That’s not the same thing as agency being “zero sum.” The cards that do remove agency from the opponent are few and far between. Most cards don’t do this, and sometimes it takes a slew of cards together to do it.
Blizz needs to be really careful about making cards that limit player agency. Kil’Jaeden is an example of them doing it well. The card is good enough to be used, not good enough to particularly shape the meta around it. Helya is generally on the OK side of things as well.
It’s not limited to just in game. It extends to deck building. There is agency loss when you need to play an entirely different archetype in order to improve a matchup though. It’s bad when the answer is “just don’t play X.” It’s better when the answer is “you can trade these cards out to have a better chance, but it will hurt you in these matchups.”
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There are far more cards in this game that result in more player agency than people think.
The usual problem are:
- Most people favor play the dumb stuff.
It’s easier and therefore you reach positive winrate learning less.
- Those cards need maintenance.
When the meta evolves you have to go there and buff they. Otherwise it turns into high effort low to no reward and that being very generous.
If i’m could wish for anything this year. Is to have as end of rotation patch a last buff to cards like that are rotating.
I would love to see a 1 mana infinitize the maxitude for example.
compare infinitize to primordial glyph… infinitize should stay costing 2 imo it’s too easy to finale it at 1 mana and it would basically be OP
You’re playing discover last game.
In other words you have to read the flux of the match or otherwise the own card will cost you the game even at 1 mana by giving stuff you not gonna use.
There is a reason why primordial glyph sees play and it don’t.
And we are talking about stuff going to wild in march/april. Those card are probably okay ending balanced a little above the average curve if we count with powercreep getting they overtime.
My guess for a 1 mana infinitize is that it would probably be included in all mage decks but would not have a stellar performance anyway because the average player isn’t good enough to play something like this.
One thing is understand that it is powerful. Other is being able to use properly. This is the type of game i’m look foward to play.
I am almost positive the ladder would be filled with DK plague decks without Kil’Jaeden. You can shuffle in so many plagues now with all the ways DK has to duplicate and repeat card effects. Just for giggles i made a simple new plague deck and i shuffled over 20 plagues into the opponents deck and Helya played before turn 9. In fact i had another Helya in hand i didn’t play and could have put in three more.