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Hearthstone | Posted by | 4 years, 1 month ago
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Rock paper scissors meta?

Anyone feel like this meta is overdetermined based on deck v deck matchup?

There are a good variety of decks being played, but it does feel like matchup is more determinative than correct plays. It seems like most matchups are like 65-85 to 35-15 rather than the more traditional 55/45 blowout.

I'm not sure why it feels this way, exactly. There have always been aggro, combo, burn, and control decks, but now it definitely seems less necessary to play around/anticipate your opponent's plays, because each of you can discover your outs and only look forward. 

Anyone else agree? Disagree? I think the meta is technically varied in that many classes/decks are played, but each game seems to me like it's on auto-pilot. 

For the record, I started playing in Oct 2014, have hit Legend multiple times (in Standard and Wild, esp. since they made it so easy with the 3-star system).

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  • Anyone feel like this meta is overdetermined based on deck v deck matchup?

    There are a good variety of decks being played, but it does feel like matchup is more determinative than correct plays. It seems like most matchups are like 65-85 to 35-15 rather than the more traditional 55/45 blowout.

    I'm not sure why it feels this way, exactly. There have always been aggro, combo, burn, and control decks, but now it definitely seems less necessary to play around/anticipate your opponent's plays, because each of you can discover your outs and only look forward. 

    Anyone else agree? Disagree? I think the meta is technically varied in that many classes/decks are played, but each game seems to me like it's on auto-pilot. 

    For the record, I started playing in Oct 2014, have hit Legend multiple times (in Standard and Wild, esp. since they made it so easy with the 3-star system).

    • Yes, pretty much so. I've talked about it at length in our most recent meta/decks update, as we went back to more polarization and coin flip matchups on ladder. Haven't had a chance to play much after the changes to Kazakusan and SI:7 Smuggler, although I don't expect those to really change the field much. 
      Will be very surprised if they are not doing any further balance changes by mid-March (Wildheart Guff somehow still being 5 mana, for one), unless they really decide to say "screw it, we are holding the fort as is until the rotation". 

      • will rotation fix that much, though? most of the "broken" (ie: playable) cards are from last year's expansions and would stay in. 

        to the above comment, agreed that we'll probably see even more bonkers cards this year, but it is hard to imagine. 

        i know blizzard likes to do increasing brokenness throughout the year, but it feels a little like we're going to re-play a couple years ago where cards got so out of hand they printed 3 "meh" expansions that saw little play until the previous year rotated out.

        it'll be interesting to see what happens. i agree that more frequent balance updates would be fun and interesting. i'm in favor of anything that shuffles things up, and especially if they keep shuffling so things don't get stale. midrange paladin feels as stale and boring (and long in the tooth) as old highlander hunter, which was meta forever

    • Definitely agree, I play since the start of 2016, and it also feels to me as the most "Rock-paper-scissors" as I can remember.

       

      Just look at the matchup spread at HS Replay. Go to -> Meta -> Matchups. And then on the left check (find) few decks, for example - Control Warrior, Control Priest, Ramp Druid, Taunt Druid. See the % of Winrates. There's many deep red or deep green colors.

      The amount of matchups with winrates either below 35-40% or above 60-65% is simply unbelievable. That clearly shows polarity of winrates in MANY decks.

       

      Why is that? My opinion is same as AngryShuckie.

      Non-existent midrange decks. Decks, that are somewhere in between total Aggro and total Control.

      To me it seems like only Aggro, Control and Combo exists at the moment and they counter each other as shown in Winrates.

  • It wouldn't be the the first time a meta fits your description. I recall times people complained about how polarised everything was, then Blizz pointed to deck diversity and called it a success, demonstrating very different definitions of a 'successful meta' exist.

    My own 8 years of experience tells me the least polarised match-ups usually involve a midrange deck (as the Jack-of-all-trades archetype, they have a decent shot at beating everything, but at the cost of it never being a hard counter), while the others tend to have sharper strengths and weaknesses. So maybe its an absence of midrange decks driving the polarised match-ups?

    If so, hopefully the set rotation can help push things back to having more of a board focus, and allow midrange to resurface in greater numbers.

  • The meta is very RPS currently. Biggest offenders are ramp druid and control warrior, who both (ab)use Kazakusan.

    Druid is a 'fun' deck to play because it gets Kazakusan online very fast, so it's a popular deck. However, it folds to anything even slightly aggressive usually (face hunter, shadow priest, beast/taunt druid...). So the meta is filled with aggressive decks. 

    In comes control warrior, a deck with 29 removal cards and Kazakusan. Way too slow to beat the turbo ramp druids, but completely curbstomps aggro decks.

    And there's your rock (aggro), paper (control warrior) and scissors (druid) meta. Luckily, the rotation is just around the corner.

    Edit: The least polarizing deck is burn shaman, if you want to enjoy the meta without too much polarization. 

  • Yes it is. If you want a balanced spread play Burn Shaman, everything else is consistently 80-20.

    Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

    Friendly
    • Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

      Yes it is. If you want a balanced spread play Burn Shaman, everything else is consistently 80-20.

      Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

      they are going to release so many imbalanced shit that  kazakusan will be sent in the oblivion instantly like every new expansion have done since 2/3 years

      not that I mind........... i love powercreeps
      • Quote From TinTinDance
        Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

        Yes it is. If you want a balanced spread play Burn Shaman, everything else is consistently 80-20.

        Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

        they are going to release so many imbalanced shit that  kazakusan will be sent in the oblivion instantly like every new expansion have done since 2/3 years

        not that I mind........... i love powercreeps

        Eventually yes, but the rotation removes a shit-ton of power and leaves a lot of decks dry, meaning that unless the new expansion creates successful archetypes by itself (which rarely happens at the start of the year) I doubt that there'll be anything that could reasonably beat Kazakusan Control Warrior for instance (outside of hoping for a Mutanus snipe).

         

        Friendly
    • Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

      Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

      The recent removal of locusts changes alot, and honestly kazakusan is only truly OP in druid, where ramp can reach an absurd 5 mana advantage around turn 7-8.

      In most other decks, its a decent pay off but its still 8 mana do nothing, making it hard to play and not fall behind or outright die. Plus, despite what it feels like, there's definitely more than a small chance of kazakusan giving you utterly shit treasures and basically bottom up your game.

       

      Friendly
    • Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

      Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

      Is the problem Kazakusan, or is the problem Lightning Bloom and Overgrowth? Those are the two that are turboing Kazakusan out. There have been plenty of games where I put on enough pressure so that the Druid can't spend 8 mana doing nothing. It's just you can't do that when their 8 mana is on turn 4.

      • Quote From MurlocAggroB
        Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

        Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

        Is the problem Kazakusan, or is the problem Lightning Bloom and Overgrowth? Those are the two that are turboing Kazakusan out. There have been plenty of games where I put on enough pressure so that the Druid can't spend 8 mana doing nothing. It's just you can't do that when their 8 mana is on turn 4.

        Depends on whether you thiink a Control deck without Kazakusan could beat a Control Warrior deck with kazakusan. The answer is no. It cannot.

        Friendly
        • Quote From YourPrivateNightmare
          Quote From MurlocAggroB
          Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

          Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

          Is the problem Kazakusan, or is the problem Lightning Bloom and Overgrowth? Those are the two that are turboing Kazakusan out. There have been plenty of games where I put on enough pressure so that the Druid can't spend 8 mana doing nothing. It's just you can't do that when their 8 mana is on turn 4.

          Depends on whether you thiink a Control deck without Kazakusan could beat a Control Warrior deck with kazakusan. The answer is no. It cannot.

          That's an overly simplistic analysis. The question is never "does (card) improve win rates against the mirror?", but "does (card) improve win rates against the meta as a whole?" Kazakusan in control warrior might well answer yes to the latter, but not so clearly that it is obviously a problem card anymore.

        • Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

          Depends on whether you thiink a Control deck without Kazakusan could beat a Control Warrior deck with kazakusan. The answer is no. It cannot.

          That's like saying "Depends on whether you think a Cubelock deck without N'Zoth could beat a Cubelock deck with N'Zoth."

          Like obviously, it's a win condition for Control decks. It's only an issue when it's winning games against its supposed counters, which is only happening in Druid right now. If a Warrior is stabilized with 8 mana to spare against an aggro deck, then they were gonna win that game regardless.

          • Quote From MurlocAggroB
            Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

            Depends on whether you thiink a Control deck without Kazakusan could beat a Control Warrior deck with kazakusan. The answer is no. It cannot.

            That's like saying "Depends on whether you think a Cubelock deck without N'Zoth could beat a Cubelock deck with N'Zoth."

            Like obviously, it's a win condition for Control decks. It's only an issue when it's winning games against its supposed counters, which is only happening in Druid right now. If a Warrior is stabilized with 8 mana to spare against an aggro deck, then they were gonna win that game regardless.

            The point is that if Kazakusan is this powerful by himself then he's just going to beat every other lategame strategy that doesn't involve a striaght-up OTK by virtue of existing. This then means that only certain classes can play control because of Kazakusan's activation condition.

            Quick example. Big Beast Hunter was viable before the miniset. It is no longer viable because Kazakusan just fucks it on every conceivable level so the previously very favored control matchups are now unwinnable because getting Wand of Annihilation or just burn in general demolishes you entirely meaning that trying to grind your opponent out by spamming sticky beasts is not a winable strategy. If we take this instance and apply it more broadly, KAzakusan beats any late-game strategy that attempts to outlast through minion pressure because unless you're already winning hard before he has the chance to come down you're not gonna get through all the treasures alive.

            Not to mention that Kazakusan is so flexible thaat he can basically create a win condition against just about any deck that isn't an OTK.

            Friendly
            • Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

              The point is that if Kazakusan is this powerful by himself then he's just going to beat every other lategame strategy that doesn't involve a striaght-up OTK by virtue of existing. This then means that only certain classes can play control because of Kazakusan's activation condition.

              It really depends on what the next set brings. If the focus is on board combat as Blizzard claims, then maybe Kazakusan becomes too inconsistent. Suddenly, there's all these non-Dragon minions that are really good that you just can't run with Kazakusan, unless you want to draw your entire deck every game. It becomes a real sacrifice to put this in your deck. I don't have much faith in the Hearthstone team's balance abilities, but I do think that the rotation is going to heavily shift how decks are built.

              Worst case scenario, he gets nerfed to 10 mana in two months from now. More realistically, he goes the way of the Tickatus and stops being a problem before it comes to that.

              I think that Kazakusan existing is doing more good than harm. Control decks were poo-poo bad for almost a year now because they didn't have a win condition. It sucks to lose the tier 3 fringe decks on the way, but I much prefer seeing a new archetype be meta instead.

      • Quote From MurlocAggroB
        Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

        Kazakusan basically has ruined the meta, either you play him or you beat him, there's no inbetween. I'd be shocked if he doesn't get nerfed again post-rotation.

        Is the problem Kazakusan, or is the problem Lightning Bloom and Overgrowth? Those are the two that are turboing Kazakusan out. There have been plenty of games where I put on enough pressure so that the Druid can't spend 8 mana doing nothing. It's just you can't do that when their 8 mana is on turn 4.

        Its fairly obvious the problem is mainly druid ramp, not Kazakusan itself, even with the locusts still in. We are in a time where druid ramps upwards to 5 mana above yours by turn 6 and right after playing kazakusan you're in for a Solar Eclipse embers of rag treat. And all that while you're struggling to get even a decent minion out that doesn't just die to Scale of Onyxia, which isnt a good card on its own, but out on turn 4 is just a straight killer because you can't even ignore it since Arbor Up is handily threatening lethal on its own.

        That team5 decided to nerf kazakusan instead of addressing the absurd ramp in druid leads me to believe that the next rotation would probably feature yet another crazy ramp engine since Overgrowth and Lightning Bloom is obviously going away. I'd just like team5 to understand that there are ways of making druid fun to play, whilst not shitting into everyone's lunch. Ramp should give advantages, not outright determine winners and losers.

        Friendly

  • The mini-set made the game more stale somehow lol

  • Unfortunately, that's what we usually get whenever there's a combo meta...or a druid meta. Perhaps its the same thing, because thus far the only druid deck that actually plays the same way other decks do is taunt aggro druid.

    Its not even that difficult to see why. Combo and druid decks tend to die off very easily to hyper aggro and that in turn in chomped away by control decks. And it gets worse, because not many decks can outvalue control or a ramped up druid deck while trying to dodge hyper aggro decks as well. Basically if you're wanting a balanced deck that has a chance against most others, its quest rogue or burn shaman, and then pray hard you don't meet control warrior, the only bad matchup.

    Friendly
  • Quote From YourPrivateNightmare
    Quote From TinTinDance
    Quote From YourPrivateNightmare

    I doubt that there'll be anything that could reasonably beat Kazakusan

    i may be wrong, but i bet that the meta will change so drastically in a way we can't even immagine because of the new cards that kazakusan will turn unplayed eventually 

  • *Shrug* I haven't played much HS in the last two years, but this sounds pretty much like ladder HS has always been.

    A high percentage of the time, the match is already decided by the matchup (first) and mulligan (second). Everything else in the entire match is a very distant third, in terms of affecting the outcome.

  • Once again I will add my seemingly controversial opinion: Mini-Sets are adding too much synergy in standard.

    Aggro doesn't run out of fuel before killing you three times over.
    Control doesn't run out of removal until they're at the bottom of their deck.
    Questlines are being completed by turn 5.
    Druid... ramps to Kazakusan on turn 3.

  • The problem is wider than Kazakusan. There are several super-powered cards that entire decks are built around. The quest-lines are examples, as is Mozaki. All of those decks have wild match-up spreads.

    However, I think the biggest issue is the amount of card draw, and tutored card draw. This makes decks very consistent. Ramp druid needs Capture Coldtooth Mine and Moonlit Guidance to reliably draw Kazakusan. Quest-line hunter can run many low-cost spells because it has so much card draw. This allows decks to go all in on their win condition, which leads to polarised match-ups.