To your question: no, it's actually the other way around. As you can see, we're just arguing from a different perspective.
You say that as long as perk exists, deck is repetitive.
I say say as long as cards exist, deck is not repetitive.
As I mentioned, you keep reducing this down to a binary. Why? You've already conceded that pressing the button turn after turn is repetitive, so if that is the key distinction between these decks and others, how does it not follow that they're more repetitive than decks that don't?
If I take a glass of water and add a spoonful of salt, then whether or not you consider the water salty is subjective, but surely it is objectively more salty than the glass of clear water?
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As for the nerf, they already performed killer nerfs in the past where necessary. Since they didn't, i doubt necessity is there.
Again, do you have any specific ideas on how these cards could be "killer nerfed" while maintaining their overall functionality? I don't. I suppose they could have given them an entirely new ability or condition a la Warsong Commander, but as far as i'm concerned an early rotation is tantamount to a killer nerf.
Your reasoning is also binary, on the opposite side, by exaggeration.
Salt was added to the water, but still drinkable. You are attaching the fact it is undrinkable by implying that salty is too salty. But that's your opinion. If we agree on not agreeing it is actually too salty, then your suggestions about diluting the water with more water are just a subjective point.
Let me reformulate this way: Odd/Even mechanic is slightly more repetitive than normal, yet not enough to deserve any sorts of alterations.
It's definitely not as repetitive as you depict it, by far.
There's still plenty of decision-making in the form of each card that requires to be played. And guess what? Odd/Even decks play the same number of cards as any other decks in the game.
As for the nerf, they could have applied a hand requirement, or reworking the cards entirely, to the extent of a battlecry and/or questlike.
Instead of Start of the Game, Starts in your hand. (1)/(0) 1/1, Battlecry.
Not a simple elegant nerf, it would have required multiple tweaks, but many options were possible, if they really wanted to. Point is any options that touches the core mechanic kills the potential deck consistency, hence kills the deck entirely.
We all know how a subtle nerf can greatly affect entire decks. And that's unnecessary for Genn/Baku themselves.
But despite tank up on (2) being good Odd Warrior is still out of Wild Meta. Even despite synergies with armor. So context (card pool and meta) matters. A whole lot. The perk of HP, which is the only repetitive part of these decks, is indeed just a perk. The deck themselves are not repetitive, and that's because their success is bound to cards, not by the improvement of their HP. And cards are inherently not repetitive.
I can see that the perk can feel repetitive, but it's still highly compensated by the necessity of cards.
AND by the challenge provided about deckbuilding and homebrewing. At least for the many combinations that are yet unrefined.
By nerf i mean a direct nerf to Genn and Baku themselves, harsh enough to throw their decks out of meta, which they didn't perform, suggesting it would have been overkill.
If cards are not inherently repetitive, but perk hero powers are, does it not follow that a deck with a perk hero power and cards is more repetitive than one without the perk?
If Genn and Baku decks get pushed out of the wild meta then they would cease to be a problem. I've already said as much earlier. Until that happens, the criticisms I've laid out above will continue to apply to those that persist.
The problem with nerfing G&B (hence this whole thread) is that it's hard to address these cards' strength without fundamentally changing how they work. The hero powers give very little room for adjustment, the condition is iconic and also hard to change and nerfing the minions themselves hardly affects the decks, certainly not in a way that addresses the problem. G&B already are oversized Patches. if there were an easy way to nerf these cards but keep their functionality intact I'm sure team 5 would've gone with that instead of yeeting them out of standard a year early.
To your question: no, it's actually the other way around. As you can see, we're just arguing from a different perspective.
You say that as long as perk exists, deck is repetitive (implying the perks are relevant by virtue of frequency)
I say as long as cards exist, deck is not repetitive (implying cards are the uttermost relevant part of the decks).
As for the nerf, they already performed killer nerfs in the past where necessary (eg QRogue). Since they didn't, i doubt necessity is there.
I also disagree Genn/Baku should be nerfed in any way possible, even worse with pushing them out of meta, which would be entirely arbitrary.
I agree with nerfing some class synergy cards if ever necessary, for some specific decks.
I'd say you're raising a new argument there rather than actually addressing the point I was making and that my post already contains the rebuttal your argument: "if not necessarily to the same extent".
That's not a rebuttal, that's a claim, and one that I disagree with. The same logic does not apply at all. It could be argued that Big Priest is being addressed due to the extreme amount of critique towards it and the pressure the player base is putting on the developers regarding the deck. That is supported by that Blizzard has been hesitant to actually do anything about Big Priest so far, and seems to be stalling to see whether SoU might fix it with the murloc mass transform card, alternate tools for priest and other solutions.
I don't see how this contradicts anything I'm saying. I agree Big priest is seeing large amounts of criticism, are you arguing that Genn and Baku didn't prior to rotation? Or don't presently?
Supposing that the new BP hate cards like Curse of Murlocs "solve" the problem in wild, would you agree that Blizzard was pressured into printing those cards because of the public outcry against BP?
Edit: I also have to say that I think it's disingenuous to frame the premature rotation of Genn and Baku, an unprecedented move by the dev team and arguably the most impactful balance change to the standard meta, as just some minor little tweak. Removing two cards and thereby killing half a dozen top decks cannot be reasonably compared to the recent round of buffs. I stand by my claim that the G&B rotation is to be read as an admission by the devs that these cards are too impactful by design and can't reasonably be fixed by a simple nerf.
You're conflating the importance of issue and the means taken to fix it. The two have a positive correlation but are not the same, and to draw the parallel to how big the issue is in Wild is an inexact argument as well, so while I think either one might be acceptable, to combine the two into a single argument makes the margin of error too great.
That the cards can't be fixed with a nerf is a design issue, not a power level one.
We don't have access to focus group testing, surveys and stats that the people making the game base their decisions on. It's inevitable for there to be some level of inference and argument by analogy when arguing about something like this. I'm not exactly shy to admit that.
You not agreeing with the argument doesn't make it not an argument. If you want to make *that* case you have to actually substantively address the argument and point out where it's fallacious. The devs have stated ad nauseam that their goal isn't just to keep the game balanced, but also "fresh" "fun" "not stale", etc. By most people's standards that excludes high levels of repetitiveness.
Is the discussion about whether or not the cards should be nerfed or will be nerfed? You've conflated the two a couple of times, committing an appeal to authority.
I would prefer it if the topic remained whether they should be nerfed, but when the counterargument being presented is "Wild/HS ought to be X way, so you're wrong", it's very unfair of you to call me out for citing the game designers' views on what Wild/HS ought to be. An appeal to authority isn't always a fallacy, especially with something as subjective as "what is this game about?"
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That's consistency, not repetitiveness. And yes, consistency can be repetitive, but inconsistency is an unfun consequence of unhealthy RNG, and a bad way to break repetitiveness. Many Baku/Genn decks are repetitive, especially Odd Paladin, but that's not because of or inherent to the even/odd mechanics.
I don't disagree that inconsistency can be unfun(highlander decks for example), but as far as I'm concerned there is quite a broad middle-ground between a game being random and arbitrary on the one hand or predictable and repetitive on the other.
Then can you explain why Even Priest is not a deck? By your argument, cards being a secondary part of the decks, Even Priest should be a deck. Or Odd Warrior, which used to be a deck.
Because not all hero powers benefit as much from the upgrade/discount. Priest hero power is already considered one of the weaker ones, it stands to reason that building a deck around improving it wouldn't be viable.
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They are not, which proves cards are key factor, and some classes have them, some others don't, despite all having Genn/Baku.
I wouldn't be foolish enough to argue that the card pool is entirely irrelevant, but that really doesn't prove your case at all. Because the hero power being improved/discounted matters. You can Tank up on turn 2, whereas heal 4 likely does nothing.
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About HOF:
Once they recognized the problem with Odd/Even, they could have provided a nerf. They didn't, hence the problem was not what you think it is. Why should they let live something problematic in a form that is allegedly still problematic?
How would you nerf "Odd/Even"? Do you mean targeted nerfs to individual cards that are strong on odd/even decks, or what?
But despite tank up on (2) being good Odd Warrior is still out of Wild Meta. Even despite synergies with armor. So context (card pool and meta) matters. A whole lot. The perk of HP, which is the only repetitive part of these decks, is indeed just a perk. The deck themselves are not repetitive, and that's because their success is bound to cards, not by the improvement of their HP. And cards are inherently not repetitive.
I can see that the perk can feel repetitive, but it's still highly compensated by the necessity of cards.
AND by the challenge provided about deckbuilding and homebrewing. At least for the many combinations that are yet unrefined.
By nerf i mean a direct nerf to Genn and Baku themselves, harsh enough to throw their decks out of meta, which they didn't perform, suggesting it would have been overkill.
I also laid out exactly why they are NOT more repetitive than other decks. YOU are ignoring my argument. ;)
If you feel there's any point you made that I'm ignoring, please restate it. I did my best to address you point by point.
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tl;dr: Odd/Even decks still have to play cards every turn. Only exceptions, turn-2 and turn-1, respectively. How's that repetitive?
I addressed this specifically. This is an extremely foolish hill to die on. Every deck in the game has to play cards in order to win. It's a card game, that's inherent to the genre.
Genn and baku decks are much less reliant on playing cards, especially early on, because they start the game with an improved hero power. You keep reducing this down to a preposterous false binary. The concession is right there in your use of the word "still". Yes, they still play cards (despite being less reliant on them). I genuinely struggle to grasp how this is even a point of contention. Improved hero powers are obviously an advantage, hence the odd/even restriction which is intended to counterbalance said advantage with a weaker card pool and curve.
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And yes, i seriously think it was the only point about HoF, not because the decks felt somehow boring to play against.
And their choice about HoF is proof of the fact they don't even consider the mechanic as wrong or too powerful in the void, just too powerful for Standard.
I strongly disagree with that. If there is a diverse meta T5 doesn't tend to arbitrarily kill off half of the field. The power level arguments that apply to genn and baku certainly also apply to half of the original set of DK's, and yet they didn't see an early set rotation because they were a lot less reviled. HOF-ing the two was a desperation move: there's no way to nerf the cards without fundamentally changing them, and deleting them outright would have been very extreme. It wouldn't be the first time a card has seen multiple iterations of nerfs and changes.
Then can you explain why Even Priest is not a deck? By your argument, cards being a secondary part of the decks, Even Priest should be a deck. Or Odd Warrior, which used to be a deck.
They are not, which proves cards are key factor, and some classes have them, some others don't, despite all having Genn/Baku.
About HOF:
Once they recognized the problem with Odd/Even, they could have provided a nerf. They didn't, hence the problem was not what you think it is. Why should they let live something problematic in a form that is allegedly still problematic?
We should assume they are not just careless about Wild (which i think they are), but wicked entirely.
PS: Equality nerf was wrong, HOF would have been preferable, but all the other nerfs involving Odd/Even decks were overall fair, also considering them out of Odd/Even decks. If it was for me, Blessing of Might would also be hit. And if you want to hit Odd Paladin hard, Quartermaster is the card you are looking for, not Raid Leader, which again, is a neutral, and should only be touched out of desperation.
I also laid out exactly why they are NOT more repetitive than other decks. YOU are ignoring my argument. ;)
tl;dr: Odd/Even decks still have to play cards every turn. Only exceptions, turn-2 and turn-1, respectively. How's that repetitive?
The rest is an argument about powerlevel, and it IS unrelated to repetitiveness.
And yes, i seriously think it was the only point about HoF, not because the decks felt somehow boring to play against.
And their choice about HoF is proof of the fact they don't even consider the mechanic as wrong or too powerful in the void, just too powerful for Standard.
Now, fair fair enough if you don't agree. Just don't take my silence as having actually counterargued my points.
Peace.
He didn't ignore your argument, he rebutted it by making the claim that consistency is repetitive - odd/even decks have no possibility of having their build around win conditions at the bottom of their decks, so the scenario where that doesn't happen repeats more often.
EDIT: consistency is only realized by class synergy.
Even Priest sports the same perk as Even Shaman, yet the former has no consistency.
So Genn/Baku do not provide consistency, they only provide a perk.
If consistency was the base of the argument, it's proven wrong about the mechanic itself. It holds true only in specific class/decks.
Now, beyond consistency.
The real repetitiveness of Odd/Even is exclusively in their perk, not in their gameplay.
The gameplay is identical to that of any other deck, it's not repetitive at all, and since that is what actually makes the difference (in realizing the consistency potentially served by the HP), then the deck as a whole is not really repetitive.
It's just a perception: focusing on the perk, and extending that perception to the whole deck.
So, i reiterate, if ever an Odd/Even deck turns out to be problematic, because of consistency, that's because of the synergy provided by the class, and that's what should be nerfed, in case.
Sorry, but your argument about boring is not better than mine. You are basically saying it is boring because you find it boring. I don't find it boring at all tbh, so your argument falls there.
I laid out exactly in what way Genn and Baku substantively differ from other cards in hearthstone and how that would result in repetive gameplay that significantly differs from, say, a consistent aggro deck.
Sure you may disagree that this repetitiveness is boring, but to ignore the difference and go "that's just your muhpinion" is to ignore the substance of the argument.
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You are merging the argument of the powerlevel with that of repetitiveness, and that's a fallacy.
They aren't unrelated arguments. If G&B were unplayably underpowered they wouldn't be a problem even if they were still inherently flawed by design because they'd never show up. You can take the argument one step further and say that it's precisely this repetitive card-independent play pattern that makes these cards powerful.
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I substantiated my point by showing you there is nothing repetitive about the actual gameplay of Odd/Even decks.
No you didn't. You named a bunch of different decks that you think are repetitive, but you did nothing to argue your case. You've barely presented it. How is Mech Hunter especially repetitive? How is it cheating, what established "rules" is it subverting? What are your criteria for repetitiveness?
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The powerlevel is obviously there, i won't even try to deny that, but then again, look at the tier levels, and you will see that t1 is populated by other decks, not just Odd/Even.
The reason why they Hofed Odd/Even in Standard was not because the decks gameplay was boring, but because their presence was, for Standard's standard, ie they knew Odd/Even would have dominated the meta for 2 years straight, and that's not acceptable in Standard.
Now the same criterion cannot be applied to Wild, because Wild meta is inherently stale, and only slowly/rarely evolves.
I'm not going to argue that performance wasn't a factor, as I laid out earlier even a bad design wouldn't cause problems if no one played it. But do you really, honestly think they would have prematurely hof-ed those two if people weren't bitterly complaining about them ruining the game? The Standard Baku/Genn meta was rather diverse if you look at the number of playable classes and decks, but a large number of people hated how many of those decks were G&B decks, presumably because they didn't like how those matches tended to play out.
I also laid out exactly why they are NOT more repetitive than other decks. YOU are ignoring my argument. ;)
tl;dr: Odd/Even decks still have to play cards every turn. Only exceptions, turn-2 and turn-1, respectively. How's that repetitive?
The rest is an argument about powerlevel, and it IS unrelated to repetitiveness.
And yes, i seriously think it was the only point about HoF, not because the decks felt somehow boring to play against.
And their choice about HoF is proof of the fact they don't even consider the mechanic as wrong or too powerful in the void, just too powerful for Standard.
Now, fair fair enough if you don't agree. Just don't take my silence as having actually counterargued my points.
You not agreeing with the argument doesn't make it not an argument. If you want to make *that* case you have to actually substantively address the argument and point out where it's fallacious. The devs have stated ad nauseam that their goal isn't just to keep the game balanced, but also "fresh" "fun" "not stale", etc. By most people's standards that excludes high levels of repetitiveness.
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Actually, this is quite false for Even decks: you consider them repetitive because they are going to Hero Power every Odd turn, right?
Well, just look at it as a bonus. Exclude the Hero Power, consider it an extra, what is left? Well, what you get is a normal deck, playing normal cards, with a constant bonus in Odd turns. But how is that actually repetitive? How is that more repetitive than Murloc Shaman, or Mech Hunter, or Big Priest, or Quest Mage?
I can give you that the thing holds more truth for Odd decks, but at the end of the day, their Hero Power is still a bonus for them, a Tempo move to optimize turns, that can never get higher priority than normal playable cards in their hand.
Genn and baku are cards that provide their effects without their cards having to be drawn, let alone played. From turn one, every single game, you get a permanent "bonus" that considerably improves what you as a player can do independent of any cards you drew. That's the crux of the design problem: hearthstone is a card game balanced around having to draw and play your cards and these two just shit all over the fundamental balancing mechanism of the game, from the start of the game, every game.
The closest analogy there is in the game are quests, but there you have to: a) Sacrifice a card in hand b) Play the quest ASAP c) Complete the condition of the quest, typically takes 4+ turns if not more (and d) Play the quest reward).
Genn and Baku are like starting the game with a hero card active. The fact that they require some awkward deckbuilding choices doesn't make up for the fact that once the game has started they are the pinnacle of reliability and predictability and, dare I say it, repetitiveness.
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So how is that repetitive actually? Their games are still bound to playing cards, first and foremost, despite the synergies with Hero Powers, they cannot win without playing cards in the best way possible. Cards still define their game.
Odd/Even decks just provide a bonus based on hero powers, but they are not repetitive, as their game is still bound to playing cards.
It's repetitive because it gives players a draw-independent edge at the outset that they can build their deck to capitalise on. There, now I'm repeating myself. See how boring that is?
No one is saying that these decks can win without playing a single card, that's a bad attempt at reductio ad absurdum. The argument is that their core gameplay is far LESS dependent on draws, especially in the early game when cards/draws matter the most, because of the edge they get from improved/discounted hero powers.
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Same goes with the predictability argument. It's actually worse: what deck is NOT quite predictable in the meta? Is a deck actually predictable because it slams totems every Odd turns, or because you know their decklist and what they can play?
Any deck that has a fixed start-of-the-game advantage it can capitalise on is *more* predictable than a deck that only gains advantages by drawing and playing cards. Do quests suffer from the same problem, to a lesser extent? Sure. Would G&B be less predictable if you had to meet some in-game condition before they went active: absolutely.
Sorry, but your argument about boring is not better than mine. You are basically saying it is boring because you find it boring. I don't find it boring at all tbh, so your argument falls there.
About predictability due to deckbuilding, how is that different to any other deck? eg Big Priest? The deck is purposedly built to abuse resurrection, and the opponent can predict what's going on. Unless you are telling me that predicting an extra totem with 100% makes the whole deck more predictable, which is obviously false. If that was true, if decks were really that predictable, they wouldn't be so strong as to stay t1 (BP is t2/3).
I substantiated my point by showing you there is nothing repetitive about the actual gameplay of Odd/Even decks. Not more than any other meta deck. The bonus is indeed an edge, and it's a minor part of their gameplay.
You are also merging the argument of the powerlevel with that of repetitiveness, and that's a logical fallacy.
The powerlevel is obviously there, i won't even try to deny that, but then again, look at the tier levels, and you will see that t1 is populated by other decks, not just Odd/Even.
Finally, the reason why they HOFed Odd/Even in Standard was not because the decks gameplay was boring, but because their presence in the meta was, for Standard's standards, ie they knew Odd/Even would have dominated the meta for 2 years straight, and that's not acceptable in Standard.
Now the same criterion cannot be applied to Wild, because Wild meta is inherently stale, and only slowly/rarely evolves.
PS: we're also considering Odd/Even as if they represented one deck or one archetype, which is false. We are talking of a whole set of decks, most of which don't even pass the meta test (including the Standard-infamous Odd Warrior). Hence killing the mechanic is just wrong.
Nerf individual synergies (eg. Cold Blood nerf), if ever a specific deck turns out to be too popular/powerful.
But Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane have nothing wrong per se, besides the field of personal taste, which i respect, but you can't build an argument solely on that.
Actually, this is quite false for Even decks: you consider them repetitive because they are going to Hero Power every Odd turn, right?
Well, just look at it as a bonus. Exclude the Hero Power, consider it an extra, what is left? Well, what you get is a normal deck, playing normal cards, with a constant bonus in Odd turns. But how is that actually repetitive? How is that more repetitive than Murloc Shaman, or Mech Hunter, or Big Priest, or Quest Mage?
I can give you that the thing holds more truth for Odd decks, but at the end of the day, their Hero Power is still a bonus for them, a Tempo move to optimize turns, that can never get higher priority than normal playable cards in their hand.
So how is that repetitive actually? Their games are still bound to playing cards, first and foremost, despite the synergies with Hero Powers, they cannot win without playing cards in the best way possible. Cards still define their game.
Odd/Even decks just provide a bonus based on hero powers, but they are not repetitive, as their game is still bound to playing cards.
Same goes with the predictability argument. It's actually worse: what deck is NOT quite predictable in the meta? Is a deck actually predictable because it slams totems every Odd turns, or because you know their decklist and what they can play?
Admittedly, i have been tempted by banana buffoon, and i can definitely see it in a Reno version, both for buffs, and thanks to the survival provided by the Highlander cards, so you can try and play more slowly.
In my non-Reno list tho, they still appear decent on paper, and are indeed excellent sometimes in practice. Yet generally too slow. At least that was my experience with them in Miracle Mage, so i assume it's the same here.
All this drama about Toast is bad for both Toast and the community.
Has there been that much drama?
At the risk of being unpopular...it's just one card reveal and the final reveal stream is in two days time.
Not about the card but about Toast's recent involvement towards HS. At least from his tweet, it sounds like some drama happened, not sure about it.
Either way, his declaration is out of place. If he accepted the reveal, he should have performed it, if he didn't, it's blizz mistake for not handling this stuff privately.
They basically just reprinted Kingsbane, just more vulnerable to Ooze.
Your reasoning is also binary, on the opposite side, by exaggeration.
Salt was added to the water, but still drinkable. You are attaching the fact it is undrinkable by implying that salty is too salty. But that's your opinion. If we agree on not agreeing it is actually too salty, then your suggestions about diluting the water with more water are just a subjective point.
Let me reformulate this way: Odd/Even mechanic is slightly more repetitive than normal, yet not enough to deserve any sorts of alterations.
It's definitely not as repetitive as you depict it, by far.
There's still plenty of decision-making in the form of each card that requires to be played. And guess what? Odd/Even decks play the same number of cards as any other decks in the game.
As for the nerf, they could have applied a hand requirement, or reworking the cards entirely, to the extent of a battlecry and/or questlike.
Instead of Start of the Game, Starts in your hand. (1)/(0) 1/1, Battlecry.
Not a simple elegant nerf, it would have required multiple tweaks, but many options were possible, if they really wanted to. Point is any options that touches the core mechanic kills the potential deck consistency, hence kills the deck entirely.
We all know how a subtle nerf can greatly affect entire decks. And that's unnecessary for Genn/Baku themselves.
To your question: no, it's actually the other way around. As you can see, we're just arguing from a different perspective.
You say that as long as perk exists, deck is repetitive (implying the perks are relevant by virtue of frequency)
I say as long as cards exist, deck is not repetitive (implying cards are the uttermost relevant part of the decks).
As for the nerf, they already performed killer nerfs in the past where necessary (eg QRogue). Since they didn't, i doubt necessity is there.
I also disagree Genn/Baku should be nerfed in any way possible, even worse with pushing them out of meta, which would be entirely arbitrary.
I agree with nerfing some class synergy cards if ever necessary, for some specific decks.
But despite tank up on (2) being good Odd Warrior is still out of Wild Meta. Even despite synergies with armor. So context (card pool and meta) matters. A whole lot. The perk of HP, which is the only repetitive part of these decks, is indeed just a perk. The deck themselves are not repetitive, and that's because their success is bound to cards, not by the improvement of their HP. And cards are inherently not repetitive.
I can see that the perk can feel repetitive, but it's still highly compensated by the necessity of cards.
AND by the challenge provided about deckbuilding and homebrewing. At least for the many combinations that are yet unrefined.
By nerf i mean a direct nerf to Genn and Baku themselves, harsh enough to throw their decks out of meta, which they didn't perform, suggesting it would have been overkill.
Well, i guess I'm glad Wild is not touched by these early spoilers.
I feel bad for Standard players.
Then can you explain why Even Priest is not a deck? By your argument, cards being a secondary part of the decks, Even Priest should be a deck. Or Odd Warrior, which used to be a deck.
They are not, which proves cards are key factor, and some classes have them, some others don't, despite all having Genn/Baku.
About HOF:
Once they recognized the problem with Odd/Even, they could have provided a nerf. They didn't, hence the problem was not what you think it is. Why should they let live something problematic in a form that is allegedly still problematic?
We should assume they are not just careless about Wild (which i think they are), but wicked entirely.
PS: Equality nerf was wrong, HOF would have been preferable, but all the other nerfs involving Odd/Even decks were overall fair, also considering them out of Odd/Even decks. If it was for me, Blessing of Might would also be hit. And if you want to hit Odd Paladin hard, Quartermaster is the card you are looking for, not Raid Leader, which again, is a neutral, and should only be touched out of desperation.
EDIT: consistency is only realized by class synergy.
Even Priest sports the same perk as Even Shaman, yet the former has no consistency.
So Genn/Baku do not provide consistency, they only provide a perk.
If consistency was the base of the argument, it's proven wrong about the mechanic itself. It holds true only in specific class/decks.
Now, beyond consistency.
The real repetitiveness of Odd/Even is exclusively in their perk, not in their gameplay.
The gameplay is identical to that of any other deck, it's not repetitive at all, and since that is what actually makes the difference (in realizing the consistency potentially served by the HP), then the deck as a whole is not really repetitive.
It's just a perception: focusing on the perk, and extending that perception to the whole deck.
So, i reiterate, if ever an Odd/Even deck turns out to be problematic, because of consistency, that's because of the synergy provided by the class, and that's what should be nerfed, in case.
Not the core of the mechanic.
I also laid out exactly why they are NOT more repetitive than other decks. YOU are ignoring my argument. ;)
tl;dr: Odd/Even decks still have to play cards every turn. Only exceptions, turn-2 and turn-1, respectively. How's that repetitive?
The rest is an argument about powerlevel, and it IS unrelated to repetitiveness.
And yes, i seriously think it was the only point about HoF, not because the decks felt somehow boring to play against.
And their choice about HoF is proof of the fact they don't even consider the mechanic as wrong or too powerful in the void, just too powerful for Standard.
Now, fair fair enough if you don't agree. Just don't take my silence as having actually counterargued my points.
Peace.
It particularly fits Reborn Priest, considering Circle of Healing and Divine Hymn.
I wouldn't mind dropping this one as my Quest.
Sorry, but your argument about boring is not better than mine. You are basically saying it is boring because you find it boring. I don't find it boring at all tbh, so your argument falls there.
About predictability due to deckbuilding, how is that different to any other deck? eg Big Priest? The deck is purposedly built to abuse resurrection, and the opponent can predict what's going on. Unless you are telling me that predicting an extra totem with 100% makes the whole deck more predictable, which is obviously false. If that was true, if decks were really that predictable, they wouldn't be so strong as to stay t1 (BP is t2/3).
I substantiated my point by showing you there is nothing repetitive about the actual gameplay of Odd/Even decks. Not more than any other meta deck. The bonus is indeed an edge, and it's a minor part of their gameplay.
You are also merging the argument of the powerlevel with that of repetitiveness, and that's a logical fallacy.
The powerlevel is obviously there, i won't even try to deny that, but then again, look at the tier levels, and you will see that t1 is populated by other decks, not just Odd/Even.
Finally, the reason why they HOFed Odd/Even in Standard was not because the decks gameplay was boring, but because their presence in the meta was, for Standard's standards, ie they knew Odd/Even would have dominated the meta for 2 years straight, and that's not acceptable in Standard.
Now the same criterion cannot be applied to Wild, because Wild meta is inherently stale, and only slowly/rarely evolves.
PS: we're also considering Odd/Even as if they represented one deck or one archetype, which is false. We are talking of a whole set of decks, most of which don't even pass the meta test (including the Standard-infamous Odd Warrior). Hence killing the mechanic is just wrong.
But Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane have nothing wrong per se, besides the field of personal taste, which i respect, but you can't build an argument solely on that.
Still "repetitive" is not an argument.
Actually, this is quite false for Even decks: you consider them repetitive because they are going to Hero Power every Odd turn, right?
Well, just look at it as a bonus. Exclude the Hero Power, consider it an extra, what is left? Well, what you get is a normal deck, playing normal cards, with a constant bonus in Odd turns. But how is that actually repetitive? How is that more repetitive than Murloc Shaman, or Mech Hunter, or Big Priest, or Quest Mage?
I can give you that the thing holds more truth for Odd decks, but at the end of the day, their Hero Power is still a bonus for them, a Tempo move to optimize turns, that can never get higher priority than normal playable cards in their hand.
So how is that repetitive actually? Their games are still bound to playing cards, first and foremost, despite the synergies with Hero Powers, they cannot win without playing cards in the best way possible. Cards still define their game.
Odd/Even decks just provide a bonus based on hero powers, but they are not repetitive, as their game is still bound to playing cards.
Same goes with the predictability argument. It's actually worse: what deck is NOT quite predictable in the meta? Is a deck actually predictable because it slams totems every Odd turns, or because you know their decklist and what they can play?
Reborn Priest confirmed.
On the other hand: jeez more sticky taunts, glhf Standard players...
In terms of Tempo, it's comparable to Sylvanas Windrunner.
The card is definitely better than people think.
The real question is, how good such a card can be, in a class that can already use Sap.
But still Pirate and DR synergy are quite an answer to that.
It might have two heads, but it still counts as one.
Comparable to Sylvanas Windrunner. Not sure if equally good.
On a sidenote: why are all Rogue cards female?!?
Admittedly, i have been tempted by banana buffoon, and i can definitely see it in a Reno version, both for buffs, and thanks to the survival provided by the Highlander cards, so you can try and play more slowly.
In my non-Reno list tho, they still appear decent on paper, and are indeed excellent sometimes in practice. Yet generally too slow. At least that was my experience with them in Miracle Mage, so i assume it's the same here.
Not sure Wild Mage can find room for this, but this Secret might fix the Mage vulnerability against Aggro.
If that proves to be true, Wild Secret Mage will be stable at t1 for the time being.
Secret Mage is the new Control Mage?
You shouldn't really ask, as it is not up to us to tell you whether you should play any deck.
Not about the card but about Toast's recent involvement towards HS. At least from his tweet, it sounds like some drama happened, not sure about it.
Either way, his declaration is out of place. If he accepted the reveal, he should have performed it, if he didn't, it's blizz mistake for not handling this stuff privately.