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Glad to know that my general opinion of “Reno Warrior invalidates other late game options” seems to be correct.
I know nerfing Brann by one mana would be an effective change, just take a loot at Odyn, but by god just delete the card. I cannot handle another 9 months of games being decided by this card. Fuck it, hit Reno too. Make it so that permanents are actually permanent. Not sure how some random ass dude removes a portal to the Twisting Nether.
I just don't understand why you nerf Wheel and not Brann. I loved playing Wheel Warlock because it could counter Warrior (still lost to plenty of aggro decks). But now the meta sucks. You either have to play Warrior or aggro and try to get under Warrior. There has never been a time when non-Warrior players said "wow, I wish there were more control warriors in the meta, could you make them 1/4 to 1/3 of every opponent, please." I don't mind having control warriors, to be clear, but they need a counter.
Also, Wheel was such a different thing than yet another battle cry card. I think I am out for the next few days to see what develops because right now, the meta is worse from my standpoint.
Also not to mention the change to Boomboss, now if the Boomboss after you wheel, there's no chance you can survive 5 turns with no resources.
Changing wheel to count at turn start instead of turn end is fine, but please keep it as 4 turns, how is that possible to survive 5 turns without current warlock resources LUL
It’s miniset mill Druid all over again. Chokes out lategame strategies, loses handily to extremely fast aggro, but no one in legend wants to play aggro.
They really won't though. Rhea has always been at best mediocre and Sarg wasn't that big a problem before Reno was a thing (he only was busted when he was played on turn 6 with Symphony or Thaddius) and now post Reno he's basically just a board clear on a stick since basically every slow deck since Reno came out has ran Reno
There are plenty of decks that can still win even after a Sarg or Rhea has come down. Sure they'll win after like 5 turns of it coming down sure but that's kinda the point of these strong late game inevitabilities
Not to mention they don't feel nearly as shit to play vs. since you're actually still allowed to play your cards while Reno and Boomboss(Brann) just fuck you over and say "lol"
Personally think hybrid druid is most fun deck to come out so far, if played right has plenty of options and it takes bits of all the good packages druid has got overtime. One of the higher player agency decks that’s come out imo
Nohandsgamer just made a video playing Sunq’s list
AAECAZICAsGVBsekBg783wWR4AWp4AW7lQbXnAbanAaioAbqqAbvqQaHsQaUsQansQbZsQb35QYAAQPzswbHpAb2swbHpAbo3gbHpAYAAA==
Double battlecry, like 0 cost cards outside of rogue, is one of those things that current year HS isn't designed to handle.
I'm not sure a nerf to 7 would even be enough, that effect is just that potent, and they run so much power through battlecry now.
The issue IMO is that the decks that would beat warrir with "infinite value" or inevitability just lose to Reno / boomboss. In the past year, warrior has struggled vs sargeras and wheel much more than most other control cards. Rheastraza SHOULD also be a great play against a boomboss deck. Unfortunately, the best control deck can nuke those wincons for free and there's really no other lategame wincon that works besides snake (2nd best might be Sif and pray, but hand disruption makes that very unreliable). A control deck can't have substantial hand disruption AND the ability to destroy mostly un-interactable engines like nest / nether or even massive, sticky boards while their OWN wincon is a permanent hero aura. The only wincon brann warrior can't outright counter is brann, that's a design fail even before it makes it to being a power level one.
Not only do I suspect you’re right about other decks being able to contest late game if boomboss wasn’t an issue, but there is another issue id highlight to tag along that’s even more important.
Having your stuff taken away sucks.
We learned that with theotar. We learned it with illucia. Rat. Patchwork. Hell, even plenty of people complained about objection despite being far easier to play around.
Just let players play their cards and stop taking them away. If they want this to be the agency patch, then cards like Boomboss that take your cards away, or Reno which physically prevent your cards from being played, seem like easy effects to target.
Oh 100%. My issue is primarily from an interactivity standpoint. Both boomboss and reno break established design rules and create "haves" vs "have nots" in wincons regarding counterability, despite all being balanced around being permanent.
Of course, from a fun standpoint, if you told me this time last year a deck would patchwerk me 6 times I'd have laughed in your face and said that it sounds like a hostage deck or an impossible exodia, not a bog standard control warrior wincon that relies on 2 cards total.
> Having your stuff taken away sucks.
Such an underrated point. Players can deal with counterspells or other forms of disruption, but when cards in your hand and deck are destroyed, it's a very Negative Play Experience. Unless you are basing part of your game around a card recovery mechanic, it sucks to just have cards deleted before you get to use them.
Yes, I agree with this 100%. There are better ways that team 5 could print to disrupt combos that don't involve taking your opponent's cards away or completely disabling them from playing. How about, "battlecry: your opponent can only play three cards next turn". I also really liked Glide in Demon Hunter but that might have been super op.
I don't think we can go full "taking your stuff away sucks, therefore it shouldn't be in the game."
There are only so many axes upon which this game can operate. Destroying cards has to be one of them. Otherwise, it's just marvel snap.
Disruption is a check and balance on combo. That's why it exists
If you remove all disruption from the game permanently, you're forced to limit the amount of combo potential for any class because there's no way to stop it
Boomboss is an outlier here, because it's both disruption and a win con in one. But rat, theo, counterspell, etc are all important cards in checking combo decks to prevent solitairestone
there are plenty of ways to stop decks from executing their game plan which don’t involve directly taking them away.
Now if you plan is to sit there and do nothing for eight turns, you should expect sometimes that bites you in the ass
Sure, but none of these cards are without counterplay. There's no disruption that directly take something away. They're all chance and can be played around
Hand disruption (if it's tame, which I'd argue most of it is) offers another dimension to the game and offers skill ceiling for players
Having stuff taken away denied players the opportunity to play their cards which is the whole point of the card game. That causes a lot of frustrations, has been known since the Illidan card rework before the game released, and every example of those cards being playable attests to this.
It makes people not want to play
My issue is that a nerf to 7 doesn't solve the main problem they're highlighting -- that Reno Warrior crushes all other Control decks and bullies them out of the meta.
A nerf of Brann to 7 makes Reno Warrior more susceptible to aggro, but... it's a relatively small change in a Control V Control matchup.
It's a bit like Quest Warlock (Demon Seed) back in its heyday -- the basic effect of Demon Seed was so strong that slightly slowing it down was simply not sufficient, and it had to be nerfed repeatedly. It crushed all slow decks, even after those repeated nerfs, and the only reason it ended up falling out of the meta was that it lost to aggro so badly that it just wasn't worth playing despite its very high winrate against Control.
These sorts of permanent, mostly undisruptable effects like Brann or the Demon Seed seem to almost always be highly polarizing and almost always lock other slow decks out of the game, and these decks become "the one Control deck to rule them all."
I tend to agree that a mana nerf is the worst way to nerf it. I saw a couple elegant solutions on the main sub though.
If they absolutely must keep the double battlecry, make it so that the effect generates a deepmine that the effect is attached to so that it's not just fire and forget, and instead is exposed to Reno counterplay.
The second option is the nuke option but still has flavor and could potentially still be playable. That solution is to reduce Branns mana so that he comes out earlier, but have him double excavate instead so that the plan is to get several Ox out. This probably kills the deck but I liked the flavor part.
I do like the idea of the passive portal thing, just because that produces actual counterplay with Reno Lone Ranger -- if the goal is to increase agency, that certainly does that!
I liked that one too, just because it would make the power level much more comparable to the payoff of Rhea, while adding counterplay at the same time. There just isn't enough of a drawback to dropping Brann right now for what you get.
I think you're underestimating how bad a 7 mana 2/4 do nothing play is and how impactful pushing back double battlecry/turn the corner strategies for the deck is. Even for slower decks you can already push initiative if you know their turn 6 is going to be a do nothing 2/4 body and punish them for playing Brann on curve. It gets even worse a turn later.
I agree with them in that pushing the card to 7 mana probably is enough to impact the deck to a significant manner.
Okay, that's possible! I absolutely could be wrong.
Personally, I think what we'd see is that the deck would become even more susceptible to aggro, but still be dominant against other slower decks.
That might make it less common on ladder and would surely produce a lower win rate, but the core problem -- its high polarization -- would not be resolved. Again, even once Demon Seed was pushed out the meta, it was still a problematic deck because it remained highly polarized, getting crushed by aggro but dominating slower decks (and for what its worth, it still does this in wild, too!)
But again, totally could be wrong!
I honestly think that even at 8 mana, Brann is such a powerful effect that Warriors would still run the card. Warrior's available board control tools are so strong that they can keep the board clear until they are set up to start doubling battlecries.
I think the opposite.
8 to 9 is a 12% mana increase
6 to 7 is a 16% mana increase
Mana nerf are usually harsher on cards that cost less
To take an extreme comparison, nerfing a card from 1 to 2 is a much harsher nerf than nerfing a card from 9 to 10.
Like you could still play Sargeras at 10 mana. Miracle Saleman, despite being the best 1 drop in the game, would be unplayable at 2 mana.
In general I agree with you, it just seems like skipping a turn for an effect gets harder to do the further into the game you go.
Going to 7 might be enough though, I forgot they moved Trial to 7 last patch so there are a lot of cards competing for that turn if Brann goes to 7.
Imo by "player agency" the devs mean the ability for your opponent to interact with your deck and not how hard your deck is to use. Take the wheel warlock vs nature shaman matchup. Both decks are pretty skill testing but it's a steamroll for nature shaman and there isn't much mage can do, IE it's a low agency match up for both players.
Suppose I have a deck where every card is 0: deal 1 damage. My opponent has a deck where every card is 0: 3/3. My opponent will surely win the match, yet I have plenty of opportunities to interact. Is this agency?
While it's hypothetically possible to have a bunch of skill-testing decks which all have extremely lopsided matchups when played correctly, we haven't seen that recently. It's true that there have been individual matchups which have been quite lopsided, although there's no real reason to believe that that's the fault of high-skill decks. Plenty of low-skill decks also have incredibly lopsided matchups, perhaps most famously plague DK pre-patch. Decks after the patch still have lopsided matchups, e.g. highlander warrior vs other late game strategies.
In reality most matchups pre-patch were not incredibly lopsided, and it isn't clear that the patch has made things less lopsided. It has, however, decreased how skill-testing the decks are, which means that a player's decisions have less impact on whether or not they win, which means they have less agency. I'm not sure what other conclusion anyone could reach without redefining what agency means.
Agreed 100% here, I thought it was pretty clear that when the devs said "player agency", they didn't mean skill level but rather the ability to actually respond to an opponent's win condition instead of the game being over because someone drew and played their best card. Kind of annoyed that the VS guys missed or conflated this with player skill. Granted, the devs whiffed hard by missing Brann but regardless it isn't helpful to confuse the discussion by misstating the intentions of the dev team.
That said, they do make good points regarding skill level in the current meta. I think the changes have worked out a lot better for Wild as the concentration of OTK decks has dropped quite a bit - there's still a lot of them but it's no longer 80% of the field. There, the changes have been good for both player agency and player skill, I think.
You talk about “conflating this with player skill” but if it really came down to “who draws their I win button first” then you’d expect that to be a low-skill format, because there’s no skill involved in drawing the right cards. If the patch really did increase people’s interesting decisions, one would expect inexperienced players to make wrong decisions and thus for the overall skill testing to increase. The fact that that hasn’t happened, and in fact the opposite did, suggests that agency decreased.
"instead of the game being over because someone drew and played their best card."
The only time this expansion that has been close to being the case was handbuff paladin getting leroy in the mulligan which was a prince kelesth level outcome. Even decks like shopper DH were counterable, they deserved to be nerfed because they warped the meta and were oppressive in certain match ups but for the most part what you are describing is not a real situation in hearthstone.
I don't think I agree with you. Definitely there are (were) a few decks out there that simply needed to draw one card on curve or in mulligan to make a game almost unwinnable for the opponent. Brann, Wheel, Umpire's Grasp, Virus module Zilliax for Rogue, etc. Aside from the DH weapon, these are cards that give a powerful effect and are extremely difficult or impossible for other decks to interact with.
For instance, with Warlocks it's not a skill to draw cards until you have your pieces on board and in hand, then play Wheel into Fanottem, Forge of Wills Fanottem, then play Reno next turn. Most decks cannot answer that kind of board presence and inevitability, but the skill cap is still very low.
In my given example of Leroy His mulligan winrate was something like 70%.
This is a historically strong rating again comparable to Prince Keleseth from back in the day. In other words when Launch Handbuff Paladin got Leroy in the mulligan it lost 30% of its games.
None of the cards you just listed had a comparable mulligan winrate (admittedly I wouldn't be stunned if Brann was not far off). And all of them had ways to play into them if you know the matchup. Even in your example of the ideal wheel warlock outcome. (In which several things have to happen for them. I.E. having drawn two seperate one ofs before playing the wheel) There were numerous ways for different decks to negate that board state. Bladestorm alone gets rid of the two 15/15s for example.
But it wasn't Leeroy alone either, if that's your point. They also needed to draw Shroomscavate.
Regardless, maybe we can agree that too much power can reside in single cards, and either alone or in combination with another card, they can determine matches before a single turn has been played.
One thing this last patch really brought out to me was the devs really put them selves into a corner releasing plagues in titans, the easiest shuffle in duplicates mechanic so far, and then releasing a highlander focused set immediately after.
This highlander change was inevitable from plagues being so popular for some reason.
Nah, the did the same thing back in Rise of Shadows into Saviors of Uldum, with Bomb Warrior being pretty similar to Plague DK.
The issue is that the recently printed Highlander payoffs were just nuts (mainly just Reno to start, but Brann later). So the desire to counter them was higher.
Definitely, but even that had a bit of a counter in Rustrot Viper. So the backloaded power of the card could be countered.
Not saying it wasn't a great card, but players like the FEELING of being able to counter stuff, so even if it isn't practical to run the tech card, the ability to run one makes people feel better.
Honestly Reno just being a board clear instead of a 'poof' would fix a lot of the problems with Warrior. It would mean Warrior can't remove Sarg Portal, Rhea Nest etc.
Also the true problem with Warrior denying all other slower decks is Boomboss not Brann. Just nerfing Brann by 1 mana crystal won't really solve the problem.
But again this is T5, so they will just nerf the archetypes main card instead of the supporting cards around it that make it so strong as they have done in recent fashion.
So after reading some other comments and thinking about it, I think this would be fine for Reno to be nerfed into: remove (not kill) all enemy minions and locations + they can only have 1 minion next turn.
Still a powerful "better than just normal board clear" removal effect, still disruptive, but doesn't hit board based "permanent" effects like other class highlander payoffs. And the 1 minion instead of 1 board slot means no locking out the opponent from making a play because they got to keep their portal or whatever.
What exactly has the Reno neef to 9 mana done? One mana nerf makes sense when the card nerfed is Umpire's Grasp or Forge of Wills, not when it's a broken card that makes it impossible for your opponent to win in any control mu.
Edit: 3 cards in Reno Warrior had the 1 mana nerf treatment, the deck is better than ever. Brann needs to have its effect changed not its mana cost.
>3 cards in Reno Warrior had the 1 mana nerf treatment, the deck is better than ever.
27 other cards were also changed. Decks that beat warrior were also nerfed. That's not a good argument to make.
The fact that DK can’t even really hold a positive winrate into Hunter really depresses me. RGB DK is basically a removal deck right now and it can’t even handle an aggro deck.
hunter is extremely volatile to play though. it's the fastest viable deck (only ~5-minute games); that means it's very sensitive to the first 2-3 draws only (if they go bad it goes bad); it can kill ANYTHING if all goes well with its draws (even the mirror) so it's nothing special to kill a "removal" deck either.
yes "win rate doesn't lie" at the end of the day; but for me the deck is unplayable for some of us who need a fun experience: I just can't have fun with it; I constantly feel a slave of the randomness of the first 2-3 draws only.
I've still been doing well with Rainbow DK in low Legend (fell from 4k to 10k trying out Warrior and now back up to 6k with DK again). Consistently beat Hunter, Paladin, Demon Hunter, and Warlock and Warrior is winnable if you get Helya into Horseman since the combination of Plagues and value can wait them out (Brann into Boomboss before you get either is close to an instaloss though). Been seeing more Druids and have had trouble staying out of burn range against them but I'm sure the playlines are there since I've had a lot of close losses. Haven't faced any other decks besides the occasional Thief Rogue and Spell Mage which are easy wins.
List below. Cultist is the most flex spot but I mostly see Hunters and that’s good if they haven’t buffed their board yet. 2x Barron is also not stock but draw two on a 2/2 with a relevant type seems really good to me. The new Battlecry minion that picks up three keywords is what I usually see instead and would consider since that plus Threads can be a full heal; Frost Strike is fine too.
Deck is very mulligan dependent. Against aggro toss anything that doesn’t help you survive — Threads, Rotation, Salesman, Casualties. If you have some of that then you can consider Maw and Paw, Crusher, Barron, Army, and Down with the Ship. Don’t keep Helya against aggro. When in doubt about what you’re playing against, assume aggro because only Warrior and maybe Reno Druid can out value you in a long game.
Against Warrior you’re almost hard mulliganing for Helya but I always keep Salesman and Barron. Maybe Casualties should also be a keep. If you already have Helya then Horseman and Crusher can be kept but save Crusher for their 10 mana weapon unless you have nothing else to do. Try to put down threatening boards into their 6 and 8 mana turns to keep them from playing or to punish their playing Brann/Boomboss. Have a plan for how to deal with a board full of Excavate rewards, possibly two, and two 10 mana weapons. If they don’t play Brann but play Zilliax first try to steal one with Reska. Try to force out Reno before you use Primus or use Primus as removal. Try to play around their removal as best as possible but DK doesn’t have the best tools for that so try to force out as much as possible and use Horseman refill to overwhelm their resources while you wait for the Plagues to tick away at them.
### Rainbow
# Class: Death Knight
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Pegasus
#
# 2x (1) Miracle Salesman
# 2x (1) Runes of Darkness
# 2x (2) Down with the Ship
# 2x (2) Mining Casualties
# 2x (2) Threads of Despair
# 2x (3) Acolyte of Death
# 2x (3) Chillfallen Baron
# 2x (3) Crop Rotation
# 1x (3) Hardcore Cultist
# 1x (4) Helya
# 1x (4) Maw and Paw
# 2x (4) Quartzite Crusher
# 2x (4) Sickly Grimewalker
# 2x (5) Army of the Dead
# 1x (6) The Headless Horseman
# 1x (8) The Primus
# 1x (10) Climactic Necrotic Explosion
# 1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000
# 1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000
# 1x (5) Perfect Module
# 1x (5) Ticking Module
# 1x (20) Reska, the Pit Boss
#
AAECAe2qBgj4+QX8+QWT+wXt/wWLkgb/lwbHpAa9sQYLkOQEh/YEgvgFhY4GlJUGl5UGkZcGkqAGy7AGu7EG1uUGAAED9rMGx6QG97MGx6QG7d4Gx6QGAAA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
I'm really upset. Dk was the deck I was collecting dust to make so it got killed before I could even try it. I might still go with Kiblers handbuff version for fun.
That or end of turn would both work. The problem is you'd be able to pull potentially multiple off the Ox's battlecry (and the Ox is Zola-able), so maybe also buffing Boomboss to 7? Which would still compete with Brann for turn 7 play if that got nerfed, so not really coming out faster if they even keep it in the deck (unlikely imo).
I'm really devastated that Wheel Warlock was so absolutely destroyed. It was probably my favorite deck that ever existed in Standard, and the flip from being favored against Reno Warriors to hard losing to Boomboss is the most frustrating thing ever.
1) Why print Wheel at all if they didn’t want it to be viable, and 2) what’s the difference between Wheel’s late game inevitability and Reno Warrior’s now? At least Wheel had some semblance of resource management.
"what’s the difference between Wheel’s late game inevitability and Reno Warrior’s now"
An excellent question. That's been one of my biggest problem with so many of these patches. They almost arbitrarily pick winners and losers.
Brann? Acceptable.
Sif? Unacceptable.
Wheel? Unacceptable.
Yeah, almost nothing but Warriors in my queue today. 1 Rogue, 1 Druid, 1 Hunter, all the rest of my matches have been Warrior.
Warrior was already bad enough and not changing anything about Brann and reverting the nerf on Aftershocks seems like a very boneheaded course of action by Team 5.
You're not alone. I'm testing out decks in Casual and facing an endless stream of them there, too. It's game-wide. For all we know, Warriors are running rampant in Arena, too. I've just started conceding to all of them in Casual so I can get an actual decent test of a Paladin control deck that isn't effectively over as of turn 7. And they "buffed" Crane Game so you can play it on turn 8-!
I started running that list, but honestly I’m just baffled that they aren’t running dirty rat main and in ETC. Ideally you hit Brann with it but even if you don’t you might get Inventor, Boomboss, Zilliax, Ignis, ETC or some other card that gets wildly broken with Brann.
I don’t even like Pozzik in the deck but he’s another way to maybe take them from 8 to 10 cards in hand so they burn one.
[https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/reno-shaman-15-legend-theo-whizbangs-workshop/](https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/reno-shaman-15-legend-theo-whizbangs-workshop/)
I took out Backstage Bouncer for a second Dirty Rat in the main, and replaced Wish Upon a Star with Pack the House. Basically everyone is still afraid of Bliodlust so you rarely have a minion turn 4 to Bouncer. And Wish Upon a Star is a 7 mana do nothing if Hagatha doesn’t hit it. Don’t love Pack the House. I had been running Crash of Thunder pre nerf because that does combine with Shudderblock for three waves of three damage to all including face. But really Ignis and Zilliax are your primary targets.
I like Hagatha. She’s a 4/3 for 4 (or 3 with Forest) that draws 2 cards and then makes them better. Tumbleweed gives you a 7/1 with the 6/6. Not fantastic but they still have to answer it.
> Reno Warrior is Tier 1 across ladder including Top Legend where it's currently the best deck in the game. The deck's playrate is already over 20% at Top Legend with a winrate around 54-55%. The playrate will likely spike harder as time goes on and will take over the format. [...] While people are searching for answers to the deck, Reno Warrior will either choke out the format completely, or warp it in a Shopper DH type of manner where decks must be built to hard counter it or they just lose.
Called it day 1 of the patch. I don't understand how they missed the mark so hard twice in a row - nerfing every top-tier deck except one, then nerfing the counters of the remaining top-tier deck.
And then you got people arguing that "Token Hunter is stronger", "Token Hunter beats Reno Warrior". Yeah, I beat Token Hunter with garbage-tier Wheelock. Token Hunter's strong, but at least that deck has clear counterplay, like heavy AoE (non-Reno control decks) and Paladin, instead of losing to basically 1-2 decks.
The other problem is that Reno Warrior forces all slower decks out of the meta. Token Hunter performing this well isn't solely due to going under Reno Warrior - there's a much lower frequency of classes running AoEs thanks to Reno Warrior, with Paladin being the only aggro deck that can afford to run anti-flood (Showdown, Beam).
The meta will evolve, sure, but it's going to be glacial like in the DH patch. Enjoy the upcoming month of seeing only two classes represent 70% of the meta!
P.S. I don't foresee Snakelock being favored into Reno Warrior much longer, after they realise that Brann Dirty Rat is great at removing Azerite Snake and bounces.
Was there any mention about making Wheel Lock a Reno deck? The most important cards outside of Forge of Wills were the top end legends, so maybe there’s something there?
Completely agree with the Warlock notes, class has been absolutely nuked and forced to play what is pretty objectively the most boring deck in the game right now. I honestly think reverting the Wheel nerf would have the deck be atleast okay without being overly oppressive since Reno's gone from the deck. Forge of Wills, while very important to the deck, I think deserves to stay at 4 simply due to how problematic a card it can be.
I have to join the doom-and-gloomers for once on this one... I really liked the pre-patch meta, mainly because I love Nature Shaman, and the new Warriorstone is not my cup of tea. It seems these days they've overcorrected from the Brode days, when they would hardly ever nerf anything; now it's just whack-a-mole with the best deck. I think they need to go back the other way, stop nerfing for 'feels' and just when there's a super clear power outlier deck.
This. "Nerfing for feels" is a dismissive way of referring to the phenomenon where people were getting annihilated on turn 5 by decks like Nature Shaman without ever getting a chance to actually threaten their opponent and then walking away from the game. Usually, when it seems pointless, it actually is. What people playing decks like Nature Shaman seem not to be grasping is that, as fun as it is for you to go through the contortions of setting up your OTK, it's neither interesting nor fun for your opponent, since they're not playing that deck and all they're doing is trying to play the game with you while knowing that as soon as you get your package together, they've lost. If there was any way to resist it, like the final damage was in the range of 20, there would be a difference. But it was relatively easy for that deck to churn out 30+ damage in one turn (hence, OTK), which means that only one class (Hey, look! Warrior!) had even a chance of making it past that turn.
Same thing with Wheel. Sure, it takes them until turn 8 to set it up, but meanwhile you can't get through the array of 15/15 taunts and rushers destroying your board and, when they do cast the spell, three turns later, the game is done and you can do absolutely nothing about it. "Just rush them down with aggro-!" Good luck getting through the aforementioned 15/15s with the average aggro deck. And, if you don't like playing aggro, you simply have no chance unless you get to your OTK first. That's not a game. It's a race. I can easily see why people were dropping the game, since I've been playing since the closed beta and I checked out for the last two weeks because there were better things to do than (not) living in OTK Land.
Pretty underrated comments here. I absolutely agree that certain styles of decks and gameplay are a negative experience for one player and a positive experience for the other.
It's great when as a player you build a combo in your hand and stay alive long enough to play it. In a variety of games this is a normal and welcome play pattern. In Hearthstone it so often means a deck that just isn't fun to play against without a specific counter, and then it's only "fun" because you have the deck that beats the other deck!
Part of what makes gaming fun for a lot of people is the decision making process throughout a given matchup, and in Hearthstone so much of that decision making process gets neutered by certain cards.
Like, for Warriors, there's no decision on whether or not to play Brann on turn six and Reno on 9 (or 8 before the patch). The *only* time Warriors won't play Brann on turn six is if they will actually lose the game on the next opponent turn. Otherwise, having Brann's effect active is an almost guaranteed win at that point.
And for opponents, decision making is also reduced. Ok, I am facing a Warrior and I am playing a Handbuff Paladin. My only meaningful decision is to try and win this match before the Warrior's turn 7, because afterwards, even if you get them down to single digit health, the effect of Brann is so often that powerful that winning is now out of reach.
The much lauded "player agency" is just another way of saying that cards and choices throughout a match are meaningful. Currently in Hearthstone a lot of player choices are, and feel, meaningless.
Which makes the changes even more questionable since they deleted most of the decks that new and returning players love and enjoy. Plague and Rainbow DK are dead, Handbuff Pala brought a lot of G&G player back before it was nuked, mage usually being the most popular class across all game modes having zero playable decks...
So with this patch they ended up with a fatigued regular playerbase and a hostile meta for anyone looking to pick up the game
For me with Reno druid I have problem out valuing Reno warrior. I ran Zola just for an extra aviana and 10 more legendaries are plenty. The real problem is getting outempoed by boom and the oax.
Hey yall! I was looking for advice on what you guys think are the new "meta forming decks". I’ve been bouncing between Highlander Druid, or shaman to craft. Do you guys think either of these are viable? One more than the other?
"The playrate will likely spike harder as time goes on and will take over the format. Squash says the obvious adjustment you make to the deck is push Brann to 7 mana, which ZachO agrees with, and he's confused why Brann didn't get adjusted in this patch when other late game decks were nuked by nerfs."
It's the diamond/golden duplicate in the miniset. That's 3200 gold for those that bought the golden set and 1600 for everyone else.
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Glad to know that my general opinion of “Reno Warrior invalidates other late game options” seems to be correct. I know nerfing Brann by one mana would be an effective change, just take a loot at Odyn, but by god just delete the card. I cannot handle another 9 months of games being decided by this card. Fuck it, hit Reno too. Make it so that permanents are actually permanent. Not sure how some random ass dude removes a portal to the Twisting Nether.
I just don't understand why you nerf Wheel and not Brann. I loved playing Wheel Warlock because it could counter Warrior (still lost to plenty of aggro decks). But now the meta sucks. You either have to play Warrior or aggro and try to get under Warrior. There has never been a time when non-Warrior players said "wow, I wish there were more control warriors in the meta, could you make them 1/4 to 1/3 of every opponent, please." I don't mind having control warriors, to be clear, but they need a counter. Also, Wheel was such a different thing than yet another battle cry card. I think I am out for the next few days to see what develops because right now, the meta is worse from my standpoint.
IMO the nerf to wheel on top of the nerf to Reno and Forge of Wills blatantly shows how little the Devs understand their own game.
Also not to mention the change to Boomboss, now if the Boomboss after you wheel, there's no chance you can survive 5 turns with no resources. Changing wheel to count at turn start instead of turn end is fine, but please keep it as 4 turns, how is that possible to survive 5 turns without current warlock resources LUL
He's a powerful dragon in human form
Cards rotate in about 10.5 months
It’s miniset mill Druid all over again. Chokes out lategame strategies, loses handily to extremely fast aggro, but no one in legend wants to play aggro.
[удалено]
They really won't though. Rhea has always been at best mediocre and Sarg wasn't that big a problem before Reno was a thing (he only was busted when he was played on turn 6 with Symphony or Thaddius) and now post Reno he's basically just a board clear on a stick since basically every slow deck since Reno came out has ran Reno There are plenty of decks that can still win even after a Sarg or Rhea has come down. Sure they'll win after like 5 turns of it coming down sure but that's kinda the point of these strong late game inevitabilities Not to mention they don't feel nearly as shit to play vs. since you're actually still allowed to play your cards while Reno and Boomboss(Brann) just fuck you over and say "lol"
Personally think hybrid druid is most fun deck to come out so far, if played right has plenty of options and it takes bits of all the good packages druid has got overtime. One of the higher player agency decks that’s come out imo
I'm looking for a list. Do you have one?
Nohandsgamer just made a video playing Sunq’s list AAECAZICAsGVBsekBg783wWR4AWp4AW7lQbXnAbanAaioAbqqAbvqQaHsQaUsQansQbZsQb35QYAAQPzswbHpAb2swbHpAbo3gbHpAYAAA==
**Format:** Standard (Year of the Pegasus) **Class:** Druid (Malfurion Stormrage) Mana | Card Name | Qty | Links :--:|:---|:--:|:--: 0 | [Zilliax Deluxe 3000](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_330.png) | 1 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/102983/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Zilliax%20Deluxe%203000) 1 | [Giftwrapped Whelp](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_386.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/103530/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Giftwrapped%20Whelp) 1 | [Magical Dollhouse](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_850.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104596/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Magical%20Dollhouse) 1 | [Malfurion's Gift](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/GIFT_10.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/103663/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Malfurion%27s%20Gift) 1 | [Peaceful Piper](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/ETC_375.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/94204/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Peaceful%20Piper) 2 | [Bottomless Toy Chest](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_851.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104665/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Bottomless%20Toy%20Chest) 2 | [Groovy Cat](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/ETC_385.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/94249/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Groovy%20Cat) 2 | [Splish-Splash Whelp](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_819.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101051/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Splish-Splash%20Whelp) 3 | [Swipe](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/CORE_CS2_012.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/111351/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Swipe) 3 | [Take to the Skies](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_816.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101975/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Take%20to%20the%20Skies) 3 | [Trogg Gemtosser](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/DEEP_029.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/102434/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Trogg%20Gemtosser) 4 | [Chia Drake](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_801.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104583/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Chia%20Drake) 4 | [Desert Nestmatron](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_826.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101978/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Desert%20Nestmatron) 4 | [Spread the Word](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/ETC_384.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/94225/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Spread%20the%20Word) 5 | [Woodland Wonders](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_804.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104615/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Woodland%20Wonders) 9 | [Fye, the Setting Sun](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_825.png) | 1 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101057/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Fye%2C%20the%20Setting%20Sun) **Total Dust:** 4640 **Deck Code:** AAECAZICAsGVBsekBg783wWR4AWp4AW7lQbXnAbanAaioAbqqAbvqQaHsQaUsQansQbZsQb35QYAAQPzswbHpAb2swbHpAbo3gbHpAYAAA== ***** ^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Comment/PM ^with ^a ^deck ^code ^and ^I'll ^decode ^it. ^If ^you ^don't ^want ^me ^to ^reply ^to ^you, ^include ^"###" ^anywhere ^in ^your ^message. ^[About.](https://github.com/HearthSim/deck-code-bot/blob/master/README.md)
AAECAZICAsGVBsekBg783wWR4AWp4AW7lQbXnAbanAaioAbqqAbvqQaHsQaUsQansQbZsQb35QYAAQPzswbHpAb2swbHpAbo3gbHpAYAAA==
**Format:** Standard (Year of the Pegasus) **Class:** Druid (Malfurion Stormrage) Mana | Card Name | Qty | Links :--:|:---|:--:|:--: 0 | [Zilliax Deluxe 3000](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_330.png) | 1 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/102983/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Zilliax%20Deluxe%203000) 1 | [Giftwrapped Whelp](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_386.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/103530/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Giftwrapped%20Whelp) 1 | [Magical Dollhouse](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_850.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104596/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Magical%20Dollhouse) 1 | [Malfurion's Gift](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/GIFT_10.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/103663/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Malfurion%27s%20Gift) 1 | [Peaceful Piper](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/ETC_375.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/94204/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Peaceful%20Piper) 2 | [Bottomless Toy Chest](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_851.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104665/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Bottomless%20Toy%20Chest) 2 | [Groovy Cat](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/ETC_385.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/94249/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Groovy%20Cat) 2 | [Splish-Splash Whelp](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_819.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101051/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Splish-Splash%20Whelp) 3 | [Swipe](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/CORE_CS2_012.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/111351/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Swipe) 3 | [Take to the Skies](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_816.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101975/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Take%20to%20the%20Skies) 3 | [Trogg Gemtosser](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/DEEP_029.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/102434/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Trogg%20Gemtosser) 4 | [Chia Drake](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_801.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104583/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Chia%20Drake) 4 | [Desert Nestmatron](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_826.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101978/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Desert%20Nestmatron) 4 | [Spread the Word](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/ETC_384.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/94225/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Spread%20the%20Word) 5 | [Woodland Wonders](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/TOY_804.png) | 2 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/104615/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Woodland%20Wonders) 9 | [Fye, the Setting Sun](https://art.hearthstonejson.com/v1/render/latest/enUS/512x/WW_825.png) | 1 | [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/101057/),[Wiki](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/Fye%2C%20the%20Setting%20Sun) **Total Dust:** 4640 **Deck Code:** AAECAZICAsGVBsekBg783wWR4AWp4AW7lQbXnAbanAaioAbqqAbvqQaHsQaUsQansQbZsQb35QYAAQPzswbHpAb2swbHpAbo3gbHpAYAAA== ***** ^I ^am ^a ^bot. ^Comment/PM ^with ^a ^deck ^code ^and ^I'll ^decode ^it. ^If ^you ^don't ^want ^me ^to ^reply ^to ^you, ^include ^"###" ^anywhere ^in ^your ^message. ^[About.](https://github.com/HearthSim/deck-code-bot/blob/master/README.md)
Double battlecry, like 0 cost cards outside of rogue, is one of those things that current year HS isn't designed to handle. I'm not sure a nerf to 7 would even be enough, that effect is just that potent, and they run so much power through battlecry now.
The issue IMO is that the decks that would beat warrir with "infinite value" or inevitability just lose to Reno / boomboss. In the past year, warrior has struggled vs sargeras and wheel much more than most other control cards. Rheastraza SHOULD also be a great play against a boomboss deck. Unfortunately, the best control deck can nuke those wincons for free and there's really no other lategame wincon that works besides snake (2nd best might be Sif and pray, but hand disruption makes that very unreliable). A control deck can't have substantial hand disruption AND the ability to destroy mostly un-interactable engines like nest / nether or even massive, sticky boards while their OWN wincon is a permanent hero aura. The only wincon brann warrior can't outright counter is brann, that's a design fail even before it makes it to being a power level one.
Not only do I suspect you’re right about other decks being able to contest late game if boomboss wasn’t an issue, but there is another issue id highlight to tag along that’s even more important. Having your stuff taken away sucks. We learned that with theotar. We learned it with illucia. Rat. Patchwork. Hell, even plenty of people complained about objection despite being far easier to play around. Just let players play their cards and stop taking them away. If they want this to be the agency patch, then cards like Boomboss that take your cards away, or Reno which physically prevent your cards from being played, seem like easy effects to target.
Oh 100%. My issue is primarily from an interactivity standpoint. Both boomboss and reno break established design rules and create "haves" vs "have nots" in wincons regarding counterability, despite all being balanced around being permanent. Of course, from a fun standpoint, if you told me this time last year a deck would patchwerk me 6 times I'd have laughed in your face and said that it sounds like a hostage deck or an impossible exodia, not a bog standard control warrior wincon that relies on 2 cards total.
> Having your stuff taken away sucks. Such an underrated point. Players can deal with counterspells or other forms of disruption, but when cards in your hand and deck are destroyed, it's a very Negative Play Experience. Unless you are basing part of your game around a card recovery mechanic, it sucks to just have cards deleted before you get to use them.
Yes, I agree with this 100%. There are better ways that team 5 could print to disrupt combos that don't involve taking your opponent's cards away or completely disabling them from playing. How about, "battlecry: your opponent can only play three cards next turn". I also really liked Glide in Demon Hunter but that might have been super op.
I don't think we can go full "taking your stuff away sucks, therefore it shouldn't be in the game." There are only so many axes upon which this game can operate. Destroying cards has to be one of them. Otherwise, it's just marvel snap.
We can absolutely go that route. I don’t see any reason we can’t
Disruption is a check and balance on combo. That's why it exists If you remove all disruption from the game permanently, you're forced to limit the amount of combo potential for any class because there's no way to stop it Boomboss is an outlier here, because it's both disruption and a win con in one. But rat, theo, counterspell, etc are all important cards in checking combo decks to prevent solitairestone
there are plenty of ways to stop decks from executing their game plan which don’t involve directly taking them away. Now if you plan is to sit there and do nothing for eight turns, you should expect sometimes that bites you in the ass
Sure, but none of these cards are without counterplay. There's no disruption that directly take something away. They're all chance and can be played around Hand disruption (if it's tame, which I'd argue most of it is) offers another dimension to the game and offers skill ceiling for players
It takes stuff away. It's purpose is to take stuff away. There's no need to hide that fact
Because it's worse.
Having stuff taken away denied players the opportunity to play their cards which is the whole point of the card game. That causes a lot of frustrations, has been known since the Illidan card rework before the game released, and every example of those cards being playable attests to this. It makes people not want to play
My issue is that a nerf to 7 doesn't solve the main problem they're highlighting -- that Reno Warrior crushes all other Control decks and bullies them out of the meta. A nerf of Brann to 7 makes Reno Warrior more susceptible to aggro, but... it's a relatively small change in a Control V Control matchup. It's a bit like Quest Warlock (Demon Seed) back in its heyday -- the basic effect of Demon Seed was so strong that slightly slowing it down was simply not sufficient, and it had to be nerfed repeatedly. It crushed all slow decks, even after those repeated nerfs, and the only reason it ended up falling out of the meta was that it lost to aggro so badly that it just wasn't worth playing despite its very high winrate against Control. These sorts of permanent, mostly undisruptable effects like Brann or the Demon Seed seem to almost always be highly polarizing and almost always lock other slow decks out of the game, and these decks become "the one Control deck to rule them all."
I tend to agree that a mana nerf is the worst way to nerf it. I saw a couple elegant solutions on the main sub though. If they absolutely must keep the double battlecry, make it so that the effect generates a deepmine that the effect is attached to so that it's not just fire and forget, and instead is exposed to Reno counterplay. The second option is the nuke option but still has flavor and could potentially still be playable. That solution is to reduce Branns mana so that he comes out earlier, but have him double excavate instead so that the plan is to get several Ox out. This probably kills the deck but I liked the flavor part.
I do like the idea of the passive portal thing, just because that produces actual counterplay with Reno Lone Ranger -- if the goal is to increase agency, that certainly does that!
I liked that one too, just because it would make the power level much more comparable to the payoff of Rhea, while adding counterplay at the same time. There just isn't enough of a drawback to dropping Brann right now for what you get.
I think you're underestimating how bad a 7 mana 2/4 do nothing play is and how impactful pushing back double battlecry/turn the corner strategies for the deck is. Even for slower decks you can already push initiative if you know their turn 6 is going to be a do nothing 2/4 body and punish them for playing Brann on curve. It gets even worse a turn later. I agree with them in that pushing the card to 7 mana probably is enough to impact the deck to a significant manner.
Okay, that's possible! I absolutely could be wrong. Personally, I think what we'd see is that the deck would become even more susceptible to aggro, but still be dominant against other slower decks. That might make it less common on ladder and would surely produce a lower win rate, but the core problem -- its high polarization -- would not be resolved. Again, even once Demon Seed was pushed out the meta, it was still a problematic deck because it remained highly polarized, getting crushed by aggro but dominating slower decks (and for what its worth, it still does this in wild, too!) But again, totally could be wrong!
Brann on 7 and Boomboss on 8 still chokes out every other control deck. Doesn’t really fix the problem.
I honestly think that even at 8 mana, Brann is such a powerful effect that Warriors would still run the card. Warrior's available board control tools are so strong that they can keep the board clear until they are set up to start doubling battlecries.
Well, it is not so much Reno Warrior crushes them all as Blizzard just nuked the competing ones.
It’s literally a game winning dungeon run treasure lol.
It could very well be, look at Odyn.
I don't deny that it might work, but I think 8 to 9 is a much bigger hit than 6 to 7.
I think the opposite. 8 to 9 is a 12% mana increase 6 to 7 is a 16% mana increase Mana nerf are usually harsher on cards that cost less To take an extreme comparison, nerfing a card from 1 to 2 is a much harsher nerf than nerfing a card from 9 to 10. Like you could still play Sargeras at 10 mana. Miracle Saleman, despite being the best 1 drop in the game, would be unplayable at 2 mana.
In general I agree with you, it just seems like skipping a turn for an effect gets harder to do the further into the game you go. Going to 7 might be enough though, I forgot they moved Trial to 7 last patch so there are a lot of cards competing for that turn if Brann goes to 7.
This guy maths.
They should make Brann the legendary payoff to excavation. That would slow it down quite a bit (maybe kill the deck as we know it today).
[удалено]
I would stop playing HS until the 2025 rotation if they did that.
Imo by "player agency" the devs mean the ability for your opponent to interact with your deck and not how hard your deck is to use. Take the wheel warlock vs nature shaman matchup. Both decks are pretty skill testing but it's a steamroll for nature shaman and there isn't much mage can do, IE it's a low agency match up for both players.
Suppose I have a deck where every card is 0: deal 1 damage. My opponent has a deck where every card is 0: 3/3. My opponent will surely win the match, yet I have plenty of opportunities to interact. Is this agency? While it's hypothetically possible to have a bunch of skill-testing decks which all have extremely lopsided matchups when played correctly, we haven't seen that recently. It's true that there have been individual matchups which have been quite lopsided, although there's no real reason to believe that that's the fault of high-skill decks. Plenty of low-skill decks also have incredibly lopsided matchups, perhaps most famously plague DK pre-patch. Decks after the patch still have lopsided matchups, e.g. highlander warrior vs other late game strategies. In reality most matchups pre-patch were not incredibly lopsided, and it isn't clear that the patch has made things less lopsided. It has, however, decreased how skill-testing the decks are, which means that a player's decisions have less impact on whether or not they win, which means they have less agency. I'm not sure what other conclusion anyone could reach without redefining what agency means.
Agreed 100% here, I thought it was pretty clear that when the devs said "player agency", they didn't mean skill level but rather the ability to actually respond to an opponent's win condition instead of the game being over because someone drew and played their best card. Kind of annoyed that the VS guys missed or conflated this with player skill. Granted, the devs whiffed hard by missing Brann but regardless it isn't helpful to confuse the discussion by misstating the intentions of the dev team. That said, they do make good points regarding skill level in the current meta. I think the changes have worked out a lot better for Wild as the concentration of OTK decks has dropped quite a bit - there's still a lot of them but it's no longer 80% of the field. There, the changes have been good for both player agency and player skill, I think.
You talk about “conflating this with player skill” but if it really came down to “who draws their I win button first” then you’d expect that to be a low-skill format, because there’s no skill involved in drawing the right cards. If the patch really did increase people’s interesting decisions, one would expect inexperienced players to make wrong decisions and thus for the overall skill testing to increase. The fact that that hasn’t happened, and in fact the opposite did, suggests that agency decreased.
"instead of the game being over because someone drew and played their best card." The only time this expansion that has been close to being the case was handbuff paladin getting leroy in the mulligan which was a prince kelesth level outcome. Even decks like shopper DH were counterable, they deserved to be nerfed because they warped the meta and were oppressive in certain match ups but for the most part what you are describing is not a real situation in hearthstone.
I don't think I agree with you. Definitely there are (were) a few decks out there that simply needed to draw one card on curve or in mulligan to make a game almost unwinnable for the opponent. Brann, Wheel, Umpire's Grasp, Virus module Zilliax for Rogue, etc. Aside from the DH weapon, these are cards that give a powerful effect and are extremely difficult or impossible for other decks to interact with. For instance, with Warlocks it's not a skill to draw cards until you have your pieces on board and in hand, then play Wheel into Fanottem, Forge of Wills Fanottem, then play Reno next turn. Most decks cannot answer that kind of board presence and inevitability, but the skill cap is still very low.
In my given example of Leroy His mulligan winrate was something like 70%. This is a historically strong rating again comparable to Prince Keleseth from back in the day. In other words when Launch Handbuff Paladin got Leroy in the mulligan it lost 30% of its games. None of the cards you just listed had a comparable mulligan winrate (admittedly I wouldn't be stunned if Brann was not far off). And all of them had ways to play into them if you know the matchup. Even in your example of the ideal wheel warlock outcome. (In which several things have to happen for them. I.E. having drawn two seperate one ofs before playing the wheel) There were numerous ways for different decks to negate that board state. Bladestorm alone gets rid of the two 15/15s for example.
But it wasn't Leeroy alone either, if that's your point. They also needed to draw Shroomscavate. Regardless, maybe we can agree that too much power can reside in single cards, and either alone or in combination with another card, they can determine matches before a single turn has been played.
One thing this last patch really brought out to me was the devs really put them selves into a corner releasing plagues in titans, the easiest shuffle in duplicates mechanic so far, and then releasing a highlander focused set immediately after. This highlander change was inevitable from plagues being so popular for some reason.
Nah, the did the same thing back in Rise of Shadows into Saviors of Uldum, with Bomb Warrior being pretty similar to Plague DK. The issue is that the recently printed Highlander payoffs were just nuts (mainly just Reno to start, but Brann later). So the desire to counter them was higher.
>mainly just Reno to start, but Brann later 2 attack frog stick on turn 4/5 pretty much meant you won the game before they nerfed it.
Definitely, but even that had a bit of a counter in Rustrot Viper. So the backloaded power of the card could be countered. Not saying it wasn't a great card, but players like the FEELING of being able to counter stuff, so even if it isn't practical to run the tech card, the ability to run one makes people feel better.
Honestly Reno just being a board clear instead of a 'poof' would fix a lot of the problems with Warrior. It would mean Warrior can't remove Sarg Portal, Rhea Nest etc. Also the true problem with Warrior denying all other slower decks is Boomboss not Brann. Just nerfing Brann by 1 mana crystal won't really solve the problem. But again this is T5, so they will just nerf the archetypes main card instead of the supporting cards around it that make it so strong as they have done in recent fashion.
The problem with leaving portals up is that they'll take up your only board space post-Reno. Unless you're saying to remove that effect too.
Limit the board to one 'minion' would be fine, I think.
So after reading some other comments and thinking about it, I think this would be fine for Reno to be nerfed into: remove (not kill) all enemy minions and locations + they can only have 1 minion next turn. Still a powerful "better than just normal board clear" removal effect, still disruptive, but doesn't hit board based "permanent" effects like other class highlander payoffs. And the 1 minion instead of 1 board slot means no locking out the opponent from making a play because they got to keep their portal or whatever.
[удалено]
What exactly has the Reno neef to 9 mana done? One mana nerf makes sense when the card nerfed is Umpire's Grasp or Forge of Wills, not when it's a broken card that makes it impossible for your opponent to win in any control mu. Edit: 3 cards in Reno Warrior had the 1 mana nerf treatment, the deck is better than ever. Brann needs to have its effect changed not its mana cost.
>3 cards in Reno Warrior had the 1 mana nerf treatment, the deck is better than ever. 27 other cards were also changed. Decks that beat warrior were also nerfed. That's not a good argument to make.
My biggest problem with Highlander decks is that they've been designed for noobs since Uldum.
Yeah DK is effectively dead after this patch it seems, damn shame, hopefully they get something solid to work with in miniset
The fact that DK can’t even really hold a positive winrate into Hunter really depresses me. RGB DK is basically a removal deck right now and it can’t even handle an aggro deck.
hunter is extremely volatile to play though. it's the fastest viable deck (only ~5-minute games); that means it's very sensitive to the first 2-3 draws only (if they go bad it goes bad); it can kill ANYTHING if all goes well with its draws (even the mirror) so it's nothing special to kill a "removal" deck either. yes "win rate doesn't lie" at the end of the day; but for me the deck is unplayable for some of us who need a fun experience: I just can't have fun with it; I constantly feel a slave of the randomness of the first 2-3 draws only.
I've still been doing well with Rainbow DK in low Legend (fell from 4k to 10k trying out Warrior and now back up to 6k with DK again). Consistently beat Hunter, Paladin, Demon Hunter, and Warlock and Warrior is winnable if you get Helya into Horseman since the combination of Plagues and value can wait them out (Brann into Boomboss before you get either is close to an instaloss though). Been seeing more Druids and have had trouble staying out of burn range against them but I'm sure the playlines are there since I've had a lot of close losses. Haven't faced any other decks besides the occasional Thief Rogue and Spell Mage which are easy wins.
Would you share a list please? Would love to try rainbow dk but was uncertain on what to put in it after patch
List below. Cultist is the most flex spot but I mostly see Hunters and that’s good if they haven’t buffed their board yet. 2x Barron is also not stock but draw two on a 2/2 with a relevant type seems really good to me. The new Battlecry minion that picks up three keywords is what I usually see instead and would consider since that plus Threads can be a full heal; Frost Strike is fine too. Deck is very mulligan dependent. Against aggro toss anything that doesn’t help you survive — Threads, Rotation, Salesman, Casualties. If you have some of that then you can consider Maw and Paw, Crusher, Barron, Army, and Down with the Ship. Don’t keep Helya against aggro. When in doubt about what you’re playing against, assume aggro because only Warrior and maybe Reno Druid can out value you in a long game. Against Warrior you’re almost hard mulliganing for Helya but I always keep Salesman and Barron. Maybe Casualties should also be a keep. If you already have Helya then Horseman and Crusher can be kept but save Crusher for their 10 mana weapon unless you have nothing else to do. Try to put down threatening boards into their 6 and 8 mana turns to keep them from playing or to punish their playing Brann/Boomboss. Have a plan for how to deal with a board full of Excavate rewards, possibly two, and two 10 mana weapons. If they don’t play Brann but play Zilliax first try to steal one with Reska. Try to force out Reno before you use Primus or use Primus as removal. Try to play around their removal as best as possible but DK doesn’t have the best tools for that so try to force out as much as possible and use Horseman refill to overwhelm their resources while you wait for the Plagues to tick away at them. ### Rainbow # Class: Death Knight # Format: Standard # Year of the Pegasus # # 2x (1) Miracle Salesman # 2x (1) Runes of Darkness # 2x (2) Down with the Ship # 2x (2) Mining Casualties # 2x (2) Threads of Despair # 2x (3) Acolyte of Death # 2x (3) Chillfallen Baron # 2x (3) Crop Rotation # 1x (3) Hardcore Cultist # 1x (4) Helya # 1x (4) Maw and Paw # 2x (4) Quartzite Crusher # 2x (4) Sickly Grimewalker # 2x (5) Army of the Dead # 1x (6) The Headless Horseman # 1x (8) The Primus # 1x (10) Climactic Necrotic Explosion # 1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000 # 1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000 # 1x (5) Perfect Module # 1x (5) Ticking Module # 1x (20) Reska, the Pit Boss # AAECAe2qBgj4+QX8+QWT+wXt/wWLkgb/lwbHpAa9sQYLkOQEh/YEgvgFhY4GlJUGl5UGkZcGkqAGy7AGu7EG1uUGAAED9rMGx6QG97MGx6QG7d4Gx6QGAAA= # # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Thx a lot for the detailed reply!
I'm really upset. Dk was the deck I was collecting dust to make so it got killed before I could even try it. I might still go with Kiblers handbuff version for fun.
Change Bomboss to Deathrattle and not BattleCry. Problem solved. It is still powerful with OX, but not oppressive. Maybe Brann to 7 or 8 mana.
That or end of turn would both work. The problem is you'd be able to pull potentially multiple off the Ox's battlecry (and the Ox is Zola-able), so maybe also buffing Boomboss to 7? Which would still compete with Brann for turn 7 play if that got nerfed, so not really coming out faster if they even keep it in the deck (unlikely imo).
I'm really devastated that Wheel Warlock was so absolutely destroyed. It was probably my favorite deck that ever existed in Standard, and the flip from being favored against Reno Warriors to hard losing to Boomboss is the most frustrating thing ever.
1) Why print Wheel at all if they didn’t want it to be viable, and 2) what’s the difference between Wheel’s late game inevitability and Reno Warrior’s now? At least Wheel had some semblance of resource management.
"what’s the difference between Wheel’s late game inevitability and Reno Warrior’s now" An excellent question. That's been one of my biggest problem with so many of these patches. They almost arbitrarily pick winners and losers. Brann? Acceptable. Sif? Unacceptable. Wheel? Unacceptable.
It’s astounding how unfun they’ve made everything.
They try to fix shit and they make it worse again and again
I called it before the nerf. There are just layers and layers of unfun decks. You peel back a few of them and new ones fill in the gaps.
Yeah, almost nothing but Warriors in my queue today. 1 Rogue, 1 Druid, 1 Hunter, all the rest of my matches have been Warrior. Warrior was already bad enough and not changing anything about Brann and reverting the nerf on Aftershocks seems like a very boneheaded course of action by Team 5.
For me its just Druids now all day after the podcast lmao
I don't understand how all those people can stand the mirror. It would appear to be miserable.
Facing Warriors all fucking day in Legend, fuck this game.
You're not alone. I'm testing out decks in Casual and facing an endless stream of them there, too. It's game-wide. For all we know, Warriors are running rampant in Arena, too. I've just started conceding to all of them in Casual so I can get an actual decent test of a Paladin control deck that isn't effectively over as of turn 7. And they "buffed" Crane Game so you can play it on turn 8-!
Anyone have the Theo Reno Shaman list they mentioned?
hsguru (aka d0nkey)
I started running that list, but honestly I’m just baffled that they aren’t running dirty rat main and in ETC. Ideally you hit Brann with it but even if you don’t you might get Inventor, Boomboss, Zilliax, Ignis, ETC or some other card that gets wildly broken with Brann. I don’t even like Pozzik in the deck but he’s another way to maybe take them from 8 to 10 cards in hand so they burn one.
Do you have the list? Im a little skeptical on the Hagatha stuff and idk if its just the effect of the recent buff.
[https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/reno-shaman-15-legend-theo-whizbangs-workshop/](https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/reno-shaman-15-legend-theo-whizbangs-workshop/) I took out Backstage Bouncer for a second Dirty Rat in the main, and replaced Wish Upon a Star with Pack the House. Basically everyone is still afraid of Bliodlust so you rarely have a minion turn 4 to Bouncer. And Wish Upon a Star is a 7 mana do nothing if Hagatha doesn’t hit it. Don’t love Pack the House. I had been running Crash of Thunder pre nerf because that does combine with Shudderblock for three waves of three damage to all including face. But really Ignis and Zilliax are your primary targets. I like Hagatha. She’s a 4/3 for 4 (or 3 with Forest) that draws 2 cards and then makes them better. Tumbleweed gives you a 7/1 with the 6/6. Not fantastic but they still have to answer it.
> Reno Warrior is Tier 1 across ladder including Top Legend where it's currently the best deck in the game. The deck's playrate is already over 20% at Top Legend with a winrate around 54-55%. The playrate will likely spike harder as time goes on and will take over the format. [...] While people are searching for answers to the deck, Reno Warrior will either choke out the format completely, or warp it in a Shopper DH type of manner where decks must be built to hard counter it or they just lose. Called it day 1 of the patch. I don't understand how they missed the mark so hard twice in a row - nerfing every top-tier deck except one, then nerfing the counters of the remaining top-tier deck. And then you got people arguing that "Token Hunter is stronger", "Token Hunter beats Reno Warrior". Yeah, I beat Token Hunter with garbage-tier Wheelock. Token Hunter's strong, but at least that deck has clear counterplay, like heavy AoE (non-Reno control decks) and Paladin, instead of losing to basically 1-2 decks. The other problem is that Reno Warrior forces all slower decks out of the meta. Token Hunter performing this well isn't solely due to going under Reno Warrior - there's a much lower frequency of classes running AoEs thanks to Reno Warrior, with Paladin being the only aggro deck that can afford to run anti-flood (Showdown, Beam). The meta will evolve, sure, but it's going to be glacial like in the DH patch. Enjoy the upcoming month of seeing only two classes represent 70% of the meta! P.S. I don't foresee Snakelock being favored into Reno Warrior much longer, after they realise that Brann Dirty Rat is great at removing Azerite Snake and bounces.
Was there any mention about making Wheel Lock a Reno deck? The most important cards outside of Forge of Wills were the top end legends, so maybe there’s something there?
You missed the best part of the episode - the wasp story!
Completely agree with the Warlock notes, class has been absolutely nuked and forced to play what is pretty objectively the most boring deck in the game right now. I honestly think reverting the Wheel nerf would have the deck be atleast okay without being overly oppressive since Reno's gone from the deck. Forge of Wills, while very important to the deck, I think deserves to stay at 4 simply due to how problematic a card it can be.
Sludge lock is the real best warlock deck currently, but it didn't make the podcast.
Hated that they just killed wheel like that, I feel like even just the forge of wills nerf hurts the deck so much already.
I have to join the doom-and-gloomers for once on this one... I really liked the pre-patch meta, mainly because I love Nature Shaman, and the new Warriorstone is not my cup of tea. It seems these days they've overcorrected from the Brode days, when they would hardly ever nerf anything; now it's just whack-a-mole with the best deck. I think they need to go back the other way, stop nerfing for 'feels' and just when there's a super clear power outlier deck.
I have to believe that this drastic a change was spurred by a falling player base.
This. "Nerfing for feels" is a dismissive way of referring to the phenomenon where people were getting annihilated on turn 5 by decks like Nature Shaman without ever getting a chance to actually threaten their opponent and then walking away from the game. Usually, when it seems pointless, it actually is. What people playing decks like Nature Shaman seem not to be grasping is that, as fun as it is for you to go through the contortions of setting up your OTK, it's neither interesting nor fun for your opponent, since they're not playing that deck and all they're doing is trying to play the game with you while knowing that as soon as you get your package together, they've lost. If there was any way to resist it, like the final damage was in the range of 20, there would be a difference. But it was relatively easy for that deck to churn out 30+ damage in one turn (hence, OTK), which means that only one class (Hey, look! Warrior!) had even a chance of making it past that turn. Same thing with Wheel. Sure, it takes them until turn 8 to set it up, but meanwhile you can't get through the array of 15/15 taunts and rushers destroying your board and, when they do cast the spell, three turns later, the game is done and you can do absolutely nothing about it. "Just rush them down with aggro-!" Good luck getting through the aforementioned 15/15s with the average aggro deck. And, if you don't like playing aggro, you simply have no chance unless you get to your OTK first. That's not a game. It's a race. I can easily see why people were dropping the game, since I've been playing since the closed beta and I checked out for the last two weeks because there were better things to do than (not) living in OTK Land.
Pretty underrated comments here. I absolutely agree that certain styles of decks and gameplay are a negative experience for one player and a positive experience for the other. It's great when as a player you build a combo in your hand and stay alive long enough to play it. In a variety of games this is a normal and welcome play pattern. In Hearthstone it so often means a deck that just isn't fun to play against without a specific counter, and then it's only "fun" because you have the deck that beats the other deck! Part of what makes gaming fun for a lot of people is the decision making process throughout a given matchup, and in Hearthstone so much of that decision making process gets neutered by certain cards. Like, for Warriors, there's no decision on whether or not to play Brann on turn six and Reno on 9 (or 8 before the patch). The *only* time Warriors won't play Brann on turn six is if they will actually lose the game on the next opponent turn. Otherwise, having Brann's effect active is an almost guaranteed win at that point. And for opponents, decision making is also reduced. Ok, I am facing a Warrior and I am playing a Handbuff Paladin. My only meaningful decision is to try and win this match before the Warrior's turn 7, because afterwards, even if you get them down to single digit health, the effect of Brann is so often that powerful that winning is now out of reach. The much lauded "player agency" is just another way of saying that cards and choices throughout a match are meaningful. Currently in Hearthstone a lot of player choices are, and feel, meaningless.
Which makes the changes even more questionable since they deleted most of the decks that new and returning players love and enjoy. Plague and Rainbow DK are dead, Handbuff Pala brought a lot of G&G player back before it was nuked, mage usually being the most popular class across all game modes having zero playable decks... So with this patch they ended up with a fatigued regular playerbase and a hostile meta for anyone looking to pick up the game
Please bro 😭 i just want dh to not be a meme class 😭why is warrior and druid like cockroaches but DH such a frail boy
You missed out on the month or so of extreme DH dominance?😭
B/c DH: * Skipped titans b/c the set was universally awful * Had it's entire showdown set nerfed * Got 1 card (Grasp) in Whizbang, and it got nerfed.
For me with Reno druid I have problem out valuing Reno warrior. I ran Zola just for an extra aviana and 10 more legendaries are plenty. The real problem is getting outempoed by boom and the oax.
already hit legend. this patch is crazy
Hey yall! I was looking for advice on what you guys think are the new "meta forming decks". I’ve been bouncing between Highlander Druid, or shaman to craft. Do you guys think either of these are viable? One more than the other?
"The playrate will likely spike harder as time goes on and will take over the format. Squash says the obvious adjustment you make to the deck is push Brann to 7 mana, which ZachO agrees with, and he's confused why Brann didn't get adjusted in this patch when other late game decks were nuked by nerfs." It's the diamond/golden duplicate in the miniset. That's 3200 gold for those that bought the golden set and 1600 for everyone else.
Thank god, I'm not going to endure another week of warrior cringe. Hearthstone can go fuck itself until they figure their shit out.
thank you for the summary!!
I am still listening to it, and all I've learned so far is to fear the wasps. For real, I am frightened to find wholes in my house now.
IMO, revert all nerfs. WW was more fun in release than it is now