I would be interested in ideas about this. Concept is similar to silence, but affects cards in your opponents hand and or deck. Examples: passive: mute an x cost card in your opponents hand (stealth and or immune to spell targeting)
battlecry: mute x amount of cards in your opponents hand
deathrattle: mute a deathrattle card in your opponents hand
Combo: mute the next minion your opponent plays
And so on. It could lead to some interesting combos and could help with countering some problem cards. Note that mute canât affect spells.
Silence is a very powerful effect and therefore it is one of the things players with âheavyâ (high cost) cards often play around the most.
I think that a card which can highroll-nuke a card from your hand, with little room available to play around it, would either be both OP and unfun to play against, or would have to be so understatted to compensate for its effect to become borderline unplayable.
Iâd thought about the cards you mentioned. The difference is that, while they do indeed break a combo deck, they donât (with the possible exception of DP) make the card useless, just potentially not as useful as it was before.
E.g. if a Dirty Rat or Hecklebot pulls my Meterologist, it definitely prevents a strong play on my part, but it doesnât additionally create a disadvantage.
By contrast, if the same Meterologist was muted, not only would I be unable to make the play, but I would also be stuck with a useless understatted 6-drop cluttering my hand.
Additionally, all the cards you listed have a decent chance to âbotchâ, so to speak: Hecklebot/Rat by pulling a large minion with no battlecry on an early turn (Tirion would be emblematic), Gnomeferatu by burning a card which would have been a useless topdeck allowing the opponent to draw into an answer, and DP by turning a less useful card into a strong Demon.
By contrast the only way mute can botch is by hitting a no text minion (does anyone even use these outside of Arena?) or a minion which benefits from being silences (which are only run in near-meme-level decks).
I like it, especially the first option. It should be a forbidden type card. Spend all your Mana, mute a card in your opponents hand of the same cost. Maybe as a warlock card (which seems to be the class they are okay with giving hand disrupt tools).
That seems balanced-ish. You can target it somewhat, but it costs a lot, and you have to know your opponentâs deck quite well.
I like the idea, though they shouldnât print too many, also what would happen if a hero card or spell were muted ? that could be fun (looking at warrior)
While you are mostly right, the idea isnât as terrible as you take it to be. Or, to be specific, the last proposition is pretty interesting. âMute the next minion your opponent will playâ. Thatâs a cool effect that can be played around, and it makes the matches and decisions way more skill-dependent.
I like the âNext card playedâ idea, but in that case, how is Mute different from Silence?
If I understood correctly, the entire point (and my beef with it) was for the effect to hit a minion âin handâ, not in play.
Hi All
Thanks a lot for everyoneâs feed back, much appreciated. From what has been said, the major crit seems to be danger of OP! (Ty Morthasa) Also, thanks to all those who seemed to like it, to elaborate:
I take the OP crit seriously, and would respectfully disagree to a large extent. Ways to deal with this would be (taking on everything said so far)
Limit the number of mute cards available in neutral and hero class.
Stats - make their baseline stats realistic for the mana cost, giving your opp the means to remove them.
Make them âskill-basedâ by removing the random aspect from them, so that players can set up and play around accordingly, more below
Targeting - remove the ability to mute cards in your opponentâs deck
Specificity - make mute specific to a function or mana cost
Cool down - mute for x turn(s) or until a card is played (nb on this last wording)
I believe this would make it more playable all way round.
Skill based
This requires an understanding of your opponentâs deck and strategy in order to time the playing of a mute minion/spell.
Specificity
This follows on from above giving a player the opportunity to mute either a battlecry/rush/reborn/deathrattle/cost minion they believe their opponent might be holding. this means your opp will have a decision to make as to which cards to play.
Once again, as always, i look forward to your comments.
Regards
A turn limit would be helpful or you could make cards unplayable. Muting a Shirvallah would leave your opponent with a minion they could never play because it would cost 25 mana.
