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Hearthstone |OT| Why tap cards when you can roll need [Naxx final wing out now]
- Thread starter Minsc
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You could easily make it way stronger than the bulk of human players by having it respect positioning and enemy board on a very basic level.
No, the inability to play around stuff and "thinking" in general makes any bots super dumb.
99% of zoo players don't play around anything. I agree with him actually, a bot would be better than the majority of zoo players.
I see Trump's taken up Zoo now as well.
So the bots would just be a typical bad player?
MisterArrogant
Neo Member
They're all just playing zoo now? At some point Blizz is going to have to address the Warlock hero power.
Professor Lich
Member
Since everyone likes to complain about Zoo, why don't we think up of a way to change it so it would become less prevalent. A few things come to my mind, but I'm not sure if they'd even work.
1) Make Life Tap cost 3 health. In this case, the Warlock would die a lot faster, giving their opponents an easier way of finishing them off. I think the problem with this is it just makes handlock activate Molten Giants faster, but I'm not sure how bad that'd be. Also, this moves away from most classes having a "2" power, but I'm not sure how important that is.
2) Make Discarding Cards mean something. So two ideas for this. If you use a Discard card with an empty hand either make it cost life per card lost OR make it discard the next cards you would of draw in your deck. I think the former idea is too weak while the latter is too strong.
Or, if Card Draw is just too strong of a power, change it to something else. In WoW, warlocks are known for sharing health / damage with minions. They could have Soul Link; Take 2 Health from an Undamaged Minion or Give 2 Health to a damaged minion.
Of course, changes like these would radically change the game, so I'm not really serious about them.
1) Make Life Tap cost 3 health. In this case, the Warlock would die a lot faster, giving their opponents an easier way of finishing them off. I think the problem with this is it just makes handlock activate Molten Giants faster, but I'm not sure how bad that'd be. Also, this moves away from most classes having a "2" power, but I'm not sure how important that is.
2) Make Discarding Cards mean something. So two ideas for this. If you use a Discard card with an empty hand either make it cost life per card lost OR make it discard the next cards you would of draw in your deck. I think the former idea is too weak while the latter is too strong.
Or, if Card Draw is just too strong of a power, change it to something else. In WoW, warlocks are known for sharing health / damage with minions. They could have Soul Link; Take 2 Health from an Undamaged Minion or Give 2 Health to a damaged minion.
Of course, changes like these would radically change the game, so I'm not really serious about them.
Professor Lich
Member
Yeah, that'd be the best way, new tricks instead of changing old ones.
MisterArrogant
Neo Member
I think the hero power should be a 50% chance to draw a card. That demonic magic is fickle and bound to backfire on you. Remove the health loss penalty if needed to balance it out. I think a guaranteed extra card is just too powerful even with the health loss. Especially as we start seeing more powerful cards. I hate to see more RNG added, but I think that would make it a more strategic decision as to whether to activate the power or not. You would have to decide whether to use your two mana to build your board or take a chance at getting a card advantage. More of a clutch decision rather than just an auto-tap pretty much every turn.
The big thing I'd note is that Zoo's biggest strength as a ladder deck isn't necessarily the match-up advantage it has (though that is clearly a big factor) but that it is absolutely the most consistent deck in the game. Even if you're a dog in the match, it's a big thing to know you're looking at a 90%+ chance of getting a good starting hand along with a good chance of your top half of the deck being relevant. Compare that to other decks that are worried about hitting something specific in their top 10 and it's a massive difference. Extend this over the course of hundreds of games on ladder and the consistency is just hard to argue against.
As there's no reason to float mana in Hearthstone, this basically just halves the cards drawn. Honestly, this would just gut the class for no upside.
As there's no reason to float mana in Hearthstone, this basically just halves the cards drawn. Honestly, this would just gut the class for no upside.
Belcher is a direct help against zoo. The only reliable help against zoo is taunt and Belcher is a taunt inside a taunt. But at the same time, Zoo has gained amazing stickiness with Egg and Creeper.
Handlock is great now with Belchers. We just gotta accept the fact that there is no sure way to crush zoo, unless you sacrifice all other matchups with some gimmicky deck. It's a weird thing to admit, that a cheap rush deck can challenge all the other control decks, but it's not that bad considering the grind gate that is front of new players. Zoo allows everyone to climb.
Handlock is great now with Belchers. We just gotta accept the fact that there is no sure way to crush zoo, unless you sacrifice all other matchups with some gimmicky deck. It's a weird thing to admit, that a cheap rush deck can challenge all the other control decks, but it's not that bad considering the grind gate that is front of new players. Zoo allows everyone to climb.
MisterArrogant
Neo Member
It's really just that Hearthstone rewards the side with initiative so Zoo gets to control the game while also being aggressive. Honestly, this style of play will most likely always be a part of Hearthstone.
Soulfire, Doomguard. So Soulfire would be 0 Mana and 1 card discarded to cast it. If you can't discard, it can't cast.
I guess Succubus too, that poor unfortunate card.
partyphone
Banned
yeah i've slotted those into my warrior deck. but if i don't get fiery war axe and ghoul within the first couple of turns it's basically unwinable even if the zoo player is awful and misses damage.
Armorsmith and whirlwind usually creates funtimes against zoo.
partyphone
Banned
yeah they can help maintain tempo. but axe is so important to winning you just gotta mulligan everything to get it.
mysteriousmage09
Member
Blizzard needs to get off their lazy asses and fix this shit game.
Zoo's outrageous consistency is the single aspect that really bugs me. Cheap decks are vital to a healthy ladder experience and it being relatively simple to play is fine too. But when a deck combines these qualities with the highest consistency in the game and even gets stronger with every new batch of cards there's a problem. Even in recent tournaments Zoo was able to recover from starts so bad other decks might as well have conceded on the spot with ease.
But yeah, we'll have to see what happens once Naxx is fully out and players have had enough time to experiment.
But yeah, we'll have to see what happens once Naxx is fully out and players have had enough time to experiment.
toadsworth
Banned
Seriously, I just tried to play constructed and got kicked out.
I don't understand how this happens any time they release new content for any of their games. Surely they have the data to figure out how many servers they will need for the heavy load that new content puts on them? They really do not learn from their mistakes. It's a shame they make such good games.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Bwahaha
It was my Loatheb in all of my decks
(and I prefer mountain salt)
Hah, I stand corrected. You had been so salty previously I thought you were on the receiving end
Hah, I stand corrected. You had been so salty previously I thought you were on the receiving end
Nah I abuse the LoathEZ to it's full capacity
Also in the tourney they just drew MAEXXNA and THE BEAST in succession from webspinners...
And another webspinner next
MisterArrogant
Neo Member
Well it would certainly curb Zoo and Handlock some. I don't know that it would totally destroy the class altogether. They would most likely look at building different decks that don't entirely rely on massive amounts of card draw. I don't know if that's a bad thing?
Oh, I gotcha. That's much less invasive for sure but I wonder how much of an impact it would really have? The zoo I see usually have plenty of cards in hand
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
Webspinner might be the best card in the game, especially in the mirror match. That was a hilarious match
It would make Doomguard join the rank of unusable demon cards.
Changing the power to something worse does not make something else viable. It just weakens those that rely on it and maybe other options look better in comparison. Those other options are still just as bad/good as before, however. So if they weren't good enough to be alternatives with a better power, they're really not going to be any better with a strictly worse power.
The goal of modern Zoo design is to have Doomguard and as few cards in hand as possible. Forcing a three card hand requirement means that it can't dump the hand to make Doomguard draws "free." It effectively removes a minion or two from the board in their game plan.
The problem is it then makes Doomguard a pretty miserable card in general, though it certainly makes Voidcaller far more attractive (though in an unhealthy way).
Pretty much. Doomguard is a pretty loaded card and getting it for no extra cost, essentially, really helps Zoo out. Realistically, it still makes Doomguard itself a good card since current Zoo is "okay" with most two discards for it but it then becomes unplayable in the sense that no deck would really be able to accommodate it 100% of the time anymore.
I really don't think it's the right approach here but I do think it's a better route than "let's completely redesign the Hero Power and the class" ones.
I was thinking more of the turn 6+ when you're winding down and resorting to topdecking + lifetapping. If you get a doomguard it's a dead card in your hand as you'd need to draw 1-2 cards more (depending on whether you got it naturally or via lifetap) before you could field it. And dead turns kill zoo pretty hard.
The number of times I've lost to top deck doomguards, tap, soul fire is crazy nuts. It also really gives you that feel of I only lost because of RNG, which is kinda bad for the game I feel.
Maybe they should make warlock hero power not allow you to play that card on the turn it's tapped?
Or make soulfire do 3 dmg and doomguards do 4 or have 5 health or something.
I feel like the egg and the haunted creeper really made zoo super strong. They always have a minion to buff so all the battle cries always get value.
Well, Blizz disagrees with you. They think RNG is fun for the game. I'm kind of torn on the issue, because RNG can be fun, but it also can be infuriating when on the receiving end.
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