I find it strange when people call control decks non interactive. To me interactive decks care what your opponent are doing and change their game plan accordingly. I find control decks the most interactive because you have to control what the other player is doing. You choose to play reactively and use each card entirely based on what your opponent plays in order to exhaust their supplies and ultimately win. Pure aggro on the other hand and some combo decks are un-interactive in that they have a game plan and they play it out regardless of what the opponent is doing the same way every time all the time. I know that will not fit in with how some people feel but I also think the discussion of interactivity in Hearthstone is pretty tired and worn out. It isn't an overly interactive game which is why it is so simple and fun in a lot of ways and lends to its success.
It's because they're using the term in exactly the opposite way. You're describing what the deck does, whereas they're describing what playing against the deck feels like. Yes the control player is interacting with his opponent, *but from the opponent's perspective*, all they can do is put things on the board (to get killed off) and feebly punch into an ever increasing armor total. From the aggro player's perspective, the control player is "non-interactive" because there's nothing the aggro player can do to disrupt the control deck's game plan other than proactively win. OTOH the control player has all the tools in the world to disrupt the aggro player's game plan, that's what his deck is designed to do: control.
If an aggro deck were "non-interactive" it'd be unbeatable as it'd mean the opposing deck cannot interact with its plan to punch face (somehow). The closest I think we've come to that was pre-nerf pirate rogue with its absurd burst potential, but even then the rogue still needed some minions on the board to win.
I really like the above definition. Since hearthstone effectively constrains the player to interacting with enemy minions or their face (yes, there are *some* exceptions), a non-interactive deck is one that wins without a board, whether by a combo, a collection of burn spells or even fatigue.
Freezemage variants are an extreme case in that they also use board freezes, doomsayers, ice blocks to limit the opponent's options even more, although the latest iteration at least wins with giant discounted minions hitting face, so yay progress..?
I haven't played normal enough to really assess that, but the heroic versions are running different decklists (except for Norroa, oddly) and Kalec and Khadgar do get a mana discount on their hero power.
What may colour the experience a little is that most of the trashy decks are weeded out before the 8th encounter, especially in heroic. If you're facing the final four with a busted deck then you've probably got good odds even if they cheat a little more.
It's been suggested about a billion times(CF, every Kibler video ever), so I'm sure they're at least aware of the possibility. Not only would replacing classic with a rotating roster of older cards allow players to (once again) experience these older cards, it would also fix all of the problems that required them to implement the Hall of Fame to begin with, since problematic cards could be naturally rotated out and kept in wild, rather than this feeling like an intervention from on high. Hell, even prior victims of the dread Hall could strategically be brought back for a year or so, depending on what other cards exist/are planned for standard in that rotation. If classic isn't *permanent* there's no problem with having strong, must-play cards like Ice Block or Ragnaros in it.
The new ladder system strikes me as a pilot for a similar system in standard. Considering the past pattern such a big change would likely occur with the start of the new year.
There's far too much top end value for what this deck is trying to do. Why run Zola, Voidlord or Gul'dan when the core of your deck is hand-buff zoo? On that note, why run Hellfire and Defile in a deck that wants to make wide boards full of tokens? Also, saronite no longer synergises with buffs since it got nerfed, so there's that.
Because nowaday Krush deals 8 damage for 9 mana, while Leeroy Jenkins + Hero Power deals the same for 7 mana. This says that without beast synergy King Krush is pointless. At (8) mana instead it could be played with the hero power, becoming as strong as a Pyroblast, that isn't crazy strong, and becoming better then the neutral Leeroy, a thing that class legendaries should be.
King Krush is a beast and it has an eight health booty, not to mention not summoning dragon whelps for your opponent. Yes, that might not be relevant right now, but when Big Hunter was a thing Krush saw play in that deck and Leeroy did not.
If anything your comparison just highlights that Leeroy is still too strong as the one consistent finisher card that's played across classes.
I remember when I first ran into this unfortunate interaction years ago trying to damage and silence two different minions with a Keeper of the Grove.
Not as a bad an example of counter-synergy, but yeah, even when you get to pick both options on a choose one card, you're still only allowed one target.
Superficially, yes it's kinda similar to Quest Rogue and Jade Druid in that you cheat out big 1 mana minions, but it plays very differently. Pogos are the win condition but I'd argue that the meat of the deck is Shark + lackeys, whereas with QRogue and especially jades, the game plan was significantly more linear and all-in on the quest or jades respectively.
I don't consider the deck to be a problem, not even for control decks. Just tech in a silence, put some pressure on the rogue.
It's a funny card but nowhere near powerful enough to be anything other than a meme. There are much easier ways to set up much scarier minions nowadays. If your goal is to make highlight reel videos then by all means craft it, just don't expect it to be good. :/
From a lore/flavour perspective it absolutely makes more sense to get your first treasure after your first encounter. However, a choice of cards or minion-treasures prior to the first boss could be presented as recruiting a party. Heck, I think you could take that concept even further and have the player draft some or all of their starting deck from themed buckets (EG "Pick a healer" and you choose one of three minions with a healing ability. "Pick a tank" 3 taunts, etc.).
Regarding pacing, you're not wrong, but I think moving all the picks forward by one boss also has an advantage: oftentimes you'll never get to use your second active treasure because you draft it after the 7th encounter, meaning you have only one match to draw it. By moving it forward you get an extra shot at actually enjoying your hard-earned treasure. It's another minor thing that's always bugged me about the current format.
One way to nerf the archetype without completely nuking it from orbit would be to have the game actually resurrect the dead minion rather than a copy of it. That is to say, if you resurrect your big dude and it's on the board, you can't resurrect it *again*, considering it's not dead, it's on the board. You'd have to wait for it to die before you can Res it again. While this wouldn't stop the deck entirely it would prevent it from turning one Lich King into many via Resurrect, Eternal Servitude& Mass Resurrect.
Alternately, if you just want to murder big priest, you could change resurrection effects so that a minion can only be brought back once.
That's a fair point, and I have to admit I haven't played anomaly mode that much, but that said, I don't see why it can't be both. The point you raise about a front loaded treasure making the adventure duller applies to the Rumble Run, where you had 3 variants per class for a total of 27 decks/treasures, but with the dungeon run/heist system all classes have access to any treasure, there are more treasures, not to mention multiple decks and hero powers, so you'd still have orders of magnitude more variation. I think with RR the railroading was the issue, not the front-loading.
While I greatly enjoy the dungeon run style of single player content, it always annoys me how boring and repetitive the first few levels are.
I think allowing the player to draft a treasure and/or 3 cards *before* the first encounter would create a lot more variety in that first game, not to mention allowing the first boss(es) to be buffed a little to actually make the fight interesting. Rhastakhan's Rumble took a step in the right direction by allowing the player to draft a loa at the outset, but even there the fact that each loa has one starting deck means that after a while the first encounters become boring and predictable. And of course with Dalaran Heist we went back to picking a passive treasure and cards after the first encounter, which IMO is a clear regression (that said, being given a choice of hero powers and starting decks is a definite improvement).
Now I don't expect the existing adventures to be substantively changed, but it'd be nice if the devs could front-load a bit more choice/variance at the beginning of the run in future adventures. It'd make the first few levels more exciting, greatly improve the replay value and make it easier to fish for certain treasures/comboes once you're at the point where you've already beat the bosses and you just want to try wacky stuff.
I hardly ever lose to Linzi and I've played a lot of Dalaran heist, so no, I don't think she's a problem. The first few bosses are tedious enough, at least with Linzi there's a remote chance she might win. It sounds to me like you might be misplaying the match; with a 5 health lead and the starting advantage, so long as you curve out on turns 1&2 and hit face you should handily win the vast majority of the time. Maybe if you get unlucky with a random deck you might lose due to a lack of early plays but all the standard decks have a curve.
I don't really like the idea of buffing classic precisely because these cards are supposed to be evergreen. Having good cards that are always available restricts the design space for new cards, EG Fireball&Frostbolt mean that new mage burn spells generally suck. It also means that new cards see less play because these older cards do the job better.
Classic and basic have been a recurring problem for blizzard (hence the hall of fame), and I wish they'd just bite the bullet on having them rotate out as well. Heck, you could have a rotating roster of old cards that are featured in classic to replace the current system.
No worries, at first glance I assumed it was a battlecry as well. Definitely too good for the stats it has RN, should probably be somethingcloser to an 8 mana 4/6.
It's because they're using the term in exactly the opposite way. You're describing what the deck does, whereas they're describing what playing against the deck feels like. Yes the control player is interacting with his opponent, *but from the opponent's perspective*, all they can do is put things on the board (to get killed off) and feebly punch into an ever increasing armor total. From the aggro player's perspective, the control player is "non-interactive" because there's nothing the aggro player can do to disrupt the control deck's game plan other than proactively win. OTOH the control player has all the tools in the world to disrupt the aggro player's game plan, that's what his deck is designed to do: control.
If an aggro deck were "non-interactive" it'd be unbeatable as it'd mean the opposing deck cannot interact with its plan to punch face (somehow). The closest I think we've come to that was pre-nerf pirate rogue with its absurd burst potential, but even then the rogue still needed some minions on the board to win.
I really like the above definition. Since hearthstone effectively constrains the player to interacting with enemy minions or their face (yes, there are *some* exceptions), a non-interactive deck is one that wins without a board, whether by a combo, a collection of burn spells or even fatigue.
Freezemage variants are an extreme case in that they also use board freezes, doomsayers, ice blocks to limit the opponent's options even more, although the latest iteration at least wins with giant discounted minions hitting face, so yay progress..?
I haven't played normal enough to really assess that, but the heroic versions are running different decklists (except for Norroa, oddly) and Kalec and Khadgar do get a mana discount on their hero power.
What may colour the experience a little is that most of the trashy decks are weeded out before the 8th encounter, especially in heroic. If you're facing the final four with a busted deck then you've probably got good odds even if they cheat a little more.
It's been suggested about a billion times(CF, every Kibler video ever), so I'm sure they're at least aware of the possibility. Not only would replacing classic with a rotating roster of older cards allow players to (once again) experience these older cards, it would also fix all of the problems that required them to implement the Hall of Fame to begin with, since problematic cards could be naturally rotated out and kept in wild, rather than this feeling like an intervention from on high. Hell, even prior victims of the dread Hall could strategically be brought back for a year or so, depending on what other cards exist/are planned for standard in that rotation. If classic isn't *permanent* there's no problem with having strong, must-play cards like Ice Block or Ragnaros in it.
The new ladder system strikes me as a pilot for a similar system in standard. Considering the past pattern such a big change would likely occur with the start of the new year.
There's far too much top end value for what this deck is trying to do. Why run Zola, Voidlord or Gul'dan when the core of your deck is hand-buff zoo? On that note, why run Hellfire and Defile in a deck that wants to make wide boards full of tokens? Also, saronite no longer synergises with buffs since it got nerfed, so there's that.
Consider:
-
2 Dark pact
2 Defile
2 Spark Engine
2 Saronite Chain Gang
2 Hellfire
2 Void Lord
1 Gul'dan
+
2 Possessed Villager
2 Mecharoo
2 Evil Genius
2 Imp Gang Boss
2 Darkshire Councilman
2 Imp-losion
1 Despicable Dreadlord
King Krush is a beast and it has an eight health booty, not to mention not summoning dragon whelps for your opponent. Yes, that might not be relevant right now, but when Big Hunter was a thing Krush saw play in that deck and Leeroy did not.
If anything your comparison just highlights that Leeroy is still too strong as the one consistent finisher card that's played across classes.
I belatedly realised that this was supposed to be a neutral minion. Whoops.
Feel free to disregard this submission I guess.
I remember when I first ran into this unfortunate interaction years ago trying to damage and silence two different minions with a Keeper of the Grove.
Not as a bad an example of counter-synergy, but yeah, even when you get to pick both options on a choose one card, you're still only allowed one target.
Darnassus Aspirant
Card with a detrimental deathrattle effect.
Superficially, yes it's kinda similar to Quest Rogue and Jade Druid in that you cheat out big 1 mana minions, but it plays very differently. Pogos are the win condition but I'd argue that the meat of the deck is Shark + lackeys, whereas with QRogue and especially jades, the game plan was significantly more linear and all-in on the quest or jades respectively.
I don't consider the deck to be a problem, not even for control decks. Just tech in a silence, put some pressure on the rogue.
It's a funny card but nowhere near powerful enough to be anything other than a meme. There are much easier ways to set up much scarier minions nowadays. If your goal is to make highlight reel videos then by all means craft it, just don't expect it to be good. :/
From a lore/flavour perspective it absolutely makes more sense to get your first treasure after your first encounter. However, a choice of cards or minion-treasures prior to the first boss could be presented as recruiting a party. Heck, I think you could take that concept even further and have the player draft some or all of their starting deck from themed buckets (EG "Pick a healer" and you choose one of three minions with a healing ability. "Pick a tank" 3 taunts, etc.).
Regarding pacing, you're not wrong, but I think moving all the picks forward by one boss also has an advantage: oftentimes you'll never get to use your second active treasure because you draft it after the 7th encounter, meaning you have only one match to draw it. By moving it forward you get an extra shot at actually enjoying your hard-earned treasure. It's another minor thing that's always bugged me about the current format.
I'd definitely pick Rakanishu, but Squeamlish and the Gnoll are strong contenders as well. I find the warlock, shaman and warrior to be pretty dull.
One way to nerf the archetype without completely nuking it from orbit would be to have the game actually resurrect the dead minion rather than a copy of it. That is to say, if you resurrect your big dude and it's on the board, you can't resurrect it *again*, considering it's not dead, it's on the board. You'd have to wait for it to die before you can Res it again. While this wouldn't stop the deck entirely it would prevent it from turning one Lich King into many via Resurrect, Eternal Servitude& Mass Resurrect.
Alternately, if you just want to murder big priest, you could change resurrection effects so that a minion can only be brought back once.
That's a fair point, and I have to admit I haven't played anomaly mode that much, but that said, I don't see why it can't be both. The point you raise about a front loaded treasure making the adventure duller applies to the Rumble Run, where you had 3 variants per class for a total of 27 decks/treasures, but with the dungeon run/heist system all classes have access to any treasure, there are more treasures, not to mention multiple decks and hero powers, so you'd still have orders of magnitude more variation. I think with RR the railroading was the issue, not the front-loading.
While I greatly enjoy the dungeon run style of single player content, it always annoys me how boring and repetitive the first few levels are.
I think allowing the player to draft a treasure and/or 3 cards *before* the first encounter would create a lot more variety in that first game, not to mention allowing the first boss(es) to be buffed a little to actually make the fight interesting. Rhastakhan's Rumble took a step in the right direction by allowing the player to draft a loa at the outset, but even there the fact that each loa has one starting deck means that after a while the first encounters become boring and predictable. And of course with Dalaran Heist we went back to picking a passive treasure and cards after the first encounter, which IMO is a clear regression (that said, being given a choice of hero powers and starting decks is a definite improvement).
Now I don't expect the existing adventures to be substantively changed, but it'd be nice if the devs could front-load a bit more choice/variance at the beginning of the run in future adventures. It'd make the first few levels more exciting, greatly improve the replay value and make it easier to fish for certain treasures/comboes once you're at the point where you've already beat the bosses and you just want to try wacky stuff.
I hardly ever lose to Linzi and I've played a lot of Dalaran heist, so no, I don't think she's a problem. The first few bosses are tedious enough, at least with Linzi there's a remote chance she might win. It sounds to me like you might be misplaying the match; with a 5 health lead and the starting advantage, so long as you curve out on turns 1&2 and hit face you should handily win the vast majority of the time. Maybe if you get unlucky with a random deck you might lose due to a lack of early plays but all the standard decks have a curve.
I don't really like the idea of buffing classic precisely because these cards are supposed to be evergreen. Having good cards that are always available restricts the design space for new cards, EG Fireball&Frostbolt mean that new mage burn spells generally suck. It also means that new cards see less play because these older cards do the job better.
Classic and basic have been a recurring problem for blizzard (hence the hall of fame), and I wish they'd just bite the bullet on having them rotate out as well. Heck, you could have a rotating roster of old cards that are featured in classic to replace the current system.
No worries, at first glance I assumed it was a battlecry as well. Definitely too good for the stats it has RN, should probably be somethingcloser to an 8 mana 4/6.