Who thought the Abyssal Curses were a good idea!?

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Now, I know what you might be thinking: “u just lost to a warlock lol git gud”. But here’s the thing: I just beat one, and he was using the same Abyssal Curse strat that every warlock at my level is currently playing.

I don’t have a problem with the relative strength of the Abyssal Curse (or AC, for short) decks. They’re pretty good, they’re designed to kill you with indirect damage – and given enough turns, they will kill you. But they’re not unbeatable. If I wanted to whine about a deck archtype that I think it’s OP, I’d name Mage mech – but that’s neither here and there.

No, you see, the thing with Abyssal Curse decks is the way in which you beat them. Which is, pretty much, by doing nothing.

Nothing. Zilch. Zero.

The two AC decks I beat, I did it in the same way: I got to 10 cards in hand and I just sat there. All match long. Spamming my hero power (mage, but anything other than Warlock does the trick in one way or another) and just sitting there, letting my cards burn and watching the guy in front of me desperately try and use the things he had in his hand so his deck wouldn’t burn, too. Zapping his own creatures and all that. Sometimes they’d leave a creature on the board, with a mind to attacking me the next turn, but then I’d kill it with Runed Orb (or any card that allows you to discover or draw another card to replace it) and went back to sitting back and doing nothing.

It was the two most boring matches I’ve ever played. By far. I’ve played long, really long matches, but they were usually a battle of wits, exhausting every possible resource to one-up your rival. This was so dull I started checking my e-mail in the middle of the match. I had a pretty good deck with nice cards and I got to use none of them because Abyssal Curses punish you for playing the game.

And that’s the thing. Who thought this would be a good idea? We play Hearthstone because we like to play. And having a deck archetype that, essentially, punishes you for playing the game is mindnumbingly stupid. It’s especially dumb because there’s no easy way to fix such a game mechanic; again, it’s not that AC decks are OP. It’s just that it’s a dumb mechanic that rewards sitting on your thumbs and doing nothing. It could be fixed, maybe, by moving the damage to the end of your turn but not leaving your hand until you cast them, or by making them a supernumerary card, or toning down the damage until they were irrelevant or who knows? There’s no easy answer, no fiddling with the numbers that’ll save this deck from being about as fun as watching paint dry.

21 Likes
2

Yeah, totally fun and interactive… they better nerf the shaite out of this deck because it’s completely broken.

3

Remember the Priest Quest that required them to heal to unlock a new hero power? Vs them you weren’t even allowed to ping them until you were sure you would kill them (tho you didn’t have to burn cards).

This might be a stupid idea, but maybe they should make the curses replace a card in your hand until the curse is removed.

For example, I play an Abyssal Curse card vs Mage and temporarily remove a Wildfire from their hand. The Mage has the options a) Pay 2 Mana to instantly remove the Curse and get Wildfire back in that turn, or b) Ignore it, take damage again and get Wildfire back next turn.

This way the opponent can’t block Curses while it also sabotages potential plays. The only question left is if we WANT that to happen. For how unfun they are to face rn, it could probably be worse to face them when they are actually good.

7 Likes
4

It’s pretty obvious that the devs realised curses were a nightmare mechanic before they were released as they have been pre-nerfed!

However they should have had enough sense before they started to develop them that they weren’t going to be much fun and chosen another direction to rake Warlock.

As it stands those cards might as well not exist, if they ever become remotely playable they will be nerfed as noone wants this sort of gameplay.

1 Like
5

they’re not
they deal no damage and are very slow, that’s why nobody plays curse warlock

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6

Making it so curses take out the other person’s cards on top of doing damage and costing mana to remove would be the death of every class not able to heal/armour up significantly. No go.

The curses could use some reworking maybe so that they don’t just force/encourage the other person to sit with their hand full, but buffing the curses is not the way to go about it.

2 Likes
7

I’ve seen some in the lower tiers and I’ve lost to some. Granted, though, I tend to play slow, control decks. They probably die to any good aggro.

8

Team 5 thought they were a good idea clearly.
Passive damage is all this company does now because
Chinese people who play on their phones do not have time for anything else.
Expect more like this.
Passive damage and auto play effects.

9

Not really.

The final design team did balance they to not be competitive viable for a reason.

And that reason is what the OP said.

1 Like
10

I was planning on making a Curse deck it but with a bunch of other cards that deal indirect damage too, plus C’thun as a win-con if all else fails.

11

this is an interesting idea!
With this change, they would need to reduce the cost of curses, because 2 is just too much.

1 Like
12

Alternatively, I’d like to see the curses clog your hand. Make them deal no damage but cost 10 mana or something, so people can’t remove them easily and they slowly smother the amount of cards you can play each turn. Or make them cost health instead of mana to remove.

Then you can actually lower the cost of the cards to something usable and have a deck that’s decent against aggro decks and combos as well.

1 Like
13

Which ends up having a negative effect on your deck.

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14

I don’t think it’s coincidence that people pondering the question “how could we make curses good?” sound like a horror show of horrendously unfun mechanics. Hand clogging, yeah, that’ll make everything better. /Sarcasm

3 Likes
15

no, you’re right, what’s really fun is sitting on your hands for countless turns while waiting for all the pieces of your OTK combo to come by.

Coupled with cards that make your opponent draw, which includes at least two murlocs that were once in rotation but now aren’t, for some reason, extra cards on your opponent’s hand would make for a risky but fun burn deck.

16

It’s because they want those mechanics.

ALL games at hearthstone age already had what in MTG is called “the dark era”.

That is basically a disruption meta.

I understand why the dev team avoid that but were also having design consequences from never experiencing that.

One is have a playerbase that not understands how toxic it can be.

The other is never have enough disruption in standard creating hiper polarization

1 Like
17

I still think they should have just had them shuffle and trigger like an old Bomb warrior deck. A clean system that most understand and has ways to play around and with. The in hand method just doesn’t work.

1 Like
18

the thing is, Warlock already has the agonies that do that. Maybe they should’ve deepened that instead of half-cooking that, half-cooking the curses. But they didn’t, instead picking two different mechanisms that get countered the same way, by doing nothing.

2 Likes
19

Exactly. The should have also tied the curses to minions for minion pressure. That would force cards to be played from hand like old bomb warrior did.

20

Hey that’s a pretty neat idea. You won’t be able to mill the opponent but you lock one of their cards for 2 turns and deal escalating damage unless they pay 2 mana. Loved it.