So Blizzard has lately put a bunch of standard cards into hall of fame because they limited design space, were unfun/noninteractive to play against or just had too frequent appearance in decks.
I just had a game facing a turn 2 coin + prep + Raiding Party + VanCleef. using 3 cards and a coin to draw 3 cards and get an 8/8 on the board. I had no answer so I conceded on turn 3. And that’s not the first time this has happened.
My question is, how is that fun and Interactive? How is that not limiting design space? and how many meta decks in the history of Hearthstone has not run VanCleef? Why is VanCleef not hall of famed too?
This is beyond lucky.
Edwin is a very powerful card but let’s be real here: the problem is the tutor card used by your opponent. No 3 mana card should draw 3 cards (no matter the extra condition).
Blizz seems to enjoy printing cards like this lately. Book of Specters, Master’s Call, Raiding Party, Omega Assembly, and even Crystalsong Portal are all extremely powerful as long as their conditions are met and still usable even if they aren’t.
OP
RoS + Classic
Going 2nd, Turn-2
Prep + Raiding Party + Prep + Raiding Party + Coin + Edwin 12/12 + 6 cards in hand.
Just-Classic
Prep + Shiv + Prep + Shiv + Coin + Edwin 12/12 + 2 cards in hand.
This guy isn’t winning anything if the class runs any type of sub-4 mana removal or silence, or even taunt may work.
In Raiding Party’s case, that deck has chargers for taunt, and taunt of it’s own, and a weapon to try and get that Edwin to attack twice, plus a thinner deck for a better topdeck.
So yea Raiding Party is the reason Rogues can still-play after taking the risk of going all in on an Edwin if they hit that redic-6 card opener which is extremely unlikely btw.
Prep enables it just as much as Draw, but Draw is newer, and Prep is classic, and if the devs intend on preserving classic at some point instead of decimating it, then Prep would be a great place to start showing that intent.
Preserve Prep, balance around it, nerf Raiding Party if you have to.
It used to be that a big Edwin that early was a gamble because you sacrificed your whole hand to play it, which made it perfectly balanced imo.
Now with raiding party as part of the combo with prep, the risk is non existent because you get your optimal hand and don’t have to fold even if Edwin is answered. And even worse is the cards drawn from raiding party put you on an even shorter time limit with Edwin, so even getting hit once before you can hex or sap or whatever is already too much. I think loss of hand size punishment for rogue is unfortunate. It was unfortunate with Druid, ramp, and UI too and I would hate to see them nerf anything but what I see as the problematic new card or prep honestly.
This with 2 exceptions:
Omega Assembly is not a real tutor-card since it doesn’t help you draw, your results are random and therefore less reliable and so is Crystalsong Portal. Both are (too) good, don’t get me wrong, they aren’t the problem tho.
Raiding Party and Master’s Call are the real problem with Book of Spectors being less annoying since it does limit your mage decks to basically not run spells which is a harsh requirement and was (until now) only used in fun decks (such as Kibler’s Elemental Mage). Raiding Party and Master’s Call are not fine and need a nerf tho. They both don’t limit your deck (Pirates are in almost every rogue archetype right now and beats are always hunter’s greatest asset). Both cost waaaaay too little for what they do: Drawing 3 cards both for 3 mana AND emptying your deck.
You guys make some good arguments that Prep and Raiding Party could be the issues as well.
VanCleef+prep has been in all meta relevant Rogue decks I remember since the beginning though. And I think both are pretty limiting design space wise.
You don’t even need prep to do a big VanCleef right now with cards such as backstab, Vendetta and Lackeys costing almost nothing.
I just looked through all the decks suggested on Vicious syndicate and I only found two decks running silence (Silence priest and Control shaman because of earth shock).
I never see people run silence on ladder either. I don’t even think there are that many silence targets in the meta other than VanCleef right now.
So I don’t think teching in silence is clever right now. It’s all about weapon removal instead.
And even if I had put silence in my deck I would still need to draw it and have it available at turn 3. I would basically have to put Ironbeak owl in my deck for that which can just get removed by his hero power still putting me at a disadvantage in the best case scenario.
Before this expansion, yes that would make sense. And the rogue having gone all in on the big Cleef would likely concede having dumped his hand.
What is being criticized is that this is no longer the case; countering Edwin no longer leaves the rogue with an empty hand because of prep, raiding party into 3 cards.
I can agree to a Raiding Party nerf, like increase its mana cost to 4 and then even with Prep it would still cost 1 and prevent turn 2-3 big Edwins.
But Master’s Call is just fine. Because ALL of your minions must be Beasts in order to get the guaranteed value out of it. You sacrifice quite a few good non-Beast minions, like Zilliax and Leeroy, for instance.
Not true. Aggro-Hunter’s biggest weakness is drawing power - this one card throws that out the window which is not fine. That’s not how balancing works if you can slam all on the board and then refill your hand - that’s the reason Divine Favor got HoF’d.
I’m torn on this. There’s enough good beasts out there right now to make a deck around that effectively even in Aggro Hunter. But unlike some of the other cards, I LIKE how you can really design around master’s call effectively. Like right now, I play a Spell Hunter that basically uses Dire Frenzy and specific beasts (Vicious Scalehyde, Ironbeak Owl for example) to give me specific elements I may need later on, and that draw 3 for 3 to draw the set on to load up what I need card wise. I like the fact that it really rewards me for my deck design in this case.
The problem with these corner case cards where you get a specific behavior out of them in one condition is that 99% of the time, that condition is going to be met. I think of the three, Master’s call is the least painful of the three, but they all have fundamental problems at the core.
Edwin Van Cleef has been part of Rogue decks forever. Whether this is good or bad, I don’t know. Once upon a time, decks were built around Edwin.
Now, they can play too many cards with too many refill to make Edwin unbearable. I’m not sure what the solution is but there is a problem.
I do not think Masters Call is a problem because it isn’t run in every hunter deck. Mech Hunter is top tier. Now, this might change eventually depending on the beasts that are printed but for now, it isn’t a problem.
VanCleef isn’t the issue and you said why. Why cards there allowed VanCleef to be good there?
Prep and Raiding Party. Why do you think VanCleef wasn’t a complainable issue before this?
tl;dr this makes it Prep and Raiding Party’s issue, not VanCleef. He can always be hard removed anyways. Not a busted card. Prep and Party on the other hand?
Masters call is a huge loss in tempo for the aggro hunter. For rogue, raiding party can actually enhance your tempo if you manage to combo it with prep.