HoF Discussions

[KingMe 289]

So I'm curious at everyone's thoughts on what cards they feel should go to the Hall of Fame (HoF) and why.  Oh and "Because It's Cancer" isn't a valid explanation for wanting the card rotated out. :P 

[FanOfValeera 253]

I'll go with Tirion Fordring. 

I really like the card, I don't think its overpowered or anything. Its a good design.

The problem is, it is practically in every single Paladin deck, all of them, even aggro Paladin. So is Tarim but it will rotate out at some point. 

Also, Tirion limits the design space of cards related to Deathrattles (Such as N'Zoth, which is ridiculous with Tirion) and stuff like Stonehill Defender, which discovers Tirion more often that not. I think exclusion of Tirion will be a good refreshment for the meta.

My second candidate is Alextrazsa. 

Its not about design space, Alex is not discovered by stuff in many decks, or used so commonly.

I think the card is really versatile too. But this one is about an archetype.

Yeah, Freeze Mage.

Ice Lance rotation didnt help with that, as the deck is still strong. I am pretty sure rotation of Alex will hurt the deck. Deck has been around since forever, maybe new mage decks will arise.

Edwin Van Cleef (I am sorry bro)

This card is so weird, less powerful w/o Conceal, but so polarizing. You can win a game on his back solely. Also it limits the design space, any cheap spell introduced for rogue is going to be used for even more unstoppable Edwin.

Also, the cards that were nerfed before, which is also a part of classic set should be unnerfed and go back to wild, such as Flurry, Ancient of Lore, Keeper of the Grove, Force of Nature, Molten Giant, Owl and stuff.

[Dustintime 7]

gadgetzan auctioneer for sure. I know you said no cancer...but its cancer.

 

nobody should be able to cycle ten cards in a turn.

[positiv2 953]

It was already mentioned by Ben Brode, and I fully agree - Ice Block. It enables OTKs, uninteractive decks and is overall annoying to play against. It represents almost everything I hate in Hearthstone.

[SithLordOfSnark 78]

Grommash.

 

Other then Pirate Warrior, I don't think I've seen a Warrior deck that doesn't run this card, and he's impossible to answer.

[positiv2 953]

I don't think sending class legendaries to HoF is something Blizz will do, simply because each class has only one class legendary in the standard set. Maybe if they decide to make replacements by moving cards from other sets to classic set to replace HoF cards, but Brode didn't sound like he liked the idea.

[Mursilis 34]

3 hours ago, Dustintime said:

gadgetzan auctioneer for sure. I know you said no cancer...but its cancer

nobody should be able to cycle ten cards in a turn.

How often does that happen to you?  I have a Jade Druid deck I run, and encounter against a lot, and I've seen this maybe once and never done it myself.  Mostly it's 2-3 card draws per turn at best.  Dangerous, but not OP as I expect my opponent do eliminate it the next turn anyway (which is normally what happens).

As for some of the other cards, there are ways around ones like Tirion Fordring, Edwin VanCleef and Grommash Hellscream.  Things like Hex, Polymorph, Naturalize and anything with the poison attribute works well.  Every class has at least one card that directly eliminates an opposing minion and they are included in most decks.  Besides I agree with positiv2, sending legendary cards to the HoF sets a bad precedent and may make people less inclined to invest dust in said cards in the future.

Alexstrasza is annoying, but really only see it in a single deck (mage).  Knowing that next turn is going to be a pair of Fireball hits and a Frostbolt is a bit depressing.  But outside of that I never see this card played.  Not sure something should be sent to the HoF if it's so niche.

[FanOfValeera 253]

44 minutes ago, Mursilis said:

As for some of the other cards, there are ways around ones like Tirion Fordring, Edwin VanCleef and Grommash Hellscream.  Things like Hex, Polymorph, Naturalize and anything with the poison attribute works well.  Every class has at least one card that directly eliminates an opposing minion and they are included in most decks.  Besides I agree with positiv2, sending legendary cards to the HoF sets a bad precedent and may make people less inclined to invest dust in said cards in the future.

How hard do you think it was to play around Conceal, with all the AoE available, for many different classes?

How hard do you think it was to play around Rag or Sylvanas, you know you can target it with the cards you mentioned.

Hall of Fame logic is a little different then nerfing things. It is about creating a new atmosphere in meta game, which becomes stale sooner or later. Expansion and adventure cards take care of themselves at some point. Classic cards don't. I seriously believe Hall of Fame is of the best idea Team 5 ever had (Its their idea I think).

Now, why Tirion? It is a staple for every single Paladin deck. You play against one, you know its there. You make one yourself, you add it there. You can target it of course, but you gotta admit that it is a little boring when every single one of your Paladin opponents put their faith in the light at Turn 8. Whatever the archetype they are playing, from good ol' Secret Paladin, to handbuff Aggro Paladin, to control decks, to murloc decks, to dragon decks. He is always there. Also, I mentioned this above as well, there is a term called 'Design Space'. For example, Ice Lance was rotated out because they may want to creat spells which copy other spells. They Ice Lance is a problem. Once you keep Tirion in the game, every Deathrattle related card, every discover card for Paladin is gonna have insane quality, look at Stonehill Defender and N'Zoth.

Same goes for Edwin. It is 90% of the rogue decks. To be fair, most of the rogue decks are in miracle style where Edwin really fits, but he is one of the cards which pushes that archetype. You can start with a huge one at turn 2, your opponent can't react to it, game over. Of course it can be targeted with so many spells, or you may not have a chance to play it optimally, that's not the issue. Rogue is full of cheap spells which is used to fuel EvC. If it stays in standard, you can't print more cheap spells for rogue, because at some point, EvC gets out of control. Same goes for Auctioneer too.

Alex reasoning was quite clear I think, just to destroy Freeze Mage, I love playing that deck, but enough is enough, right?

I still don't think class legendaries will rotate out. If they do, these two will go anyways.

[Mursilis 34]

You're right Conceal, Rag and Sylvanas each had ways to play around them.  Yes that is very similar situation to Tirion and Edwin.  That's also true for most of the cards out there, in one form or another.  Both cards are very good and get included in a lot of their class decks, that's true.  But they don't appear to make or break said decks more often than not.  So they aren't driving the meta so much as being adapted to remain relevant in the meta.  Taking them out won't change the type of decks you face right now.

You mentioned Design Space and how Tirion is overpowered due to discover and such cards.  Personally I don't seem to have that luck myself, maybe others do.  But I've pulled Tirion only once in this manner.  But maybe that's a tweak that needs to be done to the mechanics of how often he appears than to completely remove Tirion from being available in Standard at all.

Out of curiosity how often do you see Freeze Mage?  I rarely see it myself.  That's why I don't believe removing Alex will have much of an impact on the meta.  Freeze Mage will still be around, just not without that particular card.  It will be less powerful than it was before, but still viable imho.

[KingMe 289]

10 hours ago, Mursilis said:

Alexstrasza is annoying, but really only see it in a single deck (mage).

I run Alexstrasza in my Control Warrior. :P 

[VaraTreledees 138]

18 hours ago, Mursilis said:

How often does that happen to you?  I have a Jade Druid deck I run, and encounter against a lot, and I've seen this maybe once and never done it myself.  Mostly it's 2-3 card draws per turn at best.  Dangerous, but not OP as I expect my opponent do eliminate it the next turn anyway (which is normally what happens).

You don't play enough my friend.  I rarely see an auctioneer draw less then 3 cards, RARELY.  Unless it is a complete hail mary play.  On top of that, it really isn't the number of cards that druid draws with auctioneer that is the problem, it is how it interacts with the rest of their deck.  What I mean by this is jade druid runs quite a few situationally weak cards, innervate (pretty useless later in the game), earthen scales, feral rage, to a certain extend wild growth and wrath.  All of these cards have their place in the deck and allow the deck to combat aggro more effectively, or ramp out threats super early or what have you, but they all have an opportunity cost associated with them, namely that they tend to be very bad either late game or against slower control decks.  Auctioneer removes this cost, lets you cycle a huge amount of your "useless" cards in match ups where they are either bad or have outlived their usefulness.  Without auctioneer, earthen scales would probably see zero play, it is simply too weak of an effect otherwise, and would severely hamper their ability to combat aggro effectively without it.  On top of that, giving jade the ability to go infinite at the end of the game is absolutely stupid.

[Mursilis 34]

4 hours ago, VaraTreledees said:

You don't play enough my friend.  I rarely see an auctioneer draw less then 3 cards, RARELY.  Unless it is a complete hail mary play.  On top of that, it really isn't the number of cards that druid draws with auctioneer that is the problem, it is how it interacts with the rest of their deck.  What I mean by this is jade druid runs quite a few situationally weak cards, innervate (pretty useless later in the game), earthen scales, feral rage, to a certain extend wild growth and wrath.  All of these cards have their place in the deck and allow the deck to combat aggro more effectively, or ramp out threats super early or what have you, but they all have an opportunity cost associated with them, namely that they tend to be very bad either late game or against slower control decks.  Auctioneer removes this cost, lets you cycle a huge amount of your "useless" cards in match ups where they are either bad or have outlived their usefulness.  Without auctioneer, earthen scales would probably see zero play, it is simply too weak of an effect otherwise, and would severely hamper their ability to combat aggro effectively without it.  On top of that, giving jade the ability to go infinite at the end of the game is absolutely stupid.

Oh I understand the concept.  But actually implementing it in the game isn't quite as straightforward.  As I mentioned, how well the Auctioneer works isn't just my play but also those I'm playing against who are using it themselves.  I just don't see it used to the effect being mentioned by the rest of you.  Different rankings tiers working differently I would imagine.  So from my point of view, it's a non-issue.

[KingMe 289]

I'm hoping that with the inclusion of the next two sets we will see less dependency on some of these cards or at least have better answers to some of them. Example; Weapons are more common than secrets but no one is complaining about them due to the number of answers we currently have for them; Acidic Swamp Ooze, Gluttonous Ooze, Harrison Jones, Bloodsail Corsair and Toxic Sewer Ooze. But when it comes to Secrets what do we have, Eater of Secrets.  It seems like almost every set has produced an answer for weapons but in the history of the game they have only ever produced two for secrets, not including Flare. Where this is becoming an issue, especially with Ice Block, is that they are getting more support but not getting an answer. 

[Guest]

And on top of that, Eater of Secrets is a horrible card if the opponent doesn't run secrets.

Most anti-weapon cards are decent even if they don't destroy a weapon.

[VaraTreledees 138]

3 hours ago, KingMe said:

I'm hoping that with the inclusion of the next two sets we will see less dependency on some of these cards or at least have better answers to some of them. Example; Weapons are more common than secrets but no one is complaining about them due to the number of answers we currently have for them; Acidic Swamp Ooze, Gluttonous Ooze, Harrison Jones, Bloodsail Corsair and Toxic Sewer Ooze. But when it comes to Secrets what do we have, Eater of Secrets.  It seems like almost every set has produced an answer for weapons but in the history of the game they have only ever produced two for secrets, not including Flare. Where this is becoming an issue, especially with Ice Block, is that they are getting more support but not getting an answer. 

Well yes, but secrets are inherently weaker then weapons.  Weapons give you tempo, secrets tend to lose you tempo (which is bad), it took two of the most broken 2 drops ever printed to get people to actually play a ton of secrets (those being Mad Scientist and the ever ubiquitous Arcanologist).  The only secret that is even problematic is Ice Block, and even then only because of the sheer amount of damage a mage can push out, especially with Alexstrasza.

[KingMe 289]

21 minutes ago, VaraTreledees said:

Well yes, but secrets are inherently weaker then weapons.  Weapons give you tempo, secrets tend to lose you tempo (which is bad), it took two of the most broken 2 drops ever printed to get people to actually play a ton of secrets (those being Mad Scientist and the ever ubiquitous Arcanologist).  The only secret that is even problematic is Ice Block, and even then only because of the sheer amount of damage a mage can push out, especially with Alexstrasza.

The point I was trying to make is if Blizzard wants to continue to push for secret synergy then I feel they should add at least another counter. 

[FanOfValeera 253]

9 hours ago, VaraTreledees said:

Well yes, but secrets are inherently weaker then weapons.  Weapons give you tempo, secrets tend to lose you tempo (which is bad), it took two of the most broken 2 drops ever printed to get people to actually play a ton of secrets (those being Mad Scientist and the ever ubiquitous Arcanologist).  The only secret that is even problematic is Ice Block, and even then only because of the sheer amount of damage a mage can push out, especially with Alexstrasza.

There are two other classes with secrets.

You forgot Mysterious Challenger and Cloaked Huntress, who saw a lot of play, especially the first one. Also Secretkeeper can snowball quickly, I remember playing that secret hunter in Karazhan meta, won half of the games on her back. She is a 1 mana 3/4 in average.

Both secret paladin and secret hunter became Tier 1 at some point. Secrets are somehow pushed by Blizzard over time.

About losing tempo, both cards I mentioned are great tempo tools in addition to being value generators. And both paladin and hunter secrets can manipulate the board in your favor, unlike mage spells. So tempo loss is not that obvious. 

For mage, except secret mage (still don't know what that deck is about), you lose tempo once you play secrets, but you gain good value, and that is what freeze mage and control mage want.

For the counterplay part, I think there could be a stealthed minion, which prevents your opponents from playing secrets while he/she is on board, except with Mysterious Challenger and Mad Scientist.

My second suggestion is a neutral minion, which prevents opposing secrets from popping while he/she is on board. Like your opponent has Counterspell up, you play that minion then play whatever the spell you want. You can bypass Ice Blocki or Noble Sacrifice to kill your opponent. 

Both these alternatives need to have good stats (x mana x/x should be okay) so that they can be played against other classes too.

 

 

[Strongpoint 74]

Neutral hard counters like Eater of Secrets is not something I like much. This card is a reason why I stopped playing secret hunter. Not a tier one by any means but decent and fun deck... unless half of your opponents run Eater of Secrets to counter mages. 

On other hand I wouldn't love to see few class anti-secret cards. Something like rogue minion that battlecries enemy secret(s) back in the hand would make a more diverse metagame.

As for the cards to send into the hall of fame... Innervate would be my pick especially if Gadgetzan Auctioneer will stay.

 

[Dustintime 7]

I think eater of secrets is okay but it takes up valuable space in my hunter deck. I think almost every hunter deck would run flare instead if they changed the mechanics a litle bit on flare. if a mage has counterspell, it counters flare first. considereing how many spells mages have, i think flare should be able to go off before ocunterspell

 

just my two cents

[Taan 46]

Hmm, I don't know if "it is practically in every single deck" counts for Basic- and Classic-class-cards. Some of these cards are staples...bread and butter...they define the class itself. Stuff like Frostbolt, Backstab, Northshire Cleric, Flametongue Totem or Fiery War Axe...they are also in nearly every single deck. Edwin VanCleef can be an uninteractive issue - yes - but he is also the incarnation of the most iconic Rogue ability: "Combo". Same goes for most of the other class-legendaries from the Classic-Set. This set doesn't cycle, because it provides every class with their deck-baseline.

I also think that Alexstrasza is pretty high up on the "HoF-candidate-list". Especially because Blizzard wanted to get rid of freeze-mage, hanging around in every single meta, by removing Ice Lance. But it turned out, that this couldn't stop it...maybe because of Alex.

Also when it comes to secrets...I still think that nearly all of them are terrible. Maybe Iam just playing the right decks, but I still have only lost like 10% of my games against Secret-Mage (and yeah, I think this deck is crappy). Secret-Hunter was okay, when it was still around (don't wanted to play it myself, though). And Secret-Paladin last year...ehm...yeah...it got some nearly unbeatable openings, but besides that, I thought this deck was a bunch of terrible cards (the paladin-secrets *cough*) mashed together to enable a decent Mysterious Challenger...that you might never draw...powerful - yes - but also incredible unreliable (if you ask me).

...oh...sorry...got carried away by my hate for secrets...

 

 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Taan

[VaraTreledees 138]

On 7/20/2017 at 1:31 AM, FanOfValeera said:

There are two other classes with secrets.

You forgot Mysterious Challenger and Cloaked Huntress, who saw a lot of play, especially the first one. Also Secretkeeper can snowball quickly, I remember playing that secret hunter in Karazhan meta, won half of the games on her back. She is a 1 mana 3/4 in average.

Both secret paladin and secret hunter became Tier 1 at some point. Secrets are somehow pushed by Blizzard over time.

About losing tempo, both cards I mentioned are great tempo tools in addition to being value generators. And both paladin and hunter secrets can manipulate the board in your favor, unlike mage spells. So tempo loss is not that obvious. 

For mage, except secret mage (still don't know what that deck is about), you lose tempo once you play secrets, but you gain good value, and that is what freeze mage and control mage want.

For the counterplay part, I think there could be a stealthed minion, which prevents your opponents from playing secrets while he/she is on board, except with Mysterious Challenger and Mad Scientist.

My second suggestion is a neutral minion, which prevents opposing secrets from popping while he/she is on board. Like your opponent has Counterspell up, you play that minion then play whatever the spell you want. You can bypass Ice Blocki or Noble Sacrifice to kill your opponent. 

Both these alternatives need to have good stats (x mana x/x should be okay) so that they can be played against other classes too.

 

 

Eh my point still generally stands, secrets really only see play (save for a couple) when there are absolutely broken synergies with them.  When played straight up, they pretty universally lose you tempo, paladin secrets are so bad that they only see play with Mysterious Challenger (and the murloc that generates them but then they aren't directly put in your deck).  Even the secrets that generate tempo tend to still lose more then they gain because your opponent can chose what triggers them.  Like the only "tempo" secret that is really ever played without broken synergies is Freezing Trap.  As for things that keep your opponent from playing secrets, I doubt that would ever see play.  In general Blizzard tends to shy away from cards that prevent people from doing things. 

[doctorp 0]

It's time for Freeze Mage to go for sure. Ice Block and Alexstrasza are the most obvious choices. In my mind, it's Ice Block that's the bigger issue. Despite usually being played when you're already on the way to losing, it's still got a 42% played win-rate - that seems way too high for a card of this nature. That suggests to me that roughly one time in three or four, this single card is changing the result of the game. The whole Freeze Mage meta needs a major overhaul. It's changed so little and there's still so many Classic cards in there. Plus the lack of interaction just makes it a horrible deck to play against.