I have always felt Secret Passage should work more like Plot Twist, pseudo-drawing the same number of cards as you already have in hand. That way it is strongest when you least need it, balancing it out somewhat.
Even so, I do find it facetious when people call it "1 mana draw 4" because there are several strings attached to that description. It only equates to exactly that when you have nothing else in hand when you play it (since you won't be able to play those cards that turn), and you have enough mana to play the 4 cards Secret Passage gives you. You can spam Pot of Greed on turn 1 for completely free 2 cards, but doing the same with Secret Passage will achieve absolutely nothing unless you were hoping for a Backstab.
As for Self-Sharpening Sword: it's a slow weapon, and solid weapon removal always exists, so it is easily countered. There is therefore much less reason to nerf it.
Tickatus Warlock was prevalent after the Boggspine Knuckles nerf, when the meta was still settling. It's all but disappeared in higher ranks now as other decks have risen up to beat it back down. It's not very good.
It's annoying to play against, yes, but I don't think a card that's in a tier 3 deck should be nerfed, unless players eventually find a broken combo with this that lets it burn your entire deck before turn 10. If I had to nerf it though, I'd reduce the number of burned cards to 3. That would really worsen the card, though.
Ultimately, a game is designed to make money out of people's enjoyment, and any card that seriously hampers that should be looked at.
Most cards/decks that people hate are only really hated because they are top tier and we have to play against them over and over again. It takes a really awful design to be tier 3 and still generate this much hate. That makes it just a fundamentally unfun card, and cards have been nerfed for that in the past.
While there are certainly people who love the card (it is more accurate to describe it as polarising than hated), it is such a selfish enjoyment that I cannot really accept that as a reason to leave it as it is. And I don't mean its selfish in the sense that you want to win the game - every card is aimed at doing that - I mean its selfish in that you are actively denying the opponent the chance to play the deck they made. Nobody queues into ladder without the express intention of playing the cards they put in their deck. Some disruption is fine, decks can work around that, but burning 2x5 cards is way too much to compensate for. It's the HS equivalent of a bully taking a kid's lunch and throwing it in the bin. Nobody thinks the bully is in the right there, even if they did have fun doing it.
I dont play WoW. Why is she so popular again? And why all the hate?
The extent I know of Voss is that she used to be human then revived as a forsaken, which drove her mad. Thats about it.
(Sorry to muscle in on Goliath's thread, but since there's a degree of opinion over lore on this one, I thought it might be good to get multiple answers.)
Voss is really just a normal forsaken that goes through a lot of the same things most forsaken do: confusion, anger, rejection etc. What sets her apart is really just:
She's a highly skilled rogue who has done several notable things in her undeath (e.g. dealing the Scarlet Crusade, Scholomance, and being one of the Uncrowned);
She happened to be a character used in WoW to actually tell the 'normal' forsaken story, and hence she's a bit like a focal point of sympathy towards forsaken.
I personally like her character a lot because it is so normal. In a world full of super powerful heroes and villains, it's good to have a few prominent characters that are more relatable.
Of course that means she's a bad candidate for being a leader, and the WoW writers have wisely made her not even want the job. Calia is arguably a terrible forsaken leader too as she came out of nowhere and doesn't really know what it is to be forsaken due to the very different circumstances of her undeath. I know a lot of Horde players don't want her suddenly appearing and taking that role, especially as she has stronger ties to the Alliance than the Horde.
Really, the failure here is not in Lilian or Calia's characters, but in the lack of prominent forsaken characters. There simply aren't any that have the right experiences to fill the role once Sylvanas and Nathanos left.
With the game board being a 50/50 split between 'nice' school upstairs and the dark Scholomance proper, and class legendaries also seeming to be a 50/50 split between dual-class and mono-class, I would guess all the dual-class leg.s are new HS characters (or in any case I don't personally know enough teachers in Warcraft lore to know who to hope for), while the mono-class leg.s are the dungeon bosses.
Of the dungeon bosses, the only one I know an obvious class association with is Lilian Voss, and I'd be happy to see her make a return. Otherwise, I am down with whichever of these the can fit neatly into HS. To be honest I was surprised to see Rattlegore with the whole skeleton censorship in China which they could easily have avoided by not using the skeleton boss (which is why I assumed Lord Marrowgar was skipped in KotFT).
Regarding some of these being a bit too dark for HS, I would argue Scholomance itself is a bit too dark for HS. If they can turn one of the darkest parts of Warcraft lore into a school of witchcraft and wizardry, I wouldn't think individual characters are immune to being re-painted in bright HS colours.
I am really curious what they will do since I think it's not just a single card or two, it's almost all of them that are problematic, so to get a balanced outcome seems almost impossible. Changing one or two will not have any effect, while changing all of them might kill the class.
They don't need to nerf every powerful card. Every class has a bunch of over-tuned cards and that's fine; they are the reason to play those classes after all. They just need to make sure no single archetype has too many working towards the same goal, which is where shaman is right now.
Assuming the changes are significant enough, hitting 2 or 3 will probably bring the number of over-tuned cards in line with what other classes have, which is ultimately the aim.
Sure, it's possible to come up with a set of battlecries which would constitute an OTK, but until those cards exist that's not the way Corrupt the Waters is being played. I think the manacost is pretty prohibitive in that regard. For comparison, Brann's been around in wild for ages and it's exceedingly rare for him to be part of a broken OTK.
I agree how the quest is played now may be frustrating to many but isn't inherently problematic. It is the 'until those cards exist' part that I am more bothered by, because they can exist. However, I am open to the idea that it is actually good game design to have the quest as it is until that time comes, and then change it when necessary. Almost like exploiting the digital format of HS to make cards that limit design space, then change them then you want to explore that design space.
The differences with Brann are that:
A 2 mana hero power is cheaper than a a 3 mana minion. You can even use something like Fencing Coach to set the effect cost to 0 when you need it (I am assuming it will be in wild by the time the problem comes).
A hero power is always there, and you don't need to keep hold of a card in hand ready for the combo.
So the quest is easier to abuse than Brann in shaman. Brann being neutral is really the only upside it has.
I disagree with the analogy. Aviana cheats mana, Corrupt the Waters generates value most of the time. Sure, maybe if they print a card that has 'battlecry: reduce the cost of all cards in hand by 1' or something like that, the analogy might hold, but until then you can't really compare the two.
Corrupt the Waters is not a combo card, it doesn't provide inevitability, it just creates lots and lots of value. A better comparison would be Dr. Boom and the other incremental value hero cards.
While I agree the analogy isn't perfect (they never are, though in this case it was only meant as an example of inevitability rather than as a direct analogy, but regardless...), it is wrong to suggest doubling battlecries does not constitute a combo effect. In fact the Star Aligner deck used Brann Bronzebeard if I recall correctly, which highlights combos are built out of multiple 'non-combo' effects, e.g. dealing damage. If that damage is only 14 then it hurts but it's not super dangerous, but when it is doubled to 28 then that is OTK territory.
My concerns with the quest are wider than OTKs though. Battlecries can do literally anything, and while shaman has currently not got anything to horrifically abuse it (except perhaps Galakrond...), the potential is there for the future. Plus this is shaman we are talking about, which by the devs' own admission is a jack-of-all-trades class, meaning the battlecries really can go in any direction.
To be clear, I think doubling most battlecries and even doubling most strings of battlecries is perfectly safe. But if and when it eventually happens it will only take 1 combination to break the game, and then people will blame the new card, even though it is the quest that has enabled it and will sooner or later enable something else too if it isn't changed.
The quest is not the problem. Before evolve it wasn't among the strongest decks, it was just very popular. Corrupt Elementalist, Dragon's Pack and Mogu Fleshshaper are all potential candidates imo. Not to mention Faceless Corruptor, but that one isn't only shaman's fault.
Part of the problem with the quest is the 'inevitability factor'. By which I mean it may not have been a problem at the start of SoU, but sooner or later it is bound to either become a problem or forever limit design space.
The best example of this in the past is Aviana (at 9 mana). No one will say she was a problem in TGT. Even when Kun the Forgotten King turned up in Gadgetzan people would argue they were strong but not a problem. Then, over time druid gets given more effective defensive tools and eventually a meme card is released (Star Aligner) and completely breaks Wild. And this wasn't the 'I hate Big Priest' sort of breaking wild, this was OTK decks routinely killing you on turn 5. There were lots of things arguably at fault there, but as soon as Aviana was printed the game had set off down a path where she was always going to cause a problem some day. It was just a question of when and what pushes it over the edge.
I personally feel the current version of Corrupt the Waters has the same problem. The fact people are calling it out already is a bad sign, albeit not conclusive by itself. But rather than asking 'is it broken right now?', which is very hard to answer because so much of the class could be considered a problem, I am wondering 'how long will it be before 2 battlecries can be doubled on the same turn that break the game given what else Shaman can do?'
The shaman quest is so easy to complete with cards you want to use in a deck anyway, and the reward directly buffs the very same cards. All this makes a 1-dimensional deck building 'challenge' with no tension between different parts of your deck that can be used to keep a deck's power in check. All this is compounded by 'battlecry' not actually being an effect but a trigger mechanism, meaning a deck of quest + 29 battlecries can still have all of removal, buffs, board floods, AoE, etc. Basically any spell can be used as a battlecry, so you don't even have to pay a price by making a deck that cannot do something very well.
tl;dr: the quest might not be a problem right now, but I think it is just too easy to complete and too little price to pay for playing it, meaning one day it is bound to become an issue.
I think the nerf will hit Galakrond rather than the quest. The tempo it offers with the 2/1 elemental feels pretty strong atm. The warlock Galakrond feels like a rare next to him.
The shaman Galakrond design never made sense to me. It is set up so the invoke cards are good if not great by themselves, and they are supposed to be the mediocre plays to justify the overpowered swing cards related to Galakrond (i.e. Galakrond himself, Kronx and the epic). As a result it is hard to justify not running it in every shaman deck until it rotates.
I honestly think it needs a fundamental rework, but since nerfs never do that, the most sensible thing would be to actually make the invoke cards mediocre. This is easily done with good old mana increases.
None of this means I think the quest or Mogu should go untouched (they were already broken, and are no less so because Galakrond is a problem too), and if they do something similar to what they did to rogue in RoS the class may be in for a whole batch of nerfs.
I have always felt Secret Passage should work more like Plot Twist, pseudo-drawing the same number of cards as you already have in hand. That way it is strongest when you least need it, balancing it out somewhat.
Even so, I do find it facetious when people call it "1 mana draw 4" because there are several strings attached to that description. It only equates to exactly that when you have nothing else in hand when you play it (since you won't be able to play those cards that turn), and you have enough mana to play the 4 cards Secret Passage gives you. You can spam Pot of Greed on turn 1 for completely free 2 cards, but doing the same with Secret Passage will achieve absolutely nothing unless you were hoping for a Backstab.
As for Self-Sharpening Sword: it's a slow weapon, and solid weapon removal always exists, so it is easily countered. There is therefore much less reason to nerf it.
Ultimately, a game is designed to make money out of people's enjoyment, and any card that seriously hampers that should be looked at.
Most cards/decks that people hate are only really hated because they are top tier and we have to play against them over and over again. It takes a really awful design to be tier 3 and still generate this much hate. That makes it just a fundamentally unfun card, and cards have been nerfed for that in the past.
While there are certainly people who love the card (it is more accurate to describe it as polarising than hated), it is such a selfish enjoyment that I cannot really accept that as a reason to leave it as it is. And I don't mean its selfish in the sense that you want to win the game - every card is aimed at doing that - I mean its selfish in that you are actively denying the opponent the chance to play the deck they made. Nobody queues into ladder without the express intention of playing the cards they put in their deck. Some disruption is fine, decks can work around that, but burning 2x5 cards is way too much to compensate for. It's the HS equivalent of a bully taking a kid's lunch and throwing it in the bin. Nobody thinks the bully is in the right there, even if they did have fun doing it.
Needless to say, I absolutely loathe the card...
(Sorry to muscle in on Goliath's thread, but since there's a degree of opinion over lore on this one, I thought it might be good to get multiple answers.)
Voss is really just a normal forsaken that goes through a lot of the same things most forsaken do: confusion, anger, rejection etc. What sets her apart is really just:
I personally like her character a lot because it is so normal. In a world full of super powerful heroes and villains, it's good to have a few prominent characters that are more relatable.
Of course that means she's a bad candidate for being a leader, and the WoW writers have wisely made her not even want the job. Calia is arguably a terrible forsaken leader too as she came out of nowhere and doesn't really know what it is to be forsaken due to the very different circumstances of her undeath. I know a lot of Horde players don't want her suddenly appearing and taking that role, especially as she has stronger ties to the Alliance than the Horde.
Really, the failure here is not in Lilian or Calia's characters, but in the lack of prominent forsaken characters. There simply aren't any that have the right experiences to fill the role once Sylvanas and Nathanos left.
With the game board being a 50/50 split between 'nice' school upstairs and the dark Scholomance proper, and class legendaries also seeming to be a 50/50 split between dual-class and mono-class, I would guess all the dual-class leg.s are new HS characters (or in any case I don't personally know enough teachers in Warcraft lore to know who to hope for), while the mono-class leg.s are the dungeon bosses.
Of the dungeon bosses, the only one I know an obvious class association with is Lilian Voss, and I'd be happy to see her make a return. Otherwise, I am down with whichever of these the can fit neatly into HS. To be honest I was surprised to see Rattlegore with the whole skeleton censorship in China which they could easily have avoided by not using the skeleton boss (which is why I assumed Lord Marrowgar was skipped in KotFT).
Regarding some of these being a bit too dark for HS, I would argue Scholomance itself is a bit too dark for HS. If they can turn one of the darkest parts of Warcraft lore into a school of witchcraft and wizardry, I wouldn't think individual characters are immune to being re-painted in bright HS colours.
They don't need to nerf every powerful card. Every class has a bunch of over-tuned cards and that's fine; they are the reason to play those classes after all. They just need to make sure no single archetype has too many working towards the same goal, which is where shaman is right now.
Assuming the changes are significant enough, hitting 2 or 3 will probably bring the number of over-tuned cards in line with what other classes have, which is ultimately the aim.
I agree how the quest is played now may be frustrating to many but isn't inherently problematic. It is the 'until those cards exist' part that I am more bothered by, because they can exist. However, I am open to the idea that it is actually good game design to have the quest as it is until that time comes, and then change it when necessary. Almost like exploiting the digital format of HS to make cards that limit design space, then change them then you want to explore that design space.
The differences with Brann are that:
So the quest is easier to abuse than Brann in shaman. Brann being neutral is really the only upside it has.
While I agree the analogy isn't perfect (they never are, though in this case it was only meant as an example of inevitability rather than as a direct analogy, but regardless...), it is wrong to suggest doubling battlecries does not constitute a combo effect. In fact the Star Aligner deck used Brann Bronzebeard if I recall correctly, which highlights combos are built out of multiple 'non-combo' effects, e.g. dealing damage. If that damage is only 14 then it hurts but it's not super dangerous, but when it is doubled to 28 then that is OTK territory.
My concerns with the quest are wider than OTKs though. Battlecries can do literally anything, and while shaman has currently not got anything to horrifically abuse it (except perhaps Galakrond...), the potential is there for the future. Plus this is shaman we are talking about, which by the devs' own admission is a jack-of-all-trades class, meaning the battlecries really can go in any direction.
To be clear, I think doubling most battlecries and even doubling most strings of battlecries is perfectly safe. But if and when it eventually happens it will only take 1 combination to break the game, and then people will blame the new card, even though it is the quest that has enabled it and will sooner or later enable something else too if it isn't changed.
Part of the problem with the quest is the 'inevitability factor'. By which I mean it may not have been a problem at the start of SoU, but sooner or later it is bound to either become a problem or forever limit design space.
The best example of this in the past is Aviana (at 9 mana). No one will say she was a problem in TGT. Even when Kun the Forgotten King turned up in Gadgetzan people would argue they were strong but not a problem. Then, over time druid gets given more effective defensive tools and eventually a meme card is released (Star Aligner) and completely breaks Wild. And this wasn't the 'I hate Big Priest' sort of breaking wild, this was OTK decks routinely killing you on turn 5. There were lots of things arguably at fault there, but as soon as Aviana was printed the game had set off down a path where she was always going to cause a problem some day. It was just a question of when and what pushes it over the edge.
I personally feel the current version of Corrupt the Waters has the same problem. The fact people are calling it out already is a bad sign, albeit not conclusive by itself. But rather than asking 'is it broken right now?', which is very hard to answer because so much of the class could be considered a problem, I am wondering 'how long will it be before 2 battlecries can be doubled on the same turn that break the game given what else Shaman can do?'
The shaman quest is so easy to complete with cards you want to use in a deck anyway, and the reward directly buffs the very same cards. All this makes a 1-dimensional deck building 'challenge' with no tension between different parts of your deck that can be used to keep a deck's power in check. All this is compounded by 'battlecry' not actually being an effect but a trigger mechanism, meaning a deck of quest + 29 battlecries can still have all of removal, buffs, board floods, AoE, etc. Basically any spell can be used as a battlecry, so you don't even have to pay a price by making a deck that cannot do something very well.
tl;dr: the quest might not be a problem right now, but I think it is just too easy to complete and too little price to pay for playing it, meaning one day it is bound to become an issue.
The shaman Galakrond design never made sense to me. It is set up so the invoke cards are good if not great by themselves, and they are supposed to be the mediocre plays to justify the overpowered swing cards related to Galakrond (i.e. Galakrond himself, Kronx and the epic). As a result it is hard to justify not running it in every shaman deck until it rotates.
I honestly think it needs a fundamental rework, but since nerfs never do that, the most sensible thing would be to actually make the invoke cards mediocre. This is easily done with good old mana increases.
None of this means I think the quest or Mogu should go untouched (they were already broken, and are no less so because Galakrond is a problem too), and if they do something similar to what they did to rogue in RoS the class may be in for a whole batch of nerfs.