Cards like Kil'jaeden result in more player agency

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Thought I’d be positive in the new year and I wanted to highlight one card design that I think is somewhat in line with what Heathstone should be (as opposed to what it is.)

Kil’jaeden, while probably overtuned, is a card that leads to more player agency. Here is why I think so,

  1. The card requires making a judgment/decision on when to activate it. It is not a card with JUST an upside, it HAS a severe downside, which is it replaces your deck, which is likely full of removal and other cards you may need at some point. So you need to have gathered enough resources from your deck to be confident you can survive for your minions to overwhelm the opponent.

  2. It leads to board based play. Minions are traded, stolen, etc, but no one minion is a power outlier, even Unkilliax is not strong enough to stop the horde of demons.

  3. Some of the random minions require thought to play well. For example, there is a demon that steals a card from your opponent (when is it optimal to play?). There is a demon that bounces a minion back to hand (when is that optimal to play? Usually you can combine it with the 15/15 clear minion for strong board control.) There is a demon that creates random secrets, etc, etc. Overall, the minions are not themselves just bodies and have some powerful effects that require thought to play well. This ends up feeling like what arena SHOULD feel like (but doesn’t.)

Overall, I’m surprised I missed this card this expansions, I only crafted it recently, but keep up the good design on cards like this.

The only downside to this card is it can be punishing in a mirror-like control MU where one opponent drops Kil’jaeden much earlier than the other and just wins due to a higher +/+ buff per turn. But alas, nothing is perfect.

2 Likes
2

I like the card too, don’t have a decent deck for it atm though. Do you just like the card because you play Druid though? Have you tried playing it in a class that isn’t Druid?

1 Like
3

The card just prolongs games unnecessarily. Its mostly played in decks that draw their entire deck in a few turns (druid as a prime example, warrior too I guess) and then ruins the downside of fatigue damage that used to kill those decks forcing you to grind out a longer game as they drop 1 random demon over and over again every turn (or more than that if they saved some card draw).

I find it to be the exact opposite of what hearthstone should be as it circumvents the original design of fatigue damage for decks that draw out too fast and gives them an (alternate) way to win that they shouldn’t have and pretty much complete negates what was left of resource management.

It’s like the minion version of corpsicle if corpsicle gained +1 damage each turn and required no corpses to return to hand. Hard pass on cards like that.

Let me clarify by saying I think the card would have been fine as a class card for warlock… but as a neutral minion its awful.

4 Likes
4

It’s basically the best card in the game (Standard), for very slow decks. I was goofing around with slow cards like The 8 Hands for Beyond in Wild for achievements: and that card was just ending all games very efficiently.

It kills milling and it kills anyone who can’t lethal you within 2-3 turns.

OK maybe boomboss is still better, if it’s set up perfectly.

1 Like
5

nope it doesnt it just lets my opponent now “is time for you to start playing more minions !” if they beenfocused on removal for several turns and it can be used to set up a win condition by playing big minions
for this is better to run it on a warrior deck

hunter can use the discover hero power to draw

no idea where this “prolong games unnecessarily " comes from unless you meant " i lose to this !”

and is really good to make fatigue deck players cry!

6

I play it in my deathknight list, the goal behind the deck is to find the skull from the six mana hero so i can discover an undead and get a demon each turn after it is olayed for value. Warlocks do food with it due to their hero power being able to get two demons a turn is good.

1 Like
7

Yes because wheel lock doesnt abuse it at all…:joy:

1 Like
8

No it wont. Because if it becomes a problem for fatigue decks… they will just start running it xD

1 Like
9

Or its time they play their own kil jaden and now you’re locked in some boring 20 minute demon RNG battle.

Either that or ‘removal’ warrior is just fizzling ceaseless expanse and you’re stuck playing the same turn over and over again for 100 turns or however long the draw timer is.

You seem to always think this is some counter for ‘fatigue decks’… but its actually their win condition. Its the perfect hostage card because instead of those ‘fatigue decks’ dying to fatigue… now they just play demons into perpetuity when they run out of cards.

4 Likes
10

The thing about stating “X card has Y agency”, it would help to define agency, because the way I see it, it’s a zero sum game.

You don’t get agency in this game unless you steal agency from your opponent

If I’m playing an aggro deck against your KJ deck, some of my agency has been taken away from me. I can no longer count on fatique damage or outvaluing them in any possible scenario. It’s kill before turn X or lose and go next.

Besides, it’s not like dropping KJ opens up new venues and possibilities for you. It simply changes the state of the game.

It doesn’t result in any significant change in agency, and the little, non-significant part it does change is that it takes away your opponent agency, without giving you any additional.

This isn’t significant because you are not in control of how your opponent uses their own (lack of) agency.

11

I just started running Clumsy Steward to punish the slow decks. It’s not always good but when it hits big some people just concede.

2 Likes
12

as a warrior you can make your demon have better stats

with black rock and roll thats how i play it i ramp control the board then killjaeden +blackrock and roll unless my oppoent has blackrock and roll too my demons will have better stats

the rest depends on the control tools you kept in your hand is a valid game plan like any other

2 Likes
13

So basically you are playing it in a “do nothing” deck xD

You wont see this card in an aggro or midrange list because it is made for “do nothing” decks

Random demons isn’t a real gameplan. Its exclusively a fatigue gameplan. You just make your minions bigger than the other guy’s random demons

1 Like
14

I ran into that deck recently. They just play a pop off turn on 6 for a pile of armor then drop Kil’Jaeden on 7 and have massive stated Demons.

1 Like
15

before that i use my taunts and unkillax i dont always need to play kiljaeden but it helps having it vs some decks like the DK ones

many demons have taunt so i use quality insurance

quality insurance works great too i was able to win thx to it pulling mythical terror

this deck type reminds me a lot to control decks and old druid decks that had droping big minions board as a endgame goal

16

i usually try to play blast tortoise to kill the board because i want to be able to pull blackrock and roll i try to control the board with minions so my spelll tutors are more consistent

1 Like
17

I do think it’s not as simple as that, I haven’t played much control since I don’t have the resources to craft control decks. But I watched some of Clark’s stream he made the opponent turn awkward so the opponent has to use Kil’jaeden while they do still have card draws in hand and started to get demons from that turn onward, meanwhile Clark patiently waiting for the opponents using answers from his hand to made the opposing player had to rely on top decking demons and that he could safely play his own kil’jaeden after he almost drew all of his decks. I don’t know man, I am quite hesitant to craft that card, I don’t like dungar druid playstyle which is what most people expect kil’jaeden to be a staple for the deck.

18

dont craft it if you arent sure

i did becaue i find its effect fun and it counters TnTs and plagues

finding a card fun is always the first thing i consider when deciding to craft a card

if it happens to be good for climbing thats just a bonus for me

1 Like
19

It’s not. Agency is just a measure of how much your decision making over the course of the game can impact the outcome. You don’t necessarily lose it because your opponent did something strong, so long as decisions before or after it could deal with that play.

Take a game like chess. It has full agency. Your wins and losses are entirely based on your decisions in game. You don’t lose agency when your opponent makes moves. Although your options for winning may narrow to a point where you can no longer win, that’s not a loss of agency because your earlier actions resulted in getting to that point. Full agency games like this usually create an environment where players can’t beat opponents with large skill gaps.

Now Hearthstone isn’t a full agency game. Sometimes your opening hand all costs 5+ and you lose before you could make a meaningful decision. The randomness of the card draw lowers the agency a bit, but comes with the benefit of making the games feel different, and allows the occasional win against stronger opponents. Also unlike chess, the players are usually working with different decks, so the tools available could be a bad matchup even with good decision making. Most of these losses of agency can be largely mitigated in deck building however, and are not the kinds of agency losses blizzard should be worrying too much about. (Exception here being matchups becoming too polarized, but that’s a different topic)

The problematic kinds of agency losses are play patterns that offer exceedingly little counterplay. A turn 6 Dungar or Elise, for example, is too fast for most decks to get under, and summons minions that mid game removals generally can not deal with. It’s a play pattern that almost regardless of your deck building choices, and your choices up to that point in the game, you lose to. That’s the kind of thing Blizzard SHOULD be targeting with regards to low agency decks.

The red flag for low agency plays tend to be the things you have to race, as saying “just kill them first” is acknowledging that there are few, if any alternate ways to deal with the play. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the game. Very late inevitabilities like kiljaeden aren’t warping the meta around them, and give plenty of time for basically any strategy other than fatigue or plagues to have a good chance of winning the game. It provides the opportunity for player agency for an extended period before removing it.

Mid game agency losses like turn 6 dungar or giants or OTKs tend to do this far too quickly to allow many options to really flourish. You can balance the game around it by creating a bunch of decks that can decisively end the game that quickly, but the games really start to feel more like mulligan simulators to beat that clock rather than games where clever thinking was the reason for your win/loss.

Anyway, that’s just my 2 cents on it.

20

I’m sorry but this paragraph literally just crapped on the entire essay before that xD

You did just literally confirm what you quoted xD

I never said it was a bad thing, but yeah, cards like KJ absolutely do steal some agency from your opponent, and you just confirmed it.

And this is true, and that’s why people play decks like Weapon Rogue and Attack DH, including me

So, even the fact that you’re forced to play decks like that, which end the game on average before a Druid can pop off, is a clear example of agency loss. Some of the decks you want to play are unviable - agency loss.

I don’t see why agency would only exist inside the game. A part of the game is deck choice and deck teching, so that’s another way in which a loss in agency shows.

EDIT: Weapon rogue’s worst matchup is druid, so I’m not talking simply from personal experience and not strictly about Kil’Jaeden. I’m talking in general terms, possibly conflating “agency” with “meta warp”, because it’s getting harder and harder to think of the two phenomena apart from each other.