There has been a lot of discussion recently, rooting from Mysterious Challenger, that's grown into something a bit larger, a bit deeper. People have recently been discussing what they feel is a fundamental problem with the design of Hearthstone and the extreme focus on board control.
Kripp recently posted a video talking about how the game has gotten "too fast." Firebat said the problem revolves around "doing nothing but playing minions on curve". The Hearthstone community as a whole knows something is wrong, but there is a lot of disagreement on what exactly the problem is, and why a deck-like Secret Paladin has created such intense backlash.
No respect for Card Advantage undermines the integrity of the game.
Card Advantage is a concept that has been fundamental to all other competitive card games. The idea originated at nearly the beginning of Magic the Gathering. For an in depth discussion on Card Advantage here's an article from Wizards of the Coast (makers of MtG).
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/lo/basics-card-advantage-2014-08-25
"Card advantage is, very likely, the single most important concept in competitive Magic. A tremendous proportion of games are decided, in one way or another, by card advantage."
Those are powerful words "the single most important concept in competitive Magic".
Card advantage is a really simple concept, if you can kill two of his cards with one of your cards, then eventually your opponent runs out of cards, and you win. Looking at the game through the lens of Card Advantage exposes the key aspect of an asymetrical battle between Aggro and Control. Aggro is trying to drop your life total to zero before it ... runs out of cards. Control is trying out 'out value' aggro, playing powerful cards and threatening 2 for 1s.
Playing for card advantage is decision making
Playing for card advantage is almost always about making decisions. You generally need to sacrifice something early (board strength, life, etc) to gain Card Advantage in the late game. A lot of the real strategy and decision making in a card game come down to the kinds of risks your willing to take to squeeze every last drop of value out of some card.
Those risks and choices make for a deeper, more satisfying style of game play. Those trade-offs, the critical decisions, let a players decisions shine, and take back some of the random nature of a card game. This isn't the only way to play the game, and it isn't the best way. But the current design direction has stopped even offering "Value play" as an option.
Problematic cards have no counter play
If you look at the roots of the most problematic cards in Hearthstone: (Mysterious Challenger, Piloted Shredder, Mad Scientist, Dr Boom) you'll see a theme. These cards prevent counterplay. Your opponent can't realistically get a 2 for 1 against these cards, the tools simply aren't there. Further, there are very, very few cases where you can even get a 1 for 1 against these cards. They all subtly work to undermine the health of the game by removing the entire branch of strategy that revolves around Card Advantage.
Mysterious Challenger is bonkers
Mysterious Challenger pushes this boundary further than any card previously. Between the noble sacrifice, the avenge, redemption, and finally repentence - there is no way to punish it. There is not a single card in Hearthstone that can even answer it. The answer to mysterious challenger must be two or more cards. Not even Hex the strongest single target removal or twisting nether the strongest board wipe nor flare the strongest secret removal tool can deal with Mysterious Challenger.
If you look at MC through the lens of Card Advantage, the card is simply broken.
Less obvious cards are also problematic
If we look under the hood, we find more, Divine Favor is a deeply problematic card. This card fundamentally punishes opponents who are fighting for Card Advantage. There's a reason that some players just feel disgust when they're on the receiving end of this card. It's not that it's just not fun, it's not that it's too strong, it's that it fundamentally violates a core aspect of the strategy in competitive card games: it punishes your opponent for gaining Card Advantage. It punishes a player for getting extra value out of his cards.
Man, Divine Favor is a really shitty card.
The tension between Tempo and Card Advantage is the heart of a healthy Hearthstone.
For Hearthstone to be healthy, it needs truly different kinds of strategies. Decks that play an inherently different game and have inherently different goals. There must be a battle between Tempo and Card Advantage with each side approaching the game with different methods of putting the opponent to zero life.
Without that tension between Tempo and Card Advantage, the game devolves. It becomes the one dimensional game Firebat talks about "just dropping minions on curve". It becomes a deck where mid range or control decks just run a "late game suite" off of the same aggro shell (shielded minibot, knife juggler, muster, shredder) that Kripp talks about.
If we look at the truly problematic cards of the game: Mad Scientist, Mysterious Challenger, Dr. Boom, and even Shredder, we see that these cards aren't necessarily broken stat wise. Let's be honest, Handlock could drop huge stats on the board. But those huge 8/8s could still be answered. It might be hard as hell to 2 for 1 a Molten Giant, but at least you could answer it cleanly 1 for 1 with hard removal or BGH.
It's not just that these cards are powerful, it's that these cards prevent counter play.
Blizzard is a company capable of brilliant work, but they're also human and they make mistakes. The problem as it stands now is that the power curve, with respect to how fast a decent board can kill a player, means that we're going to need some really powerful reactive cards. Some might even need to have ugly, complicated card text.
