In a recent “on this day in Hearthstone” post on reddit, czhihong talked about the Undertaker nerf, which happened four years ago, on January 27, 2015. Dean Ayala (Iksar), Hearthstone’s designer, took this opportunity to talk a bit about some of the most notorious cards from that expansion. He takes a look at them, balance-wise, and compares them to today’s. You can read the entire comment below, but here’s a quick summary:
- The content design team was only four people back then, so they had limited time to playtest new cards. They’ve mostly playtested Undertaker in Warlock, because that’s where they thought it would land, and it wasn’t overpowered there. It turned out that it’s much more powerful in Hunter.
- Deathlord was initially 2/6, due to their lack of experience with negative effects like that.
- Mad Scientist was one of the strongest cards they ever made, but it was kind of intentional – they wanted players to use more Secrets.
- They’ve intentionally made Sludge Belcher a little better than Druid of the Claw (which was the gold Standard for Midrange Taunt before), because the meta was pretty aggressive and they wanted to give players some defensive options. It started a trend of solid Neutral Taunt options.
- Voidcaller wouldn’t be printed today, because it created too big early-game swings.
Undertaker still makes me laugh. Naxxramas was an interesting small set to balance. Personally, Naxx was the first set I ever worked on so I look back on it fondly. Some design anecdotes….
Undertaker: Was just a miss in terms of balance. I remember doing most of the playtesting with Undertaker in Warlock because that was traditionally where snowballing board control decks were most successful. It was still extremely powerful in that deck but Undertaker in combination with Scientist in Hunter made it way over the top. We did play that version but just not enough to realize. The whole content design team was four people back then, so we had a lot less time to playtest due to the fact we also were responsible for designing the next set and building the Naxxramas single player. Today, our whole content design team is much bigger.
Deathlord: Was originally weaker because we hadn’t done anything with an effect like this before. Was 2/6, then eventually up to 2/8. As a balance person, this is one of the cards I was most happy with. It’s difficult to get weird effects like this to a level that ends up being played, but not in a way that people just put in all their decks. Ended up being both a moderate disruption card and an option in aggro heavy metas, but faded out when neither of those things were very relevant.
Mad Scientist: Definitely one of the strongest cards we ever made, but that was something we knew going in. It drove a few new decks and got players to think about putting interesting secrets in their deck like Spellbender or Snake Trap when those cards hadn’t really seen much play. I don’t think Scientist is a good example of a classic or basic card, but as an adventure card that eventually leaves standard I think it did a great job.
Sludge Belcher: Aggressive decks were very powerful in both pre and post-naxx playtesting, so we knew we wanted some solid options to combat that. Druid of the Claw was kind off the gold standard for premium taunt minions back in those days, so we made something that was just a little bit better than that. We liked the gameplay of having a powerful neutral Taunt option so much we went on to create many more like it. Some cards that can thank Sludge Belcher’s example for their power level: Annoy-o-Tron, Stonehill Defender, Tar Creeper, Corpsetaker, Twilight Guardian, Saronite Chain Gang, Rotten Applebaum, Witchwood Grizzly, Zilliax, Bog Creeper, Chillmaw, Primordial Drake, and uh…. Giggling Inventor! Some of those were less powerful than we had planned, some more :).
Voidcaller: A good example of a card I’m glad exists, wouldn’t change, but not a card we would make in present day Hearthstone. I love the bluffing situations it creates where your opponent has to assess the risk of what might be behind the Deathrattle vs the potential reward of destroying the minion before you have a chance to summon your demon. Also love that it drove a more big-demon centric deck. The part of the card that makes it something we probably wouldn’t do today is the huge early-game swings it created and the the ridiculous upside potential of something like Voidcaller -> Voidcaller -> Mal'Ganis. Even though the average outcome was ok, the range of outcomes is just so wide that playing against the best outcomes can feel unfair.
