Hey guys,
Been playing for quite a while now, got 1,800 Lyonar Ranked wins and about 200 with Abyssian. The problems with Creep became apparent as soon as I started experimenting with it: Creep is too slow, too weak and it’s impossible to reliably generate it. Let’s go down the list:
- Creep is too slow
The 1-drop that spreads Creep is abysmally weak. It’s meant to be a staple of the archetype but it’s like someone made a joke minion and then said, hey let’s put it in the live version and see if anyone actually plays it.
The Abyssal Crawler exemplifies everything bolded above: spreads Creep too slowly, it’s too weak and you can never tell which tile will be affected. That wouldn’t be a problem if there was a way to make it create more than 1 Creep tile per turn but no, you’ll have to wait until late game to get any Creep value out of it.
Shadow Nova is another great example of what I mean: 4 mana and a card to get 4 tiles of Creep is just pathetic. You waste a card to do nothing while the opponent just moves closer, hits face, plays stats on the board and wins.
- Creep is too weak
Creep does only 1 damage per turn but most games don’t last that long for that damage to matter. While I’m busy spreading Creep to random tiles on the board, the opponent plays actual stats, hits my face and wins.
Of course, I could play the dude that doubles Creep damage, but it’s so shamefully weak. Then I realized the more Creep cards I put in my deck, the weaker the deck becomes. This is counterintuitive but it’s exactly the case. Using an Arcanist example, the more Arcanists you put in a deck, the stronger the deck is because the cards are good on their own and directly enhance one another. But with Creep, the more cards related to it you put in a deck, the weaker the deck becomes because the cards themselves are subpar and the Creep isn’t a significant enough threat to justify going whole hog.
- Creep is too unreliable
Well, I guess I’ll have to talk about RNG. I get it, RNG is needed to keep things fresh but the problem with it is that it balances out only in an impossibly large number of cases. So, over tens of thousands of games, RNG will be perfectly fair and balanced, but I could very well have a streak of 100 games where the RNG doesn’t go my way and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s okay if that happens with a minion’s Opening Gambit or Dying Wish since at least you got some stats on the board, but with Creep you got a random single tile that might deal one damage each turn and can be dispelled.
This RNG factor applies across the entire Creep archetype. For example, if I use 2 Ghost Azalea in a deck (which I have crafted 2 of and used), I can have anywhere from 0-8 Creep tiles before drawing the weapon. This is such a huge range of possibilities that it’s impossible to reliably plan for anything, really.
So, what are my suggestions? The suggestion I have is to make Creep deal 0 damage but have the following effect: “Whenever you play a card, deal 1 damage to enemies standing on this tile.” In this way, Creep can be comboed and the opponent can risk it by intentionally standing on Creep. The Abyssian player now has the option of feigning Creep burst or burning through his cards/deck to deal burst damage, which is very flavorful and gives him more ways to play out the game.
Cards that generate Creep could be made the same way, so Abyssal Creeper could have the text: “When you play a card, generate Creep on a nearby diagonal non-Creep tile.” In this way, playing Abyssal Crawler and spamming cards can generate at most 4 Creep tiles, respects positioning but still keeps some RNG. This also gives extra power to some otherwise useless cards, such as Vellumscry (destroy a minion, draw 3 cards).
I have been told by Reddit Duelyst players that Creep was a balancing nightmare in beta, but I don’t think the entire archetype should be swept under the rug. We can make it fun, balanced, position-based with just a dash of RNG to make not just Creep but the entire Abyssian faction great again.
Thanks for reading.