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the meta is settling.. And it didn't slow down. Let's talk about why?

As the meta starts to settle now we see many C'thun decks losing popularity and a number of very strong aggro decks difficult for most control and midrange decks to counter once again becoming the majority. In this case one is the same as pre-Standard and pre-WoG, namely aggro Shaman, and the other is the same as it has been since more or less the launch of the game, Zoolock.

I will be the first to admit that I did believe the meta would slow down with Standard and WoG's release, I was one of those pointing the finger at the cynics saying they were wrong that people would revert back to mostly the same aggro decks within a week or two - but they were right.

So maybe we really need to start asking ourselves why this is the case, I mean very specifically, because outside of this being a popular shitpost subject on the subreddit it does seem that Blizzard had nerfed a number of aggro cards and introduced many late game plays with the latest patch so presumably they too had hoped the meta would have slowed.

Here are some theories I have heard here and there amongst the pros, I want to know what reddit at large thinks is the issue -

Theories:

1) Early game minions are too strong relative to mid and late game minions

Turn 1 Tunnel Trogg, Turn 2 Totem Golem, or a strong start from Zoo can spell the beginning of the end for almost any other deck in the game. The other day Kripp explained that the reason he thinks the meta is always dominated by aggro is that these 1 mana minions (and imo 2 mana minions are also pretty guilty) are very strong relative to 4, 5, 6 mana etc. minions. Their strength means that having a perfect draw in the early game vs aggro is pretty much essential otherwise the game quickly snowballs. This is particularly frustrating in cases where RNG is involved, see Reynad's crusade against Knife Juggler.

2) You cannot interact with your opponents turn

Outside of secrets there is no way to interact with your opponents board on their turn. Obviously Magic works very differently in this regard, allowing the defender to choose which minions take damage from attacking minions. The absence of this mechanic clearly makes face decks a lot more viable in Hearthstone, but perhaps some MtG players could shed some light on whether or not the lack of interaction on your opponents term is one of the reason why aggro is fundamentally favored in the game? Perhaps there are ways around this without changing that rule?

3) There's not enough taunts/healing/silence is too cheap

This was the most common theory just a few months ago but I find it hard to believe now that very few people are running silence and the meta is full of taunts. Yes there is less neutral healing currently, however having spoken to a number of high ranked N'zoth Paladin players, they tell me that whether or not they beat aggro remains an issue of "if I draw Concencrate in my first 5 turns then I can win, if not I lose", and those decks run a huge amount of healing. So I don't buy this as being the reason.

Other possibilities are issues relating to board clears, the 30hp life total, sticky minions (seem to be gone?), the ease of token flooding.

Fundamentally the issue imo is this: in TCGs balance and diversity is generally maintained by allowing some archetypes to have advantages over others.

The general rule for this is aggro beats combo, combo beats control, control beats midrange, midrange beats aggro.

In Hearthstone, aggro beats everything. Yes you can beat it with a midrange or a control deck, but you're constantly on the ropes. Aggro is asking you question after question from turn 1, the moment a turn comes where you haven't drawn an answer, you lose. Whereas aggro is asked relatively few questions, and has a good chance against almost every type of deck in the game bar the one or two that have specific mechanics in specific classes that enable a greater degree of stall than others eg. Warrior.

tl;dr: Blizzard seems to be trying to push the game in a more midrange direction and away from the hyper-aggressive dominant metas of pre-Standard but already we are slipping back into that. Why is this happening and what can be done about it?

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 8 months ago (Source)

    Is the distinction between a class card being in every deck of that class, versus a neutral being in every deck of that type the important distinction? Or is any card that is auto-include in a class/type of deck an issue?

    For example, Shielded mini-bot and Muster were auto-includes in just about every paladin deck. Were they problem cards, or were they fine?

    Or are cards like Shredder and Boom who were neutral and in pretty much every deck the problem because they make the game feel stale?

    Are they both problems? Or is it case by case? Pretty much any insight into how you approach card design would be neat.

    Auto-include class vs auto-include neutral are very different. I think it's awesome Warriors have some of their cards as an identity. Warriors Shield Slam, Execute, they War Axe you. That is part of their toolkit. You can go too far with that (Druid had probably too much) but in most cases we think it's fine to have strong class cards. Neutral is less interesting, especially in the classic set. If everyone on earth is playing one neutral card it's not really about class identity anymore.

    Cards like Boom and Shredder are strong, but I don't think nerfing Wild cards is necessary. When you have access to the entire pool of cards the decks that will rise to the top are heavy synergy decks. Combo decks like Freeze or Miracle. Even though Shredder and Boom are powerful standalone cards, extreme synergy decks have no use for them. This is part of the reason the nerfs were mostly targeted at the classic cards.

  • Iksar
    Posted 9 years, 8 months ago (Source)

    I think my definition of aggro is not the same as yours since I don’t consider mid-range shaman, secret paladin and zoo aggro, but let’s just classify them as such for the discussion’s sake.

    I disagree that if played optimally that win-rates of the top mid-range and control decks will be lower than “aggro”. In fact, in the top ends of the ladder don’t we always find mid-range or control decks grabbing the top spots? I don’t recall any particularly aggressive line-ups dominating recent tournaments as well.

    But there are a few clear reasons why the aggressive decks will almost always be dominant on ladder while the rest of the meta builds around them though. All of these are points that have been brought up many times before of course.

    1. They are much quicker to play. Players will gravitate towards decks that will grant them the most stars/hour, and there’s little argument that faster decks will provide that. This is especially relevant if people are playing on the go and/or have limited time to play each day. I do believe that this is an important part of why this game is so popular too, and firmly believe that say if average game time doubled, this game will be far less popular. Amaz mentioned on stream the other day that for his climb to #25 last month, he climbed from dumpster to ~#100 with priest and something else, but had to go face shaman in the last hour since he ran out of time.

    2. They have a (much) higher lower skill floor. I absolutely disagree that they don’t take skill to play well, but it’s much harder to screw up badly when you’re playing aggressively and on-curve. You can and will do drastically worse when you don’t know what you’re doing playing control priest or renolock though. Often, you have to fight tooth and nail to try find the best lines and finally stabalise at 4 health, and still only barely match the win-rates of faster decks in the long run.

    3. In relation to point 1, you don’t feel as bad when you lose games when playing fast decks. My most played decks are control warrior and priest, but there are many times when I need to take a break after losing a few 20-minute games since they’re so draining and you feel like crap after those losses, especially when you know you’ve made a crucial mistake that cost you the loss, or when you get screwed by Golden Monkey RNG.

    4. They are usually far, far cheaper than the alternatives; I don’t think Blizzard even wants to push the meta hard towards control and late-game decks (which are always 5-10 times more expensive), since this will seriously undermine newer players’ ability to compete. Zoo and Shaman decks are what is keeping the game very accessible to new/f2p players. If the game turns into a Rafaam, Nefarian, Ysera, Dragonlord, Anub'arak fight every other game, its playerbase will certainly not be growing.

    5. EDIT: Adding this point that someone mentioned. Aggro decks are far more resilient against the variety of wonky decks (renounce darkness, astral druid, inner fire priest, otks) that you sometimes encounter on your climb up the ladder, and just unoptimised decks really. When you're playing control sometimes you take a few losses against bad decks due to your draws and the other guy drawing the nuts; with aggro it's much less likely to happen since most of the time you just out-tempo them and the game is long over before they can draw anything.

    These are the main factors that first come to mind about why faster decks will almost always be the preferred choice on ladder.

    Mike Donais has said recently that their design goal is not to “slow the meta down”, but to encourage a variety of decks to see play, which I would argue is generally the case in the past two years I’ve been playing the game. Some metas are worse than others, but control decks have always been around across all ranks.

    tl;dr fast decks are more efficient, more forgiving and cheaper. I think this game would be far less popular if cheap and fast decks were much weaker than late-game decks.

    Mike's comment is pretty accurate. Our goal is never to slow the meta down. As long as there is variety we're pretty happy. That has been the case so far in OG but it's fairly early. Hope to see that continue.

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