Can we talk about unhealthy play patterns?

Multiplayer Discussion
1

So, I think we need to bring a spotlight to some very unhealthy play patterns that are emerging, at least at the highest level of play. If for no other reason than to possibly bring it to the forefront so Blizzard doesn’t miss it in their first round of nerfs.

There’s two decks right now, one more established, the other is nascent, but both are toxic. I know you are thinking armor dh, and yes I agree that decks play plan is toxic, but it’s so popular I don’t think we need to shine the spotlight on it.

The decks I’m referring to are

  1. Murmur shaman
  2. Drake warrior

I’ll briefly describe how each of these decks works in case you haven’t faced them yet. I’ll describe the toxic part in as much detail as possible.

Murmur shaman is a direct effect of armor dh and leech dk. Both these two decks have so much infinite value and sustain that any deck with finite damage output is invalidated. So people started experimenting with other win conditions and thus murmur shaman was born. The entire point of murmur shaman is to abuse a few things

  1. Mana gain battlecry from ysera
  2. Murmur
  3. Sudderblock for a win condition or mana gain
  4. Turning spells into minions
  5. Location that discounts battlecry minions by 1 effectively allowing zero cost minions (sounds like a recurring problem no?)

This then results in turn 5 or turn 6 plays that amount to an average of 40 mana played, in some cases (personal anecdote) closer to 100 mana.

The effects can be largely random but there are so many effects, the 8 plus mana minion pool is so stacked that this can simply be a non game no matter what the other player does. There’s no reasonable way to answer this deck, and so whenever you face it you just sit there and see what they roll and if they take the game.

The second deck that warrants discussion is drake warrior, that runs the 12/7 drake as the only minion. The idea is to use feast to summon this drake turn 3 or 4, and if your opponent doesn’t have an answer their done. Even if they do answer this drake, it can be copied as well as resurrected. This deck is beyond toxic, it’s equivalent to decks we have had in the past were priests cheated out two 12/12s turn 3 or 4, except in this case the twelve attack minion likely hits the turn it is summoned. Such decks in the past were emergency nerfed, so I hope Blizzard is aware of this deck and will nerf it immediately.

That’s all folks, enjoy your meta!

4 Likes
2

I faced that nasty iteration of dragon warrior with food fight and big tempo swing capabilities on day two while I was trying to cook exodia priest. I played a few murmur shaman as well but I just get bored because I played way too many murmur before rotation and won’t bother with the current iteration because I just get bored with old decks (the same thing happened with location Zerg lock and discover Zerg hunter).I can’t find any enjoyable decks atm, I’d rather play meme decks and having fun while maintaining negative winrate than playing boring meta decks rn, imbue hunter was quite refreshing deck to play but the play pattern is just as egregious as the other archetype spawning out this expansion.

3

Add Murmur Shaman to the list of foul decks to play against. That deck is another atrocity. I swear the degeneracy in this game wont stop.

4

Mumur shaman is just a reskinned dungar druid with better removal options which was in the game for months and they did nothing to it (mabye they did some side nerfs I dont remember). They continually allow at least one of these turn 5/6 mana cheat decks (big spell mage cries out from the graveyard) to be in the game at all times.

Really the toxic play patterns come down to abusable mana cheat which they never seem to have a handle on. They seem to love these explosive mana cheat decks but for the health of the game I would suggest they create a formula to cap the amount of cheat in the midgame (think turn 5/6) or these decks will continue to take over the game.

5

The dragon Warrior needs a fix. I didn’t meet them in my last 10 games to legendary though.

6

The dev team are bunch of worthless mouth breathers, don’t expect them to fix anything

2 Likes
7

The food fight dragon war is a lame deck. I just concede when they play it and move on , if I’m feeling vindictive I rope them. It’s always funny to me to see a diamond or gold 10 trying to exploit a deck days before reset. Good on them for still trying. I feel like the majority of the players that flock to overturned decks for free wins are not monthly legendary players.

Maybe it’s just me but I always get the vibe these people playing these decks think they are cutting edge or something. Like wow you played food fight , oh wow it puts a minion on my side that’s different, oh whoa you killed it and it summoned your dragon!!! Wow you are amazing what a feat.

Any play with no real counter play is just boring. I can only image the people playing those decks are just wins needy and are hoping to squeeze out a higher rank for march? I can’t imagine anyone enjoys them.

8

You shall also add imbue Hunter to the list. Plush with double damage is certainly unhealthy.

Also, the protoss with charge should also be changed to rush instead.

Wasn’t charge removed because it was not good for the game? Why the **** do they want to bring it back?

1 Like
9

Food Fight Warrior is probably the only netdeck I made before ever facing it or realizing it’s a netdeck xD

I didn’t make it nearly as good as they did, though, for sure

10

Drungar druid is still a thing too. Just got recked by trun 5 by one summoning the big as* dragons and what not.

2 Likes
11

And yet people are going crazy over leech dk and armor dh, but are willfully blind against uninteractive patterns like these. I cannot comprehend this.

12

I believe it’s a popularity thing. Armor DH and Leech DK are very popular, thus people complain more. Once Murmur Shaman’s popularity increases, I assure you people will also start complaining about it.

1 Like
13

Not sure about those labels of “abusive” and “unhealthy”. They seem like psychological labels and therefore automatically extremely subjective and with low technical substance. The win rate of such decks is often bad so what exactly is “abusive” if they lose?

15

They hurt their mind so bad that they cry and don’t even think about how to counter it (even if it’s obvious). That’s “abusive” for them. Or maybe when their favorite class can’t counter them easily.

PS: I’m only referring to decks that don’t have a high win rate.

1 Like
16

Personal opnion here.

The first probably needs a mana cost nerf and that is it a combo too big and too fast despite of not that good of a deck.

But i really don’t see that much of a problem with the second and if we end nerfing it i would be happy with just reducing the attack of the attack of the drake to a sane amount like 6 or 8(12 is probably too much).
While it isn’t the healthiest deck to exist it is important to let people have agency on how they play their game and this includes building around cards you weren’t supposed to rather than let blizzard control everything.

If they don’t change the attack other alternative is to make it a start of turn effect so people get some time to remove it before the first hit.

17

Its abusive because it uses a redundant mechanic that is highly reliant on RNG. However tudor cards make it too consistent. Does it lose ? yes Does it lose due to RNG more often than being “out skilled” by another player? yes. Is it annoying and boring? yes Do most of laugh at players piloting these decks trying to scramble to make legendary late in the month? yes

The major disconnect in this thread is a complete misunderstanding and overvaluation of a win rate.

18

Both these decks need an emergency nerf, shaman needs it incredibly badly. There’s few decks that have been as toxic as this deck in the history of Hearthstone

Let’s take grunter Hunter from last set, arguably the most toxic deck the dev team never deemed worthy of a nerf and multiply toxicity by about ten, and we are approximately at murmur shaman levels

19

I haven’t actually seen them anymore but i will admit when i did see them i felt like they weren’t Benefiting from the scam you knw what i mean

They go 6 or 7 turns not playing anything most of the time!

20

I think we are playing in different brackets, I’m about 130 rank, and they pop off turn 5 or 6 consistent.

1 Like
21

You’re in WHAT rank! I didn’t know u were a demon like that