Hearthstone Theory: 0 mana cards are a HUGE PROBLEM!

[@wheelotime2581]

I think cards with base costs of 0 mana are fine, but cards that can reduce itself and other cards' costs should include "but not less than (1)"

[@Ikobot.]

All community ask for "but not less than (1)" rule make mandatory for all gamemods

[@RIFADOR001]

I have said that since warlock mission times, but no one else seems to get it...

[@HearthstoneMathematics]

@@Ikobot. Even for 1 mana, most of these cards will be of great value, but at the same time, this will limit the ability of players to apply too many resources per turn.

[@groudonmeowth4327]

Totally agree

[@MikeTheGamer77]

shadowstep is completely busted at 0 mana. It has ALWAYS been a problem card.

[@RoTenken]

Thing from below is from Whispers of The Old Gods, not from Witchwood. Otherwise, great vid. Thanks!!

[@CrimsoniteSP]

They're really only an issue when there's no actual build up. Stuff that can be played near 0 just for meeting a condition or easily cheated, usually pretty strong. Something that requires a lot of setup and mana ahead of time, not so much. I can't remember exact names but stuff like the 25 mana paladin that got discounted by the amount of paladin cards you played, or the mana you used for them, was very strong and a really easy thing to do. But there was a neutral card that discounted based on the minions in play. Which, depending on the matchup, is a lot harder to accomplish and might not even do anything.

[@ArmyOfVenus]

In wild all best decks relay heavily on having both 1-cheap effective card draw 2-mana reduction So in my opinion most cards in wild that have these effects should be rebalanced in a big patch No 1 mana draw 4 cards (Secret passage) No 0 mana draw 2 cards (Spread the word) No 0 mana 3/3 minion (Frenzied Felwing) And so on…

[@BaronskiLoLigra4a]

The same goes for standard, usually the decks that are t1 and are dominating have both card draw and mana cheating, basically the strongest mechanics in the game

[@brothatsucks]

So you wanna kill wild? No secret passage? No fellwing Do you even play wild? You basically kill every wild deck Do you want wild to become duels where everything is nerfed to the ground?

[@mprejects8091]

@@brothatsucksAs a Wild player, just setting a restriction where cards can’t reduce themselves below 1 mana would be pretty dope.

[@brothatsucks]

@@mprejects8091 no it wouldn't I'm sorry but you expect me to believe that basically deleting the game is good? Not a single deck survives not even the tier 5 ones

[@Careidina342]

​​​@@brothatsucksWhile I agree with you, they do have to do something. And I hate how they're treating Duels. And this rule would also be the same. But ultimately they have to do something. Aside from what others have suggested, there are a few other things that could be looked at too. But let's see how the Wild patch will do and might have to revisit.

[@konasavage]

Mana manipulation and random card generation are way too frequent now. Great video!

[@KaanIcy]

Dragonqueen Alex was a huge problem making it 0 cost and now its the same with the Countess. I dont see why they didnt nerf it to 1 mana too.

[@Harry-wt7xe]

Countess aint Free you pay 2 mana for the invites so if you would make the legendarys 1 it would cost 3

[@gurunext]

Yes yes, I made a rant that included this before you guys uploaded 🤣

[@sk8ergamer]

Nice to hear from you my friend This brings back so much memories from my Hearthstone days

[@RIFADOR001]

What do you think about including the text "this card (or the reduced cards) cannot cost less than... by this effect"?

[@HearthstoneMathematics]

I think it would make these cards much more balanced. Such tools would not be universal. Players could still use them in specific scenarios, but they would definitely disappear from most decks.

[@GuyFromCanada]

The major issue in my mind with 0 mana cards in any card game, not even just hearthstone, is that 0 resources is SUBSTANTIALLY less than 1. If you have 3 mana, you can only play 3 1 mana cards, but if those cards cost 0, you can play as many as you have access to. In magic, there was a card called Gitaxian Probe that was basically life tap, except it ONLY cost 2 life (no mana), and any ‘class’ could run it. It is banned nearly everywhere.

[@ewdijkstra7627]

In any card game, a 0-cost resource is ALWAYS powerful. You would need to intentionally build a card that is a "silver bullet" where there is no strategy you could craft around the card that makes it useful, no matter how ridiculous the edge case, for a 0-cost card to actually be bad.

[@ElementVoidX]

I play only wild and it does suck, cards should never cost 0 mana unless they are designed with that in mind, mana cheat and cheap card draw is what will eventually ruin this game if they don't get a lot smarter with their design decisions.

[@symraynor]

0-mana cards are definitely a problem. This is evident from the fact that as the years pass and expansions are released, stronger cards are introduced, yet the dominant archetypes in Wild remain Secret Mage, Even Shaman, Pirate Rogue and Mech Paladin. These are aggressive decks that leverage the mechanic of card cost reduction.

[@sebmonay2066]

this video should be play when you start the game the fisrt time .

[@DenisCavalcantiMartins]

Zero means Infinite... so will be always Broken. Magic has the SAME problem and YuGioh... yeah, not having a mana system make a lot of cards broken. Not paying for cast is always a chance to break the Game.

[@gurunext]

Yes we need limitation so cards can only cost 1 mana minimum... It could just be a simple keyword like "Not Free" or even "Not Free 2" indicating that the minimum cost will be 2 mana...

[@NightDandy675]

What if the discount reseted once you play the first copy of the card and had to work the condition again for the second one? Although this would not work for things like mountain giants and similars were there is a constant

[@gurunext]

@@NightDandy675 I mean you're just reinventing Corpses which is a pretty cool thing if every class had something like this... Shaman could Overload AND play Totems... Mage could just play spells or kill things with spells... You did hit something there even though it took a while to understand what you said

[@vecsia3811]

5:35 witch wood ? maybe wispers of the old gods

[@HearthstoneMathematics]

Yes you are right! I confuse these expansions too often!

[@slowedvsbattle]

the problem isn't the mechanic, is the abundance and agressiviness of it.

[@alexarsola802]

Anything that lowers the mana cost to a card should come with a negative impact to the player. A perfect example is warlock hero power it’s a positive effect at cost of health. Bliz keeps buffing mana cheat at the same time breaking the basic rules of the game. Druid breaks the 10 mana rule while DK breaks the max health pool of 30.

[@Ren_Zekta]

I think having such mechanics as cost reduction is cool. It gives more variety and interest to the game. Also, I think that it's better for every class to have some overpowered cards, than if there would have been no such cards at all.

[@armi999]

Yes, a dash of cost reduction and overpowered stuff keeps things fun. They just need to keep it under control. I've always felt a 'but not less than (1)' should be a core rule outside of a few limited cards.

[@sasgo8452]

The mechanic of reducing the Cost of cards is not an issue imo. It's much simpler than that. The balance issues in Hearthstone are the cards that are... unbalanced. We have seen countless cards get nerfed that have no Cost reduction.

[@Alast94]

for the mage secret in wild the combo is insane and i don't know what you played but youre mistake was to let 2 secrets on the board in early it's often a mistake against them

[@maciejkolorowy3340]

Ngl, myself hate being hit by all zero mana cards, but the cherry for the top is losing from random RNG when you just try to keep it under control 😢 Like when cards does precise effect and for example will improve everything over time ( snapdragons, hunter weapon ), silence might help with highroll decks which are usually unwinnable all while playing menagerie without spells so you can use Magatha 😊 Best thing is that miraculously weirdest strategy really worked for me so I still thanks creators bcs of making it happen 😌

[@sheda111]

There are examples that are far from problematic. Gnoll from stormwind? That requires a full hand to cost 1. That's not broken :/ However, 0 mana cards discounted because of highrolls are a big problem

[@MrThomas20121]

Shadow step is the biggest offender. why was it not nerfed yet since classic???

[@d-o.o-b]

I mean 0 mana cards are not inherently broken, they still cost a card. If you nerfed the stats/effects enough they would be balanced. The only time when 0 mana cards truly have no downside is when they dont cost a card, due to gadgetzan or crimson clergy. But even then a cost increase on the enablers would suffice to balance them. Theres also the case of 0 mana draw cards. Since they all have conditions, making the conditions harder to satisfy would suffice to balance them. What I'm getting at is that mana cheat isn't inherently broken, but individual cards can absolutely be broken on a case by case basis.

[@KtooooYaaa1337]

Не вижу проблем в том чтобы иметь такие карты, стоимость которых может уменьшиться до нуля. В вольном да - это скорее всего проблема, но это можно решить с помощью лимита для удешевления карт, допустим, до 1 единицы маны. Например в секретном маге сделать такое. Так он будет менее сильным, и более честным. У воина и чернокнижника отличные карты из мини набора, основанные на этой механике. У чернокнижника это очень идёт в агрессивных архетипах (например мурлок-чернокнижник особенно с добавления магаты), у которых карты с колоды улетают со скоростью света. Воину это просто очень полезно, отличная карта, которая ещё и лечит. У паладина, ну, не знаю. Проблема в том, что нужно разыграть 10 карт, вроде бы не проблема, просто бросай на стол эту кухарку, и добери с помощью очистителя, но так как молот занерфили вместе с очистителем, смысла в этом мало, и теперь паладин снова довольно сбалансированный. Тотем шаман, думаю, действительно является проблемой. Он до сих пор является одной из сильнейших колод. С ним, наверное, надо что-то да делать. Но вообще, эти карты появляются только 2 раза в матче, от силы 4 или 6. Избавившись от них однажды, они больше не появятся. В общем, я считаю, от этих карт не особо много проблем, лишь некоторые архетипы надо занерфить с этими картами, по типу секрет-мага и тотем-шамана, а так, пусть играются дальше.

[@Josh-bh6md]

Love these videos

[@HearthstoneMathematics]

Thank you my friend!

[@JohannesWOW]

I'm not a fan of cards, like a priest, who can keep a card in their hand over and over again and there's nothing that counters it. I love stealing a pallies weapon, or detroying cards put into a deck that didnt start there.... but I can't remove a mage's spell discovering spell in hand.

[@silvereloking6149]

Zero cost mana and unlimited draw. All that come with DH class. I hate DH so much

[@byeguyssry]

I feel like 0 Mana cards are broken because there's never a trade-off. Even if you can play a 1-Mana 10/10 on Turn 6, that means you can't play your Turn 6 play. It's usually a significant cost to not get your normal on-curve play. Whereas a 0 Mana card can only ever be something extra. You don't have to disrupt your own gameplan at all. Also, you can play limitless 0 Mana cards on even Turn 1.

[@TheCheezusCrust]

oh hey its you

[@HearthstoneMathematics]

:]

[@chrisrod118]

Did dorah get a promotion, I don't remember her being a chief before

[@enricomeirelles2304]

She's been working hard

[@fleshgordon96]

It reminds me of Magic the Gathering. Playing allone is not funny just take a look at a bauble deck of magic. I think 0 cost cards are very important, but theyre should be more countercards against them. I dont like storm strategies and if some 0 cards leads to storm tthan they should be nerfed.

[@slowbowz6383]

Cost reduction is a boring and unfun mechanic to play against. I dislike playung against warlock and druid because they just cheat out Thaddeus and win unless you tech silence or play priest.

[@robbyw.8616]

First

[@HearthstoneMathematics]

:]

[@M31Andromeda]

I think infinite resources and "everything has lifesteal" is more annoying than mana cheat. Having to calculate how to better use your resources is way more fun.