I identify as tired of this stupid, overwrought, flagrantly transphobic excuse for a joke.

Now, if one of Reddits delightfully original comedians will inscribe a "TRIGGERED!" below my comment...

Ooh, next do the south park dolphin thing.

You're a wizard towel, Harry!

You're a towel!

What if it was 0 silence a random friendly minion, Draw a card?

i dunno, you give a class enough cheap spells and at some moment you hit critical mass and enable gadgetzan, and then you're looking at velen combo decks or something.

I don't get it.

So what do you want priest to do? Just be another mid-range deck?

Why does everyone want every deck homogenized into dropping balls of stats?

How are they cancer in Wild?

There are a lot of good competitive decks in Wild right now, nzoth priest just happens to be one of them.

It's no where the clear near #1 wild deck. It can be beaten by a lot of decks.

they aren't cancer just because they entombed your fucking ysera.

there's all kinds of ways to remove big threats, from a 1 mana execute/shield slam to equality consec, twisting nether, poly/hex, etc etc etc.

Do you bitch about them?

one of the priest classes identity is in stealing (for the most part).

Ask blizzard to just redesign the class from the core if you don't want them taking your shit.

Everyone has different definitions of "cancer". And every class has those cards.

If blizz listened to everyone, no one would even have a fucking deck cause this game wouldn't even exist since everyone believes no other class should have "cancerous" aka good cards...

Realistically this is the exact attitude that seems to make balancing for Blizzard and priest so difficult. I think Entomb and Mind Control are great cards but the outcry against them is very loud. The second priest becomes viable, it'll get moaned about just the same because people lose their minds about those kinds of cards. I personally don't get it, but again, I like the concept of those cards a lot. I personally hate losing my big minions to cheapie shits like execute or an abused token.

They didn't need to murder this card while nerfing it.

That's an understatement. Priest only became bad with the intro of standard. There are still 8 other classes that got interesting cards this adventure-- just give it more time and wait for a larger expansion/standard to rotate. It's not like other classes haven't been in the shitter the same way priest currently is.

Thank you! Lets look at this with your objective categories: winrate and mana cost.

Winrate: Unknown... card is not out!

Mana cost: Card draw is 1.5 mana cost... so this is .5 mana behind. Requiring a minion to draw? Takes the .5 mana away... so this alone makes the card 1 mana behind. Silencing own minion? Depends on the minion! If you get nothing, its 1 mana behind. If you silence something good? its terrible. If you silence something for 1 mana tempo? its "competitive". If you get more than 1 mana tempo return? its "insanely good".

Thank you again for helping me clarify how this card is "bad" but not "insanely bad".

No, they have to balance it both by class and cards.

If you are a class with above average winrate, your above average cards are harder to get whereas if you are a class with a lower than average winrate your good cards are easier to get.

That way currently good classess would be consistent but not stronger than the rest, and currently bad classess would similar winrates but be inconsistent (You can luck out and get an amazing deck or get a deck similar to what you are getting now). Instead of the braindead pick system we have now which is pick one of these 3 or lose we would have the slightly more interesting: Do I want to go with a consistent class or do I feel like a little bit of a gamble and pick the other one?

I don't think this would solve the problem by any stretch of the imagination, it might make it worse actually.

Please give me one example of how making flamestrike would be making things "really bad really fast"

Is there a problem? When you list the nine classes in order [of power], there will be always be a class that is ninth. It’s impossible for there not to be a ninth class. So in a way, if you call it a problem, then there’s always a problem and it’s not fixable, because there’s always a bottom class. So in that respect, not really, it’s just a matter of which class.

But surely having all classes be reasonably competitive is a design goal, so you don't have a situation where even the best priest players in the world struggle to get to legend with it?

Well good to know priest is safe then.

Nah, thats not true. Thats just what mtg did to force people to pay for shitty unplayable pack filler and at least HS copies that model, even if the greedy reasoning might not work similarly in its model.

Duelyst for example balances really problematic cards regularly and also buffs bad cards. Every card seems to be designed to be really good in a right context and probably usable in a high tier deck. There are some pretty basic stuff comparable to a yeti, but even those have some extra synergy so they can be more than just good stats for cost.

But the goal should at least be have cards that arent retarded.

Oh I'm sorry is putting out a shit card once in a while as filler the same as putting out a shit card for a shit class that was only gonna get 3 cards in the expansion to begin with?

The only use I could think of is allowing those "Can't attack" or "can only attack if its the only card on the board" minions (I forget their names) to attack like normal. But why on earth would you attempt to build a deck around that?

Yep. The card went to "final design", and they suddenly remembered they don't want cheap silence effects in the game.

The difference between Magic and Hearthstone is that HS sets are a fraction of the size of MTG sets. And that even given that, HS has to cater to nine classes and MTG only has five colours.

When you've got a set and each class only gets three cards, you can't afford to waste them with garbage. It's a nice idea to have some cards that are deckbuilding challenges, but there just isn't room in something like Karazhan with a class that is already fundamentally struggling.

One could argue that even without Purify, Priest is a class for people who get enjoyment out of building decks around cards that are obviously and blatantly bad. ;)

But priest already had a bad silence card. Why are they reprinting bad cards even shittier?

there are people who get enjoyment out of building decks around cards that are obviously and blatantly bad.

TL;DR Even though this is a very valid argument, it does not apply for Purify nor does the article you linked justify Purify.

The idea discussed in the article is that bad cards could create new archetypes. We can see this happening in Hearthstone currently with the discard archetyp being pushed exactly in this direction, with Tiny Knight of Evil, Malchezaar's Imp and more importantly Silverware Golem being printed. These cards take advantage of a disadvantage from cards like Succubus, Soulfire, Darkshire Librarian, etc. or at least negate that disadvantage. However this is not the case for Purity, since the cards that have a downside have at least an equal upside and while this is still true for cards like Ancient Watcher and Eerie Statue it is not for Purity. Purity is in essence Silence and therefor should be worth 0 mana, but since it gets a downside of only being able to target your own minions it gets the upside of drawing a card. This is why both up- and downside should cancle each other out and the card should cost 0 mana with the effect currently printed. In the end this boils down to Purify being a payoff card like Silverware Golem that should reward you for making it work in conjunction with other cards not punish you and that is the narrative in the article you linked.

Maybe Blizzard takes this concept to the new level: Instead of single cards being blatantly bad and delivering to people who demand those, there's now a whole class for them to hipster around.

There is a big difference in dramatic effects that are likely bad but have potential, and cards that are bad because they cost way too much.

Ancient watcher is a good "bad" card. Not being able to attack and not having taunt is a combination that makes the minion useless without really strong synergies. But if you can enable it, you get way more power because of how much stats the card has for its cost.

Booty bay bodyguard is a bad card because its just flat out too expensive. Purify could be an interesting card, but its useless because it costs way too much. Its kind of like if one with nothing was expensive in addition to being super synergy dependant.

Its ok to print stuff that might not work at all, but also making them grossly overcosted is just bad balancing.

building decks around cards that are obviously and blatantly bad.

You just summed up playing as priest in hearthstone in one short sentence

Shit comparison. MTG has endless depth compared to HS, a mediocre card like Psychatog ruled Standard, Extended and even weint into T1 because there are so many more cards with so many more mechanics to use.

I dont care, I'm going to make Purify work.

It doesnt belong in an adventure. Theres only 45 cards, having chaff/niche cards reduces the viability of the whole class. Printing Purify is telling a part of your users to go fuck themselves for 6 months.

Yeah but those kinds of cards should be reserved for expansions and not adventures.

I've read WotC's excuses for making bad cards. It's all garbage. There are only two valid excuses - a legitimate mistake, and a safety valve that goes unused, a hard counter for a potentially game-ruining strategy that never comes to light. Neither is necessary in a game like Hearthstone where mistakes can be fixed, if you're not a stubborn fool.

Blizzard 'purified' 6 million Priest players

Even the WoW team got around to doing the latter part of admitting mistakes. Then again, it would be pretty much impossible to maintain a >10 old game otherwise.

All of the cards in it are out. Just because the minigame used to unlock them isn't doesn't mean people can't be disappointed.

The problem isn't that the effect sucks to justify drawing a card, it's that the mana cost sucks for it's effect

We already have a 0 mana silence, 2 mana 1/1 draw a card, 3 mana 2/1, 1 mana give a minion +2 health and draw a card, so why is purify 2 mana?

I would have loved to see a handlock style priest to work with this card, something that runs 2 mana 4/5's and 4 mana 7/7's, but in the state that the card and class is, I'll be lucky to be able to climb as Dragon Priest again. Or if I have to craft lightbombs and play priest in wild from now on

Aren't classes supposed to have an identity? If Priest is fed up by neutral cards how will it have an identity?

Thanks for the communication /u/IksarHS, could you possibly elaborate as to why Purify costs so much mana? Silence costs zero, and only being able to silence your own minions is worse than the flexibility of silencing anything, so it would I guess cost (-1). Obviously you can't print that but card draw normally costs 1, and for the sake of the discussion we will say combining cards costs 1 even though in my opinion this really shouldn't apply considering the current state of priest. This brings our total mana cost to (-1) + (1) + (1) = 1. How come? Thank you for reading.

Do you guys actually think any of those neutral cards will be better in Priest than in other classes? If not, those cards aren't helping priest out relative to its position of "way behind and in need of help".

Can you explain why it costs 2 mana? There is a 0 mana card that can silence anything and we have a 1 mana buff that also draws. People aren't freaking out over purify because the idea of silencing your own minions is an inherently bad play, we just have no idea where the two mana comes from. We've had the capability to silence our own minions for no cost at all and no archetype came of that. Why would something that costs 2 more make that happen? Isn't a situational, restrictive effect less powerful than a stat buff? Why is Power Word: Shield 1 mana? Is a single card draw two whole mana with a restriction? Why does nearly every other class have a two mana card draw combined with a positive effect? The logic is just baffling. People are trying to make sense of it but nobody can. If the justification is "there needs to be bad cards", why did literally the worst card go to the worst class in the game? If there needs to be bad cards, why don't you give them to overpowered classes and give good cards to the ones that need them?

JUST CHANGE PURIFY.

You already know what's going to happen. People will try "silence your own stuff" priest, lose a bunch, and then priest will have nothing again. And what's the point of a "silence your own stuff" priest if you don't give priest good cards to silence? Ancient Watcher is bad, Argent Watcher is worse, Eerie Statue is bad.

Don't even talk about "arena viability" or "sprinkling in tools for an existing archetype". We are not idiots. We don't need your fancy catchwords to try to convince us. If you cared about arena viability, then WHY IS PURIFY A COMMON?! What deck would want to run Purify? At 1 mana it could be a situational card draw, but you changed Flare from 1 to 2 mana and it instantly went from being played in every hunter deck to being played in no hunter decks. 2 mana draw a card is not good at all. And it's even WORSE than that. You cannot even play the card if you don't have any minions on board! Well, I guess I'll just play a priest and use it as a cantrip on my early game minions. OH WAIT. YOU DIDN'T PRINT ANY EARLY GAME MINIONS FOR PRIEST.

And what's this about playing priest with neutral minions? What's the point? You want us to run that new Arcane Anomaly and Barnes and Curator in priest? Sure, that might be pretty good. It's still kind of bad that the hero power is useless without a board, and the class spells are all situational. Hmm...then WHY DON'T I JUST PLAY A BETTER CLASS?! What the hell?! You're saying that your happy for the options that a class is getting from neutral cards?! Doesn't that contradict how class cards are supposed to define a class? Now the neutral cards that all the other better classes can run is what priests are supposed to be happy about?!

I wouldn't mind Purify if it was a part of some 100 card set. It would just be a crappy gimmick card that people could make some funny awful decks with. But you had just THREE slots for priest this expansion. WHY would you give what is already the weakest class in the game this WASTE OF SPACE?!

edit: If you're actually reading this, then cut it out with the generic PR damage control posts. If you are honestly telling us that you think Purify is a good card, then I have lost faith in how well you understand your own game. If you keep trying to tell us "NONONO wait! It's actually good! We did a lot of testing!" all you are doing is losing credibility in any future card design discussions and all future expansions. The statements we want to see are either "Okay, we made a mistake. This has been a learning experience. We will make sure that future expansions are not like this." or "Okay, we made a mistake. This has been a learning experience. We will make sure that future expansions are not like this. We will fix Purify by replacing it with a better card."

Thank you for convincing me your team has no fucking clue how its own game works. The decision to not buy this adventure has been made 100% clear. Thank you, Iksar!

So how do we get to a point in the match where we get to try out those cool new cards? There was nothing in the adventure to even hint that the meta was slowing down and Priests weren't granted anything through class cards or neutrals that gets them into the mid game without going on life support. It looks like the meta is even speeding up with beast druids getting a strong mid game win condition.

Is the thought process that a card that could synergize with Barnes on Turn 4 or 5 would be too good?

"None of this is to say anyone is wrong in their feedback, but just to communicate some of the ideas surrounding a card design."

I'm sorry, but at no point in your comment did you mention the ideas behind the design of Purify.

We could literally take your statement, replace "Barnes, Curator, Medivh Dragon Cards" with a list of cards from WotOG, replace "Purify" with "Power Word Tentacles", and we would get the exact same explanation on why you thought that was a good card.

You can see why people are critical of the HS dev team communicating their design choices if their explanation for a bad card reads like a template that could apply to literally any other bad card, and offers no insight whatsoever into a particular card's design process.

So you give every class the good priest cards, give other classes like hunter and druid crazy cards for constructed and mage crazy arena cards while giving priest a crappy easy to understand common?

The rarity system has nothing to do with complexity of cards because babbling book is easier to understand than Firelands Portal. There is no reason why Purify should be a common or even printed for the worst class in constructed AND arena while their decent card "Onyx Bishop" gets put in the rare slot.

This response is nothing but a PR stunt to try and cover up the fact they goofed it hard with not just priest but the whole balance of the adventure as a whole, The strongest class (top 2 at least) mage in arena gets one of if not the strongest common class cards of the set while priest, the worst class in arena gets the absolute worst class common of the set.

What on earth where you thinking?

cut the fckin bullshit already man. seriously. it's counter-productive. just admit that you messed up

In the case of Priest, we were pretty happy with the amount of options the class was getting from neutral (Barnes, Curator*, Medivh, Dragon Cards) to do some testing with a new archetype that Purify could be a part of.

First and foremost, I'm very glad you made this post, I may not understand the whole background testing context of the synergy behind Purify and the neutrals given in ONK, but in saying anything at all, you are most welcome here.

...All 4 of those cards you mentioned are significantly better in classes other than priest.

Medivh is better in mage. Dragon cards are better in warrior. Curator and Barnes are better in really any other class.

You didn't make any cards that priest can take advantage of more than other classes. We needed a deathlord or something. Not any of this garbage...

/u/IksarHS, there is one thing I don't understand: Why are you not releasing decent 2- and 3-drops for the Priest class?

The community has been asking for a decent 2-drop that fits the theme of the class since beta and you've ignored it. Just a tiny bit of tempo to help give the class a bit more tempo.

You've release a great 3-drop with Naxx, and it helped Priest a lot. You've released Curator with LoE and it is a great card, but it trades terribly.

I think the reason Priest is so terrible, is because you've made the meta so goddamn fast, and you haven't given Priest any kind of tempo to keep up with the rush decks.

In the case of Priest, we were pretty happy with the amount of options the class was getting from neutral (Barnes, Curator*, Medivh, Dragon Cards) to do some testing with a new archetype that Purify could be a part of.

Thanks for your feedback on this. Can you please elaborate on this?

• Specifically, does "some testing" mean more than 1 game?
• Can you share the decklist Purify was used in?
• Against what decks was the new archetype tested?

and playing a 'silence your own stuff' priest

But priest already has a silence...for 0 mana...on ANYTHING. You think 2 mana is worth draw a card + less of a effect?????

Your design team is a joke.

I have to say its getting a little boring on hearthstone. I'm getting sick and tired of seeing warrior after warrior after warrior to then be followed by shaman after shaman after shaman. Lets get a little diversity here and bring back priest because it is such a fun class to play.

Seriously? Like ... really? If that's all you're going to say after such an outcry over an obvious terrible card, you can just go fire yourselves.

Asemble your whole team, make a purify deck and get legend with it, I dare you, I double dare you motherflocker.

There is no justification for this card.

It's horrid, its absolute shit, and you know it.

It's a shame that you have to defend Blizzard's position because you're an employee. You know this card is so bad, and you gave it to the worst class in the game.

Blizzard has lost so much credibility in game balancing because of this. You've lost the community's trust.

It feels like the team may be afraid of something like 1 Mana Purify + Ancient Watcher would be too strong in a new archetype and would just become as oppressive as Warrior is now, but it looks like most players would be fine with a Turn 3 Purified Yeti.

The whole thing though is, you don't have to be afraid for the community anymore, by and large, at least the professional players know their stuff and in the age of communication, we'll probably be able to come up with an answer to that no matter how powerful it truly is.

I'm merely a casual player/lurker, but at least with the brightest minds of the community have faith in them.

1) I have no doubts that you guys are fully aware that Purify is (and I believe Onyx Bishop is as well) overcosted. 2) I think it's cool to see you guys exploring new design space with priest and fleshing out possible new identities and decks. 3) Priest is the least played and least successful class at the highest levels of play (at least according to all large-sample-size-statistics and tournament lineups that we have access to as a community).

All that in mind, I think the reason that everybody is so frustrated is that you chose to use this set to explore new design space. You erred on the side of caution, and likely undershot the power levels of some of the cards. There's nothing wrong with exploring new design space or being cautious but, when you're choosing to use 2/3 card slots for weaker, experimental cards and the 3rd for the most oversaturated mana cost in a class that is already not working, it doesn't feel good for priest players. I understand not wanting to overshoot on a new mechanic but, with how weak priest is in general at the moment, overshooting on this set might have been a good thing. I think that's the main reason that everybody is so frustrated.

P.S. You mentioned dragon cards possibly helping priest as well but most people I know that are really excited to play priest are excited by all of the powerful combos that they can pull off and want tools to help them get there; if players want to just play big minions on curve, there are plenty of other classes that do that better and as part of their core identity. I don't think it's your intention, but whenever the dragon priest defense comes up it almost makes it feel like you guys are just padding the stats to give priest a passing grade.

How hard would it be to make a card like Firelands Portal for priest instead of mage? How hard is it to give a minion to priest like flamewaker? Why are all the OP cards going to mage?

That is fair enough and all, but is that truly what Priest is going to be about from now on? Either Dragon or minions that you silence yourself to turn them into Vanilla ones?

Medivh isn't going to work in Control Priest. Why? Because we're never going to get to Turn 8 without dying, not even Turn 7 for The Curator. Barnes is okay, but when we're already facing down 2-3 minions when we drop him... He's much less good.

Good neutrals that have a slightly better synergy with one class over others isn't an excuse to release a crappy card for that class. Especially since the class is already in a terrible position.

I think it's pretty clear that the community wants priest to be better.

Two remarks. First, thank you for taking the time to respond, it does a lot of good to have some blue response to all the outrage, and I'm glad the negative responses aren't diminishing that. That communication is what has always made Blizzard special and I don't want that to change. I really mean that, for all I have to say after this.

Second, and my major criticism, is that accepting the explanation for Purify (making space for silence-your-stuff Priest) doesn't explain why you had to make it so awful. I thought Gang Up and Beneath the Grounds were both very competitively priced for what they did, but the strongest justification I can come up with for Purify costing 2 mana is that there was developer concern over having too many cantrips available to one class (PW:S and Purify at 1 would do a lot).

I think a lot of the outcry comes from the result that Priest not only doesn't have any competitive success, but that they don't have decks that are even fun to try. Ancestral Spirit on a 4 mana 7/7 is a hell of a lot more fun than using Purify on Ancient Watcher or Eerie Statue, and is competitive to boot. Priest has neither fun nor competitive and Shaman gets both. So does Rogue, and Warrior, and Hunter, and Druid, and Paladins are arguably competitive and Warlocks and Magi are arguably fun.

I can understand the concerns behind pricing a cantrip at 0, but at 1 (in priest, no less, with a strong condition of silencing your own minion) it doesn't seem too strong. Would you disagree? If not, why wasn't it priced that way?

flame on

Could you please link us to that post when you discuss all the design iterations that Yogg went through?

we're trying to do better in terms of communication and understanding what different communities (like this one) are most interested in.

Doesn't feel like the devs are trying very hard, you could like, actually do what we say are most interested in: stop making stupidly strong cards like the new druid 6 drop. And make decent priest cards whilst assigning rarities based on strength in arena?

I mean, you can say whatever you want but actions speak louder than your empty words.

Rofl. This is so ridiculous.

fuck you

Holy shit, the downvote for the Blizzard staff responder.

[removed]

HOTS is the perfect example of how a great dev team can make a great environment for the community.

It is not over a single bad card. I wanted this to happen when the standard rotation hit, now everyone else has finally realized just how badly Team 5 is managing their game.

I didn't even mention purify in my rant. That is the last straw for many players, but really everyone should have been this upset months ago. Most players didn't seem to care that handlock, oil rogue, and control priest were removed from the game for no reason. In a way - the community brought this on themselves - for not making an appropriate outcry when it was obvious that Team 5 was abandoning one fifth of the community.

Well first of all sorry, I'm not used to rationale on this topic.

I agree with you, totem golem is fine by himself. But there are a bunch of cards that are passible of changes. And they would affect the meta. But the real issue is: the game is too minion focused. And too fast. It feels stupid not having good answers for a 1 and a 2 drop and being SO punished. (talking about our friendly shaman opener)

Changes that could actually mean something? Starting hand sizes, improvement of swing cards, more interesting card abilities. Re-evaluate the cost of certain stats, and so on.

I mean, for fucks sake, they released a 1 mana 2/2 and the consensus is the card isn't even that good by itself (not counting beast sinergy).