I have not seen one actual good player complain about this card, so I don’t think it’s a legitimate sentiment outlier.
I think diaper babies who make bad homebrewed reno decks are crying their eyes out, but balancing the game around those players is dumb.
It’s comparing apple to oranges. You can have 4.copies of a card in Magic. HS is designed around 30 cards deck limit.
Maybe?
I guess it will depend on how far they go with nerfs and what specific buffs are done.
Plagues are a niche counter to several things, but entirely too slow to be relevant to most of the meta and I don’t see that changing.
Making the plagues not permanent would make the deck a complete meme, though, so I hope that’s not the direction.
the guy is suggesting to nerf ensmallen…
Sentiment outliers are nerfed based on the negative experience they provide to any segment of the community, regardless of their actual power level. The use of the word “sentiment” emphasizes the focus on emotions rather than actual viability.
It’s hard to argue that Helya isn’t a sentiment outlier. There’s certainly a portion of the player base who dislike the endless plagues being shuffled into their deck.
Balancing the game requires considering all players. What’s nonsensical is failing to do so and instead catering to a specific rank just because it shows signs of better deck utilization.
So you want to balance game around high legend players? That is regarded as most players are not in high legend. I hear very little arguments from you and a lot of epithets.
They are too slow right now. It sounds like one of the major goals of the patch is removing a ton of the things that abruptly end the game that you’d otherwise be racing. With those weakened or gone, what is slow now is not all that slow anymore.
And even with them being not permanent, that’s still upwards of 17 plagues or 34 damage you can push into your opponent’s deck with added upsides. It just doesn’t ramp up to be fireballing+ each turn by the end of the game, so you’d need to pair it with other aggression rather than stall style plays like the excavate package.
Helya does allow for the shut down of the highlander archetype a bit too easily with how splashable she is. I assume highlander warrior is going to be gutted in this patch, and I don’t think they need Helya + 1 plague to permanently shut off their deck’s payoff cards after that.
Then everything is a sentiment outlier by your definition. People hate reno, the counter to reno, the counter to the counter to reno… and it goes on forever.
Historically, they have used more than just “some people are complaining” to identify what is toxic and what isn’t.
You’re ignoring the “player agency” aspect of it in your assessment. You can beat plagues even after Helya is played by simply beating them with your cards. You have significant agency to attack the deck after these cards are played. It’s not some magic otk on turn four as it’s being represented.
Yes, people playing reno deck and bad homebrew value decks… but that’s exactly why plagues exist in this current meta - to counter those decks. It’s literally “working as intended” here.
No, no, it does not. User error isn’t a reason for balance changes, and most of the complaints about plagues are 100% user error.
Yes, you put your dropside crib together upside down so now my wife can’t have one is the proper way?
It’s literally stupid to balance a game around people doing it wrong, which is what you’re alleging.
No, I want them to balance it around competive ranks in the diamond range.
I am fine with shutting down reno decks. Good. Glad something does.
Drawing two cards in rainbow and playing both before their highlander payoffs seems like fair play, though.
If the deck needs reno to win, that’s more a reno issue than a plagues problem, imo, speaking to reno is a power outlier more than plagues.
Only 1 of them has been good. Reno is specifically mentioned as being on the probable chopping block, and he was mostly used outside of highlander decks.
Most of the other payoffs didn’t need a hard counter like that. It’s Brann that makes Reno warrior OP, not Reno.
You’re essentially echoing the example they provided. People dislike playing against Reno, and it’s slated for nerfs.
The same principle could potentially apply to Helya and other non-overpowered cards.
There’s no precedent for this situation.
This patch differs from previous ones. You can’t draw comparisons between their past actions and the potential actions here.
This pertains to power level, which is something this patch won’t address. Or won’t address primarily.
Every card is working as intended then.
Nature Shaman and Zarimi Priest are working as intended, yet they’ve been confirmed for nerfs.
This game doesn’t cater to the minority that is Top Legend.
It caters to the majority, which falls within the Diamond to Legend ranks. Nerfs are implemented based on this to ensure the satisfaction of the majority. If Helya were to be nerfed, it’s due to user experience, and nobody is disputing that. However, if it’s necessary in regard to player sentiment, it should be done.
It’s not stupid for a company that wants player activity.
They said their objective with this patch is to change the entire feel of gameplay around player agency. The existence of hard counters with no counterplay and certain randomly occuring events that decide a game and are outside of your control are strong suspects in this. Specifically, they said they are not looking to address the health of a particular meta, but the health of the game as a whole. Helya not only is a complete shutdown to highlander decks, it also introduces a very hard floor that the power-level of everything else is forced to be above of. Nerf everything too much and suddenly plagues are the undisputed king of longer games.
Even without infinite plagues, frost plagues alone are extremely unfun to experience. An entire pop-off turn may be ruined by one unlucky frost plague. This is an absolutely hideous experience when you are in the receiving end of it, and there’s no agency involved in this. Also, Helya is not a problem just because of plague DK. Plague DK is indeed a bad deck, but rainbow DK also runs it and it’s already bad enough in it.
Helya is 100% a strong candidate in the list of strong, low-agency win conditions they are talking about, regardless of how plague DK performs and what purpose it is serving in the current meta.
If I had to bet, I think this entire love triangle is getting the axe. Reno, Brann, Helya, etc. All receiving a hit or a rework. I am farily confident in fact.
I’m saying that something like Renathal (or a separate mode entirely), allowing for increased deck size and or health, would be cool in my opinion. I’m not comparing apples and oranges. That’d be if I argued something in Hearthstone on the back of Magic, which I’m not.
Um, you mean like when a low performing mage deck was nerfed because it made an infinite loop? Or when they said they get people hate Tickatus, but until it hits X play rate, we aren’t touching it because the power is too low?
There’s plenty of precedent for sentiment driven nerfs.
No, it does not. They specifically mention player agency in their message, and the things they are targeting are things that you can’t really respond to because they instantly or near instantly win the game. Helya is not that. Not at all.
Because, unlike Helya, there is no agency to counter otk which is that consistent and that early. It’s not the existence of an otk shaman that’s problematic, it’s the speed and consistency of the kill. Helya doesn’t end games.
I never said it should be balanced around that.
I said in essence that all of the people complaining about Helya are in HSReplay’s free stat section, and that can’t be the source of balance.
Good players are unconcerned by plagues.
Stop saying that plagues have no counter play. You can just kill them, which is how they are countered. It usually takes ten or more turns before plagues have any real impact on the game, so as long as you’re trying to win it isn’t an issue.
If you’re trying to out value someone, it’s a bad match up. We can’t just eliminate every bad match up because bronze players are mad.
There are many effects in the game that cause you to have to change your plan… that’s not reason to nerf everything.
I think people are way too focused on what they personally don’t like and not enough on the big picture here.
How do you think this is a win con? Are you playing some absolutely ridiculous deck where you put forty legendary cards and five extra legendaries and all the renos in your deck that does nothing? Because when I don’t play plague dk I welcome the free wins. I’ve never once been bothered by Helya.
Is Loatheb unfair too? Cult Neophyte? The card that draws two card for each but you can’t play yours? Mutanus? Where is the line? Hand disruption is good for the game. It’s literally interaction for my effect to make you have to alter your plan, and you’re telling me this is unfun?
I seriously don’t fathom how someone can look at Shaman OTK and Helya and put them in the same category.
Hilarious.
Well, tickatus didn’t create a player agency problem. He deleted cards that you didn’t have and weren’t guaranteed to draw. Most decks then and now don’t require more than 20 cards to win, and he was slow as hell on top of that.
He hard countered nothing.
ARe you arguing he wasn’t a sentiment oulier? Because the point being made by the other poster was that we haven’t had sentiment outlier nerfs before or precedent for them.
I gave two examples of sentiment outliers that had low power, one was nerfed and the other was not. The nerfed one, like you said, removed player agency.
Tickatus is more akin to Helya than the infinite mage loop, which is what was nerfed.
Oh, he absolutely made people rage.
He wasn’t an agency issue though.
The poor performing infinite loop was though.
Player agency comes down to what it does to your opponent’s options from that point on.
Tickatus barely impacted the game on play.
The mage infinite loop shut down most options.
Helya is somewhere in between those two.
He sure did. He’s an og sentiment outlier. Especiallly when people were figuring ways to copy him and replay him, lol. Burning entire decks.
Idk if you can see it, but you and I agree here.
I am saying Helya doesn’t remove agency because you have turns and turns to play your cards after she’s put on the board.
Helya does though.
It shuts down an archetype permanently (highlander) without any recourse.
It also is an automatic singular card win condition that only requires the game to go long after being played.
Just because Helya is slow doesn’t make it not a player agency limiter.
Tickatus did neither of those things. It sometimes beat combo decks in the way dirty rat does, and that’s about it. It didn’t even have a great win rate against combo decks.
Unlike plague, which is massively favored against Reno warrior.
“Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.”
Stephen King
There is no counterplay to the plagues themselves. If you are a highlander deck or a control deck, there’s nothing to do about plagues aside from, yes, killing them.
How do you think it isn’t? It’s literally a wincon.
Depends on the category. If the category is ‘power level’ then yes, they’re entirely apart. If the category is ‘unfun and low agency’ then they absolutely are in the same category.
I think you’re just being overly defensive of it because you are having fun playing it. But the card is absolutely among the group of designs responsible for making standard insufferable. I won’t deny I have my own bias. I like to play rogue and combo decks. I like drawing my deck, mana cheating and playing 10 cards per turn. This card absolutely breaks my… spirits. I hate it with a passion, but aside from this bias I genuinely think the card is unhealthy for the game as a whole regardless of power, in a way no other card in the game has ever been.
And stop referring to my rank or the decks I play please, I play in mid legend every month (except this month because I couldn’t bother playing this anymore), and I don’t play junk that loses to plague DK. I don’t complain about Helya because I lose to it. I complain because it makes the game worse.