Why was this meta considered stale?

[Pantalaimon]

You aren't good when you have N'zoth matey dude and patches not in you hand. Back in the day it was don't play northshire cleric because warrior has fiery war axe in his hand. Has nothing to do with the players. Blizzard is dumbing down this game more and more. Millions?? already play, They have people hooked. Why spend more money then you have too. I wish I could apply for lead card designer of this game. Isn't hard. You just make long exhausting posts about a game that isn't that complicated. Like I said before, If this wasn't a Blizzard game, it wouldn't be popular at all.

Fyi though. This is the very first time I took the time to read your entire post word for word. I usually just scan.

I wasn't implying the game was complicated. My previous post was saying the opposite.

Whether or not we have an aggro meta, or a control meta, I can't feel confident in saying that the feeling of a stale meta never takes into account individual player experience with the game as well, and not just the decks that are being played. If you've been playing for awhile you are going to be familiar with all, or most of the possible deck archtypes that will come out. This makes it so that even decks that 'play themselves' less so than others are going to feel stale when you play them simply because the best plays to win are generally straightforward a good portion of the time. I don't think individual decks are the only things that make up that stale feeling.

[Mahourai]

i mean, i did say nerf dragon and aggro a bit too. Im basically advocating bringing down the strength of the current meta decks to be vaguely equal with any other decently put together deck

Watering down the strength of every deck in the top tier does not produce a balanced metagame. In fact, widespread nerfs to every strong deck is what produced the worst period of Shaman's dominance during Year of the Kraken.

[PPN]

What did i meet all morning?

Pirate Warrior, Agro Shaman, Dragon Priest, Jade Druid...am i surprised? No
Was it fun to play HS? No

Additionaly every single one BM'd the shit out of the emotes. It seems there are some pretty frustrated people around. I havent seen that when HS was released. Ofc every now and then you meet someone who has to prove how superior he is to you (in a RNG game *cough*), but today just everyone...did about 10 games. Wtf is wrong.

[BadguyNotBadGuy]

Watering down the strength of every deck in the top tier does not produce a balanced metagame. In fact, widespread nerfs to every strong deck is what produced the worst period of Shaman's dominance during Year of the Kraken.

in my eyes that just means that shaman was too strong during that time, and nerfing it would have distributed the balance much better

[HisDudeness]

I wasn't implying the game was complicated. My previous post was saying the opposite.

Whether or not we have an aggro meta, or a control meta, I can't feel confident in saying that the feeling of a stale meta never takes into account individual player experience with the game as well, and not just the decks that are being played. If you've been playing for awhile you are going to be familiar with all, or most of the possible deck archtypes that will come out. This makes it so that even decks that 'play themselves' less so than others are going to feel stale when you play them simply because the best plays to win are generally straightforward a good portion of the time. I don't think individual decks are the only things that make up that stale feeling.

I guess I feel ya. I just think about miracle rogue now vs miracle rogue then. Miracle rogue then was actually one of the tougher decks. As ridiculous as that sounds. Miracle rogue now is pretty straight forward. I don't think its players feeling like they know the game that well. Its more that Blizzard keeps dumbing the game down more and more. I think we pretty much agree to disagree.

[Deleted]

Had a free day todya, playing renolock.

I played 42 matches between rank 10 and 5.
Breakdown:

13 x pirate warrior
12 x jade druid
5x miracle rogue
4 x jade shaman
3x tempo mage
2x reno lock
2x freeze mage
1x hunter

Such a fun and diverse meta

I'm done with Hearthstone for now btw, i haven't bought anything for months in game and i'm not going to untill they fix it (fire ben brode).
Next expansion is looking like another aggro shitfest and nothing is being done about pirate warrior which can have up to 80% winrate in the hands of a good player. Meanwhile controldecks are unplayable cause of infite carddraw+infinite cards+infinite minions jade druid.

[PPN]

I wonder if my grandma could take a pirate warrior to rank 5 if i would explain the gameplay behind it to her for 10 mins

[Rhamses]

The meta is pretty terrible. Anytime you play a class you almost know exactly what deck they're playing. I rarely run across any Paladins or Hunters, and I consistently run across Druids, Warriors, Priests and Shaman. Druids are running Jade, Priests are running Dragon, Warriors are running Pirate, and Shaman are running either Jade or one of their variety of aggro decks. Out of all of them the aggro decks are the least fun to play against. Additionally (outside of Dragon Priests) every Priest, Warlock, or Mage you encounter is running a Reno deck.

I'm hoping that Ungoro changes the mets quite a bit. With each class seeming to have its own unique play style, it's already looking better than MsoG

[Arachnofiend]

I'm worried they might be giving too much support for Elemental Shaman. I was really excited for the archetype at first because it looked like an evolution of Crusher, but with an appropriate, on-curve elemental for every turn it might run into the Jade Druid problem where you have a pretty exact order of play and you don't really make any more decisions than the average aggro or mid-range deck.

[Vankrys]

I hope the un'goro meta will be less smorc. It's not a matter of winrate, though pirate warrior being a top deck doesn't help, but a matter of fun.

It is not fun to face aggro smorc deck, win or lose, game are so dull and predictable. It's like you're grinding bear asses for a faction daily quests. It's completely antifun.

[PPN]

Now that they introduced these rank floors at 15,10 and so on i tired my funky decks at rank 10. The thing is, my decks arent bad and i win quiet a few games, i just cant make a 8-2 run against the same 3 top tier decks. And i meet nothing else. Queuing 4 times in a row into a dragon priest is just fucked up shit, takes away all the fun in the game. On the other side sometimes its easy, because i know the deck to 95% and i can adapt my playstyle.

Sadly thats not the case against a pirate warrior, i know 100% what will come and just die away in turn 6

[HisDudeness]

I added a dude after a game with a pirate warrior. I was kind of salty. I'm never rude but mostly just screw around with them. Anyways, I start off.." Hey where did you find that awesome warrior deck?" He starts going on this deck is the best and its what all the pros play and I'm just wrecking people with it. Tells me where to find it, how to play it lol...etc etc until finally I had enough and was like dude....#sarcasm...#you'reanidiot. He instantly removed me.

[Blueobelisk]

Watering down the strength of every deck in the top tier does not produce a balanced metagame.

The strong decks are too strong.

Jade Druid wins late game unquestionably, and it's curve is crazy enough tempo that it can keep up with any deck, really.
Dragon priests have infinite value and their tempo is ridiculous too.
Renolock has an answer for everything because blizzard just prints them "remove any minion you don't like" cards.

It's actually miraculous that any other decks can compete. It's actually just like a few cards that put those decks over the top. If Jade Idol, Draknoid Operative, and one of the Lock cards got nerfed then there would be a much healthier meta.

[Mahourai]

The meta you're complaining about - the current one - is itself the result of watering down the strength of every top deck. It did not produce the result you want, and it won't produce the result you want if it happens again.

Also, the three decks you're complaining about aren't even strong format-warping decks. Your nerf philosophy, like so many people, appears to be "please nerf every deck I don't play".

[Kronik85]

Happy to see the back of Reno decks and hopefully an end to Jade outside of Druid. Here's my thoughts on the new archetypes.

Druid: Nope. No doubt I'll be wrong but I can't see Jungle Giants being a thing, Barnabus would be busted if it reduced the cost of minions in your hand to 0 but since it doesn't then you're all in on Barnabus Nourish to get anything done. All the new minions form a Beast Package to finally play the Warden from Kara but I think Jade is just going to be stronger.

Hunter: Pretty excited about all the new Hunter cards. Very little in the set to encourage SMOrc Hunter but alot of potential in The Marsh Queen, Dinomancy and Stampede. No idea what to make of Swamp King Dred, really heavy control card as it completely shuts out your opponent from being able to play minions if they don't have hard removal and at 9/9 I can't think of many minions that trade well against it....7 mana too, yeah I think I like this card.

Mage: Very heavy control deck being opened up in Open the Way Gate. Play all the removal you can, all the new cards minus Pyros and 2 copies of Ice Block and Arcane Giant (maybe even the return of Molten?). Hope you can live long enough to play 3-4 0 mana 8/8's and Time Warp for the OTK. Will have to see how effectively the deck manages to not die before knowing if this is going to work.

Paladin: Looks like Pally is getting 2 potential decks. One built around Silver Hand recruits, Lightfused Stegodon and Sunkeeper Tarim or another built around The Last Kaleidosaur and Primalfin Champion. I'm not sure if you can get both themes to work together or if the Silverhand package is even worth bothering with but Galvadon is damn strong. Will be fun to test the Buff Pally for sure, got some ideas on how to build it but whether it works or not without drawing Primalfin Champion remains to be seen.

Priest: Awaken the Makers/N'zoth decks? Gonna be a late game powerhouse and they actually got 2 very playable Deathrattles too in Crystalline Oracle and Tortollan Shellraiser. Main snag is finding the other playable ones. Tons of Control deck potential in Lyra alone too so Priest might not be all in trying to make Awaken the Makers work.

Rogue: I really don't like The Caverns Below and the minions look weak. I really don't see Rogue decks changing much since to make The Caverns Below a thing you would need Gang Up to combo with Patches and Gang Up rotates out. So as always Rogue is stuck on Miracle Questing or Maly....Sherazin looks fun though I guess, might be worth trying out since it really aint hard to play 4 cards in a turn with a Miracle deck guaranteeing you some board presence. If someone does put together an aggro deck which gets The Caverns Below to work though god help us all. Burgle is gone too so RIP that archetype.

Shaman: Elemental Shaman.....oh dear. Everything you currently hate about Shaman but this time it's Elemental flavoured! Not sure about Unite the Murlocs, seems meh.

Warlock: Well Zoo is back with a vengeance, Implosion even made it back, only this time it's been done right. When you see that Malchezaar's Imp you best kill it otherwise you're in for oh so much pain.

Warrior: Ahhh my beloved Control Warrior, I think you might be coming back to me. Losing Justicar will be a big blow but it's nice to see a Control Warrior that's actually trying to kill people rather than fatigue them out coming back. Can't wait to make a Taunt Warrior with Fire Plume's Heart. Equally WTH is Explore Un'goro about!? Perhaps the craziest card ever printed in Hearthstone.

I'm looking forward to playing Taunt Warrior, new Zoo and Dinomancy Hunter the most. Buff Pally is going to take a lot of tweaking but when there's a good list I'll give that some play too. I'm seeing 2 playable archetypes for most classes so we might actually have a diverse meta for a change.

Druid: Jade and Beast/Jungle Giants
Hunter: The Marsh Queen and Dinomancy, possibly even a Hybrid of both too.
Mage: Tempo and Open the Waygate
Paladin: Buff and maybe Silverhand. The return of N'zoth?
Priest: Awaken the Makers/N'zoth and Control
Rogue: The Caverns Below Aggro and Miracle
Shaman: Elemental Aggro or Midrange and Murlocs
Warlock: Zoo.....for the first time ever Warlock will only have 1 archetype
Warrior: Taunt and Pirate

[Blueobelisk]

The meta you're complaining about - the current one - is itself the result of watering down the strength of every top deck. It did not produce the result you want, and it won't produce the result you want if it happens again.

If you think it was better when Small Time Bucaneer pillaged and raped everyone (for three months straight), I don't know what to tell you. The meta now is better than before. It's not even close.

Also, the three decks you're complaining about aren't even strong format-warping decks. Your nerf philosophy, like so many people, appears to be "please nerf every deck I don't play".

No, Jade Druid, Dragon Priest, and Renolock aren't broken. They're just too strong.

The nerfs I want are for a few cards.

Jade Idol - Shuffle two 1-mana Jade Golems (of appropriate size) into your deck. (These aren't spells so no Gadgetzan bullshit, and there isn't infinite jades to contest.)

Draknoid Operative - 5 mana 3/5 (Not a Dragon) Discover a card from your opponents deck.

Kazakus - doesn't exist.

Something like that would be fine.

[Mahourai]

If you think it was better when Small Time Bucaneer pillaged and raped everyone (for three months straight), I don't know what to tell you. The meta now is better than before. It's not even close.

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.

No, Jade Druid, Dragon Priest, and Renolock aren't broken. They're just too strong.

Reno Warlock isn't good at all, it's never been even a B-tier deck. Dragon Priest is worse than Dragon Warrior at high levels of play and neither deck is problematic. Jade Druid is so bad it's hated out in any remotely aggressive meta and has barely ever been a B-tier deck.

There is plainly no justification for any nerfs you suggested.

[Twoddle]

Nerfing top tiers to oblivion only reveals the layer of problems underneath. The so called "problems" of Hearthstone balancing come in layers.

[minteK917]

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.

[Tenris]

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.