Rolling a ghost opponent is a massive advantage in bg. Sure, there’s the occasional situation in which you face off against a particularly vengeful phantom who manages to actually deal you damage, or maybe even one that succeeds in killing you, but generally, facing off with Kel’thuzad is viewed as a “break” from gameplay, one that allows you to take risks that would have been pure suicide against a normal opponent, such as spending ten gold to upgrade to the next tier.
The advantage of facing Kel’thuzad is often game breaking. I’ve had games in which a player leaves early, maybe even immediately, resulting in one or two players who regularly face a Kel’thuzad with a weak board. They take advantage of the situation (as anyone would) by upgrading to higher tiers much earlier than they would have otherwise, rolling more to ensure better minions and early triples, etc. They’re basically handed top four, leaving everyone else scrambling for whatever top four positions are left.
Or, there’s the common scenario in which it’s down to the top three or five players, and one of the players ends up coming in a higher position than they deserved(based on their build) due to randomly being matched against Kel’thuzad every other fight.
One idea I had for at least partially solving the Kel’thuzad problem would be to allow people the opportunity to keep playing as a ghost after they die in exchange for a portion of lost mmr back based on how much damage they take/deal while playing as Kel’thuzad. Kel’thuzad could even have his own hero power, such as a 1 gold ability that “brings back” a card that you just sold, which could be used to fix mistaken sells or give you more battlecry stats and a variety of other things. I’m just spitballing on the hero power here, it could be anything.
This isn’t a perfect solution by any means. It would mean that players would have to have a good enough mmr incentive to stay in the round as a ghost, but not such a good incentive that they’re trying to commit suicide each round. The additional time spent as a ghost would have to not be wasted time. Not to mention there’s the still persistent question of, “if a player leaves anyway, what happens then?” My response to that is: …*shrugs
Now that I’ve provided a sufficiently thick wall of text, I have a few final questions:
- What do you think of my thoughts on Kel’thuzad? Valid/invalid? If you disagree with my thoughts on Kel, why?
- If you agree that Kel’thuzad is not conducive to a balanced game, what should be done about him?