On a professional level, having things be underpowered is generally fine. It sucks for the overall fun of the game (getting to play all kinds of different stuff and still be able to be at least moderately successful)

When things are overpowered is when bigger issues arise.
It brings the game to the point where certain things that may normally be playable are simply not.
And further more when it forces people to play this way or they are automatically at a disadvantage.
And all other playstyles must be able to work around this one playstyle.

This post was edited by FroggyG on Aug 12 2016 07:59pm

Outside of shaman, 4 mana 7/7, what cards/class would you consider over powered?

Id have to agree with cam, the games balancing - outside of arena maybe.. Seems fine.

Each class can pull their weight.. Even priest, jaina.

Some cards/combos are clearly very powerful together- and typically form a meta of sorts, but most cards standing alone are quite well balanced... Its in how you ise them that makes it seem 'overpowered'

Outside of shaman. :3 i imagine one day shaman will get the nerf dick, and that problem will be less of one..

This post was edited by Hepzibah on Aug 12 2016 08:20pm

It only takes 1 thing to be overpowered by more than a very small degree for the entire meta to be fixed around that one thing.
Nothing that is weak to the current Shaman can be played right now.

Now if Shaman was stronger than the other decks by only like a 1% win rate then it wouldn't matter. Then the game would be at decent balance and not everyone would play it. You could just use a strong counter instead.

This post was edited by FroggyG on Aug 12 2016 08:27pm

There isn't a clear cut best deck.


They are tho.


You don't.
A look at the most recent dreamhack event shows 16 different deck types in the top 8.
In HCT summer (AM) there was 21 different deck types in the top 16

And no that wouldn't mean the game isnt balanced. It means most people consider a deck to be in the top 4 viable decks for a tournament.
In any given game there will be a perception that something is pretty good and generally better than most other options. That doesn't mean its unhealthy or that the game is very unbalanced.

There isn't a deck that crushes almost everything.

In MTG for example its very common to see a clearly dominant best deck or two and then other people trying to hose that deck and hoping they dont get knocked out by the field.
Theres nothing close to that in HS right now.
You can queue up and run into wildly different deck after deck, even at high levels.
With the first wing of the new expansion out, its even more of a mess.

This post was edited by cambovenzi on Aug 12 2016 08:28pm

And a smart player will see/use this, and counter it.

I always found it funny that everyone is running the same netdecks and struggling at a 5050 ratio.. Meanwhile you could be creative/understand the game, and use that to your advantage.

The tournament/majority of the player base are a bunch of sheeps.. :3 noone wants to be truely creative, its far easier to follow the pack.

But yeah, way off my last point.

What do you think is overpowered?

The overpowered deck at any time is the highest win rate one at the highest levels of play...
At mid levels of play it's irrelevant because people just suck anyway

Right now, whether you think it's overpowered or not, Shaman is the strongest and everything else has to be able to compete with it.
Then there's Warrior..

So if you're making a deck it has to be able to compete with those 2 decks or it's not good.

If the game is balanced then the win rate differences are so minimal that you can actually just make any deck that is structurally good and the only sideboarding slots you need are for what seems to be popular due to favoritism.
Rather than being forced to make something that specifically has certain cards to counter specifically Shaman and Warrior.

This post was edited by FroggyG on Aug 12 2016 08:45pm

Maybe the warrior hero power needs to be nerfed to 1 armor. Lol i wonder how many people would rage at that thought. :3

You and cam both make very reasonable arguments.. Youre pretty spot on with the warrior/shaman meta.. Maybe someday the variance wont be so bad.

As it stands though; its getting better.

Mtg wasnt a fine tuned machine or w/e in its first 3-4 years.. Give it some time, and in the meantime enjoy the imba. :3

There will always be a highest win rate deck type. Thats how math works. It doesnt make it overpowered.
People react to what wins and the meta is constantly shifting, even when no new cards were coming out.


What type of shaman? midrange? aggro? How about control shaman that is in 5 HCT summer Europe top 16 lineups? These are very different decks.
And which warrior? dragon? control? cthun? OTK? not that long ago the hype was around tempo warrior as tier 1.

Did RDU fuck up when he didn't take any warrior at all to dreamhack when he had 4 deck choices and won the whole thing?


Yes you have to make a competitive deck that can compete with other competitive decks that are picked often. Nothing wrong with that.
There are tons of options to do so.
An unhealthy imbalance would mean you couldn't effectively build other competitive viable decks and/or it would dominate anyways.

Examples from MTG: Affinity, Faeries, Necropotence etc.
They were oppressive and blew just about everything out of the water.
Shaman? meh. Its fine.



A game where nothing is better than anything else and it doesn't matter what you pick isn't fun or very competitive/strategic. Nor is that a reasonable expectation for balancing.
In any competitive environment something will be picked more than something else, and smart players will have to counter it in some way.

This post was edited by cambovenzi on Aug 12 2016 09:52pm

You think having to play around more things with more thought processes means less strategic and competitive?
I'd say knowing exactly what your opponent's deck is... is the least competitive/strategic thing ever.

This post was edited by FroggyG on Aug 12 2016 09:58pm

I pick warrior.
Whats in my deck?