Knife Juggler and Flame Juggler are a consideration when making trades on the board. Every other RNG card in the game has a range of outcomes that can be predicted and potentially mitigated with intelligent play. This is all valid, and I take it on board, but the difference comes with the aforementioned range of variance. I’ve heard the argument made that there are plenty of other RNG cards present in the game, so why is Yogg so different? Additionally, some argue that since Yogg comes down late in the game, it is much less destructive than a Tuskarr Totemic or Flame Juggler that can decide the flow of the game early. Is it only a matter of time then before high profile tournament games are impacted by the king of RNG with greater consistency? Furthermore, China and South East Asia were early adopters on the Yogg front with their high profile tournaments already being sprinkled with the occasional appearance of the 10 Mana Old God. On top of this, just recently Hotform took Rank 1 Legend with a Tempo Mage deck including Yogg at the top of the curve. However, deck innovator J4CKIECHAN has had incredible ladder success with a Yogg Token Druid and successfully introduced the card to the meta. Outside of Tars’ explosive Summoning Stone Druid outing at Dreamhack Austin-that banished Winter Europe Champion Naiman into a state of permanent tilt-Yogg has not had any real notable tournament outings in the Western scene. So where does Yogg-Saron fall on this scale? It is definitely fair to say that Yogg has not yet set the competitive scene on fire just yet, but the warning signs are there. Cards like Mindgames or Madder Bomber are perfect examples of cards that are fun for people playing the game casually, but are not strong enough on average to be a detrimental force in the competitive scene, while the much maligned cards of the pre-Standard meta such as Imp-losion and Piloted Shredder are examples of cards that are just too strong on average. In this world, the game becomes less skill intensive, and the better players start to lose their edge.
The problem however, is when these cards are so powerful on average that they bleed through into serious competition, since a player who is not using them concedes an advantage to those that are. The aura of “anything can happen”, the fact that every game can be potentially be different is one of the things that keeps these players coming back. Casual players, those who really pay no mind to the competitive scene love these kinds of cards.
In fact the existence of cards like Yogg-Saron is important for the health of the game. Despite having a reputation as Mr Anti-Fun, I am not against random cards in the game. Yogg however, is too volatile, too wide, and too unpredictable for anyone to even begin to think about playing around its range out outcomes. Hearthstone tournament history is littered with occurrences that have had Twitch chat and casual onlookers crying foul of RNG that could have easily been neutralised with more careful planning, tighter play, or better decisions by the affected party. Certain random cards can actually tilt the odds further towards the more skilled player as they are able to more accurately cover the potential range of outcomes from a high variance card and make the best play to cover them all. This assertion is of course ridiculous, but the addition of a card like Yogg-Saron to the game certainly doesn’t help the argument. Hearthstone is a game that is already tarnished with the reputation of being “too random” to be a serious competitive game. This is dangerous for a number of reasons. This level of variance is unprecedented in Hearthstone-a game that is already prepared to be fairly loose with the range of random effects granted by its cards-and has quickly led to Yogg splitting the community right down the middle as a true love it or hate it card. These spells can vary from Secrets, card draw, and board generation tools like Force of Nature and Call of the Wild all the way to Ancestral Communion that will discard your whole hand and removal spells that will target your own minions or hero. So why is the most volatile of the Old Gods such a sensitive topic?įor the uninitiated, what exactly does Yogg-Saron do? Yogg is a 10 Mana card that when played casts a random spell for every spell that you have cast in the game previously. I posited the question on Twitter of whether this scenario was good for the viewer spectacle, bad for the competitive integrity of the game, or somewhere in between-and the response was suitably mixed.
It’s the Grand Finals, game 7, both players are down to single digit health and out of cards. Picture the scene: Blizzcon, California, the Hearthstone Championship Tour World Finals.
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