What exactly does swap back mean? If the Hero Power is upgraded (whether by Justicar Trueheart or Baku the Mooneater, which could both be relevant to DH), it'd be pretty important whether it comes back to the default or to the upgraded form. Also in consideration for Hero cards and anything else that changes them.
It's deceptively good, but it's got a really steep learning curve. I still haven't gotten it optimal, but it's absolutely promising. The main issue is hand restrictions, and the Lackeys (mainly the newest one) can be particularly frustrating--if you had unlimited hand space, this deck could have a nerf-worthy winrate against non-aggro metas. Decks that have minimal threats in the early turns let you do everything you need to do to pretty consistently set up lethals. Keep in mind though that Hearthstone's small hand size forces you to think very quickly at times, so you have to be pretty proficient at on-the-fly addition, subtraction, and multiplication (just times two, really). You also have to have a pretty good APM, since you're at the mercy of slow battlecry animations.
I've been meaning to write a properly comprehensive primer but that's a pretty time consuming and daunting task, and I think that time would be better spent on actually getting better and improving the deck further. If it's interesting enough to you and dust isn't really a problem, 800 is a small price.
Considering board space limitations, how many turns is this combo? You need to empty your hand and clear your Moorabis in order to play the Cultists, right?
As far as the second point, I'm not quite so willing to state that there's enough solutions for old Patron. Many of those choices you stated either had already proven not good enough (mal'ganis.. seriously?) or are far too weak to even stand to any meta (no one is going to play Soggoth for any reason). You can't just say "there's taunt, so it'll be fine." It has to be in a strong deck, and it has to be in a deck that can stabnd up to the rest of the meta as well. Making a deck that can ONLY beat Patron and nothing else isn't going to be viable enough of an answer.
I'm not a Wild player, so I have to ask here, of all of those decks you bring up, including Control Paladin, Quest Mage, and Handlock, which are actually doing well in the meta right now? THOSE are the ones that will have to fight Patron Warrior after all. Handlock beating Patron won't mean much if Handlock can't survive, say, Big Priest.
Lastly, the last sidepoint, the issue of Wild having little interaction is a point against Patron. If decks that offer very little interaction is a problem in Wild, adding another deck that is VERY uninteractive, like Patron, is adding a problem to a problem.
The power level of cards change greatly, either for better or worse, based on the other cards in the format's pool. Mal'Ganis is a great example of a card that outperforms in Wild despite previously seeing less impressive play in Pre-Standard. In Wild, Voidlord, Voidcaller, and Bloodreaver Gul'dan are often packaged alongside Mal'Ganis, developing board states that are as effective against Big Priest or Quest Mage as they would be against Patron Warrior. Control Warlock/Handlock/Evenlock are all decks that saw considerable success in Wild when the meta allowed for it--just a few months ago, a hand-style Evenlock was perhaps the best deck in the format.
Further on Wild metagame, Quest Mage is currently the top deck in the format, though it often gets referred to as Cyclone Mage, because it's built more around Mana Cyclone than it is around Open the Waygate. The other decks listed are either proven, successful decks that would likely see success against Patron Warrior, or decks likely to be favored against Patron Warrior.
Decks being uninteractive in Wild aren't really an issue. As it stands currently, some of the best decks in Wild include Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue, Murlock Shaman, Even Shaman, Jade Druid, and Aggro Druid. These decks succeed because they're consistently able to apply a ton of pressure to the board in a small amount of time that decks not running sufficient protection or interaction against aggressive board states fold pretty quickly. This implies a few things. First off, it obviously requires other decks to sport a pretty big package of interaction. Big Priest can no longer focus on greedier packages, and must substitute some power for protection.
Note that Blizzard has said that they are looking into addressing Big priest which suggests that such decks are NOT acceptable in the long-term in Wild. Which, again, puts Patron in question.
Quote From DakarianOn the third point... what ARE you getting at here?You talk about the usability of cards in the basic and classic set. However, are you aware that the current team is actively TRYING to make the sets less used? The entire point to the HoF is to make the sets less playable so that the meta becomes less stagnant. We don't HoF bad cards. We HoF good ones. Thus the usability of Warsong isn't an issue as it's already underplayed. If we move it, we won't replace it with something more usable. Thus Warsong isn't harming the new player experience in a way that Blizzard isn't intending since it being a bad card doesn't make it any worse than, say, Radiance.Also note that Yong Woo's philosophy no longer applies here. The current Hearthstone team has been pretty aggressive with ditching many of the old ideas from the old team, meaning they are not holding themselves to anything that was said by people like Woo or Brode. Wild has unnerfed cards, but also kept cards in their nerfed state (combo druid is still not an option).
I'm implying that Basic cards shouldn't be extremely powerful, but still be playable. The current form of Warsong Commander offers very little to new players, and will offer less and less as Charge sees less print. If Warsong Commander were to be reverted to its original text, it would likely be too powerful for the Basic set, and need rotation, but as it currently stands, the card appears to be useless now and for the future of Hearthstone. Other Basic cards at least serve some purpose, and can be used as reasonable substitutes by newer players who don't yet have superior alternatives.
I don't mean to waggle my finger and claim Team 5's divergence from previous leadership's ideas. Woo's and Brode's quotes are still experts' opinions.
On the fourth point while it is truth that design limiters isn't an issue, decks that limit the meta ARE issues. It's why they nerfed Raza priest after all. Meanwhile I don't think you established your first point enough to leave it an assumption that there's enough counters for Patron Warrior. You also aren't considering possible interactions due to the new cards. For example, the key cards in Patron are all odd, making them viable as a Baku deck. Warrior also has a lot more ways to self-damage their cards, making it easier to make a patron board, and ways to put cards back in their deck, which is something they didn't have in the past.
So not only are we not sure that the current decks are strong enough against Old Patron, but we won't be facing the old deck, but a NEW deck using 4 years of cards build under the assumption that Warsong doesn't exist.
That's not even GETTING at the unknown factor and the grand reason why Warsong, and not Patron, was nerfed. The issue wasn't just Patron being Patron but that Warsong would interact with ANYTHING 3 attack or less. Thus nerfing just Ptaron still left a potential nightmare ready to blow later on.
So have you looked at the 4 years of cards made afterwards that would LOVE to have charge? What decks will be made that are NOT Patron but be much worse.
These are some really interesting points, but slightly confusing, so apologies if I'm breaking them down incorrectly.
It's pretty apparent that cards that limit design space are issues. However, point four refers to how a card's impact on a meta is directly related to the format's card pool. I believe you slightly misconstrued that argument.
I have considered new interactions between Grim Patron and newer cards, but none of the newer cards interact with it stronger than Inner Rage and Whirlwind, because cost efficiency is a very, very important thing. I think visualizing an Odd Patron Warrior is a misunderstanding of how much the deck required Emperor Thaurissan to actually OTK. Odd Patron Warrior also abandons Inner Rage, Armorsmith, Battle Rage, Slam, Execute, Death's Bite/Blood Razor, and Unstable Ghoul. Do you mean to say that the power of what Baku provides is stronger than the synergies that allowed the deck to be successful to begin with? I understand your concern for problematic interactions with Warsong Commander, as others have considered, but few things appear objectively more powerful than what Patron Warrior was doing way back in 2014 and 2015. If you can find any problematic cards from the past 4 years that would be problematic with pre-nerf Warsong Commander, I would definitely like to hear them (keep in mind, strong is not problematic. SN1P-SN4P is a great card that would work really well with it, but less so than with Patron or Berserker).
On the fifth point... this was talked about by Frodan in a tournament at one point but it sort of hit me in an interesting way.
Patron wasn't as skill-intensive as we remember it being.
In 2015, the deck was literally playing 3d chess compared to the aggro-loving meta then, and there are some high end choices to be made. But compared to the decks pros play now and the meta....not so much. The #1 biggest factor that caused people to lose in the past was the mathmatics of the final swing:having to figure out whether you have lethal while giving yourself enough time to start the combo. It was the first deck to ever have that issue. We've had A LOT of decks that have demanded such things since then, many of which demand it just for board clears.
Decks have long since moved away from 'do me face' of those days. They are A LOT more difficult to manage, not only including the raw math calculations of Patron, but also the ability to adapt to unknown cards, the need to decide whether to go offensive, defensive, or value oriented. Compared to the current crop of decks, Patron is MUCH easier to manage, but MUCH more devastating as Patron's big calculation is "do you die now."
Patron was the start of complicated, deeper thinking decks in hearthstone. But we've moved on to much better worlds since then.
I don't really understand what you're implying by this, because it feels like a concession that Patron Warrior was the precursor to Hearthstone's shift in ideology, in that you imply decks now require on average higher consideration and deeper thinking than before. I understand the point you're trying to make that the game has become more about fair board control and an accumulation of damage over time, but in a way that had always been the case, and Patron Warrior was king because it efficiently controlled the board, and the most skilled players knew when to throw away potential OTK outs to control the state of the board. I think you absence in Wild could effect your opinion on this; three good examples of relative non-interaction in Wild are Odd Paladin's ability to go wide turn-for-turn considerably faster than other decks and thus force their opponents into initiating trades while taking considerable face damage, Odd Rogue's ability to present high, often incremental stat advantages each turn while having a very effective way of interacting with the board without sacrificing board presence in its Hero Power, which also synergizes with much of its deck, and Big Priest's ability to often just go face. These decks demand their opponents to have an excessive amount of answers, and the current, less powerful version of Patron Warrior has pretty good success against these otherwise seemingly broken, hyper-aggressive decks (I of course mean the aggro decks, not Big Priest).
The final point is really the first point addressed again: that the deck isn't as powerful as what we have now, except you are using Jace to show an example of it happening.
But again we don't know. And that WOULD be fine except that Blizzard still hasn't shown enough speed of making changes to Wild in case this isn't a Jace situation. We've seen one card change utterly gut the Wild meta. This can easily be as much a Sea Witch or a Jace. Is Blizzard willing to fix things if it turns into the former? Is reviving Patron really that needed when it's FAR from the only deck of our past that we can't return to. I can't play Raza Priest. I can't play Miracle Rogue like I used to. I can't play Undertaker Hunter. I can't play Beta Murloc Warlock or 2014 Midrange Hunter.
The concept of preserving history using Wild is already a ship that sailed. Bringing back Patron alone for that reason is arbitrary and extremely risky. If Blizzard is willing to try to bring as many of the old decks back into Wild or some other format, with the williness to rapid release changes if things turn south then I'm for it.
As we stand now, with how they are acting now, I'm not convinced that Patron can't sit in the same afterlife that Combo Druid and Yogg Druid currently sit.
The final point is actually addressing the very human effect of memory and experience on decision making and rationality (also, the first point had nothing to do with what you implied it did).
I hold the belief that things like Raza Priest and Undertaker Hunter could eventually see unnerfs in the later future when the format allows for it (personally I can't see either unnerf breaking Wild). If by Miracle Rogue you mean the deck that employed a 4-cost Leeroy Jenkins and Shadowstep to deal ~18 damage in one turn, an unnerfing and Hall of Faming of Leeroy would actually do interesting things for Wild while removing a potentially design limiting card from Standard; it would remove him from Odd decks while giving Miracle decks a burst that's not super absurd independently. Force of NatureSavage Roar, while no doubt strong, would likely not be absurd to see now if moved to Wild. And while I will always praise Yogg, comparing Yogg to any other nerf seems a bit silly, since most nerfs discussed in this thread had to do with removing or nerfing a combo, while Yogg was considered independently too good for almost all tournament decks because it would often allow players who otherwise would have lost to simply flip a coin on who would win the game by playing Yogg, and it was regarded as never wrong to play.
Oh 1 more thing to add this discussion, I mean 1 more thing that Warsong Commander needs to be unnerfed or changed again is There is not any support to Charge keyword anymore.
Charge keyword is simply replaced with Rush that means Warsong Commander won't get any support anymore.
It needs to unnerf and move to wild like Mind Blast and Vanish or need to be redesigned. I don't think there is a reason to hold it like that forever in the standard because it will be always a dead card without any new charge minions.
There are 3 options which blizzard should reconsider for Warsong Commander;
Producing new minions with charge
Unnerfing it and moving it to the HoF set
Redisgning the card again with something different
That's a very relevant point, I'm sad I missed it!
I'm going to begin with making the assumption that there are a considerable amount of new players to Hearthstone who won't know what I'm talking about if I don't otherwise explain some HS history, so I'll start there. If you're already familiar with the history of this card, feel free to skip ahead.
Warsong Commander has a pretty significant history, though to a newer player, it probably wouldn't seem like it. That's because the current Warsong Commander is an entirely different card than that which was a crucial part in one of the most iconic decks of Hearthstone's history. In the very early days of Hearthstone, Warsong Commander looked like this:
This was actually after a very early buff to the card, in which it was given +1 Health. The issue with this card at the time was probably as obvious as it is now. This version of Warsong Commander caused games in which players had to be cautious of dealing damage to enemy Warriors, because at a certain point they would be able to play Warsong Commander, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, Youthful Brewmaster, Youthful Brewmaster, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, and often deal well over 30 damage. Keep in mind, this is during a time in the game in which giants were 10/10s and playing Warsong Commander into Boulderfist Ogre or Chillwind Yeti was among one of the strongest things you could do. So, the card was problematic. And it was rightfully nerfed, to this version:
This nerf was seen as extremely oppressive to the card, though all-in-all it was a pretty fair one. It was still obviously combo-able with Frothing Berserker and Raging Worgen to get potential lethals with Whirlwind and Inner Rage type effects, but it wasn't a very successful or popular deck; the burst the deck required just wasn't high enough. In 2014, Blackrock Mountain was released, and decks like Freeze Mage, Handlock, and fringe Dragon decks rose in popularity. Mech Mage, Oil Rogue, Face Hunter, Midrange Druid, Midrange Paladin, and Zoo Warlock were among the top tiered decks. From early on, it was apparent that what would become known as Patron Warrior would rise in popularity: "The fix to Warsong Commander* and the introduction of Emperor [Thaurissan] means we will be seeing a lot more huge Warrior combos using Frothing [Berserker], Raging Worgen, and now Grim Patron." (Tempo Storm Meta Snapshot #12)
* - Warsong Commander previously had an issue in which "token" minions, ie. minions from any source other than their own card, wouldn't gain Charge. Additionally, minions with 3-or-less Attack that gained additional Attack (giving them 4 or more) from their Battlecry would not gain Charge, circumventing how effect triggers are supposed to stack.
The additions of Grim Patron and Emperor Thaurissan gave tremendous support to the previously fringe Combo Warrior archetype, and the meta was well suited for Patron Warrior to take off. Decks running small, persistent minions like Haunted Creeper were regularly top tier, and Patron Warrior proved efficient at dealing with small-stats-but-very-wide boards, and these board states grew the power level of eventual Patron combo turns. Additionally, Patrons were impressively stable at dealing with the most powerful minion in the history of the game at that time, Dr. Boom, and nothing stopped Patron Warrior from just also running Boom. If you can sometimes beat 'em, who says you still can't play 'em? Patron Warrior became the anti-aggro police deck on ladder, effectively countering what most of all decks were doing.
Following Blackrock Mountain was The Grand Tournament, which did three major things worth noting. First, it offered Patron Warrior almost nothing (Bash would see play in Control Warrior, and Alexstrasza's Champion would see play in Dragon Warrior). However, all Warriors got one of the most crucial cards in the history of Warrior deckbuilding: Justicar Trueheart, who would immediately see play in most slower Warrior decks, inevitably being played in certain Patron builds slightly longer down the road. The second thing TGT did was introduce Mysterious Challenger, Murloc Knight, and Competitive Spirit. This gave the already solid Midrange Paladin the new name Secret Paladin, and it quickly became one of the best decks in the game. Lastly, it gave legs to the big breakout deck of the set, Dragon Priest, with the cards [Hearthstone Card (Wymrest Agent) Not Found], Twilight Guardian, and Chillmaw. However, these decks had no real way of stopping Patron Warrior in the hands of a knowledgeable player, because their few answers weren't enough to outnumber Warrior's removal package, and Patron remained king for several months.
Then, in October of 2015, Warsong Commander was nerfed a final time, and in the following months, it sunk further and further in popularity, until it was essentially a joke. The card read as it now does:
The card was regarded to have such a significant fall from grace that it spawned a lot of both grief and jokes from the community. The card became effectively useless and went from one of the most played cards in the game to one of the least. Only one month later, League of Explorers was released, and became regarded by many as one of the best Hearthstone sets ever. It gave support to the already solid Aggro Shaman, created an entirely new combo deck in Murloc Paladin, gave Priest great control tools in Entomb and Excavated Evil, blew people away with the incredibly efficient Tomb Pillager, birthed entire new archetypes with Sir Finley Mrrgglton, Brann Bronzebeard, Elise Starseeker, and Reno Jackson, and gave Warriors Cursed Blade, which was regarded mostly as a joke. Regardless, everyone was pretty happy with the set, as aggro, control, and combo decks all had support. And furthermore, the following set, Whispers of the Old Gods, completely transformed the game, both by introducing a massive number of archetypes, and by introducing the Wild/Standard formats. This upset a number of Patron players who thought the Wild format would have made a good home for Patron Warrior--others, however, believed Patron Warrior would simply dominate the format forever, and in hindsight there's certainly validity to both of those opinions at the time.
The Discussion in 2019
There are four major points I'd like to present as the primary reasons for which Warsong Commander should be changed yet again. Here's a little more backstory: in early 2017, massive issues with the Classic set were recognized when a number of cards from the set were frequent offenders in powerful decks (or regarded as improper to have in Standard). Ten cards (Conceal, Ice Lance, Power Overwhelming, Azure Drake, Captain's Parrot, Gelbin Mekkatorque, Elite Tauren Chieftain, Old Murk-Eye, Ragnaros the Firelord, and Sylvanas Windrunner) were removed from the Classic set and put into a new, Wild-only set, known as Hall of Fame. A year later, three additional cards (Coldlight Oracle, Ice Block, and Molten Giant) were moved from Classic to Hall of Fame. Molten Giant marked the first card to be unnerfed during this transition, with its cost dropping from a nerfed 25 back down to a pre-nerf 20. In 2019, an additional three cards from the Classic set were moved to the Hall of Fame (Naturalize, Divine Favor, and Doomguard). Again in 2019, an additional two cards were moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame, however, this time it was from the Basic set (Mind Blast and Vanish). A number of cards were added to Basic and Classic to replace some holes in the set caused by these changes.
1. The first point is, considering that now both a) cards have been unnerfed when being moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame and b) cards from the Basic set have been moved to Hall of Fame, there's no practical reason restricting Blizzard from making the decision of reverting Warsong Commander to it's text "Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge." and moving it from Basic to Hall of Fame. In other words, it is not a decision that would go against their previous conduct.
2. The second point is that the card in its most previous iteration would not go against the design team's philosophy of interaction in the Wild format. Hearthstone is a game with specific types of interaction, which gives a specific perception on how interactive a deck, card, combo, mechanic, or interaction can be. To efficiently interact, you need specific ways of preemptively resisting or negating what your opponent will do, in the context of dealing with combo (otherwise, interaction can be as simple as using a spell to remove an in-play creature, but in this instance we're discussing preventing OTKs). Keeping Patron Warrior's history in mind, we can make note of a couple of things: a) Warsong Commander was nerfed before the introduction of the Wild format, b) cards designed explicitly for Wild have so far not been made (at least not as a part of Standard sets), c) Patron Warrior typically requires Emperor Thaurissan to function optimally, which is mostly considered very slow for combos in Wild, and d) cards have been made since the nerfing of Warsong Commander that either preemptively interact with or simply outpace Patron Warrior. Existing cards that can collectively hinder the power of Patron Warrior include Ice Block, Evasion, Explosive Runes, Potion of Polymorph, Reno Jackson, Ironwood Golem, Thing from Below, Sludge Belcher, Twilight Guardian, Rotten Applebaum, Zilliax, Tar CreeperObsidian Statue (and several Big Priest cards), Voidlord, Mal'Ganis, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Molten Giant, Mountain Giant, Arcane Giant, Defender of Argus, Loatheb, Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Chillmaw, Tunnel Blaster, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, and Soggoth the Slitherer, and decks that would likely do well or average against Patron Warrior include Quest Mage, Big Priest, Handlock/Control Warlock, Control/Odd Warrior, Control Paladin, Odd Rogue, Taunt Druid, and certain Shudderwock Shaman builds. It's also worth noting that in regards to interactivity, many have argued that certain Wild decks have little options in regards to effective interaction, and while these complaints have been officially addressed, no solutions have so far been made, and considerable buffs and options have been given to those decks since (chiefly, I'm talking about Big Priest).
3. The third point is actually a challenge to the design team's Hall of Fame philosophy and the broader concept of the Wild format. In 2017, former Lead Producer Yong Woo spoke about their plans for Hall of Fame, stating "For us, the most important aspect of [the] Standard format is diversity. If a metagame largely consists of decks with similar cores and ideas, we'll consider making changes." (Woo's interview with invenglobal). I want to challenge that statement in an honestly sneaky way, but I believe it to be relevant. The Basic and Classic sets seem to exist with two ideas in mind that were to an extent relevant at inception and especially relevant now: to introduce a pool of cards to new players that offer some level of significance to basic deckbuilding without being abhorrently quintessential to certain decks or strategies, and to offer experienced players some deckbuilding options when theoretically superior options aren't available at the time or when there is a significant importance from what that card offers without being build-around cards themselves (Novice Engineer and Fireball being two examples; Mind Blast and Vanish being not (thus the Hall of Fame rotation)). Out of the 133 cards currently in the Basic set, many are playable and relevant both in the hands of new players and veterans, and can often be bought up in discussion as potential inclusions in competitive decks. What statistically unplayable/underplayed cards in the Basic set means is that those cards are likely inherently unusable in decks for any player regardless of their level of skill or experience. When options in the Basic set are compromised by unplayable/unused cards, those who feel it the most are the newer players. Moving back to actual design philosophy, here's another extract from that same interview with Yong Woo. When asked what to expect for the Wild format, Woo says, "We think of the Wild format as a place to play with all the cards that ever have been or will be a part of Hearthstone, so we want to support the format accordingly." This obviously should not be taken at strictly face value, because when a card is nerfed, fixed, or tweaked, it is technically no longer that original card. But what if a card's name, cost, stats, and art remain the same, but the effect changes entirely? When comparing the current and previous iterations of Warsong Commander, they're all very different, but it's quite obvious that the most previous iteration is a direct nerf from the iteration before it. However, the current iteration of Warsong Commander isn't functionally similar to the most previous iteration in any way other than the stats, and that the word Charge appears on the card. It's an entirely different card, and the previous version, a nerf from it's even earlier version, is no longer a usable card in the game, despite being a considerable part of the game's history.
4. The fourth point is an address to part of the reason why Warsong Commander/Patron Warrior was nerfed in the first place, and why a lot of cards historically got nerfed in Hearthstone: they were too tournament-meta warping, and in part with that, cards that eventually required nerfs typically limited design space in some way. Steamer TrumpHS and former Hearthstone Game Director Ben Brode cover it best. In Wild, Patron Warrior with the inclusion of Warsong Commander has enough strong counters against it that considerable tournament meta warping is unlikely aside from being great tech against decks like Odd Paladin and Murloc Shaman. In Wild, an eternal format, the issue of cards limiting design space is far less of an issue considering that the card pool in Wild is considerably larger with a greater number cards that counteract the impacts of otherwise problematic cards that may cause issues in formats that have smaller card pools, like Standard. Often times, card game designers must ban cards for the health of their game, but later find the opportunities to unban those cards once more cards have been added to the format in question. In the case of Hearthstone, bans and unbans don't exist outside of the Odd/Even effective-bans in Standard, so an unnerfing of an older card isn't something to shy away from.
5. The fifth point may be a bit ridiculous to some, but it's absolutely worth mentioning. Patron Warrior had a considerable difference in win rate based on the player's skill with the deck. Many players had remarkably low win rates with the deck, while others dominated the ladder. The deck was likely a difficult one to nerf because it heavily rewarded skilled players, rather than rewarding players for just playing it, like many decks get accused of having the issue of.
6. The final point I'd like to present has less to do with Hearthstone, and more to do with games that see updates and changes over long periods of time. I want to refer to an example from another card game, Magic: the Gathering, and a specific story from it, that I'll call The Boogeyman. I'd like you to take a break from reading, if you want, and watch a video--don't worry, you don't need to know anything about the game to enjoy the video. If you're familiar with the legend of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, you're fine, but I still recommend that video. Jace, the Mind Sculptor has a very interesting story. In Standard, a format near-identical to Hearthstone's, Jace, the Mind Sculptor dominated on all levels, and the decks playing it were consistently winning--it was metawarping. In the right hands, it often felt unbeatable, and at a point the format became significantly warped around the card that mirror matches were decided and won by the deck that specifically planned ahead to win the mirror match. It didn't win with combo, but when the pieces moved it often felt like one. One year after the release of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and its dominance over Standard, the new eternal format Modern was created, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor was immediately banned from being played in Modern. For seven years it was remembered by Modern players as overpowered, infuriating, and scary, until it was unbanned in February of 2018. People lost their minds, but as it turned out, Jace underperformed after his debut into the format. The card is played, and in some of the best decks in the format, but it seemed the legacy had outhyped the legend. A big consideration of how Warsong Commander would impact Wild is the meta; it historically had really great success against decks flooding the board with small bodies, and that isn't what's currently dominating the ladder. People are playing control, and combo, and decks oozing with value. The dominance of Jace, the Mind Sculptor over the pool of cards in MTG's Standard at the time and the relative unimpressive performance in MTG's Modern seems comparable to the potential impact Warsong Commander would have over Hearthstone's Wild when remembering only its Standard.
In closing, I quite obviously believe in a return of pre-nerf Warsong Commander to exclusively Wild, but I am very curious what others think about this topic.
What exactly does swap back mean? If the Hero Power is upgraded (whether by Justicar Trueheart or Baku the Mooneater, which could both be relevant to DH), it'd be pretty important whether it comes back to the default or to the upgraded form. Also in consideration for Hero cards and anything else that changes them.
Warsong Commander. Warsong Commander. Warsong Commander. Warsong Commander. Warsong Commander. Warsong Commander.
It's deceptively good, but it's got a really steep learning curve. I still haven't gotten it optimal, but it's absolutely promising. The main issue is hand restrictions, and the Lackeys (mainly the newest one) can be particularly frustrating--if you had unlimited hand space, this deck could have a nerf-worthy winrate against non-aggro metas. Decks that have minimal threats in the early turns let you do everything you need to do to pretty consistently set up lethals. Keep in mind though that Hearthstone's small hand size forces you to think very quickly at times, so you have to be pretty proficient at on-the-fly addition, subtraction, and multiplication (just times two, really). You also have to have a pretty good APM, since you're at the mercy of slow battlecry animations.
I've been meaning to write a properly comprehensive primer but that's a pretty time consuming and daunting task, and I think that time would be better spent on actually getting better and improving the deck further. If it's interesting enough to you and dust isn't really a problem, 800 is a small price.
Considering board space limitations, how many turns is this combo? You need to empty your hand and clear your Moorabis in order to play the Cultists, right?
I asked for some opinions on this over on reddit, check it out if you're interested.
There's a lot of valid opinions and ideas on alternative changes to Warsong Commander here, and I very much appreciate that feedback. Thanks!
The power level of cards change greatly, either for better or worse, based on the other cards in the format's pool. Mal'Ganis is a great example of a card that outperforms in Wild despite previously seeing less impressive play in Pre-Standard. In Wild, Voidlord, Voidcaller, and Bloodreaver Gul'dan are often packaged alongside Mal'Ganis, developing board states that are as effective against Big Priest or Quest Mage as they would be against Patron Warrior. Control Warlock/Handlock/Evenlock are all decks that saw considerable success in Wild when the meta allowed for it--just a few months ago, a hand-style Evenlock was perhaps the best deck in the format.
Further on Wild metagame, Quest Mage is currently the top deck in the format, though it often gets referred to as Cyclone Mage, because it's built more around Mana Cyclone than it is around Open the Waygate. The other decks listed are either proven, successful decks that would likely see success against Patron Warrior, or decks likely to be favored against Patron Warrior.
Decks being uninteractive in Wild aren't really an issue. As it stands currently, some of the best decks in Wild include Odd Paladin, Odd Rogue, Murlock Shaman, Even Shaman, Jade Druid, and Aggro Druid. These decks succeed because they're consistently able to apply a ton of pressure to the board in a small amount of time that decks not running sufficient protection or interaction against aggressive board states fold pretty quickly. This implies a few things. First off, it obviously requires other decks to sport a pretty big package of interaction. Big Priest can no longer focus on greedier packages, and must substitute some power for protection.
Duly noted, but actions speak louder than words; the recent, unapologetic inclusions of Archmage Vargoth, Catrina Muerte, Mass Hysteria, Forbidden Words, and Mass Resurrection have all been considerable buffs to Big Priest.
I'm implying that Basic cards shouldn't be extremely powerful, but still be playable. The current form of Warsong Commander offers very little to new players, and will offer less and less as Charge sees less print. If Warsong Commander were to be reverted to its original text, it would likely be too powerful for the Basic set, and need rotation, but as it currently stands, the card appears to be useless now and for the future of Hearthstone. Other Basic cards at least serve some purpose, and can be used as reasonable substitutes by newer players who don't yet have superior alternatives.
I don't mean to waggle my finger and claim Team 5's divergence from previous leadership's ideas. Woo's and Brode's quotes are still experts' opinions.
These are some really interesting points, but slightly confusing, so apologies if I'm breaking them down incorrectly.
It's pretty apparent that cards that limit design space are issues. However, point four refers to how a card's impact on a meta is directly related to the format's card pool. I believe you slightly misconstrued that argument.
I have considered new interactions between Grim Patron and newer cards, but none of the newer cards interact with it stronger than Inner Rage and Whirlwind, because cost efficiency is a very, very important thing. I think visualizing an Odd Patron Warrior is a misunderstanding of how much the deck required Emperor Thaurissan to actually OTK. Odd Patron Warrior also abandons Inner Rage, Armorsmith, Battle Rage, Slam, Execute, Death's Bite/Blood Razor, and Unstable Ghoul. Do you mean to say that the power of what Baku provides is stronger than the synergies that allowed the deck to be successful to begin with? I understand your concern for problematic interactions with Warsong Commander, as others have considered, but few things appear objectively more powerful than what Patron Warrior was doing way back in 2014 and 2015. If you can find any problematic cards from the past 4 years that would be problematic with pre-nerf Warsong Commander, I would definitely like to hear them (keep in mind, strong is not problematic. SN1P-SN4P is a great card that would work really well with it, but less so than with Patron or Berserker).
I don't really understand what you're implying by this, because it feels like a concession that Patron Warrior was the precursor to Hearthstone's shift in ideology, in that you imply decks now require on average higher consideration and deeper thinking than before. I understand the point you're trying to make that the game has become more about fair board control and an accumulation of damage over time, but in a way that had always been the case, and Patron Warrior was king because it efficiently controlled the board, and the most skilled players knew when to throw away potential OTK outs to control the state of the board. I think you absence in Wild could effect your opinion on this; three good examples of relative non-interaction in Wild are Odd Paladin's ability to go wide turn-for-turn considerably faster than other decks and thus force their opponents into initiating trades while taking considerable face damage, Odd Rogue's ability to present high, often incremental stat advantages each turn while having a very effective way of interacting with the board without sacrificing board presence in its Hero Power, which also synergizes with much of its deck, and Big Priest's ability to often just go face. These decks demand their opponents to have an excessive amount of answers, and the current, less powerful version of Patron Warrior has pretty good success against these otherwise seemingly broken, hyper-aggressive decks (I of course mean the aggro decks, not Big Priest).
The final point is actually addressing the very human effect of memory and experience on decision making and rationality (also, the first point had nothing to do with what you implied it did).
I hold the belief that things like Raza Priest and Undertaker Hunter could eventually see unnerfs in the later future when the format allows for it (personally I can't see either unnerf breaking Wild). If by Miracle Rogue you mean the deck that employed a 4-cost Leeroy Jenkins and Shadowstep to deal ~18 damage in one turn, an unnerfing and Hall of Faming of Leeroy would actually do interesting things for Wild while removing a potentially design limiting card from Standard; it would remove him from Odd decks while giving Miracle decks a burst that's not super absurd independently. Force of Nature Savage Roar, while no doubt strong, would likely not be absurd to see now if moved to Wild. And while I will always praise Yogg, comparing Yogg to any other nerf seems a bit silly, since most nerfs discussed in this thread had to do with removing or nerfing a combo, while Yogg was considered independently too good for almost all tournament decks because it would often allow players who otherwise would have lost to simply flip a coin on who would win the game by playing Yogg, and it was regarded as never wrong to play.
That's a very relevant point, I'm sad I missed it!
I'm going to begin with making the assumption that there are a considerable amount of new players to Hearthstone who won't know what I'm talking about if I don't otherwise explain some HS history, so I'll start there. If you're already familiar with the history of this card, feel free to skip ahead.
Warsong Commander has a pretty significant history, though to a newer player, it probably wouldn't seem like it. That's because the current Warsong Commander is an entirely different card than that which was a crucial part in one of the most iconic decks of Hearthstone's history. In the very early days of Hearthstone, Warsong Commander looked like this:
This was actually after a very early buff to the card, in which it was given +1 Health. The issue with this card at the time was probably as obvious as it is now. This version of Warsong Commander caused games in which players had to be cautious of dealing damage to enemy Warriors, because at a certain point they would be able to play Warsong Commander, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, Youthful Brewmaster, Youthful Brewmaster, Molten Giant, Molten Giant, and often deal well over 30 damage. Keep in mind, this is during a time in the game in which giants were 10/10s and playing Warsong Commander into Boulderfist Ogre or Chillwind Yeti was among one of the strongest things you could do. So, the card was problematic. And it was rightfully nerfed, to this version:
This nerf was seen as extremely oppressive to the card, though all-in-all it was a pretty fair one. It was still obviously combo-able with Frothing Berserker and Raging Worgen to get potential lethals with Whirlwind and Inner Rage type effects, but it wasn't a very successful or popular deck; the burst the deck required just wasn't high enough. In 2014, Blackrock Mountain was released, and decks like Freeze Mage, Handlock, and fringe Dragon decks rose in popularity. Mech Mage, Oil Rogue, Face Hunter, Midrange Druid, Midrange Paladin, and Zoo Warlock were among the top tiered decks. From early on, it was apparent that what would become known as Patron Warrior would rise in popularity: "The fix to Warsong Commander* and the introduction of Emperor [Thaurissan] means we will be seeing a lot more huge Warrior combos using Frothing [Berserker], Raging Worgen, and now Grim Patron." (Tempo Storm Meta Snapshot #12)
* - Warsong Commander previously had an issue in which "token" minions, ie. minions from any source other than their own card, wouldn't gain Charge. Additionally, minions with 3-or-less Attack that gained additional Attack (giving them 4 or more) from their Battlecry would not gain Charge, circumventing how effect triggers are supposed to stack.
The additions of Grim Patron and Emperor Thaurissan gave tremendous support to the previously fringe Combo Warrior archetype, and the meta was well suited for Patron Warrior to take off. Decks running small, persistent minions like Haunted Creeper were regularly top tier, and Patron Warrior proved efficient at dealing with small-stats-but-very-wide boards, and these board states grew the power level of eventual Patron combo turns. Additionally, Patrons were impressively stable at dealing with the most powerful minion in the history of the game at that time, Dr. Boom, and nothing stopped Patron Warrior from just also running Boom. If you can sometimes beat 'em, who says you still can't play 'em? Patron Warrior became the anti-aggro police deck on ladder, effectively countering what most of all decks were doing.
Following Blackrock Mountain was The Grand Tournament, which did three major things worth noting. First, it offered Patron Warrior almost nothing (Bash would see play in Control Warrior, and Alexstrasza's Champion would see play in Dragon Warrior). However, all Warriors got one of the most crucial cards in the history of Warrior deckbuilding: Justicar Trueheart, who would immediately see play in most slower Warrior decks, inevitably being played in certain Patron builds slightly longer down the road. The second thing TGT did was introduce Mysterious Challenger, Murloc Knight, and Competitive Spirit. This gave the already solid Midrange Paladin the new name Secret Paladin, and it quickly became one of the best decks in the game. Lastly, it gave legs to the big breakout deck of the set, Dragon Priest, with the cards [Hearthstone Card (Wymrest Agent) Not Found], Twilight Guardian, and Chillmaw. However, these decks had no real way of stopping Patron Warrior in the hands of a knowledgeable player, because their few answers weren't enough to outnumber Warrior's removal package, and Patron remained king for several months.
Then, in October of 2015, Warsong Commander was nerfed a final time, and in the following months, it sunk further and further in popularity, until it was essentially a joke. The card read as it now does:
The card was regarded to have such a significant fall from grace that it spawned a lot of both grief and jokes from the community. The card became effectively useless and went from one of the most played cards in the game to one of the least. Only one month later, League of Explorers was released, and became regarded by many as one of the best Hearthstone sets ever. It gave support to the already solid Aggro Shaman, created an entirely new combo deck in Murloc Paladin, gave Priest great control tools in Entomb and Excavated Evil, blew people away with the incredibly efficient Tomb Pillager, birthed entire new archetypes with Sir Finley Mrrgglton, Brann Bronzebeard, Elise Starseeker, and Reno Jackson, and gave Warriors Cursed Blade, which was regarded mostly as a joke. Regardless, everyone was pretty happy with the set, as aggro, control, and combo decks all had support. And furthermore, the following set, Whispers of the Old Gods, completely transformed the game, both by introducing a massive number of archetypes, and by introducing the Wild/Standard formats. This upset a number of Patron players who thought the Wild format would have made a good home for Patron Warrior--others, however, believed Patron Warrior would simply dominate the format forever, and in hindsight there's certainly validity to both of those opinions at the time.
The Discussion in 2019
There are four major points I'd like to present as the primary reasons for which Warsong Commander should be changed yet again. Here's a little more backstory: in early 2017, massive issues with the Classic set were recognized when a number of cards from the set were frequent offenders in powerful decks (or regarded as improper to have in Standard). Ten cards (Conceal, Ice Lance, Power Overwhelming, Azure Drake, Captain's Parrot, Gelbin Mekkatorque, Elite Tauren Chieftain, Old Murk-Eye, Ragnaros the Firelord, and Sylvanas Windrunner) were removed from the Classic set and put into a new, Wild-only set, known as Hall of Fame. A year later, three additional cards (Coldlight Oracle, Ice Block, and Molten Giant) were moved from Classic to Hall of Fame. Molten Giant marked the first card to be unnerfed during this transition, with its cost dropping from a nerfed 25 back down to a pre-nerf 20. In 2019, an additional three cards from the Classic set were moved to the Hall of Fame (Naturalize, Divine Favor, and Doomguard). Again in 2019, an additional two cards were moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame, however, this time it was from the Basic set (Mind Blast and Vanish). A number of cards were added to Basic and Classic to replace some holes in the set caused by these changes.
1. The first point is, considering that now both a) cards have been unnerfed when being moved from an eternal set to Hall of Fame and b) cards from the Basic set have been moved to Hall of Fame, there's no practical reason restricting Blizzard from making the decision of reverting Warsong Commander to it's text "Whenever you summon a minion with 3 or less Attack, give it Charge." and moving it from Basic to Hall of Fame. In other words, it is not a decision that would go against their previous conduct.
2. The second point is that the card in its most previous iteration would not go against the design team's philosophy of interaction in the Wild format. Hearthstone is a game with specific types of interaction, which gives a specific perception on how interactive a deck, card, combo, mechanic, or interaction can be. To efficiently interact, you need specific ways of preemptively resisting or negating what your opponent will do, in the context of dealing with combo (otherwise, interaction can be as simple as using a spell to remove an in-play creature, but in this instance we're discussing preventing OTKs). Keeping Patron Warrior's history in mind, we can make note of a couple of things: a) Warsong Commander was nerfed before the introduction of the Wild format, b) cards designed explicitly for Wild have so far not been made (at least not as a part of Standard sets), c) Patron Warrior typically requires Emperor Thaurissan to function optimally, which is mostly considered very slow for combos in Wild, and d) cards have been made since the nerfing of Warsong Commander that either preemptively interact with or simply outpace Patron Warrior. Existing cards that can collectively hinder the power of Patron Warrior include Ice Block, Evasion, Explosive Runes, Potion of Polymorph, Reno Jackson, Ironwood Golem, Thing from Below, Sludge Belcher, Twilight Guardian, Rotten Applebaum, Zilliax, Tar Creeper Obsidian Statue (and several Big Priest cards), Voidlord, Mal'Ganis, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Molten Giant, Mountain Giant, Arcane Giant, Defender of Argus, Loatheb, Dirty Rat, Hecklebot, Chillmaw, Tunnel Blaster, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, and Soggoth the Slitherer, and decks that would likely do well or average against Patron Warrior include Quest Mage, Big Priest, Handlock/Control Warlock, Control/Odd Warrior, Control Paladin, Odd Rogue, Taunt Druid, and certain Shudderwock Shaman builds. It's also worth noting that in regards to interactivity, many have argued that certain Wild decks have little options in regards to effective interaction, and while these complaints have been officially addressed, no solutions have so far been made, and considerable buffs and options have been given to those decks since (chiefly, I'm talking about Big Priest).
3. The third point is actually a challenge to the design team's Hall of Fame philosophy and the broader concept of the Wild format. In 2017, former Lead Producer Yong Woo spoke about their plans for Hall of Fame, stating "For us, the most important aspect of [the] Standard format is diversity. If a metagame largely consists of decks with similar cores and ideas, we'll consider making changes." (Woo's interview with invenglobal). I want to challenge that statement in an honestly sneaky way, but I believe it to be relevant. The Basic and Classic sets seem to exist with two ideas in mind that were to an extent relevant at inception and especially relevant now: to introduce a pool of cards to new players that offer some level of significance to basic deckbuilding without being abhorrently quintessential to certain decks or strategies, and to offer experienced players some deckbuilding options when theoretically superior options aren't available at the time or when there is a significant importance from what that card offers without being build-around cards themselves (Novice Engineer and Fireball being two examples; Mind Blast and Vanish being not (thus the Hall of Fame rotation)). Out of the 133 cards currently in the Basic set, many are playable and relevant both in the hands of new players and veterans, and can often be bought up in discussion as potential inclusions in competitive decks. What statistically unplayable/underplayed cards in the Basic set means is that those cards are likely inherently unusable in decks for any player regardless of their level of skill or experience. When options in the Basic set are compromised by unplayable/unused cards, those who feel it the most are the newer players. Moving back to actual design philosophy, here's another extract from that same interview with Yong Woo. When asked what to expect for the Wild format, Woo says, "We think of the Wild format as a place to play with all the cards that ever have been or will be a part of Hearthstone, so we want to support the format accordingly." This obviously should not be taken at strictly face value, because when a card is nerfed, fixed, or tweaked, it is technically no longer that original card. But what if a card's name, cost, stats, and art remain the same, but the effect changes entirely? When comparing the current and previous iterations of Warsong Commander, they're all very different, but it's quite obvious that the most previous iteration is a direct nerf from the iteration before it. However, the current iteration of Warsong Commander isn't functionally similar to the most previous iteration in any way other than the stats, and that the word Charge appears on the card. It's an entirely different card, and the previous version, a nerf from it's even earlier version, is no longer a usable card in the game, despite being a considerable part of the game's history.
4. The fourth point is an address to part of the reason why Warsong Commander/Patron Warrior was nerfed in the first place, and why a lot of cards historically got nerfed in Hearthstone: they were too tournament-meta warping, and in part with that, cards that eventually required nerfs typically limited design space in some way. Steamer TrumpHS and former Hearthstone Game Director Ben Brode cover it best. In Wild, Patron Warrior with the inclusion of Warsong Commander has enough strong counters against it that considerable tournament meta warping is unlikely aside from being great tech against decks like Odd Paladin and Murloc Shaman. In Wild, an eternal format, the issue of cards limiting design space is far less of an issue considering that the card pool in Wild is considerably larger with a greater number cards that counteract the impacts of otherwise problematic cards that may cause issues in formats that have smaller card pools, like Standard. Often times, card game designers must ban cards for the health of their game, but later find the opportunities to unban those cards once more cards have been added to the format in question. In the case of Hearthstone, bans and unbans don't exist outside of the Odd/Even effective-bans in Standard, so an unnerfing of an older card isn't something to shy away from.
5. The fifth point may be a bit ridiculous to some, but it's absolutely worth mentioning. Patron Warrior had a considerable difference in win rate based on the player's skill with the deck. Many players had remarkably low win rates with the deck, while others dominated the ladder. The deck was likely a difficult one to nerf because it heavily rewarded skilled players, rather than rewarding players for just playing it, like many decks get accused of having the issue of.
6. The final point I'd like to present has less to do with Hearthstone, and more to do with games that see updates and changes over long periods of time. I want to refer to an example from another card game, Magic: the Gathering, and a specific story from it, that I'll call The Boogeyman. I'd like you to take a break from reading, if you want, and watch a video--don't worry, you don't need to know anything about the game to enjoy the video. If you're familiar with the legend of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, you're fine, but I still recommend that video. Jace, the Mind Sculptor has a very interesting story. In Standard, a format near-identical to Hearthstone's, Jace, the Mind Sculptor dominated on all levels, and the decks playing it were consistently winning--it was metawarping. In the right hands, it often felt unbeatable, and at a point the format became significantly warped around the card that mirror matches were decided and won by the deck that specifically planned ahead to win the mirror match. It didn't win with combo, but when the pieces moved it often felt like one. One year after the release of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and its dominance over Standard, the new eternal format Modern was created, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor was immediately banned from being played in Modern. For seven years it was remembered by Modern players as overpowered, infuriating, and scary, until it was unbanned in February of 2018. People lost their minds, but as it turned out, Jace underperformed after his debut into the format. The card is played, and in some of the best decks in the format, but it seemed the legacy had outhyped the legend. A big consideration of how Warsong Commander would impact Wild is the meta; it historically had really great success against decks flooding the board with small bodies, and that isn't what's currently dominating the ladder. People are playing control, and combo, and decks oozing with value. The dominance of Jace, the Mind Sculptor over the pool of cards in MTG's Standard at the time and the relative unimpressive performance in MTG's Modern seems comparable to the potential impact Warsong Commander would have over Hearthstone's Wild when remembering only its Standard.
In closing, I quite obviously believe in a return of pre-nerf Warsong Commander to exclusively Wild, but I am very curious what others think about this topic.
Some Nostalgia
Thanks for the shoutout! Looks like I might have to write a real guide now.
I'm glad you liked it! It's been fun working on it.
I think it was from the missing card reserved for SN1P-SN4P. Filled it and it should work now, thanks.