for example, would you run a 1 mana 2/2? Or would it need to be more, like a 1 mana 2/3? What about for 2 mana? or 3? or 5? or 7?
I think from 5 mana upwards, no vanilla minion is playable regardless of stats.
When is the last time they even printed a minion without extra text? Last one I remember is Blazing Battlemage from DoD, 1 mana 2/2. I believe it was good in aggro decks at the time but hasn’t seen any play in years
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Desk Imp is a little more recent. Maybe there are a few other examples. Isn’t there a totem that’s 0/3?
It would absolutely have to be a minion with absurdly inflated stats and be a 1 or 2 drop in order to get maximum value from. There’s so much removal that anything above a 3 drop would be pointless regardless of stats(within reason though).
They would bring back a whole group of players and the game would benefit if they went back to the basics. Look at some of the most common complaints for hearthstone and a lot can boil down to cards doing too much. Maybe there’s some beauty and effectiveness in simplicity that has become lost and forgotten. But I wouldn’t hold any breath on them making such minions again
As soon as they did it they would complain the game is nothing but curvestone. That’s what they did for years before the way the game is now.
Curvestone has a good place, I think. Game was most popular during this curvestone time. Boards mattered. Decisions mattered. Big plays were rarer and felt better. Maybe a vocal minority isn’t the best place to look for the direction to take a game. Or, since it was, and did, maybe it’s time to swing back the other way to what the most people enjoyed. Of course it’s too late and will never happen etc, but one can dream
3 mana 5/5 or 2 mana 4/4 might be playable.
Millhouse Manastorm was a 2 mana 4/4 with a huge downside. I think since the time of classic the game has gone far enough where we can afford to have a 2 mana 4/4. Totem Golem was a 2 mana 3/4 overload 1. There’s precedence even if it ended up being a class card.
IT DEPENDS ON THE CLASS. E.g. it’s obvious that the Devs never give gigantic 1 drops to a Paladin; and they have a point; Paladins have many “buff the minions” spells and that makes them devastating without their flimsy little 1/1s.
E.g. Priests have now some 1 drop with 2/4 that nobody can use other than the tourist.
Tribal minions. Tribes are not vanilla minions. They benefit from tribal synergy.
Vanilla minion is NO text.
I’m getting an incredible dejavu
What happened? You got this guy on ignore? I mean, I do, but I can still see threads
yep he’s a troll, isn’t he?
Yes, he is, and he’s on my ignore list, as well
But I still see his threads
Anyway, I just left the thread so people can read more replies on the same topic if anyone wishes to do so
seeing “How Strong Is” isn’t exactly a great indicator about what the thread is to be fair, also I was black out drunk last night 
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Direction for the game is likely based more on what increase sales and the number of players rather than any direct feedback
It isn’t as much status as people think but not small either.
I would say a 1 mana 3/3 probably sees play. If you wanna be 100% sure then 1 mana 3/4 but that would probably be overpower.
The important nowadays is how hard it can punish the opponent without being too easy to remove.
What you have to do, is when you see the first post is “ignored content” is you have to press the “End” key on your keyboard (on standard US layouts, It’s just above the “Up” arrow key, between “Del” and “Page Down”). This will bring you to the very bottom of the thread.
Then you look just below “share” and change its viewing status from “Normal” to “Muted.”
Left click back to the discussion hub (so, “Multiplayer Discussion” in this case) and that TOPIC is now hidden from your personal feed (you’ll still see it if you visit this site without being logged in).
You have to do that EVERY SINGLE TIME you see a topic from someone on your mute list, because Blizzard doesn’t automate it. Discourse (not to be confused with Discord) is their 3rd party forum software and it DOES have settings to automate this. But Blizz has never implemented it and I don’t know why.
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There’s actually a “Vanilla Test” for this that is employed in MTG to determine if a creature is balanced, under-powered, or over-powered, just based on stats alone in a vacuum. The formula there is:
X = (Minion_Power + Minion_Toughness) / Converted_Mana_Cost
We can use almost the exact same formula for Hearthstone, just calling it “Attack” instead of “Power,” “Health” instead of “Toughness,” and just “Mana Cost” instead of CMC.
At any rate. If the result of that is less than 2, the minion fails the Vanilla Test because it’s under-statted. If it’s equal to 2, it passes. If it’s greater than 2, it fails because it’s over-statted.
So, a 4-cost minion with 4/4 stats would pass the test, because 4 + 4 = 8 / 4 = 2
If said minion was instead 3/4, it would fail (under-statted): 7 / 4 = 1.75
And if instead it were 4/5, it would fail (over-statted): 9 / 4 = 2.25
That is why Yeti saw such common play back in vanilla, because it was literally over-statted for its cost. That’s also why Innervate got nerfed because it used to allow them to reliably cheat that thing out turn ONE.
Now, when talking about cards that AREN’T vanilla, this “Vanilla Test” is still a decent thing to do when determining a card’s “stat budget.” I don’t have any hard numbers on this because I haven’t studied this aspect of HS in almost a decade. But the basic idea is that “Taunt” might be “worth” .5 towards the final budget. Or “Battle Cry” might be worth 1.5 towards it. Or whatever.
Basically though, to use those random made up figures as an example, if you had a 3/5 with taunt for 4 mana, that would be “over budgeted” because 3 + 5 = 8 / 4 = 2 + .5 = 2.5
What would it take to play vanilla big bois in standard? Probably a LOT, given how much RNG and synergies already exist in the core experience. I’m guessing at least a 3 or higher. So like a 6/6 for 4 mana. Anything less, and you’re just giving up too much tempo.
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