hey_monkey
Banned
I wish I'd been counting how many packs had friggen Mimic Pod (or two) as rare. It's been at least 10 (and I haven't gotten that many Un'goro packs).
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Hearthstone |OT9| Our raid wiped in Icecrown Citadel
- Thread starter ZealousD
- Start date
Well that is still the main problem with the ladder system. It's a huge grind.
The floors help but not enough. There is zero reason to have legend players start a new season that low.
Personally I think it should be reset as follows.
If you end up in legend you start at rank 5
Rank 1-5 you start at rank 10
Rank 10-15 you start at 15
15-20 you start at 20
This would lessen the grind for high level players and ensure that newer players don't face off against high level players, and thus they can just start laddering right at the beginning of the season.
Karsticles
Member
Maybe just a simple Ending Rank -5.
OK I'm done with Hearthstone for the day. In order:
15-minute game against a mage (even though I won).
7-minute game even against a rogue (loss).
13-minute game against a mage (would have gone even longer but I surrendered).
This makes the grind even more daunting. I feel like I've played shorter Overwatch matches.
15-minute game against a mage (even though I won).
7-minute game even against a rogue (loss).
13-minute game against a mage (would have gone even longer but I surrendered).
This makes the grind even more daunting. I feel like I've played shorter Overwatch matches.
Yeah that would be perfect actually
Karsticles
Member
This happens a lot in games that focus on material rewards: you are playing for the reward, and not for the pleasure of playing. This is why everything feels awful to you.
This is true, and a philosophical conundrum. It's quite rare to find a multiplayer game that I enjoy even when losing or having bad luck, so I admit that's a personal fault and I merely play for addiction / the promise of possible rewards / the promise of achievements and ranks, sometimes. This is especially an issue with MOBAs, but the theory was that Hearthstone involves less game time than MOBAs.
Karsticles
Member
Just remember it's video games and your spare time - get what you want to out of it. I know I've been where you are plenty of times.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
You're just describing cards that are not vanilla. You can find equivalents of such in every deck out there.
No shaman build ever got named tempo shaman when they played 2 portals, a 5/5 that gets cheaper, flametongue totem, etc., etc. because it's actually not a name defining archetype.
Flamewaker mage was an aggressive deck that sometimes comboed you out but was perfectly content with flamewaker just reading spell damage +2.
I'm just kind of playing it on the side, it's decent I guess. Aggro is really hamstrung in that game I feel because every 5 life you lose you draw an extra card, so trying to push when you don't have board advantage and relying on small creatures is pretty risky.
It also has a really cool PvE arena mode, where you draft a typical arena deck but then you're up against what is essentially randomized hearthstone solo adventure bosses. That mode is super fun.
I'm not really good at card games, so it's hard for me to tell if it's balanced.
Would you like to play Hearthstone and its aggro meta?
Or Eternal and its aggro meta?
Or Shadowverse and its aggro meta?
Or Duelyst and its aggro meta?
Or Infinity Wars' balanced meta along with the other 40 people who play it daily on Steam?
Is funny that now heartstone isn't as aggro heavy as shadowverse right now.
At first I loved the evolve mechanic, but now I really hate it
yeah the ladder grind is definitely a real thing and the rewards are nonsensical to be frank. It's like the jump from rank 6 to rank 5 in rewards is not even proportional.
I think once every expansion I'll make a hard push for rank 5 maybe but afterwards I'll go back to my other games to enjoy ranked ladder. I think Hearthstone ladder works for the type of game it is maybe although I like the suggestions above
tl;dr - I think this game's ranked ladder (like most f2p games) is mostly just carrot dangling. Its an endless feedback loop. But its a really well constructed one. Brilliant really. I play it but mostly only to complete my quests (cause the achiever in me wants Golden heroes)
And more importantly dont buy into the bullshit a rank 5 / Legend player is way better than you. dont grind that ladder if you dont wanna. Rank 10 is fine yo'. What is that like top 7% of Hearthstone players!?
I think once every expansion I'll make a hard push for rank 5 maybe but afterwards I'll go back to my other games to enjoy ranked ladder. I think Hearthstone ladder works for the type of game it is maybe although I like the suggestions above
tl;dr - I think this game's ranked ladder (like most f2p games) is mostly just carrot dangling. Its an endless feedback loop. But its a really well constructed one. Brilliant really. I play it but mostly only to complete my quests (cause the achiever in me wants Golden heroes)
And more importantly dont buy into the bullshit a rank 5 / Legend player is way better than you. dont grind that ladder if you dont wanna. Rank 10 is fine yo'. What is that like top 7% of Hearthstone players!?
at which rank are you? I'm climbing with pirate warrior too, but I'm at rank 3 and it has been hell, I've fallen from rank 2 and was about to reach rank 5 last night after a very bad performance.
I've discovered a bittertide hydra variant and it has been doing some work, right now back at rank 3
The answer is to make your own meme deck and try to get good at it. I made c'thun paladin and was playing it seriously for a long time. When you play an objectively low tier deck it always feels great when you win and not so bad when you lose.
1 out of 1000 is higher than I expected, thanks.
I'm at rank 8-10. There's no one common opponent paradigm I can identify, so it's hard to even adapt.
veryslowhand
Banned
Laddering this season seens harder at least in wild. Past one I made to five with relative low effort, now I'm stuck at 8-9 and about to give up for the month.
the deck is hugely dependent on its mulligan, you also have to be mindful about the opponent, for example never play a southsea deckhand into patches to a priest class, that is just wrong considering the priest might have potion of madness.
This deck is so fragile that with a turn like that from a priest, you might have just lost, every turn in a pirate warrior matchup counts.
also, sometimes it could be a fine second turn if you coin-southsea captain-patches, you just have to be mindful to which class you can do it, for example mages are a tough call because of frostbolt, but priests are fine.
the first 3 turns in a pirate warrior defines the whole match, get it right and you won, get behind and you lost
The trick to pirate warrior it becomes stronger as you escape ranked floors. So you should be able to run it at something like rank 9->6 np cause its just same old opponents over & over. deck used to be much stronger though I easily had over 60% WR. now its like 55%. not bad but I wont bother going for rank 5 unless I'm 60% WR or better cause I have too many other games I'm playing so cant devote my month to just one game
edit- And you really want to farm quest rogue. When you get a Quest rogue make sure after you beat him you requeue asap. I farmed some last season. They love to emote me too its brilliant. Two cancer decks and QR wants to emote like im the bad guy. we both are scum decks
hsreplays.net has that.
I actually tracked the winrate of my mulligans as well as independent cards from my deck both drawn and kept in hand among the rest of people using the site, that was what helped me get to rank 5.
That's the exact site I was looking for, thanks.
cartographer
Member
Quest Reno C'Thun Jade Druid.
It's only fun for the person playing. It's even worse since Priest players seem to like taking until the rope more than most any other class on average.
This is the sort of thing I end up facing as pirate warrior, from today:
I played another 10 matches for statistical purposes and won only 3/10.
My opponents:
3 priest
2 rogue (1 quest 1 miracle?)
1 quest warrior
1 druid
1 elemental shaman
2 hunter
My deck:
I'm aware rocketeer isn't a great card, but I tried for a bit without it and I'm EXTREMELY doubtful my 30% win rate is mostly due to that card. Any deck suggestions, or should I try a completely different deck bearing in mind I have no dust?
*edit* As mulligans, I typically keep upgrade, southsea deckhand, fiery war axe, dread corsair if I have a war axe, and any 2 mana pirates. Sometimes berserker. I always mulligan patches of course.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Flamewaker read +2 random damage every time you cast a spell, not spell damage +2. That is a very significant difference. And it was universally regarded as a tempo deck.
You don't call a deck tempo simply because it has 2 unstable portals and thing from below. Just a few cards that are value heavy or tempo heavy do not define a deck. Tempo mage last expansion was never called combo mage simply because you can make strong combos with flamewaker. But in secret mage's list, almost all the cards fit. It's basically this expansions version of tempo mage.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
It's not random when there's only 1 target.
Let's compare your list to Pavel's shaman list from Blizzcon
Midrange shaman was OP because it could both straight out tempo opponents and also win in fatigue consistently.
Let's compare your list to Pavel's shaman list from Blizzcon
there's an array of 2 for 1s in Pavel's list, a bunch of minions that replace themselves and direct damage. There's a lot of 2 for 1s in Zach's list, a bunch of minions that replace themselves and direct damage. The curve in Pavel's list is higher but I can switch to aggro shaman if that's your complaint with the comparison.
Midrange shaman was OP because it could both straight out tempo opponents and also win in fatigue consistently.
veryslowhand
Banned
Anyone playing wild quest shaman?, tented in crafting it but don't want to waste dust for an impulse.
Bittertide Hydra is just doing WORK in my pirate warrior deck.
out of about 10 wins I had today, about 4 or 5 have been won because of the hydra, mages are pretty bad at dealing with it after using most removal on other minions.
and the hydra is pretty uncommon on ladder right now.
out of about 10 wins I had today, about 4 or 5 have been won because of the hydra, mages are pretty bad at dealing with it after using most removal on other minions.
and the hydra is pretty uncommon on ladder right now.
Do you mind sharing your list and your typical mulligan strategy?
pretty similar to yours, I even run reckless rocketeer because I haven't found much difference from playing with Leeroy and it doesn't leave 2 bodies behind if I trade.
mulligan strategy? pretty straight forward, fish always for any 1 drop pirate, with a condition for southsea deckhand, if it is a priest opponent, you might keep it, but never play it to get patches out, potion of madness kills you in that situation. I usually don't keep bloodsail raider, I always keep fiery war axe, never keep upgrade or any spell.
3 drops are very very situational, but could work, for example, just last game I had a game against a paladin where I kept my frothing berserker, because I had the coin and I had N'zoth First Mate, see my play there? patches and N'zoth First mate would eventually trade, and my berserker would get out of control, all of that in turn 2, also before the paladin could take out a truesilver champion. only in those very planned situations you can keep one, everything else is thrown away.
this is my current list:
N'zoth First Mate x2
Patches
Shouthsea deckhand x2
upgrade x2
bloodsail raider x2
fiery war axe x2
Golakka Crawler
Heroic Strike x2
Bloodsail cultist x2
Frothing berserker x2
southsea captain
Dread corsair x2
Kor'kron elite x2
mortal strike x2
arcanite reaper x2
bittertide hydra x2
reckless rocketeer
I have found that Naga corsair is just too inefficient for a turn 4 and beyond play, +1 attack doesn't help much.
oh, also, eating your patches by golakka crawler on turn 2 might not be a bad idea, but it all depends on the situation (mostly if you plan to play cultist on 3 or if you have a captain or if the opponent could get rid of the golakka)
EDIT: also, check out the winrates of the cards while kept in had by hsreplays.net: https://hsreplay.net/decks/bzLdmSuM6erhbCmLlaQiod/
check out the percentage of players that mullingan each card, that can give you a pretty good idea about what you have to keep or not in each play. For example, if you get a patches from a mulligan, you pretty much lost with just a 35% chance of winning
I might be wrong, but I haven't seen a paladin running equality when it plays stonehill defender. that card can be played on murloc pally too.
FiveSix4Three
Member
I hope I never experience a loss to that deck.
gotta say its a pretty bad one, may be try to build a pirate warrior with it? or if you don't care dust it for a better legendary
If you are missing any of the staples from classic, I'd consider dusting for those instead. Stuff like Tirion, Antonidas, & co are the ones that keep showing up in every deck of that class year after year.
I'm not sure which neutral legendaries are good anymore. Harrison Jones maybe?
But then I'd have to play pirate warrior 🤔
Got all three. I'm missing only Malygos, Al'Akir and Deathwing from the playable classic ones (and Onyxia but ymmv if she's playable). I was thinking of some of the newer ones, I've only opened Lyra, the hunter quest and druid non quest legendaries so far. Probably gonna dust the last two of as well.
soulslayer
Member
I still think you can get to it. There are 8 days left in the month. All you need is a good winstreak or two and you'll get there. Keep pushing veryslowhand!
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Random or not is irrelevant, no idea why you brought up your point about it not being random if there is only 1 target. If you have flamewaker on board with 1 target, you're at that point already winning the game. But flamewaker was primarily used to hit minions first to create a huge tempo swing.
Midrange shaman was a low tempo deck, like hunter is. They need to curve out well to "tempo" in the way you're talking about. Every deck has tempo cards, even control warrior has strong tempo removal in the form of execute and shield slam. That doesn't make CW a tempo based deck, not nearly in the way that the current secret mage decks are being built. The one I linked doesn't even run kabal lackey.
And if you recall I said tempo or midrange, because moves like cutting kabal lackey have pushed it more in the midrange direction, and certainly not towards aggro. There is a lot that can be said about the differences between the two decks. Just because midrange shaman could out tempo other decks, doesn't mean it's a tempo deck. Just like just because miracle rogue can occasionally play like an aggro deck, doesn't make it one!
Now I know why it is so frustrating to play against mage in arena. They never seem to run out of resources with so many cards that generate random cards. In the lategame mages seem very strong with these cards. Cabalist's tome, babbling book, shimmering tempest and the primordial glyph generate on average good spells which can be game changing. And every mage deck has them.
As a priest i try to survive the early game, because priests shine in lategame. But i get destroyed by mages in the lategame.
As a priest i try to survive the early game, because priests shine in lategame. But i get destroyed by mages in the lategame.
SonicXtreme
Member
Everyfin and bloodlust make for some craziness, it is super fun but if I had to guess I think I could make a wild murloc shaman without the quest and it'd be a percentage or two points higher in winrate since lots of wins are blowouts where I don't have to bother with megafin. But yeah it's fun if you have the quest , probs stronger without it overall but I'd say like 53% instead of 51, you'll win more control games but will fall behind to aggro easier which obv is all over in wild.