The secret says after a minion attacks your hero, it means that the minion will deal its damage and then the secret gets triggered. Similar to Bear Trap
I'd say you're raising a new argument there rather than actually addressing the point I was making and that my post already contains the rebuttal your argument: "if not necessarily to the same extent".
That's not a rebuttal, that's a claim, and one that I disagree with. The same logic does not apply at all. It could be argued that Big Priest is being addressed due to the extreme amount of critique towards it and the pressure the player base is putting on the developers regarding the deck. That is supported by that Blizzard has been hesitant to actually do anything about Big Priest so far, and seems to be stalling to see whether SoU might fix it with the murloc mass transform card, alternate tools for priest and other solutions.
I don't see how this contradicts anything I'm saying. I agree Big priest is seeing large amounts of criticism, are you arguing that Genn and Baku didn't prior to rotation? Or don't presently?
Supposing that the new BP hate cards like Curse of Murlocs "solve" the problem in wild, would you agree that Blizzard was pressured into printing those cards because of the public outcry against BP?
By the way I prefer it when balance/gameplay issues can be addressed by printing new cards rather than changing cards that already exist, I just don't see how you'd accomplish that with Genn and Baku without printing something that hard-counters hero powers, EG something that disables/replaces the enemy hero power. And I imagine people wouldn't be very fond of that either.
Edit: I also have to say that I think it's disingenuous to frame the premature rotation of Genn and Baku, an unprecedented move by the dev team and arguably the most impactful balance change to the standard meta, as just some minor little tweak. Removing two cards and thereby killing half a dozen top decks cannot be reasonably compared to the recent round of buffs. I stand by my claim that the G&B rotation is to be read as an admission by the devs that these cards are too impactful by design and can't reasonably be fixed by a simple nerf.
You're conflating the importance of issue and the means taken to fix it. The two have a positive correlation but are not the same, and to draw the parallel to how big the issue is in Wild is an inexact argument as well, so while I think either one might be acceptable, to combine the two into a single argument makes the margin of error too great.
That the cards can't be fixed with a nerf is a design issue, not a power level one.
We don't have access to focus group testing, surveys and stats that the people making the game base their decisions on. It's inevitable for there to be some level of inference and argument by analogy when arguing about something like this. I'm not exactly shy to admit that.
You not agreeing with the argument doesn't make it not an argument. If you want to make *that* case you have to actually substantively address the argument and point out where it's fallacious. The devs have stated ad nauseam that their goal isn't just to keep the game balanced, but also "fresh" "fun" "not stale", etc. By most people's standards that excludes high levels of repetitiveness.
Is the discussion about whether or not the cards should be nerfed or will be nerfed? You've conflated the two a couple of times, committing an appeal to authority.
I would prefer it if the topic remained whether they should be nerfed, but when the counterargument being presented is "Wild/HS ought to be X way, so you're wrong", it's very unfair of you to call me out for citing the game designers' views on what Wild/HS ought to be. An appeal to authority isn't always a fallacy, especially with something as subjective as "what is this game about?"
That's consistency, not repetitiveness. And yes, consistency can be repetitive, but inconsistency is an unfun consequence of unhealthy RNG, and a bad way to break repetitiveness. Many Baku/Genn decks are repetitive, especially Odd Paladin, but that's not because of or inherent to the even/odd mechanics.
I don't disagree that inconsistency can be unfun(highlander decks for example), but as far as I'm concerned there is quite a broad middle-ground between a game being random and arbitrary on the one hand or predictable and repetitive on the other.
Then can you explain why Even Priest is not a deck? By your argument, cards being a secondary part of the decks, Even Priest should be a deck. Or Odd Warrior, which used to be a deck.
Because not all hero powers benefit as much from the upgrade/discount. Priest hero power is already considered one of the weaker ones, it stands to reason that building a deck around improving it wouldn't be viable.
They are not, which proves cards are key factor, and some classes have them, some others don't, despite all having Genn/Baku.
I wouldn't be foolish enough to argue that the card pool is entirely irrelevant, but that really doesn't prove your case at all. Because the hero power being improved/discounted matters. You can Tank up on turn 2, whereas heal 4 likely does nothing.
If the priest HP made tokens and the class had cards to support an aggro board-flood archetype then odd or even Priest probably would be a thing.
About HOF:
Once they recognized the problem with Odd/Even, they could have provided a nerf. They didn't, hence the problem was not what you think it is. Why should they let live something problematic in a form that is allegedly still problematic?
How would you nerf "Odd/Even"? Do you mean targeted nerfs to individual cards that are strong on odd/even decks, or what?
Warrior in casual ... No ordinary warrior, no a netdeck bomb warrior... Why would you do this? It's slow for you so no farming and it's definitely slow for me trying to complete a quest with my take on thief rogue
Gotta love the fact that you've paid your money, pre-ordered the expansion but as you don't stream other people get to experience what you've paid for before you...
I'm someone who is arguing that 15 is harder than it looks, and I don't think your points really refute that. You've highlighted a lot of tools that Priest has to get the job done, but the question isn't "can it be done?" it's "how quickly can it be done?" Let's play out an idealized situation:
Turn 2 [Hearthstone Card (Quest) Not Found], play the other of Cleric or Crystallizer, and kill a 2/1 minion. Your opponent develops the board rather than kill your minion
Turn 3 Injured Blademaster + kill another 2/1 with your healthy 1-drop, then Circle of Healing -> draw three cards, heal 8. Your opponent develops the board more
Turn 4 trade on board with your Blademaster into a 2+/X minion, then Divine Hymn -> draw 1 card, heal 7+, swap hero power, buff either 1 drop
That's the fastest you could possibly get this quest online, but it's totally unrealistic. We're assuming here that you go first, get the perfect draw, and that your opponent is an aggro deck. Your opponent in this case is a) playing 1 health minions into your 1/3s and b) not cleaning up your damaged 1 drops. You might see a 2/1 come down on turn 1, if you're playing against Shaman or Druid or the new aggro archetype for Paladin, but most of those classes have cheap weapons (or Druid's hero power), so those 1 drops probably aren't going to stick to the board.
So, let's assume you only get the Injured Blademaster and mass-heal combos. Now you've managed 9+ healing by turn 4, which is respectable, but you've got 5 armor, so your best bet for getting the remaining 6 healing you need is to heal your minions, which may take as long as two or three more turns.
You will complete this quest, probably around turn 6 or 7 if you get a decent hand. The big question is, will that be fast enough for the meta? If you're playing against aggro decks, the fact that you're not dead by 6 or 7 probably means you've won, and against today's control decks this hero power probably isn't enough. The speed at which you can complete this quest is going to depend a lot on the metagame because you're going to need your opponent to be playing for tempo because you're going to need to make trades on board to get to 15 damage. It has a very powerful quest reward, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum, and that context is going to dictate its relevance a big way.
It's probably pretty common to q up, mulligan immediately, and then run off to the bathroom or grab a snack. I know I'm guilty of doing this as it's the only semi-predictable length of time between matches.
Not sure why it would have ticked up recently for you, but I usually give people the benefit of the doubt as long as they don't rope on consecutive turns.
Cool idea. You try to set up a Ra turn by shufflying Glinda with a Banker, drawing her with the upgraded HP and when the time comes, you spam the whole board with cultists, you kill your own Glinda with the Demonbolt and play the 7th cultist.
I recommend crafting Lucentbark anyway. I did a few days ago, and have been having a blast. I'm eager to see if this "filling the board" combo works too.
This looks pretty sweet. I love elemental synergy. Have you considered Hench-Clan Hag? The amalgams are mechs for Zilliax to magnetize, as well as elementals for Earthen Might.
I also laid out exactly why they are NOT more repetitive than other decks. YOU are ignoring my argument. ;)
If you feel there's any point you made that I'm ignoring, please restate it. I did my best to address you point by point.
Quote From No Author Specified
tl;dr: Odd/Even decks still have to play cards every turn. Only exceptions, turn-2 and turn-1, respectively. How's that repetitive?
I addressed this specifically. This is an extremely foolish hill to die on. Every deck in the game has to play cards in order to win. It's a card game, that's inherent to the genre.
Genn and baku decks are much less reliant on playing cards, especially early on, because they start the game with an improved hero power. You keep reducing this down to a preposterous false binary. The concession is right there in your use of the word "still". Yes, they still play cards (despite being less reliant on them). I genuinely struggle to grasp how this is even a point of contention. Improved hero powers are obviously an advantage, hence the odd/even restriction which is intended to counterbalance said advantage with a weaker card pool and curve.
Quote From No Author Specified
And yes, i seriously think it was the only point about HoF, not because the decks felt somehow boring to play against.
And their choice about HoF is proof of the fact they don't even consider the mechanic as wrong or too powerful in the void, just too powerful for Standard.
I strongly disagree with that. If there is a diverse meta T5 doesn't tend to arbitrarily kill off half of the field. The power level arguments that apply to genn and baku certainly also apply to half of the original set of DK's, and yet they didn't see an early set rotation because they were a lot less reviled. HOF-ing the two was a desperation move: there's no way to nerf the cards without fundamentally changing them, and deleting them outright would have been very extreme. It wouldn't be the first time a card has seen multiple iterations of nerfs and changes.
Then can you explain why Even Priest is not a deck? By your argument, cards being a secondary part of the decks, Even Priest should be a deck. Or Odd Warrior, which used to be a deck.
They are not, which proves cards are key factor, and some classes have them, some others don't, despite all having Genn/Baku.
About HOF:
Once they recognized the problem with Odd/Even, they could have provided a nerf. They didn't, hence the problem was not what you think it is. Why should they let live something problematic in a form that is allegedly still problematic?
We should assume they are not just careless about Wild (which i think they are), but wicked entirely.
PS: Equality nerf was wrong, HOF would have been preferable, but all the other nerfs involving Odd/Even decks were overall fair, also considering them out of Odd/Even decks. If it was for me, Blessing of Might would also be hit. And if you want to hit Odd Paladin hard, Quartermaster is the card you are looking for, not Raid Leader, which again, is a neutral, and should only be touched out of desperation.
But then consistency is a factor towards powerlevel.
It doesn't add to repetitiveness of gameplay.
Which is why Even Priest is out of meta: there is not enough synergy provided for the efficient hero power.
The deck perk is repetitive, not the whole deck gameplay.
And deck consistency happens only if strong class synergy is provided.
So, i reiterate, if ever an Odd/Even deck turns out to be problematic, because of consistency, that's because of the synergy provided by the class, and that's what should be nerfed, in case.
Not the core of the mechanic.
So you'd rather have them go down the Equality route than addressing the actual problem?
You would rather see them butcher multiple decks by nerfing cards that are also included in odd and even decks, than addressing the elephant (or elephants, in this case) in the room?
The reason even/odd priest isn't a thing is because its hero power doesn't gain any benefit by being upgraded or halved in cost. Not enough to warrant building a deck around, anyway. That's not the problem of priest's cards synergizing with the hero power, it's just that certain hero powers are stronger than others. Especially when upgraded or discounted. Stormwind Champion and Raid Leader saw play in odd paladin at one point. Do you honestly want to nerf two cards that have seen little to no play since the game's inception, until Genn and Baku were released, just so that some meme lord can continue playing his odd warlock deck?
I also laid out exactly why they are NOT more repetitive than other decks. YOU are ignoring my argument. ;)
If you feel there's any point you made that I'm ignoring, please restate it. I did my best to address you point by point.
tl;dr: Odd/Even decks still have to play cards every turn. Only exceptions, turn-2 and turn-1, respectively. How's that repetitive?
I addressed this specifically. This is an extremely foolish hill to die on. Every deck in the game has to play cards in order to win. It's a card game, that's inherent to the genre.
Genn and baku decks are much less reliant on playing cards, especially early on, because they start the game with an improved hero power. You keep reducing this down to a preposterous false binary. The concession is right there in your use of the word "still". Yes, they still play cards (despite being less reliant on them). I genuinely struggle to grasp how this is even a point of contention. Improved hero powers are obviously an advantage, hence the odd/even restriction which is intended to counterbalance said advantage with a weaker card pool and curve.
And yes, i seriously think it was the only point about HoF, not because the decks felt somehow boring to play against.
And their choice about HoF is proof of the fact they don't even consider the mechanic as wrong or too powerful in the void, just too powerful for Standard.
I strongly disagree with that. If there is a diverse meta T5 doesn't tend to arbitrarily kill off half of the field. The power level arguments that apply to genn and baku certainly also apply to half of the original set of DK's, and yet they didn't see an early set rotation because they were a lot less reviled. HOF-ing the two was a desperation move: there's no way to nerf the cards without fundamentally changing them, and deleting them outright would have been very extreme. It wouldn't be the first time a card has seen multiple iterations of nerfs and changes.
Ooh yeah I love watching other people enjoing the new stuff befor everyone can get it.
This theorycraft streams are awful. I don’t know if anybody likes this idea. No time to play with new things... there is a strict meta since day one and everyone is playing the new cancer-aggro decks already.
Just picture this in Big Spell Mage. Filling a board with anywhere from 4-10 cost minions depending on how you build it up. Even better in wild when you can include cards like summoning stone and Mediv the Guardian.
Two Uldum Card Reveals - Siamat (Legendary) and Flame Ward (Mage Secret)
The secret says after a minion attacks your hero, it means that the minion will deal its damage and then the secret gets triggered. Similar to Bear Trap
Theorycrafting Livestreams Return for Saviors of Uldum - August 1! Uldum Inn-vitational August 5!
Well, i guess I'm glad Wild is not touched by these early spoilers.
I feel bad for Standard players.
Idea for Genn and Baku Nerfs
I don't see how this contradicts anything I'm saying. I agree Big priest is seeing large amounts of criticism, are you arguing that Genn and Baku didn't prior to rotation? Or don't presently?
Supposing that the new BP hate cards like Curse of Murlocs "solve" the problem in wild, would you agree that Blizzard was pressured into printing those cards because of the public outcry against BP?
By the way I prefer it when balance/gameplay issues can be addressed by printing new cards rather than changing cards that already exist, I just don't see how you'd accomplish that with Genn and Baku without printing something that hard-counters hero powers, EG something that disables/replaces the enemy hero power. And I imagine people wouldn't be very fond of that either.
We don't have access to focus group testing, surveys and stats that the people making the game base their decisions on. It's inevitable for there to be some level of inference and argument by analogy when arguing about something like this. I'm not exactly shy to admit that.
I would prefer it if the topic remained whether they should be nerfed, but when the counterargument being presented is "Wild/HS ought to be X way, so you're wrong", it's very unfair of you to call me out for citing the game designers' views on what Wild/HS ought to be. An appeal to authority isn't always a fallacy, especially with something as subjective as "what is this game about?"
I don't disagree that inconsistency can be unfun(highlander decks for example), but as far as I'm concerned there is quite a broad middle-ground between a game being random and arbitrary on the one hand or predictable and repetitive on the other.
Because not all hero powers benefit as much from the upgrade/discount. Priest hero power is already considered one of the weaker ones, it stands to reason that building a deck around improving it wouldn't be viable.
I wouldn't be foolish enough to argue that the card pool is entirely irrelevant, but that really doesn't prove your case at all. Because the hero power being improved/discounted matters. You can Tank up on turn 2, whereas heal 4 likely does nothing.
If the priest HP made tokens and the class had cards to support an aggro board-flood archetype then odd or even Priest probably would be a thing.
How would you nerf "Odd/Even"? Do you mean targeted nerfs to individual cards that are strong on odd/even decks, or what?
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
Warrior in casual ... No ordinary warrior, no a netdeck bomb warrior... Why would you do this? It's slow for you so no farming and it's definitely slow for me trying to complete a quest with my take on thief rogue
Theorycrafting Livestreams Return for Saviors of Uldum - August 1! Uldum Inn-vitational August 5!
Gotta love the fact that you've paid your money, pre-ordered the expansion but as you don't stream other people get to experience what you've paid for before you...
This kills the hype, it does nothing to raise it.
Uldum Priest Quest Reveal - Activate the Obelisk
I'm someone who is arguing that 15 is harder than it looks, and I don't think your points really refute that. You've highlighted a lot of tools that Priest has to get the job done, but the question isn't "can it be done?" it's "how quickly can it be done?" Let's play out an idealized situation:
That's the fastest you could possibly get this quest online, but it's totally unrealistic. We're assuming here that you go first, get the perfect draw, and that your opponent is an aggro deck. Your opponent in this case is a) playing 1 health minions into your 1/3s and b) not cleaning up your damaged 1 drops. You might see a 2/1 come down on turn 1, if you're playing against Shaman or Druid or the new aggro archetype for Paladin, but most of those classes have cheap weapons (or Druid's hero power), so those 1 drops probably aren't going to stick to the board.
So, let's assume you only get the Injured Blademaster and mass-heal combos. Now you've managed 9+ healing by turn 4, which is respectable, but you've got 5 armor, so your best bet for getting the remaining 6 healing you need is to heal your minions, which may take as long as two or three more turns.
You will complete this quest, probably around turn 6 or 7 if you get a decent hand. The big question is, will that be fast enough for the meta? If you're playing against aggro decks, the fact that you're not dead by 6 or 7 probably means you've won, and against today's control decks this hero power probably isn't enough. The speed at which you can complete this quest is going to depend a lot on the metagame because you're going to need your opponent to be playing for tempo because you're going to need to make trades on board to get to 15 damage. It has a very powerful quest reward, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum, and that context is going to dictate its relevance a big way.
Theorycrafting Livestreams Return for Saviors of Uldum - August 1! Uldum Inn-vitational August 5!
No one likes thesd.. It's not fair for us. That these people experience it before us.. Hype
- 50%
Uldum Priest Quest Reveal - Activate the Obelisk
Anyone saying that this quest is weak must be absoloutely joking.
Turn 1 rope?
It's probably pretty common to q up, mulligan immediately, and then run off to the bathroom or grab a snack. I know I'm guilty of doing this as it's the only semi-predictable length of time between matches.
Not sure why it would have ticked up recently for you, but I usually give people the benefit of the doubt as long as they don't rope on consecutive turns.
Saviors of Uldum - 5 Pack Bundles Giveaway
My favourite card is Activate the Obelisk because it could bring Priest back to the meta.
Quest Warlock Uldum
Cool idea. You try to set up a Ra turn by shufflying Glinda with a Banker, drawing her with the upgraded HP and when the time comes, you spam the whole board with cultists, you kill your own Glinda with the Demonbolt and play the 7th cultist.
I like it.
[Myth Busted] A cultist in the Crystalsong Forest
I recommend crafting Lucentbark anyway. I did a few days ago, and have been having a blast. I'm eager to see if this "filling the board" combo works too.
Saviors of Uldum - 5 Pack Bundles Giveaway
[Hearthstone Card (King Phaoris) Not Found]
simply unpredictable card.
The EZ Mentals
This looks pretty sweet. I love elemental synergy. Have you considered Hench-Clan Hag? The amalgams are mechs for Zilliax to magnetize, as well as elementals for Earthen Might.
Idea for Genn and Baku Nerfs
Then can you explain why Even Priest is not a deck? By your argument, cards being a secondary part of the decks, Even Priest should be a deck. Or Odd Warrior, which used to be a deck.
They are not, which proves cards are key factor, and some classes have them, some others don't, despite all having Genn/Baku.
About HOF:
Once they recognized the problem with Odd/Even, they could have provided a nerf. They didn't, hence the problem was not what you think it is. Why should they let live something problematic in a form that is allegedly still problematic?
We should assume they are not just careless about Wild (which i think they are), but wicked entirely.
PS: Equality nerf was wrong, HOF would have been preferable, but all the other nerfs involving Odd/Even decks were overall fair, also considering them out of Odd/Even decks. If it was for me, Blessing of Might would also be hit. And if you want to hit Odd Paladin hard, Quartermaster is the card you are looking for, not Raid Leader, which again, is a neutral, and should only be touched out of desperation.
Activate the Obelisk
1 drop on 1, quest and 1 drop on 2. I don't know why people keep thinking that you absolutely have to play the quest on your first turn.
Idea for Genn and Baku Nerfs
So you'd rather have them go down the Equality route than addressing the actual problem?
You would rather see them butcher multiple decks by nerfing cards that are also included in odd and even decks, than addressing the elephant (or elephants, in this case) in the room?
The reason even/odd priest isn't a thing is because its hero power doesn't gain any benefit by being upgraded or halved in cost. Not enough to warrant building a deck around, anyway. That's not the problem of priest's cards synergizing with the hero power, it's just that certain hero powers are stronger than others. Especially when upgraded or discounted. Stormwind Champion and Raid Leader saw play in odd paladin at one point. Do you honestly want to nerf two cards that have seen little to no play since the game's inception, until Genn and Baku were released, just so that some meme lord can continue playing his odd warlock deck?
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
Big Priest roping in casual... getting Barnes on 4... just fuck you
Theorycrafting Livestreams Return for Saviors of Uldum - August 1! Uldum Inn-vitational August 5!
i hate this kind of stream it kills all the hype for me
but i like the fact that they brought purple
Idea for Genn and Baku Nerfs
If you feel there's any point you made that I'm ignoring, please restate it. I did my best to address you point by point.
I addressed this specifically. This is an extremely foolish hill to die on. Every deck in the game has to play cards in order to win. It's a card game, that's inherent to the genre.
Genn and baku decks are much less reliant on playing cards, especially early on, because they start the game with an improved hero power. You keep reducing this down to a preposterous false binary. The concession is right there in your use of the word "still". Yes, they still play cards (despite being less reliant on them). I genuinely struggle to grasp how this is even a point of contention. Improved hero powers are obviously an advantage, hence the odd/even restriction which is intended to counterbalance said advantage with a weaker card pool and curve.
I strongly disagree with that. If there is a diverse meta T5 doesn't tend to arbitrarily kill off half of the field. The power level arguments that apply to genn and baku certainly also apply to half of the original set of DK's, and yet they didn't see an early set rotation because they were a lot less reviled. HOF-ing the two was a desperation move: there's no way to nerf the cards without fundamentally changing them, and deleting them outright would have been very extreme. It wouldn't be the first time a card has seen multiple iterations of nerfs and changes.
Theorycrafting Livestreams Return for Saviors of Uldum - August 1! Uldum Inn-vitational August 5!
Ooh yeah I love watching other people enjoing the new stuff befor everyone can get it.
This theorycraft streams are awful. I don’t know if anybody likes this idea. No time to play with new things... there is a strict meta since day one and everyone is playing the new cancer-aggro decks already.
Theorycrafting Livestreams Return for Saviors of Uldum - August 1! Uldum Inn-vitational August 5!
I like the fresh feeling but I also like knowing what I shouldn't waste any dust on to experiment with.
King Phaoris
Just picture this in Big Spell Mage. Filling a board with anywhere from 4-10 cost minions depending on how you build it up. Even better in wild when you can include cards like summoning stone and Mediv the Guardian.
Uldum Priest Quest Reveal - Activate the Obelisk
There are a few minions that damage themselves as a Battlecry. Excellent synergy with this quest.
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
Very well, who am i to defy our god emperor's commands!
KALADIN PROTECTS!