I'm going to begin with making the assumption that there are a considerable amount of new players to Hearthstone who won't know what I'm talking about if I don't otherwise explain some HS history, so I'll start there. If you're already familiar with the history of this card, feel free to skip ahead.
Warsong Commander has a pretty significant history, though to a newer player, it probably wouldn't seem like it. That's because the current Warsong Commander is an entirely different card than that which was a crucial part in one of the most iconic decks of Hearthstone's history. In the very early days of Hearthstone, Warsong Commander looked like this:
This was actually after a very early buff to the card, in which it was given +1 Health. The issue with this card at the time was probably as obvious as it is now. This version of Warsong Commander caused games in which players had to be cautious of dealing damage to enemy Warriors, because at a certain point they would be able to play Warsong Commander, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, Youthful Brewmaster, Youthful Brewmaster, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, and often deal well over 30 damage. Keep in mind, this is during a time in the game in which giants were 10/10s and playing Warsong Commander into Boulderfist Ogre or Chillwind Yeti was among one of the strongest things you could do. So, the card was problematic. And it was rightfully nerfed, to this version:
This nerf was seen as extremely oppressive to the card, though all-in-all it was a pretty fair one. It was still obviously combo-able with Frothing Berserker and Raging Worgen to get potential lethals with Whirlwind and Inner Rage type effects, but it wasn't a very successful or popular deck; the burst the deck required just wasn't high enough. In 2014, Blackrock Mountain was released, and decks like Freeze Mage, Handlock, and fringe Dragon decks rose in popularity. Mech Mage, Oil Rogue, Face Hunter, Midrange Druid, Midrange Paladin, and Zoo Warlock were among the top tiered decks. From early on, it was apparent that what would become known as Patron Warrior would rise in popularity: "The fix to Warsong Commander* and the introduction of Emperor [Thaurissan] means we will be seeing a lot more huge Warrior combos using Frothing [Berserker], Raging Worgen, and now Grim Patron." (Tempo Storm Meta Snapshot #12)
* - Warsong Commander previously had an issue in which "token" minions, ie. minions from any source other than their own card, wouldn't gain Charge. Additionally, minions with 3-or-less Attack that gained additional Attack (giving them 4 or more) from their Battlecry would not gain Charge, circumventing how effect triggers are supposed to stack.
The additions of Grim Patron and Emperor Thaurissan gave tremendous support to the previously fringe Combo Warrior archetype, and the meta was well suited for Patron Warrior to take off. Decks running small, persistent minions like Haunted Creeper were regularly top tier, and Patron Warrior proved efficient at dealing with small-stats-but-very-wide boards, and these board states grew the power level of eventual Patron combo turns. Additionally, Patrons were impressively stable at dealing with the most powerful minion in the history of the game at that time, Dr. Boom, and nothing stopped Patron Warrior from just also running Boom. If you can sometimes beat 'em, who says you still can't play 'em? Patron Warrior became the anti-aggro police deck on ladder, effectively countering what most of all decks were doing.
Following Blackrock Mountain was The Grand Tournament, which did three major things worth noting. First, it offered Patron Warrior almost nothing (Bash would see play in Control Warrior, and Alexstrasza's Champion would see play in Dragon Warrior). However, all Warriors got one of the most crucial cards in the history of Warrior deckbuilding: Justicar Trueheart, who would immediately see play in most slower Warrior decks, inevitably being played in certain Patron builds slightly longer down the road. The second thing TGT did was introduce Mysterious Challenger, Murloc Knight, and Competitive Spirit. This gave the already solid Midrange Paladin the new name Secret Paladin, and it quickly became one of the best decks in the game. Lastly, it gave legs to the big breakout deck of the set, Dragon Priest, with the cards [Hearthstone Card (Wymrest Agent) Not Found], Twilight Guardian, and Chillmaw. However, these decks had no real way of stopping Patron Warrior in the hands of a knowledgeable player, because their few answers weren't enough to outnumber Warrior's removal package, and Patron remained king for several months.
Then, in October of 2015, Warsong Commander was nerfed a final time, and in the following months, it sunk further and further in popularity, until it was essentially a joke. The card read as it now does:
The card was regarded to have such a significant fall from grace that it spawned a lot of both grief and jokes from the community. The card became effectively useless and went from one of the most played cards in the game to one of the least. Only one month later, League of Explorers was released, and became regarded by many as one of the best Hearthstone sets ever. It gave support to the already solid Aggro Shaman, created an entirely new combo deck in Murloc Paladin, gave Priest great control tools in Entomb and Excavated Evil, blew people away with the incredibly efficient Tomb Pillager, birthed entire new archetypes with Sir Finley Mrrgglton, Brann Bronzebeard, Elise Starseeker, and Reno Jackson, and gave Warriors Cursed Blade, which was regarded mostly as a joke. Regardless, everyone was pretty happy with the set, as aggro, control, and combo decks all had support. And furthermore, the following set, Whispers of the Old Gods, completely transformed the game, both by introducing a massive number of archetypes, and by introducing the Wild/Standard formats. This upset a number of Patron players who thought the Wild format would have made a good home for Patron Warrior--others, however, believed Patron Warrior would simply dominate the format forever, and in hindsight there's certainly validity to both of those opinions at the time.
The Discussion in 2019
There are four major points I'd like to present as the primary reasons for which Warsong Commander should be changed yet again. Here's a little more backstory: in early 2017, massive issues with the Classic set were recognized when a number of cards from the set were frequent offenders in powerful decks (or regarded as improper to have in Standard). Ten cards (Conceal, Ice Lance, Power Overwhelming, Azure Drake, Captain's Parrot, Gelbin Mekkatorque, Elite Tauren Chieftain, Old Murk-Eye, Ragnaros the Firelord, and Sylvanas Windrunner) were removed from the Classic set and put into a new, Wild-only set, known as Hall of Fame. A year later, three additional cards (Coldlight Oracle, Ice Block, and Molten Giant) were moved from Classic to Hall of Fame. Molten Giant marked the first card to be unnerfed during this transition, with its cost dropping from a nerfed 25 back down to a pre-nerf 20. In 2019, an additional three cards from the Classic set were moved to the Hall of Fame (Naturalize, Divine Favor, and Doomguard). Again in 2019, an additional two cards were moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame, however, this time it was from the Basic set (Mind Blast and Vanish). A number of cards were added to Basic and Classic to replace some holes in the set caused by these changes.
1. The first point is, considering that now both a) cards have been unnerfed when being moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame and b) cards from the Basic set have been moved to Hall of Fame, there's no practical reason restricting Blizzard from making the decision of reverting Warsong Commander to it's text "Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge." and moving it from Basic to Hall of Fame. In other words, it is not a decision that would go against their previous conduct.
2. The second point is that the card in its most previous iteration would not go against the design team's philosophy of interaction in the Wild format. Hearthstone is a game with specific types of interaction, which gives a specific perception on how interactive a deck, card, combo, mechanic, or interaction can be. To efficiently interact, you need specific ways of preemptively resisting or negating what your opponent will do, in the context of dealing with combo (otherwise, interaction can be as simple as using a spell to remove an in-play creature, but in this instance we're discussing preventing OTKs). Keeping Patron Warrior's history in mind, we can make note of a couple of things: a) Warsong Commander was nerfed before the introduction of the Wild format, b) cards designed explicitly for Wild have so far not been made (at least not as a part of Standard sets), c) Patron Warrior typically requires Emperor Thaurissan to function optimally, which is mostly considered very slow for combos in Wild, and d) cards have been made since the nerfing of Warsong Commander that either preemptively interact with or simply outpace Patron Warrior. Existing cards that can collectively hinder the power of Patron Warrior include Ice Block, Evasion, Explosive Runes, Potion of Polymorph, Reno Jackson, Ironwood Golem, Thing from Below, Sludge Belcher, Twilight Guardian, Rotten Applebaum, Zilliax, Tar CreeperObsidian Statue (and several Big Priest cards), Voidlord, Mal'Ganis, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Molten Giant, Mountain Giant, Arcane Giant, Defender of Argus, Loatheb, Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Chillmaw, Tunnel Blaster, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, and Soggoth the Slitherer, and decks that would likely do well or average against Patron Warrior include Quest Mage, Big Priest, Handlock/Control Warlock, Control/Odd Warrior, Control Paladin, Odd Rogue, Taunt Druid, and certain Shudderwock Shaman builds. It's also worth noting that in regards to interactivity, many have argued that certain Wild decks have little options in regards to effective interaction, and while these complaints have been officially addressed, no solutions have so far been made, and considerable buffs and options have been given to those decks since (chiefly, I'm talking about Big Priest).
3. The third point is actually a challenge to the design team's Hall of Fame philosophy and the broader concept of the Wild format. In 2017, former Lead Producer Yong Woo spoke about their plans for Hall of Fame, stating "For us, the most important aspect of [the] Standard format is diversity. If a metagame largely consists of decks with similar cores and ideas, we'll consider making changes." (Woo's interview with invenglobal). I want to challenge that statement in an honestly sneaky way, but I believe it to be relevant. The Basic and Classic sets seem to exist with two ideas in mind that were to an extent relevant at inception and especially relevant now: to introduce a pool of cards to new players that offer some level of significance to basic deckbuilding without being abhorrently quintessential to certain decks or strategies, and to offer experienced players some deckbuilding options when theoretically superior options aren't available at the time or when there is a significant importance from what that card offers without being build-around cards themselves (Novice Engineer and Fireball being two examples; Mind Blast and Vanish being not (thus the Hall of Fame rotation)). Out of the 133 cards currently in the Basic set, many are playable and relevant both in the hands of new players and veterans, and can often be bought up in discussion as potential inclusions in competitive decks. What statistically unplayable/underplayed cards in the Basic set means is that those cards are likely inherently unusable in decks for any player regardless of their level of skill or experience. When options in the Basic set are compromised by unplayable/unused cards, those who feel it the most are the newer players. Moving back to actual design philosophy, here's another extract from that same interview with Yong Woo. When asked what to expect for the Wild format, Woo says, "We think of the Wild format as a place to play with all the cards that ever have been or will be a part of Hearthstone, so we want to support the format accordingly." This obviously should not be taken at strictly face value, because when a card is nerfed, fixed, or tweaked, it is technically no longer that original card. But what if a card's name, cost, stats, and art remain the same, but the effect changes entirely? When comparing the current and previous iterations of Warsong Commander, they're all very different, but it's quite obvious that the most previous iteration is a direct nerf from the iteration before it. However, the current iteration of Warsong Commander isn't functionally similar to the most previous iteration in any way other than the stats, and that the word Charge appears on the card. It's an entirely different card, and the previous version, a nerf from it's even earlier version, is no longer a usable card in the game, despite being a considerable part of the game's history.
4. The fourth point is an address to part of the reason why Warsong Commander/Patron Warrior was nerfed in the first place, and why a lot of cards historically got nerfed in Hearthstone: they were too tournament-meta warping, and in part with that, cards that eventually required nerfs typically limited design space in some way. Steamer TrumpHS and former Hearthstone Game Director Ben Brode cover it best. In Wild, Patron Warrior with the inclusion of Warsong Commander has enough strong counters against it that considerable tournament meta warping is unlikely aside from being great tech against decks like Odd Paladin and Murloc Shaman. In Wild, an eternal format, the issue of cards limiting design space is far less of an issue considering that the card pool in Wild is considerably larger with a greater number cards that counteract the impacts of otherwise problematic cards that may cause issues in formats that have smaller card pools, like Standard. Often times, card game designers must ban cards for the health of their game, but later find the opportunities to unban those cards once more cards have been added to the format in question. In the case of Hearthstone, bans and unbans don't exist outside of the Odd/Even effective-bans in Standard, so an unnerfing of an older card isn't something to shy away from.
5. The fifth point may be a bit ridiculous to some, but it's absolutely worth mentioning. Patron Warrior had a considerable difference in win rate based on the player's skill with the deck. Many players had remarkably low win rates with the deck, while others dominated the ladder. The deck was likely a difficult one to nerf because it heavily rewarded skilled players, rather than rewarding players for just playing it, like many decks get accused of having the issue of.
6. The final point I'd like to present has less to do with Hearthstone, and more to do with games that see updates and changes over long periods of time. I want to refer to an example from another card game, Magic: the Gathering, and a specific story from it, that I'll call The Boogeyman. I'd like you to take a break from reading, if you want, and watch a video--don't worry, you don't need to know anything about the game to enjoy the video. If you're familiar with the legend of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, you're fine, but I still recommend that video. Jace, the Mind Sculptor has a very interesting story. In Standard, a format near-identical to Hearthstone's, Jace, the Mind Sculptor dominated on all levels, and the decks playing it were consistently winning--it was metawarping. In the right hands, it often felt unbeatable, and at a point the format became significantly warped around the card that mirror matches were decided and won by the deck that specifically planned ahead to win the mirror match. It didn't win with combo, but when the pieces moved it often felt like one. One year after the release of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and its dominance over Standard, the new eternal format Modern was created, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor was immediately banned from being played in Modern. For seven years it was remembered by Modern players as overpowered, infuriating, and scary, until it was unbanned in February of 2018. People lost their minds, but as it turned out, Jace underperformed after his debut into the format. The card is played, and in some of the best decks in the format, but it seemed the legacy had outhyped the legend. A big consideration of how Warsong Commander would impact Wild is the meta; it historically had really great success against decks flooding the board with small bodies, and that isn't what's currently dominating the ladder. People are playing control, and combo, and decks oozing with value. The dominance of Jace, the Mind Sculptor over the pool of cards in MTG's Standard at the time and the relative unimpressive performance in MTG's Modern seems comparable to the potential impact Warsong Commander would have over Hearthstone's Wild when remembering only its Standard.
In closing, I quite obviously believe in a return of pre-nerf Warsong Commander to exclusively Wild, but I am very curious what others think about this topic.
This card is in the "basic" set. If you left it unnerfed, it would be more powerful than most cards in standard or wild sets which is something the devs have said time and time again they don't want to do. In wild it would make Warrior more toxic than Resurrection priest or "big priest" which gets so much hate it keeps players from touching wild format. I never want to see a card that reads "Give all your minons charge" because it just ruins the game, and makes it super unfun! Especially since it's only 3 mana, like give me a break dude! I like the position that hearthstone is getting away from OTK combo decks, they were fun for the last year and they exist now which is fine as long as their niche'. When this Heroes of Uldum set comes out, the meta will have a flood of board clears making control decks super powerful, and thus most people will play control, and if you've played the game for a long time you would know that control vs control is the most unfun garbage you can play.
They should just unnerf and HoF everything. I'm not salty about Big Priest, but you can't deny that it's powerful. Unnerfed anything would be no more powerful than how Big Priest already is and enable people to play some of their favorite decks from the past. A lot of these cards are literally seeing no play since their nerfs, so they serve no purpose sitting around in standard
Charge should not be given more possibilities of Combo, especially in Wild, where options will grow indefinitely.
You are reasoning mainly in favor of Patron Warrior, and that's ok, but Charge is Charge, and even if you limit its targets, it's dangerous.
At (3) 2/3 it would be too damn efficient for the pre-nerf effect, even the mild one, because it would be available too early. It would probably turn out in Aggro decks more than in Patron Reborn. And Wild has enough Aggro power already.
The only fair compromise i can see with the proposed unnerf is also tuning the mana to higher level, say (5). That way the effect is restricted to later stages of the game, where it belongs. Compare with Tundra Rhino.
They should just unnerf and HoF everything. I'm not salty about Big Priest, but you can't deny that it's powerful. Unnerfed anything would be no more powerful than how Big Priest already is and enable people to play some of their favorite decks from the past. A lot of these cards are literally seeing no play since their nerfs, so they serve no purpose sitting around in standard
Uhm... what about new/returning players or people with a limited amount of dust?
I personally think, that it would be a good idea to have two different versions of the Basic/Classic set for both formats - one would include the initial state of the cards, so that people would enjoy playing their old decks again, and the other would be designed accordingly to the standard environment. However I have said it before - some cards (like Warsong Commander, Charge or Starving Buzzard) should be redesigned with caution. I agree with most what OP said and I admire the time and effort they put in writing that post, but Charge is Charge and imho it would limit design space for future cards, which may support Grim Patron Warrior and return it back to its glory days or just create an entirely new (and oppressive) archtype.
I can't deny, that at the moment this may not be the case. I don't see any problematic minions with 3 or less Attack, that would create annoying combos with Warsong Commander (except [Hearthstone Card (Vicious Fledgling) Not Found] maybe). There are some mechs though and warrior is one of the 3 classes, that utilizes magnetize, so this could be considered a counter-argument (even though not a strong one). But outside of combo decks, aggressive lists like Pirate Warrior would consider playing it just because the Commander gives their early-game minions charge.
Considering that Wild will grow always more powerfull, unnerfing old problematic cards may only lead to other terrible situations.
On top of that Warsong Commander reverted back would indeed limit design space for future expansions considering its cheap cost and what a powerfull ability like Charge can do easily.
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the world, and loses his own soul?"
The nerf was massive overkill, i never understood why they didn't just have on it "Your minions with 3 or less attack have charge" when they initially nerfed it, small wording change that would stop the OTK without destroying the card.
In standard with the push from charge to rush, it's likely that warsong will now only ever have 18 possible targets (2 of which being targets of the charge spell) which isn't really enough support for such a weak card.
Also the argument of her being classic shouldn't affect the decision to unnerf and move to hall of fame as she wouldn't be classic anymore once moved to wild and so wouldn't limit design space
You could change Warsong Commander to useful minion. I would not go back to any previous iteration of it. Giving all minions charge is damn OP. Giving small minions is less OP but as mentioned above it would be quite OK if just worked on small attack minions and stop when they gain higher attack.
But generally Charge is much more oppressive and prone to being problematic than Rush.
That's why I would like to see Warsong going in this way.
It could be something like: "Your minions with 3 or less attack have Rush" or if this could be problematic than maybe something like "Your minions with Rush have +1 (or +2) attack."
If Warsong interact in some way with Rush instead of Charge he will be much more useful as there will be more and more Rush minions.
Just unnerf it and change the keyword to rush, so it fits the actual theme of warrior, is strong but not unbalanced, and lets you clear boards and create a huge berserker without killing you in the same turn (except if it was already on the board).
That would be fair.
"I'm not scared, you're scared!" - A random talking Chicken
They should just unnerf and HoF everything. I'm not salty about Big Priest, but you can't deny that it's powerful. Unnerfed anything would be no more powerful than how Big Priest already is and enable people to play some of their favorite decks from the past. A lot of these cards are literally seeing no play since their nerfs, so they serve no purpose sitting around in standard
Uhm... what about new/returning players or people with a limited amount of dust?
I personally think, that it would be a good idea to have two different versions of the Basic/Classic set for both formats - one would include the initial state of the cards, so that people would enjoy playing their old decks again, and the other would be designed accordingly to the standard environment. However I have said it before - some cards (like Warsong Commander, Charge or Starving Buzzard) should be redesigned with caution. I agree with most what OP said and I admire the time and effort they put in writing that post, but Charge is Charge and imho it would limit design space for future cards, which may support Grim Patron Warrior and return it back to its glory days or just create an entirely new (and oppressive) archtype.
I can't deny, that at the moment this may not be the case. I don't see any problematic minions with 3 or less Attack, that would create annoying combos with Warsong Commander (except Vicious Fledgling maybe). There are some mechs though and warrior is one of the 3 classes, that utilizes magnetize, so this could be considered a counter-argument (even though not a strong one). But outside of combo decks, aggressive lists like Pirate Warrior would consider playing it just because the Commander gives their early-game minions charge.
/I prefer to use a hearthpwn link, because the list is visually better. Sorry, mods./
I'm not sure what you mean regarding new players with little dust. Blizzard always prints new classic cards to replace anything they HoF and if anything, warsong commander being replaced by a halfway playable card would make warrior's basic set a lot less abysmal for f2p players
As for limiting design space, I say look towards Big Priest again. It's an amalgamation of cards that, in a balanced meta, should have limited design space all by themselves. Yet last expansion we still got Vargoth and Katerina, which pushed its power level to new heights. It would seem that they do not care about the power level of things in wild nor let wild cards that limit design space get in the way of making new cards
It's not just Big Priest either. There's mech decks making infinitly large things with with sn1p-sn4p, turn 4 voidlords, quest mages that can finish their quest as early as turn 4 and refill their hand in the same turn, standard-like rogues with patches and shark+fungalmancer. Everyone is already doing insane stuff. So what if you die on turn 7 or 8 to some kind of warsong combo? This is exactly the kind of thing that happens in wild. Mech hunters would call this lethal slow
Personally, I think bringing Patron Warrior back would at the very least put a dent in Odd Paladin's playrate, along with other aggro decks. By itself that is a good thing.
I'm just not certain about restoring it to its old form or a new one that prevents big Frothing Berserkers to gain charge too. She could have an aura that grants minions with 3 attack or less charge, instead of granting it once they are summoned.
Regardless of the change chosen, I wouldn't mind seeing Patron Warrior regaining power. I think point 5 is actually the best reason. It's been a while since Hearthstone has been populated by decks that make you feel like you lost to someone smart, or at least smarter than you.
Psst! Hey, you want to play a couple of fun (albeit pointless) gamebooks? Become a king here, and a babysitter here.
Very well-written, and I agree with most your points. I don't think they should completely unnerf it, but I had the same keyword change in mind as Thomback (your minions with 3 or less attack has charge). Alternatively, it could grant rush to all your minions. This would allow your patrons to run rampant on a small wide board, without having a 20+ attack Frothing Berserker roundhouse kick you in the teeth the same turn it was played.
I would like this idea, just change the charge to rush, so there wouldn't be an insane OTK. As the person above stated it would be an excelent counter to Odd pally(or token druid), and still could be countered by strong control deck(Hellfire one-shot them, sadly big priest would demolish it, and Flamestrike is still there). So it's a good idea. I always wanted to try a complete, old-school patron warrior.
A very good post here. However, I'm not sure it convinced me.
Charge is a very dangerous mechanic to involve in the game. That was the core issue behind Warsong Commander
The first point is correct in that there's nothing stopping them from doing this change as other cards have been changed in the same way. Thus the question isn't 'can' but 'should'.
As far as the second point, I'm not quite so willing to state that there's enough solutions for old Patron. Many of those choices you stated either had already proven not good enough (mal'ganis.. seriously?) or are far too weak to even stand to any meta (no one is going to play Soggoth for any reason). You can't just say "there's taunt, so it'll be fine." It has to be in a strong deck, and it has to be in a deck that can stabnd up to the rest of the meta as well. Making a deck that can ONLY beat Patron and nothing else isn't going to be viable enough of an answer.
I'm not a Wild player, so I have to ask here, of all of those decks you bring up, including Control Paladin, Quest Mage, and Handlock, which are actually doing well in the meta right now? THOSE are the ones that will have to fight Patron Warrior after all. Handlock beating Patron won't mean much if Handlock can't survive, say, Big Priest.
Lastly, the last sidepoint, the issue of Wild having little interaction is a point against Patron. If decks that offer very little interaction is a problem in Wild, adding another deck that is VERY uninteractive, like Patron, is adding a problem to a problem.
Note that Blizzard has said that they are looking into addressing Big priest which suggests that such decks are NOT acceptable in the long-term in Wild. Which, again, puts Patron in question.
On the third point... what ARE you getting at here?
You talk about the usability of cards in the basic and classic set. However, are you aware that the current team is actively TRYING to make the sets less used? The entire point to the HoF is to make the sets less playable so that the meta becomes less stagnant. We don't HoF bad cards. We HoF good ones. Thus the usability of Warsong isn't an issue as it's already underplayed. If we move it, we won't replace it with something more usable. Thus Warsong isn't harming the new player experience in a way that Blizzard isn't intending since it being a bad card doesn't make it any worse than, say, Radiance.
Also note that Yong Woo's philosophy no longer applies here. The current Hearthstone team has been pretty aggressive with ditching many of the old ideas from the old team, meaning they are not holding themselves to anything that was said by people like Woo or Brode. Wild has unnerfed cards, but also kept cards in their nerfed state (combo druid is still not an option).
On the fourth point while it is truth that design limiters isn't an issue, decks that limit the meta ARE issues. It's why they nerfed Raza priest after all. Meanwhile I don't think you established your first point enough to leave it an assumption that there's enough counters for Patron Warrior. You also aren't considering possible interactions due to the new cards. For example, the key cards in Patron are all odd, making them viable as a Baku deck. Warrior also has a lot more ways to self-damage their cards, making it easier to make a patron board, and ways to put cards back in their deck, which is something they didn't have in the past.
So not only are we not sure that the current decks are strong enough against Old Patron, but we won't be facing the old deck, but a NEW deck using 4 years of cards build under the assumption that Warsong doesn't exist.
That's not even GETTING at the unknown factor and the grand reason why Warsong, and not Patron, was nerfed. The issue wasn't just Patron being Patron but that Warsong would interact with ANYTHING 3 attack or less. Thus nerfing just Ptaron still left a potential nightmare ready to blow later on.
So have you looked at the 4 years of cards made afterwards that would LOVE to have charge? What decks will be made that are NOT Patron but be much worse.
On the fifth point... this was talked about by Frodan in a tournament at one point but it sort of hit me in an interesting way.
Patron wasn't as skill-intensive as we remember it being.
In 2015, the deck was literally playing 3d chess compared to the aggro-loving meta then, and there are some high end choices to be made. But compared to the decks pros play now and the meta....not so much. The #1 biggest factor that caused people to lose in the past was the mathmatics of the final swing:having to figure out whether you have lethal while giving yourself enough time to start the combo. It was the first deck to ever have that issue. We've had A LOT of decks that have demanded such things since then, many of which demand it just for board clears.
Decks have long since moved away from 'do me face' of those days. They are A LOT more difficult to manage, not only including the raw math calculations of Patron, but also the ability to adapt to unknown cards, the need to decide whether to go offensive, defensive, or value oriented. Compared to the current crop of decks, Patron is MUCH easier to manage, but MUCH more devastating as Patron's big calculation is "do you die now."
Patron was the start of complicated, deeper thinking decks in hearthstone. But we've moved on to much better worlds since then.
The final point is really the first point addressed again: that the deck isn't as powerful as what we have now, except you are using Jace to show an example of it happening.
But again we don't know. And that WOULD be fine except that Blizzard still hasn't shown enough speed of making changes to Wild in case this isn't a Jace situation. We've seen one card change utterly gut the Wild meta. This can easily be as much a Sea Witch or a Jace. Is Blizzard willing to fix things if it turns into the former? Is reviving Patron really that needed when it's FAR from the only deck of our past that we can't return to. I can't play Raza Priest. I can't play Miracle Rogue like I used to. I can't play Undertaker Hunter. I can't play Beta Murloc Warlock or 2014 Midrange Hunter.
The concept of preserving history using Wild is already a ship that sailed. Bringing back Patron alone for that reason is arbitrary and extremely risky. If Blizzard is willing to try to bring as many of the old decks back into Wild or some other format, with the williness to rapid release changes if things turn south then I'm for it.
As we stand now, with how they are acting now, I'm not convinced that Patron can't sit in the same afterlife that Combo Druid and Yogg Druid currently sit.
Why trade with minions when you can face for...billions?
Oh 1 more thing to add this discussion, I mean 1 more thing that Warsong Commander needs to be unnerfed or changed again is There is not any support to Charge keyword anymore.
Charge keyword is simply replaced with Rush that means Warsong Commander won't get any support anymore.
It needs to unnerf and move to wild like Mind Blast and Vanish or need to be redesigned. I don't think there is a reason to hold it like that forever in the standard because it will be always a dead card without any new charge minions.
There are 3 options which blizzard should reconsider for Warsong Commander;
Producing new minions with charge
Unnerfing it and moving it to the HoF set
Redisgning the card again with something different
I'm going to begin with making the assumption that there are a considerable amount of new players to Hearthstone who won't know what I'm talking about if I don't otherwise explain some HS history, so I'll start there. If you're already familiar with the history of this card, feel free to skip ahead.
Warsong Commander has a pretty significant history, though to a newer player, it probably wouldn't seem like it. That's because the current Warsong Commander is an entirely different card than that which was a crucial part in one of the most iconic decks of Hearthstone's history. In the very early days of Hearthstone, Warsong Commander looked like this:
This was actually after a very early buff to the card, in which it was given +1 Health. The issue with this card at the time was probably as obvious as it is now. This version of Warsong Commander caused games in which players had to be cautious of dealing damage to enemy Warriors, because at a certain point they would be able to play Warsong Commander, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, Youthful Brewmaster, Youthful Brewmaster, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, and often deal well over 30 damage. Keep in mind, this is during a time in the game in which giants were 10/10s and playing Warsong Commander into Boulderfist Ogre or Chillwind Yeti was among one of the strongest things you could do. So, the card was problematic. And it was rightfully nerfed, to this version:
This nerf was seen as extremely oppressive to the card, though all-in-all it was a pretty fair one. It was still obviously combo-able with Frothing Berserker and Raging Worgen to get potential lethals with Whirlwind and Inner Rage type effects, but it wasn't a very successful or popular deck; the burst the deck required just wasn't high enough. In 2014, Blackrock Mountain was released, and decks like Freeze Mage, Handlock, and fringe Dragon decks rose in popularity. Mech Mage, Oil Rogue, Face Hunter, Midrange Druid, Midrange Paladin, and Zoo Warlock were among the top tiered decks. From early on, it was apparent that what would become known as Patron Warrior would rise in popularity: "The fix to Warsong Commander* and the introduction of Emperor [Thaurissan] means we will be seeing a lot more huge Warrior combos using Frothing [Berserker], Raging Worgen, and now Grim Patron." (Tempo Storm Meta Snapshot #12)
* - Warsong Commander previously had an issue in which "token" minions, ie. minions from any source other than their own card, wouldn't gain Charge. Additionally, minions with 3-or-less Attack that gained additional Attack (giving them 4 or more) from their Battlecry would not gain Charge, circumventing how effect triggers are supposed to stack.
The additions of Grim Patron and Emperor Thaurissan gave tremendous support to the previously fringe Combo Warrior archetype, and the meta was well suited for Patron Warrior to take off. Decks running small, persistent minions like Haunted Creeper were regularly top tier, and Patron Warrior proved efficient at dealing with small-stats-but-very-wide boards, and these board states grew the power level of eventual Patron combo turns. Additionally, Patrons were impressively stable at dealing with the most powerful minion in the history of the game at that time, Dr. Boom, and nothing stopped Patron Warrior from just also running Boom. If you can sometimes beat 'em, who says you still can't play 'em? Patron Warrior became the anti-aggro police deck on ladder, effectively countering what most of all decks were doing.
Following Blackrock Mountain was The Grand Tournament, which did three major things worth noting. First, it offered Patron Warrior almost nothing (Bash would see play in Control Warrior, and Alexstrasza's Champion would see play in Dragon Warrior). However, all Warriors got one of the most crucial cards in the history of Warrior deckbuilding: Justicar Trueheart, who would immediately see play in most slower Warrior decks, inevitably being played in certain Patron builds slightly longer down the road. The second thing TGT did was introduce Mysterious Challenger, Murloc Knight, and Competitive Spirit. This gave the already solid Midrange Paladin the new name Secret Paladin, and it quickly became one of the best decks in the game. Lastly, it gave legs to the big breakout deck of the set, Dragon Priest, with the cards [Hearthstone Card (Wymrest Agent) Not Found], Twilight Guardian, and Chillmaw. However, these decks had no real way of stopping Patron Warrior in the hands of a knowledgeable player, because their few answers weren't enough to outnumber Warrior's removal package, and Patron remained king for several months.
Then, in October of 2015, Warsong Commander was nerfed a final time, and in the following months, it sunk further and further in popularity, until it was essentially a joke. The card read as it now does:
The card was regarded to have such a significant fall from grace that it spawned a lot of both grief and jokes from the community. The card became effectively useless and went from one of the most played cards in the game to one of the least. Only one month later, League of Explorers was released, and became regarded by many as one of the best Hearthstone sets ever. It gave support to the already solid Aggro Shaman, created an entirely new combo deck in Murloc Paladin, gave Priest great control tools in Entomb and Excavated Evil, blew people away with the incredibly efficient Tomb Pillager, birthed entire new archetypes with Sir Finley Mrrgglton, Brann Bronzebeard, Elise Starseeker, and Reno Jackson, and gave Warriors Cursed Blade, which was regarded mostly as a joke. Regardless, everyone was pretty happy with the set, as aggro, control, and combo decks all had support. And furthermore, the following set, Whispers of the Old Gods, completely transformed the game, both by introducing a massive number of archetypes, and by introducing the Wild/Standard formats. This upset a number of Patron players who thought the Wild format would have made a good home for Patron Warrior--others, however, believed Patron Warrior would simply dominate the format forever, and in hindsight there's certainly validity to both of those opinions at the time.
The Discussion in 2019
There are four major points I'd like to present as the primary reasons for which Warsong Commander should be changed yet again. Here's a little more backstory: in early 2017, massive issues with the Classic set were recognized when a number of cards from the set were frequent offenders in powerful decks (or regarded as improper to have in Standard). Ten cards (Conceal, Ice Lance, Power Overwhelming, Azure Drake, Captain's Parrot, Gelbin Mekkatorque, Elite Tauren Chieftain, Old Murk-Eye, Ragnaros the Firelord, and Sylvanas Windrunner) were removed from the Classic set and put into a new, Wild-only set, known as Hall of Fame. A year later, three additional cards (Coldlight Oracle, Ice Block, and Molten Giant) were moved from Classic to Hall of Fame. Molten Giant marked the first card to be unnerfed during this transition, with its cost dropping from a nerfed 25 back down to a pre-nerf 20. In 2019, an additional three cards from the Classic set were moved to the Hall of Fame (Naturalize, Divine Favor, and Doomguard). Again in 2019, an additional two cards were moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame, however, this time it was from the Basic set (Mind Blast and Vanish). A number of cards were added to Basic and Classic to replace some holes in the set caused by these changes.
1. The first point is, considering that now both a) cards have been unnerfed when being moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame and b) cards from the Basic set have been moved to Hall of Fame, there's no practical reason restricting Blizzard from making the decision of reverting Warsong Commander to it's text "Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge." and moving it from Basic to Hall of Fame. In other words, it is not a decision that would go against their previous conduct.
2. The second point is that the card in its most previous iteration would not go against the design team's philosophy of interaction in the Wild format. Hearthstone is a game with specific types of interaction, which gives a specific perception on how interactive a deck, card, combo, mechanic, or interaction can be. To efficiently interact, you need specific ways of preemptively resisting or negating what your opponent will do, in the context of dealing with combo (otherwise, interaction can be as simple as using a spell to remove an in-play creature, but in this instance we're discussing preventing OTKs). Keeping Patron Warrior's history in mind, we can make note of a couple of things: a) Warsong Commander was nerfed before the introduction of the Wild format, b) cards designed explicitly for Wild have so far not been made (at least not as a part of Standard sets), c) Patron Warrior typically requires Emperor Thaurissan to function optimally, which is mostly considered very slow for combos in Wild, and d) cards have been made since the nerfing of Warsong Commander that either preemptively interact with or simply outpace Patron Warrior. Existing cards that can collectively hinder the power of Patron Warrior include Ice Block, Evasion, Explosive Runes, Potion of Polymorph, Reno Jackson, Ironwood Golem, Thing from Below, Sludge Belcher, Twilight Guardian, Rotten Applebaum, Zilliax, Tar Creeper Obsidian Statue (and several Big Priest cards), Voidlord, Mal'Ganis, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Molten Giant, Mountain Giant, Arcane Giant, Defender of Argus, Loatheb, Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Chillmaw, Tunnel Blaster, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, and Soggoth the Slitherer, and decks that would likely do well or average against Patron Warrior include Quest Mage, Big Priest, Handlock/Control Warlock, Control/Odd Warrior, Control Paladin, Odd Rogue, Taunt Druid, and certain Shudderwock Shaman builds. It's also worth noting that in regards to interactivity, many have argued that certain Wild decks have little options in regards to effective interaction, and while these complaints have been officially addressed, no solutions have so far been made, and considerable buffs and options have been given to those decks since (chiefly, I'm talking about Big Priest).
3. The third point is actually a challenge to the design team's Hall of Fame philosophy and the broader concept of the Wild format. In 2017, former Lead Producer Yong Woo spoke about their plans for Hall of Fame, stating "For us, the most important aspect of [the] Standard format is diversity. If a metagame largely consists of decks with similar cores and ideas, we'll consider making changes." (Woo's interview with invenglobal). I want to challenge that statement in an honestly sneaky way, but I believe it to be relevant. The Basic and Classic sets seem to exist with two ideas in mind that were to an extent relevant at inception and especially relevant now: to introduce a pool of cards to new players that offer some level of significance to basic deckbuilding without being abhorrently quintessential to certain decks or strategies, and to offer experienced players some deckbuilding options when theoretically superior options aren't available at the time or when there is a significant importance from what that card offers without being build-around cards themselves (Novice Engineer and Fireball being two examples; Mind Blast and Vanish being not (thus the Hall of Fame rotation)). Out of the 133 cards currently in the Basic set, many are playable and relevant both in the hands of new players and veterans, and can often be bought up in discussion as potential inclusions in competitive decks. What statistically unplayable/underplayed cards in the Basic set means is that those cards are likely inherently unusable in decks for any player regardless of their level of skill or experience. When options in the Basic set are compromised by unplayable/unused cards, those who feel it the most are the newer players. Moving back to actual design philosophy, here's another extract from that same interview with Yong Woo. When asked what to expect for the Wild format, Woo says, "We think of the Wild format as a place to play with all the cards that ever have been or will be a part of Hearthstone, so we want to support the format accordingly." This obviously should not be taken at strictly face value, because when a card is nerfed, fixed, or tweaked, it is technically no longer that original card. But what if a card's name, cost, stats, and art remain the same, but the effect changes entirely? When comparing the current and previous iterations of Warsong Commander, they're all very different, but it's quite obvious that the most previous iteration is a direct nerf from the iteration before it. However, the current iteration of Warsong Commander isn't functionally similar to the most previous iteration in any way other than the stats, and that the word Charge appears on the card. It's an entirely different card, and the previous version, a nerf from it's even earlier version, is no longer a usable card in the game, despite being a considerable part of the game's history.
4. The fourth point is an address to part of the reason why Warsong Commander/Patron Warrior was nerfed in the first place, and why a lot of cards historically got nerfed in Hearthstone: they were too tournament-meta warping, and in part with that, cards that eventually required nerfs typically limited design space in some way. Steamer TrumpHS and former Hearthstone Game Director Ben Brode cover it best. In Wild, Patron Warrior with the inclusion of Warsong Commander has enough strong counters against it that considerable tournament meta warping is unlikely aside from being great tech against decks like Odd Paladin and Murloc Shaman. In Wild, an eternal format, the issue of cards limiting design space is far less of an issue considering that the card pool in Wild is considerably larger with a greater number cards that counteract the impacts of otherwise problematic cards that may cause issues in formats that have smaller card pools, like Standard. Often times, card game designers must ban cards for the health of their game, but later find the opportunities to unban those cards once more cards have been added to the format in question. In the case of Hearthstone, bans and unbans don't exist outside of the Odd/Even effective-bans in Standard, so an unnerfing of an older card isn't something to shy away from.
5. The fifth point may be a bit ridiculous to some, but it's absolutely worth mentioning. Patron Warrior had a considerable difference in win rate based on the player's skill with the deck. Many players had remarkably low win rates with the deck, while others dominated the ladder. The deck was likely a difficult one to nerf because it heavily rewarded skilled players, rather than rewarding players for just playing it, like many decks get accused of having the issue of.
6. The final point I'd like to present has less to do with Hearthstone, and more to do with games that see updates and changes over long periods of time. I want to refer to an example from another card game, Magic: the Gathering, and a specific story from it, that I'll call The Boogeyman. I'd like you to take a break from reading, if you want, and watch a video--don't worry, you don't need to know anything about the game to enjoy the video. If you're familiar with the legend of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, you're fine, but I still recommend that video. Jace, the Mind Sculptor has a very interesting story. In Standard, a format near-identical to Hearthstone's, Jace, the Mind Sculptor dominated on all levels, and the decks playing it were consistently winning--it was metawarping. In the right hands, it often felt unbeatable, and at a point the format became significantly warped around the card that mirror matches were decided and won by the deck that specifically planned ahead to win the mirror match. It didn't win with combo, but when the pieces moved it often felt like one. One year after the release of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and its dominance over Standard, the new eternal format Modern was created, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor was immediately banned from being played in Modern. For seven years it was remembered by Modern players as overpowered, infuriating, and scary, until it was unbanned in February of 2018. People lost their minds, but as it turned out, Jace underperformed after his debut into the format. The card is played, and in some of the best decks in the format, but it seemed the legacy had outhyped the legend. A big consideration of how Warsong Commander would impact Wild is the meta; it historically had really great success against decks flooding the board with small bodies, and that isn't what's currently dominating the ladder. People are playing control, and combo, and decks oozing with value. The dominance of Jace, the Mind Sculptor over the pool of cards in MTG's Standard at the time and the relative unimpressive performance in MTG's Modern seems comparable to the potential impact Warsong Commander would have over Hearthstone's Wild when remembering only its Standard.
In closing, I quite obviously believe in a return of pre-nerf Warsong Commander to exclusively Wild, but I am very curious what others think about this topic.
Some Nostalgia
Gotta Agree with most points here. Also the team is moving away from charge minions, so warsong commander wont get future support for standar.
Lemushki - The one and only since the 2006 rebranding.
This card is in the "basic" set. If you left it unnerfed, it would be more powerful than most cards in standard or wild sets which is something the devs have said time and time again they don't want to do. In wild it would make Warrior more toxic than Resurrection priest or "big priest" which gets so much hate it keeps players from touching wild format. I never want to see a card that reads "Give all your minons charge" because it just ruins the game, and makes it super unfun! Especially since it's only 3 mana, like give me a break dude! I like the position that hearthstone is getting away from OTK combo decks, they were fun for the last year and they exist now which is fine as long as their niche'. When this Heroes of Uldum set comes out, the meta will have a flood of board clears making control decks super powerful, and thus most people will play control, and if you've played the game for a long time you would know that control vs control is the most unfun garbage you can play.
/thread
They should just unnerf and HoF everything. I'm not salty about Big Priest, but you can't deny that it's powerful. Unnerfed anything would be no more powerful than how Big Priest already is and enable people to play some of their favorite decks from the past. A lot of these cards are literally seeing no play since their nerfs, so they serve no purpose sitting around in standard
Charge should not be given more possibilities of Combo, especially in Wild, where options will grow indefinitely.
You are reasoning mainly in favor of Patron Warrior, and that's ok, but Charge is Charge, and even if you limit its targets, it's dangerous.
At (3) 2/3 it would be too damn efficient for the pre-nerf effect, even the mild one, because it would be available too early. It would probably turn out in Aggro decks more than in Patron Reborn. And Wild has enough Aggro power already.
The only fair compromise i can see with the proposed unnerf is also tuning the mana to higher level, say (5). That way the effect is restricted to later stages of the game, where it belongs. Compare with Tundra Rhino.
Warsong Commander is good just where it is.
The end of days is coming. Doomsayer was right all along.
Intriguing read, thank you! I really would like to see the deck in action once.
Uhm... what about new/returning players or people with a limited amount of dust?
I personally think, that it would be a good idea to have two different versions of the Basic/Classic set for both formats - one would include the initial state of the cards, so that people would enjoy playing their old decks again, and the other would be designed accordingly to the standard environment. However I have said it before - some cards (like Warsong Commander, Charge or Starving Buzzard) should be redesigned with caution. I agree with most what OP said and I admire the time and effort they put in writing that post, but Charge is Charge and imho it would limit design space for future cards, which may support Grim Patron Warrior and return it back to its glory days or just create an entirely new (and oppressive) archtype.
I can't deny, that at the moment this may not be the case. I don't see any problematic minions with 3 or less Attack, that would create annoying combos with Warsong Commander (except [Hearthstone Card (Vicious Fledgling) Not Found] maybe). There are some mechs though and warrior is one of the 3 classes, that utilizes magnetize, so this could be considered a counter-argument (even though not a strong one). But outside of combo decks, aggressive lists like Pirate Warrior would consider playing it just because the Commander gives their early-game minions charge.
https://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/minion?display=3&filter-attack-op=5&filter-attack-val=3&filter-class=1025&filter-premium=1
/I prefer to use a hearthpwn link, because the list is visually better. Sorry, mods./
Considering that Wild will grow always more powerfull, unnerfing old problematic cards may only lead to other terrible situations.
On top of that Warsong Commander reverted back would indeed limit design space for future expansions considering its cheap cost and what a powerfull ability like Charge can do easily.
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the world, and loses his own soul?"
No thanks.
The nerf was massive overkill, i never understood why they didn't just have on it "Your minions with 3 or less attack have charge" when they initially nerfed it, small wording change that would stop the OTK without destroying the card.
In standard with the push from charge to rush, it's likely that warsong will now only ever have 18 possible targets (2 of which being targets of the charge spell) which isn't really enough support for such a weak card.
Also the argument of her being classic shouldn't affect the decision to unnerf and move to hall of fame as she wouldn't be classic anymore once moved to wild and so wouldn't limit design space
You could change Warsong Commander to useful minion. I would not go back to any previous iteration of it. Giving all minions charge is damn OP. Giving small minions is less OP but as mentioned above it would be quite OK if just worked on small attack minions and stop when they gain higher attack.
But generally Charge is much more oppressive and prone to being problematic than Rush.
That's why I would like to see Warsong going in this way.
It could be something like: "Your minions with 3 or less attack have Rush" or if this could be problematic than maybe something like "Your minions with Rush have +1 (or +2) attack."
If Warsong interact in some way with Rush instead of Charge he will be much more useful as there will be more and more Rush minions.
not Warsong Commander
They should unnerf Tinkmaster Overspark
Just unnerf it and change the keyword to rush, so it fits the actual theme of warrior, is strong but not unbalanced, and lets you clear boards and create a huge berserker without killing you in the same turn (except if it was already on the board).
That would be fair.
"I'm not scared, you're scared!" - A random talking Chicken
I'm not sure what you mean regarding new players with little dust. Blizzard always prints new classic cards to replace anything they HoF and if anything, warsong commander being replaced by a halfway playable card would make warrior's basic set a lot less abysmal for f2p players
As for limiting design space, I say look towards Big Priest again. It's an amalgamation of cards that, in a balanced meta, should have limited design space all by themselves. Yet last expansion we still got Vargoth and Katerina, which pushed its power level to new heights. It would seem that they do not care about the power level of things in wild nor let wild cards that limit design space get in the way of making new cards
It's not just Big Priest either. There's mech decks making infinitly large things with with sn1p-sn4p, turn 4 voidlords, quest mages that can finish their quest as early as turn 4 and refill their hand in the same turn, standard-like rogues with patches and shark+fungalmancer. Everyone is already doing insane stuff. So what if you die on turn 7 or 8 to some kind of warsong combo? This is exactly the kind of thing that happens in wild. Mech hunters would call this lethal slow
Personally, I think bringing Patron Warrior back would at the very least put a dent in Odd Paladin's playrate, along with other aggro decks. By itself that is a good thing.
I'm just not certain about restoring it to its old form or a new one that prevents big Frothing Berserkers to gain charge too. She could have an aura that grants minions with 3 attack or less charge, instead of granting it once they are summoned.
Regardless of the change chosen, I wouldn't mind seeing Patron Warrior regaining power. I think point 5 is actually the best reason. It's been a while since Hearthstone has been populated by decks that make you feel like you lost to someone smart, or at least smarter than you.
Psst! Hey, you want to play a couple of fun (albeit pointless) gamebooks? Become a king here, and a babysitter here.
Very well-written, and I agree with most your points. I don't think they should completely unnerf it, but I had the same keyword change in mind as Thomback (your minions with 3 or less attack has charge). Alternatively, it could grant rush to all your minions. This would allow your patrons to run rampant on a small wide board, without having a 20+ attack Frothing Berserker roundhouse kick you in the teeth the same turn it was played.
But as I said, very well-written.
I would like this idea, just change the charge to rush, so there wouldn't be an insane OTK. As the person above stated it would be an excelent counter to Odd pally(or token druid), and still could be countered by strong control deck(Hellfire one-shot them, sadly big priest would demolish it, and Flamestrike is still there). So it's a good idea. I always wanted to try a complete, old-school patron warrior.
A very good post here. However, I'm not sure it convinced me.
Charge is a very dangerous mechanic to involve in the game. That was the core issue behind Warsong Commander
The first point is correct in that there's nothing stopping them from doing this change as other cards have been changed in the same way. Thus the question isn't 'can' but 'should'.
As far as the second point, I'm not quite so willing to state that there's enough solutions for old Patron. Many of those choices you stated either had already proven not good enough (mal'ganis.. seriously?) or are far too weak to even stand to any meta (no one is going to play Soggoth for any reason). You can't just say "there's taunt, so it'll be fine." It has to be in a strong deck, and it has to be in a deck that can stabnd up to the rest of the meta as well. Making a deck that can ONLY beat Patron and nothing else isn't going to be viable enough of an answer.
I'm not a Wild player, so I have to ask here, of all of those decks you bring up, including Control Paladin, Quest Mage, and Handlock, which are actually doing well in the meta right now? THOSE are the ones that will have to fight Patron Warrior after all. Handlock beating Patron won't mean much if Handlock can't survive, say, Big Priest.
Lastly, the last sidepoint, the issue of Wild having little interaction is a point against Patron. If decks that offer very little interaction is a problem in Wild, adding another deck that is VERY uninteractive, like Patron, is adding a problem to a problem.
Note that Blizzard has said that they are looking into addressing Big priest which suggests that such decks are NOT acceptable in the long-term in Wild. Which, again, puts Patron in question.
On the third point... what ARE you getting at here?
You talk about the usability of cards in the basic and classic set. However, are you aware that the current team is actively TRYING to make the sets less used? The entire point to the HoF is to make the sets less playable so that the meta becomes less stagnant. We don't HoF bad cards. We HoF good ones. Thus the usability of Warsong isn't an issue as it's already underplayed. If we move it, we won't replace it with something more usable. Thus Warsong isn't harming the new player experience in a way that Blizzard isn't intending since it being a bad card doesn't make it any worse than, say, Radiance.
Also note that Yong Woo's philosophy no longer applies here. The current Hearthstone team has been pretty aggressive with ditching many of the old ideas from the old team, meaning they are not holding themselves to anything that was said by people like Woo or Brode. Wild has unnerfed cards, but also kept cards in their nerfed state (combo druid is still not an option).
On the fourth point while it is truth that design limiters isn't an issue, decks that limit the meta ARE issues. It's why they nerfed Raza priest after all. Meanwhile I don't think you established your first point enough to leave it an assumption that there's enough counters for Patron Warrior. You also aren't considering possible interactions due to the new cards. For example, the key cards in Patron are all odd, making them viable as a Baku deck. Warrior also has a lot more ways to self-damage their cards, making it easier to make a patron board, and ways to put cards back in their deck, which is something they didn't have in the past.
So not only are we not sure that the current decks are strong enough against Old Patron, but we won't be facing the old deck, but a NEW deck using 4 years of cards build under the assumption that Warsong doesn't exist.
That's not even GETTING at the unknown factor and the grand reason why Warsong, and not Patron, was nerfed. The issue wasn't just Patron being Patron but that Warsong would interact with ANYTHING 3 attack or less. Thus nerfing just Ptaron still left a potential nightmare ready to blow later on.
So have you looked at the 4 years of cards made afterwards that would LOVE to have charge? What decks will be made that are NOT Patron but be much worse.
On the fifth point... this was talked about by Frodan in a tournament at one point but it sort of hit me in an interesting way.
Patron wasn't as skill-intensive as we remember it being.
In 2015, the deck was literally playing 3d chess compared to the aggro-loving meta then, and there are some high end choices to be made. But compared to the decks pros play now and the meta....not so much. The #1 biggest factor that caused people to lose in the past was the mathmatics of the final swing:having to figure out whether you have lethal while giving yourself enough time to start the combo. It was the first deck to ever have that issue. We've had A LOT of decks that have demanded such things since then, many of which demand it just for board clears.
Decks have long since moved away from 'do me face' of those days. They are A LOT more difficult to manage, not only including the raw math calculations of Patron, but also the ability to adapt to unknown cards, the need to decide whether to go offensive, defensive, or value oriented. Compared to the current crop of decks, Patron is MUCH easier to manage, but MUCH more devastating as Patron's big calculation is "do you die now."
Patron was the start of complicated, deeper thinking decks in hearthstone. But we've moved on to much better worlds since then.
The final point is really the first point addressed again: that the deck isn't as powerful as what we have now, except you are using Jace to show an example of it happening.
But again we don't know. And that WOULD be fine except that Blizzard still hasn't shown enough speed of making changes to Wild in case this isn't a Jace situation. We've seen one card change utterly gut the Wild meta. This can easily be as much a Sea Witch or a Jace. Is Blizzard willing to fix things if it turns into the former? Is reviving Patron really that needed when it's FAR from the only deck of our past that we can't return to. I can't play Raza Priest. I can't play Miracle Rogue like I used to. I can't play Undertaker Hunter. I can't play Beta Murloc Warlock or 2014 Midrange Hunter.
The concept of preserving history using Wild is already a ship that sailed. Bringing back Patron alone for that reason is arbitrary and extremely risky. If Blizzard is willing to try to bring as many of the old decks back into Wild or some other format, with the williness to rapid release changes if things turn south then I'm for it.
As we stand now, with how they are acting now, I'm not convinced that Patron can't sit in the same afterlife that Combo Druid and Yogg Druid currently sit.
Why trade with minions when you can face for...billions?
Oh 1 more thing to add this discussion, I mean 1 more thing that Warsong Commander needs to be unnerfed or changed again is There is not any support to Charge keyword anymore.
Charge keyword is simply replaced with Rush that means Warsong Commander won't get any support anymore.
It needs to unnerf and move to wild like Mind Blast and Vanish or need to be redesigned. I don't think there is a reason to hold it like that forever in the standard because it will be always a dead card without any new charge minions.
There are 3 options which blizzard should reconsider for Warsong Commander;