Battlegrounds - Poison is KING!

General Discussion
1

Are we going to see any changes to poison minions and their interactions any time soon?

I am not a PRO player, I always focused on reaching 10k and chill out with the MMR grind.

I do realize that poison is NEEDED as a card mechanic in the game mode and it would be wrong to remove it, and I know that there are certain cards that allow you to “counter” the poison strategy. That being said I am also tired on playing vs reborn Maexxnas and Amalgadons with poison and divine shield or trying to construct a poison board with divine shields. This feels stupid, in my last 10 games, 7 of them had the top five players in each lobby trying this strategy.
I am tired on buffing minions on my board only to die to some 2/8 reborn that will take two of them down “just cause”.
The poison exists as a “utility” or a “catch up” mechanic and has its uses, you cannot fight nomi elementals on turn 14 without poison.
But why should you? Like seriously, the person high-rolled got a golden Nomi, hit elementals on every roll, good for him ggwp, 2nd place, lets go next.
I am salty because there is no “special” interaction with poison and divine shield, include a Maexxna with reborn to the mix and you have a minion that will kill 3 of your minions regardless of stats.
Why Poison minions don’t loose poison when they have divine shield on them and regain it when they loose the divine shield. ← (I know this is stupid relax).
Simple recommendation remove Maexxna from the pool, add a NEUTRAL card on 6 with poison and same stats, and pretty much remove Amalgadon all together, totally stupid card either will win you the round or you gonna sell it. (like imho Amalgadon is either a broken card or a meh card, but rather VERY consistent).

That’s all, poison meta, super fun and fair to play it and play against.

P.S. I am fuming that STATS don’t matter anymore.

2 Likes
2

I recall some months ago, I managed to create a full team of murlocs with divine shield and poison. And… an opponent did the exact same thing. That game lasted so long…

It was kinda fun at first, but after 2 rounds, it got really boring.

Poison is toxic. I hate it.

3

Tell that to the combination of super buffed Crackling Cyclones and Wildfire Elementals I destroyed a full team of poison murlocs with

4

Actually completely agree as your suggested changes are actually well thought out and make sense.

I did actually beat a full poison build yesterday with managerie stats by having a bigger than them hydra and deflecto - mech cleave with microbots on it (had to give it taunt divine shield, not ideal but still worked). I did get a late SIfin as my murloc but I don’t think it made any difference.

My changes would be reborn snake gone, amalgadon gone, SIfin to tier 6, so pretty similar.

5

The problem with removing reborn snake is it pretty much kills beasts as an endgame build. Even with Rivendare, without having reborn on parrots and/or deathrattles a beast build would have a hard time matching the stat heights needed for taking on some of elemental/Tarecgosa/Lich Bah’zial stat builds out there.

I’m also not a big fan of removing Amalgadon or moving SI:Sefin to tier 6. Firstly I think tier 6 is far too late for murlocs to be getting the chance to apply poisons, especially as the gap between tier 4 and 5 has been made bigger. Secondly, Amalgadon is good for the game, in my opinion, as that card that can suddenly turn round a game filled with bad luck, it definitely has the feel of an end of match game changer for me which the game does need. However, I agree it becomes less good for the game when 1 player has 3-5 of them all with poison/divine shield/windfury, however.

I agree reborn on Maexxna is a issue, especially after seeing a Lich King win with a team of nothing but a hero powerd Deadly Spore, 3 taunted+reborn Maexxna’s plus Arfus Buddy. There’s not much you can do against 4 poison minions that summon 3 more when they die.

But, as always, the whole ‘poison is bad for the game’ argument is hugely flawed for me. The fact is, there are ways to combat any build any player can throw at you in BG’s. Part of the trick to being successful is reading what your opponents are building, working out who is most successfully pulling of what they are trying to do and formulating a counter-strategy to them. I admit, this is probably the hardest thing to learn in BG’s and being able to adjust your strategy mid-game is very difficult sometimes due to RNG, but that’s part of the challenge for me.

This, for me, is the biggest thing a lot of casual players don’t understand about BG’s. Most go for a certain build from turn one and blindly…rigidly stick to it regardless of it’s chance of success and you are never going to get far in BG’s if you have that kind of inflexibility. It was as difficult habit for me to break out of…“must get Ragnaros and build huge elemental team”…refresh endlessly trying to find elementals, rather than using tavern coins wisely to build up a makeshift team first.

The fact is, I genuinely believe BG’s is one of, if not THE, most difficult game modes in Hearthstone to really master. In no other game mode do you constantly have to be thinking on your feet, not only about what you’re doing but what other people are doing as well, combining luck, skill, tactic and forward planning in ways no other game mode does and, because of this, I’ve seen games won in some of the craziest ways you can possibly imagine because of the inventiveness of the players trying to come up with counter-strategies to so called unbeatable builds

6

Also, saw an interesting idea posted by someone where poison is a 1 shot…kinda like a bee-sting. Once the minion has used its poison to insta-kill a minion it is used up, regardless of if the minion doing the poison survives.

7

Don’t like the rng of amalgadon or divine shield + poison.

I think poison is good for the game, I like spore and regular Maexxna.

I hate that that if you triple into SI:fin on 4, you are gona get a board full of poison for very little effort most of the time.

Aren’t most end game builds dead because of poison? Beasts are already dead, removing the snake changes very little as every other build uses it just as good (reborn spider, selfless) or better (mechs).

I do like that sting idea.

8

Counterpoint to the sting idea; in real life snakes and even stinging insects like wasps regulate the amount of venom they inject when they use it - if they even use it at all.

I know that IRL examples don’t mean much but it’s something to consider when we add the fact that most of these things are way bigger and more venomous/poisonous than most things we would find.