To my computational physicist's mind I admit I do find it a very elegant solution that lets you tune a card/deck's power on a continuous scale without being subject to the discrete jumps of changing small integers (e.g. a card's cost). But underneath it's clean exterior I don't think it is actually any simpler or more effective than conventional nerfs are.
For one thing, we'd still have to wait just as long for changes to be made. It's not like the devs are going to tweak these numbers every day. No, they're going to wait a while and see how they perform. And when the numbers are tweaked, do players get to dust cards for full refund? A card is objectively weaker if its draw rate is reduced after all.
It also has a negative effect on player agency: Players cannot do the calculation of how likely they will be to draw a specific card, because the proper calculation will have to include the draw rates of every card still in the deck. It's an easy calculation for a computer, but too laborious for a human to do in the middle of their turn.
It's also not as helpful to deck diversity as you might think. Unless you want to maintain multiple different draw rates for single cards based on what deck they are in (a very difficult thing to define btw), you'll end up reducing the power of decks you weren't trying to nerf, with much the same effect as a conventional nerf would have had.
I could go on and raise similar concerns to other people, but I'll stop here. As I said, I recognise it is an elegant solution, and I know it could be made to work in principle, but in practice I don't think the benefits outweigh the complications. That's especially true when I believe the players themselves are the bigger problem than the cards most of the time. No matter what you do, Spikes will latch onto a small handful of decks and create a meta that sooner or later you'll get fed up with. Occasionally a Tier S deck comes along and you can blame the HS team for the meta, but most of the time the number of good decks is much larger than the number of common ones, and you can only blame the players for that.
I think people were thinking that I was saying that cards with huge win-when-drawn rates should basically have little chance at all of appearing when put in a deck, cards like Nitroboost Poison, Secret Passage, and Skull of Gul'dan. Admittedly I arbitrarily used 15% in my example which maybe lent to those extreme opinions (i'll change it now).
I think a better way would be if a card has a winrate when drawn of 54% it should be drawn 4% less, or even 2%. That reduction is very small you must understand and would only be a factor in games over time. It'd be a soft nerf that could be implemented universally instead of having to sit through meta after meta where one new card appears that everybody hates unless they are abusing it.
This way people that want to play it can still play it and people that don't like to see it see it a little less over time. It's a concept to lessen the state of being forced to "join them or lose them" which is pretty much every meta where a few cards are released a little overtuned and we are captive for sometimes months losing to them before they are nerfed, which usually destroys the card alltogether.
Again, this strategy already has success in Arena where outperforming classes have less likely drafts of higher winrate cards.
This seems like a fairly weak "win more" card to me, but maybe I'm misjudging it. It would be a shame if one of the main characters of the expansion saw no play.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
The first three lines are about the secret keyword. And the last line is counterspell itself.
New Warlock Spell - Imp Swarm (Rank 1)
I'd consider this the weakest of the ranked spells tbh
New Neutral Minion - Spirit Healer
Seeing the current range of holy spells and knowing Librams are going to be Holy, I think this could work, but only in that deck
And I HATE Libram Pally
New Neutral Minion - Razormane Raider
This is a 4 mana card. No further questions your honour
New Druid Minion - Druid of the Plains
Pretty reliable,, can trade into that 5/7 demon that summons a 5/5 really well
New Shaman Spell - Chain Lightning (Rank 1)
I feel like a card this strong should have some sort of overload but I don't care
New Neutral Minion - Mankrik
Poor Mankrik, arrived just in time to see his wife as a pin cushion
New Rogue Spell - Yoink!
Kinda bad...
New Warrior Minion - Mor'shan Elite
Looks like we're seeing the return of handbuff warrior
Fun at the Crossroads
Are we getting more clues? (thanks anyway, great event!)
New Demon Hunter Minion - Kurtrus Ashfallen
Crushing Walls anybody?
New Neutral Minion - Blademaster Samuro
SORDE
New Priest Spell - Desperate Prayer
This works so well with Xyrella
New Hunter Spell - Tame Beast (Rank 1)
This might work well with the new Hunter Legendary that summons beasts from your deck, but I don't think this sees a lot of play
New Druid Minion - Razormane Battleguard
Taunt Studies
New Shaman Minion - Bru'kan
Depending on what ends up being classified as a nature spell, he has potential, but we'll have to wait and see.
New Druid Minion - Plaguemaw the Rotting
I hope this makes Greybough viable, but probably not...
Should Blizzard Adjust Draw Rates of Over-performing Cards?
To my computational physicist's mind I admit I do find it a very elegant solution that lets you tune a card/deck's power on a continuous scale without being subject to the discrete jumps of changing small integers (e.g. a card's cost). But underneath it's clean exterior I don't think it is actually any simpler or more effective than conventional nerfs are.
For one thing, we'd still have to wait just as long for changes to be made. It's not like the devs are going to tweak these numbers every day. No, they're going to wait a while and see how they perform. And when the numbers are tweaked, do players get to dust cards for full refund? A card is objectively weaker if its draw rate is reduced after all.
It also has a negative effect on player agency: Players cannot do the calculation of how likely they will be to draw a specific card, because the proper calculation will have to include the draw rates of every card still in the deck. It's an easy calculation for a computer, but too laborious for a human to do in the middle of their turn.
It's also not as helpful to deck diversity as you might think. Unless you want to maintain multiple different draw rates for single cards based on what deck they are in (a very difficult thing to define btw), you'll end up reducing the power of decks you weren't trying to nerf, with much the same effect as a conventional nerf would have had.
I could go on and raise similar concerns to other people, but I'll stop here. As I said, I recognise it is an elegant solution, and I know it could be made to work in principle, but in practice I don't think the benefits outweigh the complications. That's especially true when I believe the players themselves are the bigger problem than the cards most of the time. No matter what you do, Spikes will latch onto a small handful of decks and create a meta that sooner or later you'll get fed up with. Occasionally a Tier S deck comes along and you can blame the HS team for the meta, but most of the time the number of good decks is much larger than the number of common ones, and you can only blame the players for that.
Colourful Casting - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Good luck to everyone :)
Colourful Casting - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Good luck to finalists!
Three of my favourites got through, so that's great!
New Rogue Minion - Scabbs Cutterbutter
Pairing it with Foxy Fraud and off you go.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
How is counterspell "we"?
New Paladin Spell - Conviction (Rank 1)
Honestly, rank 1 of this seems fine, and rank 3 seems like quite the finisher! Here are the ranks, for reference:
Conviction (Rank 1)
Conviction (Rank 2)
Conviction (Rank 3)
Should Blizzard Adjust Draw Rates of Over-performing Cards?
I think people were thinking that I was saying that cards with huge win-when-drawn rates should basically have little chance at all of appearing when put in a deck, cards like Nitroboost Poison, Secret Passage, and Skull of Gul'dan. Admittedly I arbitrarily used 15% in my example which maybe lent to those extreme opinions (i'll change it now).
I think a better way would be if a card has a winrate when drawn of 54% it should be drawn 4% less, or even 2%. That reduction is very small you must understand and would only be a factor in games over time. It'd be a soft nerf that could be implemented universally instead of having to sit through meta after meta where one new card appears that everybody hates unless they are abusing it.
This way people that want to play it can still play it and people that don't like to see it see it a little less over time. It's a concept to lessen the state of being forced to "join them or lose them" which is pretty much every meta where a few cards are released a little overtuned and we are captive for sometimes months losing to them before they are nerfed, which usually destroys the card alltogether.
Again, this strategy already has success in Arena where outperforming classes have less likely drafts of higher winrate cards.
New Warrior Minion - Rokara
This seems like a fairly weak "win more" card to me, but maybe I'm misjudging it. It would be a shame if one of the main characters of the expansion saw no play.