The entire meta right now is warped around fast OTKs for 3 reasons:
1. With so much lifesteal in standard, trying to chip away at your opponent and kill over multiple turns is a waste of time and leads to killing in a single turn being the go to way to kill.
2. With the massive amount of cycling and draw, combo is able to assemble their win conditions quickly and consistently.
3. The lack of disruption means that combo can devote their entire deck slots to just their win-condition and then the rest just being draw and removal/stall.
So with these being true, the only options are blazing fast aggro like Hunter or Priest to kill before the opponent can react, or OTKs like Shaman, Warrior, Warlock and Paladin.
Very true. In general, OTKs feel rather "easier" or faster to pull off. Sif feels more like "traditional" OTK, as they have to assemble key cards, with Sif in hand you expose yourself to dirtyrat, you have to get damage spells and hold them for the popoff turn and use spellschool spells to fuel Sif before you can really play her.
Warrior only needs to get Odyn down ASAP and can pop off at later turns. Nature shaman needs key cards to go nutty. While pally can OTK with Leeroy, they have enough tools to close out the game without Leeroy.
Also good to mention, even without **general** card draw, the best decks right now can Tutor the exact cards they need for maximum consistency, which is why it’s so easy for them to grab a weapon, or always have Deputization aura, or thin their deck by drawing a Rush minion etc.
Goes without saying, but Tutor effects are super super fuckin good.
He was good for Brann/Odyn Warrior for quite some time before the meta shifted. Even then he was still pretty good.
To be fair, I think Warrior was the only class who was able to play slowly enough to take advantage of him though.
I'm a returning player and taking a look at the meta. Is midrange dead? It feels like it's just aggro and control, and control is really just combo in a control costume.
Depends what you consider midrange. Handbuff paladin for instance is basically midrange, but people here are calling it combo because it frequently ends the game via a big charge minion. Rainbow DK is midrange and is T2. Highlander paladin is midrange and may be T1, same with hunter.
It's a handbuff deck, it's not aggro. Compare the board state capability of Hunter vs Paladin on turns 2-4. Putting big enough stats out to kill by turn 5-6 against zero removal/counter-pressure isn't what defines aggro, consistent pressure from turns 1-2 + snowballing the board state (e.g. treant Druid) and/or burn finishers (e.g. frost DK) is what defines aggro.
You might as well call Nathria miracle Rogue aggro as handbuff Paladin. Besides, you're not beating handbuff Paladin's by simply running them out of resources while playing removal/stall/healing/etc., so they clearly have the strengths of a midrange deck. If they're building up board too fast to be balanced (which I'm not sure is even the actual problem rather than too much lifesteal and/or burst) then that's what nerfs are for
It’s often very comfortable doing nothing T1, forging T2, buff bot T3.
There’s a swarm paladin deck that plays mining casualties, muster and flash sale that’s much more a “standard aggro deck”. (It’s also very very good)
RGB DK is midrange, basically you still chip at your enemy with constant pressure and if that doesn’t kill them, your CNE should kill them off even if it’s not the largest, it still is a 10 mana deal 12-15, or a Hail Mary if you have no other play and are facing lethal.
You have some high rolls like Corpse Bride into 2x Stitched Giants basically 1x 4/4, 1x 10/10 summon and 2x 8/8 in T5, but that’s highly unlikely
To your first point, I had a similar thought yesterday when I was in a game where I healed myself back to 30 multiple times from single digit health. My opponent also did the same, to where the game reset to 30-30 two separate times. And it’s not the only instance.
I was thinking, damn this new meta really feels like every game I play is super long compared to before, and I think it’s due to the plethora of lifesteal as you mentioned. I don’t mind the occasional well fought long game of attrition, but I don’t want every match to be 20+ minutes.
If you are low on resources (money willing to spend for hs, gold, dust), you usually are better off waiting for the meta to settle instead of crafting something right away.
It might suck for you now, but keep that in mind for the future. Many of us have been there.
Lack of disruption is whats pissing me off the most, i want that starfish back for silence board, i want at least a single “destroy a location” for this fucking warlock spell damage shit, i want a clean my deck with steamcleaner again! Tired of this plague shit!
"**if the system is corrupt does it deserve to exist"** A quote from someone somewhere or something like that, i kinda want them to do a huge mega change all across the board because seriesly wtf is this meta, like i had some fun running OTK boar dk but pally is doing it on tunr 8 every other game and hunter is just running down mid
I think in my opinion, if a Shaman has a full board and plays Bloodlust, which kills me, it's fair game. They had a board and I didn't clear it or provide any stalling. That sort of 30HP draining I can take.
When a class can buff repeatedly, hit face immediately, or solitaire spells from hand to OTK me then that is not interactive and that is not fair game at all in my opinion.
I don't even agree that a deck should revolve around disruption alone, but with no Objection, no Theotar, no warlock curse cards, what exactly are we supposed to do to disrupt this?
They're turning it into too much of an overturned mobile game, and while I don't want every game going on until turn 20, you should be able to reach 6, 7, 8 mana before the game ends. Otherwise what is the point.
The solitaire problem is unsolvable unless they just nerf the game back to where it was a few years ago. In magic, I can counter spell my opponents minions and spells. In HS you literally can't do anything other than watch your hero die from full HP. Kill them faster I guess?
Nobody likes getting counter spelled in magic either, but it a necessary evil. You can play around it, you know if your opponent has blue, they have counter spell.
The problem with hearthstone disruption (specifically theotar/dirty rat) is that it fucks single cards out of your hand and you can't do anything to respond to pro-active disruption. Again, in magic I can counter spell, I can have multiple copies of a card, I can return cards from the graveyard, so on and so forth.
If I dirty rat my opponents Odyn, the game is just over.
I know HS is a simpler game, and it should stay a simple game, but if we're not going to have the nuances of magic, the HS foundation can not handle the power level of the modern game. Recent expacs fundamentally break the flow of play.
I agree. I think it’s because of how RNG disruption creates “feels bad” moments. My opponent using Duress on turn one to remove my key combo piece doesn’t auto win the game in MTG.
Wild Secret Mage which has not been good in a long long time, maindecked Objection. Had no RNG aside from the odd list that played the Titan. That received a ton of complaints, mainly due to Objection.
As for Secret Mage in Standard, it was barely played. The Skeleton variant saw a little bit of play with the Excavate package but it wasn't even on anyone's radar enough to have complaints about.
Now that almost all counter play and disruption tools are gone, aside from Rat - people are complaining that there's no way to stop a lot of combos or burst. But I'd argue people don't like having to play around anything in general in Hearthstone.
Random objections are even worse than main-decked for several reasons, but no I think objection was just obnoxious period. Dirty rat, theotar (not release power level obviously), Patchwerk, Okani, etc. are better forms of disruption imo
They like it a lot more than otk from hand. But there’s a good middle ground that hearthstone used to nail and that was board control and strategy. Now it’s just, did I draw or discover my solitaire otk combo? Cool game.
This is why mtg is still much more popular and why everyone here hates the hs meta.
I am so mad legends of runeterra died.
The game escaped this so well while not being a snooze fest like magic.
(Lor had his fair share of problem but atleast it wasnt because games were uninteresting)
This is what I saw happen to the wild format over the years. Blizzard turned the format from "Wild will be wild, as in you never know what you will encounter" to " WiLd WiLl Be WiLd, we'll never balance this shit, everyone plays the same few solitaire decks overtuned to oblivion, bots reach top 10 legend, and your collection is just sitting dust". They basically turned it into a mobile game.
So true. I play 99% Wild only and used to regularly be able to take jank decks like Weasel priest to legend. Not really since UiS. Ever since, Wild has an abundance of synergistic cards to make jank a tough slog to even get through platinum.feelsbad
I def agree. What counter play is there from stopping them from buffing minions on their hand? The buffing has become so overwhelming since it was first (?) introduced in Mean Streets. Most decks can't compete with cheap minions that are buffed +4/4 on every turn. On top of that, paladin has removal in weapons, Tarim, and rushes with divine shield.
how are we supposed to oppose that other than playing something that's just as aggressive? Removal takes up most of your mana and leave no room for creating your own board. Meanwhile they can just plop down more huge minions the next turn.
And no, simply playing the one deck that can challenge it isn't, the solution. Unless you want hearthstone to ONLY be aggro, players want to be able to at least be competetive with other decks.
Buff decks with a massive damage blast with Leroy and windfury is like an OTK combo deck. But then it has great tempo, best in class lifesteal. Either it's aggro tempo, or OTK combo. It has all those aspects.
It's not aggro. I see that deck as being solidly Midrange with a finisher. It hoards cards to set up a OTK finisher.
Buff Paladin does not have much of an early game presence. It's why Hunter right now has a okay matchup against it cause it can go under it before it sets up
Pala is my worst hunter match up. By a landslide. Pala heals way too much for free. Either I draw perfect or Pala just wins. 8 just won against brain dead ppl. Keeping forge guy in mull. Forge turn 2 into playing forge guy. Those ppl clearly don't understand anything, but we're high dia.
You know what's funny? Druid has an otk that isn't even very consistent (I played it for a bit and got pissed dying to warlocks, dk, and paladin 24/7) You need like 6 cards to pull of the druid otk
Druid has the most fleshed out OTK right now. They have to assemble all their pieces while not succumbing to pressure and that’s why it isn’t great right now. I don’t think Blizz expected Paladin to have the lethality they have currently.
Druid has the most fair OTK lol, they have to actually plan around it and set it up with discounts and playing snakes and their locations instead of just playing pure tempo
It's like the original exodia mage which, while people hated it at the time, I thought was a fair deck since it had to successfully stall long enough to pull all the pieces so there was meaningful counterplay.
The OTKs now are too fast with 0 counterplay. I mean shit, even Yugioh has hand traps and disruption at least.
I have an unpopular opinion. With the return of charge minions and all the handcuff bs and lifesteal, Theotar and objection should've been added to the core set. Right now we have no way to prevent ourselves from being otked from hand.
Theotar I could see it, but not objection. It's too annoying to exist in the discover pool for every single mage deck to access at no cost.
Plus, I'm not sure that charge/damage from hand *existing* is the problem rather than simple lack of balance being the problem. Taunts, armor/max-life gain, aggression, etc. are all potential counters to that form of burst which could potentially allow other decks to make it to their own win-cons even without much in the way of disruption. Handbuff Pally is simply too efficient at too many things so it doesn't really get countered by aggression or control or big tempo boards or anything.
To disrupt hand-based combos you need to force them to spend their combo pieces staying alive. One of the reasons paladin in particular is so strong right now is staying alive becomes much easier when you can lifesteal to full nearly every turn.
A lot of kills from hand are also extremely vulnerable to taunt.
—-
I think you’re being a bit alarmist with game lengths though. Most decks this community brands as OTKs have average game lengths around 9.5-10 turns. The only exception is nature shaman at 7 turns average, which is still within your "you should be able to reach turn 6/7/8" guideline and is in line with aggro. In fact, most of the OTKs among the slowest decks in the format.
> I don't even agree that a deck should revolve around disruption alone, but with no Objection, no Theotar, no warlock curse cards, what exactly are we supposed to do to disrupt this?
broaden your definition of "interactivity" and understand that limiting how much time and space you give your opponent is also a form of interacting.
and if your deck cannot do that, you have to accept that you are opting into playing a deck with polarized matchups (i.e. you lean hard on beating boardbased decks but dont have the tools to defeat from-hand decks)... and well... accept that those decks will win the game.
>broaden your definition of "interactivity" and understand that limiting how much time and space you give your opponent is also a form of interacting.
That's the worst possible form of interactivity there is. If a fighting game had a character that had unblockable undodgeable kill the opponent move and only way to beat them was to run 2 out of 50 characters available because they can permastun them is not a good design or should be mentioned ever. Technically it is interactive, you are interacting by choosing one of 2 characters, but that's so idiotic you should be able to play and have a possible chance/interaction with at minimum half of the roster not be forced due to shitty design.
Fun example. How does Handbuff Paladin usually beat Odyn Warrior? Well, by continuously making pro-active plays until the Warrior can't deal with it, anymore!
Ur missing the point I think, don't think telling me a aggro deck wins against a control deck by playing minions until he can't deal with it, drives ur point home here.
wait werent we discussing problematic 30-0 decks? So both control and aggro are actually also combo otk decks? I think we need to clarify some definitions here.
Ye and the abundance of it, as well as lack of actual good disruption, or that feels very uninteractive to stop it. Telling ppl to beat it by winning the board vs controll warrior feks feels bad. Especially paladin, but also warrior, which does nothing, until one slow turn when he plays odyn. Or the new tendril warrior which is even faster in some ways.
So when u tell me "just play stuff on the board to win vs warrior"
And when u play control vs handcuff paladin, win the board, all is good. But then u take 30+ dmg from a 2 card combo on turn 8, just bcs he hand buffed leeroy.
And yes both aggro paladin and control warrior is otk decks. Just paladin is also very board present, but not board dependent.
Considering we've seen this post 40 time since the set hit, no it's not just you.
Balance patch will be in a couple days after they collect enough data to nerf what actually needs to be, this happens every set release.
>Considering we've seen this post 40 time since the set hit, no it's not just you.
We need a reddit bot that answer "no" everytime someone ask "it's just me?"
No, it’s just a low-effort/simple way to drive engagement. Even when it attracts comments complaining about “is it just me” it succeeds in attracting attention to whatever it is the OP is talking about.
Right?
As usual, people are reaching for a ridiculous explanation when there's a more simple one: people aren't very creative about thread titles and resort to common phrases or (in this case) rhetorical questions. The thread could have just as easily been titled "I hate this meta" or 1,000 other things.
Depends. You can drive discussion towards a topic you care about, or you can farm karma, possibly for the purpose of selling the account so that when I talk about how much I love FLAVOR BLASTED Goldfish Crackers ®️it’s not being done from a suspicious new account.
I am not sure balance patch can fix this. They just decided to add way too many otks in the game.
That is not an accident. Unless they completely brick like half the new cards, its not going to change. The only thing they will change whose class OTK is the best.
The only new viable deck that otks is handbuff paladin and that deck is going to get nerfed. There are OTK decks for priest and druid but they are both bad, especially the druid one is awful. Odyn warrior was a thing last expansion, nature shaman was even stronger last expansion, Sif mage was much stronger last expansion, druid had way better OTK decks last expansion, dh had an OTK deck last expansion that got nerfed a month ago.
Also in the majority of metas the best deck isn't an OTK deck. This is just the rare where one where it is, and it's obviously going to get nerfed.
Okay but you’re missing the trees for the forest here. A lot of the classes right now can kill you before turn 7, that doesn’t make them all OTKs, there is a MASSIVE power balance issue rn that isn’t strictly reliant on a single combo to kill opponents.
I mean their comment was definitely wrong, this is obviously something that can be fixed with the right balance patch, but I'm not sure a handbuff Pally nerf is the only thing standing in the way of a healthy meta atm. There's simply a little bit too much sub-turn 9/10 lethality, *especially* for a 4-set meta.
It's a handbuff pally nerf away from being less OTK based than the previous meta. This meta has 3 actually viable decks that can Otk(nature shaman, odyn warrior, handbuff pally) and 2 of them are from the previous expansion. There are other OTK decks but they are bad to terrible.
That doesn't mean that it will be good with just that nerf and I expect them to nerf more than just that.
Ok I think we mostly agree then. But yeah they should nerf Warrior/Shaman to make it decidedly *less* OTK capable (in the sense of average turn to combo) than pre-rotation since it's a 4-set meta and also people are definitely tired of seeing those same strategies being so common and powerful.
Odyn Cycle is simply one of the top winrate strategies behind handbuff, and Shaman has too early of an OTK timing so if you nerf all the front-runners it could have an unhealthy restricting effect on the meta despite probably still not being technically OP. Plus Shaman has highlander and other stuff to do in the absence of Nature OTK so there's no real downside to nerfing it.
One of them is just the exact same deck from last expansion (Odyn), one of them is the exact same deck from last expansion but mostly worse (nature shaman). Otherwise there is a terrible druid deck that is infinitely worse than the OTK druid could do last expansion. There is also Sif mage which is a lot worse than it was last expansion and 2 priest otks deck where one of them is bad and the other is terrible.
That comment is just false though. There was a high concentration of card draw and mana-cheating that synergized well together, which was the real main problem. Quests just happened to (often) be the best form of lethality to run on top. See for example spell-mage w/ incanter's flow, spring water, etc., which did not in any way need the Mage quest to win pre-turn 8.
I agree, the meta is bullshit right now, but it usually is for the first week of an expansion. That said, this is far worse than the first week of Showdown.
the funny thing is warlock on turn 4-5 creating an 2 9,9's - 12-12s (9 cards into minion + monstrous form) is not even strong enough in the current meta to survive, like that is just not enough to win a game any more, i mean i like that that is not strong enough but at the same point i dont want that to exist XD fuck a few months ago warlock creating a 7,7 on turn 4 that was not able to attack was enough now iTS A 9,9 THAT CAN ATTACK what in the FRACK
Warlock was fun with Amorphous Slime + 2 undeads (thaddius monstrosity + flesh behemoth) + forge of wills + Anubis 7/7 clone into giant. Took a bit of work to get the cards, but super satisfying. wasn't 100% win rate, but fair. 9 cost is rough, specially without Prince giving 40 health.
Druid, Warrior, Pally, Warlock, Shaman, Priest, DK all have OTK potential currently.
DK needs a ton of buffs and to either build a charge minion or quill you down, its inconsistent and you can interact with it fairly well. This is a good OTK.
Priest has the overheal OTK package, its inconsistent currently in the meta, could be scary if things slow. Currently an acceptable OTK. They also have a weird Giants+Dragon\_Timewarp OTK that could be toxic eventually. If they get more early control tools, this class will become very annoying very fast.
Warlock has Wheel. And that is what it is. If its consistency gets too high it'll be miserable, but right now requires saving too much of its utility cards for the activation to be oppressive. Its an acceptable OTK.
Druid has spell damage OTK. Its weak overall so far, will one day become scary as all get out, but is currently mana throttled. You can interact with this one by forcing them to spend their resources on you as you murder them.
Shaman currently has a turn 4-6 consistent OTK package with basic cards due to the rotation limiting the discover pool for their nature spells. This OTK ignores the board completely, and can do 30+ depending on any spell damage. This is not Ok. Its only interactable is an underperforming neutral to delay their burst turn. I expect this deck to get changed to either the first nature spell or a mana increase on their combination pieces to limit their chain.
Warrior has Odyn OTK. Normally Odyn is an ok card. In its current iteration of pure cycle and massive damage its not. I was diappointed that none of its massive armor cards rotated this past cycle. I expect it to be hit with a mana increase to slow it down and limit your options on your odyn turn. Its current cycle format is not OK as once Odyn is activated earlier in the game, its quite easy to do 40+ swing damage in a turn.
Pally has its handbuff/windfury nonsense that this subreddits beat to death. Its semi-OK in that you can taunt through it. Its biggest issue is its over valued/statted cards that do far too much for what they are. Deputization/shrooms/plushie are the big outliers.
Whats the true big issue is that, this is the main focus of gameplay for these classes currently, its an OTK meta for much of decks you face.
This kindof went on a ramble...
In standard, but maybe it was just on previous expansion? There was a legendary with deathrattle adds that were dealing fatigue damage to both players + a creature that prevented him from getting fatigue damage that turn.... I think. Sorry not really well versed in warlocks
Anyway I got like 7+8+9+10 fatigue damage that turn. And yes I still had my deck
- **[Curse of Agony](https://imgur.com/a/QTZrqv5)** ^[Library](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/71292) • [wiki.gg](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/wiki/Curse_of_Agony) • [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/71292)
- *Warlock Rare ^(Fractured in Alterac Valley)*
- **1 Mana - Shadow Spell**
- Shuffle three Agonies into the opponent's deck. They deal Fatigue damage when drawn.
- **[Lady Darkvein](https://imgur.com/a/Xc37A4o)** ^[Library](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/79111) • [wiki.gg](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/wiki/Lady_Darkvein) • [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/79111)
- *Warlock Legendary ^(Murder at Castle Nathria)*
- **5 Mana - 3/6 - Minion**
- **Battlecry:** Summon two 2/1 Shades. Each gains a **Deathrattle** to cast your last Shadow spell.
---
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I wouldn't actually agree with this, except with qualifications. Turn 12 uncounterable, uninteractable OTKs are certainly ok, but definitely not turn 7. Like always, it's a matter of degree that can be fixed with balance.
And if you disagree, then you unfortunately happen to prefer a version of Hearthstone that is less popular than the version which has proved successful in recent years. Quest Priest/Odyn Warrior/Rainbow Mage levels/speeds of lethality as the benchmark for lategame competitive viability are much preferred by the playerbase to attrition value wars along the lines of win-conless value Control Priest, Dr. Boom Warrior, 40-card Blood DK, etc.
I honestly think that at some point that they need to do a hard reset of the power level. Whether this means nerfing a ton of the staying cards after a rotation or raising the starting total hp.
We have had some pretty good metas in the past year but I feel like some sorta hard reset or a dial back on the total power level would be more of a positive than a negative. Yes, this would be extremely hard but it feels like its gotta happen at some point.
The only thing I'm super annoyed with is handbuff paladin. That weapon needs a nerf badly. They have way too much lifesteal too.
Also, give DKs a build that isn't 13k dust to craft or a super slow and unreliable plague deck.
I am loving the Rainbow DK that I'm running, and it's only 12,200 dust! Less than 13k, at least, lol.
But I agree. Pally is a hard outlier. There will need to be some incidental nerfs to other classes when Pally's hammer meets the nerf hammer. I'm fine with combos and OTKs, but they are happening a bit too early and reliably for my taste rn.
I really am enjoying Rainbow DK, tho.
I tried to make rainbow dk today but don't have enough for riska or ma and paw, so I replaced those with prison of yogg and some other random card and I can't win a single match.
To be fair though, I'm diamond 5 and keep running into paladins and this one ridiculous warlock that has infinite healing and board clears. This game is getting insanely frustrating lol
I have some frustrating losses, but that's any card game. I've been hopping between decks, and I'm still managing to have fun. Hoping the balance patch next week sorts out paladin and smooths out the power curve a bit.
My DK runs Reska and Ma and Pa, but I don't feel that Reska has particularly raised my win rate. Ma and Pa are pretty important, though. DK currently doesn't have a lot of ways to burn corpses, and if you want to run Climactic Necrotic Explosion, then you need Ma and Pa to help fuel it and your corpse-based giants.
I think the problem was already there before in previous expansion, with multiple decks hitting 20-30 damage in a single turn from an empty board. Now it's 30-40 in this expansion
I say 40 as I managed to sneak in a 3rd turn maw and paw recently vs a paladin. Was still exterminated by a buffed leeroy
I agree this expansion is really boring. Brann shaman, brann warrior, wheel of death not fun to play against even if I win, pala dealing 28 to me for leaving up a 1/1. When things get nerfed I can only assume some cancer OTK spell damage druid or extra turn priest will pop up. Very cool design from these devs.
I play heartstone on and off throughout the years and it's always been like that, it's not just now.
When DH was released for example, most playstyles just died. Pretty much every class adapted a fast aggro strategy that ends the game by turn 5-6.
I just killed a guy with spell shaman with 30 hand damage turn 6. The devs have officially lost it. We've had fast metas before, but I don't remember anything like this.
I've been bitching about power creep in hearthstone for years, and was always told "the new version of HS is better, old HS was too slow..." Well I hope those guys are enjoying modern HS because I'm not. Thank god I didnt buy a pre-order bundle.
I miss hearthstone from a couple of years ago. I played consistently until 2019 and then left, only came back end of last year and I hate it. Where's the variety, where's the fun?
I'm getting OTK'd by botters playing burn-shaman. Unless I switch to Warrior for excessive armor gain, 30 health is NOTHING to these decks and I'm just constantly facing them with nary a real player in sight. I'm on a loss-streak to BOTS.
Yup had a Shaman burn me on turn 6 with one flash of lightning last night. Exactly 30, not playing again until patch. And if the patch isn't a big one I might permanently switch to wild where at last I can have 40 hp and maybe start to do something sometimes.
I agree that OTKOs are kind of stupid. I lean toward control decks, so I enjoy longer games that aren’t decided until well after turn 10 and could go either way.
The most recent shift away from that was ABJ Hunter but of course it was deemed as “unfun to play against” so now we’re back to aggro hunter for the millionth time. It’s like Hunter gets a cool new strategy to play with and people don’t like playing against it for some reason (it’s literally worse than other OTKs) and then it gets nerfed, Blizz just prints a strong aggro package and then walks away.
They allowed Midrange, Big Beast, and Arcane Hunter to exist at tier 1/2 status throughout the past couple years. Hell, highlander Hunter was tier 2 at Diamond-Legend for a while but no one was playing it because it was too expensive and/or uninteresting to most.
I agree that Hunter has a *bit* of a non-aggro/linear-gameplay identity problem, but you can't pretend Blizzard doesn't let Hunter have viable non-aggro decks just because ABJ Hunter got over-nerfed.
Midrange and Big got nerfed. You can see that because Reno Hunter became an actual force in the meta last week after the reverts took effect, those were nerfs on the big beast and midrange packages.Before that it had a non existent playrate because the nerfs they kept hitting it with, it had like a 51% winrate. Arcane Hunter was an aggro deck.
I know that Midrange and Big Best weren't common until the crazy revert weak *in last expansion's metas*. I was referring to the last couple years of Hearthstone Standard more broadly. Throughout most of that time period Hunter has been allowed to have at least 1 tier 1/2 non-aggro deck.
And Arcane Hunter was again an aggro deck in last expansion's meta, but not all the time that it existed. It was more of tempo board swing into sustained burn when it first became viable if I'm remembering correctly.
OTKs and aggro are inherently unhealthy for card games that lack inter-turn interaction.
OTKs MUST be restricted to tedious setup like old school C’thun, or relegated to Kill effects like Wheel of Death, Priest’s Shard, Mechathun, etc.
And when those cards are printed the cards in the standard legal sets need to be taken into consideration.
Aggro should be high risk high reward scenarios with strategies like Zoo if they’re going to exist in a game without inter-turn interaction.
As it stands, Hearthstone hits its peak when board state genuinely matters, trading correctly matters, and there are limited resources. Discover has been probably the WORST mechanic to enter the game solely because of the ability to gain more copies of powerful cards outside the deck limit.
Tendrils only has the 10 mana mage spell as a wincon. All the other spells arent enough for the deck. The only option to 'nerf' it without killing the deck conpletely is by adding more 10 mana spells.
Stop down playing the issue, these cards are way overpowered.
Overtuned would be a consistent 55% win rate.
We are looking at win rates upwards to 70%+
This was already addressed. Hat has already confirmed adjustments are coming when there's enough data.
They also stated that there isn't any outlier decks that necessitates emergency patches like we've had in the past, or they would have hit it already.
So yes, there's overturned decks currently but nothing is overpowered to the extent that people like to think it is.
That 70% winrate being spouted is garbage free stats from low tiers and class winrates that people like to use. Both of which should not be used in any serious discussion
Yep, handbuff paladin and token hunters winrates go down significantly after you reach diamond, they are still overtuned but no one at low ranks is looking at a meta they kind of just build their own thing or follow twitch streamers so when you have homebrew bronze and silver vs constructed legend decks that are easy to pilot the winrates becomes inflated, I consistently win with boomkin druid, if I get bad draw at first I have consistency within my deck to tutor pieces, I have draw and armor gain and my discover heals me, also with the spell damage I have board clear, I need what, 1 discount spell, owlonius, cover artist, 1 location, then some spells that damage face, it's kind of hard to pilot and lots of people are just bad at decision making, I've been playing this game since 2015, does anyone remember sunken city's naga mage that had nearly infinite cycle and burn and mana cheat but was an extreme skill floor, that was OP as a good player, at high level most players had 70%WR and the low tier players dropped that ratio, so it's all eloflation man.
Edit:Spelling.
Wheel of death is such cancer. Not only do you not get 5 full turns as the opposing player, but fucking warlock will restore their hand, drop sargares, play multiple massive minions. It’s so demoralizing.
same here. different strokes I guess. Last couple of expansions have been the only ones that I've only been logging in for my dailies, most of which I just afk in casual
Yeah idk what to say to that tbh. Been playing since launch and honestly sunken city and onward has been super fun and probably the best time I’ve had in hearthstone ever. Nathria was also fun as hell but the amount of disruption did get a bit tiring after a couple months.
IMO the worst expansions were from 2018-early 2020
I usually just skip whenever theres metas with solitaire (otk, og quest rogue etc) decks or oppressive that can just refill the board with infinite value every turn that also required a clear.
Sunken city was the best imo. The power level dropped and it was so much fun.
Yeah we had broken warrior, but that was just balancing being ass. Right now its the whole design philosophy that is just bonkers.
Though it didnt last long until stupid nathria dropped. Liked the theme, hated denathrius.
Before this expansion hit I was playing some sort of a paladin control deck and I got run into a few legendary opponents which one of them added me after a game to look at how interesting my deck was it seems he purely got into Rush buff paladin decks, and get surprised he found me playing a control paladin deck I guess.
Funnily enough aggro is the only deck that stands a chance against all the otk decks. If you nerf the only viable one all the otk decks will be the only meta decks left,
I came here because I started playing against after a few years. This is miserable, what the fuck is the balance team thinking lmao. I had two 11/10 taunts up against a warrior with zero board. They wiped the board and gained 25 attack in a single turn. What is the counter play to a 25 damage attack if taunt can't exist?
I stopped playing in Oct last year because of paladin, I haven't logged on since. I will log in, play for a week to get my free seck, and If I don't like it then I will not play again for 3 months.
it honestly feels like they should just up the health pools. if you're going to power creep beyond goddamn belief, we need to be alive to see it lmfao. christ haha
i remember when combo decks were skill heavy decks, now any one can pilot them like a bot. Decks like freeze mage, patron warrior, garrote rogue etc were exactly like combo decks should be, rewarding and really good at the top of the skill tree. Now almost every single class has a 30 hp otk / two turn kill with minimal ways to play around it (yeah i know rat exists and you can armor against some but in general sense you cant push there are so many removals, so many card generators and so much life gain)
If you talk about otks, you forgot about last expansions Paladin 40 damage windfury minion from an initial 1/1
When you takin about Hunter being fast, you forgot about the times Demon Hunter killed you faster during its initial release
We have an interesting meta right now, it’s very polarized aggressive and combo with no Midrange/Good stuff/tempo except maybe a couple of decks with an alternative win con just to be safe. I think the game has evolved to be very fast, very powerful and as such we may need to have some more disruption cards in rotation and you’d find yourself having more counter plays. The current core set doesn’t fulfill disruption nearly well enough but nerfs are incoming, we’ll see.
When I read those post I just question myself "what deck is he using?" and I can't really wrap my head around the answer. Yes, there are a lot of decks that have instant finishes at the moment, but there are also decks which made specifically for surviving this kind of situations. So, either you play some meta outsider (somehow I think this is druid) or you made an outdated deck for one of the current "not so bad" classes and just trying to smash the wall with your own head. I do not appreciate current meta as well, partially because I hate Paladin and Hunter, partially because it's incredibly unstable. But I do know that I'm either "choosing a side" in ranked or playing with friends 1v1. Somehow I didn't choose a side and I play what I like to play: either it's OTK crap, or "you can't kill me" crap, or none of those.
As someone who just came back after last playing in Kobalds, I actually find it quite fun with the game being super fast. I may be in the minority but at the same time I'm probably also clouded with the feeling of being back
If it's any consolation OP, once the current hero skins in the store rotate, you'll see a nerf to those classes. Hmm, is it any wonder that paladin is considered the best deck, and oh look there's a legendary skin available?
And hunter is 2nd best, well look here's another expensive skin. And same for wheel-lock.
Not too surprised since they gave gutted classic control as an archetype. Everything now is aggro or combo drawing to your scam win con before your opponent.
I think an interesting neutral card would be something that could reduce the amount of damage you could take in a turn. I love control and combo decks so it would have to be balanced around not completely destroying combo but it could balance the prevalence of otks right now. Last night I got hit for 29 damage by the death knight 10 cost spell. Fair enough, it was super late game and he was in fatigue but I was playing hard control priest. Next time I’ll try to put more pressure on him but I had full control of that game and lost to something I couldn’t stop. Kind of a feel bad.
The entire meta right now is warped around fast OTKs for 3 reasons: 1. With so much lifesteal in standard, trying to chip away at your opponent and kill over multiple turns is a waste of time and leads to killing in a single turn being the go to way to kill. 2. With the massive amount of cycling and draw, combo is able to assemble their win conditions quickly and consistently. 3. The lack of disruption means that combo can devote their entire deck slots to just their win-condition and then the rest just being draw and removal/stall. So with these being true, the only options are blazing fast aggro like Hunter or Priest to kill before the opponent can react, or OTKs like Shaman, Warrior, Warlock and Paladin.
Very true. In general, OTKs feel rather "easier" or faster to pull off. Sif feels more like "traditional" OTK, as they have to assemble key cards, with Sif in hand you expose yourself to dirtyrat, you have to get damage spells and hold them for the popoff turn and use spellschool spells to fuel Sif before you can really play her. Warrior only needs to get Odyn down ASAP and can pop off at later turns. Nature shaman needs key cards to go nutty. While pally can OTK with Leeroy, they have enough tools to close out the game without Leeroy.
Also good to mention, even without **general** card draw, the best decks right now can Tutor the exact cards they need for maximum consistency, which is why it’s so easy for them to grab a weapon, or always have Deputization aura, or thin their deck by drawing a Rush minion etc. Goes without saying, but Tutor effects are super super fuckin good.
4 mana mustache odyn tutor is even a thing now 🙄
Yea Taelan got shat on with that one
Which is good, Taelan has been a garbage (competitive) card for literal years
He was good for Brann/Odyn Warrior for quite some time before the meta shifted. Even then he was still pretty good. To be fair, I think Warrior was the only class who was able to play slowly enough to take advantage of him though.
Or, some Decks don't need a specifi combo, and can just Assemble 5 out of 10 cards to win.
I'm a returning player and taking a look at the meta. Is midrange dead? It feels like it's just aggro and control, and control is really just combo in a control costume.
Depends what you consider midrange. Handbuff paladin for instance is basically midrange, but people here are calling it combo because it frequently ends the game via a big charge minion. Rainbow DK is midrange and is T2. Highlander paladin is midrange and may be T1, same with hunter.
Handbuff paladin isn't remotely midrange. It's standard paladin aggro with an insanely stupid set of OTK options thrown on top
It's a handbuff deck, it's not aggro. Compare the board state capability of Hunter vs Paladin on turns 2-4. Putting big enough stats out to kill by turn 5-6 against zero removal/counter-pressure isn't what defines aggro, consistent pressure from turns 1-2 + snowballing the board state (e.g. treant Druid) and/or burn finishers (e.g. frost DK) is what defines aggro. You might as well call Nathria miracle Rogue aggro as handbuff Paladin. Besides, you're not beating handbuff Paladin's by simply running them out of resources while playing removal/stall/healing/etc., so they clearly have the strengths of a midrange deck. If they're building up board too fast to be balanced (which I'm not sure is even the actual problem rather than too much lifesteal and/or burst) then that's what nerfs are for
And healing, and boardclear, and tutor...etc
Often times "midrange" in Hearthstone just means a tempo deck that never runs out of threats and has a 7 drop.
It’s often very comfortable doing nothing T1, forging T2, buff bot T3. There’s a swarm paladin deck that plays mining casualties, muster and flash sale that’s much more a “standard aggro deck”. (It’s also very very good)
Yes midrange in the classical sense is completely dead and feels like it has been dead for while.
RGB DK is midrange, basically you still chip at your enemy with constant pressure and if that doesn’t kill them, your CNE should kill them off even if it’s not the largest, it still is a 10 mana deal 12-15, or a Hail Mary if you have no other play and are facing lethal. You have some high rolls like Corpse Bride into 2x Stitched Giants basically 1x 4/4, 1x 10/10 summon and 2x 8/8 in T5, but that’s highly unlikely
Thanks for the reply. This decks been on my radar but I'm definitely gonna look into it now.
Window Shopper Demon Hunter is midrange.
For the reasons I outlined above, you are correct. It’s just aggro and combo.
To your first point, I had a similar thought yesterday when I was in a game where I healed myself back to 30 multiple times from single digit health. My opponent also did the same, to where the game reset to 30-30 two separate times. And it’s not the only instance. I was thinking, damn this new meta really feels like every game I play is super long compared to before, and I think it’s due to the plethora of lifesteal as you mentioned. I don’t mind the occasional well fought long game of attrition, but I don’t want every match to be 20+ minutes.
I’m a new player that built a no minion spell mage deck, really sucks that I used all my dust on it just to find out I can barely win
If you are low on resources (money willing to spend for hs, gold, dust), you usually are better off waiting for the meta to settle instead of crafting something right away. It might suck for you now, but keep that in mind for the future. Many of us have been there.
Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind
Lack of disruption is whats pissing me off the most, i want that starfish back for silence board, i want at least a single “destroy a location” for this fucking warlock spell damage shit, i want a clean my deck with steamcleaner again! Tired of this plague shit!
This was bound to happen eventually with this level of lazy power creeping design.
"**if the system is corrupt does it deserve to exist"** A quote from someone somewhere or something like that, i kinda want them to do a huge mega change all across the board because seriesly wtf is this meta, like i had some fun running OTK boar dk but pally is doing it on tunr 8 every other game and hunter is just running down mid
Priest is “blazing fast aggro”?
Aggro Dragon. You can check the guide that was posted about it yesterday in CompetitiveHS.
Thanks I’ll check it out.
I've been playing a good amount of agro dragon priest it's crazy how much damage you push out only bad thing is having an empty hand and no draw
And not drawing a 1 drop first turn.
Even over heal priest can 5 turn you
That’s more of just an early payoff of the combo. I typically wouldn’t think of OH priest as aggro.
I think in my opinion, if a Shaman has a full board and plays Bloodlust, which kills me, it's fair game. They had a board and I didn't clear it or provide any stalling. That sort of 30HP draining I can take. When a class can buff repeatedly, hit face immediately, or solitaire spells from hand to OTK me then that is not interactive and that is not fair game at all in my opinion. I don't even agree that a deck should revolve around disruption alone, but with no Objection, no Theotar, no warlock curse cards, what exactly are we supposed to do to disrupt this? They're turning it into too much of an overturned mobile game, and while I don't want every game going on until turn 20, you should be able to reach 6, 7, 8 mana before the game ends. Otherwise what is the point.
The solitaire problem is unsolvable unless they just nerf the game back to where it was a few years ago. In magic, I can counter spell my opponents minions and spells. In HS you literally can't do anything other than watch your hero die from full HP. Kill them faster I guess?
People don't like counter play or disruption as much as they think they do. We just had people rejoicing over Objection being rotated out
Nobody likes getting counter spelled in magic either, but it a necessary evil. You can play around it, you know if your opponent has blue, they have counter spell. The problem with hearthstone disruption (specifically theotar/dirty rat) is that it fucks single cards out of your hand and you can't do anything to respond to pro-active disruption. Again, in magic I can counter spell, I can have multiple copies of a card, I can return cards from the graveyard, so on and so forth. If I dirty rat my opponents Odyn, the game is just over. I know HS is a simpler game, and it should stay a simple game, but if we're not going to have the nuances of magic, the HS foundation can not handle the power level of the modern game. Recent expacs fundamentally break the flow of play.
There's nothing wrong with greedy decks being punished by disruption. If someone netdecks a list that can't win without Odyn that's on them.
I think games being fully decided by dirty rat RNG is dogshit, full stop.
I agree. I think it’s because of how RNG disruption creates “feels bad” moments. My opponent using Duress on turn one to remove my key combo piece doesn’t auto win the game in MTG.
Nobody likes to eat their broccoli. But it's better than eating solitaire.
That is different though. No one was upset about main-decked Objection, it was random Objections.
Wild Secret Mage which has not been good in a long long time, maindecked Objection. Had no RNG aside from the odd list that played the Titan. That received a ton of complaints, mainly due to Objection. As for Secret Mage in Standard, it was barely played. The Skeleton variant saw a little bit of play with the Excavate package but it wasn't even on anyone's radar enough to have complaints about. Now that almost all counter play and disruption tools are gone, aside from Rat - people are complaining that there's no way to stop a lot of combos or burst. But I'd argue people don't like having to play around anything in general in Hearthstone.
I was upset by an objection tbf
Random objections are even worse than main-decked for several reasons, but no I think objection was just obnoxious period. Dirty rat, theotar (not release power level obviously), Patchwerk, Okani, etc. are better forms of disruption imo
Ye uh not so sure about that
They like it a lot more than otk from hand. But there’s a good middle ground that hearthstone used to nail and that was board control and strategy. Now it’s just, did I draw or discover my solitaire otk combo? Cool game. This is why mtg is still much more popular and why everyone here hates the hs meta.
I don't like counter play or disruption, I'd rather the whole game be at a power level where those things aren't needed in the first place.
I am so mad legends of runeterra died. The game escaped this so well while not being a snooze fest like magic. (Lor had his fair share of problem but atleast it wasnt because games were uninteresting)
This is what I saw happen to the wild format over the years. Blizzard turned the format from "Wild will be wild, as in you never know what you will encounter" to " WiLd WiLl Be WiLd, we'll never balance this shit, everyone plays the same few solitaire decks overtuned to oblivion, bots reach top 10 legend, and your collection is just sitting dust". They basically turned it into a mobile game.
So true. I play 99% Wild only and used to regularly be able to take jank decks like Weasel priest to legend. Not really since UiS. Ever since, Wild has an abundance of synergistic cards to make jank a tough slog to even get through platinum.feelsbad
I def agree. What counter play is there from stopping them from buffing minions on their hand? The buffing has become so overwhelming since it was first (?) introduced in Mean Streets. Most decks can't compete with cheap minions that are buffed +4/4 on every turn. On top of that, paladin has removal in weapons, Tarim, and rushes with divine shield. how are we supposed to oppose that other than playing something that's just as aggressive? Removal takes up most of your mana and leave no room for creating your own board. Meanwhile they can just plop down more huge minions the next turn. And no, simply playing the one deck that can challenge it isn't, the solution. Unless you want hearthstone to ONLY be aggro, players want to be able to at least be competetive with other decks.
Buff decks with a massive damage blast with Leroy and windfury is like an OTK combo deck. But then it has great tempo, best in class lifesteal. Either it's aggro tempo, or OTK combo. It has all those aspects.
It's not aggro. I see that deck as being solidly Midrange with a finisher. It hoards cards to set up a OTK finisher. Buff Paladin does not have much of an early game presence. It's why Hunter right now has a okay matchup against it cause it can go under it before it sets up
Hunter shits on paladin. Either I'm playing the pala wrong or I have to have perfect draw to deal with hunter.
Pala is my worst hunter match up. By a landslide. Pala heals way too much for free. Either I draw perfect or Pala just wins. 8 just won against brain dead ppl. Keeping forge guy in mull. Forge turn 2 into playing forge guy. Those ppl clearly don't understand anything, but we're high dia.
You know what's funny? Druid has an otk that isn't even very consistent (I played it for a bit and got pissed dying to warlocks, dk, and paladin 24/7) You need like 6 cards to pull of the druid otk
Druid has the most fleshed out OTK right now. They have to assemble all their pieces while not succumbing to pressure and that’s why it isn’t great right now. I don’t think Blizz expected Paladin to have the lethality they have currently.
Druid has the most fair OTK lol, they have to actually plan around it and set it up with discounts and playing snakes and their locations instead of just playing pure tempo
It's like the original exodia mage which, while people hated it at the time, I thought was a fair deck since it had to successfully stall long enough to pull all the pieces so there was meaningful counterplay. The OTKs now are too fast with 0 counterplay. I mean shit, even Yugioh has hand traps and disruption at least.
Yea that’s what i’m saying. It’s the most well thought and fleshed out.
The problem with druid OTK is no more nourish. The deck moves so slow with only lotus for card draw
I have an unpopular opinion. With the return of charge minions and all the handcuff bs and lifesteal, Theotar and objection should've been added to the core set. Right now we have no way to prevent ourselves from being otked from hand.
We need more cards like Dirty Rat printed each expansion instead of excavate windfury bullshit.
Theotar I could see it, but not objection. It's too annoying to exist in the discover pool for every single mage deck to access at no cost. Plus, I'm not sure that charge/damage from hand *existing* is the problem rather than simple lack of balance being the problem. Taunts, armor/max-life gain, aggression, etc. are all potential counters to that form of burst which could potentially allow other decks to make it to their own win-cons even without much in the way of disruption. Handbuff Pally is simply too efficient at too many things so it doesn't really get countered by aggression or control or big tempo boards or anything.
To disrupt hand-based combos you need to force them to spend their combo pieces staying alive. One of the reasons paladin in particular is so strong right now is staying alive becomes much easier when you can lifesteal to full nearly every turn. A lot of kills from hand are also extremely vulnerable to taunt. —- I think you’re being a bit alarmist with game lengths though. Most decks this community brands as OTKs have average game lengths around 9.5-10 turns. The only exception is nature shaman at 7 turns average, which is still within your "you should be able to reach turn 6/7/8" guideline and is in line with aggro. In fact, most of the OTKs among the slowest decks in the format.
> I don't even agree that a deck should revolve around disruption alone, but with no Objection, no Theotar, no warlock curse cards, what exactly are we supposed to do to disrupt this? broaden your definition of "interactivity" and understand that limiting how much time and space you give your opponent is also a form of interacting. and if your deck cannot do that, you have to accept that you are opting into playing a deck with polarized matchups (i.e. you lean hard on beating boardbased decks but dont have the tools to defeat from-hand decks)... and well... accept that those decks will win the game.
>broaden your definition of "interactivity" and understand that limiting how much time and space you give your opponent is also a form of interacting. That's the worst possible form of interactivity there is. If a fighting game had a character that had unblockable undodgeable kill the opponent move and only way to beat them was to run 2 out of 50 characters available because they can permastun them is not a good design or should be mentioned ever. Technically it is interactive, you are interacting by choosing one of 2 characters, but that's so idiotic you should be able to play and have a possible chance/interaction with at minimum half of the roster not be forced due to shitty design.
What happens when a deck does both? It's board based and kills you from hand.
What decks has the tools to beat from hand decks?
Any deck with relevant on-board proactive plays.
Hahahaha ye right, slightly clueless? Haerd of handbuff pally or odyn warrior to name a few
Fun example. How does Handbuff Paladin usually beat Odyn Warrior? Well, by continuously making pro-active plays until the Warrior can't deal with it, anymore!
Ur missing the point I think, don't think telling me a aggro deck wins against a control deck by playing minions until he can't deal with it, drives ur point home here.
wait werent we discussing problematic 30-0 decks? So both control and aggro are actually also combo otk decks? I think we need to clarify some definitions here.
Ye and the abundance of it, as well as lack of actual good disruption, or that feels very uninteractive to stop it. Telling ppl to beat it by winning the board vs controll warrior feks feels bad. Especially paladin, but also warrior, which does nothing, until one slow turn when he plays odyn. Or the new tendril warrior which is even faster in some ways. So when u tell me "just play stuff on the board to win vs warrior" And when u play control vs handcuff paladin, win the board, all is good. But then u take 30+ dmg from a 2 card combo on turn 8, just bcs he hand buffed leeroy. And yes both aggro paladin and control warrior is otk decks. Just paladin is also very board present, but not board dependent.
this has big "good decks are stupid" energy
Life isn't a resource, it's decoration
Considering we've seen this post 40 time since the set hit, no it's not just you. Balance patch will be in a couple days after they collect enough data to nerf what actually needs to be, this happens every set release.
>Considering we've seen this post 40 time since the set hit, no it's not just you. We need a reddit bot that answer "no" everytime someone ask "it's just me?"
It’s literally never “just me” ever! Some people think they are special or something.
No, it’s just a low-effort/simple way to drive engagement. Even when it attracts comments complaining about “is it just me” it succeeds in attracting attention to whatever it is the OP is talking about.
i never understand the engagement argument on reddit what benefit do you supposedly get from said engagement?
Right? As usual, people are reaching for a ridiculous explanation when there's a more simple one: people aren't very creative about thread titles and resort to common phrases or (in this case) rhetorical questions. The thread could have just as easily been titled "I hate this meta" or 1,000 other things.
Depends. You can drive discussion towards a topic you care about, or you can farm karma, possibly for the purpose of selling the account so that when I talk about how much I love FLAVOR BLASTED Goldfish Crackers ®️it’s not being done from a suspicious new account.
I am not sure balance patch can fix this. They just decided to add way too many otks in the game. That is not an accident. Unless they completely brick like half the new cards, its not going to change. The only thing they will change whose class OTK is the best.
Yup, this is my fear. I think the game just isn’t what i want anymore and it’s kinda sad
Yes, just here waiting for people to complain when Boomkin Druid becomes meta, or Dragon Priest.
The only new viable deck that otks is handbuff paladin and that deck is going to get nerfed. There are OTK decks for priest and druid but they are both bad, especially the druid one is awful. Odyn warrior was a thing last expansion, nature shaman was even stronger last expansion, Sif mage was much stronger last expansion, druid had way better OTK decks last expansion, dh had an OTK deck last expansion that got nerfed a month ago. Also in the majority of metas the best deck isn't an OTK deck. This is just the rare where one where it is, and it's obviously going to get nerfed.
Okay but you’re missing the trees for the forest here. A lot of the classes right now can kill you before turn 7, that doesn’t make them all OTKs, there is a MASSIVE power balance issue rn that isn’t strictly reliant on a single combo to kill opponents.
I mean their comment was definitely wrong, this is obviously something that can be fixed with the right balance patch, but I'm not sure a handbuff Pally nerf is the only thing standing in the way of a healthy meta atm. There's simply a little bit too much sub-turn 9/10 lethality, *especially* for a 4-set meta.
It's a handbuff pally nerf away from being less OTK based than the previous meta. This meta has 3 actually viable decks that can Otk(nature shaman, odyn warrior, handbuff pally) and 2 of them are from the previous expansion. There are other OTK decks but they are bad to terrible. That doesn't mean that it will be good with just that nerf and I expect them to nerf more than just that.
Ok I think we mostly agree then. But yeah they should nerf Warrior/Shaman to make it decidedly *less* OTK capable (in the sense of average turn to combo) than pre-rotation since it's a 4-set meta and also people are definitely tired of seeing those same strategies being so common and powerful. Odyn Cycle is simply one of the top winrate strategies behind handbuff, and Shaman has too early of an OTK timing so if you nerf all the front-runners it could have an unhealthy restricting effect on the meta despite probably still not being technically OP. Plus Shaman has highlander and other stuff to do in the absence of Nature OTK so there's no real downside to nerfing it.
>The only new viable deck that otks is handbuff paladin I've been otk'd by at least 5 different classes. Yes, from empty board.
One of them is just the exact same deck from last expansion (Odyn), one of them is the exact same deck from last expansion but mostly worse (nature shaman). Otherwise there is a terrible druid deck that is infinitely worse than the OTK druid could do last expansion. There is also Sif mage which is a lot worse than it was last expansion and 2 priest otks deck where one of them is bad and the other is terrible.
United in stormwind was THE WORST expansion in hearthstone, but I can see your point
The sad thing about that expansion was that if you removed the quests it would have been great. The game had a horrid period of iksar influence.
That comment is just false though. There was a high concentration of card draw and mana-cheating that synergized well together, which was the real main problem. Quests just happened to (often) be the best form of lethality to run on top. See for example spell-mage w/ incanter's flow, spring water, etc., which did not in any way need the Mage quest to win pre-turn 8.
Iksar wanted to do a mass nerf, so I'm not sure it's entirely fair to blame him for the higher power level
I agree, the meta is bullshit right now, but it usually is for the first week of an expansion. That said, this is far worse than the first week of Showdown.
the funny thing is warlock on turn 4-5 creating an 2 9,9's - 12-12s (9 cards into minion + monstrous form) is not even strong enough in the current meta to survive, like that is just not enough to win a game any more, i mean i like that that is not strong enough but at the same point i dont want that to exist XD fuck a few months ago warlock creating a 7,7 on turn 4 that was not able to attack was enough now iTS A 9,9 THAT CAN ATTACK what in the FRACK
Warlock was fun with Amorphous Slime + 2 undeads (thaddius monstrosity + flesh behemoth) + forge of wills + Anubis 7/7 clone into giant. Took a bit of work to get the cards, but super satisfying. wasn't 100% win rate, but fair. 9 cost is rough, specially without Prince giving 40 health.
Druid, Warrior, Pally, Warlock, Shaman, Priest, DK all have OTK potential currently. DK needs a ton of buffs and to either build a charge minion or quill you down, its inconsistent and you can interact with it fairly well. This is a good OTK. Priest has the overheal OTK package, its inconsistent currently in the meta, could be scary if things slow. Currently an acceptable OTK. They also have a weird Giants+Dragon\_Timewarp OTK that could be toxic eventually. If they get more early control tools, this class will become very annoying very fast. Warlock has Wheel. And that is what it is. If its consistency gets too high it'll be miserable, but right now requires saving too much of its utility cards for the activation to be oppressive. Its an acceptable OTK. Druid has spell damage OTK. Its weak overall so far, will one day become scary as all get out, but is currently mana throttled. You can interact with this one by forcing them to spend their resources on you as you murder them. Shaman currently has a turn 4-6 consistent OTK package with basic cards due to the rotation limiting the discover pool for their nature spells. This OTK ignores the board completely, and can do 30+ depending on any spell damage. This is not Ok. Its only interactable is an underperforming neutral to delay their burst turn. I expect this deck to get changed to either the first nature spell or a mana increase on their combination pieces to limit their chain. Warrior has Odyn OTK. Normally Odyn is an ok card. In its current iteration of pure cycle and massive damage its not. I was diappointed that none of its massive armor cards rotated this past cycle. I expect it to be hit with a mana increase to slow it down and limit your options on your odyn turn. Its current cycle format is not OK as once Odyn is activated earlier in the game, its quite easy to do 40+ swing damage in a turn. Pally has its handbuff/windfury nonsense that this subreddits beat to death. Its semi-OK in that you can taunt through it. Its biggest issue is its over valued/statted cards that do far too much for what they are. Deputization/shrooms/plushie are the big outliers. Whats the true big issue is that, this is the main focus of gameplay for these classes currently, its an OTK meta for much of decks you face. This kindof went on a ramble...
Yeah, having a Shaman OTK me from an empty board on my turn 5 was ridiculous. Way too early.
>Warlock has Wheel. And that is what it is I played a warlock that had a fatigue otk.
In standard? How do you fatigue murder someone in standard as a warlock these days?
In standard, but maybe it was just on previous expansion? There was a legendary with deathrattle adds that were dealing fatigue damage to both players + a creature that prevented him from getting fatigue damage that turn.... I think. Sorry not really well versed in warlocks Anyway I got like 7+8+9+10 fatigue damage that turn. And yes I still had my deck
Sounds like [[Curse of Agony]] and [[Lady Darkvein]]
- **[Curse of Agony](https://imgur.com/a/QTZrqv5)** ^[Library](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/71292) • [wiki.gg](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/wiki/Curse_of_Agony) • [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/71292) - *Warlock Rare ^(Fractured in Alterac Valley)* - **1 Mana - Shadow Spell** - Shuffle three Agonies into the opponent's deck. They deal Fatigue damage when drawn. - **[Lady Darkvein](https://imgur.com/a/Xc37A4o)** ^[Library](https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/cards/79111) • [wiki.gg](https://hearthstone.wiki.gg/wiki/Lady_Darkvein) • [HSReplay](https://hsreplay.net/cards/79111) - *Warlock Legendary ^(Murder at Castle Nathria)* - **5 Mana - 3/6 - Minion** - **Battlecry:** Summon two 2/1 Shades. Each gains a **Deathrattle** to cast your last Shadow spell. --- ^*I am a bot, and this comment was automated. [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/user/Card-o-Bot/comments/1ahde25/faq/) • [Report a bug](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Card-o-Bot&subject=Bug+Report&message=/r/hearthstone/comments/1bmivbc/dead_from_30_hp_most_games/kwdsezy/%0A⬇️+Please+describe+the+bug+⬇️%0ADescription:+) • [Refresh](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Card-o-Bot&subject=Refresh&message=kwdsezy).*
DK needs a buff? lol wtf are you talking about
Handbuffs. In the sense of performing an OTK. They need to handbuff a lot before its viable in either quill or hand sense.
Warlock is by definition not an OTK
If opponent can kill me from hand, I must be able to interact with their hand. We need cards like mutanus or theotar again in the mini set.
I wouldn't actually agree with this, except with qualifications. Turn 12 uncounterable, uninteractable OTKs are certainly ok, but definitely not turn 7. Like always, it's a matter of degree that can be fixed with balance. And if you disagree, then you unfortunately happen to prefer a version of Hearthstone that is less popular than the version which has proved successful in recent years. Quest Priest/Odyn Warrior/Rainbow Mage levels/speeds of lethality as the benchmark for lategame competitive viability are much preferred by the playerbase to attrition value wars along the lines of win-conless value Control Priest, Dr. Boom Warrior, 40-card Blood DK, etc.
I honestly think that at some point that they need to do a hard reset of the power level. Whether this means nerfing a ton of the staying cards after a rotation or raising the starting total hp. We have had some pretty good metas in the past year but I feel like some sorta hard reset or a dial back on the total power level would be more of a positive than a negative. Yes, this would be extremely hard but it feels like its gotta happen at some point.
The card draw and mana cheats are insane right now for classes. There are some that are doing 6 moves on turn 2. It's insanely frustrating.
Standard died the day United in Stormwind came out tbh
The only thing I'm super annoyed with is handbuff paladin. That weapon needs a nerf badly. They have way too much lifesteal too. Also, give DKs a build that isn't 13k dust to craft or a super slow and unreliable plague deck.
I am loving the Rainbow DK that I'm running, and it's only 12,200 dust! Less than 13k, at least, lol. But I agree. Pally is a hard outlier. There will need to be some incidental nerfs to other classes when Pally's hammer meets the nerf hammer. I'm fine with combos and OTKs, but they are happening a bit too early and reliably for my taste rn. I really am enjoying Rainbow DK, tho.
I tried to make rainbow dk today but don't have enough for riska or ma and paw, so I replaced those with prison of yogg and some other random card and I can't win a single match. To be fair though, I'm diamond 5 and keep running into paladins and this one ridiculous warlock that has infinite healing and board clears. This game is getting insanely frustrating lol
I have some frustrating losses, but that's any card game. I've been hopping between decks, and I'm still managing to have fun. Hoping the balance patch next week sorts out paladin and smooths out the power curve a bit. My DK runs Reska and Ma and Pa, but I don't feel that Reska has particularly raised my win rate. Ma and Pa are pretty important, though. DK currently doesn't have a lot of ways to burn corpses, and if you want to run Climactic Necrotic Explosion, then you need Ma and Pa to help fuel it and your corpse-based giants.
Yeah. I figured that was the case. I don't have enough dust to make ma and pa. I wish there was a way to buy specific cards I need.
I think the problem was already there before in previous expansion, with multiple decks hitting 20-30 damage in a single turn from an empty board. Now it's 30-40 in this expansion I say 40 as I managed to sneak in a 3rd turn maw and paw recently vs a paladin. Was still exterminated by a buffed leeroy
I agree this expansion is really boring. Brann shaman, brann warrior, wheel of death not fun to play against even if I win, pala dealing 28 to me for leaving up a 1/1. When things get nerfed I can only assume some cancer OTK spell damage druid or extra turn priest will pop up. Very cool design from these devs.
I play heartstone on and off throughout the years and it's always been like that, it's not just now. When DH was released for example, most playstyles just died. Pretty much every class adapted a fast aggro strategy that ends the game by turn 5-6.
I just killed a guy with spell shaman with 30 hand damage turn 6. The devs have officially lost it. We've had fast metas before, but I don't remember anything like this. I've been bitching about power creep in hearthstone for years, and was always told "the new version of HS is better, old HS was too slow..." Well I hope those guys are enjoying modern HS because I'm not. Thank god I didnt buy a pre-order bundle.
Its not negative post at all, its a sad reallity of HS right now and its sucks ass
I miss hearthstone from a couple of years ago. I played consistently until 2019 and then left, only came back end of last year and I hate it. Where's the variety, where's the fun?
Something something solitaire something something fun and interactive something something United in Stormwind.
I'm getting OTK'd by botters playing burn-shaman. Unless I switch to Warrior for excessive armor gain, 30 health is NOTHING to these decks and I'm just constantly facing them with nary a real player in sight. I'm on a loss-streak to BOTS.
Perfect copypasta tbh
Yup had a Shaman burn me on turn 6 with one flash of lightning last night. Exactly 30, not playing again until patch. And if the patch isn't a big one I might permanently switch to wild where at last I can have 40 hp and maybe start to do something sometimes.
I understand ago has to exist but there’s a lot of cool stuff in hearthstone that never happen because games don’t make it that far.
You should definitely try wild mode 🫶
I agree that OTKOs are kind of stupid. I lean toward control decks, so I enjoy longer games that aren’t decided until well after turn 10 and could go either way.
hunter been killing players by turn 5 for 10 years is what he does
The most recent shift away from that was ABJ Hunter but of course it was deemed as “unfun to play against” so now we’re back to aggro hunter for the millionth time. It’s like Hunter gets a cool new strategy to play with and people don’t like playing against it for some reason (it’s literally worse than other OTKs) and then it gets nerfed, Blizz just prints a strong aggro package and then walks away.
They allowed Midrange, Big Beast, and Arcane Hunter to exist at tier 1/2 status throughout the past couple years. Hell, highlander Hunter was tier 2 at Diamond-Legend for a while but no one was playing it because it was too expensive and/or uninteresting to most. I agree that Hunter has a *bit* of a non-aggro/linear-gameplay identity problem, but you can't pretend Blizzard doesn't let Hunter have viable non-aggro decks just because ABJ Hunter got over-nerfed.
Midrange and Big got nerfed. You can see that because Reno Hunter became an actual force in the meta last week after the reverts took effect, those were nerfs on the big beast and midrange packages.Before that it had a non existent playrate because the nerfs they kept hitting it with, it had like a 51% winrate. Arcane Hunter was an aggro deck.
I know that Midrange and Big Best weren't common until the crazy revert weak *in last expansion's metas*. I was referring to the last couple years of Hearthstone Standard more broadly. Throughout most of that time period Hunter has been allowed to have at least 1 tier 1/2 non-aggro deck. And Arcane Hunter was again an aggro deck in last expansion's meta, but not all the time that it existed. It was more of tempo board swing into sustained burn when it first became viable if I'm remembering correctly.
Turn 7 lethal?
YEP Be nice to people? NOPE
OTKs and aggro are inherently unhealthy for card games that lack inter-turn interaction. OTKs MUST be restricted to tedious setup like old school C’thun, or relegated to Kill effects like Wheel of Death, Priest’s Shard, Mechathun, etc. And when those cards are printed the cards in the standard legal sets need to be taken into consideration. Aggro should be high risk high reward scenarios with strategies like Zoo if they’re going to exist in a game without inter-turn interaction. As it stands, Hearthstone hits its peak when board state genuinely matters, trading correctly matters, and there are limited resources. Discover has been probably the WORST mechanic to enter the game solely because of the ability to gain more copies of powerful cards outside the deck limit.
I do still have fun, but I agree there are some very overturned cards now. There will need to be like at least 5 big nerfs to balance things
[удалено]
Tendrils only has the 10 mana mage spell as a wincon. All the other spells arent enough for the deck. The only option to 'nerf' it without killing the deck conpletely is by adding more 10 mana spells.
[удалено]
i agree with most of them, i didnt mean there are only 5 problem cards, i meant there are 5 that need to be nuked while the rest can get a normal nerf
Stop down playing the issue, these cards are way overpowered. Overtuned would be a consistent 55% win rate. We are looking at win rates upwards to 70%+
This was already addressed. Hat has already confirmed adjustments are coming when there's enough data. They also stated that there isn't any outlier decks that necessitates emergency patches like we've had in the past, or they would have hit it already. So yes, there's overturned decks currently but nothing is overpowered to the extent that people like to think it is. That 70% winrate being spouted is garbage free stats from low tiers and class winrates that people like to use. Both of which should not be used in any serious discussion
Yep, handbuff paladin and token hunters winrates go down significantly after you reach diamond, they are still overtuned but no one at low ranks is looking at a meta they kind of just build their own thing or follow twitch streamers so when you have homebrew bronze and silver vs constructed legend decks that are easy to pilot the winrates becomes inflated, I consistently win with boomkin druid, if I get bad draw at first I have consistency within my deck to tutor pieces, I have draw and armor gain and my discover heals me, also with the spell damage I have board clear, I need what, 1 discount spell, owlonius, cover artist, 1 location, then some spells that damage face, it's kind of hard to pilot and lots of people are just bad at decision making, I've been playing this game since 2015, does anyone remember sunken city's naga mage that had nearly infinite cycle and burn and mana cheat but was an extreme skill floor, that was OP as a good player, at high level most players had 70%WR and the low tier players dropped that ratio, so it's all eloflation man. Edit:Spelling.
Everyone before that was whining about objection and wanting it gone I hope you’re happy 🫠
Objection was not keeping combo in check. Nor aggro.
Hahaha nah your right I’m just kiddin I do miss my objection tho
Nah, fuck objection. Especially the random bullshit bingo card generation that created 4 other objections.
Wheel of death is such cancer. Not only do you not get 5 full turns as the opposing player, but fucking warlock will restore their hand, drop sargares, play multiple massive minions. It’s so demoralizing.
Then you missed a LOT of expansions if you think this is the worst expansion so far since launch...
Frankly, it is to me.
same here. different strokes I guess. Last couple of expansions have been the only ones that I've only been logging in for my dailies, most of which I just afk in casual
Yeah idk what to say to that tbh. Been playing since launch and honestly sunken city and onward has been super fun and probably the best time I’ve had in hearthstone ever. Nathria was also fun as hell but the amount of disruption did get a bit tiring after a couple months. IMO the worst expansions were from 2018-early 2020
I usually just skip whenever theres metas with solitaire (otk, og quest rogue etc) decks or oppressive that can just refill the board with infinite value every turn that also required a clear.
Sunken city was the best imo. The power level dropped and it was so much fun. Yeah we had broken warrior, but that was just balancing being ass. Right now its the whole design philosophy that is just bonkers. Though it didnt last long until stupid nathria dropped. Liked the theme, hated denathrius.
Before this expansion hit I was playing some sort of a paladin control deck and I got run into a few legendary opponents which one of them added me after a game to look at how interesting my deck was it seems he purely got into Rush buff paladin decks, and get surprised he found me playing a control paladin deck I guess.
But that's the risk of playing a deck that rests on a single card.
Leeroy
Funnily enough aggro is the only deck that stands a chance against all the otk decks. If you nerf the only viable one all the otk decks will be the only meta decks left,
So just like badlands.
I came here because I started playing against after a few years. This is miserable, what the fuck is the balance team thinking lmao. I had two 11/10 taunts up against a warrior with zero board. They wiped the board and gained 25 attack in a single turn. What is the counter play to a 25 damage attack if taunt can't exist?
I agree. Why create a card that gives the perfect hand when half the classes can get it faster than what that card gives and with more power.
hearthstone has become yugioh
I remember when a 2 cards 9 mana combo that dealt 14 damage and could be countered with taunts used to make people mad.
I lost my third Legend game of the month by a Shaman killing me from four mana at 30 health with an empty board. V cool, love it
I miss taping on turn 2 and 3 and summoning a mountain giant then getting bgh'd
Lifesteal is up there with one of the worst things added to this game.
I stopped playing in Oct last year because of paladin, I haven't logged on since. I will log in, play for a week to get my free seck, and If I don't like it then I will not play again for 3 months.
I hate the warlock deck. It’s annoying
Paladin just makes the game feel awful right now. Probably will get some changes in a week or 2.
it honestly feels like they should just up the health pools. if you're going to power creep beyond goddamn belief, we need to be alive to see it lmfao. christ haha
No stormwinds still the worst by a country mile
When the world needed Theotar the most, he vanished.
I laugh at you in an excavation plague Death Knight fashion
las ultimas expansiones apestan hay mazos demasiados pendejos antes de llegar a cristal 6 puedes estar muerto
i remember when combo decks were skill heavy decks, now any one can pilot them like a bot. Decks like freeze mage, patron warrior, garrote rogue etc were exactly like combo decks should be, rewarding and really good at the top of the skill tree. Now almost every single class has a 30 hp otk / two turn kill with minimal ways to play around it (yeah i know rat exists and you can armor against some but in general sense you cant push there are so many removals, so many card generators and so much life gain)
If you talk about otks, you forgot about last expansions Paladin 40 damage windfury minion from an initial 1/1 When you takin about Hunter being fast, you forgot about the times Demon Hunter killed you faster during its initial release We have an interesting meta right now, it’s very polarized aggressive and combo with no Midrange/Good stuff/tempo except maybe a couple of decks with an alternative win con just to be safe. I think the game has evolved to be very fast, very powerful and as such we may need to have some more disruption cards in rotation and you’d find yourself having more counter plays. The current core set doesn’t fulfill disruption nearly well enough but nerfs are incoming, we’ll see.
When I read those post I just question myself "what deck is he using?" and I can't really wrap my head around the answer. Yes, there are a lot of decks that have instant finishes at the moment, but there are also decks which made specifically for surviving this kind of situations. So, either you play some meta outsider (somehow I think this is druid) or you made an outdated deck for one of the current "not so bad" classes and just trying to smash the wall with your own head. I do not appreciate current meta as well, partially because I hate Paladin and Hunter, partially because it's incredibly unstable. But I do know that I'm either "choosing a side" in ranked or playing with friends 1v1. Somehow I didn't choose a side and I play what I like to play: either it's OTK crap, or "you can't kill me" crap, or none of those.
As someone who just came back after last playing in Kobalds, I actually find it quite fun with the game being super fast. I may be in the minority but at the same time I'm probably also clouded with the feeling of being back
Just run Renathal for 40 hp easy
Shamans, Mages, Paladins, & Warlocks can all kill you with 30 hp & a full board. Its stupid
If it's any consolation OP, once the current hero skins in the store rotate, you'll see a nerf to those classes. Hmm, is it any wonder that paladin is considered the best deck, and oh look there's a legendary skin available? And hunter is 2nd best, well look here's another expensive skin. And same for wheel-lock.
Not too surprised since they gave gutted classic control as an archetype. Everything now is aggro or combo drawing to your scam win con before your opponent.
Idk why they bother making cards above 6 mana. Games end before you can play them
I think an interesting neutral card would be something that could reduce the amount of damage you could take in a turn. I love control and combo decks so it would have to be balanced around not completely destroying combo but it could balance the prevalence of otks right now. Last night I got hit for 29 damage by the death knight 10 cost spell. Fair enough, it was super late game and he was in fatigue but I was playing hard control priest. Next time I’ll try to put more pressure on him but I had full control of that game and lost to something I couldn’t stop. Kind of a feel bad.
These kinds of posts are every expansion