But he costs 6 mana and you can still kill him with 6 mana (Fireball + Ping). Ironbark Protector was the frightening guy. He lives through Fireball+Ping and you can't even walk past him to attack face.
Overgrowth is an insanely powerful card, but the reason it can cost 4 while Wild Growth costs 3 is because ramp becomes exponentially weaker every single turn. Even getting 1 additional mana crystal on turn 2 is arguably stronger than getting 2 on turn 4 because of how much earlier that advantage can be utilized. There’s plenty of match ups where those ramp decks that want to play solitaire can’t even survive until turn 4. And late game, while Wild Growth used to be an effective 2-mana draw 1, Overgrowth is a 4-mana draw 1.
I agree, but the assesment on the video is also correct, ziliax, while being an incredibly powerful card, is extremely fair. I'd make the same point with shadowstep but in a different fashion. Shadowstep is probably the card that represents rogue and what it does the best, and works as a perfect glue for some amazing decks.
In fact Ice Block got nerfed. They changed the way secrets trigger to allow Freeze mage to die from Fatigue, which, before the nerf, was preventable with Ice Block. So yeah, it got nerf in a way (and it made the amount of Freeze Mage on ladder decrease a lot at that time).
this wasn't a nerf to ice block, it was a change to secrets, so they cannot be activated on your turn. The mechanic got changed, wasn't a direct nerf to ice block
@@Rarran It was specifically changed to disable fatigue activating Ice Block, so it kinda was. Since they can't just nerf the effect, they nerfed the trigger.
Really loving the direction your content has gone. I would really like to see a historical summary of each class. It's foundational cards over the years, most successful and unique decks, and how it fared in various metas or expansions.
Wild player here. Can't believe ice fishing + flurgl + toxfin is still a thing. Almost any shaman deck has that package and when you see an ice fishing, you immediately stop committing to the board since it will be cleared eventually.
Imagine the brokenness of boulderfist ogre with 6/7 stats attach to a 6 drop, while corrupted tickatus is a 6 mana 8/8 that absolutely obliterates enemy’s deck
I've thought about nerfs to Ice Block and the best way to nerf it is to add a damage cap so that big decks can run it over. My proposed nerf: "Secret: When your hero takes fatal damage (unless the damage is 8 or higher), prevent it and become Immune this turn." Does it deserve a nerf? Idk, it's the main reason why Mage is played during combo metas but its also the reason combo Mage decks exist.
I remember back in Boomsday when I played Standard, and iirc Zilliax was actually ran in 60% of all deck builds during that expansion. Plus he was also probably the most crafted legendary of that year. I love Zilliax, but back then he just pissed me off bc I thought no card should be played in over half of ALL meta decks.
Tbh ice block was nerfed when they got rid of "secrets can activate on your turn" Imagine playing old yog (he kept casting even after dieing) with not nerfed ice block, you would have almost 100% chance of winning every single time you played it
Sorry mate, but for at least a quarter of the cards you have no clue. You have to think of the synergy too. For example, Guldan was indeed very strong because of the hero power and the crazy voidlords, but it was nowhere near Andruin's hero. The otk combo, the removal and healing was insane. Also, shadowstep is indeed very strong but if blizzard nerf that too rogue will lose most of its identity.
"Shadow Reaper Anduin" was the reason "Raza, the Unchained" was changed. Given this nerf was cited on another video, inclusion of "Bloodreaver Gul'dan" on this list is understandable. Edit: As for "Shadowstep", other aspects of Rogue's identity (particularly in classic) were changed. For example, "Preparation" reduces next spell by (2) instead of (3). Also, "Shadowstep" is not the only way to represent this core identity, as demonstrated in many of this classes' cards which either return copies, such as "Shadowcaster", or reduce costs of minions played from hand, such as "Scabbs Scutterbutter" (from "Forged in the Barrens").
I think they could have changed the card text of iceblock a little bit. My idea: 'when taking lethal damage become immune and set your health to 1.' Or maybe even: 'when taking lethal damage become immune, at the end of your next turn deal 100 damage to your hero' (or destroy your hero so you could just play 1 ice Block)
Surprised loatheb isn't here. It's still a stable in many wild decks just because how good it can be at closing a game or delaying a turn. Not only that but it remains unchanged since naxxaramas. It's very similar to zilliax with its powerlevel though
Most of those cards weren't nerfed because despite good they were not oppressive and also beacuse often they nerfed other cards that made the decks where they were played weaker and there was no need to hit them too.
Ice block nerfs: Make it not a secret, just an effect like Dun Baldar Bunker etc. also makes it less broken with cloud prince etc. Or make it set your health and armor to 1 when it is popped instead of whatever the health was before getting “killed”
Honorable mention to Patches. He was nerfed, but literally less than a month before he would've rotated anyway, a massive insult I will never forget. Still terrorized the game for 1.9 years and was a factor in the first great exodus of HS right alongside Genn and Baku. Patches really needed to be nerfed a lot earlier.
Always thought they should have nerfed Druid's Spreading Plague. Even just decreasing the health of the taunt minions to 3 or 4 would seem to make it a bit more fair/reasonable, IMHO.
A lot of the very good cards which are not legendary but have hard to nerf effects such as ice block could be nerfed by becoming legendary. A bunch of epics over the years could have been legendaries (and legendaries epic honestly, but that's another can of worms) because of how ridiculous it is to run two of those amazing cards in a deck. I remember playing some combo mages that would just run double ice block, double freeze nova, and double blizzard and just casually tempoing an entire six turns against 40/40 boards of the big and bigger jade men those silly druids would keep summoning for whatever reason. Good times :)
The only card I ever crafted without an immediate need was Dr. Boom because I thought I'll get a refund anyway. But he just got powercrept instead. Still no regets tho.
You could have made this video just about overpowered Druid cards that never got nerfed. Ultimate Infestation? Jade Idol (which I guess was enabled by Ultimate Infestation)? Savage Roar?
Bloodreaver Gul'dan is the worst offender in my opinion. That card has literally no counterplay. It was basicly used as a N'zoth that didn't take up board space, can not be dirty-ratted or counterspelled, gives the class with the best early-game hero power now the best late-game hero-power when used and singlehandedly allows a mid-range deck to outvalue a control deck when played on curve.
Raise Dead was such a powerful card in standard it’s probably a good part of why both Warlock and Priest are currently two of the worst classes in the game without it.
Ez, just change the text of ice block. I think removing the "prevent it" text makes the card much more balanced and makes the card read better for new players
missing Loatheb and Dr 7 in this list, they still see some play in wild even up to this day even though they're really old cards and get overshadowed by powercreep
It’s true that overgrowth was only one mana more than wild growth, but it was still one mana less than the choose one spell:Draw 3 cards or Gain 2 mana crystals(The name eludes me right now). Overgrowth couldn’t be bumped up or it would just be worse than that card and blizzard can’t have it’s new cards be weaker than the basic/classic stuff. Maybe that card should be 6 not 5 and then you make overgrowth 5 mana, but idk.
"Branching Paths" i was really surprised when this card never got nerfed not even a single word of pros... 12 armor, 2 cards, +2 attack .... and x2 if you play Solar Eclipse .... i think this card was broken since the moment i saw it
Great video! I liked how you gave context to cards like the secrets and how they couldn't really be nerfed. It would have been cool to hear your theories on all the cards even if some of them would be beyond explanation. :P Keep up the great content!
I still hate Zephyrs. It's literally just a get out of jail free card. Doesn't matter how well you played up until that point, they play Zephyrs and either even out the odds or become the winning side. Is it a cool card? Yes. Should it have been made in my opinion? No. Should it be nerfed? Absolutely. They should have thought about how damn broken this card would be during coding and reduced its power-level. Just because they don't wanna bother with re-coding the card doesn't mean they get to just ignore how problematic it is. Highlander should give you large rewards for restricting your deck-building but the reward shouldn't be an "I win" card.
Zilliax id perfection. Why would you ever dare to touch him, like the best card to ever use in a deck. A little bit of dmg heal taunt and all that stuff. That wasn't that much powerful but good enough to put in every deck that tried to fight for board
@@joaopedrocruz6432 dude literally 3/2 taunt restore 3 health might serve as a buff. Blizzard literally said they had been watching it couple years ago and said that's fine. Zilliax was perfect. How he was broken lol?
@@antyseba5319 It got played in more than half of the competitive decks at the time, it was literally a check if you had essence to craft it or else your deck wasn't good enough.
Because nerfing cards doesn't give money. Why would they care about balancing the game when even if they didn't do anything people would still waste money? Maybe that's why lately they have been doing changes from time to time, because the ship is sinking and they need to make sure the few peeps still playing keep doing so, even if is mosly because of Battlegrounds, God knows why people would play that but whatever.
I hate to even bring this up because of how trivial it is, but I've noticed you use the word "especially" often, but it always comes out "exspecially" lol. Love the content, though.
Raise dead will probally be never nerf because of priest. Nerfing it will result to nerf a class which is already in the bottom of the barrel more and all of this because people keep asking to nerf good card in priest so they can play thier hyper aggressive deck.
Ok first of all Arbor up got nerf 2 time (yeah it still need more) Also oh my yogg Is kinda weird place I mean rng sometime is good someitme is bad sometime help the enemy so much it may win the game so ih my yogg Is weird place Ice block is either chage effect or delete the card from the game Or at least give 1 per game just like battlegrounds but even with limit 1 turn is a so much help
