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Here’s part II of “What’s wrong with Hearthstone with ugly visuals”. Sorry, but this is a long, long thread. The core of the argument is that the *minions* power creep has almost entirely removed from the game 2 core concepts of Hearthstone: Initiative and card advantage.
Our story begins a couple years ago back when removal spells and minions had clearly identified purposes within the game and a tradeoff existed between each option.
Minions with card generation effect or immediate effects on board had a stast penalty that forced a tradeoff between generating tempo through high stats or gaining another advantage (card generation, card draw, immediate effect on board).
Hearthstone decks used to be defined by the tradeoffs between
1-High minion stats
2-Immediate effect or not
3-Card generation/draw or not
4-Threat generated per card.
1-High minion stats
2-Immediate effect or not
3-Card generation/draw or not
4-Threat generated per card.
Then, power creep and Rush happened. Mostly, the stats penalty for minions with card generation or an immediate effect on board (i.e. Rush) is gone. There is no more tradeoff between high stats and immediate effect or card draw/generation.
If minions do what spells used to do (have an immediate effect or draw/generate cards) without sacrificing what minions used to do (attack each turn they’re alive), why bother playing removal spells at all? Highlander Hunter and EggWarrior are crazy examples of this.
The launch of DoD was the apex of the “Minions-as-removal” problem. Every turn was just someone playing rush minions, killing whatever rush minions the opponent had still alive. (Or using the attack power from the Warrior's invoke to kill minions on board)
So, why does all this matters? It matters because since the tradeoffs are gone, a lot of what used to make Hearthstone interesting is also gone. Control and Combo decks don’t exist anymore, and “aggro” decks no longer rely on initiative as a winning condition.
This leads to two unpleasant realities with current Hearthstone: it’s boring, because all decks have the same win condition, and it’s very swingy, because unlike before, you can clear the board AND put minions on the board simultaneously every turn.
So how do we fix it? If you’ve followed the argument, it’s actually quite simple: bring back the heavy stats penalty on minions with immediate effect or those who generate or draw cards.
Make removal spells great again [compared to minions].
Ty for listenning to my Ted Talk.
Make removal spells great again [compared to minions].
Ty for listenning to my Ted Talk.
