I think the problem is that every class got so much crad draw nowadays. Like the aggro decks dont even run out of steam once they flooded the board 1 or 2 times and it got cleared. You dont need to think anymore or play around stuff. Its just like slamming stuff on the board and if the other one doesnt have all of their removal at the perfect time they just lose. Resource management doesnt play a role anymore
@@bubyoz yeah, you mean Sorcerer apprentice? It should been no less than 1, most Renathal decks run Dirty rat, Okani etc to counter it They run 6x Iceblocks so for aggro its still hard to beat mages
@@nsg1911 Wild now is super bad, all we face is either Mana cheat decks: Big shaman, miracle rogue, Seed, Sorcerer apprentice... or Renathal decks like druid and Raza
because aggro started having insane draw and resources, they started printing incredibly unfun swing cards for control that feel horrible to play against and have barely any counter play except to kill them before they can play it. Board clears like brawl can be played around easily, having your board space limited to 1 for a turn or your cards blown up... Not so much
Yep, warrior just exists now so even trying to play some kind of control deck is only viable for so long before the inevitable mind numbing game play that every 1 in 3 games provides against a double battlecry warrior nearly guaranteed a win with that boomboss shit.
A change like that would have benfits and downsides. Renathal was an amazing card that helped control decks survive longer, but also, indirectly, supported really toxic strategies too
Aggro needs to exist and be meta sadly. It shuts down all ultra unfun greedy cards that exists. And whats even more sad is that otk decks are the biggest problem to control not being playable. Stormwind f:ed us all, when they decided that otk should be easier and faster.
It easy to understand why. See how many cards help Aggro dealing damage vs how many cards are AoE and give you Life. Last expansion there was almost none of them to help the archetype. And if you want to play Control you should just give up, they do NOT want Control in the game, since most of the players like to play quick games at Smartphones they would rather playing Aggro. So forget it.
The problem is that nobody want to be in 40 min games to loose to some warrior ou druid that generate zilliax or copy entire deck over and over again or desruption you before even play. Even control decks today are dumb as fuck and you wish loose 30 before from a aggro. Maybe they can creat a new format that dont give infinity value, copies, desruptions or combo from hand. But will be unpopular anyway. Just see this reno and zilliax metas or armor warrior, full unfun to play against e desbalanced as aggros deck... so let it be.
The amount of card draw/generation is also fundamentally a problem for control/value decks. "back in the day" people would actually have to hero power to NOT burn through their cards too quickly! People would legitimately run out of resources. Each card you play should be worth something.
My theory is that they want to make the game fit into mobile gaming much easier. 5 minute games, microtransaction hell, big flashy cosmetic stuff everywhere you look, child-appealing card art, etc.
Which doesn't even work. So many man childs play so sweaty. Almost every deck i play against is from someone using a deck they saw on youtube and then those same people take the whole turn thinking
So dont want to play a game for 1h makes u like child cards art, spend money in the store and shit like that? Nah, if u want to be stuck in the same boring game for 30 min playing your “I wont let u play” control deck nice for u, if I can play 3 or 4 games do my daily and get some wins I will do it, if not I wont play the game lul
I love control decks. I got legend with uldum highlander priest. That had a lot of value, lot of outressource options and I loved it. And that was a meta, where everything was playable: Combo, Aggro, Midrange and control. I also loved playing control wild decks. But in both modes, control is dead and I hate it and everything feels skillless for me. It´s just stupid scam shit. I wish, they give control more love. Since then, BG is my thing :)
I mean you can't play control if you are gonna get blown up from in hand by turn 5... there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Also cards like Bran are impossible to keep up with for other control decks. As usual, it just comes down to horrible design by the dev team, lol.
I'm someone who loves control Priest, even with tons of heals or armor, it doesnt matter because of how much more prevalent OTK is. Either Lamplighter, CNE, Odyn, Flood Paladin, etc... it's impossible to go to fatigue because decks can easily do 30 damage in a turn now.
my biggest complaint about lone ranger was only ever that it did not work on both sides of the board. It's in the card's name. Lone ranger. I assumed it would be a one on one minion fight - it would even be funny if it was like that for the rest of the match.
Yeah I wish they would've left it at cost 8 with this both-sided effect instead (without the "rest of the game" part 😂). At least we got the "no duplicates in _starting_ deck" tho.
I think Hearthstone needs INCREDIBLY STRONG early game removal. The removal tools are still following the rules of the game from 10 years ago. Holy Nova 3 mana deal 2 damage, 7 mana flamestrike to deal 5? How does that help in a world where pain Warlock can drop 2 8/8 Giants by turn 4?
But then they make early game removal like Threads of Despair and Prison Breaker and then they nerf them because they're removing early game board floods (Which is 90% of what they're designing these days)
And any good removal they do make gets nerfed like sanitize or trial by fire, like I don't understand why they nerf decks that have a 51% winrate into the ground with multiple different card hits and then they leave t1 decks untouched in some places like in this last patch
The problem with this is that the value per mana for lower mana cost cards and the huge amount of draws/generation would just have the combo decks run these. Meaning combo would beat everything especially control. They need to put hefty costs on draw and generation so aggro can't force a control player too have a specific answer every turn forever. And combo decks won't sit on 10 cards every turn while playing full boards.
@@PadFeiLongTrue true, having more costly draw/generation would help with that a bit since cards in hand would matter more. If you put out your entire hand by turn 4 but it won't kill your opponent would leave you with few options. But ye the more you think about it the more hopeless it feels, seeing the state of the game.
Control works by starving the enemy out of their resources and win with you higher value cards. Doesn't work when even the most aggro decks have near infinite draw or card generation.
@@PandoloFox The difference is that SnakeLock was incredibly weak at tempo plays so if he played snake and bounced it either you were using a terrible deck or you just have skill issue. Druid has insane tempo swings thanks to the dragon packs, ramp and tremendous value cards like Eonar and Yogg, which don't get me wrong they are 9-10 mana legendaries they should be strong as fuck, but not when you can ramp then to T5-6
@@PandoloFox For heavy control decks yes, not that different from Odyn Warrior, with the difference that the latter had a way higher WR against every class.
@@TheAscilie True, those classes are broken though. Its not the 6 mana cards fault. I was mostly expressing the frustrating experience that 6 mana card created. Always glad to share my control as misery with the rest of you. God knows things doesnt get changed until the aggro players start crying.
Not only do they want the game to be faster so it's more appealing to smartphone users, but they also give out tools to otk decks more often than they give survival tools to control gameplans. However, restoring health and clearing the board is never enough, because they often have insane amounts of burn from the hand. So many things contributed to control being driven out of the game: lack of good efficient clears, lack of ways to exceed max health, efficient and cheap draw cards for every class, insane amounts of burn effects etc. I remember a time when Kripp would play arena and have matches literally be decided by 1 health. Now you're not safe even with full hp and a decent board, everyone can outrace you and everyone can kill you from hand.
Is it even a question? Combo which was already control's cryptonite has become so efficient that you should auto-concede if you are playing control. Aggro that used to be control's favorite matchup, has now infinite free card draw and infinite board refills, so it's gone to at best 50-50 and that's IF your control deck is nothing but board clears, making it horrible against anything other than aggro. On top of that, each expansion has at least a couple of specifically targeted anti-control cards that can go in any deck and basically guarantee a win against control, where targeted anti-aggro or anti-combo cards are nowhere as absolutely devastating against the corresponding archetypes.
@@kosk8800 Blizzard out there saying they want the board to be a constant puzzle to Solve. And here i am wondering when I can play a card that isnt health/armor gain or a boardclear card.
@@PandoloFox A puzzle to solve seems like a good goal, however if that puzzle consists of 5 8:8's and you have 30 health than it does not seem very well thought through. Either the puzzle should consist of 2:2's and 3:3's or you should have 100 health instead of 30.
Creating a "strategy card game" just to force metas where the only viable playstyle is aggro or turn 4-5 otks is unfortunate to say the least. The devs lost it completely at descent of dragons imo. Uldum was that perfect balance where aggro, control, midrange and combo was all viable in both standard and wild. With cards being released these days like reno lone ranger, all of the "for the rest of the game" effects without any form of condition and objectively parasitic, unfun designs like the demon seed, I think the game needs an overhaul and rethink it's play pattern philosphies.
The problem is that so many decks have virtually infinite resources nowadays. The only way to bring control decks back is to reduce the overall power level significantly. Every decks has to run out of cards eventually.
I miss the days when i could play fatigue rogue with coldlight oracle. Survive every turn as a class whose only board clears are fan of knife, vanish, and doomsayer truely gave me a rewarding feeling. On top of that, to win the game you also have to calculate fatigue damages every turn. It wasn't META by any means bit it still had a decent win rate. Unique strategies like that was what made me enjoy HS.
I wonder if the answer would be to wait until the rotation, then dramatically bring down the power level by nerfing cards from the prior year, making a Witchwood/GvG-level of power for the following set, and adjusting the philosophy going forward. But I have a feeling that even though that's a game I'd want to play, it's not a game many would want to play and not a game they're interested in designing.
Control is dead. games are over by turn 5. I hate pirate rogue I auto concede.....up to four minions on board turn one and by turn 3 game over. Slowly losing interest in he game did not buy the tavern pass and will not buy the battlegrounds pass
The reason why it never lasts is because most people play fast decks, thus, most people complain whenever control is over 50% win rate. However, I do think HS has gotten to a point where there is so much more flexibility and reliability in draw now that control can be extremely successful but only if they bring the value of the board back. If your opponent is just buffing and discounting a bunch of things in hand, control can't shut that off like they can with the board. So I don't see control making a solid return until the next rotation. There is too much power that ramps up too quickly in this one. It's not just killing control, it's killing the game. These patches are too weak
the last control decks I would say have been the death knight with cne in whizbang before highlander changes, then i feel it was the sargeras symphony warlock in titans, who gained infinit taunts and played just alot of heals and clears
You knew control was dead when wild turned into a format where you can't even reach 10 mana because of how many hyper aggressive strategies there are...
I miss the decision making of withholding your removal, your silences and you resources to make the most use of it (gotta silence that sylvanas when it comes down) and the resource war in control vs control match ups. I really miss that.
I think people are primarily angry at the degenerate effect Reno has, and not that control was in a better spot. I am primarily a control player and I hate Reno.
@@ZKEUSThat effect is necessary, game is out of control. It doesnt matter how much you save resources and wipe boards. The next turn the board is full again and damage to your face was pushed. Reno allows a control player to set up and take a breather. We have too many crazy cheap cards that give you more cards and fills the board. Cards like these were expensive back in the day.
@@ZKEUS As a wild deathrattle decks enjoyer, they should change Reno's effect to silence and destroy all minion instead of all minions poofed. Coz now my N'zoth is useless :(
@@Amghannam we priest players have that card. Its called plague of death and yall hated that card too back in the day. Sorry mixed up its name. Edit: didnt edit the name of the card i mentioned fast enough. So putting this here if confusion happens.
United in Stormwind killed Control. Literally since that expansion, there has never been an actual "Control" deck. UiS itself brought Demon Seed and Juggernaut that provided infinite damage/value if their OTK or Aggro nature didn't outpace a Control Deck. Fractured in Alterac Valley brought Kazakusan where it simply became a thing where it was just a rush to get broken Treasures to OTK people. While Voyage to the Sunken City brought many control tools, with powerful Colossal minions and extra value from Faelin and Azshara... It also brought the inevitable death from Curses and mass mana cheat to empower aggro/combo/midrange decks. Nathria brought Denathrius making every "Control" deck just about building an OTK with Daddy D. March brought Astalor for more BS OTK win conditions as well as DK with Mograine for some inevitability to prevent value games existing. Festival of Legends brought more anti-control stuff via value killing cards like Tony, Symphony and CNE (At least at this point CNE was crap but it still existed as a late game swing) TITANS ironically murdered Control despite the powerful Titans, because of Odyn and Sif providing OTKs while Helya and Sargeras provided more infinite damage/value. Badlands brought Reno who outright nukes boards and provides infinite value on his own. While Brann + Boomboss again kills control by destroying value (Meaning the only viable control decks are Warrior... And Priest who is able to steal Brann + Boomboss) Whizbang gave us Unkilliax (With Dr Balanced) as well as Wheel of Death for more control hate. With Perils so far giving us even more control hate via Hydration Station further pushing "Control = Warrior or GTFO" whilst we also got things like Seabreeze Chalice, Lamplighter and Griftah for massive damage OTKs that even Warrior can't armour their way out of reach of. Ever since UiS, there's been this constant need to print cards that completely destroy control decks, or at best push them into being a single class (I.e. Warrior). This is outside of the fact that they keep improving Aggro to a point where it's no longer the case that Control beats Aggro, often Aggro just beats Control because it's so darn fast or randomly has some BS OTK given to it for no reason.
Aw, poor control victim, not like we had Charge warrior during Alterac or the whole reing of Control warrior when Naga DH was the best aggro deck during Voyage, isn't it?.
@@DavidPachón8591 Oh yes... Charge Warrior... Known for it's not OTK combo potential... Oh wait. While the "Control Warrior" was still reliant on Kazakusan to discover OTK cards... Almost like these "Control" decks were still just combo decks 🙃
@@tarille1043 You are just delusional pretending Control it's only control when it's fully based on attrition, what's next? Voyage control warrior not being control just because pre-nerf Nellie, Finley + from the depths? Yeah, i get it... Not even patron warrior or good ol' control were control based on that assumption, just because they had patron or Grommash combo.
@@DavidPachón8591 What kind of brain dead idiot thinks that a deck entirely reliant on its COMBO to win a game is anything but a Combo deck? Combo decks normally control the game until they pull off their combo. Just like a midrange deck controls the game until they win. Simply providing control in a game does not equate to a "Control" deck. An actual control deck is aimed at winning via control. Hence its name. This means answering all of the opponents threats so they run out of steam and can no longer win. Putting out so many threats the opponent can no longer remove them and lose. Generating more cards than the opponent to outlast them (Either in fatigue or for aforementioned reasons) Patron Warrior was literally a combo deck. Based around OTK's using Frothing or simply charging a ton of Patrons into the face. Good old Wallet Warrior was about dropping many big threats until the opponent ran out of answers and thus was a control deck (Yes, Grom provided burst, but it wasn't THE win condition of the deck)
People complain about control whenever there is a strong control deck. People whine about warrior and priest if it’s ever even like a tier 2 deck. Let the games be slower.
The game needs the triangle, control beating aggro, aggro getting under combo, and combo putting control on a timer. Combo becoming too efficient at what it does is what threw the balance out of whack. hyper aggressive aggro can exist because control is absent from the meta because without opponent turn interaction, combo has become too good and to consistent. Not sure how you fix it at this point though.
1) Create 2 metas - fast and slow? 2) Allowing players to ban classes/cards they don't want to play against? 3) New format with a rotating meta based on combination of a couple expansions from the past (which are weaker power) that maybe never had the chance to coexist (like Witchwood and Gadgetzan)? It would keep the power down while creating new experience.
@@erykczajkowski8226 for 1, I figured that is what wild was supposed to be with standard having slower control being more viable. 2, they definitely should improve the casual landscape, 3. They would do that with twist, there would be a card access issue but I think longer time players would enjoy it. I personally think Hearthstone has too many classes, but they can't go backwards on that unfortunately.
@BrandonR-mg9xt I think that wild was supposed to be a place where players could utilize their very expensive and suddenly obsolete cards, not as a quick version of slower standard. It would be harder to justify for Blizzard to say to people you need to spend hundreds of USD on cards that expire after 2 years or whatever. Wild was a good solution for a while, but the number of available cards grew so much that it is completely unbalanced. I heard of Twist, but it is closed now, not sure why.
It feels like there's not a lot of good middle game control cards. It's all just super powerful end game control stuff that takes over and can't be countered if you get to that point. There should be more balance.
@@gman963 cant do that, if control players gets too good early game removal that means otk players gets those too and can build their decks to be faster. Aggro needs to be on top, sadly they are so good that control players cant beat them either. All this wouldnt be a problem if all classes didnt have a busted win condition. That way one class could recieve more board clears without it turning to an otk deck.
Just got back into hearthstone after 5yrs away, was always a control warrior player, always liked the attrition style game, choosing the right resource to use at the right time. The game now feels miles away from that, sadly. Everything is super fast, boards develop like crazy, there's cards that just feel like cheats... Feelsbadman
Honestly, I think they would go a long way towards taking triple rune decks off life support by reverting the restriction on being able to discover triple rune cards. It may have been a little obnoxious to face someone who generated 3 or 4 copies of vampiric blood throughout the course of a game back when DK was introduced, but now that the other classes have largely power crept DK (mainly because of the card rotation, DK lost a lot more than other more established classes) and triple rune archetypes are pretty much non-existent because they chose to focus on making rainbow the only viable strategy, I think it’s time to let DK discover triple rune. It was a questionable nerf to begin with, now it’s something necessary to breath life into a DK archetype that may never recover.
@@oxtailsoup6493 Generating a lot of bloods might have been annoying but it is definitely less annoying than getting killed turn 4 by pirate dh/painlock or getting multiple zilliaxes. People were complaining, but back then the meta was the best. Renathal before nerf+blood package gave us probably the last good control deck that we will have. I am so depressed because of that
@@kaktusgaming2219 exactly my point. I honestly don’t think it was that bad to discover triple rune in the first place. I remember thinking that nerf and the nerf to Renethal were nerds no one was really asking for. Blood has vampiric blood they get access to, frost has frostwyrms fury they get access to, and unholy would get access to grave strength. We’re talking 1 card per archetype here a total of three cards total that have the triple rune requirement, it’s not going to break the game. People also forget the pool of possible discovers is so large that it’s not guaranteed you will even get the triple rune card you’re looking for, even with targeted discover cards like hematurge there’s no guarantee it will offer up vampiric blood. It wouldn’t fix all the problems with tripe rune decks but it sure would be a step in the right direction towards allowing DK to have multiple archetypes like some of the other classes instead of everyone just running rainbow…
@@oxtailsoup6493 wasnt that nerfed specificaly for triple frost though? People didnt like being boardlocked over and over. There wernt many triple frost cards either so it was easy to get copies of.
Control decks went from being able to play control. To you have 1 or 2 really high cost Control cards and the goal is to “attempt” to survive to use them. The game feels less tactical and strategic. It’s now a randomized speed race to see who can kill there opponent, or be set up for the win, within the first 3 turns of a game.
This is the reason i quit this crap I don't want to just mindlessly play minions and hit my opponent in the face even aggro became so bad and doesn't require any decision making whatsoever unlike some old aggro decks
I agree with most of your points but I think the two biggest reasons control is in the position it's in are 1) PiP only had a handful of late game oriented cards (something you have mentioned in a previous video) so naturally decks are gonna skew lower cost and quicker. 2) Early board clears are very weak right now. Take priest as an example, the last two sets they have gotten board clears either tied to tribal synergy (fly off the shelves) or an aggro package (hot coals) However, a competitive control deck should never just be all removal/value. Have a win con to build to (Jace, Quest Priest, CNE). You should have to be somewhat proactive to win a game not just sit there and react.
The problem is getting to those wincons, you basically need a ton of removal just to survive the insane early aggro boards, and then you need disruption cards like dirty rat or boomboss to make sure you don't just die from hand, its the toxicity of other strategies that lead to the unfun deck building thats required so you can get to the fun late game strategies
Easily the best changes they can make to curtail problematic strategies: A) Make it a RULE that no card can go to (0) in cost unless specifically stated B) Change how the "graveyard" works in this game. The fact that you can resurrect more copies of a minion than have actually died is total BS. Its how the "Unkilliax" strategy even happened to begin with.
I feel this so hard. I'm a day one classic control player and my favorite decks were always the long, drawn out, 25 minute games. Used to play an og Reno, cthun, warlock deck that would just hold on for dear life as long as humanly possible until I could drop like, a 40/40 cthun to win. But we're talking about turn 30+. So satisfying and so missed.
my most played class its warrior with a global negative wrate (les stha 50%). Because time ago i was fun playing control warrior and lose sometimes maybe more than win, but the fun equalizes the scale. Now days its feel like its imposbile to win and like zeedy says the mechanics or cards that make you win, like reno, its not fun anyway.
The control issue is very simple: Blizzard doesn't want control to be a thing. Most of HS players do it on their phones, they have metrics on their ideal game length. Long drawn out control games are not what they want, for engagement metrics. So much so that when you queue up as a control deck, the matchmaking took will skew you matchmaking against other control decks.
Since standard and wild are broken nowdays, they need to add a new mode: chess. In that mode there are only fair cards, which doesnt kill you or win the game instantly.
the biggest problem is honestly reddit. ive always been a control player and EVERY TIME a good control card enters the game reddit blows up and blizzard just nerfs the cards based off of reddit. like, even when the control decks are barely t2 and hardly preforming well: reddit will just blow up at blizzard until they nerf it, leaving the meta with nothing but aggro, combo, and midrange. the real solution is when blizzard releases a good control card: they should just outright ignore these bronze and silver players crying on reddit. a control deck controlling the board shouldn't be a reason to nerf these cards; but according to reddit it is. and blizzard just does whatever these smooth brained redditors want
The game has been purposely pushed away from the fatigue value battle style of play. I personally loved blood control dl when it first came out however having to go against the mirror or another control deck. It would all come down to whoever built the deck more greedy and spending hours in a single game and going to fatigue can very well be considered not fun for lots of people. If i ever ended going against a priest that could 3 times steal my value I would just concede instead spending years.
Hearthstone community is not ready for this idea, but the discover mechanic was the primary reason that led to the current outcome, with complete absence of control decks. It all started there, in League add-on.
The only current aggro decklist that runs any Discover cards is Pain Warlock, which only runs Fracking. Discover is an inherently value-centric mechanic that actually rewards Control more than it does Aggro.
@@GreenToten Which is why I HAVE to include ice block in my decks, and discover many ice blocks until I finally draw my Reno Jackson, otherwise I can't win combo.
It's been mentioned a few times in the past. Discover used to be pretty limited, and costly in many cases, it was neat but if you did it, it put you behind and you needed a gameplan to make up for it.
Discover is on in small does but all the card generation is completely out of control, I really miss pre stormwind hearthstone even there was lots of discover for some time before stormwind, the game at least felt like hearthstone then, now its not even slightly fun anymore
As a free to play Warrior main... feels bad man. Anything they get gets nerfed into irrelevance. Charge was originally a warrior keyword but they moved away from it. Defensive tactics were another they removed (Enchanter destroyed a spell every turn, steam cleaner, anti secret minions, starfish silence all) The lack of silence is huge in the meta, as well as no steamcleaner
The problem is every class has huge swing turns after turn 6 (unless you’re an aggro deck). If there’s a deck that wants to play after turn 8 or so it’s basically a game of who has the better swing turn. This used to not exist to this extent back in the old economy. It’s an issue of power creep but the more the cards they print with immense power levels where the cards do multiple things at once, the more they have to create even more powerful cards. Just a passerby opinion, but that’s what I’ve observed.
Helya is literally a card built on out-valuing your opponent what are you on about? Plague Death Knight is literally just a remix of Bomb Warrior, one of the oldest and most iconic control decks in the history of Hearthstone.
@@MinoriGaming Plagues/Bombs literally isn't about value. It's all about just shoving damage onto the opponents face until they explode. The only difference between these and your typical aggro/midrange deck is that instead of directly putting damage onto face, you instead shuffle the face damage into their deck and hope they draw it before you die.
@@tarille1043 Bomb Warrior and Plague Death Knight win games by outliving you and weathering your value until you eventually succumb to the damage they shuffled into your deck early in the game. Both of these archetypes give up early-game tempo for the ability to shut you down in the late game and pollute your draw with damage. How is that not value?! You don’t need to force your opponent to draw into fatigue as a win condition in order for the game to be about value.
@@MinoriGaming These decks were about just killing your opponent. Their only "Control" aspects were that they needed to survive long enough for their damage to take place. They weren't about generating more resources, or burning through your win conditions until you ran out of threats, or putting out so many threats you run out of removal. They were about just shove damage into your deck until you die. They are as much "Control" as any Mill strategy (Or even less so, because Mill at least burns cards and makes card draw unplayable) where the goal is to force the opponent to blow themselves up and your "Value" is simply to stop yourself dying to the predominantly symmetrical card draw effects. Value strategies are about creating value. Discovering more cards, generating more threats, putting more resources into the deck to draw into. Not necessarily about fatigue, but about simply OUT VALUEING the opponent. Basically, how you win vs Flood Paladin, where you simply last through their board refills and then they have nothing left to win with.
Zeddy's dream of 20 minute long fatigue battles isn't ever coming back as we now have game design where slow decks can either guarantee a finishing otk combo or have inevitability. Hearthstone team clearly wants the game to be Mobile friendly and have on average shorter game length which leads to Aggro decks being favored in meta balance and slow decks ending games with combos instead of drawn out fatigue slugfest.
I feel like Rastakhan's was the attempt to bring the power level down, but people thought it was lame and "not powerful enough" so we get these really big power spiky effects, because when the community stood against Rastakhan's we told the developers "we don't want weak card"
thank you ☕ i remember the little characters would come out and run around the board, per card, which was neat, the only problem was it did it every single move or every single turn, or the same character would do the same thing thirty two times 😷☕ and also interact with the four corners on the board, it's like playing cards on a backgammon board, and each card is a character, I've been playing since BETA, and still don't have all the cards or all the extras, 3 adventures left to get, besides farm gold coins and XP
Like yeah, when you face a large threatening board is like turn 6-7 and maybe at most you managed to board wipe 2-3 times and you're in the lead, now you're just constantly under pressure on turn 2 and you can't really do much and hope you survive till turn 5. Aggro just care about dumping cards and not worry board clears and they always get away with it.
Control decks have traditionally not been about outvaluing decks. They have been about CONTROLLING the board. Outlast aggressive decks and run them out of cards by intelligently using removal. Create a massive swing turn on the board using said removal tools against a midrange deck and rush them to 0 life before their value runs you over. Jade druid killed control decks 8 years ago, (not because of infinite jades, but because of the ridiculous amount of defensive tools druid had like feral rage and earthen scales that made it so control decks couldn't kill the druid before the jades happened) and Renathal buried them since midrange decks couldn't lose to aggro anymore so what was the point of playing control?
everytime any sort of counter to aggro decks is viable, part of the fanbase who only likes playing aggro cries like babies because they can't kill you before turn 5
I think that we have some problems, like: mage that the classe listed with control board, do this in a way too much inefficient, many expensive cards, week minions. Many cards do the same efect: card draw. Many classes without suport to control, Druid become OTK class, just Warrior control board and gain "life" to counterattack. The lack of class identity ruined Tempo and Control in the many classes.
Control should never be synonymous with disruption. It is value, board clears, and healing. Highlander warrior is a anti-fun, anti-control, and anti-value. It's not a control deck outside of having a bunch of board clears. Control games should be won based on smart gameplay, not "blizzard gave me an I win button so I can delete your cards".
Nothing lives 1 turn. That's my problem. I got the legendary pirate 5-drop that summons a copy pirate when you play one. I've played him maybe 10 times and have yet to see him live 1 turn. Have to play him on 8 just to get another guy off with his effect and it's underwhelming. Flip side to nothing living 1 turn is the amount of minions pulled out the azz in 1 turn. So I watch these Hearthstone UA-camrs in high ranks and every turn is HUGE board, HUGE boardwipe, HUGE board, HUGE boardwipe, its comical. Game is just powercrept
We were able to counter highlander decks, no one wanted to run the tech cards. People just complained until they changed how highlander works, instead of playing the game the way it was designed. Also steam cleaner should have never left standard.
@@kerotomas1 it’s a great counter, and all you have to do is keep one plague card in your hand until after steam cleaner is played. Chances of someone running two is very slim
Reno deck’s unplayable? Zeddy if you as a mod/high legend player are telling me you couldn’t waltz into legend with reno warrior feeling confident then I would love to know what is crushing it. It’s warrior/druid city here for me. Endless board clears. What’s the control deck you want but don’t have?
How it should be is, midrange combo beats control, control outlasts early game aggro, and early game aggro kills midrange combo before it can go off When midrange combo can outlast early game aggro and Destroy control, that's when there's an imbalance
Or, I think there was a shift in the combo decks. Before, combo decks was late game strategies, along with control. Combo would still beat control because the combo would win the game if given the setup time, and aggro didn't allow that time. Now, those combos can be implemented at midrange rather than late game. Now aggro has less time to stop the combos. Aggro would have to reach insane numbers in the first 3 to 5 turns to be able to temper the combo decks. So, rather than nerd the current midrange combos, leave them where they're at. They're in a good place. What we need is a buff to aggro decks, make it so they have the power to overwhelm the midrange combo decks. And then, give control the early game board control, so that control can still keep the aggro decks in check
The only way to fix it is bite the bullet and make 4-6 full expansions in a row that are underpowered compared to recent ones. That would allow them to reset standard and build from there. There’s no way they’ll do that though as they’re scared it will lose them a lot of money in the short term for only a chance of long term gain.
I feel like the reason people hate control decks is because the best cards for control blow up cards in your hand and deck or wipe boards with no say (Reno)
i just don’t want to wait 30 minutes to lose a frustrating game against someone who just clear my board untill i concede. that’s my definition of control deck, which is kind the definition of everyone not playing those boring deck, much like reno warrior last season
I feel like it just came full circle. Old Combo-Decks had to control the board until the could pop off and modern "Control-Decks" all have a definite win-con so reliable they don't need value
with the power-level of the cards getting higher and higher , the starting Health should have risen too . especially the last few expansions . that's why Renethal felt so good .
I only play this archetype since launch. Every season i get legend so there is always a control deck that can work, at the moment there is Reno Shaman that works great. The best meta for me was with CW and Dr Boom hero card, the worst was the quest meta.
I watched some HS after a few years of absence and TBH I didn't find Reno offensive, just a costly board clear. What I do find offensive is that every deck floods board with 8:8's every turn and never runs out of cards. I really fail to understand how do people find Reno offensive and they do not find offensive being dealt 30 damage on turn 6?
I remember what “Wallet Warrior” was, and I understand that years have passed, as well as the game mechanics have changed. Of course, there were aggro decks like face hunter, and also heavy control warriors… there will always be who likes a kind of game strategy and who doesn’t. But why has the game come to a point of extreme massive boards, turn 5 otks , or unbearable mechanics you can’t evade (like warrior bombs)?…. And one last note, who the heck do devs listen to when (supposedly) developing the game? For sure they give precedence to youngest players, I get it, it’s like an investment. When hearthstone had a more “serious” cut, things where more enjoyable.
My ultimate definition of “control” decks these days that I adapted my playstyle is any Midrange decks that can beat Aggro and OTK Combo decks… At least games can last until turn 8-10 and possibly reach 10min long
Its too slow, and warlock can't gain armor so it dies from hand even faster, and the excavate package isn't good enough to run to gain the extra health
Personally, I think they should do 3 things Created for control cards that are extremely unfun for enough players instead of trying to do what most people enjoy for all characters and not ruin your control tools in subsequent or even the same expansions, and make the strongest control tools for classes so that the worst cards don't have to be expected from all classes and games can become more varied. A nice example of my first thought is changing Odin's for the resto of the game effect from an attack boost to something that would promote getting armor to something more control. For example to "you can't lose more than 8 armor per round", or "if you have armor at the end of the round deal 2 damage to all enemies and gain 2 armor". And the other example is that Reno shouldn't destroy Sargeras's Portal, Rheastrasza's Dragon Nest or General Vezax. Those cards that could help form control decks are absolutely useless when they can be easily destroyed. The third thesis is a purely weird moment where the most powerful control tools are simply neutrals which makes those decks a lot more unpleasant to see. Reno wouldn't be such a problem in my opinion if you didn't have to consider it in literally all of the slower decks.
My theory: Control makes the games longer. People usually want to play fast games and go on with their lives (quick bathroom poop session game, we know it's true). Control games take 10-15 min sometimes. Devs want people to continue playing, making control less relevant. I love control and I try a lot for control to work. It has been difficult :(
God i hate reno, It should be a complete bordwipe but opponent gets 1 space for 1 turn but you dont. and nerf some of the dmg from the Hero power to get more armor
I don’t think control can be brought back in line till aggro is brought under control bc it is so fast and so powerful. That being said they could print more efficient aoe that’s on the cheaper side as well as make tech cards a bit cheaper. As it is now, most tech cards are too slow and get outpaced by the decks they’re meant to slow down
i still play control priest in wild, with a lot of card that give you random stuff, makes the game insanely fun, even though i only win like 1/4 of my games
I think the problem is that every class got so much crad draw nowadays. Like the aggro decks dont even run out of steam once they flooded the board 1 or 2 times and it got cleared. You dont need to think anymore or play around stuff. Its just like slamming stuff on the board and if the other one doesnt have all of their removal at the perfect time they just lose. Resource management doesnt play a role anymore
I remember the days when i could play a doomsayer on turn 2 and it actualy survived my opponents turn 2.
even without frost nova, lol
Now IT doesnt even survive IT the Moment you play it.
PIRATES AHWAY!
I remember Renethal coming out and thinking that conteol decks were back. Then they nerfed it so aggro could take over the meta again
And now Wild is only Renathal.... specially Druid with their ramp and 40 health they are Superior
Only viqble aggro is Pirate rogue
@@WitchHunterRobin the problem is turn 5 OTK decks or Quest decks where you cant do anything without aggro.
Renathal was never a control card. It allowed midrange greedy decks to survive against aggro and crush control.
@@bubyoz yeah, you mean Sorcerer apprentice? It should been no less than 1, most Renathal decks run Dirty rat, Okani etc to counter it
They run 6x Iceblocks so for aggro its still hard to beat mages
@@nsg1911 Wild now is super bad, all we face is either Mana cheat decks: Big shaman, miracle rogue, Seed, Sorcerer apprentice... or Renathal decks like druid and Raza
because aggro started having insane draw and resources, they started printing incredibly unfun swing cards for control that feel horrible to play against and have barely any counter play except to kill them before they can play it. Board clears like brawl can be played around easily, having your board space limited to 1 for a turn or your cards blown up... Not so much
Thank you, someone with a brain
Yep, warrior just exists now so even trying to play some kind of control deck is only viable for so long before the inevitable mind numbing game play that every 1 in 3 games provides against a double battlecry warrior nearly guaranteed a win with that boomboss shit.
Starting hero health needs to be increased. 10 years of power creep with no change to hp only makes aggro more and more of the superior strategy
You didn't learn from Renathal it seems, it would only benefit greedy decks instead of control...
A change like that would have benfits and downsides. Renathal was an amazing card that helped control decks survive longer, but also, indirectly, supported really toxic strategies too
Aggro needs to exist and be meta sadly. It shuts down all ultra unfun greedy cards that exists.
And whats even more sad is that otk decks are the biggest problem to control not being playable. Stormwind f:ed us all, when they decided that otk should be easier and faster.
Thank God you Priest players are not in charge of balance changes. Otherwise we'd be stuck with 50 hp heroes
@@MrHand-pv2sf Me, the priest player, crying in the corner.
It easy to understand why. See how many cards help Aggro dealing damage vs how many cards are AoE and give you Life. Last expansion there was almost none of them to help the archetype. And if you want to play Control you should just give up, they do NOT want Control in the game, since most of the players like to play quick games at Smartphones they would rather playing Aggro. So forget it.
I Play on Smartphones since the great Tournament. I hate Aggro.
@@greenlight2323 my brotha
The problem is that nobody want to be in 40 min games to loose to some warrior ou druid that generate zilliax or copy entire deck over and over again or desruption you before even play. Even control decks today are dumb as fuck and you wish loose 30 before from a aggro. Maybe they can creat a new format that dont give infinity value, copies, desruptions or combo from hand. But will be unpopular anyway. Just see this reno and zilliax metas or armor warrior, full unfun to play against e desbalanced as aggros deck... so let it be.
@@G3toiy40 minutes game is better since im from cult exp 😅
The amount of card draw/generation is also fundamentally a problem for control/value decks. "back in the day" people would actually have to hero power to NOT burn through their cards too quickly! People would legitimately run out of resources. Each card you play should be worth something.
My theory is that they want to make the game fit into mobile gaming much easier.
5 minute games, microtransaction hell, big flashy cosmetic stuff everywhere you look, child-appealing card art, etc.
Not really a theory, if you read between the lines in previous community update posts they've basically admitted to that already.
Which doesn't even work. So many man childs play so sweaty. Almost every deck i play against is from someone using a deck they saw on youtube and then those same people take the whole turn thinking
So dont want to play a game for 1h makes u like child cards art, spend money in the store and shit like that? Nah, if u want to be stuck in the same boring game for 30 min playing your “I wont let u play” control deck nice for u, if I can play 3 or 4 games do my daily and get some wins I will do it, if not I wont play the game lul
It's basically a proven theory being that they have said they don't want decks like the old Elysiana control warrior being meta ever.
@@Lexus4455 You seems salty my friend. Go play your netdeck OP aggro
I love control decks. I got legend with uldum highlander priest. That had a lot of value, lot of outressource options and I loved it. And that was a meta, where everything was playable: Combo, Aggro, Midrange and control. I also loved playing control wild decks. But in both modes, control is dead and I hate it and everything feels skillless for me. It´s just stupid scam shit. I wish, they give control more love. Since then, BG is my thing :)
I mean you can't play control if you are gonna get blown up from in hand by turn 5... there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Also cards like Bran are impossible to keep up with for other control decks. As usual, it just comes down to horrible design by the dev team, lol.
In brief: they decided they want a game of aggro v. OTK combo. Midrange based on value, never mind control, is undesirable to them.
The devs want cards > skill. It's a bad paradigm and bad for the longevity of the game.
I'm someone who loves control Priest, even with tons of heals or armor, it doesnt matter because of how much more prevalent OTK is. Either Lamplighter, CNE, Odyn, Flood Paladin, etc... it's impossible to go to fatigue because decks can easily do 30 damage in a turn now.
my biggest complaint about lone ranger was only ever that it did not work on both sides of the board. It's in the card's name. Lone ranger. I assumed it would be a one on one minion fight - it would even be funny if it was like that for the rest of the match.
Reno is a cheater.
Yeah I wish they would've left it at cost 8 with this both-sided effect instead (without the "rest of the game" part 😂). At least we got the "no duplicates in _starting_ deck" tho.
I think Hearthstone needs INCREDIBLY STRONG early game removal.
The removal tools are still following the rules of the game from 10 years ago.
Holy Nova 3 mana deal 2 damage, 7 mana flamestrike to deal 5? How does that help in a world where pain Warlock can drop 2 8/8 Giants by turn 4?
But then they make early game removal like Threads of Despair and Prison Breaker and then they nerf them because they're removing early game board floods (Which is 90% of what they're designing these days)
And any good removal they do make gets nerfed like sanitize or trial by fire, like I don't understand why they nerf decks that have a 51% winrate into the ground with multiple different card hits and then they leave t1 decks untouched in some places like in this last patch
The problem with this is that the value per mana for lower mana cost cards and the huge amount of draws/generation would just have the combo decks run these.
Meaning combo would beat everything especially control.
They need to put hefty costs on draw and generation so aggro can't force a control player too have a specific answer every turn forever.
And combo decks won't sit on 10 cards every turn while playing full boards.
@@slippers8000 mana cheat is also a big problem too
@@PadFeiLongTrue true, having more costly draw/generation would help with that a bit since cards in hand would matter more.
If you put out your entire hand by turn 4 but it won't kill your opponent would leave you with few options.
But ye the more you think about it the more hopeless it feels, seeing the state of the game.
Control works by starving the enemy out of their resources and win with you higher value cards. Doesn't work when even the most aggro decks have near infinite draw or card generation.
The worst experience I'm Hearthstone right now is getting your Mana stolen by druid. Who the f thought that was going to be fun.
Just as fun when a certain warlock deck did the same stuff in order to Steal your health over and over.
@@PandoloFox The difference is that SnakeLock was incredibly weak at tempo plays so if he played snake and bounced it either you were using a terrible deck or you just have skill issue. Druid has insane tempo swings thanks to the dragon packs, ramp and tremendous value cards like Eonar and Yogg, which don't get me wrong they are 9-10 mana legendaries they should be strong as fuck, but not when you can ramp then to T5-6
@@TheAscilie for a control deck snake lock was gg. Skill wasnt realy a factor. But yes druid can certainly fight faster decks.
@@PandoloFox For heavy control decks yes, not that different from Odyn Warrior, with the difference that the latter had a way higher WR against every class.
@@TheAscilie True, those classes are broken though. Its not the 6 mana cards fault.
I was mostly expressing the frustrating experience that 6 mana card created. Always glad to share my control as misery with the rest of you. God knows things doesnt get changed until the aggro players start crying.
Not only do they want the game to be faster so it's more appealing to smartphone users, but they also give out tools to otk decks more often than they give survival tools to control gameplans. However, restoring health and clearing the board is never enough, because they often have insane amounts of burn from the hand. So many things contributed to control being driven out of the game: lack of good efficient clears, lack of ways to exceed max health, efficient and cheap draw cards for every class, insane amounts of burn effects etc. I remember a time when Kripp would play arena and have matches literally be decided by 1 health. Now you're not safe even with full hp and a decent board, everyone can outrace you and everyone can kill you from hand.
Is it even a question? Combo which was already control's cryptonite has become so efficient that you should auto-concede if you are playing control. Aggro that used to be control's favorite matchup, has now infinite free card draw and infinite board refills, so it's gone to at best 50-50 and that's IF your control deck is nothing but board clears, making it horrible against anything other than aggro. On top of that, each expansion has at least a couple of specifically targeted anti-control cards that can go in any deck and basically guarantee a win against control, where targeted anti-aggro or anti-combo cards are nowhere as absolutely devastating against the corresponding archetypes.
@@kosk8800 Blizzard out there saying they want the board to be a constant puzzle to Solve.
And here i am wondering when I can play a card that isnt health/armor gain or a boardclear card.
@@PandoloFox A puzzle to solve seems like a good goal, however if that puzzle consists of 5 8:8's and you have 30 health than it does not seem very well thought through. Either the puzzle should consist of 2:2's and 3:3's or you should have 100 health instead of 30.
Creating a "strategy card game" just to force metas where the only viable playstyle is aggro or turn 4-5 otks is unfortunate to say the least. The devs lost it completely at descent of dragons imo. Uldum was that perfect balance where aggro, control, midrange and combo was all viable in both standard and wild. With cards being released these days like reno lone ranger, all of the "for the rest of the game" effects without any form of condition and objectively parasitic, unfun designs like the demon seed, I think the game needs an overhaul and rethink it's play pattern philosphies.
The problem is that so many decks have virtually infinite resources nowadays. The only way to bring control decks back is to reduce the overall power level significantly. Every decks has to run out of cards eventually.
I miss the days when i could play fatigue rogue with coldlight oracle. Survive every turn as a class whose only board clears are fan of knife, vanish, and doomsayer truely gave me a rewarding feeling. On top of that, to win the game you also have to calculate fatigue damages every turn. It wasn't META by any means bit it still had a decent win rate. Unique strategies like that was what made me enjoy HS.
I wonder if the answer would be to wait until the rotation, then dramatically bring down the power level by nerfing cards from the prior year, making a Witchwood/GvG-level of power for the following set, and adjusting the philosophy going forward.
But I have a feeling that even though that's a game I'd want to play, it's not a game many would want to play and not a game they're interested in designing.
Control is dead. games are over by turn 5. I hate pirate rogue I auto concede.....up to four minions on board turn one and by turn 3 game over. Slowly losing interest in he game did not buy the tavern pass and will not buy the battlegrounds pass
Why u did this to me Zeddy. Now I miss oldshool control warrior so much ;_;. Control decks are the most fun in HS period.
The reason why it never lasts is because most people play fast decks, thus, most people complain whenever control is over 50% win rate.
However, I do think HS has gotten to a point where there is so much more flexibility and reliability in draw now that control can be extremely successful but only if they bring the value of the board back. If your opponent is just buffing and discounting a bunch of things in hand, control can't shut that off like they can with the board.
So I don't see control making a solid return until the next rotation. There is too much power that ramps up too quickly in this one.
It's not just killing control, it's killing the game. These patches are too weak
Why not create 2 metas - one for aggro players - let them kill themselves on turn 1, they'll be happy, and another for players liking it slow.
the last control decks I would say have been the death knight with cne in whizbang before highlander changes, then i feel it was the sargeras symphony warlock in titans, who gained infinit taunts and played just alot of heals and clears
You knew control was dead when wild turned into a format where you can't even reach 10 mana because of how many hyper aggressive strategies there are...
More appropriate title : What happened to Hearthstone
I miss the decision making of withholding your removal, your silences and you resources to make the most use of it (gotta silence that sylvanas when it comes down) and the resource war in control vs control match ups. I really miss that.
So many in hs scene were mad about reno when he had a few decks above 50% especially on twitter, control players can never have fun things…
I think people are primarily angry at the degenerate effect Reno has, and not that control was in a better spot. I am primarily a control player and I hate Reno.
@@ZKEUSThat effect is necessary, game is out of control. It doesnt matter how much you save resources and wipe boards.
The next turn the board is full again and damage to your face was pushed. Reno allows a control player to set up and take a breather. We have too many crazy cheap cards that give you more cards and fills the board. Cards like these were expensive back in the day.
@@ZKEUS As a wild deathrattle decks enjoyer, they should change Reno's effect to silence and destroy all minion instead of all minions poofed.
Coz now my N'zoth is useless :(
@@Amghannam Do you have a list for that?
@@Amghannam we priest players have that card. Its called plague of death and yall hated that card too back in the day.
Sorry mixed up its name.
Edit: didnt edit the name of the card i mentioned fast enough. So putting this here if confusion happens.
United in Stormwind killed Control. Literally since that expansion, there has never been an actual "Control" deck.
UiS itself brought Demon Seed and Juggernaut that provided infinite damage/value if their OTK or Aggro nature didn't outpace a Control Deck.
Fractured in Alterac Valley brought Kazakusan where it simply became a thing where it was just a rush to get broken Treasures to OTK people.
While Voyage to the Sunken City brought many control tools, with powerful Colossal minions and extra value from Faelin and Azshara... It also brought the inevitable death from Curses and mass mana cheat to empower aggro/combo/midrange decks.
Nathria brought Denathrius making every "Control" deck just about building an OTK with Daddy D.
March brought Astalor for more BS OTK win conditions as well as DK with Mograine for some inevitability to prevent value games existing.
Festival of Legends brought more anti-control stuff via value killing cards like Tony, Symphony and CNE (At least at this point CNE was crap but it still existed as a late game swing)
TITANS ironically murdered Control despite the powerful Titans, because of Odyn and Sif providing OTKs while Helya and Sargeras provided more infinite damage/value.
Badlands brought Reno who outright nukes boards and provides infinite value on his own. While Brann + Boomboss again kills control by destroying value (Meaning the only viable control decks are Warrior... And Priest who is able to steal Brann + Boomboss)
Whizbang gave us Unkilliax (With Dr Balanced) as well as Wheel of Death for more control hate.
With Perils so far giving us even more control hate via Hydration Station further pushing "Control = Warrior or GTFO" whilst we also got things like Seabreeze Chalice, Lamplighter and Griftah for massive damage OTKs that even Warrior can't armour their way out of reach of.
Ever since UiS, there's been this constant need to print cards that completely destroy control decks, or at best push them into being a single class (I.e. Warrior). This is outside of the fact that they keep improving Aggro to a point where it's no longer the case that Control beats Aggro, often Aggro just beats Control because it's so darn fast or randomly has some BS OTK given to it for no reason.
Aw, poor control victim, not like we had Charge warrior during Alterac or the whole reing of Control warrior when Naga DH was the best aggro deck during Voyage, isn't it?.
@@DavidPachón8591 Oh yes... Charge Warrior... Known for it's not OTK combo potential... Oh wait.
While the "Control Warrior" was still reliant on Kazakusan to discover OTK cards...
Almost like these "Control" decks were still just combo decks 🙃
@@tarille1043 Ah yes because you didn't control the whole match before the combo just to win FASTER 😂.
@@tarille1043 You are just delusional pretending Control it's only control when it's fully based on attrition, what's next? Voyage control warrior not being control just because pre-nerf Nellie, Finley + from the depths? Yeah, i get it... Not even patron warrior or good ol' control were control based on that assumption, just because they had patron or Grommash combo.
@@DavidPachón8591 What kind of brain dead idiot thinks that a deck entirely reliant on its COMBO to win a game is anything but a Combo deck?
Combo decks normally control the game until they pull off their combo. Just like a midrange deck controls the game until they win.
Simply providing control in a game does not equate to a "Control" deck.
An actual control deck is aimed at winning via control. Hence its name.
This means answering all of the opponents threats so they run out of steam and can no longer win. Putting out so many threats the opponent can no longer remove them and lose. Generating more cards than the opponent to outlast them (Either in fatigue or for aforementioned reasons)
Patron Warrior was literally a combo deck. Based around OTK's using Frothing or simply charging a ton of Patrons into the face.
Good old Wallet Warrior was about dropping many big threats until the opponent ran out of answers and thus was a control deck (Yes, Grom provided burst, but it wasn't THE win condition of the deck)
Remembering Wheel Warlock
2024-2024
You were so special 🕊️🕊️
I like taking the first 1-8 turns of setting up for big plays. Quick wins feel like a coin toss, may as well go play a slot machine a casino.
Yeah it feels so satisfying building up things. It feels more epic. More interesting. It feels like it involves more strategy too
People complain about control whenever there is a strong control deck. People whine about warrior and priest if it’s ever even like a tier 2 deck. Let the games be slower.
They want this game to be a toilet break game 5 mins maximum game
The game needs the triangle, control beating aggro, aggro getting under combo, and combo putting control on a timer. Combo becoming too efficient at what it does is what threw the balance out of whack. hyper aggressive aggro can exist because control is absent from the meta because without opponent turn interaction, combo has become too good and to consistent. Not sure how you fix it at this point though.
1) Create 2 metas - fast and slow?
2) Allowing players to ban classes/cards they don't want to play against?
3) New format with a rotating meta based on combination of a couple expansions from the past (which are weaker power) that maybe never had the chance to coexist (like Witchwood and Gadgetzan)? It would keep the power down while creating new experience.
@@erykczajkowski8226 for 1, I figured that is what wild was supposed to be with standard having slower control being more viable. 2, they definitely should improve the casual landscape, 3. They would do that with twist, there would be a card access issue but I think longer time players would enjoy it. I personally think Hearthstone has too many classes, but they can't go backwards on that unfortunately.
@BrandonR-mg9xt I think that wild was supposed to be a place where players could utilize their very expensive and suddenly obsolete cards, not as a quick version of slower standard. It would be harder to justify for Blizzard to say to people you need to spend hundreds of USD on cards that expire after 2 years or whatever. Wild was a good solution for a while, but the number of available cards grew so much that it is completely unbalanced. I heard of Twist, but it is closed now, not sure why.
It feels like there's not a lot of good middle game control cards. It's all just super powerful end game control stuff that takes over and can't be countered if you get to that point. There should be more balance.
@@gman963 cant do that, if control players gets too good early game removal that means otk players gets those too and can build their decks to be faster.
Aggro needs to be on top, sadly they are so good that control players cant beat them either. All this wouldnt be a problem if all classes didnt have a busted win condition. That way one class could recieve more board clears without it turning to an otk deck.
Just got back into hearthstone after 5yrs away, was always a control warrior player, always liked the attrition style game, choosing the right resource to use at the right time. The game now feels miles away from that, sadly. Everything is super fast, boards develop like crazy, there's cards that just feel like cheats... Feelsbadman
Blood DK is still my favourite control deck of all time. It just felt so good
Honestly, I think they would go a long way towards taking triple rune decks off life support by reverting the restriction on being able to discover triple rune cards.
It may have been a little obnoxious to face someone who generated 3 or 4 copies of vampiric blood throughout the course of a game back when DK was introduced, but now that the other classes have largely power crept DK (mainly because of the card rotation, DK lost a lot more than other more established classes) and triple rune archetypes are pretty much non-existent because they chose to focus on making rainbow the only viable strategy, I think it’s time to let DK discover triple rune. It was a questionable nerf to begin with, now it’s something necessary to breath life into a DK archetype that may never recover.
@@oxtailsoup6493 Generating a lot of bloods might have been annoying but it is definitely less annoying than getting killed turn 4 by pirate dh/painlock or getting multiple zilliaxes. People were complaining, but back then the meta was the best. Renathal before nerf+blood package gave us probably the last good control deck that we will have. I am so depressed because of that
Honestly, the meta has gotten so ridicilous that being able to discover into Triple Rune cards wouldn't even be that broken anymore lol
@@kaktusgaming2219 exactly my point. I honestly don’t think it was that bad to discover triple rune in the first place. I remember thinking that nerf and the nerf to Renethal were nerds no one was really asking for.
Blood has vampiric blood they get access to, frost has frostwyrms fury they get access to, and unholy would get access to grave strength. We’re talking 1 card per archetype here a total of three cards total that have the triple rune requirement, it’s not going to break the game. People also forget the pool of possible discovers is so large that it’s not guaranteed you will even get the triple rune card you’re looking for, even with targeted discover cards like hematurge there’s no guarantee it will offer up vampiric blood. It wouldn’t fix all the problems with tripe rune decks but it sure would be a step in the right direction towards allowing DK to have multiple archetypes like some of the other classes instead of everyone just running rainbow…
@@oxtailsoup6493 wasnt that nerfed specificaly for triple frost though?
People didnt like being boardlocked over and over. There wernt many triple frost cards either so it was easy to get copies of.
Control decks went from being able to play control. To you have 1 or 2 really high cost Control cards and the goal is to “attempt” to survive to use them.
The game feels less tactical and strategic. It’s now a randomized speed race to see who can kill there opponent, or be set up for the win, within the first 3 turns of a game.
This is the reason i quit this crap I don't want to just mindlessly play minions and hit my opponent in the face even aggro became so bad and doesn't require any decision making whatsoever unlike some old aggro decks
I agree with most of your points but I think the two biggest reasons control is in the position it's in are
1) PiP only had a handful of late game oriented cards (something you have mentioned in a previous video) so naturally decks are gonna skew lower cost and quicker.
2) Early board clears are very weak right now. Take priest as an example, the last two sets they have gotten board clears either tied to tribal synergy (fly off the shelves) or an aggro package (hot coals)
However, a competitive control deck should never just be all removal/value. Have a win con to build to (Jace, Quest Priest, CNE). You should have to be somewhat proactive to win a game not just sit there and react.
The problem is getting to those wincons, you basically need a ton of removal just to survive the insane early aggro boards, and then you need disruption cards like dirty rat or boomboss to make sure you don't just die from hand, its the toxicity of other strategies that lead to the unfun deck building thats required so you can get to the fun late game strategies
Easily the best changes they can make to curtail problematic strategies:
A) Make it a RULE that no card can go to (0) in cost unless specifically stated
B) Change how the "graveyard" works in this game. The fact that you can resurrect more copies of a minion than have actually died is total BS. Its how the "Unkilliax" strategy even happened to begin with.
I feel this so hard. I'm a day one classic control player and my favorite decks were always the long, drawn out, 25 minute games. Used to play an og Reno, cthun, warlock deck that would just hold on for dear life as long as humanly possible until I could drop like, a 40/40 cthun to win. But we're talking about turn 30+. So satisfying and so missed.
Zeddy: Pls, nerf reno, brann, ziliax, dr boom and every other control wincon.
Zeddy: Lol, why is control not playable?
It took me way too long to accept that Blizzard thought control strategies shouldn't exist. That is what helped me finally quit Hearthstone.
my most played class its warrior with a global negative wrate (les stha 50%). Because time ago i was fun playing control warrior and lose sometimes maybe more than win, but the fun equalizes the scale. Now days its feel like its imposbile to win and like zeedy says the mechanics or cards that make you win, like reno, its not fun anyway.
The control issue is very simple: Blizzard doesn't want control to be a thing.
Most of HS players do it on their phones, they have metrics on their ideal game length. Long drawn out control games are not what they want, for engagement metrics.
So much so that when you queue up as a control deck, the matchmaking took will skew you matchmaking against other control decks.
The game has just become too fast for 30 HP imo.
@@XTSonic people said that back in Nathria, and we saw what happened.
@@DavidPachón8591 what happened? control decks being good?
@@C3l3bi1 Big beast Hunter was control?!, Ramp Druid was control?!, Ping Mage was control?!.
Card generation has made control archetype obsolete.
Many times I find it hard to develop the board because there is so much removeal.
Since standard and wild are broken nowdays, they need to add a new mode: chess. In that mode there are only fair cards, which doesnt kill you or win the game instantly.
the biggest problem is honestly reddit. ive always been a control player and EVERY TIME a good control card enters the game reddit blows up and blizzard just nerfs the cards based off of reddit. like, even when the control decks are barely t2 and hardly preforming well: reddit will just blow up at blizzard until they nerf it, leaving the meta with nothing but aggro, combo, and midrange.
the real solution is when blizzard releases a good control card: they should just outright ignore these bronze and silver players crying on reddit. a control deck controlling the board shouldn't be a reason to nerf these cards; but according to reddit it is. and blizzard just does whatever these smooth brained redditors want
This. This. This.
The game has been purposely pushed away from the fatigue value battle style of play.
I personally loved blood control dl when it first came out however having to go against the mirror or another control deck. It would all come down to whoever built the deck more greedy and spending hours in a single game and going to fatigue can very well be considered not fun for lots of people.
If i ever ended going against a priest that could 3 times steal my value I would just concede instead spending years.
IIRC, They wanted to do more aggro and midrange for mobile players.
Still i missed control, i just rarely see a good late game win condition
Im a primary a mobile player, but I LOVE control play style, it's just a long match
2014 control warrior reigns supreme.
It's sad, I prefer the longer games.
Hearthstone community is not ready for this idea, but the discover mechanic was the primary reason that led to the current outcome, with complete absence of control decks. It all started there, in League add-on.
i may be not ready for ur idea, but im also immune to it since i am a combo player :D
The only current aggro decklist that runs any Discover cards is Pain Warlock, which only runs Fracking. Discover is an inherently value-centric mechanic that actually rewards Control more than it does Aggro.
@@GreenToten Which is why I HAVE to include ice block in my decks, and discover many ice blocks until I finally draw my Reno Jackson, otherwise I can't win combo.
It's been mentioned a few times in the past. Discover used to be pretty limited, and costly in many cases, it was neat but if you did it, it put you behind and you needed a gameplan to make up for it.
Discover is on in small does but all the card generation is completely out of control, I really miss pre stormwind hearthstone even there was lots of discover for some time before stormwind, the game at least felt like hearthstone then, now its not even slightly fun anymore
As a free to play Warrior main... feels bad man. Anything they get gets nerfed into irrelevance. Charge was originally a warrior keyword but they moved away from it. Defensive tactics were another they removed (Enchanter destroyed a spell every turn, steam cleaner, anti secret minions, starfish silence all) The lack of silence is huge in the meta, as well as no steamcleaner
The problem is every class has huge swing turns after turn 6 (unless you’re an aggro deck).
If there’s a deck that wants to play after turn 8 or so it’s basically a game of who has the better swing turn. This used to not exist to this extent back in the old economy. It’s an issue of power creep but the more the cards they print with immense power levels where the cards do multiple things at once, the more they have to create even more powerful cards. Just a passerby opinion, but that’s what I’ve observed.
Blasted Boomboss, Helya and other degenerative cards make control deck that focus on outvaluing virtually impossible.
Helya is literally a card built on out-valuing your opponent what are you on about?
Plague Death Knight is literally just a remix of Bomb Warrior, one of the oldest and most iconic control decks in the history of Hearthstone.
@@MinoriGaming Plagues/Bombs literally isn't about value. It's all about just shoving damage onto the opponents face until they explode.
The only difference between these and your typical aggro/midrange deck is that instead of directly putting damage onto face, you instead shuffle the face damage into their deck and hope they draw it before you die.
@@tarille1043 Bomb Warrior and Plague Death Knight win games by outliving you and weathering your value until you eventually succumb to the damage they shuffled into your deck early in the game. Both of these archetypes give up early-game tempo for the ability to shut you down in the late game and pollute your draw with damage. How is that not value?! You don’t need to force your opponent to draw into fatigue as a win condition in order for the game to be about value.
@@MinoriGaming These decks were about just killing your opponent.
Their only "Control" aspects were that they needed to survive long enough for their damage to take place. They weren't about generating more resources, or burning through your win conditions until you ran out of threats, or putting out so many threats you run out of removal. They were about just shove damage into your deck until you die.
They are as much "Control" as any Mill strategy (Or even less so, because Mill at least burns cards and makes card draw unplayable) where the goal is to force the opponent to blow themselves up and your "Value" is simply to stop yourself dying to the predominantly symmetrical card draw effects.
Value strategies are about creating value. Discovering more cards, generating more threats, putting more resources into the deck to draw into. Not necessarily about fatigue, but about simply OUT VALUEING the opponent. Basically, how you win vs Flood Paladin, where you simply last through their board refills and then they have nothing left to win with.
Boomboss is literally made to force attrition, just in the toxic way.
Zeddy's dream of 20 minute long fatigue battles isn't ever coming back as we now have game design where slow decks can either guarantee a finishing otk combo or have inevitability. Hearthstone team clearly wants the game to be Mobile friendly and have on average shorter game length which leads to Aggro decks being favored in meta balance and slow decks ending games with combos instead of drawn out fatigue slugfest.
I feel like Rastakhan's was the attempt to bring the power level down, but people thought it was lame and "not powerful enough" so we get these really big power spiky effects, because when the community stood against Rastakhan's we told the developers "we don't want weak card"
thank you ☕ i remember the little characters would come out and run around the board, per card, which was neat, the only problem was it did it every single move or every single turn, or the same character would do the same thing thirty two times 😷☕ and also interact with the four corners on the board, it's like playing cards on a backgammon board, and each card is a character, I've been playing since BETA, and still don't have all the cards or all the extras, 3 adventures left to get, besides farm gold coins and XP
I just want to play control warlock again. It was so fun to play in titans.
There’s a deck I've been facing lately. It's like a control triple Blood Rune DK. It’s weird, but you might want to give it a shot.
I miss playing Elysiana.
I miss the abyssal curses warlock had. They felt like a fun way to do control that can be played against by filling your hand
Like yeah, when you face a large threatening board is like turn 6-7 and maybe at most you managed to board wipe 2-3 times and you're in the lead, now you're just constantly under pressure on turn 2 and you can't really do much and hope you survive till turn 5. Aggro just care about dumping cards and not worry board clears and they always get away with it.
Control decks have traditionally not been about outvaluing decks. They have been about CONTROLLING the board. Outlast aggressive decks and run them out of cards by intelligently using removal. Create a massive swing turn on the board using said removal tools against a midrange deck and rush them to 0 life before their value runs you over. Jade druid killed control decks 8 years ago, (not because of infinite jades, but because of the ridiculous amount of defensive tools druid had like feral rage and earthen scales that made it so control decks couldn't kill the druid before the jades happened) and Renathal buried them since midrange decks couldn't lose to aggro anymore so what was the point of playing control?
everytime any sort of counter to aggro decks is viable, part of the fanbase who only likes playing aggro cries like babies because they can't kill you before turn 5
I have never seen an aggro player cry more than a control player, aggro is the playstyle that people talks more bs about.
@@DavidPachón8591 what? literally 90% of complains on reddit are always about control decks and reno
@@C3l3bi1 get out of reddit pal, reddit is not when the vast majority of the community gathers.
I think that we have some problems, like: mage that the classe listed with control board, do this in a way too much inefficient, many expensive cards, week minions. Many cards do the same efect: card draw. Many classes without suport to control, Druid become OTK class, just Warrior control board and gain "life" to counterattack.
The lack of class identity ruined Tempo and Control in the many classes.
Control should never be synonymous with disruption. It is value, board clears, and healing. Highlander warrior is a anti-fun, anti-control, and anti-value. It's not a control deck outside of having a bunch of board clears. Control games should be won based on smart gameplay, not "blizzard gave me an I win button so I can delete your cards".
Nothing lives 1 turn. That's my problem. I got the legendary pirate 5-drop that summons a copy pirate when you play one. I've played him maybe 10 times and have yet to see him live 1 turn. Have to play him on 8 just to get another guy off with his effect and it's underwhelming. Flip side to nothing living 1 turn is the amount of minions pulled out the azz in 1 turn. So I watch these Hearthstone UA-camrs in high ranks and every turn is HUGE board, HUGE boardwipe, HUGE board, HUGE boardwipe, its comical. Game is just powercrept
We were able to counter highlander decks, no one wanted to run the tech cards. People just complained until they changed how highlander works, instead of playing the game the way it was designed. Also steam cleaner should have never left standard.
steam cleaner is the reason why no one plays plague dk in wild
@@kerotomas1 it’s a great counter, and all you have to do is keep one plague card in your hand until after steam cleaner is played. Chances of someone running two is very slim
Reno deck’s unplayable? Zeddy if you as a mod/high legend player are telling me you couldn’t waltz into legend with reno warrior feeling confident then I would love to know what is crushing it. It’s warrior/druid city here for me. Endless board clears. What’s the control deck you want but don’t have?
How it should be is, midrange combo beats control, control outlasts early game aggro, and early game aggro kills midrange combo before it can go off
When midrange combo can outlast early game aggro and Destroy control, that's when there's an imbalance
Or, I think there was a shift in the combo decks. Before, combo decks was late game strategies, along with control. Combo would still beat control because the combo would win the game if given the setup time, and aggro didn't allow that time.
Now, those combos can be implemented at midrange rather than late game. Now aggro has less time to stop the combos. Aggro would have to reach insane numbers in the first 3 to 5 turns to be able to temper the combo decks.
So, rather than nerd the current midrange combos, leave them where they're at. They're in a good place. What we need is a buff to aggro decks, make it so they have the power to overwhelm the midrange combo decks. And then, give control the early game board control, so that control can still keep the aggro decks in check
@@mitchlacasse361 No aggro and combo both need to be nerfed into the ground like they have been doing with control
Finally you make a video about it
The only way to fix it is bite the bullet and make 4-6 full expansions in a row that are underpowered compared to recent ones. That would allow them to reset standard and build from there. There’s no way they’ll do that though as they’re scared it will lose them a lot of money in the short term for only a chance of long term gain.
I feel like the reason people hate control decks is because the best cards for control blow up cards in your hand and deck or wipe boards with no say (Reno)
i just don’t want to wait 30 minutes to lose a frustrating game against someone who just clear my board untill i concede.
that’s my definition of control deck, which is kind the definition of everyone not playing those boring deck, much like reno warrior last season
I feel like it just came full circle. Old Combo-Decks had to control the board until the could pop off and modern "Control-Decks" all have a definite win-con so reliable they don't need value
with the power-level of the cards getting higher and higher ,
the starting Health should have risen too .
especially the last few expansions .
that's why Renethal felt so good .
I only play this archetype since launch.
Every season i get legend so there is always a control deck that can work, at the moment there is Reno Shaman that works great.
The best meta for me was with CW and Dr Boom hero card, the worst was the quest meta.
Baku Sulfuras Dr Boom Hero Card control warrior was my SHIT dude
I watched some HS after a few years of absence and TBH I didn't find Reno offensive, just a costly board clear. What I do find offensive is that every deck floods board with 8:8's every turn and never runs out of cards. I really fail to understand how do people find Reno offensive and they do not find offensive being dealt 30 damage on turn 6?
I remember what “Wallet Warrior” was, and I understand that years have passed, as well as the game mechanics have changed.
Of course, there were aggro decks like face hunter, and also heavy control warriors… there will always be who likes a kind of game strategy and who doesn’t.
But why has the game come to a point of extreme massive boards, turn 5 otks , or unbearable mechanics you can’t evade (like warrior bombs)?….
And one last note, who the heck do devs listen to when (supposedly) developing the game?
For sure they give precedence to youngest players, I get it, it’s like an investment.
When hearthstone had a more “serious” cut, things where more enjoyable.
My ultimate definition of “control” decks these days that I adapted my playstyle is any Midrange decks that can beat Aggro and OTK Combo decks…
At least games can last until turn 8-10 and possibly reach 10min long
Zeddy looks so happy today.
I'm surprised there's no warlock controll deck out there right now?
Its too slow, and warlock can't gain armor so it dies from hand even faster, and the excavate package isn't good enough to run to gain the extra health
@@kenshi4296 what the other guy said and to be fair, the moment warlock gets a viable control strat they will play wheel of death otk instead.
Personally, I think they should do 3 things
Created for control cards that are extremely unfun for enough players instead of trying to do what most people enjoy for all characters and not ruin your control tools in subsequent or even the same expansions, and make the strongest control tools for classes so that the worst cards don't have to be expected from all classes and games can become more varied.
A nice example of my first thought is changing Odin's for the resto of the game effect from an attack boost to something that would promote getting armor to something more control. For example to "you can't lose more than 8 armor per round", or "if you have armor at the end of the round deal 2 damage to all enemies and gain 2 armor".
And the other example is that Reno shouldn't destroy Sargeras's Portal, Rheastrasza's Dragon Nest or General Vezax. Those cards that could help form control decks are absolutely useless when they can be easily destroyed.
The third thesis is a purely weird moment where the most powerful control tools are simply neutrals which makes those decks a lot more unpleasant to see. Reno wouldn't be such a problem in my opinion if you didn't have to consider it in literally all of the slower decks.
@@richardvasicek2317 Reno was always made to counter Sargeras portal, so Nest should too.
Blizzard does not care
My theory:
Control makes the games longer. People usually want to play fast games and go on with their lives (quick bathroom poop session game, we know it's true). Control games take 10-15 min sometimes. Devs want people to continue playing, making control less relevant.
I love control and I try a lot for control to work. It has been difficult :(
Make taunt warrior great again
Keep up the good work, Zeddy
God i hate reno, It should be a complete bordwipe but opponent gets 1 space for 1 turn but you dont. and nerf some of the dmg from the Hero power to get more armor
I don’t think control can be brought back in line till aggro is brought under control bc it is so fast and so powerful.
That being said they could print more efficient aoe that’s on the cheaper side as well as make tech cards a bit cheaper. As it is now, most tech cards are too slow and get outpaced by the decks they’re meant to slow down
Hs for a long time has become solitaire
100percent agree, aggro aint a problem, all the uninteractive crazy stuff are, and all the stupid cardgeneration
i still play control priest in wild, with a lot of card that give you random stuff, makes the game insanely fun, even though i only win like 1/4 of my games