For me invoke and galakron in general felt like when HS really committed to the idea of “we’re gonna print 6+ cards as a package and you either run all of them or none of them because they are useless individually” which really took a lot of expression out of deckbuilding
@@willowbarrelmaker8269 You realy had to respond to an over a year old comment to say something non-sensical considering the original message talk about galakrong, that also wasn't given to all the classes...
For someone that has played magic for a long time, people HATE their stuff getting countered. It's a necessary evil against combos and degenerate gameplay, but man, people hate not being able to cast their cards.
At the same time, is mostly a problem with casual players. At high level play I really like the machanics of having to think about if I should play the best card in my hand or a suboptimal play to bait the counter or force them into a tempo loss.
True. After all these years Secrets still piss me right off. I know they aren't supposed to be all that strong, but it's a sentiment thing. The other guy plays his two/three-mana "do nothing" card - hoping for the best - but you get royally screwed more often than not having sub-optimal turns because of what you THINK it might be. And screwed even if you KNOW what it is a lot of the time because you still can't make the play you wanted or need. Like you said, I hate not being able to cast my cards how I planned to - if at all.
I like corpse because it kinda forces you to fight for the board which many people complained about a lot, was missing from hearthstone. I'd give it an a
My only issue with videos like these is that there is a lack of consistency when judging the cards. For Questline you said that they could be good, that it was just some of the cards that were bad and the design behind them. However for Echo just "Yeah all the echo cards were bad so echo was bad" when in theory you COULD design could echo cards. It was the same when you were doing your 'best card ever in Hearthstone'. You were judging the card in their current iteration but when you got to Patches you just were all in on how he use to be and how he warped the meta then and he ended up winning.
Agreed, OP. I share your perspective. Couldn't even watch it past Battlecry because it got S tier due to frequency rather than actual concept of the keyword - which if we grade the keyword without looking at cards, it reads, "This is a spell with stats. What does the spell do? IDK either." The keyword itself is adaptable to design. So I'd give it a decent grade. But the keyword itself shouldn't recieve S tier just because the entire game (and like, every popular card game with a board state) abuses "enter play" effects.
Charge belongs at the bottom IMO. If you print a mechanic intending it to be a core part of the game, find out it's a balance nightmare, almost immediately drastically reduce your usage of it, and then a few years later decide to make a new mechanic just to replace it, that's a failed mechanic. The problem with charge isn't that it's broken on the cards it appears on, it's that it was designed to be a fundamental game mechanic but it was hard to make charge minions that weren't broken. Charge is bad because it limits design space.
The Druid colossal showed up in deathrattle Druid for a while. Was a nice target for reveler to pull that didnt screw up your death blossom turns. The armor also helped slow things enough to get your board clears up. Really, all the colossal cards were good. I hope they introduce more at some point
Choose one should never have been a Druid-exclusive keyword, it’s way too fundamental of a mechanic and I feel like this restriction really hurt its potential. Imagine having a keyword like discover locked behind a class, it just feels wrong.
I have to hard disagree on Rush. I found the mechanic was one of the the things that drove me away from HS. It sped the game up tremendously and made having a board harder and less predictable. It feels too widely distributed and makes the game into "whoever can make their rush creature stick." I also dislike Discover when it's a large pool of things, making the game unpredictable and inconsistent. You can probably see why I don't play HS anymore.
What rarran said about inspire is what I have always said. Similar to forge, If it had better effects it would be a better mechanic, thus my hot take a while ago This was a fun video to listen to all the different keywords over the years
Overheal as mechanic is fine for minions, but for spells and the level of payout they put on it, it needs to only work on themselves. Or at least that it need to heal something as well. Overheal already full health minions of the opponent is what currently allows 10+ card draws or 20-mana turns.
Vicious Fledgling was a War Criminal in Arena. If you played it early and your opponent didn’t deal with it (which wasn’t easy because removal in arena during the time was really bad), you could win the game on the spot (especially if you got Windfury and Stealth). The card wasn’t necessarily broken, but it extremely polarizing and having a minion that can snowball out of control quickly very early on is not good for the game. It’s also bad card design. There’s a reason Blizzard removed it from Arena.
Questlines shouldn't have been; "Step 1: Play 2 Pirates, Step 3: Play 2 Pirates, Step 3: Play 2 Pirates. They should've been ideas like: Step 1: Play 2 Pirates Step 2: Play 2 Beasts Step 3: Play 2 Dragons With questlines like that you actually form a unique deck with disadvantages that you're forced to build around for a great reward, rather than a deck with no disadvantages and all upside.
"Start of game" and "rest of game" is two of the main reasons I quit playing HS. Along with the linear quest it's the worst crap they ever put into the game. They also need to scale back on the discover mechanic as it (in it's current iteration) makes it impossible to play around ANYTHING and practically removes any skill in the game.
Rarran said magnetic was like a charge, but worse. Me personally, I believe it is actually better. It has a better risk vs reward aspect. It gives your opponent options to outplay it and has a better payoff if your opponent can't answer it imo.
my only noteworthy take on this video is that my opinion on overload has risen drastically over the years. back in the day it was just a boring restriction that felt bad, but now we have a lot of fun ways to interact with it that make it feel a little bit more like a resource management minigame, which is just a lot more engaging. they go a bit overboard sometimes though
Seeing all the old keywords made me remember an idea i had the other day; What if, on hearthstone’s 10th anniversary (so for the first expansion of next year), we got a hearthstone world tour expansion which featured some (or all) of the past keywords/themes and include some good oldies as part of the core set. As someone who’s been here for years I’d love to take a walk down memory lane!
I really like the Cascade keyword in magic the gathering which is very similar to the Recruit mechanic in heathstone. But in heathstone it just felt like, okay I’m just mana cheating extra stats, where as if they had gone with more of the cascade style (where you can cascade into another cascade into another cascade) but the down side was you could cascade into something a lot weaker it would have been more fun. In heathstone you just recruit the exact mana card recruit says whereas cascade you ‘recruit’ a card that’s specifically weaker/less mana than the card you cast. However cascade also worked a lot better as there were colour restrictions that made it a lot harder to cast where as recruit, as soon as you hit the right mana total you always play it no matter what. Wish they had done more with it somehow
Cascade is pretty toxic as a mtg mechanic imo. Either you combo your deck to always cascade the same combo piece or you cascade-cascade, which is getting free spells for free spells which is not that balanceable. In commander, sure, but in competitive, does not make for a good mechanic.
This is the first video I have ever had to slow down the playback speed of because of not only how fast you're talking, but also how quickly you're jumping between topics MID SENTENCE over and over
Man, I didn't realize how many keywords there were. And now tell new players this game is super easy to understand and then show them that (I realize there is a Standard rotation for a reason).
8:37 what are you even saying? Lmao the whole point of a counter is to completely deny your thing. It's not supposed to feel good on the receiving end. You got got and it is what it is.
Chose one have 2 options that both wouldnt see play on their own (i somehow realized it is always 1 mana less for i card i would play, i would pay 4 mana to draw 3 or get 2 extra empty like that new card), or call of wild, 1 mana for board +1/+1 or 1 mana for 3/2 but variety of a card bumps it up exactly 1 mana and that makes it more interesting
I disagree that Discover is fine to play against, and it's exactly for what you stated at the start for it: there's too many good discover cards, which makes it so often the best result you can get from a Discovery is another Discover card. And getting your strategy destroyed because the opponent discovered a card that discovered another card that discovered yet another card that perfectly ruined your day, but you didn't play against because why would your opponent have access to a card from another class is even less fun than losing because the opponent top-decked their 1-of counter in their deck.
I think it would be interesting to have a card have like...Frenzy,Overkill,Honorable Kill cause they pretty much all do the same thing in different ways
from a design standpoint id totaly aggree on the b tier for charge but when it comes to strength charge AS A KEYWORD is its own tier. Charge was on so many cards that either had enormous drawbacks or were really expensive. even pirate smite wasnt good as a card it was just broken when it was summoned for free. Blizzard keeps cards with charge weak on purpose because of the destructive nature of the keyword
I mean that just means you werent winning right? you couldnt stop them from completing their strategy and you werent able to kill them quick enough meaning you were never winning. Maybe you won the board but against a deck like control warrior that doesnt matter and you know odyns coming by turn 8 most of the time so at what point in that game would you be winning? Not saying that otks are not unfun sometimes espescially if you cant stop it but in those instances again you were never winning
Frenzy was a bit of a dud, but I had a lot of fun with it in Warrior. Warsong Envoy was a beast in the initial enrage package before he rotated out. Its main problem was it relied on your minion sutviving damage/surviving a turn, and most players just picked them off before the enrage could be a factor. And regarding Nathria, I loved it. My only real issue with it was Denathrius, specifically how effective he was in Druid decks. But I loved the theme and loved the keywords. A-tier set for me.
- Adapt is B, is basicaly weak but flexible battlecry, back when stronger minions were good enough to make a deck (most of them that was what they were). - Charge is D as a top 3 the most game breaking keyword, for the first like 4 sets, there was undertaker and things that had charge as most obnoxious decks to deal with. "Most of the times charge is fine" but they all got nerfed or removed out of the meta, and forces minions to be so weak they will never see play. - Choose one is boosted up because is basicaly class specific and has archtypes around it forcing good and cool cards out. - Collosal is really cool because we have Hero cards, but this were the first true "Boss" cards, even force spawning "limbs" when summoned unlike battlecry who only did when played from hand. - Combo is really cool, fair and thematic. - Corrupt and Infuse arent just a way to make the game slower and not less fun with it, but also make what would be dead cards past a certain point, be relevant in your hand for a longer period. - Counter doesnt as much suffer from Objection as it gains from Okani, is bad. Carried by Okani, the only counter that has a minigame that alows you to deal with it, instead of flatly invalidating a play. - On Dredge, people usually talk about "removing a card from the top is like removing a card from the bottom of your deck with a dopamine boost", but Dredge isnt because you were probably not going to play that card, and rescuing it gives you a chance at saving that card that is cool to play that you put on your deck. You risk missing and moving it one back or hitting and moving it to a top deck. - Echo, like Charge, was too strong to print real strong cards. - I think Finale with more support could be such an awesome kewword. It influences the way a turn is played, makes order matter without needing your opponent playing minions or secrets. Basically like a mini combo. - I think Forge is basically faster corrupt but with more fun cards and support cards around it. Still really cool though. - Freeze is either broken or an after thought. How many reviews people go like "Oh, is a card that also freezes". I think both glacial shard and cone were cool freeze cards. I'd say it's D overall. - Honorable kill is D for how boring and terrible it is, maybe it's not the keyword being terrible but with how many cards there are you would like a couple good ones... - I'd say Immune is really well managed, B. Outside Ice block and timeout, and makes for really cool weapon and warlock cards. - All Secrets are there for you to not play optimal in your turn. the problem with the ones shown is that they are basicaly throw away cards that you eventually proc, some have gotten to the point of "if your opponent plays the game you get a mediocre but cheap effect" with no real meaning to the disruption they were meant to create originaly. - Spellburst was cool but not that cool, i'd say A. Outcast, Secrets, Combo or Chose one were better. - Even spirte Baku, Start of Game is such a cool and interesting (and hard to make fun, design wise) effect that it has to be S tier. No one will be against more Start of Game effects, specially with how well they have done it lately.
Deathrattle in itself is S-tier, but I had given it A-tier due to how they never learn to resist to add cheats to it. Colossus is a bit like Counter, the keyword is bad but because there only 12 cards and they managed to get about eight of those right it don't seem that bad. Dredge is fine but dumb right now, due to support cards. Right now it like a B but it would be A without other cards that put or buffs cards at the bottom.
‘Colossus is bad but most of em are good so it’s better’ i mean yeah any keyword is better if the cards they design around it are good. The reason inspire was bad was because the minions it was on are bad and the effects are mostly bad. I think they could design better inspire cards now and it could be a pretty good keyword. Kind of like forge, in that it’s 2 mana for a bonus effect (although it can’t be payed earlier) or manathirst (better when you have more mana, although it actually costs that extra mana). Kind of an interesting mix between the two.
@@terinrichardson6061 Well said but I can't agree. It limited to minions, it overall very unclear if the heroabilitys are balanced. Hunter and Warlock for example has far greater history of minion focus in combination with heropower than the rest, Paladin and Priest might have the best history of minion protection, divine shield or heal. I would think Inspire could have same as Colossus, somewhere below 20 cards that if designed well will work well with the game. But I really do think the design space is that limited.
I always really really hated Counterspell, but liked Okani. I still hate Counterspell. I also hate Objection. I would like both of them removed. Okani at least requires a bare modicum of decision making. (Also it should be a Choose One)
Hot take, but I don't like Rush, in a way that it is in tyhe game currently. My problem is that rush cards rarely feature any stats down or downside for having rush. Basically, they add versatility and adaptability, without any cost to it.
Titans: Good batch this first time. Yogg Unleashed already a sign of downhill from here. Tentacles more or less a form of Lackeys. Looking at Magic the Gatherings Planewalkers, the history there would also suggest it is best if it stays on this small amount.
Considering how hyper specific the flavor is to TITANS as a set and how Hearthstone very rarely brings back old mechanics, I wouldn't worry about Titans becoming more than just a cycle with maybe one more in a miniset before TITANS rotates out of standard
Many of you dont know probably what is the biggest issue here, many classes dont get specific keywords. Every class has should have atleast 2-3 cards in each expansion plus some neutrals.
try this deck out sometime, hella fun, but you always match against unholy dk, thus the blademaster okani for that 5 mana spell that summons five 2/2 rushers. hold your turn the tides to finish the opponent off with your windfury weapons. this deck likes melomania but i dont maindeck it in this version. ### Victorious Shaman # Class: Shaman # Format: Standard # Year of the Wolf # # 2x (1) Piranha Swarmer # 2x (1) Schooling # 2x (1) Shock Hopper # 1x (1) Sir Finley, Sea Guide # 2x (1) Victorious Vrykul # 2x (2) Anchored Totem # 1x (2) Astalor Bloodsworn # 2x (2) Celestial Projectionist # 2x (3) Lightning Storm # 2x (3) Piranha Poacher # 2x (3) Reefwalker # 2x (3) Turn the Tides # 1x (4) Blademaster Okani # 2x (4) Grimtotem Buzzkill # 2x (5) Doomhammer # 1x (6) Golganneth, the Thunderer # 2x (6) Horn of the Windlord # AAECAZnDAwTlsATHsgTipAWN9QUN/Z8E/p8E+rQE4LUE4rUEvbYEircE9ugFjusFnfYFh/sF44AG7JUGAAA= # # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
As a hearthstone boomer that's come back to pkay about once a year, I think discover is both what makes hearthstone what it is, and also the reason I hate the game now. Back in ungoro, I liked it more, pools were typically fairly narrow and it felt like it gave midrange/control strategies a longer grind and more value, but at this point they print like, cards that would be good without discover and then it'll say some shit like "discover a card that your opponent would have to Google to see" and it feels like you're giga punished for not having complete knowledge of the card pool of the entire game and makes it basically impossible to play around your opponent's strategy.
24:22 As a ql druid main, in current wild, it is very powerful, but not broken. It has weaknesses, but not so few. I feel that it is underrated both in terms of fun factor and power level.
Counter imo is just D tier. I dont care how fun the legendary minion is the mechanic is just D tier. And for me personally deathrattle is gotta be BY far the best mechanic in the game. I love death rattles. I play a dude, he dies but i get something, feels good. If my opponent doesnt like that they can silence it. Feels good for them too. Its just the perfect keyword.
A few things: Adapt is total trash. It never feels good to play, just because it's so unreliable to get the wanted buff. Same with Spare Parts. (And if Spare Parts is a keyword, what about Dream Card... Or Death Knight Cards... or Ungoro Pack?) Discover is cool, but I always hear that people does not like getting killed by "discovered by > discovered by > ..." So too much discover means total randomness, and then you feel like skill does not matter at all. Spell Damage is such a miss imo. It has always been used as a combo tool (Ilgynoth Demon Hunter or Maly Druid or Mozaki Mage). If it was a control tool I'd feel different, but the fact that I only see Spell Damage cards before my hero explodes... does not leave good memories.
Discover is super unfun to fight against especially in arena. Just having a random +1 ( without drawback ) for your opponent is a really bad game design for a card game where people should strategize and it is a big reason why Hearthstone is becoming worse and worse. Before you had a good idea what your opponent is going to play but now it feels like luck has a bigger impact on your games.
I don't like the way you approached this. You judged each keyword based on the cards they were attached to. Sure. But does that determine the actual worth of the keyword? As a Tier List, where you're comparing the usability of the keyword, sure, because you have to use cards that exist. But in a tier list where you're simply grading the keyword's functionality, I would argue that some keywords were really good but got shafted because of the cards they had. And vise versa, "Battlecry" woogabooga of course it's S tier, it's printed in every set. But does frequency determine value? You graded a keyword's value by its frequency and accessibility but I would grade them based on vacuum usability; for example, imagine there's exactly 100 cards of each keyword in every "power level" (i.e. a weak version, a mid version, and a strong version). In other words, I realize my difference: I would grade the keywords as a game designer (I should use this tier list to design a card around a known keyword) rather than you, who grades them as a player (You should use this tier list to build a deck using cards with that keyword).
Colossal should be D tier. Or have it's own "not a keyword" tier. If knowing what the keyword does isn't enough to understand what the card does then you've failed your job as a keyword, no matter how good the mechanic end up playing.
I'd agree with you if we were talking about MtG or another physical card game (I have a soft spot for venture into the dungeon because I'm a massive dork but it is a terribly designed mechanic for the same reason you dislike colossal) but hearthstone is a digital card game. In game you can just play the minion and see for yourself what it does because the algorithm does everything for you and in your collection you can just pull the card up and see the related cards
My biggest issue with Charge being a keyword is that it isn't used enough to warrant a keyword, and its other design issues of uninteractivity and OTK potential prevent it from being used regularly. On top of that, Rush is largely a "fixed" version of Charge, which makes Charge as a keyword seem largely redundant. My solution would be to just replace all instances of Charge with "Can attack immediately."
Well, rush kinda killed board lead as a wincon, with charge enemy wasted their potential burn, rush is just "Lmao I remove your minion and develop at the same time"
Kind of stupid that you put Battlecry in S and TITAN in A considering titans are basically minions with multiple battlecries which you can choose from all while habing a slight chance to do it again next turn
I... how? That's like saying all MTG mechanics are just kicker lmao And let's say I agree with your assumption. If Titan is just battlecry with extra steps, then why does it deserve to be in S tier? by your logic it's just a more specific derivative of a core mechanic so shouldn't it be in A or B?
@@GCWeber Titan keyword is just a broader battlecry tho. Having 1 minion with a 1 good battlecry is good, but having a minion with 3 different battlecries which are all good for different scenarios is obviously a lot better because it makes your deck more flexible And on top of that, if the titan is not dealt with by next turn, you get to use a different ability as well, so it basically has an artifical taunt.
For me invoke and galakron in general felt like when HS really committed to the idea of “we’re gonna print 6+ cards as a package and you either run all of them or none of them because they are useless individually” which really took a lot of expression out of deckbuilding
Good point, it does feel good if you like playing the Galakrond deck but when you see the same cards from the OP over and over it gets boring
C'Thun and Jade did that first tho.
@@kevinseraphin5456 Jade Idol can be run by itself i guess
@@kevinseraphin5456Jade wasn’t the central mechanic of an expansion that all classes were given their own version of
@@willowbarrelmaker8269 You realy had to respond to an over a year old comment to say something non-sensical considering the original message talk about galakrong, that also wasn't given to all the classes...
I know discard is not a keyword, but it feels like it should be here
For someone that has played magic for a long time, people HATE their stuff getting countered. It's a necessary evil against combos and degenerate gameplay, but man, people hate not being able to cast their cards.
yep
At the same time, is mostly a problem with casual players. At high level play I really like the machanics of having to think about if I should play the best card in my hand or a suboptimal play to bait the counter or force them into a tempo loss.
True. After all these years Secrets still piss me right off. I know they aren't supposed to be all that strong, but it's a sentiment thing. The other guy plays his two/three-mana "do nothing" card - hoping for the best - but you get royally screwed more often than not having sub-optimal turns because of what you THINK it might be. And screwed even if you KNOW what it is a lot of the time because you still can't make the play you wanted or need. Like you said, I hate not being able to cast my cards how I planned to - if at all.
As a magic player, counter spells I’m absolutely fine with, hand destruction like thoughtseize I can’t deal with.
@perchipy7900 people are learning about that with jade telegram in Twist (and 4 mana theotar)
I like corpse because it kinda forces you to fight for the board which many people complained about a lot, was missing from hearthstone. I'd give it an a
As a player since Beta i feel like corpses are the most fun thing since hearthstone golden age
It also sometimes creates an interesting opening line where you coin hero power to gain a corpse
I kinda dislike it. You always need to balance yourself around gaining and spending corpses, which just feels awful when it doesn't work out
Same tbh. The Corpse mechanic has so much room for experimentation and creative deckbuilding
My only issue with videos like these is that there is a lack of consistency when judging the cards. For Questline you said that they could be good, that it was just some of the cards that were bad and the design behind them. However for Echo just "Yeah all the echo cards were bad so echo was bad" when in theory you COULD design could echo cards. It was the same when you were doing your 'best card ever in Hearthstone'. You were judging the card in their current iteration but when you got to Patches you just were all in on how he use to be and how he warped the meta then and he ended up winning.
You misspelled "good" as "could".
Agreed, OP. I share your perspective. Couldn't even watch it past Battlecry because it got S tier due to frequency rather than actual concept of the keyword - which if we grade the keyword without looking at cards, it reads, "This is a spell with stats. What does the spell do? IDK either." The keyword itself is adaptable to design. So I'd give it a decent grade. But the keyword itself shouldn't recieve S tier just because the entire game (and like, every popular card game with a board state) abuses "enter play" effects.
Charge belongs at the bottom IMO. If you print a mechanic intending it to be a core part of the game, find out it's a balance nightmare, almost immediately drastically reduce your usage of it, and then a few years later decide to make a new mechanic just to replace it, that's a failed mechanic. The problem with charge isn't that it's broken on the cards it appears on, it's that it was designed to be a fundamental game mechanic but it was hard to make charge minions that weren't broken. Charge is bad because it limits design space.
The Druid colossal showed up in deathrattle Druid for a while. Was a nice target for reveler to pull that didnt screw up your death blossom turns. The armor also helped slow things enough to get your board clears up.
Really, all the colossal cards were good. I hope they introduce more at some point
As a wild player, fuck Colossal, cheating gigafin and Neptulon was just not fun, the others were too bad to play with outside of small timeframes
@@matikkkii3482not a colossal problem but mana cheat
Typical Rarran, making wrong statements about cards seeing play or not (I love Rarran but honestly he’s factually wrong so many times lol)
Choose one should never have been a Druid-exclusive keyword, it’s way too fundamental of a mechanic and I feel like this restriction really hurt its potential. Imagine having a keyword like discover locked behind a class, it just feels wrong.
I have to hard disagree on Rush. I found the mechanic was one of the the things that drove me away from HS. It sped the game up tremendously and made having a board harder and less predictable. It feels too widely distributed and makes the game into "whoever can make their rush creature stick."
I also dislike Discover when it's a large pool of things, making the game unpredictable and inconsistent.
You can probably see why I don't play HS anymore.
If discover showed you the options the opponent had to choose from, would you think the mechanic is better?
What rarran said about inspire is what I have always said. Similar to forge, If it had better effects it would be a better mechanic, thus my hot take a while ago
This was a fun video to listen to all the different keywords over the years
Overheal as mechanic is fine for minions, but for spells and the level of payout they put on it, it needs to only work on themselves. Or at least that it need to heal something as well. Overheal already full health minions of the opponent is what currently allows 10+ card draws or 20-mana turns.
I member vicious fledgling being an arena menace, to the point they messed with the appearance rates because coining into it was usually gg
Vicious Fledgling was a War Criminal in Arena. If you played it early and your opponent didn’t deal with it (which wasn’t easy because removal in arena during the time was really bad), you could win the game on the spot (especially if you got Windfury and Stealth). The card wasn’t necessarily broken, but it extremely polarizing and having a minion that can snowball out of control quickly very early on is not good for the game. It’s also bad card design. There’s a reason Blizzard removed it from Arena.
I will forever remember my opponent going coin innervate innervate flappy bird flappy bird. Fun times.
Questlines shouldn't have been; "Step 1: Play 2 Pirates, Step 3: Play 2 Pirates, Step 3: Play 2 Pirates.
They should've been ideas like:
Step 1: Play 2 Pirates
Step 2: Play 2 Beasts
Step 3: Play 2 Dragons
With questlines like that you actually form a unique deck with disadvantages that you're forced to build around for a great reward, rather than a deck with no disadvantages and all upside.
"Start of game" and "rest of game" is two of the main reasons I quit playing HS. Along with the linear quest it's the worst crap they ever put into the game. They also need to scale back on the discover mechanic as it (in it's current iteration) makes it impossible to play around ANYTHING and practically removes any skill in the game.
Rarran said magnetic was like a charge, but worse. Me personally, I believe it is actually better. It has a better risk vs reward aspect. It gives your opponent options to outplay it and has a better payoff if your opponent can't answer it imo.
Rarran, you forgot about Enrage and Elusive.
my only noteworthy take on this video is that my opinion on overload has risen drastically over the years. back in the day it was just a boring restriction that felt bad, but now we have a lot of fun ways to interact with it that make it feel a little bit more like a resource management minigame, which is just a lot more engaging. they go a bit overboard sometimes though
Enjoyable video, but it grinds my gears when a tier list is made without the trait being graded is explained.
Seeing all the old keywords made me remember an idea i had the other day;
What if, on hearthstone’s 10th anniversary (so for the first expansion of next year), we got a hearthstone world tour expansion which featured some (or all) of the past keywords/themes and include some good oldies as part of the core set. As someone who’s been here for years I’d love to take a walk down memory lane!
That'd be really sick
I really like the Cascade keyword in magic the gathering which is very similar to the Recruit mechanic in heathstone. But in heathstone it just felt like, okay I’m just mana cheating extra stats, where as if they had gone with more of the cascade style (where you can cascade into another cascade into another cascade) but the down side was you could cascade into something a lot weaker it would have been more fun. In heathstone you just recruit the exact mana card recruit says whereas cascade you ‘recruit’ a card that’s specifically weaker/less mana than the card you cast. However cascade also worked a lot better as there were colour restrictions that made it a lot harder to cast where as recruit, as soon as you hit the right mana total you always play it no matter what. Wish they had done more with it somehow
Cascade is pretty toxic as a mtg mechanic imo. Either you combo your deck to always cascade the same combo piece or you cascade-cascade, which is getting free spells for free spells which is not that balanceable. In commander, sure, but in competitive, does not make for a good mechanic.
Echo was in witchwood cause witches are about cycles and repeating and echoing the past.
You should do a magic school tier list, like Frost, Fire, Fel, etc
This is the first video I have ever had to slow down the playback speed of because of not only how fast you're talking, but also how quickly you're jumping between topics MID SENTENCE over and over
They should replace the "get a random bonus effect" to Adapt
Man, I didn't realize how many keywords there were. And now tell new players this game is super easy to understand and then show them that (I realize there is a Standard rotation for a reason).
Take a shot every time Rarran says mini-game
it's not clear how the tier list was based on: strenght now/ strenght overall, design, personal preference etc...
8:37 what are you even saying? Lmao the whole point of a counter is to completely deny your thing. It's not supposed to feel good on the receiving end. You got got and it is what it is.
Chose one have 2 options that both wouldnt see play on their own (i somehow realized it is always 1 mana less for i card i would play, i would pay 4 mana to draw 3 or get 2 extra empty like that new card), or call of wild, 1 mana for board +1/+1 or 1 mana for 3/2 but variety of a card bumps it up exactly 1 mana and that makes it more interesting
I disagree that Discover is fine to play against, and it's exactly for what you stated at the start for it: there's too many good discover cards, which makes it so often the best result you can get from a Discovery is another Discover card. And getting your strategy destroyed because the opponent discovered a card that discovered another card that discovered yet another card that perfectly ruined your day, but you didn't play against because why would your opponent have access to a card from another class is even less fun than losing because the opponent top-decked their 1-of counter in their deck.
Yeah discover ramps pretty heavily for this reason as the game goes on, but you’re still spending mana on nothing in a lot of cases if you do that
I think it would be interesting to have a card have like...Frenzy,Overkill,Honorable Kill cause they pretty much all do the same thing in different ways
Check: Infinite Amalgam
Overload is all fun and games until you play duels and they just cant be overloaded
I love overkill. Setting it up feels nice, and sometimes you are rewarded for it. The cards it was bolted to were pretty bad tho
from a design standpoint id totaly aggree on the b tier for charge but when it comes to strength charge AS A KEYWORD is its own tier. Charge was on so many cards that either had enormous drawbacks or were really expensive. even pirate smite wasnt good as a card it was just broken when it was summoned for free. Blizzard keeps cards with charge weak on purpose because of the destructive nature of the keyword
I don’t hate counter effects especially in a game where you can be winning the entire game and then die from hand lmao
I mean that just means you werent winning right? you couldnt stop them from completing their strategy and you werent able to kill them quick enough meaning you were never winning. Maybe you won the board but against a deck like control warrior that doesnt matter and you know odyns coming by turn 8 most of the time so at what point in that game would you be winning? Not saying that otks are not unfun sometimes espescially if you cant stop it but in those instances again you were never winning
@@chadgamer6942 if a combo deck gets objectioned then I was and am winning 🗣🗣
Edit: also I would much rather lose to Odyn Warrior than Toni Druid lol
Frenzy was a bit of a dud, but I had a lot of fun with it in Warrior. Warsong Envoy was a beast in the initial enrage package before he rotated out. Its main problem was it relied on your minion sutviving damage/surviving a turn, and most players just picked them off before the enrage could be a factor.
And regarding Nathria, I loved it. My only real issue with it was Denathrius, specifically how effective he was in Druid decks. But I loved the theme and loved the keywords. A-tier set for me.
“Corpses are fun to play with”
- Rarran 2023
- Adapt is B, is basicaly weak but flexible battlecry, back when stronger minions were good enough to make a deck (most of them that was what they were).
- Charge is D as a top 3 the most game breaking keyword, for the first like 4 sets, there was undertaker and things that had charge as most obnoxious decks to deal with. "Most of the times charge is fine" but they all got nerfed or removed out of the meta, and forces minions to be so weak they will never see play.
- Choose one is boosted up because is basicaly class specific and has archtypes around it forcing good and cool cards out.
- Collosal is really cool because we have Hero cards, but this were the first true "Boss" cards, even force spawning "limbs" when summoned unlike battlecry who only did when played from hand.
- Combo is really cool, fair and thematic.
- Corrupt and Infuse arent just a way to make the game slower and not less fun with it, but also make what would be dead cards past a certain point, be relevant in your hand for a longer period.
- Counter doesnt as much suffer from Objection as it gains from Okani, is bad. Carried by Okani, the only counter that has a minigame that alows you to deal with it, instead of flatly invalidating a play.
- On Dredge, people usually talk about "removing a card from the top is like removing a card from the bottom of your deck with a dopamine boost", but Dredge isnt because you were probably not going to play that card, and rescuing it gives you a chance at saving that card that is cool to play that you put on your deck. You risk missing and moving it one back or hitting and moving it to a top deck.
- Echo, like Charge, was too strong to print real strong cards.
- I think Finale with more support could be such an awesome kewword. It influences the way a turn is played, makes order matter without needing your opponent playing minions or secrets. Basically like a mini combo.
- I think Forge is basically faster corrupt but with more fun cards and support cards around it. Still really cool though.
- Freeze is either broken or an after thought. How many reviews people go like "Oh, is a card that also freezes". I think both glacial shard and cone were cool freeze cards. I'd say it's D overall.
- Honorable kill is D for how boring and terrible it is, maybe it's not the keyword being terrible but with how many cards there are you would like a couple good ones...
- I'd say Immune is really well managed, B. Outside Ice block and timeout, and makes for really cool weapon and warlock cards.
- All Secrets are there for you to not play optimal in your turn. the problem with the ones shown is that they are basicaly throw away cards that you eventually proc, some have gotten to the point of "if your opponent plays the game you get a mediocre but cheap effect" with no real meaning to the disruption they were meant to create originaly.
- Spellburst was cool but not that cool, i'd say A. Outcast, Secrets, Combo or Chose one were better.
- Even spirte Baku, Start of Game is such a cool and interesting (and hard to make fun, design wise) effect that it has to be S tier. No one will be against more Start of Game effects, specially with how well they have done it lately.
"Corpses are fun to play with, for spice." - Rarran
Rarran complete a video that he has a disscussion without opening MS paint challenge impossible
Love the content, Rarran, Never change
It would be good if Dredge was as good in heartstone as it is in MTG.
Should add description of keyword on screen for a moment so everyone would know what they do.
For those who dont play anymore or just started
Adapt also had that stupid dinosaur for murlocs. It was a whole T1 deck.
Choose one over charge is insane
Deathrattle in itself is S-tier, but I had given it A-tier due to how they never learn to resist to add cheats to it. Colossus is a bit like Counter, the keyword is bad but because there only 12 cards and they managed to get about eight of those right it don't seem that bad. Dredge is fine but dumb right now, due to support cards. Right now it like a B but it would be A without other cards that put or buffs cards at the bottom.
‘Colossus is bad but most of em are good so it’s better’ i mean yeah any keyword is better if the cards they design around it are good. The reason inspire was bad was because the minions it was on are bad and the effects are mostly bad. I think they could design better inspire cards now and it could be a pretty good keyword. Kind of like forge, in that it’s 2 mana for a bonus effect (although it can’t be payed earlier) or manathirst (better when you have more mana, although it actually costs that extra mana). Kind of an interesting mix between the two.
@@terinrichardson6061 Well said but I can't agree. It limited to minions, it overall very unclear if the heroabilitys are balanced. Hunter and Warlock for example has far greater history of minion focus in combination with heropower than the rest, Paladin and Priest might have the best history of minion protection, divine shield or heal. I would think Inspire could have same as Colossus, somewhere below 20 cards that if designed well will work well with the game. But I really do think the design space is that limited.
I always really really hated Counterspell, but liked Okani. I still hate Counterspell. I also hate Objection. I would like both of them removed. Okani at least requires a bare modicum of decision making. (Also it should be a Choose One)
dormant also isn’t here, where would you put it?
He said at the end, that he would put Dormant at B-tier
I’m sad they didn’t give bunch of bananas and barrel of monkeys the correct text of “Twinspell Twinspell”
Hot take, but I don't like Rush, in a way that it is in tyhe game currently. My problem is that rush cards rarely feature any stats down or downside for having rush. Basically, they add versatility and adaptability, without any cost to it.
Yeah if they wanna make rush cards not punished stats wise they should not print so much of them/ways to give things rush easily
Titans: Good batch this first time. Yogg Unleashed already a sign of downhill from here. Tentacles more or less a form of Lackeys. Looking at Magic the Gatherings Planewalkers, the history there would also suggest it is best if it stays on this small amount.
Considering how hyper specific the flavor is to TITANS as a set and how Hearthstone very rarely brings back old mechanics, I wouldn't worry about Titans becoming more than just a cycle with maybe one more in a miniset before TITANS rotates out of standard
Many of you dont know probably what is the biggest issue here, many classes dont get specific keywords. Every class has should have atleast 2-3 cards in each expansion plus some neutrals.
try this deck out sometime, hella fun, but you always match against unholy dk, thus the blademaster okani for that 5 mana spell that summons five 2/2 rushers. hold your turn the tides to finish the opponent off with your windfury weapons. this deck likes melomania but i dont maindeck it in this version.
### Victorious Shaman
# Class: Shaman
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Wolf
#
# 2x (1) Piranha Swarmer
# 2x (1) Schooling
# 2x (1) Shock Hopper
# 1x (1) Sir Finley, Sea Guide
# 2x (1) Victorious Vrykul
# 2x (2) Anchored Totem
# 1x (2) Astalor Bloodsworn
# 2x (2) Celestial Projectionist
# 2x (3) Lightning Storm
# 2x (3) Piranha Poacher
# 2x (3) Reefwalker
# 2x (3) Turn the Tides
# 1x (4) Blademaster Okani
# 2x (4) Grimtotem Buzzkill
# 2x (5) Doomhammer
# 1x (6) Golganneth, the Thunderer
# 2x (6) Horn of the Windlord
#
AAECAZnDAwTlsATHsgTipAWN9QUN/Z8E/p8E+rQE4LUE4rUEvbYEircE9ugFjusFnfYFh/sF44AG7JUGAAA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
As a hearthstone boomer that's come back to pkay about once a year, I think discover is both what makes hearthstone what it is, and also the reason I hate the game now. Back in ungoro, I liked it more, pools were typically fairly narrow and it felt like it gave midrange/control strategies a longer grind and more value, but at this point they print like, cards that would be good without discover and then it'll say some shit like "discover a card that your opponent would have to Google to see" and it feels like you're giga punished for not having complete knowledge of the card pool of the entire game and makes it basically impossible to play around your opponent's strategy.
24:22 As a ql druid main, in current wild, it is very powerful, but not broken. It has weaknesses, but not so few. I feel that it is underrated both in terms of fun factor and power level.
Counter imo is just D tier. I dont care how fun the legendary minion is the mechanic is just D tier.
And for me personally deathrattle is gotta be BY far the best mechanic in the game. I love death rattles. I play a dude, he dies but i get something, feels good. If my opponent doesnt like that they can silence it. Feels good for them too. Its just the perfect keyword.
why dont you post this on your main channel?
You missed "when this is summoned," cannot be targeted by spells or hero powers, end of turn, and beginning of turn.
Those aren’t keywords. They are effects, sure, but keywords are the bolded texts on the cards.
Hope Ryan was able to change his laundry ok. Edit: he got his sheets ok!
Cant be targeted by hero power or spells
A few things:
Adapt is total trash. It never feels good to play, just because it's so unreliable to get the wanted buff. Same with Spare Parts. (And if Spare Parts is a keyword, what about Dream Card... Or Death Knight Cards... or Ungoro Pack?)
Discover is cool, but I always hear that people does not like getting killed by "discovered by > discovered by > ..." So too much discover means total randomness, and then you feel like skill does not matter at all.
Spell Damage is such a miss imo. It has always been used as a combo tool (Ilgynoth Demon Hunter or Maly Druid or Mozaki Mage). If it was a control tool I'd feel different, but the fact that I only see Spell Damage cards before my hero explodes... does not leave good memories.
Hot take excavate is just invoke but better.
What happened to jade golems??
So not tiering on strength, but on design?
Where is execute?
silence in S is pretty weird
Where was enrage?
Murloc Knight was good
Discover is super unfun to fight against especially in arena. Just having a random +1 ( without drawback ) for your opponent is a really bad game design for a card game where people should strategize and it is a big reason why Hearthstone is becoming worse and worse. Before you had a good idea what your opponent is going to play but now it feels like luck has a bigger impact on your games.
dude where are the locations
Questline rouge is still my favorite Rouge deck but the other Questline are just so stupid.
Yupp Rogue is the best designed one
Meanwhile, I loved Lackeys.
Is it just me or did you miss dormant?
Am I the only one who is curious who Ryan is? Unless I'm missing out on some context here...
quests = S tier
sidequests = high A tier
quest lines = easy D tier
Thanks for the video, but not putting Inspire in D is unforgivable.
I don't like the way you approached this. You judged each keyword based on the cards they were attached to. Sure. But does that determine the actual worth of the keyword? As a Tier List, where you're comparing the usability of the keyword, sure, because you have to use cards that exist. But in a tier list where you're simply grading the keyword's functionality, I would argue that some keywords were really good but got shafted because of the cards they had. And vise versa, "Battlecry" woogabooga of course it's S tier, it's printed in every set. But does frequency determine value? You graded a keyword's value by its frequency and accessibility but I would grade them based on vacuum usability; for example, imagine there's exactly 100 cards of each keyword in every "power level" (i.e. a weak version, a mid version, and a strong version).
In other words, I realize my difference: I would grade the keywords as a game designer (I should use this tier list to design a card around a known keyword) rather than you, who grades them as a player (You should use this tier list to build a deck using cards with that keyword).
How many adderalls did he take? Bro was zooming
if they removed battlecries the game would probably be balanced
Bro is a warlock player and forgot about discard 💀
Discard isnt bolded, its a mechanic not a keyword
@@Axolo118oh that's interesting I didn't know that
Colossal should be D tier. Or have it's own "not a keyword" tier. If knowing what the keyword does isn't enough to understand what the card does then you've failed your job as a keyword, no matter how good the mechanic end up playing.
Your take is D-tier
@@privatepengu Nice claim. Do you have an argument to back it up?
Yeah its like Titans, they're not really keyboards but different types of legendary minions
I'd agree with you if we were talking about MtG or another physical card game (I have a soft spot for venture into the dungeon because I'm a massive dork but it is a terribly designed mechanic for the same reason you dislike colossal) but hearthstone is a digital card game. In game you can just play the minion and see for yourself what it does because the algorithm does everything for you and in your collection you can just pull the card up and see the related cards
Rarran i love your videos dude but OUTCAST IS NOT BETTER THAN MANATHIRST MY GOD
Charge at b? Reported for spreading miss information
Anyone else seeing ~40k views but ~250k likes?
My biggest issue with Charge being a keyword is that it isn't used enough to warrant a keyword, and its other design issues of uninteractivity and OTK potential prevent it from being used regularly. On top of that, Rush is largely a "fixed" version of Charge, which makes Charge as a keyword seem largely redundant. My solution would be to just replace all instances of Charge with "Can attack immediately."
Well, rush kinda killed board lead as a wincon, with charge enemy wasted their potential burn, rush is just "Lmao I remove your minion and develop at the same time"
Kind of stupid that you put Battlecry in S and TITAN in A considering titans are basically minions with multiple battlecries which you can choose from all while habing a slight chance to do it again next turn
I... how? That's like saying all MTG mechanics are just kicker lmao
And let's say I agree with your assumption. If Titan is just battlecry with extra steps, then why does it deserve to be in S tier? by your logic it's just a more specific derivative of a core mechanic so shouldn't it be in A or B?
@@GCWeber Titan keyword is just a broader battlecry tho.
Having 1 minion with a 1 good battlecry is good, but having a minion with 3 different battlecries which are all good for different scenarios is obviously a lot better because it makes your deck more flexible
And on top of that, if the titan is not dealt with by next turn, you get to use a different ability as well, so it basically has an artifical taunt.
@@vukkicos5688 yeah that's fair if we're talking power level but my perspective is more design ficused
Discover is the worst fucking keyword. Infinite resources ruined hearthstone forever.
hard disagree on discover btw literally just killed arena by itself. is an f tier keyword
Made Arena playable*
@@motymurm player numbers disagree with you.also tbf discover wasnt bad when it first came out it wasnt a problem tell it became prevalent
Hate quest's the worst mechanic!
Discover ruined hearthstone. Random bullshit you cant play around
First?