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Hearthstone |OT3| Preparing for the Ball of Spiders Meta

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ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
It seems most people agree overload is a bad thing to put on a card, not a good thing, but to me it almost sounds like you're arguing it's a good thing. Even though it gives you a (small advantage) having overload is seen by most people as a bad attribute to a card, in this case, not good enough to offset the temporary 1-mana advantage imo.

Overload is from from the best class defining trait in the game, but it isn't an inherent negative. It allows you to make very powerful tempo plays in the early game. I would agree that if you are forced to play off curve that it doesn't work out that way.

I think the main reason people see overload as a negative is because sometimes you want to make a certain play, but you are overloaded, so you can't. But that's the price you pay for having a more powerful turn than you were suppose to the turn before. People tend to focus on the negatives so being overloaded feels worse than it feels good to make bigger plays the turn before.

It is more a psychological problem than anything. The mechanic is very balanced.
 

Pooya

Member
That priest's 4 drop, if it lives a turn which likely can, opponent shouldn't play any minion. Wild Pyromancer+circle of healing could buff it to +8 for example with two minions on board, 11 to face.

Nasty card to deal with, truesilver and deathbite can't kill it. You need to waste a fireball probably. Shredder's can't kill it without a hero power, better have a silence around or two or three, priests have many targets for it... It's like a soft taunt. It has stats of a 4 drop standard taunt too. Very good card. I hope everyone gets a good 4 drop so that we can retire shredder in every deck meta.
I have a feeling warlocks will really struggle against it.


This card can be bad against other priests though.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Lmao people keep adding me in this Brawl. They're so bitter I'm killing them on turns 3 and 4 before they can play all their legendaries.
 
Yeah, I don't think overload is inherently bad. The way the cards were designed just makes it something that doesn't scale well over time as new cards are added. Compare Feral Spirit from a year ago to now, it's night and day. Same deal with Lightning Storm as well, the only problem there is Shaman has no other options to replace it.

Overload cards end up suffering the most as new and better cards are added and when your class cards go from being good to mediocre/bad then the class as a whole is going to suffer and that's a big part of what has Shaman in such a bad place right now.

Blizzard is getting better at understanding how to make overload not such a burden though which is nice. Fireguard Destroyer and Totem Golem are good examples. Shaman just needs more, even better cards like those so they have an opportunity to get good minions on the board earlier and control the pace of the game.
 

Ultrabum

Member
Overload is from from the best class defining trait in the game, but it isn't an inherent negative. It allows you to make very powerful tempo plays in the early game. I would agree that if you are forced to play off curve that it doesn't work out that way.

I think the main reason people see overload as a negative is because sometimes you want to make a certain play, but you are overloaded, so you can't. But that's the price you pay for having a more powerful turn than you were suppose to the turn before. People tend to focus on the negatives so being overloaded feels worse than it feels good to make bigger plays the turn before.


It is more a psychological problem than anything. The mechanic is very balanced.

This would be true if your opponent was playing basic cards.

Power creep makes overload flat out bad.

The mechanic is fine, a 1 mana mad scientist overload 1 would be great, but none of the cards are costed that way.

Basically the cards are simply bad. The hero power is bad. The class is bad. Overload concept is fine.
 
I posted an analysis of GvG card reviews over on r/hearthstone, to help give us an idea of who is the best predictor of card quality and metagame impact. Should be useful with the new TGT reviews that will be coming out now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthston...iewing_the_reviewers_an_analysis_of_gvg_card/

Check it out and give it an upvote, if you think it worthy!

You called kripp a pro
laugh.gif
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Overload is from from the best class defining trait in the game, but it isn't an inherent negative. It allows you to make very powerful tempo plays in the early game. I would agree that if you are forced to play off curve that it doesn't work out that way.

I think the main reason people see overload as a negative is because sometimes you want to make a certain play, but you are overloaded, so you can't. But that's the price you pay for having a more powerful turn than you were suppose to the turn before. People tend to focus on the negatives so being overloaded feels worse than it feels good to make bigger plays the turn before.

It is more a psychological problem than anything. The mechanic is very balanced.

But the "more powerful turn" typically entails playing a minion (or two) that just gets wiped away easily or removing a minion with a spell, and then losing tempo on your following turn. Except for the 3/6 minion that gains attack, and the soon to be 3/4 totem golem, Shaman really has no minions worth playing with overload which give you a "more powerful turn." And let's be honest, most of their overload cards can easily backfire (crackle/lightning storm) or just are there to regain board or finish a game with spell damage.

So again that more powerful turn where you miraculously summoned a spell totem (or dropped thanos), to play lightning storm on turn 5 to hit for 3-4 instead of 2-3, hoping to kill off some 4 health minions screws you over, and now that 5 or 6-drop (fire elemental / emperor / drake / etc) sits in your hand being worthless as you have a pitiful turn 6 (where if you didn't Lightning Storm, you would have lost your 6-drop to a couple 1-drops).

I think the problem is it never really feels like you're coming out ahead with overload, merely that you're catching up to close to even then sacrificing your next turn to fall behind again.

So this more powerful turn with overload doesn't really ever feel that way, as it's merely a response to the board, not actually taking the board.

That priest's 4 drop, if it lives a turn which likely can, opponent shouldn't play any minion. Wild Pyromancer+circle of healing could buff it to +8 for example with two minions on board, 11 to face.

Nasty card to deal with, truesilver and deathbite can't kill it. You need to waste a fireball probably. Shredder's can't kill it without a hero power, better have a silence around or two or three, priests have many targets for it... It's like a soft taunt. It has stats of a 4 drop standard taunt too. Very good card. I hope everyone gets a good 4 drop so that we can retire shredder in every deck meta.
I have a feeling warlocks will really struggle against it.


This card can be bad against other priests though.

To change gears a little as the overload argument is getting a bit burnt out, this Priest card seems great, and the reasons you mention definitely showcase the threat it can become very easily. Even works nice with the Injured Blademaster combo if you can't get to the Blademaster early game.
 

Dahbomb

Member
I posted an analysis of GvG card reviews over on r/hearthstone, to help give us an idea of who is the best predictor of card quality and metagame impact. Should be useful with the new TGT reviews that will be coming out now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthston...iewing_the_reviewers_an_analysis_of_gvg_card/

Check it out and give it an upvote, if you think it worthy!
It should be noted that Kripp usually reviews card from an Arena perspective as he's basically an Arena player, not a Constructed player.

So him saying Micromachine is good is not really wrong because Micromachine can win you Arena games almost single handedly if it's protected. Same thing for Bomb Lobber, that card is GODLIKE in Arena which is the frame of reference Kripp is generally using.

Though I find it really hard to believe that Kripp underrated Spider Tank. Also surprised he overrated Ogremaul when he legitimately thinks it's a bottom 5 card in GvG.

Also some cards that you have as bad are actually good or at least were once good. Sneeds got quite a lot of use when the set was first introduced and overall is still a "good" card rather than a "bad" card even if it's underused.

Lmao people keep adding me in this Brawl. They're so bitter I'm killing them on turns 3 and 4 before they can play all their legendaries.
The irony of this Brawl... start with 10 mana thinking your Legendaries can actually be playable but instead you get killed by cheesy Gadgetan Miracle combos!

Though Alex is really busted in this format. Just about every class has access to turn 2-3 combos with that card as your opening.
 
With that new Warrior weapon, they could be adding more weapon effect minions, which would make a weapon that grows in durability more value. I mean as of now, Warriors have Upgrade and Greenskin, which would make that a five to six attack weapon. You could follow that up with just more taunts to keep the weapon alive along with whatever else could be revealed. You can also include plenty of other weapons to bait out Harrison as well. Just saying the potential is there is there are other cards that could support that.

Also, guess it's a good assumption that there will be a new Paladin and Hunter weapon as well since all weapon classes got one in GvG. (Excluding Warrior but I assume that's because Death's Bite is really good)
 

Pooya

Member
I think warrior will have minion that creates a taunt for every damaged friendly minion, something like that. Armorsmith that makes 0/1 taunts for example...

nope too OP...
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Lmao people keep adding me in this Brawl. They're so bitter I'm killing them on turns 3 and 4 before they can play all their legendaries.

Yeah, I posted this the other day since it was the first game I've actually played where I got added afterwards to get bitched at. Out of all the bullshit moments that happened from both directions the entirety of my playtime, getting mad at a brawl of all things seems hilarious.

I do autoconcede if they turn one alex but I'm not mad about it, the games move quick enough(usually) for it to not really matter.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Spells like Fireball, Sap, Execute, Power Overwhelming (even Hex) etc, already trade up. Way above what their mana cost would lead you to think they're capable of. This is why Overload isn't a simple matter of "well it's balanced because you get a stronger guy out earlier", because most removal in this game is designed to take out these stronger threats and what's really important is baiting this removal with weaker guys (but still threats on their own) so your real guys have an open field to play with.

Anyway.

THE DREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM
This is my favorite Brawl.
 

slayn

needs to show more effort.
I posted an analysis of GvG card reviews over on r/hearthstone, to help give us an idea of who is the best predictor of card quality and metagame impact. Should be useful with the new TGT reviews that will be coming out now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthston...iewing_the_reviewers_an_analysis_of_gvg_card/

Check it out and give it an upvote, if you think it worthy!
Probably the most interesting aspect of this to me is seeing cards that are universally under/over rated. For your three picks, that would be

Overrated: Bouncing Blade
Underrated: Shieldmaiden, Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, Glaivezooka, Imp-losion

I'm always interested in trying to think about why this happens. For me personally, I think bouncing blade is actually still an incredible control card but kind of get's stuffed by Dr Boom. So in this case the overrated makes sense to me because it got stuffed by a card no one thought would be everywhere.

Tinker's also makes sense to me as an underrated card. It's not really that great except that it contributes to a particular combo deck. So failing to notice this card is understandable because its failure to come up with this particular deck.

Glaivezooka/Implosion though are pretty straight forward and so its really interesting that all 3 didn't like it. There really isn't any outside factors I see contributing to these.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
But the "more powerful turn" typically entails playing a minion (or two) that just gets wiped away easily or removing a minion with a spell, and then losing tempo on your following turn. Except for the 3/6 minion that gains attack, and the soon to be 3/4 totem golem, Shaman really has no minions worth playing with overload which give you a "more powerful turn." And let's be honest, most of their overload cards can easily backfire (crackle/lightning storm) or just are there to regain board or finish a game with spell damage.

So again that more powerful turn where you miraculously summoned a spell totem (or dropped thanos), to play lightning storm on turn 5 to hit for 3-4 instead of 2-3, hoping to kill off some 4 health minions screws you over, and now that 5 or 6-drop (fire elemental / emperor / drake / etc) sits in your hand being worthless as you have a pitiful turn 6 (where if you didn't Lightning Storm, you would have lost your 6-drop to a couple 1-drops).

I think the problem is it never really feels like you're coming out ahead with overload, merely that you're catching up to close to even then sacrificing your next turn to fall behind again.

None of this is true with Totem Golem. It won't get wiped away easily. Only Flamecannon and SW:p are clean Turn 2 or even Turn 3 responses. In arena especially Totem Golem is probably the strongest Turn 2 you could make.
 

Dahbomb

Member
Bouncing blade sucks not because of Dr Balanced (although that card doesn't help) but because so many classes run annoying, sticking minions with low health that Bouncing Blade is in many cases useless because it would remove like a 1/1.

You would think that Bouncing Blade would get used when Grim Patron got introduced but not even that was enough to bring that card into play.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Bouncing Blade was always incredibly overhyped. Don't understand why anybody thought that card would be top tier.

Some pros thought it would replace Brawl. And I was like "huh?"
 

gutshot

Member
It should be noted that Kripp usually reviews card from an Arena perspective as he's basically an Arena player, not a Constructed player.

So him saying Micromachine is good is not really wrong because Micromachine can win you Arena games almost single handedly if it's protected. Same thing for Bomb Lobber, that card is GODLIKE in Arena which is the frame of reference Kripp is generally using.

Though I find it really hard to believe that Kripp underrated Spider Tank. Also surprised he overrated Ogremaul when he legitimately thinks it's a bottom 5 card in GvG.

Also some cards that you have as bad are actually good or at least were once good. Sneeds got quite a lot of use when the set was first introduced and overall is still a "good" card rather than a "bad" card even if it's underused.

Yes, on most of his reviews he would spend the bulk of the review talking about arena impact and then at the end give some quick thoughts on its constructed impact. He didn't do that for every card though, so sometimes I just had to try and guess. I'll be the first to admit this analysis isn't perfect, but hopefully it is still interesting.

Believe it or not, Kripp's exact quote on Bomb Lobber is "I don't think it's that good for arena, but it's a cool card."

And yes, I had to create a non-objective baseline for "good" or "bad" and decided on it to mean how meta relevant the card is today.

Probably the most interesting aspect of this to me is seeing cards that are universally under/over rated. For your three picks, that would be

Overrated: Bouncing Blade
Underrated: Shieldmaiden, Tinker's Sharpsword Oil, Glaivezooka, Imp-losion

I'm always interested in trying to think about why this happens. For me personally, I think bouncing blade is actually still an incredible control card but kind of get's stuffed by Dr Boom. So in this case the overrated makes sense to me because it got stuffed by a card no one thought would be everywhere.

Tinker's also makes sense to me as an underrated card. It's not really that great except that it contributes to a particular combo deck. So failing to notice this card is understandable because its failure to come up with this particular deck.

Glaivezooka/Implosion though are pretty straight forward and so its really interesting that all 3 didn't like it. There really isn't any outside factors I see contributing to these.

I think the thing that was missed with Glaivezooka is not recognizing that Face Hunter would become a thing. You have to remember, Undertaker hadn't been nerfed yet.

Imp-losion was a bit surprising. Most seemed to think its removal effectiveness would be too unreliable and the imps mostly worthless. None of them mentioned the Knife Juggler combo either, which is a big aspect of its power level.
 
Overload does suck in HS where mana acceleration is sparse. Missing a drop because of overload is so huge in this game. There's a reason why nobody plays shaman.

Shaman has been fine for long periods of the game and even now Shaman gets picked more often than Priest or Paladin in Archon Team League. People still make #1 Legend with Shaman too.

It's not even the worst class since Priest is worse right now.

And the spoiled cards for Shaman are really good.
 

slayn

needs to show more effort.
Bouncing blade sucks not because of Dr Balanced (although that card doesn't help) but because so many classes run annoying, sticking minions with low health that Bouncing Blade is in many cases useless because it would remove like a 1/1.

You would think that Bouncing Blade would get used when Grim Patron got introduced but not even that was enough to bring that card into play.
I don't agree. Other removal is also bad (such as execute) against these minions and yet control warrior will still play them without a second thought. You use weapons on these minions.

The other contributing factor I did forget to mention though was the resurgence of paladin as a class you have to play against. That was another big knock against the card.

And Dr Boom stuffed bouncing blade in another way than the obvious one: big game hunter. Prior to everyone having a 7 attack minion in their deck, bouncing blade would have been a more versatile big game replacement.

edit: I played with bouncing blade in control warrior quite a bit and it definitely wasn't sticky minions that forced me to remove it.
 

Rapstah

Member
Cool analysis, gutshot. How many cards sneak by with a "good" ranking because they're just in Mech Shaman? Not critisising your system, I just think that's interesting with how long it took for that deck to appear after GvG released. Maybe I'm misremembering how long it took.
 
i just watched a trolden clip where a guy had majordomo and auchenai on the board, and tree of lifed

the game ended in a draw despite the majordomo deathrattle. that was disappointing, something that crazy shoulda let the dude win!
 

Dahbomb

Member
I don't agree. Other removal is also bad (such as execute) against these minions and yet control warrior will still play them without a second thought. You use weapons on these minions.

The other contributing factor I did forget to mention though was the resurgence of paladin as a class you have to play against. That was another big knock against the card.

And Dr Boom stuffed bouncing blade in another way than the obvious one: big game hunter. Prior to everyone having a 7 attack minion in their deck, bouncing blade would have been a more versatile big game replacement.
Executes costs one mana and isn't reliant on board state, just enemy health which is easy to manipulate thanks to many of Warrior's cards.

Like if you have your minion and their minion on board with relatively same health... you can't use Bouncing Blade there because it might kill yours and then you are fucked. You can however use Execute easily in that situation and many others (like when you need to kill a big target among shitty creatures).


The only time Bouncing Blade is actually good is when the opponent only has one big minion on their side up... but usually you can kill that minion with the 1 mana Shield Slam as well.

And that's the bottom line... Warrior already has the cheapest removal spells in the game with Shield Slam and Execute. Why remove for 3 mana when you can remove for 1 mana?
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Didn't know Chromaggus still activates even after it's hit with Naturalize.

Yeah, I learned this multiple times this brawl, lol.

I actually lost a game because of too much chromaggus value, I went way too hard on the draw and doubled all kinds of shit I couldn't play fast enough to not burn cards.
 

slayn

needs to show more effort.
And that's the bottom line... Warrior already has the cheapest removal spells in the game with Shield Slam and Execute. Why remove for 3 mana when you can remove for 1 mana?
Because control decks run more than 4 removal? Situational cards like big game and black knight were often in decks at that time.

But anyway my only real point is that the reasons for bouncing blade being unplayed aren't as obvious as 'sticky minions' and are instead a combination of unintuitive meta changes leading to the card being hyped prior to release and then falling flat.
 

gutshot

Member
Cool analysis, gutshot. How many cards sneak by with a "good" ranking because they're just in Mech Shaman? Not critisising your system, I just think that's interesting with how long it took for that deck to appear after GvG released. Maybe I'm misremembering how long it took.

It was definitely one of the later decks to develop. And yes, quite a few cards snuck in as "good" on the back of that deck; most notably, Fel Reaver. Ironically, the only one who rated that as "bad" was Kibler, who (I'm pretty sure) was the first pro to add it to the Mech Shaman deck.

Executes costs one mana and isn't reliant on board state, just enemy health which is easy to manipulate thanks to many of Warrior's cards.

Like if you have your minion and their minion on board with relatively same health... you can't use Bouncing Blade there because it might kill yours and then you are fucked. You can however use Execute easily in that situation and many others (like when you need to kill a big target among shitty creatures).


The only time Bouncing Blade is actually good is when the opponent only has one big minion on their side up... but usually you can kill that minion with the 1 mana Shield Slam as well.

And that's the bottom line... Warrior already has the cheapest removal spells in the game with Shield Slam and Execute. Why remove for 3 mana when you can remove for 1 mana?

Another thing with Bouncing Blade is people thought it would fit into an Enrage/Math Warrior deck. It's like everyone just forget about Whirlwind, which is strictly better for that type of deck.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
The only time Bouncing Blade is actually good is when the opponent only has one big minion on their side up... but usually you can kill that minion with the 1 mana Shield Slam as well.

If they have two big minions of equal threat it is also extremely good. But otherwise, yeah, it is pretty crap.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
It was definitely one of the later decks to develop. And yes, quite a few cards snuck in as "good" on the back of that deck; most notably, Fel Reaver. Ironically, the only one who rated that as "bad" was Kibler, who (I'm pretty sure) was the first pro to add it to the Mech Shaman deck.

I thought Kibler was a pretty staunch defender of Fel Reaver. I think the only reason he said it isn't played much was BGH.
 
Two random things;

One: What are the chances of new Paladin anf Hunter secrets? I'm having a hard time thinking about what they would do but if you think about it, Mirror Enity and Effigy are kind of the safe effect. Basically, is it possible that we'll see a negative Avenge or something like that?

Two: Would Ball of Spiders be 'better' if it was say; Spider Cocoon 3 Mana: Give a minion Deathrattle: Spawn three Webspinners. I do like the idea of the card though, as explained by Kripp, pay 3 mana for the spiders then another 3 mana to draw three beasts, which is cool. Just feels kinda klunky to me, especially if the idea behind this card is to 'slow' Hunter down. But who knows, maybe requiring a body on the board makes the card worse or harder to play.
 

gutshot

Member
I thought Kibler was a pretty staunch defender of Fel Reaver. I think the only reason he said it isn't played much was BGH.

In his initial review, he likes the card but doesn't think it would be viable in constructed.

This card has my vote for coolest in the set. Talk about risks! Fel Reaver can lose you the game just as easily as it can win it, since every card your opponent plays puts you closer and closer to fatigue. I expect that this is a card that won’t really show up in constructed, since decks are full of cheap, efficient cards that can easily burn your deck away in just a few turns, but I also expect that it will be a part of some really wild arena games, and it will likely lead players to make some really unusual strategic choices while it’s in play, which is about as much as you can ask for from any cards.

I know he later did a dedicated post on it and how its discard mechanic isn't as bad a drawback as people think.
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
I feel the brawls were meant for random, creative fun. After the first day I just keep running into the same netdecks. This week 9 out of 10 matches are against the same priest deck. People are lame.
 

Dahbomb

Member
I feel the brawls were meant for random, creative fun. After the first day I just keep running into the same netdecks. This week 9 out of 10 matches are against the same priest deck. People are lame.
Priest gets punished by the various combo decks now like Rogue/Shaman even Warlock (basically Combolock).

Just about any class can finish the game in 2-3 turns thanks to Alex. Priest is just the most consistent though which is why they get used a lot.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Two: Would Ball of Spiders be 'better' if it was say; Spider Cocoon 3 Mana: Give a minion Deathrattle: Spawn three Webspinners.

Well yes. Obviously that would be better. That would be straight up busted. That is barely any different than just making the card cost 3 mana and there is no land where Ball of Spiders can cost less than 5 mana. Webspinner is one of the best 1-drops in the game. Think about how disgusting it would be if you could spawn 3 leper gnomes for 3 mana. You can't just take a strong 1 drop, multiple its effects by 3, and put it on a 3 mana card.
 
As for the new cards, the Warrior weapon, Priest card that adds attack with Inspire, and the Warlock legendary, all are disappointing. Still waiting to see a card that will knock my socks off.
 

Opiate

Member
As for the new cards, the Warrior weapon, Priest card that adds attack with Inspire, and the Warlock legendary, all are disappointing. Still waiting to see a card that will knock my socks off.

The priest card is not an inspire card. This is an important difference.
 
The priest card is not an inspire card. This is an important difference.

Yeah. It has some nice tricks to it. Pyromancer + spell + circle of healing = ouch.

Outside gimmicks, I kinda like how it's a semi-taunt. The very danger of those combos getting out of hand can make opponents focus target the minion, and with 5 hp it might have a chance of surviving until next turn.
 

G.ZZZ

Member
The voted card is North Sea Kraken:

en-us-small.png


It's not the worst shit tbh. It's sort of a worse, but more controllable Ragnaros.

It's also a really good card in Arena.
 
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