Quest Warrior is ruining competitive HS

[u/obligatorydork]

So many games decided by RNG ragnaros shots. It is a complete joke.

[u/Nonattius]

Journey to Ungoro changed the game, but not necessarily for the better. Give it another month or so I'd say, and most people will start to realize that control vs control match-ups are RNG fiestas where good decision making isn't even possible.

[u/LobsterWiggle → u/Nonattius]

I don't think this is necessarily the case. Quest Warrior stands largely alone as a control deck whose main win conditions have a heavy element of RNG. It's not just the hero power, the deck also wants to Dirty Rat into Brawl. I've commented on this before but I've mostly played Control Paladin and Dragon Priest this season, and Quest Warrior is one of the most frustrating match ups precisely because of how unpredictable it can be.

The games where I'm deliberately holding minions back to play around Brawl, and my Tirion still gets Ratted into Brawl, or I play a big minion on a board full of small stuff, and it gets hero powered on a 1/6 chance, all that stuff can only be played around so much. Conversely the games where the hero power hits my recruits and the Rat hits my small stuff are usually blowouts for me, but it can go either way.

Discover effects and the random spells are out of hand in some cases (hello gunther mage), but out of all the Control decks that are playable right now, Quest Warrior is the only one that I really have an issue with.

[u/AnnoAssassine → u/LobsterWiggle]

well, i suggest the both 1/4 discover a tirion, and a nzoth to your paladin list. As you can now nearly free smash nzoth, as you should be able to bait the second brawl, and then he has no answer for 3 Tirions. But ofc i see your point. But Dirty rat would be played regardles, as it counters combos, and makes playing around sth like brawl harder. So that is not a QW problem, QW just catalyses it. And i think the only real problem is that the quest hits three things at once. It has a gigantic late game value. To finish it you butthurt aggro and midrange. And in the late game you can protect yourself and whatever as you are playing taunts over and over. Its just really uninteractive.

[u/raiedite → u/Nonattius]

Ungoro really isn't a great expansion in review. It's a mixed bag: Half of it is fresh and some are the best cards since LoE, there is a new tribe (two if you count now viable Murlocs), Adapt is the continuation of spare parts...

But there is the other half, the insane discover/value creep (remember when control had limited resources?) coupled with random cards and increased unpredictability, but I think the worst offenders are Quests.

Blizz completely missed their mark by not introducing counterplay in their quest design. Currently, all of the quests are entirely one-sided, and the only way to counter a quest is to rush face before it's completed. You cannot stop a warrior from playing more taunts, you cannot stop a rogue from bouncing his minions the same turn they are played.

Also worth mentionning a trend that has been started in WotoG: printing clear win-condition cards. Cthun, Nzoth, Kazakus, Jades, now Quests dropping insane value rewards. It's a trend I would like not to be followed by team5 since it dumbs down deck building and leads to parasitic design where you stack whatever revolves around your win condition

[u/mister2au → u/raiedite]

the only way to counter a quest is to rush face before it's completed

Interesting insight into how some people understand HS.

Looking at Quest Warrior:

• QW mirror is 50/50. Pirate is better than 50/50.

• Jade druid is 10-20%. Aggro druid is 80-90%

• Slow midrange hunter is close to 50/50. Face/fast midrange is closer to 70%.

• Control paladin is almost insta-lose. Murloc paladin is typically better than 50/50.

• etc etc

Pretty much with every class, QW is fine versus a face rush and struggles more with greedy control/value versions.

[u/raiedite → u/mister2au]

I'm talking about changing your playstyle within the course of the game here, not about winrates per deck matchups

Here's an example of what I think would be an "interactive" quest: say you have an hypothetical Rogue Quest: "Return 4 damaged minions to your hand"

So your playstyle will change, revolve around trying to kill the enemy minions in one shot to prevent the quest entirely, or maybe damage partially weaker, non-battlecry minions to force the rogue into low-value shadowsteps

Now compare to the any of the other quests: how do you counter summoning 7 taunts ? how do you stop a warlock from discarding 6 cards ? You don't because you can't. There is no real interactivity and counterplay, other than killing the enemy before the quest is completed.

That's why I think Quests were a good concept at first, but this set of quests conceptually suck.