The Untapped Potential Of Wild - Read Me Blizz

Multiplayer Discussion
1

So I’m sure this has already been said before, but I’m a long time player, returning after quite a few years off from the game and only just realising how fundamentally broken Wild has become.

I understand wild was always supposed to be about allowing broken combos, but in all honesty, we’re at the point where things are beyond broken.

If wild is supposed to be a place where players can enjoy using their old cards… well it’s not working. There’s only four viable strategies every single competitive deck must use (none of which are fun to play against). Cards that don’t serve these goals simply aren’t viable.

  • Scam and cheat everything out and hopefully high roll a quick win.
  • If you can’t deal enough face damage, you need to run an OTK (or unbeatable win condition).
  • Draw your own deck as fast as possible to kill or OTK your opponent because if you don’t, you’ll be killed or OTK’d before turn 10 almost every time.
  • If all else fails, rat out your opponents win condition or lock them down so they can’t play it.

None of these issues are inherently problematic except when…

  • Classes have too much consistent card draw or can reliably tutor out combo pieces.
  • Win conditions don’t need combo pieces (quests etc) and so can’t be countered.
  • Win conditions are guaranteed by some broken unintended interaction.
  • Players are doing nothing but trying to race to the face or draw to their OTK (super fun for everyone!).

The fact that almost every slower deck has to run either Theotar, Mutanus, Okani, Dirty Rat or all of the above is testament to the fact that there’s a problem. The problem with these cards is no one is having fun when they have to rely on RNG to scam games, and no one is having fun being scammed by disruption cards.

And some may suggest that the alternative is playing a hyper aggro deck to get under the big control decks… which isn’t much better because…

  • You’ve got to deal with +10 health from Prince Renathal
  • Wasn’t the entire point to use your cool old cards? Can’t you just run flood paladin in standard?
  • If all the best big control decks just play solitaire and lock you down. How much fun is that for you as a board based deck?

It doesn’t even matter if the win rate of a particular archetype makes it viable at present time (at some point it may be viable in the future), if a card promotes a toxic playstyle it needs to go. Demon seed and Shudder are the obvious culprits here and have been for years.

Or if a toxic combo appears that the designers wouldn’t have allowed when the card first came out… don’t treat Wild like a dumpster. Nerf it or ban it before another solitaire archetype appears. For example (but not limited to)…

  • Coldarra Drake + Reno
  • Sing-Along Buddy + Uther
  • Shudderblock + Mutanus + Reno + Shudderwock + all the other BS
  • Aviana + Wildheart Guff + all the broken interactions which now exist and will exist in the future if this is still allowed to exist.
  • Mystery Egg + Huhuran and all it’s other broken interactions

Or if a draw engine (looking at rogue here) is way to consistent, just remove it. As I said earlier, half the issue with combo decks in wild is they ALWAYS have it due to tutoring or too much reliable draw.

There’s nothing wrong with combos or building to a win condition, but a mode in which you die by turn 10 consistently to some OTK BS and almost always get scammed in one way or another, that’s not particularly fun.

The sad thing is that most of the coolest (and formerly most powerful) cards are simply unplayable because they either can’t scam or don’t contribute to drawing, stalling or dealing face damage. We live in a world where cards like N’Zoth are basically unplayable… that’s just insane to me.

And from where I stand it seems like the only alternatives are

  1. build a scam deck to scam others while being scammed
  2. don’t play Wild and
  3. when Standard also sucks, quit hearthstone again

I write this post with love and in hope that someone at Blizz will read it and do something about it. The potential of Wild to be the best game mode is so close… the Time Warp nerf gives me hope one day they might act on the multitude of other issues, but I don’t hold my breath.

1 Like
2

Of course it isn’t working.
Wild is the place to enjoy old cards in lower ranks. That’s why people deliberately tank their rank there.

Why would you expect this to be true in all ranks in the format? It’s obvious that the higher you go the frequency of fun experimental decks dwindles.

3

For a moment I thought you were talking about standard here, cuz guess what?

It’s exactly the same in standard xDD

4

i would love to see a format that lets the player choose any cards from a set # of previous expansions: (excluding current Standard) to build a deck from.
I thought Twist was going to be that, but I guess that Team reasoned that they need to control what players get to choose.

5

I understand the sentiment but it’s not really as bad.

I mean high roll scam is definitely a thing and people complain about Bran etc of course. Maybe you can argue games are “over” by turn 10 in Standard, but a lot of the time they aren’t strictly over.

In Wild at higher ranks the game is almost ALWAYS over by turn 10 consistently. Almost every OTK deck has the means to draw to the OTK by turn 10… the limit is mana and whether or not they get ratted.

I’d rather try and outvalue a standard highlander warrior than be forced to try and rat an Exodia Paladin with 40 health, because that exodia paladin will absolutely kill you on turn 10 almost every single time if you don’t kill them first.

6

But it exactly the case since the new rotation hit

And we had elements of it with breaks depending on the balance patches and expansions/mini-sets hitting the game

It’s been going in that direction for a while (Odyn warrior, Nature shaman for combo/OTK, aggro decks for aggro) and it culminated in this hyper-aggro meta caused by Brann simply deleting every slower deck from the game

Turn 10 is optimistic. The counter in standard is turn 9, when reno or double zilliax drop

I’ve heard some wild players (I don’t play wild myself) saying this rotation in standard was less balanced than wild, and I’m inclined to believe it to be at least partly true xD

And your paragraphs confirm it

7

I understand that, but there’s a difference between strong competitive decks and decks that are built entirely around interactions the developers wouldn’t have allowed in the original expansions.

The higher you climb the more your winrate will approach 50%, and that’s fine. Strong decks aren’t the issue.

The issue is when the experience isn’t fun for anyone involved. When the meta is… scam them so you kill them quick or rat their OTK while they do nothing but stall and draw, that’s not fun for you or them.

Theotar for example is the kind of card that you want to use to pull stuff like titans with… not in desperation to pull a combo piece which the opponent will kill you with next turn. That’s pretty much the definition of the worst possible experience for both players.

8

None of these issues are inherently problematic except when they are.

There’s nothing wrong with combos or building to a win condition, but there is.

I understand wild was always supposed to be about allowing broken combos, but in all honesty, I don’t understand it.

The opening post is chock full of the OP virtue signalling that they’re okay with things that they absolutely are not okay with.

No one from Blizzard will ever read anything in this forum.

But that’s exactly what it is. “It’s rotation time, time to take out the trash!” says Blizzard. “No, it’s not trash to me, I still want to play with it!” says you. So Blizzard lets you and like-minded people play in the garbage bin.

Rotation is a necessary part of power creep management, and if you say no to rotations then you have no right to complain about power creep.

9

Wild will be fine. Back when I was a new player I mostly played against Zoolocks and Handlocks which caused me to despise those decks and started my aversion towards meta decks in general.

10

Firstly aggro is still strong in Wild.

Renethal obviously helps in slowing the wild meta down versus aggro, but at the end of the day aggro is going to aggro. If an aggro deck took till turn 10 to kill you, it wouldn’t be a very good aggro deck right?

The aggro in wild is understandably even faster than Standard… and yet aggro in many ways feels more “fair” in wild. But that’s not the point I’m making here because as I said… I can’t understand why people would want to play aggro in Wild anyway.

Wild is a mode where with the bigger card pool slower decks should thrive… but if you like slower decks, you have limited choices. You have to run an OTK (or otherwise unbeatable wincon) or be able to pull the opponents OTK… no exceptions. And I’m not saying turn 10 is always how long you get as a control deck… demon seed and exodia pally for example will get you on 6.

Rogue and the faster shaman decks are going to scam out big stuff well before turn 10 if they don’t just beat you down first.

And shudder shaman will have all the tools to beat you by 10… so that’s a bit of a hard limit for how long games can go. If your deck is slower than that, you’re going to lose almost all the time.

The slowest druid and priest decks (which still include OTK’s mind you) feel like their only hope is to rat out the win condition of the faster combo decks.

So look there’s definitely more variation of archetypes in Wild sure… but my point is they’re all doing the same thing. Every deck is an OTK deck.