I actually agree completely that “control shaman is NOT what the deck is. Its definitely a tempo deck. It has some push, but absolutely cannot win if a greedy control deck survives. Curse lock, and big spell mage are frustrating matchups, because they basically just play removal dot deck and use some scammy mana cheat combos to completely seal up the game. I have not played a single holy pally since patch (high diamond) so take that as you will.
It exists, but it doesn’t have a high playrate. It’s less than 4% of the meta, until you look at legend, where it’s about 6%. Regular ol’ Murloc Shaman is more popular, and probably better, really.
Probably because the deck soft counters itself. The spell cost-swap naga doesn’t really bring any value if both players are only running high-cost spells.
I don’t think any one mentality is driving these nerfs. I thought the “nerf Drek’thar” patch was pretty solid (except for DBS), but the ones on both sides of it had some real “what were they thinking?” moments. It feels to me like Hearthstone is in Monty Python and the Holy Grail Credits Mode regarding patches… after each one, the person responsible is sacked, and the next patch is completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.
But regarding the most recent patch, yes, it definitely felt like whoever it was thought “I’ll listen to Twitter and maybe then the boss won’t sack me.”
You’re right, of course. Just frustrating that the Combo archetype can’t have a home anymore. The Drek nerf was fine. It hit a deck (DH) that was overperforming. It also hit a deck (QH) that was not overperforming but was performing well enough that it could handle it and not disappear. But then they nuked DBS and now QH is maybe 1% of the meta. Quest Decks overall have virtually vanished from the meta. And even Combo decks in general are almost nowhere to be found. Maybe Bomb Rogue? That’s kind of a Combo deck I think, right? That’s a high T3 deck at least. Anyway, I’m still playing what I find fun… just losing a lot more.
I’d quibble about QH not overperforming. Technically anything over 50% is overperforming, and although QH was below 50% at top Legend, it was like 49.xx there and “high tier 2” almost Tier 1 in Diamond.
But the point is that QH didn’t need to be nerfed as hard as it was, because it was already being nerfed via Drek’thar. Nerfing QH harder than they nerfed DH requires bizarro logic.
Ok. Instead of overperforming, maybe I should say outperforming the rest of the meta.
There are always going to be a few Tier 1 decks in the 52%-54% range. I think that’s a reasonable win rate that doesn’t need balancing. When you get a deck in the 56%-58% range or higher, that’s where an adjustment makes sense.
Exactly. So a small tap with the Drek nerf maybe knocks a point off the win rate from 52 to 51 or so. Instead, it’s down to the mid-40s and very rarely played.
Unless they specifically intended for the nerf to push the deck out of the meta, which is pretty much what happened.
This meta has been pretty good so far, it’s very diverse at High Legend. I’ve seen every single class being played; mostly Big Spell Mage and some form of Midrange/Control Shaman. Warrior is the worst class right now by far.