What We’ve Learned From The MSoG Meta

Introduction

Mistakes were made, that’s for sure. At first the latest Hearthstone expansion – Mean Streets of Gadgetzan – has looked like a fun experience bringing a lot of new archetypes into life and diversifying things a bit. However, the reality was completely different. MSoG meta turned out to be one of the worst in the history of the game. Yes, that’s subjective, but I’ve played the game all the way from the Closed Beta and I had LEAST fun in MSoG (besides the first week of the expansion where there was a lot of deck brewing, that’s always fun).

There is a lot to learn from the Gadgetzan meta. Many things were done wrong and there is a lot to learn. Since there is no use in crying over spilled milk, let’s see how this knowledge can be used to improve the game in future expansions. Here are some points that are mix of my thoughts and community opinions.

Mean Flaws of Gadgetzan

One Archetype (Aggro) Dominating Isn’t Fun

In case of Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, it was Aggro. But there is nothing wrong with the archetype itself. It’s fun to play a game against Aggro from time to time, it’s fun when you have to make deck building decisions based on the Aggro decks being in the meta (you know, you can’t play a very greedy list with Aggro around) etc. But what we’ve seen in MSoG was way, way too much. Thanks to the Pirates, archetype was so dominating before the nerfs that even historically slower decks like Miracle Rogue have taken much more aggressive approach. There were points in time when aggressive decks were 50%+ of the meta. Even right now in higher ranks aggressive decks are over 40% of the meta. And that’s not really equal distribution of the archetypes.

The problem is when there is too much of something. And that’s not only about Aggro, but the dominating archetype being Aggro makes it worse and more apparent. If you’d face a meta with 50%+ of slow, Control decks you’d also find it boring. If you’d face OTK combos 50%+ of the time, it would be terrible meta to be playing in. I think that out of “metas dominated by a single archetype”, Midrange is least toxic, because the decks are pretty flexible and some games against them are fast, while others are slow. Meta dominated by 1 archetype is huge problem, because it gets really boring.

Aggro as the dominating archetype is probably worst of them all (maybe except fatigue decks, that would be nightmare meta to play in) – in matches against Aggro, your play style, your decisions etc. get diminished by a lot and the game often ends up to be an extended coin flip – did you draw the right answers for the early aggression? Yes – you win, no – you don’t. Against Aggro, your skill matters much less than it should, because you have no room to show it.

But, what can we do to change that? First, Blizzard needs to fix its “taking turns” buffing/nerfing policy. They pump overpowered cards into one class until it gets way too strong, then they stop and start pumping them into another one. In that case, there will always be a dominating class, and thus probably a dominating archetype. Instead, they should take a more proactive approach and instead of “waiting for the meta to pan out”, they should step in and nerf some cards, buff others, make some changes to balance the state of the game.

Diversity is Great, but…

..but only when it’s a true diversity. I can’t deny that when it comes to the number of different viable archetypes, MSoG meta was really great. We had like 15+ viable decks at every point after the meta has stabilized, which is really great. The only problems were Paladin and Hunter being too weak, but there were still 7 classes with viable decks (7.5 since Anyfin Paladin was also semi-viable). So where’s the problem?

The problem is that we had lots of diversity on the paper, but not that much in the game. First of all – Pirates. Every aggressive deck felt really similar, because you were greeted by turn 1 Small-Time Buccaneer no matter if you’ve played against Shaman, Warrior or Rogue. Then, the main “Control” force in the meta were Reno decks. And sure, I can’t say that every Reno deck is the same, but they share the same Reno Jackson + Kazakus core and tons of similar techs (Reno decks are very tech-heavy) which makes them feel a bit similar. Then, the Jade decks. While Jade Rogue never took off, both Jade Druid and Jade Shaman build the deck around literally the same mechanic, which is very boring on top of that.

In the end, it felt like we didn’t have as many unique decks in the meta as the stats have shown. “I’m in Charge now” or “We’re gonna be rich” were heard so many times that it got boring very quickly.

Jade is a Terrible Mechanic

Let’s be honest here, Jade might be the worst mechanic ever introduced to Hearthstone. I even prefered the Joust, which was another missed mechanic, but maybe only because it never really got popular. Jade suffers from two main problems.

First, it’s boring. BORING. I don’t know if I can stress it out more. Jade decks revolve around playing vanilla minions that just gets buffed stats each time you play one. You literally play vanilla minions for the majority of the game. No interesting effects, no cool mechanics. Jade cards are as straightforward as it gets. Deal X damage, summon Jade golem. Play this one understatted minion that summons Jade golem. Play Aya which summons Jade golem and, WOW, summons another Jade golem when she dies! That’s all there is to this mechanic. Watching the stats grow was fun for the first few games, but after a while Jade decks – especially Druid – got my personal award for the most boring deck in the meta.

Second, it feels really bad to play against it. You’re on the clock ever since turn 1. When you skip turn 2, you feel really bad, because you know that you don’t have much time. Every time your opponent can answer your play you feel bad, because you know that soon you won’t be able to kill his Jades, because they will be too big. Every time you need to trade instead of going face you feel bad, because you just need to kill him so fast. When the game gets past turn 6-7 and you’re not in a dominating position, you feel bad, because the game is slipping out of your hands even though it has just started (since you’re both playing slow decks you expect the game to last way, way longer). Even when Druid goes first and plays a freaking turn 2 Wild Growth you feel really bad, because you’re behind in the mana and he can start pumping his Jades already.

Playing a slow deck vs Jade is one of the most unfun experiences I had in Hearthstone ever. It’s not even about the matchup being bad for me. Let’s say a 40/60 matchup isn’t THAT bad, I’ve played many worse and I didn’t complain. But the worst thing is that I have to drop my game plan completely and try to RUSH THE JADE DOWN. I have to play the tempo game with a Control deck only because a Midrange deck outvalues me in the long run.

Maybe an even bigger problem is that the Jade mechanic is not overpowered. Jade decks suffer from clear problems, they have really slow early game (most of the time), they need time to snowball and you can use that to hit them where it hurts. So there is no reason to nerf them from the balance perspective, the mechanic isn’t problematic, it’s not dominating the game. It’s actually played more than it should stats-wise. Jade Druid was always a pretty weak deck yet it was decently popular. But it just feels so bad to play against them.

Games Shouldn’t Be “Decided” On Turn 1

Not really “decided”, but I had no better word to use. Previously we had matchups like that – you queued into something and you knew that you’re going to have a hard time. But we didn’t have as many matchups like that as we do now. It’s apparent when both Aggro and Jade decks are so popular as games against both are decided way earlier than they should be.

There are tons of matchups that feel “inevitable” since turn 1. Let’s say that you play some Reno deck, maybe Reno Mage. You queue into Druid. It’s turn 1, you see that your hand is really slow and you already think about conceding, because it might save you time. Your chances to win are incredibly slim and it just feels bad to play this matchup. When turn 1 conceding might actually be a better option when it comes to your ladder progress, something’s really wrong.

Then you again play Reno Mage, but against Pirate Warrior. You can often tell the outcome of the game just by looking at your starting hand. If you start with Polymorph, Azure Drake, Archmage Antonidas and Flamestrike, well, that’s a shame, you’ve most likely lost the game. I give you maybe 10% chance to win. You’d need a PERFECT topdeck every turn to stay in this game. Even Reno won’t save you, because you most likely die before turn 6. Oh, but now you start with Arcane Blast, Doomsayer, Acidic Swamp Ooze and Reno Jackson? You have like 90% chance to win that match. Rest of your draws would need to be dead and the Warrior would need to draw flawlessly to win that.

Even though Jade and Aggro are completely different, games against both are often decided by your opening hand and maybe the first few draws. If you have slow start – Aggro decks will just kill you and Jade will snowball and you won’t be able to stop them. That’s a huge problem, because it really makes the draw RNG a big problem in already RNG-heavy game. Every card game has draw RNG, that’s for sure. But “draw RNG” is way different in the match that lasts 20 turns and in the match that lasts 6 turns. In the first one you see the majority of your deck, maybe even whole if you have some card draw. In a game that’s decided on turn 3 or 4, you get to play with like 1/4 of your deck. The less of your deck you see, the more draw RNG will influence the outcome. Games that end very early feel like an extended coin flip, not real card game matches.

We Don’t Want “Forced” Archetypes

Blizzard does that so much. In a perfect world, each class would have its gimmicks, multiple themes, cards that fit its identity etc. BUT none of them would be forced as “something you should play this expansion”. Like let’s say Mage can have AoE removals, burn damage, Secrets, Spell synergies and more. If they just printed some cards that support X gimmick, some that support Y and some that are just generally okay and interesting

The best example right now is Priest and Dragons. They’ve basically said “we want Priest to play Dragons and that’s it”. They’ve forced the archetype by printing Drakonid Operative – Dragon Priest would be like a Tier 3 deck without that card right now and right now it’s arguably high Tier 2 or even Tier 1. Just because one card is completely broken. It’s one of the most powerful cards ever printed and it’s not even a Legendary. From what it seems, now they’ve decided that Priest will be Deathrattle class. New Priest Quest is Deathrattle, we’ve seen 2 new Deathrattle cards. I just hope it won’t work like the other “forced archetypes” where they will try to focus on that one gimmick until a) it takes off and becomes a strong deck or b) it fails miserably.

Blizzard has tried to “force” multiple archetypes in the past. Remember Taunt Warrior? Or Totem Shaman? Or Beast Druid? They focused so much on those archetypes that they forgot that maybe people don’t really want to play them. For few expansions in a row you could be SURE that they will print few more “Taunt Warrior” cards or “Shaman cards that synergize with Totems”. It was so apparent that they wanted people to play them.

Just let those things come in naturally. Forcing something kills the deck building pleasure. Building a deck around a certain theme that’s forced is REALLY boring, because you’re left with almost no room to make interesting choices. Let’s say you’re building a Control Warrior. Now you can choose what card draw you want to play, you can choose what set of late game Legendaries you prefer, you can choose which weapons you want to run etc. But when you’re building a Control Priest, 90% of the deck is auto-include. Of course you play Twilight Whelp, Wyrmrest Agent and Drakonid Operative. Of course you play other powerful Dragons/Dragon synergies like Twilight Guardian or Blackwing Corruptor. Of course for the draw/value you use Netherspite Historian. After filling the deck with the cards that you simply need to play, you’re left with just a few card slots to make your own choices in.

Clear themes, focusing on them and printing powerful cards that “force” that theme make deck building easier for players who have no clue about that. Like, new player sees Priest, he sees a bunch of cards that synergize with Dragons and puts each one of them into the deck. Hurray, he built his own deck, because Blizzard made all the decisions for him!

This one might not hurt as many players as the last points, but from the perspective of someone who likes inventing new stuff, likes building my own decks, I really feel like “themes” have became a too important thing. It simply kills the deck building innovations. And while some decks are still “discovered” rather than “forced” – Water Rogue is a great recent example – majority of the decks are known even before the expansion launches, because the themes people will build around are so clear and all that’s left is optimizing them after the launch. Like, everyone knew that Pirates will be a thing after seeing STB & Patches. Everyone knew that Druid will play Jade. Everyone knew that Priest will play Dragons. Everyone knew that Warlock and Mage will play Reno. Which made building those decks a bit boring.

Closing

Okay, the rant is over. I hope that you agree with my points. One thing is certain – Gadgetzan turned out to be a pretty bad expansion, will tons of forced themes, mechanics that aren’t fun and meta that feels bad to play in. Mistakes do happen, Hearthstone is, believe it or not, still a pretty fresh game when it comes to card games. But if Blizzard won’t start learning from past mistakes, there might be no tomorrow for the game. I think that this year is really important and the 3 upcoming expansions will tell us about the direction the game is heading in. Let’s just hope it will be the game we all enjoy.

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Good luck on the ladder and until next time!

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