Hearthstone
Which cards are most overtuned in VtSC and why is it mech mage?
Submitted 2 years, 8 months ago by
Alfi
I would like to have fun at least the first few days of expansion but at least 2 out of 3 matches are against the same decklist of mech mage.
I understand, that this supersynergistic deck works well, but this is the pirate warrior experience again - same deck, same play patterns, very few cards I face. Ugh.
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I would like to have fun at least the first few days of expansion but at least 2 out of 3 matches are against the same decklist of mech mage.
I understand, that this supersynergistic deck works well, but this is the pirate warrior experience again - same deck, same play patterns, very few cards I face. Ugh.
-=alfi=-
So far while not "over tuned" perse I find Preist to be annoying as everytime they've used that magic cup spell they get size swap 4/4 priests were able to get the cup in their hand and hit size swap on turn 1 I can't even get a Murloc in my starting hand when the deck is made out of 24 murlocs
Self proclaimed good at battlegrounds
Its still too early to say. Its only week 1.
Mech mage and miracle naga mage practically plays the same way, just wait and then vomit out stats and swing board. With removals being thin right now, there's not many decks that can swing right back after a big turn like that. But the deck has some issues against tempo decks, and they're still slow enough that I dont really consider it impossible to play against.
Quest pirate warrior is a problem less because of the pirates, which differs very little from before rotation, and more because of the seeming ease of discovering multiple Mr. Smites per game. Slow decks have little to no chance, because everyone is teching against control by having nellie in their deck, and the pool is small enough that you'll likely get mr. smite off nellie and then its practically game over.
Against tempo decks though, and vomit decks like mage, quest pirate has problems. A lot of problems.
Will we see a week 1 nerf this time? Not sure really. I guess if the play rates for quest warrior is high enough team5 might be forced to act. Not sure what they can do though, but I wont be too surprised if they decide to axe Mr. Smite in one way or another.
Oh, and I should also say that if Amalgam of the Deep gets a stat nerf I wont be surprised neither.
My most recent game. I'm playing Pirate steal rogue, nicely fidging his life total. But this is not aggro and I cannot kill opponent in first 4 turns, I play more like value oriented decks.
Turn 5, opponent
1 mana Mecha-Shark
1 mana Mecha-Shark, 3 damage
0 mana Amalgam of the Deep, 6 damage, 9 damage total
3 mana Mecha-Shark (discovered by Amalgam one step before), 6 damage, 15 damage total
0 mana Annoy-o-Tron, 9 damage, 24 damage total
0 mana Annoy-o-Tron, 9 damage, 33 damage total, my board is cleared.
I conceded.
Is this OK on turn 5? How could I play around this? And this is not an unusual situation, even without the third Mecha-Shark on turn 5 I would be totally screwed. And a lot of mech mage games end up like this sooner or later. To wait until next expansion when the mech pool may dillute or some even more broke stuff will be created?
-=alfi=-
Honestly I feel like this is one of the most balanced day 1 metas so far. There is no deck or even card I can point towards and say "I don't even know how I could possibly beat this". Something that I couldn't say about the start into the DoD or AoO expansion for example.
Out the gate, Spitelash Siren feels very overtuned (overtuna'd?). Mixed with all the cheap spell generation and Naga tutoring, it's disgustingly easy to get 10+ mana turns as early as turn 5. But it's too early to say if it's actually overpowered or just a standout great card in a solid deck.
A man is lying on the street, some punks chopped off his head
I'm the only one who stops to see if he's dead.
Hmm. Turns out he's dead.
Control is broken again. All I see is control Pala, control Druid, control Priest, control Warrior... very few Pirate Warrior and Mech Mages where the 1 mana 4/3 deal 12 random damage the only broken aggro card is.
I just want to farm the achievemts, but I don`t feel like play one of this infinite bullsh** decks with infinite heal, removals, card draw, value...
I see you!
And the mana cheating is still totally out of control. 1 Mana 16/16 from druid on turn 5.... after the achievments are finished I will quit Standard for at least 3 months. x_X
Priest: 3 mana 24 / 24 with rush. How is this any balanced?
There is no skill left in HS. All there is today is rng highroll nonsense.
I see you!
Well, don't forget endless complaining. Hearthstone still seems to have that in droves!
This early, Mecha-Shark and Switcheroo feels like potential nerf targes. Also, discover is super strong with this limited card pool, I think I discovered 4 new The Leviathan in the same game. But I haven't played a lot tbh.
Well i guess Mecha-Shark could see a nerf. That is true, but i do not think he is the real problem. Sure he is strong but the card that makes every mech cheaper and the new Amalgam are 2 cards that make the Shark even stronger than he is.
But i also see many different decks online, not just mech mage, sure there are some games i've hit 3 mech mage in a row but most of the time i queue in a game i hit different decks. At least for now :)
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
I'm playing mech mage because that's the deck I got the pieces for in my 50 packs. I could see the shark getting a nerf but think the issue is the synergy, small pool for discover, and the cost reduction. It's one of those decks that's immediately strong and there isn't one standout problem card. I'm definitely seeing mech mage more than any other decks. Not seeing it as a big problem to start, though. It's just easy, efficient, and relatively cheap to craft/build.
Now you kids are probably saying to yourselves, "Hey Matt, how can we get back on the right track?"
All I am seeing is mech mage and even when I am able to clear the board 4 times (which is pretty difficult as Reno priest nowadays) they pull a board out of there arse with discover/mana cheat... And this had now happened 4 consecutive matches... Pretty certain I go back to wild pretty soon, at least all the board clears I need over there ..
Mecha-Shark is the single most broken card in this deck, and their ability to get four of them on average every game is infuriating
I would instead also point my finger on Security Automaton, Bubblebot and Seafloor Gateway. I don't mind Aggro decks pumping out a lot of damage, as they are supposed to do so, but they now also have scaling potential and relatively absurd Mana Cheat, and actually robust survivability. Aggro decks need to remain glass cannon.
"Truth is in the shadows, waiting to be revealed by the light. But light only disperses the shadow." - Me
"If other people shared traits of those considered naive, the world would've become a better place." - Also me
I had a game recently where I played 4 Gaia, the Techtonic and I don't really think a single one of the four was from my deck
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
All of these spam aggro decks are absurd and pretty terrible to play against, but I'm guessing that they consider this a good thing within the Blizz team, since they went out of their way to make a few more, and boosted a couple that were already there. I just auto-concede against mages and warriors for now, and i'm ready to go on Paladins and Warlocks too, depending on how the early turns go. Matches that don't involve those decks have been fun, in general :)
Zeddy explanation why aggro is so relevant based on Blizzard communication (important start is at 4:56)
-=alfi=-
I think he's reading too much into what was actually said in the article.
All he said was that they try to make the game appealing to all kinds of players and that aggro decks are so popular because most people enjoy shorter matches, while also saying that they want other deck types to be viable as well. Nowhere was it stated that they want aggro specifically to be stronger than other decks. Or in other words: Even if the game was 100% balanced, you would still play against aggro decks in the majority of your games.
There is no problem for aggro strategies to be popular, problem is that they are extremely powerful. Just look at pirate warrior, it was the best deck last months and now it only improved. This leads to extremely repetitive games, where you encounter the same cards, same strategies all the time.
-=alfi=-
The point is that they never claimed to make aggro decks too strong (compared to other decks) on purpose. That's also backed up by the fact that there were and are a bunch of non-aggro decks which are perfectly viable for climbing.
In the video he describes why he feels aggro are favored by design and then proceeds to show and describe the top decks currently (and in boomsday) being non-aggro decks.
And then he continues his argument as though as that doesn't mean anything.
In truth, I think he was trying to use the article as proof of how blizz is intrinsically designing their games to be short, so they'd be more 'mobile friendly'. But somehow, he either forgets about or confuses the message to be something about how aggro cards are favored by design.
But if Ive got to be honest, I can't find any support that aggro is being favored above other archetypes. The best decks in the past year are nearly all non-aggro decks, and the last time I can remember that aggro was a consistent threat was the MSoG era when Small-Time Buccaneer and patches were tearing everything to pieces...and then buccaneer got nerfed, and from there on its mostly just variants of zoolock and face hunter.
There's always good aggro or face decks around; odd rogue, face hunter, healock (some of the weirdest shit in history), aggro shadow priest, aggro druid, secret pally, etc. But for all those, there's always plenty other decks like giants mage, shirvallah pally, raza priest, control odd warrior, quest druid, quest mage, spell mage, etc. More often than not, an aggro deck is simply never the best deck for a skilled player looking to rise up the top.
And then there's cards. He references Swordfish and Pufferfist in his video as evidence of aggro being favored. But a look at the core cards will show differently: Tar Creeper, Doomsayer, Mistress of Mixtures, Wild Pyromancer, unnerfed Equality, Candleshot, Living Roots, Wrath, etc. If team5 really wanted aggro to be the best deck, all they needed to do is to bring back patches and unnerfed buccaneer.
We're nearly a week past the expansion/rotation. Mech mage has suddenly fallen down the cards, murlock is nowhere to be seen, token dhunter cannot and will not beat any control deck, and the much hated quest warrior is nearly 100% reliant on Mr. Smite somewhere somehow to win (sadly because of the smaller pool, this is fairly consistent)
I have to agree with suchti here; I think in this instance, zeddy is reading way too much into that specific response in the article.
Edit: There was one era more recent than MSoG that an aggro deck was the top tier. AoO featured a massively overpowered tempo dhunter that basically took the entire meta for ransom. But the story ends the same way; it got nerfed (three times) and we haven't heard or seen it since the start of scholomance.
And that is one of the most annoying things with mech mage now. It's bad enough to deal with a t6 or t7 Gaia, but to deal with another one at t8... Now I'm not playing a T1 deck by far, but this feels like impossible to beat... Even when I get 2 7/7s online by t4/5 Vs an empty board I still get swarmed the turn after and get completely destroyed
Yeah, I have been playing a bunch of different stuff to try new things and to also hit some early achievements. But Mech Mage is definitely one of the stronger decks. Switcheroo shenanigans with Deathwing and the surfing murloc that copies are also just annoying. But so far the good news is that there are a lot of decks that seem to at least be viable. And while Mech Mage is by no means unbeatable, the match up against the deck you are playing may very well be highly unfavored for you. I feel like there is a trend where when a lot of archetypes are viable we tend to see higher numbers of polarized match ups. The biggest issue is when the meta starts to settle if those polarized match ups stick around or disappear, or if certain decks hold others back from existing at all.
It might take another week or so, but I can already imagine seeing some nerfs hit Mech Mage, maybe Pirate Warrior, and potentially Switcheroo to avoid too many crazy shenanigans in both Standard and Wild. I could see them increasing the cost of the spell, or maybe adding card costs as part of the swap. Swapping costs of the two minions would help mitigate the use of it to make two early 12/12s with Rush and still allow it to be used as a draw engine in other decks. In Wild, making the 20/20 charging Boars cost 4 would give people a chance to do something rather than getting hit with 2 chargers with 20 attack on turn 4.
As with any expansion there are unfortunately some issues that the team either didn't foresee or just didn't think would be so bad. But the good news is they have been a lot faster in recent years to respond, as opposed to the old way of waiting 2 months and then making one or two minor changes that either do nothing or completely kill cards.
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
That would help with the Boar situation, but would open up new opportunities for abuse. Swapping stats and costs means cards that are expensive because of their Battlecry or Deathrattle would become good targets.
I'm sorry but mech mage? That's the deck you guys are complaining about still?
Ramp druid is by far the strongest deck in the game, resulting in everyone trying to counter it, with middling success (mostly aggro dh).
Pirate warrior and mech mage are tier 2 at best, switcharoo priest (the highroll one) is a meme.
At least complain about the right decks, come on guys.
Well, everyone's experience in this game is not the same so please keep that in mind before posting condescending reactions to other people posting information regarding their personal experience. Personally I wasn't complaining, I was having a conversation (or trying to) about things I've been seeing. I did mention Switcheroo, yes, but perhaps Priest stuck out to me more because when I go to Wild that's about half of what I've been seeing there since launch. And while it may be a highroll deck, it's unfortunately highrolling fairly consistently or people wouldn't be playing it so much in Wild.
But yes, Standard Druid is still strong! It's not quite the same deck as it was before, but now seems focused on reducing the cost of the Naga Giants and then getting a ton of copies using the 2/4 minion once the giants are reduced in cost, which is not hard for them to do. That combined with Earthen Scales gives them a chance to build a big board while also getting a huge health boost. Then because they can get up to 20 mana, which I never understood who thought that would be okay ever, they can do things like Brann>Alex to face, Zola on Alex, and have two more Alex to face next turn if they have ramped enough. Not sure what my win rates have been against them, but it's probably bad. It's either hope I get an epic start so I can win very quickly, or hope they draw poorly or make a mistake.
But as I said in my other post here, the team is a lot faster at responding to balance issues now than in the past. I'm sure they'll be watching all the data over the first week or two and then taking swift action against whatever deck or card(s) they see as problematic. Regardless, I've still been having a fun time this first week just playing different stuff and working on achievements.
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
That's true! It's almost like they shouldn't have printed this card at all... Not sure how you change the card then without completely changing the effect or killing it. Which is too bad because it's an interesting idea. Maybe they will need to limit it to drawing minions of X mana cost or more, or less? If you say it only draws X mana cost or more, cheap minions that charge or copy aren't included? Or maybe the spell just draws any two minions but silences them in hand before swapping the stats? That eliminates battlecries, charge, and other big effects that you wouldn't want on a cheap minion that has been given a ton of stats, still keeps the spirit of the card, and could then at least give opponents a chance to react to the big, cheap minion. But then I have to ask, is this maybe too much and it kills the card?
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
Perfect analysis, I could not agree more.
Switcheroo and Kael'thas Sunstrider in particular are the two main culprit cards holding everyone hostage now in ranked Wild. You either play them or have a bad time running into them. I do not care about my Wild rank at all, but since I am required to play on the ranked ladder to progress my XP achievements the average of four turns is nowhere near enough to complete these efficiently.
By the way, is it really an oversight or plain intentional? In a recent interview with former HS game director Ben Lee it was made clear that they want to keep games short because that apparently is what most HS players like. However, games being over within four turns is certainly overkill though. That is almost like promoting autoconcede which will lead to even shorter games, ironically.
I would really dislike that they would need to nerf switcheroo because of wild... In standard it's a fair card I feel which makes for some nice plays. Why not just nerf boar? Charge on a 1 mana will always limit design space I would say...
In standard, there is this deck that swaps Deathwings stats with Twin-fin Fin Twin, which is countered only by having two big-minion-killers or silence by turn 2 to 5, or bad draw on the priests end. (depending on when and how they draw the combo, they can get it on the board on Turn 1 if coin and lucky, or they could just draw their deathwing or twin-fin before they can use switcheroo on it and lose the game)
Also they have a deck where they have Selfish Shellfish, giving another cheap card 7/7 stats while they're going to silence the Shellfish anyway, returning it's stats to 7/7
No OTK's in standard like they have in wild, though