I think I learned this lesson years ago when toast created no mechathun mechathun

Nice of him to answer the question 30 seconds into the video

pre-nerf twig of the world tree is a perfect example of this I feel. you could play literally whatever fuck off combo you wanted, your win-con did not matter, twig of the world tree would enable it. can't say if it was definitively the *best* card in those decks considering you had to survive and get to it, but it's a good showing of how the means of closing out the game was less important than every other card in the deck.

I think this is a concept most every player in other TCGs identifies, usually the backbone of a deck is consistency/efficient cards plus the thing that locks down the game for the win, but the best cards are almost always the cheap consistency cards (or the ones that can be both, i.e. Uro Titan of Nature's Wrath from MTG, just one look at the card and you can see why it's an amazing control wincon) and almost always get the bans/hits first and often kill decks. This very clearly does not make wincons *bad* cards per se, but often times if they're not extremely in tune with the deck they're run in they're either replaceable or unplayable, while the enabler cards will always find a home because their synergies are "enable the good cards in your deck by drawing them and/or supporting them". More often than not, you can find that unless none of your early game cards have 0 stats nor damage, a deck with an amazing early game but bad wincon/late game will beat a deck with bad early game but a good wincon/late game with very little effort.

I understand the concepts in the last video since I have played other TCGs, mainly Yu-gi-oh!, where the main concepts of deck building apply to Wild, and I don't even play Wild. I think most HS players have a hard time grasping the advanced concepts of general deckbuilding because they mostly play Standard where decks are curated by the devs for deckbuilding, as compared to Wild where the cardpool is soo unrestricted and you have to really think about which cards to put in the deck to achieve sucess.

What makes a deck strong is usually the tools that enable the win condition not the win condition itself, I thought this was obvious to everyone but then I saw so many suggesting nerf the quest warlock reward.

A nice follow up to your previous video. I never thought about it directly, but it's a concept that has affected my deckbuilding/theorycrafting through the years

Another great video, you quickly becoming my new favorite hearthstone KZfaqr bro

Good video, love the random discussions. Understand and don't disagree, i wonder when discussing if we need to seperate "win condition" cards into seperate brackets, its hard to grasp in some ways, for as good as some engines are they do not win games or warp metas like ie demon seed but if course enable it

Good take, good take. Glad to see you followed up on your response to my comment on your last video about archetypal/win con cards. I must also say (if you still remember) I was definitely underestimating radiant elemental, although I still stand by the fact that raise dead is the more evergreen card in most contexts. Also, to prove your point here further: In terms of "engine" cards as you refer to them in this video, two classes are far ahead in terms of access to them. The first is druid, with their hyperefficient ramp consistently enabling combos regardless of the "wincon". It was most blatantly seen in last year's Twig Druid, which just ran a bunch of wincons that were enabled by the ridiculously consistent mana cheat/draw. Even more aggregious is rogue, which has created one of the strongest decks in the format in Miracle Rogue out of nothing but engines. Not the new pack rogue, but the hyperefficient version running giants as a wincon. Secret passage, gear shift, prep, shadowstep, gone fishing, ghostly strike, shadow of demise, counterfeit coin, door of shadows. These are all 0 or 1 cost cards with mana cheat or draw, all run in one deck, that has safely remained a top 3 list for the past year. At this point, both classes have reached a massive critical mass of mana/draw engines that they simply enable any new wincon that is given to them. Rogue much more so, but only because Druid has seen every staple mana cheat card see some kind of nerf within the past rotation. Seriously, such a large portion of Hearthstone's bullshittery comes down to these two classes, with the rest being shouldered by Warlock who often gets overshadowed by the inefficiency of the pain/discard package over conventional "bs" mechanics. All this to say that this was a great explanation of the basic idea that "payoff cards" are less critical than consistency through the ability to gain advantage in resource economy (mana and cards) through discount/ramping and draw. Its also why disruption cards negatively affecting your opponent's resource economy (theotar, okani, rat, mutanus for cards and razorscale, neophyte, stomper, loatheb, boompistol bully for mana) has been increasingly relevant in the last couple years.

I absolutely agree. Bolvar is always the worst card in my deck. But it is the best win condition in the game.

Bro, new video idea. Make a custom mini-set for a previous set that didn't get one. A new series for when your run out of sets to buff

I think another point is that those stronger engines are used in other decks outside of the single build around.

Kind of ironic tbh

Isn't this kind of a perspective thing? Personally, I agree with you - I find the engine is usually way more important than the payoff(although, there have been exceptions to that). And there have been many good cards that havent seen play, as they were payoffs for a non-functional engine. But I also think its fair to say that a strong payoff is basically required to make a deck functional. A great engine alone doesnt win you games without something good to power. Id say those two go hand in hand. And as an outlier to this, there are cards that are just individually great - like mining casualties(which is especially great for DK due to corpses, but thats a class mechanic pretty much).

Similarly, I've seen toyboat and/or pirates support bad archetypes for rogue in several things. On top of garrote and swordfish (the good decks), I've also seen Hooktusk, I've built an Anka Mecha'thun (since it's a lot better playing one 5-mana do nothing than two), I've even seen a boar Rogue built off of toyboat+pirates.

I think the arguement is correct but poorly presented. the demon seed is clearly one of the best cards in pain warlocks, yes it needs to be enabled to be good. But that’s besides the point. Cards needing to be enabled doesn’t make them less good. Shudderwock is a better example because it’s activately a bad card being turned good. Which I understand you might think is similar it’s just the power level of the pay off. For the investment Shudderwock is a reasonable pay off at 9 mana. Where as the demon seed is 1-6 mana split between turns and effectively is a better win condition. The rate of the win condition is just too good for its cost. Yes it requires to be enabled, but the cost of enablement is somewhat trivial. Sure there is a world where you can’t enable the demon seed. But that world isn’t this world, and a card should always be analyzed in context. Because all cards are bad without context.

Didn’t even watch yet but I already know I’m gonna like it

This is still similar in standard, just not for every deck because the pool is more limited. Zarimi priest for example is strong in standard, but it's not strong because of zarimi, it's strong because crimson clergy draws and cheats mana with funnel cake into drawing 0 mana thirsty drifters into 0 mana zilliax.

This is very obvious for players that play other card games since usually the big bad monster or spell that u play and wins you the game is not usually the thing that gets nerfed or banned it's the other cards that support it a good example is sif, i see alot of players complain about her being broken but after the good mage cards like cold case and ice block rotated out sif sees little to no play and has bad win rate

i think you're lowballing shudderwock (its just a synergy pile with battlecries) also raid the docks, despite being a loose wincon, is still a wincon. it drawing a weapon and dealing damage is instrumental to its early gameplan. you arent wrong for your takes but you framed it in a way that makes people want to correct you

6:59 yep

I love this channel

Shudderwock is the best card ever created :)

I'm kinda bored of current meta both wild and standard now, can you cook some goofy ass deck that tires to be good? Or do you want the cock block deathrattle demon hunter I cooked

Zeddy (I think) called you out in his latest vid

I feel like win conditions and good cards need each other. They wouldn't work properly without each other

Basically, the non-legendary cards, make the deck strong

So what you're saying is The Demon seed is a perfectly fine card that does not limit design space and it's Darkglare who should get nerfed to the ground? I'm exaggerating of course, but I still can't grasp the idea that the win condition of the deck can at the same time be the worst card in said deck. It just doesn't make sense. If it' really is so bad, then it's not a win condition and you throw it out of your deck. By that logic, there is no such deck as Demon Seed Lock, there's only Darkglare Warlock. There is no such thing as Shudderwock Shaman. I'm sorry, I just can't watch this. The truth is too out-there for my feeble mind.

It's kind of a pointless discussion

Hot take: I hate the concept of meta because everyone can play the most powerful deck. And if you want to win games, you have to play like them or lose instead of creating your own deck with your creative mind and having fun with so many different types of decks.

Nah. Sorry, but this is yet another L take. A card is good when its versetile. You only look at the best cards for the meta or just draw cards for cheap. Draw isnt everything. Demon seed has always been a good card and was actually banned for a while. Quest mage unnerfed was also bonkers. You put cards like gnome muncher and the 4 mana mage guy. Those arent even good. Shudderwock is THE shaman card. If you can take cards out of the deck and its still playable then those arent the best cards. Try playing shudderwock shaman without shudderwock.