Sorry my shorthand explanation fell short. I did a much longer video on the concept here, if you're interested.

It depends on what you value in a meta. If you value deck diversity, then Wild will always be better than Standard for that. If you value change in the meta, then no longer having Handlock in the meta in favor of other decks may be upside.

It's also hard to define a 'deck'. Renolock and Zoolock have seen significant changes. Less than a year ago, one of the most popular variants of Zoolock ran Haunted Creeper, Nerubian Egg, Ironbeak Owl, Imp-losion, Loatheb, Dr. Boom, Sea Giant, Reliquary Seeker, Zombie Chow, Echoing Ooze, Gormok the Impaler, and Big Game Hunter. That's 18/30 cards that aren't run in the current Zoo variants. If we see a Zoo resurgence, does it still count as the same deck? https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/decks/flood-zoo-meta-snapshot-40

He justifies the complete destruction of a widely played, cerebral and unproblematic deck with the fact that an RNG card that only saw play in Trolden videos got a very minor buff.

That wasn't at all what I was attempting to get across.

Some people like changing metas. You may not be one of those people, and that is totally fine, but we do think it's important that our Standard Format appeals to that audience. The fact that Handlock had been a staple of the ladder and tournament scene for years, with no end in sight (given it was entirely made of classic and basic cards, and so, immune to rotation) - that was our biggest reasoning for the nerf.

People have been wondering about Molten Giant's fate as it relates to Wild. I think it's an interesting discussion. It's something we haven't made a decision on yet, as I mentioned in the live Q&A and in the interview. When we're trying to make a decision, it helps to consider all the factors. I was enumerating the factors in the interview. Every change has consequences, and as designers, it's important to consider all of them, even if they aren't the biggest single reason to do something. I tend to think people are interested in our thoughts, and about the consequences of decisions they care about. That's why I mentioned Holy Wrath decks. They aren't the major factor in our decision-making, but it's a thing that would be affected by this change.

I don't feel like our choices are limited, just that we should shoot for nerfs that cause less disruption but achieve the same goals (i.e. changing mana cost instead of card text)

We are currently having a problem where Standard is essentially dominated by Classic and Basic cards, and that is risky, if it continues to happen year after year. One solution that we tried when Standard launched, was removing cards from Classic by nerfing them significantly. If we nerfed them slightly, we wouldn't have solved the core problem.

Some of those cards are probably not too powerful for Wild, so we could have left them unnerfed if they only affected the Wild format, and that's why we've been discussing different options for our next rotation.

There was a lot more said in that answer - I'll quote the full text here for those who skipped it. I don't think 'the nerf is fine because it's played in Holy Wrath decks' was the intention of the quote.

You’ve been talking about about potential changes to the classic set, and floated the idea that more cards could be changed in advance of the next Standard rotation. Are you open to the possibility of undoing some of the nerfs that were done to cards like Molten Giant and Force of Nature, which removed whole archetypes from play in Handlock and Combo Druid. To my mind those could live on in Wild.

It’s a very interesting thought experiment for me. I think that some of those changes were maybe good for the Wild metagame as well as the Standard metagame. I’m not 100% sure on that, because we don’t really know yet what the plan will be—whether nerfing or rotating is better. I do tend to think that there is a type of player who really falls in love with a deck, and would like to play it regardless of format. And so when we nerf cards in those decks—traditionally, to remove them from Standard to allow the expansions to shoulder a greater percentage of the weight of the meta—those are the type of nerfs we tend to overdo, because we don’t want people playing those cards anymore. We want players playing new cards that change the meta, and having new experiences. So, in the twelve original cards that we nerfed, not all of them were in that category—but Molten Giant was. I think it was a card that was fine to be around for a little while, but was hurting the ability for Standard to change.

Molten Giant also did some weird things to the gameplay experience that I’m not sure were better or not. Another issue is how does it affect the Wild meta? Molten Giant is interesting, because it’s now getting played in Holy Wrath decks. Even if it’s not a meta-defining deck, there are people having fun with it. Actually, we improved [the damage] in that respect. But also, what is it adding to the classic set as far as the iconography of the Hearthstone experience? There are three Giants in the classic set, so it helps set up the idea of what a Giant is. If we ever make more Giants in the future, this is a baseline of, ‘Oh yeah, I know what ‘Giants’ mean, because there’s a trio of them in the classic set.’

Just to be clear, I didn't say any of those things. Check out previous thoughts about 'strictly betters' in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIpWnb4NyrM

I'm going to put the entire section here, because some folks are focusing on this one quote, assuming it's the entire answer. More thoughts below!

You’ve been talking about about potential changes to the classic set, and floated the idea that more cards could be changed in advance of the next Standard rotation. Are you open to the possibility of undoing some of the nerfs that were done to cards like Molten Giant and Force of Nature, which removed whole archetypes from play in Handlock and Combo Druid. To my mind those could live on in Wild.

It’s a very interesting thought experiment for me. I think that some of those changes were maybe good for the Wild metagame as well as the Standard metagame. I’m not 100% sure on that, because we don’t really know yet what the plan will be—whether nerfing or rotating is better. I do tend to think that there is a type of player who really falls in love with a deck, and would like to play it regardless of format. And so when we nerf cards in those decks—traditionally, to remove them from Standard to allow the expansions to shoulder a greater percentage of the weight of the meta—those are the type of nerfs we tend to overdo, because we don’t want people playing those cards anymore. We want players playing new cards that change the meta, and having new experiences. So, in the twelve original cards that we nerfed, not all of them were in that category—but Molten Giant was. I think it was a card that was fine to be around for a little while, but was hurting the ability for Standard to change.

Molten Giant also did some weird things to the gameplay experience that I’m not sure were better or not. Another issue is how does it affect the Wild meta? Molten Giant is interesting, because it’s now getting played in Holy Wrath decks. Even if it’s not a meta-defining deck, there are people having fun with it. Actually, we improved [the damage] in that respect. But also, what is it adding to the classic set as far as the iconography of the Hearthstone experience? There are three Giants in the classic set, so it helps set up the idea of what a Giant is. If we ever make more Giants in the future, this is a baseline of, ‘Oh yeah, I know what ‘Giants’ mean, because there’s a trio of them in the classic set.’

Something that people are doing is reading one line and assuming this is the only reasoning. Often in these interviews I try and give every possible argument for or against. I think it's interesting to consider lots of perspectives. Please don't take that one line as "We would totally un-nerf Molten Giant except for Holy Wrath decks." It's not very helpful to tunnel vision in on one part of the argument and ignore the rest. I'm trying to broaden the discussion.

That's what I was going for.

I mentioned this in another comment, but I'll quote it here:

The last time I played it was that co-op tavern brawl where it starts in one of the player's decks. Caught me off guard, since I hadn't played it in a year, and muscle memory kicked in.

The last time I played it was that co-op tavern brawl where it starts in one of the player's decks. Caught me off guard, since I hadn't played it in a year, and muscle memory kicked in.

The comment Kibler made was that cheap weapons are inherently broken, not that specifically there are broken ones. At least that's how I interpreted it. That's a perspective that was new to me, anyway.