I’ve played heartsthone since release and other than a 6-8 month break in 2017 whilst I was travelling I’ve played the game quite consistently ever since. I consider myself an above average player and hit legend every season.
The previous month or so (since FiTB dropped) has been hands down the most miserable and unfun experience I’ve ever had in my time playing HS. So many decks just feel so frustrating to play against and also very boring to play.
No minion mage and paladin being probably the biggest culprits. Incanters flows and RSW are just insanely powerful and it baffles me that they haven’t nerfed these two cards yet. Paladin on the other hand is a little more complex - there isn’t any card that stand out as OP to me, its just super frustrating and boring to play against.
Meanwhile it feels like a large majority of the community are focused on wanting Tickatus and Warlock nerfed, which also baffles me as Warlock is the second worst class in the game and Tickatus is closer to being a bad card than an OP one. Hardly nobody plays Warlock at higher ranks. because its just bad and inconsistent.
Its at the point where I’m now questioning why I’m even playing the game anymore when its just a truly awful experience every single time. Is anyone else feeling this? Because right now it feels like things are getting worse, not better.
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Its like they want everyone to leave so they can shut it down.
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First and foremost, I really hope that honest and respectful feedback is taken into consideration and I personally appreciate reading posts like yours, Titanium.
I returned to the game after quite a big hiatus and while I’ll admit I’m having fun, the sessions are relatively short and I get bored quite easily while playing. Like you I feel the meta is not in a good place and, like you, I feel that one of the biggest issues is Paladin, not Warlock or Tickatus.
I’ve played a lot of different archetypes, from No Minion Mage to Deathrattle Demon Hunter and every single flavor of Paladin, Warlock and Priest. There’s a lot of unbalance, from damage output, to the fact that slower decks cannot survive in the meta without generating copious amounts of random resources. This leads to many matchups feeling like big one turn swings one way or the other.
I’m enjoying Mage at the moment, but in the past I’d play 2 hours straight. Now it’s like 20 minutes and I’m done. There’s something about the games that just makes want to do something else.
The worst part though is that there were hints that something was going to change after the Masters Tour and I’m not seeing that happening. Grand Masters starts tomorrow and unless they announce something by next Monday, I don’t see any meta change until the release of the mini set, which means a whole month of power plays and relatively unattractive (some call it boring) meta.
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I completely agree with what you wrote.
I never understood in the first place how could a designer / developer team create a card which reduces the cost of all cards in your deck to zero, given all the draw cards, this was a guaranteed - I draw my entire deck in a turn and win - the question was just, which turn.
If nothing else, they should change Incanter’s flow, like reduce cards cost in your hand, instead in your deck.
However, Hearthstone has some basic flaws since the beginning. One is the lack of “sideboarding” which you can find in any other TCGs. They don’t have to make it too complex. Just let players choose 2-4 cards which they want to “side in” vs specific classes, and the basic deck will be that much less cards. For example, I make a deck of 28 cards, and assign 2 cards vs mage (like some anti-secret, or dirty rat, or watchpost), 2 cards vs shaman (like anti-weapon,anti-murloc) etc.
They could even limit that you can prepare only vs 3 classes, to balance out the most powerful ones.
The other very basic flaw is the lack of tournaments. Sure you can do it via some 3rd party like battlefly, but it’s a lot of manual things, lot of waiting, lot of mistakes, the whole process should be automated if run by the game client. And it would give motivation too. I get to legend on day 3-5, then there is nothing to do. I played HS for 9 months, then quit. Now I returned after 4 years, played it for 4 months but now I’m getting bored again.
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The meta in Standard is at its absolute nadir, but I’m playing decks no one else is playing, so it’s fun for me.
I hope the next patch brings all classes to an even level.
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Incanter’s flow is the perfect example of why balancing is so hard. You’ve got everyone on the bandwagon of it being crazy OP, yet for the whole first year it was in the game, no-one was even batting an eye-lid at it. It was only when they added the crazy broken draw cards that it became an issue.
I think the issue with sideboarding for ladder is that it makes balance issues even worse. Say you make it so that everyone can tech against secrets, then you have to make secrets better to make them playable. The game becomes do you draw the tech, before they play the necessarily OP secrets.
They should have added a tournament mode ages ago, that let’s you both set up custom tournaments and have set tournaments as well. Never got why they didn’t.
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Sideboarding can be balanced by limiting the number of classes you can sideboard against. For example, if they say you can build it only vs 3 classes, the meta will balance itself. Btw people DO “sideboard” now by adding eater of secrets, dirty rats etc to their basic decks. But it only inreases the random factor, since vs some decks, their winrate goes up, against others, it goes down, so it’s a coinflip decided by which class you get paired against.
I remember when 2 months ago everyone was playing secret mage, I added 3 anti-secret cards and 2 deathlords to my deck and mulliganed for them. Went 10-0 vs mages. But ofc, the deck was weaker against others. Lately, when everyone was playing flamewalker, I added 2 watch post to my big priest. They killed the watch posts 3 times but I rezed it again and again, then all… they always gave up. But, of course, it was pretty bad when the murloc deck was about to launch lethal on turn 6, and my shadow essence brought up a watch post instead of a vagrant or blood 
Your deck sucks… stop spamming it in every thread on this forum. Thanks.
I wanted to share a deck with which I maintain a decent win rate against Legend players.
I posted two different versions of it in two threads. The latest version is strongest.
I’m not surprised that you’re unimpressed, though. I do not recall a single positive comment from you about Hearthstone.
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And another thing, Dread .
It’s easy to snipe at everyone and everything. It takes a tad more effort to provide constructive feedback.
For instance, you could say:
Ttry smoothing out the mana curve by swapping one 5 mana Weapon for a Whack-A-Gnoll Hammer, and maybe take one Tidal Surge for extra healing against Aggro now that it’s 3 mana.
It’s a viable build, after all. And I just want the community to be aware of it.
We’re a community after all, no?
It’s fine to play with the meta-decks, but it doesn’t mean they’re the be-all end all of Standard. Just because a deck has not been approved by all the streamers does not mean that it sucks. So I will continue refining Elemental Shaman, experimenting with an Outcast C’Thun Demon Hunter, play with Frenzy/Taunt Warrior, Combo Rogue, Hero Power Mage and Menagerie Paladin.
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I guess he is tired of that since you can barely if ever met anyone on these damn cesspools who takes criticism positive or not…
It has become very predictable, finding an opponent with an original idea become more and more rare. You can usually tell by turn 5 or 6 who will win. There is little fun to be had at the moment. For all the cards that have been added since beta, it seems to have less choice instead of more, that is if you want to compete at all.
My problem with Standard stems from lack of variety in decks. I would like to see more control decks.
I’m in Rank 2-1 Diamond playing Secret Miracle Rogue, and I’m mostly greeted by Paladins and Hunters.
I have also played since release, and I completely agree with you. I think the issue with this season is the complete bottleneck of having to choose between a limited number of decks to be competitive.
Now don’t get me wrong, there have been instances in the past where there have only been a handful of viable decks (even for someone such as myself who doesn’t follow the crowd and likes to build my own), but as Vlad says this time there are such huge power cards and power swings in some classes that it leaves it feeling unbalanced and boring.
I feel as though they have given paladin a lot of cards that work well on all turns such as infinitely buffing minions and big taunts/weapons/heals, along with mechanics from other classes, which don’t necessarily belong in their kit (they effectively have a mini counterspell & savage roar). None of these are op but, when combined, form a deck with very little drawbacks.
I’m fine with there being a limited meta, as it gives me more ammo to try and hit legend with whatever crazy deck I build that season, but this time it feels like every game I play (win or lose) is more down to playing a card that swings the entire game or nets me the perfect discover card than ever. It makes for a more boring experience, and I hope that they fix it when I come back for the next expansion.
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Tickatus IS a problem. It may not be OP, but it’s existence is what makes people lean to more aggro type games. It’s very demoralizing to see 10 of your precious cards get burned if you play another control deck. I play some kind of value mage with minions and spells mixed, and I have a positive winrate against control warlock, but Tickatus makes the experience really miserable for me. It is completely useless against aggro,and downright unfair against control. I think HS made it clear they don’t wanna print cards that mess with other player’s hand/deck a few expansions before Tickatus was introduced because rather than making you more able, it disables your enemy.
I honestly think when printing/balancing cards, players’ feelings and emotions should be considered aswell.
The mini-set is coming June 3rd.Hopefully, it shakes things up sufficiently.
This season without a doubt features the most limited meta in Standard.
So many Paladins and Hunters playing the same decks.
The problem is: these decks are the strongest, and the easiest to pilot, so everyone’s playing them.