I'm fine with strictly better legendaries because you can only include 1 copy of a legendary in your deck. You can also have strictly better class cards and I dont mind because class is another kind of restriction. But BBB vs Evil Heckler is dumb. Neither one even has an associated tribe to distinguish them.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Hearthstone |OT4| The warsong has ended, please patron other decks
- Thread starter ZealousD
- Start date
- Status
I'm fine with strictly better legendaries because you can only include 1 copy of a legendary in your deck. You can also have strictly better class cards and I dont mind because class is another kind of restriction. But BBB vs Evil Heckler is dumb. Neither one even has an associated tribe to distinguish them.
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
Snake Trap is pretty much unplayable with Patrons everywhere now
Yeah at least with Silverback Patriarch and Gnomeragan Infantry the Patriarch has beast synergy which is probably better then Charge because those two cards suck anyway.
And? They actually PRINT cards. Hearthstone has the advantage to nerf or buff past cards--we've seen it plenty of times up until now. These two cards set a precedent that it's okay to add strictly better cards. It's not--it's bad design. The argument for this is that the other two cards simply were never played. Well? Buff them. Make these 2 new cards something new.
It's just money. That's why people are upset.
Mistcaller actually gives Shaman a little more burst potential. Leeroy + Windfury becomes 14 damage, putting it into Druid wombo combo territory. Same with Al'Akir + Rockbiter.
I'm a little sad, because I like Mysterious Challenger, and my pet deck is a tempo-based secret paladin deck, but I don't think he fits.
Spirit of Competition is pretty damn exciting, though.
EDIT: So, uh, do we have any idea how Enter the Coliseum works when a side is tied for highest attack(such as when it's played following Eadric the Pure)?
Spirit of Competition is pretty damn exciting, though.
EDIT: So, uh, do we have any idea how Enter the Coliseum works when a side is tied for highest attack(such as when it's played following Eadric the Pure)?
BananasWithGuns
Member
From the reactions I've seen I definitely feel like people are overrating it.
At face value the effect seems insane but the more you think about it the more is drifts into so-so territory. At least that's how I see it.
BananasWithGuns
Member
You take the damage and then it summons the bear.
I think it needs to fit into a very specific brand of aggro or midrange shaman. I think it's a good card, but I don't know if shaman can support it.
Would assume it keeps the most recent minion played but maybe not
Easier right away, harder as time goes by. Wasn't it like that with GvG?
The reason I think that is that drafting sites have made arena more competitive, but with a new pool of cards more experienced players will adapt faster to them. I could be wrong.
Arena will be quite different after this expansion. Mostly because a lot of the cards being introduced are legitimately good for Arena (hence the previous thread title of "Good enough for Arena").
There will probably be a power creep in Arena because the average value/stats of cards will be higher across the board. I am not sure if that will actually slow down or speed up the Arena meta game.
Also RIGHT after the expansion it will be easier to get good runs because more people will be playing especially new players. This is usually the case after all updates.
I think it's because Blizzard said that the two Legendaries come as a pair sort of like those Valkyries or Fuegen/Stalagg.
I don't understand Blizzard doing a powercreep on cards like Magma Rager and Booty Bay Bodyguard.
Instead of wasting money on a whole new art design and energy on a new more powerful version of said card, why not just buff the old version?
Seriously this is a DIGITAL only card game. The laws of physical cards do not apply to it where you have to keep the stats/effects. You can completely change it anytime you want, and nerf or buff cards. They have that power.
Why don't they do that? It just seems counter-productive IMO to do this obvious power creep. Unless they buffed Magma Ranger to a 2 mana and Booty Bay to a 5/5 or something? I know those cards are largely irrelevant in the competitive field but it still makes me sad.
Instead of wasting money on a whole new art design and energy on a new more powerful version of said card, why not just buff the old version?
Seriously this is a DIGITAL only card game. The laws of physical cards do not apply to it where you have to keep the stats/effects. You can completely change it anytime you want, and nerf or buff cards. They have that power.
Why don't they do that? It just seems counter-productive IMO to do this obvious power creep. Unless they buffed Magma Ranger to a 2 mana and Booty Bay to a 5/5 or something? I know those cards are largely irrelevant in the competitive field but it still makes me sad.
I'd imagine if the attack matches it becomes a normal brawl where the winner is random.
I like the card a lot though. It's brawl but if you only have one minion on the board you still guarantee the board presence and I think there's more thought into playing it as opposed to just crossing your fingers with warrior.
FieryBalrog
Member
Did you miss the part where I gave examples from the SAME set? Physical printing has nothing to do with this. Magic intentionally does this on a MUCH broader scale and it's a lot worse because usually they make the power scale directly with rarity in Magic. "fixing underpowered cards" is not the main motivation for this phenomenon.
That's why I said the main bad example from HS is Dr. boom. Making the power scale directly with rarity like that is the bigger problem than having a strictly better magma rager that's still common. Because that really doesn't matter like at all for your pack EV.
Dr. Boom already set the precedent btw.
So far the HS design team has done a much better job than Magic d&d in terms of making sure legendaries aren't strict upgrades on common cards. In fact the average legendary is pretty weak in power level, this is even more true for epics. They more often use these rarities to showcase fun or interesting effects, which are only occasionally powerful.
BananasWithGuns
Member
Yeah, I think Mistcaller is a bit of a wild card.
Although I think people are vastly overrating the cards Shaman is getting in general. I see a lot of people saying stuff like Shaman "won" TGT but I don't know where it's all coming from.
Totem Golem, Tuskarr Totemic and Healing Wave are very good, yes, and The Mistcaller is a bit of a wild card right now. Outside of that though, everything else is pretty mediocre or just flat out bad. Charged Hammer and Elemental Destruction are particularly terrible.
Shaman got the help in the early game it desperately needed as well as a great healing option but not much else. The class will be better for it but nothing has convinced me so far that Shaman is suddenly going to rocket to the top of the meta.
1) You are comparing a physical card game to a digital card game. Blizzard has both nerfed and buffed cards which is the ADVANTAGE of having a digital card game to begin with. They don't have to reprint cards or have other disadvantages of a physical TCG.
2) Just because other CCGs do this doesn't make this not an awful practice to begin with. Like that whole post about "why bad cards exist", it just goes back to "GIVE ME MORE MONEY TO GET THESE OBVIOUSLY BETTER CARDS".
3) The Dr Balanced to War Golem comparison isn't completely apt because you can only have one Dr Balanced. That's not the same as comparing a common to an epic because you can have two of both in a deck. If Ice Rager was a Legendary then no one would be complaining about a power creep.
4) It's in direct contradiction to what Blizzard has said about being limited in design space due to existing cards. This pretty much tells us that in the future the value of cards is going to be higher in the future when they start making stuff like a 5/5 4 drop minion (I mean why not at this point, you have a 5/4 taunt now).
Like Kibler said about it... it just comes across as awkward, lazy and bad.
Let's talk Arena now that all cards are out.
Winners:
Druid - THE big winner. Holy shit. Living Roots is an insane common, Druid of the Saber is top, top tier as well because of the flexibility. The 4/4 is just solid and will enable you to actually draft with a beast-focus.
Then we have the rares, where Darnassus is freaking amazing and Savage Combatant will pull some serious weight.
Rogue - Not completely sure about this, but the commons are really strong, all three. The Buccaneer is a great combo-piece and having a 2/2-hero power is well worth the card. Shado-Pan is just pure value. The rares lack some oomph, but Burgle is card-draw so there's that. Cutpurse is probably shit.
Shaman - This is a winner just because of the commons. They're all great, great cards. Ancestrals Knowledge costing 2+2 is way less of an issue in Arena, and getting a 3/4 out on turn 2 is just disgusting. Rares are meh.
Meh:
Mage - Decent commons, good rares. I'm not sure the commons boost the card pool in any significant way though. They might actually worsen it, albeit slightly.
Hunter - King's Elekk is awesome. Auto-pick everytime. Same goes for Powershot. Bear Trap gives you good value, but it's nothing amazing. The rest are pretty bad even if I kind of like Ball of Spiders despite the cost.
Losers:
Paladin - The murloc and the spell common are way worse than what is currently being offered to Paladin in the common slot. I think the same goes for Warhorse Trainer, though to a lesser degree. The joust-rares are a big pile of meh.
Priest - No 2-drop, Priest am cry. Two commons are heal-based which is just trash, but Holy Champion might be great. Rares are pretty bad as well.
Warlock - Jesus. No words. There's a demon-Boulderfist I guess. I might underestimate Wrathguards potential, but 3 health on a 2-drop just doesn't scream "OP!" and the drawback is real. Demonfuse lol.
Warrior - #ArenaWarriorsMatter
Winners:
Druid - THE big winner. Holy shit. Living Roots is an insane common, Druid of the Saber is top, top tier as well because of the flexibility. The 4/4 is just solid and will enable you to actually draft with a beast-focus.
Then we have the rares, where Darnassus is freaking amazing and Savage Combatant will pull some serious weight.
Rogue - Not completely sure about this, but the commons are really strong, all three. The Buccaneer is a great combo-piece and having a 2/2-hero power is well worth the card. Shado-Pan is just pure value. The rares lack some oomph, but Burgle is card-draw so there's that. Cutpurse is probably shit.
Shaman - This is a winner just because of the commons. They're all great, great cards. Ancestrals Knowledge costing 2+2 is way less of an issue in Arena, and getting a 3/4 out on turn 2 is just disgusting. Rares are meh.
Meh:
Mage - Decent commons, good rares. I'm not sure the commons boost the card pool in any significant way though. They might actually worsen it, albeit slightly.
Hunter - King's Elekk is awesome. Auto-pick everytime. Same goes for Powershot. Bear Trap gives you good value, but it's nothing amazing. The rest are pretty bad even if I kind of like Ball of Spiders despite the cost.
Losers:
Paladin - The murloc and the spell common are way worse than what is currently being offered to Paladin in the common slot. I think the same goes for Warhorse Trainer, though to a lesser degree. The joust-rares are a big pile of meh.
Priest - No 2-drop, Priest am cry. Two commons are heal-based which is just trash, but Holy Champion might be great. Rares are pretty bad as well.
Warlock - Jesus. No words. There's a demon-Boulderfist I guess. I might underestimate Wrathguards potential, but 3 health on a 2-drop just doesn't scream "OP!" and the drawback is real. Demonfuse lol.
Warrior - #ArenaWarriorsMatter
So much hype!
Dragon with taunt for my Dragodin deck.
Joust Paladin looking more and more viable with the new secret and board flooders like Muster and the Murloc to hold the early game and keep your minion cost high.
Taunt Warrior could be strong with Sparring Partner, Argus, the 2/3 taunt battlecry.
Dragon with taunt for my Dragodin deck.
Joust Paladin looking more and more viable with the new secret and board flooders like Muster and the Murloc to hold the early game and keep your minion cost high.
Taunt Warrior could be strong with Sparring Partner, Argus, the 2/3 taunt battlecry.
FieryBalrog
Member
People keep saying this and it's completely wrong. The reason Magic prints strictly better cards has very little to do with being a physical card game. for the most part, Magic does not print strictly better cards as a way of "fixing underpowered cards". Once again, those examples are all from the same set. Its not like "oh we didn't realize Runeclaw bear sucks in constructed so here's fauna shaman to push be envelope of 1G 2/2 creatures." In fact they also print cards that are just renamed versions of other cards, Runeclaw Bear is a literal reprint of Grizzly Bears and they already knew it was unplayable in constructed.
I don't know why you're okay with strictly better at legendary because that's the REAL money grab ( and the real problem with the way Magic does it all the time). One-of is irrelevant since running 1x Dr. Boom plus 1x War Golem is going to always be better than 2x War Golem.
Printing a 5/2 ice rager at common versus buffing Magma Rager does nothing at all to your pack EV. You simply aren't really affected either way since neither one is relevant outside Arena.
No one here is suggesting that anyone prints better cards to "fix older cards". That's actually a really silly notion.
We all know why Magic does it, it's to get you to buy packs. The rarer cards have to be better because they are harder to get. Hearthstone sort of tries to do it as well where similar cards of different rarities generally tend to be different power level (like a Rare neutral 2 drop like Knife Juggler is generally better than a common neutral 2 drop). But generally speaking the cards are different enough where a 1 to 1 comparison is hard to make.
The Legendary to other rarities is a valid thing in Hearthstone. Obviously if I can only have 1 of a card it better be stronger than another card that is similar to it because I can have two of the other card. It's a balancing thing. If I could have two Dr Balances in my deck then yeah everyone would complain about power creep (though GvG was already a massive power creep anyway).
You can defend this all you want and you can point to all those TCG who do it time and time again... doesn't make it not a shitty thing to do. Especially in a digital game where you can just go back and give Magma Rager 1 more health which takes little effort to do. Can't even use the excuse "BUT WE NEED TO PLAYTEST IT TO MAKE SURE IT'S NOT BROKEN!"
We all know why Magic does it, it's to get you to buy packs. The rarer cards have to be better because they are harder to get. Hearthstone sort of tries to do it as well where similar cards of different rarities generally tend to be different power level (like a Rare neutral 2 drop like Knife Juggler is generally better than a common neutral 2 drop). But generally speaking the cards are different enough where a 1 to 1 comparison is hard to make.
The Legendary to other rarities is a valid thing in Hearthstone. Obviously if I can only have 1 of a card it better be stronger than another card that is similar to it because I can have two of the other card. It's a balancing thing. If I could have two Dr Balances in my deck then yeah everyone would complain about power creep (though GvG was already a massive power creep anyway).
You can defend this all you want and you can point to all those TCG who do it time and time again... doesn't make it not a shitty thing to do. Especially in a digital game where you can just go back and give Magma Rager 1 more health which takes little effort to do. Can't even use the excuse "BUT WE NEED TO PLAYTEST IT TO MAKE SURE IT'S NOT BROKEN!"
FieryBalrog
Member
Then why do people continually bring up the digital vs physical distinction when it comes to printing strictly better cards. It isn't really relevant.
Knife Juggler is the equivalent of an uncommon and not hard to acquire. He's also better than almost all (probably all) epic and legendary 2 drops. That's not true of Magic where the power scaling with rarity is much more egregious and that's the real problem.
Look- I'm against the dr. Boom style power creep for this reason- it's pure cash grab. But this magma/ice eager thing is kinda irrelevant. Even if the 5/2 was somehow amazing, which it definitely isn't, it's a common. It's not hard to acquire at all.
The real thing people need to complain about is when legendary or epic cards start becoming "strict upgrade to a weak common card". Like a legendary 4 mana 4/5 with charge or something. So far HS has been relatively good about this with the only exception being Dr. Boom.
I really think the long-term solution is to have a basic set for each major expansion(not necessarily for adventures). I wish it was something Blizzard would have had the foresight to start with GvG, but either way, the sooner they can do this, the better.
Also, I don't like old cards being buffed in general, but I think Blizzard could safely try and keep the power level of their basic cards at a certain baseline.
What about those new 3/4 Legendaries vs most 3 drops even Spider Tank?
They have powerful effects and good stats for 3. Only thing Spider Tank have over them is the mech tag but those effects are way more powerful than having a tribe text.
They have powerful effects and good stats for 3. Only thing Spider Tank have over them is the mech tag but those effects are way more powerful than having a tribe text.
I am down for it. Just as long as its after 9 PM Central time.
Good analysis. I agree with pretty much everything. It will be interesting to see what the class tiers will look like after the expansion. Mage will most likely still be top tier. Will Druid join them in that tier? Or Rogue? Has Paladin been nerfed enough to fall out of that tier?
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
Justicar Trueheart, Aviana and Varian that i can remember right now.
that'd be cool, I'd love to do that if you'd have me.
FieryBalrog
Member
Those two are close to the line but the mech tag is actually very relevant. Mech decks will almost certainly still play spider tank instead since 1/3 of the spare parts are terrible with the Valkyries (freeze, bounce) and there needs to be a critical density of mechs to even generate those spare parts.
I think you're super underselling priest here.
Why?
Sure, I'm trying to organize my card images right now. I might start working on setting up a skype in about 30 mins or an hour or so. Anybody else interested in doing a card review stream? It might take awhile, possible several hours
and it will be easier for me to to get, sooooo in theory that's helping newcomers....
Not going to happen because it's Paladin only.
Dr Balanced is notorious because he's a neutral and thus very common.
Mysterior Challenger is like a new Mad Scientist only slower.
Don't think I could help review cards but I'd definitely be interested in tuning in for part of the stream, so be sure to post in here when you are starting.
- Status