Future Proofing Your Design - Looking at Hearthstone and Planning Ahead - Extra Credits
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ต.ค. 2015
- Most games released today are expected to have at least a 5-year life cycle with patches and expansions. As the original design team moves on to new jobs, they must be careful about what they design and try to lay down a set of best practices to prevent new designers from creating new features that accidentally break the game. Hearthstone's Grand Tournament expansion provides good examples to look at.
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♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM
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♪ Outro Music: "Moguo's Knife Party" by Benjamin Briggs
bit.ly/1FN6mp6 - เกม
One of the first games of MTG (Magic The Gathering) I played, was with a guy who had a library that was made up mostly of land cards. He played just enough low cost creature cards to stay in it through out most of the game (trying mostly to just match the ones I had in play). Meanwhile I had whittled him down to 8 life points from 20. And he had amassed thereabouts of 30 land cards. I thought I would have him within the next 3-4 turns.
Then the surprise came (I knew something was up but I thought that he was going easy on me and not toying with me)...He played one card that turned all his land to 2/2 creatures with haste. He attacked with all of them (leaving what few actual creature cards he had out as blockers). I was able to to block and counter a good chunk of the damage. But he left me with 1 life point and no creatures. I spent my turn throwing out all creatures I had to stop him from killing me on his next turn. In his very next turn...He played a duplicate of that card and wiped me out with negative 20 something life points.
After he won he dropped his remaining hand face up (cards he had held onto as he got them through out most of the game). He had enough to end me the whole time. He was just waiting on the ability to do this move. Saying that what he wanted was not to see how quickly he could win, but to see how much he could put me into the negative lp.
When I play stratagey games I hold my unit on their last city leaving them unable to make any new units
I 100% everything at that point and then capture the city and win
That sounds like something out of the Yu Gi Oh anime.
"Now I shall play the Triangle O spell card!"
Inscryption player before Inscryption
This video predicts Tuskarr Totemic's nerf almost a full year in advance. Nice work.
Yes, but it wasn't nerfed for the reason he said. It was nerfed because the community hated what a swingy RNG card it was with the totems that existed even from back then. It was just sort of a sleeper card because shaman was so underpowered at the time of its release.
well, he did predict that designer would need to have caution with this card.
Caleb Jones he predicted it hands down
tuskarr tonerfic
And he predicted the power of Living Roots. From what I remember: it allowed Aggro/Zoo Druid to go crazy
Living Roots wasn't the best example in my opinion, but I guess the point was still pretty clear.
Also, I was too very confused by Astral Communion. I think it was printed because the Hearthstone developers really like cards that can create moments. While it's currently pretty bad, it can be hillarious and epic to see an Astral Communion deck working.
It doesn't happen often, but when it does... you will remember it.
+The Beaver King I got a deck with 2 Innervates, 2 Wild Growths, 2 Nurtures a Darnassus Aspirant, Astral Communion and the rest of the deck is filled with 5 cost cards and up. The deck fails miserably 60% of the time but the 40% of the time when you get the right starting hand takes your opponent to the nearest pain train station in 3 turns.
+The Beaver King I could see Astral Communion work in a legendary deck, or at least a deck with lots of high-cost minions. Having no hand isn't really a problem when you have Deathwing out turn 5...
+The Beaver King Someones first turn was using The Coin, Innervate and then Astral Communion. After that he had multiple cards that allowed him to draw more cards and then he continued to play really strong cards like Dr. Boom and others while I was stuck at 5-6 mana. It was extremely frustrating, and you are right that I remember it...
+The Beaver King I agree with Wrosgar. Druid is actually a pretty good draw synergy deck, and yeah, discarding 2 cards of 10 mana first turn could be well worth it. It's just very situational.
+DJdeaddude WoWhobbs has been running a cool deck with Aviana and Astral Communion with some legendaries and card draw. When it works it's glorious. One of his last videos he was able to Aviana, innervate, taunt, Chromagus, and Nefarian all in one turn. Opponent exploded on the spot.
Posted this in the last episode, but I'd better post it here too ; )
I eventually will do an episode talking about why Blizzard can't just buff/nerf willy-nilly and has to be very careful about how they use their patching powers.
-JP
P.S. It won't be a for a while though, I've spent a little too much time focusing on HS of late (there's at least two more episodes in the pipe that use it as the principle example).
+Extra Credits Same thing goes for Starcraft II
+Extra Credits Something about players understanding how the game and metagame work, and that understanding being lost with excessive buffing/nerfing?
+Extra Credits sorry for the words, but astral communion, it's already a pain in the ass to play against it, it's too over powered normaly
Thanks I was just about to ask about it.
I see some people say that companies will avoid nerfing a strong strategy because it might alienate some players. But I think if people are angry because they brought balance to a competitive game, they're missing the point.
+Extra Credits Does something like this also apply to cards like Magic the gatherings "black lotus" card and is that is why it's banned from tournament play and super expensive?
here's how to break Astral Communion...
a 1-3 cost druid minion that has the effect: "Whenever you gain a mana crystal from a card, draw a card"
The card wouldn't be cheap it would be around 5 mana
But the combo would still be quite good even at 5 mana so I would say 6 mana
Technoblade moment
HEEEEEEEEH?!
It's always great being the one that finds the old, underused card and finding a really strong combo to use in present gameplay.
Never played hearthstone, but from my years of playing MTG, sometimes I think designers create interesting cards just to see what their community comes up with. "Johnnies" like me are drawn to these types of cards and will spend hours trying to figure out a way to exploit it. That, my friend, is the purpose of that card. To provide that to Johnny players, even if they end up giving up on the card in the end. The search for an exploit was worth it.
+AverageJo3Gam3r Knowledge Pool + Curse of Sleep :D
+AverageJo3Gam3r Ahh, Lion's Eye Diamond.
+AverageJo3Gam3r Oh, Sorin's old "Play the other person's turn" ability...
+Joe Louie (Lawjick) exactly. I had a buddy back in the day that was convinced that Carnival of Souls would become part of some broken combo. He always picked them up from people in trades. Ended up with a binder full of 100's of them. Just waiting for the day...
AverageJo3Gam3r You mean, aside from an ill-fated Donate attempt?
Fortunately for Hearthstone, it is possible to have massive totems without cards like Tuskarr Totemic ruining things. How? The Battlecry effect.. again. Because minions summoned from an effect do NOT trigger the Battlecry of the summoned minion; only minions played from your hand do. That means, any huge totems could have weak stats, but a really strong battlecry; like gain +4/+4.
Even if the game is suddenly broken by a card, Hearthstone can easily enough 'nerf' it and thus un-break the game again. They've done this many times, particularly to the infamous Starving Buzzard.
+L33tImagination i like how you think
+L33tImagination issue with that is the silence. You're telling me I can play a 3/3 for 7 mana, it becomes a 6/8, then its silence and I get a 3/3 for 6 mana. I think the issue with battlecry buffing is that if your oppenent silences it, your screwed
Pedro Gusmão true, but why would a totem transform? Thats a druid thing. I don't know, that sounds a bit wierd
+Pack Leader well you can instead make a huge totem with a clause *can´t be special summoned* or a simple nerf to tuskarr totemic to only include 1-4 mana cost
+Pack Leader Then they could so something like 5mana 3/3 - Battlecry: Gain +4/+4, Overload 2 (numbers are essentially placeholders)
If it doesn't get silenced, you get a 5mana 7/7, if it does get silenced, you get a 5mana 3/3.
Every silence, except for the priest spell (which is basically unplayable), is at least 2mana.
You potentially forced him to NOT play his 5mana minion because your 7/7 would kill their 5drop.
So after the silence play, the board is your 3/3 (=3drop) vs their 2+3drop/4drop (druid)
Would also still be balanced since there already is a 3/4 that is summonable by tuskar totemic.
I think you guys should talk about the "Blizzard can't just nerf things on a whim" sooner rather than later, since they have just made an absolutely HUGE nerf for the card Warsong Commander.
For those of you who don't know Hearthstone, Warsong Commander was Warrior exclusive minion (cost 3 mana to play with 2 attack and 3 health) that gave all minions on your side that had three attack or less charge. Normally in Hearthstone your minions cannot attack the turn they are played, they have to wait until your next turn, unless they have charge.
For most of Hearthstone's life, Warsong Commander never played. While it gave a buff to your small minions, Warrior's didn't have a reliable way to fill up the board with small creatures, instead using Warrior's ability to gain absolutely huge amounts of health to a play a much slower control game. Then Blackrock Mountain came out.
Blackrock Mountain introduced Grim Patron. Grim Patron is a 3 attack and 3 health minion that costs 5 mana that summons another copy of itself IF it survives damage. So, if a full health Patron was hit with 1 or 2 damage, it would summon a copy, but if you killed the Patron with 3 or more damage, a copy wouldn't be created. For most of the classes, this card is utterly useless. However, in combination with Warsong Commander, Patron Warrior became one of the most powerful decks in Hearthstone history.
For example, let's say it is turn eight. You have no minions on the board, while your enemies' board is filled with a bunch of small 1 and two attack creatures. For any other deck, this is a very bad situation, where most classes would do what they can to reset the board to zero minions on both side. For Patron Warrior, this situation is actually a gold mine. The Warrior throws down Grim Patron and Warsong Commander. Since Patron has 3 attack, it get's charge. It attacks a minion and survives. Now we have a second Grim Patron on the board. Again, since the second Grim Patron has 3 attack, it gets the charge bonus as well, so it attacks a minion. Now there is a third Grim Patron that gets the buff and can summon ever MORE Grim Patrons. So, the Warrior goes from having zero minions on the board against seven minions, to having seven minions against an empty board. Warrior's also have a lot of really cheap cards that allow them to damage their OWN minions, which allows from absolutely insane combinations, which can throw out huge amounts of damage in one turn.
Today, the Hearthstone developers announced that Warsong Commander is being completely changed. It no longer gives out charge, but +1 attack to all minions with charge. Warrior's will no longer be able to summon out huge swarms of charging minions from just playing two cards. What is particularly notable is one of the reasons Blizzard listed why they made this change, "to help expand future design space."
+notbobby125 It's important to note that the Warsong Commander-Grim Patron combo wasn't enough by itself to propel Grim Patron Warrior to the top, since many decks could play around it by not playing 1-2 attack minions and waiting to play stronger late-game minions which the Patron Warrior has few to no answers to; in addition, some decks had board-clear cards strong enough to kill all of the Patrons at once if the Warrior played them. What propelled it to the top was a second combo that could be added to the deck and even played alongside the first combo without backlash- the Warsong Commander/Frothing Berserker combo.
The Frothing Berserker is a 3-mana 2/4 Warrior exclusive minion that gains 1 attack every time any minion on the board takes damage. Because the Warrior class has access to a large number of low-cost "whirlwind" effects that deal a small amount of damage to every minion on the board, the Frothing Berserker gains 1 attack for every friendly and enemy minion on the board several times over and quickly gains a massive amount of attack, and because Frothing Berserker starts out with only 2 attack, it gains Charge from Warsong Commander and keeps it no matter how high his attack grows. So, if your opponent has several minions on the board too strong for Grim Patrons to deal with, Warsong Commander and two charging Frothing Berserkers combined with several "whirlwind" cards will give the Frothing Berserkers enough attack to kill your opponent and win the game, sometimes even if they are at or above full health. If your opponent has no minions, you could also play a Grim Patron alongside your Warsong Commander and Frothing Berserker and repeatedly use Whirlwinds for the same effect, giving your Frothing Berserker enough attack for an instant win because each Whirlwind creates more Grim Patrons and more minions for the next Whirlwind to hit, so that each Whirlwind gives Frothing Berserker more Attack than the last, until the Frothing Berserker's attack is so high that it, along with all of the Grim Patrons who each have Charge and can attack while this is happening, can kill your opponent and win the game, even if he knew you had Grim Patrons and knew he shouldn't play minions.
The end result is that the Grim Patron deck had a way to win against every other deck archetype in the game, either by playing Grim Patrons and gaining permanent board control against fast aggressive decks, by playing Frothing Berserkers and a few Whirlwinds to abruptly end the game against "midrange" decks that can play around Grim Patrons and fill the board with stronger minions, or by waiting until they have both Grim Patrons and Frothing Berserkers and can do enough damage to end the game even though their opponent has played few to no minions at all, as "control" and "combo" decks often do. So in the end, only a select few decks designed specifically to counter Grim Patron Warrior stood any chance at all against the deck, and the metagame revolved around the deck for many months because it was so much better than all of the competition, until Blizzard finally took action against the key to the entire deck's playstyle: Warsong Commander.
+notbobby125 I don't know what more EC could say about this. Warsong Commander is a much better example of this concept than anything that EC used in the video. Its a card that seemed well balanced at the time, but had devastating unintended consequences when a card like Grim Patron came out. It was vastly off curve, especially for a basic card, and ultimately something had to be done about it. In my mind, the decision to nerf the card was right, (and I was a Patron player.)
Now, what we CAN talk about is whether they should have nerfed the card right before the world championship at Blizzcon, or waited until after the tournament
A good example of this already happening is Frothing Berserker, and how the grim patron deck made it broken.
+Robotputty Grim Patron in general was a card that really shouldn't have ever existed. The dominance of it, even after TGT's release, is disgusting. And worst part is the new decks that were the stars of TGT like Secret Pally get absolutely shit on by Patron Warrior.
I'm still happy that my roommate last year came up with the Grim Patron Deck on essentially the card was released, well before the meta caught up with it.
+garagavia But that's the point, the card WASN'T that good without Grim Patron in the game. Without a card that almost guaranteed a full board for you to Whirlwind and make your Berserker huge, Berserker was a mediocre card which would often just die in one trade. So unless by "awareness" you mean foreseeing that Blizzard would design Grim Patron before them announcing it then no, absolutely no-one could've foreseen Berserker's power.
+Sam Pagano Literally everyone came up with the Grim Patron deck on release, it's the most obvious idea in the world. You can stop self-fellating now, you're not special.
+OgreSamanosuke I have problems with neither deck, but reading forums it seems like many consider Secret Pally the bigger evil over Patron Warrior.
4 years later: astal communion is again in the standart format (that these days not yet existed). And it is not playable again. But it was a meta-definding-card between the beginings and today.
Well Done. This is my favourite Video from what I've seen so far on your channel. It's very hard to boil down a topic like this in just 7 Minutes but you've done a great job and used perfect examples for it.
When i watched that Astral Communion i was like "Damn! If that thing where in MTG it would be insta banned."
Will Hearthstone's new cards survive the test of future proofed design? #ExtraCredits
+Extra Credits You guys mentioned before that you would do a video about why Hearthstone can't get away with simply nerfing stuff. Are you really gonna make it? I'm pretty interested in it =)
+Extra Credits You guys forgot to explain why Blizzard can't nerf/buff cards that have already come out. Cause they have already done so earlier.
+Extra Credits great vidoe
+Extra Credits You should really do an episode on the way Death Row is handled in Prison Architect. The first time I had to execute a prisoner I damn near cried. And it achieves that entirely through gameplay in a sandbox. Now I'm dreading the next time I have to do it.
+Extra Credits It would be great if you analysed other major future-concerned designs out there, like MtG (arguably the most complex game ever designed), Pokémon, or even D&D editions - which have a lifespan of several years each. Or any pen & paper RPG system, actually, since they're supposed to last forever.
An interesting example of this to be honest is actually really well done by the "future sight" expansion from Magic the Gathering years back. Now it's a relatively older set, but what it did, it brought in a LOT of strange design choices and "Keywords" (Small abilities that can be easily put on multiple cards.). A good few like scry (Which was in an earlier set but was more heavily thought on in Future sight), tribal, and poison have become the basis for play years later. Scry was heavily featured in Theros and was decided to be good and balanced enough to eventually be made into a core game mechanic, even in the rules to scry now when you mulligan down below your starting hand. Poison was reworked completely, instead of being a set number of poison counters added (For example poison 1 gave 1 counter, poison 2 gave 2, and so on.) It got turned into infect, which turns all damage into poison counters. THe old poison did both damage and poison, so you had two clocks ticking. (You lost at 11 poison). Now it's a single clock, but it effectively doubles a creatures power and it can't be healed. Tribal was then the basis for the lorwyn block. Tribal was a card archtype that allowed cards that weren't creatures to be given creature types, which means your artifacts, sorceries, instants, and such can now be, for example, elf cards, be searched for by cards with elf, and so on. The beauty also of Future Sight is that it created many keywords and abilities that still haven't been used. Some are somewhat overpowered potentially, such as Aura-swap, some are interesting like Grandeur, and one is actually made to be nearly unusable in the future. That keyword is on one card, steamflogger boss, card type: goblin rigger. IT makes all other riggers (A card type that it, and ONE other card are) the ability to assemble two contraptions. There are no contraptions in the game, they are only mentioned in this card. As well "assemble" is a keyword that has no meaning, and was designed to never have one. It's a card meant to be useless.
Talking on Astral Communication. If you do some searching you can find that Wizards of the Coast (The people that make magic the gathering) have devised three psych profiles for their players and for their card design. Johnny, Timmy, and Spike. I'll only speak on Johnny. Johnny's only care about one thing in the game (Although you can be a mixture of any of the three) and that is making an interesting deck, commonly basing it around a combo. They care about card design and thinking with their own brain. One card in magic was "One with nothing," a one cost card with the effect "Discard your hand." Now a days there are reasons to discard your hand and better cards to do it with, but that card was made with johnny in mind. The card wasn't made for the reason of being competitive and there actually was no ulterior motive or plan to make a card to go with it truly. There are cards that benefit from no hand, but they don't exist to go with one with nothing. One with nothing exists for the players to figure out how to use it. To me Astral Communication isn't a sign of Blizzard trying to make a competitive card, but a card that you have to think with, you have to make a deck around perhaps. Not all cards have to follow a curve to be played, cards just have to peak someone's interest to want to use.
Astral Communion, like Alarm-o-Bot, exists because of the more casual community. The feeling of Innervate-Coin-Astral Communion, then Deathwing the turn after is amazing. I know, I've done it before.
Astral communion is playable in current tavern brawl, as it will be drawn in turn 4 for sure and you can follow up with additional 5 mana draw mechanics like Nourish or Drake. Some seemingly unplayable cards will have use in brawls or atleast in arena
+Kaalep I looove this brawl, the amount of control over your deck feels amazing. My favourite list thus far has been a Paladin one:
All the secret with other than Eye for an Eye
Minibot
Muster for Battle
Truesilver
??? (played Captain Greenskin, but I'm not sure if that's optimal)
Mysterious Challenger
Doctor Boom
Tirion
??? (again unsure about the 9-drop, used Onyxia)
fill the rest with 10 mana cards.
*Sits chewing on card in mouth.* "Loving these card episodes."
I've been wathing over 100 of your videos inlast month (I'm usually really unactive in TH-cam), as they are educational, they are also enjoyable! Keep it upt Extra Credits!
This probably won't be seen by you lads , but you guys are awesome . Everything you make is fully worth watching . Great guys.
You can also NERF stuff...
You can't do that with physical cards, but anything else you can
+Alan Garcia
That's not a very ellegant solution. I'd only use that in an emergency!
+Alan Garcia While NERFing cards is an option with virtual TCGs, this can still cause issues with trade value. Hearthstone actually provides a good example for this too. A while back, the card Leroy Jenkins was nerfed. Suddenly a sought after and expensive card to craft had much less value in the eyes of players. Players who spent a LOT of time and effort trying to craft just one copy of Leroy suddenly found their efforts had gone to waste. Thankfully, Blizzard allowed for a short period after nerfing Leroy, players to un-craft Leroy for its full crafting value instead of the reduced value cards normally craft into so that their efforts didn't go to waste. Forcibly nerfing/buffing cards in a TCG is one of the last things you want to have to do. Like the episode says, considering the balance and future proofing your designs before releasing content can save a lot of work later down the road.
+Alan Garcia You can't just take away a cards stats that somebody bought. Fans are a bit touchy about that.
+abigfavor Yes you can.When a player buys packs to gain cards he has to accept the possibility of the card getting changed or even deleted from the game.Also,when blizzard nerf or buffs a card for 2 weeks you can dissenchant it for its full value and make another card you may not have.And you can't really buy individual cards in HS,you have to buy packs and maybe you will get the one you want,so it's not like you are ''buying'' a card.
+Alan Garcia I haven't played Hearthstone, but as I understand it, people can pay real money to get specific cards. If that's the case, the designers need to be REALLY careful about nerfing. This is true for all games that do rebalancing, but it's especially tangible when you can actually buy a specific card that then becomes nerfed.
Nerfing is very useful, but it's also very hard to do without upsetting people, in many cases rightfully so.
6:08
Unplayable my foot. I got hit by a coin innervate turn one astral communion and instantly lost. It was pretty entertaining actually.
This popped up in my recommended, so I just had to revisit it. Seven years later, I feel like the biggest impact Astral Communion has had on the game is to give players that random "oh no" moment when they play Yog-Saron and watch their hand disappear.
And that's why a ban list exists.
Magic player here and you did a great job explaining what's going on with Hearthstone
Why future proof when you can make everything before the most recent DLC useless? -Bungie
"Is there anything else worth playing at that mana cost slot when living roots is an option?"
Zombie Chow says hi.
Astral communion already works in hearthstone. Just because you don't have a hand doesn't mean you can't gain one through creature's death touch.
for anyone watching this in recent time, a card that can combo decently with astral communion it's a card that whenever you discard a card, draw a card. this makes it so that while you essentially delete your hand it replaces it with another of the same size
And this week they nerf warsong commander for the sake of future-proofing the game.
+Mother's Basement Indeed, it's likely he'll reference this (And all the aspects of the rise and fall of Patron Warrior) quite a bit.
But what are you doing here, comrade?
I don't know if anyone's mentioned it or if you guys are aware of it, but Astral Communion has a counterpart in Magic the Gathering, known as "Lions Eye Diamond". And indeed "LED" was intended to be unplayable, but when the concept of "Flashback" cards (cards that you cast from your graveyard for a slightly higher cost) ended up utterly breaking it, causing it to be flatout banned in almost all game formats for Magic.
The thing is, Lion's Eye Diamond has one crucial difference from Astral Communion; I'm not entirely familiar with Hearthstone other than it's "magicesque" but it doesn't seem to have the color system Magic has. One of the reasons Lion's Eye Diamond broke the game was because it grants you 3 mana of any color, making a lot of cards with weird color combos that would otherwise be unplayable utterly broken. It was more of a cascading effect. In Hearthstone, this might not be as big of an issue, since it seems all cards use the same "color", so it's effects might be able to be replicated by a bunch of other cards that just jack up mana. The other difference is that Astral Communion actually requires mana to play, so it's not something you can fire off when you have absolutely nothing.
If Astral Communion does end up being completely broken, it would actually demonstrate why such "learn from our predecessors" is such an important lesson, as I'm willing to bet that if it is broken, it's going to be for the exact same reason Lion's Eye Diamond was; a card like Yawgmoth's Will that effectively turns your graveyard into your hand, even for just one turn.
+MechaEmperor7000 Hearthstone doesn't have the color system per se, but the Class system it uses is comparable.
Astral Communion is a Druid card, it can only be used by Druids, barring certain edge cases. Druids are limited in their card drawing potential though.
Ah, so it would be more like, say, Seething Song or Geosurge.
The closest Hearthstone gets to mtgs colours, is the class cards (cards only available to a single class). Unlike mtgs colour fixing, classes cannot be mixed (except a few random cards, here and there).
+MechaEmperor7000 There's also a very important difference in the way mana is acquired. In Hearthstone, you have mana crystals, which contain your mana. Each turn, you gain one mana crystal and every mana crystal is refilled, and you can use all mana that is not locked from overload effects from the previous turn. You also can never have more than 10 mana crystals.
Since Druid has no overload effects, Astral Communion can _always_ be played on turn 4 if it is in hand, barring some bizarre situation where a Druid played a Shaman card somehow.
Also, there are very few cards that grant permanent mana crystals to yourself (some cards grant them to the enemy as a downside). Only Druid has such cards, and Astral Communion is by far the most extreme (all other cards that grant permanent mana crystals only give one, and one of Druid's is a minion that takes a crystal away on death), so its effects are not comparable in scale to other existing cards.
Additionally, while Hearthstone has a card that use the graveyard, there's a separate graveyard for discarded cards, and nothing so far uses that.
Ultimately, the effect of the card is that it accelerates you to the "topdecking" stage of the late game where you can play any card you draw, but have to rely on random draws to work. The most likely way for it to become broken were if Druid got a card like Rogue's Sprint, a 7 mana spell that draws 4 cards.
Reminds me of Rescue Cat. A card no one would bother with.
Then they introduced a new mechanic, and Rescue Cat became overpowered because of how efficient it was at pulling off the new mechanic.
Gotta be honest, I miss synchro cat...
Magic the Gathering's Tarmogoyf is a great example of a lot of the concepts talked about in this video. Nicely done!
I know this video is old , but you forgot one card from hearthstone. The pre-nerf Master of Disguise. Master of disguise would give a friendly minion stealth , which means it can't be targeted until it deals damage. This doesn't allow for some neutral or Rogue cards to be even made. With the pre-nerf Master of disguise you can't print a card that has a strong effect printed on it , for example , a card that heals you or draws you cards if it stays alive for long enough. I can bet that Ragnaros the Lightlord ( he heals you for 8 at the end of your turn ) was made class specific just because of Master of disguise.
I think the problem with your argument that there can't be an 8 mana totem is quite flawed, as this is an online only card game, all they need to do is make the big stompy totem, then change the card text for the totemic to: "summon a random totem below 3 mana" or some such thing, that is one of biggest advantages of a fully online card game.
+eric jiga But they won't do that because the team hates making card changes. The only time they do so is to nerf cards that were giving players huge advantages and letting them win a large majority of games.
I love the ending tune in this video!
How prophetic is this video?! Good job James and Dan!
Me: nice game character!
(Expiration date 2020)
Oh sh*t
Print big game hunter.
7+ attack cards are bad forever.
+HammerspaceCreature Or in other words: Print Big Game Hunter, restrict future design space so that late-game minions either need to have 6 attack or a useful Battlecry to compensate
Aquasharkyboy If by 'other' you mean 'more' then yes :p
+HammerspaceCreature "Print Big Game Hunter. Make the most OP card in the game a 7 attack minion. Everyone uses BGH"
Fixed
+Wojciech Dubrownik Dr. Boom just made the situation 10 times worse. Because of Dr. Boom BGH is played in so many decks that other 7+ attack minions become even more unplayable.
+HammerspaceCreature More like 7+ attack cards without an imediate effect. Cause, last I checked, Alex, Nefarian, and Dr. Muthafking Balance Boom are still played,
On the topic of unforeseen (MtG) combos: M14 Sanguine Bond + AVR Exquisite Blood. This combo was in standard from M14 to Theros, and either effect started an infinite combo with the other. As soon as you gained life or an opponent lost life, the game was over with both cards on the field.
Hahaha, that guy saying "thanks" under a mountain... very subtle, very subtle.
I thought for sure you guys would bring up Patron Warrior in the unforeseen consequences section. That deck is made up of mostly poor cards on their own--Whirlwind, Battle Rage, Warsong Commander etc.--yet when combined, create a deck that's been Tier 1 for months, is in at least a third of competitive Hearthstone players' conquest lists, and one that'd be very hard to nerf without breaking the entire playstyle. It's a tricky situation that Blizzard wrote themselves into by not considering the potential of its cards, even the ones below the power curve. Living Roots is a fine example, but Patron's probably the most clear example of an unforeseen combo.
Have Blizzard admitted not for seeing that combo? I saw Warsong + patron in the first 10 seconds thinking about it, and I've never got past rank 10.
Well, no one really saw it being as powerful as it was. We all laughed it off as a gimmick deck, we all chuckled the first time we got killed by it, and then it became the #1 deck in the meta all the way until TGT. I think they wanted to make a fun card whose flavor represented the nature of a brawl, but didn't understand the ramifications with Warsong and the Whirlwind effects.
Astral Communion is run in what I like to call "Hail Mary Druid". Basically, you pray you have it and Innervate in your starting hand. You then pray that, next turn, you get your card draw options. Then, you pray those drawn cards give you what you need to comeback and win. If everything lines up, the deck is god-like, practically unstoppable. If nothing lines up, you have a garbage mana curve, several missed turns, and a lost game. Basically, pray a lot, and hope you can win. Thus, "Hail Mary Druid".
An interesting example of this is actually Murloc Knight - while it has a similar mechanic as Tuskarr Totemic, it activates every time you use your hero power rather than when it hits the table, and summons murlocs instead of totems. The catch is, Murloc Knight is also a murloc, so it can summon itself....
these hearthstone videos are wonderful. Will you do more card game or analogue oriented videos after you've gone through all the hearthstone specific ones?
Editing a cards text or using a Banlist prevents this from happening aswell, although people will probably get upset when you do put those in the game
+xXFireTheEagleXx No.
yep, agree! Thats why I dont get the panic made in this video ...
You dont just ban cards that are OP in (certain)instances. you balance them.
This entire video predicted hearthstone a year in advanced.
RIP Dr 7
Nice one u were spot on with living roots
It completely Breaks druid in wild with The new buffing twinspell
I have a friend who loves Magic The Gathering, and his purpose with any deck he builds is to try and make game-breaking combos. One of my "favourite" ones was Mephidross vampire and Triskelion (one gives creatures counters every time it does damage, regardless of how damage is done. The other spends counters to do damage to any one or thing. Infinite loop!). I admit he usually used rare things, but he still went out of his way to find them.
Living roots is not off curve
One and two mana cards are always given extra value to make up for their awfulness in late-game top-deck face-offs
+Agiri When you compare it to Arcane Shot/Holy Smite, two equal-costing spells that are also class exclusive, and you see that Living Roots is strictly better than both of them, you realize that, yes, Living Roots really is off curve. It's one thing for a class exclusive card to be strictly more powerful than neutral cards, or for it to be better in most circumstances but worse in some niche scenarios than another class's card, but when it's just better in every possible way and there is no scenario in which the other class card is better, than it's generally too strong.
Gizen Zirin
Those cards are balanced around their class. Are Frostbolt and Quickshot OP because they're objectively superior to Dark Bomb?
+Agiri I would argue that it's the reverse, that Dark Bomb is very slightly underpowered, but that the secondary effects of Quick Shot Frostbolt are relevant so infrequently that it's not as noticeable.
Gizen Zirin
As a warlock player, I will gladly take a darkbomb buff!
+Gizen Zirin I would have to disagree with the secondary effects not being relevant. Face hunter gets the quick shot effect quite often. Freeze mage basically NEEDS frostbolt's secondary affect to stay consistent. You have fireball fireball frostbolt or frostbolt ice lance ice lance. Without the secondary effect freeze mage would drop considerably.
As for living roots. It's above curve because it has a choice like the video said. Tokens are very useful in druid because the opponent basically has to keep all minions off the board at all times in fear of getting comboed. 1 mana for 2 minions is very strong when considering that adds a potential 6 damage. Then there's the other effect that is already standard for that mana cost. As far as power/mana cost goes. Living roots is definitely not average.
"Blizzard employs people much, much smarter people than me!"
Yeah. ...No.
Especially not in their PR team.
This video ages like milk...
Good video once again. I liked the last one you did about Power Creep in Hearthstone as well.
Has anyone heard of the new upcoming TCG called Rudaea? It's not very well known right now, but it looks amazing! The game designers have some great views on balancing cards, and I think they're even looking for play testers right now.
The combo issue reminded me of this neat combo in Magic the Gathering back in Onslaught block. If you cast Pemmin's Aura on a Wirewood Channeler and had just one other elf in play you basically had infinite mana of any color until your opponent drew an enchantment removal card or something to kill the channeler from his deck.
Astral Communion will never be a good card, the game's overall design doesn't allow for it.
It will, however, always be a really cool card.
Personally I only play card like Piloted Shredder because everyone else still is. It's such a strong card and YES, I want to win, so it's in my deck. Otherwise, when it's not, I notice I start losing games much faster and often than when I do have it. I wish the decks I make now didn't have to include it but that's just how card games go. You always need to keep up with everyone else because they'll only be using the most statistically best cards off of those websites that rate decks. Hearthpwn for example.
Although, it's still much better than my YuGiOh experience. EVERY SINGLE TIME I could afford a new mechanic of the game, everyone I played already had some expert strategy and destroyed me, They even bought decks off of ebay and things like that whereas me, I'm stuck going to Walmart buying 1 or 2 packs at a time hoping to get lucky and never really do.
Hearthstone though, because everything is randomly generated, you're never guaranteed any particular card in a pack and you don't have to spend any money, you just get lucky and play with what you get. Although it's nice to have the choice to throw in a couple of dollars to buy packs when you don't feel like grinding for gold. Sure there's the whole "this deck and this deck is most powerful so I'm going to make the same deck and kill everyone" thing, but It's not as if I'm behind by playing against those people, because hearthstone is built so I have equal opportunity to keep up. Piloted Shredder is a common card. COMMON! And this one card Murloc Knight, VERY strong OP card, ALSO COMMON.
Now these legendaries, are powerful cards you can only have one of but are the rarest cards in the game, usually so powerful you barely see them on the board because of high mana cost. I don't feel sad for not having a legendary other people have (with the exception of Dr. Boom, which took me months to save up dust for) because they don't break the game when everyone but me has one. They're mostly flashy and do one big thing before they're finally destroyed, that's okay when I have several removal tools and some legendaries of my own.
So it's a mostly fair game but I'd like to see it improved where it doesn't force a guy like me to do the same thing everyone else is doing just so I don't lose 80% of my games.
As an experiment I took the audio from this video and pitched it down two semitones, added a subtle reverb to hide the weird chorus effect and Wow, So much easier to listen to, Please consider toning down the chorus effect even if you are determined not to remove the pitch up. Love the content, but the audio does grate.
You're missing one important point for effecting balance down the line, unlike most other card games, Blizzard can directly nerf or buff cards that are already out. If the card suddenly becomes broken because of future combinations, they can simply nerf it in some way, most likely a mana cost increase. It's happened many times before. (auctioneer, buzzard, leeroy, etc)
You guys need to do something about Undertale!
+Gutemberg Camilo I'm interested in Undertale videos.
The Hearthstone devs are supposed to be smarter than you? It's been a year and Dr. Boom is still the best, unconditional, neutral 7 Mana minion in the game.
If you look at TGT they're actually trying to buff the Shredder. Cards like Injured Kvaldir are too shit to play but they're designed to be good when they pop outbof a Shredder without the battle cry.
+psycojester it's actually a one drop, not a two that comes out of a shredder.
psycojester Injured Kvaldir is a 1 drop though. They nerfed Shredder minimally with Darnassus Aspirant and Lance Carrier. Injured Kvaldir is a nerf to Hungry Dragon if anything.
No it's a buff. Battlecry's don't trigger: it becomes a 2/4
Hungry Dragon gives *your opponent* the card, remember?
Very informative and interesting. Thanks for the video.
Come back to this video after 6 years!
They could always introduce a rotation where they ban all cards that are older that say 2 years to prevent cards from breaking the game in the future. Oh, wait, they did that.
I dunno Hearthstone well, but I've played my fair share of trading card games... you could make that 10 Mana card work. Granted, it requires a bit of set-up prior, but you can make it work... now, if you had a deck that benefits from discarding cards... yeah, it'd break the game.
+Ryuu Ainaki For now it really isn't playable as Druids(the only class with access to the 10 Mana card) have negligible card drawing potential, and Currently only Priests have a card that pulls from the graveyard.
Warlock has cards that benefit from discards AND they can draw cards with their hero power. Astral Communion would be completely broken if it wasn't restricted to a class that can't use it properly.
+DMystic101 And discarded cards don't go into the graveyard in Hearthstone (there is currently no mechanic to retrieve them either).
Priest has a spell that revives a minion that died, so it's tracked, but there is negligible interaction.
+Ryuu Ainaki In MTG, the mechanic would be awesome, and would see play in one or two silly combo decks. Unfortunately, Hearthstone has no way of fixing your deck via spells, and no way to access the cards you pitched when you play it. Maybe, somewhere down the road, they'll add something to druid to buff this card, but for now playing the card loses you the game.
You forgot something when you were talking about living roots, its a card called Frostwolf Warlord and gets +1 health and attack for each other friendly minion on the battlefield. This with living roots can make a super powerful minion for its cost.
A couple of people are saying that it's fine because blizzard's able to nerf cards, but I don't think that's the case, and I think it can cause big problems for the future too: One example that's already happened is with Undertaker: it used to be a 1 mana 1/2 that would gain +1/+1 whenever you played a deathrattle minion, and it formed the basis for what ended up being a very overpowered deck, the hunter's deathrattle based rushdown deck. Blizzard nerfed the into unplayability. Then in the next expansion, blizzard released 2 new cards: lil exorcist and scarlet purifier, specifically designed to counter deathrattle rush decks. But at this point, since undertaker was awful, those decks weren't being played anymore, so the cards that were created to counter them were useless. Nerfing a card indirectly nerfs all the strategies that counter that card, and this can have effects you can't forsee.
Black lotus wasn't thought through from mtg.
+Killians Red MtG was the first CCG ever printed, so it makes sense that there were a lot of mistakes. The entire Power 9 and the Dual Lands were hella broken. Thankfully, MtG has formats which limit the card pool.
+Killians Red MTG 1st edition (where black lotus is from) was a time where NOTHING was thought of.
In fact, as powerful as BL is, its nowhere near the worst offender.
1 blue mana and 1 colorless bought you an entire extra turn. I don't think even the most minimal level of testing could have missed how absourdly overpowered that is. IIRC 2 blue and 3 colerless is a spell that gave you 3 extra turns. a row. it might as well read "you won"
+yoash barak My brother tried to make a deck with a card that gave you 3 extra turns in a row; the thing is though is that even with those 3 extra turns he never really seemed to do anything else with those turns, and ended up losing 9/10 times with that deck anyway, since my other brother and I could always do better with one turn than he could with 3. I think it's not so much the card itself that makes it broken, but rather the player and the other cards you combine them with.
+Killians Red When Richard Garfield designed MTG, he intended for each player to spend approximately 40 bucks total on cards. In that case in a playgroup of about 10 players there would be like 1 Black Lotus. It would have an impact some of the time, but it wouldn't be overwhelming and could be attributed to inherent variance of a game played with a randomized deck of cards. They knew it was a strong card but not one that would break the game all the time.
But they did not anticipate it becoming a runaway hit that would spark a whole new genre of game where players routinely spend hundreds of dollars a month on cards and an enormous tournament scene would grow out of it.
The closer comparison to the card talked about in the video would be Lion's Eye Diamond, which was intentionally made to be "unplayable Black Lotus" because "discard your hand" is such an enormous drawback, but it turned out to be a gamebreaking card that needed to be banned and/or restricted everywhere it was legal to play on basis of the set it was in.
+Killians Red I don't think they expected that game to last as long as it has. If you look at nearly anything from the first set now, it's all basically broken which is why it's banned in most formats.
1:18 now this is considered the base statline for a normal 2 drop 😂
4:41 aged like milk
6:32 oh no no, they just make cards without synergy or support all the time
Gadgetzen Auctioneer can already make Astral Communion somewhat playable. The second you cast it, you draw a card, and depending on whether that's a spell or not, you can cast it and draw ANOTHER card, and continually keep drawing cards until you don't hit anymore spells.
The Thing about Astral Communion is actually interesting, as soon, as the Designers put more Cards into the Druid-Deck (as Astral Communion can only be played as Druid), wich somehow interact with being discarded (like some Warlock-Cards do) or have an effect, as soon as they are somehwo put out of the game, by being destroyed or discarded. (right now, there's no graveyard, but it might be implemented in the future).
So basically, Astral Communion would *then* even give you benefits, if you play it, get 10 Mana Crystals *and* get advantages from certain cards, that get discarded from your hand.
For example, there might be a neutral 1/1 Necromancer for 3 Mana, that says "if this card gets discarded/destroyed, summon two 1/1 Skeletons" or "if this Cards gets dicarded/destroyed, re-summon it with +1/+1 and Charge" or something like that.
You're giving blizzard developers far too much credit, they're really not as clever as you're making them out to be
Stop complimenting Blizzard. You give them too much credit. You also forget they have and are willing to change cards through patches.
+AkaiAzul Or what Kripparian has already said multiple times: As the game isn't printed on actual cards, there is no need for the existance of the bad cards, and with every expansion the already tiny playable card pool barely any bigger, or better yet, changes it entirely. So these people need to stop complimenting blizzard. I've played almost all of their games, but I have found no evidence that those folks - or assholes - are at all smart. This is like gaijin goombah almost flattering gameloft. They're pure, unadulterated assholes.
+Özgür Bulut Karaosmanoğlu Well that's a completely baseless and unjustified accusation. Can you at least give some... I don't know, reasons, for why you feel this way?
+Constantine III First of all, watch kripp's video. Not baseless there. With that said, I've spent hours and hours on starcraft and diablo games,but I didn't play much wow. In both cases blizzard made us wait months at best for some bug fixes, which I know from experience can be hard, but so many times the same thing? Public outcry, forums filled with some basic stuff, and blizzard ignoring that most of the time. Diablo was already destined to not be a game constantly played, but starcraft could've been. You know the biggest damned differance they've brought with hots (with the exception of new units) ? They gave the players a brand new screen when you start the game. Apart from that, I don't feel the need to defend myself about gameloft.
+Constantine III Don't expect any, just take a look at "there is no need for the existance of the bad cards", which is completly wrong. The game hit 30 million players, and yet, some vocal players think that their group is the only one that plays the game, like there is nothing outside of ladder, tournament and arena. If it was up to them, there would be no adventure mode or tutorials, afterall players playing it casually, not spending much time playing/learning the game don't exist for them.
We may disagree with some of their decisions, but calling them "assholes" or say they are "not at all smart" is just, well, ridiculous. They did with HS what Magic: the Gathering just dream of.
You're right. I did overstep by that, but you need to see the perspetive of most people. I'm not mad at Blizzard just because I acquired 3 Conceals from one pack (true story, not mine). But Kripparian is right. There is no need for Magma Rager 5/1. That can be patched, unlike a card game that is based on paper cards.
With that all in mind, I really cannot think of another word, when I think about a company of the entertainment sector, not caring much about what their audience think.
a great example of unforeseen combos from MTG is the squirrel deck. its a combo of three cards; earth craft, squirrel next and coat of arms. earthcraft is an enchantment that lets you "Tap an untapped creature you control: Untap target basic land." squirrels nest is an enchant land that lets you ""Tap: Put a 1/1 green Squirrel creature token onto the battlefield." and coat of arms gives each creature you control +1 +1 for each creature you control with the same name. basically, you get infinite creatures with infinite power and toughness.
On the part of unforseen combinations: In one of the card games I've played called Cardfight!! Vanguard, there was a case of an unforseen combo that almost all the cards for came out in the same expansion. There was a huge fault in the combo but it is definitely one of the deadliest combos in the game right now. That fault came from the fact that you needed a specific card set up in order for it to work, and if you didn't get it you lost. I just find it so odd how they made such a terrifying unforseen combo with a single expansion, and we know it was unforseen since people asked and they said they didn't realize people would use the combo.
Hearthstone is broken already... just look at Grim Patron Warrior Deck....
the most broke thing i've seen in a game in years.
+Franco Pozo Clearly you didn't play Magic in the Ravager Affinity days. Patron is a fluffy cuddle by comparison
+Franco Pozo Patron is strong for sure, but it's hardly an unbeatable juggernaut. You can break the combo, and it's not impossible to simply go under the deck as they require a very specific series of cards to "go off"... so you can just knock their face in while they wait.
+Franco Pozo That beyond broken 48% win rate doeh. So op. Much broken.
+Franco Pozo I like that Patron is so strong. It is an incredibly skill demanding deck, and even the very best players have not mastered it (as can be seen by how often they run out of time thinking about their plays, even in high stakes tournaments).
+Franco Pozo lol that's pretty petty compared to MTG i mean sure it's strong and god knows i've lost to it more than several times but the consistency of that is pretty ok and considering that handlocks and mages are still in the meta there are a lot of removal spells a player could keep in his hand to counterplay patron. i mean if it's not bad enough to warrant a sideboard i think it's still an ok meta.
Let's be honest here. Blizzard does not give a damn about future expansions or how their game is as a whole. They want money and they want it now, so they release cards that either shout "ESPORTS TROLDEN LOLOLOL", break the game due to little to no testing, or complete filler cards that serve no purpose other than making you buy more packs to get the good cards you actually want.
I can totally see HS dead in 3 years when Blizzard starts ruining their next game.
Andddddd a year later:
Wild and Standard- not breaking the game
Packs that give you a set legendary every 10-30 packs-called "pity"
interesting cards and no power creep so far
Im sorry im just a fan
There do exist decks that center around "dump your hand and be able to draw again easily." One example of this is to place taunt on cards like the Acolyte of Pain or pinging it with fireball as a mage. By utilizing these mechanics at the right time, one can often negate the effects of discard cards or actually make them a good thing to play. :) The point is, no matter what one does with a card to make it on curve, breaking the system is always possible. (You guys touched on this with your discussion of unbalanced design.) :D
Definitely an interesting topic! I love seeing a game's developers taking this into account as they design, as they've obviously done with Hearthstone. You wanna see a card game that didn't check their power creep? Look at the Pokémon TCG. My sister and I have binders full of early generation cards that we can't play any more because they don't even last a turn against the newer cards. It's a bit frustrating to say the least...
These issues are the primary reason why only the last few sets of cards are legal to play in Standard in Magic the Gathering. When you start mixing cards from now with cards from 5, 10, and 20 years ago, you can do some pretty crazy stuff. For example, see the synergy between Survival of the Fittest, Recurring Nightmare, and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
>Other guy decided to run Millhouse Manastorm
>Astral Communion, immediately draws ancient of lore for draw and draws a 2nd ancient of lore next turn
As a Yu-Gi-Oh! player, this is really accurate. There are a huge amount of cards that were okay when they were released, but accidentally become broken years after their release because of new cards. Premature Burial (with Brionac) or Future Fusion to name a few.
I just realized having Tiny Knight of Evil with Astral Communion would be crazy.
You really should talk about the Standard and Wild. Great content!
0:44 AKA: TF2's "Eureka Effect" Effect
A way to somewhat solve the Tuskar Totemic issue is to make it only summon totems under a certain mana cost
This week's Tavern Brawl is "Dungeon bosses want to help you play! Build your own deck but get a random boss power. Each time you use it, get a new one!" makes Astral Communion playable because unlocking access to 5 boss powers on turn 3-4 is completely nuts and nearly unbeatable.
About the Living Roots thing... it's a good card but a card that'd be much better to look out for is something like Mirror Image. It summons the same number of minions for the same cost with the same number of stats, just all in the health category, and they have taunt. The addition of taunt makes them far more dangerous, because a card like Spellslinger could toss me a bolster, and I could just toss down a mirror image on turn four (or even two) then bolster up for 2-4 2/4 taunt minions, which is really strong, and it's only doable because of taunt, and the saplings have no classification, so they can't be buffed in that way. I think they were kept more in check, and the lack of them gaining a classification probably warrants the need for the other option. Also, thanks for all the awesome content you guys, I'm loving all the HearthStone stuff lately :)
This is like a video version of some of MaRo's articles. It was very enjoyable :)
It is worth pointing out that as the number and complexity of cards increases in any collectible card game, the difficulty of assessing combinations increases faster, but the player base has access to VASTLY more computing power to test them out. Thus, when you have more than a certain number of complex effect cards, the designers are always playing a game of probability against a more informed opponent, that is, the collective player base. And whatever automated tools the designers may use to do balance-checking are something players could probably collectively run much, much faster and longer too, so, for example, if you run genetic algorithms to find the best combos on 10 servers for an hour, per card added, the playerbase might do it on 1000 servers for a month per card added.
Just quickly, when using the first example, you mentioned that Tuskar Totemic summons any card with Totem in it's name. For clarification, it's cards that fall under the Totem type, not having Totem in it's card name.
As an extension of this topic, maybe it will be an idea to look into certain games that have successfully been brought back to life after a it's predecessor did terribly. E.g Rayman Origins after Rayman Raving Rabbids, Bioshock Infinite after Bioshock 2, , Final Fantasy XIV after it's first launch, Oddworld new 'n tasty after later Oddworld games. If you can resurrect a game then you're more than just a designer!
great episode BTW! :)
Funny coincidence. This video appeared in my subs right before another video posted by a different channel that I'm subscribed to, also regarding future-proofing (of PC tech, though, not game development).
for example, 2 living roots mixed with the call of the wild or vanilla legendary malfurion is pretty amazing and with a coin (or inervate) malfurion and both living roots can be cast on the same turn. (all vanilla cards by the way)
Even though I don't play hearthstone, this analysis is really cool and I'd be happy to see more if you guys want ^^
astral communion is actually a very strong card right now, but to use it you must build a deck around it.
many cards in the game have an effect that lets you draw cards, so if you have a deck that has a good amount of these cards then you can buld your hand back up in about 2-3 turns, which can be very dangerous in early game
I see a use for the third example, let's say that you have that card in your hand but the rest of that hand is decent at best. Here is where it may be very beneficial in allowing you to turn the game in your favor depending on the rest of your deck
You should do a follow up video to revisit the effects of Astral Communion.
I will keep this in mind while I develop my game ^^
That 4 cost is already broken with Jeevs, a 3 cost minion that causes you to draw upto 3 cards at the end of your turn.. allowing you to effectively negate that cards negative effect on hand size.
I can think of only one current use for Astral Communion: The Deck of Legends. Get that card into your hand early on, with a few low cost Legendaries in your hand alongside it, and it becomes a game-winning card.
I think the way they handle Ancestral Communion is by at some point creating a card that enables a very powerful but inconsistent deck.
By doing this you allow the Johnny style players to play with this card and feel like it is game breaking (which appeals to them) yet discourages Spikes from playing the deck and therefore not heavily impacting constructed play.
It seems to be an approach that games like Magic the Gathering have when designing most (not all) 'combo' decks.
However the life cycle for the mostly common Magic for is much shorter than the 5 years mentioned in the video so it may not work as well/at all for Hearthstone.
I have not tracked how large the Hearthstone card pool is in comparison to the Magic standard format so it is possible that with smaller sets and less frequent releases they will ultimately be of similar sizes.
Interesting video, thanks.
Astral Communion, in my opinion, is a niche card that rewards strange strategies. For instance, a deck that focuses on draw power and dropping a lot of high-cost cards could center around Astral Communion quite effectively, using the draw power to get it early on and then restock their hand after using it while all the extra mana it leaves them with allows them to drop a series of what are pretty much nukes compared to what is available to the opponent at that point.