Not in the sense as “this card is bad to play” but in the sense that “this card altered the game in a way that is awful and we can’t undo the horror”
For me that card is Prince Renathal.
It fundamentally changed balance and the game has never been right since it was released. Aggro will always be overtuned if it has to be able to win against higher health decks. Never mind how overplayed card is, it’s driving people at low ranks away from the game rather than slog through another Renathal game.
It’s not a coincidence that there are bots on the low ladder after Renathal showed up. And then they nerfed it after the bots didn’t fix the problem. No one wants to play against that stupid crap.
Renathal is in 1/3 of wild decks still. If you aren’t highest MMR it’s rare you go two games in a row without playing against it.
It’s flat terrible and should have never been put in the game.
Agreed and I’ll add Guff to the abomination triad.
Other awful cards that I despised during their time were Keleseth, Incanter’s Flow and Cariel (hero).
This is a good call right here. Another card that altered the rules of the game and created huge problems with balance.
Just a strong card. Not game breaking in any real sense. It’s no stronger than hunter or shaman or mage otk cards.
How would you say this card’s impact is still being felt in the game? I don’t see it, but if you have thoughts, I’m all ears.
Quests have always been strong. I don’t see these as different than mages takin extra turns and such. I think seed was a bad interaction, but I don’t think it forever changed the game’s balance as much as things like guff or Renathal.
A card doesn’t need to be insanely strong to be the “worst” card in the game.
Countess as a card is too unstable for me. I can stabilize a game and my opponent can luck his way through to a victory or do nothing at all. I prefer not leaving things up to chance, and that card doesn’t allow me that.
We aren’t still feeling the horror from shudder, but we are still facign overpowered aggro from Renathal.
But it needs to be worse than dozens of other cards that are equally strong but from classes you like… which is what is happening here.
Countess isn’t remarkable.
I was looking less for normal cards you don’t like and more to really broken stuff that altered the way the game is played or balanced. Not seeing it with countess.
Yeah mage quest is no better than the rogues (just as toxic). Just despise solitaire style decks, garrote rogue, ilgynoth dh, quest mage, whatever it may be. Otk is one thing but it needs some reason and some sort of cap you can work towards or chance to disrupt. Getting hit for 240 damage turn 8 because ilgynoth was cost reduced is not funny. What is the solution? Gain 211 armor before turn 8 and never get hit (lol not getting hit once vs dh)?
Reno Priest was the entire wild meta for so long it was weird when it just up and died. I went back through old VS Reaper reports and you can literally see the deck go from overwhelming the meta, to a big dropoff with darkmoon, and then basically dying and by the time barrens came out it was basically gone. It was dominant for years though.
I don’t recall quest mage being that problematic in standard during it’s time. Not nearly as meta-warping as The Caverns Below or The Demon Seed. Those cards basically read “kill your opponent by turn 7 or lose”.
To me bad card design falls into 2 main categories:
1- cards that dramatically improve your WR when played early but become useless as the game goes on (e.g. Keleseth, Incanter’s Flow, the dead wife)
2- combos that are too fast or leave little counterplay (e.g.: Demon Seee, Caverns Below,
Currently shaman and mage fit this description but aggro is so strong that keeps them in check.
I feel like this card single-handedly forever impaired the design function of ALL the Hearthstone Developers minds and through the game out of wack from it traditional sense and pretty decent and solid foundations into a chaotic “WE HAVE TO MAKE BIGGER” mentality going forward every expansion, or year, after.
Plus, healing 29 Health with a single card (Ice Block helped) is just stupid.
Please, give us your bad takes… said no one, ever…
The only one who doesn’t understand here is you, dude. You dont’ grasp what I asked for.
I agreed with several people and disagreed with others… shocking on a forum, I know.
Ooh, that’s an interesting one!
Just Reno or the highlander type cards in general? Definitely had an impact.
It was with incanter’s flow, iirc. It was like 45% of the meta or something at one point.
I guess in the spirit of what I am getting at, quests have been done multiple times, they are usually very powerful, and they are certainly polarizing. I’m not sure that any single quest is worse than several others to point that it could be considered the worst card because it’s too hard to separate them from the rest of the quests.
And the older mage quest is still warping wild, lol.
That’s a fair take.
I think the worst cards are the ones that change the rules of the game unilaterally.
Agreed and I’ll add Guff to the abomination triad.