Maybe there are not alot of new win conditions, but control players got one of the most valuable resource for them, that they thrive for alot: hand/deck disrutpion.

One of my biggest issues(for YEARS) as a main priest was combo decks: I could find ways to counter aggro no matter how powerful they were, but combo decks like old quest mage or celestial druid were just cutting through my winrate.
The moment I could shine was at Illucia’s release because I finally had a tool to counter them. So cards like Theotar and the new thief legendary priest card will be so much more useful for me than any new win condition.

I think Illucia will give the opponent a 0 mana spell that re-gives your hand. Like this, if you play it in a control/combo deck and use Illucia the opponent will never take his hand back, while in Shadow Priest become useless.
I just hope it’s not some total murder like others said (“Gain a copy of your opponent’s hand until your next turn”). Combo is becoming more and more dominant, control priest suffers hard because of combo’s predominance. The class needs some decent hand-disruption tools or it will be a meme tier 1000 deck forever.

The whole game was based around this. Like yes if it was an “all midrange” game then sure, it was strategic because that means everyone is to equal powerlevel.
But now, after years of new expansions, ther eis no way coming back.
So I don’t see your point. What’s strategic in the game right now? It’s 90 combo decks and 2 aggro farming the combo, very strategic.

How would you balance the game otherwise? Right now it’s a free road for aggro decks –> their only counter is a god-draw shaman/mage; while combo decks just obliterates everything that dares to not play aggro.
The game right now is literally a stone running after the scissors that hidden the paper in the basement so no one can run after the stone.

That’s subjective. There are people that like to play longer matches and healing/removals is the only way you can get to lategame.

Oh, I see. Well I don’t really agree with him since play session among active players shouldn’t be directly considered as “they love the meta right now”. I also play alot now as shadow priest just because I have new decks that I would like to try, but I am pretty unsatisfied with the meta overall. I think a big play session means more that they managed to change alot of decks or even create new ones which gave people a reason to play more, but that doesn’t mean that the meta is better —> if it remains like this, people get bored of this new decks and it might be an even lower play session if they are as unsatisfied as me.
Thanks for the response, didn’t know Iksar said this.

Yes but then how can we know that the majority like it? If the 90% of players don’t talk about the game on social media or forums, then we should not assume that they like it, it should be considered a neutral opinion. All we know about how players see the meta is based on this forums or Reddit. That’s why I see “many players” as over-exagerated.
From all we know, Blizzard should offer all archetypes a place under the sun. That’s how we are sure that, even if one gets frustrated/bored by the game, there is still at least 1 deck for every part of Hearthstone’s community –> so no one is left behind/ignored.
I also like change and I welcome new decks, but when a whole archetype is dead I don’t see it as an upgrade, I see it as a huge flaw since Team 5 was unnable to maintain the stone-paper-scissors situation in order for every community to have fun with the game.

5-8 new people per day*

In what world killing control is healthy for this game? Taking the paper out of stone-paper-scissors is never a healthy move.

The sequence “many players like it the way it is” seems a bit over-exagerated and naive. I didn’t see so many people complaining on Reddit or any HS forums about the current meta since Un’Goro’s quest rogue.
A huge amount of players are very clearly unsatisfied with how the game is right now so “many players like it the way it is” just came out of no where. I’ve seen 2 people saying that they love this game more now + some pro players while we see minimum 5-8 new people complaining about meta.

Also you make priest in lower ranks*

Renew to 2 mana makes completely nothing. You can still do scorpid->palm reading->renew shenanigans.
Also you make priest is lwoer ranks even weaker by making the card to cost 2. That’s a bad nerf. Just make it “Discover a spell from your deck”. The card still remains a good 1 card tutor for priest like Power Word : Shield was, and at the same time you can’t find 7 soul mirrors.

Thanks for the post, it showed the priest history pretty well! 🙂
I’m an only-priest-player since 2016 and I agree random generation got crazy in standard. I play only wild, mostly shadowreaper, and it’s much better to actually have a win condition than stale to fatigue which is so unreliant and it won’t be ever possible to get to tier 1-high tier 2 with such a playstyle.
Generation is not a problem. It can actually be fun to some extent, but it should not be so much that the whole deck is based on it.
This problem was discussed dozens of times on Hearthstone forums and every time people get to the same conclusion : priest lacks a win condition! I can’t understand why is it so hard to give priest a way to deal damage, to give him a combo. Any control deck from the past had a win condition: mage had Alextrasza stuff, warlock the DK, priest the DK.
About Illucia, I think it’s better to just agree to disagree. Illucia punishes combo decks the same way combo punishes anything that dares to not kill them until turn 5. Without Illucia, priest remains in tier 3(or even worse) no matter what you give the class, because combo decks block it there withotu any chance to escape. There has to be a counter to that, without a counter it’s just too polarizing.

The card is basically 0 mana draw 2 but with the condition that you are at 4. This is not balanced, it’s a similar thing Secret Passage does and all this type of things shouldn’t exist. It was enough that druid is able to get at 10 mana in like, turn 4. Drawing so much for such a cheap price just make combo finish their stuff even before turn 10 and that’s not healthy for the game at all. In wild Mozaki mage is able to finish the combo sometimes even in turn 5 and that 4 mana draw 2 is a big reason why this happends.

Yeah dude… good luck drawing this AND activating it in turn 8 before quest mage actually finished his combo.

This is very good and it was a MUST in this game. This card has the potential to change the archetypes so much.
The only matches that are 90-95% won by the other part is control vs combo. How is this fair? In Control vs aggro is 50-50(maybe slightly better for control depending of how many anti-aggro cards he uses).
With this card, we don’t have to say that we MUST have hyper-aggro to hold the combo players back. Now control players has a chance to win against combo. This is amazing on so many levels.

The idea is that, as priest, most of the time your hand is full of clearboards or random Galakrond minions(you don’t really have a combo, priest could lose any card in his hand maybe except plague of death that you can just not have in hand and is fine). In my opinion is WAAAY stronger to destroy any plan the enemy has than you losing a basic clearboard from hand.
Against aggro yes, they can see your hand also BUT you get closer with a round to late game, the first 4-5 rounds are CRUCIAL in aggro vs. control matches. Also there are few ways to play around clearboards, your minions has specific stats that you can’t change so you can’t really save yourself from Mass Hysteria or Dragonfire Potion no matter what you do. Yes, you can just not play all your amunition and hold something, but hey, a good aggro player already would do that he doesn’t need to know your hand for that.
Against control is meh(depending of what you are against?), but I suppose is hand to take a card that counter your strongest enemies even if it’s bad against control that was already 50-50.

This is just a bad C’Thun. In the C’Thun meta everyone hold a card to kill him when he’s played on the board. At least C’Thun could trigger his battlecry, this guy will just die right after he awakes in 90% of the times.
But is a counter to Raza and Kazakus, so for sure it’ll have it’s place in alot of decks.

It’s good in any control deck. It helps you in early, it’s 2 mana 2/3(not bad stats). It also helps the priest quest. And the new armor-syngery warrior spells.

Yes.