Just for info, top legend is the first page leaderboard or top 16, top 20, depending on whom you ask.
Someone at rank 10 has an insanely higher “elo” rating, hidden mmr than someone at legend 100.
I don’t find you on hearthstone.tv, unless you are from Malaysia?
https://hearthstone.tv/ladder/player/aKiSera
But then again my forum account isn’t my main account either.
Unlike Marco, I accept that someone at rank 200 has more knowledge of the rank 200+ meta than most people. However, you are part of the 0,01 percent of Hearthstone best players and I don’t think we should balance HS around the few.
Priest will for example remain comparatively (the accent is on the last word) unpopular as long as Warlock runs amok outside of high legend - this is the reality for most people.
That’s why I believe we need to mainly centre the meta around dia 4-1 where the casual and new people, and everyone else still tries to reach legend for the first time.
I hope they announce these nerfes and buffs this time. Last two times they have been stealth added so people have not have a chance to de Ysera and watchpost legendary
Not really wrong but I need to give a warn to that line of thinking.
People at high legend have an idea of the main impacts of changes and while you not balance the game around they.
Most of what they warn people out that can happen actually happen in general.
And let’s be real:
Legend is more fun when the metagame isn’t perfect either.
Why?
Everyone trying to get an gap over the other is more competitive than just people playing random decks.
It is true that the meta knowledge is far more advanced in high legend and thus some changes will affect the rest of the ladder as well, but certain archetypes will always be played more everywhere else on the ladder than in high legend, namely aggro and “fun archetypes” (Facehunter and Tickatus Warlock as representatives, while gold is full of janky value decks.
I not sure about nerf tickatus because if I really had to do an move over tickatus warlock as a dev I would:
Be incredible upset.
Be sure to cut the evil from it’s roots.
In other words:
I would early rotate tickatus to make sure it literally get out of standard.
Why?
Just imagine if you nerf tickatus and the deck not move a single % in playrate…
It sure isn’t Winrate that makes people play it.
I also would determine to mill decks return to be an actual archtype that gets developed just because the public is here and it’s clear the game population is starved for it.
That would be nice, but I hope they will take the opportunity to change game mechanics and modify most Mana discount cards (all of them except for those that only affect themselves or those that have a limited, already inexpensive pool) to have the “but no less than (1)” clause.
They don’t even have to offer Arcane Dust refunds if it is conveyed to be a mechanical change, which it is.
Consider the Discover nerf, or the nerf to cards to no longer randomly generate themselves. They aren’t especially comparable because card text didn’t change, but this is the type of change we are discussing, one that yielded no refunds.
I believe nerfing those would harm more than help the game at this time, particularly given that most of them are broad enough to serve very different functions in different matchups.
They are also difficult to nerf by nature; both 2 Mana and no discount are likely to kill all the Studies.
I do think they should keep an eye on them, though more sets will nerf their consistency passively.
If they announce the nerfs now, people will complain about them (and about them not being out yet) until the patch. The complaints will mostly die when the patch comes out. They simply chose between a week+ of complaining and a few days of complaining.
Mankrik is the likelier target, given his play rate and potential use in numerous archetypes and classes, and the ridiculous highroll potential if you draw Olgra, Mankrik’s Wife within the next three turns of playing him.
As Schyla said, the Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred token will probably be hit, perhaps changed to a 3/6 or 3/7 body.