I would love to see the top 20 cards list based on your analysis and factors considered (utility, difficulty, etc). I think such a list would be very useful for players considering deck building, although I guess it is an insanely difficult job with all the crazy cards they printed with all the effects that could be very hard to give a score to.

This seems to be more complex than it should've been. I did some mathematics reverse engineering on Hearthstone's design frameworks in the very early seasons of the game (I believe it was still around year 3), and this was my result: 1. 1 mana = 1 damage deal or 1/1 worth of body or 2 heal / armor 2. 1 card drawn / generated = 2 mana 3. Each spell card has an "innate body cost / card slot" of 1 mana. That means if the card is a spell, then upon cast it would disappear, thus any conceptual manacost it has for the effect has to be cut down by 1. For example: Arcane Intellect draws you 2 cards, which is worth 4 mana, but due to the "body cost" it gets reduced to 3 mana. This applies the same for all drawing / card generating spells up to year 3. For the same reason, a classic 3 damage targeting spell would cost 3 mana of worth, but then get reduced to 2 due to this inherent body cost. For certain classes like Mage, specifically, some of their spells were also artificially increased in power level just to evoke the value scale of what they are trying to do (Mage should deal more damage, Paladin should have better buffs and AoE). Pay attention that minions tend to stay on the board until killed, so they don't have this inherent cost. This also explains why 0 mana 1/1 minions aren't infinite value because they are essentially just 1 damage spell waiting to be pinged off the board at anytime instead of a minion with actual trading capacity. 4. Any minion without an effect (vanilla) should only be able to be killed with a single targeting damaging spell of equal mana. Thus means all vanilla X mana for X/X minions have an additional 1 Health to match up with math. This also makes the scale slightly imbalanced toward health-based, which incentivizes more midrange trading and leaving bodies on the board instead of everything trading perfectly. This also explains why class-specific 1 mana 1/3s were freaking menace to the game. They were overpowered by designed. 5. All AoE damaging spells would have costs equal to the amount of damage as if they would hit 3 minions or remove 3 minions worth of mana off the board with that damage. For example, Arcane Explosion would have worth of 3 mana (down to 2 mana for printed cost) since it was expected to hit 3 minions, dealing 3 damage. For Consecration, this obviously makes it overpowered since killing 3 2 Health minions which is worth 6 mana, would make the printed cost to be 5, but it has 4 mana for cost (and it also hit the face to boot). Flamestrike is also in the same case, being overpowered because of it is what the class it belongs to - Mage - is supposed to be good at. (This doesn't put into consideration that more expensive cards would have innate tempo cost, but I believe it's an oversight before the game truly got powercreeped out of hand). 6. Hero powers cost 2 mana because they are essentially a 1 mana worth spell with no body cost and is available at anytime, so they have a +1 manacost penalty for that. In case of Warlock, since drawing 1 card is already worth 2 mana and you cannot split that in half, Warlock's hero power thus have to take a 1 mana penalty of 2 damage (or -2 heal). 7. Any additional effects, depending on how drastically it can shift the potency of the card (which I would call "utility effect"), will knock the real value worth of a card by 0.5-1.5 mana. Such as freezing, being able / not able to hit face, RNG, activating conditions, etc etc. Most classic Warlock cards are subjected to negative effects like this, while most classic Mage cards are given bonuses or slightly beneficial RNG version to justify their costs. For example Arcane Missiles deals 3 damag which should be worth 3 mana and thus cost 2, but it gets 1 more mana discount because of the RNG slapped on it. This is probably where the math gets very shaky, and also the source of powercreeping effects. It would take a big article to discuss how classic hearthstone decides these things, but I will put it down on this note fore now. Again, in the modern landscape of the game, the math you guys came up with is probably more accurate. But classic Hearthstone was much simpler, and was designed with some asymetrical holes in mind to make classes distinct and fun to play with, so it was probably based on very rudimentary, almost boardgame-like set of rules and then tested out heavily to see what felt right. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far into this long comment lmao

@Begeru

Жыл бұрын

1 mana 1/3 should not exist at all imo except for special circumstances. It’s so overstatted it’s like making 2 mana 2/4 or 3 mana 3/5 the norm.

I like how all of the 2-mana Hero Powers are effectively 0-mana effects, but since they don't spend a card to use them they're like 0-mana effects bundled with 'Draw a card,' which is roughly worth 2-mana. e.g. The Mage's Fireblast is Moonlight with 'Draw a card' (or Shiv). The Paladin's Reinforce is Wisp with 'Draw a card' (or Novice Engineer). The other 2-mana Hero Powers would make sense as either 0-mana cards or 2-mana cards with 'Draw a card.'

@danilkinilya1242

Жыл бұрын

That's right and wrong at the same time. Your logic is perfectly fine, but I want to disagree with Bot Mathematician, because each deck has average utility value. This means, that utility value of card draw is not a flat value, but depends on the value of card drawn. That means, that the power level of hero power and draw effect would be equal only if your average deck utility value is equal to the generated (or "drawn") card, but even pure vanilla deck has higher average utility value than the generated card. So, in most cases, hero power is intentionally weaker than card draw+card effect, just because your deck's average value is higher and the value of basic hero power stays the same, except for Warlock hero power. Also, that's why Warlock's hero power has a significant downside of losing 2 health, because it's the only hero power, which utility value changes with the utility value of the deck. ---- Note, that I'm not talking about the synergies, but the flat utility value.

Solution is to have both. Just what I really want since years to happen with the wild format. I only play wild because I simply don't want to lose the card I've bought with my money or gold/time. 1.) Do balance changes way more regularly. For example, kill secret mage completely for a period of time so other decks can thrive. Then in the next period make other changes so not the same decks rule the meta for years, it's ridiculous. 2.) OR delete wild as it is now, and make a format where you can use cards from few given expansions. It doesn't mean that the expansions have to be chronologically next to each other (since then it would just simulate a standard meta from the past) I would put expansions together in a "cycle" that have similar flavour/cards. A very basic example: GvG and Boomsday Project. Both have mechs. Obviously more sets would be involved, not just one aspect would be emphasized, more synergies would exist too. There could be even more creative format ideas but these are the ones that I always have in mind. One is significantly easier than the other, still I would love to see them take the hard job and make the second point a thing.

@GaussianEntity

Жыл бұрын

1 won't happen the way you think. Right beneath the decks you don't like are decks that you'll hate even more that are kept in check by the stronger decks. 2 ignores the portion of the Wild community that embrace the power level. Minus a few outliers, the format is much better than it has been for years. Most players just want Renathal and Theotar back to combat the aggro and combo decks really. Rotating format on its own would be fine though.

@bryanxo2489

Жыл бұрын

only things I can see happening is adding additional expansion times to the already existing classic queue

the important thing to note here, is that many classic cards serve only as a baseline and were very much intended that way. The only complex nuance to estimating value is card generation (discover, astalor, copy, add to hand etc) which obviously can be play tested but is tricky to pick out

This video can be used as an understanding of dissectionating the process of balance, really cool!

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much:]

" '1 mana spell :draw one' is useless." Me , playing mainly otk deck with 70% of my deck being card draw including novice engigner : Give me that spell right now. I need more cycling !

I think is insane that you have always put the propper subtitles in your videos, thanks :D

I have a question to make , on 2:43 when you compared the lost tallrider with the chillwind yeti and claim that the nominal value of the bird to be lower than the yeti cup, however should the beast tag of the bird be taken into consideration as there are many ways where the tribe tag is beneficial in hearthstone due to the synergy of cards

@GaussianEntity

Жыл бұрын

The thing is that their system ignores this thing in favor of simplicity. The problem though is that many of these vanilla cards only saw play because of card synergies (Yeti + Innervate, Croc + Houndmaster).

We have a 6 mana spell that does 3 damage to all enemies, albeit in a roundabout way: Impfestation.

With stacked value and widely available card draw comes an other disadvantage. Because a card as a resource has lower value despite it having a simular nominal cost. Simply because you never run out of gas. I do dislike this feature if it is applied to every class and deck.

awesome, really appreciate attempting to bring rigor and objective analysis to card effects and power creep

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

@louisfriend9323

Жыл бұрын

@@HearthstoneMathematics one point: a 1 mana spell that draws 1 card, would have the benefit of thinning out your deck and thus you are more likely to draw your more powerful useful cards after the mulligan. This is called a cantrip in card games and is not meaningless. kzread.info/dash/bejne/eKqemtCrkZfUfaQ.html

3:59 - seems like a mistake. Should be wisp and moonfire (not innervate)

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

You are right, thanks for pointing this out.

im always happy to find a new video. really wish the best for you

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

Thank you, my friend!

Thanks so much for the effort put into all these vids

7:32 Funny note: Shadowverse, another CCG, actually has a 1 Mana Draw a card, called Insight. It's used in virtually every deck. Aside from making your deck more consistent, the class this card is in has a mechanic called Spellboost, which gives cards certain benefits if they're in your hand when you cast spells (though Insight is played even in decks without Spellboost, just to cycle, since you float Mana somewhat regularly). Similarly, I think Mage getting a 1 Mana Draw 1 is pretty interesting since it has spell synergy.

@thek838

Жыл бұрын

Yeah varies from each Card game it all depends how the card game is played. In yugioh just drawing 1 card is broken, but in MTG eh who cares unless that cantrip is pretty good that goes the same for hearthstone really.

@byeguyssry

Жыл бұрын

@@thek838 to be fair, though, in Yu-Gi-Oh, there wouldn't be a cost

@thek838

Жыл бұрын

​@@byeguyssry True yugioh has no Mana system but there is still technically a cost like mentioned in this video it is technically replacing a slot you could put a better card in. But why this don't matter as much in yugioh unlike hearthstone is due to the way yugioh can have 3 copies and only needs to find your engine then bam you win. Heathstone is a bit different in the sense. While you are for sure hoping for certain cards it's not the exact same as if I just draw this one card to start the whole game aside from a few decks like Priest Naga which desperately needs to draw serpent wig lol but even that deck has a different example of how it plays the game by also using discover spell which can be way more effective then just simply drawing. Or a better example would be ya don't exactly need to draw into shock spitter on turn 1 but in yugioh you 100% need to draw whatever card it that sets you up otherwise you just lose next turn. There is a very big speed difference is what I'm trying to say which in hindsight I should of just said that lol.

@byeguyssry

Жыл бұрын

@@thek838 That's untrue. There is no deckbuilding cost to including a "Draw a card" spell with no cost in any card game (unless you're only allowed to cast a certain number of spells per turn or something like that) because it's, at the very least, as if you don't have a card in the deck. Assuming no synergy, if you can play 3 zero cost Draw a card spells, then your deck has 3 fewer cards which is basically always good. Any cards that draw at least 1 card with no downside or cost is always THE best card you can have in the deck, barring very specific scenarios.

@thek838

Жыл бұрын

@@byeguyssry Then you didn't watch this video very well because they do describe why it is true. And I know why it is true myself. And Hearthstone and MTG are 100% proof of it otherwise literally they would run every cantrip they could but they don't, they only run ones that already have a good effect tied to it meanwhile if you put those in yugioh people would because it's broken with how fast the game is.

I like inbetween hearthstone... Rastakhan was so nice...

Hm, what about Unleash Fel compared to the 2 mana AOEs? That's a 1 mana spell that deals 1 damage to all enemies and can even have Lifesteal.

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

This is one of the cards that breaks the original basis of Hearthstone. :]

Great video, love you guys. 👍

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! :]

Great video!

If a zero-mana card is still at least 0.5 mana because it costs the drawn card itself, shouldn't you add some nominal cost to other vards aswell? Probably lowering with increasing normal cost ( a one mana card would get for example +0.4 etc. stopping probably at 4 mana cards because there is usually like 8 rounds till lethal nowadays) anyways great video.

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

I thought about this problem for a long time. For now, I think this should only be a feature of 0-mana cards. Putting extra value on all cards can make this method too complicated.

@epsteindidntkillhimself69

Жыл бұрын

I feel like what you need to do is have an inherent value to card advantage. 0 mana minion = infinite value is a consequence of an incomplete formula, and adding an arbitrary 0.5 is a bandaid fix.

@realcheez795

Жыл бұрын

@@epsteindidntkillhimself69 To me his reasoning makes sense, too complicated for an average HS enjoyer

@KALANGODEPAREDE3D

Жыл бұрын

Laughs in miracle rogue

Great analysis. Thanks for another amazing video. Hope your life is a bit more stable considering the whole Ukrainian war crisis situation.

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

Thank you very much my friend. My life is in relative safety. Unfortunately, I have almost no electricity and this greatly limits my opportunities, but the support of the whole world gives the Ukrainians strength to fight and hope for the best :]

@DarthVader19991

Жыл бұрын

@@HearthstoneMathematics That you manage creating this type of content in such dire circumstances is a feat worthy of admiration in and of itself. Don't stop hoping my brother.

great vid as always

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for this analysis. I am in favour of the classic hearthstone's complex design principles and evolution.

Interesting, i wonder which card in the game right now has the best value.

"vast majority" It could be 6% of cards that go way beyond, but those 6% will be in 80% of the decks and games you play I prefer the gameplay of classic, it is more complex but the cards don't do as much in classic, i mean cards that "do things" it really just feels like the last few years where games more often don't require setup or strategic planning and resource management as much as they used to I think classic is the baseline Some new cards should 'power creep' those a bit each release, but not violate basics of hs gameplay, such as cards cost mana, fatigue kills you, you have limited card draw/generation etc. Those powerful cards rotate out and keep the game fresh They rotate out so the powerful cards themselves don't need to be 'power crept' as well I 100% disagree with the idea "power creep is inevitable"... i believe it is possible to manage it sustainably... and the last few years they have failed to do that that's why we have gameplay and strategy that doesn't really resemble hs of classic or even 3 years ago

@coatsman5471

Жыл бұрын

I think the video speaks a bit broadly about statistics and saying "old complex, new not-so-complex rather than speaking of specific examples like you've mentioned. Excess power, or "power creep" has existed since classic days. The existence primarily shone in legendaries, such as grommash, ragnaros, thalnos though even azure drake is a notable mention. Save for grom and rag, the other cards didn't have that much text value aside from card draw and a body on board. I think the introduction of power creep came with the introduction of substantially powerful minions that eventually enforced the requirement of powerful spells. Notably the good ol 4 mana 7/7 was a common where as cairne was a legendary 6 mana x2 4/5. Both were a nuisance to deal with especially since it required at least 1 valuable clearing method that would've otherwise been used on bigger targets as games progressed. Cards also may have been useless on xpac launch, but shone in later expansions through introduction of new systems or overall synergy, such as murloc paladin/shaman, and secret paladin being an example. I think power creep is inevitable and it's a resource blizzard has used to manipulate how games are played. We went from games lasting 20-30 minutes to now barely lasting 10-15 minutes due to a nerf on one card.

@andrewgrow5711

Жыл бұрын

@@coatsman5471 ya i resent the dumbing-down and speeding up of hearthstone standard anyway fast dumb games that's what duels and battlegrounds and mercenaries is for it's disappointing and precisely why i don't spend money on hearthstone anymore if classic was rotating i'd play it other than that only arena i find stimulating... and even that is gradually getting infected with the mismanagement of power level of the card sets

@Dani_el_Duck

Жыл бұрын

The only reason power creep is "inevitable" in games is that it sells easier. Sure, hearthstone always had cards above the curve but they made the game more strategic since you had to play around those possible turning points. Nowdays this pacing of balance is off the window. You have too powefull cards being dropped every turn, therefore the turning points are a lot less relevant or strategic.

@N12015

Жыл бұрын

​@@Dani_el_Duck But is inevitable, even if you don't actually Powercreep, because more cards allow a more refined strategy. That's specially notable for Aggro decks.

@GaussianEntity

Жыл бұрын

@@N12015 This actually happened once we got to Mean Streets. Aggro was so well tuned that there literally were no control decks. Renolock was the only one IIRC because of this.

I would say I overall like older Hearthstone better, but I do like a slightly faster pace if that makes sense, nowhere near what it is today, but old hearthstone I found there were a fair amount of games it was just 2 people playing whatever they topdecked.

My biggest problem is mana cheat, I play wild only and I would rather quit the game than playing standard, cards should not cost zero ever, that is why I absolutely despise Secret mage, they play 80% of their deck for 0 mana, I don't know who at blizzard thought it would be a good idea to give them free secrets coupled with 5/5 and 6/6 minions for zero mana too, then you have the secrets themselves 3 secrets that removes minions so you have to sit and guess which play is the best just to lose to a 50/50 chance, that just sucks ass. I used to main priest back in the day, when minions mattered, and you could heal them with the hero power to stay longer on the board, now priest is having 2-3 of the strongest available minions then summoning them as fast as possible, and then just keep resurrecting them until the opponent is dead. then instead of nerfing the stupid kill from hand decks at turn 4-6, they are now beginning to print hand disruptors which are just cancer to play with and against, oh look my theotar gave me 3 shit choices from his hand of 5 cards while he finds the one card I don't want him to find amongst my 9 cards such fun. Druids are starting to get cards that not only are affecting themselves but also their opponent, I thought they had learned from Celestial Alignment but nope they printed Dew Process and what a shit card that is to play against, they will be fine since they have Guff. I play hearthstone almost every day and have done since the beta, and except from a few other metas this is starting to annoy me so much that I can play one or two games running into one of these decks and just be like "yeah no thx" then logging off and play something else because it is just frustrating and unfun to play vs these unfun trash decks.

solution is make one or two legendaries which buffs cards with no text then vanilla cards can see some plays. (like patriot in marvel snap)

Omg already 10 years. I feel fucking old

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

The same… I feel very rusty!

Good video :) I understand what You Say, but I can ask You if everyone prefer to play classic? The Game change 0 cards are Bad The balance is dificult

well, we understood how spells and minions are balanced (or were balanced), but we still don't know how weapons or areas are balanced (it was written through Google Translate).

@genarotorresvargas5513

Жыл бұрын

Maybe in another vídeo?

@Kravting_org

Жыл бұрын

@@genarotorresvargas5513 maybe

I think you should commission custom TTS

A 1 cost spell that draws a card would be broken

Not sure why the utility ratio is 1 here for vanillas. Vanillas weren't exactly used for their cost in classic and beyond. Druid ran Yeti because it could be ramped into turn 1. Hunter ran Croc because of the beast tag. Mech Mage ran Tank because of mech synergies. Ogre is a meme but it really only saw legitimate play in F2P decks where its 7 health did something. Otherwise, the vanillas saw no play. Nobody played Wisp, any of the 1 drop 1/2s that didn't have deck synergy, and nothing meta played Pit Fighter once it released. I think the cracks in the system begin to show once you realize why all the expensive spells were buffed. Drawing 4 cards doesn't equal 7 mana. It doesn't even equal 4 which is what you get by spending classic Prep. Flamestrike can be efficient at 4 damage but 5 health was the critical breakpoint.

@Begeru

Жыл бұрын

Why should they not be 1? You have to make a line somewhere. He’s not saying a utility of 1 is good enough to see play. Just that it’s a baseline for balancing cards when changing stats for effects.

@GaussianEntity

Жыл бұрын

@@Begeru So then it's an arbitrary designation for cards that were somewhat playable in Classic. As I mentioned before, they weren't played for their vanilla costs. They were played because of synergies. Turn 1 Yeti was the most threatening body you could put (unless you got the extremely rare turn 1 Ogre but I don't think the win rate justified the high roll). I would argue that those statlines weren't indicative of the true vanilla test. An ideal 2 drop based on gameplay would be a 3/3. A 4 drop would be a 5/5. And the higher the mana cost, the more stats the vanilla needs to see play. War Golem wouldn't have seen play even if it was an 9/9. Dr. Boom was a 9/9 for 7 with text just for comparison. If we really want to find some objective approach to the vanilla test, we should first discuss design philosophy. One thing that wasn't covered for instance is how all the odd-costed drops are weaker on average due to Blizzard not wanting the game to depend purely on curve for Classic development. This was later abandoned and their fears did come true.

may be erly coment but ther is 1 mana draw 1 card in the key wurd trade for 7:46 ps rought this coment befor watch full vidio

classic was better due to difficult controllable gameplay. modern hearthstone makes you take tier 1 deck or pray for your luck bc you NEED to be lucky to survive until late game when you can actually try some "metabreakin" combinations

"0 mana card cost 0.5 mana" Laughs in miracle rogue

Hype

srsly i find the art for hearthstone is really lousy , thats why i stop buying portraits , i wonder why not turning every art into anime style 🤔

A 1 mana card, that can draw a card, is not useless. It is a very good card, because you often float a mana, thus allowing you to play a 29 card deck. Gnomish inventor was a 2 mana card, that was played for cycle. Powerword shield was sometimes a 2 health buff to an opponent to draw a card.

Why not make a video about just how shitty warrior is compared to other classes? Be sure to include it's lack of card draw, mana cheat, tokens, life steal. And their outrageous cost armor compared to druid and mage

Yeah, I saw the whole video and it is bs, you never explained how the balance is ''respected after '10 YEARS!'', you clearly avoided the 90% of cards that dont respect it anymore lol

9th 🤓

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

:]

Ayayayayaajajaja

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

:]

A very Trump way of calculating value, very nice

Return renathal!

@jabalsal9008

Жыл бұрын

Delete renathal

@Roberta-yf4ge

Жыл бұрын

@@jabalsal9008 agro player cringe

@jabalsal9008

Жыл бұрын

@@Roberta-yf4ge cry more control lady

Modern Hearthstone is better. Aside from when the meta is too solitaire or fast, it's much better for dumb dumbs like me, and you can still play at a pro level.

4th

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

Way way too late

slava Ukraini~

i dont trust you

@TheUltimateShade667

Жыл бұрын

lmao

@HearthstoneMathematics

Жыл бұрын

Ok :]

0 mana cost = 0.5 please dont talk nonsense

if you want sponsors, stop using the text to speech. im sure noone would care if its broken english or something, theyre all over youtube anyway?

@powerof3d597

Жыл бұрын

Exactly

@murat4831

Жыл бұрын

Dude tts is the most iconic characteristic of this channel. Do you really think he will stop doing it just for sponsorship?

@gladiatorcp

Жыл бұрын

I Like it as it is what you talking about

@fleshgordon96

Жыл бұрын

I would be proud if my spoken english where as half so good, don't know what you are argueing with?

@jabalsal9008

Жыл бұрын

Shut up gringo