Board 8 > Hearthstone Topic #5: The Generated By Meta

(+) Yeah! (+)

i think you love it

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https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/176-balance-updates/36815

more nerfs!

Dragonqueen is Nerfed! Rogue Gala is Nerfed! Corsair Cache is nerfed! Warglaives, Meta, and Kayn are nerfed! Fungal Fortunes is nerfed! Dragoncaster is nerfed!

I have a few of those golden!

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That Kayn nerf seems odd.

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Camden posted...

That Kayn nerf seems odd.

Kayn is definitely a good card. Like...tends to have one of the highest drawn winrates in DH. Making it a 2/5 seems awful, that's Stormwind Knight statline. So I guess 3/4 was just a nerf that kept it playable.

But wow, these are a lot of nerfs.

Alextraza and Rogue Gala...yeah, I've wanted both of these nerfed with pretty much these nerfs.

Dragoncaster, not a surprise, they made a twitter post about how swingy puzzle box on turn 6 was, and how they might make this 7. I don't think Dragoncaster is really a problem without puzzle box, but sure, ok, sounds fine.

Metamorphosis is a surprise. Like...drawn winrate on that card was already on the lower end of the DH decks. At 5 damage it was like a Gladiator's Longbow that ignored taunt--7 mana for 5 damage over two turns. I did give in and craft it for wild odd DH, though, so ok, free dust I guess. I think this is going to be garbage as 7 mana for 8 damage spread over two turns. Like...while it doesn't ignore taunt, Inner demon dealing 8 on one turn might just be better than that. Metamorphosis is a pretty low interaction card, though, so maybe they just wanted to make DH easier to interact with. Hard to play around Metamorphosis. Inner Demon you can play around.

Corsair Cache...I guess they wanted to hit warrior, but...ouch. Wouldn't Bloodboil Brute be a better target? Maybe they just wanted to make it so that not every warrior deck was built with corsair cache in mind. Maybe they were just worried that with the nerfs to every other class they were making, Warrior would be too good.

Warglaves of Azzinoth is a pretty big surprise to me. Obviously a solid weapon, able to do some neat stuff, but drawn winrates on it were not that high. From experience, it's a pretty bad weapon if you are behind on health; you can easily end up dealing tons of damage to yourself clearing a board. A full mana nerf will probably just get the weapon cut from decks. Wonder what the thinking on this one was? Maybe this weapon was just hurting deck diversity? Maybe it countered something like Totem Shaman too hard, and the hope was by nerfing it, more decks could be viable? This will have a big impact on wild of course (card for odd DH becomes even).

Fungal Fortunes: I haven't really played in over a month, but I wasn't aware Druid needed a nerf. Last I checked Druid was considered pretty close to dumpster tier. I guess this is a reasonable card to hit if you want to nerf druid in standard. (In wild I think the druid decks running Fungal Fortunes are just worse than the druid decks not running fungal fortunes so...). Interesting that the mage version of this card was never nerfed (Book of Spectres).

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metroid composite posted...

Warglaves of Azzinoth is a pretty big surprise to me. Obviously a solid weapon, able to do some neat stuff, but drawn winrates on it were not that high. From experience, it's a pretty bad weapon if you are behind on health; you can easily end up dealing tons of damage to yourself clearing a board. A full mana nerf will probably just get the weapon cut from decks. Wonder what the thinking on this one was? Maybe this weapon was just hurting deck diversity? Maybe it countered something like Totem Shaman too hard, and the hope was by nerfing it, more decks could be viable? This will have a big impact on wild of course (card for odd DH becomes even).

A guy killed me last night using Warglaives and FOUR copies of Twin Slice. (Thanks, wyrmkin.) Carved through all my minions, hit me for some absurd amount of damage, and then finished me with his minions. That's an extreme case, sure, but the fact that DH can buff their attack in so many other ways means you basically have the potential to swing really big four times in one turn. Even in the case where it's simply used to go face, though, it's 12 damage. Given how aggressive some versions of DH are, that inevitabiity -- which is more like 16 damage with the hero power -- can be enough to finish an opponent who has stabilized the board.

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azuarc posted...

Even in the case where it's simply used to go face, though, it's 12 damage.

I mean, sure...but so is Assassin's Blade in Rogue (and its attack can also be buffed with Deadly Poison).

Assassin's Blade can't attack multiple times of course, but Warrior had a 5 mana 3/4 weapon called Fool's Bane which could attack multiple times as long as it was hitting minions (couldn't hit face). Much like Assassin's Blade it wasn't really anything special.

Demon hunter as a whole is strong, but I feel like they're being carried pretty hard by their earlygame 1-3 mana cards. If your opponent is already at 15 health and the DH is at 25 health when they equip warglaives, sure, warglaives is pretty good at sealing the game in that scenario. But in the opposite scenario where the opponent is at 25 health and the demon hunter is at 15...warglaives aren't that good.

This is why I'm a little surprised to see Warglaives hit rather than some of their early power. (Battlefiend, Satyr Overseer, the new Twin Slice, Umberwing).

EDIT:

UltimaterializerX posted...

mc, those stats are out of context unless youre looking at high level play.

Eh. There are some cards and decks that perform better at high legend like egg warrior, but I don't think these two are really going to be on the list.

The one thing that will impact the drawn winrate of any expensive card in DH is that they tend to mess up outcast--they're hard to get out of your hand, so you can't activate all the outcasts to the right of those cards. So...maybe the cards are a little stronger than the stats suggest, but their interaction with the class mechanic makes their performance numbers a bit lower than they would be in other classes?

That said, the versions of DH that still run Priestess of Fury, Priestess still manages to have decent winrate statistics (despite being a card that gets cut from most DH decks these days).

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I think the difference between warglaives and assassins blade/fools bane is the hero power and twin slice providing additional flexibility as well as the ability to go face after clearing the opponents board. Its enabled by demon hunters toolkit.

Corsair is probably the strongest card in Warrior, losing an attack will help in a lot of matchups IMO.

Druid got good lately after the Secret Rogue nerfs, especially the ones that run a small dragon package. I think targeting overgrowth would make more sense but eh.

I am a little surprised they didnt look at Priest but I think they are just on the outskirts compared to the other classes that did get targeted.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

The only thing actually oppressive in Priest is Apotheosis on a rush minion.

The actually opressive thing about priest is the galakrond hero power.

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Priest is just miserable to play against. It's not fun at all even if my win rate is positive. I'd happily not have to play another priest again even if it meant a lower overall win rate.

I finished 7th and 8th in my last two games, losing a collective seven fights total where I had less than a 20% chance to lose each of them.

I am officially tilted. And of course, the best thing to do when tilted is queue for another game.

Edit: Second in the chaser game. Thought I had first locked up but my opponent got a Brann and Megasaur on what should've been the final round. Didn't even hit poison, his dudes were just so thick that the divine shield was enough to completely swing things.

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Man, I was tanking for a little while but my first win in a while was Shudderwock... Pogos.

Both were golden and I had a goldgrubber and a decent sized hydra/reaper. I actually lost the last fight because both his tiny poison murlocs hit my pogos (my cleaves missed) but he left early. Ill take it

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ShatteredElysium posted...

Priest is just miserable to play against. It's not fun at all even if my win rate is positive. I'd happily not have to play another priest again even if it meant a lower overall win rate.

priest is the only class worth playing in this meta imhooooooooooooooo

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8th place
6th place
8th place
6th place
7th place

fun night

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skullbone posted...

8th place
6th place
8th place
6th place
7th place

fun night

I know that feeling. I've dropped about 700 points since pirates were released.

I really should just buy the battlepass next expansion. I treat the gold like megalixers in rpgs to begin with so I might as well get something out of it. I just had to pick between Curator and Galakrond for this current game so I'm likely not making up much of that 700 this go around either.

Edit: 5th, -41. Now Bartendotron and Elise.

Edit 2.0: Also 5th, -13.

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You shouldn't be allowed to get Galakrond if you're only getting two choices. I had an okay night last night, but I still had one where my choices were Galakrond and Elise. (I might have won if my four megasaurs didn't ALL whiff.)

Camden posted...

I really should just buy the battlepass next expansion.

While I agree with this, given how things have gone, including my Hearthstone tastes, gold has always been my outlet for buying packs. I'm completely disinterested in the current meta, which is fairly normal for me, but I want to at least hold out hope that whatever the next xpac is will be interesting.

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I use gold to buy packs as well. I used to just buy 50, but now I buy about 30 and continue buying in small groups until I hit a final legendary so I don't leave off on a large pity timer. The first two times I did it I ended up with ~50 anyway, but this last expansion I think I only got 36 packs doing it like this?

I also buy the single player content with gold, so that's some more I normally wouldn't have right now with it being free this year. I have about 18k gold at the moment so even after buying packs the next time around I'm still going to be sitting on five digits of unused gold.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

https://hsreplay.net/replay/CE6AqZX7DmGVUhdSH59iVd

Go ahead. Try telling me this was skill. Puzzle Box healed him out of lethal range, created a board that would kill me, and 3 of my last 6 cards were Zeph, DQA, and Kill Command.

This is how every single game of Hearthstone plays out. It would be like chainsaws randomly dropping from the ceiling during NBA playoff games. "Sorry Lakers fans, Lebron got dismembered."

That is legitimately the gameplay you people are defending. It will never, ever, ever be defensible. The RNG bullshit 100% needs to be toned down or disappear entirely.

You kept a 4 drop on mulligan without a 2 or 3drop in hand.

Yes you had Scavenger's Ingenuity into whatever rush minion it gave you, but against mage that feels slow. At the very least if you are taking that line you can toss Corrosive breath because you wont have a turn to play it until at least turn 5 because no play before then will fit it, even with coin.

You then drew a 2drop on 2 and PLAYED the dormant 5/4 which wont wake up until turn 4 rather than giving yourself the guaranteed draw into a better turn 3 play. If you ingenuity on 2 you will have either a 4/6 rush on 3 or a 6/3 rush on 3 (which then draws one of two cards). You threw away a strong turn 3 play for a 5/4 minion on turn 4 which MIGHT attack face, or might do something dumb depending on what your opponent fields.

You get immediately punished by drawing Zixor which had a 50/50 chance of being buffed and in your hand at this point. (and if you whiffed on the ingenuity you still had the option to corrosive breath + coin + dormant minion on 3 rather than run your 6/3 into a 3/2). You then WASTE your coin to get the ingenuity down immediately. You had an option on 3 to play Animal companion and use your mana efficiently. 4/2 goes face and he will trade it down. 4/4 contests board and requires a ping. 2/4 contests board and requires a ping as well. All 3 results are solid and give you your coin in hand. With coin in hand going into 4 you have the option to ingenuity + coin + 6/3 rush (if it's useful) . But most likely since guaranteed you aren't getting a 4/6 rush at this poing ingenuity is not a great card except to refill your hand because it draws you a card which in turn draws you another card. But you don't need to refill. So I suggest the Animal Companion on 3 is correct in this spot and it gives you a much more flexible turn 4, rather than locking yourself into either Feywing only or having to play a 3drop and nothing else. Another consideration is that you are giving up a turn 6 coin + Dinotamer, which by playing 1 turn earlier gives your opponent 1 less draw to have an answer. Now we can see from the replay that your opponent had Dragoncaster + Rolling Fireball in hand, but it's by no means guaranteed they will have the same turn answer and it's worth keeping the option open.

Do I need to continue? You misplayed. You made plays that were incorrect. Every sub optimal play you make affects the game state and reduces your chance to win and increases the opportunity for your opponent to get RNG that saves them.

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lol i just saw your turn 8. i'm done

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Complaining about RNG is fine and even warranted. But don't play bad and tell me that RNG was the "ONLY" reason you lost.

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It's like watching a slow motion train wreck, I couldn't help myself but finish.

On turn 12 you tracking into stormhammer, and that's fine. But then you play big whelp, which is not. You have 9 mana left.
Stormhammer + Big Whelp + 1drop misses hero power, which is awful. He is at 10 health (7+3) and you can count on 3+2 repeated damage and put him on a 1 turn clock if you have bow + hero power. You already had enough in hand that the card draw doesn't do anything for you. Stormhammer + Hero Power + Ooze + Faerie Dragon is the objectively correct play. It puts your opponent to 5 instead of 7 which is very relevant when you have a 3 attack weapon equipped.

Yes your opponent had answers, such as freeze face. But unless you can see their cards you dont know that, and so you need to be putting them in positions where you will WIN if they dont have the answer that very single turn. Instead you put them in a position where even if you weren't frozen all you could do from hand would be to take them to 2.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

None of those are misplays

/topic list.

You are not capable of being helped.

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Camden posted...

I use gold to buy packs as well. I used to just buy 50, but now I buy about 30 and continue buying in small groups until I hit a final legendary so I don't leave off on a large pity timer. The first two times I did it I ended up with ~50 anyway, but this last expansion I think I only got 36 packs doing it like this?

I just full buy and then begin saving for the next expansion. However many it is, it is. Typically you get a few packs here and there along the way, so I'm not worried about leaving the pity timer hanging.

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Damn, 16 unread messages in this topic since I last checked.

azuarc posted...

I just full buy and then begin saving for the next expansion. However many it is, it is. Typically you get a few packs here and there along the way, so I'm not worried about leaving the pity timer hanging.

50 was always what I went with because it seemed like the point where the majority of packs became 40 dust, and I need dust even less than I need gold.

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I just saw the bg patch notes

Tess seems kinda silly strong

Amalgadon seems cool but random is tricky

They did my boy Goldrinn dirty

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LiquidOshawott posted...

Tess seems kinda silly strong

Amalgadon seems cool but random is tricky

They did my boy Goldrinn dirty

Curious set of changes.

Tess can refresh once with "minions from your last opponent's warband." I'm honestly not sure how to respond to that. Presumably you only get as many minions as you would normally -- they just come from your opponent's catalogue. But that means you could get a minion well above your current tier. It also means any murloc players better damn well sell their megasaurs and run with 6 minions. Tess probably feasts on builds that use commonly attractive cards like Spawn and Baron. I'm not necessarily convinced she's good, though.

Mukla has been changed to give you 2 bananas, and at the end of the turn, give everyone else 1. I assume literally the entire lobby gets a banana, so...is that good? Do the bananas cost 1?

Brann's also back, except now his hero power refreshes with only battlecry minions. Which means he's still probably nutty for murlocs. Also dragons if you can get to 6, but the hero power doesn't help you much along the way.

Aranna only requires 5 refreshes instead of 7. Not as elegant a design, but I guess they felt people weren't using her and the saurolisk nerf killed her one avenue to success.

Hooktusk got nerfed into the ground. Instead of a discover, now you simply receive a random minion. Still good with tokens on 1, but otherwise, that is probably going to be a straight-up garbage tier hero power. Then again, Yogg does well enough with an early-game advantage, so maybe that's enough? Doubt it, though.

Amalgadon is a new amalgam minion, but it comes down on 6, and gets a random adapt for each minion type. I can't wait to be playing this in menagerie and then get Windfury x5. Could even be a liability with taunt. I think they may have taken Hearthstone's most powerful minion ever and made it straight up garbage. Unless you happen to hit divine shield and taunt with two of your adapts, it probably doesn't do enough. I mean, okay, it's a dragon and gets Maly buffs. You can also splash it in pirates if you're desperate enough (or just want to have one more minion for Hogger APM.) I'm skeptical.

And finally, Goldrinn got moved to 6. That's a huge change. It also creates a bit of a void for beasts on 5. If one was going to nerf Goldrinn, I'm pretty sure this was not the way to do it.

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Assuming the leaks are accurate:

We need more info on Tess (does she only get as many minions as the current tavern should have and is it only minions of her tavern tier or lower), but overall she seems like she could be pretty strong. Potentially very good with Murlocs of course.

Mukla seems like a bit of an opposite Edwin. You get strong in the early game due to the buffs and then they fall off later, whereas Edwin doesn't really get to use them in the early game but can then get +4 or +5 each turn later. Interesting design choice to have a power that impacts the entire lobby. Timely buffs on a rat or bronze warden would be big, but overall seems average at best.

Brann is another one that seems like a decent option for murloc forcing. Plenty of murloc battlecries (2 on tier 1, 2 more on tier 3), and if something like Demons are banned then your odds of landing murlocs are pretty good. Also good with Kaly of course, but getting that far in the game with not much of a hero power is the issue.

Most notably these are all heroes with 1 gold hero powers. We have already started to see more and more heroes take the 'Rafaam curve' and stay on 1 longer. Now there are even more options that could have an argument for doing the same thing. We may get to the point where, in some lobbies, more people are staying on 1 until around 6 gold than not.

Aranna buff was needed and right in line with what popular sentiment was asking for. I played her for the first time on my EU smurf and actually had good luck with a juggler build. This opens up quite a few possibilities for her and she should get notably stronger, though not S tier.

Hooktusk gets hammered hard here. That nerf is brutal (and not one I saw discussed much) and makes her significantly weaker. She can still get some econ benefits, but without easy triples she will fall down the rankings pretty hard.

Pirates going into the ban pool was expected and couldn't come too soon.

Amalgadon is interesting. I'm not a fan of Blizzard continuing to add more and more randomness to the game (which can diminish the role skill plays), but I am a fan of trying to get menagerie back into play. The problem is that menagerie wouldn't be good until Lightfang is reverted back to +2/+2 or there is a fundamental shift in the meta back to slower play. The unit itself can be good with different builds, though I assume it will most likely be picked as a 'well I missed the thing I was aiming for but this could high roll for me' unit. Could me a massive power boost - RIP to the person who hits someone the turn after they high roll one.

Goldrinn going to 6 feels like a poor and frankly lazy choice. First, along with Amalgadon, it dilutes the pool of tier 6 minions even further. It also leaves the game with 1 beast at tier 5 and 4 at tier 6 which doesn't make a lot of sense. Sure, it was a problem that Goldrinn beasts was objectively better than Mama Bear beasts, but then change Mama Bear and put her at 5 to compensate. Also, the problem with beast builds at the moment isn't Goldrinn it's Macaw, but apparently Blizzard doesn't want to admit a mistake with that card just yet. The obvious fix to beasts wasn't moving Goldrinn to 6, it was making Macaw a neutral so it didn't get any Goldrinn buffs. That way you can still build the comp but it isn't as oppressive.

Overall the patch seems like a net positive (if the leak is complete and accurate), but still doesn't address the biggest issues with the current meta. Cannon should be deleted, Macaw should be a neutral, there are far too many weak heroes which causes a big part of the game to be decided on the hero select screen instead of actually in the game (and causing higher MMR lobbies to feature the same heroes constantly), taking 15+ damage is far, far too common in the mid-game, mechs and menagerie are still in a sub-optimal place, etc. Let's hope bigger things are in store for the future.

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ESY16 posted...

Also, the problem with beast builds at the moment isn't Goldrinn it's Macaw, but apparently Blizzard doesn't want to admit a mistake with that card just yet.

ESY16 posted...

taking 15+ damage is far, far too common in the mid-game,

QFT.

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VeryInsane posted...

I wonder if this brawl is hinting towards that with some of the classes being mixed together.

I am so smart

smrt

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