Hearthstone

Eh, Column is right, he's just being a childish douche about it.

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Only an idiot with no card game experience would say that cards don't get stronger. Any game of any sort needs things to get more powerful with time, to keep players interested and to exhaust design potential. Even if that wasn't the case, it may not be WoW, but it is... Blizzard? Duh?

The pool gets larger and hence there are morestrongcards. Only an idiot would say that card power only goes up each expansion.

The Ancient_sl said:

The pool gets larger and hence there are morestrongcards. Only an idiot would say that card power only goes up each expansion.

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Are you talking about Arena? Because in constructed, card power only goes up. That's why formats like Vintage and Legacy are so ridiculous in Magic.

Gavinrad_sl said:

Are you talking about Arena? Because in constructed, card power only goes up. That's why formats like Vintage and Legacy are so ridiculous in Magic.

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Our discussion was about Arena, but also about what makes card power go up. My point is expansions create new interactions that counter old metas and that's largely what creates a "power creep". It's not because every expansions cards are strictly better. It's not like some expansion will come along and introduce a new 4 Mana chillwind yeti with better stats. That's not how card expansions work.

Gavinrad_sl said:

Are you talking about Arena? Because in constructed, card power only goes up. That's why formats like Vintage and Legacy are so ridiculous in Magic.

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The irony that you use a format based on degenerate cards released mostly during the first few sets to claim that card power 'goes up' over time should not be lost on anyone.

Also, where the fuck is the next quarter? Isn't it Tuesday?

The Ancient_sl said:

It's not like some expansion will come along and introduce a new 4 Mana chillwind yeti with better stats. That's not how card expansions work.

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Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If you look at the overall quality of creatures in Magic and you do so from early in the game to more recent times you can see they just started making better creatures. The best dudes at each mana cost of recent sets craps all over the most efficient dudes of yesteryear and what you can get for a big pile of mana is just absurd compared to how things were for years. Creatures with 7+ mana costs actually had drawbacks (Leviathan, Lord of the Pit) or were otherwise horribly overcosted and in that game getting to spend seven mana isn't something you get to do for free on turn seven.



What a decade and an extra colored mana will get you these days

Palum_sl said:

The irony that you use a format based on degenerate cards released mostly during the first few sets to claim that card power 'goes up' over time should not be lost on anyone.

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Vintage decks aren't mostly built with cards from the first few sets.

Palum_sl said:

The irony that you use a format based on degenerate cards released mostly during the first few sets to claim that card power 'goes up' over time should not be lost on anyone.

Also, where the fuck is the next quarter? Isn't it Tuesday?

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After the clusterfuck of the first release day, they started staggering all the releases. NA opens at 11:59PM PST.

As for vintage, you obviously don't play the format.

Here's a control slaver decklist that got top 8 at a fairly large vintage tournament.


It does run 8 of the power 9, but aside from that, the deck is full of stuff from all over the entire time span of MTG. Vintage isn't even close to being only old cards.

That's how pretty much every Vintage deck looks - a pile of synergistic bullshit assembled from Magic's history likely greased with something bonkers from the long long ago. Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, Moxes + Ancestral + Time Walk, etc.

That's what, like 10-15 cards out of 60 from the first 5-6 years of Magic? Yea that's hardly what I would call "mostly first few sets of Magic".

Night's Whisper rockin it.

Arbitrary_sl said:

What a decade and an extra colored mana will get you these days

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But you are also cherry picking. Which expansion did Black Lotus come from?

FullasGames's albums - Imgur


bunch of interesting card ideas. Great artwork.

Arbitrary_sl said:

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If you look at the overall quality of creatures in Magic and you do so from early in the game to more recent times you can see they just started making better creatures. The best dudes at each mana cost of recent sets craps all over the most efficient dudes of yesteryear and what you can get for a big pile of mana is just absurd compared to how things were for years. Creatures with 7+ mana costs actually had drawbacks (Leviathan, Lord of the Pit) or were otherwise horribly overcosted and in that game getting to spend seven mana isn't something you get to do for free on turn seven.

Spoiler

What a decade and an extra colored mana will get you these days

Vintage decks aren't mostly built with cards from the first few sets.

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Great, now that try to apply that logic toConcentrateandAncestral Recall. Funny how it leads to the opposite conclusion now. Or if you dont want to get into the obviously overpowered cards from the first set look at Wrath of God compared to the generally weaker variants, Lightning bolt vs Shock, etc. Power level in established CCGs has highs and lows that both work in their respective environments (Mercadian Masques or Kamigawa, anyone?). The question is do the Hearthstone folks have a good enough understanding of CCGs balance or do they approach this like an MMO?

In other words, not directed at you but in general:

AngryGerbil_sl said:

you aren't necessarily right or wrong and neither is he. It has yet to be seen.

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I don't think they'll add enough cards fast enough to turn this into a meaningful card pool compared to actual CCGs. That makes this argument about power creep a bit pointless. It is likely that instead of new sets they will treat it like an MMO and just use card changes to control the ebb and flow of the meta and only inject a few dozen cards per year, simply because that's in line with how Blizzard does things in general. Just look at what prompted meta changes during the last 10 months - entire new sets with cards that either adress overpowered strategies or open up entirely new deck types certainly didnt happen, and this first, small batch of cards seems to actually offer good support for the meta-dominating decks instead of challenging them (assuming from the comments in this thread).

The Ancient_sl said:

But you are also cherry picking.

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When it comes to creatures I'm really not. In the modern era the better creatures in Magic put their elder counterparts to shame.

When discussing the warlock hero power, cherrypicking examples makes sense. No one puts random cards into their warlock deck, they pick the best ones.

khalid_sl said:

When discussing the warlock hero power, cherrypicking examples makes sense. No one puts random cards into their warlock deck, they pick the best ones.

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It's almost like the discussion began around Arena. That's not what I meant by cherry picking anyway. What I meant was picking a card that was weak in one expansion and pointing out an upgrade later is not the same as all cards get better in expansions. That isn't what happens, some cards definitely do, but not usually the already strong cards.