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Blizz, in the next expansion please relax with printing cheap, high-health, must remove minions in early mana slots

There are already too many. A must-remove 8 or 9 drop is fine, because players who built their deck with answers will have a reasonable chance of having removal or a board by that time in the game.

But having "you must remove this minion immediately or possibly lose the game" minions in the 1-4 mana slot is not the same at all. It turns the game into "did I mulligan an answer for this flamewaker? No? Gg," which is very much not fun.

It particularly becomes an issue when people can potentially output must answer minions at every point on curve, which is what current tier 1 decks can do.

Turn 1 malc imp -> knife juggler -> darkshire councilman...

Mana wyrm -> sorc apprentice -> flamewaker

Any combination of tunnel troggs, flametongues, totemics summoning mana tides, flamewreathed

The common theme is that if you try and play minions to counter any of these you risk getting massively punished and essentially losing on the spot. So you have to remove them, but if you ever don't have an answer you can lose on the spot. But because it is early in the game, having an answer or not is not based on smart conservation of resources or deck building, but on the RNG of your early draws.

My suggestion to blizzard is simply this: if you want to make a minion with a must answer static effect, give it lower defensive stats instead of the best possible defensive statline (trogg, darkshire, malc imp, etc.) for its mana slot, or make it a high cost minion.

Or, consider making things battlecries instead of static effects. Sorc apprentice has to be cheap because being able to combo with it is what makes it fun. I get that. But if sorc apprentice was "battlecry: your spells cost 1 less this turn" she'd be just as good at comboing (Better even with brann) without also being a static threat you can plop down with no followup combo on turn 2 and still come out ahead because your opponent is obligated to spend at least as much tempo removing it.

tl;dr early cost minions that provide super strong static effects while also being difficult to remove make the game less fun and interactive. Cool your heels on them for next expansion blizz, PLEASE.

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