So steam cleaner still gone, no new counter, and now an even more vicious plague capability.
Turn 7 and I have 20+ plagues in my deck, seems super fair and balanced since there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Very interactive, much fun, many player agencies
Warlock and rogue can technically run announce darkness to turn them all into warlock cards.
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Curious fact: Plagues also hard counter Big Spell Mage. Surfalopod will just cast when drawn on a plague 99% of the time; the 6-cost will draw a plague and summon a useless 1-cost; and Grillmaster battlecry will draw ALL of your 1-cost plagues in one turn if you have no other 1-costs in your deck! Fun!
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that why steamcleaner need be back in the core.
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Grillmasters doesn’t draw all of them. He draws 1 of them, which triggers a new draw. You just happened to have a bunch on the top of your deck at the time.
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No. It had it’s day.
It ruins so many fun things that are not plagues.
Plagues are a hard counter to slow, value oriented decks. If you aren’t one of those, then you are doing something wrong if you’re scared of plagues. They can be annoying, but rarely win games in the current standard meta.
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At least they aren’t asking for skulking geist back to counter plagues…
And chalice spam…
And every deck that likes 1 cost spells.
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Tony.
You’re welcome.
Don’t like that counter? Don’t claim there isn’t one then.
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I’ve made posts related to Steamcleaner before, and after reading replies, I get why people don’t like that design space, so I’ve thought more about how to address something I feel is an issue.
I believe Helya is the problem. I would rather she double the number of plagues in your opponents deck, or something similar, than making them permanent. Game long battlecry effects are an ever growing problem, and Helya is no exception.
My other thought would be to look at Frost Plague, as it is the only one that has an impact in most cases. I’d rather see it freeze a minion or make the next card you draw not playable this turn or something in a similar vein. That is more in theme with what Frost rune cards currently do.
I feel that most of the issue does lie with Helya, but I’d like to know what you think.
Couldn’t agree more, but then I think permanent effects are pretty much the worst thing to happen in hearthstone. Not only because as a Mage player we are left out of class cards with permanent effects, but in a more general, non interactive “player agency” (since thats the buzz word) way.
Effects that are non counterable just feel bad all the way around, they are like absolute value…play once get permanent play value the rest of the game. You can raise the cost all you want but look at warrior, you give them all the high value stall/armour etc cards to insure survivability across one “Oh no I have to spend all my mana to get a perm effect or two or three, you know with a body attached etc”
I could understand the mechanic in a game like MTG with the possibilities of interrupts or if blizz would give us anything to counter things (universal cards, not class dependent or “play Tony and give up on your deck”).
Like why was Demo Renovator launched with expansion to core…So they could keep printing locations and even though nobody runs the card at least its there if things got completely out of hand. Or the widely used rustrot viper, again launched in expansion straight to core.
Yet they keep printing “permanent” cards in a strict turn based game with no “phases” to speak of. No I don’t think “begining/end” of turn are phases, they are just turn triggers for otherwise uninterruptable mechanics.
a great counter to plagues i would love to see in standard, is
it would also deal with the mage chalice
this is much better for the game
you can use overplanner to re order your deck before playing card draw to avoid getting hit by plagues
or to put them into grub suitcase
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Helya is what gives them the inevitability to overcome value decks, though. Without her the plagues have almost no impact.
You’ve seen how much lifesteal is floating around, do you think two damage is meaningful? Four? Pulling two or three plagues in a row rarely wins games.
I think you have a point about some of the game long battlecries, brann warrior for example, but I don’t see Helya in that way because the deck is too weak to most strategies. Beyond that, it’s not easy to interact with that effect beyond hoping your opponent draws them, unlike brann that you can use each turn. I don’t see them as the same.
Now, I get that people that like long, slow, value oriented decks are furious about plagues, but the bottom line is they’re just doing what you want to do but better.
I think it’s actually fantastic design because it’s disruption that is temporary and you have choices in how you respond to it.
Plague dk isn’t very good, though. It’s countered by just killing your opponent and not caring about plagues being sent to your deck.
At 6 cost would it even do anything? Back in the day that was an acceptable cost but by todays standards to be effective it would have to cost 3 or 4.
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What they really should have is a neutral that transforms cards in your deck that didn’t start there to random stuff. It’s a simple fix for Plagues and TNTs.
They really hate introducing tech stuff into the game.
They do not, Wyrmrest Purifier is a card, Steam Cleaner is a card, Skulking Geist is a card. Since they did not put any of them into the Core Set in April it is obvious they did not want them in Standard.
And it is easy to see why. Plague DK is already the worst archetype for the class (well, other than Triple Blood but no one plays that except me :D), Bomb Warrior is non existent, there is seriously no need to nerf those decks any further.
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they could easily buff it to 5 mana which is how much steamcleaner costs
So my only issue with your criticism is that “it’s not a very good card” isn’t an excuse for it being poorly designed. A lot of your points hinge upon it being fine because it isn’t very good. If plagues were strong enough to be a tier 1 deck, Helya would be an issue.
I am of the opinion that any battlecry, or spell, that lasts for the entire game is a problem, regardless of actual strength. I feel it is bad design to print anything that has 0 counter play.
If it is the case that Plagues are bad without Helya, then plagues should be buffed to compensate for losing them being game long. Instead of Blood giving just 2 healing, make it deal x damage and increase your health by the same amount. Unholy could summon a larger body based on how many plagues are in the deck. There are so many more interesting, and stronger, ideas to use than just “make them permanent.”
I’d much rather see Plagues be stronger baseline than have game long effects continue to creep into the game.
They do. And in all fairness it’s really bad balancing design as well. If you are going to introduce a tech card to screw over an entire deck, why not just nerf it’s play pattern in where it doesn’t require a tech card?
I truly can’t stand plagues - mainly because I can’t pilot an aggro deck to save my life. I truly do love my mid-range/control decks, but sometimes it just feels like rock/paper/scissors because plagues just out right counter value oriented control decks that I like.
But oh well. Plagues are here to stay until next rotation.
I often wonder if all the Plague DK haters were playing standard when Garrote Rogue was easily 40%+ of the meta? Took them a month to nerf it because they were “On Christmas break”. That was a HORRIBLE time to playing the game unless you liked that sort of thing.
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