Not a power creep, but a power flood

Community Discussion
1

When the removal of Duels is official, I will be retiring from Hearthstone. I’ve been playing on/off since 2018, maybe not as long as others, but a significant amount of time (and money) has been spent on this game.

Titans set seems to have opened the flood gates into this game, and they don’t see to have any intention of fixing it. To highlight some of the many problematic cards:

  1. Sif 6 mana for +6 spell damage? Remember when 9 mana for +5 spell damage on Malygos was a good legendary?

  2. Odyn / Sargeras / Helya / etc. creating permanent game effects with absolutely no set up. Remember when Forged in the Barrens quest cards got nerfed for being too good? That wasn’t even 2 years ago.

  3. Windfury magnetic for 1 mana and its not even good enough… Remember when Zilliax was an autoinclude in almost every deck?

  4. Yogg was printed as a 0 mana 1-sided board wipe in neutral that also had other modes. Remember when board wipes actually costed mana and weren’t 1-sided? Sure they’ve nerfed it now, but just totally ridiculous we had to play through that for a month.

Now the focus is on another ridiculously overpowered set that includes a permanent Brann effect, but is only in 1 class… At least if it were Neutral we’d get some variety like after the Yogg printing.

Standard seems to be a perpetual state of disarray and is the only format that they still support as all of the other formats are being phased out.

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There are some good points there. Any “for the rest of the game” effect that cannot be removed “limits design space”. Brann limits design space for anything with battlecry, and Odyn limits design space for anything which grants armour.

So… either fix the problem with specific tech (ie battlecry: remove all “for the rest of the game effects”). Similar to what they did when they made Skulking Geist to counter a specific problem card. OR, nerf the problem cards so they create a removeable object which can then be removed (eg Rheastrazsa).

Of course, that brings me on to cards that remove such “permanents”. The only one I can think of right now is Reno. I’m OK with his effect doing one sided removal, but as I have said on here numerous times, I don’t like his one sided board lockdown. But that’s for another topic.

Back on topic: we would need a card(s) that can remove a “permanent” object from the board. We currently have Demolition Renovator, which removes locations, but it isn’t played, partly because locations aren’t permanent. If it could remove ANY permanent item, it might see play. Having said that, using tech to counter OP cards doesn’t give balanced gameplay… its the OP cards that are the problem.

It is possible to remove the portal created by Sargeras, but cards like Odyn and (new) Brann cannot be countered. Having said that, they are both very bad tempo plays, while playing Sargaras for his “rest of the game” effect at least gets you 2 3/4 taunts on the board that turn.

Also, all those cards are class cards, so they are only as good as the class they work with. However, two of them are for the same class, and while their effects don’t stack directly, you will get double value from cards that grant armour as a battlecry. Tidal Revenant becomes 10 face damage AND 16 ATK for 26 burst from hand. Lava Shark will dredge 2 cards, and grant Armour (and ATK) from both, and General Vezax will grant 8 ATK and can use its effect twice to clear big minions from the board and be revived both times from the Armour it generates.

Obviously Sif needs setup, but its not hard to do that. Malygos usually wasn’t too much of a problem unless it was cheated out, so you have to consider that mana cheating is the problem rather than the card itself.

Helya pretty much needs a dedicated deck, so its only ever going to be as good as the rest of the deck, so I think its OK. Also, now that ETC is a thing, it is much easier to add tech without giving up a normal deckslot. Tradeable cards also can help with tech… although they do use a deckslot each, they don’t become stuck in your hand.

1 mana magnetics granting windfury is a problem. Sure, you have to rely on RNG, but even so. Windfury probably shouldn’t be available for sparkbots.

Anyhoo… I also will be sad to see duels go. I hope it can be saved, or relaunched, but I suspect its a done deal :frowning:

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“limit design space” are 3 words with zero meaning people throw those around whenever they complain about acard they dont like and the argumetn gets debunked on the next expansion release no idea why people keep using them

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this never happened proof of how bad you memory is

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Long time ago a Mysterious Challenger was released for paladin without cards that could counter it and people freaks out like nowadays, only afterwards they released counters…i guess will be the same now :smiley:

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No. “Limit design space” means something very specific.

A card “limits design space” if it makes OTHER CARDS more powerful than they are intended to be.

This means that when any cards using the same mechanic are DESIGNED, they need to be carefully balanced because of the interaction with said card. If the “other cards” already exist, you have an interaction which is OP, and something needs to be nerfed. And more often than not, its the card that enables the other card(s) that is the problem.

Brann does nothing on its own. Odyn does nothing on its own (except buffing Warrior’s hero power). Both are very bad tempo plays because the have no immediate impact on the game when they are summoned. You only get a payoff when you play other cards.

However, both of them set up a condition that affects other cards, allowing them to do things they were not designed to do.

Brann would be useless if it didn’t have battlecries to exploit. Odyn would be (almost) useless if it didn’t have cards that generate armour to exploit.

TBH, even without other cards being affected, the buff to Warrior’s hero power alone would make the effect playable, although not at 8 mana, but I digress.

For example, a 3 mana card that generates 8 armour is NOT designed to also generate 8 attack. Heavy Plate (form United in Stormwind) would not have been designed for a standard format that includes Odyn. However, the core set rotation is just around the corner, and I would hope that Heavy Plate is removed from core until Odyn rotates the following year.

Another example: A battlecry minion that generates another battlecry minion, which in turn generates another battlecry minion would not have been designed (presumably) while Brann was in standard. But here we are, at least until March, when Astalor rotates.

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Blizzard has no respect for players otherwise it would never have put the mechanic that the opponent can touch in the hand/deck/cards. They even created a deck that spits in the face of their client (ooze warlock).

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Tempo loss is irrelevant when you can continually clear the board with cheap spells every turn. That’s one of the hints Hearthstone gives you to beat aggro and it’s true to form. Aggro doesn’t beat control, it beats combo.

Odyn and Brann are combo cards in control. The meta is flooded with warrior decks for a reason. This deck has no real weakness. Two OP cards at the top of my control deck curve.

It even has combo deck breakers like Dirty Rat and Theotar. Which of course are the only answer to Odyn and Brann. So the deck presents the best answers… to itself.

The OP Sif combo deck doesn’t even work since Warrior gains Double 5 armor Astalor and can pile up 20 armor from 1 card post Brann. In addition to of course, their hero power of gain 2 armor and numerous other value armor gain.

Top it off with an OP battle cry weapon generator too!

This warrior deck literally does everything.

Your only option to beat it is to play budget Treant Druid and get lucky.

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You could always play twist. That’s hella fun :slight_smile:

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Yes, but not in this case, because Brann really limits their design space for the coming years. Now, when designing any warrior or neutral battlecry card, Team 5 will have to take Brann’s existence into account and either make this card weaker or don’t print it at all, which will affect all classes. At some point Brann will rotate and these cards will become simply useless, waiting there for the next rotation.

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Um, the way Team 5 works is that initial design is completed more than a year in advance and the only way that a card could be designed less than a year before release is if they can’t complete a card the normal way (maybe it’s too buggy) and then they try to make a new card at the last minute using as much of the same art and audio as possible.

So if you’re imagining that Team 5 will get feedback from the current meta, notice that Brann is kind of a big deal right now, and change the design of future releases in response, no, that will not happen. The cards in those future releases are already designed, and art and audio commissions have already been sent out for completion. The only cards they haven’t designed yet are the ones that will come out after Brann rotates.

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All “for the rest of the game” effects need to either be minor (hero power costs 1 for the rest of the game) or require enough setup that they only happen late game (turn 10+). A 6 mana card (that can sometimes be cheated out earlier) with a powerful “for the rest of the game” effect is insane. This might be acceptable if there were a counter, but none currently exist.

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In the meantime, aggro decks have a 100% win rate against control decks, they need to be fired.

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Literally everything about this is wrong

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Plays a control deck and I’m talking about a real control deck because I came across players who take their combo or aggro deck as a control deck.

Afterwards you will see if I say true or false.