Prompted by a recent discussion, I want to discuss the overload mechanic in all its glory. Given we're 7 years into the game, and shaman is the current target of 'the class is weak' memes, it's high time I actually understood the mechanic beyond silent intuition.
Most discussion I've seen on the topic has tried to argue that the mechanic is weak, but I'm going to quickly shut down that idea. No mechanic is weak or strong, they are simply over- or under-valued on a card by card basis. Take inspire for example: if you were to only look at TGT, then you'd probably call it weak. However, if you look at Phase Stalker and Dragonbane (which have the inspire mechanic if not the keyword), then you'd call it strong.
You can look at all mechanics in the same way, and usually find both strong and weak examples, determined entirely by how much mana the devs attributed to the effect on each card. Such a viewpoint is especially convenient for overload, since it is entirely a matter of mana cost.
So having cast aside the notions of strong and weak mechanics, my interest is on assessing its pros and cons to determine whether overload is interesting enough to deserve a permanent spot in shaman's toolkit. I won't try to quantify how much overload is right for a given effect, simply because that would take too long. Maybe that can come later though.
The pros
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I find the most useful way to view overload is as spending next turn's mana now. There are several benefits to doing this:
- The earlier that you play minions, the more impact they are likely to have as the opponent will have a harder time dealing with them.
- Note if you have 2 or more overload, you are essentially playing them 2+ turns early (at least in principle).
- The earlier removal comes online, the easier it is to respond to pressure.
- You might not need all the mana next turn anyway.
- The extreme case is when you win the game this turn and never have to pay the overload.
- Squeezing more cards into a turn might amplify their effectiveness.
- Game-winning combos come to mind again.
These benefits are all quite general, and make overload fill an impressively diverse range of roles. It can be used to the benefit of aggro, control and combo.
A weird sort of pro is that overload has a subtle synergy with itself, since you don't need the full number of mana crystals to have a good turn if you use an overload card. So chaining overload cards can stop you from really suffering from the cost of overload as you effectively kick the problem to later and later turns. Now I think about it, this is probably why overload has mostly worked in full overload synergy decks with lots of them in the deck.
The cons
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I don't really count 'having less mana next turn' as a con in its own right, because the basis of the mechanic is that you shouldn't need all the mana if you can leverage the mana savings of the previous turn. As a result, I prefer to address what happens when you aren't able to capitalise on the pros above.
1. It is an absolute truth that the opponent will have a harder time dealing with minions played ahead of the curve: the opponent will have drawn fewer cards and therefore have fewer options; the opponent will have had less mana with which to build a board to combat yours; and the opponent has less mana to spend on removal. However, the last of those reasons is not as big a deal as it first seems because removal is usually cheaper than the minions it is designed to remove, meaning it is often available on the same turn overloaded minions come down.
The consequences of this are serious in an aggro/tempo shaman vs control match-up where you need minions to stick, and where a low tempo turn due to overloaded mana crystals can give the opponent enough of a respite to stabilise with. However, it is worth noting that this downside is much less severe when the opponent is using minions - rather than spells - to contest the board because value trading with the overloaded minion can be so efficient.
2. While overload lets you respond more quickly with removal, it reduces your ability to respond on consecutive turns. You are often torn between removal now OR removal next turn where another class might be able to do both. This is especially common because it is rare to need overloaded removal on curve, so it often gets in the way of a swing turn that is needed to in order to actually win.
It is not all doom and gloom though. As per pro 4, overloaded removal being cheap can also facilitate swing turns that most other classes couldn't put together. It ends up a matter of timing: overload can be either friend or foe depending on whether you can afford to wait a turn.
3 & 4. Heavily overloaded finisher and swing turns are great when they work, but you don't always have that luxury. Using these cards early and incurring the overload cost can cripple you much more than doing the equivalent thing in another class.
Personally I like this aspect. It lets the devs use overload as a way to make a finisher card without constraining it to only hit heroes, thereby allowing players to demonstrate skill by knowing when they have to use it inefficiently for something else.
So is it a good keyword?
Having looked at the keyword in some detail, I actually like it even more than I used to. For such a simple mechanic there is a lot of nuance that makes decision making in shaman unique, and does so for all of aggro, control and combo in different ways. That is a distinct advantage over some other mechanics that balance pros and cons, like outcast and discard, which have a much stronger preference for certain archetypes.
Overload is certainly not without its weaknesses, and where they exist they are more severe than other class keywords like combo or choose one, which probably accounts for why it is the target of more claims that it is weak. Part of this is that the effectiveness of overload depends on what the opponent does. This is especially obvious for overstatted minions: when they are dealt with efficiently it can easily feel like you didn't get any benefit for the overload you still have to pay.
However, HS players are salty creatures that more readily remember the bad than the good, and I suspect that is wrongly tilting the balance of opinion against overload. This is perhaps not helped by the way it is presented on the card is as a negative. What you see is how much less mana you have next turn, not how much you save this turn.
Phew, I'll stop there. I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff, and would be keen to see how the community feels about overload. It is all too easy to hear the vocal minority and think it represents everyone...
