For me this company has a serious mathematical problem (in the common sense of mathematical): they seem barely capable to balance Standard as it is so: shuffling into new formats occasionally and especially ones with multiple expansions (like Wild) is an extremely hard mathematical problem if not practically impossible.
In that sense: in the way they seem to operate now: I suppose only formats which stay for the very long term (and have lower complexity than Wild) have a chance to be balanced and generally be done well (or alternatively very limited-in-cards formats like Twist which might explain why you like it occasionally).
Perhaps they need to improve their simulation and formulation methods; I don’t know how exactly they design and predict the outcomes of their new cards and new formats[I doubt anyone but them does]; I just know they seem to struggle to barely do Standard well.
[PS and they seem to have reported they sometimes start from Art and then think of the mechanics of a card[or/and new art changing the mechanics that were initially there] which is a very bad sign in that context]
I dont consider powercreep as a problem.
It gets more and more obvious in hs but at least for standard it would be super easy to “reset”, at least on a rotation.
For example (not that it would make sence for everything) increase all cards mana cost by 1.
Random is a serious problem, there is to much random in general especialy when random allows you to discover from another class.
Then we hit the other problem you mentioned, class identity.
It’s sorta funny they just implemented a class identity info to the game when some classes acutally move fairly easy outside of those information.
For example, rogues weakness is healing… oh rly? I fought rogues healing for 21 health in one turn while regaining the spend mana from the freaking same card.
Yeah it wasnt a rogue card but when it’s easily accessible how can you say healing is a weakness?
In the past there was some kind of rock>cissor>paper from a class perspectice.
Cuz class identity meant that your class sucks vs some and rocks vs others while skill and luck of the draw came second.
Now it’s not about the class but soley about the deck and that became such a huge factor that certain matchups are mostly impossible. No matter how bad your oppent is or draws.
Also I feel like there is a lack in balance between low and high roll.
You could even say there is no lowroll anymore, every card played is insanely good, there is no viable deck with more then 2 suboptimal cards.
So mostly a low roll dosnt matter, cuz the high rolls are insane enough (thanks to powercreep) that a bad mule is instantly compensated.
It comes more down to, who highrolled and who had a hyper highroll or high roll spree.
They don’t want balanced cards. They want you to spend money til you get the OP card, then you’ll win more and … spend more to get more OP cards. So it would be naive to think they will balance the cards any time soon.
Just like they won’t stop bots, because that increases Monthly Active Users. That number looks good to the Shareholders, so Blizzard figures the higher the better. Who cares if it’s a real person or not right?
Cheaters won’t be stopped, unless they are in a broadcasted tourney. They don’t care if I play someone who is just re-casting the same legendary every turn. That guy will probably buy more packs to get more legendaries after all.
You contradict yourself when you say power creep isn’t a problem and then you find a problem at a rogue spam-healing at will; that rogue spam healing at will is a form of power creep; power creep is also indirect and not just “card became stronger than similar card”.
I think the Devs act as if they are players who are bored of their own game; they have the delusion power creep has to go over the roof or people will get bored; they can have another path.
A path would be "planned general resetting; e.g. produce some kind of “mass rotation” every say 2 or 3 years max; that “mass rotation” would have the role of toning EVERYTHING down.