Hearthstone
Is the Quest bad for Druid?
So at this point into the expansion it has become very obvious that the Druid Quest is an incredibly powerful card that saved Druid from having to play AFK Token Druid for another expansion. Personally, I really like the playstyle of the Quest. It feels a lot like old ramp Druid except you don't just stall until you OTK your opponent out of nowhere but rather you play proactively to push them off the baord through value. It perfectly displays the strengths and weaknesses of Druid: Slow early game and limited removal mechanics, but a ramping threat that can quickly come back if they manage to get to the powerspike.
That being said I feel like they made it almost...too good. Not in a "we must nerf this" way, but in a "alright, guess we're doing this for the entire next year"
If you look at the most common decklists you will soon find out that a large part of the deck is made up of very essential cards that aren't really part of any wincondition, but rather just the Quest engine itself. Almost all of these are from the Year of the Dragon (with the exception of Wardruid Loti and Ferocious Howl). The only other card rotating next year is Flobbidinous Floop who is part of the Chef Nomi train, which in itself is just your standard win condition package and will probably replaced with whatever else we're getting in the coming expansion.
Basically this is ominously reminiscent of last year's Druid fiesta, where you had 25 set cards and 5 others that made up your win condition. Essentially I fear we might fall back into a pattern of "every Druid deck is the same and every other Druid strategy is rendered useless because it can't make use of the Quest engine"
I mean just think of it. Even with more support, why would you ever play Heal Druid when you can achieve a much better lategame strategy just by running the Quest? And obviously you can't run both a Heal package and the Quest because the Heal package demands much more card slots than the Quest engine allows.
This problem would technically apply to most other Quest decks, except their rewards are more specialized which leads to more deckbuilding variety, even if the overall gameplan is the same (take Quest Rogue and regular Tempo Rogue for instance). Druid's reward is basically just "a bunch of cards get really good in practically any situation".
At the end of the there's not really much that can be done about it anyways. Quest Druid is just going to become stronger as Druid gets more good cards while any other strategy will have to compete directly (or be Token and highjack the meta when the opportunity presents itself). Best case scenario: support gets out of hand and the entire archetype gets nerfed somehow, which opens up space for non-quest decks.
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So at this point into the expansion it has become very obvious that the Druid Quest is an incredibly powerful card that saved Druid from having to play AFK Token Druid for another expansion. Personally, I really like the playstyle of the Quest. It feels a lot like old ramp Druid except you don't just stall until you OTK your opponent out of nowhere but rather you play proactively to push them off the baord through value. It perfectly displays the strengths and weaknesses of Druid: Slow early game and limited removal mechanics, but a ramping threat that can quickly come back if they manage to get to the powerspike.
That being said I feel like they made it almost...too good. Not in a "we must nerf this" way, but in a "alright, guess we're doing this for the entire next year"
If you look at the most common decklists you will soon find out that a large part of the deck is made up of very essential cards that aren't really part of any wincondition, but rather just the Quest engine itself. Almost all of these are from the Year of the Dragon (with the exception of Wardruid Loti and Ferocious Howl). The only other card rotating next year is Flobbidinous Floop who is part of the Chef Nomi train, which in itself is just your standard win condition package and will probably replaced with whatever else we're getting in the coming expansion.
Basically this is ominously reminiscent of last year's Druid fiesta, where you had 25 set cards and 5 others that made up your win condition. Essentially I fear we might fall back into a pattern of "every Druid deck is the same and every other Druid strategy is rendered useless because it can't make use of the Quest engine"
I mean just think of it. Even with more support, why would you ever play Heal Druid when you can achieve a much better lategame strategy just by running the Quest? And obviously you can't run both a Heal package and the Quest because the Heal package demands much more card slots than the Quest engine allows.
This problem would technically apply to most other Quest decks, except their rewards are more specialized which leads to more deckbuilding variety, even if the overall gameplan is the same (take Quest Rogue and regular Tempo Rogue for instance). Druid's reward is basically just "a bunch of cards get really good in practically any situation".
At the end of the there's not really much that can be done about it anyways. Quest Druid is just going to become stronger as Druid gets more good cards while any other strategy will have to compete directly (or be Token and highjack the meta when the opportunity presents itself). Best case scenario: support gets out of hand and the entire archetype gets nerfed somehow, which opens up space for non-quest decks.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Quest druid is by no means an OP deck, it can make powerful plays, but it loses too much to aggro, and when they complete their quest they don't automatically win.
But whether the quest is health for the class is another matter entirely. I agree with you that quest druid will probably remain the best standard (and wild) deck for druid for a while due to the flexibility of the card. But I don't think the deck will be powerful enough in the meta for it to be too much of a problem yet. It will only end up being a problem if we end up seeing too many druid archetypes being introduced and then ignored because of quest druid.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
Quest druid has some big holes in the gameplan and are extremely vulnerable to certain meta decks.
It's powerful, sure. That's a good thing. Token isn't bad either. Heal sort of sucks.
Although quest druid was briefly on top it quickly dropped as the meta and tech cards adjusted to it. There seems to be a very healthy constant meta shift week to week that suggests a more rock/paper/scissors sort of weekly shift as opposed to a dominating deck for the entire expansion. This indicates to me that the design since Brode left has actually been very well handled. No more 3-4 months of 1 deck dominating.
On to your point this actually means there are cracks for off-meta decks to do very well depending on your ability to judge what's popular right now. Quest druid has a huge early game tempo problem that can be exploited that's inherent with the quest design. There are very few cards that could be added that would make this go away. Sure, choose one cards are now forever boosted by this quest in terms of viability but I wouldn't worry so much about it being stifling to future design. If all you can see is quest druid when you are deck building then try exploring the druid decks on this site or sites like it. There are actually a lot of fairly viable decks not many people play. They aren't as optimized but in the right metas some are extremely powerful.
Also, the 'undiscovered deck' idea could hit at very random times. I remember out of no where when Kael/Tempo rogue just shot to tier 1 weeks after the expansion was out. Even this expansion has the dark horse of aggro warrior that's slowly becoming more popular and higher win rate. They aren't as flashy or as obvious to build as something like Quest druid and that's why it takes more time for the community to really optimize and learn about them.
I wouldn't worry about it. Yeah, the quest is powerful, but it doesn't pidgeonhole druid to a single strategy nearly as much as most of the other quests. As we speak there are two variants with quite different win conditions being played at high level, the regular board flood version and a Malygos OTK variant. It's likely that quest decks will continue to be the most powerful druid decks for some time to come, but I expect the content of these decks to change quite a bit: the shell isn't nearly as rigid as you make it out to be.
I think it is a strong deck but certainly not OP.
If the Quest Druid is up aggainst aggro it´s almost everytime a loose. Sure it get`s very strong in the lategame and has some powerful plays but i personaly do not see Quest Druid as a Problem - and i also do not see Quest Druid that often right now on the ladder ;)
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
It is the other way around.
If Druid gets actually pigeonholed into QDruid, it simply means the devs had no better plans for it, and gave it a solid Quest for the time being, instead of nothing at all.
That is, the Quest is not a possible cause of pigeonholing, it is a possible consequency and a patch to devs laziness.
PS: and indeed the Quest shell is not as rigid as it seems. eg just a new strong Choose One card could completely veer the wincondition, to either more Token, Combo, or Control infinity.
Well standard maybe, but surely not wild :P
Maybe Jade Druid or combo druid (choose you the combo you like most), but surely not quest. Sure you can play it, but wild is a different world and you would play it very different then standard....
The thing about the quest is that you can play quest combo druid, or quest jade druid. The quest is very flexible and so can be used in most druid decks, and most druid decks are better with the inclusion of the quest.
I think the all the best druid decks (except for maybe token druid) will be using the quest in some way for the next couple of months at least.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
I agree with OP that it's not OP. BUT, I hate the deck. The quest is literally non-interactive because there is nothing the other player can do to stop it. Either you play aggro and get so far ahead by turn 5 that the quest is not enough, or you (most likely) lose. I get that druid is beatable once the quest is complete, but I feel like when I do beat post-quest druid, it's only because he didn't get his card draw or big heals, not because of anything I did anything to disrupt his deck.
I feel like Blizzard keeps saying they disfavor non-interactive game play, yet they keep producing decks like Quest Druid, and people defend it because its a T2 deck with a good but not great win rate. I don't really care that it's beatable, I care that it's not fun to play against.
Communism is just a red herring
Except wild Jade druid uses the quest (at least I saw not one without the quest) because it turns your Jade Idols into Summon a Jade golem and shuffle three copies of this into your deck.
-=alfi=-
It can be good but surely the quest isn't mandatory in jade druid. The meta you are in matters a lot: against the wrong deck the quest works against you. In a meta full of control cards, the more power given by the quest hero power is good. In an aggro one missing turn 1 isn't good, and leaving board control and/or healing for value isn't good again. Against aggro, you should play jade idol for tempo. Expecially if you have it at turn 1. And the game will be over before you have lost tempo not spending mana. I'm not saying that the quest isn't strong, I say that in the match jade druid vs aggro deck is almost useless.
I don't play the quest, I wouldn't play it, and on VS meta report the jade druid list doesn't play the quest.
The quest is not interactive and is akin to a boulder going downhill once complete. It's about as creative as DK Malfurion, and they already had the same effect on a legendary minion...
Why does only druid get choose one?
"Soon we must all make the choice between what is right and what is easy"
@ the OP, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Not only is quest Druid not too strong by your own admission, it also has very clear counters. Notably it gets its teeth kicked in by any aggro deck that can snowball their board, such as Zoo, Tempo Warrior and DS/IF Priest.
Also as another user pointed out, there’s quite a bit of deck variety between Quest Druid lists. There’s the faster more token oriented versions running power of the wild and tending tauren, the control/fatigue lists with Nomi and Elise, and the Malygos combo variants. May players such as myself are also running lists with only a few duplicates so that Zephyrs and Elise can be active in the mid game. Frankly saying that Quest Druid decks include too many choose one cards is as rediculous as saying there are too many battlecry minions in Quest Shaman.
I use a reno mage deck which also ramps up to late game powers that is able to outvalue the druid quest deck sometimes. If you are able to create a board at turn 6-7 and you can reload after board clears from that point and get some serious damage in, the druid needs to spend a lot of defensive resources and you can win. So its not hopeless if you are not aggro. And counterspell (or other secrets) is your friend.
Heal druid can never work now, too many decks run Zephrys the Great (even non-highlander decks) which render Lucentbark completely useless. We are stuck with quest and, to a lesser extent, token for the time being. We already have the same core but different win conditions for quest druid.
All these decks are essentially the same lists aside from a few cards.