Think about playing a 29 life Reno off of Ice Block.

[BROseidon]

Low-ranked ladder is fucking sad :/

[BROseidon]

The interactivity in hearthstone comes from guessing what your opponent has. It's not amazing design

[BROseidon]

I don't think that's what he's saying. He's saying, that with so little interaction, and with the fact that most turns feature no real decision making, the only strategy left is in deckbuilding. Which is a harsh place to be, since as you point out, any deckbuilding game is going to have netdecking. So Hearthstone is kinda shooting itself in the foot from square 1.

Pretty much this.

In Hearthstone, the only decisions you make that directly interact with your opponent are what you attack and what you cast spells on. Because there's no agency around when secrets activate, for instance, they don't really add interactivity directly. That means that the game largely comes down to just guessing which options your opponent has and running with it.

in MTG, because you have things like abilities that you can use during your opponent's turn, instances, and because the defender declares blockers, there are more points of interaction and more places for you to try to outplay your opponent. Even if there are still only ~5 top-tier decks in any given format, the match ups individually are going to be far more interesting b/c there's more gameplay skill involved.

[BROseidon]

Also at first I thought guaranteed mana was an implicitly good thing, but now I don't really think that's the case >.>

[BROseidon]

Also, lol "Reno killed aggro": https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/deck ... orc-shaman

Best part about it is the deck is also super economy (1 epic, 2 rares, rest are commons/class cards)

[BROseidon]

I kind of want Golden Monkey decks to become a thing...

[BROseidon]

The other big thing(and MtG was getting away from it as I was getting away from MtG because it's unfun) is resource denial. There's no way to interfere with the opponents resources.

Land-destro decks being viable is super toxic. The only reason to print those cards is for sideboard tech in limited against splashes.

[BROseidon]

http://i.imgur.com/tHHYqpW.jpg

This game is dumb >.>

[BROseidon]

Discard is substantially less toxic, though, and you largely don't build entire strategies around it.

[BROseidon]

You also don't have shit like counterspells to protect your wincon.

[BROseidon]

Aggro Shaman is dumb.

[BROseidon]

It's good to climb ladder with because it's both super strong AND gets through games quickly.

[BROseidon]

Teched Jeeves into my Aggro Shaman - shit is definitely worth, he is making games where I would otherwise come up just short winnable.

[BROseidon]

Aggro Shammy continues to be fun as fuck.

[BROseidon]

Jeeves is becoming my favorite card.

[BROseidon]

Just made a ZooLock deck to complete a daily.

Holy shit ZooLock is easy. Deck basically plays itself.

[BROseidon]

List I'm currently running:

2x Earth Shock
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Rockbiter Weapon
2x Cogmaster
2x Tunnel Trogg
2x Crackle
2x Annoy-o-Tron
2x Flametongue Totem
2x Mechwarper
1x Totem Golem
1x Whirling Zap-o-Matic
2x Powermace
2x Spider Tank
2x Unbound Elemental
1x Jeeves
2x Piloted Shredder
1x Fire Elemental

List I'm going for:

2x Lightning Bolt
2x Rockbiter Weapon
2x Cogmaster
2x Tunnel Trogg
2x Crackle
2x Annoy-o-Tron
2x Mechwarper
2x Totem Golem
2x Whirling Zap-o-Matic
2x Lava Burst
2x Powermace
2x Spider Tank
1x Jeeves
2x Piloted Shredder
1x Doomhammer
2x Fel Reaver

[BROseidon]

Just crafted my Lava Bursts. Earth Shocks are out!

[BROseidon]

Wow Lava Burst makes this so much easier.

[BROseidon]

Bug?

[BROseidon]

Wow, that's a far more aggressive/low curve list than I'm running.

[BROseidon]

Basically 2-4 mana taunt minions with high health are very strong

[BROseidon]

So who's ready for MurlocShaman!

[BROseidon]

Did the new wing come out?

The new tavern brawl is really fun.

Yup!

It's a pretty fun wing.

[BROseidon]

I'm several cards short of having a good murloc shammy :/

[BROseidon]

I just won 2 games in a row b/c my opponent dropped Dr. Balanced, but I just killed them the next turn.

The first of those required me to deal 54 damage because he reno balanced at 6 :/

[BROseidon]

that's random.

Aggro Shaman is ranked #1 on Tempostorm this week, and reddit is furious. I might actually agree, though. It's really satisfying beating a RenoLock deck that heals for 24+ because you just have so much fucking burst.

[BROseidon]

It's meaner.

[BROseidon]

AP play aggro shaman for free wins.

[BROseidon]

Do you have Archmage, Thaurissan, and Alexstraza?

[BROseidon]

Mad Scientist is pretty necessary, imo. Getting an ice barrier or ice block for 2 mana, along with the trade, is very strong anti-aggro tech.

And yeah Thaurissan

[BROseidon]

Also maybe a 2nd antique healbot?

[BROseidon]

I thought the whole point of Freeze Mage was abusing Thaurissan to get cheap spells for Antonidas.

That and using Alex to deal 15 damage.

[BROseidon]

I'd do a 2nd zombie chow to shut down how common Shaman Aggro is going to be for a while.

Also fuck Dr. 7. Fuck him so fucking hard. Even my non-gamer BF knows who Dr. 7 is because every time I see him I flip a fucking shit that that card was ever made.

[BROseidon]

Dr. 7 is actually just my least favorite design choice any game has ever made that isn't DotA, because fuck Techies, Invoker, and Anti-Mage.

[BROseidon]

Techies is the only character you can pick in any game that plays against both teams' wincons.

I wouldn't run Belcher - Aggro Shammy has way too many ways around it (Earth Shock, they have you in burn range anyway and laugh), and that and Aggro Druid are the two you should be building around. Too bad you can't run a third Anti Kill Bot.

[BROseidon]

Naxx OP

[BROseidon]

List I'm going for:

2x Lightning Bolt
2x Rockbiter Weapon
2x Cogmaster
2x Tunnel Trogg
2x Crackle
2x Annoy-o-Tron
2x Mechwarper
2x Totem Golem
2x Whirling Zap-o-Matic
2x Lava Burst
2x Powermace
2x Spider Tank
1x Jeeves
2x Piloted Shredder
1x Doomhammer
2x Fel Reaver

So I'm trying this list with -Jeeves, +Sir Finley, and it seems good. Obviously you want Life Tap from Finley, but there are several hero powers that help you aggro people to death, whereas Shaman power only lets you maybe get a relevant totem.

This list was made before Sir Finley was out. You absolutely need Sir Finley, although I'm not sure Jeeves is the correct cut (might be a Fel Reaver).

I would also go for Steady Shot before Life Tap.

[BROseidon]

Doomhammer is a finisher though. You want it at the end of your draw, and drawing 2 of them is very bad.

[BROseidon]

Given how frequently I see 2x of cards early on, that still makes me super nervous.

I've been running the deck sans doomhammers b/c I don't have them yet, and I can still pull out massive burst. I think the necessity of Doomhammer's finishing power is overstated a bit (at least at lower ranks on the ladder)

[BROseidon]

For the list I gave, would you cut a Powermace for a Doomhammer?

[BROseidon]

Double doomhammer my first day having them >.>

[BROseidon]

Turns out double doom hammer isn't bad to draw.

[BROseidon]

Yeah it's really broken.

[BROseidon]

I've only ever played one in my shaman builds. drawing a second is pretty bad since you wont be able to play it for like 3 turns.

The time I drew 2 was surprisingly not terrible. I think the card is just so bonkers good that having it be dead in your hand for a few turns isn't the end of the world.

[BROseidon]

I also find it bullshit that literally every Paladin I face gets Muster on turn 3, with a 50% chance of having a t2 knife juggler.

[BROseidon]

It still feels like they draw it way too much

[BROseidon]

They should still not see it about 43% of the time.

[BROseidon]

Unless I fucked my math

[BROseidon]

Still feels like I see it more often than that.

That's also assuming they don't hold any other cards (chows, shielded OPbots, Knife jugglers, etc)

[BROseidon]

Which sucks because muster for bullshit+shielded minibot are both bullshit cards, and there's a very high chance you'll see both of them every time you vs pally.

[BROseidon]

I've only ever played one in my shaman builds. drawing a second is pretty bad since you wont be able to play it for like 3 turns.

The time I drew 2 was surprisingly not terrible. I think the card is just so bonkers good that having it be dead in your hand for a few turns isn't the end of the world.

I won a game last night literally from only Doomhammer beats and a couple spells I think. 2 Doomhammers, I think rockbiter weapon at some point. I just never really drew into a my dudes. And the ones I did draw into got exploded.

Yeah, last night I won a game where I did like 3-4 damage with minions and literally the rest was burn+doomhammer.

[BROseidon]

Patron warrior looks like a kind of unfun deck to play. Sort of like BladeRouge, way too many weird decisions to make.

Now that I have Shaman Deck wins, mech version built (and I'll likely also build a Shaman Deck Wins, full aggro version to see how that one plays), I'm gonna play most that because I love RDW variants. Will probably go for RenoLock next.

[BROseidon]

Aggro Shaman is literally just RDW from Magic but dumber. Considering that RDW, Gruul beats, and Boros Deck Wins are my favorite deck types from MTG...

[BROseidon]

RIP

[BROseidon]

Dr. 7 is still the worst card ever.

At least Muster for Bullshit sucks vs Mage.

[BROseidon]

That too.

I just hate it because it's very strong vs. Shaman Deck Wins.

[BROseidon]

Wow, Rafaam fucking sucked the first fight.

[BROseidon]

t2 shielded mini t3 muster t4 concecrate.

Paladins are bullshit.

[BROseidon]

Implosion is dumb.

Damage it deals and #imps should be inversely related, not directly related.

[BROseidon]

Since when was control not viable? Two of the top decks in the pre-reno meta were Control Warrior and handlock. Control was already quite strong.

It doesn't mean "aggro has to kill you in 5 turns" it actually just makes aggro play in a non-aggro style. In a meta with reno pushing for damage is ALWAYS incorrect. It forces aggro decks to play a board control game they're not suited for because they have a better chance of winning that then winning a game where you sell out for damage just to see your opp gain 26 on turn 6.

There's a reason hunter is pretty much stone unplayable right now.

Or you have to play a deck that can put out 30 damage in 5-6 turns, or still burst through a Reno drop

This is why Aggro Shaman is still viable.

[BROseidon]

The problem with Reno is that it makes any aggro not attached to Shaman unviable.

[BROseidon]

Reno is just OP right now - make Reno cost 2 mana more and it's probably fine.

[BROseidon]

The alternative is, like TSQ said, make aggro have a reasonable chance of killing by turn 5, which you can't do w/o breaking the game on non-Shaman.

[BROseidon]

There's a reason hunter is pretty much stone unplayable right now.

HunterZoo sounds really dumb.

[BROseidon]

I guess that works, but it also relies on you drawing a legendary

[BROseidon]

I feel like Paladin is just the best class for arena because you have so many cards that trade super efficiently.

[BROseidon]

Like, shielded minibot, keeper of uldaman, etc

[BROseidon]

Seriously Muster for Bullshit is so dumb of a card.

[BROseidon]

Paladin - I'll t2 minibot, t3 muster. Surely I will win.

Me - I'm still broken, so no.

[BROseidon]

I don't actually know why Deathlord would be a good card in anything other than, like, RenoLock or Zoo or some shit.

[BROseidon]

I guess against more aggressive aggro it's pretty good. It does fuckall vs mech-shell shaman in my experience.

[BROseidon]

Does FaceHunter run Highmane?

[BROseidon]

Do you hard mull for Scientist?

[BROseidon]

Also, I would run Sir Finley.

[BROseidon]

Finley is the best card in the game from a design perspective.

[BROseidon]

Hunter is generally pretty weak right now, but secret pally is still pretty common. It's a pretty clearly T1 deck (part of why I love mech-shell shaman is that it has a good matchup there)

[BROseidon]

What are you seeing right now?

[BROseidon]

No - I don't have all the legends necessary.

I think you probs don't have to go highlander with it, though. Semi-highlander should work.

[BROseidon]

I would also go 2 Arcane Ints?

[BROseidon]

Needs more legends.

[BROseidon]

Elise!

[BROseidon]

jk, it probs doesn't need any more legends.

[BROseidon]

Oh my god that sounds dumb.

[BROseidon]

I might try out Elise control warrior. I wonder if I have all the parts for fatigue warrior...

[BROseidon]

fwiw Tempostorm is saying to include Elise in control warrior.

[BROseidon]

The point of Elise is that you don't actually run win cons anymore (other than Dr. 7 because fuck that guy).

I feel like Elise + Reno would be pretty good.

[BROseidon]

I would like to try my hand at a control deck, but they require too many expensive cards (and I don't like disenchanting shit that isn't excess)

[BROseidon]

I think you need to play more Priest, Mage, and Warrior.

Answers for daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaays

[BROseidon]

I would like to try my hand at a control deck, but they require too many expensive cards (and I don't like disenchanting shit that isn't excess)

Try priest?

I think its relatively inexpensive. It doesnt need any class legendaries at least. Voljin is good but not required.

Dr. 7.

[BROseidon]

If you plan on playing hearthstone at all competitively you need to craft boom. Just get it over with.

That requires having enough dust.

Also I could just play aggro forever.

[BROseidon]

Running 3 of the same deck type in conquest is actually good if you expect 1 deck of each opponent to have a weakness to that deck type.

"Overloading your checks" is a kind of cool concept.

[BROseidon]

Yeah, that's true.

Basically, it's good if you expect the most common deck to be weak to Aggro. If most people are running 3 decks that have strong match ups vs. aggro, it becomes bad.

[BROseidon]

With "Last Hero Standing," you have to bring decks to cover your weaknesses. With Conquest, it favors trying to overload a single one of their decks.

[BROseidon]

Last Hero Standing!

Or best of n with a new deck each time from both players.

[BROseidon]

One deck best of n doesn't ~really~ work with the way Hearthstone tournaments are done and with how binary Hearthstone is (I think they're better in MTG)

[BROseidon]

yeah. Control warrior vs. freezemage is sure a skill game.

100-0 match ups are fun!

[BROseidon]

Like Hearthstone having a 100-0 matchup is hilarious

[BROseidon]

My benchmark for how bad a matchup you can have while still having it be vaguely acceptable is Luigi vs. Falco in SSBM.

It's hilarious how consistently worse some match ups are in Hearthstone.

[BROseidon]

Built a Control Priest deck. Dont have Justicar or a few other key components, though :/

[BROseidon]

Murloc Knight just gave me 3 tiny fins in a row.

[BROseidon]

Still won.

[BROseidon]

Started this run 0-2, am now 7-2.

Double Murloc Knight is very dumb.

[BROseidon]

And I just ran into reno in Arena. fml.

[BROseidon]

Switched off of mech-shell to regular aggro shaman.

I'm liking this a lot more.

[BROseidon]

Sprint is a god-tier card

[BROseidon]

I'd be down to get rekt.

[BROseidon]

I would be down with nerfing Reno to 7-8 mana.

[BROseidon]

Is it the pokemon tcg?

[BROseidon]

@BRO: Ya, its just the TCG. They have done a really good job with the app/site though.

The Pokemon TCG is pretty dumb iirc.

[BROseidon]

Poker is pretty consistent because of the many iterations thing. Laddering in hearthstone has a similar effect, but tourneys being bo3 effectively makes them pretty high variance.

[BROseidon]

God damn man, unstable portal is so fucking good. Like sometimes it becomes a Bluegill Murloc and whatever at least it replaced it self. But when it becomes a Confessor Paletress, it's ridiculous. Just played a turn 6 Confessor into inspire, spawning Brann Bronzebeard, into a turn 7 Dr Boom for 4 Boombots for the old 11/11 for 7. Happy Feast of Winterveil!

Unstable portal is a stupidly OP card.

It ranges from "okay" to "wins you the game" in power.

[BROseidon]

Like, on a long time scale hearthstone pros and poker pros both do wildly better than average players. There's a reason that the same players consistantly do well in top tournaments. I don't know if you've ever watched someone like Sjow ladder, but he's just so much better than even a "good" hearthstone player, to the point where it takes him maybe a week or two to grind to legend each month. Poker likely has a much higher level of variance, because the swings can be much longer. You need a bankroll of approximately 20k to bring your chances of busting out to less that 5% if you're playing 200 max buy in games. I would be shocked if hearthstone were ever close to that.

Anyone who thinks that poker has less variance over say a hand or a set of hands then (or whatever is equivalent to a match) than a hearthstone match you're crazy. In terms of a best of 3, I would say you're way more likely to win a bo3 match because of skill than you are to be profitable in any given hour long session of poker.

The problem with this is that a hearthstone tournament is comparable to a pro poker tournament, and that pro poker tournament plays a crazy number of hands relative to the hearthstone one.

You're right that an individual hearthstone game is way less variance than a single hand of poker, but poker compensates by playing way, way more hands.

[BROseidon]

Fishing is the worst thing in WoW ever.

[BROseidon]

Also, draft paladin deck - don't think the deck will hit 3 wins. Proceed to get 9 wins.

BALANCED.

[BROseidon]

lol

[BROseidon]

Choose Paladin or Rogue.

[BROseidon]

Paladin has so many stupid cards that trade positively.

[BROseidon]

Paladin is #1, rogue is #2. I forget what 3 is.

Shaman is shit-tier.

[BROseidon]

Warrior's strength is directly proportional to how many fiery war-axes you grt

[BROseidon]

Warrior is also mid tier.

[BROseidon]

The problem with Shaman and Hunter is that they are classes that generally value aggro, and it's hard to draft a strong aggro deck that will punch through hard enough to kill.

[BROseidon]

Rogue also has a good matchup vs pally, which is big once you hit like 6 wins and suddenly everything is pally

[BROseidon]

Murloc Knight popping a Murloc Knight against you feels so shitty.

[BROseidon]

Aggro is best for climbing quickly, since you can churn out more games.

[BROseidon]

Wow I threw together a dragon pally deck for ladder and lived the dream in my 2nd game.

T3 Brann.
T4 Coin -> Dragon Consort
T5 Ysera

Phenomenal cosmic power111111

ESPORTS!

[BROseidon]

Aggro shaman without those two is unplayable.

[BROseidon]

Tunnel trogg especially - it gives you such a massive threat on the 1-drop slot.

[BROseidon]

Also the issue isn't that it's op, but that out fundamentally changes the most intrinsic and interesting hs game decision, which is face vs trade. It makes face almost always incorrect, which in turn means decks built around aggression are bad.

Or you just kill them before they can drop Reno.

But yeah Reno is a terrible card.

[BROseidon]

Win Axe is the best Arena card.

[BROseidon]

Warrior's strength in Arena is literally "how many weapons did you get"

[BROseidon]

Such strong tempo and card advantage.

[BROseidon]

Play faceshaman. The deck is the dumbest thing ever.

[BROseidon]

I only have my 3 tourney decks, mech deck wins, and the Mage I'm using for BRM

[BROseidon]

I don't have enough cards to have fancy decks :/

[BROseidon]

#balanced

[BROseidon]

I will ask you again for the deck list llamarble!

YOU'RE NOT MAJIFFY.

[BROseidon]

NO U

[BROseidon]

You could also play warrior.

[BROseidon]

I just found out that face hunter is pretty good against Agro Shaman

It comes down to draw - both decks are super binary and dependent on what they draw.

That said, I think Aggro Shammy has the better end of the matchup. Wolves are fucking stupid, and it can lose board and just burn more easily.

[BROseidon]

I went with a mage with tons of aoe clear and ping-when-comes-in guys, and Shade.

[BROseidon]

I played a guy who played the battlecry strat.

I won.

[BROseidon]

I got my win with a budget deck.

[BROseidon]

Just reading that list tilted me.

[BROseidon]

~Tilted~

[BROseidon]

Why is face hunter still a thing.

Because its the only way I know how to grind to legend when Im not running pre-GvG demonlock.

Play Shaman Deck Wins.

It's like face hunter but better.

[BROseidon]

Good. Fuck Paladin's current broken state

[BROseidon]

I don't think Face Shaman loses that much, tbh.

[BROseidon]

Actually that depends. Are we losing BRM?

[BROseidon]

Yeah shit all of Shaman's good shit is Classic/Grand Tournament/LoE, with Lava Shock being BRM.

[BROseidon]

I think Face Shaman loses Crackle from GvG, and that's all they care about? So that's 28 cards the deck gets to keep. So Face Shaman is losing one burn card, and all of Face Shaman's opponents are losing Annoy-o-tron, Sludge Belcher, and Antique Healbot.

Also Leper Gnome, come to think about it.

Neither of which are really ~that~ important.

[BROseidon]

~Dragonstorm~

[BROseidon]

The combo needs to completely die for druids to get internal diversity tbh.

[BROseidon]

And you can still Thaurissan it.

[BROseidon]

Thaurissan is BRM, though, so that'll rotate out. I don't know if the Combo is broken in the absolute, but it is by far Druid's best wincon.

It completely limits the druid design space because you always have to account for Druid's ability to burst from 14 with no board from two cards.

At least Shaman and Mage have to (generally) commit more cards or more time to hit that level of burst/stupid.

[BROseidon]

It's not about whether druid is "good" or "bad."

It's about how Blizzard is limited in terms of what they can give druid because the combo exists.

[BROseidon]

The combo is bad because it prevents druid from getting other interesting cards.

[BROseidon]

You're really not getting the point...

[BROseidon]

It's not a question of balance. It's not even really that much of a question of how fun or unfun it is to play against.

It's 100% a question of how it homogenizes druid and makes it impossible for Blizzard to take Druid in any direction other than "things that set up combo"

[BROseidon]

Warsong commander was a balance change. That's a different issue.

[BROseidon]

And nerfing the combo LETS blizzard release new cards that change how druid is played.

[BROseidon]

Nerfing the combo takes out possibly four cards, but that still leaves 12 cards from basic/classic that are auto-includes in druid, which still feels like a lot. Druid isn't going to stop playing Innervate, Wild Growth, Wrath, Swipe, Druid of the Claw, or Ancient of Lore. In a deck that can only have 30 cards, locking down 12 of them feels like a lot, still.

The point is that nerfing Commander was explicitly

because

it was OP as fuck. Nerfing the combo isn't because it's OP.

[BROseidon]

No, I get it, and I approve of the idea that Druids should have a different build- that's the point of rotation, to make the decks that are good more dynamic. My point isn't that banning the combo shouldn't happen, or that it's OP- it's that Druids are going to have nearly half a deck of auto-includes from the basic/classic cards. If nothing else, taking out the combo doesn't shake Druids up enough.

I'm not really sure what you do, though.

Wild Growth and Innervate are core to the class. Wrath and Swipe are your bread-and-butter removal. Ancient of Lore is just a stupidly versatile card. Not sure that Druid of the Claw has to be auto-include, though - I don't think it's actually that great.

[BROseidon]

I think you'd basically have to make a bunch of "kind of similar but not quite" cards to Wild Growth and Innervate and cycle between them.

[BROseidon]

The difference is that innervate is wayyyyyyyy better than Fireball.

Also that's kind of unfair to Shaman and Hunter because both only really have 1 archtype.

[BROseidon]

1. Fireball isn't even the most obvious staple for mage, I've seen certain decks that only run x1 or none at all(certain types of Dragon Mage for example). It's Frostbolt that is the even bigger staple for mage. Can you really say though that cards like Fiery War Axe for Warrior, Northshire cleric and the other 50 auto-include priest cards, Eviscerate for Rogue, etc, are fundamentally any different from innervate?

Northshire Cleric is an issue like Innervate is. The rest are fine because they're generic removal, which are going to be in every deck no matter what.

[BROseidon]

Like, yeah, you could rotate out frostbolt, but you'd just have to give mages some other form of "2 mana to deal 3 damage" removal.

[BROseidon]

I would definitely play for board control at that point. In terms of what the ~correct~ play for board control, probably drop Mech and coin out horse-bro, and use the horse-bro and the weapon to clear the scarlet-bro. If he pings horse-bro, you come out ahead in tempo and can likely either use mechwarper+weapon to kill the mana wyrm next turn or trade wolf rider into it.

[BROseidon]

lollllllllll

[BROseidon]

BGH saw plenty of play before Boom, he'll still be a staple tech card. Handlock won't be so rare since it retains basically its entire core post-rotation. Alex, Grom, Nefarian, giants, Rag, Geddon will all still be pretty good targets IMO, plus whatever 7+ atk minions come in afterwards

Basically this.

Control decks and midtempo decks will always have big guys. BGH will still be used to dunk them.

[BROseidon]

Wait Lava Shock unlocks your crystals for next turn too?

Yeah, it unlocks anything that is currently locked, whether on the current turn or for next turn.

[BROseidon]

Guys I think I discovered what Astral Communion is for.

[BROseidon]

4 mana draw 10 endgame card waaaaaaaat

[BROseidon]

Play better!

[BROseidon]

Also more 2 drops.

2 drops are EVERYTHING in arena.

[BROseidon]

Turn 5 win in arena.

Real.

[BROseidon]

Tbh I like those changes, although I think that the nerf to keeper is a bit harsh (2/3 would probably be fine)

[BROseidon]

the blade flurry change makes the card unplayable.

Is 2 mana and not going face that harsh of a nerf?

[BROseidon]

I like most of the nerfs, frankly, but I don't know that Blade Flurry or Master of Disguise really needed to be nerfed. Keeper was overnerfed, I think, and I'm curious why I shouldn't just play Azure Drake over Ancient of Lore now.

Re the last question: versatility, especially since Druid doesn't benefit that much from spell damage

[BROseidon]

Other than swipe and wrath

[BROseidon]

I'm pretty happy to see Knife Juggler and Leper Gnome get nerfed, since aggro has been too strong for a bit now; control has basically managed to survive by taking advantage of tools like Sludge Belcher that are rotating out, and this should help keep the playing field level.

lol

Aggro has not been too strong.

[BROseidon]

Azure Drake isn't getting changed. It's just the comparison card for the effect. Azure Drake is a 4/4 draw 1 spellpower 1 for 5, while Ancient is a 5/5 draw 1 for 7. You're basically paying 2 mana for +1/+1 stats and the option to trade draw 1 for heal 5 and losing spellpower. Not a great tradeoff, especially since Drake is a neutral and Ancient's a class card.

Yeah, ancient should go down to 5. That way it also fights with DotC instead of... the nothing that exists on 7.

[BROseidon]

Also, the Leper Gnome nerf should have been to its death rattle instead of its attack :/

[BROseidon]

I hate how much Hearthstone players hate aggro. Aggro is the only playstyle that I actually like.

[BROseidon]

I actually don't really mind aggro that much. I hate playing as aggro, but "fair" aggro decks like face hunter I don't mind, and it's probably good for the meta game that decks like that exist. It's the ridiculous fart-out-a-win decks like Secret Paladin or Face Shammy that I really hate and want to see gone.

Face Shammy actually requires a decent amount of skill to manage overload and when to contest board vs. GO FACE.

[BROseidon]

with reno being so pervasive, I think aggro is fine? Idk I'm not great but It just feels the aggro nerfs are not great. And I think Face is good to have in the meta because they are mega cheap for new players. Midrange and control cost 7k+ dust, but those face decks cost less than 3k. Face cost 1k or less. Idk i just feel they are pricing out new players by nerfing good fast cards like juggler and leper gnome

I've never seen master of disguise in anything so idk why they touched it.

Also a lack of Aggro means that control decks can get super, super fucking greedy.