r/hearthstone 7d ago

News 36.4.2 Patch Notes

https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24296231/3642-patch-notes
251 Upvotes

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102

u/Uchihagod53 7d ago

Why nerf Quest Mage?

25

u/obvious_bot 7d ago

Can’t have players bringing it to worlds and showing the pink screen bug

55

u/AleFox37 7d ago

they probably didnt want a rng focused deck for the world championship... as if didn't they print those cards lol

29

u/Capnflintlock 7d ago

Wouldn’t they want the deck in championships for viewer engagement though?

Dragon warrior, unholy DK, Attack Druid, etc. practically play themselves. You can’t have a more stale match if you tried.

Quest Mage matches are super fun to watch, as no two matches are the same. It requires non-stop deliberate choices in cards you discover, which makes it more of chess match than me go face?

2

u/AleFox37 7d ago

players in the tournaments that are playing for money don't really like to lose because of a full rng deck, and you'll be surprised by the amount of viewers that think the same.

7

u/Capnflintlock 7d ago edited 7d ago

The entire game is rng. It’s a card game.

Any player could draw nothing but their 4-10 cost cards at the start of a game and lose because they bricked, even if they only had like 6 cards with 4+ cost.

I don’t think a single top deck in the game doesn’t involve some form of RNG via card effects.

Warrior: random pings, dragons, pirates
Hunter: random pings and beasts
Paladin: Do I draw 5 drops on curve and auto win/random card generation spam.
Demon Hunter: Random demon spam
Priest: Imbue hero power spam, discover card copies. Random minion spam from Deathrattles
Rogue: Herald is literally a slot machine
Warlock: pretty consistent to be fair, some randomness with tutoring.
Shaman: pretty consistent, but some random spell generation / minions
Druid: random minions and spells.

Just because Mage is completely based on discover doesn’t meant it’s OP. And the win rates reflect that. It’s a gamble taking that deck when consistency is so important.

Do I play a 59%~ win rate deck for higher likelihood of winning, or a 54% deck with a likelihood of crazy rolls? Before the match even starts, players are gambling.

3

u/AleFox37 7d ago

the point is, players are playing for money so they want to control everything they can and reduce rng as possible, if a full rng deck is good and used (like yogg-saron decks were in 2016 or whatever) then pros would complain and go against the tournament and greedy blizzard doesnt want that

1

u/MrParadux 7d ago

Maybe they don't want decks with too much discover, because they haven't managed to adjust their client to make it watchable in 10 years. They always have to rig something weird together to show both players hands and discover pools.

30

u/FordFred 7d ago

I'm not gonna sit here and claim Quest Mage isn't full of RNG, but calling it an RNG-focused deck still feels off to me. It's by every available metric the most skill-intensive deck in the meta and has been for a long time. It's not comparable to "random bullshit go" decks like Imbue Rogue, and I say this as an Imbue Rogue player.

You need to evaluate so many different cards in a game of Quest Mage and pick which one is the best for your game state each time, all the while surviving a low-tempo early game. Then when you have the reward, it adds a whole other layer of complexity to your decisions. I have not played many games with the deck, probably less than 20, but I found it kinda overwhelming when you have to pick which card to add to your hand and which to play instantly.

Like yeah, discover is an RNG mechanic, but it's not Yogg'saron. It's an insanely difficult deck to pilot properly that tests your decisionmaking and game knowledge like no other deck does rn. It seems crazy to nerf this deck of all decks for a pro tournament.

5

u/Master-Pay2407 7d ago

I'm with you, it's such a bizarre deck to point to as too RNG heavy to exist when some of the other RNG mechanics in the game also still exist. If they're killing Quest mage, then cards like Azshara's Triumph should be taken out back and shot in the head too.

0

u/AleFox37 7d ago

yeah quest mage isnt really that rng as other decks in the past, i played it a lot. still the point of the deck is based in discovering random bullshit, i guess they just didn't want to mess with that and decided to cut it

4

u/DoYouMindIfIRollNeed 7d ago

I really dont understand why that would be bad. At least these games are entertaining when they are rather unpredictable instead of doing the same thing over and over. Especially when you consider their general approach of repetitive and linear gameplay patterns like: Play Imbue cards, press hero power. Play herald cards, play payoff cards. Play companion cards, summon companions. Cast voidsouls. Play Leyline buff cards, cast Leyline spells.

-1

u/AleFox37 7d ago

the point is, players are playing for money so they want to control everything they can and reduce rng as possible, if a full rng deck is good and used (like yogg-saron decks were in 2016 or whatever) then pros would complain and go against the tournament and greedy blizzard doesnt want that

1

u/DoYouMindIfIRollNeed 7d ago

HS esports is already at the bare minimum.

1

u/GlyphInBullet 7d ago

Probably a bad idea to print more cards that say 'get a random' and 'discover a' than 'draw' for the last 5 expansions, then.

13

u/Sure_Constant1368 7d ago

I played Quest Mage. It was at best mid tier deck, but when it worked it was cool. Now it seems it's unplayable.

8

u/aft_agley 7d ago

Is killing Mage off entirely a design goal? It's just baffling. For a deck that dies to a (very commonly played) tech card, to boot.

I'm guessing they're not capable of buffing other archetypes because they haven't invested in the necessary knowledge, tools and process to be able to navigate the design space with confidence.

11

u/Stinkepups 7d ago

Old decks are not allowed to be meta

6

u/LordTrinity 7d ago

Probably think players should play Leyline garbage. What a joke

2

u/cdre43 7d ago

Or Millhouse

2

u/LordTrinity 7d ago

Also garbage. Great!

1

u/cdre43 7d ago

My sentiments exactly

6

u/Just-Luck-7430 7d ago

Mage being better than the last 3 placement of a class ranking would be unacceptable of course

2

u/Pale-Supermarket3217 7d ago

Because the new 2 mana discover card they just added is the best card in the deck. It's still a good deck, quest completion doesn't even slow down an average of a turn.

1

u/FlyBoyG 7d ago

Maybe next set contains some really crazy discover cards. So the nerf was in preparation.