I have not had much time to play since the balance patch came out. I have played against Imbue Paladin a bit and definitely think it is slightly over tuned. So, I decided to finally get some games in with it.
It isn’t that the deck feels absurdly broken. It is the fact that it gets to do everything VERY consistently. It has multiple tutors, multiple board clears, healing, draw, and a constant stream of value from the imbued hero power.
With a strong imbue curve you can begin summoning 5+ mana dragons on turn 5. While random 5 cost dragons may not seem like a big deal, they are coming for free on top of the control elements the deck has. The turns where you get multiple dragons can be absolutely back breaking for the opponent. In the end game summoning the only two 10-cost dragons in the pool becomes insurmountable. Also, Ursol casting Renewing Flames feels so unfair. 30 damage and 30 healing over 3 turns while removing minions.
There are a few things they could nerf. Shuffling only 1 portal. Ursine Maul to 5 mana or reducing it to a 3/2. Dreamwarden getting +1/+2 instead of +2/+2. I would try very small decreases in power first.
6 Likes
Sorry, not their style. They only operate in pure murder nerfs these days.
Ursol renewing flames needs to just not be a thing whatsoever
That’s a start
The cheap dragon flood is also broken and plays like some dumb tavern brawl
7 Likes
To be fair, any decent high cost spell becomes incredibly annoying with Ursol. I played him to cast Renewing Flames. Discovered another Ursol off Malorne the next turn and had it cast my 2nd Renewing Flame. The opponent conceded. You know, because 20 damage a turn is a bit much.
2 Likes
And this here is why HS needs to adopt MtG’s legendary rule, if you gain control of a second copy of a legendary, you have to get rid of one
Seen some greedy ones also bounce Ursol back, then use Zilliax to power up Shaladrassil so they can Ursol that too. Their board control tools don’t SEEM that strong…but when you can board wipe the opponent and have the flames going face on both hits, on top of whatever minions you have on board hitting you…specially the pyroblasting 10 mana dragons, it’s a quick death that you can’t do much about if you’re not playing some armor-stacking deck. Not sure why they felt the need to reduce the cost of the imbued hero power by 1…it wasn’t necessary imo.
2 Likes
Frankly this meta is the most boring I’ve seen in the last 3 years. Most accessible boards have guaranteed build up without much thinking and the build up leads to big stats or generally big power. The high intelligence decks don’t offer much more power so you feel like playing against a horde of good decks that have guaranteed high power without much thought and you have to think hard like a rocket scientist to get 1% more power than them,
Whoever at Blizzard thought “spam imbue power → get big stats” does a very bad job, never do that again.
6 Likes
The funny thing is that Priest’s imbue is well done. You are not guaranteed to just keep getting bigger stats. You have to play around the options you are given. It is not a win con. Whereas with Paladin and Druid it is a mechanic that will eventually end the game on its own.
Shaman is well done as well. It gives value without being a game ending mechanic.
4 Likes
Actually aggro Imbue Priest is a strong deck, while Imbue Paladin is just OK.
Ppl who cry about Imbue Paladin now will be the first who will cry about aggro decks without Imbue Paladin bc they are usually not at ranks where a lot of good pilots of actual control decks (strong, but relatively difficult to pilot nowadays) exists.
Now they have a board-centered, not aggro deck that is easy to pilot, and it is Imbue Paladin, and this situation is better than it could be.
1 Like
So sick of seeing this deck. A monkey can pilot it and they do. Every match plays out exactly the same and if you don’t dirty rat Ursol, there’s probably no point in you continuing
And once again, the devs are way too slow in addressing an obvious problem
5 Likes
And what would you prefer?
You can have aggro Imbue Priest instead of Imbue Paladin.
Sorry you can’t have Wheel Warlock and / or Rogues bc they are already stronger than Paladin and if you don’t see them it means that players of your ranks can’t pilot them.
They can pilot smth like Imbue Paladin or aggro Imbue Priest or a very simple OTK deck like Plush Hunter and Zarimi Priest.
Devs can nerf decks, but they can’t teach people how to play more complicated decks.
1 Like
Here is the actual data on the deck from HSGuru:
In D4-1, it is the 14th best deck with a win rate of 55.7%
In Top 5k, it is the 15th best deck with a win rate of 50.1%
In Top 1k, it is the 12th best deck with a win rate of 47.5%
It would seem that the data does not align with your thoughts on the power of the deck.
The paladin class imbue cards are much better than what other imbue classes got. The 3 drop that imbues twice is a little too strong imo.
1 Like
And that’s the flip side of this coin. Devs can Nerf decks all day but a huge segment of this community will always find the easiest path and abuse it for the dopamine hit of the easy win. I’m just tired of every other match being either imbue druid or imbue paladin
2 Likes
Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll be nerfed so you can come to the forums 2 days later and complain about another 2 decks you see constantly. And we can repeat that infinitely so your dopamine hits keep hitting the right way you like.
3 Likes
Overall winrate is more important than top legend
2 Likes
So are you satisfied with any of this?
1 Like
Yeah, battlegrounds is still fun. I havent touched standard or wild in years man.
1 Like
I have to disagree here. While top legend is a very limited pool, it does show the quality of decks when played to their best potential. On the other hand, I’ve always felt that Diamond 4-1 is a better range to look at, since it is very competitive with players trying to hit Legend, but it also has a much larger player pool and a wider range of skill level. And even in D4-1, the deck is not a top performer.
All that being said, I would agree that we shouldn’t discount the performance at the poorer ranks, i.e. Silver, Gold, Platinum. You’re going to find the vast majority of players there who are in the bad to mediocre range. This includes myself. And if there is a power outlier in those ranks, it should at least be looked at. HSGuru doesn’t go below Diamond, but on HSReplay, Imbue Paladin is in the middle of Tier 1 in the Gold ranks. So it’s a good deck in Gold, but definitely not an outlier. If you’re going to call for nerfs, you’ll need to nerf Priest and DK along with it, right?
1 Like
As someone that plays Control Warrior this is a correct assessment. Imbue Priest is a strong aggro deck for no other reason than their health break point on most of their minions is above average. Very sticky and hard to remove in the early game. Combine that with the ability to imbue early and then find cheap early removal to keep pressing the face damage.
If that deck gets more early support it will honestly become a problem for the meta.
Imbue Paladin on the other hand is quite easy for control decks to beat. Very little pressure in the first 5 turns to make a control deck work to stay alive and their late game is now very weak after the last round of nerfs.
1 Like