Lifesteal is actually the worst thing that has happened to the game, period.
It’s their way of stalling the long overdue implementation of a max health increase to 40. As power creep continues, it means more stats for the same costs, which in turn means more damage to the face, yet for some reason, the health cap remains at 30 for 10 years as of now.
Lifesteal should have never been allowed in Neutrals. We see what’s happening with Zilliax being run freely in any class.
Discover is only a problem because of critical mass. Early on, it was a fun mechanic and you paid a premium for the effect. 2 mana 1/1, 3 mana 3/4 with a conditional, 4 mana 3/3.
Battlecry is a weird one to take issue with. The problem isn’t battlecry, it’s game long, uninteractive, incredibly potent battlecry effects. They need to, simply, not print cards like Brann, Boomboss or Odyn. Battlecry effects that are all encompassing win conditions are horrible, and should be avoided in nearly all cases.
Mana cost reduction is, obviously, an issue. You can see this from as early as vanilla hearsthone with Mountain Giant, Preparation and Shadowstep being meta-defining cards.
I was talking more about the game back between 1995-1997 up to the day of thunder. There were ways to make cards cost nothing. Once they started doing limited runs in Gold edition(When AEG acquired the license from WoTC) there was an effort to make sure nothing was free unless it was corrupted and cost you a huge amount of honor. Zinser was adamant that the cards need to be balanced first before anything else. Not to make the same mistakes the original run made.
I’ve only heard the tales of old, I’ve never seen it for myself. Cool to see someone on here who played an older version of an already niche game