Yea, I was kind of hoping it would focus on sniping or something similar, but as I mentioned in an earlier thread: Ezreal already sort of fits a psuedo "sniping" theme with the way he was designed (In LOR that is). It's understandable why they went this way with her, because any other way would probably feel too close to Ezreal's current theme/build.
My biggest issue with this is that this is gonna propel Teemo and or Bandle/PnZ region duo's even further into S Tier decks. Giving all this draw/removal, I guarantee Teemo/Bandle shroom decks will see more popularity over Caitlyn. I know I'm being a bit "doomsayer"-esque here but this just makes me fear the coming shroom festival and forced card draw.
I've also never been a huge proponent of bomb style/mill/forced draw decks. Player actionability is a more encouraging way to develop good player experiences over giving your players the ability to mess with opponent's cards on a massive scale.
To put simply: When you learn card games, you learn that draw is good. When you play card games, you know that generally drawing is good as it gives you more options and more answers.
"Bomb" or "Shroom" style decks flip that around and make it so "drawing is bad". Forcing discards, draw, and bomb/shroom traps really feels like it encourages a "screw with you mentality" than a "let's see who is more clever at playing their cards well" mindset. At least that's my 2 cents on the situation/topic...
This cards have received cost increases but have also had stats increased to somewhat compensate. Seeing these later in the game should help.
Il'gynoth - Cost is now 6 mana (Up from 4). Stats increased from 2/6 to 4/8.
Darkglare - Cost is now 3 mana (Up from 2). Stats increased from 2/3 to 3/4.
Kolkar Pack Runner - Cost is now 3 mana (Up from 2). Stats increased from 2/3 to 3/4.
I understand they don't want to kill the cards/associated decks outright and want nerfs to be just that, nerfed---not dead. But I feel like these won't do much to curb the quests/solo play.
Flow will be slower, and MAYBE it will be enough, but honestly they just need to print on it: cannot reduce the cost of cards below (1) mana.
Battlemaster a 6 mana 5/5 doesn't do much. It still makes it so you have to constantly clear the board. Battlemaster is a win condition, as such it should be costed like a win condition (7 mana at least IMO).
Out of all the nerfs, the forgeborn nerf is the most compelling because it does make it so curvestone elemental shaman can now be hit with some aoe/removal more effectively.
Pretty sure conviction DID need to be nerfed, but this is going to kill a TON of decks, including the quest paladin deck. I think the only way Paladin was staying relevant as a minion based deck in a solitare meta, was through conviction alone...
Flesh Giant nerf is gonna do nothing...there's too many self-damage spells/minions. And it hurts Priest! Good job Blizz. You managed to make the card WORSE for priest, while effectively doing nothing for Warlock.
Side note: I loved the idea of dual class cards when they were released in Scholo, and hoped it might be an ever-green thing. However, after seeing the cards in play for almost a year now, I can honestly say that the fact that it can hurt the accessability of a card in one class, while doing nothing in another makes me think that dual class is a great idea in theory, but horrible in practice: especially for balancing purposes.
I don't think Ilgynoth being costed more is going to do much. Sure it slows down the combo, but now Ilgynoth with that much in stats (4/8) can just be plopped down on the board a turn prior. There's very few damage spells that can remove a 4/8, and very little direct removal that can just instantly kill a 4/8 (priest can't even death it). Like the insane stats now make it viable for Demon Hunters to just throw it down and essentially challenge removal: and if you don't, you ....still get killed next turn by 8 damage (4 direct + 4 "un-lifesteal") and then whatever else combo spells they have.
Lastly Darkglare and Kolkar may slow down their respective decks, but there's no way in hell the decks drop either card.
Blizz: Hey, let's nerf this one card that forces people to trade into every minion on the opponent's side of the board so they never can develop anything.
Also Blizz: Hey, so we just released this NEW card that if you leave any 2 minions up, effectively doubles their damage! Remember how in the previous meta you had to clear all minions? Well get ready to do it for a WHOLE different reason! That counts right? You aren't killing minions to prevent healing, now you're killing minions to prevent your own lethal! WAY more interactive? Right? RIGHT?
My guess is that Invoke is specifically related to celestials/star style cards and will be relegated to Targon only (though I could see Shurima having it, since they have some ties with Targon)
Quote From Wiki
Since its inception Shurima has had deep political and social ties with both Mount Targon and celestial Targon itself. The knowledge of how to create the first Ascended, the blueprints on how to create the Sun Disc, and the means to revert ascension, was given by Targonians.
During the Darkin War, Targonian Aspects aided Shurimans in both defeating and imprisoning the warring darkin.
Did you read what he said? It rewards knowledge of available counters. How to utilize that RNG in your favor (even if the perfect card isn't offered in the manifest/discover) and provides variety in matchups that become too uniform with the cards. LoR first saw stuff like this with Targon's "invoke" mechanic. We'll see how manifest differs itself (perhaps manifest is more of a bandle/ionia thing, and Invoke is more of a Targon thing..though I could see them including Invoke into Shurima)
And to answer your question: maybe the perfect counter you need to "discover" is "kill a unit" but you get provided a buff, a debuff, a ping, etc that still lets you leverage your board in an intelligent manner to overcome said unit.
You don't need to be skilled to pick a card that says "kill a unit" (who wouldn't pick that card?). You DO need to be skilled to pick a card that doesn't overtly kill a unit, yet let's you use your board to win the game or kill a unit you couldn't before). And unlike Hearthstone, your opponent still has many ways to play around things that get "discovered" or "manifested".
Woh, I don't know how I feel about this. One the one hand, the last time I actually was able to 'ban' something was Heroes of the Storm, and Warcraft 3 (ban maps).
I think on the one hand, banning helps you overcome "meta favorites". (In HOTS during it's peak, banning usually meants you banned some of the meta favorites, in order to create a more diverse environment). On the other hand, banning in Hearthstone is not a team endeavor, so I don't know how I'd feel about being able to ban one deck.
Ugh, out of all the LoR mechanics/decks... I loathe Teemo/Shroom decks to my core. It gives me Bomb Warrior from Hearthstone PTSD.
It's not that I think people shouldn't be able to play it, but the fact that it's often just too easy to win through simple attrition. I'll also be the one to say I'm not entirely a huge fan of Yordles, but I'll be happy to see what the other regions get with this expansion.
I personally think it's more likely that they create new versions of existing champions, like how Hearthstone has done for a lot of legendaries like Deathwing and Elise Starseeker. I just don't see how they could possibly introduce 10 LoR exclusive champions every major expansion once they've included all champions from League, and not releasing any new champions also seems like a bad option since that will make new expansions severely less exciting and impactful.
I agree and think this is the most obvious choice. We'll have things like "Garen, Honorable Knight" or something like that that encourages a different playstyle than his normal "regen and rally" setup. (just as an example)
We already have Senna don't we though? Or is this going to be a later "version" of senna with her big Gun from the mini-movie that got released a year ago?
Xerath, I hope to god he is good enough to revive Mono Shurima decks, but not so good as to go into every other region as a splashed champion/deck. Azir getting nerfed annoyed me so much because the issue wasn't Azir, but rather Irelia. They need to nerf her blade dance mechanic, it's just not entirely balanced as it stands now, and yet they keep nerfing Azir thinking it will hurt Irelia, but instead it just hurts anyone who tries to create Azir focused or Mono-Shurima decks...
Sion was one of my early fav champions from LoL so it'll be interesting to see him as what I'm assuming will be a "tanky" champion for Noxus. Noxus so far is all about rushing in, face damage, etc. (Except Swain, but we all know how broken Swain is)
Caitlyn will be PnZ, but not sure how they'll fit her into the region simply because I feel like Ezreal already fits that role pretty well.
I never meant to imply that the archetypes were strict and didn't have fluctuations or even combinations between them. Just that the archetypes (as loosely defined as they can be) should still exist, and for lack of a better argument ...control is simply heavily under-represented in the current meta.
I'm fine with classes and archetypes being weaker in certain metas than others (we've seen this in the past, and it's generally how blizzard rotates balance between classes) but right now the combo-esque control decks (like mage and warlock) are so uninteractive that there's little to no way to counter them as a control deck. This leaves the only viable way to counter them to play faster combo decks or fast aggro decks.
This is not a healthy meta, not by a long shot.
And I constantly feel like I'm banging my head against wall trying to explain as such. I just had a debate on a reddit thread where a guy claimed that "they wished hearthstone would put a 7-8 minute timer in the game, and then control decks would be palatable".
7-8 minute hard-coded timers. That's insane. And makes me realize that people's idea of what a control matchup should be (versus what they think it is) is heavily warped. Most AGGRO matches last 6 minutes to maybe 10 minutes. For people to think that a Hearthstone should have a 7-8 minute timer to "curb the length of control matches" makes me think that the demographic of Hearthstone has changed to ADD fortnite players who's attention spans start to wane the minute their aggro plan goes out the door. (Yes, that's a bit of a snide comment, but I'm extremely frustrated at the lack of verbal support for the control archetype...both from players and from developers.)
...then what should cards which you build the majority of your deck around, be?
A way to accelerate or advance your win condition. Making mummies was the paladin quest, yet it can't win on it's own. Was strong, but could be countered. It seems the design goal of this current expansions quest was "passive power boost that can win games" as opposed to previous quest rewards which largely tended to revolve around "drastically change your hero power to be super strong, but still vulnerable to counterplay".
And honestly I don't know how I feel about this current expansions take on quests. Fun? Sure in some instances. Too strong? Perhaps.
To the extent that Quest Zoolock is too powerful right now in Standard, I'm not convinced Flesh Giant is the right target for a nerf. It's a dual-class card, making it less likely to see a nerf anyway, but as powerful as getting a cheap 8/8 is, it's not unstoppable. Any deck that wants to can tech in Big Game Hunter to clear it before it does anything, and there are lots of class-specific answers as well. The real problem, as others have pointed out, is that Battleground Battlemaster's drawback (being a slightly understated 5-drop) is too small a drawback to make it bad. Compare it to Windspeaker - a card that saw very little play - and it's a neutral card with double the effect of a class card for one extra mana. (Obviously it's slightly different - one effect is permanent, the other is an aura, but granting windfury rarely matters beyond a single turn anyway.) I think the only fix for the card would be to drive up the cost - probably to 7 or 8.
I agree here mesiterz. Battlemaster is a near auto-include into any minion based deck right now, and is the current expansions "leeroy". (the fact it's an aura and not a permanent effects doesn't matter because it either provides lethal, or near lethal) if any minions are left up. It needs to be an 8 cost 100%. Reducing it's stats will matter little (no-one cares about it's stats itself because it's stats are not relevant, the stats of the 2+ minions being left alive from the previous turn are what's relevant. And I'll be royally pissed at blizzard if they end up nerfing this card by reducing it's stats...which is the entirely wrong direction to take this card in.
So to clarify, by 'control' I mean a deck that favours the path of removal and/or armour/healing to survive long enough to reach their win condition. What that win condition is can vary greatly, including plain attrition, overwhelming the opponent with big minions, or maybe even an OTK. The biggest distinction with combo is the amount of draw they run. Combo will tend to draw as quickly as possible, only using stall/removal to buy a few precious turns, whereas control will draw their win condition more naturally, needing less card draw as they deny the opponent's attempts to pressure them.
I can mostly get behind this definition, though I think it highlights exactly how fraught drawing these lines is. I would argue that if your win condition is an OTK, you're a combo deck. Traditional control doesn't have to be strictly attrition decks, but the win condition is generally just to run the opponent out of resources, then play some big threats the opponent can't deal with.
The "extreme" version of that is a fatigue/attrition match where running the opponent out of resources means eventually having them expend their whole deck (because the games are slow and the big threats that typically win games for control can't get a foothold in mirrors), but the principle is the same whether you're trying to run an aggro deck out of cards in their hand or a control deck out of cards in their deck. Your win condition is to eke more value out of your cards than your opponent so that you eventually have more threats than your opponent and win.
Not entirely sure why you're making specific examples that "an OTK, you're a combo deck". Yes, and water is also wet. What's your point in defining things that have already been defined before? Traditional control isn't strictly attrition, but yes generally does involve "outvaluing" your opponent in terms of resources. Once again, what is the actual point you are trying to make here, other than padding out a response to make it look more substantial or have a higher level of veracity?
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Quote From AngryShuckie
I am not advocating for a return of attrition decks to the top of the meta. I just want there to be enough games that go on for enough turns to allow everyone to have the opportunity to try whatever they like. Super efficient card draw is enabling a two-pronged attack on that ideal by squeezing everything slow out of the meta.
I didn't mean to suggest that you were looking for super slow attrition. And I don't mean to suggest that having some long games is bad. All I meant is that because Hearthstone's design/rules emphasize more mixed archetypes like Midrange, when Control plays gets to play a major role in the meta, it often ends up warping the meta. RoS Control Warrior isn't the only example here - I think another good one is KaC Cubelock, which was able to generate a ton of burst with Doomguard and a ton of defense with Voidlord, enabling it to completely dominate any other board-centric deck.
Control can and should find success by preying on popular decks through disruption rather than playing a major role in defining the meta. That can come in the form of AOE and removal against aggro decks, but you can also have hand and deck manipulation to mess with combo decks if those are a significant part of the meta. In that sense, I think the bigger problem is less about card draw and more about combo decks lacking interactivity. Mage Quest is a great example of this - it's really hard to disrupt it because they can play the quest before you can disrupt it (usually - I guess Oh My Yogg! is kind of an option), and can complete the quest and play Arcanist Dawngrasp in the same turn before you can disrupt that because their spells are so cheap. Typical combo disruption would destroy key cards (e.g. with Altar of Fire), but that doesn't do much when they have tons of spells that can complete the quest, and get to draw/play their key cards within the span of a single turn.
Kobolds and Catacombs was released 4 years ago. Using that one specific control deck from a 4 year old meta is hardly being realistic. For one, it was SO oppressive that they ended up hall of faming Doomguard. That was right around the time they shifted away from Charge as a mechanic to Rush. They realized that charge as a baseline mechanic was rather unhealthy because it could be abused. (Same reason they HoF'd leeroy)
Quote From About Control
Control can and should find success by preying on popular decks through disruption rather than playing a major role in defining the meta. That can come in the form of AOE and removal against aggro decks, but you can also have hand and deck manipulation to mess with combo decks if those are a significant part of the meta.
So it's ok for aggro or even combo/OTK to define the meta, but the minute control defines the meta it's "woe is me"? C'mon. This debate is getting ridiculous. It's like that meme...
Let's examine a much more relevant card: Fire Sale. This card is the *perfect* control card. Cheap, decent aoe, tradable. Means control doesn't have to have it clog their hand. Yet, it's not really being used in control decks right now. It's being used in quest mage, which is (if we are being honest) closer to a OTK/combo deck than an actual Control deck. Though I could see arguments made to "classify" it as a partial control deck (it does control the game before completing it's quest).
Yet the inherent problem here is that a control tool being used by a combo deck because it's cheap and easy to use and scales extremely well with spellpower. The main issue with that is that the developers didn't think of a way to print the card in a way that combo couldn't use it (they figured out awhile ago the way to prevent aggro from using a cheap board clear was to print symmetrical board clears)
This is why expensive board clears that are on-sided are so expensive, to prevent other archtypes from using them. Inherently this leaves us with the problem of "ok, so how do we get to that mana cost without losing". Cause I'll tell you right now, there's no way in hell a single control mage deck that isn't quest would run flamestrike.
And that's just a single comparison of AoE, I haven't even touched on your subject of hand or deck manipulation. Which I do think are good ideas, but once again: The tools generally available to control for hand/deck manipulation would be available to other archetypes as well. We could even subjectively say that Incanter's Flow is self-deck manipulation. And we've seen how that's turned out.
I do think that spell schools is a good direction to help dictate different archetypes (holistically cold spells are more control based, fire spells are aggro based, and arcane spells are value/generation/RNG) but they've still got a ways to go on balancing things.
Also, I'd like to agree with meisterz39's assessment. In metas where attrition based control were prominent, it was mostly an awful experience. I like slower games myself, and was gleefully playing control bomb warrior before the last rotation, and was playing lots of control priest in the early parts of the barrens meta. But whenever I face up against a mirror match I often find myself silently praying my opponent just t1 concedes. And I think this is a general sentiment towards control decks in the community.
This feels kind of hypocritical: "gleefully" playing bomb warrior, or control priest but then when you go into a mirror match hoping that they concede. What's that saying? "You can't have your cake and eat it too". You can't be someone who "enjoys slower games" and "plays control decks" but then agrees with the sentiment that "control decks bad".
And meisterz sentiment about how "control doesn't play a large part in Hearthstone's metagame" is PRECISELY why aggro is always running rampant. Aggro at it's core is about consistency and (lately) card draw. Control doesn't generally want a ton of card draw because naturally their cards are more expensive. Control's archtype is to keep aggro in check. Going back to the "holy trifecta". Control's role in card games is to keep aggro in check. OTK decks keep control in check. If control is pushed out of the meta all the time because of lack of support that's on the devs. If control is pushed out of the meta because people can't be bothered to play a match for anything longer than 5-10 minute games. That's on the players: The game is not here to cater to ADD kids who can't be arsed to think beyond their 5 minute face hunter smorc gameplan. Control is often given a bad rap because "my game lasted 20 minutes....hearthstone is so boring" , then perhaps those people are playing the wrong game.
I feel as though we have had the most counter play against swing turns than we have ever had. The Introduction of Mutanus has given a rise to hand disruption and Tealen and Polket has made it easier than ever to predict when the best time to disrupt your opponent is. I have faced at least 5 different unique (and seemingly viable?) ways to disrupt popular strategies this past month.
A single card is not, "rise to hand disruption". Dirty rat was more of a disruptive meta than Mutanus. And I can't even recall the last time I saw Polket played. Taelen sure, but Polket? Was Scholo.
And unique ways to disrupt doesn't always equate to viable. (you even questioned the viability yourself in the statement above!)
Jeez man you're really looking too deep into this and heavily exaggerating what I'm saying.
This is why I didn't reply to him earlier. I honestly just felt like I was talking to a hyperbolic brick wall. He's taking every comment to the extreme.
Private cmon man. You gotta stop with these reducto ad absurdum examples. It's either "power swings" or "chillwind yeti" with you. Never anything in between.
He's not saying we need to go back to vanilla hunter curvestone or anything close to that, but I don't think he's wrong in thinking that the "word creep" associated with cards has gotten a bit out of hand. I agree that it feels like as time has gone on, your ability to interact with your opponent and/or their gameplan has gone down the drain. There feels like very little back and forth.
What do tribes have to do with anything when the problem is the damage taken
Did you seriously just ask that when he specifically stated (in response to your initial comment) that tribes are going to get reworked. Reworking tribes could have an insanely huge difference on damage taken on average, how tribes scale, etc.
Nightmare, can you DM your shadow control priest? I've got a variant I'm working on and want to compare notes on the decklist your using...
Yea, I was kind of hoping it would focus on sniping or something similar, but as I mentioned in an earlier thread: Ezreal already sort of fits a psuedo "sniping" theme with the way he was designed (In LOR that is). It's understandable why they went this way with her, because any other way would probably feel too close to Ezreal's current theme/build.
My biggest issue with this is that this is gonna propel Teemo and or Bandle/PnZ region duo's even further into S Tier decks. Giving all this draw/removal, I guarantee Teemo/Bandle shroom decks will see more popularity over Caitlyn. I know I'm being a bit "doomsayer"-esque here but this just makes me fear the coming shroom festival and forced card draw.
I've also never been a huge proponent of bomb style/mill/forced draw decks. Player actionability is a more encouraging way to develop good player experiences over giving your players the ability to mess with opponent's cards on a massive scale.
To put simply: When you learn card games, you learn that draw is good. When you play card games, you know that generally drawing is good as it gives you more options and more answers.
"Bomb" or "Shroom" style decks flip that around and make it so "drawing is bad". Forcing discards, draw, and bomb/shroom traps really feels like it encourages a "screw with you mentality" than a "let's see who is more clever at playing their cards well" mindset. At least that's my 2 cents on the situation/topic...
I understand they don't want to kill the cards/associated decks outright and want nerfs to be just that, nerfed---not dead. But I feel like these won't do much to curb the quests/solo play.
Flow will be slower, and MAYBE it will be enough, but honestly they just need to print on it: cannot reduce the cost of cards below (1) mana.
Battlemaster a 6 mana 5/5 doesn't do much. It still makes it so you have to constantly clear the board. Battlemaster is a win condition, as such it should be costed like a win condition (7 mana at least IMO).
Out of all the nerfs, the forgeborn nerf is the most compelling because it does make it so curvestone elemental shaman can now be hit with some aoe/removal more effectively.
Pretty sure conviction DID need to be nerfed, but this is going to kill a TON of decks, including the quest paladin deck. I think the only way Paladin was staying relevant as a minion based deck in a solitare meta, was through conviction alone...
Flesh Giant nerf is gonna do nothing...there's too many self-damage spells/minions. And it hurts Priest! Good job Blizz. You managed to make the card WORSE for priest, while effectively doing nothing for Warlock.
Side note: I loved the idea of dual class cards when they were released in Scholo, and hoped it might be an ever-green thing. However, after seeing the cards in play for almost a year now, I can honestly say that the fact that it can hurt the accessability of a card in one class, while doing nothing in another makes me think that dual class is a great idea in theory, but horrible in practice: especially for balancing purposes.
I don't think Ilgynoth being costed more is going to do much. Sure it slows down the combo, but now Ilgynoth with that much in stats (4/8) can just be plopped down on the board a turn prior. There's very few damage spells that can remove a 4/8, and very little direct removal that can just instantly kill a 4/8 (priest can't even death it). Like the insane stats now make it viable for Demon Hunters to just throw it down and essentially challenge removal: and if you don't, you ....still get killed next turn by 8 damage (4 direct + 4 "un-lifesteal") and then whatever else combo spells they have.
Lastly Darkglare and Kolkar may slow down their respective decks, but there's no way in hell the decks drop either card.
I never understood this.
Blizz: Hey, let's nerf this one card that forces people to trade into every minion on the opponent's side of the board so they never can develop anything.
Also Blizz: Hey, so we just released this NEW card that if you leave any 2 minions up, effectively doubles their damage! Remember how in the previous meta you had to clear all minions? Well get ready to do it for a WHOLE different reason! That counts right? You aren't killing minions to prevent healing, now you're killing minions to prevent your own lethal! WAY more interactive? Right? RIGHT?
My guess is that Invoke is specifically related to celestials/star style cards and will be relegated to Targon only (though I could see Shurima having it, since they have some ties with Targon)
Did you read what he said? It rewards knowledge of available counters. How to utilize that RNG in your favor (even if the perfect card isn't offered in the manifest/discover) and provides variety in matchups that become too uniform with the cards. LoR first saw stuff like this with Targon's "invoke" mechanic. We'll see how manifest differs itself (perhaps manifest is more of a bandle/ionia thing, and Invoke is more of a Targon thing..though I could see them including Invoke into Shurima)
And to answer your question: maybe the perfect counter you need to "discover" is "kill a unit" but you get provided a buff, a debuff, a ping, etc that still lets you leverage your board in an intelligent manner to overcome said unit.
You don't need to be skilled to pick a card that says "kill a unit" (who wouldn't pick that card?). You DO need to be skilled to pick a card that doesn't overtly kill a unit, yet let's you use your board to win the game or kill a unit you couldn't before). And unlike Hearthstone, your opponent still has many ways to play around things that get "discovered" or "manifested".
Woh, I don't know how I feel about this. One the one hand, the last time I actually was able to 'ban' something was Heroes of the Storm, and Warcraft 3 (ban maps).
I think on the one hand, banning helps you overcome "meta favorites". (In HOTS during it's peak, banning usually meants you banned some of the meta favorites, in order to create a more diverse environment). On the other hand, banning in Hearthstone is not a team endeavor, so I don't know how I'd feel about being able to ban one deck.
Ugh, out of all the LoR mechanics/decks... I loathe Teemo/Shroom decks to my core. It gives me Bomb Warrior from Hearthstone PTSD.
It's not that I think people shouldn't be able to play it, but the fact that it's often just too easy to win through simple attrition. I'll also be the one to say I'm not entirely a huge fan of Yordles, but I'll be happy to see what the other regions get with this expansion.
I agree and think this is the most obvious choice. We'll have things like "Garen, Honorable Knight" or something like that that encourages a different playstyle than his normal "regen and rally" setup. (just as an example)
We already have Senna don't we though? Or is this going to be a later "version" of senna with her big Gun from the mini-movie that got released a year ago?
Xerath, I hope to god he is good enough to revive Mono Shurima decks, but not so good as to go into every other region as a splashed champion/deck. Azir getting nerfed annoyed me so much because the issue wasn't Azir, but rather Irelia. They need to nerf her blade dance mechanic, it's just not entirely balanced as it stands now, and yet they keep nerfing Azir thinking it will hurt Irelia, but instead it just hurts anyone who tries to create Azir focused or Mono-Shurima decks...
Sion was one of my early fav champions from LoL so it'll be interesting to see him as what I'm assuming will be a "tanky" champion for Noxus. Noxus so far is all about rushing in, face damage, etc. (Except Swain, but we all know how broken Swain is)
Caitlyn will be PnZ, but not sure how they'll fit her into the region simply because I feel like Ezreal already fits that role pretty well.
I never meant to imply that the archetypes were strict and didn't have fluctuations or even combinations between them. Just that the archetypes (as loosely defined as they can be) should still exist, and for lack of a better argument ...control is simply heavily under-represented in the current meta.
I'm fine with classes and archetypes being weaker in certain metas than others (we've seen this in the past, and it's generally how blizzard rotates balance between classes) but right now the combo-esque control decks (like mage and warlock) are so uninteractive that there's little to no way to counter them as a control deck. This leaves the only viable way to counter them to play faster combo decks or fast aggro decks.
This is not a healthy meta, not by a long shot.
And I constantly feel like I'm banging my head against wall trying to explain as such. I just had a debate on a reddit thread where a guy claimed that "they wished hearthstone would put a 7-8 minute timer in the game, and then control decks would be palatable".
7-8 minute hard-coded timers. That's insane. And makes me realize that people's idea of what a control matchup should be (versus what they think it is) is heavily warped. Most AGGRO matches last 6 minutes to maybe 10 minutes. For people to think that a Hearthstone should have a 7-8 minute timer to "curb the length of control matches" makes me think that the demographic of Hearthstone has changed to ADD fortnite players who's attention spans start to wane the minute their aggro plan goes out the door. (Yes, that's a bit of a snide comment, but I'm extremely frustrated at the lack of verbal support for the control archetype...both from players and from developers.)
Mind Tether definitely needs the nerf treatment, but I'm not sure how they can actually balance it without completely killing it.
A way to accelerate or advance your win condition. Making mummies was the paladin quest, yet it can't win on it's own. Was strong, but could be countered. It seems the design goal of this current expansions quest was "passive power boost that can win games" as opposed to previous quest rewards which largely tended to revolve around "drastically change your hero power to be super strong, but still vulnerable to counterplay".
And honestly I don't know how I feel about this current expansions take on quests. Fun? Sure in some instances. Too strong? Perhaps.
I agree here mesiterz. Battlemaster is a near auto-include into any minion based deck right now, and is the current expansions "leeroy". (the fact it's an aura and not a permanent effects doesn't matter because it either provides lethal, or near lethal) if any minions are left up. It needs to be an 8 cost 100%. Reducing it's stats will matter little (no-one cares about it's stats itself because it's stats are not relevant, the stats of the 2+ minions being left alive from the previous turn are what's relevant. And I'll be royally pissed at blizzard if they end up nerfing this card by reducing it's stats...which is the entirely wrong direction to take this card in.
Not entirely sure why you're making specific examples that "an OTK, you're a combo deck". Yes, and water is also wet. What's your point in defining things that have already been defined before? Traditional control isn't strictly attrition, but yes generally does involve "outvaluing" your opponent in terms of resources. Once again, what is the actual point you are trying to make here, other than padding out a response to make it look more substantial or have a higher level of veracity?
Kobolds and Catacombs was released 4 years ago. Using that one specific control deck from a 4 year old meta is hardly being realistic. For one, it was SO oppressive that they ended up hall of faming Doomguard. That was right around the time they shifted away from Charge as a mechanic to Rush. They realized that charge as a baseline mechanic was rather unhealthy because it could be abused. (Same reason they HoF'd leeroy)
So it's ok for aggro or even combo/OTK to define the meta, but the minute control defines the meta it's "woe is me"? C'mon. This debate is getting ridiculous. It's like that meme...
Let's examine a much more relevant card: Fire Sale. This card is the *perfect* control card. Cheap, decent aoe, tradable. Means control doesn't have to have it clog their hand. Yet, it's not really being used in control decks right now. It's being used in quest mage, which is (if we are being honest) closer to a OTK/combo deck than an actual Control deck. Though I could see arguments made to "classify" it as a partial control deck (it does control the game before completing it's quest).
Yet the inherent problem here is that a control tool being used by a combo deck because it's cheap and easy to use and scales extremely well with spellpower. The main issue with that is that the developers didn't think of a way to print the card in a way that combo couldn't use it (they figured out awhile ago the way to prevent aggro from using a cheap board clear was to print symmetrical board clears)
This is why expensive board clears that are on-sided are so expensive, to prevent other archtypes from using them. Inherently this leaves us with the problem of "ok, so how do we get to that mana cost without losing". Cause I'll tell you right now, there's no way in hell a single control mage deck that isn't quest would run flamestrike.
And that's just a single comparison of AoE, I haven't even touched on your subject of hand or deck manipulation. Which I do think are good ideas, but once again: The tools generally available to control for hand/deck manipulation would be available to other archetypes as well. We could even subjectively say that Incanter's Flow is self-deck manipulation. And we've seen how that's turned out.
I do think that spell schools is a good direction to help dictate different archetypes (holistically cold spells are more control based, fire spells are aggro based, and arcane spells are value/generation/RNG) but they've still got a ways to go on balancing things.
This feels kind of hypocritical: "gleefully" playing bomb warrior, or control priest but then when you go into a mirror match hoping that they concede. What's that saying? "You can't have your cake and eat it too". You can't be someone who "enjoys slower games" and "plays control decks" but then agrees with the sentiment that "control decks bad".
And meisterz sentiment about how "control doesn't play a large part in Hearthstone's metagame" is PRECISELY why aggro is always running rampant. Aggro at it's core is about consistency and (lately) card draw. Control doesn't generally want a ton of card draw because naturally their cards are more expensive. Control's archtype is to keep aggro in check. Going back to the "holy trifecta". Control's role in card games is to keep aggro in check. OTK decks keep control in check. If control is pushed out of the meta all the time because of lack of support that's on the devs. If control is pushed out of the meta because people can't be bothered to play a match for anything longer than 5-10 minute games. That's on the players: The game is not here to cater to ADD kids who can't be arsed to think beyond their 5 minute face hunter smorc gameplan. Control is often given a bad rap because "my game lasted 20 minutes....hearthstone is so boring" , then perhaps those people are playing the wrong game.
A single card is not, "rise to hand disruption". Dirty rat was more of a disruptive meta than Mutanus. And I can't even recall the last time I saw Polket played. Taelen sure, but Polket? Was Scholo.
And unique ways to disrupt doesn't always equate to viable. (you even questioned the viability yourself in the statement above!)
This is why I didn't reply to him earlier. I honestly just felt like I was talking to a hyperbolic brick wall. He's taking every comment to the extreme.
Private cmon man. You gotta stop with these reducto ad absurdum examples. It's either "power swings" or "chillwind yeti" with you. Never anything in between.
He's not saying we need to go back to vanilla hunter curvestone or anything close to that, but I don't think he's wrong in thinking that the "word creep" associated with cards has gotten a bit out of hand. I agree that it feels like as time has gone on, your ability to interact with your opponent and/or their gameplan has gone down the drain. There feels like very little back and forth.
Did you seriously just ask that when he specifically stated (in response to your initial comment) that tribes are going to get reworked. Reworking tribes could have an insanely huge difference on damage taken on average, how tribes scale, etc.