Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Wasn't worth mentioning, too meh.

Overall I think the Arena changes are a step in the right direction but they're still far from ideal. For the Standard move, the problem was that the card pool was too large and that more and more cards are reliant on synergies to be any good. You couldn't count on getting dragons if you drafted a Book Wyrm or mechs if you drafted a Goblin Blastmage. So your strategy inevitably became "get the generically strong cards, play on curve and don't play around anything except punishing common cards". Hopefully the chances of getting synergistic cards goes up so you don't have to feel bad about drafting Jades in Arena, for example.

Still not ideal, though. Would've liked to see a set-based draft format (haven't thought about the details) but that remains dependent on the relative strength of individual sets, as well as inter-set synergies.

edited 22nd Feb '17 4:23:57 PM by Pyrite

Nobody expects burst damage from Priest. It's particularly fun when my opponent is a Renolock and he pops Jaraxxus thinking that it'll out-value me. Then I slam him with a negative-healing burst and he dies, wondering what happened.

"why don't I play hearthstone anymore?"

*plays two games*

"oh right because there's no point in playing without spending money to have all the cards you need to build The Best Meta Deck"

edited 24th Feb '17 4:10:59 PM by Lanceleoghauni

I did it! Just went 12 wins in arena for the first time ever!

Decklist and rewards here: http://imgur.com/a/plU4F

I never thought this draft would be the one, the curve is too weird (masses of 4-drops, no 5-drops at all). But between the taunts, demon synergy and removal, it somehow just worked. I got voidcaller and crystalweaver value in many games, including voidcaller into 6/6 on several occasions. Having enough taunts and removal to keep my face alive was a great help as well, and felfire potion gave me a few handy board clears and lethals. It was a great run, I felt like I had to make some tough decisions and take some risks in places but it all paid off!

Congratulations! Sounds like it must have been a nail biter, especially since you had two losses.

And not a single Abyssal Enforcer in sight. Nice one.

Woop woop, Rank 15. Getting good with the Jade Druid deck.

... I mean it's not super high, but considering how solidly stuck at Rank 19 I was in December I honestly didn't expect too much.

The ups, downs and RNG of the Reno Lock mirror

Enjoy the dance of life and death and challenge yourself: Can you spot the obvious misplay I made due to changing my mind at the last second?

Simply linking because that was a fun game and it's too long to do a descriptive play by play. Happened around rank 500.

Might be more fun if you hide opponent cards and put some blood pumping music on the background, though I've found that watching HS in silence can be surprisingly Zen an experience too.

edited 25th Feb '17 11:03:04 AM by GabrieltheThird

Turn 12: With that hand, I was thinking of running Refreshment Vendor into Second-Rate Bruiser, then Shadowflame followed by Brann-Kazakus. But after tapping into MCT, there might've been a justification for Brann-MCT-Kazakus assuming you know your opponent doesn't play combo (Emperor hadn't come down so you were probably still safe.)

edited 25th Feb '17 4:21:12 PM by Pyrite

You aren't wrong on the second part.

My thinking back then was: 90% certain he doesn't run combo. Had already seen Mistress, Void Walker, Rag and Courier from him and you don't run all four of those flex cards if you're running combo.

At this point my overall plan was to run him out of Kazakus potions and then go big J. Couldn't do that as long as I had to play around the 8 to the face. Had nicely managed to drain him of his potions until that Courier happened.

The board wasn't that threatening, not nearly enough to use Shadowflame. That card has such a high value once you go Jaraxxus, plus I still had Mountain Giant in the last 6 cards in my deck, that's a low cost board clear. Finally, that third potion was guaranteed to be a 10 cost one and its' about 50% that he'd gotten resurrect 3 so I might need Shadowflame to clear that.

Now, I could have done the Bran-MCT-K play, but he hadn't played either Abyssal of Hellfire yet and he'd just gotten that potion, so if I had at least 3 minions on board, he was either going to trade and be left with a no pressure board, or (more likely) he'd board clear and all of available clears would clear his board as well, so it wasn't really worth stealing any more minions. Same with playing Brann and Kaz, they'd just get AoE'd.

So either he'd trade and use the potion to extend, at which point I could Bran-K and then Shadowflame the K or use a pot to clear most. Same if he'd AoE with the potion and establish a board. Hellfire, ditto. The only problematic outcome would be if he dropped an Abyssal, as then I'd have to get lucky with the 5 potion (damage, then sheep in that order or go for the freeze), or Siphon and lose tempo.

Sadly he did the last option and then I wasn't man enough to go for the risky potion play, but rather siphoned figuring that I could still Shadowflame the potion result the next turn. Boy was I wrong.

So yeah, going with the higher tempo play of Bran-K on turn 12 and getting those potions earlier would have been the smart play. It's a good example of how I have the terrible habit of overthinking myself into a loss.

edited 25th Feb '17 6:00:52 PM by GabrieltheThird

Shows how little Renolock I play. My understanding is that when you're playing the no-combo mirror, you need to maintain both board control and get as much value out of your cards as possible in order to get a safe board to play Jaraxxus on. I can't remember which cards were played (will need to look again) but I don't hate the idea of digging for Abyssal Enforcer / Hellfire / MCT to regain initiative - it's risky though, and I know I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving that kind of board up EDIT: especially since you've already used Reno.

edited 25th Feb '17 8:18:12 PM by Pyrite

You're not wrong, safe turn to play Jaraxxus is traditionally a key in the mirror. I feel, however that there's an even more reliable way to win that particular match: To force the opponent to play J and then ending them with the pressure and burn from Kazakus potions combined with Hellfire and Soulfire. 8 from K potion plus 0 mana Soulfire is a very common way for me to win the mirror nowadays.

Naturally that can't be accomplished every game, but it's usually the safest way to win. The other option is to J yourself and then risk what was described happening to you. There's just a greater margin for error in the non-J path and as a bonus, it plays around Sac Pact (not that I've seen that more than once since I posted on it).

Also in the case of that particular game, by turn 12 the opponent hadn't played Shadowflame, Hellfire, Abyssal or Twisting and they had a Potion in hand. That's so many board flips that I was never going to be able to hold a board for any meaningful amount of time, so I gathered I should play with a light touch to be efficient.

I mean I was wrong, but I feel the theory was good.

Edit: As soon as I wrote this, I run into a Reno Mirror where I don't draw K, am forced to J at a safe position but too early and he's running Sac Pact.

edited 26th Feb '17 7:13:42 AM by GabrieltheThird

It's probably easier in a tournament setting where decklists are known, that's for sure. Another tricky issue is that running Soulfire is really risky in a deck where nearly every card is a key card. (Yes, I know more and more Renolocks run it if they don't run combo. Point still stands.)

Also, for everyone else, Brode's filming... something... on Monday. Probably an announcement for an announcement. Either that, or he has to star in their commercials now because Guac Boy quit. (Rumour has it that he's working on disposing of Uther's and Rexxar's bodies.)

edited 26th Feb '17 8:02:11 AM by Pyrite

Well Lifecoach just announced he is quitting Hearthstone for Gwent because of the repeated imbalance of the game, excessive RNG, games over too fast, removal of combo and charge and so on.[1]

So it begins?

edited 26th Feb '17 11:54:03 AM by Memers

I just saw V-o7-tr-on for the first time today, in the tavern brawl. I forgot that Dr. Boom's bombs count as mechs. Turns out V-o7-tr-on is a 4/8 with charge and can attack 4 times per turn.

It was not mine.

edited 26th Feb '17 11:57:53 AM by Yinyang107

Wait, wait... Lifecoach is upset that games are over too fast, yet he laments "the removal of Charge"? Da hell?

My current issue with the game is that midrange/control is basically dead. You have decks designed to run you over by turn 5 with no chance to react, decks that are based on generating infinite value in endgame, and combo/OTK decks. Any deck that tries to counter those has to be based on mass removal and healing, with the goal to deplete the enemy's resouces. The idea of a typical game being based on board position, card advantage, and minion combat is just obsolete.

edited 26th Feb '17 1:19:00 PM by Fighteer

He is mostly talking about removal of combo charge such as leeroy / power overwhelming / faceless and such.

Combo OTK is bad for the game, since it removes the ability of the opponent to respond. Sorry, Coach.

In his opinion its dumbing down the game and basically making only 3 different types, Aggro, midrange (jade) and RNG (Reno) and thats it. And they all basically play themselves, no decisions like 'should I use this combo piece to kill this threat and push my big turn back' and such. The only decision is "do I have the card? If yes play it.'

It has also made most games decided by turn 1 or 2 based on pure RNG instead of actual skill. As well as blizz has refused to listen to the tournament scene in fixing the problems.

He goes on saying that you could be the best in the world at the game but only have a 60% win rate at max which is really stupid for a competitive scene and makes the games just pure luck based instead of skill as opposed to Gwent apparently which has been responding to feedback and making changes as well as apparently far more skill based and each match you can figure out exactly where you went wrong to cause the loss and such.

edited 26th Feb '17 7:47:15 PM by Memers

Well, if he wants to go play Gwent, he's welcome to do so.

The problem with the recent HCT Winter Championship qualifier tournament is that it was all aggro and Reno decks. There was nothing midrange or control that survived long unless it had the ability to Reno or Kazakus.

People play combo decks because it's the only way to burst down the infinite value and/or Reno style decks, and people play aggro to win by turn 5. Neither of those is healthy, but the infinite value Jade decks are just as bad.

Infinite Jade Druid is a midrange deck.

And I really cant comment on Gwent, never played it, but everything he said is absolutely true and isnt really fixable by just adding new cards. That will just make it faster, and the standard switch is just removing Reno from the meta.

This Triclass stuff has been the worst thing for the game.

edited 26th Feb '17 8:12:22 PM by Memers

I hesitate to call anything "the worst". That's too hyperbolic to be useful. But the Gadgetzan factions certainly have proven to lack balance. Grimy Goons are basically a dud, with no viable decks using their cards. Kabal is reasonably balanced, I think, with only Kazakus as a meta-defining card. Kazakus is great, but it's going to fade out as Reno leaves Standard unless there's a viable replacement.

Jade Lotus is utterly broken to the point of absurdity; the only reason Jade decks aren't 90% of the meta is the intense power of Pirate-based aggro decks. I don't mind losing to Renolock. That's reasonably fair, except for Leeroy burst combos. I do mind losing on turn 4-5 to Pirate decks, or else getting blown out in endgame by infinite value Jade decks. I do mind losing to Rogues who can conceal 20 power worth of minions on turn 4.

The current HCT format means it's all aggro and all Reno in the meta, because only Reno counters aggro with any degree of reliability. That's not healthy.

edited 26th Feb '17 8:41:10 PM by Fighteer

Pirate might as well have been the grimy goons for all the good that they did.

Let me rephrase it then, excessive synergy has been the worst.

Geez. I don't like to be another 2-mana 0/7 board clear, and believe me when I say I still love the game, but the meta definitely feels bad.

The worst part is that there actually seems to be some design logic behind the Goon / Kabal / Jade divisions. Jade decks are the ones with the most limitations deckbuilding-wise (but which should be the easiest to build), while you should have been able to throw any number of handbuff Goon cards into existing decks without restriction. And in the middle is the Kabal, which should have allowed for a limited constraint on the way you build your decks: as long as you fulfill Highlander conditions anything goes. Should've worked from a design standpoint, but the balance didn't pan out. If we'd been stuck in the midrange meta that we were all anticipating based on Karazhan, Goon decks might've been great.

The problem is that you can't win. If Blizzard doesn't release enough synergistic cards with enough power (e.g. Beast Druid), they get mocked for trying to push a deck that doesn't work. Then when they do release overpowered cards to get the archetype to work (e.g. Gadgetzan-era Dragon Priest), they get mocked for brute-forcing archetypes. Then when they try to design cards that are flexible enough yet sufficiently powerful to fit into a number of different archetypes (e.g. Arcane Giant and spell decks), people start reminiscing about how it's more broken than *previously nerfed card*. And then you've got cards which are supposed to synergise with existing cards that don't see play (e.g. Mysterious Challenger), and we all know how that turned out...

Honestly? Barring a few clunkers, I think the Design aspect of Hearthstone is fine... but Balance needs work, and it's hard as hell.

edited 27th Feb '17 1:32:49 AM by Pyrite

The complaint about not listening to the Competitive Scene for their balance decisions is also kind of humorous, considering that in most other competitive games I've played the Devs get criticized for balancing based on the competitive scene instead of the majority of the userbase.