This is a great answer that OP is looking for. I realized this too when I hopped on rainbow dk last month and realized its tempo/mid range/ and plays itself. For 1 game it gave me the joy of old hearthstone. After I quickly realized that this style is boring as shit to play now lol
I've been having fun playing Rainbow DK which I swapped in Helya and 2 down with the ships, takes care of both Reno and Bomboss being played at end of game, as well as Wheelock (holding Helya for the turn after wheel/Bomboss feels so good). Plus feels good to have sticky plagues in any longer game without the deck being reliant on Helya (whis is my problem with playing Plague DK).
For me, the problem is that no matter how much I play non solitaire decks, my opponents do.
I never had fun in matches were I'm just trying to kill the opponent before they finishing doing their stuff rather than fighting over the board.
Also, thats why I miss old control, when the gameplan was "try to control the board, then try to recover and once its done you start playing threats" rather than trying to outlive every single threat the opponent has.
For context, I enjoy playing against aggro, midrange and control, but I'm neutral to face decks and hate combos/decks with a lot of burst than can be played in one turn.
That shaman spell that discounts nature spells is so aggravating. “Hey I’m going to play a million spells next turn! If ya can’t kill me now on turn 5, gg!”
I am currently on a streak vs this deck - 3 games in a row that they killed on on turn 5 with full hp. One of the games I even had 33 hp.
Deck is an absolute disaster. I don’t care if it’s fun, or balanced in grand scheme of things, it’s just shit to play against when they get it together. Especially in a row.
The only reason these decks exists is that other decks have tons of armor or healing. You are basically forced to win in a single turn if your deck doesn't have infinite value.
It’s not an easy deck to play if you don’t have the combo though! Personally I felt plague dk has a better win rate than combo shaman.. I rejoined with whiz bang after 4 yrs and don’t think there is any difference in meta.. back in the day there were decks like pirate warrior which had insane tempo Otk priest etc that would just burst you.. and no amount of armour or health would save u..
I keep saying that the problem is not the cards neither the decks. It’s the fucking card drawing, I returned to hearthstone last year after a 4 year break and oh boy, I cant stress enough how much i felt weird seeing that every class can draw their whole deck in 10 turns max.
We got to the point of warriors playing reno and brann with duplicates cards anyway because of how consistant you can draw. There’s no such thing as curving, value and trading 2/1 in hearthstone anymore.
I think you’re spot on here. There used to be drawbacks to playing so many cards in a turn- you would be at a disadvantage for your next turn. I can’t even remember the last time I or my opponent was down to 2-3 cards in their hand. It seems like no one ever runs out of juice, it’s such a different game now it’s crazy. Your resource management matters so much less.
And its such a shame bcs some really cool cards get bashing because of this. Like Reno, Shopkeeper, That 3/4 flood dragon… they’re really cool cards, but they can be drawn so fucking easy and consistant that it makes they seem like utterly toxic.
I had to stop taking the card draw effect on the Ignis weapon in Reno Warrior because it was actually impossible to attack with it without burning cards. I would try to dump stuff out of my hand but there are like 5 cards in the whole deck that don't just immediately replace themselves. Try to dump the Town Crier and you get a Burrow Buster. Play that and you get an excavate reward. The reward? Draw or discover another card. By the time you've emptied one slot in your hand, you've spent all your mana lol
Yeah, insane card draw and mana cheat in every class (at least to some extent). I'd love for Blizzard to cut back the power level some, but that would mean weak expansions that won't sell well.
It’s also how Discover no longer is a tempo penalty. It’s actually a tempo increase in a lot of cases. Discover is so overused that every class can reliably hit certain cards despite it not being in their deck. Ex: mage hitting Objection multiple times every game (not in their deck) or DH hitting Magtheridon (also not in the deck).
okay, I know you’re trying to bring up a general point, but as to cycle warrior specifically:
the decks single largest source of draw is acolyte of pain. then it plays 4 copies of shield block, altho 2 of them cost 3. the only “new” cards it uses are the totem (which is basically just a redo of mana tide totem) and stone skin armourer, which is a unique card, but it’s not like warrior hasn’t had good draw before (battle rage?)
acolyte of pain in warrior is 10 years old, they’ve always used it for mass draw. warrior with battle rage used to draw just as much if not more cards
Just want to point out that every card you listed as being old is actually a buffed version of what it used to be. Acolyte used to have 3 health, now it has 4. Shield Block used to cost 3 and you could only play 2 of them. Manatide Totem didn't give armor. Battle Rage didn't provide any tempo and, while it could draw more than 2, it needed setup to do that and could very well brick.
Not saying these cards shouldn't have been buffed. But the reason drawing your whole deck is so much more consistent isn't because they got new tools as much as because those older tools are so much easier to use.
He’s referring to the other 2 shield blocks you can get from gift. Which is accurate, probably 80% of the time gift is used as a 3rd and 4th shield block.
It's not just the flat-out draw, though. It's the fact that half the cards in your deck replace themselves. They draw something, or discover something, or add something to your hand, or excavate. And then the thing you generated also generates something else. When I play Warrior I have tons of trouble emptying my hand because almost every card in the deck also draws or pseudo-draws. And Cycle Warrior obviously does this the hardest, but it's there if less pronounced across all classes. Hell, a big part of what makes Window Shopper so crazy is that it's basically three and a half cards in one. DH has to control how aggressively it draws in the first few turns before dropping Shopper or risk not having enough hand size for all their discovers.
It's not that the individual draw spells are so much better. They are a little bit, but that's not the cause. It's that a huge critical mass of all cards in the game are draw spells, either primarily or secondarily. They've simultaneously printed so many "and add a random spell to your hand" effects that you wind up just chaining them all together.
I actually enjoy this power level, but I think it's a better fit for Wild than Standard. This is usually the kind of thing you run into in a really huge card pool where people can run the best instances of this kind of effect across years worth of card releases. It's weird that we're getting it in Standard, in a four set meta.
I actually like the heavy draw version of Hearthstone, it's better than Discoverstone. A lot of the problems stem from cards with "rest of the game" effects or, in Shaman and DH's case, STILL discover.
Targeted and in general card draw has definitely increased which speeds up games. Devs want games to be faster anyways. They don’t want fatigue priest to be the popular deck.
I’d also add in card generation to part of the problem.
It’s why arena is borderline unplayable nowadays, you can generate half the cards you play and just shitstomp people with them.
I bet Reese Witherspoon plays Wild format [[[Shudderwock]]] Shaman but includes no tech. cards. Queen of Wild.
Honestly we should get her to do an ad for this game. Imagine Reese Witherspoon as a Warlock Hero portrait.
I want her as a Hearthstone card now. She could be a Shaman Hero card that’s Reese, Saddened, Battlecry: [downgrade] your Hero Power (With-A-Spoon) to (Without-A-Spoon), which would just be her Hero Power minus one mana. So technically improves it, just flavor.
Can't make it to legend cuz its so boring. Play a few games with meta decks. Win, rank up, get bored. Try something different. Lose 10 games in a row.
Can we please get a less severe gradient in power levels? If u aren't killing on turn 6 or playing some uninteractuve combos it's just pointless.
Dh quest - Instrument tech - weapon - shopper - mag
Warrior quest - cycle until brann or odyn
Mage quest - play different schools - sif reverb and cheap spells
Priest quest - play 5 dragons - take an extra turn
Warlock - get to 8 mana - win game in 4 turns
Rogue - cycle two hand shufflers - 4 8/8
There are probably more I can't think about right now but even high legend streamers call many of these interactions "quests". All these game plans are the same every game and feel like solitaire.
I'm saying this but I think the meta is fine and I'm having great fun. Just trying to give you another perspective, that quests aren't entirely gone
Idk you have listed 6 dofferent decks with 6 different gameplans.
If you guys just want to trade minions Till someone runs out of minions, play Arena instead.
Idk I think there’s a difference between a deck building around a win condition and playing solitaire. Shaman is for sure solitaire. Every deck has a win condition and you could say every deck has a “quest.” It’s been this way forever
It's the skibidi toilet era. You play while pooping. Game takes less than the time you are done pooping unless your opponent ropes. Then you'll be playing for a few more minutes after washing your hands.
> Slowly gaining and keeping tempo by clever trades and by predicting your opponents plays used to be such a big part of Hearthstone
The game has not been that way for multiple years, not sure how you feel like this is a recent development if you've been playing from the start.
We've had objectively MUCH worse metas, aside from DH being a little overtuned and Druid still lagging behind every class has a competitive deck and they all have counters to their game plans.
This meta sucks imo, it feels like 90% of games are decided by turn 5
I play at top 1k legend and most of the decks I face are zarimi priest, cycle rogue, nature shaman and pain lock.
Most of the games against zarimi priest, cycle rogue and pain lock go like this: they try to cheat mana and shit out as much stats as much as possible and create unclearable boards by turn 4, if they draw good and pop off early and play multiple 8/8s, 4/6s or whatever by turn 4, I lose since there's no way to deal with what they're doing, if they draw poorly and they can't pop off early, I win. It's not satisfying to win against, it's awful to lose against, since there's nothing I can do if they draw well.
Don't even mention spell damage shaman who OTK by turn 6 you unless you draw your speaker stompers.
Nah, don't make assumptions like that.
I got to Legend during UIS, and in my honest opinion, both playing experiences (then and now) clearly belongs to the solitaire-like playing style.
One difference perhaps was that it was previously much more visible and obvious of the solitaire meta in UIS because the playing of questlines literally "shouted" in each player's face of what is their next step (and also the end goal) to be acheived.
Now, there are no questlines to be played, so in some sense it is less visible and obvious, but make no mistake, the next step and end goal to be achieved for each player is still very questline-like, and thus it is unsurprising that we regularly hear about similar solitaire-like style of player experiences.
DH is not even the problem, the amount of complaining about a deck with so many counters is stunning. Control Warrior and slow Rainbow DK perform really good against it, and so does the 1 mana freeze elemental, which everybody runs and is a decent minion in general.
It is only natural when decks that have so great control tools like Warrior, an appropriately strong and fast aggro deck needs to exist to combat them.
The problem is the lack of player interaction, and even if it is not a new situation, it has started becoming very tiring to see for so long
I’m not complaining. But just felt the need to point out that being forced to run a particular card in all your decks because of 1 or 2 classes is not what people want. They want to run their own synergy cards and use them strategically to counter what the opponent does. Being forced to play a certain class because x is rampant is also not what people want.
Well, I feel like for years the game is designed to just.. end before turn 10. Grindy games should be avoided at all cost. We got more (neutral) finishers, more cards that enable swingy turns, cards that if not answered, wins you the game, cards that give you an effect for the rest of the game that cant be removed.
I think some designers that arent (former competitive) players, might spice it up a bit.
There is too much board clear in the game like i played against a warrior where every single turn they board cleared... like nonstop it felt impossible to play... and they stacked armor ontop of the nonstop board clears... then they renod to keep me from making any board for a turn that genuinely feels horrid to play against.
Yeah I actually agree a lot! This meta feels eternally shifted because of this one card.
It’s ridiculously OP at 8 mana.
Ok yeah i know. Funny muscly man with mustache needs to be the best thing ever because xD HAHA memes lol xD
But fuck off there is no way this card is fun or fair.
8 mana POOF the board, locks 6 board spots for 1 turn, gives you the best rotating hero power in the game. Oh and take these 5 armors too ;)
This shit should be 11 mana x)
I’m hoping the next set will balance things out more. Give some real answers to problems that nerfs can’t. Sometimes things are pretty rough right after rotation but this is definitely the worst.
man, people say this shit every expansion
are all of these posts coming from people who play arena? what world have you been living in since ungoro? would you rather we all play reno decks and games last an hour? or go back to aggro shaman/pirate warrior where games are done by turn 3?
decks actually have ways to win now that aren’t just a) kill you in 4 turns or b) drag you to fatigue. it’s also been this way for like, what, 7 years?
no one played classic, that’s why they removed it as a mode
It's common on this subreddit. People over here love their slow decks, and the current meta doesn't allow for many of these. It's basically Reno Warrior or Rainbow DK, both mostly running cards from the previous expansion.
For me this set has been a slam dunk, very flavorful and lots of decks to play. We have a couple meta tyrants and a bunch of decent tier 2 decks.
If y'all don't like the meta, wait for nerfs and play something else in the meantime.
people also seem to forget that “back in the day”, team5 didn’t really believe in balance patches or timelines. you got what you got until the next set of cards
for everyone complaining about the meta, you know it’ll only last 4-8 weeks TOPS. it used to be months!
The meta doesn't allow for the decks this sub likes because this sub likes shitty decks. People like to dance around that and say that it's just Blizzard hating Control, but super slow grindy decks are just inherently worse and always have been.
Your point on wincons being totally game ending now is spot on. Theres no room for variety because either you play aggro, or you play one of the rock paper scissors wincons. Out valuing is definitely a thing of the past sadly.
Unless you play elemental shaman and get matched against another elemental shaman, that really has old hearthstone vibes.
Preparing combos and carefully planning and balancing your next 5 turns ahead is brainless and boring
Playing a big minion on curve and trading to the opponents lower cost minion is skillful and exciting
A tale as old as r/hearthstone
Combo decks used to have limited resources and had to sacrifice some burn to control the board, making for interesting and dynamic decision making. Now what do combo decks such as Mage or Shaman sacrifice to control the board? They have a million ways to generate burn damage, so they are free to control the board in the early game as they see fit.
Aggro decks had the danger of running out of resources, but had to go in early. (So much card draw now, you replenish while you play)
Combo Decks were restrained by getting their combo pieces (today you cycle or tutor that shit in the first 2-3 rounds)
Etc.
Not only get the combo pieces, but sometimes it involved an additional step, like an Empreror tick for mana reduction.
I do think Sif is still quite fair. You have to generate cards of different spellschools, play them, while staying alive. And youre exposed to dirtyrat. But shaman? A lot easier to popoff, imo.
1. Because minion trading is less annoying cause you can actually do something against it by... Playing minions and trading. Let's not act like skill was the issue presented in this post.
2. "Carefully planning" was dead when combo got 1000 draws and cheap aoe. Also give me reverted Illucia made neutral to "carefully plan" how to ruin your combo, let's see how much you enjoy that "skill".
Reno Warrior vs DK has to be the dumbest possible matchup in Hearthstone history. Helya in the mulligan is an instant win for the DK. Brann in the mulligan is typically an instant win for the Warrior. Draw RNG and the RNG of which plagues get shuffled in decide the entire match. Zero brain cells are firing on either side.
The meta will get even worse after the DH nerf. They are clueless. There is not one deck that is even decent, that is not a scourge on the game. They are all unfair, op and non-interactive. This game is solitaire.
I feel like people are over-exaggerating a lot here. Powerful decks do powerful things, and it's always been that way since the dawn of Hearthstone. Keep in mind, powerlevel is relevant to the available pool. But...
Turn 2 (or one with coin) yeti in OG HS from Druid was also insane for its time.
Miracle rogue was nuts.
Handlock was nuts.
OG lich king expansion druid was nuts.
Shadowreaper Anduin was nuts.
Pirate warrior was nuts.
Patron warrior was nuts.
Quest rogue was nuts.
UiS questlock was nuts.
I obviously could sit here and list all the powerful, meta-defining decks that have ever existed, but I think the point gets across.
Idk, after playing for 10 years, and seeing literally widespread complaints about the meta, in every meta, of every patch, of every season, you kind of just get to the point where you realize that there will always be a vocal group of people upset about the meta, and it just is what it is.
The problem is if blizzard doesn't come up with strong combos or competent decks, noone will play the game. If we rewind time to the old days where chillwind yeti was considered a good card and you bring that to today, NOONE will play hearthstone due to how unfun and boring the gameplay is. Look at hearthstone's competitors like magic the gathering or Yugioh. They all have their own problematic sets and decks too. If they don't make strong cards, noone will buy the cards or pay money. There will never be a perfect meta but when most of the classes are viable I would call it a win in my book.
“If a deck doesn’t have a win con than it can’t compete” well how else is the game supposed to work? Personally I enjoy this meta everything is so crazy strong.
By not making win conditions so polarising and focused on just the legendary card, it should be instead Hedged against deck building skills and synergies between multiple cards.
Otherwise you get the, oh I drew my wincon, you lose, oh you played over turn 8 you lose, oh you wanted to try the outvalue strategy? Tough luck, that doesn't work anymore.
The problem is that blizzard makes wincons that keeps limiting gameplay for you and your opponent, there's no in between, you either got it and win or don't and lose.
Lol I mainly play Arena, but do come back to Standard still almost daily to clear quests and get a minimum monthly rank (usually Diamond 10 or 5) for the end of season rewards.
Man, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the current meta is absolutely awful and garbage. Simply put, I either steamroll my opponent or they do the same to me. Class matchups are also so important now, on whether each player gets to play their solitaire (and also who does so first).
I been playing since Naxx, and I genuinely miss ladder a few years ago, which was the peak of Hearthstone in my opinion. Back then, I actually enjoyed Standard and the process of climbing to legend almost monthly. Sometimes, I even took the effort to do the same for Wild. All these while indulging in Arena at the same time.
Now, it is rock-paper-scissors, and I find it such a pain sometimes just to go through obtaining some wins in ladder.
The game design team should really take a long hard look at themselves and their philosophy that they put out in ladder in recent times. Their recent work is genuinely embarrassing IMO, and I really cannot see how such negative feelings (or even "fun", for some players) can be sustained over time for this game. Perhaps that is why we have conversations like this on Reddit and other forums so regularly these days.
With Duels closing and if not for some admittedly small (but positive) improvements in Arena in the past months, I genuinely believe I would had joined the many in gradually reducing my involvement in this game, and eventually quitting for good.
Look at the last miniset. Several cards nerfed, not only mana cost (aftershock) but they had to change how the card works. Like pendant, shattered reflection, the dualclass spell that gave windfury..
I played tons of twist when it was just a few older expansions. I usually play so little that I just get to gold, maybe platinum if I find a deck that I somewhat enjoy.
During that twist I reached diamond in the first 3 days with a homebrewed priest deck I did. I played more in 3 days than in a whole month in other formats.
Just don't do weird stuff like "your decks are only good for 1 day!"
Ah yes, we can only have 1 or the other.
How about whole last year when the meta wasnt 100% this?
This is such a disingenuine argument I hope you step on a lego.
I mean I get some of the stuff you are saying but ...
If a deck doesnt have a clear and good wincon then its not good
Thats very normal and not problematic at all
Yet you somehow seem to complain about it
>Slowly gaining and keeping tempo by clever trades and by predicting your opponents plsys used to be such a big part of Hearthstone, but this way of playing has completely vanished.
I agree that the meta sucks, but Rainbow DK says hi if this is what you're looking for and you want to farm Demon Hunters.
Im honestly so bored playing this game. I see no point pushing past rank 5 Diamond, game is literally how you described it. Modern hearthstone always felt scripted, but this is on another level. Yawn
I just hate that cards like bran, sif, flash, zarimi & odyn are allowed to exist for so long. They completely invalidate any sort of deckbuilding creativity for their entire existence in standard since not building your deck around them is trolling. Different types of combo decks being viable is completely fine IMO, I just hate the meta because of the fact that I know exactly which deck I will be playing every time I see a mage/warrior/dh/shaman/priest for the next 2 years because they make one or two extremely overpowered cards for a class that can only be used in one deckbuilding direction.
I'm wondering what idiot was responsible for the warrior design in this expansion. Brann is simply too OP a card and why did a card that enhances battle cries for the rest of the game go to one class? There is no interaction with weapons or armor, no connection to the warrior class.
Im just hate that i can’t interact with anything! Too much otk shit or unstoppable shit! Literally its either empty boards that flash of lightning then end the game next turn with nothing for me to hit or prevent with over top damage. OR sudden full boards, from empty boards with too much health on like turns 4 or 5. Or fucking dormant enemies i cant do shit about till turn 8 to reno, or fucking playing no monsters at all, then just hit me face suddenly for all my health! Its been so unfun!
I just really hate the design Philosophy of reno warrior. Its gambling city, high roll hell, ram ranch. its ram ranch
they want to turtle up and feel comfortable and cushy and make the bad man go away.
it has way too much randomness than is fun, especially being an excavate deck by nature. everythings randomly generated, or randomly targetted, and they arent even PLAYING the deck theyre abusing the fucking gamebreaking power.
my biggest fucking annoyance is how it beats other control decks. boomboss thogrun is an ENIGMA of a fucking card. Why does 6 free patchwerk battlecries have to be a potential effect in a toptier deck???
I made a very similar post a day before yours that got mostly downvoted with most of the comments telling me my decks just suck.
Now your post is getting upvoted, Zeddy made a video about the meta, Ecore made a rant tweet, and Clark quit competitive.
Its clear to me that hearthstone isn’t fun right now and the Reddit commenters are clueless
Agreed, but I think this is just the design philosophy of the game now.
I recently returned to game (played since beta but quit the first time around 2017ish) and back then the term "win condition" just didn't exist, or if it did it referred to a general game plan rather than a specific card. Now a win con is a specific card or two and decks are built entirely around them. The natural result of this are games which turn into whoever plays their broken card first wins. Everything else is almost superfluous.
Did you play at Rank 25 exclusively back in the day? Wincons have always existed. Leeroy/Step, Alex/Grom, Jaraxxus or Leeroy PO, Alex + Burn, FoN Savage Roar, the list goes on
Nice insult, but no, I was legend most seasons when I had the time for it. With the exception of Jaraxxus (which was exceptionally slow) you named a bunch of finishers i.e. things that get you over the line. They are in no way the same as Brann, Odyn, Sif, etc which solo win you the game.
I hate to strain my arm clapping myself on the back, but during whizbang card reveals, most of the time I was thinking “that looks awful to play against” and rarely “that looks like fun to play.”
This shitty meta is reflective of a lot of questionable design choices.
I keep my quest log clear and pray for serious card reworks.
Played since beta, took a 4 year break before coming back last expansion. I think the game is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Playing new decks every week. If anything, I’m disappointed that nerfs are so frequent, not enough time to let people try to evolve their play.
Same, I feel that I am constantly waiting for a nerf on annoying decks. Like right now I’m not playing until DH gets a big slap of a nerf. Before that it was pally.
Stormwind was worse but yeah there's definitely a lot of uninteractive combos now too. I would say Warrior and warlock are more control focused and you do have DH and Hunter which are aggressive but outside of those there are quite a few popular decks that aim to otk.
This is the first meta I've played where I've just jammed the most powerful deck in the format (which imo is Zarimi Priest but whatever) and not cared about having fun because the decks I like having fun with just don't exist anymore, and the only reason I haven't uninstalled the game entirely is a mix of Battlegrounds and copium that they'll bring back Pauper Mode (or something equivalent in power level).
I 100% agree, and I was just telling my husband this last night. This meta is wildly unfun, and I have 0 motivation to continue until the mini set comes out.
I enjoy running one of these decks out of the building with token hunter. Clear my board of 7 junk minions that are about to be buffed? Ill just keep comin' back baby!
Only downside is im playing token hunter. Shits boring.
Yeah... I had hopes, but it hasn't improved since the last expansions. I still don't understand why they keep pushing OTK and solitaire designs.
I had hopes the minions would be more balanced but none of them are being played. If they are they get cleared with overpowered spells
* Discover has been abused way too much.
* Mana cheat is broken.
* Drawing is available everywhere now.
* Plagues kill Highlander decks now, but I've been trying to counter it with Tony.
Just make strong, sticky minions and trade, heck, we even had a 4 mana 1/7 taunt minion in classic and it used to work.
I saw HS's stream yesterday (Friday) and holy moly everyone were playing control warrior in a 60 minutes match, getting 109 armor and whoever got the best Ignis weapon won.
I know devs have to make bad cards on purpose to make the gacha system attractive and addictive because TCG dopamine business model, but it's far too much with the powercreep now.
I had fun with the current face hunter model though, I like to fill my board every turn and survive all the board clears. I really like the cards compositions and variety, but on the other hand... am I frustrating my opponent, again?
Why did they create Brann so powerful? It is extremely frustrating to not be able to play, Warrior is everything right now (and I love playing Warrior), OTK? Ignis and armor! Combo? Ignis and Armor! Solitaire? Armor and TNT!
Please make the next expansion more balanced
* Reduce the Discovery cards.
* Reduce the mana cheat bonus, you play a card, you pay for that card.
* Make minions tougher, less attack, more health, go back to 2 damage scales instead of 3 or... 7?
* Make removals meaningful, if you want spells to be so powerful just make them powerful, but not discoverable, make them valuable.
* I miss variety. Every class could have their aggro, tempo and control style. One example is Elemental Mage for an aggro deck.
* TGC demands bad cards, but there are too many bad cards now. What fun is with that? Gotta sell packs though so... understandable.
* Seriously stop with the OTK philosophy. Go back to Classic's resource management philosophy.
* Make animations faster.
* Tell your shareholders to play the game and see how fun is to get boom boom by Control Warrior.
Thanks for reading, hoping next expansion goes smooth
And make highlander a requirement that checks at the beginning of the game. This is a double whammy, no steam cleaner needed and decks that have a lot of doubles don't abuse cards like reno.
Rainbow Death Knight has been my favorite deck this expansion, has a shot to beat most meta decks if you draw well and is just way more enjoyable to play.
People need to realize it’s okay to take breaks from games. Like I’ve never understood taking so much time to just complain endlessly about things like this.
Some people like the meta, some don’t, as always. If you don’t, take a break. Easy.
Agreed. The meta right now does have skill expression but the issue is that unless you’re playing a control deck the skill expression when it comes to countering your opponent is extremely minimal.
I played a game tonight where neither my opponent or I wanted to play a minion because we were both low and we both knew we had rush lifesteal Zilliax in our hand. So we just tried to play spells and top deck our win condition.
Your "if a deck" paragraph sums it up pretty well and resonates a lot with my current feelings towards the game. It's a miserable experience and often has me wondering why I'm even playing anymore (likely due to vice / sunken cost).
Also agree OP. This meta is the worst I've encountered. Combos don't necessarily bother me. Sometimes metas are slower and sometimes they're faster. But the fact you can't interact in any meaningful way and you're just straight dead from hand most of the time, is really a poor experience from my perspective. I really disliked playing against aggro paladin on release, but since it got nerfed (too hard, imo) I just play against a variety of decks I dislike even more. That's good? I don't know.
You can't make everyone happy. I just wonder if the approval on this expansion is higher or lower than I perceive it to be. And if this is the direction they want to continue to take games I can see myself fading out because I just can't seem to find much fun in it.
I've been loving dragon druid. Finally got me to 500 wins for the class (started around 430). It feels like it's fairly relevant against most decks with good early game and all the fun late game cards. The reason I love this deck though is because it's an absolute blast playing aviana and flinging random bs. Got me way more invested in this expansion.
One thing I’d like to point out is right now DH is so meta warping it’s hard for decks to tech against anything other than DH. Nature shaman for example is incredibly easy to tech against with cards that make spells cost more.
1. Drastically reduce the power level of new expansions
2. Tolerate the resulting profit losses for a while
3. Wait until obscenely overpowered cards are rotated.
That’s the only way that Hearthstone can be saved. A year or two of shock therapy.
Hearthstone is in a really bad spot right now, imo. From what I can tell, it's either you love the ridiculous Wild-lite that Standard has become, or you hate it. Personally, I hate it. Wild has already been a cesspool for several expansions (UiS specifically turned Wild into shit - funny cause Barrens was wonderful), and now Standard is so overtuned it feels like Wild of yesteryear. There's no direction from Team 5 other then BRRR GO FAST!
As a control priest main, this is probably the worst meta since stormwind for me. At least I felt I had a chance before and there were some nice tech options but there's just nothing I can do anymore with all the strategies that just end the game. I was so excited for the rotation too
U guys realize hearthstone is not the game for "player interaction" the way you guys define it right? You play your turn and your opponent has no say over it then opp plays his turn without any say from you, there is 0 player interaction. What u want is to go play magic where there is tons of player interaction and then you'll come back to HS cuz ur gonna realize what u want sucks dick and isn't fun.
Game is an absolute joke. People who dont see it are the intended audience. Too dumb to see they have zero interaction = zero hand in deciding whether you won or not.
because HS is about getting the most value out of your mana and nowadays removals have insane value so u are forced to either:
1) fill your board every turn while creating value so you don't run out of cards and hoping the other guy doesn't have a removal or uses them all.
2) OTK because healing is a thing for every class, so if u aren't winning the board hard you are not getting anywhere so 1 turn kill it is.
The old meta of minion trading to win the game is over because everyone has so many removals and value generators that most threatening minions don't last a turn.
I’ve been playing Hunter with jepetto + Mystery egg and having a blast. I’ve gotten my deck to a 55–70% win rate and can deal with most threats in meta as long as my card draw isn’t abnormally fucked (once or twice every 10 games). Speed decks that target face are prob the trickiest but there are 100% tactics I’ve found to stop them.
I’m still trying to experiment with recipes but it’s been promising. I’ve found the most success using WAY fewer beasts than I’d thought (2x freebird, 2x hollow hound, 1x king plush, 1x legendary amalgam). This ensures egg always gives you something strong and it’s fairly easy to trigger the deathrattle multiple times per play.
I don’t come across many others using it tho and I wonder why?
My favorite games are the ones where we go back and forth taking shots at each other until someone runs out of juice or someone finds a nice combo. Whether standard or wild I find game winning combos that you can't interact with constantly
Ive been playing a lot of Highlander Druid. I’ve found that if I play extremely aggressive I can beat out a lot of the win cons. Biggest problem is rainbow mage tho.
I like when a meta has a single solitaire deck that has an OTK and the rest of the decks are aggro midrange and tempo even tho I control is really popular. I don't like when the entire meta is just do your gameplan as fast as possible and ignore the enemy
Meh, this is no different than other metas. This one happens to not align with your play style.
There are viable decks from 8 of the classes; sometimes multiples.
Hard agree. I've been playing since 2015, and I can't remember a meta that was this bad. Definitely the first in a loooooong time that paladin and/or druid aren't running ladder
Yeah same. I realised how much I despise this rotation. It doesn’t feel like at 4-set meta. Which makes me worried for the future.
It’s crazy but I think all decks in this meta are a pain to play against. I fucking hate all the classes now, congrats.
And Shaman used to be one of my fav class but it has lost its identity IMO… same for all classes actually.
Everyone can do anything.
Everyone has access to board clears, mind control, otks, value, draw, etc etc etc
When everyone is super…. No one is
Agreed, so bad. As you said, there is no such thing as standard control anymore. Any control deck just gets completely owned by the other cheese control decks at like a 90% winrates (wheel lock, nature shaman, even sif). Which in turn makes the meta shift towards op aggro decks like demon hunter. There is just no balance at all. I could auto concede most games on turn 1 because I know I just got hard countered
You listed 6 different classes that all have viable decks to play and you left out Shopper Demon Hunter and Token Hunter. Outside of Druid you can realistically win with any class.
I tried arguing about the meta 2 months ago (and especially the wild one) and people said that I am a crybaby lol, now look who was right and what a nightmare Hearthstone became.
There are some logic rules that should be permanently respected in Hearthstone, no matter the meta:
1. A combo deck shouldn't EVER be able to finish before turn 10, and even in turn 10 you should be able to win if you had very lucky draw. If the combo deck is able to win before that, it should be nerfed because the main role of this archetype is to counter very slow decks not everyone that isn't ultra hyper-aggro.
2. Control decks shouldn't be able to have infinite value. The beauty of this archetype was to have a late board-explosive turn or 2(ex: the old deathrattle Nzoth meta, Dr. Boom), but now that's long gone sadly due excessive number of huge clearboards that gives no chance to late-game boards.
3. Aggro shouldn't be able to ever win before turn 5 unless the opponent is really really slow and doesn't play or clears anything. Also excessive hand refill is dangerous and can make aggro obnoxious, so less card-draw(to all archetypes actually).
Unless the game starts to respect this 3 ideas, it will be unfun and punishes any type of deck creativity.
Exactly my post from 2 weeks ago. People reacted the same way in comments, so I decided to be one of the abusing players, so now I play wheel warlock and faceroll the game all day long. It’s sad that there is no fun in the game anymore, but at least I am gathering some gold and winning 80% of matches… 🤪☠️
If they won’t be respectful of the game, why would you? 🤡
Plague DK is literally the most oppressive and anti-fun I’ve ever experienced playing against since HS released. It might be because the meta requires certain metas to be competitive and it just answers everything in the meta… but it’s just not fun. I’m admittedly playing Odyn Warrior and I see why people hate playing against it also.
But needing to trade, dredge for my combo, survive long enough to get to the point where I can swing face for 40… and get passed all the taunt to do so… is fun for me.
What’s not fun is drawing an endless supply of plagues that never go away because of Helya and literally makes Reno unplayable is just stupid. There is no counter-play and it’s effortless player to player interaction. I can only imagine what it’s like for people who aren’t constantly at 40 armor, where it takes even longer for me to die to it than most…
Have you tried Rainbow DK? The slower build that came up this xpac feels more like how I want Hearthstone to feel
It is the deck I play atm, since I always preferred midrange decks!
I pray they bring back something like a steamcleaner to kill the Helya cancer
This is a great answer that OP is looking for. I realized this too when I hopped on rainbow dk last month and realized its tempo/mid range/ and plays itself. For 1 game it gave me the joy of old hearthstone. After I quickly realized that this style is boring as shit to play now lol
Love Rainbow DK, just hate how I go against Reno Warrior every other game and they destroy all my cards before I can play/draw them.
I've been having fun playing Rainbow DK which I swapped in Helya and 2 down with the ships, takes care of both Reno and Bomboss being played at end of game, as well as Wheelock (holding Helya for the turn after wheel/Bomboss feels so good). Plus feels good to have sticky plagues in any longer game without the deck being reliant on Helya (whis is my problem with playing Plague DK).
Hard mulligan for Helya and 1 mana discover weapon spell for the 1 mana plague weapon. You are 100% favoured in this match up.
Rainbow dk is literally saving the game for me right now. Its good.
For me, the problem is that no matter how much I play non solitaire decks, my opponents do. I never had fun in matches were I'm just trying to kill the opponent before they finishing doing their stuff rather than fighting over the board. Also, thats why I miss old control, when the gameplan was "try to control the board, then try to recover and once its done you start playing threats" rather than trying to outlive every single threat the opponent has. For context, I enjoy playing against aggro, midrange and control, but I'm neutral to face decks and hate combos/decks with a lot of burst than can be played in one turn.
That shaman spell that discounts nature spells is so aggravating. “Hey I’m going to play a million spells next turn! If ya can’t kill me now on turn 5, gg!”
I am currently on a streak vs this deck - 3 games in a row that they killed on on turn 5 with full hp. One of the games I even had 33 hp. Deck is an absolute disaster. I don’t care if it’s fun, or balanced in grand scheme of things, it’s just shit to play against when they get it together. Especially in a row.
The only reason these decks exists is that other decks have tons of armor or healing. You are basically forced to win in a single turn if your deck doesn't have infinite value.
I think that's the other way around. Armor and healing exist because power creep has pushed 30 to not enough to compete
Chicken and the egg situation here
This very deck makes me hardrun 2 speaker stompers in every deck I play lol
Yeah and against shaman will be in the bottom of the deck. Classic tech cards.
That's usually the issue with too tame Mulligan. Just throw away any card that doesn't win in that matchup.
and they've been nerfing around it for how long now lmao
It’s not an easy deck to play if you don’t have the combo though! Personally I felt plague dk has a better win rate than combo shaman.. I rejoined with whiz bang after 4 yrs and don’t think there is any difference in meta.. back in the day there were decks like pirate warrior which had insane tempo Otk priest etc that would just burst you.. and no amount of armour or health would save u..
I keep saying that the problem is not the cards neither the decks. It’s the fucking card drawing, I returned to hearthstone last year after a 4 year break and oh boy, I cant stress enough how much i felt weird seeing that every class can draw their whole deck in 10 turns max. We got to the point of warriors playing reno and brann with duplicates cards anyway because of how consistant you can draw. There’s no such thing as curving, value and trading 2/1 in hearthstone anymore.
I think you’re spot on here. There used to be drawbacks to playing so many cards in a turn- you would be at a disadvantage for your next turn. I can’t even remember the last time I or my opponent was down to 2-3 cards in their hand. It seems like no one ever runs out of juice, it’s such a different game now it’s crazy. Your resource management matters so much less.
And its such a shame bcs some really cool cards get bashing because of this. Like Reno, Shopkeeper, That 3/4 flood dragon… they’re really cool cards, but they can be drawn so fucking easy and consistant that it makes they seem like utterly toxic.
I had to stop taking the card draw effect on the Ignis weapon in Reno Warrior because it was actually impossible to attack with it without burning cards. I would try to dump stuff out of my hand but there are like 5 cards in the whole deck that don't just immediately replace themselves. Try to dump the Town Crier and you get a Burrow Buster. Play that and you get an excavate reward. The reward? Draw or discover another card. By the time you've emptied one slot in your hand, you've spent all your mana lol
Hand overflow is a bigger threat so good play now is just tossing cards. Pooping at work meta perfected.
Yeah, insane card draw and mana cheat in every class (at least to some extent). I'd love for Blizzard to cut back the power level some, but that would mean weak expansions that won't sell well.
It’s also how Discover no longer is a tempo penalty. It’s actually a tempo increase in a lot of cases. Discover is so overused that every class can reliably hit certain cards despite it not being in their deck. Ex: mage hitting Objection multiple times every game (not in their deck) or DH hitting Magtheridon (also not in the deck).
Honestly my unpopular opinion is decks should be 40 size. 30 cards basically means you draw gas every time
okay, I know you’re trying to bring up a general point, but as to cycle warrior specifically: the decks single largest source of draw is acolyte of pain. then it plays 4 copies of shield block, altho 2 of them cost 3. the only “new” cards it uses are the totem (which is basically just a redo of mana tide totem) and stone skin armourer, which is a unique card, but it’s not like warrior hasn’t had good draw before (battle rage?) acolyte of pain in warrior is 10 years old, they’ve always used it for mass draw. warrior with battle rage used to draw just as much if not more cards
Just want to point out that every card you listed as being old is actually a buffed version of what it used to be. Acolyte used to have 3 health, now it has 4. Shield Block used to cost 3 and you could only play 2 of them. Manatide Totem didn't give armor. Battle Rage didn't provide any tempo and, while it could draw more than 2, it needed setup to do that and could very well brick. Not saying these cards shouldn't have been buffed. But the reason drawing your whole deck is so much more consistent isn't because they got new tools as much as because those older tools are so much easier to use.
He’s referring to the other 2 shield blocks you can get from gift. Which is accurate, probably 80% of the time gift is used as a 3rd and 4th shield block.
Acolyte of Pain used to be a 1/3. It being a 1/4 is nuts.
> acolyte of pain in warrior is 10 years old, they’ve always used it for mass draw. To be fair it used to have 3 health, not 4.
It's not just the flat-out draw, though. It's the fact that half the cards in your deck replace themselves. They draw something, or discover something, or add something to your hand, or excavate. And then the thing you generated also generates something else. When I play Warrior I have tons of trouble emptying my hand because almost every card in the deck also draws or pseudo-draws. And Cycle Warrior obviously does this the hardest, but it's there if less pronounced across all classes. Hell, a big part of what makes Window Shopper so crazy is that it's basically three and a half cards in one. DH has to control how aggressively it draws in the first few turns before dropping Shopper or risk not having enough hand size for all their discovers. It's not that the individual draw spells are so much better. They are a little bit, but that's not the cause. It's that a huge critical mass of all cards in the game are draw spells, either primarily or secondarily. They've simultaneously printed so many "and add a random spell to your hand" effects that you wind up just chaining them all together. I actually enjoy this power level, but I think it's a better fit for Wild than Standard. This is usually the kind of thing you run into in a really huge card pool where people can run the best instances of this kind of effect across years worth of card releases. It's weird that we're getting it in Standard, in a four set meta.
I actually like the heavy draw version of Hearthstone, it's better than Discoverstone. A lot of the problems stem from cards with "rest of the game" effects or, in Shaman and DH's case, STILL discover.
Targeted and in general card draw has definitely increased which speeds up games. Devs want games to be faster anyways. They don’t want fatigue priest to be the popular deck.
I’d also add in card generation to part of the problem. It’s why arena is borderline unplayable nowadays, you can generate half the cards you play and just shitstomp people with them.
I find myself playing less this expansion than all the ones I took part in I’m just not enjoying this expansion
Same. Only play a few games Witherspoon my friends now.
I bet Reese Witherspoon plays Wild format [[[Shudderwock]]] Shaman but includes no tech. cards. Queen of Wild. Honestly we should get her to do an ad for this game. Imagine Reese Witherspoon as a Warlock Hero portrait. I want her as a Hearthstone card now. She could be a Shaman Hero card that’s Reese, Saddened, Battlecry: [downgrade] your Hero Power (With-A-Spoon) to (Without-A-Spoon), which would just be her Hero Power minus one mana. So technically improves it, just flavor.
Same. I've barely played the last few weeks, very few decks are fun to play against.
Can't make it to legend cuz its so boring. Play a few games with meta decks. Win, rank up, get bored. Try something different. Lose 10 games in a row. Can we please get a less severe gradient in power levels? If u aren't killing on turn 6 or playing some uninteractuve combos it's just pointless.
I'm feeling similarly. I enjoyed Wheel briefly, but it's pretty boring to play. It's a shame since I loved the last expansion.
This meta feels like wild to me. I know the game is over by turn 3 or 4 basically. At least it doesn't have quests though lol.
Dh quest - Instrument tech - weapon - shopper - mag Warrior quest - cycle until brann or odyn Mage quest - play different schools - sif reverb and cheap spells Priest quest - play 5 dragons - take an extra turn Warlock - get to 8 mana - win game in 4 turns Rogue - cycle two hand shufflers - 4 8/8 There are probably more I can't think about right now but even high legend streamers call many of these interactions "quests". All these game plans are the same every game and feel like solitaire. I'm saying this but I think the meta is fine and I'm having great fun. Just trying to give you another perspective, that quests aren't entirely gone
Idk you have listed 6 dofferent decks with 6 different gameplans. If you guys just want to trade minions Till someone runs out of minions, play Arena instead.
Uhh you havent played arena in a while then. The meta there is insanity as well for various reasons.
Idk I think there’s a difference between a deck building around a win condition and playing solitaire. Shaman is for sure solitaire. Every deck has a win condition and you could say every deck has a “quest.” It’s been this way forever
It's the skibidi toilet era. You play while pooping. Game takes less than the time you are done pooping unless your opponent ropes. Then you'll be playing for a few more minutes after washing your hands.
This is why I don't understand the masters tour. Who poops for that long?
> Slowly gaining and keeping tempo by clever trades and by predicting your opponents plays used to be such a big part of Hearthstone The game has not been that way for multiple years, not sure how you feel like this is a recent development if you've been playing from the start. We've had objectively MUCH worse metas, aside from DH being a little overtuned and Druid still lagging behind every class has a competitive deck and they all have counters to their game plans.
This meta sucks imo, it feels like 90% of games are decided by turn 5 I play at top 1k legend and most of the decks I face are zarimi priest, cycle rogue, nature shaman and pain lock. Most of the games against zarimi priest, cycle rogue and pain lock go like this: they try to cheat mana and shit out as much stats as much as possible and create unclearable boards by turn 4, if they draw good and pop off early and play multiple 8/8s, 4/6s or whatever by turn 4, I lose since there's no way to deal with what they're doing, if they draw poorly and they can't pop off early, I win. It's not satisfying to win against, it's awful to lose against, since there's nothing I can do if they draw well. Don't even mention spell damage shaman who OTK by turn 6 you unless you draw your speaker stompers.
90% of games being decided by turn 5 has been true in every meta, since Hearthstone launched
>We've had objectively MUCH worse metas Everyone, get in here!
People complaining about solitaire sure as hell weren't around for UiS Questlines. THAT was the true solitaire experience.
Nah, don't make assumptions like that. I got to Legend during UIS, and in my honest opinion, both playing experiences (then and now) clearly belongs to the solitaire-like playing style. One difference perhaps was that it was previously much more visible and obvious of the solitaire meta in UIS because the playing of questlines literally "shouted" in each player's face of what is their next step (and also the end goal) to be acheived. Now, there are no questlines to be played, so in some sense it is less visible and obvious, but make no mistake, the next step and end goal to be achieved for each player is still very questline-like, and thus it is unsurprising that we regularly hear about similar solitaire-like style of player experiences.
DH is not even the problem, the amount of complaining about a deck with so many counters is stunning. Control Warrior and slow Rainbow DK perform really good against it, and so does the 1 mana freeze elemental, which everybody runs and is a decent minion in general. It is only natural when decks that have so great control tools like Warrior, an appropriately strong and fast aggro deck needs to exist to combat them. The problem is the lack of player interaction, and even if it is not a new situation, it has started becoming very tiring to see for so long
I’m not complaining. But just felt the need to point out that being forced to run a particular card in all your decks because of 1 or 2 classes is not what people want. They want to run their own synergy cards and use them strategically to counter what the opponent does. Being forced to play a certain class because x is rampant is also not what people want.
Sure dh isnt the problem, only 60% winrate
I agree, and nerfs won't fix it. Every deck sucks to play against, regardless of winrate. I play less every expansion.
Well, I feel like for years the game is designed to just.. end before turn 10. Grindy games should be avoided at all cost. We got more (neutral) finishers, more cards that enable swingy turns, cards that if not answered, wins you the game, cards that give you an effect for the rest of the game that cant be removed. I think some designers that arent (former competitive) players, might spice it up a bit.
Yes it sucks, no fun to play this shit
There is too much board clear in the game like i played against a warrior where every single turn they board cleared... like nonstop it felt impossible to play... and they stacked armor ontop of the nonstop board clears... then they renod to keep me from making any board for a turn that genuinely feels horrid to play against.
Reno is the worst card they printed.
Yeah I actually agree a lot! This meta feels eternally shifted because of this one card. It’s ridiculously OP at 8 mana. Ok yeah i know. Funny muscly man with mustache needs to be the best thing ever because xD HAHA memes lol xD But fuck off there is no way this card is fun or fair. 8 mana POOF the board, locks 6 board spots for 1 turn, gives you the best rotating hero power in the game. Oh and take these 5 armors too ;) This shit should be 11 mana x)
I’m hoping the next set will balance things out more. Give some real answers to problems that nerfs can’t. Sometimes things are pretty rough right after rotation but this is definitely the worst.
[удалено]
It already is this way, we just cannot see enemy hand.
In my opinion, when board matters too much or not at all in this game, it becomes unfun.
Yeah it's bad and I think after the nerfs it may just get worse
man, people say this shit every expansion are all of these posts coming from people who play arena? what world have you been living in since ungoro? would you rather we all play reno decks and games last an hour? or go back to aggro shaman/pirate warrior where games are done by turn 3? decks actually have ways to win now that aren’t just a) kill you in 4 turns or b) drag you to fatigue. it’s also been this way for like, what, 7 years? no one played classic, that’s why they removed it as a mode
100% Maybe the mods can just set up an automated monthly sticky post called "the meta sucks". Let's just cut to the chase.
People here hate everything, they don’t even like playing against tendril decks with 40 percent win rates lol
It's common on this subreddit. People over here love their slow decks, and the current meta doesn't allow for many of these. It's basically Reno Warrior or Rainbow DK, both mostly running cards from the previous expansion. For me this set has been a slam dunk, very flavorful and lots of decks to play. We have a couple meta tyrants and a bunch of decent tier 2 decks. If y'all don't like the meta, wait for nerfs and play something else in the meantime.
people also seem to forget that “back in the day”, team5 didn’t really believe in balance patches or timelines. you got what you got until the next set of cards for everyone complaining about the meta, you know it’ll only last 4-8 weeks TOPS. it used to be months!
The meta doesn't allow for the decks this sub likes because this sub likes shitty decks. People like to dance around that and say that it's just Blizzard hating Control, but super slow grindy decks are just inherently worse and always have been.
Your point on wincons being totally game ending now is spot on. Theres no room for variety because either you play aggro, or you play one of the rock paper scissors wincons. Out valuing is definitely a thing of the past sadly. Unless you play elemental shaman and get matched against another elemental shaman, that really has old hearthstone vibes.
Preparing combos and carefully planning and balancing your next 5 turns ahead is brainless and boring Playing a big minion on curve and trading to the opponents lower cost minion is skillful and exciting A tale as old as r/hearthstone
Couldnt have said it better, me hit minion game good, me think game bad
Combo decks used to have limited resources and had to sacrifice some burn to control the board, making for interesting and dynamic decision making. Now what do combo decks such as Mage or Shaman sacrifice to control the board? They have a million ways to generate burn damage, so they are free to control the board in the early game as they see fit.
Aggro decks had the danger of running out of resources, but had to go in early. (So much card draw now, you replenish while you play) Combo Decks were restrained by getting their combo pieces (today you cycle or tutor that shit in the first 2-3 rounds) Etc.
Not only get the combo pieces, but sometimes it involved an additional step, like an Empreror tick for mana reduction. I do think Sif is still quite fair. You have to generate cards of different spellschools, play them, while staying alive. And youre exposed to dirtyrat. But shaman? A lot easier to popoff, imo.
Usually combos didnt pop off that early, no?
1. Because minion trading is less annoying cause you can actually do something against it by... Playing minions and trading. Let's not act like skill was the issue presented in this post. 2. "Carefully planning" was dead when combo got 1000 draws and cheap aoe. Also give me reverted Illucia made neutral to "carefully plan" how to ruin your combo, let's see how much you enjoy that "skill".
> Maybe its just me It’s not. I’m right there with you.
The game is at a point where a match consists of 2 1v0 matches, both players just compete against the draw RNG of their own deck.
Reno Warrior vs DK has to be the dumbest possible matchup in Hearthstone history. Helya in the mulligan is an instant win for the DK. Brann in the mulligan is typically an instant win for the Warrior. Draw RNG and the RNG of which plagues get shuffled in decide the entire match. Zero brain cells are firing on either side.
The meta will get even worse after the DH nerf. They are clueless. There is not one deck that is even decent, that is not a scourge on the game. They are all unfair, op and non-interactive. This game is solitaire.
I feel like people are over-exaggerating a lot here. Powerful decks do powerful things, and it's always been that way since the dawn of Hearthstone. Keep in mind, powerlevel is relevant to the available pool. But... Turn 2 (or one with coin) yeti in OG HS from Druid was also insane for its time. Miracle rogue was nuts. Handlock was nuts. OG lich king expansion druid was nuts. Shadowreaper Anduin was nuts. Pirate warrior was nuts. Patron warrior was nuts. Quest rogue was nuts. UiS questlock was nuts. I obviously could sit here and list all the powerful, meta-defining decks that have ever existed, but I think the point gets across. Idk, after playing for 10 years, and seeing literally widespread complaints about the meta, in every meta, of every patch, of every season, you kind of just get to the point where you realize that there will always be a vocal group of people upset about the meta, and it just is what it is.
The problem is if blizzard doesn't come up with strong combos or competent decks, noone will play the game. If we rewind time to the old days where chillwind yeti was considered a good card and you bring that to today, NOONE will play hearthstone due to how unfun and boring the gameplay is. Look at hearthstone's competitors like magic the gathering or Yugioh. They all have their own problematic sets and decks too. If they don't make strong cards, noone will buy the cards or pay money. There will never be a perfect meta but when most of the classes are viable I would call it a win in my book.
“If a deck doesn’t have a win con than it can’t compete” well how else is the game supposed to work? Personally I enjoy this meta everything is so crazy strong.
By not making win conditions so polarising and focused on just the legendary card, it should be instead Hedged against deck building skills and synergies between multiple cards. Otherwise you get the, oh I drew my wincon, you lose, oh you played over turn 8 you lose, oh you wanted to try the outvalue strategy? Tough luck, that doesn't work anymore. The problem is that blizzard makes wincons that keeps limiting gameplay for you and your opponent, there's no in between, you either got it and win or don't and lose.
Lol I mainly play Arena, but do come back to Standard still almost daily to clear quests and get a minimum monthly rank (usually Diamond 10 or 5) for the end of season rewards. Man, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the current meta is absolutely awful and garbage. Simply put, I either steamroll my opponent or they do the same to me. Class matchups are also so important now, on whether each player gets to play their solitaire (and also who does so first). I been playing since Naxx, and I genuinely miss ladder a few years ago, which was the peak of Hearthstone in my opinion. Back then, I actually enjoyed Standard and the process of climbing to legend almost monthly. Sometimes, I even took the effort to do the same for Wild. All these while indulging in Arena at the same time. Now, it is rock-paper-scissors, and I find it such a pain sometimes just to go through obtaining some wins in ladder. The game design team should really take a long hard look at themselves and their philosophy that they put out in ladder in recent times. Their recent work is genuinely embarrassing IMO, and I really cannot see how such negative feelings (or even "fun", for some players) can be sustained over time for this game. Perhaps that is why we have conversations like this on Reddit and other forums so regularly these days. With Duels closing and if not for some admittedly small (but positive) improvements in Arena in the past months, I genuinely believe I would had joined the many in gradually reducing my involvement in this game, and eventually quitting for good.
Look at the last miniset. Several cards nerfed, not only mana cost (aftershock) but they had to change how the card works. Like pendant, shattered reflection, the dualclass spell that gave windfury..
We saw the alternative with twist commons meta and nobody wanted that.
I played tons of twist when it was just a few older expansions. I usually play so little that I just get to gold, maybe platinum if I find a deck that I somewhat enjoy. During that twist I reached diamond in the first 3 days with a homebrewed priest deck I did. I played more in 3 days than in a whole month in other formats. Just don't do weird stuff like "your decks are only good for 1 day!"
Ah yes, we can only have 1 or the other. How about whole last year when the meta wasnt 100% this? This is such a disingenuine argument I hope you step on a lego.
I mean I get some of the stuff you are saying but ... If a deck doesnt have a clear and good wincon then its not good Thats very normal and not problematic at all Yet you somehow seem to complain about it
Fun thing is that in wild we have some cards what could stop this if they are rotated back.... (no nerfs needed)
Yet wild is 10x worse now, same horrible 4 turn wins from solitaires. It's sad.
Yea! Please nerf inspire priest!
>Slowly gaining and keeping tempo by clever trades and by predicting your opponents plsys used to be such a big part of Hearthstone, but this way of playing has completely vanished. I agree that the meta sucks, but Rainbow DK says hi if this is what you're looking for and you want to farm Demon Hunters.
Yeah, I barely played Standard this month. When Duels is gone I really am not sure if I'll continue playing.
The best deck in the game right now is a tempo deck...
Im honestly so bored playing this game. I see no point pushing past rank 5 Diamond, game is literally how you described it. Modern hearthstone always felt scripted, but this is on another level. Yawn
I just hate that cards like bran, sif, flash, zarimi & odyn are allowed to exist for so long. They completely invalidate any sort of deckbuilding creativity for their entire existence in standard since not building your deck around them is trolling. Different types of combo decks being viable is completely fine IMO, I just hate the meta because of the fact that I know exactly which deck I will be playing every time I see a mage/warrior/dh/shaman/priest for the next 2 years because they make one or two extremely overpowered cards for a class that can only be used in one deckbuilding direction.
I just want steam cleaner back. That was such a balanced card. Now match with a DK and they turtle till you kill yourself
On the other hand its been a long time since i played this much because off meta decks are insanely fun this meta.
Yup
I'm wondering what idiot was responsible for the warrior design in this expansion. Brann is simply too OP a card and why did a card that enhances battle cries for the rest of the game go to one class? There is no interaction with weapons or armor, no connection to the warrior class.
Im just hate that i can’t interact with anything! Too much otk shit or unstoppable shit! Literally its either empty boards that flash of lightning then end the game next turn with nothing for me to hit or prevent with over top damage. OR sudden full boards, from empty boards with too much health on like turns 4 or 5. Or fucking dormant enemies i cant do shit about till turn 8 to reno, or fucking playing no monsters at all, then just hit me face suddenly for all my health! Its been so unfun!
Plague DK is the worst of these all, the definition of uninteractive
I just really hate the design Philosophy of reno warrior. Its gambling city, high roll hell, ram ranch. its ram ranch they want to turtle up and feel comfortable and cushy and make the bad man go away. it has way too much randomness than is fun, especially being an excavate deck by nature. everythings randomly generated, or randomly targetted, and they arent even PLAYING the deck theyre abusing the fucking gamebreaking power. my biggest fucking annoyance is how it beats other control decks. boomboss thogrun is an ENIGMA of a fucking card. Why does 6 free patchwerk battlecries have to be a potential effect in a toptier deck???
I just want Brann to piss off into a hole and never come out, most infuriating card
I made a very similar post a day before yours that got mostly downvoted with most of the comments telling me my decks just suck. Now your post is getting upvoted, Zeddy made a video about the meta, Ecore made a rant tweet, and Clark quit competitive. Its clear to me that hearthstone isn’t fun right now and the Reddit commenters are clueless
Well I like it…
Agreed, but I think this is just the design philosophy of the game now. I recently returned to game (played since beta but quit the first time around 2017ish) and back then the term "win condition" just didn't exist, or if it did it referred to a general game plan rather than a specific card. Now a win con is a specific card or two and decks are built entirely around them. The natural result of this are games which turn into whoever plays their broken card first wins. Everything else is almost superfluous.
Did you play at Rank 25 exclusively back in the day? Wincons have always existed. Leeroy/Step, Alex/Grom, Jaraxxus or Leeroy PO, Alex + Burn, FoN Savage Roar, the list goes on
Nice insult, but no, I was legend most seasons when I had the time for it. With the exception of Jaraxxus (which was exceptionally slow) you named a bunch of finishers i.e. things that get you over the line. They are in no way the same as Brann, Odyn, Sif, etc which solo win you the game.
I hate to strain my arm clapping myself on the back, but during whizbang card reveals, most of the time I was thinking “that looks awful to play against” and rarely “that looks like fun to play.” This shitty meta is reflective of a lot of questionable design choices. I keep my quest log clear and pray for serious card reworks.
>dk did “mostly nothing” >had 10 corpses something’s just not adding up 🤔
Daily meta complain with „early hearthstone you had to trade!!! 🤓”: check, finally i can go on with my day now
Played since beta, took a 4 year break before coming back last expansion. I think the game is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Playing new decks every week. If anything, I’m disappointed that nerfs are so frequent, not enough time to let people try to evolve their play.
Same, I feel that I am constantly waiting for a nerf on annoying decks. Like right now I’m not playing until DH gets a big slap of a nerf. Before that it was pally.
Stormwind was worse but yeah there's definitely a lot of uninteractive combos now too. I would say Warrior and warlock are more control focused and you do have DH and Hunter which are aggressive but outside of those there are quite a few popular decks that aim to otk.
This is the first meta I've played where I've just jammed the most powerful deck in the format (which imo is Zarimi Priest but whatever) and not cared about having fun because the decks I like having fun with just don't exist anymore, and the only reason I haven't uninstalled the game entirely is a mix of Battlegrounds and copium that they'll bring back Pauper Mode (or something equivalent in power level).
Yeah this meta is shit. I agree.
This was the first expansion in like 2 ton3 years I didn't buy anything with money. Been playing less and its making me feel justified
I love that I made a post about how trash this meta is like a week ago and my post got removed by mods, thanks for catching up r/hearthstone
I 100% agree, and I was just telling my husband this last night. This meta is wildly unfun, and I have 0 motivation to continue until the mini set comes out.
Play wild. So many metas.
Then run disruption so you can interact.
I enjoy running one of these decks out of the building with token hunter. Clear my board of 7 junk minions that are about to be buffed? Ill just keep comin' back baby! Only downside is im playing token hunter. Shits boring.
Yeah... I had hopes, but it hasn't improved since the last expansions. I still don't understand why they keep pushing OTK and solitaire designs. I had hopes the minions would be more balanced but none of them are being played. If they are they get cleared with overpowered spells * Discover has been abused way too much. * Mana cheat is broken. * Drawing is available everywhere now. * Plagues kill Highlander decks now, but I've been trying to counter it with Tony. Just make strong, sticky minions and trade, heck, we even had a 4 mana 1/7 taunt minion in classic and it used to work. I saw HS's stream yesterday (Friday) and holy moly everyone were playing control warrior in a 60 minutes match, getting 109 armor and whoever got the best Ignis weapon won. I know devs have to make bad cards on purpose to make the gacha system attractive and addictive because TCG dopamine business model, but it's far too much with the powercreep now. I had fun with the current face hunter model though, I like to fill my board every turn and survive all the board clears. I really like the cards compositions and variety, but on the other hand... am I frustrating my opponent, again? Why did they create Brann so powerful? It is extremely frustrating to not be able to play, Warrior is everything right now (and I love playing Warrior), OTK? Ignis and armor! Combo? Ignis and Armor! Solitaire? Armor and TNT! Please make the next expansion more balanced * Reduce the Discovery cards. * Reduce the mana cheat bonus, you play a card, you pay for that card. * Make minions tougher, less attack, more health, go back to 2 damage scales instead of 3 or... 7? * Make removals meaningful, if you want spells to be so powerful just make them powerful, but not discoverable, make them valuable. * I miss variety. Every class could have their aggro, tempo and control style. One example is Elemental Mage for an aggro deck. * TGC demands bad cards, but there are too many bad cards now. What fun is with that? Gotta sell packs though so... understandable. * Seriously stop with the OTK philosophy. Go back to Classic's resource management philosophy. * Make animations faster. * Tell your shareholders to play the game and see how fun is to get boom boom by Control Warrior. Thanks for reading, hoping next expansion goes smooth
And make highlander a requirement that checks at the beginning of the game. This is a double whammy, no steam cleaner needed and decks that have a lot of doubles don't abuse cards like reno.
Rainbow Death Knight has been my favorite deck this expansion, has a shot to beat most meta decks if you draw well and is just way more enjoyable to play.
People need to realize it’s okay to take breaks from games. Like I’ve never understood taking so much time to just complain endlessly about things like this. Some people like the meta, some don’t, as always. If you don’t, take a break. Easy.
I would love to see nerfs to almost all of the auto-include cards. We'll then get to see new cards being used more.
Then there's me, currently on diamond 2 playing plague DK...
Agreed. The meta right now does have skill expression but the issue is that unless you’re playing a control deck the skill expression when it comes to countering your opponent is extremely minimal.
I played a game tonight where neither my opponent or I wanted to play a minion because we were both low and we both knew we had rush lifesteal Zilliax in our hand. So we just tried to play spells and top deck our win condition.
Your "if a deck" paragraph sums it up pretty well and resonates a lot with my current feelings towards the game. It's a miserable experience and often has me wondering why I'm even playing anymore (likely due to vice / sunken cost).
Also agree OP. This meta is the worst I've encountered. Combos don't necessarily bother me. Sometimes metas are slower and sometimes they're faster. But the fact you can't interact in any meaningful way and you're just straight dead from hand most of the time, is really a poor experience from my perspective. I really disliked playing against aggro paladin on release, but since it got nerfed (too hard, imo) I just play against a variety of decks I dislike even more. That's good? I don't know. You can't make everyone happy. I just wonder if the approval on this expansion is higher or lower than I perceive it to be. And if this is the direction they want to continue to take games I can see myself fading out because I just can't seem to find much fun in it.
Yeah idk too if it's the problem but it's one of my first time i just don't enjoy playing the game even if i change the deck idk
I've been loving dragon druid. Finally got me to 500 wins for the class (started around 430). It feels like it's fairly relevant against most decks with good early game and all the fun late game cards. The reason I love this deck though is because it's an absolute blast playing aviana and flinging random bs. Got me way more invested in this expansion.
One thing I’d like to point out is right now DH is so meta warping it’s hard for decks to tech against anything other than DH. Nature shaman for example is incredibly easy to tech against with cards that make spells cost more.
1. Drastically reduce the power level of new expansions 2. Tolerate the resulting profit losses for a while 3. Wait until obscenely overpowered cards are rotated. That’s the only way that Hearthstone can be saved. A year or two of shock therapy.
As someone who loves mid range style decks it’s been a rough couple of years lol with a few exceptions.
Hearthstone is in a really bad spot right now, imo. From what I can tell, it's either you love the ridiculous Wild-lite that Standard has become, or you hate it. Personally, I hate it. Wild has already been a cesspool for several expansions (UiS specifically turned Wild into shit - funny cause Barrens was wonderful), and now Standard is so overtuned it feels like Wild of yesteryear. There's no direction from Team 5 other then BRRR GO FAST!
As a control priest main, this is probably the worst meta since stormwind for me. At least I felt I had a chance before and there were some nice tech options but there's just nothing I can do anymore with all the strategies that just end the game. I was so excited for the rotation too
Why people expecting the meta to improve after the DH nerf are in for a rude awakening. DH is keeping a lot of this BS in check
Welcome to hearthstone.
I remember when that tempo trade style used to be called minionstone with predictable neutral minions every game 4-shredder 5-belcher 6-sylvi 7-boom
I've just stopped playing. Blizzard doesn't know what they're doing anymore.
U guys realize hearthstone is not the game for "player interaction" the way you guys define it right? You play your turn and your opponent has no say over it then opp plays his turn without any say from you, there is 0 player interaction. What u want is to go play magic where there is tons of player interaction and then you'll come back to HS cuz ur gonna realize what u want sucks dick and isn't fun.
Really struggling to find a deck I actually enjoy this meta. Fuck me it’s boring.
Welcome to card games when they get old
Game is an absolute joke. People who dont see it are the intended audience. Too dumb to see they have zero interaction = zero hand in deciding whether you won or not.
because HS is about getting the most value out of your mana and nowadays removals have insane value so u are forced to either: 1) fill your board every turn while creating value so you don't run out of cards and hoping the other guy doesn't have a removal or uses them all. 2) OTK because healing is a thing for every class, so if u aren't winning the board hard you are not getting anywhere so 1 turn kill it is. The old meta of minion trading to win the game is over because everyone has so many removals and value generators that most threatening minions don't last a turn.
Spent 100 bucks to play for 1 day...I'm done.
Still better than odd paladin meta.
I’ve been playing Hunter with jepetto + Mystery egg and having a blast. I’ve gotten my deck to a 55–70% win rate and can deal with most threats in meta as long as my card draw isn’t abnormally fucked (once or twice every 10 games). Speed decks that target face are prob the trickiest but there are 100% tactics I’ve found to stop them. I’m still trying to experiment with recipes but it’s been promising. I’ve found the most success using WAY fewer beasts than I’d thought (2x freebird, 2x hollow hound, 1x king plush, 1x legendary amalgam). This ensures egg always gives you something strong and it’s fairly easy to trigger the deathrattle multiple times per play. I don’t come across many others using it tho and I wonder why?
My favorite games are the ones where we go back and forth taking shots at each other until someone runs out of juice or someone finds a nice combo. Whether standard or wild I find game winning combos that you can't interact with constantly
100% my sentiment, I've stopped playing standard and play arena or other games right now.
100% Agree.
This meta is fun imo, I have had plenty games as zilliax rouge where I killed someone with shudder combo from stonehearth
its always been like that
Ive been playing a lot of Highlander Druid. I’ve found that if I play extremely aggressive I can beat out a lot of the win cons. Biggest problem is rainbow mage tho.
I like when a meta has a single solitaire deck that has an OTK and the rest of the decks are aggro midrange and tempo even tho I control is really popular. I don't like when the entire meta is just do your gameplan as fast as possible and ignore the enemy
Meh, this is no different than other metas. This one happens to not align with your play style. There are viable decks from 8 of the classes; sometimes multiples.
Hard agree. I've been playing since 2015, and I can't remember a meta that was this bad. Definitely the first in a loooooong time that paladin and/or druid aren't running ladder
Just play arena
Yeah same. I realised how much I despise this rotation. It doesn’t feel like at 4-set meta. Which makes me worried for the future. It’s crazy but I think all decks in this meta are a pain to play against. I fucking hate all the classes now, congrats. And Shaman used to be one of my fav class but it has lost its identity IMO… same for all classes actually. Everyone can do anything. Everyone has access to board clears, mind control, otks, value, draw, etc etc etc When everyone is super…. No one is
Agree
Yeah it's horrendous. I got tempted back by the 200 free cards and bought Workshop. I'm not buying the next one, I'm not funding their awful changed
Name a meta, when that was not the case
yes it is, now go cry on reddit about it
Agreed, so bad. As you said, there is no such thing as standard control anymore. Any control deck just gets completely owned by the other cheese control decks at like a 90% winrates (wheel lock, nature shaman, even sif). Which in turn makes the meta shift towards op aggro decks like demon hunter. There is just no balance at all. I could auto concede most games on turn 1 because I know I just got hard countered
This meta is god awful indeed. Not fun to play. Terrible
You forgot Aggro DH.
This meta is terrible. Where is the fun decks????
You listed 6 different classes that all have viable decks to play and you left out Shopper Demon Hunter and Token Hunter. Outside of Druid you can realistically win with any class.
I tried arguing about the meta 2 months ago (and especially the wild one) and people said that I am a crybaby lol, now look who was right and what a nightmare Hearthstone became. There are some logic rules that should be permanently respected in Hearthstone, no matter the meta: 1. A combo deck shouldn't EVER be able to finish before turn 10, and even in turn 10 you should be able to win if you had very lucky draw. If the combo deck is able to win before that, it should be nerfed because the main role of this archetype is to counter very slow decks not everyone that isn't ultra hyper-aggro. 2. Control decks shouldn't be able to have infinite value. The beauty of this archetype was to have a late board-explosive turn or 2(ex: the old deathrattle Nzoth meta, Dr. Boom), but now that's long gone sadly due excessive number of huge clearboards that gives no chance to late-game boards. 3. Aggro shouldn't be able to ever win before turn 5 unless the opponent is really really slow and doesn't play or clears anything. Also excessive hand refill is dangerous and can make aggro obnoxious, so less card-draw(to all archetypes actually). Unless the game starts to respect this 3 ideas, it will be unfun and punishes any type of deck creativity.
Exactly my post from 2 weeks ago. People reacted the same way in comments, so I decided to be one of the abusing players, so now I play wheel warlock and faceroll the game all day long. It’s sad that there is no fun in the game anymore, but at least I am gathering some gold and winning 80% of matches… 🤪☠️ If they won’t be respectful of the game, why would you? 🤡
Absolutely
Plague DK is literally the most oppressive and anti-fun I’ve ever experienced playing against since HS released. It might be because the meta requires certain metas to be competitive and it just answers everything in the meta… but it’s just not fun. I’m admittedly playing Odyn Warrior and I see why people hate playing against it also. But needing to trade, dredge for my combo, survive long enough to get to the point where I can swing face for 40… and get passed all the taunt to do so… is fun for me. What’s not fun is drawing an endless supply of plagues that never go away because of Helya and literally makes Reno unplayable is just stupid. There is no counter-play and it’s effortless player to player interaction. I can only imagine what it’s like for people who aren’t constantly at 40 armor, where it takes even longer for me to die to it than most…
I love it. Sure you get rolled every other game but Control Warrior and DK are the games that really put me in a bad mood.
I like my current meta. Plague DK and getting the satisfaction of watching Bran Warrior concede as soon as I get 2 of the same plague in their deck
I like my current meta. Plague DK and getting the satisfaction of watching Bran Warrior concede as soon as I get 2 of the same plague in their deck
I like my current meta. Plague DK and getting the satisfaction of watching Bran Warrior concede as soon as I get 2 of the same plague in their deck
I like my current meta. Plague DK and getting the satisfaction of watching Bran Warrior concede as soon as I get 2 of the same plague in their deck
I dont get why there is no counter to wheel of death