Meta Forged in the barrens is completely controlled by a single card and, strangely, it is not part of the latest Hearthstone expansion.
Prior to the launch of Forged in the Barrens, the Hearthstone devs emphasized that one of their main focuses coming up would be to reduce the number of random cards and their effects. Year of Dragon makes the game look like an RNG game of chance when the deck owns a lot of high-end RNG cards like Dragonqueen Alexstrasza. That makes the process of climbing rank like playing the lottery. Therefore, knowing that RNG will be reduced, everyone is happy!!
So why does the current Standard look like a Tavern Brawl?
Don’t ask. pic.twitter.com/bL8QN3mqbb
— Wabeka (@WabekaHS) March 31, 2021
At the time Madness at the Darkmoon Faire came out, Deck of Lunacy doesn’t have a big impact on the meta. The legendary Mage spell card, Deck of Lunacy, was once one of many underutilized cards, although it is a perfect fit for the No Minion Mage archetype. Back in the present, the Deck of Lunacy is now the strongest card in the Standard and the No Minion Mage archetype is unrivaled. Follow HSReplay.net, the win rate of 69.3% when the Deck of Lunacy is right in the mulligan is an unbelievable number. Such overwhelming power was unheard of since the time of the overbearing Prince of Keleseth 2-mana.
As the archetype name suggests, No Minion Mage completely Depends on the spell. Font of Power and Apexix Blast benefit greatly from decks without minions, while cards like Incanter’s Flow, Refreshing Spring Water are at their maximum when the deck has no minions. But the Deck of Lunacy is the highest reward. It is a 2-mana Spell, with the following text: “Transform spells in your deck into ones that cost (3) more. (They keep their original Cost.)” – Turns all spells in your deck into spells that cost more (3) mana. (They keep their original Mana cost.) When every card in the deck is naturally cheap, the opponent will certainly not be happy at all. However, before Forged in the barrens, No Minion Mage was only considered an entertainment deck, not really a top tier. So what has changed?
No Minion Mage also has a few more powerful tools in Forged in Barrens, but even Refreshing Spring Water (regarded as the equivalent of a leaf) Pot of Greed getting banned in Yugioh) is not enough to make this deck strong immediately. Perhaps Mage’s loss of so many powerful spells during the rotation – including Blizzard and Power of Creation – caused players to skip the No Minion archetype at first.
Deck of Lunacy
The truth is that Deck of Lunacy has long been a powerful effect, but it was born at the wrong time to succeed. On November 26 of last year, Vicious Syndicate (Hearthstone analysis site) wrote: “Deck of Lunacy is a very strong opening card for Spell Mage, but not enough to bring this archetype to the top Tier. It may just be a meme, but the true power of the Deck of Lunacy suggests it could be nerfed in the future, when the Mage class is truly strong again.”
This prediction has been foretold. In particular, it came out before the author knew what would happen to the current meta.
The rotated Classic, Basic, and Year of the Dragon sets increased the average quality of the cards (specifically, Blizzard dropped a lot of useless cards), causing the randomly generated cards to suddenly become stronger. As for the Deck of Lunacy, the card doesn’t have too many different spells at certain Mana-cost levels and the cards that are in the Standard are pretty good. Another advantage is that the probability of calling these cards is very stable.
For example, Standard currently only has seven 6-mana cards in the entire game, and four of those cards help you draw more cards – which is a boon for the Deck of Lunacy. At 9 mana, the only spell in Standard is Libram of hope – and 10 mana, either Survival of the Fittest or better yet, Nagrand Slam. You can completely drop the Clefthoof swarm to have them punch the opponent’s face and minion. Sometimes that can happen as early as turn 4!
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— Kyle (@McBanterFace) April 1, 2021
The previous problem of No Minion Mage was that you would have a hard time if you were constantly punched in the face and that happened a lot last November. Both Aggro and Soul Demon Hunter deal damage from hands very quickly. Even if they are nerfed, the presence of the recent Nitroboost Poison allows Rogue to continue that quest. But in the Year of the Gryphon, the player can create a decent defense against that aggro.
The new Watch Post cards have turned Standard into a sit-and-wait game. Aggro decks were maximally handled by Mor’Shan Watch Post and even Far Watch Post, forcing the aggro deck to trade minions at a loss to implement the plan. Aggro is so nerfed that players are willing to spend a few turns to make sure the rest of the game runs well. And there’s no better turn setup than launching Skull of Gul’Dan for 3 mana (thanks to Deck of Lunacy).
Hearthstone’s head of design, Dean “Iksar” Ayala, made it clear that the current state of the game is one that the team is not happy with. In the last Twitter AMA, he said: “Overall, Lunacy is not the deck shaper we want it to be in tier 1, so the fact that it is a meta profiler makes it a swap target. change.” The developer has spoken very clearly, so don’t miss Clefthoof too much in the near future. It’s still quite early for leaves to be nerfed in just the first week of launch, but Team 5 is currently very quick in balancing the game. Take a look at Demon Hunter to understand more.
The more worrisome problem is that Mage isn’t the only surprisingly strong class right now. Paladin also has a huge 57% win rate on HSReplay at the time of this writing. And according to the data statistics, it has absolutely no default carving. Mage is the other class with a win rate above 50%. The rest just barely survive.
I’d like to see the following balance changes as soon as possible:
1. Sword of the Fallen: Reduce the durability to 2.
2. Deck of Lunacy: 4 mana (needs to be unplayable).
3. Watch Posts: Stats changed to 3/3, 4/4 and 5/5.
4. Pen Flinger: Can only hit minions.— O. Zach (@ZachODR) April 1, 2021
It has become quite common for the development team to roll up their arms as soon as the new expansion comes out. In other words, these awesome decks are about to be nerfed. ZachO from Vicious Syndicate foresaw the future of the Deck of Lunacy and made some predictions about what might happen. Overall, the Paladin needs to be adjusted. The nerfed Watch Post also helps aggro decks return.
Finally, the annoying Pen Flinger has really been around for too long in the meta. The most obvious adjustment is to only allow Pen Flinger to target the minion, or Team 5 can increase the mana-cost by 2 to make it unusable.
With quick intervention, the Standard could soon be interesting again. As Iksar says: “The goal is to fix the weak outliers, not to completely disappear from the meta deck. We are a game service (live service) that constantly adjusts the content. We want players to see and feel the care that comes from the team.” Spell Mage will most likely continue to live, but it needs to find a more fair way to win. And that means players have to cast more cards from their deck, not just from the Deck of Lunacy.
This is my fourth opponent with turn one or two Deck of Lunacy in five mage opponents so far this morning pic.twitter.com/jUhzCqQiyc
— Brian Kibler (@bmkibler) April 5, 2021
According to PCGamer
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Source link: How Lunacy messed with Hearthstone
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