These decks would be great fun if the meta didn't settle day 1 in wild. I think the best way to nerf quest warlock would be to reduce the damage taken and armor gain from crystallizer and make Dark Glare require a certain amount of damage to be taken before it triggers. Maybe 3?
Are we far enough into the meta that we can agree that Battlegrounds Battlemaster is the most overpowered bullshit ever printed and I have no idea how much black tar heroin they had to inject to think that printing it at 5-mana was an acceptable decision in any part of the known universe? Because holy fuck it is so stupidly abuseable, not even just in Paladin but Warlock too.
Also I get the feeling that WarlockQuest (at least in Standard) might be ever so slightly overrated. A lot of the power in that deck comes from the fact that it's stupidly easy to discount Flesh Giant and if that card was nerfed to 10-mana (or more) it would be far less easy for the deck to just snowball out of control.
It's amazing... I don't know if people are aware of what this means.
Basically this "mod" would allow to easily create BOTS, and I'm talking about the intelligent ones, those that can "see" what is happening at all times and can decide the best plays in each case, in other words, those that can win games by themselves...
Yeah, I came to the same conclusion earlier but didn't notice that I had referred to him as she, so thanks!. Jace sounds more female to me and I hardly don't know any lore. The title can still be the same. Gay couples should be allowed these days.
Well I tried having fun a bit, but turns out pretty much every game I am facing is Quest Warlock. Encountered a single Quest Hunter and no non-quest deck at all. Guess have to wait until Tuesday.
P.S. To illustrate the shift in powerlevel: My trusty Secret Mage which I barely had to alter the last months is now basically an auto lose.
Anecdotally, I don't agree with Meister. The "dogmatic" view of deck archetypes has and will always exist. Just because hearthstone's interpretation of mechanics lends itself to a faster paced experience does not mean that's the way it *has* to be, nor does the existence of poorly balanced metas like Mech/Control Warrior indicate that's the status quo for control metas or decks. (In fact during the Boomsday Project, I think it took them way longer than needed to make balance changes to the cards....that was during a phase of their existence where they were very "laissez faire" in their balance approach to Hearthstone ...hands off if you don't get the insinuation).
To use a turn of phrase: Don't piss on me and call it rain. And don't try to call midrange/tempo decks, control decks. Midrange decks are the "jack of all trades" decks. They exist outside the 3 major archetypes because they have the ability to *possibly* defeat any deck, but at the cost of diluting their gameplan and deck experience to be able to possibly shift gears to take on a different role. A midrange/tempo deck can try to beat a control deck, but they may still end up losing because they don't draw well or lose too many resources. A control deck however, knows that it's chance of beating a OTK deck are slim to none, barring specific tech cards or circumstances which cause the OTK to lose their win condition.
I'm not saying that Midrange and Control are the same, I'm saying that the mechanics of Hearthstone lend themselves so much more to Midrange than Control that we shouldn't expect Control to play the same central role in the archetype balance triangle originally defined by MTG. I mentioned the differences in combat rules, but they go well beyond that. In Hearthstone, there's very little you can do to interact with your opponent on their turn (mostly just secrets, which your opponent can often play around). In Hearthstone you always play best-of-1 with no sideboard, which implicitly increases the cost of teching for particular match-ups. (The tradeable mechanic may change that, particularly if it becomes evergreen, but right now that's the world we live in.)
I am very aware of the differences between the two deck archetypes, and I'm not saying that strong Control decks can't exist in Hearthstone, all I'm saying is that Control archetypes don't generally play a primary role in balancing the metagame, and when they do the game is usually far less fun because it means they're over-tuned. Ultimately, my point is that the argument from AngryShuckie that the abundance of good card draw is a problem because it edges out Control is (I believe) wrong precisely because Control doesn't play the same critical role in Hearthstone that it does in MTG. A metagame can be very healthy despite a lack of strong/popular Control decks.
but then what do they rely on? Do we go back to complete inevitability where Control Warrior can just win by pressing armor up every turn because they know they have more life than their opponent has burn?
It sounds like what you want is the return to old Midrange Hunter who played sligthly above average cards every turn and hoped to squeeze in ennonugh damage before the eventual boardclear left him gassed out. Your described scenario basically just drags out games into a topdeck war, which is even worse than being blown out. At least if you get wiped by Barov + Rancor it's a decisive loss. Would you rather we have 5 turns of Steady Shot vs. Armor Up until Hunter finally topdecks their burn spell of choice and closes out the game like it used to be?
You still can experiment with gimmicky decks because gimmicky decks benefit the most from having a few good plays alongside their meme plan. I remember back in Rastakhan's Rumble Discard Quest Warlock was actually fun to play because despite the obvious glaring flaws of the archetype we had stuff like Zilliax and Defile to actually support it. Discolock would have been entirely unplayable without these powerful cards
The only time when these swing turns are ruining the game is when they are part of decks that are too efficient at their gameplan or have too few weaknesses. Overall the game massively benefits when every class has powerful plays as long as those plays don't just straight up close out the game instantly (which rarely happens consistently enough to be a problem and when it does is dealt with appropriately).
To me this is a clear case of you not realizing what it is you're asking for and what it would lead to.
but it's not though. If he specifically complains about "have an answer or lose turns" then those have been a thing ever the game stopped being about who got the better curve early on which was a change for the better objectively. Sure, occasionally things get out of hand when classes like Druid can consistently shit out a board on turn 1 that cannot be dealt with, but on paper, the concept of forcing your opponents to have an answer or fall severly behind is fine.
One of the worst experiences in the old days of hearthstone (specifically until K&C when swing turns became way more common) was how awful it felt if you were playing any sort of midrange deck and missed one of the early curve plays with no way of catching up. This all got fixed when Rush was implemented as a keyword and board centric decks were allowed to actually fight back against swarm instead of having to play a bunch of do-nothing cards and hope their opponents run out of stuff first. As a direct result other playstyles had to become more efficient instead, which is why now have way better removal and healing than before.
Do I need to remind you that some of the worst metas happened during "low power" times? Remember the year of the Dragon until DoD? remember how impossibly obnoxious Quest and Evolve Shaman were? That wasn't because everyone had big bad swing turns, but because they were the only decks who could actually put threatening stats on the board quick and because of the low power environment no other decks could contest it. Lowering the overall power level doesn't work because some deck will always come up with some cheesy strategy that can only thrive if nothing is around to challenge it.
I think the Barrens meta did well in that regard. The overall powerlevel was relatively low, but every class had powerful things going for them (talking specifically post Wailing Caverns to include Shaman). Some of it was out of hand (like Token Druid and whatever Priest was doing) but overall every class had playable decks (not counting Warlock, that's a different story) and had a fighting chance. In a low power environment we wouldn't get stuff like Troublemaker because that's too much of a swing turn, meaning Rush Warrior wouldn't have been able to exist due to lack of actual endgame. We also wouldn't have gotten Deathrattle DH because N'zoth wouldn't be allowed to go down to 9-mana, because, guess what, swing turn.
I mean, for fuck's sake, they literally printed Mutanus specifically to give slower decks a way to curb their opponent's lategame bombs and the ability to recover health while or after clearing the board also went up significantly (to the point where Apotheosis + Samuro had to be nerfed because it was too efficient in a class that already had a surplus of healing and removal).
Have you played Classic lately? There's not a lot of interaction going on there either. It's just playing your curve out as best as you can while hoping to get to your important cards in time.
The only time when swing turns are terrible in modern Hearthstone is when they set up lethal in a way that cannot be interacted with (which usually gets adresssed) or if the entire gameplan revolves around avoiding actually playing the game as intended (which is what the current oTK decks are doing, which is also going to be adressed).
I just don't like it when people come in with the rose tinted glasses of "everything was better when things weren't as powerful" while completely ignoring all the dumb shit we had to deal with for years.
I dunno, it’s still early but I’m loving it in death & taxes Demon Hunter in wild. Still haven’t tried it in an Il’gynoth or dedicated quest deck yet (whatever that may be) but it’s been surprisingly fun and more effective than I thought it would be. Definitely not the highlight quest of the expansion but still very interesting thus far. We’ll see how it develops into the future.
I was also very much looking forward to this. I know we're only in the first week but it still feels that people aren't being all that creative with the deck making just yet.
Its always fun sorting through the AMAs, especially so when you're getting consistently awesome new bits of information. I don't know what we'd do if Dean left the Hearthstone team. Celestalon could fill in his shoes, we certainly see enough great tweets from him, but no one else stands out as an AMA king.
I think it could be cool to see a Diablo hero when Diablo 4 launches, but make it a hero skin where Deathwing is dressed up as Diablo instead of the character itself. Or, make it a limited-time hero that comes out with some other flavor item that lasts for a month, like Darkmoon Cards. They could do the same for Overwatch 2 since thats realistically the only other game they have that isn't a part of the Warcraft universe - Starcraft is a dead game seeing as how devs that were a part of it all left the company to form a couple of new studios. Even a Tavern Brawl, the Dark Wanderer brawl was cool, is a great place to do something fun like that.
I would never want to see cross-ip in the main game though, even temporary. As soon as you start drawing Kerrigan, Raynor, Reinhardt, and gang, the Warcraft flavor is gone and I've officially lost interest.
I understand that the nature of swing turns are here to stay, that's completely fine with me too as big swings are important for the game. However, I hope a mass rebalancing would mean that players don't need to rely on their swings being what decide the game, if everything is weaker than the swings won't absolutely win each game and would allow for someone who's kept up pressure to hang on a little.
It'd also open up the opportunity for more experimentation with gimmicky or garbage decks and archetypes. It'd benefit the game through and through.
With the number of folks that ask questions, some are going to be missed. Yes, some are going to be skipped, especially if it is something that was asked previously or if Dean has no idea what to answer, but he always seems pretty open and even acknowledged when someone else should be asked a question. I don't think he avoids stuff on purpose.
Also if you did ask a question for the WoW team a while back, that shouldn't be reflected on Dean! WoW team I know also gets so many more questions and has always felt more closed off in what they say so they're always going to hit the topics that they can talk about before they start giving non-answers (though the number of WoW non-answers I've seen over the years... yikes).
I do think for Battlegrounds though, lets wait for the rework that is coming soon and then start asking questions about the mode when we have a better picture of what is going on.
Private cmon man. You gotta stop with these reducto ad absurdum examples. It's either "power swings" or "chillwind yeti" with you. Never anything in between.
He's not saying we need to go back to vanilla hunter curvestone or anything close to that, but I don't think he's wrong in thinking that the "word creep" associated with cards has gotten a bit out of hand. I agree that it feels like as time has gone on, your ability to interact with your opponent and/or their gameplan has gone down the drain. There feels like very little back and forth.
What do tribes have to do with anything when the problem is the damage taken
Did you seriously just ask that when he specifically stated (in response to your initial comment) that tribes are going to get reworked. Reworking tribes could have an insanely huge difference on damage taken on average, how tribes scale, etc.
So Dean replied to a Q&A and this was the response...
Mass Nerf
Power creep will always be a decision, though in some ways it will be inevitable.
They have discussed doing a mass card nerf that could be done at the start of a rotation.
Goals would be to lower the power of the core set and the three sets from the previous year.
Dean doesn't think doing one would be unreasonable nor is it a crazy idea..
Dean also thinks that as the next year approaches, they will consider it very closely.
While this makes me hopeful it also makes me concerned we won't see any REAL (aka visceral) balance changes until the core set rotation, where it looks like this entire year's worth of cards may be heavily nerfed in multiple ways. This will help Hearthstone in the long term (which is a good thing) but I'm concerned that in the short term people will become frustrated.
Anecdotally, I don't agree with Meister. The "dogmatic" view of deck archetypes has and will always exist. Just because hearthstone's interpretation of mechanics lends itself to a faster paced experience does not mean that's the way it *has* to be, nor does the existence of poorly balanced metas like Mech/Control Warrior indicate that's the status quo for control metas or decks. (In fact during the Boomsday Project, I think it took them way longer than needed to make balance changes to the cards....that was during a phase of their existence where they were very "laissez faire" in their balance approach to Hearthstone ...hands off if you don't get the insinuation).
To use a turn of phrase: Don't piss on me and call it rain. And don't try to call midrange/tempo decks, control decks. Midrange decks are the "jack of all trades" decks. They exist outside the 3 major archetypes because they have the ability to *possibly* defeat any deck, but at the cost of diluting their gameplan and deck experience to be able to possibly shift gears to take on a different role. A midrange/tempo deck can try to beat a control deck, but they may still end up losing because they don't draw well or lose too many resources. A control deck however, knows that it's chance of beating a OTK deck are slim to none, barring specific tech cards or circumstances which cause the OTK to lose their win condition.
There is a real risk that too much good card draw can make the game stale by making it too easy for each deck to do exactly what it wants in every game - that's a very real challenge for the designers, and a big part of why Quest Mage is such a nuisance. However, I think the complaints about a lack of control decks and an overabundance combo and aggro in Standard feels like an overreaction to a few clear examples of "bad opening day meta," with no particular basis in where we are only a few days into the Stormwind expansion.
It's already the case the majority of Day 1 and 2 combo decks that were terrorizing the metagame are taking a back seat to Handbuff Paladin, which fits squarely into a Midrange/Tempo archetype. Looking more broadly at the data on HSReplay, you've got three different Aggro decks (Face Hunter, Zoo Warlock, and Elemental Shaman), two Combo decks (Quest Mage and Quest Druid), and three Midrange/Tempo decks (Handbuff Paladin, SI Rogue, and Pirate Warrior) all with solid positive win rates. Quest Warlock has fallen off precipitately because unlike Quest Mage it crumbles against aggro, and the only classes that have no representation on that list are Priest and Demon Hunter. It's early yet, and the meta isn't solidified, but I think it's clear that a lot of classes and archetypes are finding success right now.
Of course, you'll note that none of the archetypes I mentioned are strictly control decks, even though that very lack of control is called out as the central problem with too much card draw. To be frank, I think the idea that Hearthstone lacking traditional control decks is a problem reflects an overly dogmatic reading of the traditional Aggro > Combo > Control triange. It's a great tool for thinking about how archetypes interact, but it was always intended as more illustrative (because in any given match-up, your aggro deck might have to be the "control" rather than the "beatdown," etc.), and its MTG roots make very clear that it isn't a perfect tool for Hearthstone. MTGs rules about attackers and blockers create a fundamentally different control experience, while Hearthstone is designed to produce a faster gameplay experience that's intended as a mobile-first experience.
Because Hearthstone has always been a tempo game first and foremost, I think it's natural that Midrange/Tempo decks replace Control most of the time in that triangle, which makes pretty clear that today's distribution of archetypes is actually pretty healthy. In fact, when I think back to metagames with prominent traditional control decks, those metagames were typically awful. Control Mech Warrior around Rise of Shadows is a great example of this - it was typical that these decks would generate 30+ armor in a game, leverage Archivist Elysiana to extend their deck, and drag any even remotely slow game into fatigue (and potentially to the 90 turn cap). That was a miserable time to play the game, even if you love traditional control decks, because every game felt super samey and super slow.
You could just play Handbuff Paladin - it currently has a crazy high win rate against a wide array of decks, including most quest decks (even though everyone seems to want to spend their time hating on Quest decks).
Stormwind's First Wild Deck Weekend Spotlight - Burgle Rogue, Highlander Demon Hunter, Divine Shield Paladin, & More
These decks would be great fun if the meta didn't settle day 1 in wild. I think the best way to nerf quest warlock would be to reduce the damage taken and armor gain from crystallizer and make Dark Glare require a certain amount of damage to be taken before it triggers. Maybe 3?
Stormwind's First Wild Deck Weekend Spotlight - Burgle Rogue, Highlander Demon Hunter, Divine Shield Paladin, & More
Nice guide! Upvoted =)
Quest Hate
Are we far enough into the meta that we can agree that Battlegrounds Battlemaster is the most overpowered bullshit ever printed and I have no idea how much black tar heroin they had to inject to think that printing it at 5-mana was an acceptable decision in any part of the known universe? Because holy fuck it is so stupidly abuseable, not even just in Paladin but Warlock too.
Also I get the feeling that WarlockQuest (at least in Standard) might be ever so slightly overrated. A lot of the power in that deck comes from the fact that it's stupidly easy to discount Flesh Giant and if that card was nerfed to 10-mana (or more) it would be far less easy for the deck to just snowball out of control.
Hearthstone Access - A New Mod Improves Accessibility for Blind and Visually Impaired Players
It's amazing... I don't know if people are aware of what this means.
Basically this "mod" would allow to easily create BOTS, and I'm talking about the intelligent ones, those that can "see" what is happening at all times and can decide the best plays in each case, in other words, those that can win games by themselves...
Varian & Jace: A Love Story
Yeah, I came to the same conclusion earlier but didn't notice that I had referred to him as she, so thanks!. Jace sounds more female to me and I hardly don't know any lore. The title can still be the same. Gay couples should be allowed these days.
Quest Hate
I'm pretty much only facing Quest Warlock (Wild) and nothing else. Guess have to take a break.
Stormwind's First Wild Deck Weekend Spotlight - Burgle Rogue, Highlander Demon Hunter, Divine Shield Paladin, & More
You just love to see Secret Mages get obliterated!
Stormwind's First Wild Deck Weekend Spotlight - Burgle Rogue, Highlander Demon Hunter, Divine Shield Paladin, & More
Well I tried having fun a bit, but turns out pretty much every game I am facing is Quest Warlock. Encountered a single Quest Hunter and no non-quest deck at all. Guess have to wait until Tuesday.
P.S. To illustrate the shift in powerlevel: My trusty Secret Mage which I barely had to alter the last months is now basically an auto lose.
Card draw power creep is a major issue
I'm not saying that Midrange and Control are the same, I'm saying that the mechanics of Hearthstone lend themselves so much more to Midrange than Control that we shouldn't expect Control to play the same central role in the archetype balance triangle originally defined by MTG. I mentioned the differences in combat rules, but they go well beyond that. In Hearthstone, there's very little you can do to interact with your opponent on their turn (mostly just secrets, which your opponent can often play around). In Hearthstone you always play best-of-1 with no sideboard, which implicitly increases the cost of teching for particular match-ups. (The tradeable mechanic may change that, particularly if it becomes evergreen, but right now that's the world we live in.)
I am very aware of the differences between the two deck archetypes, and I'm not saying that strong Control decks can't exist in Hearthstone, all I'm saying is that Control archetypes don't generally play a primary role in balancing the metagame, and when they do the game is usually far less fun because it means they're over-tuned. Ultimately, my point is that the argument from AngryShuckie that the abundance of good card draw is a problem because it edges out Control is (I believe) wrong precisely because Control doesn't play the same critical role in Hearthstone that it does in MTG. A metagame can be very healthy despite a lack of strong/popular Control decks.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
but then what do they rely on? Do we go back to complete inevitability where Control Warrior can just win by pressing armor up every turn because they know they have more life than their opponent has burn?
It sounds like what you want is the return to old Midrange Hunter who played sligthly above average cards every turn and hoped to squeeze in ennonugh damage before the eventual boardclear left him gassed out. Your described scenario basically just drags out games into a topdeck war, which is even worse than being blown out. At least if you get wiped by Barov + Rancor it's a decisive loss. Would you rather we have 5 turns of Steady Shot vs. Armor Up until Hunter finally topdecks their burn spell of choice and closes out the game like it used to be?
You still can experiment with gimmicky decks because gimmicky decks benefit the most from having a few good plays alongside their meme plan. I remember back in Rastakhan's Rumble Discard Quest Warlock was actually fun to play because despite the obvious glaring flaws of the archetype we had stuff like Zilliax and Defile to actually support it. Discolock would have been entirely unplayable without these powerful cards
The only time when these swing turns are ruining the game is when they are part of decks that are too efficient at their gameplan or have too few weaknesses. Overall the game massively benefits when every class has powerful plays as long as those plays don't just straight up close out the game instantly (which rarely happens consistently enough to be a problem and when it does is dealt with appropriately).
To me this is a clear case of you not realizing what it is you're asking for and what it would lead to.
Varian & Jace: A Love Story
Cool deck idea, but you may want to change the guide seeing as Jace is male.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
but it's not though. If he specifically complains about "have an answer or lose turns" then those have been a thing ever the game stopped being about who got the better curve early on which was a change for the better objectively. Sure, occasionally things get out of hand when classes like Druid can consistently shit out a board on turn 1 that cannot be dealt with, but on paper, the concept of forcing your opponents to have an answer or fall severly behind is fine.
One of the worst experiences in the old days of hearthstone (specifically until K&C when swing turns became way more common) was how awful it felt if you were playing any sort of midrange deck and missed one of the early curve plays with no way of catching up. This all got fixed when Rush was implemented as a keyword and board centric decks were allowed to actually fight back against swarm instead of having to play a bunch of do-nothing cards and hope their opponents run out of stuff first. As a direct result other playstyles had to become more efficient instead, which is why now have way better removal and healing than before.
Do I need to remind you that some of the worst metas happened during "low power" times? Remember the year of the Dragon until DoD? remember how impossibly obnoxious Quest and Evolve Shaman were? That wasn't because everyone had big bad swing turns, but because they were the only decks who could actually put threatening stats on the board quick and because of the low power environment no other decks could contest it. Lowering the overall power level doesn't work because some deck will always come up with some cheesy strategy that can only thrive if nothing is around to challenge it.
I think the Barrens meta did well in that regard. The overall powerlevel was relatively low, but every class had powerful things going for them (talking specifically post Wailing Caverns to include Shaman). Some of it was out of hand (like Token Druid and whatever Priest was doing) but overall every class had playable decks (not counting Warlock, that's a different story) and had a fighting chance. In a low power environment we wouldn't get stuff like Troublemaker because that's too much of a swing turn, meaning Rush Warrior wouldn't have been able to exist due to lack of actual endgame. We also wouldn't have gotten Deathrattle DH because N'zoth wouldn't be allowed to go down to 9-mana, because, guess what, swing turn.
I mean, for fuck's sake, they literally printed Mutanus specifically to give slower decks a way to curb their opponent's lategame bombs and the ability to recover health while or after clearing the board also went up significantly (to the point where Apotheosis + Samuro had to be nerfed because it was too efficient in a class that already had a surplus of healing and removal).
Have you played Classic lately? There's not a lot of interaction going on there either. It's just playing your curve out as best as you can while hoping to get to your important cards in time.
The only time when swing turns are terrible in modern Hearthstone is when they set up lethal in a way that cannot be interacted with (which usually gets adresssed) or if the entire gameplan revolves around avoiding actually playing the game as intended (which is what the current oTK decks are doing, which is also going to be adressed).
I just don't like it when people come in with the rose tinted glasses of "everything was better when things weren't as powerful" while completely ignoring all the dumb shit we had to deal with for years.
Final Showdown
I dunno, it’s still early but I’m loving it in death & taxes Demon Hunter in wild. Still haven’t tried it in an Il’gynoth or dedicated quest deck yet (whatever that may be) but it’s been surprisingly fun and more effective than I thought it would be. Definitely not the highlight quest of the expansion but still very interesting thus far. We’ll see how it develops into the future.
Stormwind's First Wild Deck Weekend Spotlight - Burgle Rogue, Highlander Demon Hunter, Divine Shield Paladin, & More
I've been having fun with the Druid questline: (click for detailed guide)
Wild · Odd Druid · by Zelgadis · 5 years, 1 month ago
Stormwind's First Wild Deck Weekend Spotlight - Burgle Rogue, Highlander Demon Hunter, Divine Shield Paladin, & More
I was also very much looking forward to this. I know we're only in the first week but it still feels that people aren't being all that creative with the deck making just yet.
Stormwind's First Wild Deck Weekend Spotlight - Burgle Rogue, Highlander Demon Hunter, Divine Shield Paladin, & More
Great been waiting for this :)
We haven't mentioned the self damaging elephant in the room :P
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
You are most welcome =)
Its always fun sorting through the AMAs, especially so when you're getting consistently awesome new bits of information. I don't know what we'd do if Dean left the Hearthstone team. Celestalon could fill in his shoes, we certainly see enough great tweets from him, but no one else stands out as an AMA king.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
I think it could be cool to see a Diablo hero when Diablo 4 launches, but make it a hero skin where Deathwing is dressed up as Diablo instead of the character itself. Or, make it a limited-time hero that comes out with some other flavor item that lasts for a month, like Darkmoon Cards. They could do the same for Overwatch 2 since thats realistically the only other game they have that isn't a part of the Warcraft universe - Starcraft is a dead game seeing as how devs that were a part of it all left the company to form a couple of new studios. Even a Tavern Brawl, the Dark Wanderer brawl was cool, is a great place to do something fun like that.
I would never want to see cross-ip in the main game though, even temporary. As soon as you start drawing Kerrigan, Raynor, Reinhardt, and gang, the Warcraft flavor is gone and I've officially lost interest.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
I understand that the nature of swing turns are here to stay, that's completely fine with me too as big swings are important for the game. However, I hope a mass rebalancing would mean that players don't need to rely on their swings being what decide the game, if everything is weaker than the swings won't absolutely win each game and would allow for someone who's kept up pressure to hang on a little.
It'd also open up the opportunity for more experimentation with gimmicky or garbage decks and archetypes. It'd benefit the game through and through.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
With the number of folks that ask questions, some are going to be missed. Yes, some are going to be skipped, especially if it is something that was asked previously or if Dean has no idea what to answer, but he always seems pretty open and even acknowledged when someone else should be asked a question. I don't think he avoids stuff on purpose.
Also if you did ask a question for the WoW team a while back, that shouldn't be reflected on Dean! WoW team I know also gets so many more questions and has always felt more closed off in what they say so they're always going to hit the topics that they can talk about before they start giving non-answers (though the number of WoW non-answers I've seen over the years... yikes).
I do think for Battlegrounds though, lets wait for the rework that is coming soon and then start asking questions about the mode when we have a better picture of what is going on.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
Private cmon man. You gotta stop with these reducto ad absurdum examples. It's either "power swings" or "chillwind yeti" with you. Never anything in between.
He's not saying we need to go back to vanilla hunter curvestone or anything close to that, but I don't think he's wrong in thinking that the "word creep" associated with cards has gotten a bit out of hand. I agree that it feels like as time has gone on, your ability to interact with your opponent and/or their gameplan has gone down the drain. There feels like very little back and forth.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #24 - Revisiting Balance Next Week, Emote Wheel, Bring Back a Friend, Mass Nerf
Did you seriously just ask that when he specifically stated (in response to your initial comment) that tribes are going to get reworked. Reworking tribes could have an insanely huge difference on damage taken on average, how tribes scale, etc.
Card draw power creep is a major issue
So Dean replied to a Q&A and this was the response...
While this makes me hopeful it also makes me concerned we won't see any REAL (aka visceral) balance changes until the core set rotation, where it looks like this entire year's worth of cards may be heavily nerfed in multiple ways. This will help Hearthstone in the long term (which is a good thing) but I'm concerned that in the short term people will become frustrated.
Anecdotally, I don't agree with Meister. The "dogmatic" view of deck archetypes has and will always exist. Just because hearthstone's interpretation of mechanics lends itself to a faster paced experience does not mean that's the way it *has* to be, nor does the existence of poorly balanced metas like Mech/Control Warrior indicate that's the status quo for control metas or decks. (In fact during the Boomsday Project, I think it took them way longer than needed to make balance changes to the cards....that was during a phase of their existence where they were very "laissez faire" in their balance approach to Hearthstone ...hands off if you don't get the insinuation).
To use a turn of phrase: Don't piss on me and call it rain. And don't try to call midrange/tempo decks, control decks. Midrange decks are the "jack of all trades" decks. They exist outside the 3 major archetypes because they have the ability to *possibly* defeat any deck, but at the cost of diluting their gameplan and deck experience to be able to possibly shift gears to take on a different role. A midrange/tempo deck can try to beat a control deck, but they may still end up losing because they don't draw well or lose too many resources. A control deck however, knows that it's chance of beating a OTK deck are slim to none, barring specific tech cards or circumstances which cause the OTK to lose their win condition.
Card draw power creep is a major issue
There is a real risk that too much good card draw can make the game stale by making it too easy for each deck to do exactly what it wants in every game - that's a very real challenge for the designers, and a big part of why Quest Mage is such a nuisance. However, I think the complaints about a lack of control decks and an overabundance combo and aggro in Standard feels like an overreaction to a few clear examples of "bad opening day meta," with no particular basis in where we are only a few days into the Stormwind expansion.
It's already the case the majority of Day 1 and 2 combo decks that were terrorizing the metagame are taking a back seat to Handbuff Paladin, which fits squarely into a Midrange/Tempo archetype. Looking more broadly at the data on HSReplay, you've got three different Aggro decks (Face Hunter, Zoo Warlock, and Elemental Shaman), two Combo decks (Quest Mage and Quest Druid), and three Midrange/Tempo decks (Handbuff Paladin, SI Rogue, and Pirate Warrior) all with solid positive win rates. Quest Warlock has fallen off precipitately because unlike Quest Mage it crumbles against aggro, and the only classes that have no representation on that list are Priest and Demon Hunter. It's early yet, and the meta isn't solidified, but I think it's clear that a lot of classes and archetypes are finding success right now.
Of course, you'll note that none of the archetypes I mentioned are strictly control decks, even though that very lack of control is called out as the central problem with too much card draw. To be frank, I think the idea that Hearthstone lacking traditional control decks is a problem reflects an overly dogmatic reading of the traditional Aggro > Combo > Control triange. It's a great tool for thinking about how archetypes interact, but it was always intended as more illustrative (because in any given match-up, your aggro deck might have to be the "control" rather than the "beatdown," etc.), and its MTG roots make very clear that it isn't a perfect tool for Hearthstone. MTGs rules about attackers and blockers create a fundamentally different control experience, while Hearthstone is designed to produce a faster gameplay experience that's intended as a mobile-first experience.
Because Hearthstone has always been a tempo game first and foremost, I think it's natural that Midrange/Tempo decks replace Control most of the time in that triangle, which makes pretty clear that today's distribution of archetypes is actually pretty healthy. In fact, when I think back to metagames with prominent traditional control decks, those metagames were typically awful. Control Mech Warrior around Rise of Shadows is a great example of this - it was typical that these decks would generate 30+ armor in a game, leverage Archivist Elysiana to extend their deck, and drag any even remotely slow game into fatigue (and potentially to the 90 turn cap). That was a miserable time to play the game, even if you love traditional control decks, because every game felt super samey and super slow.
Open Letter to the Ppl who Made and Play QL Mage and Warlock
You could just play Handbuff Paladin - it currently has a crazy high win rate against a wide array of decks, including most quest decks (even though everyone seems to want to spend their time hating on Quest decks).