Hearthstone is Getting New Ranked Rewards, New "Joust" Mechanic

[RedDeadFred]

This joust mechanics seem to primarily be a counter to Zoo decks as they will almost always loose the joust. Also useful for ramp druids who's average card cost is higher.

People have calculated it out and even if you're playing a control deck against face hunter, you're chances of winning the joust are still only around 80%. This is because you don't win ties. Even if your deck is top heavy, you're still going to want a decent curve which means you will have some lower costing minions in your deck. If you're against a midrange deck, your odds are more like 60%.

Maybe it will spawn some top heavy decks which just use removal instead of creatures in the early game. That's really the only way I can see it working consistently enough. Even then, you're still going to lose the joust about 40% of the time in the control match up. Meaning, if you are playing joust cards and your opponent is not, you're probably going to lose that game more often than not.

Also, Zoo isn't a particularly good example anymore since the most popular version lately seems to be the one that tries to cheat out Mal'ganis and even plays some Sea Giants. Zoo has always been about board control and has become more of an aggressively tuned mid-range deck.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Will we still get card backs at rank 20? I try play ranked but kinda suck and never have I made it past rank 18 so far.

 

[NerAnima]

Tuskarr Jouster -I'd rather play Antique Healbot. It heals 1 more, has a body big enough to usually deal with at least one of the things an aggro deck is throwing at you, and it doesn't have the downside of potentially costing you the game. If you are in a situation where you need the heal, losing the joust is devastating. In that case, it doesn't matter if this has better stats.

I actually think that Tuskarr Jouster could see some play; it has much better stats then the healbot, and yes, losing the joust is a major downside, but it's still a good card on its own, which cannot be said for the Healbot or the other Joust cards that have been shown, so it can still be useful against something like Mid-range Hunter/Paladin and the like. I do see where you're coming from, however, but I was wanting to add in my two cents on this card.

I don't think I'll be buying any card packs this time (I caved and spent 50 on GvG). I have enough dust to easily craft the few cards they've shown that are actually playable. You can tell they want to push the game to a slower meta with this expansion, but just making a lot more slow cards doesn't mean that'll happen. It might slow down briefly while everyone tries to make Inspire decks work, but then it'll speed right back up once people start getting farmed by the aggro decks again.

Aviana is a very cool card and might bring ramp Druid to the forefront of the class instead of the same old mid-range combo deck. I firmly believe that if you put a 9 mana card into your deck, it needs to be brokenly OP and give you a good chance at winning the game. This card probably is just that.

I really do like the look of Aviana, looks like a really powerful card, even if her stats would make her otherwise useless. I do sincerely hope that she'll see some play when it's released, I can only imagine what people will come up with.

On the topic of the other cards, though, am I the only one who is so far very unimpressed by the current showing of legendaries so far? (Aviana not included, of course) Eadric doesn't seem to do enough to justify his stats, the Skeleton Knight is underwhelming, and Wilfred Fizzlebang is basically just hoping that you reduce something useful and high cost. So far the only ones to catch my attention are the Impaler one (which will most likely work in Zoo) and the aforementioned Aviana. The twin legends are okay, but aren't going to set the world on fire like Thaurissan or Dr. Boom did, and most of these I have trouble imagining needing or even wanting in a deck. Maybe if things eventually turn to control decks, then maybe I start running Eadric, but the Skeleton Knight, the twins, Wilfred, none appeal to me as one would hope out of legendary cards.

 

[RedDeadFred]

snip

Ya, you're probably right about Tuskarr Jouster since midrange decks could make use of his body and it probably wouldn't be the end of the world for them if they lose the joust.

Definitely agree about the other legendaries. The twins could make it into a couple decks and Aviana could absolutely see play in ramp Druid, but pretty much every other legendary has been almost garbage. I'm not even sure Gormok will work since getting 4 minions to stick, even in Zoo, is quite challenging. You'll never be able to play him on curve, but you could treat him more like a 6-7 drop and remove a higher cost creature in his place.

Wilfred Fizzlebang might be okay. Hard to tell without seeing him in practice.

 

[NerAnima]

snip

Ya, you're probably right about Tuskarr Jouster since midrange decks could make use of his body and it probably wouldn't be the end of the world for them if they lose the joust.

Yay, I was right about something! ^.^

Definitely agree about the other legendaries. The twins could make it into a couple decks and Aviana could absolutely see play in ramp Druid, but pretty much every other legendary has been almost garbage. I'm not even sure Gormok will work since getting 4 minions to stick, even in Zoo, is quite challenging. You'll never be able to play him on curve, but you could treat him more like a 6-7 drop and remove a higher cost creature in his place.

Wilfred Fizzlebang might be okay. Hard to tell without seeing him in practice.

Gormok could definitely work in a zoo paladin, which is a thing, apparently, Muster for Battle gives you 3 for 3 mana, that's simple enough, whether they live or not is another story, but at least his stats are decent, not great, but not terrible.

I can believe that Wilfred will be better than I'm making him out to be, I have a lot of doubts about it, but I suppose we'll see once he comes out and people start testing him for themselves.

I wonder what the Priest will get for their legendary; I mean, they've gotten some pretty good cards for that so far, Velen and Vol'jin are solid, granted they don't usually fit in most decks, but they're still decent cards, so I wonder if the new one will continue the trend.

 

[loa]

So they still haven't figured out the revolutionary concepts of "multi class cards that are not creatures" and "cards that make the opponent discard" and "multi color [/hero] decks" huh.

Well at least they kindasortanotreally figured out that they can actually do something to interact in a meaningful way with the shitty gimmick of hero abilities this entire game rests on and that prevents "multi-color decks".

Maybe one day they'll figure out that segregating 100% of the cardpools spellcards into 9 exclusive subcategories kinda narrows each heroes possible decks down a lot.

 

[shteev]

Joust looks every bit as bad as Clash from MTG was.

 

[gonenow3]

So they still haven't figured out the revolutionary concepts of "multi class cards that are not creatures" and "cards that make the opponent discard" and "multi color [/hero] decks" huh.

Well at least they kindasortanotreally figured out that they can actually do something to interact in a meaningful way with the shitty gimmick of hero abilities this entire game rests on and that prevents "multi-color decks".

Maybe one day they'll figure out that segregating 100% of the cardpools spellcards into 9 exclusive subcategories kinda narrows each heroes possible decks down a lot.

They are pretty adamant they don't want opponent discard mechanics in the game.

Plus the game would be broken if cross colour was a thing so its better its seperated as far as balance goes (MTG isn't exactly the best case of good card balance). Each class right now has at least 4-5 viable decks to pick from which again is better than Yugioh / Pokemon TCG / MTG as far as diversity goes which is pretty impressive if anything the gimmick Hearthstone you critise has actually made it a rather unique game with more options to pick from.

 

[MoltenSilver]

So they still haven't figured out the revolutionary concepts of "multi class cards that are not creatures" and "cards that make the opponent discard" and "multi color [/hero] decks" huh.

Well at least they kindasortanotreally figured out that they can actually do something to interact in a meaningful way with the shitty gimmick of hero abilities this entire game rests on and that prevents "multi-color decks".

Maybe one day they'll figure out that segregating 100% of the cardpools spellcards into 9 exclusive subcategories kinda narrows each heroes possible decks down a lot.

The Hearthstone devs have explicitly said they don't want discard mechanics in their game:

"Milling, which is causing your opponent to run out of cards, and in other card games at that point you just lose the game - is a mechanic that runs counter to the normal mode of play for Hearthstone. Normally in a game of Hearthstone you're trying to deal as much damage to their hero before they can kill your hero, and there is a lot of combat back and forth to try and do that. Milling actually tries to ignore as much of that as possible and attack via a completely different route. We felt that that was less interactive and less fun than focusing the win conditions on the single axis of trying to destroy my opponent before he destroys me."

Rather ironic given it's non-interactive Combos that are most ruining the game balance at the moment.

Note I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong about what's good and bad for the game, just that it's not going to happen anytime soon in Hearthstone. That said, they definitely need to introduce something that disrupts combos or the game is just going to continue to be 'who can do the most damage in one turn'.

 

[Kopikatsu]

So they still haven't figured out the revolutionary concepts of "multi class cards that are not creatures" and "cards that make the opponent discard" and "multi color [/hero] decks" huh.

Well at least they kindasortanotreally figured out that they can actually do something to interact in a meaningful way with the shitty gimmick of hero abilities this entire game rests on and that prevents "multi-color decks".

Maybe one day they'll figure out that segregating 100% of the cardpools spellcards into 9 exclusive subcategories kinda narrows each heroes possible decks down a lot.

There are neutral cards in TGT that give Paladin class cards/tokens, so a 'multi-color deck' might be somewhat possible.

 

[loa]

The Hearthstone devs have explicitly said they don't want discard mechanics in their game:

"Milling, which is causing your opponent to run out of cards, and in other card games at that point you just lose the game - is a mechanic that runs counter to the normal mode of play for Hearthstone. Normally in a game of Hearthstone you're trying to deal as much damage to their hero before they can kill your hero, and there is a lot of combat back and forth to try and do that. Milling actually tries to ignore as much of that as possible and attack via a completely different route. We felt that that was less interactive and less fun than focusing the win conditions on the single axis of trying to destroy my opponent before he destroys me."

Rather ironic given it's non-interactive Combos that are most ruining the game balance at the moment.

Note I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong about what's good and bad for the game, just that it's not going to happen anytime soon in Hearthstone. That said, they definitely need to introduce something that disrupts combos or the game is just going to continue to be 'who can do the most damage in one turn'.

Milling is NOT discarding.
Milling is putting cards from your library directly into the graveyard and it would indeed be broken in hearthstone because there are enforced, rigid 30 card decks only with 0 graveyard interaction (which is another issue for another discussion another time).

So unless the guy has no idea what he's talking about, he didn't address discard which already exists but only for the warlock, only randomly and on himself on cards that are terrible because the discard cost (which is a cool idea, alternative costs, so let's never expand on that ever) is a random card and not one of your choice (yet again, another issue for another discussion).

Now discard, that is indeed powerful since it can make the opponent top-deck which can spell doom for combo heavy decks or not really do much against decks with high-cost standalone cards but that's where you could balance it. E.g. you can't make the opponent discard to a hand less than 2, discard cards costing a lot, making you discard too, only working if you got less cards in your hand or requiring a creature sacrifice or whatever.
There are many ways to keep it in check and it's kind of a staple of ccgs, I don't really get the aversion towards it especially if combo-land is a problem in the current meta and it is no less disruptive than those darn mage-secrets.

As for milling as in milling milling and not discard "milling", that is so easily countered if there was no arbitrary 30 cards deck limitation, it's not even funny.
Just make a big deck.
There you go you're milling-proof and you probably also have a more fun deck because you can put more stuff in it and drawing lots of cards is a slow-motion suicide no more.

Bonus milling-protection points would be dispensed for introducing cards that re-shuffle your graveyard into the library (WHY IS THAT NOT A THI- err I mean another issue, another discussion yadda yadda) and completely negate any "damage" done by milling so you wouldn't even need a big deck but only one of those cards in it.

Milling doesn't even interact with the game and make you top-deck or anything, he's right about the non-interactivity but that also means it literally does nothing apart from abstract, easily negated card-damage.
It's just a completely unreliable gimmick but something fun to try every once in a while.
Yet again I don't understand the aversion but that's just one of many things about the design philosophy of hearthstone I don't understand so that's ok.

if anything the gimmick Hearthstone you critise has actually made it a rather unique game with more options to pick from.

You know, looking at the warrior hero ability makes me never want to play warrior, ever and question why "hero abilities" even are a thing, especially if all they really do is gatekeep all of the tailor-made spell cards which are indeed broken if they could mix but that is only the case because they were specifically designed with the hero ability in mind.
Hero abilities are pretty much unbalanced garbage with priests getting the best, most versatile ones and warriors getting nothing.
It's a shame that this is the foundation the entire game rests on.

 

[gonenow3]

The Hearthstone devs have explicitly said they don't want discard mechanics in their game:

"Milling, which is causing your opponent to run out of cards, and in other card games at that point you just lose the game - is a mechanic that runs counter to the normal mode of play for Hearthstone. Normally in a game of Hearthstone you're trying to deal as much damage to their hero before they can kill your hero, and there is a lot of combat back and forth to try and do that. Milling actually tries to ignore as much of that as possible and attack via a completely different route. We felt that that was less interactive and less fun than focusing the win conditions on the single axis of trying to destroy my opponent before he destroys me."

Rather ironic given it's non-interactive Combos that are most ruining the game balance at the moment.

Note I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong about what's good and bad for the game, just that it's not going to happen anytime soon in Hearthstone. That said, they definitely need to introduce something that disrupts combos or the game is just going to continue to be 'who can do the most damage in one turn'.

Milling is NOT discarding.
Milling is putting cards from your library directly into the graveyard and it would indeed be broken in hearthstone because there are enforced, rigid 30 card decks only with 0 graveyard interaction (which is another issue for another discussion another time).

So unless the guy has no idea what he's talking about, he didn't address discard which already exists but only for the warlock, only randomly and on himself on cards that are terrible because the discard cost (which is a cool idea, alternative costs, so let's never expand on that ever) is a random card and not one of your choice (yet again, another issue for another discussion).

Now discard, that is indeed powerful since it can make the opponent top-deck which can spell doom for combo heavy decks or not really do much against decks with high-cost standalone cards but that's where you could balance it. E.g. you can't make the opponent discard to a hand less than 2, discard cards costing a lot, making you discard too, only working if you got less cards in your hand or requiring a creature sacrifice or whatever.
There are many ways to keep it in check and it's kind of a staple of ccgs, I don't really get the aversion towards it especially if combo-land is a problem in the current meta and it is no less disruptive than those darn mage-secrets.

As for milling as in milling milling and not discard "milling", that is so easily countered if there was no arbitrary 30 cards deck limitation, it's not even funny.
Just make a big deck.
There you go you're milling-proof and you probably also have a more fun deck because you can put more stuff in it and drawing lots of cards is a slow-motion suicide no more.

Bonus milling-protection points would be dispensed for introducing cards that re-shuffle your graveyard into the library (WHY IS THAT NOT A THI- err I mean another issue, another discussion yadda yadda) and completely negate any "damage" done by milling so you wouldn't even need a big deck but only one of those cards in it.

Milling doesn't even interact with the game and make you top-deck or anything, he's right about the non-interactivity but that also means it literally does nothing apart from abstract, easily negated card-damage.
It's just a completely unreliable gimmick but something fun to try every once in a while.
Yet again I don't understand the aversion but that's just one of many things about the design philosophy of hearthstone I don't understand so that's ok.

if anything the gimmick Hearthstone you critise has actually made it a rather unique game with more options to pick from.

You know, looking at the warrior hero ability makes me never want to play warrior, ever and question why "hero abilities" even are a thing, especially if all they really do is gatekeep all of the tailor-made spell cards which are indeed broken if they could mix but that is only the case because they were specifically designed with the hero ability in mind.
Hero abilities are pretty much unbalanced garbage with priests getting the best, most versatile ones and warriors getting nothing.
It's a shame that this is the foundation the entire game rests on.

You should learn about a topic you're talking about lol. Warrior hero power is regarded as one of the strongest in the game (Behind warlock) while Priest being strong isn't that good outside of arena because it is far too slow.

Milling exists in hearthstone. Its fairly gimmicky and its not consistent enough because there aren't enough mill cards but it does exist and the HS team are well aware of it existing given they keep adding mill cards into the game (Gang up / Keeper of the Grove etc etc). As for the 30 deck limit. You realise a MTG deck is only 30 cards as well right?

 

[SoManyCrimes]

As for the 30 deck limit. You realise a MTG deck is only 30 cards as well right?

I haven't played MTG for almost a decade, so I guess it's dimly possible this has changed, but surely an MTG deck is MINIMUM 60 and maximum whatever the hell you like? Isn't there a card that lets you win if you have it in play and over 200 cards still in your deck?

I don't really have anything to add to the Joust discussion. I just play Hearthstone as a bit of fun, so I don't mind the addition of more RNG stuff. But starting a reply with "You should learn about a topic you're talking about lol" does kind of require you to not make basic factual errors less than 120 words later!

 

[gonenow3]

As for the 30 deck limit. You realise a MTG deck is only 30 cards as well right?

I haven't played MTG for almost a decade, so I guess it's dimly possible this has changed, but surely an MTG deck is MINIMUM 60 and maximum whatever the hell you like? Isn't there a card that lets you win if you have it in play and over 200 cards still in your deck?

I don't really have anything to add to the Joust discussion. I just play Hearthstone as a bit of fun, so I don't mind the addition of more RNG stuff. But starting a reply with "You should learn about a topic you're talking about lol" does kind of require you to not make basic factual errors less than 120 words later!

MTG requires a minimum of 60 but a GOOD deck should consist of 35-45% land which aren't real cards thus the real deck size is a limit of around 30. Most people understand the difference between land / actual cards when it comes to deck size when comparing across card games (Mainly done to compare between MTG vs Yugioh).

There are also basic MTG decks that only run 40 card decks half of which is land again so thats an even smaller deck format.

If we aren't talking about good decks then there is no real point in the discussion because you could really do anything at that point.

 

[MoltenSilver]

Spoiler

The Hearthstone devs have explicitly said they don't want discard mechanics in their game:

"Milling, which is causing your opponent to run out of cards, and in other card games at that point you just lose the game - is a mechanic that runs counter to the normal mode of play for Hearthstone. Normally in a game of Hearthstone you're trying to deal as much damage to their hero before they can kill your hero, and there is a lot of combat back and forth to try and do that. Milling actually tries to ignore as much of that as possible and attack via a completely different route. We felt that that was less interactive and less fun than focusing the win conditions on the single axis of trying to destroy my opponent before he destroys me."

Rather ironic given it's non-interactive Combos that are most ruining the game balance at the moment.

Note I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong about what's good and bad for the game, just that it's not going to happen anytime soon in Hearthstone. That said, they definitely need to introduce something that disrupts combos or the game is just going to continue to be 'who can do the most damage in one turn'.

Milling is NOT discarding.
Milling is putting cards from your library directly into the graveyard and it would indeed be broken in hearthstone because there are enforced, rigid 30 card decks only with 0 graveyard interaction (which is another issue for another discussion another time).

So unless the guy has no idea what he's talking about, he didn't address discard which already exists but only for the warlock, only randomly and on himself on cards that are terrible because the discard cost (which is a cool idea, alternative costs, so let's never expand on that ever) is a random card and not one of your choice (yet again, another issue for another discussion).

Now discard, that is indeed powerful since it can make the opponent top-deck which can spell doom for combo heavy decks or not really do much against decks with high-cost standalone cards but that's where you could balance it. E.g. you can't make the opponent discard to a hand less than 2, discard cards costing a lot, making you discard too, only working if you got less cards in your hand or requiring a creature sacrifice or whatever.
There are many ways to keep it in check and it's kind of a staple of ccgs, I don't really get the aversion towards it especially if combo-land is a problem in the current meta and it is no less disruptive than those darn mage-secrets.

As for milling as in milling milling and not discard "milling", that is so easily countered if there was no arbitrary 30 cards deck limitation, it's not even funny.
Just make a big deck.
There you go you're milling-proof and you probably also have a more fun deck because you can put more stuff in it and drawing lots of cards is a slow-motion suicide no more.

Bonus milling-protection points would be dispensed for introducing cards that re-shuffle your graveyard into the library (WHY IS THAT NOT A THI- err I mean another issue, another discussion yadda yadda) and completely negate any "damage" done by milling so you wouldn't even need a big deck but only one of those cards in it.

Milling doesn't even interact with the game and make you top-deck or anything, he's right about the non-interactivity but that also means it literally does nothing apart from abstract, easily negated card-damage.
It's just a completely unreliable gimmick but something fun to try every once in a while.
Yet again I don't understand the aversion but that's just one of many things about the design philosophy of hearthstone I don't understand so that's ok.

if anything the gimmick Hearthstone you critise has actually made it a rather unique game with more options to pick from.

You know, looking at the warrior hero ability makes me never want to play warrior, ever and question why "hero abilities" even are a thing, especially if all they really do is gatekeep all of the tailor-made spell cards which are indeed broken if they could mix but that is only the case because they were specifically designed with the hero ability in mind.
Hero abilities are pretty much unbalanced garbage with priests getting the best, most versatile ones and warriors getting nothing.
It's a shame that this is the foundation the entire game rests on.

Apologies, I clipped out a part of a much larger article that only mentioned it vaguely throughout due to not wanting a gargantuan post, I've found exactly, succinctly, them stating 'no discard mechanics' after a deeper search:
https://youtu.be/xyvT166uCWw?t=12m36s