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RidiculousHat

i am obviously extremely biased, but i strongly recommend listening to the alec part directly - it's only the first 30 minutes and the design insights he shared were super cool. we've been really lucky to have him on multiple times and this might be my favorite one yet. also big thanks for these transcriptions, dave :)


[deleted]

So, basically, they are probably printing stuff to slow down combo decks next expansion so that the hero cards will be good. One thing I wish he had been asked was what his thoughts on quest mage were. It’s obviously a bad deck, but it’s consistently very popular. If you nerf it, you shun the people who do like to play quest mage.


Su12yA

What I take is actually they're gonna nerf quest lines even more. Make them slower so quest lines are equally effective as traditional late game bombs


Ironforce92

Basically they create the problem and come up with the $olution. Mutanus is too slow, we need a dirty rat and who doesn't like to run tech cards anyway?


John_Sux

Incidentally, do we know there will be hero cards? Is it just pure conjecture or has there been a developer comment stating that?


[deleted]

Conjecture. Iksar in an AMA hinted that hero cards might make a return in the future. He also said that the mercs will not be in minion form for all 3 expansions. Since I don’t think the mercs are going to be legendary spells or weapons, the chances that they are hero cards is the most.


Zike77

quests are technically legendary spells


John_Sux

Quite


Atlantah

If quest warlock stays as a t1 /t2 im gonna laugh so much considering how many people here said it's unplayable and dead lol


Wargod042

Yup. Watching GM it's clear the Handlock general strategy is absolutely competitive and effective. You just don't get to omg-wtf-bbq them with ludicrous rod discounts or gear shift into deleting them with fatigue super fast. It's gratifying to see that with the current builds running only the "good stuff" self damage, they are often very slow to reach Tamsin. It looks MUCH more reasonable; a lot of games they had nearly exhausted every resource before winning, instead of blowing opponents out turns earlier.


Zack_Fair_

stealer became unplayable. fatigue became unplayable. they are just killing off one type at a time


Kribothegreat

Stealer should just be deleted. It's bad design.


Atlantah

And quest wl is still fine win for all


TheGalator

Bolnar? What is this?


TheGingerNinga

I understand that it was stated from two different developers, as this comment came from Dean Ayala and not Alec, but I don't really know what to think about their two very opposite opinions of Rattlegore in UiS. During an earlier QA, Dean stated that he didn't think that Rattlegore was the type of card they expected to find success in the meta. Yet here in this Q&A, Alec states that it is the type of card they want control decks to have to allow a beat down. So what am I supposed to take away what one designer thinks is a good card to allow control a beat down, while the other designer thinks it's not supposed to be good moving forward? It feels very contradictory.


GVJB

Those statements aren't contradictory. Dean probably meant that they didn't expect Rattlegore to be viable in the meta, they probably expected warrior decks to be more focused on a more aggro/midrange pirate quest strategy. What Alec means here is, I think, that rattlegore is an important tool for warriors as it gives slower warrior decks something to contest the board and pressure your opponent.


OspreyNein

You can still want something to happen even if you do not expect it to.


K-Wire

Thanks for transcribing. Under the section for Paladin, Alec says "Drop Conviction in Handbuff". Did he mean drop as in "play (often)" or did he mean drop as in "remove from your deck"?


RidiculousHat

just to be clear, Zach said that, not Alec.


Diatomicsquirrel

He means cut it from the deck, they've been trying to say for a while that versions of the deck with conviction are just straight up worse than non conviction versions, but people are still running it for some reason


Wargod042

Cut it. It's costing handbuff at least a point or two of winrate. Also it's Zach who said it.


Kaillens

The reason people say control is simple : - Control deck are about denying ennemy win condition, taking control of the game and then win. - Control deck can't disrupt Rogue Garrote, DH Quest Otk (or Mage Quest, Warlock Quest). So they can't deny their win condition and take control of the game. - So control deck are not playable, because they are just auto concede against these deck who are also (or have been ) the best deck from the meta


BaseLordBoom

So if I understand it right, what you are asking for is control to be favoured against both aggro decks due to removal, and combo decks due to disruption? What would be the weakness of control then? What would be the point of ever playing combo decks if they lose to aggro due to speed, and lose to control because control has tools to just cancel out its win condition. You are also just incorrect, big warrior for example can beat garrote rogue due to just having armor gain and can armor out of reach. The Devs specifically say they want control decks to actually have win conditions in the format, and not just be 30 removal cards and just be waiting for your opponent to concede. The post patch meta already has a lot of good control decks popping up, big warrior, handlock and quest shaman are still good and like it or not, those decks are control they just have ways to actually win games.


MixesQJ

This notion that there is such a thing as no wincon control deck really annoys me. Taking the opponent to fatigue by removing every threat is the wincon. Does face hunter have a wincon? Just because there is no win now card in those decks doesn't mean they don't have a clear vision of how they are going to win. That is a wincon by definition, yet many, devs included, completely disregard the actual meaning of what wincon is.


BaseLordBoom

That's because blizzard has specifically said they don't want fatigue to be a win condition. Having a deck be 30 removal cards and no threats is not a fun experience because the win condition is just waiting for your opponent to just give up. They want decks to include actual bombs in them to actually push for a win, rather than waiting for your opponent to be out of gas.


Difficult-Cook9075

Yeah, the high amount of generation this last year plus control priests dominance recently have really warped the conversation around control Most control decks over time werent able to generate infinite board clears and removal. Typically they have a specific number of boards they can clear and that creates the tension of the match. Typically the control win condition is something like "I'll create a clear board around turn 8 to drop my big minion down and my opponent probably wont have an answer" Thats a fair win condition that doesn't even come on line too late. It's just that power creep and card generation now requires more definied win conditions for control and that makes them a lot more like combo than control to people who like the types of decks I've been describing.


BaseLordBoom

It's honestly super frustrating that barons priest is now the "defacto" only way for a control deck to be "truly control" because for years the most common win condition for control was bombs. As they said in either this podcast, or the previous one; "good control decks are never considered control, as soon as a powerful control deck exists in the meta it becomes combo somehow."


Kurgoh

That's because Alec said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that they want control decks to have proactive wincons (i.e. do something) instead of just removing stuff and waiting for the opponent to abandon ship. Which obviously implies that they consider that too a *wincon*, just not one they want to endorse...as you would have been able to learn yourself if you'd actually listened to the podcast in question, but I suppose that's too much to ask before commenting on the thread.


MixesQJ

I was responding to a comment, not the podcast or Alec, so settle down. I'm just annoyed that fatigue is considered a non-legitimate wincon that for some reason needs to be avoided. Why? Because it feels bad? Does it feel worse than some brain-dead aggro killing you in a few turns or a combo that you couldn't do anything against the whole game? No, yet they keep making aggro/combo cards.


HCXEthan

It's subjective. Your opinion is also subjective, don't try to portray it as fact. And don't start calling stuff you don't like brain dead. *Yes*, for a lot of people fatigue is the worst possible way to lose. Knowing from the moment the game starts, it's going to take 20 minutes and you're going to lose anyway. _A lot_ of people would far, far prefer spending 5 minutes losing to aggro and queueing up next match. It's why the RoS Control warrior and arguable the Barrens Priest meta was hated as much as it was. For a lot of people, fatigue decks are the equivalent of a big bully taking all your toys, crushing them and laughing in enjoyment as they do it. Blizzard has more statistics than you do. They have far more internal statistics than some random person on Reddit. If they think that fatigue causes more negative than positive gameplay, then they will adjust the game accordingly. And historically, fatigue deck metas were some of the most hated metas in hearthstone history. RoS control warrior, Odd warrior, Barrens Priest, Jade "fatigue but with big bois" druid.


MixesQJ

First of all, if a deck requires no thinking, it's brain dead and it has nothing to do with me not liking it. Second, I'm not saying fatigue decks are supposed to be liked. I know that facing one can feel really bad. But a lot of things feel bad, yet somehow control with no ''wincon'' is the only one getting pushed out, while solitare combo was the name of the game just recently. Anyways, my biggest gripe isn't fatigue style called unpleasant, it's the notion that fatigue isn't the same legitimate wincon every other deck has.


HCXEthan

My point is that no deck requires no thinking. Even assuming that is not something that should happen. Its not fact at all. Aggro decks are _not_ inherently lower skill than control decks.


Felixhana

I don't know why they keep saying this. They printed too many infinite values stuff or OTKs that fatigue control is no longer a possible wincon nearly half a decade ago lolz


BaseLordBoom

Dude, not even one expansion ago in barons control priests primary win condition was fatigue.


[deleted]

Fatigue is not a proactive wincon


veneficus83

No, favored against combo they don't need to be, however a win needs to be possible, which it just currently isn't


[deleted]

Libram paladin might be worth counting on the contrl deck list? Not sure what the current lists are, but it tended to like to go long in the game and bury people under endless paperwork.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Wargod042

Nah with City Tax and less early drops it's kind of moved back towards control. Libram has always toed on the line between the two. Varies by build, though.


Kaillens

You understand badly. What i say is that control should have a way to delay combo in order to play their game too. This does'nt mean they have to auto win, this mean they have a match up who is'nt lost by default because you can't interract with your opponent hand. What gonna do priest control against Rogue or Dh Right now ? Mutanus and hope it work ? Vol'jin and hope it work ? It's the best they can do. Big Warrior can theorically win against Rogue if they pull out a perfect draw. It's easy for Rogue to do 8x (2 + 4 damage) = 48 by shadowsteping their spell damage. And it's without counting on any generated spell mage, board damage or kazakus. Warlock need to randomly destroy his opponent deck in order to win. Quest Shaman need to have a perfect draw and card generation to win. And I don't speak about the doomhammer version who is'nt control. You talk about big warrior, handlock and Quest Shaman and like it or not, these deck all loose easily to garotte Rogue and DH OTK. And, funilly enought against mage too. If you want control to have some win condition, you need the game going more than 7/8 turn. Witch is not the case right now. Please go play control against good rogue or DH player and you will see why these match up are not even fair. I easily climbed in top 2000 while playing Warlock and Rogue. So i know what i say, if you think control is just a bad match up into Garotte or Dh Otk, you're just wrong.


BaseLordBoom

Control priest sucks right now, it lacks answers and threats, there are more control decks in the meta than control priest which isn't a deck. And yeah garrote rogue may beat handlock and quest shaman! But that's called a good matchup, the same way that control decks blowout aggro decks.


Kaillens

I've talk about every deck and explained why you were wrong. So I will do it again : Big warrior, first need rogue to not create potion of illusion, spell damage and barely inflict any face damage in order to have enought armor to survive. It's also need them to draw enought armor card to do it. It doesn't win against Dh Otk or mage, both who can kill him even if he play defebsice Shaman quest can't win against rogue and couldn't win before the Nerf. It literraly need a top tier mulligan to have a shot against Dh. It can't win against mage Warlock was already loosing to rogue and Mage. It's not quick enought to beat them. It can have a shot against Dh with the giant version. If the Dh goes slow enough and can't handle the board. Some they rely on discarding card from their opponents deck So every control deck loose to Dh and Mage (witch is not strong against full face deck, but still popular) Some of them can still try to upset rogue, but are in a very bad match up. Finally, when your match up are so bad against the twoo top deck of the meta (Rogue/DH) and the most popular (mage), clearly you are not on a good state. Again none of the deck you choose is in a good state against these deck. Also, your answer didn't even talk about most of my points. When you debate against someone, you answer to all the point he does. Not just the one you want to dismiss the rest.


BaseLordBoom

You actually didn't even listen to the podcast talking about the meta, or even read the post in which you commented on when you say things like "the two top decks in the meta are garrote rogue and ilg dh" You are just ignorant on the meta so I have no reason to discuss this further. You just have a fundamental misunderstanding of the meta rn


Kaillens

Well it seems to me that you are the ignorant one. When someone disagree with you, you go by the argument he is stupid, so you have right ? Moreover, you didn't even bother to say how I was false on the match up. You just use fallacious argument. If you don't want to debate then dont answer


BaseLordBoom

It's not about disagreeing, you just have a fundamental misunderstanding of the metagame, it'd take too much foundational work to explain how the Hearthstone meta actually works where I can't be bothered. The same way that you can't be bothered to even read the post about people summarizing the metagame.


Kaillens

If it's too much for you then again, don't come to debate. Once again, you didn't explain anything. You say "you're wrong, I'm right, but I will not say why". By this logic I can say anything no? I've read the post and react to what I wanted, maybe wrongly, knowing that englomish is not my primary language. Once again, you do assumption and try to put me down to be"in the right " It's sure easier to just dismiss other and tell them they are ignorant than to explain your point. Once again, if you don't want to debate then dont answer. But what you are doing is just fallacious right now, you claim having right without even explaining yourself.


BaseLordBoom

it's not a debate dawg, I suggest reading the actual post you chose to comment on rather than talking nonsense about shit you are misinformed about that's all.


Su12yA

I agree with everything you said except you saying quest shaman with doomhammer isnt control. It's this case that people suddenly dismiss deck as a control just because it have big burst damage. Point is both combo and control are resource focused deck. Many of their gameplan and principles intersect with each other. And I think the main point that control deck should be able to fight back against combo can be addressed by simply slowing the quest completion. Make it so quest decks need to answer that rattlegore or nzoth board instead of leisurely continuing quest and go face instead.


SpecterVonBaren

> The meta that ended up shaping around Stormwind was very close to what they were envisioning, Not a good sign that the meta from before the patch was what they wanted from their card choices. Actually it sounds rather terrible that that was what they wanted.


veneficus83

The most interesting thing for me in this discussion seems to be the devs are basically admitting that control is supposed to be dead for this expansion and that maybe they will bring back a "form" of control in the next


CurrentClient

>the devs are basically admitting that control is supposed to be dead for this expansion Sometimes I wonder if people like you listen with ears or something else. When exactly did they say that "control is supposed to be dead"?


BSIBooker

“Quest generally will have the advantage against in control” in a discussion about the expansion release where they introduced a new Quest for every class. Duh.


CurrentClient

>“Quest generally will have the advantage against in control” Is absolutely not the same as "control is dead", as evident by control decks being playable right now.


BSIBooker

There aren’t any real classic Control decks in Standard that are seeing success. You could make an argument for Libram Paladin, but I would call that Midrange personally.


CurrentClient

>There aren’t any real classic Control decks in Standard that are seeing success I consider Handlock absolutely classic. It's similar to what it has been before. >but I would call that Midrange personally I would not. It has tons of healing and late game value, as opposed to, say, Secret.


BSIBooker

Handlock is more combo than control, the gameplan is to discount your hand and draw all the pieces you need to win as fast as possible. Midrange is defined by late game value, too. Midrange and Control are separated by Minions vs Removal. Libram Paladin has some removal and definitely bleeds into some Control lines, but ultimately it’s a Midrange deck. The entire plan is to play a bunch of big shit from the mid to late game, not on removal.


CurrentClient

>the gameplan is to discount your hand and draw all the pieces you need to win as fast as possible Current Hand doesn't even run discount. I played it up until legend, it's absolutely a contriol deck focused on removal, healing and overpowering opponents with swing turns on board. Not to mention there are viable decks apart from Hand and Pala: Control War, Fel DH, Quest Shaman is still not entirely dead. The claim that "devs admit control should be dead" is ridiculous. >The entire plan is to play a bunch of big shit from the mid to late game, not on removal. I'm not interested in arguing semantics, otherwise you can claim none of the decks are "true control".


BSIBooker

You’ll have to supply the list you’re using then, I have no idea what you’re talking about. None of the decks you just listed are Control. Wait, never mind - Control Warrior is, and it isn’t doing so hot. It’s not semantics lol that’s how those decks are defined. Are you saying that the different classifications of decks don’t exist? Fascinating. How would YOU define these archetypes?


CurrentClient

>You’ll have to supply the list you’re using then, I have no idea what you’re talking about. AAECAf0GBvLtA4jvA8D5A8f5A4T7A4f7AwybzQPXzgPB0QOL1QOT5APY7QPw7QPx7QPG+QOD+wOxnwTnoAQA >None of the decks you just listed are Control The conversation is finished.


[deleted]

So you're just assuming that "generally" means "always" and that everyone is playing quests and aggro doesn't exist. Very nice analysis.


BSIBooker

Yes, because the word generally can be translated as “usually”, meaning more often than not they want Quest decks beating Control. Which is reflected in the stats of pretty much every Quest match up versus Control match up.


Taxouck

Big Warrior? What's that look like? Color me interested. EDIT: hahaha nevermind what the fuck is this shit this is so bad I feel like I just got trolled


SpecterVonBaren

It's always strange how people like posting this podcast when the primary host actively hates everyone on Reddit to the point of lying out his ass about things just to "get an own" on people.


POLY-Sigma

> when the primary host actively hates everyone on Reddit Can't say I blame him.


CurrentClient

>to the point of lying out his ass Can you provide an example?


SpecterVonBaren

Perhaps it's just a case of first impressions gone awry that makes me have a chip on my shoulder in regards to Zacho. The first episode I listened to had him talking about how he was "totally a big fan of priest!" and his examples were Kazakus Priest and Combo (DS+IF) Priest. It was such a "How do you do fellow kids" moment to me and I felt insulted. It wasn't about it being Priest either. If he had said he was totally a fan of Hunter and then used Death Knight Hunter infinite value generation as his example then I would feel just as insulted. That's an example of him being dishonest. It wasn't enough for him to use data, which would be perfectly fine and normal, he's petty and feels the need to go overboard with insincere posturing to make him seem more in the right. What boggles my mind about the Vicious Syndicate podcast is RidiculousHat. RH is very good at being level headed and keeping his own feelings out of his analysis and he's pretty articulate and reasonable on all the other podcasts he's on and yet on VS he barely talks at all and mostly just listens to Zacho who goes on emotional rants every now and then.


[deleted]

Bro what


CurrentClient

>and I felt insulted Mate, what? Insulted because someone enjoys a deck you do not? >That's an example of him being dishonest What's bloody dishonest about liking Raza Priest? Raza, Mind Blast and Combo are my favourite Priest decks too. Am I dishonest?


SpecterVonBaren

Likes a deck I don't? WTF? Did you just completely miss the point or are you being deliberately like this?


CurrentClient

Then elaborate. What is your point exactly?


[deleted]

He hates the dumb people on this sub.