Hearthstone
Idea for Genn and Baku Nerfs
I think Genn and Baku should be mildly nerfed so that they aren't as powerful in the Wild format. I propose that instead of upgrading your Hero Power or making it cost 1 at the beginning of the game, they instead add a Spell to your hand at the start of the game if you meet their requirement (only odd cards or only even cards) that upgrades your Hero Power or makes it cost 1. Depending on how much of a nerf is needed the mana cost of the spell could be higher or lower, but I think making the Genn Spell 1-Mana and the Baku Spell 2-Mana would be fair. This would slow down the early game power of Genn and Baku decks without making them unplayable or messing with their design. What do y'all think about this potential nerf? Do you have any other ideas about how Genn and Baku could be mildly nerfed?
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I think Genn and Baku should be mildly nerfed so that they aren't as powerful in the Wild format. I propose that instead of upgrading your Hero Power or making it cost 1 at the beginning of the game, they instead add a Spell to your hand at the start of the game if you meet their requirement (only odd cards or only even cards) that upgrades your Hero Power or makes it cost 1. Depending on how much of a nerf is needed the mana cost of the spell could be higher or lower, but I think making the Genn Spell 1-Mana and the Baku Spell 2-Mana would be fair. This would slow down the early game power of Genn and Baku decks without making them unplayable or messing with their design. What do y'all think about this potential nerf? Do you have any other ideas about how Genn and Baku could be mildly nerfed?
I see this all of these complaints about Genn & Baku in wild but I honestly don't see it. With the exception of Odd Pally I really don't see many Genn/Baku decks on wild ladder and Odd Pally counters Big Priest (which is very complained about) so I fail to see why the playstyles need a nerf.
Plus many of the Genn/Baku decks don't even see play at all. Point me in the direct of Odd Warlock, Even Mage, Odd Priest, Even Priest, Even Rogue, Even Druid, Odd Druid, Odd Shaman, Even Hunter, Odd Hunter, Even Warrior, or Even Pally. They are almost non-existent in wild.
That's 12 out of a total 18 Genn/Baku decks that see almost no play in wild. That's not indicative that the playstyle is as big of a problem as people like to suggest. Plus, these decks have to compete against Reno & Dks for the late game.
Make Baku cost 10 and Genn cost 7
This ain't no place for a hero
Remember that this is wild we are talking about. The entire purpose of the format is fundamentally different than that of standard. Standard more or less is supposed to nerf decks so that they aren't played anymore while wild is an eternal card format. With some Tier 0 exceptions that literally warp the entire meta decks are meant to be combated by introducing new synergies.
As for new king ruling forever how do you explain the existence of Reno Lock, Jade Druid, Big Priest, Mill Rogue, and to some extents Reno Mage, Non-Reno Control Lock, Cubelock, or even Smorc Shaman? All of these decks have ebbed and flowed in wild but are very consistent reoccurring decks. It seems odd (pun intended) to single out Odd Pally knowing that plenty of top notch decks have thrived in wild for years (Bear in mind going by what I said in the first part of the post up above I am generally not in favor of most nerfs).
We can't be taking a standard format approach/lens and using it to make design decisions for the wild format.
I agree with Lyra on this one. The odd/even decks in wild just aren't that bad, especially after they all got nerfs at some point. They also likely have overvalued winrates on stats sites due to how easy they are to play and the fact that wild is more causal than standard. They are very consistent with few highroll opportunities and low RNG, which makes them (relatively) pleasant to play against
Furthermore, odd paladin, even shaman and odd rogue aren't that much better than their underplayed, non-odd/even counterparts. Murloc paladin will always be strong; the new overload synergies make playing tunnel trogg extremely tempting in aggro shaman; rogue has a pirate variant with cannon and a slower battlecry variant, both of which greatly benefit from running sap because it counters "cheating" mechanics
Here's a few for ya. And yes these meme decks would be absolutely demolished by a Genn/Baku nerf. I think they're ok for now and if anything should be changed it should be tweaking some of the upgraded hero powers if they become too problematic, but I don't think even that is necessary right now.
Oh yeah, these Forum Signatures are a thing.
What I was thinking of initially was finding a way to make Genn and Baku decks slower so that they focus more on the cool things you can do with an upgraded Hero Power (like odd mage or combos with odd Hunter) rather than just providing really powerful early game (Odd Paladin), not really on lowering their power levels too much. I know that Blizzard doesn't change cards because they are poorly designed, but I think that Genn and Baku would feel better if their effect were delayed. I thought that by removing the first Hero Power use it could make the Odd/Even bonus something that is more of a late-game bonus than an early game one. Maybe with this change Genn and Baku themselves could be buffed to a 6 mana 6/7 and a 7 mana 7/8, respectively. Or possibly they could give you the effect if your deck has 3 or fewer even/odd cards, so that you would be able to choose a few cards of the mana cost that you're not supposed to pick
Another change that could work is if they said 'Start of turn three" instead of "Start of game", but that might be a little too weird of a change.
Odd paladin, odd rogue and even shaman are the strongest decks in wild. Odd warrior would be up there as well if it wasn't for big priest. And this will most likely stay this way forever until Blizzard oversees another broken combo like they did in the past (Naga Sea Witch buff/Juicy Psychmelon paired with Star Aligner and the standard druid combo).The consistency of those hero powers cannot be matched.
You don't see those other odd and even decks (minus a few) because their hero powers don't benefit as much from being upgraded nor is there a deck that syngerizes well enough with it. That doesn't mean it excuses Genn and Baku from being busted though.
Dark Pact was never an issue in zoolock either, because the deck doesn't gain anything from it. That doesn't mean the card didn't deserve a nerf. The thing with reno and death knights is that those need to be drawn first, and can only be played from turn 6 onwards. They're value bombs, not consistency bombs. That's a big difference.
Don't even get me started on how one-dimensional it is to play with and against those decks.
Strong doesn't equal broken. You have to have tier 1 decks. If it wasn't Odd Pally it would need to be something else. Tier 0 is what is concerning. Odd Pally, Even Shaman, Odd Rogue still are not warping the entire meta like Giant Lock, Giant Hunter, & SA Druid did, there are obvious counters. The point is that not everyone plays those counters, or the counters are countered by a different deck in the meta so again players don't use them.
For example, I get my first legend (really first time past rank 5 even) with Reno Dragon Priest the season just before the Even Shaman nerf. On the meta snapshot Reno Priest was marked as one of the tier 1 decks (although now it is nowhere to be seen on any tier for some odd reason). I was able to very quickly take myself from being stuck at rank 3 clear up to legend. Want to know my easiest match-up during the grind? Even Shaman (pre nerf). Having a bunch of midrange & late game board clears, along with midrange minions and late game burn easily carried me against one of the "strongest decks in the game". I will admit Odd Pally was still strong due to their persistent staying power and Odd Rogue was 50/50, but I'm bringing this up because there are counters for the decks. Don't allow a tier list to tell you what can or can't beat the meta.
One-dimensionality shouldn't play a role in balance design in most cases. I for one find decks like Reno Lock or Reno Mage just as one dimensional as decks like Even Shaman or Odd Rogue. The more you play a deck the more auto-pilot it becomes due to the skill and familiarity you get with said deck(s).
Hi together,
i agree to Lyra and want to add that I would even like to buff Genn Greymane to Raza for more deckbuilding possebilities. I mean to be honest would Genn's ability really problematic, if it would work like Raza? I guess not, because Raza still exists and Raza Priest after the nerf is strong, but totally fine.
What do you think about my idea to buff Genn to Raza?
@Yusuke
I think that Genn wouldn't be overpowered if it worked like Raza, but I don't see why it should be changed. The only real difference is that you could have a 1-Mana upgraded Hero Power with Justicar or a 1-Mana Deathknight Hero power, which would be stronger but I'm not sure what deckbuilding opportunities it would really open up, unless we get an even-cost way to have a repeatable Hero power.
You seem to be under the impression that a deck needs to be tier 0 with no hard counters before it becomes a nerf candidate. Sure, this might be the cause of Blizzard since that is their mentality towards wild (and even then they take ages to actually do something) but it doesn't necessarily need to be. Just look at rogue in standard. Was it broken before the nerfs to EVIL Miscreant, Raiding Party and Preparation? No, it even had a hard counter which was immensely popular in the form of warrior. Hell, I believe it dropped to tier 2 on vS' meta report right before the nerfs. But it still got nerfed nonetheless.
Odd paladin, even shaman and odd rogue have been the top decks in the wild meta pretty much since Genn and Baku were released. This has not changed and most likely won't ever change unless Blizzard intervene. You ask why reno priest doesn't see play? Because it cannot beat the consistency that Baku provides for odd rogue and odd paladin. Cherry picking a niche deck's winrate against one of the three decks doesn't change that. Hell, odd warrior hard counters all three of those decks. But what's that in its name? Oh wait, it's "odd". Surprise.
One dimensionality shouldn't usually be a factor taken into account when balancing. But when every wild player can pretty much dream the matchup against odd and even decks, because they've been around forever, it becomes extremely stale.
Why do you think Blizzard removed Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater from standard and threw them in Hearthstone's dumpster, aka wild, in the first place? Because they're problem cards and Blizzard have no idea what to do with them.
One thing I would like to see is
"Start of game: WHILE your deck has only even cost cards, your starting hero power costs (1)."
Same for Baku.
Would require some pretty specific counter play to brick the cheaper/upgraded hero power, but it does offer counterplay.
At the minimum someone has the option to vent on these decks by making a hate deck that disrupts their gameplan.
Completely unnecasery to nerf them. Yes they are in the Meta, but so are Highlander decks. And many more broken things.
There is a difference between what may need a nerf in Wild and what may need it in Standard: due to the limited card pool you have in Standard, some powerful interactions may result as problematic to deal with in the first place. In Wild this kind of scenario is much harder to achieve and probably the only things that requires some nerf are Tier 0 decks, because they show an insane win rate, and those decks who are warping the entire meta around them, because they're forcing everything else to be tuned by taking them in consideration.
A comparison between the two formats regarding what may need nerf is not a good one when speaking of the same cards: Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater were problematic on Standard because they granted a power spike that cannot be counterbalanced properly, but in Wild they're simply strong in certain archetype while not being so oppressive (they're very popular due to their fast and efficient win rate/play style).
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the world, and loses his own soul?"
This thread seems bugged for me as I can't quote people properly anymore.
"Completely unnecasery to nerf them. Yes they are in the Meta, but so are Highlander decks. And many more broken things. "
You're not seriously comparing Genn and Baku, which have been tier 1 ever since their release, to highlander decks, which have been bottom of the barrel (barely tier 3/4) for a while now, right?
I feel like too much of a standard format philosophy is being used at the basis for your argument. Staleness should NEVER be used as an argument to nerf something in wild (unless again it is due to a massive game warping Tier 0 level of 'staleness'. Eternal formats were never created with the intent to change the deck pool every few months or even every year. That is what CCGs banned list format has been for (Standard in HS' case). You may reference stale match-ups, stale cards, or stale strategies as a reason to change Genn or Baku, but I could just as easily counter argue that plenty of wild-only cards technically make wild classes stale (and always will). Do you honestly think any form of control or combo-oriented warlock deck would ever not use Bloodreaver Gul'Dan, for a perfect example? Many DKs technically would make many classes stale in wild because they are so powerful they are auto-includes for almost any playstyle used by that deck (and they don't even suffer from any glaring weakness like the original 'DK' did in the form of Jarraxus, such as tempo loss by playing a 9 mana card, a cap at low life total, etc).
I don't think you have very high confidence in the wild card pool, or ingenuity of better wild players. Genn & Baku weren't thrown into wild (they technically were already part of wild as soon as they were released) because T5 didn't know what to do with them, it was more because the entire standard format is inherently flawed by rotating out old effective answers and then releasing new cards that technically could be used to answer new problematic decks. In other words, Genn & Baku were HoFed because standard rotated out a bunch of old cards in the past that wild players could use at any time to answer the early/midrange aggressive of odd/even decks. Standard warlocks were utterly screwed against Odd Pally once the format naturally rotated out the ultimate token bane, Defile, but in wild we never lost that option.
I still stand by the stance that odd/even decks are not as terrible of an epidemic as some players want you to think. Even before Even Shaman was nerfed the only odd/even decks I faced were Even Shaman, Odd Rogue, some Odd Pallies, and a rare few Even Warlocks. Even with my "niche deck" I massively sped up my 3-legend wild grind against decks that people bemoaned were 'impossible' to beat during that meta. Odd/even decks have hardly changed since the nerfs, which means they are just as beatable with a variety of wild decks. The key is actually breaking away from 'Be all, end all' meta reports and mindless 'pro player' approved netdecks and dip into older archtypes sometimes or even older tech, instead of taking a standard net deck and plugging in a few wild cards and wondering why Genn/Baku seem to be allegedly invincible.
Another important thing to point out before I end this post is that wild metas have always changed more slowly than standard metas, and this is intended. Please reflect on this for a moment. Metas do change, but if you place the requirement that they change as quickly, or close to as quickly, as standard metas then you already are skewing the basis for your argument for why Genn/Baku 'should' be nerfed. Do you see Christmas Tree Pally around in wild anymore, despite never having received many direct nerfs? Nope, stronger cards replaced it. Do you see as many Even Locks, Murloc Shamans, Tempo Rogues (non-Kingsbane), Miracle Rogues (having never received many direct nerfs), Traditional Freeze Mage (non-quest), legit Spell Hunters, and many more? Nope, most of those have dipped in frequency when compared to when they first became popular due to better cards/decks coming out. Some of those decks have almost 100% dropped out of competitive ladder play altogether (having only received HoF changes as opposed to nerfs). Let's not be so hasty to doubt the powercreep of both control and aggro decks to say that odd/even will never dip in popularity shall we.
You seem overly focused on the 'stale' part, yet this was only one of the few reasons why I'm not opposed to nerfing those cards. Nor did I ever say any of those decks were unbeatable. They're just too consistent at what they do and this won't change. Hence why these decks will forever stay on top in wild.
Your argument about stronger cards being added would've made sense a year ago, but not anymore. Blizzard are purposely shying away from stronger cards to prevent a power creep. Just compare the current highlander cards to their previous League of Explorers iterations. Hence why I believe that we will never see cards as strong as Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater ever again.
And if Blizzard actually knew what they were doing they would've a. made counters for Genn and Baku decks in the new expansion or b. altered both cards in a meaningful way. But they didn't do either. They chose for the easy, band-aid solution by making them wild's problem forever.
I wouldn't exactly say Mana Cyclone, CC, and Dr. Boom are cards that are indicative of shying away from power creep. Mana Cyclone already sees play in wild Quest Mage ladder, CC is still extremely good midrange/early late game pressure, and a permanent rush aura (even when not potentially highrolling into desirable hero powers) is extremely potent in grindy attrition games. I've yet to be swayed that strong cards will not eventually compete against many viable odd/even decks. I feel that this debate is just focused on personal dislike of the playstyle as opposed to legitimate reasons why T5 should do a massive power check for multiple decks in an eternal ccg format.
I can't but help you're ignoring what the purpose of wild was intended for. It was for players to play whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted (again with tier 0 caveats). Saying that any card, deck, or playstyle is going to be wild's problem forever is pretty irrelevant when considering what an eternal format is. EVERY card game has a format where you are allowed to use all of your cards and if you didn't want to play against those than most of those card games also had another format to escape such strategies. Why are you so intent on making HS break this mold by essentially doing balance passes on decks in a mode where that isn't intended to happen, solely for the personal preference of just a portion of the format's players? I find this perspective especially annoying when it is spread by players who never were veteran players in any card game prior to Hearthstone. Changing cards in every format because you don't like them actually doesn't follow the CCG model that games like MtG and Yu-Gi-Oh ultimately followed. You want to play with any and all cards in the game? You can do that in one format. You don't want this? You can also do that in another format. Hitting everything with the nerf hammer, even in an eternal format, makes it so that players who have actually supported the product by putting money into it have less return on their contribution because in the end their decks can get broken by the vocal minority anyway.
In the end T5 does not agree with the logic that you are in support of anyway, so ultimately this conversation is null and void, but I thought I'd address this nonetheless because newer/ex-standard players keep advocating for breaking cards or decks that are not tier 0 just so that they don't have to play them/against them. You don't want to face older strategies then go to standard.
Wild started out as an olive branch to players who were upset about the introduction of set rotations and threatening to quit the game if they couldn't use their precious Dr. Seven in every deck ever until the end of time. While it may have initially been a dumping ground where anything goes, we're three years down the line from there, Wild has expanded from (standard +) 2 sets to a whopping 11+ HoF, and a dedicated group of wild enthusiasts has emerged, so consequently Blizzard has taken an increasingly hands-on approach to balancing Wild to keep it fresh and fun. The nerf to Patches the Pirate when it rotated out, the more recent nerfs to Naga Sea Witch and Aviana as well as the constant attempts at placating upset wild players about Big Priest all point toward this trend. To pretend that Wild is still wholly predicated on the premise by which it was initially sold is disingenuous IMO, and certainly contradicted by the designers' own statements on the matter: https://www.hearthpwn.com/blue-tracker/topic/15422-blizzard-isnt-throwing-out-old-cards-you-are.
And bear in mind, that thread is from when standard was introduced.
An ever-growing evergreen card game is unsustainable on its face: sooner or later, with enough cards in the pool, broken interactions or unfun decks will be unavoidable without targeted nerfs to problem cards.
I wouldn't mind Blizzard introducing a new format that's supposed to function like a curated Wild, so they can keep Wild, well, wild, but for the time being it looks like T5 is taking an interventionist approach to the format.
What, you're trying to pull some 'veteran card game' elitism act now? Pathetic.
None of those cards you mentioned come even close to Genn, Baku and others cards. Dr. Boom, Mad Genius is ridiculously strong in standard and ridiculously mediocre in wild. Conjurer's Calling sees no play whatsoever in wild and Mana Cyclone only allows for a deck that heavily struggles with consistency (hey, that term sounds familiar). Death knights, quests, LoE explorers are all weaker than their previous iterations. Sure, we might get one or two cards that are strong for wild's standards per expansion but none of these will compare to the power level of past expansions.
Your view on what you think Blizzard's idea of wild is is extremely warped and went out the window the second they nerfed Patches the Pirate and Raza the Chained right before they would be rotated.
I can't play old Undertaker hunter. I can't play old patron warrior. I can't play the old Force of Nature combo. This isn't an eternal format where I can play all the old cards and combos as they used to be. This is some crappy in-between mode where we sort of have all the cards but Blizzard comes in and butchers one or two every now and then as an act of half-assed balancing.
You can try and pretend like you know what wild is supposed to be all you want but when the developers themselves don't even know you just look like a fool.
What you call elitism I call experience with other games. It's up to you feel offended by what I said.
Extremely warped? T5 hasn't nerfed Genn or Baku, nor have they hinted that they are going to. Debate with me all you want, but it still isn't changing the fact that the cards are currently here to stay. :)
Despite your call to ax every thing you find irritating to play with, even when said aggressive decks actually under perform with win rates from more consistent older aggro decks (ie Pre nerf Pirate Warrior), that doesn't mean your personal preference has any meaningful say in what gets removed from the game. The goal of wild isn't to more or less make it the same thing as standard just with a bigger card pool.
I call that an appeal to authority. If you have an argument to make it can stand on its own merits without you thumping your chest about your experience. You're not the only one who's played other card games and I don't see how that's terribly relevant to Hearthstone design philosophy.
"Thing hasn't happened yet so it can't happen" is a terrible argument. By that logic heavier-than-air flight was impossible prior to the wright brothers. Before the Patches and Raza nerfs Blizzard had never touched a Wild card. There's a first time for everything.
Another non-argument. I can turn this same illogic back around on you and insist that just because *your personal preference* is for Wild to remain static and untouched doesn't mean T5 are going to act accordingly.
Obviously our opinions on card game design are subjective preferences, yours included.
I just had another cool idea for how Baku could be changed (although this might make her too strong). What if instead of giving you an upgraded Hero Power she lets you choose one of the alternate Hero Powers from the Dalaran Heist adventure? Ignoring that this would probably never happen, given that Blizzard usually just buffs or nerfs cards instead of changing them, do y'all think it would be a cool change? It could allow for some really exciting new strategies for classes that are limited by their Hero Powers. For example, an odd control Hunter might be viable!
I think we should focus more on what kind of changes would be interesting instead of how likely a change is, especially given how Team 5 has been changing the rules up lately (take the Boomsday buffs for example)
Sure it's a cool idea but I think it would only exacerbate the problem. It's not addressing the fundamental problem with these cards, namely that they're always affecting the game from the get-go, resulting in fairly predictable gameplay that relies heavily on the hero power (and thus is even less dependent on draws). On top of that, these quest reward heropowers are arguably stronger than the upgraded standard ones and certainly have a lot more build-around potential.
Imagine being able to Tome of Origination a Voidlord or Mal'Ganis into play on turn two. Yikes.
I have to say I don't think Genn and Baku can be effectively nerfed without fundamentally altering how they work. That's probably why they got unceremoniously yeeted out of standard to begin with. Sure you could make the minions themselves total garbage, but they kinda already are and that's not why they're being played. The hero powers are really tricky to rebalance since they copied the Justicar Trueheart ones instead of implementing new ones from the get-go, and whereas with Genn there's not much you can change without introducing fractions into the game.
If nothing else I just hope Blizzard learns to avoid this type of hard deckbuilding restriction balancing (see also: Keleseth), which I find to be unpleasant to play against and typically very hard to balance.
It's actually quite relevant. I already mentioned before that more established card games, which HS very much follows the formula of, created formats both for a more static format and one that is quite fluid. If a player has little to no knowledge of the past giants/successes of CCGs, including how they generally have tried to design their various formats, then a newer player would be less likely to understand why HS making its own semi-static format & fluid format would make sense for this game. Hell, even throwing out terms like "eternal format" has the chance to fly completely over the head of some players who only have the knowledge of Hearthstone for a CCG. The relevance is in the breaking down of previous CCG static vs fluid formats if you just cave to every complaint and nerf every complained about card & deck in both standard and wild, because then you no longer have any format in Hearthstone that is static or semi-static, but merely two completely fluid formats with the only difference being the overall card pools.
Is my argument any worse than somebody saying that Genn & Baku needs nerfs because they're stale & 'unbeatable'? There has been zero evidence to suggest Blizzard is currently considering nerfing Genn/Baku at the moment so the opposition to my side of things is just as made up. At least on my end I brought up that other cards & entire decks technically create staleness in the format (and those are not nerfed). Genn & Baku are not even tier 0 (which is almost always when Blizzard steps in to make balance passes in wild). There is currently no objective grounds or hints from Blizzard HQ that either card will be nerfed.
You've established that a forum of public opinion is full of opinions. While I know my take on things is certainly not objective is still does nothing to prove any other opinion here so pointing out that I also have an opinion ultimately accomplishes nothing. I'm still waiting for the logical argument that impossibly proves that most wild players want Genn/Baku nerfed, or that they need to be nerfed.
Genn and Baku doesn't need a nerf, period.
@Ali Radicali
I didn't mean the quest Hero Power, rewards, I meant the alternate Hero Powers that were only available in the Dalaran Heist Solo content. For example, if you played odd paladin you would be given the choice between 2 mana "Add three Silver Hand Recruits to your hand" and 2-mana "Give a minion Divine Shield". This could be broken with some of the Dalaran Heist Hero Powers, like how the burgle Hero Power could give Burgle Rogue a lot of consistency or how the Priest Hero Power that swaps a minion's Attack and Health could lead to some easy combos.
I think this version would make Baku Decks actually interesting decks instead of normal decks with cards of lower powerlevel and an overpowered Hero Power
It's one of the most commonly used fallacies. If you have an argument to make based on your extensive experience with other card games, make the hecking argument instead of boasting. Hearthstone doesn't have any static formats: wild is constantly expanding and standard is constantly changing, not to mention card nerfs and buffs affecting both of them. The analogy to other card games doesn't work either, for one because hearthstone is a digital card game, which means it isn't limited to the tools available to paper card games (we can actually nerf and buff cards), and two because it has it's own fairly unique design philosophy. But again, if you want to make some sort of argument here, you actually have to make it instead of just coyly referring to it.
Yes, yes it's much worse, because you aren't really presenting arguments, just fallacies and assertions. It's painfully easy to argue that Genn and Baku being tossed out of standard a year early indicates that 1) a large number of players hate these cards 2) HS devs agree that they are a problem. If that is the case then it's not at all unreasonable to assume that the same holds true for wild.
Do you have some sort of personal connection with T5? How much of an advance notice did you get about Mind Blast getting HoFed or Aviana getting nerfed? Blizzard has pulled unexpected card changes on us all the time, if anything the way they're keeping players informed every time they choose not to do anything about Big Priest is unusual.
I'm not the one who tried to ridicule someone's opinion because it was an opinion. You did that. Pointing out that you're standing knee-deep in subjectivity trying to mock others for expressing their views addresses another non-argument you made and (apparently) has caused you to recant this earlier position. So I wouldn't say nothing was accomplished.
If you're waiting for an impossibility then I sure hope you're the patient type. Sigh.
Wild getting new cards in no wise means it isn't fairly static. Both MtG and Yu-Gi-Oh had new cards added to their non-banned list formats as well but the developers didn't try micro managing popular decks in most cases for the sake of changing things that weren't broken in order make said involved formats a mirrored copy of the banned list formats.
I'm sorry but "a large number of players" hating something means absolutely nothing. Care to provide actual statistics or percentages to tell us what that is objectively supposed to mean? I'll wait while you pull those up. The thing is that I could just as easily do a survey of a random 1,000 HS players and find hundreds of players who hate control decks (even they're just tier 1 or 2) and say the exact same thing that you're saying (that a "large number of players" hate control decks). That doesn't mean it is anywhere near a majority of players.
You also have to consider the actual regular wild audience more than the standard format audience. We don't go around balancing standard around the wild players, so in the end it is the wild players' feeling towards the cards in the wild format that matter much more than the standard players. Also note that the devs HoFed them because they were a problem in STANDARD, and not as big of an issue in wild. Hell, standard players b*tched and moaned about Odd Mage, of all things, for a period of time. Yet the deck was a vastly inferior version of Reno Mage in wild. Even the Even Lock deck saw considerably less play in wild than it did in standard. Please don't try to say that Genn & Baku were considered as big of a problem in wild as they were in standard considering fewer of the decks saw play in wild AND in wild it's much easier to stabalize against the aggression with some classes (one glaring example being Voidcaller into Void Lord). It's interesting you criticize my assumptions and then try to assert your own baseless assumptions instead, especially when they are picked apart as easily.
Are you actually going to answer where the evidence is for T5 deciding to nerf Genn/Baku in wild or are you intentionally trying to throw the conversation in a different direction? You can't just say that cards are randomly nerfed at times as a strong indicator that Genn/Baku could be nerfed. It is still out of thin air guesswork with no concrete foundation to stand on.
Point out to me how I mocked any person here and I'll gladly apologize. However, I know I did not. I'm all for "mocking" (breaking apart) weak arguments or biased rationales to nerf something when the ideas are deserving of it. If you say a non-tier 0 deck should be nerfed, and all the reasons you provide for that argument is that you find the match-up boring then you should expect that I will provide counter arguments that point out your bias and why it shouldn't be nerfed for the reasons that person provided. I am well aware of the difference between mocking/flaming a person and opposing emotionless ideas and arguments.
You're moving the goalposts from "static" to "fairly static" and you're ignoring the substantive differences I've already pointed out between paper and digital card games: magic or Yu-gi-oh can't just nerf a card so their only options are banlists and multiple formats. Hearthstone has a different design philosophy, a key element of which is keeping things simple and fairly casual, something that pretty much excludes the possibility of 14 different formats with varying card pools and restrictions. Simply pointing out that other games do it that way is a poor argument for why it ought to be that way in HS, and I think that by and large that argument is refuted by the dev team's decisions over the years.
Preposterous argument. I'm sorry, but do *you* have a list of names of all the players who think G&B are perfectly fine and shouldn't have been rotated out of standard early? Do you have a list of their hair colour and favourite pop songs?
Incomplete information is still information, and the G&B nerf gives us quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to work with. Just because I cannot present you with a quantity or proportion of players who hate G&B doesn't mean you can dismiss the argument. Try again. If you had a survey of 1000 random players you'd have more information and a better argument than you do now. Incomplete information is still better than no information.
I'm well aware that wild has different standards for balancing and a distinct pool of players. I didn't argue that every card that is a problem in standard must be nerfed in wild as well, I said that if a card is so problematic that it has to be HoFed/nerfed in standard it's reasonable to assume that the same logic applies to that card in wild, if not necessarily to the same extent. If Genn and Baku make games extremely predictable and repetitive in standard then it stands to reason the same is true for wild, even if the cards might not be as strong there.
Your demand for evidence is disingenuous and a non-argument. We haven't had prior warning for previous changes so you can't hold my lack of evidence now as evidence to the contrary. How are you so bad at this? I'm not arguing that we know these cards are going to be nerfed, you're the one insisting that they definitely aren't because "card game experience" and "no evidence" or whatever.
"Despite your call to ax every thing you find irritating to play with, even when said aggressive decks actually under perform with win rates from more consistent older aggro decks (ie Pre nerf Pirate Warrior), that doesn't mean your personal preference has any meaningful say in what gets removed from the game."
Clearly you're not as aware of that difference as you believe. And if your "counter-argument" to a subjective opinion is that that opinion doesn't matter (but yours somehow does?) then you're being a hypocrite and I will call you on it. Tough titties.
The number of HS formats is not that confusing though. It's two primary formats. Yes, the developers want to keep things simple so that they aren't confusing, but constantly nerfing cards in counter intuitive of that goal. Take WoW for example, there were complaints from returning players who had taken a break and then found that their favorite class(es) were ability pruned or had talents/default abilities changed drastically to the point that they no longer recognized their class. Now of course an MMORPG is much different than a CCG, but the general idea still stands that if you change too much of want returning players enjoyed or were familiar with then they are more likely to be turned off. Having to have returning players return and find any one of the 18 odd/even decks working completely different than they used to before taking a break is likely to risk turning those players off. I think it is safe to say that most players like to be able to pop a game back in and not have to relearn everything again.
Neither of us having evidence means that neither point is proven or disproven. Your stance is no more valid than mine unless concrete evidence is provided so I fail to see why you're debating this point of the topic. Genn/Baku were HoFed because they would have had to have made substantial changes to the cards to provide any form of nerf in standard. Combine that with strong tools like Defile getting rotated out that previously combated Odd Pally and to a lesser extent Even Shaman the cards were HoFed. I've seen no blue posts that have stated that they currently plan to nerf or look at the decks in wild. Suggesting that they do plan to do this with less evidence than this is no more than wishful thinking for ex-standard players wanting to mold their wild experience for everyone else.
Again I can point out multiple cards that make a variety of match-ups/plays predictable. Going against any form of slow control or combo warlock? Prepare to have an answer for a massive board in the late game (including saving a transform effect for Mal'Ganis as mage or shaman so that you don't instantly lose to 30+ stats on the board when Mal'Ganis is used). Going against any form of aggressive paladin list? Try to dump your hand as best as you are able from the get go so you don't give your opponent insane refill value and renewed steam to smorc your face. Going against pretty much any kind of wild mage as an OTK player? Be prepared to pop their 1+ number of Ice Blocks before using your combo or attempt to find an alternate win condition. Obviously there's plenty of more examples, but the classes are extremely scripted with how games turn out nowadays. Genn/Baku having their effects active from turn 1 doesn't really make them that much more predictable than pretty much any other deck. The reason it seems like they are more predictable is because most of the complained about decks are aggressive decks that do not end the game in the late game while the few classes I mentioned above have their predictable plays happening in the late game (which isn't seen as often as the early game due to the existence of aggro). If aggro was incredibly weak and you saw games extend late most of the time you would see how predictable the many control decks are as well).
I'm arguing that in the current moment we have no evidence that they are going to be nerfed. It's pointless to argue that any card can technically be nerfed out of the blue because a couple cards have in the past. If I cared enough I could make the argument that any card could be nerfed then and we wouldn't be able to anticipate it.
The following are taken from Urban Dictionary and Dictionary.com
Flaming: " To engage in an online argument usually involving unfounded personal attacks by one or more parties."
Debate: "a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints"
The one thing I will concede to is that the person I quoted earlier didn't directly say that they found Genn/Baku decks irritating, but it was certainly implied. So my calling out of their wish to kill a deck that they found irritating wasn't completely unfounded. I feel you are reaching to call me a flamer however, considering that in nowise have I called any person a name of personal insult, hate, etc nor have I cast aside the viewpoints of my argument to instead deride a person on topics completely personal and unrelated to Genn & Baku nerfs.
Wrong, wrong, WRONG. For starters, Standard is the primary HS game mode. The devs said at the outset that they consider Wild to be a fun bonus mode a la arena or tavern brawls.
"Mike Donais: There’s still a good amount of people playing Wild. The thing is, I think – like you said – Standard is super healthy and fun, and there’s good variety, and I think Wild is more there for you, like Arena or Tavern Brawl, for when you want to take a break. You’ve had enough Standard, you’re tired of losing to X super popular deck, and you need to try something out, where you won’t run into that deck as much, and Wild is perfect for that."
Any change is going to cause some amount of confusion. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be any changes, it means that the need for changes has to be weighed against potential player confusion. It means that the least confusing option is the most appealing. What's *more* confusing, occasionally nerfing problem cards in all formats or coming up with an ever-expanding list of formats with format-specific card pools and ban lists?
I'm not the one who made the argument. Member this?
"Are you actually going to answer where the evidence is for T5 deciding to nerf Genn/Baku in wild or are you intentionally trying to throw the conversation in a different direction?"
If you have zero evidence one way or the other, where do you get off demanding this evidence of others and then using a lack of evidence to imply the opposite is true? When caught in a fallacious argument, why try to pretend that I'm the one making it? I'm not a goldfish, I can still vaguely recall the things you said two posts ago. If you can't argue your points honestly consider maybe conceding those points.
Apples to oranges comparisons all the way down. G&B subvert the rules of HS in a significant way that doesn't apply to any of the cards or decks you listed, and you're *well aware* of the argument, so I really don't understand the compulsion to make these false equivocations. Improved hero powers being active on turn one independent of what you draw or what you choose to play on turn one is a massive, massive change to how hearthstone works fundamentally, and the fact that these decks can then lean on their hero power makes them *even less* draw dependent than any other type of deck. For any other card in the game, the fact that you have to draw and play it to get its effect is one of the primary balancing factors.
If cards can be nerfed without prior warning then your argument is the pointless one, not mine. "Are you actually going to answer where the evidence is for T5 deciding to nerf Genn/Baku in wild..."
I didn't call you a flamer. The words I used were "ridicule" and "mock", and I stand by them. And to be clear, I don't have a problem with mockery if it's deserved, I have a problem with mocking someone in lieu of an argument, and especially when you're guilty of the same thing you're mocking the other for, in this case, expressing opinions.
1: There are no possible nerfs to Genn & Baku that don't alter their "core", that being the existing deck restriction for the reward.
2: It's Wild, Big Priest used to be the issue but as of late more decks have rose to the top to compete with Big Priest for number 1. One of these being Odd Paladin, so altering Odd Paladin could put BP back on top which most players don't want.
3: (Personal opinion) They should NEVER be nerfed because I'm of the mindset that a meta is never solved and there will always be a deck that's just slightly better than top dog.
Twitch for those of you who care.
We are not talking of decks capable of cancerizing the population (ie BP), nor of god tier decks.
Let me also point out that we are talking about two neutral cards: nerfing Baku means nerfing Odd Paladin AND Odd Rogue. Two different archetypes (token vs tempo) nerfed TOGETHER. Which is complete nonsense.
How is Even Shaman more hateful than Murloc Shaman, or Odd Rogue worse to face than Mech Hunter?
Finally, repetitiveness is a silly snowflake argument, especially in Wild.
Wow! This is still a thing? xD
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"So problematic" is a lot lighter condition than it sounds like, when Blizzard's philosophy of balancing Standard has been sliding towards tweaking smaller and smaller things, recently even with buffs, in order to keep things fresh. In the light of no such change seen in Wild, I don't think it's reasonable at all to make assumptions like that.
I'd say you're raising a new argument there rather than actually addressing the point I was making and that my post already contains the rebuttal your argument: "if not necessarily to the same extent".
But even if we set all that aside I think the crux of your argument is plain wrong: Clearly Team 5 have been taking an increasingly active and interventionist approach to wild as well. The fact that we've had 2, 3? posts about their intentions to do something about Big Priest, a deck that is over-represented despite a middling winrate tells you that they're no longer concerned only with balance, if indeed that was ever true to begin with.
Edit: I also have to say that I think it's disingenuous to frame the premature rotation of Genn and Baku, an unprecedented move by the dev team and arguably the most impactful balance change to the standard meta, as just some minor little tweak. Removing two cards and thereby killing half a dozen top decks cannot be reasonably compared to the recent round of buffs. I stand by my claim that the G&B rotation is to be read as an admission by the devs that these cards are too impactful by design and can't reasonably be fixed by a simple nerf.
Still "repetitive" is not an argument.
Actually, this is quite false for Even decks: you consider them repetitive because they are going to Hero Power every Odd turn, right?
Well, just look at it as a bonus. Exclude the Hero Power, consider it an extra, what is left? Well, what you get is a normal deck, playing normal cards, with a constant bonus in Odd turns. But how is that actually repetitive? How is that more repetitive than Murloc Shaman, or Mech Hunter, or Big Priest, or Quest Mage?
I can give you that the thing holds more truth for Odd decks, but at the end of the day, their Hero Power is still a bonus for them, a Tempo move to optimize turns, that can never get higher priority than normal playable cards in their hand.
So how is that repetitive actually? Their games are still bound to playing cards, first and foremost, despite the synergies with Hero Powers, they cannot win without playing cards in the best way possible. Cards still define their game.
Odd/Even decks just provide a bonus based on hero powers, but they are not repetitive, as their game is still bound to playing cards.
Same goes with the predictability argument. It's actually worse: what deck is NOT quite predictable in the meta? Is a deck actually predictable because it slams totems every Odd turns, or because you know their decklist and what they can play?
You not agreeing with the argument doesn't make it not an argument. If you want to make *that* case you have to actually substantively address the argument and point out where it's fallacious. The devs have stated ad nauseam that their goal isn't just to keep the game balanced, but also "fresh" "fun" "not stale", etc. By most people's standards that excludes high levels of repetitiveness.
Genn and baku are cards that provide their effects without their cards having to be drawn, let alone played. From turn one, every single game, you get a permanent "bonus" that considerably improves what you as a player can do independent of any cards you drew. That's the crux of the design problem: hearthstone is a card game balanced around having to draw and play your cards and these two just shit all over the fundamental balancing mechanism of the game, from the start of the game, every game.
The closest analogy there is in the game are quests, but there you have to: a) Sacrifice a card in hand b) Play the quest ASAP c) Complete the condition of the quest, typically takes 4+ turns if not more (and d) Play the quest reward).
Genn and Baku are like starting the game with a hero card active. The fact that they require some awkward deckbuilding choices doesn't make up for the fact that once the game has started they are the pinnacle of reliability and predictability and, dare I say it, repetitiveness.
It's repetitive because it gives players a draw-independent edge at the outset that they can build their deck to capitalise on. There, now I'm repeating myself. See how boring that is?
No one is saying that these decks can win without playing a single card, that's a bad attempt at reductio ad absurdum. The argument is that their core gameplay is far LESS dependent on draws, especially in the early game when cards/draws matter the most, because of the edge they get from improved/discounted hero powers.
Any deck that has a fixed start-of-the-game advantage it can capitalise on is *more* predictable than a deck that only gains advantages by drawing and playing cards. Do quests suffer from the same problem, to a lesser extent? Sure. Would G&B be less predictable if you had to meet some in-game condition before they went active: absolutely.
Sorry, but your argument about boring is not better than mine. You are basically saying it is boring because you find it boring. I don't find it boring at all tbh, so your argument falls there.
About predictability due to deckbuilding, how is that different to any other deck? eg Big Priest? The deck is purposedly built to abuse resurrection, and the opponent can predict what's going on. Unless you are telling me that predicting an extra totem with 100% makes the whole deck more predictable, which is obviously false. If that was true, if decks were really that predictable, they wouldn't be so strong as to stay t1 (BP is t2/3).
I substantiated my point by showing you there is nothing repetitive about the actual gameplay of Odd/Even decks. Not more than any other meta deck. The bonus is indeed an edge, and it's a minor part of their gameplay.
You are also merging the argument of the powerlevel with that of repetitiveness, and that's a logical fallacy.
The powerlevel is obviously there, i won't even try to deny that, but then again, look at the tier levels, and you will see that t1 is populated by other decks, not just Odd/Even.
Finally, the reason why they HOFed Odd/Even in Standard was not because the decks gameplay was boring, but because their presence in the meta was, for Standard's standards, ie they knew Odd/Even would have dominated the meta for 2 years straight, and that's not acceptable in Standard.
Now the same criterion cannot be applied to Wild, because Wild meta is inherently stale, and only slowly/rarely evolves.
PS: we're also considering Odd/Even as if they represented one deck or one archetype, which is false. We are talking of a whole set of decks, most of which don't even pass the meta test (including the Standard-infamous Odd Warrior). Hence killing the mechanic is just wrong.
But Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane have nothing wrong per se, besides the field of personal taste, which i respect, but you can't build an argument solely on that.
You have to sacrofice your deckbuilding possiblity and limit your deck choice to either odd or even. It's balanced, just adapt your playstyle and get better.
Odd pally has a weakness early boardclear, devolve. Just wait till the expansion settles and i guess u will stop crying over Odd than more about our new mage overlords with their Quest and Vargoth. :D
I laid out exactly in what way Genn and Baku substantively differ from other cards in hearthstone and how that would result in repetitive gameplay that significantly differs from, say, a consistent aggro deck.
Sure you may disagree that this repetitiveness is boring, but to ignore the difference and go "that's just your muhpinion" is to ignore the substance of the argument.
They aren't unrelated arguments. If G&B were unplayably underpowered they wouldn't be a problem even if they were still inherently flawed by design because they'd never show up. You can take the argument one step further and say that it's precisely this repetitive card-independent play pattern that makes these cards powerful.
No you didn't. You named a bunch of different decks that you think are repetitive, but you did nothing to argue your case. You've barely presented it. How is Mech Hunter especially repetitive? How is it cheating, what established "rules" is it subverting? What are your criteria for repetitiveness?
I'm not going to argue that performance wasn't a factor, as I laid out earlier even a bad design wouldn't cause problems if no one played it. But do you really, honestly think they would have prematurely hof-ed those two if people weren't bitterly complaining about them ruining the game? The Standard Baku/Genn meta was rather diverse if you look at the number of playable classes and decks, but a large number of people hated how many of those decks were G&B decks, presumably because they didn't like how those matches tended to play out.
I also laid out exactly why they are NOT more repetitive than other decks. YOU are ignoring my argument. ;)
tl;dr: Odd/Even decks still have to play cards every turn. Only exceptions, turn-2 and turn-1, respectively. How's that repetitive?
The rest is an argument about powerlevel, and it IS unrelated to repetitiveness.
And yes, i seriously think it was the only point about HoF, not because the decks felt somehow boring to play against.
And their choice about HoF is proof of the fact they don't even consider the mechanic as wrong or too powerful in the void, just too powerful for Standard.
Now, fair fair enough if you don't agree. Just don't take my silence as having actually counterargued my points.
Peace.
That's not a rebuttal, that's a claim, and one that I disagree with. The same logic does not apply at all. It could be argued that Big Priest is being addressed due to the extreme amount of critique towards it and the pressure the player base is putting on the developers regarding the deck. That is supported by that Blizzard has been hesitant to actually do anything about Big Priest so far, and seems to be stalling to see whether SoU might fix it with the murloc mass transform card, alternate tools for priest and other solutions.
You're conflating the importance of issue and the means taken to fix it. The two have a positive correlation but are not the same, and to draw the parallel to how big the issue is in Wild is an inexact argument as well, so while I think either one might be acceptable, to combine the two into a single argument makes the margin of error too great.
That the cards can't be fixed with a nerf is a design issue, not a power level one.
Is the discussion about whether or not the cards should be nerfed or will be nerfed? You've conflated the two a couple of times, committing an appeal to authority.
That's consistency, not repetitiveness. And yes, consistency can be repetitive, but inconsistency is an unfun consequence of unhealthy RNG, and a bad way to break repetitiveness. Many Baku/Genn decks are repetitive, especially Odd Paladin, but that's not because of or inherent to the even/odd mechanics.
He didn't ignore your argument, he rebutted it by making the claim that consistency is repetitive - odd/even decks have no possibility of having their build around win conditions at the bottom of their decks, so the scenario where that doesn't happen repeats more often.
EDIT: consistency is only realized by class synergy.
Even Priest sports the same perk as Even Shaman, yet the former has no consistency.
So Genn/Baku do not provide consistency, they only provide a perk.
If consistency was the base of the argument, it's proven wrong about the mechanic itself. It holds true only in specific class/decks.
Now, beyond consistency.
The real repetitiveness of Odd/Even is exclusively in their perk, not in their gameplay.
The gameplay is identical to that of any other deck, it's not repetitive at all, and since that is what actually makes the difference (in realizing the consistency potentially served by the HP), then the deck as a whole is not really repetitive.
It's just a perception: focusing on the perk, and extending that perception to the whole deck.
So, i reiterate, if ever an Odd/Even deck turns out to be problematic, because of consistency, that's because of the synergy provided by the class, and that's what should be nerfed, in case.
Not the core of the mechanic.
If you feel there's any point you made that I'm ignoring, please restate it. I did my best to address you point by point.
I addressed this specifically. This is an extremely foolish hill to die on. Every deck in the game has to play cards in order to win. It's a card game, that's inherent to the genre.
Genn and baku decks are much less reliant on playing cards, especially early on, because they start the game with an improved hero power. You keep reducing this down to a preposterous false binary. The concession is right there in your use of the word "still". Yes, they still play cards (despite being less reliant on them). I genuinely struggle to grasp how this is even a point of contention. Improved hero powers are obviously an advantage, hence the odd/even restriction which is intended to counterbalance said advantage with a weaker card pool and curve.
I strongly disagree with that. If there is a diverse meta T5 doesn't tend to arbitrarily kill off half of the field. The power level arguments that apply to genn and baku certainly also apply to half of the original set of DK's, and yet they didn't see an early set rotation because they were a lot less reviled. HOF-ing the two was a desperation move: there's no way to nerf the cards without fundamentally changing them, and deleting them outright would have been very extreme. It wouldn't be the first time a card has seen multiple iterations of nerfs and changes.
So you'd rather have them go down the Equality route than addressing the actual problem?
You would rather see them butcher multiple decks by nerfing cards that are also included in odd and even decks, than addressing the elephant (or elephants, in this case) in the room?
The reason even/odd priest isn't a thing is because its hero power doesn't gain any benefit by being upgraded or halved in cost. Not enough to warrant building a deck around, anyway. That's not the problem of priest's cards synergizing with the hero power, it's just that certain hero powers are stronger than others. Especially when upgraded or discounted. Stormwind Champion and Raid Leader saw play in odd paladin at one point. Do you honestly want to nerf two cards that have seen little to no play since the game's inception, until Genn and Baku were released, just so that some meme lord can continue playing his odd warlock deck?
Then can you explain why Even Priest is not a deck? By your argument, cards being a secondary part of the decks, Even Priest should be a deck. Or Odd Warrior, which used to be a deck.
They are not, which proves cards are key factor, and some classes have them, some others don't, despite all having Genn/Baku.
About HOF:
Once they recognized the problem with Odd/Even, they could have provided a nerf. They didn't, hence the problem was not what you think it is. Why should they let live something problematic in a form that is allegedly still problematic?
We should assume they are not just careless about Wild (which i think they are), but wicked entirely.
PS: Equality nerf was wrong, HOF would have been preferable, but all the other nerfs involving Odd/Even decks were overall fair, also considering them out of Odd/Even decks. If it was for me, Blessing of Might would also be hit. And if you want to hit Odd Paladin hard, Quartermaster is the card you are looking for, not Raid Leader, which again, is a neutral, and should only be touched out of desperation.
I don't see how this contradicts anything I'm saying. I agree Big priest is seeing large amounts of criticism, are you arguing that Genn and Baku didn't prior to rotation? Or don't presently?
Supposing that the new BP hate cards like Curse of Murlocs "solve" the problem in wild, would you agree that Blizzard was pressured into printing those cards because of the public outcry against BP?
By the way I prefer it when balance/gameplay issues can be addressed by printing new cards rather than changing cards that already exist, I just don't see how you'd accomplish that with Genn and Baku without printing something that hard-counters hero powers, EG something that disables/replaces the enemy hero power. And I imagine people wouldn't be very fond of that either.
We don't have access to focus group testing, surveys and stats that the people making the game base their decisions on. It's inevitable for there to be some level of inference and argument by analogy when arguing about something like this. I'm not exactly shy to admit that.
I would prefer it if the topic remained whether they should be nerfed, but when the counterargument being presented is "Wild/HS ought to be X way, so you're wrong", it's very unfair of you to call me out for citing the game designers' views on what Wild/HS ought to be. An appeal to authority isn't always a fallacy, especially with something as subjective as "what is this game about?"
I don't disagree that inconsistency can be unfun(highlander decks for example), but as far as I'm concerned there is quite a broad middle-ground between a game being random and arbitrary on the one hand or predictable and repetitive on the other.
Because not all hero powers benefit as much from the upgrade/discount. Priest hero power is already considered one of the weaker ones, it stands to reason that building a deck around improving it wouldn't be viable.
I wouldn't be foolish enough to argue that the card pool is entirely irrelevant, but that really doesn't prove your case at all. Because the hero power being improved/discounted matters. You can Tank up on turn 2, whereas heal 4 likely does nothing.
If the priest HP made tokens and the class had cards to support an aggro board-flood archetype then odd or even Priest probably would be a thing.
How would you nerf "Odd/Even"? Do you mean targeted nerfs to individual cards that are strong on odd/even decks, or what?
But despite tank up on (2) being good Odd Warrior is still out of Wild Meta. Even despite synergies with armor. So context (card pool and meta) matters. A whole lot. The perk of HP, which is the only repetitive part of these decks, is indeed just a perk. The deck themselves are not repetitive, and that's because their success is bound to cards, not by the improvement of their HP. And cards are inherently not repetitive.
I can see that the perk can feel repetitive, but it's still highly compensated by the necessity of cards.
AND by the challenge provided about deckbuilding and homebrewing. At least for the many combinations that are yet unrefined.
By nerf i mean a direct nerf to Genn and Baku themselves, harsh enough to throw their decks out of meta, which they didn't perform, suggesting it would have been overkill.
If cards are not inherently repetitive, but perk hero powers are, does it not follow that a deck with a perk hero power and cards is more repetitive than one without the perk?
If Genn and Baku decks get pushed out of the wild meta then they would cease to be a problem. I've already said as much earlier. Until that happens, the criticisms I've laid out above will continue to apply to those that persist.
The problem with nerfing G&B (hence this whole thread) is that it's hard to address these cards' strength without fundamentally changing how they work. The hero powers give very little room for adjustment, the condition is iconic and also hard to change and nerfing the minions themselves hardly affects the decks, certainly not in a way that addresses the problem. G&B already are oversized Patches. if there were an easy way to nerf these cards but keep their functionality intact I'm sure team 5 would've gone with that instead of yeeting them out of standard a year early.
To your question: no, it's actually the other way around. As you can see, we're just arguing from a different perspective.
You say that as long as perk exists, deck is repetitive (implying the perks are relevant by virtue of frequency)
I say as long as cards exist, deck is not repetitive (implying cards are the uttermost relevant part of the decks).
As for the nerf, they already performed killer nerfs in the past where necessary (eg QRogue). Since they didn't, i doubt necessity is there.
I also disagree Genn/Baku should be nerfed in any way possible, even worse with pushing them out of meta, which would be entirely arbitrary.
I agree with nerfing some class synergy cards if ever necessary, for some specific decks.
As I mentioned, you keep reducing this down to a binary. Why? You've already conceded that pressing the button turn after turn is repetitive, so if that is the key distinction between these decks and others, how does it not follow that they're more repetitive than decks that don't?
If I take a glass of water and add a spoonful of salt, then whether or not you consider the water salty is subjective, but surely it is objectively more salty than the glass of clear water?
Again, do you have any specific ideas on how these cards could be "killer nerfed" while maintaining their overall functionality? I don't. I suppose they could have given them an entirely new ability or condition a la Warsong Commander, but as far as i'm concerned an early rotation is tantamount to a killer nerf.
I am not about nerfing genn or baku but wanted to say sth. about this situation for Hearthstone.
It was the greatest mistake to make this odd/even mechanic for constructed format. I mean, It will be ok if they design these Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater for a new format like brawl, or they could have made brawl a format which we can choose a mode to play between a bunch of modes.
Sooner or later Baku and Genn will limit the design space. Designing and balancing all of the cards around 2 cards all the time is hard. Harder than some people think even it is only for mana costs and please don't say that They don't even consider wild for balance.
So, They might not be problem yet or they are problem already I really don't know but They will be huge problem at some day I'm sure of it.
Unpopular Opinion Incarnate
Big Priest has its own hate subreddit. Everything that is either high tier or annoying to play against receives hate, including Odd Paladin, but it doesn't come close to how much Big Priest is despised. I suppose the large amount of tech cards and other attempted solutions against it have at least partly been fueled by the players' reactions towards the deck, but it's impossible to know the motivations of Blizzard. Tech cards would be preferable with both odd/even decks and Big Priest, tbh as much as I hate Big Priest I wouldn't want anything in it to actually be nerfed. For Genn and Baku, some kind of reverse Inspire (triggers from opponent's hero power), temporary cost increase, temporary disable, and temporary replacement I could see working.
It is especially in subjective topics a fallacy. At least in objective questions it can be argued that the authority itself is making an argument, and therefor to appeal to it is to say that since the authority makes the argument, the argument can be made and is a part of the argument in which appeal to authority is used.
Maybe I'm indeed a bit unfair in only targeting the fallacy of your side, but the reason I got involved here in the first place is that your argumentation was so much better than the other side's that I felt it was warping the direction of the debate - you were doing adequate job of disproving their arguments so I saw no need to do it. I don't feel strongly enough about not nerfing Baku or Genn to partake in this discussion just because I disagreed. Some people throw slurs like "dishonest argumentation" at me but I'm just saying, just because I argue for a side, don't assume that's my opinion - thus why I rebutted RavenSunHS' comment.
That's a very long way to say, it's not unfair, you're committing an appeal to authority and it totally is a fallacy.
So to actually try to reach a conclusion here, it's a fallacious argument indeed that HS should be any way, but even more so is to try and justify it, as if claiming it is an objective fact in the first place. In the end it's just a subjective opinion whether playing against odd/even decks is enjoyable and whether they should be nerfed or changed or not.
No, it's not. You have more bombs in wild than Odd/Even. Wild is called w i l d for a reason.
With your arguements Highlander decks are an mistake too, because they grant you strong cards for deck restriction and by that Genn and Baku restricts your deck even more, but they are fine just because they don't have immidiate value? Most of the Baku/Genn Decks aren't even played, only 3 Decks Evenshaman and Oddpaladin and occasionally Evenlock. This decks, because they have cards that synergise with their heropower and get sth. on board. So it's always a board fight vs those swarm decks. Every control deck can manage this.
I played 2-3 games this night two was against Evenshaman and one vs Combo/Shuddershaman on R4; and which matchup I hated more? Shudder, because it wasn't very interactive at all with their combo pieces on mass. It feels frustrating and feels like it has no weakness except fast decks. But I guess I just took the wrong deck, the weak Questwarrior with Odd package. Losing to Evenshaman on the other side wasn't frustrating at all, only one thing that i hated, buts just HS in general, he won the brawl with a full board and got his sea giant survived into t8 Lichking play. Same goes too Oddpally both are similiar, but i don't think their are unfair, because they actually need to fight for the board and that's what I like on HS, when decks fights for the board, while Freezemage or Shudderwock/Combo don't require a board.
But these decks also belongs to wild and have their weaknesses, so I don't demand nerfs to them, because they are frustrating to play against, but not oppressive at all compared other nerfed decks like Naga or old Questrogue, which I miss, because I liked to punish combo decks with it :(.
Highlander decks don't force you to play an archetype and also Highlander Archetype doesn't force designers to balance cards around those cards. Its restriction is simplier than odd/even. You don't gain anything for a game long for Highlander effects. It's just a card which you used once or bunch of times with bounce effects.
Odd/even archetype would be cool if it was for only cards like Black Cat, Gloom Stag, Murkspark Eel and Glitter Moth but it wasn't.
Look at Highlander cards. Reno Jackson, Kazakus, Raza the Chained, Inkmaster Solia, Krul the Unshackled and new ones Dinotamer Brann, Reno the Relicologist, Sir Finley of the Sands and Elise the Enlightened.
All of them Except Raza the Chained Sir Finley of the Sands have one time effect and Sir Finley's effect is just random so you can't build a deck around an upgraded hero power and Raza the Chained is already Genn Greymane for highlander decks which is more balanced version with all hero powers not just for basic one.
If we come to Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater, yes they were a mistake. It doesn't even comparable with Highlander archetype. Highlander archetype can also limit design space if there is a card which gains a start of game effect but it still wouldn't limit like Odd/Even mechanic. It doesn't bring balance issues with mana costs. It just limits deckbuilding not designing so that's why I'm calling Odd/even with Start of game mechanic was a mistake.
Think like that; if Baku the Mooneater was like "Start of Game: If your deck has no duplicates, Your hero power is upgraded.", Would it be same limiting like this ? In my opinion, It would be even more balanced but for deckbuilding. It wouldn't even limit design space.
Edit: Also; what i am saying is not a personal taste, it was a statement. Some people can enjoy more against combo, control, mid-range or aggro; Or someone can hate to play against combo, control, mid-range or aggro. This is a personal taste. I am stating a situation about designing cards and archetypes. So your feelings about Shudderwock Shaman and Even Shaman is just for you. That's a personal taste and feeling, not a situation. I was not about popularity or how much Odd/even decks in the ladder or how it feels to play with or/and against Odd/even decks. I was about a problem which limits designers and players both.
btw, I'm mostly playing wild and I don't really care decks in wild here in this discussion because when we discuss those, there comes feelings, tastes etc.
Unpopular Opinion Incarnate
The degree to which T5 feels that the game needs to be fresh vs stale is not something we have inside knowledge of. If the goal was to make it so that wild never has major predictable or stale cards/plays you'd have to either be constantly nerfing past expansion class staples or introducing major power creep that makes the old powerful staples way less desirable compared to new cards. That is not realistic in the slightest.
Again I go back to my Bloodreaver Gul'Dan argument. Unless you're playing an extremely low curve zoolock build, heavily emphasizing low to midrange curved plays and not building for a late game back up plan then there is not a single warlock deck worth its weight that would ever not include the DK. Be it midrange, control, combo, or straight up OTK the DK will always be extremely good as it creates a pseudo-infinite removal system via the hero power, creates value out of thin air and empty boards, and completely strips the drawback of the warlock hero power/self-damaging theme away due to guaranteed healing each turn. And there are plenty more examples, although much less overblown than DKs, that emphasize that removing Genn/Baku for the sake of making the game fresh is laughable because there are already dozens of cards that are so good that they are not going away without being nerfed or deleted.
Don't forget that Mindbreaker was around when the DKs as well as Genn and Baku were in the meta and never saw play. Shutting off the HP for one turn or so has proven to be a poor answer to permanent upgraded hero powers, because their real strength lies in incremental value (well except for DK paladin I suppose).
I appreciate you playing the devil's advocate but I think you're wrong WRT this appeal to authority being fallacious. "Fun" is subjective, but if the topic is a specific game, and you can cite the game's author saying "I'm doing X Y and Z to make the game more fun" then whether or not you agree with their definition of fun, the statement still stands as an authoritative claim about the direction of the game's development. It doesn't mean an endorsement of those design choices as the objective truth.
To be clear, I'm not claiming that HS objectively has to be a certain way, I'm claiming that, objectively, the devs have claimed their intent to make it a certain way.
I agree, we don't have inside knowledge of T5 decision making process. I'm not the one making the argument that wild is meant to be static or w/e, but when presented with such arguments, what little we can glean from dev interviews still counts for more than people presenting their own personal feefees as some immutable fact or rule.
I don't know why people keep going back to some generic concept of "stale" or "repetitive" when I've made it abundantly clear what my specific problems are with Genn and Baku's design and how they impact gameplay and decision-making. Gul'dan has to be drawn, has to be set up and has to be played for a whopping ten mana. If you want to argue that it leads to linear gameplay when you have single cards that win you the game, or that the card is OP, that's a fine argument to make but I don't see how it has any bearing here, it's just whataboutism. You can't compare a card that costs ten mana to play to do anything to a card that starts out activated without even being drawn, let alone played.
Your reasoning is also binary, on the opposite side, by exaggeration.
Salt was added to the water, but still drinkable. You are attaching the fact it is undrinkable by implying that salty is too salty. But that's your opinion. If we agree on not agreeing it is actually too salty, then your suggestions about diluting the water with more water are just a subjective point.
Let me reformulate this way: Odd/Even mechanic is slightly more repetitive than normal, yet not enough to deserve any sorts of alterations.
It's definitely not as repetitive as you depict it, by far.
There's still plenty of decision-making in the form of each card that requires to be played. And guess what? Odd/Even decks play the same number of cards as any other decks in the game.
As for the nerf, they could have applied a hand requirement, or reworking the cards entirely, to the extent of a battlecry and/or questlike.
Instead of Start of the Game, Starts in your hand. (1)/(0) 1/1, Battlecry.
Not a simple elegant nerf, it would have required multiple tweaks, but many options were possible, if they really wanted to. Point is any options that touches the core mechanic kills the potential deck consistency, hence kills the deck entirely.
We all know how a subtle nerf can greatly affect entire decks. And that's unnecessary for Genn/Baku themselves.
Why is everyone arguing so much over this? It's very difficult to predict what Blizzard will do (given recent developments like the Boomsday Buffs), but given that they already HoF'med Genn and Baku they likely won't change them unless an odd or even deck becomes too oppressive in Wild for them to ignore, which is likely not the case at the moment. Also, no one responded to my idea of making Baku grant you an alternate Hero Power (from Dalaran Adventure Content, NOT the recent Quest cards) and maybe buffing it to 7-Mana to compensate. I don't really feel like Baku is overpowered, I just feel like she's very boring, and that my version could be much cooler.
But at that point maybe printing a new card is more functional to them.
It's basically a new card with new design, it would be a waste of design effort to apply it to a Wild-only card, without Standard.
Yeah actually you're right. Also it would limit alternate Hero Powers to Odd decks. What if they printed a neutral Singleton support card this expansion that reads "Start of Game: If you have no duplicates in your deck, Discover an alternate Hero Power"
That's far too broken. As reno and odd even decks have already shown, these restrictions can hardly be called that. This applies to both formats.
Start of the game buffs need to be very minor in order to be balanced. I advice you to watch some of Trump's custom card reviews in which he covers some start of game cards.
Subjective opinion of course:
I don't think nerfing Genn and Baku themselves is likely to happen and maybe it shouldn't even happen. I would much prefer if the problematic decks themselves be toned down, how nerfing Flametongue Totem made the totems less of an immediate threat making the deck still very good, but much more tolerable imo.
Similar thing can be applied to Odd Rogue, the access to the 2/2 weapon is a trade off for the lack of cheap burst of Eviscerate, Sap and nerfed Cold Blood.
As for other decks: Evenlock can highroll 50 % of the time and put an 8/8 turn 3, but I don't think it's enough it this meta of Barnes and hyper aggro. At least I don't see very many on ladder.
Odd Warrior has good anti aggro capabilites, but sacrifices value cards against Control. Also Big Priest.
Odd Mage, Even Paladin, Even Rogue... yeah.
That leaves us with Odd Paladin. I don't like this deck. I'd say it has the best button which carries the deck basically. I don't know if it warrants a nerf or not, but since Level Up! was nerfed, I think 6 mana Quartermaster would be logical, removing some burst and wide buff while keeping the pressure style gameplan, after all it isn't token Druid.
No I'm not. I'm really really not. I'm explicitly making a relative argument. The amount of reaching and adding on assumptions you had to do to turn a straightforward example of something being relative (less or more salty) into a binary (somehow?) is astonishing. Why do you persist with this? Do you genuinely not understand what I'm saying? Just answer the question: Which is MORE salty, a glass of clean water or a glass of water with 1 spoon of salt? This isn't a trick question.
Having an improved HP essentially means that the starting question for your turn ought to be "Do I want to press the button?", and you need a really compelling reason not to do it.
But yes, Baku decks have 30 cards just like any other deck.
I said it in my post, some salt in the water has been added. We all agree on that. But now the point is: is the water undrinkable?
The decks do hold a component of repetitiveness, but is it so heavy to warrant for a nerf/alteration of the very core mechanic, as it is the point of the thread?
Or are we arguing about repetitiveness just for the sake of it? And you do not care of nerf? Because if that's the case, the argument was over like tons of posts ago.
If you do not care of a nerf, then my bad (but then why are we even arguing? whta's the point?).
If that's not the case, and if you are arguing in favor of a nerf for Genn/Baku, and you are doing so based on the concept of repetitiveness, you can't stop at determining that salt has been added to water (salted), that they include a repetitive perk. You have to prove the water is undrinkable (salty), that repetitiveness is a defining factor of ALL these decks.
A nerf requires a full-blown reason, not just a relative one. Relative repetitiveness is a moot point.
And Odd/Even decks don't just have 30 cards in their lists, like any other deck, but they have to play them, turn by turn, like any other deck. They still HP only when they have some mana left, or no better action to perform anyway. HP every turn, sparkling some cards here and there, is not an option. That would have made them seriously repetitive, the water salty/undrinkable, the very Odd/Even mechanic unbearable. But that is not the reality of things.