Now that I’ve returned for a couple of weeks I want to share my thoughts on the state of Wild and hear your feedback on it.
For the record I’ve been revisiting my old decks with some new cards. My Kathrena decks, my Jade Rogue and my Jade Shaman are doing ok. My Anyfin Paladin, my Odd Quest Warrior and my Control Dragon Priest not quite. The only new archetype I tried was Mech Hunter and it was quite alright.
Regardless of the results, which let’s face it I don’t too much about playing Casual and all, I found that there are three metas in Casual.
The old decks, updated or not. A bit like most of my decks with updates, like Zoolock, Discard Warlock, Quest Priest, Midrange Hunter, etc. Oldies but goldies. Unfortunately, rarely fun to play against since it’s not really new with some exceptions from some crazy Johnies out there and I found a couple of them.
The new (or very updated) tempo decks like Odd Paladin, Aggro Shaman, Mech Hunter, Token Druid, etc. These are quite fun to play against, to my surprise. There’s quite a bit of board action which was unexpected considering the state of pains like Odd Paladin, just to give an example. Or maybe it’s just my decks that lead to interaction, I don’t know.
The new (or very updated) slow decks like Big Priest, Cubelock and Jade Druid. These, I’m afraid, are a terrible experience… There is practically no interaction with these decks. They wait until turns 4 or 5 to cheat something out, or play one or two cards to control the board and then cheat something out. If they can’t cheat something out in time I kill them, that’s pretty much it.
It seems to me that the power level in Wild is just crazy at this point in time. Not sure how to proceed from here. Maybe play some meta decks to the get the hang of problems these decks have. Maybe try Standard for a change!
I’ve seen some pretty cool decks piloted by some pretty good deck builders but let’s face it, I don’t build or play at their level, nor do I have time to do it, so any word from your fine folks is appreciated.
This is my biggest problem with, and the entire reason why I don’t play, Wild mode. From the minute the split of Standard and Wild was announced I knew I wouldn’t have any interest in it simply because any super strong archetypes that arise will just become permanently super strong in wild…and continue to get stronger with each new expansion added to the format. Look at Big Priest as an example. An archetype that terrorized Standard mode for a good period after the release of Old Gods and Karazhan and now, almost 3 years later, it is still one of the strongest decks in Wild mode and only getting stronger.
What makes it worse is that, for these hugely powerful decks to be toppled, even stronger decks have to be formulated and it either eventually stagnates because you’ve reached a power level apex, a point at which decks can no longer increase in power, in which case those super strong decks just continue ruling the game mode or you end up with a situation where the top decks in Wild are continually becoming stronger and stronger to the point where their power levels just become obscene.
I completely understand the motivation behind creating Wild and Standard mode but, for me, Standard will always be the superior game mode due to it’s innate ability to refresh the meta’s and keep the game interesting. Sometimes the past has to be left in the past for the benefit of the future.
I think the overall power level isn’t that much higher. Death knights are still very powerful tools that can stand against a lot of the new cards. We now have a few more highroll decks, but they often fail.
I had most succes with my Beast Hunter, because I can finish games by turn 5/6 if I play aggressive (and draw well), but I can also play the long game with DK Rexxar. The deck also uses barely any cards from the expansions after DnD (but Rexxar brings new beasts ofc). So I’d suggest to stick to a deck you know for now, but slowly add newer cards. After all, the old decks still work (and are often more polished than newer decks). I’m always prepared to be a test dummy
@Rayven: I agree that for freshness sake, the past is the past and Standard is present and future. I’d invite you to walk in my shoes a bit though: to me it’s about creativity, hence Wild offers a lot more possibilities. I’m proud of many of my creations and adaptations regardless of how competitive they are. One extra point I would like to add is that in Wild Casual, I may play against a dozen different archetypes in as many games. I have not seen that in Standard since when I started playing back in Old Gods.
@Phillybear: from your reply I think the issue I found may not be the power level but rather a lack of balance. Remember when we had a void of tempo/midrange decks in Wild? It was either Odd Paladin, Even Shaman, Cubelock or Big Priest, and of course the occasional Naga. I feel this void moved towards slower decks. Check the list of my decks behaviour:
Kathrena decks (explosive comboish) are doing ok
Jade Rogue (comboish late value) is doing ok
Jade Shaman (tempo huge late value) is doing ok
Anyfin Paladin (very slow combo) struggling
Odd Quest Warrior (control) struggling
Control Dragon Priest (midrange/control) struggling
Mech Hunter (tempo) doing ok
EDIT: The mech hunter is fine, I wrote it wrong.
I think the decks that were ok and are now struggling are decks that just don’t fit the current meta. I need to build either tempo or combo, I guess. My mid/slow decks with no huge explosive late game can’t handle the current decks. Makes sense?
Meh I still do good enough. My healpocolypse paladin went 2/0 today (casual) and ludicrous greedy dragon warrior went 2/1 early this week (ranked). I haven’t really noticed too much of a change to be honest, just Rez priest is the latest in a long string of top enemies.
Oh I fully understand that, and for those that like Wild, fair play to you all. To me though, having so many options can be too much for several reasons. For one, having too many options can hinder the creative process as much as too few, when you have so many options it’s a lot more difficult to weigh up which cards to include in a deck that’s limited to 30 cards. With endless possibilities comes endless fine tuning and balancing.
Another reason, and this is probably more of a personal reason, I like to hold back in a meta for the first month, see what is popular and performing well and build decks that counter the top 3-4 archetypes. For example, last meta I went completely against the grain and built a dragon priest deck that had an extremely high winrate against the popular Wall and OTK priests, but also had plenty of tools to deal with faster aggro decks like odd paladin and beast hunter. I hadn’t played ladder for a while (had dropped all the way back to rank 20) but literally went from 20 - 5 in about 2 weeks just playing casually. In Wild this is a LOT more difficult to do because, not only is there an MUCH larger variation of archetypes on the ladder, the top 7-8 archetypes are so different it’s extremely difficult to build a deck that has a good balance at countering a large portion of the meta.
As I say, for those that like Wild…fill your boots and enjoy yourselves, but it will never be a game mode that interests me. An added bonus to this is that, upon rotation I get a huge dust boost for the new meta by disenchanting all the cards rotating out
Makes sense. Each expansion brought its own late-game powerhouses, so if you expect to reach the late-game often, you’re pretty much forced to play some of those powerhouses.
In the case of midrange decks, you’ll have to be ready to end the game at the start of the late-game. High-power spells or board-wide buffs, I guess.
Fully agreed and to be quite honest, for good competitive deck builders that is quite a good thing about Standard. The strict high rotation nature of the Standard metas are what allows things tournament metas. Competition, high level, prepared competition is in Standard exactly because of that.
This is literally what I see Wild as now , it’s basically become a format where the strongest decks from each meta compete against each other to see which is the best
![:smiley:](https://d30yn6ctwpaot1.cloudfront.net/en/hearthstone/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")