A lot of these aren’t really otk/combo decks in the way I mean it and I am pretty sure you’re just talking about synergistic decks, which I kind of despise. Quest hunter for instance, doesn’t OTK, it doesn’t have any combos, you even start with 1 card automatically in your hand from mulligan and that’s why I thought it was a terribly boring deck to play. I am talking about the kind of deck that plays 2-3 cards from hand or plays a card out of combo sometimes if the situation needs it. There will probably never be a deck more fun than APM mage was or a deck so balanced/delicately created like some of the combo decks in classic.
I suppose you would call bran+astalor a combo of sorts, but it is not fast enough to be played and it is an all in one off combo that can go off and if it does then you win, if not then dissapointment. Go back through some old meta decks and look at how a lot of the combos require thought and how some decks had several combos, yet not many of them were instant “I win” buttons.
Of course, thanks to the 10+ mana 
If 20 mana weren’t needed, druid wouldn’t play Guff; let’s not pretend 20 mana isn’t useful
We see the same issue with Astalor as we did with Sire. For MOST classes that do not have broken ways of cheating down card mana costs he is a near-full turn play. Yes, you can bounce him back to your hand with the panda or shadowstep, but that is still severely limited use and you only get one use of his battlecry that turn. Which class do we see abusing battlecries again by being able to use him more than once per turn? Druid. Now it’s not just Guff, but also Anub enabling this. Why they gave Anub to druid is beyond me. He should’ve gone to warrior, as druid has far too many cards that allow for crazy amounts of armor gain and can fuel Anub much more easily. Blizzard doesn’t care though, druid gets all the fun toys and outwarriors warrior (has for quite a while).
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strong agree. WTH are they thinking giving Anub to Druid, but not Warrior?
All the minions Warrior got last two expansions are gimmick bs
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Never going to happen. They aren’t changing Brann, Shadowstep isn’t going to change, copy cards and bouncing cards aren’t all going to get hit for the sake of not changing Astalor.
Devs have set the precedence: nerf cards that are too popular. Astalor is at higher popularity than nearly any card before it.
Everyone is either going to have to stop playing him or he’s getting nerfed. He has twice the deck inclusion than the next most included card.
He’s going to get nerfed.
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That to not talk about the winrate.
It’s just overpowered.
I was playing Wild. My opponent copies my Alastor with Madame Lazul.
Then play it with Brann. I kill them both, they get Alastor and Brann back with Raise Dead, and immediately replay them.
4 Alastors in Hand. I Brann Mutanus and eat 2.
They Psychic Scream, I draw Mutanus off the top and get another one! They concede at that point.
Alastor is an auto include in Wild Control decks. An upgrade over Denathrius for Shudderwock Shaman.
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I run both in Shudderwock Shaman. Astalor is just a brain dead auto-include. It’s crazy good and it makes it so there is always some OTK threat as soon as they clear the board anytime.
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Astalor’s final battlecry should work like Denathrius’s, instead of Arcane Missiles, so at least Mages and Pallies can mitigate the damage.
You think Astalor is a fine card but Denathrius was toxic?
Lol.
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He’s a better version of Sire for aggro/midrange decks. He is FAR more consistent. Isn’t dead in hand until turn 10. Creates 2 bodies. Has 2 other effects.
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come on bruh , nerf the best seller? are you kidding!? WHAT ABOUR THEIR INCOME
no otk deck was nerfed in the last balance patch both the anub and unlease fel nerfs did nothing
You didn’t have any of those cards?
Sad. It did a lot for my dust coffers!
One potential solution I have in mind would be to switch the battlecries with the manathirsts for the first 2 forms (as in dealing damage and gaining armour become the battlcries, and adding the next stage to your hand becomes the manathirst). This way playing the 2 and the 5 on curve and ignoring the manathirst value (which is very frequently the correct play) would not be viable options in the vast majority of scenarios. You’d have to wait until 4 and 7 mana respectively to generate the next Astalor.
The other benefit of this change is that it prevents players from duplicating Astalor copies I’m hand with Brann, as he would double cast the “deal 2 damage” or “gain 5 armour” effects instead of the “add to your hand” effects.
I don’t think doing this creates any new problems as playing a 2/2 deal 2 damage on turn 2, while fairly strong, isn’t oppressive. Making this play also denies the player any further Astalor plays that game. Additionally, a 1 mana power crept Shieldmaiden on turn 5 as a Legendary card also doesn’t seem remotely unfair, and again denies any further Astalor plays.
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Make the final part only damage minions
A little over complicated solution. Just make the manathirst do both and just remove the battle cry tag all together.
Remember when you needed to build an entire deck around 1 card just to get it to do 10 damage ONLY to minions? And that was available to only 1 class? And that card saw tons of play?
This is how far we’ve come.
If it has to be 16 damage, it should only hit minions. If it can go face also it should only be about 10 damage, 12 damage maximum. 16 is WAY overboard, especially since health is still the same as it was 8 years ago. It’s ridiculous.
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In a vacuum its power level would be fine. The fact that you can bounce it back to hand or make copies of the cards is what makes it so overwhelming. We’ve been asking for Shadowstep nerfs for years, never happened, and it doesn’t stop the player from using it and then using the 2 mana panda to bounce it back to hand anyways. It’s the new Sire, except that it doesn’t require anything but meeting the mana thirst requirements to activate it. It’s why druid basically replaced Sire with it.
Yeah, like many cards it’s the ability to get copies of it that makes it problematic. I still say that Hearthstone needs a rule change: legendaries may not be copied.
I’d also argue that Astalor needs to be treated the way primes were. The cards you get should be shuffled into the deck, not added to your hand. Primes weren’t a problem even when copied because you had to draw them after you played the first card that shuffled a copy into your deck. Not only that, but there were ways to defeat the deathrattle so that the prime never got shuffled in. Astalor is very hard to counter since it’s a battlecry. It’s just too overpowered as it is now, and too ubiquitous.
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