A potential solution to the Zephyrs algorithm problem: A search bar

Multiplayer Discussion
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I’m sure everyone here is aware of the “Zephyrs Algorithm issue”, and if you aren’t, you either don’t play with Zeph much or have gotten lucky (and not by Hearthstone standards of lucky, just real life standards of not getting screwed over lol). What I mean by this, for those who don’t know, is Zephyrs doesnt actually give you the perfect card. When I say this, I don’t mean “oh man it didn’t offer me Mass Dispel so that I could silence his Astromancer Solarian and also draw me a card!”, since that’s something Zeph’s algorithm probably doesnt understand (and would take a lot of coding to get). I mean when my opponent has a 6/2 on board and I’m at 6 life, and instead of offering me a Holy Smite or Radiance for me to play with 1 mana left, it offers me three 8 mana cards (made a post about this yesterday).

Why is this a problem? Zephyrs should always give you “the perfect card”. You are paying a big cost to include it in your deck (only playing one ofs is a big sacrifice when there are plenty of cards you would like to play two of, no matter the class) so the reward better be good. And honestly, it is really good. 2 mana for a 3/2 body that can also give me the perfect card for the situation? Seems great! Except when it isnt… I shouldn’t ever hesitate to play this card, because I think to myself “I really hope it’s algorithm doesn’t screw me over, and it actually gives me ‘____’”. And this is a thought that many people have, including many streamers I have watched playing with Zephyrs. People shouldn’t lose games because they set up a Zeph perfectly, getting down to 1 mana to hope to get Holy Smite or something, and you just don’t receive it. While this might be the case with Puzzlebox (lose because you play it and the outcome isn’t good), but Zephyrs, in theory, shouldnt be random. It should give you the perfect card.

How do I propose we fix this? It’s honestly pretty simple… a search bar. When you play Zeph, a search bar pops up that allows you to search for any card (in the Classic set that isn’t Hall of Famed) and add it to your hand. This would exclude certain things like Shadowstep or Youthful Brewmaster. This would be a better solution for two reasons: One, it actually would take skill to use. It tests your knowledge of Hearthstone cards. You can also see some situations that Zeph doesnt see, such as the importance of silencing a Teron Gorefiend or healing yourself so you don’t die to Grom + Inner Rage. Two, You don’t lose the game because of the algorithm screwing up. If you’re playing this card, you should have a pretty good idea of what you want anyway, and when Zeph doesnt offer you that, it can be upsetting and rather tilting. This system prevents that entirely.

We also has to address potential issues in this solution. Honestly, I can only think of one. But it is a big one. People abusing Zeph to do things outside of it’s purpose. In it’s current iteration, you are only able to get cards that are good in the current situation, and his algorithm prevents you from doing things like setting up two turn lethal based on cards in your hand (which I believe is a good thing). But with a search bar, Zeph just becomes “add any card to your hand”, which is rather unfair if you use it to do things like add Sorcerous Apprentice to your hand to set up a combo or Altruis because you didn’t draw yours and want to go off next turn with Twin Slice. Maybe this could be fixed by having a banned list of cards you cant get, because why would Sorcerous Apprentice ever be the perfect card besides to set up a combo? I’m not sure.

What do you guys think? I know this was VERY long, but I had a lot of thoughts in my head. Zephyrs is one of my favorite cards. When original Reno Jackson came out, I only played Reno decks for it’s entirety of Standard. Now that Zeph and Alex are out, I’m doing the same thing. I think the card is awesome, and props to the devs for coding it as well as they have. But I for one am tired of losing games at high legend because of the algorithm issues that Zeph has sometimes, and would like to find a potential solution. Thanks to everyone for reading and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

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I get the logic behind getting the “perfect card”, but that takes it a stretch too far.

Right now Zephyr is already one of the most powerful cards in the game, the cost (running singleton) is not that high, and managing your mana to actually influence the discovery to optimize the algorithm can be skill testing, which in my opinion is a good way to at least balance a bit its power.

That’s my opinion though.

4 Likes
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The search bar idea isn’t any good. Zep does need some tuning though. He has refused multiple times to give me SW:P an I figured it’s a bug.

If they update classic Zep will get a huge boost though. I already have enjoyed SW:R an the cheaper Holy Nova from Priest so far. There classic legendary is ok, but not as impactful as those 2 above.

Now imagine if all classes got updated, the dream.

1 Like
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Might be good in theory but the UI coding makes it unrealistic.

On the Zeph wiki page it says designers originally wanted a search bar but the technical side protested against it.

He certainly doesn’t always offer the best card. Sometimes even offers a clearly sub-optimal choice for a given task. I was once offered assassinate instead of black knight to kill a big taunt with 6 mana left, for example.

People shouldn’t focus so much on the “perfect” word and just accept that he gives 3 pretty good choices for a given board state.

3 Likes
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That’s fair. The only response I have for that, is influencing the discovery to optimize the algorithm should in theory work. And it’s something I do a lot. But the fact that it sometimes doesnt work is a problem in my opinion. The post I made yesterday, to be more specific, was I had 7 mana, played a 4 mana card to go to 3, and then Zeph to have 1 mana left, and it still didnt give me a Holy Smite to kill my opponent’s 6/2. Which is why I think this needs to potentially be reworked in a different way.

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In my view, one of the biggest skill checks for Zephrys is knowing how to set up the game board + your mana to force Zephrys into giving you the cards you want. This gets rid of that entirely, and replaces it with the amount of skill needed to alt-tab and search for Hearthstone cards online. I feel like it would turn Zephrys from an interesting, skill-testing card into the get out of jail free card its detractors claim it is.

2 Likes
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A search bar would be too clunky for a mobile game like HS; and casual player may not remember all the classis/base cards, or don’t know the name of those.

I find it a really bad solution in general: you can argue that a skilled player knows exactly what card to look for, and that a new player can’t play it brainlessly but have to think about it.
But in the end of the day, i will still find it this solution not very cool/practical.

A better solution woul be to give more control in the player hands, like with kazakus:
Play zephrys and choose one: minion or spell?
Then choose cost: low (1-3), mid(4-7), high(8-9)?
then it will offer you 3 cards: tempo, value, removal (or a combinations of these).
I think this would be a cleaner solutions, even if it would probably be bugged as well

3 Likes
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Yeah i dont think zephyrs need any kind of buff right now.

its already one of the strongest cards in the game, and the only skill it takes to play him are setting up the board/mana to manipulate it into giving what you want and you want to completely remove that?

Horrible idea.

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The way to fix Zephrys is to revert it back to what it did before when it actually recognized Deathrattle as a threat. Not being able to get Silence type cards as an option even with tutored mana is ridiculous. Many times I’ve wanted Mass Dispell only to get trash.

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Did you read the post? I feel like no one saying it’s a horrible idea actually read the post. I am not proposing we BUFF Zephyrs. But to FIX him. He messes up far too often and ruins the card. It isnt a test of kill or RNG or being OP, you just pray you get the right card and far too often it screws up, even after manipulating the mana, especially for a card that claims “wish for the perfect card”.

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I think the point is that zephyrs shouldnt be a 100% fail safe card, specially if you dont use it correctly.

Making it more reliable would be making it stronger, and it doesnt need to be stronger.

1 Like
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But that doesnt make sense. Sometimes it shouldnt give you the perfect card? Why? Especially if you set it up right it should reward you, not give you 3 different 8 drops unrelated to the situation

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Maybe you didnt set up the board correctly? Keep it in mind that your OWN board also matters.

Every single time ive needed an Aoe out of zephyrs either on 4/5 or 10 it has always given me.

And if i need a threat it always gives me either tirion or highmane as long as you play it into a empty/favorable board with 8/6 mana left.

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Z e p h r y s

If you want to sound smart enough to talk about the Zephrys algorithm, at least spell the name properly.

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Perfect Idea, would bring something to the table that hearthstone has not had in a while: Skill

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I think it would be too much though. I like more the suggestion to create a prompt to make it more specific, like you could prime Zephrys through initial choices (I want removal/value/healing, or low/medium/high cost card) - search bar would enable some potentially weird combos, like picking up Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Doomhammer or Antonidas as any class, on demand… I have no idea whether it could actually spawn some degenerate combos, but it definitely would require a lot of thought before buffing Zephrys like that, and that’s completely disregarding potential mobile UI issues.

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Exactly. It would skyrocket the power lvl of the card. You don’t get the “perfect” card, you can plan ahead with the full knowledge of the deck you are playing and the deck you are playing against.

  • I’m missing a combo piece. No problem I will Zephrys it.
  • I’m a mage. Let’s just get +spellpower or Anthonidas and blast my opponent with it. No need to put those cards in my deck. I’ll Zephrys them.
  • And I don’t even want to think about the rediculous plays you could do with rogue en shadowstep.
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one time my opponent had 6 health and after playing Zephrys I had four mana, I was making it so obvious to get a fireball spell but instead got some boardclears or smtg. like… WHAT??

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So you wanna buff the already extremely overpowered i-win-card?
No, thanks.