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- Thread starter ZealousD
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Interesting move. They clearly don't want to remove class defining spells like Flamestrike even though they essentially put mage into the top tier by simply existing. Seems like an extension of their philosophy of never changing the classic set, but removing things around the edges to make the classes more equal. I'm not sure this is going ot be enough to bring Mages/Rogues down, but its a good start. Removing total crap from the other classes, while removing strong cards for Mage/Rogue is at least something.
I hope they go farther next time.
I hope they go farther next time.
Re: Firelands Portal, they're not going to remove an awesome card they just released. But I bet it's gone in the next culling.
Do you think they used stats for this? Like, they looked at the percentage of times a card was offered and taken and then removed the lowest of the low? I often took Charge, for example, but did most people skip it?
Do you think they used stats for this? Like, they looked at the percentage of times a card was offered and taken and then removed the lowest of the low? I often took Charge, for example, but did most people skip it?
Undoubtedly they at least looked at stats. It would be silly not to.
Ben Brode called Firebat's new tournament, which will include card bans, "awesome".
https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/773934921932869632
He also said that the arena bans are a stopgap and a more elegant solution is coming
https://twitter.com/bdbrode/status/773944388145717248
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Looks like a pretty strong list of removals. Poor autobarber though.
Why would you take charge? The card is pretty crap for arena.
It says that in the blog post.
Why would you take charge? The card is pretty crap for arena.
It says that in the blog post.
Disagree. It makes bad minions useful.
They said they are looking to balance appearance rates by individual cards, so anybody saying "don't do it like this" is basically missing the point that this is a stopgap measure.
Hopefully once they come up with a more permanent solution they don't ban cards entirely. I appreciate seeing cards that have been rotated out of standard. Mage, Rogue, and Paladin will probably continue to lead the pack considering the strength of their hero power, though. That's something they'll never be able to change.
Hopefully once they come up with a more permanent solution they don't ban cards entirely. I appreciate seeing cards that have been rotated out of standard. Mage, Rogue, and Paladin will probably continue to lead the pack considering the strength of their hero power, though. That's something they'll never be able to change.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
You're spending 2 cards to make a minion good then. That... is not good.
So you are two-for-oneing yourself, then.
bad card + bad card != good arena draft. I hope you're not doing that unless you're forced to...
This is both such a "wut" thing and a very "Blizzard" thing.
I am still at work so I didn't have time to look over everything but it seems like a pretty big deal for the balance in Arena. Just talking about one card in particular, Poison Seeds being banned has huge implications because it means you don't play around a big clear from Druids anymore.
On the surface it looks like a nerf against Mage and Rogue but a buff for the rest. A lot of the cards being banned are terrible Arena cards which helps those classes out.
Mages will still be on top by a mile. It's an interesting and drastic band aid to let Arena players experience something different while they figure their stuff out. Good news is that Blizzard isn't shy from banning out cards anymore, now let's get some constructed cards banned as well!
I am still at work so I didn't have time to look over everything but it seems like a pretty big deal for the balance in Arena. Just talking about one card in particular, Poison Seeds being banned has huge implications because it means you don't play around a big clear from Druids anymore.
On the surface it looks like a nerf against Mage and Rogue but a buff for the rest. A lot of the cards being banned are terrible Arena cards which helps those classes out.
Mages will still be on top by a mile. It's an interesting and drastic band aid to let Arena players experience something different while they figure their stuff out. Good news is that Blizzard isn't shy from banning out cards anymore, now let's get some constructed cards banned as well!
Yeah, more directly MtG mimicking card games (or well, at least Eternal) do this, and that draft mode gives you like 60% more cards than you would ever need. Admittedly, the game not being as restricted to classes as HS, bloats this number since it lets people draft cards that will genuinely never fit in their deck, but at least a slight overdrafting and cardcutting phase would be really interesting.
Of course that'd make the game more complicated and Blizzard wouldn't want that.
To what end? No one asked for this. Blizzard should've come out and just said that the Arena is getting reworked and they're looking to tweak certain parameters. No need to give us this half-asses solution now because it wont really change much at the end of the day.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
No one asked for immediate changes?
Sure, sometimes you pick bad minions because of a lack of options. But charge is not justified as a pick just because you have bad minions. It's among the worst buff spells in arena. It's just a bad arena card and seeing it removed is good for warrior since you have 1 less bad basic card showing up.
If you guys are able to get through arena drafts without being forced to take bad minions, please tell me your secrets!
They should just turn arena into the sealed format. You open special arena packs then you can pick any class based on your packs and build a deck. Done. Reynad has already figured it out, just put it into the game!
It encourages deck building skills rather I pick whatever is best in whatever class is best aided by online websites.
It randomizes the cards you get better with the pack system.
People love opening packs, it's more fun.
It encourages deck building skills rather I pick whatever is best in whatever class is best aided by online websites.
It randomizes the cards you get better with the pack system.
People love opening packs, it's more fun.
As an avid Arena player I want the entire experience of a reworked Arena. This isn't going to change that much in the long run and feels more like Blizzard's attempt to ride out the storm after getting a lot of flag recently.
It distracts people from the other issues of the game. And it makes Arena players something to chew on until the full fix is in.
It's a bad temporary solution but it's better than nothing. Kripp hasn't played Arena much in the last few days and whenever he does he goes ham on it... Blizzard's hand was forced.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
They said when they were taking purify out that that was just the first step towards addressing arena problems. Then they said this is the next step and not the final step. I don't think they mentioned reworking the entire experience of arena, but they are doing something about balance and they plan to do more.
Officerrob
Banned
Those arena changes are going to rightfully bring a ton of anger. Blizzard seems clueless on this
A few clunkers in this deck, but still might be the best one I've drafted. Had a 6 fireball, 3 Belcher, 2 Flamestrike 12-0 deck last year that might give it a run.
that's a arena deck? oh my...
Whether or not people like this change... this changes Arena balance considerably.
The lower end classes are brought up quite a bit.
I think this is a test to see how the game plays out with certain cards being banned and then seeing if lowering those card's occurrence would be enough. I would imagine that in the real fix these cards would have among the lowest occurrence bonuses.
I am curious to know why Forgotten Torch is banned though. Most of the other choices make sense but that one is curious.
The lower end classes are brought up quite a bit.
I think this is a test to see how the game plays out with certain cards being banned and then seeing if lowering those card's occurrence would be enough. I would imagine that in the real fix these cards would have among the lowest occurrence bonuses.
I am curious to know why Forgotten Torch is banned though. Most of the other choices make sense but that one is curious.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Even if it only brings a few more classes up to "paladin tier", I think it's a strong step.
They're clearly saying that this is a short term solution, I'm not sure why it'd anger anyone. Would you rather it remain as awful as before until their new fix is ready whenever that is? One thing is lacking here is that they are not sharing any tidbit even about what's their main solution is like.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Until recently MTG had a standard with cards banned in every format but Standard.
It's in there, their solution seems to be tweaking individual card occurences. This is a more extreme version of the solution where certain cards have their occurences set to 0.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
They seem to be leaning towards weighted picks, but I'd personally rather see a more transparent/surface approach.
Officerrob
Banned
All this because they refuse to give the proper rarities to cards.
Well, Paladin has been below the "OP" classes in arena, and slightly above all the rest, so they clearly decided to try to balance every class to Paladin's level.
I think Mage is still going to be way too strong, but we'll see how it goes.
Officerrob
Banned
Firelands Portal was a known problem BEFORE it was released, and it just came out a few weeks ago
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Bleh, this brawl sucks to replay.
LucidMomentum
Member
Hence people saying it's a very Blizzard reaction lol.
In case people missed it when I posted the interview from a month back, they're also looking into adding formats to arena a la Tavern Brawl, where you might have something like "Only (core set and) GvG cards" or etc.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I just beat some handlock/dragon variant in the most amusing way with some of the worst warlock cards in the set, due to ethereal peddler/rogue steals.
I got summoning portal, played it on turn 4. 3 mana ethereal peddler and sapped his twilight drake. Turn on turn 5 I played auctioneer for 3, prep + shadowstrike, eviscerate, 0 mana mortal coil to finish off the 10 health drake, 0 mana curse of rafam causing him to overdraw. He couldn't answer either of my minions but removed the summoning portal with bookwyrm.
Then I got yet another curse of rafaam, which was great because I had no spells in hand to abuse auctioneer. Easily removed his bookwyrm. He finally got rid of my auctioneer, but he couldn't even deal with the curses of rafaam draining his hp. They did 10 damage total. It was easy lethal with just the peddler and eviscerate, with a full hand.
Pretty fun game compared to the disaster of brawl matches I had just played, and a nice break from work.
I got summoning portal, played it on turn 4. 3 mana ethereal peddler and sapped his twilight drake. Turn on turn 5 I played auctioneer for 3, prep + shadowstrike, eviscerate, 0 mana mortal coil to finish off the 10 health drake, 0 mana curse of rafam causing him to overdraw. He couldn't answer either of my minions but removed the summoning portal with bookwyrm.
Then I got yet another curse of rafaam, which was great because I had no spells in hand to abuse auctioneer. Easily removed his bookwyrm. He finally got rid of my auctioneer, but he couldn't even deal with the curses of rafaam draining his hp. They did 10 damage total. It was easy lethal with just the peddler and eviscerate, with a full hand.
Pretty fun game compared to the disaster of brawl matches I had just played, and a nice break from work.
I'm all for letting them try weird stuff in Arena. Having a total overhaul of the experience would be really neat, but given the GLACIAL pace that Blizzard develop at, I think this is about as quick of a reaction as we could hope for. Maybe I'll jump back into Arena after this patch to test the waters, I have been staying away due to the known issues.
They would need to do more than that, since anyone who drafts a GvG deck would probably crush people playing during the TGT weeks or something like that. Still it sounds like a fun idea to shake up the format. I'd try it a couple times.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I've personally always found arena to be pretty boring. I did have a small stretch in classic where I basically forced myself to enjoy and play it, and I sorta did enjoy it a little. So I'm definitely down for an arena overhaul, but I am just not hopeful they'll do that.
it annoys me that rogue probably got hit harder than mage did so this will only widen the gap between mage and the #2 class
also some of the choices for other classes were a little weird such as getting rid of two hunter secrets with the huge offering bonus for cloaked huntress up right now(should have at least kept snipe it's not THAT bad) meanwhile ancestral healing was actually pretty good and i'll be sad to see cobra shot go
should be an improvement overall though I suppose,will certainly bump up the average card quality a bunch for some of the weaker classes
depends on the deck
it can be pretty decent as added reach in an aggro deck with a bunch of weapons and chargers
similar to how cobra shot can be pretty decent in the right kind of hunter deck
also some of the choices for other classes were a little weird such as getting rid of two hunter secrets with the huge offering bonus for cloaked huntress up right now(should have at least kept snipe it's not THAT bad) meanwhile ancestral healing was actually pretty good and i'll be sad to see cobra shot go
should be an improvement overall though I suppose,will certainly bump up the average card quality a bunch for some of the weaker classes
depends on the deck
it can be pretty decent as added reach in an aggro deck with a bunch of weapons and chargers
similar to how cobra shot can be pretty decent in the right kind of hunter deck
I think the general consensus is that Mage and Rogue are the most broken in arena, with Paladin in third, so their changes look to be pretty solid in terms of making an attempt to balance win rates. Remove positive cards from the top 2, don't change the 3rd, remove negative cards from the rest.
Who knows if it'll actually work out though.
Medivh arena deck went 12-1. Ashamed of the one loss, but had a poor mulligan in the 11-0 match and couldn't quite stabilize against a rush mage. A funny note is that I beat another mage that actually played Medivh just before dying.
Who knows if it'll actually work out though.
Medivh arena deck went 12-1. Ashamed of the one loss, but had a poor mulligan in the 11-0 match and couldn't quite stabilize against a rush mage. A funny note is that I beat another mage that actually played Medivh just before dying.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Illumanati
It's a start at least. They can only do so much internal testing while keeping a reasonable timeline for releasing those changes. And then those testing results are exceeded in like an hour post release, so it makes sense for them to make reasonable but safe changes and release it into the wild rather than wait on weeks of internal testing for larger changes. I expect they're doing internal testing for the bigger changes right now.
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