+Flimpeen Flarmpoon If it was in a fat warrior, I could see people using it, some warriors get up to 90 total HP armor and are like "Yea, I can afford that."
+Kalahatze Sounds like a more fair version of the Exodia desk in yugioh. Use spell after spell to draw your deck out in a single turn to get the 5 cards to make Exodia and win the game. 0 drop 30/30, discard your deck and hand would still allow the other player a single turn to counter the 30/30 minion. I mean just to make sure that 0 drop 30/30 would beat the other player in a single attack make his effect "If you attack a player directly with this card that player is destroyed."
+Mathmachine gj, man! You presented us with your mentality... now go ruin this strategy game, because blizzard is blowing you in the ass. Stupidity sells, blizzard got it!
+Dee Gurz actually IT IS why they work. When minions damage your face, and then another minion when they trade, those minions are doing twice his damage. This is countered by Taunt, buy the 2x1 on damage per minion is a big thing, that's why charge is a very powerful skill. Coupled with the efficiency per mana as Kripp said, there you go. You have a winning formula. Most people don't understand these 2 concepts but everyone knows aggro is a thing on HS, just because how the game is designed. Cheers.
The reason why low drop cards are "over-stated" is because scaling stats/effects is extremely powerful, which is why instead you add +1/+1 for each mana cost you go up rather than multiply (2 mana 2/3, 3 mana 3/4, 4 mana 4/5). If we used the multiply scaling method (based on 1 drops for example) 3 cost cards would be 6/3s or 3/6s, 5 cost cards would be 10/5s or 5/10s. 7 drops would be 14/7s or 7/14s, etc. If this were the case, nobody would play any 1 drops, or any early game for that matter. If anything, the fact that early game is "over-stated" shows that high cost cards are inherently better, so they have to over-stat the early game to balance the two.
Lmao it is not that hard to get these comments up. Just know Kripp's video schedule, update youtube page until you see his new videos, find the point where the gameplay is (or the end of a discussion video), note the timestamp down and comment it.
Drawing a card on average is worth 1.5 crystals, offset the curve and it makes sense. The reason aggro is common on ladder is because the games are faster, 55% winrate on 100 games climbs more than 70% winrate on 30 games
+LostTime19 (Not taking into account win-streak bonuses) 55% win-rate on 100 games should push you up by 10 stars, whereas 70% win-rate on 30 games should push you up 12 stars. To be more accurate, 65% rather than 70%
+LostTime19 drawing a card is definitely not worth 1.5 mana crystals, especially in aggro decks where card draw is almost meaningless until turn 6 or 7
KRIPP, BE OUR SAVIOR BRING BACK THE SORRY EMOTE, YOU ARE THE VOICE TO BLIZZARD You don't understand the feeling of BM'ing with warlock, it's the "wow" emote no longer brings joy to me, it doesn't wow me, it makes me feel sorry for blizzard, which we dont have the emote for. #sorryblizzard
+Tank Buster Only it costs 10 mana which means you are dead by that time,leading to meta where rush decks surrender by turn 9 if they didn't win already. Well, that could actually be fun. When you pick aggro deck you go ''I will win before turn 9 or I will concede.'' xD
+Rags_2_Bitches No it was actually pretty good. It explains how efficient each card is for the currency cost, and Kripp does cover that the currency cost isn't the only resource cost.
graog123 shouldnt he be adding one point of damage and health for each mana cost instead of multiplying it? just the way he was explaining it was very confusing
+Rags_2_Bitches Nope. He did it correctly. You can drop two 1-drop minions with 2 mana (four 1-drop with 4 mana...). The reason why higher cost cards doesnt scalate in a multiplication rate is because they are a single card (and so would be unbalanced having so much value in a single card). And thats exactly the point of the video: to show how low cost minions have a high value in proportion of stats x cost (and so making aggro something possible).
Just "being a card" already gives stats to a minion. For example the 0-drop 1/1 Murloc, or the 0/2-taunt. Just for being a card, with 0-mana cost, they are worth some stats. So when comparing the Undercity Valiant with the Fire Elemental, That 1/1 from 0-drop must be taken in account. Therefore, the 3/2 - 1/1 = 2/1 for a 2-mana. That number x3 = 6/3. Then, adding back the 1/1 and you would get 7/4, which is -1/+1 off from Fire Elemental, while the summed number of the stats is maintained.
+SpartanNR1 Yeah, but he underplayed the importance of card resources. Nearly any board clear destroys many of the decks he's referring to. I think the main reason Agro decks are big on ladder is because they tend to work well with mostly common cards. If they play epics and legendaries, they tend to be interchangeable with other cards. Since more people can afford such decks, you see more of them. And that explains why you don't see them as much in tournament, either. Tournament players tend to have access to all the cards, so they don't need to play agro decks to be competitive. I'm torn on the whole "win faster" argument. I cannot deny that winning with a very slow deck can sometimes be frustrating if your goal is to level up or complete daily quests, but I still think the primary reason is the inexpensiveness of the decks.
Kripp I think that isn't the right way of calculating the stats. Probably the right maths for a regular minion are: Attack: 1 x Mana cost Health: (1 x Mana cost)+1 Or put the plus 1 in the attack So the stats for regular drops based on mana cost are: 1 Mana: 1/2 or 2/1 2 Mana: 2/3 or 3/2 3 Mana: 3/4 or 4/3 4 Mana: 4/5 or 5/4 5 Mana: 5/6 or 6/5 6 Mana: 6/7 or 7/6 ... Imagine you play a 2 mana cost and 1 mana cost drop in turn 3, the overall stats would be 3/5- 5/3- 4/4- It's seems that the op stat is the flat plus 1 in health or attack, that gives you a regular 3 drop with +1 stat in health or attack, but the disadvantage is that you'll eventually run out of cards faster. Overall the only overpowered thing about the 1 or 2 drops are that they're regular drops and also they have battlecries/deathrattles .
And Dr. Boom was just a 2 1/1s that dealt 2-8 damage as a deathrattle. Just because you have the answer once doesn't mean it isn't broken. Because every time you don't have that answer is a game you've lost.
+ZeroNumerous nah, hearthstone is full of answers.. and each class has several. Like even a half answer is tremendous.. like just a rouge sap.. if its played on curve its a 4 mana skip your turn overload 2. And now you have a 6 mana tempo lead. The imbalance lies in arena where we're less likely to have answers.
So many people are missing the argument and stating "that's not how it works" when Kripp already addressed that the cost of a card is relevant to pricing. FailFish
+Andrey Chetvertakov i am f2p and i have packed over 20 legends. but since cards so expensive i just disenchant anything im not using in the one deck. i dont even own expansions but my CW got to rank 3
I think the only way to balance agro decks would be to give the characters say 40 HP. I doubt it would affect any other type of deck. Sure the games would be slightly longer, but would mean the agro decks would require a bit more substance to reach the win.
+Rob GG (BlackLoxs) Sometimes one turn more is all you need to stabilize, heal up, taunt up, etc. Why do you think Loatheb was so good? He stalled a lot of spells and combos, therefore buying you a turn to counter your opponent.
I don't get why he keeps talking about multiplying stats. you should add 1/1 per extra mana crystal. you said an 8 mana 8/10 is pretty average for 8 drops yet I see none with those stats. 6/10, sure, but most don't even make an 8/8 statline.
+MrShukaku1991 1/1 stats is not worth 1 mana crystal. Maybe .5 a mana crystal at best. Also depends how high the mana is, because 1/1 in stats is worth much less on higher mana minions. When he says average, he means 8/10 is average stats for a playable 8 drop. Even if no minion has these stats, based on the quality of minions in the game, an 8 drop with 8/10 would be an average minion. This applies to a lot of stuff in Hearthstone, things costing more mana then they are worth, and not being worth the mana cost. It is how the meta is formed, we see which cards are the most efficient for their mana cost and judge other cards based on that
+MrShukaku1991 He keeps talking about multiplying stats because the argument is that you're getting way more stats and effects per mana crystal by playing multiple low cost minions than by playing high cost minions (ignoring card advantage). High cost minions provide more stats per card, but Kripp is arguing that card advantage is irrelevant in aggro deck matches. This is true if they can end the game before they run out of cards in hand, which they often will because of the mana efficiency of early drops.
Card advantage is also important for having options in response to specific situations. It's also about consistency, not only having more stuff to play. What I'm missing most in Hearthstone is a ladder system that has best-of-3 and side-boarding in order to make each play more tactical. The way it is right now, it depends too much on luck. The match-up as well as the opening-hand / draws.
your point is valid, but by this logic wisp is the most OP card in the game because for 0 mana you get a 1/1, when this is scaled up to 1 mana you get a infinity/infinity
I was getting upset at how many aggro decks were crushing my Yogg Sar'Zoth Rouge so i scrapped it all and literally just put in a bunch of 1 and 2 drops with some
LoLAimAtMe Well, because of his potential. I believe that most people play him wrong, if you know you CAN win the game without playing him, DON'T PLAY HIM. The rouge deck I made was rarely ever burdened by having that extra high mana cost card in it. While it did happen, more times than I would have liked, I found him to be an amazing addition to my N'Zoth deck. Right now I've won 93/148 (roughly 63%) of my games with this deck, varying only slightly throughout I can promise you that he has won me MANY game and lost me very very few. In fact, I don't even recall him EVER losing me a single game that I wasn't already about to lose. Any game that he killed me was a last ditch attempt to come back anyways.
deal 2 damage summon a 2/2 would be a 3 drop deal 4 damage summon a 4/4 would be a 6 or 7 drop the problem with multiplying by one is that you get a obvious bias.
I think there is also something to say about the dust cost of aggro decks. Control decks are so much more expensive, which makes it really hard for casual players who want to stay more or less f2p to actually get to play anything else than aggro. Anyways, great vid!
On EU-Servers decks tend to be a little bit more midrange and control heavy. I don't really encounter many of these Zoo decks. Not to say the do not exist.. There are soooo many out there playing such flood-decks.
+TobiPlayHD Not really, I mean, depends on whats the last trend. Europe (where I mainly play) tend to netdeck a lot and copy decks from streamers more than in NA (as far I saw, wich is obviously a very small number of matches considering how many people play this game). Two months ago zoo was like secret pally the previous month, and so on.
I used On The Hunt recently and usually got it turn 1. It would survive 3-5 turns causing that much more damage and mostly won me the game. It may be luck, but turn one On The Hunt in arena is pretty effective.
+David P. Lopez I have my doubts about 40 hp killing agro, but it would make it a lot less 1 sided and gives time for the control deck to have a chance to control the game. Most times the control deck just doesn't get the cards they need, or once they are finally able to start they lose due to direct damage or something. Maybe all direct damage effects need to be at an even higher mana cost of at least 4 mana. But then that would truly kill agro. But honestly, i wouldn't be sad if agro just died it's a cancerous play-style that ruins a lot of the strategy in this game. Agro pretty much counters everything and has no real counter. That's the problem right now, so we need to create a counter if we can't do it in card form then we need to look at other means. Health just so happens to be the first and easiest method. I vote for increased health to give us a chance to actually play the game. It would open up a lot more decks and would change the way the game is played a lot. It's really a cool idea and it's interesting with all the possibilities. Only other way is reblancing the stat distribution of all 1~3 drop cards to bring them more inline with the heavier cards stat wise. But it would effectively do the same thing as increasing the hp pool of as champs. So again the health is the best option out of all the current options. The flaw is the whole system at work here, it every step of the way promotes agro. Even if you gave control the best answers possible agro could still run them down. Because they kill you so much faster than you have to drop the answers to deal with them. Agro vs control is 100% down to rng on control's side. Even if there was a 0 mana card that wiped all 1~3 drop minions agro would still be insanely strong because you would need to draw one of them within like 5 turns.
Kripp, I was playing your Paladin Murloc Apocalypse deck today at around level 18. After I beat the guy I was playing he friended me just so that he could tell me how much my deck sucked and that he hoped I had a good time trying to ladder up with it. He then unfriended me and went on about his business. I have to say the deck, for me, is hovering around a 50% win rate, but I imagine that has a lot to do with the knucklehead behind the deck not the deck itself.
Pretty sure you can't just multiply the effects by the mana cost. lmao. That's not how it works. Even if you go up to 10 mana, there are only like 3 cards that have +5 to anything. And that's insane.
+Chris Legaspi I agree but Kripp is arguing that Aggro decks can afford themselves too much board control by rushing out tons of weenies. Hence why he states that aggro decks usually trump midrange decks by taking the board early.
+Chris Legaspi Yes and no. Technically speaking, since you can have the same card in the deck twice, you can play two of the same 2 mana cards on turn 4. Which can be like multiplying by 2, depending on the effect the card has. And since that is so effective at the 1 and 2 cost, and since there are so many good cards at those mana costs, it's entirely possible to simply fill the deck with mostly cheap cards and flood the board with cards that are powerful relative to cost. If your opponent can't deal with the flood of minions, the chances of making a comeback are slim.
I think a bigger problem is that on top of these overstated 1 and 2-drops there's so many cards that reward you and snowball when you play loads of cheap minions. Knife juggler and Darkshire Councilman comes to mind.
can you make one of these videos for what makes Control and combo decks work so that new players can get an idea of what to look for if they want to build one of those deck types?
i may be a math moron, but i dont get it how multiplying a minion's stats by 2 is an accurate example to the relative strength of minions of different cost.
+Isaia Costa I may be a social moron, but I dont get it how can there be so many comments missing completely the point of the video. Also @superbob24 is right and krip fking acknowledged the bad logic
+Isaia Costa I don't get it either. The mana to stat distribution baseline has always been 1/1 for each mana, plus or minus attack/health depending on ability. Don't see why that is a bad baseline. Problem is smaller minions flooding with high attack and being able to do so much damage quickly. Not really fair when board clears ain't great
I don't think this is how we should understand mana costs. I've always seen mana and stats as: stats = 2m+1 where m is the mana cost. Variations come about when cards have effects. A good effect will have a minion's stats reduced for its mana cost, and vice-versa (hence flame imp having high stats because of its drawback). There's also, as you mentioned, the fact that playing 2 cards instead of 1 with double the mana and double the stats means that you have one less card to put into your deck. Card cost isn't mana cost, but it's still a cost.
Got tempo-locked once with fairy dragon (no non-targeted board clear on start), and also with divine shield. Now I have some additional cards like the new fire mage that does 1 damage to enemy minions. On start I also played taunt + board clear spells and having stronger and stronger taunt each turn quickly eats many low mana cards... at least it can.
The main problem cards are the ones with cumulative effects. Mana wyrm, tunnel trogg, flamewaker, knife juggler, darkshire councilman and grim patron. These cards are WAY too undercosted for the strength of their effect. Tunnel Trogg and Mana Wyrm as 2 mana 2/3s. Flamewaker as a 4 mana 3/4, knife juggler as a 3 mana 3/2, darkshire councilman as a 4 mana 2/5. Just coming 1 turn later would make them far less cancerous, but they would still be played because they gain value multiple times per turn. And that is disgusting.
One thing to keep in mind is that agro decks almost NEVER have a bad draw due to the low mana cost of their deck. On the other hand control decks can quite often lose on turn 1 with a terrible draw. before the game even starts the control deck is PUNISHED for simply playing high cost minions or spells. For this reason alone why bother playing control when it is only a handicap?
Kripp clearly doesn't understand what is card advantage and didn't understand that if you combine two cards togheter then you get something broken. Also didn't understand that card slot is a resource - if i want to have 2 cards 1 mana 1/3 i need 2 cards slots. It's unfair if you have one card 2 mana 2/6 on some many levels. Agro decks pay a price for cheap minions and struggle from card advantage and board clears, but Kripp seems to not see that. (sorry for my english)
Ever since GvG, one of my favorite decks has been Fatigue Druid. It wasn't powerful, but one of the things that made it half decent was the way it invalidated so much of the opponent's deck. All their removal is useless because you have no threats. All their card draw is useless because you want them to draw. From the start of the game to the end, your opponent is playing with fewer cards. I've come to realize this is what makes aggro strong as well. Because your typical aggro deck works so quickly, it effectively makes it so any card costing more than 8 mana is unplayable. Much like how Fatigue Druid renders card draw useless, aggro renders slow minions useless. The result is that you have to build your deck around them, while they almost never have to build their deck around you.
The math is irrelevant. By the same coin if you reverse it, all one drops would be 1/1 with no effect and if it had an effect it would be a 0/1. The entire point is that the math isn't intended to be multiplicative, it is supposed to be linear.
+Randy “Macho Man” Savage But aggro decks run Abusive instead of Dark Iron exactly because through turns 1-4 you explode on the board multiplicatively, not linearly.
+Randy „Macho Man“ Savage Yeah, he obviously mention the card advantage factor, but the power level of those cards is just too big. And even if we consider the power level correct, we have no boardclears efficient enough to deal with that. Look at MTG: Wrath of god or Damnation are 4 mana cards and they wipe the entire board. 4 MANA! And that is the game where players can't just go face, defending player choose which minions to trade, and not other way around. So yea, hearthstone feels like game made for face hunter (in past) / aggro shaman (now) trash. The other decks and classes are just there for them to beat.
DildoRomance Magic and HS are different planets. Magic has 20+ years on HS. Aggro is powerful right now but it isn't way out of balance. For instance aggro lock has the flaws of just being unable to deal with massive shit, specifically big taunts like Dark Arakkoa and in general a giant minion will be able last at least a single turn on the board and be able to clean up the lock who has invested half his health into getting ahead on the board. I'm perfectly ok with admitting that lock and pally are matching up very well with nearly every class right now but they can still be stalled out by priest, which very popular atm and if C'thun is played it is just gg for lock. I would rather face aggro than play more control warrior and freeze mages.
You have to add approximately 1 mana to every card in order to account for the value of card draw. This is why Wisp, for instance, is a bad card at 0 mana, because it's essentially a 1 mana 1/1. If you had infinite card draw then 1 mana drops would be absolutely broken. But since you don't, they are priced correctly.
I know MtG and Hearthstone are different because of things like how combat works (blocking and things like flying, first strike, etc.), but I always thought it was crazy that Magic's average 2 drop is a 2/1 while Hearthstone is a 2/3 or 3/2. Yes, you have more health in Hearthstone, but when it's not your turn, you are powerless to defend (can't assign blocking) unless you have a taunt, but taunt minions are usually weaker per mana than minions with more aggressive stats, and of course, the attacker also gets to choose how they trade into it. And of course, I understand that creatures in Magic heal back to full if they don't die in a turn, but it's also usually harder to clear your opponent's board with just spells. Anyway, I know they are different games, but it's still important to compare because 1 drops are pretty insane, and that's why Zoo and Aggro Paladin can afford to run so many cheap cards (lifetap and Divine Favor). I'm mostly a control player, but my first time getting to legend was actually through Aggro Paladin (season 23 when secret paladin and combo druids were dominating the ladder). I really doubt Blizzard is going to change this anytime soon because they'd have to rebalance too much of the Classic set. Maybe if they slightly increased the starting health of heroes, but we've all heard that one before. Well, great video Kripp! It really made me think, and it gave me a better understanding and appreciation for how these decks work.
+Albert Chung The average 2 drop in magic for standard is a 2/2 with one or more abilities.....and that also accounts for their sets planning around multiple formats.
In the first packs I got from the old gods, there was both possessed villager, so I figured, why not make a warlock deck; ended up as a full-cancer, 8 1-cost cards, 10 2-cost cards or something deck; that did exactly this; vomit hand, drop 1-drop turn one, 2-drop or 2 1-drops turn two etc. Easiest games of my life. And the deck wasn't even good! Really got me to appreciate aggro decks. That, alongside playing arena, and realizing just how easy is it to basically draft the lowest-cost card you get offered, and just ROFLstomp > half of the games and profit.
Could this be solved by increasing the starting 30 health points? Or perhaps to balance the game more, you could keep classes like Warlock at 30 health and increase some of the others. It might make sense (in terms of the warcraft classes in WoW) to have lower health points for the mage, warlock, shaman type classes and increase the health of warriors, druids, etc.
Funny enough, priest and warlock are both capable of, and known for, having higher health pools than most other classes due to their high stamina, and stamina buffing spells
Since nerfing all 1/2 mana cost cards would create chaos, I think a good solution would be reducing the maximum number of minions you can put on the battlefield or setting the hero hp to more than 30
+Ysera PhD I would prefer anti'aggro tools that were not strictly AoE spells. Zombie Chow was great, and more cards like stampeding kodo but with reasonable mana cost. For AoE there was a great opportunity with the new priest spell Shadow Word: Horror. It could instead be "Kill all minions that cost 2 mana or less" or some such.
+David Cox except for the fact that it wasn't weak against control, it would force awkward trades and can force summon some seriously important minions winning you the game if you were also playing control
Yep, it all boils down to value vs tempo. Value is about efficient use of cards, tempo is about efficient use of mana. Since early game you have cards but only little mana, aggro decks are all about tempo, while control decks are about value. Most cards lean more toward one or the other, usually cheap cards are tempo oriented (ex: sap) and expensive cards are value oriented (ex: Blade of C'Thun. The really broken cards are the ones that do both at the same time (ex: the old Big Game Hunter)
The calculations don't go quite like that, since the card cost also gives some stats. Like 0 mana gives you 1/1, so you need to take that off from calculations when comparing different mana costs. Also special abilities don't just randomly multiply on higher cost cards, but would cost more points.
1 mana doesn't equal double stats. It equals exactly 2 stats. 1 drop has enough stats to be worth a card, then every mana above that adds two stats. Of course blizzard doesn't actually balance cards, so there's a lot of exceptions. If board clears are powerful, then single big minions will be used and a control meta forms. If board clears are weak/non existent, as it is so, then multiple small minions will be used and an aggro meta forms.
See, Kripp, it would all depend on whether the average power of things done in each turn grew aritmetically or exponentially. I cant answer that, but its an interesting point to consider.
1 drops also have the highest ratio of stats to their cost, and on top of that they often have pretty good effects . Divine shield also should never be on a 1 drop or as a result of a deathrattle because of cards like abusive the squire can then trade with any 2 drop and gain tempo with a 2/1 body on the board.
I feel you miss the point there. 1 mana can give you around 3 stats, and 6 mana around 13 stats. If you reach turn six the enemy will need to draw 4 cards to have an equivalent power and that’s no easy. I think that you got a bad day, because for the mana cost the most efficient card is the 1/1 for 0, and usually you will say that this card is absolute crap. I think most part of the problem is not abut the cost/efficiency, I think other factors are more important: -Some buffs targeting all creatures with a +1/+1 or similar are broken. -Blizard nerfs the AOE damage (rip blade flurry). -RNG some times punishes a balanced deck not allowing him to play anything until turn 4, so the player with the deck more focused in lower mana costs insta-wins. -The second player starting shouldn’t be able to mulligan an additional card (you draw one more but you pick it as it comes), this additional card and the coin is to much advantage for aggro decks with an explosive start.
I think there is a copole of key card in each of the 3 agro class that broke the current meta. -Darkshire Councilmen : His base stat are amazing(5 def!) and his effect is just plain broken. Almost impossible to remove on curve because of his def. - Steward of Darkshire : Turn all your crappy minion into minion impossible to kill. Those card are awsome because turn all your other crapy minion into something much more usefull.
are you making a video for the concept of control decks? i did well with shaman, brought me up to 14 and then next day dropped back to 20. is there a formula that makes control more consecutive?
The real problem is that the little hp you can have is one, that means that you cant lower that stat further, even when the effect is so crazy that it should be 0 (like 0 dmg). Thats why Leper gnome was 2/1 deal 2 dmg, when it should always have been 2 points distributed , according to the 1 mana = 1+/1+, but they wanted it to be aggressive, so they made it 2 dmg, but it has 3 stat points for 3 mana, and still the effect, thats OP, as so , many cards like that were nerfed, and some that never see play (like the 2/1 sorcecer that buff hp like the imp) didnt .
If card draw is worth about 1.5 mana, then every 1 drop effectively costs 2.5 mana, but you gain 1.5 mana's worth of cards every turn and retain a pool of between 1.5 and 15 mana's worth of cards in your hand, so the real question is how quickly you can afford to empty the pool and how readily you can refill it. At least that's one way of looking at it. It should be noted that having a lot of cards is useful not just because of how quickly you empty your hand, but also because of flexibility. If I need my hex now, it's better to have it in my hand than to have it in my deck.
+The Real MVP Basically, you look at the cards that have card draw, and think about how you feel about them. Would I play that card? How good would it be for one less mana? How many stat points would it need to be playable, and what is the mana cost of a stat point in the set of playable cards without card text? How much am I willing to pay to draw a card in this game? The value of card draw, and, in a sense, the value of a card in your hand is that amount, the amount you're willing to pay to draw another card. Alternatively, on the supply side, the price of card draw is what Blizzard makes you pay for it. If the value of card draw is greater than the price, then cards with card draw get played. The conventional wisdom (Trump for one has given this analysis) is that that a stat point costs about 0.5 mana, and gnomish suggests that Blizzard prices card draw at about 1.5 mana, because it has 3 fewer stat points than yeti. Also, yeti and gnomish are both considered almost playable (or playable in newbie decks for those with not enough actually good cards), which suggests the value is close to 1.5. Azure Drake also comes into the discussion, making it into the actually playable category, at one mana above yeti, with one less stat point, which would give the same price of 1.5 mana, except for the upside of +1 spell power, which is usually considered to not be worth less than a stat (since cards that spend stat points for spell power rarely see play). Gnomish sees some actual play in combo decks from time to time, if they're desperate for card draw, meaning the value of draw is perhaps above that 1.5 mana price for certain combo decks. There are probably a lot of things other than the price of stats that affect the price you're willing to pay to draw a card...decks that only need to play one card per turn to keep up will not care about card draw, since their hand is naturally replenished, while decks that want to combine effects and play multiple cards on the same turn will need it, and more so if slower decks have efficient answers to their questions. If control decks need specific answers in hand to what the opponent plays, some early draw becomes important as well.