Should your hero start with 30health and 5 armor? Currently playing a hero card also gains you 5 armor, I feel this ballance change would help against aggressive decks.
Also if mecca thun stats was changed to deal 25 health damage skipping armour. This would force you to play defensely with out the instant loss.
Hakkar okt will become weaker over time due to rotation.
Please give your opinion.
Cheers
I think this should be the minimum. I’ve advocated for 40 starting health and 40 deck size. Deck size plays a bigger role than you’d expect, with all the draw cards, OTK relying on milling your deck, cards that destroy half the deck and/or shuffle cards in their deck or in yours, I think its necessary more than ever. It’s a broken game with 30 cards and 30 health. Aggro shouldn’t be a thing, it’s only viable because it exploits the broken mechanic that any decent deck that can last beyond 10 mana rounds will inevitably face some slow starts, combined with other extremely slow decks, those alone give consistency to trash decks that would run out of steam otherwise, especially if they didn’t add cards like master’s call and divine spirit to instantly refresh your hand when you run out of steam. It’s bad for the game and forces other decks to account for it in an already limited deck building game. (While remaining somewhat viable). You can’t homebrew decks that aren’t 90-95% match to top net decks.
40 health / armor starting and 40 deck size minimum is necessary evolution of this game. If nothing else make another mode for this please for the love of god I’m sick of playing the same 30 cards with only 2-3 cards varying possibly.
Aggro is a healthy part of the metagame. It checks super greedy lategame combos and gives purpose to grindy control decks.
Having more health and more cards would not stop mill, or aggro for that matter. Yes, it would be a small hit to aggro win rate, but mill would still be as effective, if not more so.
With a really good mill opener, you can start taking fatigue turn 6. So all of those extra 10 cards do, is delay it by 1 turn.
And it is the same with aggro. With a good opener, you can be dead turn 6 or 7. Some aggro can even kill you on turn 4. So that 10 health is at most 1 extra turn.
I am not saying it would not impact aggro, but the impact would not be as big as you imagine.
I agree that it wouldn’t change much, hence why it makes perfect sense.
Aggro often hangs on the verge of running out of steam in order to barely peg you down to exactly 0 health with a good early opener, 10 extra health ( 1 extra turn) would keep it a bit more honest, preventing those instances. If they truly have control of the game, like you said, it wouldn’t matter, fair play. But if they’re just barely able to create enough early game tempo and extra dmg on minions, charge, or dmg spells/weapons out of hand to ping you to 0 while you have answers but can’t prevent the tiny pings that lead to lethal because of their ability to produce 1/1’s out of thin air (Odd PLD) or manipulate early game minions (+3/+3 shuffle 3 copies on a 4/2 charge then master’s call them out instantly for 7/5 charge minions), that extra 10 health, roughly equivalent to possibly 1 extra turn, could help give the player a chance so their loss condition isn’t purely, the other guy went first and spammed face.
Also it makes sense with the ridiculous amount(s) of armor that can be gained currently. Why does Warrior and Druid have ability to gain 50-100 armor on top of their starting 30 health while very few others can gain any armor at all? If 30 HP is the cap, doesn’t that seem a little unbalanced? Oh that’s right, theirs other broken mechanics like OTK auto-win conditions that make the armor pointless.
Point being, 40 health isn’t dramatic, it doesn’t change much, it shouldn’t prevent a win and people can adjust their play and deck building accordingly, I just feel it helps diminish the effect of go face dead by turn 4 type games which you have no control over and is basically auto-win. I’m not saying its the most viable deck all around, listen to the argument. It’s a cheap way to win that exploits early game mechanics and relies heavily on getting the right card(s), your opponent starting slow, and/or who goes first. That type of win shouldn’t be possible.
Aggro doesn’t have to rely on broken early game mechanics to be aggro and go face and hold weapons, face dmg spells, charge, and buff mechanics. Those are enough and still viable deck builds. The early game perfect draw dead on turn 4-5 relying on broken mechanics is all I have an issue with.
I agree about increasing deck size helping mill mechanics (Decks that don’t mill themselves will be less reliable where decks that do will be more reliable) as far as consistently drawing the card(s) you need. However it does hurt it as well (10 more cards to mill for empty OTK conditions). And the mill / draw card mechanics are another issue that needs to be addressed. Early on in HS they didn’t have so many options to mill and if you ran them you likely played a 1/1, 2/1, or 1/3 on crucial turns your opponent was playing a 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, so it was a fair trade, plus their wasn’t all these mill OTK conditions and not nearly as much reason to want to fatigue yourself entirely.
Now it is a bit out of control, but again, changing deck size wouldn’t be dramatic, those conditions could still be viable options, just not as automatic.
Also consider that deck builds are currently extremely limiting. Most top tier or any tier decks have only a select number of cards that can be removed for other tech options without completely breaking the deck and becoming unreliable or broken. There are, and always have been combinations that aren’t possible because of not only deck building limitations but deck size limitations which go hand in hand.
All decks will be a little less reliable and yet they can include 5-10 new cards which opens some interesting combination possibilities.
And please stop with these “Play this to counter this” comments. That’s the whole point, the counter to aggro works against nothing but aggro, both are trash decks that aren’t viable and shouldn’t be viable. The only viable versions aren’t purely control or purely aggro and have some aim towards mid and late game as well.
You CANNOT build a deck that has a counter for everything. You can’t account for buffed minions and deathrattle trigger combos that require silence or hard removal, weapons that can be buffed, out of hand spell dmg to the face and control tools, aggro, taunt minions, etc. And any deck that attempts any more than the top tier decks already include are broken or not viable options.
So stop suggesting to “Run a <50% deck to beat the decks you hate losing to” which is suggesting to lose to every other deck that isn’t that. That isn’t the answer. Playing to counter in general isn’t the answer. You play to win, to reach your win condition, THEN include any/all control tools, draw cards, etc. You don’t start by building a deck to counter another specific deck, if you do, you’re not building your decks right unless you include all elements including a win condition, draw cards to get to it faster, decent mana curve so you don’t start slow consistently, and some control tools, tech, restore health etc depending on the deck/style.
That seems to be the go to answer to every complaint. “Stop whining, git gud, play these counters that aren’t viable and never have been”. It’s like justifying a 50+ OTK combo to the face by stating some specific classes have armor and can reach more than that in health. So I have to play specifically against that 1 combo/deck/class, by being 1 specific deck/style/class.
“Greedy decks” are the name of the game. Get the fastest possibly win condition, aggro is greedy, just because it plays low cost minions doesn’t mean its not. It literally attempts to play every card possible then draw cards to refill its hand and flood the board relying on the opponent starting slow and/or not drawing the control tools they need to counter. It’s a trash style that relies on broken early game and cards like Master’s Call and Divine Spirit that are clearly broken and DS in the least is getting nerfed.
Control is the least viable option right now. Control doesn’t work. Here’s how that goes. Aggro spams the board, buffs trash minions and goes face, control kills minions, aggro spams more minions, draws more cards, and continues to go face. Control kills minions, aggro plays 10+dmg out of hand and ends match.
You can’t play from behind and expect to win. It’s like boxing someone and believing you can win every match just by blocking. You have to bob and weave and counter and have a gameplan to finish. Although it might work against some who run out of fatigue it’s not always going to work and isn’t favored style.
“Aggro” isn’t the problem, it is broken early game mechanics, broken cards, broken hero powers (With Baku/Genn). Things like “give all minions taunt/divine shield”. Divine shield is one of the most broken mechanics in the game. Don’t believe me? Do this. Build a PLD deck that includes 90% divine shield minions and a few things that synergize with them like minion buffs. No control tools, no weapons (unless they effected by or give divine shield), etc. Just type divine shield in the search bar and use all divine shield mechanics you can. You’ll win a fair share of games, dominate in fact, simply because your opponent will be playing from behind and can’t remove anything due to needing a 1dmg ping before hand. I’ve done it, divine shield alone will win you most games especially if you have silence for taunts. Because you go face, get them down towards lethal range, and they need to hit everything twice even if its a little 1/1 taunt divine shield. It fishes removal, forces them to attack minions instead of going face to prevent lethal and/or forces them to pray their taunt(s) hold up and you can’t get lethal. Most decks simply don’t have answers for mass divine shield mechanics.
The entire reason these forums exist is for healthy criticism, concepts, and the express opinions so they have a general idea/feel for what the fan base wants. People who play and defend aggro do so because they aren’t good and the only way they can win games is by praying their opponents start slow so they can spam trash minions and go face and ignore every other mechanic the game has to offer. Ignore the fact that leaving minions on board is dangerous in certain spots because the potential buff and loss of favored trades is worse than doing less to the face that turn. Ignoring that some decks can place 1 taunt in your way and if you don’t draw silence you’re minions are sitting ducks and/or have to be mass sacrificed just to clear 1 minion cause you don’t include a decent amount of hard removal because that’s not your win condition or concern until it happens then you concede and run it back against the next person in hopes that they’ll start slow and lack a decent amount of control options, restore health / gain armor options that will surely see your aggro running out of steam by turn 9 at the latest. Or even just a better aggro deck that considers some of these things and has a better balanced version of what you’re trying to do with your spam trash go face tactics.
Aggro in the classic sense is not and never has been good for the game. Aggro plays 3-7 turn games consistently win or lose while the rest of the game has to account for turn 8+ moves and can’t just mindlessly fill their decks with low cost trash so they can spam the board, mill, cycle and repeat.
And honestly I don’t think “it checks super greedy late game combos”. Maybe some, like Priest which is notoriously slow to start (Namely because the only viable options outside of control/dragon Priest are broken if you include early game minions). But most others, like Mech Warrior, even Topsy Priest, basically anything that has decent control tools destroys most aggro decks especially if they can restore health and/or gain armor. And Warlock can be aggro and control at the same time, milling itself efficiently, spamming low cost minions, pumping up 7 dmg lifesteal and using other healing mechanics to compensate and still include cards like Doomguard for the finish. Still can be OTK as well with mecha’thun. Just doesn’t include as much minion buff but still include some.
Here’s the problem; removing a 1/3 on turn one or two isn’t worth wasting the removal even if you have it, yet if it lives it’ll get adapted into a 4/3, or a 1/3 windfury, which still is hardly worth removal. Even if you do remove it, you’re just delaying the inevitable on another more powerful card later. let alone a bunch of 1/1’s. And even if you run 2x 1dmg AOE spells or cards in your deck, some of which take 5+ mana, that’s a 1/15 chance of drawing. You start with 3 cards and draw one opening, another on turn 2, that’s 5 cards. And if the buff their minions +1 health or more, or run low cost minions with more than 1 health, your 1 dmg AOE is useless. If you’re using individual removals you can only take 1-2 a turn at best, and some of these decks have 4 minions out by turn 2, 6 by turn 3 if you haven’t removed them.
Back when control Mage was viable, these decks declined, now odd Mage is barely viable and I hardly see it, it runs very inconsistent most of the time, so there’s nothing “checking” aggro. It gets 50%+ win rate regardless of opponents based purely on lack of viable removal options, slow starts of opponents and/or not having or drawing the proper removal, and pinging their opponent down to lethal forcing them to play defense and basically being all but dead on turn 4 if not entirely dead at times just by spamming board and going face.
We see this in so many forms from even shaman with totem they nerfed, odd PLD, which is getting nerfed or HOFd. So many others who just spam early game and pray they don’t run out of steam and rely on broken cards like “Draw until you have as many as your opponent” which are clearly broken and originally designed to combat “greedy decks” but now it has been polished into the greediest of decks playing their entire hand out by turn 3 and then drawing as many as their opponent which can be 5-8+ cards.
Stats don’t tell the full story. A lot of people copy net decks, run them without knowing how, making simple mistakes that cost them the game. People also run 2-3+ accounts. People throw games intentionally. How easy is it to run a deck on a different account and intentionally lose, people do it for a number of reasons. How many people auto-concede as well. I’m not sure where they pull their stats from but if it comes from every game played or every game recorded that is easily manipulated by anyone who wants to. And in general stats aren’t a go to absolute answer to everything like everyone on these toxic forums tends to think.
Tired of these lame arguments; Stats say this, run this counter card/deck, it has to exist because other broken mechanics exist even tho 0 top tier viable decks run that. None of those are valid in anyway stop. Just because a stat says this deck is 50% overall doesn’t mean I’m not running it at 95% out of my last 30 matches. Doesn’t mean the losses couldn’t have been avoided with different decisions by the player. Beyond aggro, decks actually have decisions to be made and gambles to take that don’t always pay off and could’ve either gone the other way or could’ve taken less risk. You have to weigh the possibilities of your opponent having lethal and how to best prevent it or gamble they don’t have it and play for more value. It isn’t just spam board, go face, draw card.
Why armor though? That would leave priest behind and any deck that would utilize healing. As well as giving warriors free use of some abilities like Shield Slam.
Better to go with 35 health to keep it balanced.
You don’t get to just cover your ears and pretend that the statistics don’t matter.
Control is remains a viable playstyle and that fact (yes, fact) is true regardless of how many paragraphs you write. Odd warrior is a tier 1 deck while control priest, big spell mage, and odd mage (control variant, not the secret variant) all have positive win rates.
Aggro is a cancer and needs to be eliminated. Midrange, Tempo, mill, combo, otk, control all play at the same rate, aggro is the only one that place at a different speed. It attempts to finish the game before the game has a chance to really get started.
Starting with more health is an amazing idea, a deck size of 40 and 50 HP would be awesome
I’ve been in favor of anywhere from 40-60 starting health for heroes. At the least it should be about 40. None of that turn 3 giant garbage deciding the game as much, but unfortunately it already is a control meta. This would only make that worse. Remove insane board clears, buff hero health, imo. No starting armor; that makes healing even worse, and it’s not even good as is.
And how dare you say that early game mechanics like baku and genn are broken, when EVERY control deck has a deathknight, unlimited board clears, infinite value generation, and more health cheat than I’ve ever seen in any kind of card game.
The late game mechanics are what’s broken. Aggro’s not the problem. A single turn 3 tar creeper is back breaking for aggro, let alone the other 7 or more board clears the average control deck is running these days. And when a DK comes down it’s literally GG.
Have you been on the other side of that? Where you try to play anything and it doesn’t stick for more than 3 seconds because your opponent is already drooling at the mouth ready to punish you with removal for anything you might play and even the cards you don’t play?
And then you’re the player who gets punished for not having any minions when som insanely broken DK or combo comes out, and you never got to play the game at all.
Midrange and aggro are absolutely getting the short end lately, and frankly there’s nothing we can do about it. Combo is just getting stronger and we can’t counter it because it’s soooo strong and we’re going to be losing genn and baku to top it all off, then you’re realize how fun COMBOSTONE really is.
“lay aggro then. If its so broken surely you would reach rank 1 legend.”
That’s the thing, no one is saying it’s unstoppable. It’s trash. It just so happens that it can win 50% games based PURELY on the slow start or inability to draw proper removal of their opponent which is bound to happen for a lot of decks. Influenced heavily by starting health being dwarfed by how many expansions now making cards better and coin/mana differential (who goes first vs who gets coin).
And it’s not a problem for some decks, or some matches, depending on your draw, who goes first, if you draw any cards for early based on RNG. The fact that it is at all viable is proof in and of itself. It’s banking on the fact that anyone who doesn’t draw early game is going to be pinged down to lethal range by turn 4 if not dead by 4 depending on the deck/type.
Based purely on the fact that any viable decks that aren’t aggro don’t include more than a handful of low cost cards because that hurts you in most situations (makes decks less viable, lose percentage increases based on tougher actual match ups not determined in first 4 turns).
So theirs 1/3 to 1/6 chance based on the deck to draw any low cost minions <3. That gives 2-3+ free rounds to aggro and ramps up depending on who goes first and who gets crystal (neither is advantageous all around but certain decks / styles exploit one or the other or both.) Then turns 4+ is buff, go face and/or silence/remove any taunts blocking. It forces the opponent to require a very select few specific cards, which they can answer for the most part unless you have an entire sequence of cards (namely a way to heal AFTER somehow removing their board and/or getting a decent taunt to stick)
A lot of which relies on them not having silence to blow past which is almost guaranteed to be in their deck. It forces you to have removal on turn 2 some decks simply don’t have or like Priest, is very conditional (3 or less 5 or more), singular, and can be played around (4 attack).
The fact you can rush to play out your hand and draw cards equal to your opponent who more likely than not has at least +3-4+ cards than you (PLD Divine Favor). Or Warlock who has 2/1 draw card deal 2 dmg to yourself (ping upgrade for 5-7 dmg lifesteal for 4 mana) along side godly amounts of removal/control tools and inherent ability to mill itself, better healing than priest and better ability to buff minions than PLD in a lot of ways. Or Hunter with 1/3 turn 1, 3/2 adapt the 1/3 turn 2, 4/2 charge turn 3, +3/+3 shuffle 3 copies turn 4, Master’s call turn 5+ draw 3 beasts. Ability to achieve lethal by pure face dmg on 4 at times.
The main justification is that statistics, yet Even/Odd/Secret PLD holds 3 top spots on disguised toast, Zoo Warlock, beast hunter and even PLD on metabomb. Both have 3/4 spots going to aggro. The other justification is 2 wrongs = a right. Other things are broken so we deserve a broken aggro option. When even if/when aggro is suffering horribly, it remains viable at all times because inherently it will always win roughly 50%+ based purely on early game.
And my favorite; “Why don’t you play it if its so broken”. First of all, I have ran PLD variations, its incredibly cheap and easy, most matches are won based purely on 1/1 pings and their inability to board clear and/or the fact that by the time they do I’ve buffed minions, or brought them in range for lethal so it doesn’t matter. Even running poor home brew variations that completely ignore top decks, I still get viable decks based purely on the fact that my opponents who don’t run aggro are almost always dead before they can play, can’t play their cards the way they want because they’re instantly within lethal, and forced to play catch up, and even IF the draw and play the proper removal ASAP, I’ve already pinged them down to a range where I can find lethal, easily draw to mirror their hand size, disrupt any offense they might muster by playing 1/1 taunt divine shield that requires 2 hits or fishes silence, and if they don’t remove all my little tokens which I can pump out for free (no cards required) I can easily buff and go face once I’ve pinged them down enough.
It’s not fun, it diminishes the game to who goes first and who draws correctly which is outside of anyones control. People who defend it think anyone who complains must be bad at the game and/or if it was truly an issue then why don’t they do it. That isn’t the answer. I can run something and still say yup that’s broken. Whether its 40dmg to the face with nothing on board or OTK auto win or aggro. You cannot justify cards being in the game, being what they are, costing what they do, by simply stating they’re in the game. That’s irrelevant.
Most board removal is 5+. Mass Hysteria is highly unreliable and relies on having specific health and att amounts or its guaranteed not to clear everything, even if its correct there’s still possibilities of it completely avoiding 1 decent minion, and you just spent your entire turn 5 not putting anything on board, losing anything you had on board, so they still have board control / tempo and 5-6+ mana to set up. Volcano locks 3/6 mana for turn 6 so not only do you not put anything on board turn 5, you lock yourself up for turn 6 and most decent shaman spells that could do anything are 4 mana+. They also rely heavily on you not having much on board and playing from behind which 1) plays into the style of aggro. 2) stops it from being a playable option OR you sacrifice your own minions losing tons of value 3) makes any tech card burn a hole in your hand until a minion is buffed and by then its too late.
In general you have to eat face dmg and play from behind if you don’t have a decent tempo draw. Most removal is inherently played from behind and doesn’t work effectively against low cost minions and tokens that aren’t worth removing until they’re buffed and potentially escape removal once they’re buffed. Even if/when you’re able to answer its AFTER you’ve eaten face dmg. Healing / armor in most cases is unreliable and relies heavily on buying time for turns 5+ to spam removal consistently which doesn’t stop charge, face dmg spells, weapons and many other options that can easily take your remaining 10-15HP by that point.
In general playing counters, playing from behind, playing to wait and remove only works if you can generate godly amounts of armor like odd WAR or Druid, both of which aren’t the most viable decks, auto-lose to auto-win conditions, and still unfavored against aggro. Because of everything listed, maybe they buy some time, maybe sometimes the aggro player runs out of steam and doesn’t hit the proper mill cards on time or plays too strong before getting removed and doesn’t save some cards in case of brawl or hysteria or psychic scream or normal AOE removal. But in general by the time those are playable its already over, so you have to include 1 dmg AOE which can be virtually useless 90% of the time, single card removal / dmg which doesn’t answer boards of tokens / low cost minions and consumes your entire turn. Control isn’t really the answer to aggro unless you’re running 3-5 dmg that individually pings, which a hero power that pings, and AOE removal to fall back on. Then maybe, otherwise, most classes don’t have the options to really control 1/1 tokens every turn until turn 5+ by then its too late, especially if you play second.
I would say 5 health than 5 armour. Reason for this is you will cripple priest early heal. Sure you just blocked 5 damage but the hero power is kind of worthless early game.
40 Health 40 card deck starting. IMO it makes the game 100% better in every aspect. Yes there are downsides, but still better than what we’re running now.
Odd PLD is cancer to this game.
Here here brotha. Aggro is a cancer. It is a mutation of tempo brought about by imbalances in the card pool and peoples desire to have the easy way out. It sickens and cheapens the game as a whole. Playing aggro is like playing classic doom on easy difficulty with god mode on. You should get the same level of enjoyment.
Warrior winrate would shoot up. 1 mana shield slam starting with 5 armor is op
Mechathun deal 25 damage? Ridiculous. Get rid of every resource hand and deck, deal 25 damage then lose the game.
After rotation mechathun druid won’t be broken. And so mecathun will be harder to pull off so if and when it succeeds it won’t feel unfair going forward.
Aggro is essential. It’s an archetype. Not every match needs to be slow and grindy. I like control and value games… But control keeps aggro in check, aggro keeps slow decks in check, otk is broken but won’t be after rotation and I think will feel healthy
Control is completely viable. I play Cublelock, and odd paly and odd rouge are great matchups. Defile is one of the most powerful warlock cards ever printed, its a 2 of in almost every warlock deck that isn’t zoo. And while aggro and midrange tend to be easier, they are not as brainless as most people realize. Also, your conspiracy theory about bad stats has no evidence to back it up. You are complaining about op aggro cards, but what about the LONG list of op control/ late game cards. Odd mage is totally viable and very consistent(as is the case with most odd/even decks). Priest and Warlock have a absurd amount of viable removal, to the point were they are cutting great removal fr even better ones. just play plated beetle or tar creeper to teach that 1/3 a lesson. your example of a 5 mana 1dmg to everything aoe is not realistic, no board clear is that bad( except a noob with dragons fury), and you can have more than 2 board clears, many controls decks have 6 or more. The warlock decks you cited are totally different and have very different strategies. zoo does not run the spell stones. you saying that combo beats aggro just counters your own argument. Combo decks are weaker to aggro. aggro is an essential part of the game. and all of those “broken cards and hero powers” are rotating(way to late).
“You can’t play from behind and expect to win. It’s like boxing someone and believing you can win every match just by blocking. You have to bob and weave and counter and have a gameplan to finish. Although it might work against some who run out of fatigue it’s not always going to work and isn’t favored style.”
that is completely false, once the control decks are done “blocking” they drop a big threat and end the game.
some of the decks that beat aggro have a great winrate. You don’t need to counter everything, just the most prominent decks. Many of the aggro counters are decent in onther matchups:
a skilled player can use defile to clear large board against none-aggro
hellfire can burst leathal, or kill large threats with other cards
spirit lash can provide tons of heal
spreading plague can slow down many different stragies
warpath can be a massive board clear later in the game
blizzard helps kill threats and stalls against a variety off decks
the small decks size is a central part of the game. It would require a MASSIVE rework of everything to change that. NO WAY IS DECK SIZE CHANGING. just accept that the game is changing(like every game does), it will never be as good as it was a few years ago, move on. stop targeting broken aggro mechanics, every class has their own broken stuff.
dont even try to argue that 40 health would not change much. the entire game would have ro be remade to acomidate those changes. aggro decks would just get stronger, and it would all end up the same, except everything is a little stronger.
sry about the wierd order, i read it in reverse
also I don’t even play aggro, so dont try to argue im biased
Yes it gives warrior a nice 1 cost spell at the start but since pirates, name me a good aggro deck for this class? This spell shouldn’t be wasted on early game minions if used correctly, as exscute is the only good alternative.
I get your point. But i would rather see cards that are infinite, and aggro cards that makes aggro busted, move to Hall of Fame, and release a new playmode in between Wild and Standard, that doesnt include Hall of Fame cards. That way you would get the best of both worlds. And one wouldnt need to change other aspects of the game.
Standard would still be fresh with new cards. Wild would still be wild. And the new playmode in between could function without infinite/OTK/OP aggro cards.