Hearthstone

First we need to establish what makes a card "overpowered". My definition is that the card has a dominating presence on the metagame, so much that it warps the way things are played in a negative fashion. By this definition, Dr. Boom is not overpowered.

What's yours? Are you ever going to explain your position, or just continue trying to bait me over nothing?

 

So Boom don't have a dominating presence in the metagame, BGH isn't widely played because of it and other 7+ attack minions like Ragnaros didn't dissapeared because of it? Before anything else we need to establish if we live in the same Universe. Oh, I forgot: some hunters and Oil Rogues don't play him. That changes everything.

If you really want to hear definition, the how about this one: "If card is popular to the point, that almost all non aggro decks startet to run a pure tech card only to counter it, and even despite that this card is still very popular, then this card is overpowered." Don't claim it to be a comprehensive definition, but it should suit.

 

Right, I'm glad we're finally in agreement, even if your consent is coming in the form of snark written in broken English.

People run BGH to counter EVERY big guy that's popular. Rag, Mountain Giant, Molten Giant, Alex, Grom (enraged), Geddon, Mal'Ganis, Neptulon. He also does work against the lesser played ones that are still viable like Velen. He also punishes mindlessly large Van Cleefs. He also punishes over buffed minions. And yes, he also kills Boom in addition to all of these other powerful cards.

Believe it or not, non-aggro decks like Midrange Druid have been running BGH before Dr. Boom even existed. Cuhrayzee concept, huh?

 

I read a theory that BGH is being run way, way more because so many decks have Dr. Boom. Like, people run BGH to counter big stuff, sure, but he's been getting way more play with Dr. Boom being around than he ever was before. The reason is players are almost certain that every deck is going to run at least 1-Dr.Boom so there's essentially no reasons to not have a BGH in there. In turn, there's less play of bigger minions because BGH just hard counters them all and now every deck has BGH because every deck also has Dr. Boom. 'Hearthpwn' has Dr. Boom listed as being in 40% of all decks. That seems like quite a lot. I looked around at other Legendaries that I thought (I'm a scrub) were good.

Ysera 5%.
Alexstrasza 9%.
Sneeds 9%.
Kel'Thuzad 10%.
Ragnaros 14%.
Sylvanas 31%.
Loatheb 32%.

Except Rag/Alex, they all dodge BGH. One has to wonder if sub-7 cards are seeing more play thanks to the Dr. Boom/BGH combo.

Dr. Boom is the most-played Legendary/card of any sort that doesn't dodge BGH -- but he still gets played the most. I'm assuming Alex, Dr. Boom, and Ragnaros are all played pretty often because they all do something regardless of whether or not they die next turn.

I think there's a pretty strong correlation there. And I think Blizzard knows it. If they tinker with Dr. Boom they're really going to tinker with the 'meta' in a really sharp way. IMO, it's not a bad move to just let the card sit for awhile, especially with a new adventure coming out and new cards and what not. I don't know 'card balance' well, but my time with LoL showed me that a lot of things get answered for in a gradual way, and that many very powerful choices were frequently overlooked by players until, for one reason or another, it just 'caught on.'

 

BGH is not very useful against Boom simply because, as I have said before, the 'problem' with Boom is not the 7/7 minion itself but it's 2 boom bots. They are too cheap to waste hard counters on like Hex or Polymorph, and taunts doesn't stop them. Destroying them triggers their ability but they cannot be allowed to remain because they can chip away for 1 damage each. Silencing them will work but again, it will take 2 silence minions to take them out or a Priest silence spell card.

A true effective counter would be a neutral minion or a neutral spell (if they ever get around to designing something like that) that mass silences.

 

sser

First off, we should establish that Hearthpwn's data is just how many are used in the decks on their site. They don't have a direct connection to Blizz's data or anything like that. As a result, while that is a mighty high number, it's not explicit proof of that much. I would also point out that 32% on Loatheb is also quite high, and Loatheb is by no means overpowered really. Piloted Shredder is also sitting at 36.6% on hearthpwn's stats.

Sub 7 has always been a thing. People ran BGH in their midrange decks to handle Handlock. A lot of very successful druid lists ran 2 BGH before the days of GVG. It's worth noting that BGH doesn't actually explicitly counter Dr. Boom. Yes, you essentially gain 4 mana on your opponent from the exchange (or less, depends on boom-bot rng) but it's not as much of a hard counter as, say, BGHing a Rag.

I also want to point out that you've opened up a very interesting dialogue here. Going off of Hearthpwn statistics, we can see interesting things like

Within Druid Decks:
Keeper of the Grove: 82%
Ancient of Lore: 66.9%
Druid of the Claw 65%

Within Paladin Decks:
Consecration: 87% of Paladin decks
Truesilver Champion: 85% of Paladin decks
Tirion: 54.5% of Paladin decks


so on and so forth. obviously, boom's usage on hearthpwn IS very impressive, but it should be noted that there are many cards that are clearly more "auto-include" than Boom.


tl;dr - Hearthpwn statistics don't really mean that much, and yeah, Boom is certainly a very strong card, but I still don't think that he's warping the metagame in a negative fashion, and it seems clear that Blizzard's data agrees with that.


Addendum - BGH is also sitting at 26% on Hearthpwn. That shows, at least by that metric, that while BGH is very popular, there isn't 1 to 1 correlation of BGHs and Booms or anything like that.

 

I'd say it's a requirement to be included in a ton of decks for a card to be overpowered but it doesn't necessarily follow that a card is overpowered because it's run in a lot of decks. And I don't know why people act like BGH wasn't included in decks prior to GvG. I don't think I've ever NOT run BGH.

And, yes, one of the big reasons Boom is so popular is the lack of 7 drops. Sylvanas is fairly ubiquitous, too, is she still overpowered? Belcher effectively replaced Sen'jin and Sunwalker. OMG OP NERF.

 

You can't compare a class card to a card anybody can use. You're talking about 1 card out of a limited set, with its purpose directed specifically for that class. Dr. Boom is one card out of many that anybody can use. Not only that, but he's a Legendary whereas many class and non-class cards obviously are not. Huge difference.

True, it's just 40% of the decks represented on the site, but that's a pretty clear indication that it fits into many, many different kinds of decks considering, you know, the point is to present the optimum constructed deck, right? Those decks could be anything, and shows a pretty ubiquitous side of the card as others have stated. Everybody is using him. I have not been able to find another card with such an even spread across all the classes. It's a very strong indication that you can throw him into just about any deck in the game. And he's pretty clearly represented across the various styles of decks, too. 25% usage for BGH seems very high to me when you consider it's a card with literally one purpose and, going off what others have said, his usage has skyrocketed since Dr. Boom's appearance. This has had an effect on the play of other minions, which is why you don't really see that many 7+ minions getting played unless they have an immediate effect, and which is why players are stating that sub-7 minions usage has gone way up. I'm gonna lean on the guys who make money playing this game when it comes to summation of stuff like this.

Based on my own judgment I'd say it's a very powerful card with a lot of value that comes at a fairly cheap price (7-mana). It completely blows other 7-drops right out of the water is, presumably, why I just about never see those other cards while I see Dr. Boom constantly. It does something right when you play it. The bombs fuck stuff up. Dr. Boom himself is a pretty big threat if not removed. I dunno, you fight the good fight against the notion, but if the entire playerbase and a lot of the pros are saying he's practically meta-changing powerful I just gotta side with them.

How Blizzard balances their game is a completely different matter. You can have a very powerful card and balance it by other means. I feel like the debate on whether or not Dr.B' is powerful is a pointless one. He's obviously one of the best cards in the game, played by anyone in just about any kind of deck, completely superseding any other card in doing that. But that doesn't necessarily mean nerf the card itself. But I think that's a different discussion altogether.

 

Dude, what? You seemed really reasonable at first, but, man.

I never meant to indicate that these things should be directly compared on a 1 to 1 basis. My point was that there are actually near auto-include cards in this game, even if it's a matter of only X class needing to auto include them. Just because playing as a paladin means you damn near have to play consecration doesn't make consecration overpowered.

I wouldn't consider the vast majority of Hearthpwn user submitted decks as anything close to optimum. By and large, the only decks worth actually noting are those that have achieved legend rank or placed well in a tournament. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to sort for those.

No, the majority of decks are not by your own metric. If he is in 40 percent of decks, then 60 percent are not using it.

Did you even read my post? Or your own numbers? I pointed to Shredder as being a mere couple of points behind him. Loatheb and Sylvanas really aren't that far behind either. Last I checked nobody is calling Loatheb overpowered even though a full third of theoretical hearthpwn decks are using him.

Why? Firstly, it, by definition, serves more than one literal purpose. As a minion it isn't atrocious itself (unlike, say, Rend) and it hits a massive number of threats greater than Dr. Boom. If you are playing Druid vs Aggro for example and BGH is stuck in your hand early on, you play it and trade with something. It isn't a completely dead card, unlike, say, Shadow Word Death vs a Face Hunter.

Anecdotal evidence and hearsay being perpetuated by Dr. Boom being the latest target of whining. Nobody has hard proof of BGH's usage other than Blizzard. In fact, nobody has hard proof of ANY card's usage other than blizzard.

You do know... that it's almost always been this way, right? Like, this isn't new. Cards like Gruul, War golem, The Beast, etc have always been shit. BGH has always been part of that reason. Since beta.

Ok. What's your point? We've said over and over that the other 7 drops fucking suck donkey dicks with the exception of a few class cards (Ancient of Lore) and under very specific environments (Troggzor). When your options are Dr. Boom or fucking Illidan, well, no shit people are going to play Dr. Boom.

I just like explaining to people why they're wrong about a children's card game originally designed for fucking tablets.

First off, I am part of the playerbase. So are Blizzard's game balancers. There are also a lot of people in other communities who do not think Dr. Boom is really a problem. They may not be in your visible sphere of what you read for this game, but there is a swath of competitive players who are ambivalent or think he's fine.

And which pros genuinely believe he needs to be nerfed? Serious question, I would love to read/heard some arguments by them. Furthermore, you should think for yourself time to time men.

Right, never disagreed with that.

Except for, the literal statistical majority of decks by your own method of measuring usage.

Yes, he does manage to slightly beat out Piloted Shredder for the most used card in fucking Hearthpwn user submitted decklists.

So what the is the point of this exercise anyways?

 

That it blows other 7 drops out of the water has more to do with the fact that the other 7 drops suck.... okay, Geddon isn't bad in the right circumstances. No one plays Foe Reaper, Force Tank Max, or Gruul... OMG RAGNAROS AND SNEED'S ARE OVERPOWERED.

There are 22 neutral 6 drops. 16 almost never see play (Windfury Harpy, Toshley, Sunwalker, Priestess of Elune, The Beat, Mogor, Frost Elemental, Geblin, Hogger, Maxxna, Ogre, Rocketeer, Lord of the Arena, Archmage, Gazlowe, and Illidan). 3 are fairly rare in recent months and you won't find them in many of the top constructed decks (Cairne, Argent Commander, and Auctioneer). The other 3 are Sky Golem (which effectively replaced Cairne), The Black Knight (which is somewhat uncommon recently) and... Sylvanas which is probably in almost as many decks as Boom. Possibly more... I dunno... I'm too lazy to look it up.

32 neutral 5 drops. Only about 5 see regular play: Harrison, Healbot, Azure Drake, Loatheb, and Belcher. Spectral Knight, Bomb Lobber, and Stampeding Kodo see infrequent play/specific decks.

Unsurprisingly the higher up in mana cost you go the less variety/number of cards you see.

So... again... frequency is only a factor in determining whether a card is overpowered and not determinative proof.

 

Internet archive has BGH usage at 15% in Nov. 2013. I couldn't find anything for 2014. Going off what the pros say, it is absolutely seeing more use. If the most popular card in the game is a 7-attack, why wouldn't it? It just makes sense. If the most commonly used card as of late is countered by another card, then the usage of the two are absolutely linked.

Your resistance to the effect Dr. Boom has had on the game is just baffling to me.

And I don't even know why I'm bothering with this bullshit. It's the most used card in the game. It shows up in every class and in almost every single deck-style. That is the problem. You offer a few token decks that don't use him. Alright. Those decks don't seem to use a lot of high-mana cards to begin with. But then again, there are oil-rogues who can still use a Dr. Boom. Because you can put him into almost any deck in the entire game. Do you not see a problem, that's my question. Like, do you think there isn't a problem here? Regardless if the problem is Dr. Boom itself or the cards around that card just being lacking, IMO, there's a very obvious problem. Because for some reason this one card is showing up everywhere and unlike most cards in the game, there isn't really ever a 'bad' way to play it, you just play it. Nor does it have any competition at its 7-mana slot. When I watch streams of top players I see this card almost every single game. That's an issue. It means something is wrong. Does it mean the card is OP? I dunno. Does it mean the meta is all fucked? I dunno. But something is off. If I wanted to make a game with lots of cards and have it balanced while promoting gameplay diversity, the last thing I want to see is the same card being played in the same way across every single class and across almost every deck build there is. It says something bad about what I have designed.

 

I don't see why it's a problem for a card to effect deck construction. Retard face hugger meta effects deck construction, too. I'm sure you can find a rise in Mind Control Tech and AoE spells, too.

 

It's the manner in which it does it - by showing up everywhere and by being essentially a no-brainer play every time.

The fact is, there's no drawback to Dr. Boom. He's just pure value at his mana cost. You can hardly 'play' it wrong. You just play it and reap anywhere from good to amazing value. There's zero drawback to playing him vs. the value you get, which runs against the general design of the game, at least from what I can tell, and certainly from the overwhelmingly negative evaluations of this card from damn near everyone.

 

You make a fine point but I think it comes down the following:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

ur ghey

 

It would be more productive for me to argue with a tree it seems.


"Let's use this objectively incorrect method to determine these cards' usages. We will presume that thousands of decks submitted by the likes of xXxTuckFrumpXxX on Hearthpwn are an empirical measuring stick for the metagame as a whole."

"That makes no fucking sense and you know it, but ok, let's do that. Ok - Dr. Boom at 40% is pretty high, yeah, but notice how Piloted Shredder is 37% and Loatheb is 34%. That's pretty much just as prevelant!"

"Hogwash. LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE DECK RUNS DR. BOOM"



"But your own (objectively flawed) numbers say that the majority of decks don't... You also forgot that Piloted shredder is a mere few points behind it too!"


"BGH IS UP TO 25% SOLELY DUE TO THIS CARD THAT IT DOESN'T EVEN TRULY COUNTER! ALSO EVERY SINGLE PLAYER IN THE UNIVERSE HATES DR BOOM AND SOME UNNAMED PROS DO TOO."

"But... that makes no sense. It's ok, I will carefully deconstruct each point to make it simple for you"


"FUUUUUUUUCKIN GROGNARDS. BICTOR BON BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INTERNET ARCHIVE!!!!!!!"



Meanwhile not a single argument for why Dr. Boom is actually overpowered and requires a flat out nerf has been made beyond "Nobody plays Illidan" and "Cause a lot of decks use it!!"

 

So more people use this incredibly top-tier card that counters a huge swath of big threats now that there are more big threats in the game, people have all the legendaries they need unlocked, and people as a whole are better. Crazy.

60% of all decks according to the metrics you want to use are a "token few". Ok.

I made it abundantly clear like 5 times now that the "PROBLEM" IS THE LACK OF VIABLE 7 DROPS. You are literally positing the VERY THING I HAVE BEEN SAYING FROM THE START. Holy fucking shit reading comprehension is at an all-time low for the codex.

And Piloted Shredder shows up just as much. And almost every class has auto-include cards in their deck. If you watch somebody streaming Druid, then guess what, you will actually see Swipe and Keeper in every game provided they draw them.

No and no. The best decks in the format have changed every other week since GVG launched, right up to Blackrock's release. That indicates a healthy metagame.

Honest, real talk fucking question here mister sser. Have you ever played a card game before hearthstone? This is a fundamental 'flaw' with competitively played card games. There are ALWAYS core cards that will have a dominating presence. When you play to win, you will always gravitate towards using the best options. Look at magic the gathering. Hearthstone has a fraction of the cards of MTG, yet a handful of powerful cards dominate each Magic format. Same goes for every other card game ever made. No matter what you do, there will always be something like Dr. Boom around. Besides, as we have established over and over, Piloted Shredder is just as prevalent as the doctor. Loatheb is not far behind, neither is Sylvanas.

Do you want to know why nobody bats an eye at Piloted Shredder when it's used more than Boom in actual tournaments? Because he doesn't have a big flashy effect. It isn't intimidating for a new player to sit across from a Shredder - even though Shredder fits into more tournament competitive decks, and is harder to counter. Am I positing that Shredder is overpowered? No. I am trying to illustrate the point that just because a card is used a lot doesn't mean it's DESTROYING EVERYTHING!! There isn't even anything particularly wrong with the metagame at all. As soon as something happens to dr. boom, or a card outshines it, that will become the new big badguy that everyone cries about.

As I have stated numerous times, Dr. Boom on his own is not a particularly overpowered card. The complete and total lack of universally powerful late-game cards is the problem - alternatively, lack of density of class-specific powerful cards.

Do you have any more questions?

 

It's funny to see a card like Al'Akir the Windlord being a garbage man, and some no name elite goblin from a random quest owning everything.

 

Well we're pretty much talking past each other.

But yeah Hearthstone and lore consistency are pretty amusing. Like an owl hooting a powerful card into uselessness.

 

Another victory for the stars and stripes.

 

Al'Akir is included in almost every Shaman deck.

 

Pretty much, I don't run it in my mech deck though. Finally achieved rank 10 for the first time, it's your standard aggro mech shaman but it feels like it could use a little more late-game punch. Might as well try the Winlord

 

Yeah Al'akir has never left my constructed deck since launch, and I usually get up to around rank 5 or 6 before getting burned out playing against the netdeck du jour.

It is in no way garbage-tier, not sure where you would get that idea.

 

Remember kids, it's impossible to succeed in hearthstone with Dr. Boom. Literally every single successful deck runs it

 

To be honest, the deck would probably be better with -TBK +Dr Boom.

 

Ok, at this point I now know I'm being trolled.

Like, do you really think he hasn't considered Dr. Boom? Do you really think this person who makes a literal living off of playing Hearthstone, sitting at the second highest ranking on the entire server of millions of people didn't carefully weigh the benefits of each card before (correctly) deducing that Black Knight confers a much greater benefit against the metagame he is facing?