Bluetracker
Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.
Cards that have no business being bucketed where they are.
Second, when going through all the cards one by one, I saw a few things. One, there are a lot of unanounced cards (I assume) hidden within the bucket spreadsheet. Second, there are a good number of cards where, there is no reasonable explanation why these cards are bucketed where they were.
For me, I'm fine if Blizzard misses the mark on new cards. Like, if they get Lackey's wrong (in Priest they've been eh but are apparently insane in Rogue, which I haven't played), or if Blizz overlooks Scribe, I'm fine with that. What I care about more are, cards that have direct comparisons, cards that no one who pays attention would miss on, that Blizz missed on.
By the way, for this, I presume most of the cards were outputted by the internal algo, and that it wasn't malicious, just things that slipped through the cracks. I am, with a couple of exceptions, not going to include any RoS cards unless there's a direct comparison. But, highlighting cards that make no sense where they are.
Call of the Wild: 2- Even post-nerf, Call was basically the best performing card in Hunter up until it rotated out. Right now, if you sort HSreplay by only new cards rotating in Pirahna Launcher is #1 (which, include that here, because this always performed extremely well), Call is #2, and there's a nearly 2% gap to the #3 card. I can almost get Blizzard for sleeping on Pirhana Launcher (3-) but Call, this is about the 2nd most no-brain top of the 1st bucket card in this set, which they got wrong. And yes, that is a tease for later.
Dispatch Kodo: 5+ Fire Plume Phoenix was a 4 mana 3/3 that dealt 2 damage, bottom of the 2nd bucket. Dispatch Kodo is a 4 mana 2/4 that deals its attack damage (2, sometimes more), and is in the top of the 5th bucket. ITS THE SAME FUCKING CARD. This is the one that got me upset in ADWCTA's channel yesterday. Like, this is, for all intents and purposes, the exact same card, yet they are separated massively in terms of bucket space. Naturally (check the CotW link), 10th best card in Hunter, which maybe not 2nd bucket, is still leagues ahead of the 5th bucket.
Faceless Summoner: 3+ This was one of the cards removed because Mage was so powerful. While there was debate whether this was the best Mage card or not, it was certainly in that top tier in both impact and performance when it got removed from Arena less than 6 months after it debuted. And its back... in the top of the 3rd bucket. HSreplay performance has it as the 4th best of the new cards, behind Twilight Flamecaller (initiative, insane in its own right), Conjurer's Calling (heavily misbucketed), and Power of Creation (a better version of Faceless for 8 mana). Like..... if you're banning a card because its too powerful, should it really return in not at least the 1st bucket somehow?
Unidentified Contract: 3+ The one RoS card on here. I do not get, at all, how you can say this is better than Assassinate. One option is literally better than Assassinate (coins), one is effectively a much more powerful Meteor (betrayal) and the other two are better than Assassinate as well. Yeah, its still highly bucketed, but how is this not ranked ahead of Assassinate? And, HSreplay data, it's at 65.5, #1 by a full point over EVIL Miscreant, which is a full point higher than the #3 card
Abyssal Enforcer: 1- The only reason I'm not angry at this one is because I think it has to be an intentional decision on their part. The Warlock's top bucket consists of Abyssal, Siphon Soul, and Zombie Chow. If Abyssal were the very top of the 1st bucket, it would only ever appear against those cards. So, I theorize they put it in 1- so there would be some variety in picks offered. I can, at the very least, rationalize that to some degree. One thing though: Because its in 1-, it appears roughly twice as much as it should compared to other cards that are in 1+. Even considering all that, what the actual fuck, not being 1+?
Darkshire Councilman, 5+ How? This card is constructed good, this card is Frothing Berserker levels of power with much more sustainability due to 5 health. Everyone has played with this card, everyone knows this is an insane card that can win games on its own. How is this not in the 3rd bucket, at the very least? And, stats to back it up, #4 card on HSreplay, behind Darkest Hour (sample size), Abyssal, and Felfire.
Eldritch Horror, 4+: Faceless Behemoth, 6+ Like.... how do you miss these? We all love Ultrasaur, it was a 7th bucket card, how is the Behemoth a full bucket higher? How is Horror, which is better than War Golem, a full 3 buckets better than War Golem? I don't know how anyone could think these cards are anything out of the 7th bucket, maybe bottom of the 6th bucket at the very best.
Sunreaver Spy, 7+ This is a 2 mana 2/3, with upside. River Crock is 6-. Arcane Servant is 6-. I can almost get Dalaran Librarian being here because the silence can be a down side, but this? Like, I know this is nitpicky, its a 7+ card moving to 6- or 6+, it doesn't matter, its the principle that upsets me. And, because of Blizzard's promotion system, its locked here, misbucketed, forever, because no fucking way people are picking this 60% of the time.
Anyways, those are cards who, based on past treament/performance or simple comparisons, I can't find any argument for why they are where they are. I'm certain you guys will have more cards, so feel free to go off on them.
Iksar
The objective in creating buckets based on pick rate is so that the pick will be interesting to the widest audience. Pick rate is metric that is useful in determining whether or a choice is interesting or not. If there is a card that the expert audience knows should be bucket 1 but most of the audience thinks is bucket 3, we choose to put it in bucket 3. The result of this from our perspective is that the average player will see an interesting choice, while the expert player will utilize their mastery of arena to make the 'correct' choice and gain an advantage by doing so.
When we initially bucket cards, it's mostly guesswork with a little bit of data on how similar cards from the past were picked. We try to bucket the cards the way we think they will be perceived, but it's fairly difficult to be right on the money with every card. Fortunately, even if we guess wrong, we'll use data to correct that fairly soon.
Just keep in mind that just because a card is powerful doesn't mean it will move buckets. If you find a card that is higher power level that the cards it's bucketed by after we make data adjustments you can safely assume it's because the rest of the general player population disagrees with you :).
Iksar
Hmm, I'm not sure I understand. The choice of what class to pick is not weighted, you just get a choice of a random three from the nine available. Are you suggesting we weight the choice of classes based on what is currently popular. As in, if Mage was very powerful you'd have a lower chance to see mage in your three choices?
Iksar
Well, there are no buckets to place class choices in, they are just random among the 9 available. Currently, the only way we have to make a choice between classes interesting is to try and make those classes equally powerful. With cards, we can choose to bucket them in different buckets, but for class choices, this option does not exist.
Iksar
The question isn't to bucket cards based on win rate vs fun, it's a question of bucketing cards based on their actual win rate in data vs their perceived win rate by the general population.
Iksar
It depends on what the goal is. The goal in this circumstance is that when you look at three cards, the highest possible amount of time you are looking at three cards you perceive as equal in power level. Perception is informed a little by win-rate, but if you could use a metric that is much more aligned with perception (pick-rate), wouldn't you use that instead?
From a design perspective, I don't think that cards that are 'clearly misbucketed' result in a less negative experience, so long as it's not happening on most picks. While I think it's true that having mostly interesting picks makes for a more interesting draft, I don't think that having some obvious picks is necessarily bad. When drafting in other card games it's actually a pretty positive moment to get a stack of cards and see one is better than the rest to snap pick it. Interesting, thought provoking decisions can lead to a rich gameplay experience, but when every action in a game creates a mental stopping point you can lose the fun pretty quickly. We could be a little more scientific about this and plug in an obvious choice every X picks, but I think each player's perception of card power level is so different that an 'obvious' choice occurs naturally no matter what metric we use.