Comments about Onyxia’s Lair mini-set have been pretty positive so far, with one big exception – players are still wondering how the hell are the new cards supposed to compete against the current OTKs and “infinite value” generators. And it’s a valid concern, in one form or another, those kinds of decks have been dominating the meta ever since Stormwind’s launch. Things have got better after multiple nerfs, but Questline Warlock still stops most of Control decks in their tracks, for example (Charge Warrior is an exception only because it runs an OTK combo itself and it can sometimes pull it before Warlock kills them with fatigue).
And so, after the recent batch of new card reveals, Hearthstone Game Desginer Cora “Songbird” Georgiou has commented on the matter. She said that with the Core set rotation and first expansion of next Standard year, players will see an effort to incentivize board-based gameplay more. She’s been keeping that in mind when designing cards for next year (remember that cards are usually designed a while in advance). They want variety – this time around they promoted Combo builds, but they want other decks to have a chance to flourish too. A lot of the Onyxia’s Lair cards are designed with that philosophy already in mind, so they won’t necessarily slot into currently existing decks, but work with cards that are bound to be released soon. She’s excited for what’s coming soon and hopes that we will be too.
I’ll take those words with a grain of salt. It’s true that most of the nerfs for the last few months were concentrated on those kinds of combo decks, but we’ve already heard that Fractured in Alterac Valley was meant to promote slower strategies, and it didn’t really turn out that way for the most part. To be perfectly honest, I quite enjoyed the last few months, I don’t mind facing combo decks at all and I think that every strategy should have its time in the spotlight. But it’s clearly not the way most of the Hearthstone players (at least the vocal ones) would like the game to go. So I would be cautiously optimistic about the whole thing.
Here’s Cora’s full message on Twitter:
I’m seeing some comments about cards in the Onyxia’s Lair mini set basically boiling down to “these cards can’t compete with OTK decks,” and I’d like to share my thoughts.
We’ve made a real effort in the last few months to reduce the power level and representation of combo/OTK in the meta. Measuring every card reveal based on whether it can compete vs. a Questlock deck is totally reasonable, but the landscape will continue to change.
With the Core set rotation and the release of the first expansion of the new year, I think you’ll see an effort to incentivize board based gameplay. It’s something that I’ve personally been keeping in mind when designing cards for this upcoming year.
Basically, we want as much variety as we can have in a standard cycle. This year combo/OTK flourished, and so we will continue to create decks and balance the meta so other strategies have a chance to flourish as well.
A lot of the Onyxia’s Lair mini set is designed with the future in mind, and not necessarily just slotting cards into existing decks. Some things certainly would fit the landscape for right now, but we like to think ahead as well.
So yeah. TLDR: I’m excited for what we’ve cooked up for this year, and I think you will be too. Hope you’re enjoying the Onyxia’s Lair card reveals. 🙂
Questlock (at least in its current form) is going to be hit hard by rotation. Think of Backfire, if nothing else. That is one of the key cards that makes the current deck work. Many of the OTK decks will be rotated, as well.
That’s true, Questline Warlock will be hit really hard. Not only Backfire – I think that losing Flesh Giant will be the biggest deal. After all, it’s the deck’s main win condition before they finish their Quest – no longer having to deal with two (or more if Raise Dead got lucky) cheap/free 8/8’s is going to be a big deal. Also Raise Dead – currently it’s one of the best ways to progress the Questline while also putting the same overpowered minions back in their hand after you’ve dealt with them once. Yes, the deck is going to hurt a lot.
I think that OwlTK Warlock might be a bigger ‘problem’, as it’s already solid right now and I don’t think that any important part of the combo rotates out (School Spirit does, but you can replace it with another AoE like Hellfire – assuming it stays in Core).
But the truth is that – like always – rotation changes so much that it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen. That’s why I’m cautiously optimistic like I’ve said, because devs already test the cards from next expansion in a new environment that we have no access to. And I don’t even think that having some combo decks in the meta would be a bad thing, as long as they don’t dominate.