Why was this meta considered stale?

[Blueobelisk]

That's what I'm talking about. The reason pirate was so ubiquitous, and the top tier of decks so narrow, is because of the heavy-handed nerfs prior to Gadgetzan. The changes to Call of the Wild, Yogg, Abusive Sergeant, and Execute greatly stratified the top tier. Doing more nefs also didn't work, as the pirate package is still the entirety of the top tier. Nerfing it again is not the solution.

The problem with those nerfs is the classes/decks that used those cards (I'm talking Hunter and Zoo) didn't get anything to play from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. Hunter got nerfed a bit, but even worse they got garbage cards that didn't synergize well while other decks got crazy good cards.

It's not the nerfs that hurt, because the nerfs balanced the meta at the time. What hurt was Blizzard's next expansion not bringing in necessary cards/giving too much power to other classes.

Reno Warlock isn't good at all, it's never been even a B-tier deck.

Renolock is like 1-2 cards over the top. If they didn't get Blastcrystal Potion I'd have been okay. But now, Kazakus included, they have too many answers.

Dragon Priest is worse than Dragon Warrior at high levels of play and neither deck is problematic.

We're talking about the meta, not high levels of play. I'm talking about balancing ladder.

Nerfing top tiers to oblivion only reveals the layer of problems underneath.

It's just like one card/synergy that ends up becoming too strong. Especially with Bran since most cards have strong battlecries even though they have low mana cost.

lol really people whining about Jade druid, dragon priest and reno lock. When we have aggro rogue, pirate warrior and mid range shaman face rolling? You dont have to bother with reno lock and dragon priest, the decks stop existing next week.

The decks you mentioned are strong, but not infallible.

[Pantalaimon]

Dead by turn 6 with no counter play except hoping you draw reno, not exactly my idea of fun. That is why I love wild so much, at least you get much more variety in decks.

There is some variety, but I wouldn't exactly say there is much more variety. I was grinding up to rank 10 in wild & ran into almost as many of the same decks around those ranks that you can find just as easily in standard (Reno Lock, Pirate Warrior, etc). The only difference is you have many more Anyfin Pallies, Egg Druids, & Christmas Tree Pallies.

[minteK917]

The decks you mentioned are strong, but not infallible.

They are all stronger then the 3 decks your purpose nerfing and like i said 2 of them are going away on April 6. The problem of this game was never a deck being infallible. Its how easier and simpler some decks are with answers for everything or very little possibility for mistakes. Deck that simply play themselves out. Thats why i always advocated that expansions should more focus about combos, control, tempo. Unlike other card games HS mechanic is barebone based on minions only. I dont mind that this aspect is simple, the problem is when you make this already simple mechanic, even simpler. I hate reno lock as much as you do, i want handlock back. You know actually playing with your god damn death to get a win condition, not just spam removal until mabye one day you get reno and win.

Nerfing Call of the wild was stupid. The problem was not call of the wild. It was all the other stupid cards that stick to the board hunter had BEFORE call of the wild. But they decided to nerf the tempo 8 mana cost card and when the expansion came around, Hunter got a fat turd reward of NOTHING.

Quest mechanic is a step in a good direction and they did add alot of Taunt and board clear with Un Goro. Encourage people to plan combos multiple turn ahead. Encourage defensive play. Going for someone face should always be a hard decision to make unless the enemy has NOTHING on the board.

Reno lock is not overpowered, the only reason its there is because lock cant play nothing else right now. If reno did not exist warlock in the current meta is as bad as hunter. Ungoro warlock seems to push discard decks, it seems underwhelming but its very hard to judge after just looking at the cards once. Any non zoo lock deck requires healing mechanic to use its hero power, so it does not look very promising for anything else.

Hunter in ungoro seems like it has alot of potential. The quest is nice, not that hard to finish either. They are given an even better version of babbling book. The hero power switch is also very strong. We might actually see more mid range hunter and even control hunter might be a thing honestly.

I think every classes should simply always be focused more into mid game, control or combo orientation. Unless someone fuck ups badly, turn 4-5-6 death should just never happen. Losing on those turn because you concede and know you lost ok. But going to 0 should simply never be a thing. I think most people would feel alot better in the game. People gona try to point out but dude i know some MTG deck killing you in small turns too. Yes except HS is a simpler game, with smaller turns, there is not defense and offense board and things like that. So really when a MTG game ends in 5 turns, its pretty much like a Heartstone game ending in 10. Which is really ok, you were given 10 turns to swing it back to your side.

[HisDudeness]

lol really people whining about Jade druid, dragon priest and reno lock. When we have aggro rogue, pirate warrior and mid range shaman face rolling? You dont have to bother with reno lock and dragon priest, the decks stop existing next week.

At least ungoro quest cards seems interesting for combo decks and from what i saw of the reveal they got their head out of their asses and added alot of anti aggro cards to most classes. With how simplistic and minion oriented HS is, they should just never print full expansion again that favor aggro. Its stupid because its stupid easy to play. However if they favor combo and control decks, while the main mechanic of the game is simplistic. Planning combo properly and controlling the entire match without making mistakes make the simplistic game show dept. Ungoro is on the right track, sadly we still have all the dumb pirate shit in the game and Kara stupidity left in.

You give Blizzard way to much credit. Un'goro going to be another RNG shit fest. It's been the probably from day one with this game. Don't draw the answer, You are dead. Your opponent draws whats needed to make something gigantic and crush your face, its over. If aggro decks aren't created (which their will be) it will just be a race to whomever gets craft first or whatever and smack the person in the face once instead of over and over.

[TriHard]

Dragon priest isn't nearly as strong as some of the other decks out there. Priest has been the weakest class since forever, it's about time they got some love as well.

[Mahourai]

It's not the nerfs that hurt, because the nerfs balanced the meta at the time.

The final snapshot of ladder pre-Gadgetzan and post-nerfs indicates the nerfs didn't really change what decks were being played on ladder. All they did was make the Midrange Shaman shell more prevalent and powerful than Aggro Shaman ever was pre-nerf, with VS listing it as having only one truly unfavorable matchup in the entire field. Great balance.

Renolock is like 1-2 cards over the top.

It's not over the top, at the top, climbing to the top, or anywhere near the top. Its straight-up not a good deck. Any metric other than "I'm mad I lost to Reno Jackson" bears that out. In fact it isn't even the best deck in its own class after the second round of post-Gadgetzan nerfs as Zoo performs better against the field. It was never a top deck.

We're talking about the meta, not high levels of play. I'm talking about balancing ladder.

You don't balance a game around what wins at shit-tier ranks, otherwise the AWP would long ago have been nerfed into oblivion in CSGO. Dragon Priest has no oppressive effects on ladder because the better the competition gets the worse the deck is against the field.

[Blueobelisk]

http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2757-t...ek-for-april-2

Eight top decks for this week. Two are Jade Druid, two are Dragon Priest. One is Renlock.

Tell me again how those decks aren't strong, guys.

[Mahourai]

http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/2757-t...ek-for-april-2

Eight top decks for this week. Two are Jade Druid, two are Dragon Priest. One is Renlock.

Tell me again how those decks aren't strong, guys.

Because Hearthpwn is not using a data-driven approach to choosing the best decks, they're just highlighting random legend players. Don't get me wrong, legend players are good, but that doesn't mean they are playing the best decks. I know a guy who got legend playing Velen Combo Priest. That doesn't mean Velen Combo Priest needs a nerf. Vicious's data is imperfect and winrate in a vacuum is not a stellar metric but it's certainly better than Hearthpwn or Tempostorm, and it's where I've sourced most of my meta analysis.

Frankly even if the data bore out your complaint that these decks were the top decks - and to be clear it doesn't, in any way - that is no evidence that they deserve a nerf. Something always has to be the best deck. Being an A-tier deck doesn't always correlate with being an oppressive deck.

[Vankrys]

have you play the game, i mean gave you play the game seriously. i have.

i run a deck tracker to run record my stats, i reach rank 4 last season and have a couple dozen game this season before the expansion.

Pirate warrior and jade/midrange shaman is all i see
pirate warrior and midrange shaman all the time.

When ever i see the odd dragon priest or jade druid, praise the lord, at last some different class and cards to see.

how did blizzard messed up the meta that badly is completely out of my comprehension. It's like the game has 2 classes, shaman and warrior, and one deck for those classes.

[Blueobelisk]

Because Hearthpwn is not using a data-driven approach to choosing the best decks, they're just highlighting random legend players. Don't get me wrong, legend players are good, but that doesn't mean they are playing the best decks. I know a guy who got legend playing Velen Combo Priest. That doesn't mean Velen Combo Priest needs a nerf. Vicious's data is imperfect and winrate in a vacuum is not a stellar metric but it's certainly better than Hearthpwn or Tempostorm, and it's where I've sourced most of my meta analysis.

Frankly even if the data bore out your complaint that these decks were the top decks - and to be clear it doesn't, in any way - that is no evidence that they deserve a nerf. Something always has to be the best deck. Being an A-tier deck doesn't always correlate with being an oppressive deck.

A small nerf to like three cards isn't going to nerf them into oblivion. I don't want them to die either, I just want the ridiculous synergies to be gone.

Not that it even matters anymore. This meta is over.

have you play the game, i mean gave you play the game seriously. i have.

i run a deck tracker to run record my stats, i reach rank 4 last season and have a couple dozen game this season before the expansion.

Pirate warrior and jade/midrange shaman is all i see
pirate warrior and midrange shaman all the time.

When ever i see the odd dragon priest or jade druid, praise the lord, at last some different class and cards to see.

how did blizzard messed up the meta that badly is completely out of my comprehension. It's like the game has 2 classes, shaman and warrior, and one deck for those classes.

Yeah I track this shit. I played 34 games as Hunter (sample size is big enough to be considered normally distributed) and I faced fucking 29% priest.



29%. Blizzard's tryna hold me fucking down.

[Vankrys]

Yeah I track this shit. I played 34 games as Hunter (sample size is big enough to be considered normally distributed) and I faced fucking 29% priest.

34 games is nothing, i had like near 200 games last season, the only priest i saw was pretty much me.
Oh and by the way, i only start recording game at rank 10, so i don't know about rank 20 to 10, i guess there are full of experimental deck in those ranks. Who cares anyway, it only take 1 day to get to rank 10?

Funny you say hunter, i had 2 games total against hunter total, i didn't know this class existed. i had a few game against paladin, all win, weird deck with murloc. less than 1% total. More than 70% of my game were either warriors or shaman. rest was rogue (the conceal van cleef/questing adventurer or the finja deck) and reno lock.

I have hope for the expansion to diversify and slow the meta. If not, fuck this, i'm going full time wild.

[Twoddle]

Well the whole meta becoming stale is the natural occurrence and the same thing will happen with Un'Goro. The whole player base acts as a giant neural network feeding results back to itself going through iterations and eventually churning out the best performing decks which everyone who likes winning will play. This is why expansion are necessary to liven things up a bit at least for a few days.

Nerfing and buffing cards will also never prevent a stale meta, after a couple of days things are back to normal with new complaints.

[Mahourai]

Well the whole meta becoming stale is the natural occurrence and the same thing will happen with Un'Goro. The whole player base acts as a giant neural network feeding results back to itself going through iterations and eventually churning out the best performing decks which everyone who likes winning will play. This is why expansion are necessary to liven things up a bit at least for a few days.

Nerfing and buffing cards will also never prevent a stale meta, after a couple of days things are back to normal with new complaints.

Agree near 100%.

The proper solution to a stale metagame is to print more cards, which Blizzard is taking small steps towards by moving away from adventures. Ideally we'd see four sets a year and not three but I doubt they want to devote any more energy to HS than they have to.

[Pantalaimon]

Well the whole meta becoming stale is the natural occurrence and the same thing will happen with Un'Goro. The whole player base acts as a giant neural network feeding results back to itself going through iterations and eventually churning out the best performing decks which everyone who likes winning will play. This is why expansion are necessary to liven things up a bit at least for a few days.

Nerfing and buffing cards will also never prevent a stale meta, after a couple of days things are back to normal with new complaints.

Also agree, I notice all too often that the deck that players end up falling into playing after so long ends up getting labeled a 'brainless' deck that has stagnated the meta. It doesn't matter if it was an aggro, control, midrange, or combo wombo deck. Eventually there always has to be a 'best' deck. Once people know what it is that is what you'll see so often when the meta stales.

[Vankrys]

Deck that are predicted to be strong in the year of the mommoth

Pirate warrior (aggro)
quest hunter (playing a bunch of 1 mana card seems aggro to me)
discard lock (again seems quite aggressive to mid range)
Murloc shaman (dump your hand, play the 5mana 8/8, refill your hand, seems like an aggro deck)
elemental shaman (midrange, possibly control)
quest mage (OTK deck, controlly like freeze mage was)

It seems to me that the meta will not slow down
Taunt warrior, quest druid, jade druid, buff paladin, priest (haha): they all seems too slow.

[Arachnofiend]

Wouldn't Taunt Warrior be pretty good against aggro if it turns out to be any good at all? Would follow the same logic as BogChamp Shaman, just an endless stream of taunt minions too big for an aggro deck to punch through. The problem with the deck is not having a finisher against other control decks which the new quest could solve.

[Baeloro]

Since the rotation and expansion aren't too far out (hopefully) I thought I'd reflect on what this meta really brought for the past many months.

One of the comments I've seen throughout this meta was how stale it was. So I thought I'd ask why it was worthy of this label. Imo, there have been many metas prior to this one that have been much staler, some with literally only two options for consistent high ladder decks (talking rank 5 to low legend).

In this meta we saw

Warrior: Pirate and Dragon

Shaman: Jade (Basically cannibalized the old midrange & aggro decks)

Priest: Dragon & Reno

Warlock: Reno

Mage: Reno

Rogue: Miracle

Druid: Jade & a select few Egg Druids

I feel that is pretty damn good for a "stale" meta. Almost every class had a valid deck. In this meta you also saw very decent and viable options for every general deck archtype; Reno Warlock for control, Pirate for aggro, Miracle for combo, and Jade Shaman for midrange/tempo. I don't think we've had very many, if any, metas that provided you at least one solid choice for every archtype in the same meta.

With this in mind I ask again, why was this meta stale exactly?

I hate to be 'that guy,' but your post illustrates exactly why the best cards in the game can't be neutral. Ie, why neutral cards tend to be bad for the game. Using words like 'archetype' and 'meta' doesn't really add anything here since hearthstone has been a game designed around plopping minions on the board and smacking face for as long as the game has been around. Every class has the same kinds of cards and it's only after 3 years we are starting to see hearthstone step out of the minion mashing game into a game that is more about card interaction. The 'meta' is interesting for once, imo.