Targeted Hand Attack Sucks!

Community Discussion
1

I played some Standard this week, which confirmed how un-fun the format is for me these days.

My big issues, as I have stated elsewhere, are the insane

1). Powercreep
2). Poor balance
3). Overdeveloped Archetypes that make decks feel mostly pre-made (before new cards are even released), which takes away the fun of exploring new card pools and the whole deck building process.
4) Abundant and powerful RNG effects
5) Too many decks lack an interactive feel to gameplay as they just go about setting up their win conditions or hoping to draw their broken cards or combos. Think freeze mage, etc…

And now:

  1. Hand Attack

I cautioned Hearthstone developers while the game was still new to not make same the mistake as Magic the Gathering by including “hand attack” cards because of how impactful and unpleasant hand attack is, but here we are anyways with Theotar, the Made Duke.

Mutanus is okay, because it’s expensive, it’s is random (not discovered), and it may miss a good minion in hand, or the opponent may not have any minions in hand, but Theotar is cheap and it often results in way too much of a power swing, plus it provides intelligence on two other cards in the opponent’s hand. Theotar is far too impactful—it’ just too disruptive to fair gameplay.

The more I play constructed, the more I realize, how bad the play experience is these days, because of where the devs have taken the game. I cannot see myself spending any more money on cards that I really do not own to play a constructed format that sucks this much.

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I think this is becoming a thing, like immolate and such, bc it now forces players to move away from metas. I’ve noticed I’ve slowly been crawling to legendary bc I use weird non-meta wombo combo decks. I’ve seen Theotar thrown down, and the other player sits there for a solid minute, and concedes bc they don’t see “the card” they are looking for(Which ain’t even in my deck). Just roll w/ it and make your own meta. I hate metas btw.

3

Theotar helps combat all your above mentioned points. He’s a much need tech card for the crap blizzard has created.

If they are going to continue printing op garbage they have to print counters.

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4

Since I have been stating so many negatives about Standard (or any constructed format—even Arena feels broken right now) because there are way too many powerfully broken cards in constructed, I thought I should jump in and play some Standard before making any further comments.

So I casually climbed to Diamond Rank 5 over the last four days—something that I had not bothered to do in a year or two. I played my own take on Beast Hunter, which included Theotar and Mutanus—it did not include Huntsman Altimor and a lot of other staple cards found on most of the common Beast Hunter deck lists.

There are a lot of different viable decks in Standard right now, and that does say something about the work the devs have put in to keep classes and decks viable among so much brokenness.

But the level of powercreep and brokenness that exists in Hearthstone now is where it should be ten years from now, if the game had been much better managed.

Powercreep is inevitable in any CCG game like Magic or Hearthstone, where better new cards help to drive sales, but powercreep on steroids has dramatically reduced the longevity of hearthstone. How long before games are decided between turns 1 and 3? This is the dilemma that can occur when powercreep fails to grow in small gradual increments.

Theotar does not combat any of my listed points. Theotar is just one card, and it fails to neutralize the negative impacts of powercreep, poor balance, over developed archetypes, rampant powerful RNG effects, un-interactive decks, and that crappy feeling of being the victim of a powerful hand attack mechanic that transfers the most powerful discovered broken card from one player to the other.

But I get what you are trying say: Theotar is tech against the most broken card in a player’s deck that they may be holding in their hand. When Theotar steals a Sire Denathrius or Insatiable Devourer, it can be game over for whoever gets such a powerful card plundered from their hand.

Since cards like Sire Denathrius and Theotar are so impactful in so many matches, I decided to include them in my Beast Hunter deck, along with Mutanus for one more chance to purge the most broken cards from my opponent’s hand.

But if Theotar is a necessary evil to tech against very broken cards, then the solution is nearly as bad as the problem, and constructed should not be in such a poor state this soon.

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5

This is the biggest factor that makes the game boring imo.
I am happy with the release of “support packages” that work, like the wildseed hunter, or the skeleton mahe stuff.

What I dislike is when they release archetypes like murloc warlock, implock, mech mage, pirate warrior. You can basically build your entire deck by typing “murloc, imp, mech, pirate”; there isn’t a plan B.

If you had to build one of these old decks, you can’t include anything new in them, because they already have everything. You can’t even exchange cards, because there isn’t a surplus.

I like highlander decks because of their flexibility: they have a lot of “must have” obviously, but you are usually left with 15-20 cards that are up to you anf you can exchange depending on the meta.
If the meta is against board decks, the ones I mentioned above have no business and you just have to delete them, since there is no way to improve them.

There is also the “lack of originally and surprise” when facing one of these decks: mage plays a mech? i already know everything they have in their deck, besides maybe 1-2 cards that may be too expensive for them to craft

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6

Targeted hand attack sounds like power rangers.

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:slight_smile:

I used the word “targeted” because the player chooses a specific discovered card to take from their opponent’s hand rather than it being a completely random burglary.

During year one, I cautioned devs against discard and hand attack effects, since I had so much experience with the impact of such cards from playing Magic.

Multiple discard effects can be crippling to many deck strategies, and when prevalent, really restricts what kind of decks can succeed in a Meta.

Having played a lot of permission decks and discard decks (or a combination of both), I understand why so many players get frustrated with discard to point it turns them off from wanting to play the game.

If some discard tech is to be included in Hearthstone then I think Mutanus is a good design, since the card is expensive and it’s effect is purely random, plus it targets only one type of card: minions.

8

Targeted hand disruption.

I have no problems with this kind of thing, but I don’t play dumbass combo bullspit. If I played some combo instakill nonsense, I would hate it.

It’s fine to have a card like this. If Sire didn’t exist, people wouldn’t really mind. If quest priest didn’t exist, people wouldn’t really mind. If guff didn’t exist, people wouldn’t really mind.

The problem isn’t the hand disruption, it’s the meta that makes it so lethally effective is also the meta that makes the game so boring and predicatable as to be unplayable bad.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

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