Rarely do I browse this site. Today I decided to check it out.
For those of you that frequent the site, you’ll know about the stats at the bottom, that show the 25 or so cards played the most times over the last 5 minutes. It changes accordingly in real time.
I watched it for a few minutes just to see it fluctuating. Can you believe the list, for the most part, only showed two types of cards?
Warrior cards, and excavate neutrals. Interesting that the format varies so vastly and that not everyone has jumped on the warrior band wagon! Good job everyone!
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Standard or wild or twist?
Standard, wild and arena are available. He’s clearly referencing standard and pretty much not wrong, although some druid and paladin cards are cycling through. I even saw a Primus.
Wild - 8 out of 10 are even (totem) shaman cards. Because 90% of ranked wild is even totem bots.
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I have NEVER seen those stats at the bottom before. Didn’t even know they existed. That’s hilarious.
The fact that BRANN is played EQUALLY AS OFTEN as the Warrior 3 mana Excavate card…despite the fact that the Excavate card isn’t a legendary and costs less, just goes to show how consistent people are able to play Brann. 6 mana legendary Highlander card is able to get played AS OFTEN as a 3 mana spell.
Everyone needs to let that sink in. That’s absolutely nuts.
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Way back when Zilliax was in standard he was the most played card using those trackers. for months on end. By far. Highest I saw it was played almost twice as often as the next most played card (~600:300iirc), and very often 100 plays per 5m above the next most played, and very rarely not in the top spot.
This is why I consider Zilliax the most OP card of all time for its era, despite the praise most people have for him. New Brann is close, with the class restriction considered, but still not quite there imo. Not defending Brann, card is completely bonkers as everyone predicted before release, just pointing out that Zilly was completely busted using those stats as a benchmark.
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But wouldn’t you expect that from a neutral legendary that is good? Everyone has access to it. This is why Astalor is like #3. But the fact that a single CLASS card that is restricted to 1 card only and ends up being on the list is the crazy part…especially when it’s showing up more than class cards that can run 2 copies.
And even moreso that the 1 copy the class is running has restrictions on when it can be played.
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No. Not holding the top spot even as a neutral leggo. If its doing that then its TOO universally good. Its insta-include. That is not just good, its OP.
Would this mean that Reno and Yogg are busted then? I feel Yogg is fairly balanced and it’s up there because it’s neutral.
Everyone having access to a card usually means it sees more play simply for the fact it CAN see more play, not necessarily that it’s broken.
Now don’t get me wrong, Zilly in its day was bonkers. All those stats for 5 was great, especially since it had healing and several classes didn’t have access to that.
Are they holding the top spot by significant margins? No. They are not. Not even close to it. Astalor is close, but still not quite there.
I disagree. At those levels of play. it is broken. 29 card decks + Zilly. Thats not just good, its OP. If your first card in any deck you make is a neutral leggo, then it is by (my) definition OP.
I love Zilly as much as anyone, but I will always consider him OP for his era. He was simply TOO good not to include. If thats not OP then IDK what is.
Zilliax wasn’t even overpowered… he was just the ONLY neutral recovery tool available at a time where aggro swarm decks were pretty common.
He didn’t do anything to win the game. He’s not even close to good enough to run anymore, and he hasn’t been for a long time.
He was just a good card with no real competition for what he does.
Astalor is way more egregious. In half of decks, is a win condition, early game burn, recovery all in one… and that’s after a nerf.
Denathrius also had Zilliax beat, as it turned the entire meta into Denathrius decks for all of Nathria.
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Also used by those aggro swarm decks. OP!
Not a criteria for being OP. Especially the last part. Most of the nerfed cards from 3 or 4 years ago arent good enough today. Its a moot point. Irrelevant.
He was TOO good in his era. 29 card decks + Zilly. That is OP.
Why? Using the panels the OP started this discussion on, Zilliax was more egregious. Saw MUCH more play. But is fine, because is not a win-con? Being a win-con is not the sole criteria for nerfs.
Using that logic we should make new Brann neutral. Not a win-con, and everyone has access to him, therefore is fine to be neutral. I dont think anyone wants that to happen, yet it is essentially the argument you and Schyla are making when using these stats to determine that Brann is OP, while completely ignoring the fact that Zilly was much worse using those same stats.
So is Astalor.
Almost every deck gets better by just slapping him in.
It is. Zilliax did nothing particularly OP. Not even for his time, it’s why he was never nerfed. He never needed a nerf.
He didn’t even swing games. There were stronger cards in his era, they just weren’t neutral.
Oh, it definitely is. When cards are in every deck and are the reason you lose a game regardless of the portrait, it is a much, much higher nerf priority.
Zilliax was popular, he wasn’t OP.
Yes, he was. Insta-include cards are OP. You cant use the stats provided by the OP to say card-x is OP, while card-Y which performed BETTER, is NOT OP.
You having a heavy control bias - dont dare deny that I have a great deal of respect for you, and you have made that bias quite clear over the years - doesnt make combo-esque cards more OP by default.
Insta-include cards are OP. They wouldnt be insta-include if they werent.
Astalor is not even close to Zilly levels using the trackers being discussed. 2nd spot by a similar margin that Zilly held over 2nd spot.
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You are using popularity as a measure of performance, which is an awful way to do it.
Theotar was always the worst card in every deck it was used in, still crazily popular until nerfed twice.
Popularity doesn’t always equate to raw power.
Zilliax was never a crazy power card. Ever. No stats had it as the best card in any deck he was in, because he was never the card you relied on to win games. He was the stall card that got you to your actual win con.
That is what this thread is about. Read the OP.
It is, but there are other measures other than play rates that show Brann as OP, such as his drawn and played win rates.
His popularity is just an interesting outlier when a class specific legendary is one of the most played cards in the game, which definitely shows that he is warping the meta in a way that Zilliax could never dream of.
Zilliax needed to be available to all classes to reach those numbers, and he was just a decent card, not a build around.
I have been watching it on and off since this post popped up. Brann is not even in the top 10 more often than he is. Sure, sometimes hea peaks at 5 or 6, but then quickly drops out of the top 10 again.
Try again.
That’s still absurd for a 1 of in a single class.
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No more so than Zilly was as a neutral imo. If anything Zilly was worse precisely because he was neutral. Even if restricted to a single class he would have been in all the (possible) decks of the era. But, hey, its fine for a control card to be OP, using this method, yet combo cards must DIAF, right?
The fact you defend Zilly as fair, while calling out combo-based cards, only shows your bias. I think both are a problem, but Zilly was more of one due to being literally insta-include in his day. Thats busted by itself by any fair analysis.
Some points to note:
- I don’t trust HSReplay to have the kind of data sense to only show cards that OPPONENTS are playing. So in all of those games, 50% of the players are from the tiny subset of players who have downloaded and installed the Hearthstone Deck Tracker and the other half are a random sample of the population. In other words, what you’re looking at is filtered through the lens of some pretty hefty selection bias.
- As I write this, the most played card for Standard was played 339 times in the past five minutes, and the most played card for Wild was played a measly 22 times. That’s about a 15 to 1 ratio. I don’t believe that there are actually 15 times as many Standard players than Wild players, but it is pretty clear that there are 15 times as many people with the deck tracker installed playing Standard as there are people with the deck tracker installed playing Wild. (No wonder their Wild data sucks.)
- Popularity isn’t power. A card could theoretically be #1 in play frequency and still from a deck archetype with a winrate below 50%. It’s clear to me that players with the deck tracker installed BELIEVE that Brann Warrior is OP, and tbh they’re probably right, but probably isn’t certainly.
- A reply.
As per point #3 just above… kinda. But “auto include” normally implies that a card has such a high drawn or mulligan winrate (or both) that its power is irresistible. And drawn and mulligan winrates ARE the appropriate measurements of power in this context. I don’t have a time machine to go back and look up exactly what those stats were for Zilliax, but I’d bet a single digit number of dollars that those stats would confirm that it was OP.