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Hearthstone |OT2| Created by Unstable Portal

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slayn

needs to show more effort.
I think that, given enough time, an AI would be better at arena than constructed. Arena is about drafting, the basics, and knowing how to reasonably play around key cards that come up in arena that would screw you over. But playing around these cards is easier to program for because you can just list them out and make exceptions in your AI like if playing against a mage going on 7+ mana don't play a 3rd minion that will die to flamestrike and so forth. But once you've written out the logic for playing around the main suspects you're just kind of done.

The rest of arena is mainly about how to sequence creatures and trade. There is very rarely an overarching goal or cunning strategy.

In constructed you need to play the man more. Get a read on what they want to do. Make reads based on their plays and if they've been holding a card for a long time. These skills don't matter as much in arena because the card pool is so much larger that you can't reasonable know what your opponent has. If they've been holding a card for a long time it might be a key card in their strategy... or it might a hungry crab they were forced to draft.

Arena requires a much better memory than constructed in order to be aware of all the possibilities and the AI will be better at that than a human.

The single most difficult part of writing an AI for arena is drafting. Aside from some kind of machine learning algorithm its hard to imagine how to write an AI that wouldn't suck at drafting on its own... except the machine learning part of the problem is entirely bypassed by user supplied data (arena value and such)

edit: although I guess its hard to quantify what it means to be 'better' at arena than constructed. 'getting to legend' and 'averaging 7 arena wins' are not the same kind of measurement. In the former, skill can be compensated for with time (to a degree) of which an AI has... well... lots. In the latter time is irrelevant.
 
Another probably stupid question but I am Rank 24 if I hit the Leper Gnome Icon and it says 24 by it right? One final stupid question (I hope), will losing lower my rank back to Enraged Chicken or w/e it was?

Is posting decklists not really a good idea or spammy? i could post what i use and see what everyone interested thinks. I actually really like it but since i am pretty new I am sure it could be better. most of the cards are from Naxx or not rare so it was easy for me to make and I have some experience with TCGs so i kinda played it by ear.

Posting decks is perfectly fine.

You can't drop rank when you are rank 20-25.
 

Gotchaye

Member
edit: although I guess its hard to quantify what it means to be 'better' at arena than constructed. 'getting to legend' and 'averaging 7 arena wins' are not the same kind of measurement. In the former, skill can be compensated for with time of which an AI has... well... lots. In the latter time is irrelevant.

Yes, I think this is the important part, although I'd note that constructed bots also have an advantage insofar as you can write a bot specifically for a deck - you can have a zoolock bot - whereas Arena bots are going to need to be more flexible even though they don't have to worry about actually drafting the deck.

In constructed, your equilibrium rank below rank 5 is going to be at wherever you're getting about a 45% win rate (because of win streaks). Above, it's wherever you're getting a 50% win rate. So a bot that can win 50% of games at Legend is pretty quickly going to be a Legend, whereas in Arena a bot is going to need to be winning significantly more often than that against top 15% players in order to average 7 wins. Plus a bot doesn't actually need its equilibrium position to be somewhere in Legend in order to reach Legend. Consider a bot playing sets of 50 games at a 45% true win likelihood. In more than 1% of those sets, it will win 10+ more games than it loses. That's 2 ranks' worth of stars, for a bot that really isn't that good relative to the players it's getting matched against. If a bot can readily get to rank 5, I expect it's quite feasible for it to just brute force its way to Legend by waiting out this random walk.
 

Kenai

Member
Posting decks is perfectly fine.

You can't drop rank when you are rank 20-25.

Ok! Thanks excellent to know thanks. Amd ummm...damn this is a pain since I can't exactly copypaste lol. I don't know what midrange means, but I think I know what "Miracle' Rogue is, that annoying Leeroy x Shadowstep thing? I lost to one once (beat one too, ran right into my Sludge Belcher and killed themselves, went "Oops" lol)

Anyway.

2 x Backstab
1 x Deadly Poison
2 x Undertaker
2 x Zombie Chow
2 x Eviscerate
2 x Sap
2 x Haunted Creeper
1 x Ironbeak Owl
2 x Loot Hoarder/Weed Roller/w/e
2 x Fan of Knives
2 x Shade of Naxx
1 x Dark Iron Dwarf
1 x Defender of Argus
2 x Gnomish Inventor
2 x Azure Drake
2 x Sludge Belcher
1 x Argent Champion
1 x Stormwind Champion


I usually have something I can play early for board clear and they like to focus undertaker a lot so I get time to hit them with something else. It's a really bursty deck when i drop stuff like Azure + Evisc or FoN but still has some late game power especially if I get an early shade or have minions out for a SW Champ to boost.

If I don't get a decent opening hand with a minion or two to play with their minions it seems to have a hard time catching up if I don't get a clutch Belcher to stall though. Zoolocks? and swarmy hunter decks I seem to do decent on. I really seem to ruin them if a play a FoK or Defender at the right time, thinking of replacing owl for another defender when i get one, and getting that cheap cost legendary with the +spellpower when i get dust.
 
Ok! Thanks excellent to know thanks. Amd ummm...damn this is a pain since I can't exactly copypaste lol. I don't know what midrange means, but I think I know what "Miracle' Rogue is, that annoying Leeroy x Shadowstep thing? I lost to one once (beat one too, ran right into my Sludge Belcher and killed themselves, went "Oops" lol)

Anyway.

2 x Backstab
1 x Deadly Poison
2 x Undertaker
2 x Zombie Chow
2 x Eviscerate
2 x Sap
2 x Haunted Creeper
1 x Ironbeak Owl
2 x Loot Hoarder/Weed Roller/w/e
2 x Fan of Knives
2 x Shade of Naxx
1 x Dark Iron Dwarf
1 x Defender of Argus
2 x Gnomish Inventor
2 x Azure Drake
2 x Sludge Belcher
1 x Argent Champion
1 x Stormwind Champion


I usually have something I can play early for board clear and they like to focus undertaker a lot so I get time to hit them with something else. It's a really bursty deck when i drop stuff like Azure + Evisc or FoN but still has some late game power especially if I get an early shade or have minions out for a SW Champ to boost.

If I don't get a decent opening hand with a minion or two to play with their minions it seems to have a hard time catching up if I don't get a clutch Belcher to stall though. Zoolocks? and swarmy hunter decks I seem to do decent on. I really seem to ruin them if a play a FoK or Defender at the right time, thinking of replacing owl for another defender when i get one, and getting that cheap cost legendary with the +spellpower when i get dust.

My first suggestion is to run 2 deadly poisons. That card is just too good to pass up on having two of. I won't say it is an absolute must have change though, if things are working out you may not need it. You don't run blade flurry so it doesn't seem necessary.

It isn't a bad list tbh. You could probably cut a gnomish inventor though. I'd replace 1 with a second defender of argus.

And yeah, with 2x sap silence isn't terribly important to have. So maybe cut that for a second deadly poison. As far as most cards go, deadly poison is very flexible since you generally get 4 damage out of 1 mana, and you can place it on two characters which is where the flexibility comes in.

I'm a fan of... fan of knives, no pun intended heh, but you might have too much card draw. So you could cut either loot hoarder or fan of knives and put echoing ooze in.

Also, si7 agents are pretty good so once you get them you'll probably want to include them.

I haven't run zombie chow in rogue yet. Is it working out? I kinda feel like giving my opponent healing, while I have literally none myself, is just a bad deal for rogue. Maybe cut zombie chow for si7 agents.

Undertaker will still be a solid minion to play with that deck since you'll have at least 6 minions to buff him. When I run undertaker in a rogue deck I just treat it like a slightly weaker, slightly different argent squire. You'll find that sometimes just dropping him on turn 4 with si7 agent's combo plus a dagger hit can remove most minions that can be played by that point.

By argent champion, I assume you mean argent commander. And stormwind champion is an interesting choice. I've thought about trying him in a rogue deck before, in fact I mean to test it out sometime. It'll probably fail or not be the best choice. But I am assuming you lack a second argent commander, but if you have a second, use that.

So to sum up, these are my suggestions, and they are only that... suggestions:
-2x loot hoarder or fan of knives
+2 echoing ooze

-1 owl
+1 deadly poison

-1 gnomish inventor
+1 defender of argus

-2 zombie chow
+2 si7 agents

-1 stormwind champion (unless this card works much better than I am presuming)
+1 argent commander

edit:
Oh, as for midrange vs miracle

Midrange is a deck archetype that isn't really win every match up the same way. Vs aggressive decks you'll find yourself playing defensively like a control deck and vs control decks you'll often have to play aggressively close to a rush deck.

Miracle designation is just kinda terminology taken from other card games. Here it is defined, generally speaking, by use of auctioneer to cycle a lot of cards to get to your win condition. Originally leeroy and shadowstep wasn't even a part of miracle rogues. Their original goals were making huge questing adventurers and huge van cleefs. Now they use leeroy and shadowstep as their main win conditions but they can also drop huge van cleefs and hit their minions with buffs like cold blood and then concealing them for a lot of hard to stop burst damage over 2-3 turns. You generally beat these decks with aggressive playstyles, so when you come up against them you'll want to play more aggro than control. And if you're around 20hp by turn 8 it is pretty smart to have a taunt like belcher up. That reminds me....

You should have loatheb in your deck.
 

Kenai

Member
I will try your suggestions. the reason I run Zombie Chow is almost exclusively for early minion clear + skill bait since the heroes can't go above 30 hp so the healing doesn't matter at that point and it's super cheap. If I go second and get undertaker + zombie chow in my hand that's 2 2/3s which ruins any opening minions the locks/hunters are gonna come out with. The bonus of it boosting undertaker is good too.

If I don't get it on my opening hand though it's basically useless unless I can boost an undertaker with it for the win later (this has only happened once ever for me but it happened).
 

ViviOggi

Member
That's way more solid than my first lists. Tip for the future, just take a screenshot on the collection screen and crop it to the decklist (unless you're on iPad I guess).
 

ShinNL

Member
I think Zombie Chow is like reverse greed. You sacrifice deckslots for early board control, but that card easily becomes a dead card when drawn past mid game.

My decks are all based on greed, so they usually don't have 1 or 2 drops.

There has been quite a few times where I did a full board clear negating all the damage done beforehand thanks to the healing and all board build up done in all previous turns. Obviously gaining card advantage that way.

Zombie Chow is like somewhere in between Aggro and Control, so I guess it's a midrange card, though midrange really wants to end games with a burst and Zombie Chow might put them out of range during the match.
 
At least in my experience, playing against zombie chow quite a bit, I feel like the only time I've seen it get a lot of value has been in priest decks due to auchenai soul priest as well as dark cultist when it can get that 3 hp buff.

But this could be because I play a lot of classes with weapons or warlock which can often benefit a lot from the 5hp heal which translates into another card from the hero power anyway.

You can also often ignore it for a round since you know you're getting that heal back anyway... making it not a huge target for removal which I guess can help if you plan on buffing it, which would have been badass when before SSC + DID + DOA were nerfed in beta.
 

Kenai

Member
That's way more solid than my first lists. Tip for the future, just take a screenshot on the collection screen and crop it to the decklist (unless you're on iPad I guess).

That's a great idea! I'll remember it thanks.

At least in my experience, playing against zombie chow quite a bit, I feel like the only time I've seen it get a lot of value has been in priest decks due to auchenai soul priest as well as dark cultist when it can get that 3 hp buff.

But this could be because I play a lot of classes with weapons or warlock which can often benefit a lot from the 5hp heal which translates into another card from the hero power anyway.

You can also often ignore it for a round since you know you're getting that heal back anyway... making it not a huge target for removal which I guess can help if you plan on buffing it, which would have been badass when before SSC + DID + DOA were nerfed in beta.

I think it's probably just me going up against other newbies. I clear a lot of early taunters (mirror images, that 1/2 solider thingy, Voidwalkers ect) and it just messes with them. A lot of them don't even seem to realize that they can't go above 30 hp so they effectively waste the heal.

I know I make big mistakes too though. Since there's a lot of cards I'm still not familiar with sometimes I do stuff that would obviously be a bad idea to someone more familiar with popular decks (aka having 3-4 non taunt minions out vs a hunter so i get eaten by dogs) but I am learning what is more "likely" now as i got on. Some stuff is kinda crazy though. Faced a gold Warrior who had nothing but golden cards, even legendary like Alex n Ysera. I'm pretty sure he was just showing off/messing around but it was still fun to get him to 4 hp (was fishing for Evisc but no luck!) when I didn't know what half the cards did.
 
At least in my experience, playing against zombie chow quite a bit, I feel like the only time I've seen it get a lot of value has been in priest decks due to auchenai soul priest as well as dark cultist when it can get that 3 hp buff.

But this could be because I play a lot of classes with weapons or warlock which can often benefit a lot from the 5hp heal which translates into another card from the hero power anyway.

You can also often ignore it for a round since you know you're getting that heal back anyway... making it not a huge target for removal which I guess can help if you plan on buffing it, which would have been badass when before SSC + DID + DOA were nerfed in beta.

zombie chow should only be run in a non-priest deck if you're running undertakers, I feel. It's very good to have two 2/3s on the board on turn 2 (or 1 with coin), plus you might be able to get away with playing harvest golem on turn 3 for further buffs. However, haunted creeper or leper gnome might work better depending on what you want to do with your deck, all of them sort of suck past the first 3 turns anyways.
 

Kenai

Member
Well, rank 19! I got the card back I wanted (or I will get it I guess?), I will try more ranked later when I am not such a scrub. Only lost twice but the two losses were deserved (one I Eviscerated myself for 4 damage ~_~)

Quick question on one "win" though:

My opponent did nothing all game, so obviously I won in like 4-5 turns. But then it said something like "you can't lose ranks at this level" (I was 21) then flipped to the victory screen. i wasn't sure if I get gold points or not for it.

Was that a bot/hacking or a bug or what?
 

Xanathus

Member
Well, rank 19! I got the card back I wanted (or I will get it I guess?), I will try more ranked later when I am not such a scrub. Only lost twice but the two losses were deserved (one I Eviscerated myself for 4 damage ~_~)

Quick question on one "win" though:

My opponent did nothing all game, so obviously I won in like 4-5 turns. But then it said something like "you can't lose ranks at this level" (I was 21) then flipped to the victory screen. i wasn't sure if I get gold points or not for it.

Was that a bot/hacking or a bug or what?

Probably just a player who hit start but then left to do something else. I think the message always shows for players < rank 20.
 

Haunted

Member
Ok, I think I'm done for this season, rank 15 it is. I'm not good enough to successfully navigate the deck I'm playing (Reincarnate Shaman) against Hunters.

Just played 8 games, won 4 (Warlock, Paladin, Hunter, Warlock) and lost 4 (Hunter, Hunter, Hunter, Hunter).
 
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/98807-zetalots-rank-1-legend-eu-priest-deck

Been really enjoying playing this priest deck for the last 2 days, climbed back from dropping 4 ranks to 16 trying to make late game rogue work before concluding that it's just a worse control shell than Paladin, Druid, or Warlock.

Rivendare does a lot of work, didn't realize it had such good synergies with cards like dark cultist even outside the rivendare + 2x zombie chow + auchenai + circle dream. I was hesitant about getting rid of holy fire since it's such a good card, but it makes sense because casting it means you can't build board that turn, and you can't cast it when you have an auchenai on the board.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Arena can be funny sometimes. Drafted a pretty awful druid deck in hindsight (certainly horrible compared to the previous mage draft that went 11-3), it has ~8 2-drops, but nothing really quick to get you going turn 1 or 2, and no swipes/wrath. I took way too many card draw cards (2x Azure Drake, the 2/4 inventor, 2x starfire, 2x loot hoarder, got an Ancient of Lore, and i think i have one or two other card drawing cards too), basically it's 100% impossible for me to play out my hand, and I have to willingly play cards over hero power, even if a hero power might trade fine (like getting rid of a 3/1).

It took me a few games of losing with 6+ cards in hand to realize that, I think I was 2-2, not expecting much more... now I'm up to 10-2 with the draft lol (and have been winning against a large string of mages/priests). More than two of my games have won by fatigue too, one against a warlock that ran out of cards (hero power), and just conceded as I still had 7 cards left to draw, and another druid who had the luckiest top decks (he had a boulderfist ogre out then gets a faceless to get another, I kill one of them and he draws another faceless, I kill that one and then he draws another ogre) but finally ran out of cards. The main trick for me vs mage is being extra careful to play around fireball/flamestrike. Before turn 6, play all your little minions, after turn 6, play only things with 5+ health. Pretty straightforward, but makes the difference between a win and a loss, which adds up fast with how many there are.
 

Aylinato

Member
I wonder why that is. Is it the effect that programming doesn't account for or the card itself? Pretty interesting to say the least.


I'm assuming they programmed it to include the cards and ranks the threat/priority to remove the cards/minions. Being that people rarely play geblin the program got stuck in a loop of not knowing what to do(I believe I also got the chicken maker)


I'd assume that the same reaction would happen if I played the rock star Tauren dude.
 

ShinNL

Member
To be fair, human people don't have a clue what to do when a Gelbin is played. Then you cheer when they leave the healing token alive, only to see it heal the enemy hero for 1hp over a dying you.

FU Gelbin.
 

Tacitus_

Member
Ahaha, that last game. Pro tip: don't try to hide behind mirror images if the warrior has a) frothing berserker out, b) death's bite on its last charge.

Whirlwind + deathsbite + inner rage -> 19 dmg frothing :D
 

Haunted

Member
amaz fail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmrFhAphSIc

He actually could clear the board but he fucked up.
Interesting puzzle! But how could he have cleared?

I looked in the YT comments and this was suggested:

you could have cleared the board for sure without sylvanas xD
1. hit the 3/3 with your 2/4
2. attack with your weapon the left slime
3. execute the left slime
4. armor up -> shield slam the right slime
Result: board clear + 6 mana remaning so you can play lotheb or silvanas after the clear! :D&#65279;
But attacking the left slime with the weapon would've gotten rid of his armour, making the Shield Slam deal only 2 damage on the right slime after armour up. So the right slime would've survived with 1 HP.

edit: here's another suggestion
1. Play Syl - 6 mana
2. Armor up - 2 mana
3. Sheild slam Syl - 1 mana
4. Hit the 3/3 with weapon
5. Hit last Ooze with Gnomish, then Execute - 1 mana
You hit the 3-3 with the weapon and Sylvanas steals one of the oozes. That works!

But yeah, interesting (and hard) puzzle either way. One of those board states where 90 seconds doesn't seem like enough. :D
 

ShinNL

Member
I rather have a Rag vs a 3/2 left on the board:

Shield slam slime, hit with 2/4
Hit other slime with weapon. Execute remaining slime.

Rag.
 

Do Better

Member
This game trolls you so hard with match making. I was playing a shaman deck and had lost a lot of games in a row. I went to take out a lightning bolt to add in another lightning storm, but mistakeningly took out an earth shock instead. Of course I was then immediately matched up against the second handlock I've played against in over 50 games. I hexed his first mountain giant, then he played 4-9 twilight drake that ended up getting buffed twice and caused all kinds of havoc.
 

ShinNL

Member
I know Forked Lightning gets a lot of hate but people should try to run it sometime. The value you can get on that spell is pretty insane and now with the current meta you really want something that's kind of AoE but isn't Lightning Storm.

The damage spread with Pyro Forked Lightning... so good D:
 

Minsc

Gold Member
I used Arena value to try and build a better arena deck yesterday. 2-3. That is the worst I've done in months.

I've used Arena Value on my last four arena runs (actually more than that, pretty much always draft alongside it): 11-3, 6-3, 11-3, 11-2 (on going)... it's a good bit of luck mixed in with everything else.

You only really have a problem to deal with if you get something like ten 2-3 arena runs in a row.

Edit: Now 11-2 for ongoing run :)
 

johnsmith

remember me
This should be entertaining.

3t7lFvP.png
 

Miletius

Member
Is Hearthpwn still the best place to netdeck? I've had dramatically less time to play since pretty much about NAXX wing 4 and now I feel like my decks are all behind in terms of the meta. I'd still like to play to complete dailies but probably don't have the time to tweak and adjust my decks like I used to be able to do.
 

Leezard

Member
How does an arena tournament even work?

You draft in Arena, and then recreate the deck in constructed. You then run a tournament with these decks. You have a limit though: since you have to recreate decks, you can't draft more than 2 of each cards or run more than 1 of each legendary.
 

slayn

needs to show more effort.
How does an arena tournament even work?
not perfectly, they do an arena draft with the self imposed rule that you can't pick any card more than twice. After you finish you draft, you go re-create that as a constructed deck.
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
You draft in Arena, and then recreate the deck in constructed. You then run a tournament with these decks. You have a limit though: since you have to recreate decks, you can't draft more than 2 of each cards or run more than 1 of each legendary.

Do they do multiple drafts? Would suck if you had a really bad draft and you only had the one deck.
 

Minsc

Gold Member

2-2 > 12-2, not bad! No troll prizes either like last time.

Here's the draft, I really had no hopes after the rough start, didn't seem like that strong a deck.

Late game power of the wild with 4+ cheap minions, well time kodo and spell breakers were the highlights for me. The 8/8s also provided some nice muscle, and the starfalls were no swipes, but worked decently enough.
 
2-2 > 12-2, not bad! No troll prizes either like last time.

Here's the draft, I really had no hopes after the rough start, didn't seem like that strong a deck.

Late game power of the wild with 4+ cheap minions, well time kodo and spell breakers were the highlights for me. The 8/8s also provided some nice muscle, and the starfalls were no swipes, but worked decently enough.

how did unstable ghoul perform? it feels undervalued by people to me
 

Minsc

Gold Member
how did unstable ghoul perform? it feels undervalued by people to me

Great, always got value from it. Whether knowing it was a solid 2-drop that would trade against a 3-2, or playing it when I could only get their bigger minions down to 6/1 or whatever, knowing it'd finish them off (it was never silenced). Carried it's weight well, and I personally would always draft 2 in the future arenas for any class/deck type.
 

slayn

needs to show more effort.
When do you guys think we're going to hear details about the new 100 card set Booster Pack?
I'm hoping blizzcon is when we start getting details and that it will be out this year but that is probably entirely too optimistic for for a blizzard game.
 

Raxus

Member
Great, always got value from it. Whether knowing it was a solid 2-drop that would trade against a 3-2, or playing it when I could only get their bigger minions down to 6/1 or whatever, knowing it'd finish them off (it was never silenced). Carried it's weight well, and I personally would always draft 2 in the future arenas for any class/deck type.

It is inherent value built into it since most 2 drops can't kill it immediately (without killing themselves), has taunt, and has 1 damage AoE.

It is ungodly for arena.
 

IceMarker

Member
I'm hoping blizzcon is when we start getting details and that it will be out this year but that is probably entirely too optimistic for for a blizzard game.
I have a bad feeling that will be the case too, but that's not too far off and that would be the place to do it.

Speaking of new cards, thoughts on a new one I just added to the ol' album?

hhtWIdp.png
 
I finally got my 1,000 wins and used the 300 gold to buy three packs. Pulled this out of the second pack:

Wx7Kx9il.jpg


I hear Onyxia kinda sucks, but at least that's better than pulling five cards that I already have.
 
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