Its sad that a number of fun decks in wild like Big Rogue will probably be more damaged by the collateral damage from the Barnes nerf than Big priest itself. Barnes was an often brutal turn 4 play to be sure, but Vargoth and the resurrection/ graveyard mechanic as a whole are much more problematic, imo. Having said that, I'm glad that Blizzard finally pulled the trigger on the nerf, but worry that Big Priest will continue to plague us more or less indefinitely. Maybe the lack of an early statue or Yshaarj will allow aggro decks to push through that much more easily, who knows?
Agreed. Big Priest doesn't need Barnes anymore at all. Just hard mulligan for Vargoth. Opponent kills it priest just resses it twice. Don't kill it and you risk facing double Shadow Essence
I'm on the fence about buffs with one exception (reverting nerfs of certain cards that were nerfed when strong in old metas but have plenty of counters in today's meta). Imo most other buffs only serve to constantly flip-flop a card between its old version and new version (applying and then later stripping buffs away when the cards are complained about). I'm not all about temporarily buffing cards just to throw them back into the hardly playable dumpster soon after that. You might as well have never applied the buff to begin with.
CC nerf just ignores the inherent problem of not having an answer to turn 4 mountain Giant losing you the game on the spot, which doesn't change even with the increased mana cost. At the very least Mages are insanely weak to early snowballing tempo decks so I guess that's what you're gonna do from now on. Sucks to be any control deck that isn't Warrior I guess.
People keep mentioning losing if you don't have an answer by a certain turn. I honestly think that is okay. Every deck isn't meant to be able to deal with every threat at every turn. You eventually have to draw the line somewhere that if Deck A doesn't have Tool Z by turn X then Deck B probably is going to win. The has always been the case in the back and forth struggle between aggro and control (Have Defile by turn 2-5 you probably win if you don't you probably lose), the same case for any form of handlock deck in the past, same for Reno against aggro, etc, etc. You can't use the excuse that some classes not having answers by certain turns as the reason to nerf something into the ground. Certain decks, playstyles, and entire classes intentionally lack answers for some things for a purpose. The key is not allowing plays that have no answer by any deck, strategy, or class by a specific turn to exist without balance checks
As soon as Vargoth was printed and began being used in Big Priest I knew that even if Barnes would be nerfed or even straight up deleted from the game that Vargoth would be an instant (and in most cases superior) over Barnes as the hard mulligan 4 drop. While it is true that Barnes created early game high rolls Vargoth is infinitely times better than Barnes in the late game against control decks.
Which would you rather not have a Big Priest player top deck against you in the late game, Barnes or Mass Ressurection with Vargoth in the pool? Did I mention Shadow Visions? How about a single Mind Blast on a board of 4-7 Vargoths?
It doesn't matter how Barnes is changed when Vargoth solidifies the major anti-control playstyle that came about with the intense value, sustain, and high swing turns after the minion was printed.
Hell, it's about time. Though I'm not confident, that the 1-cost increase would be enough.
Vargoth is infinitely better in the deck than Barnes will ever be. Barnes created highrolls, but Vargoth created intense value/sustain against control decks. Vargoth allows double Mass Res boards out of thin air (more so if they choose to shadow visions Mass Res for extra greed).
Honestly it means absolutely nothing. Anyone knowledgeable in the match-up or even experienced pilots of the deck knows that Vargoth is even more important in the deck now that Barnes in many instances. Sure, Barnes provided some highroll near instant win games, but he was almost utterly useless in the late game. Vargoth on the other hand? Would you rather have a Big Priest opponent top deck Barnes in the late game or Mass Res, very often highrolling a Vargoth target that instantly doubles the board on the board due to a second Mass Res? Also, ever had a Big Priest pull a win out of their ^ss by running out of resources then suddenly 'stealing' a win by getting a repeatedly ressed Vargoth board to stick for one turn and then dying to a single Mind Blast?
I think most people are going to realize very quickly that Big Priest is not going anywhere on wild ladder. Vargoth is a vastly superior tool that can easily carry the archtype even if Barnes was completely deleted from the game.
Based on games I've played this week it looks like most Mages have already moved on to the highlander deck variants anyway, and Conjurer's Calling is equally oppresive in that (thanks in part to Luna's Pocket Galaxy). Plus it kind of makes a mockery of the limitations a highlander build brings if you still get 2 copies of one of your most powerful cards.
You're probably right that removing Twinspell from Extra Arms pushes it out of most decks, but what's the alternative? We already know it definitely doesn't work at 3, so if it is getting nerfed surely they've got to try something different?
Original highlander decks back in the day frequently used Brann to double up (or more) on Kazakus potions and none of those cards were nerfed. Taking advantage of double-dipping effects in highlander decks has been a 101 value strat from the get go. There's nothing uncharacteristic of standard highlander mage doubling up on the modern 'Kazakus potion' known as giants
Nerfing Barnes is pretty pointless when Vargoth is the instant hard mulligan 4 drop that instantly replaces Barnes. Plus, Barnes plummets significantly in the late game when used in wild while Vargoth represents repeated and significant threats/value multiple times in the end game.
I've played the same combo for well over a year now and yes the interactions were changed. It wasn't changed during the last one or two patches, but at some point before that and the change was unannounced. One day I played the deck had Emperor hit the minimum number of targets I've always needed him to hit and suddenly found that while trying to do the combo that I no longer had the mana to complete it anymore. For years Summoning Portal would reduce 2 cost cards to 0 mana if they were first reduced by Emperor and after the stealth hotfix this no longer happens. You can still complete the combo but it is clunkier now and you need to use Drakkari Enchanter to hit a bunch of your combo pieces to have the mana to execute it.
I haven't watched the video yet but I still am doubtful over the whole premise of new metas being more expensive than old metas debate. The amount of epics & legendaries do not really increase and there is no guarantee that any legendary or epic is going to actually stick for long in a given 'top tier deck'.
Although, in a slightly digressing tone, I will say that again this goes to show why standard is much more expensive and flawed in this aspect than wild will ever be. If you bite the initial short term bullet and craft more cards for only a few decks in wild (or just kept your cards & never mass dusted them in the first place) then new expansions are less likely to completely overhaul/overthrow the decks you already have that are viable in wild. This means that new expansions do not pressure you into that whole proverbial carrot-on-a-stick situation that is always present in standard. Standard players 'have to' dust their entire collections AND spend more money just to stay competitive every 3-6ish months while in wild the costs of new metas is often times able to be ignored because you don't have to chase new shinies every single expansion.
For many of my slow rogue otk decks where you need to survive that long haul I've found N'Zoth, Sludge Belchers, & Rotten Applebaums to be essential. Valeera doubling up on these taunts also helps a lot. I haven't really found a better late game survival option for a class that is typically restricted to non-healing tempo tools mostly.
Why would you nerf the Druid quest? Deck isn’t that good. Neither is Shaman. You say you chose these nerfs because the quest rewards can’t be countered, but each of these decks are hard-countered by at least two other decks (even control warrior). At this point, I’d be surprised to see a Dr. Boom, Mad Genius nerf (something for which I clamored last expansion) because Quest Pally and Highlander Hunter have kept CW in check.
People overhyping cards very early on again. It's easy to forget we've had metas where certain new decks were overplayed in the early parts of a meta just for better refined/more optimized or even sleeper decks mostly kick them out of the meta down the road. When people see any deck sliding into the new temporary tier 1 status the pitchforks come out
Imo this is how arena should have worked originally. Arena should be modeled after physical card game tournies' blind pack drafts, not some artificially manipulated drafting format.
I feel a change to the mage class, and in general. Evolve effects and conjurers calling effects should only be affected by the actual cost of the minion.
you cheat out a giant turn 4, you get 4cost minions from conjurer. You use evolve or mutate on the 7 cost rush shaman card, you get whatever it cost when played. Same as sea giant.
This makes it harder to cheat out and snowball on minions of this type.
Personally I don't see why these midrange strats get so much hate when aggro and control do equally stupid things in their own way. Aggro is able to cheese out immense amounts of damage early on and control is able to remove a ton of things with a single removal card. Each playstyle needs to be able to do something dumb if the other playstyles are equally overtuned. Also, as should be important to point out, you never can nerf one deck without making another deck a problem. Mage is a hard counter to control warrior. You nerf mage all you end up with is huge amounts of complaints about warrior. Nerfs are a double-edged sword.
As to CC specifically I think that it allowing 'Big' strategies for mage is what makes it playable. I see no world where a CC that summoned only minions you paid for as a card that would ever be competitively played. CC would essentially become a 3 mana "Heal one minion to full health and summon a random low to midrange costed minion." That sounds pretty terrible in mage if you ask me.
T5 isn't going to nerf so many highlighted legendaries, especially from their newest set. Nerfing a bunch of expensive cards does not equal players wanting to spend as much money on said cards.
The paladin quest nerf is also really dumb. It makes the reward go from powerful to very underwhelming. Making copies of only reborn minions is nowhere near a solid win condition.
This combo can be prevented, it doesn't matter if it all happens in one turn. There are cards like Dirty Rat for a reason. You can't counter strategies if you don't intentionally tech against them.
Played against this deck last week in wild as well but the druid double buffed and had 2.5k armor.
Well, we finally got tournament mode... except that it's only for players in China.
What I don't get is that if they already have the interface and game formatting set up and they're using it in China, why can't they use it everywhere else too?
I'm sure they could but it still comes down to what is tournament mode supposed to be exactly? The ideas and various 'visions' by so many players do not paint any one clear picture of what players want. You aren't going to please everyone by making one specific tournament mode so while 'everyone' wants the mode not everyone will get what they want. Would the players who get a version of tournies that they don't want happily hold off their discontent if they don't get their version of the format?
Agreed. Big Priest doesn't need Barnes anymore at all. Just hard mulligan for Vargoth. Opponent kills it priest just resses it twice. Don't kill it and you risk facing double Shadow Essence
I'm on the fence about buffs with one exception (reverting nerfs of certain cards that were nerfed when strong in old metas but have plenty of counters in today's meta). Imo most other buffs only serve to constantly flip-flop a card between its old version and new version (applying and then later stripping buffs away when the cards are complained about). I'm not all about temporarily buffing cards just to throw them back into the hardly playable dumpster soon after that. You might as well have never applied the buff to begin with.
People keep mentioning losing if you don't have an answer by a certain turn. I honestly think that is okay. Every deck isn't meant to be able to deal with every threat at every turn. You eventually have to draw the line somewhere that if Deck A doesn't have Tool Z by turn X then Deck B probably is going to win. The has always been the case in the back and forth struggle between aggro and control (Have Defile by turn 2-5 you probably win if you don't you probably lose), the same case for any form of handlock deck in the past, same for Reno against aggro, etc, etc. You can't use the excuse that some classes not having answers by certain turns as the reason to nerf something into the ground. Certain decks, playstyles, and entire classes intentionally lack answers for some things for a purpose. The key is not allowing plays that have no answer by any deck, strategy, or class by a specific turn to exist without balance checks
As soon as Vargoth was printed and began being used in Big Priest I knew that even if Barnes would be nerfed or even straight up deleted from the game that Vargoth would be an instant (and in most cases superior) over Barnes as the hard mulligan 4 drop. While it is true that Barnes created early game high rolls Vargoth is infinitely times better than Barnes in the late game against control decks.
Which would you rather not have a Big Priest player top deck against you in the late game, Barnes or Mass Ressurection with Vargoth in the pool? Did I mention Shadow Visions? How about a single Mind Blast on a board of 4-7 Vargoths?
It doesn't matter how Barnes is changed when Vargoth solidifies the major anti-control playstyle that came about with the intense value, sustain, and high swing turns after the minion was printed.
Vargoth is infinitely better in the deck than Barnes will ever be. Barnes created highrolls, but Vargoth created intense value/sustain against control decks. Vargoth allows double Mass Res boards out of thin air (more so if they choose to shadow visions Mass Res for extra greed).
Big Priest isn't going anywhere.
Honestly it means absolutely nothing. Anyone knowledgeable in the match-up or even experienced pilots of the deck knows that Vargoth is even more important in the deck now that Barnes in many instances. Sure, Barnes provided some highroll near instant win games, but he was almost utterly useless in the late game. Vargoth on the other hand? Would you rather have a Big Priest opponent top deck Barnes in the late game or Mass Res, very often highrolling a Vargoth target that instantly doubles the board on the board due to a second Mass Res? Also, ever had a Big Priest pull a win out of their ^ss by running out of resources then suddenly 'stealing' a win by getting a repeatedly ressed Vargoth board to stick for one turn and then dying to a single Mind Blast?
I think most people are going to realize very quickly that Big Priest is not going anywhere on wild ladder. Vargoth is a vastly superior tool that can easily carry the archtype even if Barnes was completely deleted from the game.
Original highlander decks back in the day frequently used Brann to double up (or more) on Kazakus potions and none of those cards were nerfed. Taking advantage of double-dipping effects in highlander decks has been a 101 value strat from the get go. There's nothing uncharacteristic of standard highlander mage doubling up on the modern 'Kazakus potion' known as giants
So many people wanting all of these mage nerfs with no confirmed warrior nerfs yet. Never change community, never change.
Nerf one deck without nerfing another deck and all you're doing is repeating what happened with Jade Druid ----> Razakus Priest ------> Tempo Rogue
Nerfing Barnes is pretty pointless when Vargoth is the instant hard mulligan 4 drop that instantly replaces Barnes. Plus, Barnes plummets significantly in the late game when used in wild while Vargoth represents repeated and significant threats/value multiple times in the end game.
I've played the same combo for well over a year now and yes the interactions were changed. It wasn't changed during the last one or two patches, but at some point before that and the change was unannounced. One day I played the deck had Emperor hit the minimum number of targets I've always needed him to hit and suddenly found that while trying to do the combo that I no longer had the mana to complete it anymore. For years Summoning Portal would reduce 2 cost cards to 0 mana if they were first reduced by Emperor and after the stealth hotfix this no longer happens. You can still complete the combo but it is clunkier now and you need to use Drakkari Enchanter to hit a bunch of your combo pieces to have the mana to execute it.
I'd be all for it IF players gained no stars on ladder nor the 10g per win every three games.
I don't believe in giving players advantages and little extras if they're basically going to cheaply buy their way into certain cards as a trial.
I haven't watched the video yet but I still am doubtful over the whole premise of new metas being more expensive than old metas debate. The amount of epics & legendaries do not really increase and there is no guarantee that any legendary or epic is going to actually stick for long in a given 'top tier deck'.
Although, in a slightly digressing tone, I will say that again this goes to show why standard is much more expensive and flawed in this aspect than wild will ever be. If you bite the initial short term bullet and craft more cards for only a few decks in wild (or just kept your cards & never mass dusted them in the first place) then new expansions are less likely to completely overhaul/overthrow the decks you already have that are viable in wild. This means that new expansions do not pressure you into that whole proverbial carrot-on-a-stick situation that is always present in standard. Standard players 'have to' dust their entire collections AND spend more money just to stay competitive every 3-6ish months while in wild the costs of new metas is often times able to be ignored because you don't have to chase new shinies every single expansion.
For many of my slow rogue otk decks where you need to survive that long haul I've found N'Zoth, Sludge Belchers, & Rotten Applebaums to be essential. Valeera doubling up on these taunts also helps a lot. I haven't really found a better late game survival option for a class that is typically restricted to non-healing tempo tools mostly.
People overhyping cards very early on again. It's easy to forget we've had metas where certain new decks were overplayed in the early parts of a meta just for better refined/more optimized or even sleeper decks mostly kick them out of the meta down the road. When people see any deck sliding into the new temporary tier 1 status the pitchforks come out
Imo this is how arena should have worked originally. Arena should be modeled after physical card game tournies' blind pack drafts, not some artificially manipulated drafting format.
The look of that druid deck cracks me up. Looks pretty fun.
Well played
Personally I don't see why these midrange strats get so much hate when aggro and control do equally stupid things in their own way. Aggro is able to cheese out immense amounts of damage early on and control is able to remove a ton of things with a single removal card. Each playstyle needs to be able to do something dumb if the other playstyles are equally overtuned. Also, as should be important to point out, you never can nerf one deck without making another deck a problem. Mage is a hard counter to control warrior. You nerf mage all you end up with is huge amounts of complaints about warrior. Nerfs are a double-edged sword.
As to CC specifically I think that it allowing 'Big' strategies for mage is what makes it playable. I see no world where a CC that summoned only minions you paid for as a card that would ever be competitively played. CC would essentially become a 3 mana "Heal one minion to full health and summon a random low to midrange costed minion." That sounds pretty terrible in mage if you ask me.
T5 isn't going to nerf so many highlighted legendaries, especially from their newest set. Nerfing a bunch of expensive cards does not equal players wanting to spend as much money on said cards.
The paladin quest nerf is also really dumb. It makes the reward go from powerful to very underwhelming. Making copies of only reborn minions is nowhere near a solid win condition.
This combo can be prevented, it doesn't matter if it all happens in one turn. There are cards like Dirty Rat for a reason. You can't counter strategies if you don't intentionally tech against them.
Played against this deck last week in wild as well but the druid double buffed and had 2.5k armor.
I'm sure they could but it still comes down to what is tournament mode supposed to be exactly? The ideas and various 'visions' by so many players do not paint any one clear picture of what players want. You aren't going to please everyone by making one specific tournament mode so while 'everyone' wants the mode not everyone will get what they want. Would the players who get a version of tournies that they don't want happily hold off their discontent if they don't get their version of the format?